6 ms·

Yep, I guess we should continue here, instead of the buried thread.

dllthomas 13y ago
Following up on our earlier conversation here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7307458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7307458 Got a "that comment was too long" so I'm splitting it in twain. This is the first part. "I pointed out that taxation meets the criteria for extortion: you're giving up your property under threat of violence. It's clearly a match." No, it's not clearly a match, because the question arises of whether it is legitimately your property, which is the entire point I was making with the laptop example. 'You asked if me demanding my laptop back would constitute extortion, which we both know it doesn't. There are two reasons why not: 1) the laptop is my property (regardless of "how"), 2) there is no threat. This is why my original reaction was: "Oh come on".' If there is no threat, then it's not extortion for both the reasons you say. I've stated a few times now that I had meant it to include an implicit threat. Without the implicit threat, I agree the example is uninteresting - so let's actually talk about the interesting question instead of ducking it? "But now you're saying the laptop was an example of something that meets the criteria of extortion without being extortion.. and that's just not true." Again, I'd meant it to include a threat - I think (even rereading) this was clear from what I'd originally written and I've mentioned it a few times since. I'm growing increasingly skeptical that you're missing it by accident rather than clinging to some way to "win" on a technicality. Trying again... If your demand for the return of your laptop includes a threat, is it extortion? I say no, because it is not legitimately mine to keep, but that admits the possibility that there may be other reasons something might not be one's to keep. That was my point. "What you said is comparable to me declaring that I'll just shoot you in the kneecaps and take your money if I ever come across you, just because I want the money, so fuck you and fuck your well-being." If you mean that's a logical consequence or extension of what I said, that's not the case at all. If you mean you're disrespecting the stuff I value because I disrespected the stuff you value, then I think you can still find some degrees of difference if you try really hard - I can dig in here more if we need to. If neither of those is what you mean, then I'm not sure what you mean. 'So that's perfectly alright if it results in a "good outcome", as defined by.. who? Me? -Obviously, you don't have a say because you're the one being robbed to achieve whatever good outcome I might have set my sights on.' Well, I want the system that leads to the best outcome as defined by me. Obviously! It's me that's doing the wanting. However, 1) other people living well is something I value, and 2) a big practical concern (whatever I happen to value) is negotiating with others and eliciting their cooperation (or at least noninterference). I assure you that whatever your preferences, shooting me in the kneecaps is not likely to lead to your best fulfilling them in the short, medium, and long term - partly because, as a society, we've agreed to step in and deal harshly with people who act that way. "Do you see why I talked about the end not justifying the means? Your way of thinking is like Stalin's or Mao's. They had lots of good outcomes in mind when slaughtering hundreds of millions of innocent people. In other words, your way of thinking is, in fact, fucked up." Do you see that this here is an appeal to outcomes that I object to as well? As I've said, there are absolutely rights that I believe should be protected in large part because I think that it serves as some defense against things like that. But if I did not believe that, this wouldn't be any sort of an argument. You think I should change what I value because of the consequences of my preferences? That's not how perfect rational agents or human beings work. And without looking at how various rights protect us, there's not really anything about those cases that motivate any particular set of rights being respected - if we simply all respected everyone's right to life there wouldn't be mass killings - your particular framing of property rights and voluntarism isn't required. 'Don't talk about good or better "outcomes", that's a misguided, mass-coercion-rationalizing attitude.' Outcomes are the only thing that matters. Though that is not to say final outcomes are the only thing that matters - what happens in the medium term and short term are also outcomes of whatever decisions are made and are also important. The means don't justify the ends, either. 'You don't know "the correct outcome" for a society - there is no such thing, and above all, you can't arrange for it to happen through coercion.' That's not coherent, but trying my best to respond... I don't claim to know "the correct outcome" for society, or even that there is such a thing. I claim that for the various paths the future can take, I would prefer some of them to others. If that is a controversial claim, I'm pretty baffled. Given this, I favor policy that I think most steers us toward the paths that I favor and away from the paths that I don't, accounting for uncertainty in my models and my knowledge. A big part of that is protection of certain rights. A part of that is, in my present best judgement, having a government - and working to improve it. 'What people could do, is follow the golden rule - do unto others as you'd have done to yourself.' For issues that impact everyone, contribution toward creating and sustaining important public goods falls rather naturally out of that. Just as those who would do unto others quite dramatically other than those others want must eventually be coerced to abide by the principle, it's not ludicrous that similar could apply on the other side. 'That way we'd actually reach the best possible "outcome" for everyone, which is something you'll understand if you accept Austrian economics.' It's also something I'd understand if I accept that God will always make everything always work out for the best. The fact that I could believe false things and come to particular conclusions does not support those conclusions. (It also doesn't undermine them, first order, though it might explain why other people have reached them). 'Oh this again. Boo-hoo, it's not a "real science". Well so fucking what?' My objection is not that it doesn't have the label "real science". My objection is that it is not actually seeking truth by any mechanism likely to arrive at it. So fucking that. 'Does people's behaviour work like mathematics, or.. is it perhaps, unpredictable?' I'm not sure what you're getting at here. 'Austrian economics is based on observations on how people actually behave, in reality.' This is just flat out false. Austrian economics is based on Mise's Praxeology and makes certain assumptions about how humans behave whilst ignoring the huge amounts of psychological research we have into "how humans actually behave". "Since economies consist of millions of people making exchanges, that's the best possible basis for a school of economic thought." Arguably, but there are thousands of places where error can creep in when you are composing things at that scale, so you still have to vet your model by comparing to reality (ideally at multiple levels). Austrian economics is Newtonian physicists saying "We know how particles behave, and organisms are made up of particles, so we can extrapolate how biology works. These other biologists that actually look at animals aren't doing real biology." Newtonian biologists completely miss that complex interaction can produce interesting patterns that can be usefully modelled. That these patterns are in principle reducible to behavior and interaction of the individual components is no guarantee that such reduction will be computationally feasible; describing it at the higher level may be more predictive and more useful. Further, not all interaction between particles can be described by Newtonian physics in the first place and the difference may compound. Both of these provide significant room for their axiomatic conclusions to be profoundly wrong. "It doesn't take much to understand this once you stop insisting on clinging on to your preconceived notions of what economics should be like." The notion to blame - which I'll absolutely not stop clinging to - is that Economics (like any science) must involve actually comparing models to reality. Otherwise, it's just abstract mathematics (a great thing, but you should know that's what you're doing) or science-flavored theology (not so great a thing). Austrian economics has some of both. "Really now? How's that working out so far? Does it work in the burgeoning police state of the US?" Honestly, it's been working out okay. There are quite clearly things that need work - there are always things that need work, government or no. "What about North-Korea? Did it work in Mao's China?" I'm not aware that there was a culture of respect for rights in North Korea or Mao's China.
- whatevsbro 13y ago
  > Trying again... If your demand for the return of your laptop includes a threat, is it extortion? I say no, because it is not legitimately mine to keep, but that admits the possibility that there may be other reasons something might not be one's to keep. That was my point. I don't want to bicker about what property is. Here's one idea: property is value that you want to control. For example, if you write a SaaS app, you don't want anyone else to get the source code, because then they could make money off of your work, against your will. Another idea is that property is a "rivalrous" resource that you have exclusive control over. In this case, rivalrous means that only one person can control that resource at a time, and thus, there may be "rivalry" over the resource. But this is all perfectly aligned with our intuitive sense of what property is. If you've got an apple in your hand, everyone else will automatically consider it your property, and so on. What you're doing here, is muddying the definition of property in an attempt at scraping together some semblance of legitimacy for taxation. "Heyyy, if everything everywhere is the government's property, then taxation is not extortion!".. Well, next we'd need to delve into what constitutes legitimate property. Common sense suggests that anything acquired through coercion is not legitimate property. Furthermore, if everything really were the government's property, would taxes need to be collected by force? Wouldn't people acknowledge that in fact, whenever they produce value to someone else in exchange for a payment, the money they receive is actually the government's property? But that makes no sense whatsoever, of course. It's not the government that just produced value to whoever paid you for it - it was you. > Do you see that this here is an appeal to outcomes that I object to as well? What you think is a good "outcome" might not be what someone else wants. If you impose your will on him anyway, you've got issues. Stalin had good outcomes in mind, and pursued them regardless of anyone else's objections. In fact, if anyone objected, Stalin just killed him. But if all you're thinking about is "outcomes", you might not even see anything wrong with what Stalin did. Basically you want Good Things for everyone, right? But then you declare that if achieving Good Things requires doing Bad Things to other people, that's alright because the end justifies the means. Do you really not see the problem here? But you know, throughout history, where ever there's been a freeish market, it's produced widespread prosperity. Take the early United States, for example. A minimal government, and massive wealth. That's your "good outcome" right there. When you get out of the way and let people produce wealth, they'll just go ahead and do it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL05A07B2585EC9019&feature=player_detailpage&v=OLJaBJwYHHc http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL05A07B2585EC9019&feature... > [Austrian economics] My objection is that it is not actually seeking truth by any mechanism likely to arrive at it. And you know this by.. never even looking into Austrian economics? Watch this and you'll see how delightfully practical Austrian economics is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL0C620AECA6617E2E&feature=player_detailpage&v=sGRCQ2EKGVQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL0C620AECA6617E2E&feature... - you'll have a hard time disagreeing with what they say. > Austrian economics is based on Mise's Praxeology and makes certain assumptions about how humans behave whilst ignoring the huge amounts of psychological research we have into "how humans actually behave". See the above video for some of the fundamentals behind Austrian economics. But feel free to tell me about those assumptions you bemoan, and tell me why they're wrong. (Or feel free to accept the obvious, practical reality of the fundamentals of economics when Mr. Herbener explains it to you) The point here is that it's important to understand that maximal freedom produces maximal prosperity for everyone, ie. the best "economic outcome". Voluntary exchanges benefit both parties, and so, the more of those happen, the more instances of people being better off will occur. Voluntary exchanges are maximized by maximizing freedom. In other words, getting out of the way and letting people trade and markets work. > [Keeping the US government in check] Honestly, it's been working out okay. You're either not paying attention to anything around you, or you know that's not true.
dllthomas 13y ago
Got a "that comment was too long" so I'm splitting it in twain. Part the second: "Please wake up." You seriously need to lose the habit of using that phrase. It's annoying, and it makes me struggle not to devalue the rest of what you say. "There is no way to keep a government in check - it wields absolute power over a geographical area, until the masses stop believing that someone else has the right to rule them, that is." It is not the case that a government wields absolute power. I don't believe it's the case that there is no way to keep a government in check. Also, I don't think "someone else [having] the right to rule [us]" is a correct characterization of functioning democratic governance (even in a representative democracy). 'No, the only version of the idea of rights that works and is tenable, is one that is based on sound reasoning. If 100 people "collectively decide" that you don't have the right to own a spleen, I'm sure you'd agree that's not a particularly good way of defining rights. Sure, a spleen is an extreme example, but it could be anything really.' You have shown neither that the above is sound reasoning, nor that other frameworks are not. And if 100 people decide I don't have a right to a spleen in a context without government, how does that go any better? "Any collective decision where you're harmed without you harming anyone is obviously wrong." The more narrowly you define "harm" the more true that becomes, but even at the limit you have trolly-problem-like hypotheticals. If it's the case that 1) Jon dies, or 2) everyone dies, then after we work really hard to figure out some other solution, even if Jon doesn't do the noble thing and volunteer it's unfortunate but not "obviously wrong" for the group to decide he needs to go even if he's not guilty of anything - though they should be damned sure that's really the situation. "Taxation is not a collective decision, especially when neither of us was ever asked, nor were our parents. In fact, ordinary people have never been asked if they'd like to be extorted. That's kind of like, not how extortion works, after all." Tax measures have many times been on the ballot in California. Many have passed. I would presume this to be true of at least some other states. 'Here's a conspiracy theory for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yuC_4mGTs98 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yuC... .. it's just that it's "the official conspiracy theory". That's exactly what governments would have us believe. Does it sound believable?' Even repeated derisively like that, little there seems terribly absurd (if a little absurdist). Remembering that this is a rare event picked apart for more than a decade for all the smelly bits, it seems more or less SNAFU. 'Being able to switch from Prison A to Prison B doesn't mean you're free though.' So, now we're prisoners? I agree with the premise you state here (though having many prisons to choose from would surely constitute being somewhat more free), but there are countless other ways in which it's unreasonable to call us prisoners - we plan our own days, we can travel, we choose what we eat, we choose when we exercise, we're not segregated by gender... At least for most of us. Disappointingly many are prisoners - which is one of those things that needs fixing; I don't deny that there are a lot of them, I just disagree that abolishing government is the best way to fix them. 'Here's more on that: http://board.freedomainradio.com/page/books/the_handbook_of_human_ownership_a_manual_for_new_tax_farmers.html'* http://board.freedomainradio.com/page/books/the_handbook_of_... Yeah, nothing is more illuminating then a failed attempt at satire, particularly when it's verbose and ridiculous. Thank you for passing that along - my eyes are opened. 'Government doesn't change that you know. If someone decides to rob you, a police officer won't materialize between you and him to prevent it. If someone wants to hurt you, he'll evaluate the risks vs the "reward", and make a decision based on that.'* Credible threat of enforcement changes the risks, and so may change the decision. This should be obvious. "Luckily, the vast majority of people won't hurt you with or without a government." Agreed, but largely because we live in a society with sufficiently little violence. This is the case because we are able to sufficiently trust one another, which is enabled at this scale by government. I highly recommend "Liars And Outliers", by Bruce Schneier, on the topic of trust in society. "Prohibition is something the government did. You're just helping my case by bringing it up." I thought we were trying to explore our various positions and learn something. If we're just trying to score points in a game, my bad - can I have a mulligan? My point wasn't "Government does great things, like prohibition!" It was nearly as much a mistake as the drug war, obviously. And yes, as an example of a mistake government can make, it certainly helps the case that government is bad. But my point was deeper. One of the consequences of prohibition (of alcohol or drugs) was to remove government as a means of settling disputes for a group of people handling relatively large sums of money. The result, as Hobbes would've predicted, was violence. There are confounding factors you can cling to, but it was true in the 1920s with prohibition of alcohol and it's true today with prohibition of other substances, and it clearly provides some evidence for the model. 'So now government is a "technology", as if it's something we, the people, "use" to our benefit? :P Nice going there.' Yes, precisely. And much like any technology it can be misused, poorly designed, poorly configured; and this can lead to frustration or harm. That doesn't mean it has no good uses that can outweigh the harm, or that the harm can't be minimized, or that waving a magic wand will make it go away and things will be better (cf. gun control). 'Well, now you're saying we need "better government", but that's like asking for "better enslavement".' I've always been saying we need "better government". We always need better government. It's only anything like asking for "better enslavement" if we accept the premise that government is slavery, which I've rejected. 'Once again, governments are. not. responsible. to. anyone. for. their. actions.' Once again, that's not true. In a functioning democracy, governments are responsible to the people lest the groups with power lose it. In any system, the possibility of revolution serves as a partial check. Governments are also responsible to other governments, in some extreme situations. 'Do you get that because there is no higher power than government, there is nothing to keep them in check? Do you get that because of that, there's nothing governments can't do to us individuals?' I'm not sure where you derive this ranking in which government is highest, or why only lower powers can be kept in check. "It takes a massive uprising to topple a government, and then it's always just replaced with another." Not always; when it's not, things suck even more; see, for instance, many parts of Somalia. "Oh, and along the way, lots of innocent people are beaten, tased, killed, and tortured by the government, just like in the Ukraine or Venezuela these days." Revolution is horrible, yes. "Wake up?" Again, stuff like this just sounds silly. It makes it harder to actually consider what you have to say. "The solution to a group of sociopaths in power hurting everyone is not to replace it with another." I don't think "group of sociopaths in power hurting everyone" is a legitimate description of all government.

Following up on our earlier conversation here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7307458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7307458 Got a "that comment was too long" so I'm splitting it in twain. This is the first part. "I pointed out that taxation meets the criteria for extortion: you're giving up your property under threat of violence. It's clearly a match." No, it's not clearly a match, because the question arises of whether it is legitimately your property, which is the entire point I was making with the laptop example. 'You asked if me demanding my laptop back would constitute extortion, which we both know it doesn't. There are two reasons why not: 1) the laptop is my property (regardless of "how"), 2) there is no threat. This is why my original reaction was: "Oh come on".' If there is no threat, then it's not extortion for both the reasons you say. I've stated a few times now that I had meant it to include an implicit threat. Without the implicit threat, I agree the example is uninteresting - so let's actually talk about the interesting question instead of ducking it? "But now you're saying the laptop was an example of something that meets the criteria of extortion without being extortion.. and that's just not true." Again, I'd meant it to include a threat - I think (even rereading) this was clear from what I'd originally written and I've mentioned it a few times since. I'm growing increasingly skeptical that you're missing it by accident rather than clinging to some way to "win" on a technicality. Trying again... If your demand for the return of your laptop includes a threat, is it extortion? I say no, because it is not legitimately mine to keep, but that admits the possibility that there may be other reasons something might not be one's to keep. That was my point. "What you said is comparable to me declaring that I'll just shoot you in the kneecaps and take your money if I ever come across you, just because I want the money, so fuck you and fuck your well-being." If you mean that's a logical consequence or extension of what I said, that's not the case at all. If you mean you're disrespecting the stuff I value because I disrespected the stuff you value, then I think you can still find some degrees of difference if you try really hard - I can dig in here more if we need to. If neither of those is what you mean, then I'm not sure what you mean. 'So that's perfectly alright if it results in a "good outcome", as defined by.. who? Me? -Obviously, you don't have a say because you're the one being robbed to achieve whatever good outcome I might have set my sights on.' Well, I want the system that leads to the best outcome as defined by me. Obviously! It's me that's doing the wanting. However, 1) other people living well is something I value, and 2) a big practical concern (whatever I happen to value) is negotiating with others and eliciting their cooperation (or at least noninterference). I assure you that whatever your preferences, shooting me in the kneecaps is not likely to lead to your best fulfilling them in the short, medium, and long term - partly because, as a society, we've agreed to step in and deal harshly with people who act that way. "Do you see why I talked about the end not justifying the means? Your way of thinking is like Stalin's or Mao's. They had lots of good outcomes in mind when slaughtering hundreds of millions of innocent people. In other words, your way of thinking is, in fact, fucked up." Do you see that this here is an appeal to outcomes that I object to as well? As I've said, there are absolutely rights that I believe should be protected in large part because I think that it serves as some defense against things like that. But if I did not believe that, this wouldn't be any sort of an argument. You think I should change what I value because of the consequences of my preferences? That's not how perfect rational agents or human beings work. And without looking at how various rights protect us, there's not really anything about those cases that motivate any particular set of rights being respected - if we simply all respected everyone's right to life there wouldn't be mass killings - your particular framing of property rights and voluntarism isn't required. 'Don't talk about good or better "outcomes", that's a misguided, mass-coercion-rationalizing attitude.' Outcomes are the only thing that matters. Though that is not to say final outcomes are the only thing that matters - what happens in the medium term and short term are also outcomes of whatever decisions are made and are also important. The means don't justify the ends, either. 'You don't know "the correct outcome" for a society - there is no such thing, and above all, you can't arrange for it to happen through coercion.' That's not coherent, but trying my best to respond... I don't claim to know "the correct outcome" for society, or even that there is such a thing. I claim that for the various paths the future can take, I would prefer some of them to others. If that is a controversial claim, I'm pretty baffled. Given this, I favor policy that I think most steers us toward the paths that I favor and away from the paths that I don't, accounting for uncertainty in my models and my knowledge. A big part of that is protection of certain rights. A part of that is, in my present best judgement, having a government - and working to improve it. 'What people could do, is follow the golden rule - do unto others as you'd have done to yourself.' For issues that impact everyone, contribution toward creating and sustaining important public goods falls rather naturally out of that. Just as those who would do unto others quite dramatically other than those others want must eventually be coerced to abide by the principle, it's not ludicrous that similar could apply on the other side. 'That way we'd actually reach the best possible "outcome" for everyone, which is something you'll understand if you accept Austrian economics.' It's also something I'd understand if I accept that God will always make everything always work out for the best. The fact that I could believe false things and come to particular conclusions does not support those conclusions. (It also doesn't undermine them, first order, though it might explain why other people have reached them). 'Oh this again. Boo-hoo, it's not a "real science". Well so fucking what?' My objection is not that it doesn't have the label "real science". My objection is that it is not actually seeking truth by any mechanism likely to arrive at it. So fucking that. 'Does people's behaviour work like mathematics, or.. is it perhaps, unpredictable?' I'm not sure what you're getting at here. 'Austrian economics is based on observations on how people actually behave, in reality.' This is just flat out false. Austrian economics is based on Mise's Praxeology and makes certain assumptions about how humans behave whilst ignoring the huge amounts of psychological research we have into "how humans actually behave". "Since economies consist of millions of people making exchanges, that's the best possible basis for a school of economic thought." Arguably, but there are thousands of places where error can creep in when you are composing things at that scale, so you still have to vet your model by comparing to reality (ideally at multiple levels). Austrian economics is Newtonian physicists saying "We know how particles behave, and organisms are made up of particles, so we can extrapolate how biology works. These other biologists that actually look at animals aren't doing real biology." Newtonian biologists completely miss that complex interaction can produce interesting patterns that can be usefully modelled. That these patterns are in principle reducible to behavior and interaction of the individual components is no guarantee that such reduction will be computationally feasible; describing it at the higher level may be more predictive and more useful. Further, not all interaction between particles can be described by Newtonian physics in the first place and the difference may compound. Both of these provide significant room for their axiomatic conclusions to be profoundly wrong. "It doesn't take much to understand this once you stop insisting on clinging on to your preconceived notions of what economics should be like." The notion to blame - which I'll absolutely not stop clinging to - is that Economics (like any science) must involve actually comparing models to reality. Otherwise, it's just abstract mathematics (a great thing, but you should know that's what you're doing) or science-flavored theology (not so great a thing). Austrian economics has some of both. "Really now? How's that working out so far? Does it work in the burgeoning police state of the US?" Honestly, it's been working out okay. There are quite clearly things that need work - there are always things that need work, government or no. "What about North-Korea? Did it work in Mao's China?" I'm not aware that there was a culture of respect for rights in North Korea or Mao's China.

whatevsbro 13y ago
> Trying again... If your demand for the return of your laptop includes a threat, is it extortion? I say no, because it is not legitimately mine to keep, but that admits the possibility that there may be other reasons something might not be one's to keep. That was my point. I don't want to bicker about what property is. Here's one idea: property is value that you want to control. For example, if you write a SaaS app, you don't want anyone else to get the source code, because then they could make money off of your work, against your will. Another idea is that property is a "rivalrous" resource that you have exclusive control over. In this case, rivalrous means that only one person can control that resource at a time, and thus, there may be "rivalry" over the resource. But this is all perfectly aligned with our intuitive sense of what property is. If you've got an apple in your hand, everyone else will automatically consider it your property, and so on. What you're doing here, is muddying the definition of property in an attempt at scraping together some semblance of legitimacy for taxation. "Heyyy, if everything everywhere is the government's property, then taxation is not extortion!".. Well, next we'd need to delve into what constitutes legitimate property. Common sense suggests that anything acquired through coercion is not legitimate property. Furthermore, if everything really were the government's property, would taxes need to be collected by force? Wouldn't people acknowledge that in fact, whenever they produce value to someone else in exchange for a payment, the money they receive is actually the government's property? But that makes no sense whatsoever, of course. It's not the government that just produced value to whoever paid you for it - it was you. > Do you see that this here is an appeal to outcomes that I object to as well? What you think is a good "outcome" might not be what someone else wants. If you impose your will on him anyway, you've got issues. Stalin had good outcomes in mind, and pursued them regardless of anyone else's objections. In fact, if anyone objected, Stalin just killed him. But if all you're thinking about is "outcomes", you might not even see anything wrong with what Stalin did. Basically you want Good Things for everyone, right? But then you declare that if achieving Good Things requires doing Bad Things to other people, that's alright because the end justifies the means. Do you really not see the problem here? But you know, throughout history, where ever there's been a freeish market, it's produced widespread prosperity. Take the early United States, for example. A minimal government, and massive wealth. That's your "good outcome" right there. When you get out of the way and let people produce wealth, they'll just go ahead and do it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL05A07B2585EC9019&feature=player_detailpage&v=OLJaBJwYHHc http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL05A07B2585EC9019&feature... > [Austrian economics] My objection is that it is not actually seeking truth by any mechanism likely to arrive at it. And you know this by.. never even looking into Austrian economics? Watch this and you'll see how delightfully practical Austrian economics is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL0C620AECA6617E2E&feature=player_detailpage&v=sGRCQ2EKGVQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL0C620AECA6617E2E&feature... - you'll have a hard time disagreeing with what they say. > Austrian economics is based on Mise's Praxeology and makes certain assumptions about how humans behave whilst ignoring the huge amounts of psychological research we have into "how humans actually behave". See the above video for some of the fundamentals behind Austrian economics. But feel free to tell me about those assumptions you bemoan, and tell me why they're wrong. (Or feel free to accept the obvious, practical reality of the fundamentals of economics when Mr. Herbener explains it to you) The point here is that it's important to understand that maximal freedom produces maximal prosperity for everyone, ie. the best "economic outcome". Voluntary exchanges benefit both parties, and so, the more of those happen, the more instances of people being better off will occur. Voluntary exchanges are maximized by maximizing freedom. In other words, getting out of the way and letting people trade and markets work. > [Keeping the US government in check] Honestly, it's been working out okay. You're either not paying attention to anything around you, or you know that's not true.

dllthomas 13y ago

Got a "that comment was too long" so I'm splitting it in twain. Part the second: "Please wake up." You seriously need to lose the habit of using that phrase. It's annoying, and it makes me struggle not to devalue the rest of what you say. "There is no way to keep a government in check - it wields absolute power over a geographical area, until the masses stop believing that someone else has the right to rule them, that is." It is not the case that a government wields absolute power. I don't believe it's the case that there is no way to keep a government in check. Also, I don't think "someone else [having] the right to rule [us]" is a correct characterization of functioning democratic governance (even in a representative democracy). 'No, the only version of the idea of rights that works and is tenable, is one that is based on sound reasoning. If 100 people "collectively decide" that you don't have the right to own a spleen, I'm sure you'd agree that's not a particularly good way of defining rights. Sure, a spleen is an extreme example, but it could be anything really.' You have shown neither that the above is sound reasoning, nor that other frameworks are not. And if 100 people decide I don't have a right to a spleen in a context without government, how does that go any better? "Any collective decision where you're harmed without you harming anyone is obviously wrong." The more narrowly you define "harm" the more true that becomes, but even at the limit you have trolly-problem-like hypotheticals. If it's the case that 1) Jon dies, or 2) everyone dies, then after we work really hard to figure out some other solution, even if Jon doesn't do the noble thing and volunteer it's unfortunate but not "obviously wrong" for the group to decide he needs to go even if he's not guilty of anything - though they should be damned sure that's really the situation. "Taxation is not a collective decision, especially when neither of us was ever asked, nor were our parents. In fact, ordinary people have never been asked if they'd like to be extorted. That's kind of like, not how extortion works, after all." Tax measures have many times been on the ballot in California. Many have passed. I would presume this to be true of at least some other states. 'Here's a conspiracy theory for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yuC_4mGTs98 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yuC... .. it's just that it's "the official conspiracy theory". That's exactly what governments would have us believe. Does it sound believable?' Even repeated derisively like that, little there seems terribly absurd (if a little absurdist). Remembering that this is a rare event picked apart for more than a decade for all the smelly bits, it seems more or less SNAFU. 'Being able to switch from Prison A to Prison B doesn't mean you're free though.' So, now we're prisoners? I agree with the premise you state here (though having many prisons to choose from would surely constitute being somewhat more free), but there are countless other ways in which it's unreasonable to call us prisoners - we plan our own days, we can travel, we choose what we eat, we choose when we exercise, we're not segregated by gender... At least for most of us. Disappointingly many are prisoners - which is one of those things that needs fixing; I don't deny that there are a lot of them, I just disagree that abolishing government is the best way to fix them. 'Here's more on that: http://board.freedomainradio.com/page/books/the_handbook_of_human_ownership_a_manual_for_new_tax_farmers.html'* http://board.freedomainradio.com/page/books/the_handbook_of_... Yeah, nothing is more illuminating then a failed attempt at satire, particularly when it's verbose and ridiculous. Thank you for passing that along - my eyes are opened. 'Government doesn't change that you know. If someone decides to rob you, a police officer won't materialize between you and him to prevent it. If someone wants to hurt you, he'll evaluate the risks vs the "reward", and make a decision based on that.'* Credible threat of enforcement changes the risks, and so may change the decision. This should be obvious. "Luckily, the vast majority of people won't hurt you with or without a government." Agreed, but largely because we live in a society with sufficiently little violence. This is the case because we are able to sufficiently trust one another, which is enabled at this scale by government. I highly recommend "Liars And Outliers", by Bruce Schneier, on the topic of trust in society. "Prohibition is something the government did. You're just helping my case by bringing it up." I thought we were trying to explore our various positions and learn something. If we're just trying to score points in a game, my bad - can I have a mulligan? My point wasn't "Government does great things, like prohibition!" It was nearly as much a mistake as the drug war, obviously. And yes, as an example of a mistake government can make, it certainly helps the case that government is bad. But my point was deeper. One of the consequences of prohibition (of alcohol or drugs) was to remove government as a means of settling disputes for a group of people handling relatively large sums of money. The result, as Hobbes would've predicted, was violence. There are confounding factors you can cling to, but it was true in the 1920s with prohibition of alcohol and it's true today with prohibition of other substances, and it clearly provides some evidence for the model. 'So now government is a "technology", as if it's something we, the people, "use" to our benefit? :P Nice going there.' Yes, precisely. And much like any technology it can be misused, poorly designed, poorly configured; and this can lead to frustration or harm. That doesn't mean it has no good uses that can outweigh the harm, or that the harm can't be minimized, or that waving a magic wand will make it go away and things will be better (cf. gun control). 'Well, now you're saying we need "better government", but that's like asking for "better enslavement".' I've always been saying we need "better government". We always need better government. It's only anything like asking for "better enslavement" if we accept the premise that government is slavery, which I've rejected. 'Once again, governments are. not. responsible. to. anyone. for. their. actions.' Once again, that's not true. In a functioning democracy, governments are responsible to the people lest the groups with power lose it. In any system, the possibility of revolution serves as a partial check. Governments are also responsible to other governments, in some extreme situations. 'Do you get that because there is no higher power than government, there is nothing to keep them in check? Do you get that because of that, there's nothing governments can't do to us individuals?' I'm not sure where you derive this ranking in which government is highest, or why only lower powers can be kept in check. "It takes a massive uprising to topple a government, and then it's always just replaced with another." Not always; when it's not, things suck even more; see, for instance, many parts of Somalia. "Oh, and along the way, lots of innocent people are beaten, tased, killed, and tortured by the government, just like in the Ukraine or Venezuela these days." Revolution is horrible, yes. "Wake up?" Again, stuff like this just sounds silly. It makes it harder to actually consider what you have to say. "The solution to a group of sociopaths in power hurting everyone is not to replace it with another." I don't think "group of sociopaths in power hurting everyone" is a legitimate description of all government.