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I'm probably wrong more often than I'm right when it comes to politics on average. But libertarianism has been obviously illogical to me since I was about 15,

I'm probably wrong more often than I'm right when it comes to politics on average. But libertarianism has been obviously illogical to me since I was about 15, half my lifetime ago. Since then I've spoken to some very intelligent libertarians at length and... nope, it still doesn't make any sense. It makes less sense than ever, in fact. At least when I was 15 I just thought they must be stupid, but no, not necessarily. Now my operating theory is that it's similar to how some people become completely engrossed in a fictional universe and wish it was the real world.

bigtex88 4y ago
That's because it is illogical. “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." Libertarians are stuck in a pubescent state-of-mind and are wholly incapable of viewing the real world as it is. Hence their absolutely insane "political leanings".
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  Who's that quote from? It's funny you should use that one, I happen to be an avid Tolkien nerd, starting around that age :D Bit of a tangent, but it continues to amaze how relevant Tolkien continues to be to this day considering he started developing his legendarium almost a century ago now. Gender issues, sexism, addiction, free will, the allure of power and wealth, all explored in an amazingly prescient way that still stands up to scrutiny today.
  - JabavuAdams 4y ago
    It hasn't aged well in some other ways. I was a die-hard Tolkien fan from an early age -- I think I read LotR at around age 10 or so. But ... it's kind of hard to read to your beautiful brown daughter when you constantly have to stop and do teaching moments because Tolkien goes on and on about how fair and beautiful all the good guys are, and how swarthy etc. the nasty Southrons are.
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
      True, it hasn't held up in that sense. Although diving deeper into the legendarium, there is the fact that the southrons and easterlings were corrupted by Sauron to worship him as a god. So you could choose to view those descriptions as consequences of that rather than perceived racial or cultural inferiority. And indeed the "fair and beautiful" Numenoreans were at one point corrupted by Sauron in very much the same way. But yeah, you definitely have to give Tolkien a lot of help on this one, and it's not terribly helpful in the context of reading to your children :/
    - vxNsr 4y ago
      Or you could just explain that fair and beautiful refer to the content of their character and swarthy is a synonym for smarmy, or evil and has nothing to do with skin color at all.
      - oblio 4y ago
        But that's not what he meant and we both know it.
        DrThunder 4y ago
        Oh look I found one of the "Rings of Power" writers.
        mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
        Pretty much every letter Tolkien wrote that touches on racial issues was quite anti-racist. He condemned the nazis, and yet also condemned racist anti-german propaganda in England during the war. He also expressed sympathy with the treatment of black people in South Africa in a letter to his son Christopher.
        vxNsr 4y ago
        Since when does anyone these days care about the author’s intent?
    - DrThunder 4y ago
dools 4y ago
Check out the Dave Troy podcast Dave Troy Presents
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  Looks very interesting. Thanks for the recommendation!
- ETH_start 4y ago
  Dave Troy is a fascist.
  - pas 4y ago
    I have no idea who that is, but based on what? Can you please provide some support for that claim?
    - ETH_start 4y ago
      He calls for violence against all advocates of cryptocurrency, based on outlandish and outrageously defamatory conspiracy theories alleging cryptocurrency is really a plot to globally implement eugenics: https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1478017765927788555?s=20 https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1478017765927788555?s=20 Less extreme and more subtle expressions of his fascist agenda are revealed here, where he employs the administrative state's euphemisms, to advocate for a surveillance state along the lines of what the PRC is instituting: https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1458537983649333252?s=20 https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1458537983649333252?s=20 The euphemisms in question are "demand transparency" and "KYC", which in practice mean imprisoning any one who don't give up their privacy. His strategy for cloaking his fascistic aims is to accuse those he wants to subject to state violence of being the fascists. It's a preemptive deflection tactic. That's why in the above tweet he makes the vague but emotionally charged accusation that "distributed zero-trust databases" are being "co-opted for historically fascist aims" by some nebulous set of parties within the crypto sector.
vxNsr 4y ago
Cool, now do socialism. Anything in the extreme is bad. Can any system work if everyone acts perfectly rationally and and the same time with full empathy? Sure, but such people in reality are few and far between so instead we need to account for the edge cases of which there are many. And as any good software engineer knows you end up spending 80% of your time chasing down the last 1% of your edge cases.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  Socialism is not a great ideology if it's applied indiscriminately, but at least it has useful real world applications in some areas. Libertarianism on the other hand is hardly even an ideology, but based on the ill-conceived notion that if we purposely make no collective effort to have a better society, it will somehow magically fall into place for us. If libertarianism was a software project methodology, it would be the one where you just lock a bunch of programmers into an office with some computers and let them fend for themselves.
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago
    > just lock a bunch of programmers into an office with some computers and let them fend for themselves. Bad example. This is how just about every technical breakthrough in the industry has happened.
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
      Right I forgot to mention all of the programmers have to be sociopaths with no common goal whatsoever.
  - vxNsr 4y ago
    > Socialism is not a great ideology if it's applied indiscriminately, but at least it has useful real world applications in some areas. This is literally what I said and is also true for libertarianism, your false analogy notwithstanding.
    - 4y ago

bigtex88 4y ago

That's because it is illogical. “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." Libertarians are stuck in a pubescent state-of-mind and are wholly incapable of viewing the real world as it is. Hence their absolutely insane "political leanings".

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
Who's that quote from? It's funny you should use that one, I happen to be an avid Tolkien nerd, starting around that age :D Bit of a tangent, but it continues to amaze how relevant Tolkien continues to be to this day considering he started developing his legendarium almost a century ago now. Gender issues, sexism, addiction, free will, the allure of power and wealth, all explored in an amazingly prescient way that still stands up to scrutiny today.
- JabavuAdams 4y ago
  It hasn't aged well in some other ways. I was a die-hard Tolkien fan from an early age -- I think I read LotR at around age 10 or so. But ... it's kind of hard to read to your beautiful brown daughter when you constantly have to stop and do teaching moments because Tolkien goes on and on about how fair and beautiful all the good guys are, and how swarthy etc. the nasty Southrons are.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    True, it hasn't held up in that sense. Although diving deeper into the legendarium, there is the fact that the southrons and easterlings were corrupted by Sauron to worship him as a god. So you could choose to view those descriptions as consequences of that rather than perceived racial or cultural inferiority. And indeed the "fair and beautiful" Numenoreans were at one point corrupted by Sauron in very much the same way. But yeah, you definitely have to give Tolkien a lot of help on this one, and it's not terribly helpful in the context of reading to your children :/
  - vxNsr 4y ago
    Or you could just explain that fair and beautiful refer to the content of their character and swarthy is a synonym for smarmy, or evil and has nothing to do with skin color at all.
    - oblio 4y ago
      But that's not what he meant and we both know it.
      - DrThunder 4y ago
        Oh look I found one of the "Rings of Power" writers.
      - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
        Pretty much every letter Tolkien wrote that touches on racial issues was quite anti-racist. He condemned the nazis, and yet also condemned racist anti-german propaganda in England during the war. He also expressed sympathy with the treatment of black people in South Africa in a letter to his son Christopher.
      - vxNsr 4y ago
        Since when does anyone these days care about the author’s intent?
  - DrThunder 4y ago

dools 4y ago

Check out the Dave Troy podcast Dave Troy Presents

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
Looks very interesting. Thanks for the recommendation!
ETH_start 4y ago
Dave Troy is a fascist.
- pas 4y ago
  I have no idea who that is, but based on what? Can you please provide some support for that claim?
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    He calls for violence against all advocates of cryptocurrency, based on outlandish and outrageously defamatory conspiracy theories alleging cryptocurrency is really a plot to globally implement eugenics: https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1478017765927788555?s=20 https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1478017765927788555?s=20 Less extreme and more subtle expressions of his fascist agenda are revealed here, where he employs the administrative state's euphemisms, to advocate for a surveillance state along the lines of what the PRC is instituting: https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1458537983649333252?s=20 https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1458537983649333252?s=20 The euphemisms in question are "demand transparency" and "KYC", which in practice mean imprisoning any one who don't give up their privacy. His strategy for cloaking his fascistic aims is to accuse those he wants to subject to state violence of being the fascists. It's a preemptive deflection tactic. That's why in the above tweet he makes the vague but emotionally charged accusation that "distributed zero-trust databases" are being "co-opted for historically fascist aims" by some nebulous set of parties within the crypto sector.

vxNsr 4y ago

Cool, now do socialism. Anything in the extreme is bad. Can any system work if everyone acts perfectly rationally and and the same time with full empathy? Sure, but such people in reality are few and far between so instead we need to account for the edge cases of which there are many. And as any good software engineer knows you end up spending 80% of your time chasing down the last 1% of your edge cases.

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
Socialism is not a great ideology if it's applied indiscriminately, but at least it has useful real world applications in some areas. Libertarianism on the other hand is hardly even an ideology, but based on the ill-conceived notion that if we purposely make no collective effort to have a better society, it will somehow magically fall into place for us. If libertarianism was a software project methodology, it would be the one where you just lock a bunch of programmers into an office with some computers and let them fend for themselves.
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  > just lock a bunch of programmers into an office with some computers and let them fend for themselves. Bad example. This is how just about every technical breakthrough in the industry has happened.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    Right I forgot to mention all of the programmers have to be sociopaths with no common goal whatsoever.
- vxNsr 4y ago
  > Socialism is not a great ideology if it's applied indiscriminately, but at least it has useful real world applications in some areas. This is literally what I said and is also true for libertarianism, your false analogy notwithstanding.
  - 4y ago