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Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

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Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#221

Post by ac132 »

ThomPete wrote: post #214
ac132 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, sorry I was actually confusing 2 separate comment threads. :-/ I see your point.

I don't believe you gave any examples of that, what you did what put forward a postulate with very little weight. With respect to health inspection. The problem is that most people don't care about health inspection as long as they don't get sick. I.e. Yelp is useful for detecting whether people get food poisoning perhaps. It is not useful for detecting when 25 year old meat is being used which it actually is some ti…

My point was, 5 years ago no one imagined a concept like Square would exist. Just because you can't imagine a nongovernmental organization that serves the same purpose as local health inspectors doesn't mean it's impossible to have such a thing.

On the contrary, quite a few similar organizations do exist, but only when a government monopoly doesn't kill competition in that space. For example, who in the 90s would have guessed that something like TrustE would exist. It's not that far fetched to imagine that if government wasn't policing restaurants a private organization could exist to provide such a service. Yelp doesn't do that because it's not their mission and no one is going to make that their mission since the government already monopolized that job.

I'm not saying we should have 0 government either, but if we're not willing to question the necessity of things as trivial as local government health inspectors then where do we draw the line?

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#222

Post by tzs »

snitko wrote: post #220
tzs wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I challenge you to give me one very specific example of how something is not going to work in a libertarian world and I'm going right here right now to prove you how it actually would work What do you mean by "libertarian world"? Libertarianism is a spectrum, so it's hard to give examples without knowing what specific kind of libertarian world we are discussing. For instance, there are some libertarians who say the…

Your example is the one that was cracked by David D. Friedman, I recommend you watch the part of his talk discussing the exact same case you mentioned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXWFWIM8OCI#t=620s

I've seen that argument before. It fails, because I'll simply hire a private protection agency that does not have an agreement with your private protection agency to go to an arbitrator when the two agencies find themselves representing opposing clients.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#223

Post by baddox »

scarmig wrote: post #85
baddox wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having a monopoly supplier, however, gives that supplier an incentive to maximize the net economic value of its customers: this allows it to extract more of that value Could you explain this claim? I wouldn't agree with it if you we're talking about fulfilling the demand of other sectors (like music or food), so I'm curious why it would apply to violence.

Sure. Represent an economic transaction with {M, X, V}, where M is currency, X is some good or service, and V is violence. For a music cd, there's three parties involved, though the third is sometimes not explicitly accounted for. 1:{-M, +X, 0} 2:{+(1-p)M, -X, 0} 3:{+pM, 0, V} (aside: money, you see, plays a nice role of making it a 3-tuple instead of an infinite-tuple) The first two elements of a tuple have the cons…

I lose you at the part where you essentially claim that violence is free or unlimited. In reality, violence is very costly and risky. In this sort of analysis, I don't see why violence would be considered a separate variable, rather than simply one cost factor for both sides of the transaction, just like the cost of advertising, or paying employees.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#224

Post by herdrick »

jlgreco wrote: post #28
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #10

Way to pander to Reddit.

Been there recently? Reddit, as far as you can say it "likes" or "dislikes" anything, does not like Paul.

Right, which is worrisome. The reddit trajectory was: "intellectual and polite" -> "smart and combative" -> "kinda dumb and hive-minded" -> "lolcats". Simultaneously its median opinion towards Ron Paul seemed to go: "interesting" -> "savior" -> "devil" -> "who?". So it'd be another indicator that HN is sliding if we're becoming more enthused by Ron Paul. (I voted for him, btw.)

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#225

Post by snitko »

tzs wrote: post #222
snitko wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your example is the one that was cracked by David D. Friedman, I recommend you watch the part of his talk discussing the exact same case you mentioned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXWFWIM8OCI#t=620s

I've seen that argument before. It fails, because I'll simply hire a private protection agency that does not have an agreement with your private protection agency to go to an arbitrator when the two agencies find themselves representing opposing clients.

It doesn't fail. You're assuming that one such agency would exist. In reality, violence is prohibitively expensive. No agency would stay in business for too long if it constantly engages into conflicts on behalf of its customers. Prices for its services would go up, while demand would go down. Also, savvy competitors would team up and contribute to destroying this nasty agency as well, because it hurts their peaceful business.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#226

Post by pjzedalis »

saraid216 wrote: post #75
mindslight wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal stewardship of nuclear weapons. Please don't "prove to me how it actually would work". Just think about it a while for yourself, and learn to accept that there's limits to the philosophy. Libertarianism is ultimately a heuristic, and you do it no favors by handwavingly claiming that you can prove desirable large scale behaviors based on a small set of axioms. Signed - a libertarian.

This has been what bugs me about gun rights people. The argument about personal safety is fine, but the people who want everyone to be armed in case the government decided to show its true colors or something? Um. You don't want a firearm . You want a tank .

That's actually kind of a fallacy. Gun lovers don't want guns because they are scared of the Government. They want guns in case the Government fails. To protect them that is.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#227

Post by alexakarpov »

astrodust wrote: post #202
alexakarpov wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By extension any woman who suffers a miscarriage is a murderer With all respect, this is not "extension", but rather "gross distortion". > It prevents most of the money in circulation from accumulating in the hands of a very small number of individuals. What if such accumulation was just? Would it still be wrong? If yes, then why? If no, then what's the problem? Shouldn't we worry about making game rules fair, rath…

Maybe you want to live in a society not unlike the Gilded Age where billionaire robber barons controlled everything, where those who weren't part of this small elite group could barely get by. This is how un-checked wealth accumulates. Remember, it is very easy to make money if you have lots of money to start with and can weather almost any risk no matter how severe. When the smaller players bust out, the wreckage of…

Ah, but you've said 'robber barons'. This is exactly the thing - robber barons. Being a robber - a bandit or baron, no difference - is a bad thing. It's where the problem is. "Robber barons" use money and violence - rather, they use money to "rent" violence from its providers - to create barriers to entry - as you've said, "could barely get by". This is not even close to what libertarian stand for.

As for it being easy to make money if you start with a lot - why, this totally depends on the rules of the game in question! And if the game is fair and open, then it will be equally easy for the rich starter to squander all their wealth - since they don't actually produce wealth, but only consume what was inherited.

Libertarians are, first and foremost, about a free and honest game.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#228

Post by cpr »

tptacek wrote: post #218
cpr wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hand-waving wildly, trying to avoid the loss of purchasing power that's the inevitable result of fiat money, and ad hominem to boot. Actually, I'd be happy to trade places with someone living in 1913.

"Deal!" says the time-traveler after you offer to impoverish yourself for the sake of a religious argument about how wealth is denominated. You can look up the purchasing power disparity between the average 1913er and yourself; the difference is stark before you consider that any American homeless person in 2012 has better medical care than did Woodrow Wilson. Time travelers tip: avoid Europe for a couple years, and…

I'll take it. Who says health is the end-all and be-all of human existence?

I'll come back for my claim chowder when the US economy collapses Greek-style, thanks to a fiat currency controlled by a private entity like the Fed, crony corporate welfarism (I'm repeating myself), and the fact that people have now figured out that they can vote themselves goodies. The Republic is over, as the founders warned us when the latter would happen.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#229

Post by shrughes »

cpr wrote: post #228
tptacek wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Deal!" says the time-traveler after you offer to impoverish yourself for the sake of a religious argument about how wealth is denominated. You can look up the purchasing power disparity between the average 1913er and yourself; the difference is stark before you consider that any American homeless person in 2012 has better medical care than did Woodrow Wilson. Time travelers tip: avoid Europe for a couple years, and…

I'll take it. Who says health is the end-all and be-all of human existence? I'll come back for my claim chowder when the US economy collapses Greek-style, thanks to a fiat currency controlled by a private entity like the Fed, crony corporate welfarism (I'm repeating myself), and the fact that people have now figured out that they can vote themselves goodies. The Republic is over, as the founders warned us when the la…

Have fun dying in the trenches.

Re: Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government

#230

Post by saraid216 »

snitko wrote: post #225
tzs wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen that argument before. It fails, because I'll simply hire a private protection agency that does not have an agreement with your private protection agency to go to an arbitrator when the two agencies find themselves representing opposing clients.

It doesn't fail. You're assuming that one such agency would exist. In reality, violence is prohibitively expensive. No agency would stay in business for too long if it constantly engages into conflicts on behalf of its customers. Prices for its services would go up, while demand would go down. Also, savvy competitors would team up and contribute to destroying this nasty agency as well, because it hurts their peaceful…

> Also, savvy competitors would team up and contribute to destroying this nasty agency as well, because it hurts their peaceful business.

You realize that's what a government is, right?

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