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H.P. Hovercraft posted:Well, suppose you got a large starving family. Is it wrong to steal a truckload of bread to feed them? Hell no! 
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Aug 8, 2015 02:46
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Wow, lots of posts here! I am sorry for people I overlook but I just do not have the time to reply to everyone.Disinterested posted: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? The idea that death is ultimate alienation of freedom is not one that I accept for the purposes of our World as it exists. It is true in and of itself but we all die anyway so on the largest scale it does not matter whether that is tomorrow or a hundred years from now. We can not make decisions after death, only while Alive. That is a tautology. But we can make choices while alive which cause death or which risk it. People can commit suicide and can play on the railroad tracks and can join the military and there is no paradox there. There are very good reasons that a slave might not be willing to let themselves suffer and die, they might have hope for the future or they might believe suicide is a sin or they might think they can fight for and win their freedom. But the CHOICE to endure punishments and even be murdered is completely real. Historically states have been a lot more ready and willing to act as enforcers of slavery though (even if we stay purely within the boundaries of historical slavery) so I am not sure why the change in the last century or two is seen as enough to absolve them of all suspicion. Most of the other threads in Debate and Discussion are in fact about state Powers going much too far! But most people think this is something that can be Fixed by reform or even the violent imposition of a supposedly different states. States are only different in degree but not in their natures. Oh let me edit this so that I say that the degree can be really important. I would definitely prefer to live in today's western world than like in Russia 1000 years ago! Who What Now posted: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. I do not think that a rational actor needs perfect information. It would be silly if I said that communism can not work because the perfect Communist can not exist, a Marxist would say people need to be suitable ENOUGH for the system to function rather than actually completely and totally and utterly perfect for it. Modern democracies do not have perfectly informed voters but most people would say they are disfunctional and imperfect systems rather than systems that do not and can not work because of that. It is the same thing with my belief that an anarchistic system built on libertarian principles needs enough opeople who are good enough but not universally perfect. It is the same as Caros asked about Somalia too. I do not think any of us would say our preferred system would work or be very good if it came about because of violence and the collapse through incompetence of whatever came first. The democracies that are most stable are the oldest ones like America and England because the citizens of those places are well used to how it all works. Even if we could prove that one system is perfect (whatever that system is) then it would still take time to implement it and to get people used to how it works whether that system is Liberal democracy or anachist capitalism or communism or fascism or feudalism. Caros posted:Guys, go easy on him we lost jrod because you were all too mean to him. Morality is absolute and not at all subjective*. Lots of societies came up with lots of ideas about how to explain the motion of the stars in the night sky. It does not change the structure of the galaxy or the movements of the universe or the rules of gravity. The same is true with morality. Lots of societies have come up with lots of ideas about defining and enforcing Morality but our inability to scientifically prove morality (yet) does not mean objective and absolute morality does not exist. I think that morality is dictated by the fact that we are all individual minds. We can share ideas and we can tell what other people are feeling from face expressions or we can force other people to profess our ideas but everything ultimately comes from our factual mental individuality. With your iPhone I would assume you own it because you bought it with money you came into legally. To me that means you 100% own it and no matter what society says you still own it in principle even if not in fact. Would you really just accept it if 51% of people said you don't own your iPhone and it was given to someone else? No! You might accept them saying that it is more IMPORTANT to use it elsewhere but that is them convincing you that something is a good idea not moral proof of the rightness or wrongness of it. Or if you do not accept that You would go to the courts to say that this law is wrong using whatever laws exist in your country, like the Constitution in America. But you would not do this thing because you think the Constitution needs to be perfectly applied to your property rights in the absctract. You would do it because you would be willing to use this tool to protect something you believed was right. Some people might take other actions like civil disobedience or even violent resistance or they might destroy their property rather than let it be Unjustly taken from them. And some people would try to convince society that there is a better way of doing things or that there is a moral reason not to take your phone just how I am trying to do with taxes as a whole. I recognize that no matter what might be true does not mean that we can expect to implement it just by pointing it out! People need to be convinced of why something is a good idea or not. * On Earth. This could all be very different in an Alien species that has Psychic links or something! Oh and you are all is right about gold and that was a bad example. I was just trying to explain that I am not a goldbug! Metals are sometimes bad investments but maybe if you buy now and the price bounces back up?? That is how to profit after all, buy low and sell high!
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Aug 8, 2015 02:48
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Can you define what you mean when you say "Rational Actor" then? Because without accurate information how can someone rationally make an informed decision about anything at all? E: Actually I do say that Communism is impossible because we do not have perfect communists. That's not the least bit controversial to say.
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Aug 8, 2015 02:53
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also stop capitalizing words in the middle of a sentence to try to add importance to them, it's literally a thing crazy people do
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Aug 8, 2015 02:58
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Plastics posted:Wow, lots of posts here! I am sorry for people I overlook but I just do not have the time to reply to everyone. Be gentle, we've been hurt before.
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Aug 8, 2015 03:23
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Plastics posted:Wow, lots of posts here! I am sorry for people I overlook but I just do not have the time to reply to everyone. Aww, see this is why I don't smacktalk libertarians when they first arrive. I am curious tho, do you gently caress watermelons? Thus far no libertarian has been clear on this important issue.  quote:The idea that death is ultimate alienation of freedom is not one that I accept for the purposes of our World as it exists. It is true in and of itself but we all die anyway so on the largest scale it does not matter whether that is tomorrow or a hundred years from now. We can not make decisions after death, only while Alive. That is a tautology. But we can make choices while alive which cause death or which risk it. People can commit suicide and can play on the railroad tracks and can join the military and there is no paradox there. As other posters have Pointed out you should stop Capitalizing random Words. Sorry, it just bugs me. quote:Historically states have been a lot more ready and willing to act as enforcers of slavery though (even if we stay purely within the boundaries of historical slavery) so I am not sure why the change in the last century or two is seen as enough to absolve them of all suspicion. Most of the other threads in Debate and Discussion are in fact about state Powers going much too far! But most people think this is something that can be Fixed by reform or even the violent imposition of a supposedly different states. States are only different in degree but not in their natures. Oh let me edit this so that I say that the degree can be really important. I would definitely prefer to live in today's western world than like in Russia 1000 years ago! I suspect the reasoning that states have been absolved is that slavery has been abolished as a modern institution through wars and laws at the state level. We had slaves, then the governments of the world passed laws and we no longer had slaves. Absent those laws I suspect Canada could and would still have slavery in much larger than the underground amount we currently have. Despite what the Politically Incorrect Guide to American History (or whatever) might have told you slavery is very profitable and the market would be happy to utilize this aspect of humanity were it legal. Sex Slavery for example, is still a thing despite the existence of laws preventing it. It is disingenuous to suggest that it would not be significantly more prevalent were it legal. quote:I do not think that a rational actor needs perfect information. It would be silly if I said that communism can not work because the perfect Communist can not exist, a Marxist would say people need to be suitable ENOUGH for the system to function rather than actually completely and totally and utterly perfect for it. Modern democracies do not have perfectly informed voters but most people would say they are disfunctional and imperfect systems rather than systems that do not and can not work because of that. It is the same thing with my belief that an anarchistic system built on libertarian principles needs enough people who are good enough but not universally perfect. I have a bit of a different take on this one. I'll preface my point here by saying that rational actors can exist without perfect information, even if the choices they make can be very poor as a result. You argued earlier that you believed that rational actors could exist absent the state, but I'm not sure you know what we mean when we say rational actors. A rational actor is a relatively specific term that I'll swipe from my textbook: In terms of decision making, a rational actor perfectly maximizes his utility (or expected utility) with respect to his preferences and the information available to him. See, the problem with your 'states make people not be rational actors' argument is that people are not rational. I for example, am choosing to argue with an online libertarian rather than working on my next book, something that is a horrible waste from an economic perspective. Perhaps more pertinently, there are people who reject vaccines based on implicit, irrational biases. People buy lottery tickets, wear certain bits of clothing to sporting events and so on. Human beings are not rational, we are faulty meat computers with lovely pattern recognition algorithms. Yet for many of the libertarian ideologies to succeed human beings need to be rational actors. For a real world example, take racism. The standard libertarian canard on this issue is that racist establishments would go out of business if they were overly racist. The 'rational actor' belief would suggest that such businesses would never be openly racist because they would close, yet real world examples have shown this to be far from the case. It turns out racism is irrational and people will support racist or homophobic businesses even if they have to go out of their way to do so. quote:Morality is absolute and not at all subjective*. Lots of societies came up with lots of ideas about how to explain the motion of the stars in the night sky. It does not change the structure of the galaxy or the movements of the universe or the rules of gravity. The same is true with morality. Lots of societies have come up with lots of ideas about defining and enforcing Morality but our inability to scientifically prove morality (yet) does not mean objective and absolute morality does not exist. I think that morality is dictated by the fact that we are all individual minds. We can share ideas and we can tell what other people are feeling from face expressions or we can force other people to profess our ideas but everything ultimately comes from our factual mental individuality. Do you have anything to base this on other than your own subjective experience? You allude to the fact that we cannot prove (yet) that morality is objective but beyond that you provide nothing more conclusive than the fact that many societies developed somewhat similar moral codes. I mean, not to be cruel here but this paragraph is a bit of a word salad that is difficult to even parse in and legitimate fashion. What does the fact that we are all individual minds have to do with universal, objective morality for example. What does empathy have to do with our mental individuality? I suppose I'll reiterate my question once more, from whence comes this absolute morality? If it's god then say that and we'll move on because I'm not here to prove or disprove the existence of god. Absent god however I'm really sort of at a loss as to how you can ascribe universal morality to anything other than some weird desire for there to be such a thing in contravention of all evidence. My counterpoint in favor of subjective morality actually puts context to the first part of your argument. You say societies developed somewhat similar moral codes, but if morality were objective and absolute, why are they merely similar? Even the most utterly heinous acts by today's standard have been commonplace in history. The aztecs engaged in human sacrifice. Spousal rape was the norm until the last century or so in the first world. Pre-historic humans engaged in ritual cannibalism. If there is some objective morality that matched up to modern standards then it strikes me as odd that we only recently civilized our way into acceptance of it. Moral subjectivity is visible throughout history, slavery is abhorent, except when it is not. Murder is wrong, except for soldiers in war. Adultery is immoral, except some societies don't care. Human morality as we know it is entirely a result of culture, and the morality that we do have seems to have come into being largely to disincentivize problem behavior. Murder isn't wrong because Mar'khet the dark lord of economics deems it so, but because it was a problematic behavior that everyone agreed we shouldn't do. Theft, rape, adultery, slavery the list goes on and on. Things become immoral because people decide they should be, not because there is some universal constant that no one can understand. Even if we accept your thesis, I'd argue it is irrelevant. If we can't prove that morality is objective, then it is pretty much by definition subjective. If we can't say "Here is the objective way humans are meant to act that is good, and here is the way they should not act that is bad" then all we are doing is making our best guess at an objectivity that may or may not exist, which is subjective. quote:With your iPhone I would assume you own it because you bought it with money you came into legally. To me that means you 100% own it and no matter what society says you still own it in principle even if not in fact. Would you really just accept it if 51% of people said you don't own your iPhone and it was given to someone else? No! You might accept them saying that it is more IMPORTANT to use it elsewhere but that is them convincing you that something is a good idea not moral proof of the rightness or wrongness of it. Or if you do not accept that You would go to the courts to say that this law is wrong using whatever laws exist in your country, like the Constitution in America. I feel you're missing the crux of my argument here. It isn't a literal argument about ownership of my phone but about ownership in general. First off, stop and actually think about what it would mean if 51% of people disagreed with my ownership of the phone. I'm canadian so that would mean roughly 17.6 million people would disagree with my ownership of that phone. That is pretty dire when it comes to ownership. If 51% of canadians thought I didn't own my home it is hard to argue to argue that I actually own my home in any meaningful way. But lets take that further. 96% of americans consider paying taxes to be their civic duty. To bring this back to my original argument that means, in effect, that 96% of your fellow citizens don't believe that your taxes belong to you. So do they actually belong to you in any meaningful way? Certainly not. If you try to keep them you'll get penalized and possibly Denzelled for some quality prison time if you are engaged in significant evasion. Even in your original example you'll see that the property, like morality, is subjective. If 51% (or whatever majority) of Canadians agreed that they could take my phone, then the fact that I might personally think it is my phone is rather irrelevant is it not? The police are going to roll up and take the phone the same way they'd take a TV I swiped from someone's house because as far as society and the law are concerned, it doesn't belong to me. And before you suggest it, no I am not suggesting mob rule. All of this discussion about majority is still subject to laws, checks, balances and the like. I guess what I'm getting at, to bring it around to your post, is that all of this is subjective and entirely a matter of point of view. The entire argument in your post is based under the assumption that I am morally in the right by arguing that the government can't take my things, but take a moment and look at it from the perspective of the other side. From the perspective of society the tax evader is a thief. He is someone who gains all the advantages of society and gives back less or even nothing rather than his due. Ultimately I think your argument is wrongheaded which is why very few of your fellow citizens agree with you. People don't agree that taxation is immoral, nor do they agree with the idea that the libertarian way of doing things is a better way. But we are all ears.  quote:* On Earth. This could all be very different in an Alien species that has Psychic links or something! Why would the objective morality be different for an alien species? If anything you'd think that the aliens would have an objective morality rather than a subjective one since they could all intrinsically agree on what is right and wrong. I'm beginning to think that you have these two words totally reversed. quote:Oh and you are all is right about gold and that was a bad example. I was just trying to explain that I am not a goldbug! Metals are sometimes bad investments but maybe if you buy now and the price bounces back up?? That is how to profit after all, buy low and sell high! In the long run gold prices could indeed go back up. But in the long run we are all dead.
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Aug 8, 2015 03:53
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lol, as other people have already probably said the capitalization of various words that shouldn't be capitalized points out that you are a crazy person without even having to look at the actual content of your posts.
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Aug 8, 2015 04:10
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Cnidaria posted:lol, as other people have already probably said the capitalization of various words that shouldn't be capitalized points out that you are a crazy person without even having to look at the actual content of your posts. I'm having a lot of fun imagining him as Nicaloi Malthus of the Jade Falcon clan, complete with bizarre emphasis on seemingly random words and the horrible genetic inbreeding that prevents him from controlling the sound of his voice/eyebrow movements. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9-cAom5vJg
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Aug 8, 2015 04:14
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Why do crazy people just capitalize various unimportant words in their manifestos. At first I thought maybe this guy was German and didn't get English capitalization but no he does verbs too.
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Aug 8, 2015 04:37
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It's literally a thing schizophrenics do. Take that as you will.
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Aug 8, 2015 04:38
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Who What Now posted:It's literally a thing schizophrenics do. Take that as you will. He should aspire to be a tenth as insightful and articulate as Pester Joan. 
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Aug 8, 2015 04:40
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Plastics posted:we all die anyway so on the largest scale it does not matter whether that is tomorrow or a hundred years from now. Ergo ipso facto, gently caress you got mine, get hosed you filthy poors *opens fire on a crowded movie theater*
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Aug 8, 2015 06:46
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Who What Now posted:It's literally a thing schizophrenics do. Take that as you will. he might be german, we capitalize all nouns
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Aug 8, 2015 09:12
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Plastics posted:It is true in and of itself but we all die anyway so on the largest scale it does not matter whether that is tomorrow or a hundred years from now. If you argue that we can all make rational choices throughout our lives, even if they may shorten it or reduce its quality, there is still one major choice that we have forced on us without our consent, that of our creation as a conscious being. To what extent should someone who has coerced another conscious agent into existence be held responsible for their welfare?
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Aug 8, 2015 12:48
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VitalSigns posted:Why do crazy people just capitalize various unimportant words in their manifestos. At first I thought maybe this guy was German and didn't get English capitalization but no he does verbs too. From what PJ has said, a lot of schizophrenics' ideas are very abstract and difficult to put into words, so they "borrow" a term from English and then capitalize it to try to denote that it's different than the normal meaning. Then they just forget to explain the difference, or don't bother because of that "difficult to put into words" thing. It's not unique to schizophrenics though. Philosophers sometimes do it, but they usually remember to include the bit where they tell you what they're talking about. And people who are trying to write philosophically sometimes do it to mimic them. I'm Guilty of it myself from Time to Time. Plastics posted:Historically states have been a lot more ready and willing to act as enforcers of slavery though (even if we stay purely within the boundaries of historical slavery) so I am not sure why the change in the last century or two is seen as enough to absolve them of all suspicion. Most of the other threads in Debate and Discussion are in fact about state Powers going much too far! But most people think this is something that can be Fixed by reform or even the violent imposition of a supposedly different states. States are only different in degree but not in their natures. Oh let me edit this so that I say that the degree can be really important. I would definitely prefer to live in today's western world than like in Russia 1000 years ago! That's a hell of an assertion, and I'd love to see you back it up. You're saying that the only difference between, say, the United States and the Golden Horde is "the degree?" The degree of what, by the way? Plastics posted:Oh and you are all is right about gold and that was a bad example. I was just trying to explain that I am not a goldbug! Metals are sometimes bad investments but maybe if you buy now and the price bounces back up?? That is how to profit after all, buy low and sell high! This isn't unique to gold or precious metals at all though.
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Aug 8, 2015 13:50
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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. So the 'Yet it is' in the above section is agreeing that a mugging provokes a free choice on the part of the one being mugged. This carries the implication that coercion isn't a factor in deciding whether something is good or bad, because it's still free. A lot of libertarian thinking is based on the idea that, for example, taxes are theft and interfere with the free choice of where a person is allowed to put his money. Yet going by this mugging logic, they're still just as free as before. This raises the question: If regulations and such aren't coercive, what's the problem with them? You give a hint in your second sentence with the idea that government is doing their 'Thinking' (whatever that is, because it's apparently not thinking) for them. This is not unique to governments. Any group which is sufficiently large enough to have people in specialized areas do that. Companies have a QA department to determine whether a product is up to their standards. They have a marketing department to market the product. The QA department doesn't bother thinking very much about "How do we sell this?", because that's marketing's job. Similarly, the marketing department doesn't think much about "Are there any defects?", because that's QA's job. They might ask QA about it, but they'll just take QA's word for it, not think about it much themselves. So..unless your definition of "Thinking" somehow makes what I've said above irrelevant, one of the logical consequences of such a standard seems to be that no groups larger than probably 150, as an absolute max, can be formed. I suspect, as a practical matter, the actual number is going to be quite a bit lower, but there you go.
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Aug 8, 2015 14:15
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If our death doesn't matter on a grand scale, then I have a hard time seeing how our lives, the other choices that we make, or the institutions that dominate them matter either. I also find it weird that in a couple instances you have equated what a person owns with the person themselves. Though if that is the case then communism really is the answer, as it would be a state of everyone owning everything. Edit: And yes as buried alive states, if coercion simply isn't a factor in morality then what are libertarians complaining about? You can go about living your tax and regulation free life without worry of any government! paragon1 fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Aug 8, 2015 |
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Aug 8, 2015 14:15
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Plastics posted:But the CHOICE to endure punishments and even be murdered is completely real. You suggested that labour is not stolen because people choose to do a job. Now you say that slaves chose to work rather than be tortured and killed. So did highwaymen did not steal anything because they offered a choice (sorry, CHOICE)? Was slaves' labour not stolen? Are taxes are not stolen because you could choose to go to prison instead? Having a choice is not intrinsically good, let alone proof that you are free. On the contrary, giving people a choice between serving you and experiencing violence or death is the very essence of coercion. Oh dear me fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Aug 8, 2015 |
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Aug 8, 2015 14:20
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Oh, are we up to the part where the libertarian guy tries and fails to explain why government is coercive but the free market isn't?
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Aug 8, 2015 14:22
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WAR IS PEACE IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH 1 down, 2 to go.
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Aug 8, 2015 14:29
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Considering that, according to you, you have a choice of whether or not to be taxed, what exactly is your problem with it?
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Aug 8, 2015 14:59
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Wait morality is objective? Plastics where do you Stand on gay marriage? If I understand your position so far you should support it, but I'm Prepared to discover Idiosyncracies.
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Aug 8, 2015 17:36
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What is the standard libertarian stand on marriage anyway? It's a contract between two people, so that should make it good, but it's a contract that can only be validated by specific government employees, and wouldn't exist without the State, so that makes it bad?
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Aug 8, 2015 17:54
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Guavanaut posted:What is the standard libertarian stand on marriage anyway? Get the government out of the business of marriage. Ignore the fact that the concept of marriage beyond the emotional attachment is a bunch of societal rights and obligations that would be next to impossible to enforce without the role of government.
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Aug 8, 2015 17:58
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Without, yet, meaning to cast aspersions on Plastics in particular, libertarian discussion of marriage usually descends fairly quickly into arguing that age of consent laws are a violation of personal liberty.
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Aug 8, 2015 18:06
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So if slavery is voluntary, could you describe any particular status that isn't?
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Aug 8, 2015 18:24
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Actually, if slavery is voluntary then what possible problem could you have with it?
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Aug 8, 2015 18:27
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Who What Now posted:Actually, if slavery is voluntary then what possible problem could you have with it? I'm glad that he conceded that the government is his ally in willful existence so easily.
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Aug 8, 2015 18:30
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You have chosen not to kill yourself, therefore whatever status you are currently in is voluntary.
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Aug 8, 2015 18:31
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If slavery itself is not coercive because we have a choice, then by golly, we are all, every one of us, perfectly free. Rejoice, Libertarians! Perfect Freedom is upon us.
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Aug 8, 2015 19:32
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Who What Now posted: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. you're right and i was wrong, all of the posts on this page are Good and fun to read, i admit
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Aug 8, 2015 19:43
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Muscle Tracer posted:you're right and i was wrong, all of the posts on this page are Good and fun to read, i admit Usually it's things like random capitalization and the inability to type out words that aren't even swears that indicate a genuine crazy, that kind of nuanced weirdness is really hard to manufacture.
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Aug 8, 2015 23:59
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:Usually it's things like random capitalization and the inability to type out words that aren't even swears that indicate a genuine crazy, that kind of nuanced weirdness is really hard to manufacture. Plus throwing out aliens from another world as- well I'm not sure why he threw it out there, but it was there and it is not going away, generally also isn't a sign of mental stability when you're trying to make a good faith argument.
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Aug 9, 2015 00:06
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Okay I will try not to capitalize things as much, it is a habit I have and it makes sense to me but you're not the first people to point it out. I will try not to do it as much.  Buried alive posted:So the 'Yet it is' in the above section is agreeing that a mugging provokes a free choice on the part of the one being mugged. This carries the implication that coercion isn't a factor in deciding whether something is good or bad, because it's still free. A lot of libertarian thinking is based on the idea that, for example, taxes are theft and interfere with the free choice of where a person is allowed to put his money. Yet going by this mugging logic, they're still just as free as before. This raises the question: If regulations and such aren't coercive, what's the problem with them? You and some other people said similar things so I will try to clarify. I do not say that coercion is not a factor in making a choice, but that we can choose what extent we care. There are a lot of different possible hypotheticles here. If I am being mugged I can decide that my safety is more important or my money (or some people would say dignity, but I don't think most people would place dignity above not being stabbed??) but it does not mean the mugger is doing nothing wrong. He is using force to force someone to do something they would not otherwise do. Taxes are the same. I can choose to not pay them or try not to pay them but unless I am very clever or can pay someone very clever I will probably get in trouble. It is scary to me that when they could not get him for anything else the government could still get Al Capone on tax crimes! quote:You give a hint in your second sentence with the idea that government is doing their 'Thinking' (whatever that is, because it's apparently not thinking) for them. This is not unique to governments. Any group which is sufficiently large enough to have people in specialized areas do that. Companies have a QA department to determine whether a product is up to their standards. They have a marketing department to market the product. The QA department doesn't bother thinking very much about "How do we sell this?", because that's marketing's job. Similarly, the marketing department doesn't think much about "Are there any defects?", because that's QA's job. They might ask QA about it, but they'll just take QA's word for it, not think about it much themselves. What I mean is that the government is taking the responsibility for thinking upon itself. Okay let me give an example. Pretend you work for a food standard organization. If you are the government FDA then a lot of people will choose to believe you because they will think "Oh this is the government so they have my best interesta at heart" and they will not think for themselves about whether the evidence is good and reliable or not. Tomorrow if I started another FDA then a lot of people would ignore me because the government one already exists and they would assume it is better. And in the short term even if we got rid of the government FDA I think the private ones could be bad while people figured out the good ones and the bad ones! but once people learn how to do that they will be better at judging who is reliable and who is not. And the same is true with everything else. People who are against Libertarianism are probably right about the downsides in the short term because people would take time to adjust to the new way of doing things. But once that time was past it would be better because people would be thinking for themselves. Caros posted:I suspect the reasoning that states have been absolved is that slavery has been abolished as a modern institution through wars and laws at the state level. We had slaves, then the governments of the world passed laws and we no longer had slaves. Absent those laws I suspect Canada could and would still have slavery in much larger than the underground amount we currently have. Despite what the Politically Incorrect Guide to American History (or whatever) might have told you slavery is very profitable and the market would be happy to utilize this aspect of humanity were it legal. Sex Slavery for example, is still a thing despite the existence of laws preventing it. It is disingenuous to suggest that it would not be significantly more prevalent were it legal. Okay and that is good, and I think that states who worked to abolish slavery deserve to be praised for it. That is definitely good. But what happens if and when society decides that forcing someone into slavery is okay again? Three hundred years from now we might all say that the 19th to 21st centuries were crazy, those guys thought slavery was wrong! Then the government will be right back to supporting it again? quote:I have a bit of a different take on this one. I'll preface my point here by saying that rational actors can exist without perfect information, even if the choices they make can be very poor as a result. Okay I think that people were meaning this specific term when I did not mean the exact same thing as you. What I mean is that I think people will make the best Choices open to them to achieve the things they want. They might want to have food or shelter (everyone wants these!) so they will choose to get a job or claim entitlements to afford it. If I want to watch TV shows I can pirate them or I can pay for cable or I can get a Netflix Subscription. I might not make the best choices yes because my information is not perfect! But if people do not have perfect information how can governments have perfect information? They are just people too? The only difference is they can force their own information on other people! Remember Thalidomite?? quote:Do you have anything to base this on other than your own subjective experience? You allude to the fact that we cannot prove (yet) that morality is objective but beyond that you provide nothing more conclusive than the fact that many societies developed somewhat similar moral codes. I mean, not to be cruel here but this paragraph is a bit of a word salad that is difficult to even parse in and legitimate fashion. What does the fact that we are all individual minds have to do with universal, objective morality for example. What does empathy have to do with our mental individuality? I do not think that God exists so I do not believe that Morality comes from Him but even if there was a God the question would be is He WISE enough to know what is perfectly Moral and Good or is He actually MAKING the rules of Moralty? If it is the last one then that is no better than any other authority. I think the facts of the natural universe are what dictates what is Moral. Now I do not know if any people are smart enough yet to figure out what that exactly is but for me I think that my mind is my own sovereign being and my body is an extension of that because of physical factual attachment. Infringing on that sovereignty is Immoral, Evil, etc. quote:My counterpoint in favor of subjective morality actually puts context to the first part of your argument. You say societies developed somewhat similar moral codes, but if morality were objective and absolute, why are they merely similar? Even the most utterly heinous acts by today's standard have been commonplace in history. The aztecs engaged in human sacrifice. Spousal rape was the norm until the last century or so in the first world. Pre-historic humans engaged in ritual cannibalism. If there is some objective morality that matched up to modern standards then it strikes me as odd that we only recently civilized our way into acceptance of it. But if there is no Objective Morality then how can we say anything at all is Right or Wrong? It is all about circumstance in that case. The aztecs did nothing wrong because they believed sacrifices were needed for something. That does not mean they didn't kill people! Even if I am right and Morality is Objective then why does our Human differences of opinion matter? Historical societies also came up with lots of different ideas for how the universe worked, before we had telescopes and particle cannons and NASA and stuff but that does not mean that in the year 1015 that physics was subjective, only our interpretation of it. quote:Why would the objective morality be different for an alien species? If anything you'd think that the aliens would have an objective morality rather than a subjective one since they could all intrinsically agree on what is right and wrong. I'm beginning to think that you have these two words totally reversed. No because our Morality as I think of it is based on our FACTUAL INDEPENDENCE from each other mentally. So it does not work if you have some kind of psychic link together! That does not mean it is not objective though. Gravity breaks down at black holes but gravity is not subjective. Guavanaut posted:Where do you stand on antinatalism? I don't really care about antinatalism I don't think? You mean being opposed to having children? You are right that we do not get any say in whether we are created or not so it is probably immoral to create people! I had not actually thought of that before so thank you for pointing it out to me. Okay so if you do have a child how far are you responsible for it? That is a question that libertarians have definitely Struggled with but I think I have an answer. I think that if you cause someone harm and brain damage them that the proper Punishment is to be responsible for their care. If that was an accident than maybe that can be directly or if there is a danger they will hurt that person again then by paying for a carer and for things that person might need like railings to help get out of the bathtub and a ramp to their front door and things like that as well. So babies and toddlers and Children cannot take care of themselves 100% (but they do do it in increasing amounts over time) and someone else is responsible for this by bringing them into existence. So if we apply the same logic, the person or people who created that person should be responsible for the care of the Child until it is not needed anymore. Nolanar posted:That's a hell of an assertion, and I'd love to see you back it up. You're saying that the only difference between, say, the United States and the Golden Horde is "the degree?" The degree of what, by the way? The degree of Control they hold over the people they rule! Both of them have killed a lot of people and both of them impose requirements on their subjects (and both of them have flattened Bagdad!)
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Aug 9, 2015 03:04
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Have you ever hosed a watermelon
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Aug 9, 2015 03:06
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Caros posted:Get the government out of the business of marriage. Ignore the fact that the concept of marriage beyond the emotional attachment is a bunch of societal rights and obligations that would be next to impossible to enforce without the role of government. But never actually try to accomplish any of this, and take advantage of the state-provided benefits yourself, only when a gay person wants the same rights do you tell them that actually they should be fighting for your pet cause instead because government marriage is bad.
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Aug 9, 2015 03:39
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Plastics posted:You and some other people said similar things so I will try to clarify. I do not say that coercion is not a factor in making a choice, but that we can choose what extent we care. There are a lot of different possible hypotheticles here. If I am being mugged I can decide that my safety is more important or my money (or some people would say dignity, but I don't think most people would place dignity above not being stabbed??) but it does not mean the mugger is doing nothing wrong. He is using force to force someone to do something they would not otherwise do. Taxes are the same. I can choose to not pay them or try not to pay them but unless I am very clever or can pay someone very clever I will probably get in trouble. It is scary to me that when they could not get him for anything else the government could still get Al Capone on tax crimes! If you choose to not pay taxes despite living in a society that has been significantly improved by taxes then aren't you the mugger in this hypothetical? By your logic, it's okay to walk into a restaurant, eat a meal, and then refuse to pay, and it is the restaurant owner who is in the wrong when he tries to force payment out of you. But that conclusion is clearly absurd. This is why most of the world thinks that libertarians have absurd views quote:What I mean is that the government is taking the responsibility for thinking upon itself. Okay let me give an example. Pretend you work for a food standard organization. If you are the government FDA then a lot of people will choose to believe you because they will think "Oh this is the government so they have my best interesta at heart" and they will not think for themselves about whether the evidence is good and reliable or not. Tomorrow if I started another FDA then a lot of people would ignore me because the government one already exists and they would assume it is better. And in the short term even if we got rid of the government FDA I think the private ones could be bad while people figured out the good ones and the bad ones! but once people learn how to do that they will be better at judging who is reliable and who is not. And the same is true with everything else. People who are against Libertarianism are probably right about the downsides in the short term because people would take time to adjust to the new way of doing things. But once that time was past it would be better because people would be thinking for themselves. But you're ignoring the purpose of the FDA. The FDA exists to ensure that products are safe, not that products are delicious, appealing, useful, etc. There are great profit motives for creating rating agencies that address these other things. But food and drug safety should not be something that some people get to have and not others. Why should we tolerate an ecosystem where there are a bunch of FDAs, many of which are "bad"? What's the purpose of this? Why is a solution that requires people to waste a lot of extra time investigating the safety of their food superior to a solution where food is only allowed to be sold if it's safe to be consumed? I would argue that your system, even in the long-term where people get used to the idea of some ratings agencies being shittier or more corrupt than others, is still less efficient than the FDA as we have it today. In fact, you haven't offered any concrete advantages to your system at all. quote:Okay and that is good, and I think that states who worked to abolish slavery deserve to be praised for it. That is definitely good. But what happens if and when society decides that forcing someone into slavery is okay again? Three hundred years from now we might all say that the 19th to 21st centuries were crazy, those guys thought slavery was wrong! Then the government will be right back to supporting it again? How is this different than a bunch of libertarians deciding the same thing? What if in 50-100 years Human Property is seen as a natural and obvious tenet of Libertarianism by most Libertarians? Oh, that's an absurd and pointless hypothetical, you say? Hmm. I would argue that it is more likely that individuals would choose to believe that slavery is okay than it is for the majority of a nation to believe that slavery is okay. Ergo, slavery is more effectively abolished with a state than with an ancap libertarian society where everyone decides their own rules and morality. quote:Okay I think that people were meaning this specific term when I did not mean the exact same thing as you. What I mean is that I think people will make the best Choices open to them to achieve the things they want. They might want to have food or shelter (everyone wants these!) so they will choose to get a job or claim entitlements to afford it. If I want to watch TV shows I can pirate them or I can pay for cable or I can get a Netflix Subscription. I might not make the best choices yes because my information is not perfect! But if people do not have perfect information how can governments have perfect information? They are just people too? The only difference is they can force their own information on other people! Remember Thalidomite?? Yes, I do remember Thalidomide. Do you? Thalidomide was turned down by the FDA for consumer sale because the company producing Thalidomide refused to provide test results. In some countries with poorer safeguards (like Spain) the drug was sold for decades, even though the company producing Thalidomide was aware of the horrible birth effects that their drug was causing. It sounds like you're making an argument in favor of a strong FDA that can safeguard us from careless and morally bankrupt food and drug manufacturers.
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Aug 9, 2015 03:46
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Plastics posted:I do not think that God exists so I do not believe that Morality comes from Him but even if there was a God the question would be is He WISE enough to know what is perfectly Moral and Good or is He actually MAKING the rules of Moralty? If it is the last one then that is no better than any other authority. I think the facts of the natural universe are what dictates what is Moral. Now I do not know if any people are smart enough yet to figure out what that exactly is but for me I think that my mind is my own sovereign being and my body is an extension of that because of physical factual attachment. Infringing on that sovereignty is Immoral, Evil, etc. So 100% Subjective then.
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Aug 9, 2015 03:49
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Plastics posted:Taxes are the same. I can choose to not pay them or try not to pay them but unless I am very clever or can pay someone very clever I will probably get in trouble. Yes, you can in fact choose to steal from the government and our society by taking its resources and using its services and not paying your fair share for them. Why shouldn't you be punished for theft? E:f,b
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Aug 9, 2015 03:53
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Plastics posted:You and some other people said similar things so I will try to clarify. I do not say that coercion is not a factor in making a choice, but that we can choose what extent we care. There are a lot of different possible hypotheticles here. If I am being mugged I can decide that my safety is more important or my money (or some people would say dignity, but I don't think most people would place dignity above not being stabbed??) but it does not mean the mugger is doing nothing wrong. He is using force to force someone to do something they would not otherwise do. Plastics posted:Taxes are the same. I can choose to not pay them or try not to pay them but unless I am very clever or can pay someone very clever I will probably get in trouble. It is scary to me that when they could not get him for anything else the government could still get Al Capone on tax crimes! Oh no, Al Capone is in prison, how terrible  Ugh why isn't he free and running a murderous criminal organization, thanks Obama  Plastics posted:What I mean is that the government is taking the responsibility for thinking upon itself. Okay let me give an example. Pretend you work for a food standard organization. If you are the government FDA then a lot of people will choose to believe you because they will think "Oh this is the government so they have my best interesta at heart" and they will not think for themselves about whether the evidence is good and reliable or not. Tomorrow if I started another FDA then a lot of people would ignore me because the government one already exists and they would assume it is better. And in the short term even if we got rid of the government FDA I think the private ones could be bad while people figured out the good ones and the bad ones! but once people learn how to do that they will be better at judging who is reliable and who is not. And the same is true with everything else. People who are against Libertarianism are probably right about the downsides in the short term because people would take time to adjust to the new way of doing things. But once that time was past it would be better because people would be thinking for themselves. Plastics posted:Okay and that is good, and I think that states who worked to abolish slavery deserve to be praised for it. That is definitely good. But what happens if and when society decides that forcing someone into slavery is okay again? Three hundred years from now we might all say that the 19th to 21st centuries were crazy, those guys thought slavery was wrong! Then the government will be right back to supporting it again? How do you stop slavery without a state? Sex slavery is really popular and profitable, ditto agricultural slavery, and state action is the only successful known method of enforcement against it it: places with weak dysfunctional governments have more slavery, not less. Plastics posted:Okay I think that people were meaning this specific term when I did not mean the exact same thing as you. What I mean is that I think people will make the best Choices open to them to achieve the things they want. They might want to have food or shelter (everyone wants these!) so they will choose to get a job or claim entitlements to afford it. If I want to watch TV shows I can pirate them or I can pay for cable or I can get a Netflix Subscription. I might not make the best choices yes because my information is not perfect! But if people do not have perfect information how can governments have perfect information? They are just people too? The only difference is they can force their own information on other people! Remember Thalidomite?? Thalidomide? You mean that drug that was successfully kept out of the USA by the FDA? In places where the eeeeeevil FDA wasn't around to block it, like Canada and Europe, how many people read GSK's internal research, or were even able to understand the inadequacies of GSK's testing, or were even permitted access to it...oh that's right practically nobody and tens of thousands of people suffered from it. But not in America, thanks FDA! Thalidomide is a case for reforming and strengthening other countries' consumer protections, not for dismantling ours. Plastics posted:Okay so if you do have a child how far are you responsible for it? That is a question that libertarians have definitely Struggled with but I think I have an answer. I think that if you cause someone harm and brain damage them that the proper Punishment is to be responsible for their care. If that was an accident than maybe that can be directly or if there is a danger they will hurt that person again then by paying for a carer and for things that person might need like railings to help get out of the bathtub and a ramp to their front door and things like that as well. So babies and toddlers and Children cannot take care of themselves 100% (but they do do it in increasing amounts over time) and someone else is responsible for this by bringing them into existence. So if we apply the same logic, the person or people who created that person should be responsible for the care of the Child until it is not needed anymore. What about people who are born with disabilities and require lifelong care? Do you think "welp, just hope that the parents who rolled snake-eyes in the reproduction lottery happen to be wealthy enough to support you your whole life" is a good and moral system? Because it sounds to me like one that would lead to massive suffering on the parts of disabled children born to poor parents. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 03:58
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