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"peaceful production and free exchange" limits you to literally the things you dig out of the dirt and shape with your own hands, and that's assuming that nobody else has claim to the dirt you dug out out of and that it wasn't afforded to you by conquest, either by yourself or someone else. Everything else is built on coercion and theft, it is built into the commodities.
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Feb 7, 2021 04:00
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polymathy posted:There are two ways a person can become wealthy. The first is the economic means, i.e. peaceful production and free exchange. And the second is the political means, i.e. bribing politicians, using force and violence and otherwise gaming the system for their benefit. You really don't know what words mean, huh
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Feb 7, 2021 04:05
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I know you can't manage a youtube video very well but this one is less than six minutes and it's musical, I think it would be very educational. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7EgQXMV8nM
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Feb 7, 2021 04:07
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Lobster God posted:Literally the most basic check jrod: Wow, I wasn't aware that someone out there actually disagreed with Bennett. That sure disproves his research, right? Sarcasm aside, a point that is often levied against historians who criticize Lincoln such is DiLorenzo is that they must have some neo-Confederate sympathies or be Southern apologists or white racists. These charges are nearly always disingenuous, but they are common nonetheless. My point in citing Bennett was that, aside from his excellent scholarship, the fact that he is not a libertarian, has no sympathies or connections to neo-Confederates and happens to be a black man, this really undermines this line of argument. All Bennett did was go back to the original source documents to assess who Lincoln was without regard for the prevailing orthodoxies of contemporary Lincoln scholarship. I also want to point out that the phenomenon of historians getting stuff wrong en masse is not some weird occurrence but is fairly commonplace. Ever heard the expression "the victors write the history"? This is especially the case with historical scholarship about US presidents. We already see historians working hard to rehabilitate George W. Bush's legacy. Our grandchildren might be taught in school some day that Bush was one of our greatest presidents. It's pretty remarkable that you actually thought that pointing out that other historians disagreed with Bennett actually constituted an argument. Now, if you actually linked to proof of Bennett's supposed "faulty research" then that would have been a reasonable rebuttal.
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Feb 7, 2021 04:15
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polymathy posted:There are two ways a person can become wealthy. The first is the economic means, i.e. peaceful production and free exchange. And the second is the political means, i.e. bribing politicians, using force and violence and otherwise gaming the system for their benefit. Tsk, tsk. We went over this already. There is a, hrm, pardon the expression, third way: To inherit wealth.
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Feb 7, 2021 04:16
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Somfin posted:For those who don't know and don't want to watch the Shaun video (please do, it's really important and funny and worth your time), it's because IQ tests are normalised at a score of 100, and weighted to deliberately produce a bell curve from the results. This means the test's results are adjusted so that the average score, dead centre mean, was 100. I loving know that. Is that supposed to invalidate the concept or validity of IQ testing? Look, I have an above-average IQ but if I attended a physics conference with Stephen Hawking (when he was alive) and others whose IQ were above 150, I'd feel like they were speaking a different language. I'd be so far out of my depth trying to have a conversation with them about anything within that field. So what exactly is your point about IQ? For the record, I'm just not going to watch that video. You can feel free to summarize anything relevant that you think was said.
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Feb 7, 2021 04:29
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polymathy posted:I don't know of any You should stop there quote:We also recognize that businessmen would usually inevitably like to game the system in their favor. But the way to combat this is through market regulation, not State regulation. What...what do you think this means? 
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Feb 7, 2021 04:34
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polymathy posted:Look, I have an above-average IQ but if I attended a physics conference with Stephen Hawking (when he was alive) and others whose IQ were above 150, I'd feel like they were speaking a different language. I'd be so far out of my depth trying to have a conversation with them about anything within that field. I'm pretty sure you would also feel that way if I tried to explain the technical limitations of map design in half life 2, but that isn't because I am extremely intelligent but simply because I did that on and off for a few years and picked up a significant body of information about it, which it would also take you more than a few hours to absorb and build a set of meaning connections in your brain out of, because that is how information works. If I tell you that it's important that you use hint brushes to create visplanes which help divide the binary space partition into appropriate chunks to aid in geometry culling, because the compiler can't assign them intelligently, that probably sounds a bit like another language. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Feb 7, 2021 |
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Feb 7, 2021 04:34
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polymathy posted:Wow, I wasn't aware that someone out there actually disagreed with Bennett. That sure disproves his research, right? And... so what? Abraham Lincoln was not a perfect man, and he was forced into abolition through outside circumstances beyond his control. It doesn't change the fact that if he had ignored the South's secession, slavery would have continued. Not only would it have continued (it was the backbone of the entire Southern economy!), it would have expanded it into areas beyond agriculture. Without the North, the South would have been forced to develop an industrial base that they were largely missing, and they would have powered that development with more slavery. The result would have been an atrocity against humanity beyond anything that they had done before, and there is a very good chance it would continue to this day. This argument doesn't lead where you want it to.
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Feb 7, 2021 04:36
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OwlFancier posted:I'm pretty sure you would also feel that way if I tried to explain the technical limitations of map design in half life 2, but that isn't because I am extremely intelligent but simply because I did that on and off for a few years and picked up a significant body of information about it, which it would also take you more than a few hours to absorb and build a set of meaning connections in your brain out of, because that is how information works. I don't think he understands that people can be taught things. It's really just boomer logic; obviously someone either knows something or doesn't.
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Feb 7, 2021 04:38
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polymathy posted:I'd be so far out of my depth trying to have a conversation with them about anything within that field. You've just accurately summarized your participation in this thread.
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Feb 7, 2021 04:38
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I don't think he understands that people can be taught things. It's really just boomer logic; obviously someone either knows something or doesn't. It follows, really, that eveyone who actually speaks other languages is way more intelligent than him, because that is information he doesn't have.
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Feb 7, 2021 04:39
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OwlFancier posted:I'm pretty sure you would also feel that way if I tried to explain the technical limitations of map design in half life 2, but that isn't because I am extremely intelligent but simply because I did that on and off for a few years and picked up a significant body of information about it, which it would also take you more than a few hours to absorb and build a set of meaning connections in your brain out of, because that is how information works. Don't worry, I'm sure Jrod can run circles around us with his knowledge of pirating Blurays. C'mon, tell us about how to disable copy protection.
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Feb 7, 2021 04:40
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polymathy posted:Look, I have an above-average IQ Isn’t the ink still wet on your “I’ve never taken a formal iq test” line? C’mon son!
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Feb 7, 2021 04:40
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It's genuinely wild that the really important thing about stephen hawking was that he was super inherently smart, and not that he was a lifelong physicist who did physics a lot which meant that he knew a lot of things about physics and so when he talked technically about physics at a physics conference, if you didn't also know a lot about physics he would probably be quite hard to follow. It's not like he wrote books about physics aimed at people who didn't know a lot about physics or anything, no he is just intrinsically smart and therefore his thoughts would be entirely uninterpretable by other people. Which you would think would make him a bit of a useless physicist really but apparently not.
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Feb 7, 2021 04:43
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polymathy posted:Look, I have an above-average IQ Dunning_Kruger.txt
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Feb 7, 2021 04:44
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Caros posted:I've been waiting to get home to comment on this, and I'm sad you beat me to it. Yes I posted that link without as much critical thought as I should have. The reason I didn't apply more scrutiny is that the point I was making was a limited one, and I recognized that all estimates of Tesla's IQ are going to be imprecise and subject to error. All I was attempting to prove is that Tesla fits well into the "genius" IQ range according to most estimates. In my defense, when I'm on this site I'm usually attempting to debate 20 people at once, all of whom are coming at me with criticisms from all different angles, with topics veering off in every direction. It's also not like I'm writing a scholarly paper with footnotes. This is something I occasionally do in my spare time and I honestly should be spending much more time on things that are more productive. You're right, an IQ of 310 is ludicrous. However, there is a generally agreed upon consensus that Tesla was among the smartest people or his era. That's the only thing I was trying to prove. If I post a link that is dubious or has methodological problems, you're absolutely right to point it out. And if you are correct, I'm happy to acknowledge that I posted something hastily. But dwelling on minutia instead of the larger point being made, or failing to let things go, is a distraction. Why don't you tell me what you think Tesla's IQ was? Or do you think IQ is an invalid concept?
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Feb 7, 2021 04:46
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Wait, do you think you wouldn't understand physics experts because of their IQ and not because they have studied the field for decades and you haven't?
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Feb 7, 2021 04:48
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Somfin posted:And, again, it's not just definitionally average, it's intentionally definitionally average. Modern humans taking older IQ tests usually score higher than 100, because the average person is smarter than they used to be (due to better education, nutrition, and the general movement of knowledge from "cutting edge" into "foundation of new cutting edge"), so the tests are continually refactored to produce the "correct" average IQ score of 100, with a normal distribution around that score. This is the key thing- the test is built to produce the outcome the testers believe should be produced, rather than, as IQ adherents believe, the test genuinely assessing the actual Again, I'm not going to watch that video, but I don't understand the argument you're making. Obviously I understand that 100 is the average and is continually re-calibrated when the average changes. How does this disprove the validity of the test? Putting aside the methodological issues around the IQ test, do you believe that human intelligence differs between people?
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Feb 7, 2021 04:52
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polymathy posted:Again, I'm not going to watch that video, but I don't understand the argument you're making. So wait, you can dump entire books on us that you want us to read and pick apart, but we can't ask you to watch a video? Yeah, it's pretty long, but I watched it yesterday and it's seriously good. Throw it on in the background while you're making dinner, jesus.
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Feb 7, 2021 04:55
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polymathy posted:You can feel free to summarize anything relevant that you think was said. Okay, you want to know why you're here, posting on an internet forum, and not making something of yourself in the real world? You know why we know JRodefeld as that shithead who keeps the Libertarian thread alive, and not as the founder of a major company that operates at a massive profit? It's got nothing to do with you being stupid, JRod, and it's got nothing to do with the Government keeping you down. It's got everything to do with you being a lazy scumbag. This- this right here- is your response to someone asking you to dedicate three hours of your time- just three loving hours!- to doing even a modicum of research. The video is about doing one's research, checking one's sources, checking their sources, making sure what's being said actually follows from those sources, which means that the creator had to look through the bibliography of The Bell Curve to find what its data is based on when it declares that right-wing policy is the correct option because I'm not telling you, you'll have to watch the loving video. Proper research to be able to say the poo poo you're saying in this thread takes days, maybe weeks or even months, and upwards of hundreds of dollars to secure the necessary texts to check all of the facts. I'm asking you for three hours. I've brought this here to you, offered it up on a silver platter for your education, free of charge, and you now want me to compose cliff's notes for you? On my time? For free? To explain to you why a video about The Bell Curve is relevant to your claim that people with 160+ IQs should be allowed to do whatever they want and the rest of us should just follow in their gods-guided footsteps? All so that you can more easily dismiss what it has to say? It's not good enough for me to bring you the chilled grapes, no, they must be peeled by hand, chewed for you, and dumped into your sagging maw just so you can spit them out? No! gently caress off, you lazy scumbag! It's no wonder you dedicate so much of your time to figuring out why someone else is responsible for your lovely life instead of actually changing anything. The second, the very loving second, someone suggests that maybe you'll need to do even a tiny amount of work, like click on a video and sit there watching it, or apologise for saying a country with several massively socialised governmental systems runs primarily in accordance with libertarian values, or acknowledge- just acknowledge!- that your loving heroes all, universally, harbour horrific racism, you cringe backward into the dark, crying out that it's too hard. You need us to do it for you, watch and summarise it for you so that you don't have to experience it, ignore it for you so that you don't have to apologise, rewrite history for you so that you actually only ever liked good people. You ask for so much and give so little. gently caress off, you lazy scumbag.
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Feb 7, 2021 05:02
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Somfin posted:Not really? Like, the urge behind trying to figure out what IQ actually measures is fairly benign, and a bunch of folks are genuinely convinced that g exists in a completely spherical cow way. I could argue the same thing about Leftist discomfort or outright hostility toward the concept of IQ. If we accept that general intelligence differs dramatically between people, and that this difference can be measured, this strikes a blow against their egalitarian suppositions about how the world works or ought to work. I'm not using IQ to justify my beliefs. I should also mention that I regard a person of lower intelligence but higher moral character to be a far better person than someone of higher intelligence but lower moral character. Some of the most dangerous men on this planet are immoral sociopaths with sky-high IQs. My point in raising the topic of IQ and intelligence differences is that in a free society there are going to be natural hierarchies based on human differences. If these hierarchies are based on competence and not power, then we shouldn't be opposed to them. The constant push for democracy within the workplace or outside of it can be counterproductive if it reduces the ability of gifted individuals to excel. As I've repeated so many goddamn times, I don't have any particular objection to co-ops. However, your side argues that traditional employer-employee relationships based on hierarchical decision-making are inherently exploitative and should be outlawed. This is what I"m opposed to.
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Feb 7, 2021 05:03
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Jrod you cannot argue that you think workplace democracy is bad but that worker co-ops are not, a worker co-op is a democratic workplace, if workplace democracy is bad then so are co-ops.
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Feb 7, 2021 05:06
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polymathy posted:I should also mention that I regard a person of lower intelligence but higher moral character to be a far better person than someone of higher intelligence but lower moral character. "Higher moral character" and "lower moral character" mean nothing without explanation. "Lower intelligehce" and "higher intelligence" mean nothing without explanation. Watch the video.
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Feb 7, 2021 05:06
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Also why are the most dangerous people on the planet "high IQ and low moral character"? Why aren't the most dangerous people on the planet the ones with the most structural power? Some people on the planet have the capability to start a nuclear war almost unilaterally, regardless of what their character might be, the fact that that position exists to be occupied by anybody makes whoever does easily one of the most dangerous people on the planet. A loaded shotgun has no moral character but it is still a dangerous object.
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Feb 7, 2021 05:10
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OwlFancier posted:Also why are the most dangerous people on the planet "high IQ and low moral character"? Why aren't the most dangerous people on the planet the ones with the most structural power? Some people on the planet have the capability to start a nuclear war almost unilaterally, regardless of what their character might be, the fact that that position exists to be occupied by anybody makes whoever does easily one of the most dangerous people on the planet. I wonder what JRod thinks of the moral character of someone who thinks that there will and should be an open child market in their ideal society?
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Feb 7, 2021 05:13
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polymathy posted:Look, I have an above-average IQ If you put any stock in IQ then I'm sorry to say this my dude, but you're supporting Eugenics. IQ tests are just a coat of paint over 'And we should purge the parasites holding us back' by trying to put a quantifiable number on who is 'good' and who is 'bad'. polymathy posted:Again, I'm not going to watch that video, but I don't understand the argument you're making. Brain chemistry differs between everyone, but trying to say that you are smarter because you can do X is dumb because different people are skillful at different things. Once again the only purpose of an IQ test is to try and weed out the people that the maker of the test deems 'lesser'. (usually the poors and minorities.) It also tends to just be based on how well someone's been taught. Golly imagine that, the people who have been to school tend to score higher on an IQ test.
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Feb 7, 2021 05:20
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polymathy posted:If we accept that general intelligence differs dramatically between people, and that this difference can be measured, In looking I have seen no evidence that IQ tests are a general measure of intelligence (if it even exists). They are at best a measure of how much of a Liberal European education you have had.
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Feb 7, 2021 05:26
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polymathy posted:My point in raising the topic of IQ and intelligence differences is that in a free society there are going to be natural hierarchies based on human differences. If these hierarchies are based on competence and not power, then we shouldn't be opposed to them. The constant push for democracy within the workplace or outside of it can be counterproductive if it reduces the ability of gifted individuals to excel. I also want to take a minute to take a big poo poo on this particular idea specifically. This really assumes that the biggest problem with the way our society orders its production is that really smart people cannot reach the optimal positions. Which, like, I don't think is true? I think there are way bigger concerns with production that workplace democracy looks to address that have absolutely gently caress all to do with whether a hypothetical big brain boy can get his preferred job. Even if a more democratized workplace meant people somehow were not able to reach the full potential of their productive capability, who cares? Maximising productive output is not something we need to worry about in tyool 2021. We can already produce plenty of the necessities of life for everyone, the challenge today is figuring out ways to limit production of useless shite and figure out a way to distribute that production to people who need it. And that is ultimately a political problem, not a productive one. Hence a proposed solution is changing the political structure of our workplaces as a means of changing the political structure of wider society. The effect this may or may not have on our presumed brain geniuses is entirely beside the point. It is deck chairs on the titanic level of unimportant.
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Feb 7, 2021 05:30
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polymathy posted:All I was attempting to prove is that Tesla fits well into the "genius" IQ range according to most estimates. Why? Everyone knows Tesla had some really great ideas and some kooky ones, why did you feel the need to "prove" that Tesla had a genius IQ? You just look like an idiot when your supposed proof is people going "Tesla had some really great ideas, he probably had an impossibly high IQ" instead of anything founded in, well, anything. I don't think we need to estimate Tesla's IQ to say anything about him besides what his IQ was.
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Feb 7, 2021 05:30
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OwlFancier posted:Why waste the labour of countless workers driving themselves to work, the fuel to run the cars, the maintenence of the roads, the land to store the cars while the worker isn't driving it, the healthcare expenses resulting from accidents, the materials making things that will be rusting in a junkyard before long, instead of centralizing the transportation of labour, the operation of thousands of tonnes of transport capacity in a handful of crew, the energy efficiency of steel on rail, the longevity of locomotives, the opportunity to standardize parts and production of the entire transportation fleet? Imagine the great things you could accomplish with all that saved labour. Do you own a car? Have you ever driven around in a car? Frankly, I don't believe you when you say you'd want to live in a society without cars. People who make claims like this nearly always live a lifestyle that contradicts their stated beliefs. I can fully understand the argument that we don't need to own as many cars as we do, or that more people ought to use public transit or carpool. What I can't understand is lamenting the fact that we have cars at all.
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Feb 7, 2021 05:34
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Retroactively assigning people IQ scores and then building your beliefs off of those scores that you made up is really stupid and it's painfully obvious why. I wonder if The Bell Curve does anything like that? I guess someone would have to watch the video to know.
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Feb 7, 2021 05:34
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polymathy posted:Do you own a car? Have you ever driven around in a car? Yes I own a car and drive a car, because my job requires me to have a car. I used to not have a car and get the bus and I did prefer that for the most part, but they cut the bus services and I couldn't get enough hours at work which necessitated me getting a car to try and pick up work. And of course now that I have a car and have to pay insurance and MOT I use the car for things I would previously have used the bus for, because if I own a car it works out cheaper to use the car, this is part and parcel of how car ownership and car production is self-incentivizing. If I had public transport that ran regularly and reliably, perhaps necessitated by the lack of cars as it once was, I would be much happier not to own a car, because I do not like driving the car and I especially do not like paying for the car. The fact that I and people like me are pushed to own cars is part of why public transport is as poor as it is. I want to live in a world without cars, I like riding the bus, hell I would even quite like to bike if there were any infrastructure to support it, such as perhaps large roads without any motor vehicles on them. But the fact that I live in a world where cars are the default mode of transport means that I, too, am required to own one in order to be able to get enough work to live. It is the existence of cars as a technology and the lack of effort to eliminate them which creates this state of affairs. And whether i personally do or do not own a car does not change that. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Feb 7, 2021 |
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Feb 7, 2021 05:39
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Dirk the Average posted:Well, we already know that you've not ever worked in a large company for even a day of your life, so I guess that leaves you with defining "entrepreneur" as "person who sells pirated dvds." I absolutely have worked at large companies. My brief job history includes having a paper route at 13, working at McDonald's at 17, then Taco Bell. Then I worked as an engineer for Santa Barbara city doing AutoCAD drafting work, surveying and overseeing projects. I've worked on graphic design for several additional companies and now I work on several online businesses that I own. As for the "person who sells pirated dvds", this has been brought up several times so let me clarify. This is a hobby. It's a side project I do in my spare time.
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Feb 7, 2021 05:44
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polymathy posted:Do you own a car? Have you ever driven around in a car? i own and drive a car and i heartily say: gently caress cars, cars suck and are a significant part of the world-ruination we've got going on, and a huge piece of the social alienation problems in the us (i mean that's the whole point of suburbs generally as well as other systems, but it's bad) just build a shitload of microdistricts and reliable public transit asap plz in conclusion, watch the video
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Feb 7, 2021 05:46
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polymathy posted:Do you own a car? Have you ever driven around in a car? Because cars and the "free market" and a whole laundry list of other technologies (markets _are_ a technology) that promote individualism are not viable at scale over time. Once manufacturing is invented, individualization is synonymous with an intermediate economy that must always always always increase, thus dooming society under the weight of the costs of that intermediate economy. So obviously, capitalism (and its extensions like communism) does not work, here or on any other planet in the universe. Any perceived benefits you yourself accrue are temporary, and at the cost of your own species' longevity. People who see this rightly consider you, and other non-thinkers like you, dangerously insane. If you're going to talk such a big game, at least defend something defensible.
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Feb 7, 2021 05:58
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polymathy posted:Wow, I wasn't aware that someone out there actually disagreed with Bennett. That sure disproves his research, right? DiLorenzo was literally an 'affiliated scholar' with the loving league of the south. You know this, don't play off this bullshit as if it can't be answered in a five second google search. quote:My point in citing Bennett was that, aside from his excellent scholarship, the fact that he is not a libertarian, has no sympathies or connections to neo-Confederates and happens to be a black man, this really undermines this line of argument. Dude, you haven't even read the book, why are you lying about this?
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Feb 7, 2021 05:59
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polymathy posted:I loving know that. Is that supposed to invalidate the concept or validity of IQ testing? You have literally said, in this thread that you have never taken an IQ test, so how the gently caress would you know if your IQ is above average. Also, hawkings was an amazing example given that when he was questioned on the topic, here was his reply: quote:What is your I.Q.?
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Feb 7, 2021 06:02
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polymathy posted:Yes I posted that link without as much critical thought as I should have. Any. You posted the link without any critical thought. You loving dweeb. quote:The reason I didn't apply more scrutiny is that the point I was making was a limited one, and I recognized that all estimates of Tesla's IQ are going to be imprecise and subject to error. All I was attempting to prove is that Tesla fits well into the "genius" IQ range according to most estimates. This is a motte and bailey. No one is asking you to laboriously source your replies, we're asking you to do basic critical thinking, especially on a topic that you are unfamiliar with. If I'm in a debate and I'm studied on a topic, I will (generally) refer to statistics that I'm familiar with without going back to triple check them. But if I'm making a new claim out of nowhere? I'll usually check two, three sources. One of my biggest critisisms with you is that you don't actually engage with the information you're seeking out to make points. You just search for something that agrees with you and call it a day. quote:Why don't you tell me what you think Tesla's IQ was? Or do you think IQ is an invalid concept? It really saddens me that this is your takeaway from what I'm telling you. Your smoothass brain just skimmed over it and thought "Oh, I did a goof, I'll correct that and we'll continue the discussion", as if I was critiquing the actual number and not the thought process. Your problem is your thought process, Jrod, not your results. Remember in school, you'd do math and get one mark for having the answer, and a half dozen for doing the work. You always skip the work, and that is how you end up at the stupid, stupid positions you find yourself in. Tesla probably had a pretty high IQ had he been tested. Doesn't seem like a particularly dumb man, so I'd be shocked if he was below average if nothing else. As to the question of IQ in general? It is of dubious use imho. That shaun video (that you really should watch, it is actually super informative and entertaining and will give you useful arguments if you ever end up talking to libertarians who are of the more racist bent) goes into this at the beginning when it talks about how difficult it is to quantify general intelligence, because we can't even agree what intelligence is. Tesla was good at engineering, but I think we'd both agree that his IQ didn't help him succeed at business, yeah? So does IQ correspond to business accumen? Or no? What about me, I'm a pretty drat good novelist if I do say so myself, I'm drat sure I could write rings around Tesla, I'd even go so far as to say I'd probably be able to do that even if we'd grown up in similar circumstances, because I have a very strong inherent grasp of narrative structure. But I can't use a loving power tool, or understand a circuit to save my life. There are so many things that fall into 'intelligence' that trying to quantify it into a number based on a standardized test seems... dubious.
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Feb 7, 2021 06:18
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Karia posted:I mean, I wasn't laying out an argument. That was a personal anecdote about how much mass manufacturing sucks, in response to someone talking about how mass manufacturing is bad for the environment. My experience in automotive supply chains has, certainly, been instrumental in shaping my world view. But this isn't really the thread for me to expound on minimalism or my peculiar brand of technological cynicism and political disaffection. Okay, I'll talk about that. I don't think I had any particular influences growing up that would necessarily lead me to embracing libertarianism. I do think I was more open to exploring fringe ideas than most because of how I was raised. My parents didn't have a TV until I was like 11 or 12 years old. They were both kinda eccentric people, completely into alternative viewpoints on lots of subjects. They weren't particularly religious in the conventional sense, but they both subscribe to something like an Eastern spirituality, ideas about reincarnation and karma. They really didn't push any of these ideas on me at all but I was aware of them. We were middle class, not wealthy by any stretch. Money was always an issue but we were never at risk of eviction or anything like that. And my parents were willing to sacrifice to feed myself and my sister well, and educate us. I also didn't spend much time in public schools. For a few years in Elementary school I was home schooled. And I spent most of my school life, including high school, enrolled in private schools. They weren't religious, they were secular. I was on scholarship so I had to work before and after school to help subsidize my tuition. Still my parents struggled to pay even a reduced tuition cost. Still, I would say that the fact that I didn't have a TV in the home as a kid, combined with the fact that I didn't attend public schools much, meant I wasn't exposed to the same level of what I would now term "propaganda" about history and the world that conventional people encounter growing up. I was more open-minded about alternative worldviews because of that. I first started paying attention to politics after 9/11 and I was shaped by the Iraq War and all the lies and bullshit of the George W. Bush administration. I was therefore more sympathetic to the Democrats during those days. I used to "hate-watch" Bill O'Reilly's show in those days and scream at the TV about all the stupid poo poo he was saying. Fox News was loving dominant in those days, shaping the narrative about the so-called "War on Terror". The first libertarian thing I read was probably in 2006 or so. It was the article "When Will We Learn?" by the late Harry Browne: https://www.antiwar.com/orig/browne2.html I still consider this article to be brilliant. You'll notice that this article was written on September 12, 2001. I was struck by how ballsy it was to say unpleasant truths literally the day after the biggest ever terrorist attack on US soil when everyone else was swept up in hysteria. Mindless hysteria inevitably allowed the passage of the Patriot Act with little debate, the creating of the NSA and Department of Homeland Security. When I read this article, I noticed that this was a much stronger anti-war message than anything I was hearing from the Democrats. I also thought the question "why do they hate us" was such an obvious question we should be considering, yet it was one that everyone else seemed to be ignoring. So, the anti-war stuff was what converted me to libertarianism. The economics came later. Of course a few years later Ron Paul ran for president and he had the same foreign policy arguments as Harry Browne. I still consider Ron Paul to be the most anti-war presidential candidate to run in either major party over the last fifty years or so. Only Dennis Kucinich comes close. Around that time I started reading libertarian literature and listening to podcasts and reading articles online. I slowly became convinced of the rest of the arguments and I also felt that the best libertarian commentators were constantly better at predicting future events, seemed more consistent in their critiques and more reliable. I can elaborate, but my interest in libertarianism really came out of my anti-war and anti-empire views and my aversion to Bush's invasions of civil liberties.
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Feb 7, 2021 06:19
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