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"I'm sorry to find that you're no more serious about your politics that all the other libertarians I've encountered. I had hoped you'd be willing to engage with

by nirvana 15y ago

"I'm sorry to find that you're no more serious about your politics that all the other libertarians I've encountered. I had hoped you'd be willing to engage with the content of my argument instead of its dressings. I am disappointed to find that you are not." The entirety of both of your responses consists of either inaccurate characterizations of what I've said, of history, or of me. You have, on more than one occasion made derogatory characterizations of me, and you close with the above ad hominem. This is a form of anti-intellectualism which I will not indulge further. I shouldn't have given you the benefit of the doubt, but unlike you, I am generous that way.

cmhamill 15y ago
I'm genuinely sorry that you feel that way.
- nirvana 15y ago
  Those are not my feelings, they are the objective fact of reality. I'm sorry I wasted time giving you the benefit of the doubt when your only intention was to engage in personal attacks. If you were "genuinely sorry" for your actions, you would apologize for them.
  - amouat 15y ago
    Quite frankly, I don't see too much to take offence at in cmhamill's words. It really doesn't appear to me that there was an intention to attack you personally, although it was perhaps blunt in places.
  - thwest 15y ago
    If you want to raise the level of discourse on the internet is it your obligation to object to people's core statements, rather than ancillary fallacies that might surround them. Did you ever answer this from cmhammil? I simply ask you this: if the taking of property via force is a violation of your "NAP," what do you say to the implicit threat of force which establishes the principle of property in the first place?
    - derleth 15y ago
      If I make a chair, and I claim it as mine, where's the force?
      - alextgordon 15y ago
        If I take the chair from you, you'll force me to give it back (or rather the police will, on your behalf). ...which sounds reasonable enough to non-anarchists. But consider something closer to our hearts: If I design an algorithm and patent it as mine, where's the force?
        derleth 15y ago
        > If I design an algorithm and patent it as mine, where's the force? Ultimately, in the legal system implementing patent laws. However, as you well know, patents and chairs aren't the same kind of property, in that chairs are a rivalrous good and patents are not.
      - cmhamill 15y ago
        Nowhere. But that's not property, right? I mean, that's a man claiming he owns a chair. Now let's say I steal your chair. This is the moment in our narrative where we get to see whether you and I live in a society that adheres to the property principle. If I steal your chair, and everyone gets sort of angry with me, and I say shove off and sit on my new chair, then we live in a society where the property principle is at most weakly enforced. Let's say I steal your chair and get arrested. That implies that there are police, who are funded by some kind of entity which has taken it upon itself to enforce property rights. Which means that the means by which property becomes a real social fact is force enacted by, say, the state, against those who choose to disregard the principle. Thus in a society where the property principle is taken for granted, that principle is in itself upheld by the implicit threat of force.
        derleth 15y ago
        I could just as easily say that theft occurs via the threat of force, explicit or implicit: I don't resist your theft because, usually, I know or strongly suspect you have a firearm, or a knife, or a greater willingness to use your muscle mass to rearrange my organs. So, if I resist your theft, am I asserting property rights or am I exercising my right to self-defense?
ZenPsycho 15y ago
I do not believe "Ad Hominem" means what you seem to think it means. Furthermore I don't think anyone has ever won an argument by calling out the names of random logical fallacies. The purpose of them is you call them out, in your own head, to yourself. And then you use that information to explicitly examine and question the argument at hand. Oftentimes it is not necessary to point out any fallacy at all if the overall conclusion of the argument does not depend on the truth value of the fallacious statement- So the best strategy in argument then, is to first identify what that overall conclusion is, identify the premises that the conclusion depends on, discarding any premises that are irrelevant, and address those explicitly. To call out things like "strawman!" and "ad hominem" is to be pointlessly distracted, or, in a less charitable reading, a strategy intended to distract the reader, so you can avoid having to do all that hard work of addressing the person's actual argument. I believe in this case it is the latter, but I may give you the benefit of the doubt if you can come back and address the content of the argument instead of throwing a fit and refusing to negotiate with intellectual terrorists, as you have.

by nirvana 15y ago

cmhamill 15y ago

I'm genuinely sorry that you feel that way.

nirvana 15y ago
Those are not my feelings, they are the objective fact of reality. I'm sorry I wasted time giving you the benefit of the doubt when your only intention was to engage in personal attacks. If you were "genuinely sorry" for your actions, you would apologize for them.
- amouat 15y ago
  Quite frankly, I don't see too much to take offence at in cmhamill's words. It really doesn't appear to me that there was an intention to attack you personally, although it was perhaps blunt in places.
- thwest 15y ago
  If you want to raise the level of discourse on the internet is it your obligation to object to people's core statements, rather than ancillary fallacies that might surround them. Did you ever answer this from cmhammil? I simply ask you this: if the taking of property via force is a violation of your "NAP," what do you say to the implicit threat of force which establishes the principle of property in the first place?
  - derleth 15y ago
    If I make a chair, and I claim it as mine, where's the force?
    - alextgordon 15y ago
      If I take the chair from you, you'll force me to give it back (or rather the police will, on your behalf). ...which sounds reasonable enough to non-anarchists. But consider something closer to our hearts: If I design an algorithm and patent it as mine, where's the force?
      - derleth 15y ago
        > If I design an algorithm and patent it as mine, where's the force? Ultimately, in the legal system implementing patent laws. However, as you well know, patents and chairs aren't the same kind of property, in that chairs are a rivalrous good and patents are not.
    - cmhamill 15y ago
      Nowhere. But that's not property, right? I mean, that's a man claiming he owns a chair. Now let's say I steal your chair. This is the moment in our narrative where we get to see whether you and I live in a society that adheres to the property principle. If I steal your chair, and everyone gets sort of angry with me, and I say shove off and sit on my new chair, then we live in a society where the property principle is at most weakly enforced. Let's say I steal your chair and get arrested. That implies that there are police, who are funded by some kind of entity which has taken it upon itself to enforce property rights. Which means that the means by which property becomes a real social fact is force enacted by, say, the state, against those who choose to disregard the principle. Thus in a society where the property principle is taken for granted, that principle is in itself upheld by the implicit threat of force.
      - derleth 15y ago
        I could just as easily say that theft occurs via the threat of force, explicit or implicit: I don't resist your theft because, usually, I know or strongly suspect you have a firearm, or a knife, or a greater willingness to use your muscle mass to rearrange my organs. So, if I resist your theft, am I asserting property rights or am I exercising my right to self-defense?

ZenPsycho 15y ago

I do not believe "Ad Hominem" means what you seem to think it means. Furthermore I don't think anyone has ever won an argument by calling out the names of random logical fallacies. The purpose of them is you call them out, in your own head, to yourself. And then you use that information to explicitly examine and question the argument at hand. Oftentimes it is not necessary to point out any fallacy at all if the overall conclusion of the argument does not depend on the truth value of the fallacious statement- So the best strategy in argument then, is to first identify what that overall conclusion is, identify the premises that the conclusion depends on, discarding any premises that are irrelevant, and address those explicitly. To call out things like "strawman!" and "ad hominem" is to be pointlessly distracted, or, in a less charitable reading, a strategy intended to distract the reader, so you can avoid having to do all that hard work of addressing the person's actual argument. I believe in this case it is the latter, but I may give you the benefit of the doubt if you can come back and address the content of the argument instead of throwing a fit and refusing to negotiate with intellectual terrorists, as you have.