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> He doesn't rate caring for another person's liberty to make their own mistakes their own way. Like making this hit job, and then slinking away not responding

> He doesn't rate caring for another person's liberty to make their own mistakes their own way. Like making this hit job, and then slinking away not responding to me? Prove me wrong. > As far as he's concerned if you don't agree with him you're lacking in empathy and moral fibre by definition. If you don't care about other people, you do by definition. > Didn't the Soviet union go well? What does that have do with anything he said? > Thanks for your input Noam! All your comment is just padding playing cute. All you're saying is it rubbed you the wrong way but you got nothing.

harry8 8y ago
I'm not sure the tone of this is likely to be productive. Obviously "proving wrong" is a non-starter in such a debate. Nonetheless... It's a reasonable position for a person to take that the state should stay out of decisions made for oneself and family as far as it's practicable. I know what's good for my family and can get that far better and more effectively than giving my resources to a bureaucrat to waste, returning a small fraction of it to me with a decision made on what they consider good for my family. (Maybe I'm wrong there, that's my right, and yours, to be wrong about such matters as pertain to yourself and your family). Caring about such rights for others does necessarily mean one is incredibly selfish. Just as espousing socialism does not necessarily mean one is selfless. Incredibly selfish people will exist in both camps. Those who disagree with me (of whom some are socialist) are capable of having merit as people and could be warm, lovely caring, empathetic people, even if that's clearly not all of them. Noam has no empathy for me, I lack merit for disagreeing with his brand of socialism in his eyes. I can live with it. I think he's arrogant. He can probably live with that too fwiw...
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  > Caring about such rights for others does necessarily mean one is incredibly selfish. You're just playing word games. IF you don't care for others, you are selfish, by definition. If you only pretend to care about the right of others to not help others, so you don't have to help others, you're selfish and dishonest. And that's your right, but don't twist the words of others because you can't even stand behind your own position. > I know what's good for my family and can get that far better and more effectively than giving my resources to a bureaucrat to waste That's all great and also completely besides the point. > Noam has no empathy for me Can you stop making this about Noam Chomsky for just one second? Here's the same point from someone else: We've changed. And we've become contemptuous of the idea that we're all in this together. This is about sharing. And about, you know... when you say sharing, there is a percentage of the population, and it's the moneyed percent of our population, that hears "socialism" or "communism" or any of the other -isms they wanna put on it, but ultimately, we are all a part of the same society, and it's either gonna be a mediocre society that, you know, abuses people, or it's not. -- David Simon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL6Jv2Jpnpg&t=6m50s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL6Jv2Jpnpg&t=6m50s The person I initially responded to clearly has no empathy for people more (supposedly) more unfortunate than them, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18419729 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18419729 So instead you now want to talk about how Noam Chomsky is "the one actually lacking empathy"? You should disabuse yourself of the notion you're being generous and patient, the way you instantly talked about Chomsky displaying arrogance -- you know, send him an email if it upsets you so, but in this context you're responding to me -- and then tried to throw up more mud to get away from the actual context. I'll repeat it, because it still holds true: something rubbed you the wrong way, but you can't really name or refute it. And like most critics of Noam Chomsky, you do anything but address what he actually says, but only face him "in your own words", which are "not even wrong" and not worth addressing at all.
  - harry8 8y ago
    I think you might be arguing with someone else with some context about which I'm not aware? Direct cut and paste from the Chomsky quote: "...you don’t care whether other people’s kids can go to school, or can afford food to eat, or things like that. In the United States, that’s called “libertarian” " Don't be taken in by the reverse ordering in the phrasing. He's just equated libertarians with total uncaring, self-centred selfishness as being their only possible motivation. In this world view libertarians are foul human beings. Rant: F() that right off. Put that quote with similar accusations that all socialists are unpatriotic traitors, posing to get laid or whatever other silly smear - there's plenty of such smears around. All such comments, including this one from Chomsky are puerile nonsense and deserve to be treated with contempt. Reasonable people who are kind, gentle, empathetic and smart can differ on the best way forward in policy informed by differing ideology in a way that is reasonable and assumes the good faith of their opponent until shown otherwise (at which point a reasonable exchange of ideas is not possible). I'm not a libertarian and I bristle from that Chomsky piece of nonsense. (Which it should go without saying, is not a comment on other points he might make about other things in other contexts, better phrased. That quote is complete rubbish in my opinion and I'm saying so. It should also go without saying I'm not claiming all libertarians are people of wondrous perfection or anything like it.) Anyone who disagrees with me is a lesser human. That's an idea worth opposing across the entirety of the political spectrum including the centre, for mine. It's the worst kind of arrogance at best. Without saying anything at all about the rest of his life and works I believe Chomsky is guilty of it here where I'm calling it. So yeah, it's about this Chomsky quote and not much else. I hate it. You obviously don't have to agree but I hope you understand my reaction.

harry8 8y ago

I'm not sure the tone of this is likely to be productive. Obviously "proving wrong" is a non-starter in such a debate. Nonetheless... It's a reasonable position for a person to take that the state should stay out of decisions made for oneself and family as far as it's practicable. I know what's good for my family and can get that far better and more effectively than giving my resources to a bureaucrat to waste, returning a small fraction of it to me with a decision made on what they consider good for my family. (Maybe I'm wrong there, that's my right, and yours, to be wrong about such matters as pertain to yourself and your family). Caring about such rights for others does necessarily mean one is incredibly selfish. Just as espousing socialism does not necessarily mean one is selfless. Incredibly selfish people will exist in both camps. Those who disagree with me (of whom some are socialist) are capable of having merit as people and could be warm, lovely caring, empathetic people, even if that's clearly not all of them. Noam has no empathy for me, I lack merit for disagreeing with his brand of socialism in his eyes. I can live with it. I think he's arrogant. He can probably live with that too fwiw...

PavlovsCat 8y ago
> Caring about such rights for others does necessarily mean one is incredibly selfish. You're just playing word games. IF you don't care for others, you are selfish, by definition. If you only pretend to care about the right of others to not help others, so you don't have to help others, you're selfish and dishonest. And that's your right, but don't twist the words of others because you can't even stand behind your own position. > I know what's good for my family and can get that far better and more effectively than giving my resources to a bureaucrat to waste That's all great and also completely besides the point. > Noam has no empathy for me Can you stop making this about Noam Chomsky for just one second? Here's the same point from someone else: We've changed. And we've become contemptuous of the idea that we're all in this together. This is about sharing. And about, you know... when you say sharing, there is a percentage of the population, and it's the moneyed percent of our population, that hears "socialism" or "communism" or any of the other -isms they wanna put on it, but ultimately, we are all a part of the same society, and it's either gonna be a mediocre society that, you know, abuses people, or it's not. -- David Simon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL6Jv2Jpnpg&t=6m50s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL6Jv2Jpnpg&t=6m50s The person I initially responded to clearly has no empathy for people more (supposedly) more unfortunate than them, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18419729 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18419729 So instead you now want to talk about how Noam Chomsky is "the one actually lacking empathy"? You should disabuse yourself of the notion you're being generous and patient, the way you instantly talked about Chomsky displaying arrogance -- you know, send him an email if it upsets you so, but in this context you're responding to me -- and then tried to throw up more mud to get away from the actual context. I'll repeat it, because it still holds true: something rubbed you the wrong way, but you can't really name or refute it. And like most critics of Noam Chomsky, you do anything but address what he actually says, but only face him "in your own words", which are "not even wrong" and not worth addressing at all.
- harry8 8y ago
  I think you might be arguing with someone else with some context about which I'm not aware? Direct cut and paste from the Chomsky quote: "...you don’t care whether other people’s kids can go to school, or can afford food to eat, or things like that. In the United States, that’s called “libertarian” " Don't be taken in by the reverse ordering in the phrasing. He's just equated libertarians with total uncaring, self-centred selfishness as being their only possible motivation. In this world view libertarians are foul human beings. Rant: F() that right off. Put that quote with similar accusations that all socialists are unpatriotic traitors, posing to get laid or whatever other silly smear - there's plenty of such smears around. All such comments, including this one from Chomsky are puerile nonsense and deserve to be treated with contempt. Reasonable people who are kind, gentle, empathetic and smart can differ on the best way forward in policy informed by differing ideology in a way that is reasonable and assumes the good faith of their opponent until shown otherwise (at which point a reasonable exchange of ideas is not possible). I'm not a libertarian and I bristle from that Chomsky piece of nonsense. (Which it should go without saying, is not a comment on other points he might make about other things in other contexts, better phrased. That quote is complete rubbish in my opinion and I'm saying so. It should also go without saying I'm not claiming all libertarians are people of wondrous perfection or anything like it.) Anyone who disagrees with me is a lesser human. That's an idea worth opposing across the entirety of the political spectrum including the centre, for mine. It's the worst kind of arrogance at best. Without saying anything at all about the rest of his life and works I believe Chomsky is guilty of it here where I'm calling it. So yeah, it's about this Chomsky quote and not much else. I hate it. You obviously don't have to agree but I hope you understand my reaction.