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Disneyland with the Death Penalty

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Re: Disneyland with the Death Penalty

#51

Post by hugh3 »

brown9-2 wrote: post #44
lionhearted wrote: post #39

I'm a fan of Gibson, but this isn't really an accurate description of Singapore. Singapore's overwhelmingly the most functional and prosperous place in Southeast Asia, by any metric or measure. People who love politics don't like Singapore, because Singaporean politics are boring. One group is in charge, they do a pretty good job, and everyone likes them. But outside of politics and drugs, you can do pretty much what…

To be fair, the article is 17 years old.

Has Singapore changed much in the last seventeen years? I get the feeling that it hasn't (though my one and only visit to Singapore would have been circa 1998).

Re: Disneyland with the Death Penalty

#52

Post by gloob »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #40
loewenskind wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would venture to say that [Hong Kong] is poster child of libertarianism This is the problem with the post. Libertarianism does not lead to market freedom. It does for a very short time until someone becomes dominant and uses that dominance to buy or force out everyone else. The US is closer to libertarian ideas, which is why it has a less free market than other places that understand that capitalism can't work wit…

I think you may be confusing libertarianism and anarchy.

In fairness, many self-identified libertarians seem to have the same issue.

Re: Disneyland with the Death Penalty

#54

Post by tcskeptic »

pyre wrote: post #15
mmaro wrote: post #6

This is a famous article from 1993 , notable enough to have its own Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneyland_with_the_Death_Penal... What I find interesting is that this piece doesn't include the words "crime" or "murder". There are what, one or two (solved) murders per year on an island of 5 million people? Freedom includes bad things not happening to you. Other freedoms you can enjoy (as far as I kn…

> Freedom includes bad things not happening to you. Huh? So you're not really 'free' unless your government can guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen to you?

I don't think that is the point being made at all. I think the writer is pointing out that there are multiple ways of experiencing "Freedom". My experience has been that in the US freedom is often viewed as the sum of permitted personal decisions that can occur without (Or with minimal) government restraint or influence, so typically we focus on things like freedom of speech, the freedom to ride motorcycles without a helmet, the freedom to own guns, the freedom to start a business, the freedom to vote, etc.(And these are just kind of randomly selected from various examples that popped to mind and not meant to be exhaustive). A "rugged individualist" approach to freedom if you will.

Singapore seems to take a "pragmatic collectivist" approach to freedom. Meaning that anti-social behaviour is strongly limited, and those limits are enforced by the power of the government, but the resulting society has a substantial "Freedom from fear" both from a personal safety perspective, and from a "social security" perspective. Now admittedly these tradeoffs are very different from the tradeoffs in the US, but there is certainly a certain freedom from worry that comes along with it.

Re: Disneyland with the Death Penalty

#56

Post by loewenskind »

loewenskind wrote: post #31
DanielN wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments like this are what make a binary voting system inefficient. Two thirds of your comment is spot on and pretty much exactly what I came here to say. When I initially viewed your comment it had been down voted and I debated whether or not I should vote it back up. But there are some glaring unfairnesses in your assessment that make me take pause. Suggesting that Hong Kong is the freest state in the region is ki…

>a key reason there weren't any Walmart types in Hong Kong was because it was more profitable to the Triads to keep all the mom and pop shops in business than to work with larger corporations You're claiming Hong Kong isn't start up friendly because it doesn't support devastating monopolies like Walmart [1]??? Are you seriously telling me that if you went to a country where everywhere you looked you saw people in bus…

Ugh, the "American Libertarians" on this site get a tab bit boring. Sorry I said something negative about your religion. Downvoting is easier than citing some credible source that shows that American Libertarianism is anything but a crackpot anti-theory.

Re: Disneyland with the Death Penalty

#57

Post by loewenskind »

gthank wrote: post #49
loewenskind wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a key reason there weren't any Walmart types in Hong Kong was because it was more profitable to the Triads to keep all the mom and pop shops in business than to work with larger corporations You're claiming Hong Kong isn't start up friendly because it doesn't support devastating monopolies like Walmart [1]??? Are you seriously telling me that if you went to a country where everywhere you looked you saw people in bus…

I think the point was not that the government is preventing a Wal-Mart-level success story, but that organized crime was preventing a Wal-Mart-level success story. Say what you want about Wal-Mart (I avoid them like the plague just because I find the shopping experience actively repugnant), but to go from inception to world-dominating monster in ~40 years is impressive.

It's a shame that organized crime is involved but I view it as an otherwise healthy system if they prevent one company from becoming a monopoly. "Too big to fail" means someone didn't do their job.

Re: Disneyland with the Death Penalty

#58

Post by loewenskind »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #40
loewenskind wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would venture to say that [Hong Kong] is poster child of libertarianism This is the problem with the post. Libertarianism does not lead to market freedom. It does for a very short time until someone becomes dominant and uses that dominance to buy or force out everyone else. The US is closer to libertarian ideas, which is why it has a less free market than other places that understand that capitalism can't work wit…

I think you may be confusing libertarianism and anarchy.

No, I actually view anarchy as potentially workable [1]. American libertarianism is closest to Ancap. I find them both unworkable for the same reason.

[1] Probably to complex too explain here but the key is that Government and money depend on each other. You can't have one without the other.

Re: Disneyland with the Death Penalty

#59

Post by steveklabnik »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #40
loewenskind wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would venture to say that [Hong Kong] is poster child of libertarianism This is the problem with the post. Libertarianism does not lead to market freedom. It does for a very short time until someone becomes dominant and uses that dominance to buy or force out everyone else. The US is closer to libertarian ideas, which is why it has a less free market than other places that understand that capitalism can't work wit…

I think you may be confusing libertarianism and anarchy.

I think you may be confusing "anarcho-capitlism" and "anarchy." (and "anarchism," for that matter, though I guess this isn't the time and place to argue over "is an-cap anarchism?")

Re: Disneyland with the Death Penalty

#60

Post by rikthevik »

lionhearted wrote: post #39

I'm a fan of Gibson, but this isn't really an accurate description of Singapore. Singapore's overwhelmingly the most functional and prosperous place in Southeast Asia, by any metric or measure. People who love politics don't like Singapore, because Singaporean politics are boring. One group is in charge, they do a pretty good job, and everyone likes them. But outside of politics and drugs, you can do pretty much what…

> One group is in charge, they do a pretty good job, and everyone likes them.

That doesn't sound like any government I've ever heard of. I guess my concern is, what if they don't keep doing a good job? Like let's say they get corrupt and slovenly like every other long-running institution. It doesn't seem like there's any way to remove them.

It reminds me of a line from an old Dave Foley sketch. "In Canada we are ruled by a small boy with supernatural powers. (menacingly) Of whom we are all very fond."

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