OSSR: John Wick's Libertarian Fantasy Utopia

[deaddmwalking]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungl ... l_response | "Sinclair rejected the legislation (the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act), which he considered an unjustified boon to large meat packers. The government (and taxpayers) would bear the costs of inspection, estimated at $30,000,000 annually."

So your contention is that I shouldn't support meat inspection because taxpayers (including meat packers) pay for it?

If you read the entirety of your sources, you'd see that EVERYONE was in favor of meat inspection. Life is better now that we don't DIE when we eat what's sold as 'food'.

[Foxwarrior]

@Fox: It would be a start.

It turns out, the way it currently works is actually a less bureaucratic and severe version of that: the government assumes you would have signed a contract if you'd been asked (saving on paperwork!), and then if it turns out you don't actually follow the terms, they just put you in jail instead of throwing you out of the country (but not into another country, since no other country agreed to accept you) and watching you drown in the ocean.

[Grek]

@Grek: If I don't have food, and no food is given to me, was I harmed? You clearly think so, but I was no better or worse off than before. My condition did not change. And the choice would be: starve, steal, or work. Except that, due to Govt intervention, you (assuming you are my employer) and I cannot agree to any contract that the Govt does not consent to. I could not agree to work for $4 for 1 hour, enough to buy some McDonalds, because the Govt would not agree to that contract because it would be "unfair" to me in their eyes: how dare we agree to to this mutually beneficial contract of 4$ for 1 hour! How dare us! For shame!

This is because 4$ an hour is not enough to live on. You don't just need food, you need water, shelter, heat, clothing and transportation. 4$ an hour will not sustain you, even if you work 16 hours a day, seven days a week. Perhaps it is better than nothing at all in the short term, but in the long term it means working to literal death and not even having a roof over your head when you die filthy and shivering in the streets. And so the law that an employer, in order to employ someone at all, must give the employee enough to actually and literally live by.

The capitalist has access to capital. He will not starve if the employee refuses to work for him; he can afford to wait until the workers are hungry and desperate and will take any offer at all. The employee has only himself, his skills and his empty belly. If there was a society-wide guarantee that nobody would starve or go homeless or be left without clothing, perhaps it would make sense to abolish the minimum wage. But until then, all such a proposal does is give yet another tool of extortion to the rich for use against the poor.

[ArmorClassZero]

@Libertad: Free trade and property rights are inherently linked. Freedom means, as I've said numerous times, "free from coercion, violence, force, etc." That includes imposition, subjugation, and restriction. You cannot legitimately be restricted in who you choose to trade with. All that's required is a mutually beneficial contract / agreement / consent.

Just as you can do business (associate) with whoever you like, you are free (from coercion, violence, force) to do with your property whatever you like. But if personal liberty is to be respected, you cannot legitimately force me to purchase this or that product, nor can you legitimately force me to accept a person or persons onto my property. Furthermore, you cannot legitimately force me to associate with anyone I do not wish to, or force me to disassociate from anyone I would like to retain ties with.

Free trade means, in essence, that two mutually consenting parties are agreeing to the shipping and receiving of goods, products, services, whatev. Free immigration does not entail or require two mutually consenting parties; it implies only that the one party have the means of moving, and cares nothing about the private property of another. So if private property is to be respected, immigration cannot be "free" unless it is by invitation as part of an agreement or contract, whatev.

@DeadDMWalking: If you read what I posted, you would see that people were fine with the meat they were getting before, that Upton Sinclair's book is a piece of Socialist propaganda, that the people who most ardently wanted regulation were the big businesses of the time, mostly aiming to strangle their smaller competition who would have a harder time taking the cost of regulations.

@Fox: True that. You can't generate revenue from the dead or exiled. But you can convince tax-payers you're doing them a service by keeping all these people imprisoned, instead of killing, or exiling them.

Honestly, I'm starting to think maybe I should vote for the most Socialist Democratic candidate in 2020. We'll just keep extending the Govt's power and then everything will be fine, right?

@Grek: https://www.cato.org/policy-report/july ... government

[angelfromanotherpin]

Furthermore, you cannot legitimately force me to associate with anyone I do not wish to, or force me to disassociate from anyone I would like to retain ties with.

Normally, one has to put in work to perform a reductio ad absurdum on a position, but this guy just lays out a contradiction in conveniently adjacent clauses and rolls on without even noticing. That's the quality of reasoning you're engaging with.

[deaddmwalking]

@DeadDMWalking: If you read what I posted, you would see that people were fine with the meat they were getting before, that Upton Sinclair's book is a piece of Socialist propaganda, that the people who most ardently wanted regulation were the big businesses of the time, mostly aiming to strangle their smaller competition who would have a harder time taking the cost of regulations.

Wow. That's some revisionist history. Let's ask the big man himself, Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt said.

The first widespread public attention to the unsafe practices of the meatpacking industry came in 1898, when the press reported that Armour & Co., had supplied tons of rotten canned beef to the U.S. Army in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. The meat had been packed in tins along with a visible layer of boric acid, which was thought to act as a preservative and was used to mask the stench of the rotten meat. Troops who consumed the meat fell ill, becoming unfit for combat, and some died. Roosevelt, who served in Cuba as a colonel, testified in 1899 that he would have eaten his old hat as soon as eat what he called “embalmed beef.”

Why would someone 'fine' with the meat they were getting TESTIFY UNDER OATH to the contrary?

Why would people who were 'fine' with it display 'public disgust and outcry' and lobby their legislators to pass the meat-inspection law?

You know what, don't bother answering. Just when you're going to try to sell people on your Libertarian values just start with 'I think meat inspection is a waste of taxpayer resources and I want to go back to the world prior to 1906 when meat processors could pack carrion in with unsafe chemicals to hide the smell and taste of the rancid meat and I think you'll want to, too.' I mean, if you led with that you could really see how committed the general public is to your Libertarian ideals.

[DrPraetor]

The observable universe only contains about 10^80 electrons. You're wasting a lot of them.

FACT: Libertarian screeds always grow exponentially and become more nonsensical, because they "win arguments" by exhausting your patience and getting you to walk away.


Have you considered that you're using up the finite information content of the universe by continuing to argue with AC0? He doesn't care, because it's an externality, and if you even use the word "externality", you've invalidated your entire argument because postmodernism something something feminazis something something Stalin gulags. Western civilization! Lobsters!

[Thaluikhain]

I don't suppose there's much chance of someone coming across this thread who isn't familiar with libertarianism, or more generally, that exploiting poor people isn't a good thing?

[ETortoise]

Well, as Frank noted, the defense of Libertarianism ended up as tiresome defense of white supremacy. Ho hum. Still, it was enjoyable to read what different posters chose to focus in when explaining why libertarianism is an ideology of shallow thinkers. I was a little disappointed that AC0’s defenses boiled down to regurgitated platitudes and saying, “nu’uh.” I mean, I read the letters between Bastiat and Proudhon for this?

[Libertad]

When reading the Bastiat letters I prefer to imagine that the arguer is an Egyptian catgirl goddess. Makes it more tolerable to read.

[Foxwarrior]

I'd never experienced one of those libertarian arguments DrPraetor speaks of with such jaded tones before. My idea of how bad a corporate hellscape could plausibly be went several notches more hellish, I'm visualizing a game about buying the roads around people's houses and then asking them to sign a permanent work (slavery) and donation of all property contract in order to be permitted to use the roads or order food deliveries. Trap a CEO, and man, talk about corporate takeover!

[MGuy]

Honestly I found this whole thing informative. Both in that I've now seen anti libertarian arguments I hadn't before (never made the connection between libertarians and white supremacy because I just look at how it is just justification for capitalism without thinking of the obvious racial component) and that there are actual texts from what I assume would be libertarian thought leaders and philosophers that sound just as insane as what your regular libertarian argues. I've argued with and seen libertarians argue before but AC0 is the most unaplogetic that I've read in action.

[hyzmarca]

Killing animals and plants to eat might constitute violence in the strictest sense of the word, but we're not talking about violence against animals or plants (except as they relate to human beings) - we're talking about violence on human beings and their property by human beings. Of course, killing animals or plants for the hell of it makes you an asshole, but that's besides the point.

Oh. You're presupposing that humans are somehow special. How entertainingly hilarious. You should be a comedian.

Society and Govt may mandate what violence is permissible or not permissible, but that doesn't necessarily mean their mandated violence (or lack thereof) is legitimate i.e. just, which is the concern.

I don't think violence can be or should be avoided. But I think there is a time and place and just cause for violence - self-defense. That's the only legitimate (just) use of violence. I don't see how you can argue any other way. You talk about human nature and simplifying things - how can you get simpler than "govt leaves people alone, except to uphold self-defense when the individual is not able"?

You misunderstand me. When I say to simplify, I mean to simplify your priors, your assumptions about natural law. Rather than making wishful and silly assumptions about the existence of natural property rights, I prune my conception of natural to what is observable and universal within nature. Nature red in tooth and claw. Kill or be killed. Eat or be eaten.

To wit, I'm rejecting the concept of natural rights in totality. I reject the idea that natural rights are things that can exist. Rights are human edifice, created to serve human needs. They are an abstract social technology, a tool, created by men to serve the needs of men.

John Wick is an assassin who kills for reasons of money and honor. The Punisher is a soldier who kills because he needs a war to give his life meaning.

In the movies I've seen, however, their motivations are quite similar. John Wick killed a bunch of mobsters because one killed the dog his dead wife bought him. Frank Castle killed a bunch of mobsters because one killed his wife and child. Both men are affected by grief, and lash out organization protecting the person who made them feel powerless. They do some good, but neither has as much interest in doing so as getting revenge.

John Wick was, by all accounts, happily retired. He wanted the quiet life, and attempted to live it even as others pulled him back into the game. Frank Castle is often portrayed as the opposite. In one story, it's shown that he was seriously considering divorcing his wife and signing up for another tour in Vietnam. While he loved his family and certain did not wish for their deaths, their deaths freed him to do what he really loved, and provided him with an acceptable enemy for his eternal war.

[Username17]

I mean, I read the letters between Bastiat and Proudhon for this?

I do love the clarity provided by how woefully immature the argument that men must be either too good to need laws or too bad to write them is. There's actually a huge penumbra of goodness in between those states where groups of people would collectively make and enforce a good rule but individually one or more of them would take bad actions in its absence. Like, imagine people are 90% good, or 60% good- a democratic polling of 100 of them would agree upon a good rule, but you'd have an awful lot of badness with no rules.

The genuine inability to imagine that people might be less than fully good or less than fully bad and what effect that would have should you have a bunch of people together is very immature. It's called "Splitting" and it's considered an immature psychological defense mechanism.

-Username17

[ArmorClassZero]

To reiterate once more for posterity:

The difference between myself and those here is that I think, despite their best intentions, their ideas about Govt policy will have the opposite effects desired - that by expecting the Govt to provide the necessities and amenities of life (vaguely defined) to all, they would defeat their own purpose, as the Govt cannot provide the things they wish it would without first taking it from another.

For the record, I've said numerous times, I think the best course of action is leaving people alone and letting them operate freely, as consenting partners in whatever contract they agree is mutually beneficial to them. I was told this leads to exploitation and abuse, which is worse than starvation and deprivation.

I've defined what I meant by "free" where no-one else here has, that is: "without being forced, coerced, harmed, etc." and defined the limits of freedom according to that definition: "self-defense is the only legitimate use of force, coercion, violence, etc." II said "rights" adhere to this definition as well: as the only rights we possess are those that require "not being forced, coerced, harmed, etc." In response, I was told every right (never defined by my opponents) to do something necessarily implies forcing, coercing, harming another.

I asserted that these rights as I defined them are natural, only to be educated that these rights are not natural but abstract social constructs, while simultaneously being instructed that we as humans are apart of nature, exist within nature, cannot be extirpated from nature.

It was said that this philosophy of Libertarianism is a soft form of Fascism, Totalitarianism, Authoritarianism. Who would have imagined that by opposing Govt interference, intervention, expanded powers, reach, and oversight, that I was actually advocating and supporting subjugation, domination, and violation of peoples by that Govt.

Likewise, I discovered that I was an agent of oligarchs, plutocrats, our corporate overlords when I said that the Govt should not play favorites and that everyone should be equal before the law. These fellows here maintain that the law should be used as a tool against some by others, for the good of some at the expense of others.

I learned that respecting a group of people's ethnic, religious, political private property rights which we call national sovereignty is tantamount to white supremacy. So now I must conclude that no people has a right to exclude others from their land for, lest they out themselves as supremacists after their own kind.

Curiously, I found out that the USA did not owe its economic growth and prosperity to principles of free trade and open markets - no, it was actually slavery that benefited the US to that extent. Now I must wonder why, given the resulting wealth and prosperity that results from slavery, that those here are so adamant to oppose "wage slavery," for surely it could not be that the practice of slavery only serves to enrich a few and the greater expense of the masses, thus impoverishing and retarding a nation.

------

To summarize: where I suppose these gentlemen here are mistaken and not following their own logic through to its inevitable end, they, on the other hand, assert that I must be stupid or evil. Probably both.

[Username17]

The difference between myself and those here is that I think, despite their best intentions, their ideas about Govt policy will have the opposite effects desired - that by expecting the Govt to provide the necessities and amenities of life (vaguely defined) to all, they would defeat their own purpose, as the Govt cannot provide the things they wish it would without first taking it from another.

I love this particular Libertarian argument because it's the kind of thing that sounds really deep if you're like five, but is actually incredibly dumb.

We don't live in a zero sum world. If the government gives you drinking water, basic food, and access to healthcare, that doesn't mean anyone loses those things. The effort required to give drinking water to every single person is considerably less than it would take for everyone to secure their own drinking water. Access to water is actually a complicated issue, but the idea that governments can't provide it in a non-zero-sum fashion is utterly absurd.

When I pour a cup of water from the tap, the government doesn't run over and snatch a cup of water out of a rich person's hand. The infrastructure to get clean water to everyone in my county is such a trivial expense that my personal contributions to it - while not voluntary in any meaningful sense - are completely unburdensome. And even if there was an available well within walking distance of my house, the burden of going to it every day with buckets would be obviously severe.



Covering peoples' basic needs is actually pretty cheap, and the benefits of collective action are obvious and large. Anyone who claims you have a right to life but also claims you don't have a right to water is extremely confused about what the requirements for life are.

-Username17

[ArmorClassZero]

@Frank: You know, I hesitated for just a second on that line, thinking, "Do I need to put something like 'or comparable resources' or 'of equivalent value' or something. And then I thought, no, they'll get it, they're sharp.

Obviously when we talk about providing housing to the poor, we aren't talking about the Govt evicting Richie McMillions from his mansion and giving PoorGuy McPenny the deed.

It should be obvious that the Govt cannot finance its operation and provide these services without collecting taxes.

And that's my point. You and DeadDM and others here assume the Govt to be cheaper than businesses, when there's no market forces or incentive for them to do so. Their budget is effectively limitless, they have no incentive to cut costs, as doing so means they get a smaller budget next year. They can also impose more regulations to strangle their competitors and increase the barrier of entry to this or that market. The highest officials in Govt are paid regardless of the quality of governance. Many are being paid pensions out of the tax-payers pockets, which means for every successive generation of politicians the tax burden rises. And so does the incentive to become a Govt agent, as it becomes more and more lucrative to work for the Govt than to engage in free enterprise.

Incidentally, this is one reason the Govt hasn't been controlling the border: all these immigrants are potential future tax-payers to keep this scheme going.

[Thaluikhain]

You and DeadDM and others here assume the Govt to be cheaper than businesses

Or more interested. The free market has no particular reason to provide care for anyone (as we have seen, time and time again), but you can vote in a government that will and vote them out if they fail to. An imperfect system, but better than the nothing we otherwise tend to get.

[Username17]

You know, I hesitated for just a second on that line, thinking, "Do I need to put something like 'or comparable resources' or 'of equivalent value' or something. And then I thought, no, they'll get it, they're sharp.

My suggestion is that after someone has just taken you to the rhetorical woodshed for seeming to imply that you believe in a zero sum world that you should not confirm that you think you live in a zero sum world. Because that's embarrassing and I'm embarrassed for you.

The resources I have to give up for my share of everyone getting water on demand from the tap are not 'comparable' or 'equivalent value' to everyone getting drinkable water from the tap. They aren't remotely on the same field.

If you don't get clean water on a daily basis, you will die. That's not hyperbole or speculation, it's a cold fact: you will die. Your daily drinking water is worth more to you than all your X-Box games or even your house. But the actual resources required to secure sufficient water for everyone are extremely manageable. The involuntary utility contribution of every home owner is a trivial expense compared to the bleak life and death reality of not having assured access to safe drinking water.

We could go all reddened tooth and claw and have contests and bidding for remaining water resources like we were in a Mad Max movie. Or we could solve it all with mandatory contributions to collective action and solve the problem without anyone dying of thirst or cholera. The costs are not equivalent. The downsides are not comparable. The choice is very clear, and that is why almost the entire planet has chosen to go with the socialist answer to that particular problem.

There exist some things which are genuinely zero sum, or where the unit cost rises rather than falls as production increases. And for those things we might possibly be willing to have an ethics discussion about whether robbing Peter to pay Paul is a good idea in those particular cases. But water isn't like that. Even Peter gets more out of being robbed than if he was left with his own resources and an unfulfilled need for hydration. And the fact that there are any cases like this means that the Libertarian worldview is simply wrong. The example of 'tap water' is so clear and unambiguous that it demolishes the entire Libertarian worldview.

Which is impressive. Like, most socialists don't really mind that there are examples of successful cafes or movie franchises that demonstrate advantages for competition. Because socialists don't normally claim that we literally have to socialize everything. But Libertarians do claim that we can't socialize anything, which means that even a single counter example shoots down the entire theory.

-Username17

[deaddmwalking]

You and DeadDM and others here assume the Govt to be cheaper than businesses, when there's no market forces or incentive for them to do so. Their budget is effectively limitless, they have no incentive to cut costs, as doing so means they get a smaller budget next year.

Actually, I, and every other voter, are on the board of directors for government at every level. Or maybe it would be more fair to equate it to having equal shares in stock for voting rights. Unlike Berkshire Hathaway (a company I respect, by the way), I have a clear way to influence government policy. I can even elect people who promise to reduce my taxes.

Many are being paid pensions out of the tax-payers pockets, which means for every successive generation of politicians the tax burden rises.

Did you know that taxes on the 1% were highest in the 1950s? I've heard a lot of people talk about how we want to make America great again, and the Post-War economic boom is often held up as an example of that.


Here's what I will cede. We have a debt of $22 Trillion dollars. I'd like to see a higher tax rate so we can pay that down. As we decrease the debt, maybe we could evaluate our spending, but cutting taxes FIRST hasn't worked whether it was suggested by Tea Party Republicans or - actually, who am I kidding, they're the only ones who suggest that...

There are a lot of situations where 'choice of provider' doesn't make much sense. Municipal water supplies and every other utility fall into that category. If there are two distinct water companies, the cost of laying the infrastructure so my neighbor and I have a choice to use different providers necessarily means doubling the cost of the investment.

Here's where every Libertarian argument always goes - if I take something that has been 'common ownership' forever and monetize it, NOBODY SHOULD STOP ME. Usually, monetizing it involves damage to every other party through pollution or other indirect costs. The only thing that justifies it is an a priori assumption that private ownership is the highest ideal. If you don't accept that without evidence, no other argument they make carries any weight at all. Why is private ownership the highest ideal? Why not a balance between private and collective ownership (like in my neighborhood)?

[Mask_De_H]

It's not really possible to dunk on AC0 any harder than he dunks on himself, so I have a question: why do people of, let's just say a nerdly persuasion gravitate so hard towards Libertarianism?

[deaddmwalking]

It's not really possible to dunk on AC0 any harder than he dunks on himself, so I have a question: why do people of, let's just say a nerdly persuasion gravitate so hard towards Libertarianism?

Just about every fantasy novel you read involves a person who is 'secretly special' uncovering their 'special destiny'. Whether it's King Arthur, Harry Potter, the kids in Narnia or anything else nominally set in the real world and often anything set in an actual fantasy world, it's common.

If you perceive yourself to be smarter than average or otherwise drawn to 'nerdly persuasions' it isn't difficult to fall into the trap of believing that you're special in a way that everyone around you isn't.

In a world where you have to make it on your own, some of these folks can't imagine that they'd fail. By dint of them being special enough, they imagine that they can survive - nay THRIVE without the restrictions of 'lesser men'.

Usually around the age you have to pay for a car repair out of your own pocket using a mechanic with skills you can't even begin to comprehend and equipment you couldn't even begin to afford you realize that cooperation is better than if every person tries to make it on their own.

[violence in the media]

It's not really possible to dunk on AC0 any harder than he dunks on himself, so I have a question: why do people of, let's just say a nerdly persuasion gravitate so hard towards Libertarianism?

My impression is that it's a fantasy that lets them pretend that they'd be more satisfied with their lives than they currently are (for any value of satisfaction) if only it weren't for those pesky government regulations. If society-sanctioned state violence to compel compliance with anything they don't like is off the table but the system is robust enough to somehow enforce contracts between people (is enforcing a contract self-defense? Is that allowable violence? I'm not sure), the average Libertarian probably feels like they'd be able to weasel their way into greater wealth and status by dickishly taking advantage of anyone around them. Let the buyer beware and all that. Couple this with all the weird fixations on age of consent laws you typically find, and it really feels like they want to be able to legally trap children into sex slavery. There's probably also some chortles of satisfaction at seeing a misfortune--that they were somehow able to avoid--befall others around them for some reason they can attribute to the victim's personal failing or lack of sufficient expertise or due diligence.

Anyways, it's a scummy philosophy that no amount of pathetic bleating about principles can make not seem sketchy.

[Mord]

It's not really possible to dunk on AC0 any harder than he dunks on himself, so I have a question: why do people of, let's just say a nerdly persuasion gravitate so hard towards Libertarianism?

Because nerds are in part defined by their lack of exposure to a broad range of real-world experiences and circumstances. People who get all their learning from books tend to be much more rigid in their outlooks and therefore gravitate much more strongly to black-and-white thinking. As Frank mentioned above, "splitting" is an immature psychological defense mechanism.

Appreciation for the nuances of real life is not something you can learn by reading books or talking on the Internet. It requires your proverbial rubber hitting the road, where you actually start having to meaningfully engage with people who come from a totally different background than yourself, who you think are wrong or stupid or both, but who you need to cooperate with to achieve some goal (possibly survival). Either you fail to compromise and become a reclusive weirdo or you feel the hard edges of your sheltered worldview start to sand off.

This isn't just Libertarians, mind you. Radical movements of all stripes recruit youths because young people haven't yet had the experience of learning how to show up to work every day for years at a time with coworkers, clients, and bosses with whom you couldn't disagree more.

Nothing teaches respect for differences except actually being thrown in with people who are different, and nothing teaches understanding of the contradictions of the human experience except witnessing them for yourself.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

It's not really possible to dunk on AC0 any harder than he dunks on himself, so I have a question: why do people of, let's just say a nerdly persuasion gravitate so hard towards Libertarianism?

Because if you can grind your way to real ultimate power in an RPG, SURELY you and everyone else can do the same in real life?