8 ms·

I don't see what bickering over words is going to accomplish. Your post is typical of the far left: do everything you can to appear smarter than your interlocu

I don't see what bickering over words is going to accomplish. Your post is typical of the far left: do everything you can to appear smarter than your interlocutor, short of actually engaging the issue.

edwardy20 13y ago
As opposed to your painstakingly thought out and intellectually engaging rebuttal?
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
  I was engaging directly with the flaws in the post. You might not agree with what I said, but you cannot say my post had not content or that I put no thought into it.
jahaja 13y ago
I actually think it's important to call things what they are, just as North Korea aint a democracy even though they call themselves that, this is nothing reassembling anarchist thought. By hi-jacking concepts we introduce confusion and ultimately destroy the original meaning and ideas. I'm fairly tired of this being the case from the right, not just in america but in my country as well where the most right-wing party recently branded themselves "The new workers party".
- vbuterin 13y ago
  Or, alternatively, why not actually foster dialogue between left-wing and right-wing anarchists and help the two groups realize that they're often not as far apart as they think? Seems to be working quite well over at http://c4ss.org/ http://c4ss.org/ .
  - jahaja 13y ago
    That is a great site, I have no problem with dicussion with what you would call right-wing anarchist. Even though I want to point out that I don't think it's fair to call agendas advocating property-rights and wage working anarchist as it's so far from anarchist thought.
  - collyw 13y ago
    I think they are incredibly far apart. "Right wing anarchists" seem to want to take the trappings of capitalism, from which they have benefited immensely, and keep as much as they can to themselves. For the good of themselves. True anarchists reject capital and properly rights, and want precisely the opposite. For the good of everyone. The anarchy subreddit is actually pretty good and not filled with as much junk as a lot of the subreddits are.
    - vbuterin 13y ago
      It depends on who you talk to; I feel like there's a sort of winding spectrum. It's something like: F A | | | | | | E B \ / \ / D------C A = Wealthy people who just want to maximize their own revenue without particular regard for ethics. Some do not support libertarianism at all, some support some aspects of it but turn around as soon as they can benefit from pollution, eminent domain or copyrights/patent privileges. B = Wealthy people who are actually libertarian to a high extent, caring about some notion of property rights, but have basically no concern for equality, corporate power, etc. C = Libertarians who also care about reducing corporate power and promoting decentralization. These people love markets and voluntary exchange, but also dislike monopolies. They tend to heavily promote 3D printing, Bitcoin, seasteading, etc. D = Left-libertarians who are fine with property rights, but seek a less market-oriented basis for society. They might like 3D printing, organic farming, urban agriculture, and perhaps also Bitcoin, though to a smaller extent since it is still money even if it does bypass the banks. E = Anti-propertarian anarchists. Buy into leftist morality (eg. "exploitation" where you benefit much more than the counterparties from an economic agreement is immoral), and are happy to expropriate capitalists. However, they are also anti-state. F = State socialists and social democrats. This experiment seems to be something like B with maybe a touch of C. A proper C-libertarian experiment would also try to provide ways for people to live with very little money (eg. by living in a small closet that would normally be illegal under occupancy limit regulations), and D-libertarian would be a commune.
      - jahaja 13y ago
        <3 the ascii art. I rather like this one: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Politicalquad_en.svg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Political... (and similar)
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
  I am all for clear language, and I agree that North Korea could not be called a democracy. However, there is a difference between concepts that are well defined in ordinary language (like democracy) and concepts whose definition is highly contested, like anarchism. Libertarianism is clearly a term with right wing connotations for most people. When you argue against using it this way, you are going against ordinary usage, and therefore against clear communication. And this is consistent with my earlier post, because you imply that the person who uses libertarian in the usual sense, is ignorant because they don't define it according to the literature that you consider to be relevant or important. On the "New workers party", that is clearly an attempt by this party to subvert left wing rhetoric (of being pro-worker), a kind of culture jamming if you will. It is clearly not an attempt to trick people into voting for them or redefine the term "worker's party", which I assume has long tradition in your country and is unmistakeably identifiable with the left.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    My understanding is that "libertarian means right-libertarian" is far more the case in the US than in Europe.
undoware 13y ago
'of the far left'? Yes, because rewriting history is mainstream these days. Emma Goldman is smug in her grave.
monochr 13y ago
To recap what's happened in your post. Not only did you do everything but engage the issue at hand but you also threw in a personal insult, a group insult and some general disparagement towards any ideas you don't agree with.
- d23 13y ago
  He engaged that particular poster's issue just fine: the word salad he threw out to appear intelligent. You know how I can tell? "with regards to" and "that is now apparently" for starters.
  - jahaja 13y ago
    English is not my native language. I can agree I sometimes write in a rather "pompous" manner but it's not my intention.
    - d23 13y ago
      Fair enough -- I saw one of your other posts and I definitely didn't get the same feeling. Being overly critical seems to be the favorite past-time around here, and I seem to have fallen into that as well.
  - monochr 13y ago
    But "interlocutor" is just fine and dandy. Why I use that in conversations with my 5 year old niece all the time: "Now, now even if your teacher wasn't your intended interlocutrix when you called Josh 'Mr. Poopy Pants' she still was right to tell you to not be mean to him."
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

edwardy20 13y ago

As opposed to your painstakingly thought out and intellectually engaging rebuttal?

yetanotherphd 13y ago
I was engaging directly with the flaws in the post. You might not agree with what I said, but you cannot say my post had not content or that I put no thought into it.

jahaja 13y ago

I actually think it's important to call things what they are, just as North Korea aint a democracy even though they call themselves that, this is nothing reassembling anarchist thought. By hi-jacking concepts we introduce confusion and ultimately destroy the original meaning and ideas. I'm fairly tired of this being the case from the right, not just in america but in my country as well where the most right-wing party recently branded themselves "The new workers party".

vbuterin 13y ago
Or, alternatively, why not actually foster dialogue between left-wing and right-wing anarchists and help the two groups realize that they're often not as far apart as they think? Seems to be working quite well over at http://c4ss.org/ http://c4ss.org/ .
- jahaja 13y ago
  That is a great site, I have no problem with dicussion with what you would call right-wing anarchist. Even though I want to point out that I don't think it's fair to call agendas advocating property-rights and wage working anarchist as it's so far from anarchist thought.
- collyw 13y ago
  I think they are incredibly far apart. "Right wing anarchists" seem to want to take the trappings of capitalism, from which they have benefited immensely, and keep as much as they can to themselves. For the good of themselves. True anarchists reject capital and properly rights, and want precisely the opposite. For the good of everyone. The anarchy subreddit is actually pretty good and not filled with as much junk as a lot of the subreddits are.
  - vbuterin 13y ago
    It depends on who you talk to; I feel like there's a sort of winding spectrum. It's something like: F A | | | | | | E B \ / \ / D------C A = Wealthy people who just want to maximize their own revenue without particular regard for ethics. Some do not support libertarianism at all, some support some aspects of it but turn around as soon as they can benefit from pollution, eminent domain or copyrights/patent privileges. B = Wealthy people who are actually libertarian to a high extent, caring about some notion of property rights, but have basically no concern for equality, corporate power, etc. C = Libertarians who also care about reducing corporate power and promoting decentralization. These people love markets and voluntary exchange, but also dislike monopolies. They tend to heavily promote 3D printing, Bitcoin, seasteading, etc. D = Left-libertarians who are fine with property rights, but seek a less market-oriented basis for society. They might like 3D printing, organic farming, urban agriculture, and perhaps also Bitcoin, though to a smaller extent since it is still money even if it does bypass the banks. E = Anti-propertarian anarchists. Buy into leftist morality (eg. "exploitation" where you benefit much more than the counterparties from an economic agreement is immoral), and are happy to expropriate capitalists. However, they are also anti-state. F = State socialists and social democrats. This experiment seems to be something like B with maybe a touch of C. A proper C-libertarian experiment would also try to provide ways for people to live with very little money (eg. by living in a small closet that would normally be illegal under occupancy limit regulations), and D-libertarian would be a commune.
    - jahaja 13y ago
      <3 the ascii art. I rather like this one: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Politicalquad_en.svg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Political... (and similar)
yetanotherphd 13y ago
I am all for clear language, and I agree that North Korea could not be called a democracy. However, there is a difference between concepts that are well defined in ordinary language (like democracy) and concepts whose definition is highly contested, like anarchism. Libertarianism is clearly a term with right wing connotations for most people. When you argue against using it this way, you are going against ordinary usage, and therefore against clear communication. And this is consistent with my earlier post, because you imply that the person who uses libertarian in the usual sense, is ignorant because they don't define it according to the literature that you consider to be relevant or important. On the "New workers party", that is clearly an attempt by this party to subvert left wing rhetoric (of being pro-worker), a kind of culture jamming if you will. It is clearly not an attempt to trick people into voting for them or redefine the term "worker's party", which I assume has long tradition in your country and is unmistakeably identifiable with the left.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  My understanding is that "libertarian means right-libertarian" is far more the case in the US than in Europe.

undoware 13y ago

'of the far left'? Yes, because rewriting history is mainstream these days. Emma Goldman is smug in her grave.

monochr 13y ago

To recap what's happened in your post. Not only did you do everything but engage the issue at hand but you also threw in a personal insult, a group insult and some general disparagement towards any ideas you don't agree with.

d23 13y ago
He engaged that particular poster's issue just fine: the word salad he threw out to appear intelligent. You know how I can tell? "with regards to" and "that is now apparently" for starters.
- jahaja 13y ago
  English is not my native language. I can agree I sometimes write in a rather "pompous" manner but it's not my intention.
  - d23 13y ago
    Fair enough -- I saw one of your other posts and I definitely didn't get the same feeling. Being overly critical seems to be the favorite past-time around here, and I seem to have fallen into that as well.
- monochr 13y ago
  But "interlocutor" is just fine and dandy. Why I use that in conversations with my 5 year old niece all the time: "Now, now even if your teacher wasn't your intended interlocutrix when you called Josh 'Mr. Poopy Pants' she still was right to tell you to not be mean to him."

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]