D&D Wading Pool: A Thread for Lurkers and Newbies

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Wales Grey: Jun 20, 2012

Verge posted:

Because freedom, in my opinion, begets happiness for a large number of people in and of itself.

This is an eminently debatable premise. Freedom does nothing, because freedom is a state of being defined by the absence of restraint. People beget happiness from being able to actualize and fulfill their desires, not because they're free to do so. (Please note that being free to actualize one's desires can be a desire and is likely a step on the road to fulfilling those desires. But freedom is not what grants happiness, it's the fulfillment of desire.)

It's also worth noting that 'liberty' and 'freedom' are synonymous but different in meaning.

quote:

If I'm in a motorcycle accident in my hypothetical libertarian nation, I will not be prepared (and will not prepare myself, should it [libertarian nation] become a reality) for a serious injury such as broken legs. I would die on the street unless assisted by a third party w/ a kind and pitying heart, which is more than I could ask for. My medical bills would not be a wise investment for any loan agency so I probably wouldn't get anything but stabilized and I'd die of gangrene. If it were to BREAK my legs, I'd be a worthwhile loan venture, because you can recover from that, but if they're a total loss? Hell no. Your scenario is pretty realistic, it does happen and one should either plan for it or have habits that prevent it. For example, I wear gear on the motorcycle, I teach myself to have good balance so I'm not likely to fall in non-motorcycle related would-be accidents. I try and prevent that future from happening but you're right, it's still possible and if it were to happen, I'd die from it. I'm ok with that.

What about people who cannot be adequately prepared for the risks they take? People who are forced to take risks they would not take without being under duress? The intersection between the people who cannot be prepared and those who are forced into taking risks? Relatedly, can the total value of a person be expressed in purely financial terms?

quote:

As far as defining importance, you are as important as much as you're willing to spend or others are willing to spend on you. I'm important enough to own a Harley because I bought a Harley. I worked, I saved and the world OWED me a new motorcycle (or ten thousand McDonald's cheeseburgers or however you spend your money). Now that I have the bike, the debt is paid and no one owes me anything until I accumulate more inverse debt (dollars).

The world owes you nothing, regardless of your labors. Asserting otherwise is an unfalsifiable metaphysical belief.

Importance is a subjective and unquantifiable concept. You can describe something as "more important" or "less important" to yourself, but there's no standard unit of "importance". And even if there was, money would be an absolutely awful indicator of it. Claiming money as an indicator of importance doesn't make any sense because the prices of goods and services are not indicative of their importance.

quote:

If you think of money as favors the world owes you and debt as favors you owe the world, you can get a basic idea of how important you are based off your chance for getting something done, which would take either your money, a loan or a combination. NINJNA loans not withstanding.

Uh, this is not at all what money represents? It's not even accurate enough for me to feel comfortable giving it to a kindergartener as an explanation. Money is an arbitrary otherwise-worthless object serving as a currency due to societal convention. You work at a job and are paid in money because paying you in chickens or vegetables would be very difficult for non-farmers, and many jobs do not produce tangible or easily-bartered products. Money is simply an abstract bucket of "value", not some metaphysical representation of karmic dues or universal measure of importance.

quote:

Also, anti-poor != racist. Though I don't want to call myself or my proposed policies anti-poor because it sounds like I run around kicking the poor or at least want to, I can't stand here and act like libertarian ideals wouldn't seriously hurt the poor.

Given the massively unequal distribution of capital in the world, any policy that harms the poor will also harm non-whites disproportionately.

quote:

You can't create an environment where you can't be anti-poor without being thought of a racist because that completely negates conversation to a circumstance where the only valid and moral stance is one where socialism rules, it's a rigged game against libertarians, under that mindset. I know no one's actively trying to do that, I know it's not a conspiracy, it's a side effect but I need to point it out.

It's almost like laissez-faire capitalism as championed by American Libertarian* thought, encourages and rewards immoral and unethical behavior�depending on the ethics and morals adopted by yourself and the society you participate in, of course.

*Left-libertarians and leftist-anarchists both exist but they are not meaningful forces in American political discourse, so the use of Libertarian almost always means "anarcho-capitalist".

Wales Grey fucked around with this message at 11:48 on Nov 11, 2015

# ¿ Nov 11, 2015 11:39

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 07:50

Wales Grey: Jun 20, 2012

Cingulate posted:

As a rabid Popper fanboy and linguist, I want to
1. Point out unfalsifiability is not an argument against a claim in itself
2. Ask you what you mean by two things being synonymous, but having different meanings (that is, what does meaning mean here?)

You're correct, something being unfalsifiable isn't really an argument against it. I only brought it up because "the world owes me a debt for my labor" is an unprovable statement of belief. It may be a convention of our society, but it is by no means a natural or scientific law (unless we really strain and force some convoluted 'work'-based physics joke).

When I said they were "different in meaning", "meaning" is the abstract concept being expressed through the words. "Freedom" and "liberty" are words that describe similar concepts and can be used interchangeably in common conversation (which is why they're synonymous), but they indicate different states. "Freedom" is the state of being unrestrained or unbound. "Liberty" is the state of being able or privileged to do something. I was thinking about the phrase "I am not at liberty to say"; clearly the person speaking is free to speak as they will, but circumstances have denied them the liberty to do so.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2015 22:41

Wales Grey: Jun 20, 2012

Disinterested posted:

That difference is arguably a sophistic distinction much of the time though.

Yeah, making the distinction is pretty sophistic but I think it's valid here because ancap libertarian thought doesn't seem to adequately address outside factors that prevent the full exercise of freedoms. Things like "People need certain things in order to survive, so there is a certain minimal level of work that will be dedicated to survival. Depending on how the market values their labor and values the necessities of life, people who's labor pays out close to or below that minimal level of work required for survival may be unable to exercise the economic freedoms granted by their society" or "an employer monitors their employees off the clock, and will punish or fire people for what the employer considers 'undesirable' behavior, even if that behavior does not impact employee performance or the company's bottom line".

Cingulate posted:

As are, of course, "all human beings have intrinsic worth regardless of what body they were born into" or "suffering is bad".

Also true. I just think it's odd (inconsistent?) that someone who follows a political philosophy that relies heavily on argument and reason from first principals would lasso in an idea seemingly unconnected to those first principals.

Cingulate posted:

I think you're confused here - you're trying to talk about the two having similar extension, but dissimilar intension; but on the other hand, arguably, they're actually closer in intension than extension.

I'm not familiar with the formalities of linguistics, so I'm blindly flying into the particulars and specifics here. Would the italicized part of your post be understood as "the words 'freedom' and 'liberty' express similar ideas but they are applied differently from each other"? (Also do you have any recommended reading on linguistics?)

Wales Grey fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Nov 12, 2015

# ¿ Nov 12, 2015 00:11

Wales Grey: Jun 20, 2012

GlitchThief posted:

What i'm getting out of this is that libertarians are just weed-smoking reactionaries.

Weed-smoking reactionaries who love an idealized version of contract law with a healthy helping of Social Darwinism, while trying to evade the costs of Social Darwinism by replacing all humans with perfectly rational robots who operate solely in their own rationalized self-interest but still manage to always make decisions that avoid tragedies of the commons, and all disputes will be solved non-violently via arbitration and troubleshooting companies. It's the most "friction-less spheres in a vacuum" political position.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2015 01:24

Wales Grey: Jun 20, 2012

I'd argue that the minimal requirement for something to be declared a sandwich is the placement of non-bread food objects on or between two slices of bread. Pizzas, tacos, and burritos are thus disqualified because they are served on a single grain disk. Eggs Benedict, however, is a sandwich.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2015 07:39

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 07:50

Wales Grey: Jun 20, 2012

moller posted:

So subs and hoagies only count as sandwiches if you cut all the way through the bread? Leaving a hinge attached or digging out a wedge and filling it make then non--sandwiches?

As an example, Subway used to serve sandwiches when they used the triangle cut in the 90s, but since they switched to the newer (hinge) cut they are no longer sandwiches under your scheme.

I'd be fine with calling anything that's bread-with-toppings-in-or-on-it a sandwich; but in the true D&D spirit I'll say that hinge-cut loaves are not "traditional" sandwiches, but are instead open-faced calzones or perhaps an extremely unusual sort of pocket entree in the vein of stuffed pita. After all, if we allow breads that aren't cut all the way through or hollowed out to count as sandwiches then that opens the door for bread bowl soups to be considered sandwiches.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2015 09:41

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