Strawman posted:

In Lithuania in 1990? Bullshit. Local gangs handle everything. I really believe the state is obsolete. The only reason it is existing is because it has guns.


Maybe if nanny state goes, we forget wheels and fire too, if Al Gore is not there to make them for us? All state does is take money and freedom to give to banker elites.

Strawman posted:

Interesting that this was what made it implausible for you, rather than the Hitler stuff.

Ron Paul Atreides posted:

guess who is back in his other lovely thread

Jazerus posted:

this is really funny because skylines is incredibly unsatisfying if you play it like a game and focus on income; simcity 4 is still the best game for that style of play.

Mundrial Mantis posted:

That is a good point. If the goal of a business is to maximize profit as libertarians point out, why aren't businesses aren't already operating with a skeleton crew? I am betting the response would be firing the "useless" people who work there but that seems to be a case of the private sector not being efficient and closer to their view of the public sector. Which they will still blame as the cause of that inefficiency.

GunnerJ posted:

https://twitter.com/Sebastian_JKT/status/950811320785481728

GunnerJ posted:

https://twitter.com/Sebastian_JKT/status/950811320785481728

Weatherman posted:

I, for one, am under no such delusions, given that you are an owl fancier instead of acknowledging parrots as the One True Bird

Cingulate posted:

I don't doubt there are any, which, as I've explained, has precisely zero impact on the argument I made.
But besides for the (irrelevant) existence proof, I'm asking you for an example.

Goon Danton posted:

There's also the issue that any political situation bad enough to be the "battered wife" in the metaphor is pretty much guaranteed to be armed conflict already. They just think having to pay taxes counts.

divabot posted:

OH NO who could have predicted this

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1000560049389907969

https://twitter.com/isi_kbreen/status/1000595885099806720

https://twitter.com/AliceAvizandum/status/1000667636500492289

RealTalk posted:

I want to quickly return to the topic of Jordan Peterson for a second.

theshim posted:

time for an injection of that one libertarian guy on fb, and it is a doozy

Golbez posted:

In my occasional two minutes hate/trolling of mises.org, I hit a gold mine:


Emphasis added for the exact point in the conversation where it ended, because it's impossible to continue from that point. I spend my time trying to compare libertarianism unfavorably to things like feudalism, so for one of them to say "why would that be unfavorable" just cut the legs out from under it. I'm shook. I might just quit trolling them for a while.

I do it, particularly to the Lew Rockwell orbit of libertarianism (which includes Hoppe) in part because I'm disgusted with how much I agreed with them in the past, and how much I let slide. I honestly don't know if I was on board for so much of it, or if I just discarded the worst aspects. But in retrospect it pisses me off immensely, and I want to atone somehow, mainly by flinging poo poo at their dumb forum. I can't confront Rockwell directly, but I can at least poke the visitors to his "educational" institution.

Final edit: I note that their defense of feudalism is exactly like a Lost Causer's defense of slavery. It was good, except for certain isolated instances singled out to "prove" that slavery is oppressive and unjust.

paragon1 posted:

Now you're getting it!

In fact, I'm very proud that you've moved on to the next, more advanced level, of realizing that the USA is the same thing at all times throughout history. The United States now and 100 years ago are exactly the same thing, where all the same rules and standards apply. But can you take the next step and combine these to principles to realize there's no difference between America in 2021 and China under the Shang dynasty?

Tubgoat posted:

And his last name is 'male' backward? Lazy loving writers.

paragon1 posted:

I'd make the robots gently caress.

Mr Interweb posted:

https://twitter.com/ModalSevenths/status/1156671234202951680

Mr Interweb posted:

Wait, WHAT? Is this a new rule or something? Cause when I attempting to enroll in university when I was living on my own, I was - bizarrely- rejected by financial aid because i WASN'T under the guardianship of my parents, and i wouldn't be eligible again until i turned 26 (i was 23 or 24 at the time).

the way the law is described in the story actually sounds way less idiotic than what i had to deal with

Goon Danton posted:

Captain_Maclaine posted:

Wasn't he also as a recent alt-right rally or something like that in Boston to which maybe a dozen people actually showed up? That guy's a dick.

PookBear posted:

Osama was allowed to stay in afghanistan because he had a shitload of armed guys in an area of afghanistan that was controlled by the taliban who didn't really have any reason to like a bunch of rich fucks from saudi arabia setting up shop, but didn't have any reason to start a loving pitched battle to kill them either.

Iran was giving us intel on Al-Qaeda in the area because they did NOT like the idea of a saudi arabia controlled militant group setting up shop next door. We could have accomplished a few limited goals there if we hadn't decided to declare the taliban, iran, and iraq our enemy while also going after Al-Qaeda

Panzeh posted:

Oops lol axis of evil then we invade iraq and give them a gift anyway after we declare them our sworn enemy.

Doc Hawkins posted:

Monopoly isn't that bad as long as you remember to run auctions for un-bought properties. It sucks, but at least it doesn't drag as much.

e: unless someone does that thing where you put three houses on everything and refuse to buy hotels and then rules-as-written no one can build more houses when there are no house pieces left. never seen that one in-person though, you'd think people would just agree to use different objects to get past the bottleneck.

Panzeh posted:

I got through some more of the book- the libertarians have arrived. The bears came before most of them, but I believe I am soon to get to the part of the book where the libertarians clash with the bears.

The highlights of the libertarians so far are the one who barely beat a child pornography charge and their ability to try to sue with an incredibly bad success rate(including trying to use the old 'travelling' thing to claim the state can't mandate driver's licenses). The 'communist' survivalist is mentioned. He had a Taurus Judge and mentioned that when the poo poo hit the fan the libertarians were going to literally cannibalize themselves and he would deal with the last one who would be sitting atop the bones of the other libertarians. He also said capitalism was bullshit which is where the communist statement comes from.

One of the things that's starting to happen is that the libertarians with no money and no friends are trying to camp in bear territory and I believe this is a recipe for people getting owned.

OwlFancier posted:

Do we know that the bears have a hierarchical structure or is it possible that the decentralized nature of their organization afforded them superior flexibility against the libertarians?

Somfin posted:

Doesn't the foundational text of libertarian belief hinge on the development of a free energy device

JustJeff88 posted:

That makes it worse, in my opinion. It's one thing to obsess over market economics when there are shortages and resource limits, but if there actually were unlimited, clean free energy and you still advocate that someone should be allowed to withold it because (the reasons genuinely do not matter), then that might be the most rear end in a top hat thing imaginable.

quote:

Try pouring water into a tank where there's a pipe at the bottom draining it out faster than you pour it, and each bucket you bring breaks that pipe an inch wider, and the harder you work the more is demanded of you, and you stand slinging buckets forty hours a week, then forty-eight, then fifty-six for your neighbor's supper -- for his wife's operation -- for his child's measles -- for his mother's wheel chair -- for his uncle's shirt -- for his nephew's schooling -- for the baby next door -- for the baby to be born -- for anyone anywhere around you -- it's theirs to receive, from diapers to dentures -- and yours to work, from sunup to sundown, month after month, year after year, with nothing to show for it but your sweat, with nothing in sight for you but their pleasure, for the whole of your life, without rest, without hope, without end... From each according to his ability, to each according to his need...

SlothfulCobra posted:

I'm pretty sure the totality of Ayn Rand's beliefs can be pretty quickly summed up as arbitrary contrarianism to communism as somebody whose family lost a lot to the Soviet Union combined with the obsessive self-centered confidence of a cult leader having sex with her loyal followers.