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> I'd say it's very bad at preventing atrocities Not every event that results in a lot of death is an atrocity. An earthquake is not an atrocity. Your ideology

> I'd say it's very bad at preventing atrocities Not every event that results in a lot of death is an atrocity. An earthquake is not an atrocity. Your ideology already has resulted in atrocities. Who was the last libertarian that perpetrated a genocide? > I don't know where you got the idea that the Nazis were utilitarians You missed the rest of the genocides. Are you going to argue that the Cultural Revolution also wasn't utilitarian? What happened to all the sparrows? Regarding Nazis, their ideology was complicated, but let's take a clear example of medical experiments. Nazi medical experiments are a pure distillation utilitarian ideals. Having united society in a common hatred of a relatively dispensable minority, they proceeded to use this minority as subjects for the most horrific variety of medical experiments. They had good doctors. Many of the outcomes of these experiments have advanced the state of the art, and benefited society as a result. Nazi society didn't collapse in fear that people would be abducted. It was only Jews, gypsies and other undesirable minorities who were subject to such horrors. Germans were content in the knowledge that their society would benefit, at the small cost of a few Jews. How would you construct an argument that unequivocally refutes this? > Rideshare apps aren't a "ground-breaking innovation" Because of them me and countless others haven't bought a car they otherwise would almost certainly have. I'd say that's a pretty big difference. > Chinese social media is more innovative than American social media Sure, but who invented social media? I'm not arguing that smaller iterative innovations happen everywhere. I'm arguing that paradigm shifts come from disproportionality few places. > [China] must be an economic paper tiger I never argued this. I argued they're an innovative nonstarter. Yes being the world's factory has economic benefits, obviously. You've also not addressed their one-child policy or COVID response. > powerful capitalists exerted power to get what they want through violence Yes, and where they were able to do that the state had failed. And our systems of governance should correct for this. This is their primary and only function. > this "utilitarian maniac" idea from Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Chiang Kai-shek, etc. All of these people were in pursuit of the greater good. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. > the consequences that such policy would have on society more broadly. Only if you keep things simple. If your kidney transplant victims are a minority for whom you hatred has been cultivated, your society will be just fine. The banality of evil. > If I were to inject you with a substance that had a 50% chance of making you use drugs Presumably without my consent, you've already violated the core principle I'm defending. I thought this was apparent. So of course you are responsible - you are an agent, and you used force. This example would not apply if you only suggested, or convinced me to use the drugs. In that case it would be me that is fully responsible. Do you have a hypothetical that doesn't start with the use of force? As I've said, it's a categorical difference. > Anything that creates a substantial deviation from the greatest possible net amount of well-being in the world How do you quantify wellbeing? Is a nuclear accident that kills 1000 just as evil as a nuclear bomb that does the same? > I don't assert that we have any essential moral rights. I don't either, exactly. I only assert that we are all moral equals, and each of our conceptions of good and evil are, absent an oracle, equally valid. What makes your idea of the good more valid than someone else's? > an admission that you're working backwards from a predetermined conclusion I'm working from a 1700s definition of liberty. It was clearly not universally or justly applied in the 1700s, but the definition was good. You owe nothing to no one. You exchange/associate with others on a voluntary basis. Disputes are resolved via due process. Violence is prohibited. I'm all for expanding who is entitled to be thus free. I'm vehemently against eroding the definition. > the capitalist status quo Capitalism is just a byproduct of freedom as above described and the right to personal property. I'm not coming out in particular defence of special status for corporations, or even limited liability as a concept. These subjects are, while interesting in their own right, unrelated to individual liberty. > bump in the top marginal tax rate is considered an "unjust shackle" It's not about the rate, it's about what the government is permitted to spend it on. Before US v. Butler (1936) the power given to the government to tax and spend on the "general welfare" of the people was limited to what was explicitly written elsewhere in the constitution. After, the government could basically do whatever it wanted as long as it could be construed to be in the interest of the "general welfare". This was the turning point at which our liberty began to erode, and erode it has. If there is one decision I would reverse, this would be it.

bccdee 2y ago
> An earthquake is not an atrocity Earthquakes aren't preventable. If you could stop an earthquake and you chose not to, that would be an atrocity. > Who was the last libertarian that perpetrated a genocide? Augusto Pinochet was a neoliberal, and he committed all kinds of atrocities. The US genocided the Native Americans, and continued to enact genocidal policies up through the 20th century. And anyway, which atrocities has my ideology—progressive leftism—been responsible for? The USSR was a conservative authoritarian autocracy, not a progressive democracy, so don't go citing the Soviet Union again. I don't know why you're so fixated on them; you bring them up constantly. > Nazi medical experiments are a pure distillation utilitarian ideals. Yeah because the Nazi death camps which made them possible generated so much net well-being. No, this is a half-baked caricature of utilitarianism. Consequentialist ethics assesses the goodness of an action based on its consequences, and the consequences of the policies responsible for Josef Mengele's experiments are a massive net negative. > Because of them me and countless others haven't bought a car It's just a taxi subsidized by VC money. The fact that it benefits you does not make it an innovation. > Sure, but who invented social media? I'm not arguing that smaller iterative innovations happen everywhere. I'm arguing that paradigm shifts come from disproportionality few places. Then why are you citing marginal innovations like "what if we reused rocket boosters" or "what if you could order a taxi with an app instead of a phone call" or "what if electric cars had better marketing"? Besides, social media wasn't a singular invention; it was the product of a shifting communication ecosystem. The internet led to BBSes, which led to forums and blogs, which led to shared software frameworks for these things, which led to hosted solutions for these things, like Geocities, MySpace, and eventually Facebook. Paradigm shifts ARE smaller innovative iterations. You fail to understand how technological progress happens. > You've also not addressed their one-child policy or COVID response. What's to address? They have some bad policies? America has some bad policies too. I'm not here to defend every choice China has ever made; only to debunk the claim that liberal administrations are inherently successful while non-liberal ones are inherently not so. > Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Chiang Kai-shek, etc. All of these people were in pursuit of the greater good. Literally everyone claims to pursue the greater good. Even you're justifying your case based on the need to create prosperity and prevent atrocities. That doesn't mean they're principled utilitarians. "Oh you want to stop people from getting hurt? You know who else wanted that? Stalin!" No he didn't. This is a plainly unserious position. > If your kidney transplant victims are a minority for whom you hatred has been cultivated, your society will be just fine. Setting aside that a society would have to be doing much better than "just fine" to offset the harm caused by the mass slaughter of minority groups, what's your go-to example of the "just fine" society where minorities are butchered for their organs? No, this is a sophistic parody of utilitarianism where you just assert that some nominal benefit outweighs the consequences of whatever harm you want to justify. Any ethical system can be twisted in bad faith to justify bad things; the question is whether such bad-faith analyses can be distinguished from proper rigorous ethical analysis. This is the case here: Your supposed utilitarian argument for organ harvesting doesn't stand up to scrutiny. > Do you have a hypothetical that doesn't start with the use of force? Sure. Maybe my factory produces a polluting smog that affects your propensity to make whatever choices. Maybe I've bought up all the property in your province except for land next to a toxic swamp that emits mind-affecting gas. Maybe I'm the only corporation who created a vaccine for a deadly new disease, and I choose to add the mind-affecting chemicals to the vaccine because it suits my interests to affect your decisions. There are countless ways that I can push you into making a particular choice without using force. > I don't either, exactly. I only assert that we are all moral equals, and each of our conceptions of good and evil are, absent an oracle, equally valid. What makes your idea of the good more valid than someone else's? Then how can you condemn a serial killer? His idea of good and evil is just as valid as yours, and apparently you aren't entitled to privilege your own morals. > I'm working from a 1700s definition of liberty. It was clearly not universally or justly applied in the 1700s, but the definition was good. The reason this definition was created in the 1700s was because the 1700s was the period where middle-class capital owners were beginning to compete for power with the aristocracy, and they needed an ideology which would justify the consolidation of power in capitalist hands. > Capitalism is just a byproduct of freedom Exactly backwards. Your 1700s definition of freedom is a byproduct of capitalism, in the same way that the divine right of kings is an ideological byproduct of feudalism. Capitalism arose because of the shifts in power caused by mercantile imperialism and the industrial revolution. Capitalists created an ideology to justify their own newfound power, and that ideology is liberalism. Power doesn't actually follow ethical rules. Ethics is a toy which philosophers play with to critique society. Power is self-justifying; whoever rules, rules, and the ideology of a ruler is just a set of excuses explaining why they are entitled to have the things they have already taken.

bccdee 2y ago

> An earthquake is not an atrocity Earthquakes aren't preventable. If you could stop an earthquake and you chose not to, that would be an atrocity. > Who was the last libertarian that perpetrated a genocide? Augusto Pinochet was a neoliberal, and he committed all kinds of atrocities. The US genocided the Native Americans, and continued to enact genocidal policies up through the 20th century. And anyway, which atrocities has my ideology—progressive leftism—been responsible for? The USSR was a conservative authoritarian autocracy, not a progressive democracy, so don't go citing the Soviet Union again. I don't know why you're so fixated on them; you bring them up constantly. > Nazi medical experiments are a pure distillation utilitarian ideals. Yeah because the Nazi death camps which made them possible generated so much net well-being. No, this is a half-baked caricature of utilitarianism. Consequentialist ethics assesses the goodness of an action based on its consequences, and the consequences of the policies responsible for Josef Mengele's experiments are a massive net negative. > Because of them me and countless others haven't bought a car It's just a taxi subsidized by VC money. The fact that it benefits you does not make it an innovation. > Sure, but who invented social media? I'm not arguing that smaller iterative innovations happen everywhere. I'm arguing that paradigm shifts come from disproportionality few places. Then why are you citing marginal innovations like "what if we reused rocket boosters" or "what if you could order a taxi with an app instead of a phone call" or "what if electric cars had better marketing"? Besides, social media wasn't a singular invention; it was the product of a shifting communication ecosystem. The internet led to BBSes, which led to forums and blogs, which led to shared software frameworks for these things, which led to hosted solutions for these things, like Geocities, MySpace, and eventually Facebook. Paradigm shifts ARE smaller innovative iterations. You fail to understand how technological progress happens. > You've also not addressed their one-child policy or COVID response. What's to address? They have some bad policies? America has some bad policies too. I'm not here to defend every choice China has ever made; only to debunk the claim that liberal administrations are inherently successful while non-liberal ones are inherently not so. > Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Chiang Kai-shek, etc. All of these people were in pursuit of the greater good. Literally everyone claims to pursue the greater good. Even you're justifying your case based on the need to create prosperity and prevent atrocities. That doesn't mean they're principled utilitarians. "Oh you want to stop people from getting hurt? You know who else wanted that? Stalin!" No he didn't. This is a plainly unserious position. > If your kidney transplant victims are a minority for whom you hatred has been cultivated, your society will be just fine. Setting aside that a society would have to be doing much better than "just fine" to offset the harm caused by the mass slaughter of minority groups, what's your go-to example of the "just fine" society where minorities are butchered for their organs? No, this is a sophistic parody of utilitarianism where you just assert that some nominal benefit outweighs the consequences of whatever harm you want to justify. Any ethical system can be twisted in bad faith to justify bad things; the question is whether such bad-faith analyses can be distinguished from proper rigorous ethical analysis. This is the case here: Your supposed utilitarian argument for organ harvesting doesn't stand up to scrutiny. > Do you have a hypothetical that doesn't start with the use of force? Sure. Maybe my factory produces a polluting smog that affects your propensity to make whatever choices. Maybe I've bought up all the property in your province except for land next to a toxic swamp that emits mind-affecting gas. Maybe I'm the only corporation who created a vaccine for a deadly new disease, and I choose to add the mind-affecting chemicals to the vaccine because it suits my interests to affect your decisions. There are countless ways that I can push you into making a particular choice without using force. > I don't either, exactly. I only assert that we are all moral equals, and each of our conceptions of good and evil are, absent an oracle, equally valid. What makes your idea of the good more valid than someone else's? Then how can you condemn a serial killer? His idea of good and evil is just as valid as yours, and apparently you aren't entitled to privilege your own morals. > I'm working from a 1700s definition of liberty. It was clearly not universally or justly applied in the 1700s, but the definition was good. The reason this definition was created in the 1700s was because the 1700s was the period where middle-class capital owners were beginning to compete for power with the aristocracy, and they needed an ideology which would justify the consolidation of power in capitalist hands. > Capitalism is just a byproduct of freedom Exactly backwards. Your 1700s definition of freedom is a byproduct of capitalism, in the same way that the divine right of kings is an ideological byproduct of feudalism. Capitalism arose because of the shifts in power caused by mercantile imperialism and the industrial revolution. Capitalists created an ideology to justify their own newfound power, and that ideology is liberalism. Power doesn't actually follow ethical rules. Ethics is a toy which philosophers play with to critique society. Power is self-justifying; whoever rules, rules, and the ideology of a ruler is just a set of excuses explaining why they are entitled to have the things they have already taken.