Topic: Libertarianism and interventionnism (Read 3735 times)

Can you elaborate on this?

1.Sorry, children was not the point but just an example. So if my own perception of the social contract don't include drug prohibition ?

I don't know if you support drug prohibition, it's just an example. I want to ask you "how to decide without a moral border what to include in the social contract ?".

2.Sure, you are in bitcoin  

And please, don't lose time explaining what the fuck is France, this government is a so big pile of shit (but Sarkozy was same). 

This is tricky because we are talking about children, who don't have the right tool for free-thiking (this is scientifically proven, even anticipating doesn't happen before age seven, the part of the brain devoted to this being underdeveloped).

I would tentatively say that children should be taught to exercice their critical thinking. There is a need in society to learn a corpus of value and references that tie people together. The schoolyard is a great place for this (and courses too, but different ones). I don't believe in homeschooling but since it illegal in my country, I can't talk about it, I have no experience, even second-hand, about it.

I did not know agorism. I quite like the idea.

Sorry, I do not understand. Could you reformulate?

So we agree on this one. I was not sure at first, but that may be because of the state of politics in France (the rightists are pro-corporations, so it mixes things).

I honestly don't know about this one, neither on one side or another. As a general rule, I am suspicious against any magical formula, whoever announces it - a someone say "listen to the one who is looking for truth, be ware of the one who found it".

I do not find this hyperbole at all, its much closer to what is actually going on. I don't know what the opposite to hyperbole (hypobole?) is, but I find that this is what most people engage in when it comes do these matters. They call theft taxation and they call torture enhanced interrogation techniques. Not because of the act itself, but because who does it.

If you were to describe the situation in neutral terms, such that you didn't know what the parties involved people are much more inclined to use the words I do.

"Person A uses force to take money from person B. Person B has worked for the money. What do you call person A?"

Anyone would call him a thief, yet they call him the taxman when he's sent from the government.

'

How so?
You talk about how the social contract/goverment is valid because you can move from it. I point out to real examples where this isn't true.
If we were talking about a specific government in a specific place in time that you like, please state so and we may continue the discussion there.


This argument does not hold water. The boss have no moral obligation to let you work for him. If you he does, you should immediate hire me and pay me a wage, right?

He does nothing wrong by not having you as a worker, no more than you do something wrong by not hiring me.


The question might be loaded, because you claim I hyperbole because I show real world examples where this is actually true.


No, I just point out where your argument goes if it you stretch it. Can we agree that an argument to be valid, it must not self contradict in any situation?

My position is that of a moral one. You say that there is an demand for taxation and use the idea that somehow a demand for something is an argument for it. I merely point out that if you take that argument and apply it to another situation such as child porn, it doesn't hold, therefor it can never hold that demand for something makes it right.

Invalid argument, people are richer in a free market economy cause they are more productive and productivity increase faster. Sorry but economic theory and reality prove this everyday.

Strawman fallacy bordering on Godwin point.

I'm not a fan on using big words for the sake of it. Look at real slavery and the true horror it generates. Same goes for "kidnapping" and "guns".[/quote]

So is the horror of living under the bridge because you are pennyless after you boss fired you and you can't get an new job.
Let's face it: we won't have a productive conversation that way. I'm talking about avoiding hyperbole (slavery for citizenship) and you reply by engaging in a slippery rope that avoids talking about the real thing (here, abuse of hyperbole).

Ditto (I hesitate between loaded question and strawman, through).

OK, I quit. It seems that you main argumentation is about invoking various avatars of Godwin. I will continue this conversation with Anon136 until you revert to a more contructive argumentation.

You are not, I was just making a point. Sorry if it was unclear.

I must admit you argumentation is interesting here - a contract that you can't refuse is not really a contract, it is closer to slavery. But your use of hyperbole still annoys me. Slavery is in my view to strong of a word, even if the idea is similar.

See my answer to Anon136. Safety net like an insurance, maybe opt-out instead of opt-in (children and insufficiently informed people). Now that I think about it, it is close to the Theory X and Theory Y (X=people are stupid, we shall protect them against themselves; Y=people can be empowered)

So, my vision of interventionnism is more like an opt-out insurance.

Na than you arnt a leftie in my opinion. We just got all confused with our words. I totally support your position. Though i will say what you described can hardly be called a government

1.Be productive don't mean work 12h a day, it mean produce more added value in one hour of work. Productivity gain happen cause of creative destruction, and everyone become more productive. A low skill worker is more productive in a mainly automated industry than in some farm in Africa.

2.Anti trust law are a government solution to a government problem: market rigidity cause of regulation.

For first, I am not sure I understood your sentence, so please correct me if I am wrong.
If you don't want to fund the net, no problem. You're out of the equation. You don't want to participate, then if you fall down, I won't help you, I let you die in the street if that happens (it would require people to know what to answer to their son asking 'dad, why he is dying and no one does a thing?' but that should be easy).
That's a contract, you refused it (because you gambled you would not need it of for whatever reason). No problem here. So, yes, I would respect and respectfully let you die

I have to say I have a problem with "society should protect people even against themselves" ( common interventionists trope). I consider society should protect people against lack of sufficient information to make an informed decision. But once it is done, its everyone's business.

I totally do. If a metior were coming towards the planet and were about to wipe out all life on the planet and some aliens stopped by and said "well save your planet from destruction but only if you allow someone to rape a child". Heck yes i would support child rape. Consequences matter man. Notice this is not at all the same thing as just saying child rape is fine. Obviously its a terrible thing. I have my moral objections to it and i do have a sense or morality and i do think that morality matters. But so do consiquences.

Now obviously thats an extreme example but its an important analogy. A less ridiculous form of the same argument is that if the outcome of abolishing the state were to actually create what statists mean when they use the word anarchy, than i would not be in favor of that simply because taxation is theft and theft is immoral. I would rather live with a little bit of immoral theft by the government than mad max thunderdome. Of course lefties are wrong and that would not be the consequences of abolishing government. Thank god. I know what choice i would make if forced to, but i sure am glad i dont have to make that choice.

The idea that you can have a legal entity that is other then the persons who commit the deeds is laughable at best. Of course companies are against the free market, they are a product of the state and benefit from state protection and can use its law to drive out competition.

If people don't want to be productive they don't have to. A lot of people could live very simple lives if it weren't for inflation, taxation, debt and the constant need to grow the GDP to satisfy your debtors.

A lot of people don't want to be productive. They have another vision of life. They want to live a simple life with their family, go fishing on a Saturday and have money to buy a gift for their son's birthday. What do you answer? That is it the governement's fault if they can't?

I consider that major companies are not encouraging the free markets, this is bad for their business - when are atop, you want to stay atop, oftentimes by any means necessary. How do you see anti-trust regulation? For or against the free market?

I understand your point, i wanted you to answer this. So in my own perception of the social contract public school is not something i agree with. How do we decide without a moral way to reflect about the place of government ?

And Thieves Emporium is a fiction about a failed USA that turned to a police state. You follow a young mother who try to survive in an agorist economy that take place in the deep web. It's not a philosophy book, more a book about how the western world can turn.

Then you might as well start support child rape, if that somehow was to lead to the "right consequences"?

I'm not saying you do that, but if you start your argument from consequence, I don't see how you can be against anything.

That all sounds great. I think it would be wonderful if societies had a safety net for those who, through no fault of their own, fall through the cracks. It happens. Sometimes people who don't deserve it at all get delt a bad hand. I totally support your right to do your part to provide such a safety net. I would never dream of trying to stop you from doing that. And i certainly would never dream of using violence against you to stop you from doing that. The question is, if i preferred not to fund the net would you extend the same respect to me that i extended to you by not using violence to try to prevent you from funding it, and not use violence against me to try to force me to fund it? (I would if it were empirically demonstrated to be truly effective and well tuned like you say, but lets say i wouldn’t just for the sake of the argument).

So you are not against the principle of taxation, you are against the actual implementation, am I right?
(like CryptoNote is great, but the Bytecoin implementation is not)

OK so I don't believe (or, say otherwise, "my own perception of the social contract is") that Bitcoin shall be censored, nor shall people be spied upon (they can accept to be monitored, but only under full consent).

Does it make you better understand my point?
By the way, discovered minarchism some months ago and I have some sympathy to it.
I may contemplate reading Thieves emporium, but I have very little patience for extremists of any kind - I'm not saying that Thieves Emporium is extremist, I did not even read a review of it yet)

You are free to offer any social safety net you wish. Why do you feel the need to force people into it by the threat of violence to gain their possessions to redistribute?

No anarchist wants to stop you from setting up a working safety net that you may opt in to. The very idea that you would need force to do this seems to imply that you think it's a failed idea, because people can't voluntarily do it.

What will make people richer is an increase in productivity per capita, but the state prevent that by his interventionism in economy. No need for coercion.

Na. Some capitalist anarchists like myself are consiquentialists. In theory we would be willing to support taxation if it lead to the right consequences. Some people would argue that we are not libertarians, but I think we are.

First, I would welcome a state to convert its currency into a cryptocurrency. Cryptodollars? Why not!
Second, my vision of interventionnism (or leftism, if you prefer) is: a safety net for everyone at a cost of a contribution. A finely-tuned redistribution that doesn't prevent people to reach a high level of wealth, but prevent people to fall below the poverty level.
I believe in offer and demand (and not only for economy, also in biology or psychology, hence religions). But I also believe in safety net. I completely accept this is a Judeo-Christian thing at heart (caritas, justice) and I won't say it is rational (although there is some rationality in defending it, watch Nick Hanauer and Richard Wilkinson). It is my ideal of life, that people who fall won't die.

You are free to sign any contract you want. Where do I confuse this?

The fact that you can't refuse it says it's not a real contract, but a form of slavery.

Being born human is not a result of force of coercion and can therefore not be compared to being born property.
Oh, tell that to the people born in Syria, North Korea or any other horror state how they should just move. How about the Palestinians? The Jews in Germany.

So easy to sit in an comparative Ivory Tower.


The horrors of prison is very real. You keep talking like these things are not real because they aren't happening to you at this very second.
Are you honestly saying that people are not being kidnapped and put in the rape camps known as prison for defying the state by asserting their own rights to property and body?

How does going to prison for defying an arbitrary law differ from a mafia kidnapping from defying their law? They both come from the same logic. That might makes right.


There is also a demand for child porn and slavery. It doens't matter if there is a demand for things that are immoral. It does not make them any more moral.
Of course there is a demand for free money by the people who benefit from getting them, and the power they bring.

Nope, i want to debate on the "social contract" theory cause you justify taxes with it. So if this theory is false somewhere you lose your argument.

You are trying to bring the debate on something else than the initial discussion. It was about "Are taxes inherently evil?" not about crypto in particular.

Capitalist anarchist, libertarian and minarchist have a clear moral border between what is legit for a government to do and what is bad. Leftist don't have this, everything is good if it serve the "public interest" (something that don't even exist...), so nothing prevent them to push to radical collectivism like in Cuba.

So maybe you can help me understand something. Why are lefties involved in a movement whos purpose, not by any mans imposition, but by its own nature, is to create a free market. I mean I welcome you guys. I welcome everyone. But i just dont understand why you guys would want to be involved in this. Wouldn't you rather support the money that the state uses to fund its self? You talk about how much you love government schools. You know those are mostly paid for by stealing the purchasing power of the money that they force everyone to use right? Why dont you use that money if you love government run schools so much. Now just to be clear, its not rhetorical, i dont want you to use that money, i personally want you to use crypto, its just a legit question that sounds rhetorical even though it isn't.

So if social contract implies censorship of bitcoin and hard informatics regulation, repression and spying of the citizen (like in "Thieves emporium", seriously read this book ) to be sure nobody use it illegally is ok ?

• Life is full of things that you did not decide (like being born human). Better to light up a candle than to curse the darkness. Although this is not perfect (perfect would be close to international water or better yet outer space), you can move to another legislation and change your citizenship.
• A contract should require two things: that you understand it and that you accept it (which in turns implies that you can refuse it). I accept the social contract for the most part and you seem not to. This doesn't make it less legible (even though the fact that you cannot practically refuse it is annoying, to say the least). I consider you are confusing "I refuse" and "Everyone shall refuse" (Russel's teapot here). When you say that "taxation is not a necessity", you are expressing your own belief, not an immutable truth (immutable truth are the province of hypothetico-deductive systems like maths and chess).
• I'm not a fan on using big words for the sake of it. Look at real slavery and the true horror it generates. Same goes for "kidnapping" and "guns".
• Let's talk business. Offer and demand: there is a demand for taxation. Economy of scale: good luck making large structure work without spreading the cost and the maintenance - consider fixing just the part of the road you are actually walking on. Before the advent of state-owned schools, which part of the population was litterate (reminder: freedom starts when you can question what you are being told, and litteracy is a great way to do it)?

A bit off-topic but since you are pursuing a non sequitur fallacy regarding belief: the Catholic Church (despite all the atrocities it perpetrated) did a fine job (till year 1000) in perpetuating a semblance of civilisation in Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. And I'm saying this as an agnostic.

I have a pretty consequentialist vision of things. If mankind constantly balances between individualism and collectivism, between liberalism and interventionnism, betwee, private interest and public interest), I believe (yes, believe, please let me sacrifice someone on an altar) this is because it is the best reflection of his aspirations as a species. Human is social animal at heart. It is a monkey (living in tribe-sized community in the jungle), not a lion (strong enough to live by its own) and not an ant neither (completely devoid of individuality).

Both ardent individualists and ardent collectivists are extremists in my book. It's all about the balance. Of course, where to place the balance is a hard question, probably without definitive answer as long as the human brain will be what it is.

Probably a recurring topic, but since I "accidentally" started such a discussion and people wanted to reply (and also because I have throwing away a long answer ^^), I am opening a thread here, I believe it is the best location.

Original discussion: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.8597628

It is self-moderated. My thread, my rules.