Topic: Are Bitcoiners Neoliberals? - page 6. (Read 9231 times)

I am one of those people who knows that there are unabridged dictionaries that show many different definitions of the work "fiat."  I am also aware that people who study economics have written articles where they use the general definition and discuss Bitcoin as "fiat" currency as opposed to the more specific "government fiat" where there is no ambiguity.

I am only mediocre in English though.  I got a master's degree in Physics and bachelor degree in Physics and computer science from Rutgers so I spent most of my educational time doing math formulas and writing code.

Do you have a degree in meme-based debates on reddit?

Wow, that's a challenge. I suppose they're all human and none of them are African or black.


Some people have the intellectual capacity of a goldfish.

I'm actually kind of at a loss for words, because it represents such a fundamental ignorance of history, economics, and language that I'm not sure these people actually live in the real world. Perhaps they're kind of pan-dimensional beings that just kind of accidentally step into our universe from time to time and are totally bewildered by everything they see.

I guess the best I could do is point these sorts of people toward the information they'd need;
http://www.englishclass101.com/how-to-speak-english/
http://mises.org/daily/1333
https://mises.org/books/origins_of_money.pdf
https://mises.org/books/tmc.pdf
http://mises.org/money/3s11.asp

Certainly you're not one of these people right?

Erik Vorhees and Roger Ver have no relation to those people.

I once tried to explain to Vorhees that "fiat" has more than one definition.  Government fiat current is based ona government decree/law.  Another definition of "fiat" is more general and means it just has the faith of its users.  Some say Bitcoin is the ultimate fiat currency since it is just based on the faith of its users.  Vorhees jumped in and said we had to coordinate one definition and he pulled out a link to an online dictionary to "prove" his case.  I had to explain to him that there is no definitive dictionary and that there were more complete dictionaries than the web site he linked to.  From that point on I knew that Vorhees had no idea what he was talking about and he just repeats meme's and cute slogans.

As for Roger Ver, just look at his videos about Mt. Gox and Bitcoin Bounty hunter.  No wonder he ended up in jail over fireworks.

Oh good. This thread is not yet dead.

There's still an open question from people on this thread:

Does anyone self-identify as a neoliberal?

I decided to generalize a bit and consider the following statement:

According to X, Y is/was a neoliberal.

Someone would self-identify as a neoliberal if the statement is true for some X and Y where X=Y. I still have no examples of this.

However, I now have several examples with X different from Y. I read the introduction and first chapter of David Harvey's book. (David Harvey is an expert in "Marxist Geography" -- you might think I'm making that up to be funny, but I'm not.)

This gives me enough data to support statements of the form:

According to Harvey, Y is a neoliberal.

So far, I can say the following.

According to Harvey, the following are examples of neoliberals:

Deng Xiaoping, Paul Volcker, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Paul Bremer, Henry Kissinger, Augusto Pinochet, Milton Friedman, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Keith Joseph, the Shah of Iran, Richard Branson, Lord Hanson, George Soros, Rupert Murdoch

Of course, according to many people on this board, many bitcoiners including Erik Voorhees and Roger Ver are neoliberals.

So if you want to better understand what "neoliberal" means, just think about what all these people have in common.

PS: It seems, given the work I'm putting into this, I might be interested in this topic. If anyone wants to help me gather information about what "neoliberalism" is supposed to mean, bitmessage me.

If you listen to people like Free State Radio or Roger Ver they would explain that the people that helped you were really the murderers and the violent ones.  http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2k22av/silk_road_prevented_violence/clhcglw

ok, few tins the night, but I am keen on all this neo-liberal/ anarcho capitalism debate.

I want to ask a question only those that have been in the situation can answer - Have you ever suffered ABH or GBH with intent - and wished for a smaller state?

Corse some thug life character will say hell yea - get revenge after 4 months recovery.

But as a 19yr 150pound 5'9 guy in a new city, so close to lights out save for the fantastic work of the paramedics - you shrink that? Cost me those vital 15 min?

Haha. It's run by a "mob"(Ochlocracy) not the "Mob".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochlocracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Mafia

What ? You mean, it isn't  ?

Walter Block is fantastic. He's one of the best debaters I've ever seen. If you haven't watched him debate I would definitely suggest looking those up on YouTube. He really bombed out badly when debating Sam Seder, I'm really not sure why... But all the other ones I've seen are great.

Though I don't like Molyneux because of his DeFOO and UPB nonsense, he's also one of the best libertarian debaters alive today. He's great when he's explaining and criticizing other people's works, but for some reason when he comes up with something himself, he falls totally off his rocker...
In fact, Molyneux did a really good debate against Sam Seder, also available on YouTube.

Wow - didn't realize you could get that book in PDF form.  I need to read that one!

(It's by a much smarter Walter than me.)

Who's a NeoLiberal exactly? You know I'd find this whole discussion less whimsical if someone could point to a person that self-identifies as a neoliberal and then criticised their stated positions.

Then help people! You don't have to steal from people in order to make the world a better place, that's what voluntary transactions are all about.

Rockefeller literally saved the whales through "heartless competition", earned huge sums of money by providing to everyone what they needed at a price that was better than anyone else could do while running Standard Oil. In case you're not paying attention, that means his business made oil less expensive than nearly any company in the United States, improving the lives of anyone that used gasoline/kerosene; Rich or poor alike. The monster then turned around with his profits and gave no less than a half a billion dollars away to charities.

Adjusted for inflation that's $9,119,254,050.44 if you use the latest year that he made donations. (1934 adjusted to 2013)

That was just Rockefeller, in the "real world". What's with this "we" crap? What are you doing to help the poor?

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/rockefeller-gifts.html
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

It makes me sick to my stomach when I see you self-righteous thieves conspiring against so-called "evil robber barons". I'd prefer our country were run by the Mob. At least when they take your money for "protection", they don't expect you to be grateful for it.

https://mises.org/books/roads_web.pdf

Edit: Gasoline/Kerosene

Well, I guess a lot of people in fact are. Also a lot of hardcore liberals (some may call them nutjobs) are attracted to Bitcoin because of its features and characteristics. The problem with neoliberalism is: It all looks nice and fair, but that's not how the world works. We need to help people who are in need, using taxes to build infrastructure for everyone for example leads us to a much better society. But this would go too far, this is a Bitcoin forum!

Ha! You win.

Of course "neoliberal" is a made up word. All words are made up. Neoliberal was (apparently) made up in 1938 by Alexander Rüstow. These original neoliberals advocated state intervention in the economy and wanted a word to distinguish them from "classical liberals" who advocated no/little state intervention in the economy. (I wrote all this yesterday, but as this thread seems to be going in circles anyway, why not type it again?) Later it became used as a pejorative term for anyone who advocates less government interference in markets.

I had the impression yesterday that "neoliberal" was being used to refer to pure libertarians/anarcho-capitalists. Now it seems to be being applied to Reagan and Thatcher. I doubt anyone is silly enough to believe Reagan or Thatcher were pure libertarians or anarcho-capitalists. Reaganites, Thatcherites, pure libertarians and anarcho-capitalists basically have one common property: there is a large group of people who hate all of them and need an insulting word to use against them. This is the way "neoliberal" is being used here. It's basically an N-word to throw at anyone they don't like.

Are the people on that book cover neoliberals?  If so, I am definitely not a neoliberal.

No, they are just Neo(s) that have taken the red pill. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill

Books are not averse to made up words...

That's like saying, "English as She is Spoke" is an improvement on the English language because it is in fact a book. A popular book, even.

Nope, it's not. Read more books.

What flaws?
You clearly were working for "the man", that isn't in dispute. I was pointing out that people that work for "the man" are unsurprisingly also defensive of "the man". Part of it is selection bias, but I'm sure a large part of it is also social conditioning. Not to mention, you know, getting paid to keep your criticisms of the ethics of the system you work for to yourself, and to vote for the continuation of that teat...

Do you really want to know? I don't think you do. Evidence suggests you just want to spend your time telling us who we are and what our positions are.

Oh do I? Tell me more about myself.

Who says that? Anarcho-Capitalists are not in the business of telling everybody else what they want.

People tend to use money that best meets their needs.

Guilty of what?

Bitcoin makes funding war difficult because it is immune to inflation. It does not "end all wars".

This is the kind of total nonsense you get from the pseudo-liberals.  Anyone who points out flaws in their argument is working for "the man."  I could not wait to get out of that job and if I had to sit through one more useless staff meeting I would have gone nuts.  I called in sick my very last day and I mailed my stuff in because I didn't want to sit there one more day.  I think 30% of the FAA can be eliminated and nobody would notice.  However, there are some very smart people there and most people want them to provide the services they perform.  I did research for explosives/weapons detection systems and we sometimes did airport tests.  I ran into all kinds of brilliant researchers with the FAA, Sandia Nation Labs, etc. 

I can assure you the vast majority of people want more security and more intrusive searches and people don't wantgovernments eliminated as you claim with your hyperbole.  You are one who is brainwashed because you get your info from internet discussion boards and meme's and you don't interact with the public at large.  I live in New Jersey and many people here want the government to do everything for them.  People in my town see a candy wrapper on the beach and they want the government to send out a helicopter to pick it up.  In any case I made enough on my side Internet businesses so I don't have to work anymore and I can just do Bitcoin all day.  I don't miss Washington, DC ... except for the 930 Club.

It is funny that you claim the arguments have been "thoroughly defended."  How is that?  Posting stuff to reddit? That is comical.  The arguments are not totally wrong, they are just so over-the-top that the exaggerations make the whole thing sound ridiculous.  Government is too big and too intrusive in people's lives but it does not follow that everybody wants government eliminated, that everyone is going to switch to Bitcoin because of it, that people want the Silk Road guy released if he is guilty, and that this whole process of using Bitcoin will end wars.

It's no wonder that you're incredibly brainwashed. It's amazing how the closer you get to the government coffers the more defensive people become of government's existence.

Except it's not amazing at all.

I am an anarchist, strictly speaking, though because of the incredible decay of the word I need to say "Anarcho-Capitalist".

The common thread throughout these posts is that everybody that "opposes" the Anarcho-Capitalist position (As the OP is a giant straw man, supported by almost nobody.) will just say that we have no arguments and just leave it at that.

Oh you don't see the connection between currency and war? We must just be stupid. Don't bother reading any of the books or papers written and freely available at the Mises institute. After all, we don't have arguments, so why bother reading anything we have to say? Inflation during wartime; Totally unheard of!

Charity can't be accomplished through charity, and we're just suppose to take your word on that. Listening to you people you would think there are no such things as private charities; That pretty much everyone in the world will only give of their income with a gun at their head. We don't have any arguments against that of course, because you say so.

Oh and the roads and public utilities! Lord knows we haven't even considered this issue before! Boy, you have us dead to rights. Once we don't have a State, everyone will just flop around on the floor like fish out of water until they die, since they don't have any supreme overlords to tell them how to get these things done. We don't have any arguments after all, you've told us so.

If the extraordinarily thick sarcasm somehow missed your attention; Every single topic you've mentioned, in which you're frustrated with the Anarcho-Capitalists lack of defense, has been thoroughly defended time and time again and I've yet to see any serious effort on your part, or anyone else on this thread, of dealing with our actual arguments.

To answer the OP... pretty much no one is a "Neo-Liberal" by that description.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Myth-Robber-Barons-Business/dp/0963020315