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Why Are So Many Nerds Libertarians?
BrendanMcGrail writes "Why do so many nerds seem to lean toward the Libertarian end of the spectrum? As a leftist, I know there are many people who share my ideological views, but have very little in common with me in terms of profession and non-work interests. Is the community's political bent directly tied to our higher than average economic success?"
Why do so many nerds seem to lean toward the Libertarian end of the spectrum?
Can you cite your source for this data? Or are you just assuming this because some of your friends are libertarians?
Nerds are unrealistic when it comes to how human beings actually work. They seem to have some vision of people that is way closer to ideal than actually exists. What's more, most nerds I talk to recognize this even in themselves, yet persist in the delusion.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Because they see the average level of intelligence shown by those around them and don't want any of that lot deciding things for them?
But, are they really libertarian or do they just use the word?
New! Device Legs: These legs will help your poor OEM installed product escape any hamfistedness it may encounter. Ava
Note this is purely an American problem. Geeks and nerds from other countries turn into lefties, not Thatcher's little free-marketeerians. People outside of America have no idea who Ayn Rand is, and tend to think that 99% of America (excepting San Francisco and Boston) are rabid right-wing capitalists.
Nerds are often psychologically isolated and have grown up without any sense of community or personal involvement. They already reject other people, rejecting any cohesive form of government is just the next step. They felt they were better than anyone else when they were young and (rightly) detested the very broken American public school system. However, because they are actually idiots, and incapable of seeing further than their own nose, they think smashing it all up is the key.
How anyone can think the private sector is a panacea is beyond me. Look at the fucked-up American medical system for a simple example. Look at how Canada and Sweden regularly top the standard-of-living charts despite having much smaller GDPs than America.
Heck .. both the dems and the gop are screwing us .. less laws , more freedom and .. not more
big time.anyways
a better attitude is what we all need
government intervention in what i want to do with
my life.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Not to generalize (but to generalize...), nerds tend to be from middle and upper middle class backgrounds. They're usually intellectual workers, been to college and university, and so... how much experience do they actually have with the brutality of the world as it is for most people?
For me, (economic) libertarians seem out of touch with the way the world really is. Nerds tend to have brains and tend to be well-educated and as such, tend to do well, economically. It's very easy to forget not everyone has that natural advantage (as least with intellect) and that not everyone might react the same way as you.
Libertarianism sounds great until you actually realize a few things: property isn't the centre of human life, human nature isn't built around the adorational worship of negative rights and that a lot of people are just plain exploitative of people less well off than them and less intelligent; and to say, "oh, too bad, it's your fault, we're realizing our potential and you have right to hold us down!" isn't just wrong, but cold-hearted ... and is that the libertarian paradise you want to live in, really?
There wasn't even an implication that libertarianism is leftist, to me. As I read it, the submitter is a leftist who is confused about the perceived popularity of libertarianism, not a libertarian.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Nerds are particularly sensitive to individual liberty, because they tend to want to think and act in ways that deviate from the norm -- that is, break new ground and innovate, whether scientifically, technologically, or philosophically. So they are very aware that if society is to dictate some small number of acceptable ways of thinking or acting, then their ways, being unique, will not be among the acceptable ones. Therefore a libertarian society is the only type in which they are free to innovate.
I think that you need to re-read the question. The OP seemed to be saying that he is, himself, a leftist who has noticed that his leftist friends are rarely nerds and his nerd friends are usually libertarians. As for myself, I'm old enough to have watched Armstrong step onto the moon on live television. I'm pretty sure that I was a libertarian well before I achieved any economic success, which I attribute to an early exposure to the works of Robert A. Heinlein.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
2. Even if there is a correlation, it does not prove causation. Nerdiness, wealth and libertarian beliefs... which is the cause and which is the effect?
3. You use the terminology left (and right by default). These labels are inadequate to describe the political beliefs of a person. Traditionally Left stands for lots of liberties in the social arena and mostly restrictions on economic activities. Not necessarily unreasonable restrictions, but restrictions nonetheless. And Right stands for lots of liberties for corporate and economic activities, but severe restrictions on social liberties, again not necessarily all unreasonable. A true libertarian will stand for freedoms and liberties in both the corporate/fiscal arena as well as social arena. And a true libertarian will also stand for rights as well as responsibilities on the exercise of the liberties. There are very few true libertarians. Sometimes libertarianism appears to be an ideal that will never be practical. Please don't say, if everyone becomes a true lib, because a practical working system should work even if all parts of the society does not believe or agree with the principle. A libertarian can not impose even libertarianism on an unwilling population. S it is tougher than you probably imagine.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Atlas Shrugged is literature, and bad at that.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
I think it goes beyond just being smarter. All of my nerd friends and me, besides being smart, are very analytical. We really analyze situations and are usually not swayed by cheap simple tactics the mainstream politicians use. Phrases like "We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here" just make us think "Well fuck, I'm pretty sure it's more complicated than that." We understand political issues beyond just the talking point sound bytes, which is why we see it's complete BS from both sides of the aisle right now. Libertarian is the only choice in my mind.
Name...That...Autocomplete!
i think it says much about the two mainstream parties in U.S. politics when upon stating that you value the right to individual freedom, people assume that you don't identify with either of them...
I think you're misunderstanding the original post (which is easy; it's not very clearly written). Rephrasing:
Most tech nerds I know are libertarians. Most of my fellow socialists/communists whom I know are hipsters and artists and hippies and drama dorks, and have no technical background. Why is this the case?To respond to the original article, I don't think it's necessarily related to money either. Regardless of politics, all of the engineers I knew in college were pretty hard-nosed and independent. You're going to wash out if you're not. And if you're an independent, hard worker, you're more likely to think that others should be too.
I put in the phrase "direct harm" because it is all to easy to declare anything you want as an "indirect harm" without any justification. When I say "direct harm", there has to be actual clearly identifiable victims of that harm, and also clear, identifiable harm. Alas, much of what in politics and the law today that is declared "harm" isn't really.
So, in essence, unless you see me actually doing something that is clearly harming someone else, you are to leave me alone. And I, of course, will do likewise.
I have lost count of how many times in my own life, for instance, someone has phoned the police on me simply because they *thought* I was dangerous, regardless of the fact that I had not done anything wrong nor had any intentions of doing so. And that has caused much damage -- much harm -- to me and my family, and yet no one learns from this. Police still encourages the public to phone everything in at the drop of a hat. Then they go out and harass innocent individuals, doing harm to them.
If I were libertarian-leaning before, such experiences have firmly pushed me into that camp.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
That said, I'm not a stereotypical fundamentalist in all areas. I believe global warming is a real problem that has to be dealt with. I think George Bush screwed up in a big way in Iraq and other areas of policy. I'm skeptical of the capitalism, as it depends on an economic model that is destructive to our planet and favors the rich over the poor. In other words, I'm not just blindly fitting myself into one category of political / economic alignment. One group usually doesn't have all the answers.
Sure, maybe more nerds have long pony-tails than short hair, and maybe more have body odor than not. However, I think you'll find there's greater variety and diversity within this people-group we call "nerds" than is implied by the original post.
- Mike
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
The last report showed our economy growing at a 4% clip. (It would have been 10% but our schools are socialized.) Go capitalism!
Libertarians, especially big-L Libertarians, are often deluded about that. There are things that must be handled by government, on a larger level. Healthcare is one. Public transport is another, unless you want it to go to shit, as in some European countries.
Vroomfondle: We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty.
Douglas Adams was right. This question is degenerating into the same sort of scenario as Vroomfondle and Majikthise had with Deep Thought.
Then here is your answer from Deep Thought him/her/it's self.
Choosing Libertarian is mostly a question of fusing both sides of the political wings into one. Keeping the general liberal social attitudes of the left with the self-defense and financial responsibilities from the Right. Conspicuously absent is such things as obvious save-the-gay-baby-whales-hippy-granola boondoggles from the left and the right's pandering to theocratic christers.
frankly I got tired of watching both parties try to morph into each other every election depending on the mood of the day.
Fiscal conservatives I can deal with Government should be accountable on as to the books and stay out of personal matters. Defense, Police, Disaster relief, public safety. These are the business of government.
on the other hand, I don't give a rats ass who sleeps with who in private, likewise I don't like someone else sticking their nose into bedrooms looking for stuff they have no right to. Social Conservatives make me think of guys like Foley, Craig, and Limbaugh. Two faced jerks with a agenda of sleaze.
As to the Left, the hippy stuff just bugs me that all. I don't like drum circles nuff said.
Government should stay the hell out of area of Doubt and Uncertainty. That is what most of politic is so there.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
The classrooms we all endure at public school are more designed for the meta-effects than the effect on the individual. Schools were designed to train children to sit still, to take lunch at a bell, to take breaks at a bell, and to be discharged by a bell - perfect fodder for the primitive factories of the industrial revolution. This is why society can't figure out what's wrong with schools now; they're turning out people who can't think for themselves, and that's not what a post-industrial economy needs.
And, of course, one of the functions of the standard public school is the same one as military boot camp - to break the individual's spirit, to make him/her conform, to expressly have him/her (oh, let me use "he" from now on, but understand it includes women as well) not think for himself, but to have him follow orders blindly - again, just what was needed on the production floor. Someone above posted that "Atlas Shrugged" was poorly written, but there is a passage at the end where Galt is being tortured by electric shocks, and James Taggart is hanging over him, frothing at the mouth, shouting "He'll take orders! He'll take orders!!" (not an exact quotation, but the gist of it). That seems an accurate description of the goal of public schools.
I'm sure like many others here, I got very good marks at public school, but was also often in trouble and sent to the principal's office for mouthing off in class, etc. Why? Because while I would accept that the teachers were more learned (or in some cases, less ignorant), I never thought for a moment that they were more intelligent. They demanded respect from me, but never offered the same in return (there were precious few exceptions, and for their counsel, I will always be greatful).
So what messages did I receive in those public school classrooms? "You're no better than anyone else", "Take your place and shut up", "Slow down and learn at the same rate as everybody else; you're not special". All the while, within myself, I was thinking "But I can go faster than everyone else", "I can see a better way to do this", and "I am special". When the very core of your being is surpressed, you naturally look for a way to allow it to flourish.
And this is the core of libertarian thought: if I'm not hurting you, leave me the hell alone. Don't tell me what to do. Don't order me to attend your schools. Don't take my money for your causes. Let me trade freely (for example, let me buy sugar from Cuba). Let me read, or view, or say, what I want. I don't need you to tell me what to do; I'm quite capable of figuring it out for myself. Let me have sex with any adult I want, male or female (n.b. I'm quite straight, but I see no reason to surpress other adults' desires; I'm still protective of minors). Let me put into my body what I choose to put in it.
Now, the operative clause above is "if I'm not hurting you". There can be much debate between libertarians about that, as it applies to various issues. Second-hand smoke and drunk driving are two; I very much believe the dangers of the former are over-blown, while the dangers of the latter are relatively obvious. Global warming is another contentious issue, on which my own mind is not at all made up. Finally, abortion is the ultimate issue on which libs can disagree; some feel a woman controls her body, others feel that when the woman consents to sex, she implicitly consents to the creation of a life within her. (Please let's not get sidetracked on this issue - I'm just raising it to say that there are issues with which libs can (violently) disagree.) So I'm not saying being a libertarian means that you think you have the answers to everything, although it may often seem so.
Why are so many nerds libertarian? Because you can't code by rote. You can't create or develop a new application following s
What was once true, is no longer so
Not at all. Libertarianism leaves a power vacuum, into which large corporations would be only too happy to become the authorities.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
You know, government rules don't get created unless someone's interests were hurt. I think everyone in the society believes this creed; the problem is that way more activities than you might think at first affect other people's interests.
Motorcycle helmets are the classic example.
A consistent libertarian says "Don't make me wear a helmet. If I crash, it's my responsibility, and it's OK for you to leave me dying in the street." The problem is that we as a body politic are simply unprepared to leave people dying in the street, for several reasons. 1) it's ugly and stinky, not to mention unsanitary; 2) our humanity just doesn't allow us to see that level of suffering and ignore it; 3) it scares people and causes them not to ride, depressing economic output. The result is that if the motorcycle rider is uninsured we treat him at public expense -- and, if he rides without a helmet and is honest about it, he won't be able to get insurance. Therefore his riding affects all of us by costing us money.
Pollution regulations are another good example (and the best current "tragedy of the commons" issue).
There is simply no incentive for any one individual not to pollute -- one person's pollution, no matter how bad, is usually not going to affect the rights of others. But in a country of 300 million individuals, of course widespread pollution will affect everyone's rights! There is no solution to this problem that does not involve society as a whole somehow coercing the individual -- in other words, regulation.
Also, I think you'll find that allowing parents to hurt their kids in any way they want leads to some pretty gruesome consequences...
Remember a libertarian would not harp on Microsoft, would not have guns laws restricting the use of bazookas, and would not restrict people from following creationism. Libertarian means to live and let live, and most importantly it means for people to be idiots!
Yes, and every Republican is anti-abortion. Every Democrat is pro-choice.
Well, not exactly.
Suppose you agree with every part of the Libertarian party platform except for one part? You are suggesting that person is not a libertarian? What, exactly, are they?
(for the purpose of this argument we are going to ignore the differences between "libertarianism" and "the Libertarian Party", since your argument does not really cover the differences)
One only needs glance at the differing platforms of Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton to realize there are always differences of opinions in a political party.
I consider myself a libertarian. I have minor issues with the capital-L Libertarian Party, but not enough that I do not support them fully. I do believe in some gun-control, however. I believe it is best done (and correctly done) through a Constitutional amendment.
As far as Microsoft goes - I feel one of the responsibilities of the federal government is to prevent monopolies from abusing the market. The government should stay out of capitalism until there is a failure of capitalism (i.e. a monopoly). As a good libertarian, I feel that the government SHOULD investigate Microsoft, and take actions to prevent them from using their monopoly to unfairly control the market.
I also have never seen any Libertarian saying that people should be prevented from following Creationism, but that it should not be taught in schools as "science". A libertarian is going to see that the Constitution provides for a separation of Church and State, and therefore a government entity (public schools) should not be teaching faith in a specific Christian ideology. Followers of Creationism are free to continue to believe what they want, are free to gather outside of schools.
Oh, and the quiz you link to? Here is one of the questions:
The only social responsibility of a company should be to deliver a profit to its shareholders.
This is a horribly worded question. Apple's stock dipped a bit due to Greenpeace's (poorly done) criticism of Apple's environmental policy. I would say that this is an economic factor that a corporation should pay attention to. The company also needs to pay attention to the fact that more consumers are buying based on environmentally friendlier products. This drives profits. But the question is worded such that this should be ignored.
As others have mentioned in response, the questions are sometimes poorly worded, and there is not a "Do not care" answer, which seems almost critical to a Libertarian at times. What do I care about nationalistic movements, for example?
Another question: The rich are too highly taxed.
This question gives no perspective or comparison. Too highly taxed compared to poor people? Compared to middle-income? Or just in general do I think that the rich should not be taxed at all?
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Right, and all her characters, even the good guys, are unbelievable flat. There is scarcely any character development, the souls of these people have no depth, they have no hidden desires, no demons that haunt them, etc. In short,they are not at all like real people, which makes it just bad writing and a bad idea to hinge a theory of the real world on it. It's enjoyable though, like Star Trek.
/. comment. It was possibly titled "Atlas Shrugged, the sequel", or "Atlas Shrugged, Part II", or similar. It tells the story, in approx. one page, of how the story continued after all the Atlas heroes had settled down in their mountain seclusion: after some bragging of how they finally had gotten rid of all the useless people, they discover that they actually have no clue how to do all the mundane every-day tasks these people had done for them, like actually producing metals, cooking, or cleaning up. They all end up having to work the fields, muttering about how much it sucks.
*** Spoiler if you haven't finished Atlas Shrugged ***
I have just spent way too much time googling for a comic that someone once linked in a
It was hilarious, and an extremely to-the-point comment on the shortcomings of Rand's "philosophy".
I had no success, so if anyone knows what I am talking about, please post the link. It's possible that this was part of a bigger series of comic "sequels" to famous books.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Because so many nerds are oblivious to society, and libertarianism is a very oblivious political philosophy. It starts off with assuming anarchy, and then replaces any occurence of 'violence' with 'money'. Never mind that a libertarian society would inherit an old system in which people already have, or don't have a lot of money. Never mind that people would like to be able to _trust_ certain institutions a tad beyond 'I've paid them'. Never mind that people expect all sorts of emotional things from leaders that money won't ever be able to buy.
But it can work for you, if you're insular, unemotional, marketable and oblivious, but take any of these characteristics away from a person and libertarianism starts to fall apart for them. And that's the majority of society I'm talking about. It might not seem that way on slashdot, but it is.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
So, I'm not looking for an argument with all the smokers who think their right to poison me trumps my right to be poison-free, but I just wanted to point out that there is more to tobacco smoke than cancer.
P.S. Not libertarian because I want a system that keeps food safety inspectors around to make sure no one is running a get-rich-quick scheme involving tainted food and an open ticket to Aruba for when the bodies start piling up.
You can't take the sky from me...
You are spot on about dems and reps being basically equivalents. For the most part the way that our government functions is by trading off between the two parties who it is that is going to be screwing up the legislation. Why it is that around here I can't vote for a candidate that opposes the minimum wage and supports an income tax replacement for our sales tax and isn't a bigoted racist is beyond me. During last years elections one of the candidates was mainly running on a cut taxes and English is the national language platform. How useless is that? Especially when the the spending won't be cut to match the tax savings until there is serious trouble.
The key thing that the OP seems to have forgotten is that one doesn't become liberal or conservative by a change in intellect, the issue at the heart of it is a bit more personal, I would suspect that the more intellectually minded conservatives right now aren't republicans, mostly because of the assault by the republican party right now on anything intellectual.
If you don't like someone smoking in the bar or restaurant, which is a PRIVATELY OWNED BUSINESS, that you wish to go to, too bad if they are. You don't have to go there if you don't like it, why should other people be forced to act a certain way just because you don't like what they do.
For the record, I absolutely hate smoking (cigarettes only, I love me some good trees) but know that I have no place telling others what they can or can't do with their own body or on their own property.
Grandparent had quite an elaborate opinion (thank you for sharing). Do you care to address these baseless claims, misunderstanding and complications? Because otherwise, why would I care for your announcement which shortly states you disagree, but not why you disagree? Grandparent allows for an interesting discussion, parent doesn't.
Second, there's a greater trend in the geek population away from the sort of religious belief. Few geeks have the religious motivation to be against abortion and gay marriage, the two social rallying flags of social conservatives today in America.
So, that pretty much only leaves the economic axis to worry about to differentiate the remaining geek populace into either liberals or libertarians. This is why this Slashdot poll did not surprise me in the least. While there was no populist/authoritarian option, conservative was the least picked choice of the mainstream political beliefs, and liberal and libertarian were the top two.
So, then the question fundamentally comes down to, "What do you fear the most?"
- An inefficient government running roughshod over you (taxation, interference in property rights, tyranny of the majority, etc).
- Powerful, unaccountable private entities running roughshod over you (monopolies, externalities, inequity of power, etc).
Of course, this is a bit of an oversimplification (as is the notion that most people fit into these little political boxes), but it mostly suffices. I find that most libertarian and most liberal points of view come down to concerns that their favorite bogeyman will ruin everything if left unchecked and powerless. More nuanced views come from realizing that they both are pretty bad and that you have to make a choice how to balance them (even if you tend to throw the balance almost entirely one way or the other). The crazy ideologues you see here on Slashdot and elsewhere are the people who seem to never acknowledge that the other side's feared enemy is a problem too.If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
And why in God's name should your teacher give you any respect? Your self-righteous attitude is, in my opinion, one of the main problems with youth culture today. As a child, it is highly unlikely you have done anything worthwhile. There is simply no reason why any responsible adult should give you (as a child) any "respect" at all.
So you were smart. Big deal. Intelligence, by itself, is not that important -- it only provides potential. While it is a common amongst the youth to feel that their innate abilities and potential somehow deserve accolades and celebration, most learn quickly upon entering adulthood that accomplishment counts for far more. What saddens me is that, years after you have left physical childhood behind, you still think like a child.
That works as long as you are always right. The one advantage to team work is individuals aren't infallible and don't have infinite knowledge. The one big advantage to a good team is someone else might know a better way to do something, or see the flaws in your approach and help you correct them before you do something stupid.
You are however correct that one good individual is better than a bad team, if the rest of the team is clueless and just there to take up space and consume oxygen. They are bad when they are just there to form a consensus which, rather than being the best solution, is one of the poorer ones, it just happens to be the one everyone will agree to just to put an end to a pointless discussion and escape.
If you've every worked on a good team you will appreciate that they are priceless, unfortunately they are also somewhat rare, and being stuck on bad teams is a soul sucking nightmare.
@de_machina
We're libertarians because we're surrounded by fascists. Ask any 20 yr old who has been systematically denied federal student loans because they were arrested for possession of cigarette rolling papers or a plexiglass tube. Ask any 30 year old who can't get health care for their two year old infant because their company demands $500 a month for 'coverage of dependents' on a $11 hr salary. Ask any forty year old who was thrown out of the military or good job that they did well because they were a sexual minority (or wouldn't fuck the boss or commanding officer). Ask any fifty year old who was raped by a football player, forced to bear an unwanted child 'out-of-wedlock', and had the child taken out of her arms at birth to never be seen again. Ask any sixty year old who was beaten half to death in the back of the police station for drinking from a white-only water fountain, or just 'having a bad attitude'. Ask any seventy year old who couldn't get into a good school because they were Jewish, or Asian, or Mexican, or Indian, or even one/tenth of anything.
Just talk to anybody and you'll soon know why we're libertarians. Because the libertarians are the only people who consistently, uncompromising, and publicly affirm that having all this kind of vicious bullshit written into the legal code is cruel, stupid, and wrong.
Really, the only question you should ask yourself is 'Why aren't I a libertarian?'
And it's not that I don't like what they do, it's that I don't like what they do to me.
Why should I be forced to act a certain way just because they decided to make me inhale poison?
You can't take the sky from me...
So by your logic the society must act as one, it has to have a well defined path to non-destruction and respect of the future and so on and such. What if many many many people do not want to follow your logic, do not agree with it, don't care about it, hate it actually? Well then, as many socialist radicals have shown, in your mind your logic works for the betterment of society (whatever you assume it is, depends on your environment.) At some point you will become frustrated that so many many many people are not with you on your set of issues. Will you then decide that they are lesser of human for not thinking the way you do? Will you decide that they should be shown 'the light'? What if they reject your light? Will you decide to take them their even against their will? What if they resist? Will you decide that means justify the ends? Will you decide that it is OK to sacrifice some now, to build a better, new society later on? Will you stop once you killed 1 person for your cause? 10 people? 1000 people? 1000000000 people? How many does it take? So called Communist regimes of our recent past and our current future have not hesitated, what makes you different?
I understand that you may actually have good intentions now, but history shows that in every such case the good intentions became the road to Hell. I don't want your good intentions trumping my choices, my life. I want you to leave me out of them. I don't want to become your fodder either, I will fight you if you come with your good intentions to my doors. Today for me this means being mobile, avoiding any government intervention, avoiding taxes for example, avoiding your political causes. If necessary my resistance will become violent.
You can't handle the truth.
There are a lot better ways to educate gifted and self motivated students than shoving them in regimented classrooms, especially now that we have these new fangled computers and networks. You could almost certainly build a better system for gifted kids if you took something like the MIT on line courseware and developed it. For example add elementary and secondary school level equivalents. Back those courses with on line tutors like the tutors in India a lot of kids are using today to help them through parts they don't understand, and then figure out a system for verifying self taught students are learning the material which is probably the hardest part. You almost certainly want to allow the most gifted kids to be self paced. Keeping a loose knit school for sports, music and other activities is valuable, it just shouldn't a regimented warehouse for kids, and schools really shouldn't be allowed to abuse gifted kids who don't fit in to school cliques.
The classroom system is an anachronism and really unnecessary in the computer and network age for a lot of kids.
The regimented classrooms might be a necessary evil for the not so gifted and the people who wont do anything productive unless someone is watching them every minute. Its a pretty dubious endeavor trying to teach history, social studies, geography and even math and science to these people.in the first place though. They would probably be a lot happier and better served by a vocational or technical school where they are learning survival skills, a trade and maybe apprenticeships where they can earn a little money and see what life will be like in the working world if they aren't willing to work for a rewarding and well paying career.
The recent "No Child Left Behind" boondoggle in particular, is probably a prescription for devastation of American competitiveness. You are expending massive effort and resources on making the least gifted students barely literate, and judging schools on the performance of their worst students and not their best ones. You are abandoning all the most gifted students. You would think the morons that instituted No Child Left Behind would have studied what makes India such an educational powerhouse. India excels because they seek out the gifted students and do everything possible to give them the best eduction possible(though its excessively regimented). American politicians by contrast, being the morons they are, opted for a system that is fixated on the worst students and abandons the gifted ones. I think the ulterior motive of the Republicans involved was to just destroy the public education system entirely with the illusion that private schools would fix everything. The problem there being private schools tend to best serve the wealthy and not necessarily the gifted.
If you want the best education system both for students and society, you want to ensure the most gifted students get the best education possible, regardless of their families wealth, and you want to ensure the poorest students get basic job skills so they can survive and even prosper. A wicked edge to this is that rich kids that are dumb and lazy, like oh I don't know...George W. Bush...don't get a prep school and ivy league education, and a free pass in life, just because their family is rich and powerful.
@de_machina
Inherent to any political philosophy that's based on ideals, not pragmatism, is the acceptance that sometimes society will be worse off in certain ways if the philosophy is followed. I'm a libertarian, but I don't believe a true free market would magically protect everyone - I recognize there's a risk of increased poverty and stratification (although I'm not convinced that's actually the inevitable result). I just think the government intervention needed to prevent it is MORE unjust than allowance of the natural processes that cause it. I don't see the government's role as to try and cure social ills; it's there to prevent people from violating one another's rights, and to prevent foreign invasion. Anything beyond that requires it to create some injustices in the name of addressing others.
You can't take the sky from me...
I absolutely agree with the liberty part of libertarian, particularly when it comes to personal freedoms. The problem I have with it is the logic that you (not you specifically) don't owe society anything because your life reached its only natural conclusion, and that in any other circumstance, you would have still pulled through. Hogwash. Did you use anything created by society? Doctors? Public schools? Roads? If so, you have an obligation to provide for that society when you succeed. Capitalism is not an equal philosophy by definition, it relies on some people rising to the top so that others at the bottom can aspire to one day get there. But once you're at the top, you'd best humble yourself and realize that no matter how much work you did, no matter how smart you are, you depend on others in our society to achieve your goals. More specifically, you rely on others in society to keep that society going. Anyone who participates in a capitalist society and is rewarded should recognize that without the millions of people who can't reach that peak continuing to follow the rules of society, nobody would be able to at all. If you want to live like Thoreau, you have to stop accumulating wealth and give it all away. Otherwise, you're just cheating the system.
> If you have a factory up-stream of me and you're making the water toxic, I get people from further downstream together and we first ask you to stop.
> If you refuse we take it to the media and hurt your profits.
Right. So in your perfect world, we can expect all major polluters to *own* the major media outlets, or will at least have financial arrangements to enable collusion? That way, when you go to one newspaper to claim someone is polluting, the other one can pipe up that nothing of the sort is happening and that the first one is biased.
It's particularly insidious since the press will be completely based on a free market the most believed newspaper will be the one that is most popular-- you know publishes the most gossipy information about celebrities or features the human interest stories that appeal to the widest audience without publishing boring news about the war or whatever.
Be wary of any political system that requires major changes in human nature in order for it to succeed.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
I have always thought that the point of voting was NOT to get my guy to win, but to choose the candidate that most closely matches by beliefs. A vote cannot be wasted if this is your goal.
The correct place to work towards getting your candidate to win is in the campaign leading up to the vote, not the vote itself. At this point I must admit that the effort to get a fringe candidate a real shot at winning could be wasted. Still, you should keep in mind that the two current USA "mainstream" political parties have not always existed.
Anarchists never rule
ResidntGeek
I wasn't discouraged from reading ahead, because I never asked permission to do so, I just did it. The problems came around November when I was done with the course work for the year. Could I just take all my tests and go home please? Nope. Could I read next years book and do next years tests and just skip that grade? Nope. Could I have an intelligent discussion about what we have read with the one or two other smart kids who are done? No, just sit there. Hmm, I'm bored I think I'll do something fun, like see if my teacher can still teach elementary school science without her teacher's edition. Nope. Go to the principal.
That pretty much describes 2nd through 7th grade for me.
We are all just people.
Why did this giant straw man get an Interesting mod? All the grandparent is talking about is reducing the externalizing ability of businesses. Externalizing = having someone else pay for part of your business, like when the US government pays for the military protection of oil installations in the Gulf or when the (again) the government pays for road construction and maintenance, so the movers don't have to. These are examples of, dare I say it, socialized services run by the government from the US, the so-called bastion of laissez-fair capitalism. Yet, the parent yaps about communism and killing a million people.
Get a grip.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
On paper, the NCLB act isn't a bad program.
On paper socialism isn't a bad system of government either, but in reality thy both have serious problems. Namely they both reduce everyone's progress to the slowest of the group. That's anti-Darwinism. There is only frustration and penalties for excelling and you cannot fail regardless of how little effort you put in. There is no reason to do well or try hard. Give up your uniqueness and become a greyman, like every other greyman around you. That is what both NCLB and socialism produce: greymen who do their rote tasks in an acceptably mediocre fashion. Maybe that works well for the least intellectually gifted and maybe it should continue to be the way that quarter of the population is taught, but the most intellectually gifted will learn to resent the repressing authority of that robs them of so much opportunity, progress and joy.
We are all just people.
That's what democracy is for. People vote for what they want, and hopefully the constitution and the representative aspects of the system protect basic individual liberty. It's not a perfect system, obviously, but generally produces better outcomes than any alternative. There are plenty of places in the 3rd world where the central government is extremely weak and individual freedom is maximized. Those are not nice places to live.
"It's Dot Com!"
The other thing that big L libertarians don't understand is that you are going to have a government. It just may not be a government you elect. If the government you elect isn't strong enough to hold its own against large private interests, the private interests will take over and engage in rent seeking behaviour. You will still pay taxes of some kind, but you may not receive any services for them, and you won't be able to fire the bastards. And the police will work for them.
Capitalism is only possible through government enforcement of contract law, maintanence of infrastructure (roads, power, sewage, public transport, fire departments, etc) and the monopolisation of force. That last one might have you screeching, but if you would like to see the alternative, take a look at most of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa--the really poor ones. Small mercenary armies ride around in trucks, looking for someone to hire them, and then conduct minor wars in the streets. Because the governments of these countries aren't actually strong enough to prevent people from being robbed at gunpoint, there really isn't much point in earning more than you can spend today, so nobody works very hard and everyone is dirt poor. The countries are in a continual state of low grade civil war. As for infrastructure, the road to the president's house is the only one paved, and when he leaves town, they turn off the power--to the entire town!
Those who think that privatization of all government services are the way to go should begin by seeing Gangs of New York, which depicts in one scene the relationship between rival privately owned fire departments. The arrive at the scene of a fire, get into a fight about who gets to put it out, and start a full fledged street brawl, which turns into a riot, while the entire block burns to the ground. This is an accurate depiction of what frequently happened.
It is purely bidirectional. If we don't protect the State from Church A, then it'll start bearing down on Church B.
Why do people keep talking about Church in singular terms? Freedom of Religion is per person, not per state.
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
That's happening as we speak. Which is why Libertarianism can never happen: not many people follow your logic. You even have major dissent among the nerd crowd. Starting with me, of course.
You mean the way Libertarians consider their opposition "communists" or "statists" (translation: less than human).
On planet Libertaria, I can imagine that question being quite relevant when you Libertarians find yourselves confronted with a socialist counterculture. Yeehaw, get your thirty oughts we's goin for some target practice, yip yiiip!!
You mean, the ends justify the means?
I'd rather be sacrificed by a bullet to the head right quick, right now, than be one of the unlucky people in your paradise of greed and selfishness, one of the poor people who are sentenced to die slowly by starvation.
Oh and about all those weapons you keep talking about wanting the unrestricted right to having? I'm in favor of that, actually. Especially when the starving masses use them against you. Happens every time a "Libertaria" is founded. Oh wait, there has never been a Libertaria. It's nothing more than a myth.
Dead by a Communist's bullet, or dead by toxic waste, cancer, or simple starvation? Dead is still dead, whether it's by the malice of Communism or the utter negligence and apathy of Libertarianism.
Communism is the enemy of freedom; Libertarianism could lead to human extinction.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!