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I have heard of stories of people who move deep into the woods, disappearing from standard society, and actually successfully manage to live completely off the

I have heard of stories of people who move deep into the woods, disappearing from standard society, and actually successfully manage to live completely off the land. So, technically, this would certainly be possible. Few people are willing to do pursue things on this level however. When more than one person gets involved, politics can easily enter the equation. Personally, I find the libertarian philosophy a bit naive for that reason. The natural state of humanity is tribal in nature. "No rules" is a bit of a fantasy; eventually, some foundation will have to be established. Inevitably, people will disagree on this foundation. Technical achievements aside (the blockchain will live on), Bitcoin actually is a great example of how something with somewhat idealistic libertarian underpinnings ended up turning into the usual tribal politics in the end.

dmichulke 10y ago
Moving into the woods is certainly a way but libertarians are big fans of the market and a far away single man show is not a market, so there is no division of labor and consequently no prosperity (relative to what is possible). Well, all libertarianism is based on ownership and contract law (plus some other stuff like homesteading as initial means to acquire ownership). So rules there are, they are just not forced unto someone. Consider the opposite - maybe you are in favor of Uber or abortion or against taxation. Yet somehow your state assumes that you implicitly agree to everything the state mandates, such as laws and sharing the fruits of your labor. You can think of Libertarianism as a way to have many many states instead of just a single one the size of the US. In this way, you can choose with your feet what rules you accept because you have a choice. And you have this choice without travelling thousands of miles and leaving your family, friends and job behind. You can avoid Donald and Hillary by moving a few miles, you can avoid paying taxes or your personal nemesis law (like abortion) because you have a market of possible states (I'm simplifying here) and not just a single one. Bitcoin is indeed a great example of Libertarianism (or rather the market) because if the BTC guys don't adapt to what people need, another crypto-currency will eventually take over. You now have a market of semi-anonymous currencies and that's not the problem but the solution to BTC's tribal politics.
- soundwave106 10y ago
  There are many visions of "libertarian", and I do think that the decentralized version is more realistic than the anarcho-capitalist one. :) The main problem I see with this vision is that, in order to achieve it, I feel that a large portion of humans would need to develop the ability to respectfully disagree with personal opinion differences, without resorting to conflict. This actually is difficult as it does not seem to be default human nature. Even Bitcoin showed this -- DDOS were reportedly used as a "weapon" against some of the forks. I do agree that, whenever possible, it is a good idea to have some degree of state / municipal / etc. flexibility such that one can experiment with what works and what doesn't.
  - vacri 10y ago
    > I feel that a large portion of humans would need to develop the ability to respectfully disagree with personal opinion differences, without resorting to conflict. If we could do this, we wouldn't need libertarianism, or any other kind of -ism.

dmichulke 10y ago

Moving into the woods is certainly a way but libertarians are big fans of the market and a far away single man show is not a market, so there is no division of labor and consequently no prosperity (relative to what is possible). Well, all libertarianism is based on ownership and contract law (plus some other stuff like homesteading as initial means to acquire ownership). So rules there are, they are just not forced unto someone. Consider the opposite - maybe you are in favor of Uber or abortion or against taxation. Yet somehow your state assumes that you implicitly agree to everything the state mandates, such as laws and sharing the fruits of your labor. You can think of Libertarianism as a way to have many many states instead of just a single one the size of the US. In this way, you can choose with your feet what rules you accept because you have a choice. And you have this choice without travelling thousands of miles and leaving your family, friends and job behind. You can avoid Donald and Hillary by moving a few miles, you can avoid paying taxes or your personal nemesis law (like abortion) because you have a market of possible states (I'm simplifying here) and not just a single one. Bitcoin is indeed a great example of Libertarianism (or rather the market) because if the BTC guys don't adapt to what people need, another crypto-currency will eventually take over. You now have a market of semi-anonymous currencies and that's not the problem but the solution to BTC's tribal politics.

soundwave106 10y ago
There are many visions of "libertarian", and I do think that the decentralized version is more realistic than the anarcho-capitalist one. :) The main problem I see with this vision is that, in order to achieve it, I feel that a large portion of humans would need to develop the ability to respectfully disagree with personal opinion differences, without resorting to conflict. This actually is difficult as it does not seem to be default human nature. Even Bitcoin showed this -- DDOS were reportedly used as a "weapon" against some of the forks. I do agree that, whenever possible, it is a good idea to have some degree of state / municipal / etc. flexibility such that one can experiment with what works and what doesn't.
- vacri 10y ago
  > I feel that a large portion of humans would need to develop the ability to respectfully disagree with personal opinion differences, without resorting to conflict. If we could do this, we wouldn't need libertarianism, or any other kind of -ism.