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paragon1 posted:Murder of your debt holder and all of his heirs. Or run away to join Valhalla DRO I guess. I'm close to sold on Valhalla DRO. Not in the case of libertopia, either, just in general. Those disillusioned with bourgeois democracy need somewhere to go.
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Feb 4, 2015 04:22
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I envision it as basically ISIS without the Islamic extremism.
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Feb 4, 2015 04:29
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paragon1 posted:I envision it as basically ISIS without the Islamic extremism. Or the necromongers.
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Feb 4, 2015 04:30
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Mornacale posted:The existence of the US regulatory apparatus probably does in some way aid these sorts of scammers. I can't prove it, but I have a strong suspicion that many Americans don't realize just how much deception is legally allowed, and what categories of products the FDA does/doesn't test. Unethical companies can play on these misconceptions, whereas more consumers would probably be more skeptical if there was no FDA. The disclaimer is clearly printed on the label, caveat emptor bitches. paragon1 posted:sup thyroid condition buddy I just work with drugs a lot and it was the best narrow therapeutic index example I could think of. I might be bothered to do a post about thalidomide and how the FDA used it's evil statist powers to prevent thousands of children from being maimed by the free market.
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Feb 4, 2015 04:30
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Oh, okay. "Unnecessary blood testing" is how I found out about my condition by the way! It was severely loving up my life and now it isn't! Caros posted:Or the necromongers. Nah, too centralized.
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Feb 4, 2015 04:35
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Mornacale posted:The existence of the US regulatory apparatus probably does in some way aid these sorts of scammers. I can't prove it, but I have a strong suspicion that many Americans don't realize just how much deception is legally allowed, and what categories of products the FDA does/doesn't test. Unethical companies can play on these misconceptions, whereas more consumers would probably be more skeptical if there was no FDA. This is a common Libertarian argument, even against actual food and medicine: that the government lulls us all into a false sense of security with the FDA but of course government can never do anything right so we should abolish it to encourage people to be skeptical and critical, and let the free market create rating agencies that, like Moody's and S&P, will take money from manufacturers to rate their products so we as customers can be sure they are good quality. So before jrod trots it out, let's can go look at contemporary conditions before the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act to see how skeptical and informed consumers were:    Hmmm, labelling bottles of 40-proof liquor "medicine" and selling it to people as cures for all sorts of ailments...who find that as time goes on they need more and more of the medicine to achieve the same relaxing pain-dulling effect. Good thing people were so skeptical without the FDA allaying their natural suspicions, or you might see thousands and thousands of people become unwitting alcoholics and wreck their health!   Oh gosh actual loving dangerous narcotics labelled as medicine with recommendations to take them morning, noon, night, and most especially whenever you are suffering from drug-withdrawal. If only the federal government had stayed out of it, for we can see the free market was already protecting consumers with the well-oiled process of "eventually enough bodies pile up that Collier's magazine writes an exposé". This whole thing is actually worth a read. Fun fact: a lot of these deaths were kept out of the newspapers because they depended on advertisements from drug companies for a large portion of newspaper revenue and their private, sancrosanct free market contracts contained "red clauses" promising advertising contracts would be promptly cancelled if any regulation passed or if the newspaper even printed something negative about these "medicines", and unsurprisingly most newspapers ran great amounts of totally-objective reporting about the evilness of health and safety regulation. But on the other hand, maybe actual history never happened because come on, would a newspaper whose business depends on integrity ever lie to the public to get advertising dollars? Certainly not, that's as ridiculous a notion as financial rating agencies giving knowingly false AAA labels to junk loans. E-mails that logcially would totally never be sent in a free unregulated market QED posted:"Lord help our loving scam . . . this has to be the stupidest place I have worked at," writes one Standard & Poor's executive. "As you know, I had difficulties explaining 'HOW' we got to those numbers since there is no science behind it," confesses a high-ranking S&P analyst. "If we are just going to make it up in order to rate deals, then quants [quantitative analysts] are of precious little value," complains another senior S&P man. "Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of card[s] falters," ruminates one more. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 07:26
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The exposé goes on to talk about parents who were unwittingly drugging their infants into narcotic stupors with cough syrups and soothing syrups containing undisclosed opium and morphine. "Gosh that cough syrup really works, just look how much my poor baby cries when I don't give him a does before bed"  Excited to hear about the free market solution that was no doubt just around the corner before those vile, violent statists required truth-in-labelling. What, you don't have an at-home chemistry kit to identify the compounds in your cough syrup? Why not? And don't give me "I can't afford the money or time because I spend every free moment and dollar subscribing to every medical journal on the planet, inspecting grocery stores and restaurants, touring farms and ranches, and verifying the supply chain of everything I buy whose quality could possible be of concern or danger to me" that's lazy moocher talk and you deserve to have an opium-addicted baby! But as a savvy consumer, I'm never swayed by advertising and testimonials. If I'm considering a product that I don't have the knowledge or tools to evaluate myself, I rely on a competent and trustworthy free-market rating agency. And how do I decide which rating agencies are trustworthy since I am by definition relying on them for information I cannot get myself? Why, for that I count on advertising and testimonials of course!
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Feb 4, 2015 08:26
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One could be forgiven for thinking the Food and Drug industries at the turn of the 20th century were trying to replace the entirety of the human body with opiates.
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Feb 4, 2015 08:46
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paragon1 posted:One could be forgiven for thinking the Food and Drug industries at the turn of the 20th century were trying to replace the entirety of the human body with opiates. It's a great way to keep the proles docile.
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Feb 4, 2015 08:51
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site posted:It's a great way to keep the proles docile. Cough syrup is the opium of the masses?
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Feb 4, 2015 09:25
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Etalommi posted:Cough syrup is the opium of the masses? In libertopia it's just plain opium that is the opiate of the masses. Libertarians loathe metaphors, after all.
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Feb 4, 2015 15:01
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Guys I'm not sure how well this whole "you used to be able to buy strong narcotics at the apothecary, no questions asked" is going to rebut libertarians, that tends to make them quite nostalgic.
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Feb 4, 2015 15:08
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Who What Now posted:In libertopia it's just plain opium that is the opiate of the masses. Libertarians loathe metaphors, after all. And every discerning rational actor knows that Opi-8* is the best brand of opium the free market can bring to your appreciation! Also, rub Opi-8 Kids on your children's gums for guaranteed improvements in behavior and school achievements! * May or may not contain actual opium. May or may not contain talcum powder. Caveat Emptor.
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Feb 4, 2015 15:09
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Who What Now posted:In libertopia it's just plain opium that is the opiate of the masses. Libertarians loathe metaphors, after all. No, opium mislabeled as baby formula or as cancer drugs is the opiate of the masses. SedanChair posted:Guys I'm not sure how well this whole "you used to be able to VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 17:11
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*All of TCC lurches out of most recent week-long research chemical-induced fugue, driven by an inexplicable urge to visit mises.org.*
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Feb 4, 2015 18:08
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You know, I wouldn't mind living in Libertopia if it would mean I would see more drunk children and crack babies.
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Feb 4, 2015 18:13
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VitalSigns posted:This whole thing is actually worth a read. Fun fact: a lot of these deaths were kept out of the newspapers because they depended on advertisements from drug companies for a large portion of newspaper revenue and their private, sancrosanct free market contracts contained "red clauses" promising advertising contracts would be promptly cancelled if any regulation passed or if the newspaper even printed something negative about these "medicines", and unsurprisingly most newspapers ran great amounts of totally-objective reporting about the evilness of health and safety regulation. Sounds like a working free market to me! Why would anyone ever want something like the FDA meddling in our affairs when the system clearly worked so well before? Surely you must admit that all of those people died happy! And if their families don't like it then they can just sue the travelling salesman who sold the medicine to them in the preceding months
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Feb 4, 2015 18:46
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In fairness I think VitalSigns' (very interesting!) sources are more temperance propaganda than they are a reliable take on the state of medicine at the time. Still a good point about an unregulated market, though.
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Feb 4, 2015 18:52
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SedanChair posted:In fairness I think VitalSigns' (very interesting!) sources are more temperance propaganda than they are a reliable take on the state of medicine at the time. Still a good point about an unregulated market, though. Really, literally any source is viable when arguing against libertarians if you think it is. After all, what is considered objective knowledge in a libertarian's society will be dictated by whomever is most convincing and not whomever has the most supporting evidence.
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Feb 4, 2015 19:58
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Being the victim of cluster headaches is making this free-for-all with opiates everywhere sound like a really convincing reason to support Libertarianism again, let me tell you.
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Feb 4, 2015 20:14
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paragon1 posted:Murder of your debt holder and all of his heirs. Man, those contracts with DROs would be loooonnnnnngggggg.
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Feb 4, 2015 21:34
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Mister Adequate posted:Being the victim of cluster headaches is making this free-for-all with opiates everywhere sound like a really convincing reason to support Libertarianism again, let me tell you. Libertarians don't want to be able to sell you strong opiates without the law interfering, they want to be able to sell you strong opiates without anyone forcing them to tell you about it.
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Feb 4, 2015 21:39
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Bitcoiners have come up from time to time here and they're invariably from the somehow-even-flakier fringes of libertarianism, so I thought I'd mention that Ross "keep evidence of drug smuggling and hiring contract killers on own laptop" Ulbricht has just been convicted of being Dread Pirate Roberts AKA the guy who ran Silk Road, among other things. Despite his lawyer's ingenious "as the prosecution's evidence clearly demonstrates, my client is too stupid to even dress himself unaided, thus he couldn't be a criminal mastermind" defense, the jury was out for only a few hours, indicating to me mainly that they wanted to get lunch before reconvening.
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Feb 4, 2015 22:11
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So what's the libertarian's take on the Islamic State. How do free citizens defend themselves from something actual states have so far failed to successfully repulse.
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Feb 4, 2015 23:00
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asdf32 posted:So what's the libertarian's take on the Islamic State. Free citizens would subscribe to a DRO, and since, by assumption, all "free" organizations are orders of magnitude more effective and efficient than their government equivalents, the caliph would have been assassinated by now. As everyone knows, killing the leader of a hostile force will necessarily dissipate that force. This was demonstrated by the Modoc tribe in 19th century California, which is why the Modoc still possess northernmost California, and were not forcibly exiled to godforsaken Oklahoma.
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Feb 4, 2015 23:15
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asdf32 posted:So what's the libertarian's take on the Islamic State. It's the Islamic STATE, so it by definition won't be able to exist in a stateless society. CHECK AND MOTHERFUCKING MATE. Also, I recently had an experience with a used car dealership that was, in my opinion, a pretty compelling object lesson in why a libertarian economy would suck uncontrollably. Essentially, used car dealers are not subject to a great deal of regulation (at least in Los Angeles). There's a "lemon law" that requires them to honor manufacturer's warranties, and a few reporting requirements, but that's about as far as it goes. So a few months ago I was in the marked for a used car and I did exactly what *rational homo economicus* is supposed to do in an unregulated market to avoid getting screwed-- I read up on various models of car, I researched different dealerships extensively, I test-drove the car at a variety of speeds, and took it to a mechanic I trusted for an extensive check-up before buying. It was incredibly time-consuming and expensive. In the end, though, everything seemed kosher, until about a month later, when my recently-purchased 2003 Hyundai Accent crapped out on the freeway, nearly killing me. Turns out the transmission had been shittily rebuilt, and I had to sink another grand into the car to make it driveable. This is what happens in an unregulated market. In a libertarian world, you'd have to worry about the above scenario EVERY TIME you buy a product or service. You'll be tossing the dice every time you go to a restaurant, every time you go to a doctor, every time you buy an appliance. Even if you did have hours and hours to spend reading Yelp reviews there's no guarantee they'll be at all reliable.
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Feb 4, 2015 23:24
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Falstaff Infection posted:It's the Islamic STATE, so it by definition won't be able to exist in a stateless society. CHECK AND MOTHERFUCKING MATE. Well see what you fail to understand is that in a Libertarian society, everyone would be doing exactly what you did so nobody could get away with selling lemons or anything like that 
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Feb 4, 2015 23:41
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Falstaff Infection posted:Even if you did have hours and hours to spend reading Yelp reviews there's no guarantee they'll be at all reliable. In fact, given the huge issues with Actually Existing Yelp, it's basically a guarantee that they wouldn't.
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Feb 4, 2015 23:44
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Mornacale posted:In fact, given the huge issues with Actually Existing Yelp, it's basically a guarantee that they wouldn't. Ah, but you see they are unreliable in predictable ways. If you only spend time tuning your algorithm to determine whether or not to trust them, you'll be fine. Since were are in Libertopia, everyone knows the cutting edge ML techniques and has access to a nice little cluster to run them on.
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Feb 4, 2015 23:48
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Etalommi posted:Ah, but you see they are unreliable in predictable ways. If you only spend time tuning your algorithm to determine whether or not to trust them, you'll be fine. Since were are in Libertopia, everyone knows the cutting edge ML techniques and has access to a nice little cluster to run them on. And here you get at why the ancap/libertarian notion of "freedom" is so hollow. If you have to spend literally all of your free time managing various private accounts, learning the complex ins-and-outs of various entrenched marketplaces and researching the litigation records/customer satisfaction of every business you patronize, when do you, y'know, do anything else at all? It's freedom in theory and ceaseless drudgery in practice.
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Feb 5, 2015 00:04
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Falstaff Infection posted:And here you get at why the ancap/libertarian notion of "freedom" is so hollow. If you have to spend literally all of your free time managing various private accounts, learning the complex ins-and-outs of various entrenched marketplaces and researching the litigation records/customer satisfaction of every business you patronize, when do you, y'know, do anything else at all? It's freedom in theory and ceaseless drudgery in practice. Yes but the government isn't making you do that through violence and that is, without hyperbole, the only thing in the universe that matters.
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Feb 5, 2015 00:35
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Turns out that lying is really really really easy, and when you have lots of money you can pay people who are incredibly good at lying to tell lies to protect your business.
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Feb 5, 2015 01:08
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Who What Now posted:Really, literally any source is viable when arguing against libertarians if you think it is. After all, what is considered objective knowledge in a libertarian's society will be dictated by whomever is most convincing and not whomever has the most supporting evidence. If I perch a Yorkshire terrier on my scalp, will I gain the credibility of Rand Paul?
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Feb 5, 2015 02:34
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paragon1 posted:Turns out that
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Feb 5, 2015 06:22
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Falstaff Infection posted:And here you get at why the ancap/libertarian notion of "freedom" is so hollow. If you have to spend literally all of your free time managing various private accounts, learning the complex ins-and-outs of various entrenched marketplaces and researching the litigation records/customer satisfaction of every business you patronize, when do you, y'know, do anything else at all? It's freedom in theory and ceaseless drudgery in practice.  Come along friend, I'll tell you a tale of contracts.
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Feb 5, 2015 06:35
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I know actual nerds who thought the Ferengi were a good example of the power of free markets and a libertarian society, like they thought DS9 was good for showing a prosperous capitalist alternative to the federation. Ooops at the end of the series the Ferengi Alliance gets progressive taxation, extensive social services and labour rights, and the new leader is a marxist union leader.
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Feb 5, 2015 07:05
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God DS9 was great. One of my favorite Ferengi episodes involved striking workers who, when one of the humans offered to help them stop the exploitation, were like "No we don't want to stop the exploitation, we want to be the exploiters!" 
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Feb 5, 2015 07:19
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That comment about washing hands from that idiot Thom Tillis is the kind of thing that I occasionally see that makes me wonder who the hell poo poo like that is supposed to appeal to. I mean, I can see the appeal of supporting something like low taxes, but who the gently caress is out there clamoring for people to not be as hygienic as possible when it comes to handling your food?  Is there a gigantic, untapped demographic of coprophagiacs or something I'm not aware of?
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Feb 5, 2015 08:37
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VitalSigns posted:God DS9 was great. I liked that the Ferengi called humanity on their bullshit all the time. Quark says on multiple occasions something along the lines of "you only hate us cause you know that deep down you're exactly like us. At least we're honest about it". Considering how obviously the Federation was a vision of the West/America as it saw itself, all noble Human Rights and Democracy and Good Things and Puppies, I always thought it was a pretty good satire of geopolitics in the 90s.
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Feb 5, 2015 08:38
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Political Whores posted:I liked that the Ferengi called humanity on their bullshit all the time. Quark says on multiple occasions something along the lines of "you only hate us cause you know that deep down you're exactly like us. At least we're honest about it". Considering how obviously the Federation was a vision of the West/America as it saw itself, all noble Human Rights and Democracy and Good Things and Puppies, I always thought it was a pretty good satire of geopolitics in the 90s. I would watch a space soap opera that was just a bunch of aliens representing today's top 10 political ideologies. It would be more relevant than race analogs and I would always love to see the bitcoining libertarian perfectly rational cyborg avians (freeeedom squawk!) Have to confront reality all the time.
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Feb 5, 2015 08:49
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