The Rise of the “Liberaltarian” • Hacker News Board

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#121

Post by fzeroracer » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 3:40 PM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #68

nickpp wrote: post #37

Isn’t it kind of ridiculous when you have to make up such words ‘cause you insist describing people’s complex preference and belief system on a single damn dimension?! I am both left and right, depending what issue we are talking about. And sometime I am center as well. Yet when it’s time to vote... I have exactly 2 real choices.

I wrote about that here: https://austingwalters.com/on-committing-suicide/ I think in part that’s why we have polarization. We have two extremes pulling each party apart, social media (as this article suggests) is pushing the left. The right is largely getting disenfranchised so they are getting more fanatical. It’s a recipe for an eventual civil war or at the very least the road to dictatorship. To be honest, both s…

Part of the reason why we're here in the first place is because of the Republican party pushing polarization and the culture war. This started with the Tea Party as they dug in their heels to oppose anything a Democrat did (even if it was originally a Republican proposal) while taking as many actions as possible to consolidate their own power.

So naturally this made people angry. People don't want to compromise with a party that gained power through not compromising because moving closer to the center means they just move further right.

The disenfranchisement of the 'right' comes from people associating racists and bigots with the right. A commentator further downstream equates Gab being banned as an example of 'conservatives being banned' which is a perfect example. Because Gab as a site is full of disgusting remarks, racism, threats and bigotry which people on the right seem to believe is a core tenant of conservatism nowadays.

Given that the current administration is conservative and has been active in attempting to take away my rights and the rights of my friends, I'm more concerned about that than some people on Twitter yelling about things. That's why I find the comparisons incredibly disingenuous.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#122

Post by _0ffh » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

nickik wrote: post #58

AdrianB1 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libertarian and redistribution have an obvious logic conflict, so you may be right about very weird friends. Libertarian base idea is freedom, as much as possible; redistribution is the opposite of freedom because you work, earn money and someone comes and takes it from you. Makes sense?

Funny then that libertarians love F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman who both argued some redistribution was whole compatible with liberalism. But I'm sure you know better what they believe.

>libertarians love F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman

Well that's where you went wrong already. Surely most libertarians respect these guys, but that's about as far as you can take it. Some do love them, I suppose. To others they're thoroughly misguided in some of their conclusions, which are seen as much to statist-socialist in nature. See e.g. [1] for a libertarian critique of Hayek.

[1] https://vimeo.com/53850513

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#123

Post by grasshopperpurp » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

DavidVoid wrote: post #113

misja111 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A strong union presence is significantly more effective than a minimum wage." Why? To me it seems that governments have far stronger means to enforce a minimum wage than unions have.

But unions have far stronger incentives to push for higher wages than governments do.

They also get to negotiate their contracts more frequently than the public gets to vote on minimum wage increases - in practice, anyway.

The other thing I forgot to mention in my previous post - minimum wage doesn't address benefits and working conditions; though, it could affect those things if high enough (if the wages are high enough everywhere, the other things would have greater impact on where people choose to work). But, unions get to specially argue for things like breaks and better/safer equipment. Certain standards cross industries, and it makes sense to legislate those, but it makes sense for workers within their respective industries to have the ability to ask for accommodations specific to the industry/its conditions.

If I were the one paying the workers, I'd rather address their specific wants and concerns than I would the wants and needs of the working population. Of course, they (in general) would rather address neither, and it's easier for them to defeat legislation than collective bargaining.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#124

Post by sukilot » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

nickik wrote: post #52

incompatible wrote: post #5

The low-regulation approach seem great until you find out how far businesses will go to cut their costs and increase profits: you end up with situations like flammable cladding installed on high-rise towers, horse meat sold as beef, or bleach sold as a cure for Covid-19 (one of these may be fictional). The line between legitimate business and scam becomes impossible to define.

Those things go under fraud and (depending on circumstances) negligence and under a free market system would be cause for collective legal legal. Free-market people have a quite sophisticated understanding of the law and how it constraints buissness, but nobody ever bothers to read or even understand that research. If you look at British Common Law many of these problems have legal precedents that would be evolved ba…

Regulations exist because you can't get a fraud conviction when the defendant says "I understand the meaning of the word "hamburger" differently from the plaintiff"

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#125

Post by _0ffh » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

mjburgess wrote: post #105

AdrianB1 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't "owe to others". This kind of entitlement is a fallacy.

Which "entitlement"? The one expressed in the idea that you owe nothing to others, or the one where others should expect something of you? Why is one "entitlement" and not the other? In either case, there is no logical fallacy present. And the question is independent to the question of freedom which is secondary to the question of moral constraint. Ie., establishing what is moral in our interactions with others (murd…

That comes down to a question of negative vs positive rights. To quote Bastiat:

>> M. de Lamartine wrote me one day: "Your doctrine is only the half of my program; you have stopped at liberty; I go on to fraternity."

I answered him: "The second half of your program will destroy the first half." And, in fact, it is quite impossible for me to separate the word "fraternity" from the word "voluntary." It is quite impossible for me to conceive of fraternity as legally enforced, without liberty being legally destroyed, and justice being legally trampled underfoot. <<

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#126

Post by omosubi » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

DebtDeflation wrote: post #80

omosubi wrote: post #14

It's been odd to see my own reaction and that of my friends to the move of the left towards solely social justice issues in the last few weeks. I've been talking to friends and we all dislike the inane focus on "white fragility", wokeness and performative activism in the form of posting your reading on Instagram. The democratic party's lack of interest in doing anything meaningful is pushing people away - Hopefully l…

>the inane focus on "white fragility" The author of this book is a white lady who uses the book as a marketing tool to sell her diversity training and consulting services to corporations. I'm not making a value judgement on that, but I think it's important information to have. There's a reason why big companies across the country latched onto that particular book, it was tailor made for them.

Yeah exactly, the whole thing is a charade. Want to see white fragility? Ask CEOs to release compensation numbers for all their employees or provide health/dental/vision insurance for retail workers or any number of things that actually improve people's lives.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#127

Post by nickik » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 4:59 PM UTC

_0ffh wrote: post #122

nickik wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny then that libertarians love F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman who both argued some redistribution was whole compatible with liberalism. But I'm sure you know better what they believe.

>libertarians love F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman Well that's where you went wrong already. Surely most libertarians respect these guys, but that's about as far as you can take it. Some do love them, I suppose. To others they're thoroughly misguided in some of their conclusions, which are seen as much to statist-socialist in nature. See e.g. [1] for a libertarian critique of Hayek. [1] https://vimeo.com/53850513

Its actually Hans Herman Hesse and the people from the Mises Institute are on the outside. Hesse in particular philosophically speaking is pretty far is no longer even classically liberal in many way. They are decently not representative. They just have the best online media presence.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#128

Post by nickik » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 5:01 PM UTC

sukilot wrote: post #124

nickik wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those things go under fraud and (depending on circumstances) negligence and under a free market system would be cause for collective legal legal. Free-market people have a quite sophisticated understanding of the law and how it constraints buissness, but nobody ever bothers to read or even understand that research. If you look at British Common Law many of these problems have legal precedents that would be evolved ba…

Regulations exist because you can't get a fraud conviction when the defendant says "I understand the meaning of the word "hamburger" differently from the plaintiff"

And then a judge says that this is not a valid excuse. That was kind of the point of judges.

Go look at how complex topics were handled in common law, often with very good understanding and solutions.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#129

Post by nickik » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 5:06 PM UTC

take_a_breath wrote: post #111

nickik wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the common law system it would be up to a judge to make an estimation if such a question should happen. This is how common law operated for a long time. This allows judgment on a case by case bases where the judge can react to changing circumstances. It has many advantages compared to a system where the government to literally pre-define every single thing in the economy and create specific regulation and test pro…

We tried that system and it evolved into what we have today because there were obvious holes. The FDA didn’t create itself. Muckraking journalists (like Upton Sinclair) shines a light on the conditions which led Theodore Roosevelt to create the FDA. Acting like the world of judicial regulation (which takes years and lots of money to see through) was somehow better seems like rose-colored glasses. Whether the FDA’s sc…

Making public policy based on a popular novel that didn't even claim to be totally accurate.

Food quality was improving before FDA was established and continued rising after as well. Most quality improvement is driven by consumer demand that was the case before and after FDA.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#130

Post by luckylion » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

oriolid wrote: post #120

luckylion wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> putting a lot of undue and costly burden on those who work, while not doing all that much for those whom we might want to benefit I suppose "all that much" is the key term. Is European style redistribution (aka a nice flat, utilities, TV and smartphone, clothing, health insurance, food and cash money to spend on whatever you please) not all that much? It's not like we're wasting 90% of taxes on administrative overh…

> Is European style redistribution (aka a nice flat, utilities, TV and smartphone, clothing, health insurance, food and cash money to spend on whatever you please) As an European, I have to ask what exactly does this refer to?

German welfare. Rent (~45-50sqm, but larger flats for a single person aren't uncommon) and utilities etc are paid, and you get 350-430€ a month for food + whatever you want to spend it on.