Designing For Jedi
theferrett.livejournal.com
Designing For Jedi
1–10 of 41 posts
Re: Designing For Jedi
#2Good points, you know my one issue with the whole libertarian bit is that it's not really cohesive.
I mean to say, why should I, a humble peasant be forced to subsidize the enforcement of their property rights?
Re: Designing For Jedi
#3Let's make a deal, you guys refrain from pop-psychoanalyzing those of us with libertarian leanings and I won't submit right-wing essays that diagnose socialists with megalomania and delusions of grandeur.
Impugning your opponent's motivations is the lowest form of rhetoric.
Re: Designing For Jedi
#4It's odd to know Ferrett from the Magic community and then see his link on the tech related site.
While very well written and an enjoyable read, my problem with his opinion and the people who think Libertarians = Anarcho-capitalists is that they take it to the complete extreme. Democrats aren't Socialists, etc. My #1 desire with Libertarianism is for a smaller government, not a destroyed government.
Re: Designing For Jedi
#5Let's make a deal, you guys refrain from pop-psychoanalyzing those of us with libertarian leanings and I won't submit right-wing essays that diagnose socialists with megalomania and delusions of grandeur. Impugning your opponent's motivations is the lowest form of rhetoric.
It seems the post has wounded your ego, and I guess that's fair enough given it makes such sweeping generalisations (and "pop-psychoanalysis", as it were.)
However, I'd be really interested to hear your comments on some of the other points he makes, or the other threads of his argument (particularly, comparisons to history.)
(FWIW, I didn't submit the article because I whole-heartedly agree with it, I just thought it was quite well-written and interesting, and I thought it might generate some enlightening responses.)
Re: Designing For Jedi
#6It's odd to know Ferrett from the Magic community and then see his link on the tech related site. While very well written and an enjoyable read, my problem with his opinion and the people who think Libertarians = Anarcho-capitalists is that they take it to the complete extreme. Democrats aren't Socialists, etc. My #1 desire with Libertarianism is for a smaller government, not a destroyed government.
What's the easiest way to make an organization get smaller?
Re: Designing For Jedi
#7Let's make a deal, you guys refrain from pop-psychoanalyzing those of us with libertarian leanings and I won't submit right-wing essays that diagnose socialists with megalomania and delusions of grandeur. Impugning your opponent's motivations is the lowest form of rhetoric.
It seems the post has wounded your ego, and I guess that's fair enough given it makes such sweeping generalisations (and "pop-psychoanalysis", as it were.) However, I'd be really interested to hear your comments on some of the other points he makes, or the other threads of his argument (particularly, comparisons to history.) (FWIW, I didn't submit the article because I whole-heartedly agree with it, I just thought it…
It hasn't wounded my ego, rather I find the article insulting. It caricatures people of my political beliefs as having nasty motivations and abundant personal failings. It reads like an op-ed in a high school Marxist newsletter and is about as balanced. I am fine with reading political articles on Hacker News but I would hope they have a little more respect for their audience.
Any Capitalist would make the rejoinder that society sucked so much in the Victorian era because society was so much poorer in aggregate. You could tax the rich at 90% and it wouldn't have stretched very far.
In the long run, the wages of labor are determined by labor productivity. Laws, unions, regulations, and other beloved institutions of the left can tinker with that ever so slightly at the margin but not by much. It is only through the accumulation of capital goods and the advancement of technology that a middle class arose. You can legislate all you want before that happens and you aren't going to do a ton of good. You can declare free unicorns for everyone but if you ain't got no unicorns then you'll leave people disappointed.
And after a capital stock is accumulated, labor becomes more productive, wages increase and life gets better of course ideologues of all stripes will claim credit for it.
Re: Designing For Jedi
#8It's odd to know Ferrett from the Magic community and then see his link on the tech related site. While very well written and an enjoyable read, my problem with his opinion and the people who think Libertarians = Anarcho-capitalists is that they take it to the complete extreme. Democrats aren't Socialists, etc. My #1 desire with Libertarianism is for a smaller government, not a destroyed government.
What's the easiest way to make an organization get smaller?
Outside pressure. Actually, that's the only way.
Re: Designing For Jedi
#9It's odd to know Ferrett from the Magic community and then see his link on the tech related site. While very well written and an enjoyable read, my problem with his opinion and the people who think Libertarians = Anarcho-capitalists is that they take it to the complete extreme. Democrats aren't Socialists, etc. My #1 desire with Libertarianism is for a smaller government, not a destroyed government.
What's wrong with anarcho-capitalists? They don't believe in chaos. They believe society would function better if laws were provided in a market and consumers had choices of law providers. They may be wrong, but the position is not a priori laughable.
Have you read "The Machinery of Freedom" by David Friedman or other pieces of anarcho-capitalist literature? If not, then what gives you the right to dismiss it so easily?
Re: Designing For Jedi
#10The "Jedi" idea is related to John Rawls "original position": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice#The_.22orig...
As for laissez faire, I think every government has already concluded that it doesn't work very well.
One might think that with modern labour-saving technology (and the consequential age of leisure) that this might change. One theoretical counter-argument is that people seem to love to have "inferiors" - it makes them feel better about themselves - which probably comes from our innate sense of pecking order/dominance hierarchy etc. Being a part of human nature, changing that is a hard one. Evidence in support of this is how some US citizens treat illegal immigrant workers who don't enjoy the protection of labour laws etc - it is laissez faire in action, right now. Another example is how US corporations treat labour in developing countries (such as China), and detainees from other countries. Whoa, that's getting political.
OTOH, we must remember that trade - like language, law and religion - are created spontaneously by human communities. Our current society didn't just create it; it appears to be innate. However, the specific ideas of trade and civic structures that we have today are informed by centuries of experience and thought, and constitute a tremendous cultural refinement of the innate concept of trade. Unlike the foregoing, it seems that civilization is not quite innate in humans - we have to work at it.