81–90 of 170 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I don't agree with you per-se, there's a lot of inherent survivorship bias in your sample group.
If it's survivor bias, wouldn't that make the Somali classmates' opinions even more valid (their contemporaries being dead and all)? Or did you intend to say selection bias?
But yes, in this case a more generic, selection, might be more appropriate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Somalia is way worse than high-functioning governments like the United States Yet my libertarian friends on Facebook all seem to want to tear the enitre government down.
What many libertarians want is decentralization. As much as possible. They probably want to get rid of all powerful Federal Government but local governments (as small as possible) and confederations are usually fine.
Many people seem to be complaining about certain absurd EU regulations that were forced upon us.
I, for one, am extremely happy - centralised government has saved us from a lot of absurd ideas the local policymakers had. Also, we have one extra level of courts, where you can go when your government breaks law.
Not to mention all the benefits for commerce and travel - knowing that other EU states have similar laws and standards helps a lot.
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People actually argue that Somalia is better than it was back when it had a functioning government? Have they talked to anyone who grew up or lived through that? Nobody I've talked to from Somalia (I grew up in Minneapolis, a good chunk of my classmates from elementary and uni were Somali), nobody thinks it was a good change. The amount of death and fear is just staggering. That article reads a little tone deaf, a lo…
It is very common for foreigners to hate their homeland. People who move from Kuba tend to say it sucks. I moved from America to Prague and I tell everyone that America sucks. My Russian friends say Russia sucks. The Ukrainians I know say Ukraine sucks. The Kyrgyzstanies I know say Kyrgyzstan sucks. I live among foreigners, and the only ones that I've met that actually like their home country are rich ones from total…
Exactly. It's also very typical for the average person someone on HN would mingle from that comes from other countries to say their country sucks (someone heavy on US culture, or who aspires to be a SV entrepreneur, etc is not the typical example of the average citizen of most countries). So just because someone knows people from a country, it doesn't mean their opinions represent what people from that country generally believe. Even ex-pats living in a foreign country tend to meet and mingle with quite specific demographics.
Cab drivers (and similar working class people) can often tell you more for the general sentiment in a country that people you naturally gravitate towards for making friends.
I had a similar objection to the various "arab spring" analysts, who take people with celebrated english-speaking blogs and twitter accounts (which by that fact already are a small minority in their country) as representative of the general sentiment etc. The guy who aspires to be an Egyptian blogger (and who participates in internet culture heavily) is probably more westernized and quite different than the average folk who might ask for heavier islamic laws etc. That's obvious, and still pundits are then surprised when such incidents (arab spring etc) take a turn for stricter regimes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Somalia is way worse than high-functioning governments like the United States Yet my libertarian friends on Facebook all seem to want to tear the enitre government down.
At the risk of heading even further down this rabbit hole, I'd observe that there are very many significant differences between Somalia and the United States and that the existence of government is just one small part.
Could it be that "the existence of government" plays a big role in there being "very many significant differences between Somalia and the United States"?
Advanced countries can turn into rubble very fast if central government collapses -- grabs for power, civil wars, etc. Heck: https://searchingforsyria.org/en/how-can-i-help-syrian-refug...
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I have never quite understood why libertarians think that is the precise optimum for the amount of government activities and their "theft" of my money via taxation. Don't libertarians understand or accept that there are market failures that government is needed to solve? Or do they think that in every case government makes more bad than good when trying to solve market failures? Or is it just that freedom of individu…
Libertarians don't posit a precise optimum. They are generally of the opinion that the optimum is quite a bit lower than what we have right now. > Don't libertarians understand or accept that there are market failures that government is needed to solve? The only credible "failure" I'm aware of is the need to internalize of public externalities, which can be achieved in a number of liberty-friendly ways. See, for exam…
Large scale goals with large public benefits but which come at high costs will not be achieved without high level cooperation. For every individual market participant, the public education system, the public highway system, the public energy system, etc. have costs far exceeding their means. Yet every market participant benefits enough that they are happy they exist. The level of cooperation needed requires organization at the scale of at least local government.
Dealing with external factors, such as other nations -especially if they're hostile- or natural threats. Individual market participants can not muster armies (unless they are at the scale of governments), cant bargain with foreign governments on equal terms and will not provide (preventive) care for disasters/diseasese/etc. Would microsoft or walmart vaccinate everyone?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have never quite understood why libertarians think that is the precise optimum for the amount of government activities and their "theft" of my money via taxation. Don't libertarians understand or accept that there are market failures that government is needed to solve? Or do they think that in every case government makes more bad than good when trying to solve market failures? Or is it just that freedom of individu…
Libertarians don't posit a precise optimum. They are generally of the opinion that the optimum is quite a bit lower than what we have right now. > Don't libertarians understand or accept that there are market failures that government is needed to solve? The only credible "failure" I'm aware of is the need to internalize of public externalities, which can be achieved in a number of liberty-friendly ways. See, for exam…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have never quite understood why libertarians think that is the precise optimum for the amount of government activities and their "theft" of my money via taxation. Don't libertarians understand or accept that there are market failures that government is needed to solve? Or do they think that in every case government makes more bad than good when trying to solve market failures? Or is it just that freedom of individu…
Libertarians don't posit a precise optimum. They are generally of the opinion that the optimum is quite a bit lower than what we have right now. > Don't libertarians understand or accept that there are market failures that government is needed to solve? The only credible "failure" I'm aware of is the need to internalize of public externalities, which can be achieved in a number of liberty-friendly ways. See, for exam…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Libertarians don't posit a precise optimum. They are generally of the opinion that the optimum is quite a bit lower than what we have right now. > Don't libertarians understand or accept that there are market failures that government is needed to solve? The only credible "failure" I'm aware of is the need to internalize of public externalities, which can be achieved in a number of liberty-friendly ways. See, for exam…
> See, for example, the Coase theorem Which only holds when transaction costs are negligible, i.e., never. Which was precisely Coase's point in that work - he showed that mathematically, it doesn't matter what initial distribution you put on something (his example was radio broadcast frequency allocations), since the final Pareto-optimal distribution is independent of initial conditions. This is the Coase theorem. Bu…
> * EpiPen pricing
My understanding was that part of the problem with the EpiPen was a monopoly due to patent issues. Patents are monopolies created by the government, so the market failures they cause are in fact government failures.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the risk of heading even further down this rabbit hole, I'd observe that there are very many significant differences between Somalia and the United States and that the existence of government is just one small part.
If George Washington declared himself king, you might be looking today at 30% unemployment like some of the euros
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> See, for example, the Coase theorem Which only holds when transaction costs are negligible, i.e., never. Which was precisely Coase's point in that work - he showed that mathematically, it doesn't matter what initial distribution you put on something (his example was radio broadcast frequency allocations), since the final Pareto-optimal distribution is independent of initial conditions. This is the Coase theorem. Bu…
I'm not a libertarian and agree with you on all points except... > * EpiPen pricing My understanding was that part of the problem with the EpiPen was a monopoly due to patent issues. Patents are monopolies created by the government, so the market failures they cause are in fact government failures.
I think we can all agree that drug patents in particular are a necessary evil. On other patents (in particular software) I'm a lot more skeptical. And that's not to say "Big Pharma" isn't trying to abuse the system to maximise their profits.