6 ms·

For what its worth, I think most people who agree with your first to sentences would have no problem with cutting the things you list in the third.

by cderwin 10y ago

yequalsx 10y ago
Probably not police but certainly schools.
zo1 10y ago
I am one of those people. Though what you forget to add is that we'd rather pay to have such services in our communities by ourselves, of our own volition, rather than it being taken from us without our explicit consent. This discussion always boils down to consent.
- Forbo 10y ago
  I'm genuinely curious, how do you go about executing this? Not everyone will consent, so how do you selectively apply those services? In the winter, I pay for snow plows and salting the roads, but my neighbor doesn't, so...? I am really having a difficult time seeing how to actually make this happen.
  - zo1 10y ago
    Roads would be plowed by the companies that owe them. I.e. as a service to the people that are renting usage of the road. And yeah, we envision a society where all land can be owned, including roads. Of course, transitioning to such a system where currently all roads are owned by everyone else and simultaneously by no-one, would be a tricky thing to solve. Though it has been "solved" in certain parts. E.g. If you consider large gated communities. It's not a perfect example, but it does hint at the possibility of people coming together to solve a communal problem using communal funding, and individuals having the option to leave if they don't like it and don't want to consent. It took me the longest time to reconcile a bunch of these things when it came to Libertarianism (or further). Eventually I did "get it" when I started thinking about how I would solve these problems in the absence of a state and only having access to the concepts of "private property" and "contracts". Having a state there, ready and ever-present to fix all our problems is a cushion/crutch when it comes to solving the problems that a community would have to deal with.
    - lostlogin 10y ago
      Who pays for those who can't support themselves? Orphans, elderly, infirm/sick? Who pays for those things that everyone benefits from but no one sees? International trade agreements, armed forces, border controls, research, pest control, safety regulation, building regulation, civil defence etc etc.
      - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
        > Who pays for those who can't support themselves? Orphans, elderly, infirm/sick? They die. This is considered a feature, not a bug. Beneath the smokescreen rhetoric of consent and personal freedom, the core ethos of libertarianism is "survival of the fittest."
        bashinator 10y ago
        I'm really glad the pretty words and nice imagery are coming off this fact. I've seen a lot more acknowledgement lately that this is how libertarian societies work out for people lacking any ownership of their own resources.
        zo1 10y ago
        Family and the community. But go ahead and label us evil because apparently our core Libertarian "ethos" is that we want the sick and infirm to "die". Meanwhile, on the state's watch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Sta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan
        PhasmaFelis 10y ago
        > Family and the community. But go ahead and label us evil because apparently our core Libertarian "ethos" is that we want the sick and infirm to "die". Then by all means prove me wrong. What, as a Libertarian, do you think should be done for sick and infirm people without their own financial support?
- JoBrad 10y ago
  One of the big problems I have with this theory is the way "consent" is being defined: I find it illogical to think that every person should have to explicitly agree to every possible law they could be held accountable for. Exercising this would become the biggest farce and waste untold amounts of money.
  - zo1 10y ago
    Well, Libertarianism usually means very little government and as a consequence, very few laws. So there is no need to have elaborate mechanisms to "consent" to countless laws. Though the precise amount of "laws" varies depending on which Libertarian you speak to. They will all, however, agree on property/ownership law and the Non-aggression principle. It's actually quite elegant, because you could define all sorts of "laws" or prescribed/prohibited behaviors simply by following through with the consequences of the above principles. E.g. Fraud, or breaking a contract. The money and ownership of goods was transferred from one entity to another. If one side "refuses" to hold up their side of the trade, then they're effectively depriving the other party of the use of the property that they own.
- Frondo 10y ago
  The thing I've come to realize after being alive for a while is, the world you want to live in is pure fantasy. The idea that we'd do away with a democratic state and replace it with all-volunteer contracts and shit, it has absolutely no resemblance to reality at all. It's an even bigger fiction than a communist paradise, from each according to his ability and all that. BUT...my ideal world (for simplicity's sake, star trek--post-scarcity, people can explore and make art, etc) is also fiction. I get that. I don't think we're there, of course, though I'd like to see us get closer. The difference between our aspirational fictional worlds is, whenever people take steps toward yours (think America in the late 1800s, which is probably the best proxy for the libertarian paradise we could look at in the West), lots of people suffer. Private charity simply didn't--and wouldn't--work the way libertarians think it would/should. Life is hard for a lot of people, and shitty, and we've moved beyond that because it doesn't have to be a cruel world like that. But when people take steps toward my ideal post-scarcity world (think, broadly speaking, Scandinavia, or even anywhere with universal health care, like Canada), it actually kinda works. Health care systems get funded, people can be artists without starving. People suffer less. Maybe you prioritize the libertarian ideal of personal freedom (which is not what I'd even consider freedom in any way) over the suffering of a bunch of people, and hey, that's your prerogative. But looking at the outcomes of one or the other, man I know where I throw in.
- yequalsx 10y ago
  How do you account for the free rider problem? Suppose you live in a small town how do they collectively pay for expensive medical services if one member of the small community gets an illness that requires lots of resources to treat? Isn't it better to distribute the burden over a larger population? Wouldn't there be a massive amount of administrative overlap if all services truly were done at the community level? How do you prevent the race to the bottom mentality if everything is done at the community level?

For what its worth, I think most people who agree with your first to sentences would have no problem with cutting the things you list in the third.

by cderwin 10y ago

For what its worth, I think most people who agree with your first to sentences would have no problem with cutting the things you list in the third.

yequalsx 10y ago

Probably not police but certainly schools.

zo1 10y ago

I am one of those people. Though what you forget to add is that we'd rather pay to have such services in our communities by ourselves, of our own volition, rather than it being taken from us without our explicit consent. This discussion always boils down to consent.

Forbo 10y ago
I'm genuinely curious, how do you go about executing this? Not everyone will consent, so how do you selectively apply those services? In the winter, I pay for snow plows and salting the roads, but my neighbor doesn't, so...? I am really having a difficult time seeing how to actually make this happen.
- zo1 10y ago
  Roads would be plowed by the companies that owe them. I.e. as a service to the people that are renting usage of the road. And yeah, we envision a society where all land can be owned, including roads. Of course, transitioning to such a system where currently all roads are owned by everyone else and simultaneously by no-one, would be a tricky thing to solve. Though it has been "solved" in certain parts. E.g. If you consider large gated communities. It's not a perfect example, but it does hint at the possibility of people coming together to solve a communal problem using communal funding, and individuals having the option to leave if they don't like it and don't want to consent. It took me the longest time to reconcile a bunch of these things when it came to Libertarianism (or further). Eventually I did "get it" when I started thinking about how I would solve these problems in the absence of a state and only having access to the concepts of "private property" and "contracts". Having a state there, ready and ever-present to fix all our problems is a cushion/crutch when it comes to solving the problems that a community would have to deal with.
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    Who pays for those who can't support themselves? Orphans, elderly, infirm/sick? Who pays for those things that everyone benefits from but no one sees? International trade agreements, armed forces, border controls, research, pest control, safety regulation, building regulation, civil defence etc etc.
    - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
      > Who pays for those who can't support themselves? Orphans, elderly, infirm/sick? They die. This is considered a feature, not a bug. Beneath the smokescreen rhetoric of consent and personal freedom, the core ethos of libertarianism is "survival of the fittest."
      - bashinator 10y ago
        I'm really glad the pretty words and nice imagery are coming off this fact. I've seen a lot more acknowledgement lately that this is how libertarian societies work out for people lacking any ownership of their own resources.
      - zo1 10y ago
        Family and the community. But go ahead and label us evil because apparently our core Libertarian "ethos" is that we want the sick and infirm to "die". Meanwhile, on the state's watch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Sta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan
        PhasmaFelis 10y ago
        > Family and the community. But go ahead and label us evil because apparently our core Libertarian "ethos" is that we want the sick and infirm to "die". Then by all means prove me wrong. What, as a Libertarian, do you think should be done for sick and infirm people without their own financial support?
JoBrad 10y ago
One of the big problems I have with this theory is the way "consent" is being defined: I find it illogical to think that every person should have to explicitly agree to every possible law they could be held accountable for. Exercising this would become the biggest farce and waste untold amounts of money.
- zo1 10y ago
  Well, Libertarianism usually means very little government and as a consequence, very few laws. So there is no need to have elaborate mechanisms to "consent" to countless laws. Though the precise amount of "laws" varies depending on which Libertarian you speak to. They will all, however, agree on property/ownership law and the Non-aggression principle. It's actually quite elegant, because you could define all sorts of "laws" or prescribed/prohibited behaviors simply by following through with the consequences of the above principles. E.g. Fraud, or breaking a contract. The money and ownership of goods was transferred from one entity to another. If one side "refuses" to hold up their side of the trade, then they're effectively depriving the other party of the use of the property that they own.
Frondo 10y ago
The thing I've come to realize after being alive for a while is, the world you want to live in is pure fantasy. The idea that we'd do away with a democratic state and replace it with all-volunteer contracts and shit, it has absolutely no resemblance to reality at all. It's an even bigger fiction than a communist paradise, from each according to his ability and all that. BUT...my ideal world (for simplicity's sake, star trek--post-scarcity, people can explore and make art, etc) is also fiction. I get that. I don't think we're there, of course, though I'd like to see us get closer. The difference between our aspirational fictional worlds is, whenever people take steps toward yours (think America in the late 1800s, which is probably the best proxy for the libertarian paradise we could look at in the West), lots of people suffer. Private charity simply didn't--and wouldn't--work the way libertarians think it would/should. Life is hard for a lot of people, and shitty, and we've moved beyond that because it doesn't have to be a cruel world like that. But when people take steps toward my ideal post-scarcity world (think, broadly speaking, Scandinavia, or even anywhere with universal health care, like Canada), it actually kinda works. Health care systems get funded, people can be artists without starving. People suffer less. Maybe you prioritize the libertarian ideal of personal freedom (which is not what I'd even consider freedom in any way) over the suffering of a bunch of people, and hey, that's your prerogative. But looking at the outcomes of one or the other, man I know where I throw in.
yequalsx 10y ago
How do you account for the free rider problem? Suppose you live in a small town how do they collectively pay for expensive medical services if one member of the small community gets an illness that requires lots of resources to treat? Isn't it better to distribute the burden over a larger population? Wouldn't there be a massive amount of administrative overlap if all services truly were done at the community level? How do you prevent the race to the bottom mentality if everything is done at the community level?