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The only Jesus we should be talking about in this thread is Supply-Side Jesus. Actual Jesus doesn't really have a whole lot to do with Libertarianism.
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Dec 5, 2014 19:29
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I'm pretty sure he would be against it.
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Dec 5, 2014 19:30
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Can you believe that Jesus rear end in a top hat wrecked the businesses of honest money lenders who were voluntarily associating with the proprietors of the church? Sic a voluntary arbitration on that immoral out!
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Dec 5, 2014 21:28
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BrandorKP posted:Praxeology never died on the cross and is not human. Those differences don't matter to you all but they do to me. Uh yeah they can. All Libertarians are already living in the horrific antithesis of their philosophy: in a functioning democratic state that makes them pay taxes and serve black people in their restaurants. They don't have to die and go to hell to experience total negation of their beliefs: they are already living the negation. They are in hell And yet they keep the faith 
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Dec 6, 2014 01:41
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VitalSigns posted:Uh yeah they can. All Libertarians are already living in the horrific antithesis of their philosophy: in a functioning democratic state that makes them pay taxes and serve black people in their restaurants. They don't have to die and go to hell to experience total negation of their beliefs: they are already living the negation. They are in hell I rarely, if ever, pass an opportunity to post at least a relevant section from this classic, which you've now given me a opportunity so to do! goatstein posted:"Bring him here. Good. Give me his file." The king looked over the prisoner's dossier. A long list of crimes against the state, and a repeat offender.
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Dec 6, 2014 01:48
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Captain_Maclaine posted:I rarely, if ever, pass an opportunity to post at least a relevant section from this classic, which you've now given me a opportunity so to do! I had never before noticed the "breakdancing" bit. Truly the gift that keeps on giving.
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Dec 8, 2014 20:40
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BrandorKP posted:I know with certainty that it's how they run their business. That they started rich doesn't invalidate that have moved on to run the largest most successful privately company held on the planet. Yes it does.
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Dec 8, 2014 21:02
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SedanChair posted:Yes it does. If anything it just proves CEOs aren't some special breed of hyper-intelligent captains of industry.
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Dec 8, 2014 21:45
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SyHopeful posted:If anything it just proves CEOs aren't some special breed of hyper-intelligent captains of industry.  CEO pay is not correlated with performance.
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Dec 8, 2014 21:49
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SyHopeful posted:If anything it just proves CEOs aren't some special breed of hyper-intelligent captains of industry. The natural social elite, if you will.
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Dec 8, 2014 22:06
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 Brandor believes that praxeology is like fire, a useful servant and a dangerous master super loving  tits
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Dec 8, 2014 22:32
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Thought you guys might enjoy this. Reason's Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie did an AMA on reddit the other day: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2odiw1/we_are_the_editors_of_reason_the_libertarian/ Lots of entertaining stuff in there. Specifically from Gillespie.
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Dec 8, 2014 22:40
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SedanChair posted:
But praxeology is nonsense dependent on arbitrary redefinition of otherwise-clearly understood terms that falls apart as soon as you start to-ohhhh, I get it now!
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Dec 8, 2014 22:46
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Mr Interweb posted:Thought you guys might enjoy this. Reason's Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie did an AMA on reddit the other day: I dunno the first top reply from Welch where he claims Frederick Douglas as a proto-libertarian was pretty good. e: lol someone mentioned the Kochs and he immediately replies WHAT ABOUT GEORGE SOROS???
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Dec 8, 2014 22:49
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Anyone wanna post some nuggets? I hate threaded comment systems.
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Dec 8, 2014 23:14
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SedanChair posted:Yes it does. He's also wrong about Koch Industries being the largest privately held company in the world, or even in America (that's Cargill). And I've never heard of either Charles or David Koch actually using libertarian principles in their management of the business. The CEO of Sears tried, to hilarious results.
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Dec 9, 2014 00:13
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SedanChair posted:Yes it does. Pretty dumb and obviously useless conclusion. For whatever it's worth.
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Dec 9, 2014 00:52
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asdf32 posted:Pretty dumb and obviously useless conclusion. For whatever it's worth. The Libertarian Motto.
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Dec 9, 2014 01:28
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SedanChair posted:
Actually, my analogy would be to pagan deity  paragon1 posted:And I've never heard of either Charles or David Koch actually using libertarian principles in their management of the business. http://www.kochind.com/MBM/ This stuff is up on the walls, I mean that literally. And I was off by one, second largest privately held company, where I took that from had narrowed had it further by "closely held". Rather small error, one that given the growth rates of Cargil and KII will be rather quickly (a few years probably) not an error. http://www.forbes.com/largest-private-companies/list/ One of the characteristic of conspiratorial thinking is "secret". None of this Koch stuff is secret, it's literally on their website. They want it to be public. Take this : "I believe I owe a good part of what success I've had to concepts developed by Austrians." That's a public statement, on a company website, on company letterhead taken from here: http://www.kochind.com/files/AustrianLessonForAVibrantEconomy.pdf The end goal is implied by the name of that pdf, Austrian lessons for a vibrant economy" Another direct quote: "To the extent the world embraces Austrian free-market ideas, it will prosper." Ever see the list of rich people that goto the Koch retreats? (I'll dig up the link from the other thread if anyone wants it) It should scare the hell out of the rest of us and it's not happening in secret.
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Dec 9, 2014 02:31
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Well let's ask jrodefeld, he doesn't seem to think the Koch brothers are very good libertarians as far as their business goes.
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Dec 9, 2014 02:35
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The nice thing about Austrian economics and libertarianism is that it's all such abstract bullshit that people like the Kochs can claim to be using it as a guiding philosophy while having it have exactly zero difference from any other corporate strategy. I can see why someone who's entire life and worldview is nothing but bullshit sophistry like BrandorKP might be worried about it though.
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Dec 9, 2014 02:38
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I wouldn't trust a Koch if he told me water was wet, so it doesn't matter what he says or how "officially" he says it. Then again I wouldn't trust Brandor if he told me that either.
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Dec 9, 2014 03:16
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Looks to me like the Koch's credit libertarianism for success in business the same way Evangelicals will credit Jesus for being successful in business. i.e. It doesn't really have anything to do with it at all.
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Dec 9, 2014 03:27
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Who What Now posted:I wouldn't trust a Koch if he told me water was wet, so it doesn't matter what he says or how "officially" he says it. Then again I wouldn't trust Brandor if he told me that either. In fairness, you should probably clarify that you wouldn't trust a Koch because they're duplicitous bastards out to line their own pockets and the hell with anyone/thing else, whereas you wouldn't trust Brandor not because of any such character flaw but rather that, despite any apparent similarities, he doesn't actually speak English.
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Dec 9, 2014 06:05
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Captain_Maclaine posted:In fairness, you should probably clarify that you wouldn't trust a Koch because they're duplicitous bastards out to line their own pockets and the hell with anyone/thing else, whereas you wouldn't trust Brandor not because of any such character flaw but rather that, despite any apparent similarities, he doesn't actually speak English. Unfortunately, the word for his language, in said language, is also "English." Confusing! Alien Arcana fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Dec 9, 2014 |
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Dec 9, 2014 16:56
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Captain_Maclaine posted:In fairness, you should probably clarify that you wouldn't trust a Koch because they're duplicitous bastards out to line their own pockets and the hell with anyone/thing else, whereas you wouldn't trust Brandor not because of any such character flaw but rather that, despite any apparent similarities, he doesn't actually speak English. No, I actively believe Brandor to be a liar who knowingly misrepresents what people say and doesn't care so long as it fits into his internal narrative.
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Dec 9, 2014 17:08
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SedanChair posted:Yes it does. It is abnormal to grow significantly faster than the market for an extended period of time. Lucky people do it for short periods, but there are only a handful of people who run businesses over a full lifetime that grow at a rate significantly above the rates at which other business grow, especially once the business is large. We don't have to like this (and I don't.) But it's dangerous to ignore, because it's one of the reasons their ideas appeal to other very rich people. SedanChair posted:Well let's ask jrodefeld, he doesn't seem to think the Koch brothers are very good libertarians as far as their business goes. Right because there are different groups within Libertarianism and they don't like each other. It's like the fundamentalists who don't think Catholics are Christians. Often fights between closer groups within one larger category are nastier, because the smaller groups want to define the whole category. This isn't speculation or conjecture, we can see these groups talking about these divides and examples have been posted in this thread. How do some Sunnis and Shiites talk about each other? How did the different groups with Judaism interact with each other in the period just prior to the destruction of the second temple? How did the the protestant reformation go? Of course he doesn't think much of them. paragon1 posted:Looks to me like the Koch's credit libertarianism for success in business the same way Evangelicals will credit Jesus for being successful in business. I would agree it's a bastardization of, a distortion of, similar to the way some evangelicals distort the example of Jesus. There is talk about individual freedom, about how individuals by will determine their-selves, out there that isn't lovely eg. "Be the proud captain still of thine own fate." Further, there are four brothers: Why did two sue the other two? Because the business was becoming too much about Libertarianism. Again this is public information. I don't have prove it, I can point to it. Captain_Maclaine posted:In fairness, you should probably clarify that you wouldn't trust a Koch because they're duplicitous bastards out to line their own pockets and the hell with anyone/thing else, whereas you wouldn't trust Brandor not because of any such character flaw but rather that, despite any apparent similarities, he doesn't actually speak English. I'm fantastically, freakishly, good at reading comprehension, analogy, and reasoning by the metrics usually used to measure such things. I used to not know how to write; but all this arguing with you all, a few years of that have made me pretty good at that too. Maybe I can explain it this way. I have toddler now, the language explosion, it happened between month 13-14. That's not normal. It's, none of the dozen-ish pediatricians at the practice have encountered or even heard of a fifteen month old with an over hundred word vocabulary, abnormal. And it may have started even earlier than that (one needs teeth to make certain consonant sounds.) My parents tell me their experience with me was the same. My kid at 16 months uses pronouns properly, and has about 6 prepositions, speaks in sentences. "Demonstrates understanding of over and under" is a 48th month thing. He shouldn't be able to use adjectives and adverbs spontaneously. He shouldn't be able to respond to complex contingent instructions about out of sight objects like: If you close the cabinet and then go to your toy drawer and then pick out a book and then bring it to me, I will read it to you. It's very likely there is something abnormal about the way my brain processes language. I didn't really get how abnormal until I got to see it in my son. Who What Now posted:No, I actively believe Brandor to be a liar who knowingly misrepresents what people say and doesn't care so long as it fits into his internal narrative. A large part of my internal narrative is that all of us (with the exception of people with brain issues like psychopaths) are trying to do good in the world and that we really believe in the things we affirm. That even the most inhuman of us are brothers and sisters. I'll risk believing that, because the alternative is to do what you are doing here. Thank you for again concretizing an ongoing abstract discussion about the repercussions of the differences between dualistic thinking (where some people are evil and irredeemably against the truth) and monotheistic thinking. 
Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Dec 9, 2014 |
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Dec 9, 2014 19:25
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You're not irredeemably evil, you're just prone to completely misrepresenting people's arguments and statements. And that's a form of lying. I believe you have it in you to stop doing that very very easily if you would simply try. The problem, though, is that at this point in your life you don't care if you're lying or not. Hopefully that will change. E: Pretty ironic that in the very post where I say you misrepresent people's arguments you go and misrepresent my argument. Who What Now fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Dec 9, 2014 |
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Dec 9, 2014 19:29
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Dec 9, 2014 19:49
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No, it really wasn't.
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Dec 9, 2014 20:06
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Jack of Hearts posted:Anyone wanna post some nuggets? I hate threaded comment systems. On healthcare: Nick Gillespie posted:In all sorts of other fields, making markets freer and more open to competition works. It would do so also in health care and insurance. Allowing (that is, forcing them; most of them like carved-up territories current law dictates) health insurers to compete across state lines and offer a wider range of products would be a start. So would gutting many licensing laws that make it tough for new practitioners and facilities to enter health care provision. On monopolies: Nick Gillespie posted:Generally speaking, the only monopolies that cause problems for consumers are ones that are either sustained or created through government actions. When Standard Oil was at the height of its market dominance, it was charging less than ever for its products (see Burt Folsom's Myth of the Robber Barons). If they started jacking up prices, competitors would win back market share. As folks at a whole host of once-dominant companies and products (A&P! IBM! AOL! WordPerfect! Internet Explorer!) could tell you, it's freaking hard to reach the top and tougher to stay there.
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Dec 9, 2014 20:31
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I guess he didn't get that the definition of a monopoly is that you don't have any competitors to win back market share from you in the first place.
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Dec 10, 2014 06:00
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Wait a minute, your internal narrative? Am I supposed to have an internal narrative?
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Dec 10, 2014 06:15
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paragon1 posted:I guess he didn't get that the definition of a monopoly is that you don't have any competitors to win back market share from you in the first place. Man his examples are such bullshit too. quote:Generally speaking, the only monopolies that cause problems for consumers are ones that are either sustained or created through government actions. When Standard Oil was at the height of its market dominance, it was charging less than ever for its products (see Burt Folsom's Myth of the Robber Barons). If they started jacking up prices, competitors would win back market share. As folks at a whole host of once-dominant companies and products (A&P! IBM! AOL! WordPerfect! Internet Explorer!) could tell you, it's freaking hard to reach the top and tougher to stay there. WordPerfect! Internet Explorer! I wonder if he is aware that Internet Explorer was at the heart of one of the largest technological anti-trust lawsuits in history, United States v. Microsoft. The trial (which Microsoft settled) came about as a result of Microsoft bundling IE with windows, thereby using its monopolistic position in the operating system to leverage a win against arguably superior software when it came to web browsers. Likewise WordPerfect (and others) have alleged for years that they were denied access for several months to critical API's which prevented them from launching their software alongside windows 95. The three month gap led to Microsoft Office being the default word processing software for any company who made an early switch. In fact AOL is he only company on his list that wasn't hit with a massive Antitrust lawsuit during the course of its monopoly. Really makes you think.
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Dec 10, 2014 06:21
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Bring down the cost of health care by getting rid of all this unnecessary licensing. Once real doctors have to compete with any quack and showman who can buy a lab coat, prices will have to fall!  What do you want to bet he's cool with big government limiting restitution with tort reform and removing the pointless burden of mandatory malpractice insurance.
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Dec 10, 2014 06:21
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Caros posted:The trial (which Microsoft settled) came about as a result of Microsoft bundling IE with windows, thereby using its monopolistic position in the operating system to leverage a win against arguably superior software when it came to web browsers. This is bullshit. Microsoft's Internet Explorer was by far the best browser available during the whole time the suit went on. Netscape had first fallen behind, and then wasn't releasing any updates for years on end, Opera was still embryonic, Firefox wouldn't be out until years on as part of Netscape realizing they couldn't fix what they actually had and had to start from scratch. Microsoft was definitely abusing its ability to decide which companies could get cheaper OEM licenses than others based on whether they included Netscape. However, by the time the stuff actually got to trial, Netscape was already screwed over by not being able to figure out how to reasonably update their outdated rendering engine, dumped a ton of resources into a project that dead-ended (Netscape 5), and on top of that had already declared in 1998 that all forthcoming browsers from them would be free. Because of this Netscape's already lovely business model (in the sense that it couldn't sustain itself long term) got even worse, all leading up to when AOL bought them out in 1999.
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Dec 10, 2014 06:32
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Nintendo Kid posted:This is bullshit. Microsoft's Internet Explorer was by far the best browser available during the whole time the suit went on. Netscape had first fallen behind, and then wasn't releasing any updates for years on end, Opera was still embryonic, Firefox wouldn't be out until years on as part of Netscape realizing they couldn't fix what they actually had and had to start from scratch. I was speaking specifically about the lead up to the suit. Netscape kicked the everloving poo poo out of IE 1-3 for example, and it wasn't until IE 4, released in 1997 when IE even began to approach the user base of netscape. Turns out that bundling your web browser with your operating system in an era where a web browser was a big download is a massive advantage. My point is that IE was at best at parity during the later half of the 'browser wars', and won all of its market share by virtue of bundling their software with Windows. The anti-trust lawsuit settlement bears that out pretty concretely in my opinion, and it is worth pointing out that by doing this they set into motion a solid six years in which there was almost no innovation regarding web browsers, by virtue of being the only game in town. Caros fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Dec 10, 2014 |
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Dec 10, 2014 06:51
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SedanChair posted:Wait a minute, your internal narrative? No, that'd be a pretty weird thing to have. Unless Brandor means something other than what I think he means by that, which is extremely probable.
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Dec 10, 2014 07:00
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Caros posted:I was speaking specifically about the lead up to the suit. Netscape kicked the everloving poo poo out of IE 1-3 for example, and it wasn't until IE 4, released in 1997 when IE even began to approach the user base of netscape. Turns out that bundling your web browser with your operating system in an era where a web browser was a big download is a massive advantage. Microsoft didn't start to elbow OEMs over Netscape until IE 4 was already out in 1997. Also you're remembering wrong, as IE 2 and 3 were on a perfectly even footing with Netscape as far as usability and functionality - and IE 1 was only available for 3 months. Microsoft's big push on OEMs was for the upcoming Windows 98 launch, where they were threatening both releasing the OS to them for testing late and charging more - both things that would utterly wreck a manufacturer's hopes of marketing new Windows 98 PCs in the coming year. Even if IE was never included with the OS (which would be stupid for other reasons but whatever) it was going to inevitably crush Netscape because Netscape had structural problems staying afloat as a company enough when they charged for their browser, let alone when they finally gave up charging for it because it was nuking their share even more than IE being included did. And nobody else had a browser competitive in the mass market until about 2003-2004. It's no coincidence that Mark Andressen, the manchild leader of Netscape who's a current tech bubble investor and libertarian thinks he came out "smart" from the situation. Dude lucked into AOL being willing to buy him out in 1999 and thinks he the hand of galt himself. Caros posted:The anti-trust lawsuit settlement bears that out pretty concretely in my opinion, and it is worth pointing out that by doing this they set into motion a solid six years in which there was almost no innovation regarding web browsers, by virtue of being the only game in town. Uh, what set that in motion was the fact that no one else even tried. Opera was there, but they still thought things like charging money or having constant ads was great, and didn't see why they should render websites the way other browsers did - it took them many years to ditch both of those hindrances. Netscape/Mozilla ended up having to completely start from scratch, since their old codebase was too garbage to build from. Other companies barely put in an effort on Windows or other OSes. The trust activities of Microsoft didn't cause their dominance, they just lengthened the period by a few months. Even if MS hadn't started threatening OEM discounts, there was no benefit to OEMs to continue dealing and paying money to Netscape for an inferior product. Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Dec 10, 2014 |
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Dec 10, 2014 07:02
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Okay but Microsoft was involved in a massive anti-trust lawsuit, right? Like don't let me stop you from doing your thing, but I feel that's what's relevant here.
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Dec 10, 2014 07:05
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