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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?
Here in Europe they would be considered right wing nut jobs, certainly not left wing.
As to why they are so popular among geeks? Are they? Or are they simply a very vocal minority, owing to the fact that they have prescribed to a simple ideology that gives them the illusion to have easy answers even to complex problems?
As a leftist, I know there are many people who share my ideological views ... Is the community's political bent directly tied to our higher than average economic success?
First off, I don't agree that Libertarianism is "leftist" per-se. Secondly, I don't think income has anything to do with it. Constitutionalism/Libertarianism is simply a very logical conclusion, if one is of the opinion that the United States constitution is a very good document for the foundation of government. Given that "nerds" (as you call them) have an affinity for logic, I don't see why the two are such an unusual fit.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
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.
Because we nerds are the more knowledgeable bunch and don't like to be told what to do. We want to do things our way, and hence we tend to lean toward the libetarian view.
His exploit "just works". Apple fanbois everywhere implode in a self-collapsing vortex of cognitive dissonance. by jjack
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
If you see political ideologies as a one-dimensional spectrum, you aren't paying enough attention. Educate yourself.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
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?
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.
It's not that being a nerd makes one a libertarian, or that being a libertarian magically transforms one into a nerd (though I hear it can do wonders to your, err, self-confidence).
There is a common cause to this politicial leaning and that way of life called "the nerd way". One hint is that the overwhelming majority (75% approximately) of all the libertarians I know are categorised in the "*NT*" part of the MBTI, meaning they are all Thinking rather than Feeling, and iNtuitive rather than Sensing. For example INTJ is the archetype of nerd.
That makes them more inclined to think about theory and complex problems, than what their colleague thinks of their look or how a given principle will make them feel about themselves. When you apply this to politics, that means they'll be looking at society, economics, justice, right and law with a mind that is non-pragmatic but dedicated to finding the actual truth. They will often develop complete theoretical structures for explaining their choices, because they are easily swayed by a convincing, rational argument, however obscure ; and not by a popular soundbite or appeals to emotion.
Libertarianism is one such political interpretation: it leaves little to no place to emotional reaction, does not call upon popularity, and instead builds on the strictest rational analysis (it's not a secret that Ayn Rand was obsessed with acting as rationnally as possible, to the point of obsession) and "heavy" theoretical considerations about "what actually is justice", "how economy actually works", etc.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
that creativity is not a group project. It is about the individual.
Yeah, that's why everyone uses something called "teams". An many musicians work in "bands".
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
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 know geeks with many different politics. The one thing we have in common is that we all approach the political question from a logical, systems-analysis angle. That's why so many geeks want radical changes in society - we're interested in root causes and want our beliefs to be founded on a set of basic principles, because if those principles are logical then everything we derive from them will be logical too. A mock-scientific approach.
A large section of American geekdom is right-libertarian. This is because (a) certain things about US culture and the US economic setup mean that right-libertarianism looks the most viable option to many people and (b) a strong sense of and desire for liberty and a knowledge of historical tyrannies encourage them to look for a libertarian option - and they come upon the axiom of free individuals forming contracts with each other freely - essentially classical liberalism.
So, why are so many geeks right-libertarian?
Of course, there are plenty of geeks who are Republicans or Democrats or Greens or Communists or Anarchists in the US too. In Europe we have many social democrats ("liberals"), greens and far-left types.
I'm a geek and a libertarian myself, but I'm a left-libertarian. An "Anarchist Socialist". I think the flaw in right-libertarianism is that contracts are rarely freely entered into. If I have $1m and you have $100, I can easily get you to enter into a $200/week contract - I can bully you in the market through greater control of resources. I think its important to differentiate between personal property and productive capital. My computer should be mine; only I use it. My workplace should be equally mine with my co-workers; we all use that productive capital. My community should be held in common with my neighbours. I see landlords and the bourgeoisie* as parasites, living off our labour.
Of course I'm the same as the rest of the geeks, looking for a consistent system and solid axioms before deciding my political beliefs. In my case, it's a fanatical belief in democracy that has led me to my position - if we wouldn't tolerate a dictatorship, why do we tolerate not being able to elect our bosses? If electing politicians isn't democratic (and it's not), couldn't we place the base of power in mass meetings in workplaces and communities, and federate them?
* As in Marx's class system, which is class division based on power, not wealth (except in that wealth is power)
Proletariat: the class that has to sell its labour to survive
Bourgeoisie: the class that purchases the labour of the proletariat, and does not have to work
And that's why "teams" are so inefficient. And bands are science. They primeval sexual rituals.
Look, you want to understand quantum field theory, then no child left behind ain't gonna work for you. It's not about making sure everyone feels like a winner.
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 don't think it's germane to talk about either the RNC or DNC has having anything whatsoever to do with ideology. Both groups are about power, and ideology is just one of the tools that they use to extort votes from their adherents.
In my not-so-humble opinion, both groups are fully corrept and the United States could benefit greatly if we gave them swords (or suicide vests) and let them kill each other off. They are the modern-day national equivalent of the Bloods and Crips, and have nothing whatever to offer actual Americans.
In part, I tend towards Libertarianism, just because I've become so disillusioned with the corporate political process. For the past sixty years, our American system of government has become polluted by merchantilism and the oligarchy of megacorporations. Because of the way that our statutory systems permits literal interpretation of the rule sets (laws), the groups with the most lawyers have become adept at avoiding the intent of laws, and using the literal verbage of the law to commit immoral acts -- read Marx, of the few things he was right about, this corporate corruption leads the list.
Don't misunderstand my comments - corporations are not evil, per se, but because of the management structure and the lack of moral accountability brought on by a statutory legal system, boards of directors of otherwise perfectly reasonable people can corporately make decisions that lead to companies like Altria (Phillip-Morris) and Exxon (as in Valdez). Capitalism only works for the group when it is heavily encumbered against social crimes.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
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...
What about us libertines? Don't we have a place in this scheme 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.
The fundamental concept of it is simple, and easily understood, but the the effects of it are complex, profound and clearly difficult to understand.
Lets take a flock of birds as an example. The flock itself is a complex, dynamic and extremely confusing system but the rules which govern that behaviour are very simple.
http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/
It's a similar principle with libertarianism, the result is emergent behaviour. The difference between socialists, conservatives and libertarians is that socialists and conservatives think the best way to run things is to put the flock into a box.
Deleted
When I hear people like Bill Maher profess that they are libertarians I shutter. I even doubt that most slashdot readers understand the term.
Check out www.politicalcompass.org and do the quiz and see what your leanings really are.
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!
So I think I doubt that most people are libertarians....
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
"Why do so many nerds seem to lean toward the Libertarian end of the spectrum?"
Very few of anyone, nerds or not, lean towards the Libertarian end of the spectrum. This may be due to most people catching onto the inherent contradiction in thinking that (a) many people think like they do and (b) many people ought to think like they do. A CATO article about the 2004 and 2006 elections makes lots of noise about numbers like 10% and 20% for all kinds of reasons they seem to enjoy, before finally admitting a Rassmusen poll showed the real numbers to be about 2%. If the numbers varied as widely as CATO claimed for the various reasons given, the error bar would be so large as to make it all meaningless. I think this is the case.
The CATO article even tried to claim Jon Stewart for their own: "In a revealing exchange, Jon Stewart recently hosted neoconservative Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard on the Daily Show, often considered the de facto television news program for younger viewers. Kristol called Stewart an "Upper West Side liberal." To which Stewart quickly responded, "No, I'm a downtown libertarian."
I am reminded of Jon Stewart's commercial of a few years back, talking about people getting their news from The Daily Show. He ended the commercial by yelling "DON'T DO THAT. WE MAKE IT UP." He's a comedian. His show is on Comedy Central. File this as an example under the "they think people think like they do" part of the problem, along with CATO's over-confidence in badly done statistics.
I suspect another error in thinking, that of "if you criticize, you must disagree" has kicked in by now. Nothing I've said indicates my own political position. I've found many Libertarians to be particularly susceptible to this problem despite their claim to individualism in thinking. It makes Libertarianism look for all the world like a dogma of open mindedness. Still, that's way more fun than the dogma of narrow mindedness most others seem to fall into.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
What we call "liberal" today is really *socialist*, what what used to be called "liberal" is now called "libertarian".
As far as capitalism goes, we don't have pure capitalism, either. And as far as capitalism "working" really depends on where you sit. I am sure the pan handlers I see everyday on the streets of Boston would say capitalism has failed. :-)
The real issue is power, and how power has distributed itself. In today's capitalist-driven world, politics is a joke, really. People are given the illusion of "democracy", as if their votes actually mattered. They are thrown bones daily to keep them from rioting whilst the powercrats rule and control to levels that would make any tyrant in our past green with envy!
A deeper issue of all this comes from understanding the entire system in terms of memetics, evolution, complex dynamical adaptive systems, and the like. I am currently working on a unifying mathematical system to tie all of this together, And so far the picture I am getting is truly frightening.
After my work with hypercells -- what I am calling this new mathematical system -- is complete, I will then attempt to devise an alternative power system -- one, I hope, which will deliver the maximum amount of power back to the hands of individuals and out of the hands of powercrats. Power that is self-distributed according to *need*, not greed.
But I have spoken too soon on this and for fear of looking like an utter crank will hold off revealing more until my work is much more fully congealed.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
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!
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
It's not that there are a lot of libertarian nerds, it's just that the libertarians shout the loudest and, well, most dense, as they ignore all rational arguments that might discredit their views.
You're probably right about the affluence argument though, a disproportionate number seem to be the "I got mine" crowd, who know that they will be on the top of the pyramid, benefiting rather than suffering from the vast inequality that libertarianism will cause.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Good example (though they rarely composed together after about 1964). It really boggles my mind the level of self-assured ignorance that so many "geeks" have. They think a mastery of software and/or hardware somehow gives them insight into every area of human endeavor. They share that horrible disease with engineers, who also tend to pontificate on things quite beyond their experience.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The truth is; and this goes for a wide-spectrum of political beliefs although I think it has a bias to the left...
Everybody thinks everybody else is just like themselves. They think that because they wouldn't choose to interfere with other peoples lives that people won't choose to interfere with theirs.
Then you get the far-right; the people who know that people will try to screw with their lives. They know this, because thats what they do. Of course, they also believe everyone else is just like them too. They tend to get paranoid when people aren't screwing with them.
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.
This is a perfectly reasonable philosophy but Libertarians apply it very narrowly. Two, three hundred years ago an individual sitting on his property minding his own business had virtually no ability to impact the people around him. He could swear at passerbys, throw rocks, or maybe even shoot at them. In some extreme cases he might live uphill from a settlement and cut down trees all day and all night until he had a huge pile of logs that he could unleash on the unsuspecting town below. Someone this hell-bent on causing destruction is rather rare and the destruction is rather limited, so the society could afford to extend so much autonomy to the individual. The risks were really low.
The world is a lot different now. Technology has vastly amplified the power any individual can exert over their larger society. Lets assume the extreme case now: plenty of individuals have the resources to build a nuclear reactor on their property. Can society afford to butt out and ignore the risk that his reactor could explode and poison the environment for hundreds of miles in every direction? Good God, no. We restrict their autonomy in mob-like fashion (maybe unreasonably so, I like nuclear power) because the risks are so high.
Libertarians might say society will do fine as long as everyone minds their own balance sheet.
But in today's society the free market is essentially broken. The true costs of every transaction are not being accurately reflected.. The environmental damage caused by burning a gallon of gas is not paid by anyone that is a party to the transaction. Additionally, a future that forever will have one less gallon of gas is a cost that isn't paid at transaction time either. Right now we discount the future so highly that destroying a finite resource somehow has a non-infinite price. It is only lately that each transaction carries such hidden costs because it is only lately we have such awesome technology and so much individual power.
In the aggregate our wealth is diminishing, and because these losses aren't appearing on any individual's balance sheet is exactly why the Libertarian argument has to be rejected.
Every four years, my wife tells me I'm just throwing away my vote; I respectfully disagree.
You're right. You're not only throwing away your vote, you're ceeding responsibility to select the next elected official, and encouraging said official to simply ignore you.
Especially if you only vote every four years.
Americans who belong to third parties are exercising their Constitutional right of free association. Americans who vote for a third party's luck-to-get-one-percent candidates, though, are just being fools.
So Mod Parent Down, Mod Grand Parent Up.
I don't agree with everything that the Grandparent said, however he was well spoken and backed up his statements with evidence (however anecdotal).
$diff terrorists hippies
$
$rm -rf *terrorists *hippies
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...
And so I skipped ahead about 50 pages:
Then another 50...
Then another 50...
And so on. I'm pretty sure I got a good idea of the point of the book without having to subject myself to more than 40 random paragraphs or so. Everyone I've ever met that says they idolize Ayn Rand turns out to be a self-involved, spoiled whore.
God I hate her. But truly, do I hate her more than I hate myself? It was a muggy, shitty Sunday in St Petersburg, FL, and he began to question whether he was just posting to slashdot in a vain attempt to eke a teensy bit of self-recognition out of the Internet once again, or did he really believe that posting some inane bullshit about Ayn Rand was truly noteworthy?
He got up from his mother's computer;smelled the stale milk from the bottom of his empty coffee cup. God, he had to take a shit. And he bets it's going to be smelly, because God is spiteful like that....
Please stop stalking me, bro.
I suspect, from the description, it was this.
Bob the Angry Flower rules!
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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
I think you just made his point for him!
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.
The Republican party as it exists right now has completely abandoned all conservative principles.
I would vote Republican every time if people like Tom Coburn or Ron Paul typified a Republican. Unfortunately, they do not.
In fact, I think those two would be quite at home in the Libertarian party, except that they'd never get elected.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
But I'll explain/demonstrate/illustrate/etc. anyway, 'cause I'm nice: The idielistic philosophy of capitalism is 'The market will fix EVERYTHING!'
Pollution? The market will fix that, don't bother looking at the entire history of the market to see that it systematically doesn't, just believe! Healthcare? The market! Racism? The market! It's like god, but it lets you buy your way into heaven.
You can't take the sky from me...
No, it is not a book to run the world on. It did become somewhat farcical in the end when society falls apart. But we have seen societies fall apart like that in very similar ways during real revolutions. All in all I think she did a good job of showing how political corruption can eventually cause social chaos and upheaval and the personal toll that it causes people when their dignity is taken away. 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". Well, I partially agree that there were short comings in her philosophy as it relates to the real world. Especially, today we live in a very differentiated society where no one person knows how to do every job. I think those of us in any work situation were we rely on others and then change jobs or companies know how startling it is when we suddenly have to do something that seemed easy when other people were doing it.
But I think that is partially portrayed in the book when Dagny Taggart is thrown into that new society and there are no railroads to run, so the first thing she can do in order to make her way is to clean dishes and be John Galt's maid. And it wasn't as if all the 'haves' are portrayed as being superior to the 'have nots'. In fact, the real villains of the book are the ones that do not attain their wealth through being smarter and more hard working than everyone else, but through advancement through interpersonal relations and political capital. If anything it is the corrupting influence of favor without merit that is the villain of Atlas Shrugged. Actual working people are very much portrayed as the unwitting victims in the book, which is an unfavorable treatment in some cases, but it is those that expect others to take care of them and tell them what to do which are treated most harshly. But there is a lot in that book for everyone, even its critics, to find.
Oh and having a near limitless and clean source of power certainly helps when trying to set up your own little enclave in the mountains.
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
>
> 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".
You're after Bob the Angry Flower.
BTAF is one of the funniest web comics I've ever read, but Stephen Notley mustn't have read the book too closely. The cartoon's still funny, but you have to ignore the fact that he got it precisely wrong.
*** spoiler warning ***
One of the key plot points in Atlas Shrugged is how John Galt (and other characters) managed to hide themselves when recruiting followers from the rest of society. They did so by working precisely the sorts of menial jobs that the BTAF cartoon implies they couldn't. They gave society what it wanted: their labor. They withheld from society what it needed: their mind.
Atlas Shrugged is about what happens when genius goes on strike. You can pass laws that force a man to work, but you can't pass laws that force him to invent. Suppose you're a nuclear researcher. If you're a capitalist (in the Randroid, "never take a dime from the government, and never owe it a dime in taxes" sense), a nuclear power plant provides you a much better return on investment. A nuclear bomb, by contrast, is only useful to a non-profit operation. To a capitalist, nuking a city is a terrible waste of potential (or actual!) customers, employees, and factories. To a government, it's just a policy decision to be made for the greater good.
Would WW2 have been lost (apart from a few million more casualties in the invasion of Japan) had the nuclear scientists of the day simply gone on strike, working at burger joints, riveting aircraft together, or casting bullets and turning shell casings on lathes, and passing on the really interesting jobs until after the war was over?
(Where Rand fails is that although she's half-right -- you can't compel genius to invent -- she's just as half-wrong, in that one of the hallmarks of genius is that not even the genius can compel himself not to invent. People like Teller had to invent the H-Bomb, even though WW2 was over, and the Cold War had barely begun. Open source developers had to invent Linux, GCC, and so on, and would have invented something much like it even in the absence of non-Free UNIXes and Microsoft.)
As for the literary criticism, it's valid -- but only up to the point. Stop assuming it's a novel, and start assuming it's a philosophical system masquerading as a novel, and the cardboard characters become much more forgivable. Much like the animals in Animal Farm, they're not there to entertain you, they're there to make a point. The scariest thing is that the talking heads on the TV sound more and more like her villains (and Orwell's) every day.
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.
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.
People generally agree on this: government should have the intention of improving self-perceived well-being for as many people as possible as much as possible. Where this dichotomy between socialist and liberalist is created is on how government best approaches this issue.
You basically have two models:
A. Government tries to maximize personal freedom so people can choose a way of life that makes them happy, even if this means that bad choices or fate might cause people to become unhappy
B. Government should put in place mechanisms to ensure that people's bad choices or luck doesn't force them into a life of unhappiness, even if that reduces the freedom of individuals to make personal choices
Now, the funny thing is that neither model really has it right. Obviously many people become unhappy if they are not free to do what they want to do. However, it's quite obvious that if people are left to their own devices, quite a few will end up being unhappy, either because they're taken advantage of (and lack the personal ingenuity to prevent it) or simply because they have bad luck.
The great thing about democracy (in theory) is that the acts of government would be balanced between the two viewpoints, leading to a compromise solution that's perfect for no one but acceptable for everyone. In practice, the U.S. "winner takes all" model of election prevents this optimal solution, and actually (in the media at least) falls apart into an apparent choice between type A and type B. As a consequence, people spend all their time arguing why type A or type B is "the way", because they perceive government as skewed towards the other type, while losing sight of the basic reality that what's wrong is not which type the government falls into, but how it is possible that the government ignores half the population when really it should be an aggregate of all.
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!"
And why in God's name should your teacher give you any respect?
Human decency.
Adults should respect children as equals and not lesser beings. Otherwise the child will grow either submissive, subversive, or actively seek to make people submit to them as revenge. Just because you have lived longer, more intelligence, have more money, more titles, more friends in high places, more political power, or anything anyone else doesn't have doesn't mean you get the right to not show respect to them. At the same time, being younger or poorer doesn't give you the default right to disrespect people who are older or wealthier than you.
Given a complete stranger you should give them respect and only when they do not reciprocate (as in the child sass talks you or an adult cuts you off in traffic) is when this rule no longer applies.
By not respecting a person by default is just wrong.
And by respect... I mean the human decency kind in which you don't cut off in traffic, thrown trash in their yard, or flip them the bird kind of respect. If you mean the kind of "I respect so and so because they are a learned person in their profession" kind of respect, I think you and the grandparent are talking about two different things.
Respect of each other as equal humans is not earned, it should be given by default until the other party is no longer capable of leaving the other alone. I believe that is the key part of being a libertarian. Just respecting everyone else to leave everyone else alone to their personal being and property regardless of who they are. We are all born and die the same way. Nothing makes us any better than each other in the end so you should have the decency to respect by default rather than forcing people to submit to your requirements.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
For chrissake, that's modded insightful?
You can't seem to tell the difference between democratically-legislated protection of a common resource (like clean air and water, which you cannot live without), and widescale political terror.
You write: "So called Communist regimes of our recent past and our current future have not hesitated, what makes you different?"
You may like to note that the people advocating social and environmetal legislation don't seem to be gearing up for a violent revolution and the establishment of a one-party regime (at least in the west). Your attribution of such or willingness to them seems, at least to me, highly arbitary.
Please note that the "communist" dictatorships didn't crop up in societies with a democratic tradition. They rose from the ashes of colonial Vietnam, Tsarist Russia, and Imperial China. In other words, one type of dictatorship was replaced by a different one. As for those democracies that preceded the "communist" regimes in eastern Europe, they were simply conquered by the USSR.
Socialism tends to develop very differently in established democracies, not least because it does not develop under terms of violent repression.
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.
Youth culture today?! I'm 51 years old, boyo, and I have nothing to do with youth culture today.
So, because in your mind, I'd done nothing "worthwhile", I wasn't deserving of respect. So if there's a hobo on the street, it's OK for you to hit him, since he clearly isn't deserving of respect? Or to call him names? Both of which teachers did to me in public school.
Perhaps we are arguing because we have different definitions of the word "respect". To me, that means when, for example, the teacher is taking the class through long division for the third time, and I completed my assignment with no errors the first time through, the teacher should show enough respect for my abilities to allow me to take out a book and read quietly at my desk. Note this does not mean that I should be able to get up and do jumping jacks, or start talking with a friend; this would be showing a lack of respect to the teacher. Perhaps you could share your definition of "respect", and then we'll see where we stand.
As for demanding celebrations and accolades: please point out anywhere where I stated I requested either of those. All I wanted to be was left alone after I had learned the lesson to read something else. At my old public school desk, I learned a method of putting a book in my lap, and looking like I was paying attention. However, on occasion, I got so engrossed in what I was reading, I didn't realize the teacher had walked up behind me. What happened next? I got boxed in the ear. Perhaps you think this is an appropriate response; I don't. And I think it shows a lack of respect for me - after all, it's not like that teacher didn't know me; I had been in his class all year.
Finally, you say "it's accomplishment, not intelligence that counts". But I had accomplished the teacher's ostensible goal: I had learned the lesson, and learned it perfectly. And my reward for accomplishment? Enforced boredom and wasted time. Do you think that's appropriate?
What was once true, is no longer so
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.
"Where Rand fails is that although she's half-right -- you can't compel genius to invent -- she's just as half-wrong, in that one of the hallmarks of genius is that not even the genius can compel himself not to invent. "
I think she covers that pretty well... they don't stop inventing, they just stop sharing their inventions with outsiders. I think the same thing would happen if the GPL3 pushed as far as it was initially feared.
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!
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
As a programmer, I think engineers tend to like to look at government the same way as they look at engineering projects. In engineering, we like to use simple, clean solutions that are easily understood and verified. Software that contains lots of special-cases quickly becomes fragile, bloated, and generally bad.
Or, at least, engineers think it is bad. In practice, almost all the software we use regularly is big and bloated with lots of special-cases. But, engineers -- myself included -- still think of the simple, clean solutions as better.
When you extend that thinking to government, Libertarianism looks very attractive. It says that just a few simple rules -- basically, capitalism, enforcing contracts, and protecting property rights -- gives you a system which magically fixes everything. Libertarians provide all sorts of logical arguments that cover individual cases, e.g. "In the absence of the FDA, private drug certification companies will emerge.". It all sounds so simple.
Unfortunately, in the real world, it just doesn't work. Before the FDA, private drug certification companies did not provide adequate protection for consumers. That's the whole reason why the FDA was created. So why should we think that if we abolish the FDA things will work out this time? In general, most of our government institutions were created to address real problems that existed in the past. Those problems were not solved by Libertarianism at the time, and they won't magically be solved if we try it again.
The fact is, the real world is far too complicated to be governed by any simple set of rules. As nice as Libertarianism sounds, it just will not work in practice.
With that said, Libertarianism does have some good ideas. We should definitely be using competition to force government services to improve. But instead of just abolishing the services and letting the private sector have at it, we should set up rules on a case-by-case basis which create the right incentives, so that the private sector can compete with the government in a way that doesn't screw over the consumer. E.g., allow private drug certification companies to exist, but have the FDA audit their decisions, and apply harsh penalties if they get something wrong. This might allow efficient private companies to do most of the work while keeping government oversight intact.
Smaller-scale solutions like these are actively pursued by smart lawmakers from both main parties all the time, because they work well. Of course, you don't hear about them much because average people don't care about these things.
Libertarianism at root has two planks: minimal government involvement in the economy (allowing the market to regulate itself) and minimal government involvement in private lives (allowing people to regulate themselves). Each of these has some appeal to intelligent people (nerds) because of their own self-interest.
The Car Talk guys once said that many driving rules are only for people who don't know what they're doing. While they were half joking, there's a kernel of truth to be found there. Perhaps we could rephrase to say that rules exist to keep dumb people from hurting themselves and others. Nerds are by definition smart, and therefore in many circumstances, behavioral restrictions intended to protect against dumb people serve to hinder nerds' freedoms.
Many nerds want to manage their own lives because they believe they are smart enough to do it themselves and think they can do it better. They want to allow the "invisible hand" to raise up those who are independent and resourceful enough to do the same and allow those who are dumb to be pushed down, rather than having the government push down the resourceful folks (themselves included) and lift up the incompetent.
Likewise, they want to let the forces of economics regulate the marketplace (excepting corruption, monopolizing, etc.). In theory, this will allow the best to rise to the top and the consumer to get the best prices, all thanks to competition.
The problems with this view, in my opinion, are that it is too dispassionate toward our fellow human beings, particularly those who are not as gifted as nerds (with power and smarts comes responsibility, as Uncle Ben said), and pure capitalism seems just as dangerous. There has to be some synthesis with socialism, or the society will fail.
For instance, take school vouchers. Everyone wants universal education (at least up to a point), and indeed a democratic republic demands that its voting citizens be educated. The libertarian idea is to let the market promote the good schools and drive bad ones out of "business." The problem is that special needs kids get overlooked in such a scheme, and the kids at the bottom end up with little chance to make their way out and only have a choice between bad and worse -- exacerbating the social problem. I'm not offering a better solution here (that wasn't the question), but just offering an example of how I think libertarian policy can neglect the weaker elements of society in harmful ways to society as a whole.