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Cyberselfish: Technolibertarianism
This month I garnered a copy of Cyberselfish, and I'm still appalled with the title (which comes from an eponymous essay for Mother Jones she wrote in July 1996, when such cyberlanguage wasn't so cybertrite). Cyberselfish is a book-length essay, in fact a somewhat thinly edited series of linked essays. There's a rush of immediacy and wit; for a random example, "Polyamory is the preferred term of art; it's gender-neutral, where polygamy and polyandry are not, and allows for all persuasions of partner choice (gay/straight/bi/it depends)." With the freshness and informality comes flaws. There is too much repeated material in the book. It's clear that essays written at different times have been cobbled together. Reading the book straight through is like reading some multi-volume series straight through, in which the characters and history are rehashed at the beginning of each book.
Cyberselfish looks at a few specific examples of technolibertarianism in depth: Bionomics, cypherpunks, Wired magazine, and Silicon Valley's impressive lack of philanthropy. Each time Borsook exposes the compassionless, fearful, posturing, politically myopic core, without dismissing the good aspects of the high-tech culture and individuals. For example, she thinks fighting for privacy rights is good, but obsessing about it and descending into rabid, paranoid ranting on alt.cypherpunks is scary. She moves smoothly from the historical to the academic to the personal, deliberately exposing her own frailities and biases while she examines those of others.
To give a deeper example of the content of Cyberselfish, Bionomics is the use of biological (and particularly Darwinian) metaphors to describe economic processes, as popularized by Michael Rothschild (Bionomics: Economy as Ecosystem) and then the The Bionomics Institute (TBI). Borsook convincingly points out through both empirical observation and reasoned analysis that Bionomics boils down to economic libertarianism, where government involvement is wrong and the most cut-throat, efficient and entrepeneurial businesses are the best. Ecological metaphors are used in Bionomics only when they're useful and sexy: The ecosystem of Hawaii was used as a metaphor for the fragility of protected industries. Under Bionomics logic, Hawaii's beautiful, lush, peaceful ecosystem is to be derided. Bionomics uses metaphors to draw syllogistic conclusions. Doing that can be powerfully convincing but amounts to hand-waving and emotional appeals. Borsook cuts through the smoke and mirrors.
After a few years, the Bionomics Institute conferences were (literally) taken over by the Cato Institute, the premier libertarian think tank in the nation. The annual Bionomics conterences began in 1993. The 1997 conference was the Cato/Bionomics Conference; 1998, the "Annual Cato Institute/Forbes ASAP Conference on Technology and Society." TBI morphed into software-startup Maxager, which intends to offer Bionomical tools to companies. Borsook wonders what meaning can be ascribed to the success or the failure of the company. If Maxager fails, is it because it wasn't Bionomically good enough, or just because of the many uncontrollable factors that cause the vast majority of startups to fail? If it succeeds, does it validate Bionomics, or just the good connections the founder has with Silicon Valley venture capitalists?
The other chapters are just as interesting. Cyberselfish sharply describes all the archetypes of the technolibertarians, from the neo-hippie polyandric Burning Man attendee to the Lexus-driving, 100-hour-a-week, plugged-in entrepeneur with a sprawling bungalow in Santa Clara county.
One of the most crystalline passages in the book describes Eric Raymond's leaking of the Halloween Document, written by Microsoft program manager Vinod Valloppillil. The two clearly have vast ideological differences, the open-source cowboy and the Evil Empire functionary, but they're both hard-core libertarians, an entirely unreported fact. In Borsook's words, "It was rather like discovering that both a liberal and a conservative senator had both acquired their law degrees from Yale: no news here."
As I said before, the book is somewhat haphazardly put together, and nearly every sentence is to some degree contentious; even someone who agrees with her basic position will find reason to quibble. Cyberselfish doesn't come near to answering all the questions it raises. Borsook doesn't really tackle the paradox that "libertarians celebrate the cult of the individual" but Open Source celebrates the collective. What does it mean to be an Open Source libertarian?
I personally think it's somewhat unfair to attack those flaws, as they're inexorably part of Cyberselfish's loose, immediate, opinionated, and conversational style. It's kind of like how Slashdot's open forums allow for a review like this and the inevitable "hot grits" responses.
Purchase this book at fatbrain.
This book sums up everything that's wrong with the Wired crowd: Cyber-everything, political ideas that can be summed up in four words (centrist good, extremist bad) but winds up taking multiple pages, nothing exists outside Silicon Valley, and let's start making up our own words so we can look more 133t than everyone else. And if anyone asks what you're about, just give them the stare that says "if you don't know, we won't tell you".
Only if you consider being the custodian who takes care of the equipment a position of power
Let's face it, the janitor can sneak in before or after a political rally and stand at the same lectern that a powerful politician stands at. However, nobody cares.
And sysadmins are, frankly, the janitors in the IT business.
No. The "promote the general welfare" section of the preamble to the constitution, and indeed, the whole preamble, are ideas whose concrete manifestations are spelled out in the rest of the document. The constitution "promotes the general welfare" by providing courts, a method of establishing common tarrifs and taxation, trade, etc.
Any interpretation of this "welfare" intimating any connection with the modern connotation of the word (free government handouts) is just plain wrong.
Why voting would make more difference than actually implementing the change? We are minority, and politicians won't listen to us until they are faced with something they can't ignore. Technology however is much harder to ignore than even a large bunch of people, as technology in large part determines how society operates. Guttenberg didn't vote, yet his technology produced more social change than whoever was in power at that time, and same applies to us -- the current situation around IP rights was created without a single vote, and without a single geek's speech in Congress, yet it has a chance to change society in a manner comparable to what printing did.
Do we care about our particular faces appearing in every newspaper and our time being filled with fundraising for re-election, when we can write code that no matter what politicians want to do with it, will end up implementing our ideas? Society will adapt, politicians will adapt, but it's the development of technology that causes the change, not the other way around.
And, BTW, I am not libertatian at all -- libertarians are just one (and IMHO misguided) fraction of people who participate in this.IMHO it's a good thing that people are trying to understand what are the social and political implications of technology, and how basic ideas intuitively known to geeks translate into more strict and universally understandable forms.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Draw the line where the medical community draws the line for the end of life. Brain waves. If brainwaves are present, it's a person.
This is completely un-scientific -- when a person dies brain waves reflect the state of something that is a person, and definitely was for long enough time to be recognized as one. However when brain is being formed, it starts from something not even remotely resembling conscious human being, so whatever definition of "brainwaves" you have, it can't be applied.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Having the power is the opposite of having freedom -- people who influence society have to go into either direction at the expense of the other. Cherokee Indians didn't have the option of using the power because they lacked one. Geeks are in the position where they have "power" (not as much as individuals but as the category of people who have means and desire to advance some set of ideas in the technology that is being widely used in society), yet current political system is not democratic enough to allow the advancement of the same ideas by applying the "freedom" beyond the most basic forms such as disseminating information (voting either way doesn't help because politicians that are on any ballot are all too stupid to understand them, and are too influenced by those ideas' enemies).
This doesn't mean that voting is useless, but at this moment in history it's purpose is purely defensive, as it allows at some extent to prevent massive abuse of government's power against existing freedoms, but beyond that it's insignificant compared to actual effect that technology has on society.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
The difference between "government" and all other groups, is that the government is directly responsible to the people, whereas all other groups are responsible only to themselves, a subset of the people.
If I don't like the way the government is acting, I have recourse, via my vote. If I don't like the way Microsoft is acting, I can go pound sand. My President/Prime Minister/Congrassman/whatever answers to me, but Gates et al answer to no-one.
There are, of course, some sticky bits here: I don't like how the government is handling issue foo. I form a group, the "Association For Better Foo Handling". By virtue of being a member of that group, I am subject to higher regulation. How do we prevent the government (in power) from unjustly interfering with a group that is legitimately trying to affect/reduce the government's power?
So yes, even the government must be regulated - as it largely is now anyway. The regulation of groups must clearly spell out governmental limits, and even groups must have certain uninfringeable rights. But I maintain that a group has much less in the way of rights than an individual does.
Western countries actually do a pretty good job of limiting and decentralizing governmental power - especially the ultra-paranoid American system. Where they fall down is giving too much in the way of rights and freedoms to groups (and especially corporations) at the expense of individual freedoms.
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Gaaa... I'm going to wind up responding to most of the responses to my own post. How gauche. :)
In all your examples, there was indeed an individual acting as the driver. But in none of them did the "individual" act alone and unaided.
All of them had help.
It's not Adolf you have to worry about, it's Adolf + the Brownshirts. It's not Genghis, it's Genghis + the Mongol Hordes. And so on.
Groups may do better when led by a powerful leader, but it's still the _group_ getting the job done - so legislate the group, and leave the individual alone.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
I don't know what is scarier - the fact that the Yanks have the right to carry weapons manufactured to kill other people in their Constitution, or the fact that some nutballs think they may actually use these arms against their own government.
Here's a trivia fact for you: If you take all the wars that Americans have ever fought in, and add up all the casulties, it turns out there is one war that has more Americans killed and wounded than all the others COMBINED.
Guess which one?
The American Civil War.
Yup. The all-time greatest killer of Americans is... Americans.
There's your "right to bear arms"
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Perhaps someone will find this interesting, and comment on it.
Although I often find myself with strong libertarian leanings, especially towards issues like abortion, legal drug use, and seatbelt laws (even though I personally never plan on using drugs, and I always wear my seatbelt) I still think there's a real need for strong government.
The crux, at least as I see it, is that while individual freedoms should be held as uninfringed as possible, groups should be closely regulated, and the larger the group, the more closely it should be regulated.
The idea here is that the destructive power of a lone individual acting is fairly limited - not only in terms of raw ability, but in terms of the tendancy of functioning as part of a group to dissociate an individual from the group's actions. For example, your average German circa 1941 was as decent a human being as any other, but grouped together as "Nazi Germany" they did a lot of horrible things.
It's not ESR that worries me; it's the NRA. It's not Lars (from Metallica); it's the RIAA. It's not the employees; it's Disney/Sony/Union Carbide/etc.
It seems a simple concept: The larger the group, the more the regulation, the smaller the group, the smaller the regulation. Free the individual, restrain the collective.
I think a large share of the blame falls on Western law that treats a "corporation" as a "legal person", so that a corporation is treated the same way before the law as a private citizen. That's crazy! Microsoft Corporation (for example) is capable of far, far more damage to society than any individual. That Microsoft and myself should be considered equal before the law is outrageous.
Equally outrageous is that most individuals are, for all intents and purposes, enslaved by corporations. They own us! Isn't that supposed to be the other way around?
I'm not sure what label to hang on this political philosophy, but whatever it is, I'm for it.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Yes, there is a very big effort on many fronts. Whenever I'm watching a political show and the host asks a Republican or Democrat whether Nader should be allowed in....they say yes!
There hardly seems to be anyone who seriously believes Nader should be kept out of the debates, other than those bastards at the CPD.
Anyway, turn on CNN tonight at 7:30(EST), Nader will be on Crossfire, and I bet he'll talk about the debates.
Also, if you haven't already done so, sign this petition:
http://green.votenader.org/cgi -bin/petition-sigs.cgi
it's such a minor thing, I think if there's a legitimate saftey concern to other, innocent people, there's no problem telling people to wear it.
again, motorcycle helmets is a different situation. however, I would say that even if you allow people to ride without helmets, you better make it clear that if they get brain-damaged in an accident, the gov't isn't going to be paying to rehabilitate them(e.g. special ed)
The depression was directly caused by governments meddling in the economy to keep interest rates artificially low to promote growth by guaranteeing otherwise unsecured loans. Too much cheap money, in essence. The system would have been self-regulating otherwise, for example as capital reserves were depleted, interest rates would have risen until the reserves were replenished.
So you see, the great depression, and inflation in modern times are a direct result of government borrowing, which is "secured" on future taxation. It dilutes the money supply because there are no underlying assets.
I have a friend who's a self-described anarchist, who bases his political ideals on the idea that no one should have power over him.
I am a "self-described" (why do people always use that word? just because there's no anarchist party to join?) anarchist, who was in Philadelphia protesting. What you're using as an argument against anarchists is something that was probably handed down to you by your YCL leaders.
The point of anarchism is two-fold: I don't want anybody to have power over me, and I don't want to have power over anyone else. People who just care about the first part aren't anarchists, they're assholes.
Face it, man. Communism is dead. There's no possibility of a Communist revolution anymore. Anarchism, however, is gaining steam. The best thing you could do for yourself right now is to educate yourself about anarchism, and not blindly accept the propaganda of your "leaders."
Oh, and by the way, Anarchism is not opposed to organization, in fact anarchism and organization go hand in hand. It's *how* we organize that's the important part. "An" (without) "Archos" (rulers).
Here, read the Anarchism FAQ
Michael Chisari
mchisari@usa.net
I know little to nothing about anarchists as a group-I know some about the black bloc (morons, in a word), and I listen to what my friend says, that's it.
If that's the extent of your knowledge, why the hell aren't you educating yourself? I've read Marx and Engels, and countless other authoritarian socialists' work. I wouldn't criticize a viewpoint without at least being familiar with their arguments and point of view.
It's really not hard to read the FAQ
Then why has the YCL tripled in size in the last year? Come to Algeria next August for the Youth Festival, and tell the 5000 expected attendees that communism is dead.
Why is it that almost every new activist I come into contact with identifies with anarchism?
Pots and kettles, pal. And I'm not the one dressed all in black.
No, you're wearing red uniforms, provided to you by your organization. As witnessed in Philly, wearing black wasn't necessary to be an anarchist (only about 500 anarchists wore black). Or did you miss the Revolutionary Anarchist Clown Bloc?
Man, at least read something about anarchism before you start denouncing it.
Michael Chisari
mchisari@usa.net
I am a proud libertarian, but if you think that implies that I worship the market, and that I'm going to vote (how do you eliminate government by encouraging it?) for the Libertarian Party, you're sorely mistaken.
Years ago, there were anarchists. They were a lot like socialists, except for one major difference: They didn't see the point (some even accurately predicted the brutality of Marxism) of taking over government to achieve socialism. Government, they felt, was the enemy of common people, and it was instituted by the powerful in order to protect their interests. In other words, government acts as a buffer between capitalism and people in order to prevent or squash revolution.
Then, at some point in Europe, it became illegal to call yourself an anarchist. So, people started calling themselves libertarians. Same concept, different name.
How did "libertarian" in the US end up being a fiscal conservative/social liberal mix? I don't know. But I wish it meant the revolutionary definition it was meant to. I wish I could call myself a libertarian without people automatically assuming that I'm in favor of privatizing the police and military.
I'm a libertarian (aka, anarchist), because I want to get rid of government, not transfer it's powers over to corporations.
Within Slashdot I see a lot of strange juxtopositions. We're rabidly anti-government, which is good. We're also rabidly opposed to certain corporations, which is also good. But a lot of us are still fixated on this ridiculous notion of "the market", as though human happiness could be measured by stock values.
I don't worship the market. I hate the market. I despise the idea that human worth is measured, packaged, and profited from. I don't want to accept a world where currency is backed up by military force, and where the only means of survival is working for the profit of others.
In short, I hate capitalism, and almost everything that it implies. Now, don't get me wrong, I hate Communism more. The way it looks, Communism has a lifespan of about 80 years, tops. Capitalism has a much longer lifespan, that is kept alive only by constant technological advancements that keep it going. But I have a feeling that it's at the end of it's rope. Maybe it's time to check out alternatives?
So, yes, I am a libertarian, but not in the legacy of Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, or others who worshipped capitalism as the means and the goal. I am a libertarian in the legacy of P.J. Proudhon, Emma Goldman, Mikhail Bakunin, and Petr Kropotkin, who believed in revolution as the means, and freedom as the goal.
Michael Chisari
mchisari@usa.net
Objectivists have a rigid moral system, based around self-interest (or "selfishness"),
... just kidding, sort of).
This is what made me think of this question in reading the book review was the "selfishness" aspect. I think that most objectivists would refer to this as "enlightened selfishness", but as far as I've ever seen, it's just regular selfishness.
Furthermore, Objectivism has a strict system of epistemology (reason), metaphysics (objective reality), and aesthetics (strongly resembling the works of Ayn Rand
Yep - that's why I was making the distinction between a political philosophy and a more general philosophy. What I don't understand is why in my experience (and I was also fishing to find out if anyone else had the same experience) they seem to go hand in hand.
In short: Libertarians believe that people should be free because intelligent people can differ. Objectivists believe that people should be free -- but that there is still only one "true way."
Ah but there's an important distinction to be made - objectivists would probably say that there is only one true way when reason is being used, while libertarians say that intelligent people can differ, but they're not necessarily using reason. For example, libertarians support drug legalization (or at least decriminilization) just like most of us, but I don't think that they'd say that an individual's decision to use drugs is based out of pure reason per se. Libertarians would support freedom of religion staunchly, where religion has little to do with reason, etc.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
An excellent point, but it brings up a lot of other extremely stick questions. I tend to agree with you on this one, but if humans tend to revert to this "natural state", then aren't we really fooling ourselves trying to defeat our own "programming" and imposing artificial order on things? What are the implications on liberty if we've established that:
What we've got is a situation where we cannot allow humanity to have what they want. Your choices are to bite the bullet and be free with a lousy economy, or to discourage natural "instinct" in the name of possibly artificial (and ultimately doomed) order?
Just playing a little devil's advocate...
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
The Ayn Rand folks tend to flock to Libertarian Party gatherings, because the major parties will not give them time of day, and the LP needs numbers at the polls if they are ever going to get major party status.
Makes sense to me - but is this backwards? I'm not claiming I'm right, but originally I thought that it was the libertarians who were becoming objectivists rather than the other way around.
Funny, because the objectivist philosophy seems quite similar to some of the economic policies of the GOP (friend of big business, hands off the economy, "self-regulation" is your friend)
on an unrelated note...
Their current national candidate is a former White House press-relations staffer who keeps making frequent overtures to the neo-nazis and then acts surprised when people get angry at him.
Yeah, just goes to show that even though you might have founded the party, it doesn't mean that you get the final say in the candidate of that party. Just ask Mr. Perot, who I understand is quite pissed about Buchanan.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
OK all of you libertarians - come on out of the works now.
Are most/some of libertarians also objectivists? (As in the philosophy put forward by Ayn Rand?) It seems that all of the libertarians that I know are also objectivists. While I myself tend to lean left (and way left) I'm interested in why these two things seem to be connected. They have some obvious parallels, but it's not necessarily intuitive that somebody who buys a certain political philosophy would also buy a certain more general philosophy.
So what's up with "you people"? (That last phrase added to stir a few people to respond, because I'm honestly interested)
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Actually, in my case, you're right. I did want some relatively small restraints put on them, but I think a breakup was a bad idea. I had a letter in Infoworld a while back that can be searched on that had my whole solution - I won't repost it here.
If a society agrees on rules to conduct business by, I have no problem with those rules being used and enforced. Since we haven't risen up to overturn the Sherman Act, then it's the law of the land until such time as it is overturned - Microsoft broke it, and should be made to play by the rules. Carving them up isn't right.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Because, despite there being a tremendous number of silly people associated with the stated goals of the Libertarian Party, I happen to agree with the overall goals anyway.
To oversimplify the decision-making process for me:
The Republicans want to let my company do whatever it wants, and tell me what to do in the privacy of my own home. They assume that I'm Christian, and generally don't support not being one. And they want to take a lot of my money and waste it on dumb stuff like shooting down missiles.
The Democrats want to tell my company what to do, and let me do whatever I want, but only if I'm a minority or gay. They want to take even more of my money, and instead of wasting it on shooting down missiles, they want to waste it on a big bureaucracy of people who will, in turn, give a little bit of that money to poor people.
The Libertarians want government to stay the heck out of people's lives, let them make their own business and moral choices, and use as little money as possible doing so. Other parties have made big splashes - the radical left has turned to the Green Party, and the Reform Party sprung into being on the whims and bankroll of one man (let's see how they do with Perot off the ballot before we call them a real third party). Neither of them appeal to me. Were he running for President under any banner, Jesse Ventura is ironically the politician whose views agree most closely with mine on most issues.
That's why I'm a Libertarian. It's the closest party to my views. Perhaps I'm an idealist, but the Republicrats do nothing for me, Nader is pathetic, Perot is nuts, and Buchanan is possibly the most frightening man in mainstream politics.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
And Cyberselfish is proof.
Yes, libertarian thought puts the individual first. But generally, that comes from a belief that the individual is capable of making their own informed decisions about what's best for them - not from a "me first" attitude.
Where that coincides with Objectivism is the raising up of the individual. But Objectivism leans more to the "me first" than does libertarianism. However, despite the reasons, since the two do converge on the individual, a lot of libertarians are Objectivists, and virtually all Objectivists are libertarian.
However, that leaves a lot of us who wouldn't touch Objectivism with a ten-foot pole, but are libertarian in belief and practice, and Libertarian (with a capital letter this time) in political affiliation.
The difference to me is that libertarianism is fundamentally optimistic about human nature. We assume that people may be mildly selfish, but are willing to make some sacrifice on behalf of the common good if they are not coerced to do so. I may not be as wealthy as a dot-com millionaire (or Rob and Jeff), but I give money to charitable causes on a regular basis, donate pretty nice stuff to the Salvation Army, Goodwill, and the like, bring canned food to my town's homeless shelter, and my used newspapers and other stuff to the pet shelter, and also vociferously support the Libertarian Party, of which I am a member. No, I'm not a saint, but there's no conflict involved there, folks. And I'm not the only one who behaves this way.
The people who don't Get It generally confuse libertarianism with Objectivism. Don't paint us all with that brush - it's far too wide and the Objectivist paint is far too thick. A reasonable amount of altruism is not incompatible with being a Libertarian.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Exactly. Open-source isn't Communism, it is a gift culture. This is a very libertarian idea. Nobody is being forced to give away their code, but they do it anyway.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Another thing - given our unfair tax system, a decent chunk of their output is going to the masses already (albeit with half or so being spent on keeping big government running, lining pockets, etc).
If people didn't work 3-4 months every year as a slave to their government, perhaps they would feel more up to donating.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
---
hate furrinurs, private religeous schools paid for tax dollars.....oops I mean vouchers, fuck you. C'mon admit it.
---
You're obviously confused.
Read this and this. Then, you'll see that your impression of libertarianism is quite misguided.
In short (in case you'd rather not follow those links), Libertarians are for open borders and privatizing the educational system. The former is pretty much self explanatory, and the latter would ensure that my money won't go to churches if I don't want it to (and I don't).
Perhaps you were thinking of these guys instead?
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Random points: Its "Anarchy, State, and Utopia", you got a superfluous "the" in there. Its surprisingly readable for academic political philosophy. Its also (IMNAAHO) not so much mistaken as inadequate to the task it sets out to acheive. Nozick has since changed his mind about quite a lot (though not all) of it, and has spent many recent years trying to devise a just system of inheritance taxation. I disagree strongly (regardless of its inadequacy) with his basic premise that a potential explanation is almost as good as a real one.
Nozick is not only a classmate of Rawls, but a friend and an admirer. "Anarchy, State and Utopia" was intended as a counterpoint to Rawls' infinitely duller "A Theory of Justice" (though I suspect Rawls' is a by far the better reasoned theory). Rawls is emphatically not an apologist for the welfare state (based on entitlement) but an advocate of a kind of modernised liberalism (in the classic sense) based on the idea that a system is just if someone would agree to participate in it even if they had no idea what their position in the society would be.
First I should point out that I am a libertarian, with a small l, in that my primary interest in politics is to ensure maximum freedom for everyone, but I have a rather broader idea of that than the LP program does, and thus could never support them, even if I were an American. I'm just posting to spew a little random political philosophy. Your argument that we should first assume that new laws are unecessary until proven otherwise rests on totally libertarian assumptions, and this sounds totally reasonable. However, there are other logical (and possibly moral) political positions to take. Its possible to argue that society comes before the individual, both historically and morally, and this argument is sound insofar as there never was a "state of nature" with individuals fending for themselves. Rather, humans have always lived in groups and those groups have always been hierarchical. The state it merely the latest in a long line of forms of social organisation which are hierarchical in that some individuals are acknowledged as leading the rest (within some constraints). Thus the states use of force, in this view, is not the anwarranted and unjustifiable coercion it is in the libertarian view, but rather a necessary (but regrettable) part of the social structure. Not that I agree with this. It simply needs to be pointed out that enlightenment liberal ideas are a recent innovation, and while they may *seem* obvious they are not.
There really are no compelling arguments against libertarianism that I''ve seen.
Sigh. Well this article is so old, noone will ever read this, but I cannot let you get away with saying this without challenge.
There are a great many arguments against libertarianism that hold some water, but if you reason entirely from libertarian principles its possible to condemn just about all of them as authoritarian. I recommened Mike Hubens excellent Site of critiques of libertarianism including his Non-libertarian FAQ for many different views.
The problem is that libertarianism reasoning is a hermetically closed loop of logic, which is in itself free of inconsistencies, but in itself that proves nothing. Nothin about consistency gaurantees good governance, and nothing about the way the principle of libertarianism are derived does either. This is why, to be completely blunt, libertarians are so dogmatic (the statement "there are no good arguments ..." is dogmatic, and arrogant. If you disagree, check a dictionary), and those who try to argue with them get so frustrated.
The logic goes like this: The highest value is freeedom. We must maximise everyone's freedom. This is meant in the negative sense of freedom: a man is free if noone prevents him doing as he pleases with himself and his property if he interferes with noone else. Thus the sole role of the state is the prevention of coercion and fraud.
The first thing to note is that this is a very unusal use of the word "freedom". In general usage people are happy to talk about their freedom at work, or in their families, or to change suppliers for some good. Libertarians, however, assert that if you sign a contract obliging you to do something you have acted freely, and thus if I complain about my lack of freedom to, say, take bathroom breaks at work, this is mere whinging and my freedom has not been affected. After all, I can quite, can't I ? and I signed the contract with my employer in the first place.
To see this, if its not sufficiently clear, consider an employer who sets up separate "whites only" and "blacks only" drinking fountains at work, and fires employess who disregard the separation. Most of us would consider such behaviour abhorent, and most people would not object to a law against it. Libertarians, however, assert that the employer is quite within his rights. I admit I'm pressing emotional buttons to make a point here. I don't imply that libertarianism implies racism, or that libertarians would condone such employment politicies. I do, however, assert that the libertarian idea of freedom is not very close to the common use of the word. IMHO this problem derives from treating property as an extension of the person and essentially absolute. It is better - in my view - to see property as a social phenomenon, a compromise, whose use must be regulated.
Secondly, and along similar lines, libertarianism is not an adequate moral system, as should be clear from the above. At best all it offers is a minimal framework for law. Nothing in fundamental libertarian philosophy prevents one from selling oneself into slavery, for instance.
The only possible justification for libertarianism other than that it is moral is that it is efficient - that it provides the greatest degree of social or economic good of any social system. The arguments here are economic, but they are at the very least inconclusive. You have to believe in the perfection of the unregulated free market to accept them.
We earn our money in a specific context - the money is printed by a government, in a society that has by decree and habit accepted money as "legal tender for all debts private and public," kept in banks producted by the FDIC, in the context of a society that has created a sophisticated and extensive infrastructure in which we operate - an infrastructure that enables us to transport goods and travel with relative safety (freeways, air traffic control), that limits epidemics with public health works, that educates us to a literacy rate in the 90%s (compare that with previous centuries), and in this context we work and get income, some of which is then given back in the form of taxes. The context itself provides for the possibility of owning anything at all: it is the legal and social ground rules of commerce and property that make the very idea of 'stealing' possible. Virtually no one earns money without being aware of the fact that they are going to be taxed on it - to call it stealing is naive and absurd.
The idea that any improvement you make belongs to the community is a sure way to prevent you from capitalizing on your own work.
How so? If you're improving someone else's work using code distributed under the GPL (or your non-BSD Open Source license of choice) why should you get to capitalize on their work?
If you don't like Open-Source licenses, don't use or modify any code offered by them. For now, it seems that closed-source products are still financially viable.
People who are complaining about "having to reinvent the wheel" because they can't use GPL code in closed products are the true selfish bastards in this case.
It's basically saying that because you got seeds from the community they own the fruit you raised in the fields.
<RANT type="intellectual-property-is-not-property">
Your straw man doesn't hold up. If I make a copy of your code, you still have that code. If I take fruit from you, you don't. The two are not the same at all.
<RANT>
Jay (=
Why is it considered selfish to believe that I know best how to lead MY life?
Good question. Probably because those in power (and in this purile chick's case, power takes on the form of old media cultural gestapo defining what is "in", what is "out", what is "good", and what is not) feel slighted when we deny them that power.
Control freaks are drawn to power like moths to fire, and I've yet to meet an old media reporter who wasn't, in some way, addicted to the power their words have over others. Our rejection of this paradigm, and of the kind of power mongering this sad woman personifies, is in a way selfish. After all, we should be giving of our own freedom freely, to feed the cravings of the poor, desperate, power-hungary political and cultural elite.
Shame on us.
Ob: incompetent moderation: There is nothing, anywhere in the preceeding post, to justify moderating it down as a troll, or for that matter, moderating it down at all.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I suppose Thomas Jefferson was an "adolescent and peevish libertarian"? Some of us are deeply concerned about our freedoms and liberties, which are too often sacrificed on the altar of convenience and expedience. I believe in the principles that underlie the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Freedom has a price, which many Americans are unwilling to pay, preferring the security and conformity of the nanny state.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
The GPL _forces_ you to release your source code. That is not libertarian.
My Journal
Why is it considered selfish to believe that I know best how to lead MY life?
Why is it selfish for me to think that each individual person knows more about how his/her life should be than some would be regulator?
The fact that some people out there are too stupid to productively lead their own lives shouldn't mean that the rest of us should submit to arbitrary regulation of our every day lives.
For the record, I'm not a Libertarian. I'm a Republican. I own several guns, I'm going to vote for George W Bush, I own a gas guzzling Sports car and a big honking SUV. Why? Because I feel like it. That's the only reason any of us should need to give. I believe that Welfare should be a second chance or a leg up, not a way of life. I'm in favor of executing murderers.
I believe all of these things because human history has demonstrated that the biggest threat to individual freedom and liberty is consistantly a government gone awry. Democide (being killed by one's own government) has been the biggest non medical cause of death this century. 56 MILLION people have been killed by their own governments this century alone. As much as I happen to like my form of government, I still see the need to limit it's power. Who knows who will be in charge in 50 years, do you want someone like Jesse Helms with the investigative power to command the intelligence community to start snooping on people? I know that I don't.
People don't care about the erosion of their constitutional rights, but they flip their wigs at the thought of higher ATM fees, or the fact that the FBI might have an easier time reading the dirty email that they just sent to that girl that they met on effnet.
While the average person is being reduced to a semi-literate consumeroid, a profit battery for some giant corporate machine, there must be SOMEONE who cares about the future of the world. Why not us? If there is no other group of people who cares enough to think further ahead that what's for dinner tonight, why then shouldn't it be us who cares about the generations to come?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
ALthough I feel that your choice of who you vote for an be based upon any thing you wish. It very well could have even been "I'm voting for the first guy to wear a grey tie".
I've got to take issue with a few things that you said. What did Clinton know about foreign policy when he got elected? He was governor of Arkansas. Arkansas! At least Texas is the second biggest state. While you may take issue with Bush's grammatical prowess, at least he's not trying to take credit for things that he had nothing to do with (Love Canal, Love Story, The Internet). Lastly, I don't know if GWB is an asshole or not, but what makes you think that he;s "cold hearted"?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I am a woman, and I will tell you quite clearly that I have not met a woman YET who is pro-choice.
Judging by the rest of your post, I'll assume that you meant to say pro-life. How's this Norma McCorvey, the woman who was Jane Roe in Roe v Wade, is pro LIFE. She has come over from the other side. She now sees how she was used.
Woman have to live with the fear that, if abortion is outlawed, they may one day have to take care of a child, a PERSON, for their entire life.
Bullshit. There are five year waiting lists for people who want to adopt.
Don't you think that having a child changes everything? Maybe not everyone wants to change?
And murdering a defenseless human being doesn't change anything? Once you're pregnant, it's too late. Things have changed. Murdering your child can't undo what was done.
Men don't have to deal with that.
Bullshit. Although I have always taken the necessary precautions to prevent becoming a father, I have several friends who have not. Paternity tests and child support are merely the financial end of all of the changes that occur for these men.
They can make a "mistake" tonight, and walk away tomorrow.
Bullshit. There is a legal system that can, and often does force men to be responsible for their actions.
It's easy for a man to be pro-life, because none of his choices affect him.
Bullshit. Liberal mistake #3 Gender Warfare. Do you think that the physical effects of pregnancy are the only factors involved?
In many ways, abortion is the only way to create equality for men and women.
Not even close. If you want true equality, men should have the ability to legally abort their paternity. If a woman chooses to have a baby and the man does not want to be a part of it, he should be able to legally sever all of his parental rights and responsibilities. That would be equality, not infanticide.
I am sorry that you feel the way you do about so-called "birth-control abortions", but you have a right to think that. Just don't take away the right to abortion for when it is truly needed.
Define "needed". If you're talking about, rape, incest or when an abortion is needed to save your life, then fine. We can be in agreement about those cases. If you define need as "I really NEED to have an abortion before my family finds out that I'm pregnant!" then, you and I are going to be in disagreement. I will do everything in my power, and within the law, to change that. Even if it means voting for someone whom I don't agree 100% with.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
This subject definitely intrigues me, but I think such broad generalizations about cultures are dangerous and miss some of the interesting details.
:)
What I personally find ironic of all the talk of libertarianism attached to the technology boom is that I have not found large amounts of libertarians in the young, high-tech groups that I have frequented, but then again I have found that most of such groups in which I have been involved have been made up of more of the "geeks" (excuse the generalization, but I am trying to expedite the writing of this comment) than the people more interested in making money.
Although I am certainly not averse to the concept of making loads of money as an engineer (both to be comfortable financially and be able to contribute to good causes), I have been more interested in the technology and am very much a liberal rather than a libertarian. I do not want the government to interfere with privacy or free speech on the Internet, but I was a true supporter of the anti-trust case against Microsoft, which was government intervention at its best.
The people that strike me as having a libertarian bent (i.e., not necessarily libertarians but sharing the government-back-out-of-business standpoint) are the self-proclaimed "visionaries." These people are seemingly the semi-techies that read Wired as their source of tech news instead of more in-depth sources (I'm sorry, but that magazine is more about colorful pictures than real technology reporting). They also seem to simply be business students/recent grads that are looking to make a quick buck and masquerade themselves as understanding the technology (even to the point of having the hubris, at least after their IPOs, to call themselves "visionaries").
It's just a thought. I think it would be interesting, though, if someone would do a study on the success vs. failure of start-ups compared to who actually started them, the "visionaries" or actual scientists (man I hate the word technologist used in a non-sci-fi context
SB
No it doesn't.
First of all, you can write and release open source software without going anywhere near the GPL, so the specifics of the GPL are pretty much irrelevant to your assertion than open source is not libertarianism. If you don't like GPL, then don't use GPL. Release your code under BSD license if you want to.
And secondly, the GPL doesn't force anything even when you modify someone else's work that was released under GPL. It simply offers you an additional right that you otherwise wouldn't have (redistribution of someone else's copyrighted work) in exchange for an obligation (redistributing the source). If you don't want to make that bargain, that's fine. You can reject the offer and still modify someone else's GPLed software all that you want, and never release your source. Just don't break copyright law by redistributing the derivative work. (And copyright law is not contrary to libertarianism.)
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If you're interested in detailed, comprehensive, and well-thought-out arguments against libertarianism, I recommend this Web site.
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send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
It's my fault; I submitted the review originally for Adam, and then posted it when Jon Katz wrote his article. I feel guilty now because I knew the review hadn't been rejected, but I wanted to put it up in response to Katz. So this review has appeared twice on Slashdot, but as another person said, now everyone who turns off Jon Katz can read it. Or is it Jon Katz who turns everyone off?
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Make mine methylphenidate.
Borsook isn't saying that everyone's a Randian, polyamorist, or free software / open source zealot; she is saying that the tech-culture (by which she is particularly referring to computer culture rather than the scientific community, biology etc.) is dominated by what she refers to as "technolibertarianism". It's "little l libertarianism" instead of "capital L Libertariansim", more an emotional/gestalt attitude than necessarily a political philosophical position. I'd say that most coders/admins (and admins in particular) have a certain deep belief in self-entitlement--they really believed that they worked hard to get where they are, and continue to work hard, and noone really helped them or encouraged them, and that they're underappreciated--and that belief extends to their understanding (or lack thereof) of history and their place in it, their feelings about societal responsibility, their feelings about government (the US government, and the institution in general), etc.
Tied into that is a degree of arrested development, a glorification of adolescent ideals (guns, cool toys, etc.), a level of social gaucheness, that can both be good--it's certainly not bad to be a bit childlike, and be more honest and excitable about beauty than some postmodern jaded bohemian, but it is bad to be childish.
Today's culture in general pushes people to become uneducated cynics, rebels without a cause. It's easy to get trapped in a teenager-like mold, where you've realized that nothing is perfect but you don't know what to do about it. It's pretty hard to find faith in this world. This is more true for techies, perhaps, than anyone else, to whom the promise of technology is so clear but the imperfection, even ugliness, of society is also so apparent.
Pretty much all Borsook is saying is that techies fall into the trap of trying to ignore, denigrate, or escape society. But they can't--especially when they're becoming ever more responsible for it. All of the topics in her book focus on just that, the intersection of techies and social change, through the Bionomics conferences, and Wired magazine, and the cypherpunks, and charity--and those intersections all are definably libertarian.
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Make mine methylphenidate.
I personally think it's pretty accurate. Obviously, reasonable people can disagree, but there is evidence that supports Borsook's position, both anecdotal and empirical, though one can mount arguments/attacks against either form.
Anecdotal evidence is a lot easier to refute, but the empirical evidence includes the low rate of charitable giving in Silicon Valley, statistical analysis of Usenet discussions, statistical analysis of tech-oriented convention topics (like hacker cons, bionomics conference, etc.), statistical analysis of Wired articles, etc.
Of course, one can say that Usenet, tech-cons, Wired, etc. aren't truly representative of tech culture, but then, what are? Maybe it's just the loudmouths of technoculture/hackerdom that are libertarian (small l!) but it's pretty difficult to gather empirical evidence on unrecorded views.
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Make mine methylphenidate.
You're thinking of the Reason review, Cybersilly.
I can't make myself add yet another link to it, as there's been about 30 already, but I'll link to my metalist.
I'm asking Paulina for a response on this; she's usually pretty responsive to reasonable emails.
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Make mine methylphenidate.
Even Joshua ben Joseph gave notice that there's more than one way to do things.... Remember the Good Samaritan? Samaritans, lest you forget, were good, old-fashioned, bull-sacrificing, Baal-worshipping PAGANS... y'all are smart, go figure. Love your neighbors. Love your enemies, and drive'em nuts!
Oh, and one more thing. Objectivists have morals, sure. Rules somebody wrote down in some book somewhere, to be followed slavishly and at the expense of everything else. Gimme a fscking break. Libertarians have ethics: Guidelines(*) to be used within a situation to effect a desired set of consequences. In this case the consequences are to maximize freedom, in general by preventing others from imposing force or fraud on the individual in question.
One more thing I want to question here, and that is the giving to charity. Now, I don't give to too many folks. But I have enough enlightened self-interest to see that there are a number of charities that I, myself, do or might benefit from. EFF. GNU. Various medical research organizations. etc. etc. ad infinitum nauseumque. What goes around comes around... what those Silicon Valley hotshots haven't figured out is that you get out of life what you put into it, same as a computer. Those dudes down there may die with the most toys, but they're still dead. Game over, man! I say live a little, give a little, and be much happier for it.
Free-lovin', drug-legalizin', non-judgemental hippie heatherns, you betcha.... and a lot happier for it than anybody who says There Ain't But One Way To Do It. (cf. Larry Wall, eh?)
(*)Guidelines: remember them, Usenetters? rules made to be bent or even broken with just cause.
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"I tried. I tried to warn them. But it all happened, just the way I remembered it." -- Jeffrey David Sinclair, "War Without End II" (B5)
Sorry if the shouting offends, but too may people don't get that concept. No, healthcare is not a federal right. Basic education should be, but only because we've let the universal sufferage cat out of the bag... too late to make sure that only those smart enough to understand got to vote, so we have to do it the other way 'round now. *shrug* gives us a few more people maybe brave enough to speak up when the emperor goes nekkid....
What really bugs me is these sheeple enslaved to the congressman they think will vote them the most largesse from the federal treasury.... but I digress. By getting the hell out the way, and in so doing not stealing so bloody much from your paycheck, the Libertarian government allows you to take care of yourself, invest for your retirement, contribute to private charity for people's welfare, and basically do all those things people get uptight about, without anyone telling them how they HAVE to do it. Yes, I suppose your basic county health department is a good thing; it keeps otherwise-sick folk from spreading things... but this is run at a very local level; it's not a federal mandate. Other than that, IMHO things are far better run by someone not drawing a government paycheck.
As for Cliff's Silicon Snake Oil: There is a difference in using the computer as a mechanism for escaping the real world, and using it as a tool to build communities that would not otherwise exist (and eventually getting parts of them to meet in realspace). Poor Cliff got burned by the former. I quickly learned to do the latter. My first trip to California, several love affairs, my first meeting with the lady who is now my wife, and this job, 3000 miles from home, are all consequences of encounters on various networks. Sure, the box doesn't love you. But it doesn't make those little riffs from sweetie@myhome.com any less special... or the fact that it says "pick up some milk on the way home" any less useful. It's a tool, like a machete. You can hack your way thru all these trees, and find yourself lost in the forest.... or you can cut sugar cane, and make RUM! :) (Or Krispy Kreme donuts, for those of us less inclined to imbibe :)
Your choice. That's what it's all about.
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I am Homer of Borg. You will be assim... Oooh! Donuts!
My answer is that I don't like people telling me what to do. I don't like the government taking my money and telling me how I'm going to spend it. I don't like policeman that give you a ticket for speeding, and then raise or lower the ticket depending on how polite you are to them. I don't like pornography, but I don't like the government telling me what I can read even more. This is why I am a libertarian.
I also wouldn't like someone telling me I had to write software for free. But I do it because I want to. The free software movement is about the good parts of collectivism but not the bad. People can spontaneously work together for a common good, and no-one has to be forced to do anything. There really isn't a conflict with being an Open Source Libertarian. People are free to leave or join any project they want; you can't give much more power to the individual than that.
It treats money as if it were simply good wishes, which individuals should be free to share with others. But Libertarianism as it stands today does not acknowledge that, for instance, poor people may want to organize a government because their financial power, even en masse, may not be enough to limit the power of wealthier entities, entities which in turn will erode everyone's freedom in their favor.
In other words, short term Libertarianism will always devolve into long term economic tyranny.
This action of creating rules of society that even the richest have an obligation to follow is a completely legitmate one, and most Libertarians don't want to acknowledge that.
Money *is* a form of political power, and there is no such thing as "voting with your dollars". That's an oxymoron. A vote, by any meaningful standard, means that we both exercise an equal share of political power. If you get to exercise one billion votes, and I get to exercise my one vote, it isn't a fair election.
This isn't to say *everyone* has a perfectly equal share of political power. This isn't true in America or anywhere. It will always be easier for some people to vote than others, if merely by virtue of the fact that they live next door to the polling place. What we do demand is an acceptable *range* of difficulty between the easiest and hardest votes. This means, whether you live right next door to the polling place, or a few miles away; whether you have the day off and can stroll in, or whether you have to catch a bus across town after work, it's still an achievable act for nearly everyone.
Voting is one act of political power. Selling is another. To create a politcal economy where freedom is sustained, we have to work for an acceptable range of power between the richest and poorest entities. And the market cannot be the mechanism to decide this, because we've already noted that it's unfair to begin with.
Government is not the enemy. BIG government is.
To wrap up, the rich have advantages (economies of scale, for example) that poor people don't, and they are able to exploit them to achieve even greater advantage. If I own all the food, and you're starving, Libertarianism tells you that your best choice is to sell yourself into indentured servitude for a carrot. Libertarianism tries to tell you it's immoral to do anything less.
I don't believe the solution is to steal all the carrots in a mob, either. The solution is to let small governments set ground rules, and let the sellers who want their business learn to abide by them.
How do we keep governments small? Well, I've thought about that in a post called "The Future Of Government", which is archived here:
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/06/25/0230223.s
You'll have to cut and paste because I don't have time to go back and HTMLize this post. But I appreciate your reading this rant. Other thoughts are welcome.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
As I, being something of a Libertarian, understand it: there are a few *big* differences between Objectivists and Libertarians. Although the two groups agree on laissez-faire capitalism as the best economic/political system, Objectivists (among whom I do not include myself) have some strong additional beliefs.
... just kidding, sort of). Libertarians make no judgement on these things, and Objectivists typically use this fact to portray them as a bunch of free-lovin', drug-legalizin', non-judgemental hippie anarchists.
Objectivists have a rigid moral system, based around self-interest (or "selfishness"), which states that an individual's highest moral interest is improving his own life (without harming others, of course). While Libertarians believe that a person has a right to such a life, they do not attach any moral weight to it. So Libertarians would oppose government welfare, but allow people to give voluntarily to charities. Objectivists, however, denounce charitable giving as immoral.
Furthermore, Objectivism has a strict system of epistemology (reason), metaphysics (objective reality), and aesthetics (strongly resembling the works of Ayn Rand
In short: Libertarians believe that people should be free because intelligent people can differ. Objectivists believe that people should be free -- but that there is still only one "true way."
Cheers,
IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
http://www.reason.com/0008/bk.bd.cybersilly.html
Actually, it is my opinion that the Next Big Thing in libertarian thought will be the demonstration that there is no fundamental difference between a government and a corporation. But have members and owners who attempt to do one thing or another. Generally corporations have competitors, but when they are monopolies they enforce their monopolies as well as governments (with their borders and immigration laws) do. The old argument against kings and aristocrats was that they stripped us of our rights. The current argument against democracies is that they strip minorities of their rights. The argument against corporations is that they strip customers and employees of their rights.
I mean, I think the most taxed income bracket is around 35-40%, (including federal and local taxes), so everyone is able to keep "most of" their money.
It is remarkable the amount of conditioning we have, in that one can write that with no sense of irony. What gives the government the right to confiscate 40% of one's income? We fought the Revolutionary War over a tax rate of 1/2-6%; that was worth killing and dying for, yet the current ridiculous rate is accepted. Money is power--it buys things, it controls things, it influences the disposition of resources &c. The governments of this country (federal, state & local) confiscate yearly more than half the resources produced in this nation, then redistribute them (this counts all taxes, not just income--Tax Independence Day 1999 was 5 July). This is an incredible amount of power. Can we seriously argue that it is all to the good?
If my view prevails, I want you to comply peacefully; if yours does, I'll do the same.
And when the majority decide to enslave a class of people, will you peacefully comply? There's an animal whose entire existence is peaceful compliance: the sheep. Libertarians speak out for, of all things, liberty.
I hate to break it to you, but when people's acts do harm others, there are a multitude of ways to remedy that before needing to call in government. But when it is necessary, government can be useful. Libertarians do not deny this. But we do demand that government justify its every move. Any time you deprive someone of his rights and liberty, you had better have a damned good explanation.
I try to follow the historic pattern of English, in which the masculine is used for the plural and the unknown. Some languages use the feminine, I am told. I understand that Arabic has no genders; it is truly neutral, yet we see how egalitarian a society that has been. I do not let the currents of grim uneducated linguistic revisionism alter my course.
But, since I'm a libertarian, if you wish to abuse the language I promise not to stop you:-)
Innocents will die, but I believe that we do a pretty good job keeping that number down. I have to ask myself, though, which is kinder: to hold an innocent for 20-60 years, or to kill him. I know that I would rather die. Jail is a horrible place. Death, OTOH, is a nice escape into a better world (or, even to an atheist, an escape from this world's miseries).
Who said it's an unfortunate necessity?
I do, for one. It is necessary to appropriately punish crime. Certain crimes demand the death penalty for nearly all who commit them. I don't like it. I wish that the criminals could be let go and receive their reward in the next life. But that's now how it works.
Or maybe aren't you aware of the flaws of the application of death penalty?
IMHO the only flaw in the application of the death penalty is that it is so rare. Nearly every murderer shoudl be executed, as should rapists and many kidnappers and spies.
The second biggest problem is that capital punishment is widely unfair: it is the poor and the Black that are executed. This is related to the fact that so many violent criminals are poor and black. Actually, race has nothing to do with it; so many violent criminals are poor (coincidentally, many poor people are black, and many blacks poor, but I believe that is changing, and it is irrelevant anyway). But the solution is not to execute fewer of the criminal poor, but more of the criminal rich.
lus US, is one of the very few countries in the World to execute minors.
What's wrong with executing a 16 yr. old? They're adults in almost every way. Stupid, yes, but so are most adults. I cannot get excited about some vicious animal of a man being executed, whatever his age. It's saddening and unfortunate, but I wouldn't stop it.
Because death penalty is specially used as a more severe sentence than life sentence.
Again, I do not see it that way. I see execution as the kindest of all alternatives, for the guilty and the innocent. It is the appropriate and reasonable punishment for certain crimes. It is punishment, but it isn't the horror of the jail cell. Give me liberty or give me death:-)
Note the number of people who risk death to escape prison. Note the number who kill themselves, evne when they are not in for life. Imagine what it must be like to never have another free moment, to only see the sun & feel the wind for an hour a day, to never walk in a park again. Where's that revolver;-P
The point is that we disagree on what `necessary governmental action' is. Some people seem to think that it is necessary to teach schoolchildren Baptist prayers (I'm a devout Christian, but I don't want my children being taught someone else's method of prayer). Others think it necessary `for people's own good' to make them wear seatbelts in cars and helmets on motorcycles. Others like to disarm people in order to cut down violent crime (doesn't work, but they think it will).
The libertarian point of view is that if one is not harming another, one should be free to act as one will. Demonstrate harm, and then we can talk. Pollution is harming others. Murder is harming others. Bearing a weapon or riding a bike with naught but a baseball cap harm no-one.
The government is mandated by the people.
What gave a majority of the mob (the demos) the right to confiscate 40% of my income? I'm willing to pay taxes. I'm unwilling to pay unjust taxes at unjust rates.
Most people don't vote for lower taxes because they want to line their own pockets. Big business and sports teams want their tax breaks (which must be made up from other sources); the aged want their Social Security & Medicare; government employees want to keep their jobs; public school teachers want to stay employes. Bread and circuses. This demonstrates my point about government power. When an entity or small affiliated group of entities control over one half of the resources of a nation they have an incredible amount of power to influence the economy. This is turn works out to an amazing influence on events.
The revolutionary war was fought because Americans wanted autonomy...
Nonsense. We had autonomy. We were allowed self-rule to an unprecedented extent. But we balked at paying for the war which saved us from the French & Indian menace. We were acting like selfish children. Not that the Brits helped much. It amazes me how a people so brilliant can be so incredibly incompetent at times.
The taxes were the reason and the basis for everything else. Our civil rights were violated due to civil unrest caused by taxation to pay for the recent war. `No taxation without representation!' was our cry (nevermind that we were represented). In large part it was due to the selfish New Englanders of that day who--like their Puritan ancestors and carpetbagger descendants--couldn't stand the thought of losing any of their precious money.
Why trample on someone if he has done naught wrong? The fellow going at 120 mph is innocent of any natural crime. Only after he kills the family is he guilty of a crime. Thus I say we prosecute him to the fullest extent. Execute him; he made a decision and screwed up, thereby murdering others. C'est la vie.
Actually, I don't care about the deterrent effect of punishment. If that were the important thing, we could condemn innocent men whom the populace were convinced were gulty. What I care about is justice. It is just an right to murder a murderer; that is why we have execution. It is just and right to imprison a thief and force him to return the stolen goods. It is just and right to make someone pay for breaking a window. It is neither just nor right to make a man pay a day or two's wages for going 80 on an empty highway.
Good question. The answer is, not much. But it is not so much a bias against legislation as a bias for freedom. That's the key point.
Good point. Indeed, libertarianism could be said to be the only philosophy which does not expect a utopia, and does nto expect members of a libertarian society to be perfect. Man is a nasty critter; he generally does as much harm as he can get away with in order to improve his own lot. A libertarian realises this and tries to ensure no man, not an individual, a majority or a ruling elite, can do very much harm to others. It's a difficult task. But it has a greater chance of succeeding than one which allows the mob to give itself more of whatever it wants.
The argument against Germany is a libertarian argument, not an authoritarian one. The democrat would allow Hitler his way; the majority supported him (actually, they did not, but that's another subject). The libertarian points out the evil bastard's nasty way of depriving people of such liberties as life and limb.
My secular obligation to my fellow man is to keep him free, to preserve his free well. It is not to buckle his seatbelt and tuck him in at night. As a Christian, my religious duty is to help him out if he asks for assistance and to give him such advice as will be effective (i.e. not advice which will turn him away from the right path). At no point do I force him to do what I believe is right.
And I have been discriminated against and lost opportunities because of my sex and colour. My anger regarding those is due to the fact that they were publicly funded. Private organisations can be as benightedly stupid as they wish to be; public institutions should be scrupulously fair.
Libertarians support charities and charity in general. It's one of the things which supports their point that people need not be forced to be kind. Libertarianism is not `P*ss off and die'; rather, it is `Don't steal from me; ask nicely.'
There really are no compelling arguments against libertarianism that I''ve seen. Every argument against it boils down to paternalism and authoritarianism. It's damned difficult to say that sort of thing with a straight face--what right do I have to determine how other people live? I may disagree vehemently with them, but I am no greater than they. That's the humility of libertarianism which the authoritarians--right and left--will never have. They want to control; the libertarian wants to live.
From the constitution:
From Federalist #18:
From Federalist #23:
Federalist #26:
Federalist #33:
From Federalist #41:
From Federalist #45:
Federalist #63:
When the Constitution says "promote the general welfare", it simply means to ensure that the government remains healthy for the benefit of all of it's citizens, not that government should provide education, healthcare, food, etc for it's citizens. Government best serves the general welfare by staying out of people's lives and only intervening to ensure that their basic rights - the rights to life, liberty and to persue happiness, as well as those enumerated in the Bill of Rights and other unlisted rights, are not encroached upon.
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
OK... I've heard this a few too many times now.about the "rich getting richer while the poor get poorer." The concept was originally started by liberals so they could justify the socialistic programs they favor... Make all the "poor" people think the rich are getting richer while stepping all over their "right to happiness" so that they can justify the raping of the income of the middle class and up.
Are the rich getting richer? You bet. Of course, what they don't say is the number of millionaires is now in the thousands when just 50 years ago, you could probably count them on both hands. Are the poor getting poorer? Let's look at that:
So, the poor don't really seem to be getting poorer. They've had a HUGE improvement in quality of life... similarly, the rich get to play with all the new fancy toys (that they pay out the ass for since they're new). The "class" that has seen the smallest improvement is the middle class who have the burden of supporting the "poor" people without the benefits of having the money to waste - we're allowed enough to just get by. Take a look at third world countries for truly poor people.
Heed my warning... the increasing demands of the "poor" for government support is increasing the burden of the middle class. Eventually, we're going to get fed up with it. It'll be one of the preciptating factors behind the second american civil war( expected before 2050, maybe 2030 ).
If anyone is interested in more of my rantings, see http://krw.penguinpowered.com/~ ken/rants/rants.html
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
Actually, it is all due to the existence of a legal system which defends property rights, which, Borsook to the contrary notwithstanding, cannot be treated as synonymous with "government". If Borsook's (over)simplification worked, North Korea, Iran, or Zimbabwe, all of which have far more government than Northern California, would be better choices for a start-up.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Because it's not desirable to (for example) effectively require everyone to carry a chemical testing lab on every shopping trip, just as it's not desirable to effectively require everyone to go armed every time they step out of doors. (If people choose to take steps to augment their personal protection over what the government provides, fine, but mainstream libertarianism advocates just enough government to prevent a Hobbesian war of all against all.)
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
You obviously haven't got a firm grasp on the history of calculation machines, data processing, or computers. I would suggest you look into:
/
a. Charles Babbage
b. Herman Hollerith
c. Konrad Zuse
d. John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford E. Berry
Also, take a look at this site:
http://zeus.fh-brandenburg.de/~tenbusch/history
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Much of this "libertarian" discussion steps too quickly away from looking at the implications of what drives it. During the cold-war era, Heilbroner observed that American and Soviet middle managers often got along better than their politics might have led you to believe they would. He attributed this to the fact that both were educated in terms of production system efficiencies as core values whether they consciously assented to that or not.
Both "cowboys" and "functionaries" tend to agree on the general mechanics of IT system efficiencies although they'll toast each other at a moment's notice over the details. That's neither unpredictable nor surprising. What's more often amazing is the neophiliac embrace of technology as the means to every end from Al Gore's invention of the internet to the "V" chip equipped TV as the perfect babysitter.
Libertarianism, Objectivism, You-fill-in-the-blankism all find their roots not in mechanical efficiencies, but in the search by us carbon units for something more whether that's God, power, moderator points, or free beer. Questions as to whether or in what ways the expansion of these systems function as an a priori "good" element of our culture are often either overlooked or dismissed as low-brow luddism.
Technology's only a tool. I think the important discussions have to do with the ends we're being driven to with our too often unexamined assuptions about the means.
PS - Ayn Rand didn't care if I was charitable with my own money as long as I didn't try to tell her what to to with hers. Ah, Ayn - now there was a great rant writer!!
We have met the enemy and he is us - Pogo (Walt Kelly)
I have a question, and I'm not trying to be sarcastic. But it sounds like this book is pretty awful based on your description. Why does it get an 8/10?
It seems like good books get 9/10 and bad books get 8/10. Is that correct?
I think several interpretations support the definition of "general welfare" that I subscribe to. Also, provisions for "standard of education" and "progress of science and useful arts" are explicitly listed. I think "promote the general welfare" (among many other things in the constitution) was explicitly vague to support things they could not foresee. I believe health care is a rational provision (I imagine at the time there really was no concept of ongoing health care). If it is aconstitutional, it is at least moral, and strangely enough, those who traditionally oppose social programs like the above have no problems legislating other types of morality.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I'd agree with you but I would tend to think some things are simply civil duties, not favors. People who have come by masses of wealth by the grace and opportunity in this country do have some responsibility I believe. That's why we have taxes and social programs.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I believe there is at least one case in which the constitution has been interpreted as implying "standard education", although I can't find it now. It had to do with states trading and the need for people to have some common level of education.
And we have socialized food distribution...sorta: food stamps.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Or perhaps instead, the powers that be which influence people don't want the government to change. People think everything is A-OK and gladfully vote for one of the two identical, and big-business-backed candidates. That's the feedback loop. To break it you raise awareness and give facts and choices to the people.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Justice. That sounds familiar. What is that again? Why do both of the major candidates go on an on about liberty and the pursuit of happiness and never even mention "justice"? It's because justice would fix the system that feeds them and corrupts government. The BILLIONS of corporate profit money that is dumped wholesale into the major parties is an *injustice*. See my sig.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
It seems to be that anarchy is just basically laissez-faire sovereignty. How can you possibly expect an entirely voluntary system in which everybody voluntarily respects each other's rights?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I strongly suggest you read up on Nader and get a feel for him. Unlike Libertarians/Anarchists whose premise is that government is inherently evil and needs to be abolished entirely, and Communists who believe the same, but want to replace the government with a Utopic state, Nader believes in *REAL* democracy. He believes it can and does work if the major powers that I assume you oppose are banned from interfering with politics and if citizens take upon themselves the responsibility of daily citizenship. Usually independents are strongly principalled, but I suggest you consider "throwing in" with Nader and the Greens (if Nader is not progressive enough for you check out the general Greens philosophy, I think you'll like it). If anything Nader will at least set and environment in which you *can* actually and effectively voice your opinions instead of being crowded out and shouted down.
And with the advent of ubiquitous computing I have no doubt in the feasibility of a first class, true Democracy (not Republic).
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
You shouldn't be afraid. We already live in the height of a "happy capitalism", it can't get worse. And anyway, many of his policies certainly aren't going to be liked by capitalist "fat cats". The $10 "livable" wage, for instance. Nader is a populist to the core (in fact, you should be aware of the history of the Populist party...it was fundamentally a labor party and agricultural party, very much like the Green party).
As far as the polls, Nader would have enough to participate in the debates and gain a huge number by engaging fence-sitters, independents, and non-voters, like Ventura did, if the commission hadn't set the arbitrary and artificially high percentage at 15%. 5% is the percentage for federal matching funds, yet to get into the debates, for which a Republicrat commission sprang up over night to control, he has to get 15%. People are actively trying to get that down.
As long as independent parties go with their independent streak and don't support each other, we will never have a viable third party, which is just as well for the Republicrats. At some point you have to make a real change. And I think Nader presents us with that. And I invite anybody and everybody to look over his position and record, and his singular integrity over his lifetime, and put a vote in "for us all".
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I'm not so fatalistic. I don't think government is always going to be "corrupt" or has to be "corrupt". What makes government corrupt today are corporations and big money exerting their influence. I believe if these factors are taken away, that there is no reason government can't work correctly. In any case, no government, is hardly a solution to curropt government.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Because the system is corrupt.
You are "responsible" to the country insofar as the country has enabled you to prosper. That's why 18% tax takes a larger chunk out of wealthy people than poor people. I'm not arguing for an *unfair* tax. I'm saying taxes should proportionally represent the amount you have prospered in the country that hosts you. If you don't like it you can always go to a different country which allows you to prosper more freely without any responsibility to the society that hosts you.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I think all of us on the net have a libertarian streak running through us. I do. However, I think that pure libertarianism (like that proposed by the Libertarian party) is just plain irresponsible. Take to an extreme it is just an anarchy (every individual is entirely self-sovereign). I think there is a clear mandate in the Constitution for the government to provide a specific set of services. I interpret "provide for the general welfare" as standardized education and some form of really basic universally accessible health care. You might throw Social Security in there too (funny how conservatives and Republicans are so frothingly anti-socialist, refusing to support universal health care, yet supporting one of the most socialized of programs: Social Security).
I also have to say that I'm rather disgusted with the gold rush mentality of Silicon valley and the high tech sector in general. More than any previous time we have intelligent, educated people, coming out of colleges and being immediately consumed in a blind haste to ammass and burn vast amounts of fortune in a vaporous economy. Shame on us. While Clifford Stoll is just a little too eccentric for main-stream, he has a damn good point. Wake yourself out of your cyber-stupor. Look at the world around you. Do something *real*. It is all too easy these days to be captivated by glitz and by enraptured by the goal of 15 seconds of fame.
Your computer doesn't love you. Make a difference.
I'm sure by now I don't have to explain my sig.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I don't know if I'd call it selfishness as much as a weird cluelessness about technology. I'm not referring to grandma here, but the people that make up pseudo-techie communities on the web. For example, there are many people who take violent affront to the idea that that the PlayStation 2 is "superior" to the Dreamcast in some hardware-centric way. It is mind boggling to me that people will waste hours and days arguing fervently about such topics. There are other notable examples:
* Overclockers who somehow think they're sticking it to the man, though they're mostly putting their personal investments at risk for no tangible benefit (Quake runs at 280fps instead of 250!).
* Loons who argue the superiority of Linux over Windows when they don't use a computer for much more than downloading MP3s, surfing the web, and occasional word processing.
* People who violently argue the superiority of one programming language or methodology over another, when they don't seem to have a real need to write programs in the first place.
* Open Source advocates who have to go looking for projects because they don't have a personal need for any sort of program, and really don't know what end-users are wanting.
* Compulsive upgraders who buy new video cards every quarter because they just have to have the fastest graphics around, even though they have to deal with endless driver problems and most games don't run particularly faster or better with card X anyway.
* People who routinely put down 400MHz machines as slow (e.g. the PPC chip in an Apple G4 or a Transmeta offering) without a real purpose behind why such speed is needed. When cornered, they come up with "high-end video processing" and "solving systems of thousands of equations." The general philosophy is becoming "Anything released in the last six months is fast; anything prior to that is slow and worthless crap."
Maybe cluelessness is the wrong word. It's more of a peculiar techie geekishness without a purpose behind it other than consumerism.
capitalism isn't the same as making a living. Capitalism is about letting money rule just about everything. Money as the impetus of society. Making a living doesn't necessarily have anything to do with money. And such a sudden turn-around as starting to sell your interpreter instead of giving it away like everyone else could be seen as an extremely anti-social act, which would be bad. Especially if you deny others knowledge that they have shared for years and years.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
you can't hurt anyone *else* because you don't wear *your* seatbelt
Actually, it's fairly common for unbelted adults to seriously injure children in carseats, etc. You have such tremendous momentum that you push forward on the seat in front of you with a force of thousands of pounds, potentially crushing the person in front of you against the dash.
Walt
Different groups of people in different occupations have occupied the '--Selfish' position throughout time. There have been the yuppies, MBA's, lawyers, engineers (ME & EE), etc. It's ironic that the people normally squashed as nerd pukes in the past are now in the position of power - And loving it!
They call me the working man. I guess that's what I am.
You might throw Social Security in there too (funny how conservatives and Republicans are so frothingly anti-socialist, refusing to support universal health care, yet supporting one of the most socialized of programs: Social Security).
(In General), neither do the young, nor the people who want the government to change ("I don't trust the gov't, why should I vote"). So it will never change. Interesting feedback loop.
--
Communication is only possible between equals
Libertarian.org is the best place to start for an introduction to libertarianism... which is not exactly the same thing as the 'technolibertarianism' the Ms. Borsook describes, as far as I can tell. Here is a a snippet from the opening page of libertarian.org:
WHAT IS LIBERTARIANISM?
Libertarians and their ideas are often misunderstood. Libertarian.Org is here to offer an overview of the libertarian philosophy and the libertarian movement. It is designed to be an introduction to the breadth and depth of libertarianism, for the long-time libertarian and the curious newcomer.
While libertarians are a diverse group of people with many philosophical starting points, they share a defining belief: that everyone should be free to do as they choose, so long as they don't infringe upon the equal freedom of others.
Human interaction should be peaceful, voluntary, and honest. It is never acceptable to use physical force to achieve your goals. The only time force is acceptable is when you are defending against force.
This might not seem very radical. After all, your parents probably taught you not to cheat, steal or pick fights -- in other words, not to use force against others. What sets libertarians apart is that they don't make any exceptions to this principle -- not even for governments.
In the libertarian view, governments should be held to the same standards of right and wrong as individuals. As a result, libertarians believe that governments should not interfere with the interactions and exchanges of peaceful people.
At this point, a few questions might come to mind. For example, why do libertarians believe so strongly in individual rights? What about other social values, such as equality and security? Or you may be wondering about the historical origins of the libertarian philosophy and movement -- where does libertarianism come from? Who are its leading thinkers? And how do libertarians apply their principles to contemporary public policy issues?
Libertarian.Org is here to help answer all those questions, so read on.
Some other good links:
Libertarian Party
Harry Browne for President
Liberzine
Counterprotest.net
Libertyboard.org
--
The Globe and Mail also revi ewed this book recently.
As to whether the effects of breaking up Microsoft will be good or bad for the world as a whole, yes, Microsoft products do suck, and maybe this will force them to suck less. But look what's happened to the economy, and to the software business in particular. Part of it was timing - Microsoft stock took the expected dive from the breakup just when Greenspan announced he was jacking interest rates, and the combination tanked the market, especially in technology stocks, and other big technology companies are on notice that they're the next targets (especially Oracle, who are the next biggest company with a rich obnoxious CEO, or Cisco, who dominate their market), so their stocks were affected.
Look at the common business models for startups - you get a cool idea, form a small team in your garage, talk some VCs into first-round money, develop, get second-round VC money, and if your idea takes off, either you go public and get rich on stock, or you sell out to Cisco if you're in hardware or Microsoft if you're in software/services company (like Hotmail). By trashing Microsoft, the DoJ also blew away the "sell out to Microsoft" business model, which not only hurts small companies directly, it makes it much harder to get VC money, especially second-round money, and I've seen several companies that couldn't get money because of it. (Of course, the Silicon Valley job market being what it is, my friend who got laid off from a new job when they lost their financing had another new job by the end of the afternoon (:-) but it is a serious problem for a lot of people. )
Another reason libertarians disapprove of the DoJ attacks on Microsoft are that we're high-tech folks, and the DoJ are technically ignorant goons who don't understand the technical implications of what they're doing. Yes, there are reasons to hate Microsoft, but the DoJ doesn't understand or care about them - they're just going after MS because Bill Gates is the richest guy in the world. Worse, Gates made his money honestly, unlike the Bell System monopoly that came from a government-granted service monopoly or the railroad cartels that had huge government land grants and the US Army killing off Indians and buffalo. Gates may have armtwisted PC makers into buying DOS and Windows, but he could do this because he'd told the public to buy his stuff instead of that superior friendly proprietary-hardware Macintosh stuff or scary Unix stuff - if you want to blame somebody for that, blame Steve Jobs for failing to kick his butt in the market, or blame the public for their herd mentality and lack of creativity.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This was already posted on slashdot once. Seems even Hemos likes to have Katz on ignore ... ;P
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
So what is Borsook's case beyond pique, beyond finding Bionomics conferences to be "little shops of horror," beyond lamenting that technolibs prefer Edge Cities to "real" urban centers, beyond finding libertarians "psychically exhausting"? Boiled down, she makes two arguments: First, high-tech people have no right to attack government since their industry would not have existed without government funding. Second, successful businesses are successful because they operate in a world where governments keep schools going, food and drugs pure, banks honest, and the like.
The first argument is simply a non sequitur. Government is involved with just about any commercial transaction or field imaginable, if only because it builds roads. But the fact that the government paves streets hardly makes it responsible for all the businesses that spring up alongside them. (There is, moreover, ample evidence that road building would continue even if government disappeared.) ...
One of the key insights of libertarianism revolves around the notion of the "spontaneous order," the idea that social orders and markets can, do, and will develop to meet human needs without central direction or control. For instance, just because government has taken it upon itself to finance and run schools does not mean that no one would be educated if it didn't. Nor would restaurants start poisoning their customers if municipal food inspectors disappeared overnight.
But Borsook doesn't understand what libertarians mean when they talk about spontaneous order. Thus she asserts that such a theory of "self-organization" appeals to "engineers' physics envy" and that "the reason for the rise in technolibertarianism is that engineers are practical and like to fix things and get things right, so of course only the sensible political choice of libertarianism would fit."
In fact, the engineering mentality, which presumes a single best way of doing things in accordance with unchanging "natural" laws, is the exact opposite of the spontaneous order mentality that pervades libertarian thinking. That's why Hayek specifically identified the engineering mentality as the mind-set from "which all modern socialism, planning and totalitarianism derives."
The whole review is available here. It contains not just an interesting critique of the book but a sampling of many of the book's factual errors.
-BBB
Have you checked the prices of things in silicon valley? Sure there is a huge concentration of multi-millionaires there, but that also has its down side. Most of those rich guys are trying to keep their dot-coms from going under and still pay for their house. A house which probably cost them five times what it is actually worth. On the other hand Bill Gates, the ultimate software mogul, has set up a 17 Billion (thats right with a "B") dollar charitable foundation. That should bring up the average a little.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
That's how I would have titled this book.
After all these years of geeks being made fun of and picked at and bullied, and generally excluded from much of the joys of a healthy social life, it is no wonder that these people grow up with a "me first" attitude towards life.
For years, nobody ever cared whether geeks lived or died. They've grown up learning that fending for yourself is the only way to survive.
Congratulations, society. You created this monster. Now you want the monster to change his own ways while providing absolutely zero indication that you'd give a rat's ass if these geeks live or die.
Sorry, it don't work that way. You alienated these guys, now they have learned to do things their way, and when these guys decide to become politically active, there is going to be a very intense, very cleansing and very lesson-teaching social conflict in this country.
Ultimately, their selfish nature will be a painful lesson to America about why we shouldn't screw people over just because they're different.
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I can't really comment on whether this is the case or not - I live in Canada, an pretty un-libertarian country, and don't really know anyone who would identify themselves as a libertarian. But from what I know of the ideas of libertarianism, it seems like a philosophy that would tend to attract a lot of selfish folks...
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
While I am not terribly politically active, and I don't believe in EVERYTHING that the party does, I am a member of the Libertarian Party.
Minimizing government on all sides is NOT exactly a bad thing. Polyamory isn't. Everybody gets to have a good time without anybody's feelings getting too hurt. People entrenched in old ways of thinking attack those who question these ways of thinking, which is why attacks are made on such points of view. What is wrong with living and letting live. I believe in having a government, I believe in helping the needy, but there are MANY ways to do that, and forcing everyone to do so isn't the best way to go about it. Why attack the rich just because they don't dump half of their fortune into homeless shelters. I want to help the homeless. I tell you what, move out of your house, and into an apartment, take the difference in rent against your mortgage and buy a HUD for a homeless person. Are you going to do it? Skip your next family vacation so you can pay for someone else's college tuition. Are you going to do it?
Before you attack the wealthy for their practices (and I am by no means wealthy, being only a college student), look and see if you would do the same, in reality, given their position. Before you attack a certain culture for its practices, remember that we don't go out to cultural festivals and yell at people for taking part in that culture. You ever smoke a cigarette? Guess what? It's bad for you. You started smoking because all of your friends did, probably. You probably didn't go into a store one day and say, "Marlboro Reds, boy, they sound good, lets give smoking a whirl." So what if people want to be polyamorous.
Just because your heart is bleeding doesn't mean that someone else has to take care of it, go and take care of it yourself, that's what I'm doing.
Eh...
The ePlethora of cyberbuzzwords in the technotitle of this 1337 piece of subculture iLiterature (-- my fave) make this the hacker culture paradigm must read of 2000. Download this to your netburned brain today!
Eh...
Totally dude, Libertarian is a pretty easy label too because just about everyone can fit into that group.
Eh...
While there are certainly plenty of technically oriented women (my boss for instance), there are also plenty who just want to be associated with it. Then again, there are a lot of men who just want to be associated with it to. A lot of women are pushed into it by school programs/guidance counselors/the people who tell you what you should be. If you're a female, you should forget your plans of being a stay at home mom (if that's what you want), because that's just what society is telling you, you should become a computer tech of some sort. This is what we tell women. Ironically, we are telling women to go into a technically oriented field, and we are telling them that this is to avoid doing what society tells them.
The result of EVERYONE glutting technical fields is that not everyone can actually do it or has the motivation to do it, so they become some sort of pseudo-tech. They read the M$ website and write product reviews based on statements and benchmarks that they don't actually understand, and write analyses of the culture along with them.
Oh well, just a thought, though I wouldn't center it on women, even if the reason that I wouldn't is merely to avoid being labelled sexist, evil, bad, bigotted, terrible, and worthy of being shot on the charges of possesion of male chromosomes and physical features.
Eh...
The point of my post was that EVERYONE is glutting the CS field. I was saying that it WASN'T specific to any sex, though I didn't make this point clearly. Sorry if I offended anyone. There are plenty of male wanna-be's too.
Eh...
That's ironic, since I know MANY pro-choice women. Also, since the argument that you made is that you haven't met any who are pro-life. I also know MANY pro-lifers. Men have to live with the consequences too. Have you ever heard of alimony? How would you like to have a kid that you don't even know because the girl who had the kid doesn't want you to. So, you pay for the kid, and never even get to meet them.
Also, girls have the option to *gasp* abstain from sex.
I'm pro-choice. I have sex. I have little against abortion. Your argument still doesn't hold much water. Yes, you are a male hater. You haven't thought about the being a male in that situation at all. You also didn't even read my post before labeling me some kind of misogynist.
Eh...
Just in case anybody else HASN'T GOTTEN THE POINT YET.
There are lots of GENDER-NEUTRAL/MALE/FEMALE/WHATEVER wannabes in the tech field.
That was the point.
The other bit was, that there may be a few more female wanna be's because of programs that push women into it. You, who apparently went to private school, have NEVER seen these programs, because they are pretty much a public school phenomenon. Trust me, there were plenty of girls that I knew who didn't really want to have anything to do with technical fields who were told, "why not go into a tech field."
That said.
I know PLENTY of successful female techs. I'm sure that females are just as capable, and the last thing that I want is a wife who just sits at home. I want one who works too.
IF I judged these programs unfairly, I'm sorry. Some, I am sure, are very good. My post was meant as an attack to the mentality of boosting a single gender rather than just helping out ALL kids who show ability (yes, there is favoritism towards females). It was NOT meant as an attack on females wishing to enter technical fields.
Eh...
Actually, social Darwinism was popularized a long time ago by Spencer, but I guess this is an attempt to make it more palatable and less offensive. It all comes down to an attempt to morally justify greed. Personally, I believe economics, like most cultural elements, is closely linked to evolutionary/ecological systems, but it's so simplistic to reduce it to the 19th century idea of "survival of the fittest", especially if you consider how much natural selection theory has changed in the past 100 years.
I have been astounded but not amazed at the deeply adolescent and peevish libertarian attitudes that so many techies cling to, from gun worship to fear of governmental Internet regulation.
Thank you for saying that. Pauline Borsook also put it well in a reply to Eric Raymond's defense of "geek" values (which he, and a lot of slashdot readers, seem to think are synonymous with libertarian ones). She writes in response to his anti-government position
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Roosevelt created the New Deal precisely because the already present economic system was NOT able to handle the mass of unemployed and hungry people who lost their jobs, often as a result of unrestricted and unregulated capitalism. There are plenty of economists and historians who credit the introduction of a social security system with breaking the usual cycle of a depression every few decades.
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Because we (geeks, engineers, developers, whatever) work with computers, we are creative, we understand the value of independent knowledge and thinking, we value skills and innovation, and we have (mostly) explicit standards of judgment. Thus we (often) do not belong to the crowd who deny the correlation between freedom, innovation, productivity, integrity, rational self-interest, and independence (basically what so-called "libertarianism" is about).
Please do read a very cogent review of cybersilliness at Reason -- starting thus: "This is a bad book, unlearned in its titular subject, petulant, and poorly argued. It is tempting simply to dismiss it and move on. Despite its shoddy quality, [it] is not irrelevant. Far from it. The book is fascinating as a case study in the reasoning and psychology behind opposition to the mix of individualism and anti-statism that characterizes contemporary libertarian thought."
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." -- Tennyson
I have only been a geek for about 4 years now and have needed help at various times. When I was first starting out, people came to my home to teach me things. On many occasions I have gotten information from emailing friends and especially from Usenet groups. At my current job I have a mentor who works at a different company. Usually we communicate through email -- but one day I was really struggling with something and he showed up at my work out of the blue to help me. This almost brought tears to my eyes.
I am saying this because I cannot imagine people in most other professions spending that much time and effort helping other people in their profession to make progress. Geeks, however, think that to help other geeks make progress helps the whole community advance. This is altruism. To say that geeks are selfish is to not have a very deep understanding of the culture. Anyone who has spent time working and playing in the geek culture, realizes how profoundly generous we are with our most precious resource -- knowledge.
That's a seriously amusing typo. I wonder if it was intentional.
Most critics of free market economics miss the point. I'm not "libertarian" because I'm selfish and don't care about others. Rather, it's that I want them to have the same opportunities as I.
Give money to a poor person, and you ease they're pain some. And if they're down on their luck, that can be worthwhile. But you shouldn't lose sight of the fact that after you give them a buck, they'll still be on the bottom rung of the economic ladder.
Indeed, all forms of economic redistribution, while they might make poverty more bearable, serve to keep those who are wealthy on top. Income tax, for example, is not a tax on wealth, but a tax on getting wealthy. And a progressive income tax makes it very difficult for those on the bottom to accumulate wealth. A person who has one or two years of good income is taxed as if they were a billionaire (or higher, if any of that income is subject to payroll tax).
There are zillions of examples, but I find nothing so despicable as the person who has made their own fortune off of movie rights or record royalties or stock options, and thinks that those less fortunate should be happy with whatever crumbs they can spare. What they (we, actually) really want is the opportunity to accumulate some wealth of our own, and to keep most of it, and to pass it along to those we love when we pass. Is that selfish?
I can see why you might want the government to protect against force. But why "fraud"? Caveat Emptor, surely.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Analysts of society love to label people and put in them in neat little categories and pigenholes like "libertarian", "progressive", "conservative", "right-wing extremist" and so forth. I guess it makes it easier for them to quickly label others as to put forth their theories.
But how many of us can be described so simply?
For instance, I like some of the Libertarian ideas such as the problems with the war against drugs or free market economics. But at the same time, I like a few things about the Green Party and their complaints about corporate welfare.
I believe in free markets, welfare reform, keeping as much of my earned wages as possible and responsibility for my actions and those of my country.
However, I also wish to protect the environment (don't use toxic chemicals at home) and endangered species (don't want a world without whales, elephants, etc. and know that human encroachment is the single biggest problem) and want my children to grow up breathing clean air.
But, I don't care for a government "forcing" me to be compassionate or snooping on my privacy or confiscating my personal property for redistribution.
See? There is no one party or group which meets my needs. So these sociologists and writers who analyze people and trends could never pigeonhole me into some neat little category.
Anyone else agree?
Barry Goldwater probably said it best: "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
Sorry, but this review did nothing to persuade me to buy or even borrow the book... although it has made me consider joining the Cato Institute.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Could the author have fit any more corporate buzzwords in the title?
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There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Then how can you trust other people to make the decisions for them? Because that's all that big government is: a collection of other people to make decisions for you (and then enforce them).
Admittedly, we're all merely human. But if you can't make decisions for your own life, then how has anyone else even got a prayer of getting it right for you?
Of course, the government is needed for some things (national defense and the court system being only two obvious examples), but basing your system of government on the idea that people are imbeciles doesn't seem to me to be viable in the long run.
What's that all about? I have many philosophical differences with the libertarians, but I have never regarded them as selfish...
Cybergeek libertarians need to start defending themselves against this sort of yellow-journalism. It makes you look bad, and it reflects poorly on those of us (geeks, that is) who choose to reject the libertarian point of view.
According to Libertarian economic theory and Bionomics, wouldn't Microsoft be one of the greatest companies on Earth? After all, M$ is at the top of quite a few parts of the software industry in terms of market share. It has consistently proven that it is the "fittest" so it has "survived," whereas all the other competitors in the normal user PC market have failed in the darwinian sense.
Last I heard libertarianism, meant that individuals should have almost complete freedom and that the only purpose for the government should be to keep us from killing each other; and business should be based solely on the idea that whatever happens the business that is best will be the one that wins. Unfortunately, in the real world the invisible hand doesn't quite work the way it's supposed to. Here the big usually get bigger, and either use unfair anti-trust practices to drive the little out of business, or simply buy the little company and assimilate or destroy it. I think we, and the press, and the Department of Justice, and the EU can see both of thise practices in Microsoft.
If anything the ideals of Open Source are opposed to libertarianism and bionomic. Open Source is a collective of individuals working together towards the same goal. By bionomic ideals people should not work together on the same thing. They should work separately on different projects, and then the Market will determine which of those projects can continue to exist. Open sourcing your product simply gives an advantage to your competitors who can see how you did things, and then put them in their project. Bionomics would argue that Open Source should disappear, because the companies that use it will not profit enough, and will be "evolved" out of business.
I've yet to read Cyberselfish but I have heard the author speak and I tend to think that their is at least a grain of thought to what she is saying. My favorite example of her's, was when she pointed out that people in Silicon Valley worked to get tax cuts and other libertarian reforms passed in California a few years ago, and now they are finding that the school systems there no longer produce graduates capable of working for them.
credo quia absurdum
The idea that comprises libertarianism - that governemt regulation and intervention can only ever be a bad thing and needs to be fought at all costs, whereas the laissez-faire capitalistism that countries like USia encourage is to be celebrated and promoted - seems to me to be a foolish brand of "eyes held shut" syndrome that does nothing for the tech community.
Despite the rabid pro-"freedom" stance assumed by the average /.er they still manage to fall into hypocracy by condemning Microsoft, the ultimate expression of the kind of socioeconomic structure that they celebrate. If economic freedom is so important to you, then you should be supporting Microsoft again the evils of "big government" interventionalism.
But then again most /.ers are USians who believe that the rest of the world is either a poor copy of their great nation or a socialist hellhole where taxes reach levels of 95%. The rest of the world is there to be exploited, and the libertarians should be cheering USia's corporations on in their efforts to exploit natural resources and engage in anti-competitve practices - after all, it's only the cut and thrust of capitalism right?
The rampant capitalism practiced by USia has led to a nation with approximately 1/20th of the worlds population consuming half of the worlds resources. After all, we don't want to impose environmental regulations, the corporations might not like it. It'd *gasp* harm their profitability if they were forced to clean up after themselves.
No, libertarianism is just another word for selfishness and apathy, a political stance in which the individual is allowed to give up all moral responsibility in the name of profit. And who cares about those that suffer socioeconomic rape at the hands of greedy corporations - it's not our fault if they're poor is it? Should've worked harder.