5 ms·

I used to listen to Stefan Molyneux about 10 years ago because he had some interesting views on free market economics. Now I look him up on Wikipedia and find o

• agoristen 6y ago
  What happened is wikipedia turned into a leftist propaganda outlet.
• evanlivingston 6y ago
  Perhaps there is an association between strongly supporting principles of free markets and problematic ethics.
  • ur-whale 6y ago
    Aka, I'll hitch my political wagon to any passing train as long as it gets me there.
    • basch 6y ago
      Or freedoms to be bad. Freedoms to say bad things, freedoms to lie, freedoms to pollute the environment, freedoms to sell harmful things. They all share a "for my benefit, the collateral damage inflicted on others be damned" element.
  • sparkie 6y ago
    There is a strong association between free market principles and the principle of non-aggression. Others advocate that it is acceptable to use violent aggressive force against people who do not conform to your opinion of how things should be governed. Tell me where the problematic ethics are again? (FWIW, I don't watch any of the people mentioned above and have only heard of the first, so I am not here to defend them or what they may have said. I'm only defending the Non-aggression principle, which implies that markets are free.)
    • evanlivingston 6y ago
      non-aggression is not the same as non-oppression. I can non-aggressively disenfranchise a group of people. I believe the problem lies in the trust placed in the free market to take the place of empathy and social unity required for creating and protecting civil liberties and equality.
      • sparkie 6y ago
        > empathy and social unity required for creating and protecting civil liberties and equality. "empathy," but it's OK to use violent aggressive force against people who don't share my empathy. "social unity," but it's OK to use violent aggressive force against people who don't share our opinions. The non-aggression principle is the only ethically consistent one. As soon as you advocate for violence to be used, your other opinions mean shit. A free market is implied by the non-aggression principle, because the only way you can stop people trading freely if they don't agree with you is to use violence. Civil liberties are protected by individuals themselves, by asserting their rights, and conforming to the non-aggression principle to avoid getting into conflicts with others. As for "equality", I really could not give a shit. Me and my immediate family come first. My extended family come second. My community comes third. The rest are dead last. It doesn't matter what sex, color, orientation or other perceived victimization they have - if they attempt or advocate for violence to be used against those I care about, they are the problem. I am a strong proponent of the non-aggression principle, and will interact with anybody on good terms unless they are in violation of it. Also, regarding trust in free markets: What is a democratic vote? Why does this free market opinion have a free pass but other free market opinions are not allowed?
        • evanlivingston 6y ago
          This is just depressing, man. > Civil liberties are protected by individuals themselves, by asserting their rights, and conforming to the non-aggression principle to avoid getting into conflicts with others. Some people are are not in positions to "assert" their rights. Furthermore, by claiming they have a duty to not use violence in order to reclaim the rights being denied you further give power to a group of individuals to are systematically denying people rights. Again, arguments that the free market works this sort of shit it out is just philosophical thinking not founded in reality and obviously coming from a lack of experience with systematic oppression. > As for "equality", I really could not give a shit. That's where we're just going to disagree and you reveal your values. There isn't room in the future for people who think this way. You're going to become further polarized as it becomes increasingly clear that the global community is increasingly concerned with equality and you're standing on the sidelines.
  • alentist 6y ago
    Interesting speculation. On the other hand, there is an association between strongly opposing principles of free markets and problematic ethics.
    • toiletfuneral 6y ago
      Ok, so having more empty houses than homeless people and someone dying because they're unable to afford insulin are NOT examples of problematic ethics. Got it.
  • baddox 6y ago
    Just to be clear, Molyneux had long been an anarcho-capitalist, which is already an extreme take on free market economics. I wouldn’t look too far into it, and I certainly wouldn’t conclude that white nationalism is the logical conclusion of thinking that free markets have their place in society.
  • smnthermes 6y ago
    Or perhaps the far-right just has the habit to coopt members of others groups. Not only free market supporters, e.g. Sara Winter and Carla Zambelli were from the feminist group FEMEN, and nowadays are Bolsonaro supporters.
• whymauri 6y ago
  Unfortunately, a portion of the 2000s internet rationalist movement radicalized towards these views.
• em3rgent0rdr 6y ago
  He went bad about 10 years ago. Before that he was halfway decent, however he did have some problematic tendencies, which I'm afraid were amplified and pushed out anything good.
• pingpongchef 6y ago
  Molyneux, precisely, does not advocate specifically for a white ethnostate where Spencer does. However, Molyneux doesn't oppose one on principle, which for most is too close for comfort so he gets branded as one. I understand for many that is evidence of guilt but logically speaking that's not the same thing.
  • gh02t 6y ago
    That's missing the forest for the trees... advocating for a "white ethnostate" is not the only thing that makes you a white supremacist and that's the real crux of the comparison. Making the distinction doesn't change the fact that he is rightfully lumped in with them on the basis of being a white supremacist. There is more nuance to Molyneux than David Duke, but he's made his views on the subject pretty clear.
    • SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      The comment tree was about "white nationalism", which is definitely commonly understood to mean "wants a white ethnostate".
      • gh02t 6y ago
        Fair, but is the distinction actually important in this case? It seems to me to be more of a means of obfuscating/derailing the discussion of Molyneux's views.
        • SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
          I think precision is important in this context, because people have a bad habit of using terms like "white supremacist" as generic insults against any right-wing figure. Being imprecise diminishes the force of the arguments against Molyneux, who really has made explicit claims that white people are better than everyone else.
          • gh02t 6y ago
• achillesheels 6y ago
  He carried the momentum of the 2016 meme wars and funneled impressionable anti-establishment pro-Trump types. He was much more focused on eternal truths when his channel was philosophically centered, but self-examining one’s own eternal destination does not get many clicks.
• gotoeleven 6y ago
  Why is everyone making surprised pickachu face about white nationalism as our culture encourages black nationalism and every other kind of racial tribalism? The problem isn't the color, the problem is the nationalism.
  • whymauri 6y ago
    Hasn't black nationalism been essentially dead since the Black Panther party collapsed? You talk about as if it were as immediately dangerous as white nationalism, but I'm not sure it is.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • throwanem 6y ago
      It isn't, but pretending that 70s Kodachrome black nationalism is the same as 1080p60 white supremacism is a useful lie as long as you're talking to somebody who doesn't know any of the history involved.
  • disposekinetics 6y ago
    From a pure strategy perspective I suspect you never want to be the last person to adopt tribalism.
  • robotron 6y ago
    It's curious that people that seem to be racists aren't happy when everyone tries to get along and sing campfire songs about being one people and inclusive. They also aren't happy when people stand up for themselves and reject their worldview.
  • Karunamon 6y ago
    I'm not convinced that nationalism not based on some intrinsic attribute of its people (like race) is even mostly bad. 1. : loyalty and devotion to a nation especially : a sense of national consciousness (see CONSCIOUSNESS sense 1c) exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups This, to me, reads that nations should advocate for their own interests first and have that as their primary concern - which seems pretty reasonable. Much in the same way that we have state and local representatives that advocate for the state and the locality in their respective governments, the higher levels up do the same for their entire citizenry on the global stage. There's nothing inherently icky or oppressive about this kind of mutual self-interest, and it need not imply any kind of dehumanization. It is, of course, possible to take too far (see: xenophobia), but that strikes me as a problem of implementation and general human failings, not as an intractable problem with the concept that deserves it being compared to objective evil. If the antonym of nationalism is globalism, I think that mindset has bigger problems.
• moneywoes 6y ago
  Looks more lucrative
• jacquesm 6y ago
  There is a pretty straight line from 'free market economics' (aka exploiting people who are already down) to white nationalism (aka shitting on people that are not 'white' enough). No need to be surprised.
• Yhippa 6y ago
  The same thing appears to be happening with Scott Adams (author of the Dilbert comic strips).
• reitzensteinm 6y ago
  I also listened to him ten years ago. Every week or two I'd pick a new channel to watch to death while working, so I've probably consumed 40+ hours of content. I heard bits and pieces over the years since that gave me the same reaction - what the hell happened. Although in retrospect the seeds were probably there even back then. One thing that came out later was him emotionally explaining to the camera that the problem with the world is that women choose assholes to date. Another was his violent fantasy about what he'd do to his mother. That these kinds of outbursts didn't lose him his audience pretty much tells you all you need to know. It's a shame, as there were a few pieces that stuck with me from when I watched it that I think made me a better person. It was the first time I'd personally been exposed to ideas (mainly because I was young) like never hit children, it's OK to cut contact with an abusive family, that circumcision on babies is wrong and that you should structure your life to spend a great deal of time with your children if you want to be a parent. They've all pretty much stuck with me until today. Plus a bunch of interesting in theory libertarian stuff, although I'm so far away from many of his positions it's almost comical (I'm the kind of person that wants high income and capital gains taxes and 100% inheritance taxes to fund a basic income), I find it a good diff on current society. It's a shame, because if he had progressed towards cuddly-bear Molyneux instead of I-want-to-run-a-cult Molyneux, I think he could have been a positive force instead of the target of what is a pretty well justified ban today.
  • munificent 6y ago
    > if he had progressed towards cuddly-bear Molyneux instead of I-want-to-run-a-cult Molyneux This is an interesting thing I don't hear talked about much. People often criticize social media because it recommends increasingly extreme content to consumers because doing so drives up engagement. But what I hear less often is how the reward systems of social media radicalize producers. If you make your living off YouTube and see that you nuanced, reasoned video essay got 50 views, while you're angry rant got 50,000... you'll start feeling the pressure to make more of the latter. And your natural desire to rationalize your own cognitive dissonance will lead you to believe the things you find yourself spewing. This is why it's so important to get incentive structures right. Because incentives do what they do whether you want them to or not.
• baddox 6y ago
  Most likely, he always had these beliefs, but he knew they were socially unacceptable so he kept them to himself. When a massive and lucrative potential audience developed on YouTube, of course he's going to be there to go after those views.
• CyberDildonics 6y ago
  Someone mentioned him to me as a sort of anti-government philosopher. At some point he popped up again breaking down the treyvon martin incident and everything about it seemed pretty gross. Eventually he popped back up again (to me) and got popular with the rise of trump
• pgcj_poster 6y ago
  If you believe that free markets result in a fair outcome, eventually you have to come up with an explanation for why black and brown people have much lower economic and social status in Western capitalist countries. Broadly speaking, there's only a few possibilities: 1. Free markets can result in unfair outcomes in the face of prejudice or historical inequalities. 2. Racial inequality is caused entirely by government regulation. 3. The system works fine as it is, and some minorities just deserve lower status because they're lazy or have low IQs or something. The most hardcore Libertarians reject (1) because it could potentially justify government intervention. Most of them turn to (2), but since that's a bit of tough argument to make, a few go to (3) instead. And once you decide that minorities are just inferior, it's a pretty straight line from there to white nationalism.
• BuckRogers 6y ago
  I gave him a chance because my cousin is one of these "anarcho-capitalism" guys (which is a contradiction, anarchy means lack of a control system or gov't, and capitalism is a power structure) and loved Molyneux. I've always been more of a fan of Richard Wolff and his project, Democracy at Work.[0] But a less serious intellectual than Dr. Wolff (of Yale, Harvard, Stanford), Peter Joseph of the Zeitgeist Project has made Stefan look foolish.[1] And an even less serious intellectual than Peter Joseph has caught out Stefan (me), he's one of those that says "communism kills people", but yet "guns do not kill people". If inanimate objects don't spontaneously kill people Stefan, neither do ideas. He's beneath a lightweight on his ability to think clearly. [0]https://www.youtube.com/user/democracyatwrk https://www.youtube.com/user/democracyatwrk [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaP2GJvZlWY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaP2GJvZlWY
  • thu2111 6y ago
    Anarcho-capitalists don't see capitalism as a power structure though. They see it as something natural that emerges organically, without it being imposed on top. They argue that, for example, markets appear in failed states, they emerge even when the states try to suppress them (black markets), and they're a natural outcome of different skills and needs. So it's not a power structure any more than say, mountains are a power structure, even though some people can exploit mountains pretty effectively to gain advantage.
    • BuckRogers 6y ago
      That’s an interesting point, my only immediate thought is that markets and capitalism are two entirely separate entities. Capitalism gets a lot in free credit (no pun intended) riding off the coat tails of market economics. In short, capitalism is paying others to do your work, but paying them less then the value they produce. Not an attractive proposition since it always trends towards Foxconn without a mechanism to counteract it such as a union. A market can exist without that, bartering is all you need there.