political question of the day

[woozle]

Are all libertarians jerks? Or just esr (and most of the other ones I've talked with)? Or am I possibly overreacting?

The short version is here, the slightly shortened but still rather long version of the prologue/context is here, and the full dialogue is here if you're really desperately trying to unload some spare time

Comments

[zhelana]

They're all jerks, and most of them are uneducated jerks.

[bad_latin]

All my best friends are libertarians and amazing people. The jerkiest ones in our group are also the loudest. :(

[woozle]

Well that's good, at least. I respect a lot of esr's ideas, so I'm really hesitant to write him off as a jerk -- even just in the area of politics.

I also respect a lot of libertarian ideas, but then I see those ideas being applied in absolutely horrible ways politically (e.g. the idea that poor people are just losers in the economic game, too bad for them) -- and I don't see any libertarians standing up and saying "no, no, that's not what we're advocating!" -- and I don't know what to think.

I'm half-inclined to semi-apologize (which makes me 1/4 sorry, I guess) to esr and ask him to please identify which of the statements I made were "insulting" unwarranted assumptions about libertarianism, but at the moment I can't tell if this is just obsessive "Someone Is Wrong On The Internet" on my part or not.

[bad_latin]

I haven't read the links (sorry) but if you're getting an "I want to lecture like a jerk rather than work with you on solving this intellectual disagreement" vibe from this person, go with your gut. It's the internet; jerk-ness comes in all political flavors.

[miriampenguin]

and I don't see any libertarians standing up and saying "no, no, that's not what we're advocating!"

This reminds me of someone I heard speak several years ago - Dr. Mary Ruwart. She wrote a book called "Healing Our World", and it answers the question of "Where's the compassion in libertarianism?". There's a link to a free download of the first edition of the book on this page (it's currently in it's 3rd edition, which apparently includes added material post-9/11). I haven't actually read the book myself (I'd forgotten about it until now), but I've heard her speak about it, and if it does what it claims to, I think you'll get something out of it. I might even be reading the free version myself, over the next few days.

[lyrwen]

"if you knew what I knew you'd agree with me, but I can't be bothered to give you even a brief summary of my interpretation" <--- wow

Don't know whether to vote you grand master of perseverance or grand master of silly for engaging with these people :P

[woozle]

Well, that wasn't a literal quote; it was a paraphrase, and I'm somewhat conflating this discussion with several other (but similar) ones I've had -- where they pull out their superior knowledge and use it to flatten your argument without ever actually addressing what you said.

The actual quote, in response to my question "Can you give evidence for the idea that [taxation], by nature, leads to atrocities even when well-designed?" is "Yes. It’s called “history”. Go learn some and stop talking like a blithering idiot."

[lyrwen]

Oh I know, but it's still bad! ANd wow, the literal quote is a real piece of work.

[miriampenguin]

No, he acted like a jerk. Some of your phrasing did seem designed to goad him on (dare I ask about x, what would you tell these families), but your questions themselves deserve answers

[woozle]

"I can't talk to you until you read this stack of books" (called a "bookstop" on LessWrong) seems like an unfair debate tactic to me. Even if my response to a question involves a lot of details you don't know yet, I should at least be able to give you enough of an answer for you to ask more questions, or (better) to know what you need to learn about. (It's also addressed in my rules for arguing -- which I just now expanded a little to get into more detail on this issue.)

Is there, then, a libertarian answer to the problem of providing infrastructure?

If I was goading esr, it was accidental -- I have heard that attitude (poor people are just lazy) coming from self-proclaimed libertarian sympathizers, and I haven't heard any realistic libertarian solutions to that problem

[miriampenguin]

Caveat #1: I'm not an expert in libertarianism/anarchy. I know most of the basics in the philosophy, but I'm lacking in a lot of the historical knowledge that many libertarians cite. It's also been about 6 years since I've been heavy into the anarchocapitalist thought, and I was only in it for about a year or two before I got heavy into Judaism and political activism kind of fell by the wayside. I think I've mentioned to you once before that my basic philosophy is libertarian, when it doesn't interfere with Jewish Law/Mysticism

[woozle]

I think I'd better start with the big picture, and then give specific examples.

One of the main problems with libertarianism -- and the government-free varieties in particular -- is that it seems to depend far too much on "the marketplace" to magically create solutions that are better than any that we could deliberately design. This may work well in some areas (e.g. electronic gadgets) where individuals can choose among different solutions, but much less well in others -- many of which seem to fall under the general heading of "infrastructure" and "the common good".

A toll-based or co-op-based national highway system might work. (I'm not sure I understand how revenues are collected under the co-op system, but I'll concede that it's theoretically workable.) Same for arbitration. (I've actually used arbitration on two memorable occasions... I think I'd be happy to see more business sent their way, so there would be more options to choose from. The services I actually used seemed rather bound by convention, and were consequently quite