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Plastics posted:People a\re finally realizing that government is not their friend in any capacity and all of it is about control one way or another. Black slaves were given food and shelter, that didn't make them free. Why is giving people today food and shelter a good thing instead of being transparently seen as the exertion of control that it really is? We may never know. Oh aren't you just precious. Here is a helpful primer on the things wrong with your analogy: All of the things. The reason why giving people snap benefits and public housing is different from slave owners doing similar things boils down to every single aspect involved. Slave owners fed and housed their slaves out of necessity, for example, not out of a sense of duty or altruism. It was a business cost, because otherwise the slaves would drop dead. Governed welfare programs also don't own you. If you take snap the government doesn't get total, omnipresent control over your life. Shocking, I know, but it is true! Please, explain to me how the government exerts control over a destitute person by providing them with food and housing.
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Aug 7, 2015 21:27
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RuanGacho posted:Ahaha c'mere a minute while I explain to you entropy and the heat death of galts gulch. I assume the heat death involves all the stupid rich fucks dying of heat stroke trying to farm when they realize their perpetual energy machine doesn't actually function due to physics?
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Aug 7, 2015 21:30
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Plastics posted:Why is giving people today food and shelter a good thing Because it will prevent them from dying of starvation or exposure. You idiot.
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Aug 7, 2015 21:34
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Caros posted:The reason why giving people snap benefits and public housing is different from slave owners doing similar things boils down to every single aspect involved. Slave owners fed and housed their slaves out of necessity, for example, not out of a sense of duty or altruism. It was a business cost, because otherwise the slaves would drop dead. Not just an overhead, there was even profit motive in feeding the slaves diets unusually rich in protein.
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Aug 7, 2015 21:36
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Caros posted:Governed welfare programs also don't own you. If you take snap the government doesn't get total, omnipresent control over your life. Shocking, I know, but it is true! Well, not for lack of trying on the part of vindictive conservative politicians.
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Aug 7, 2015 21:36
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Caros posted:I assume the heat death involves all the stupid rich fucks dying of heat stroke trying to farm when they realize their perpetual energy machine doesn't actually function due to physics? Bingo. Also libertarians are just nihilists pretending to care about themselves.
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Aug 7, 2015 21:41
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Whoa there guys, looks like I stirred up a right old hornet's nest, which I guess I expected because I did look through the thread before posting. I don't think for a second the government is involved in any kind of weird conspiracies. They're not polluting our bodies to gain psychic control and they're not masterminds who did 9/11 (we should be so lucky if government was half that competent!) That does not mean their Policies don't have practical effects. And it does not mean that Ethics do not matter. The fact of taking from some people to give things to others is an assumption of ownership of those people's resources (time, material, or otherwise), which is factual ownership over a part of that person. Is there some particular point where that actually stops being acceptable to you all? Halfway? Three-fifths, perhaps? Or is it okay to take all the fruits of someone's hard work away from them if it will benefit other people? Finally gold is a smart place to invest, but that is because precious metals are always a smart place to invest, not because gold is magical. We are way past the point where a gold backed economy makes sense (but that does not mean the current one is a good idea).
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Aug 7, 2015 22:38
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Plastics posted:Whoa there guys, looks like I stirred up a right old hornet's nest, which I guess I expected because I did look through the thread before posting. Post scarcity society is possible right now you know. The problem with your implied world view has everything to do with ignoring the labor stolen and then demand you are paid for having done it.
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Aug 7, 2015 22:49
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How about the fact that slaves would be tortured and/or killed if they tried to leave. That's how ownership of people was enforced, not rations and shacks. Seriously gently caress you.
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Aug 7, 2015 22:56
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RuanGacho posted:Post scarcity society is possible right now you know. I do not believe labor can be "stolen" in our modern society (putting aside Underground actual slavery). You can choose to do or not do a job. There are factors that make jobs more or less Attractive or Necessary sure but that does not mean it is not a choice, that is just a fact of life. Political W****s, I think that they have developed a much more refined and subtle way of controlling people and you are completely right that it is not enforced in the same way. But government Projects (literally called Projects!) that create ghettos and which stop black aspiration by creating a low but survivable basic level of Provision are almost as powerful at controlling large groups, and are even more powerful because they can tolerate the occasional lucky person who gets out! Plastics fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Aug 7, 2015 |
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Aug 7, 2015 22:58
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Plastics posted:I do not believe labor can be "stolen" in our modern society (putting aside Underground actual slavery). You can choose to do or not do a job. There are factors that make jobs more or less Attractive or Necessary sure but that does not mean it is not a choice, that is just a fact of life. Question: what level of coercion is necessary for an action to be 'forced': Is 'your money or your life', asked by a highwayman, an offer of a free choice?
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Aug 7, 2015 22:59
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Plastics posted:I do not believe labor can be "stolen" in our modern society (putting aside Underground actual slavery). You can choose to do or not do a job. There are factors that make jobs more or less Attractive or Necessary sure but that does not mean it is not a choice, that is just a fact of life. Yeah you can choose not to do a job and then live a life of poverty or you can choose to do a job and still live a life of poverty Ignorant gently caress
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Aug 7, 2015 22:59
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Plastics posted:I do not believe labor can be "stolen" in our modern society (putting aside Underground actual slavery). You can choose to do or not do a job. There are factors that make jobs more or less Attractive or Necessary sure but that does not mean it is not a choice, that is just a fact of life. Rational actors: a thing, or not a thing?
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Aug 7, 2015 22:59
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Guys you just have to do it or die You could just choose to die
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Aug 7, 2015 23:01
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Plastics posted:I do not believe labor can be "stolen" in our modern society (putting aside Underground actual slavery). You can choose to do or not do a job. There are factors that make jobs more or less Attractive or Necessary sure but that does not mean it is not a choice, that is just a fact of life. As a government worker bitchass libertarians are trying to steal my labor all the time.
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Aug 7, 2015 23:01
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Literally The Worst posted:Guys you just have to do it or die Reminder: this very argument was usedby a crazy person during the recent flap about the traitor's flag to claim slavery was voluntary because the slaves chose to live in their state as they could have chosen to die instead.
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Aug 7, 2015 23:04
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Plastics posted:I do not believe labor can be "stolen" in our modern society (putting aside Underground actual slavery). You can choose to do or not do a job. There are factors that make jobs more or less Attractive or Necessary sure but that does not mean it is not a choice, that is just a fact of life. Arguably the phenomenon of land monopoly only exists by fiat in the first place by the will of the State, they grant titles and deeds conferring the ownership of the land from the State to the individual, so you could cut out both, not tax people based on their labor, but also make all land common. That's what Adam Smith proposed in his pamphlet Agrarian Justice, and Classical Liberal John Stewart Mill dipped into the idea too. It would be interesting to see how that would work out.
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Aug 7, 2015 23:04
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Disinterested posted:Question: what level of coercion is necessary for an action to be 'forced': Yes, it is. I do not understand why the idea of choice is somehow disconnected from the idea of Consequences. I can choose to make my own healkthy food every night for dinner or I can choose to eat cheap takeout every night for dinner. If I do that last one I will probably have much more health problems and die much younger. But acccording to the logic in this thread I am not making a free choice because one of these outcomes is worse than the other? Actually choices are about preferences. If I am mugged I can choose whether I care more about my money or my health or even my life. Captain_Maclaine posted:Rational actors: a thing, or not a thing? A thing that can, and should, exist. But government impositions make it a lot harder to be a rational actor because why would people bother, when they assume the government is Thinking for them?
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Aug 7, 2015 23:06
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Plastics posted:Yes, it is. I do not understand why the idea of choice is somehow disconnected from the idea of Consequences. I can choose to make my own healkthy food every night for dinner or I can choose to eat cheap takeout every night for dinner. If I do that last one I will probably have much more health problems and die much younger. But acccording to the logic in this thread I am not making a free choice because one of these outcomes is worse than the other? Actually it's because you're making that choice in a vacuum devoid of any other factors because that's the only way your retarded ideology works.
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Aug 7, 2015 23:07
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Plastics posted:A thing that can, and should, exist. But government impositions make it a lot harder to be a rational actor because why would people bother, when they assume the government is Thinking for them? You are just precious, yes you are!  Guys, guys; let's go easy on this one and let him do his thing for a while. Kid's got potential!
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Aug 7, 2015 23:11
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Plastics posted:Yes, it is. I do not understand why the idea of choice is somehow disconnected from the idea of Consequences. I can choose to make my own healkthy food every night for dinner or I can choose to eat cheap takeout every night for dinner. If I do that last one I will probably have much more health problems and die much younger. But acccording to the logic in this thread I am not making a free choice because one of these outcomes is worse than the other? Actually choices are about preferences. If I am mugged I can choose whether I care more about my money or my health or even my life. Death is the ultimate alienation of freedom, since upon one's death one is incapable of exercising choice. How can I validly freely choose not to be able to choose without committing myself to a paradox? In any event, if the choice is ineligible because nobody would choose it, is it to really be regarded as a true choice? According to your analysis, a slave is free. How can that not be problematic for your analysis since, by any acceptable definition, surely slaves must by definition be unfree?
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Aug 7, 2015 23:12
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Plastics posted:The fact of taking from some people to give things to others is an assumption of ownership of those people's resources (time, material, or otherwise), which is factual ownership over a part of that person. Why is a thing a part of the person who owns it? If you have indeed read the thread, you know that we don't accept that idea as self-evident. quote:Is there some particular point where that actually stops being acceptable to you all? Halfway? Three-fifths, perhaps? Or is it okay to take all the fruits of someone's hard work away from them if it will benefit other people? I, for one, would argue that it is only acceptable to the point when we've redistributed to the point when everyone's basic needs for food, shelter, security, and opportunities for self-advancement are met. An essay I've read (but can't find on Google right now) gives the classic example of the man who steals bread from a merchant to feed his starving family. The merchant has more than enough bread to meet her needs, so taking some of her bread won't threaten her life: the family's right to live trumps the merchant's right to have a lot of bread. But what if, rather than bread, the merchant had a bunch of Xboxes? In that case, the man would not be justified in stealing, because nobody needs an Xbox to live. It's basically a question of balancing priorities. In our case, we place the right to life over the right to property. I'm not saying that the right to property isn't important, but when it conflicts with the right to life, the right to property is going to lose out 100% of the time in my book.
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Aug 7, 2015 23:13
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Pththya-lyi posted:An essay I've read (but can't find on Google right now) gives the classic example of the man who steals bread from a merchant to feed his starving family. The merchant has more than enough bread to meet her needs, so taking some of her bread won't threaten her life: the family's right to live trumps the merchant's right to have a lot of bread. But what if, rather than bread, the merchant had a bunch of Xboxes? In that case, the man would not be justified in stealing, because nobody needs an Xbox to live.
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Aug 7, 2015 23:15
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That would be okay, I suppose, but in the original example the man is stealing the Xbox so he and his family can play video games.
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Aug 7, 2015 23:17
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Captain_Maclaine posted:Reminder: this very argument was usedby a crazy person during the recent flap about the traitor's flag to claim slavery was voluntary because the slaves chose to live in their state as they could have chosen to die instead. Who knew there were so many existentialists around?
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Aug 7, 2015 23:18
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quote:"It is the hungry man's bread that you withhold, the naked man's cloak that you store away, the money that you bury in the earth is the price of the poor man's ransom and freedom."
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Aug 7, 2015 23:21
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Plastics posted:A thing that can, and should, exist. But government impositions make it a lot harder to be a rational actor because why would people bother, when they assume the government is Thinking for them? How could Rational Actors exist, precisely? Through what means do you propose that someone gets all relevant and perfectly accurate information about any given decision? I'll even softball it and let you decide what the specific hypothetical decision is, if any or you may keep it a vague hypothetical.
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Aug 7, 2015 23:36
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Plastics posted:Whoa there guys, looks like I stirred up a right old hornet's nest, which I guess I expected because I did look through the thread before posting. Guys, go easy on him we lost jrod because you were all too mean to him.  Phone posting so this won't be my usual level of excellence bit here are my thoughts: You capitalized Ethics. Oh my loving God you capitalized Ethics. Protip, when you do this it makes you look like a crazy person. Yes, ethics matter, but not enough to capitalize. While we are on the subject of ethics, do you believe that morality is subjective? If you don't then where does it come from. This has been a sticking point with other libertarians and I'm eager to get your take on it. Do property rights just exist in nature for example and is everything derived from them? Or do you drink from a different jug of kool aid? Actually I think I have my answer in a later part but I'm phone posting (as I said) so do forgive me. You argue that society is taking assumption of other people's resources, but I (and society in general) beg to differ. Property is not a thing that exists in nature. The phone I am posting from is only mine because of a societal agreement that it belongs to me, not because of some innate law of reality that makes it mine. If we agree, and we should, that property only exists where society agrees thatit exists then it stands to reason that taxation isn't theft or appropriation of what is yours, because ultimately the agreement of society decides what belongs to whom. Society agrees that the money you pay in taxes doesn't belong to you, just as it agrees my phone does belong to me. What is your rebuttal here? Finally, are you aware that gold is currently at a decades long low? I would argue that gold is actually a really lovely investment right now.
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Aug 7, 2015 23:37
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Plastics posted:Yes, it is. I do not understand why the idea of choice is somehow disconnected from the idea of Consequences. I can choose to make my own healkthy food every night for dinner or I can choose to eat cheap takeout every night for dinner. If I do that last one I will probably have much more health problems and die much younger. But acccording to the logic in this thread I am not making a free choice because one of these outcomes is worse than the other? Actually choices are about preferences. If I am mugged I can choose whether I care more about my money or my health or even my life. Are the people in Somalia more or less rational actors than people in the US? Are they more or less rational now with their provisional government than they were in the late nineties with no government to speak of? If not, why?
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Aug 7, 2015 23:39
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Plastics posted:Political W****s You can say naughty words here, we won't tell if you won't.
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Aug 7, 2015 23:45
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Plastics posted:Yes, it is. I do not understand why the idea of choice is somehow disconnected from the idea of Consequences. I can choose to make my own healkthy food every night for dinner or I can choose to eat cheap takeout every night for dinner. If I do that last one I will probably have much more health problems and die much younger. But acccording to the logic in this thread I am not making a free choice because one of these outcomes is worse than the other? I'm glad you brought this up. Have you ever heard of a food desert? It's an urban area where it's difficult to obtain fresh, healthy food, especially if one doesn't have a car. About 23.5 million Americans live in food deserts, and over half of them are low income. If you live in a food desert and you don't have a car, the options are either to 1) The Healthy Choice -Walk to the bus stop -Wait for the bus -Take the bus several miles away -Walk to the grocery store -Buy fresh groceries -Walk back to the stop, this time carrying a bunch of bulky bags -Wait for the bus -Take the bus several miles -Walk to your home, still carrying the bags or: 2) The Unhealthy Choice -Walk to the convenience store or fast food place down the block -Buy cheap processed crap -Walk home In both scenarios, you have to repeat the process every few days, since there's only so much you can carry. Reading over the steps for Option 1, you may notice that it's very time-consuming, and has the potential to be more expensive than Option 2. When you're working for subsistence wages, you may not have a lot of time to spend on grocery shopping. So really the options are more like 1) Eat cheap crap or 2) Starve
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Aug 7, 2015 23:53
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Pththya-lyi posted:I'm glad you brought this up. Have you ever heard of a food desert? It's an urban area where it's difficult to obtain fresh, healthy food, especially if one doesn't have a car. About 23.5 million Americans live in food deserts, and over half of them are low income. If you live in a food desert and you don't have a car, the options are either to Something something time preferences something something inevitability of flourishing free market in children.
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Aug 8, 2015 00:08
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Plastics, what are your thoughts on decentralized crypto-currencies as an alternative to state-issued fiat money?
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Aug 8, 2015 00:12
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heh i bet that guy is a real idiot, and not at all a troll. i look forward to many extremely stupid, but in good faith, arguments to come. hehe what a dumbass i can't wait to see the brutal owns omg 
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Aug 8, 2015 01:10
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Pththya-lyi posted:An essay I've read (but can't find on Google right now) gives the classic example of the man who steals bread from a merchant to feed his starving family. The merchant has more than enough bread to meet her needs, so taking some of her bread won't threaten her life: the family's right to live trumps the merchant's right to have a lot of bread. But what if, rather than bread, the merchant had a bunch of Xboxes? In that case, the man would not be justified in stealing, because nobody needs an Xbox to live. Well, suppose you got a large starving family. Is it wrong to steal a truckload of bread to feed them? And, what if your family don't like bread? They like... cigarettes? Now, what if instead of giving them away, you sold them at a price that was practically giving them away. Would that be a crime?
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Aug 8, 2015 01:20
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Gold is a safe* investment. *loses 40% of its value in 4 years.
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Aug 8, 2015 01:26
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Government can't help but be evil and mind control and we need to transcend it though. And grow big Zapatista mustaches.
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Aug 8, 2015 01:31
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President Kucinich posted:Gold is a safe* investment. But... but... hyper inflation!
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Aug 8, 2015 01:32
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Muscle Tracer posted:heh i bet that guy is a real idiot, and not at all a troll. i look forward to many extremely stupid, but in good faith, arguments to come. hehe what a dumbass i can't wait to see the brutal owns omg Someone like you would never fall for a troll, though, right? Not like those goony-goons. What goons they are. But you, you are so much smarter and better than them that you have to tell them how much better you are than them. You're so great and not at all an idiot. I tip my hat to you, goon sire.
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Aug 8, 2015 01:42
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How much you wanna bet there's another spike in gold prices starting around this time next year?
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