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Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

newyorker.com

71–80 of 110 posts

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#71
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of us do follow the logic to its necessary conclusion. We don't assume criminals will magically disappear, we just would like law and order to be provided by the free market. See below before you dismiss it as impossible. http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm Edit: And I apologize for the background of that link!

A marketized law and order system would not solve any of the current problems with corruption. Perhaps you have heard the term "hired gun" or "mercenary". As always, the flow of money would still allow corruption, and those with money and no scruples would influence the law to protect themselves. For the mots part, that article was tldr, but I skipped down to find his discussion of this free market law, it's...mediat…

I think you miss the point a bit, but I admit it's a bit long so I don't blame you for not reading it all. Mediation is just one of the author's guesses at what free market law might look like.

The first half of the article addresses the fact that it is impossible for the law to be objective. This is an extremely interesting idea in my opinion so I would encourage onlookers to check it out even if you are solidly convinced that free market law could never work. It's a bit hard to summarize the article so don't accept qdog's TL;DR at face value without reading it yourself.

My TL;DR, quoting from the article's conclusion: "The fact is that there is no such thing as a government of law and not people. The law is an amalgam of contradictory rules and counter-rules expressed in inherently vague language that can yield a legitimate legal argument for any desired conclusion. For this reason, as long as the law remains a state monopoly, it will always reflect the political ideology of those invested with decisionmaking power. Like it or not, we are faced with only two choices. We can continue the ideological power struggle for control of the law in which the group that gains dominance is empowered to impose its will on the rest of society, or we can end the monopoly."

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#72
post #64
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why a liberal? Conservatives also believe in government.

Actually, I think the idea is that conservatives are distrustful of government and are keen to limit its power and influence in their lives.

unless the head honcho is wearing a jesus t-shirt. Sorry, I don't actually mean to be so snarky, I just hate democracy so much.

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#73
post #64
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why a liberal? Conservatives also believe in government.

Actually, I think the idea is that conservatives are distrustful of government and are keen to limit its power and influence in their lives.

Conservatives want more government when it comes to the military, the drug war, opposing abortion, restricting civil liberties (everything the ACLU does), "tough on crime" laws, immigration, Israel...

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#74
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current high schooler in the US here. I feel that today the trend is definitely more towards looking things up as opposed to memorizing them. For example, in my chemistry class, we always got a periodic table (with weights) and were given things like Planck's constant. We did, however, have to memorize some of the more basic ones such as speed of light and Avogadro's number. With regards to math, all tests involving…

Wasn't it Einstein who said something along the lines of "Don't memorize anything you can look up?"

I believe this was Henry Ford

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of us do follow the logic to its necessary conclusion. We don't assume criminals will magically disappear, we just would like law and order to be provided by the free market. See below before you dismiss it as impossible. http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm Edit: And I apologize for the background of that link!

The problem with this theory is that it assumes a couple of things: 1) The market fully defined by exchanges underwritten by currency (read: a fluid medium of exchange). 2) Value can be assigned to anything and is therefore finite in all circumstances. But there is a singularity where it all breaks down: The value of one's life is infinite. Without it, no other value matters. If I could give you $10 trillion but I ki…

>The value of one's life is infinite.

That is demonstrably false. Everyone of us could, at a cost, reduce his chance of dying tomorrow.

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#76
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't it Einstein who said something along the lines of "Don't memorize anything you can look up?"

I believe this was Henry Ford

"I don't know the answers because I do not need to clutter my head with the answers you seek. I hire smart young people from your schools who have memorized information(like the indians) that you think is intelligence. My job is to keep my head clear of such clutter and trivial facts so that I can think" Henry Ford

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#77
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people I've met who claim to be Libertarians seems to be very confused about how the world works. Usually, they have a pet idea (guns, pot, taxes, property rights, police forces, something) they are very hot about and fail to extend their logic out to the endpoint, ie: get rid of all law enforcment some magic is going to happen and criminals won't be criminals (I suspect life would be a lot like the show Deadwoo…

"get rid of all law enforcment..." Are you confusing libertarianism with anarchism?

Some types of the latter are subsets of the former.

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#78
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't it Einstein who said something along the lines of "Don't memorize anything you can look up?"

I believe this was Henry Ford

I looked it up. It was Einstein. :)

Or at least, it's attributed to Einstein. It's a common enough sentiment, though, I'm sure I've independently said similar things myself.

On the other hand, it can easily be taken too far. Sometimes a random factoid isn't just a random factoid, it's part of the scaffolding on which you hang your knowledge. If you have to go to your periodic table to look up things like "Carbon" and "Hydrogen" you're never gonna have an intuitive understanding of chemistry.

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#79
post #73
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I think the idea is that conservatives are distrustful of government and are keen to limit its power and influence in their lives.

Conservatives want more government when it comes to the military, the drug war, opposing abortion, restricting civil liberties (everything the ACLU does), "tough on crime" laws, immigration, Israel...

Conservatives don't want that stuff, republicans do

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#80
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people I've met who claim to be Libertarians seems to be very confused about how the world works. Usually, they have a pet idea (guns, pot, taxes, property rights, police forces, something) they are very hot about and fail to extend their logic out to the endpoint, ie: get rid of all law enforcment some magic is going to happen and criminals won't be criminals (I suspect life would be a lot like the show Deadwoo…

"get rid of all law enforcment..." Are you confusing libertarianism with anarchism?

Are you confusing libertarianism with anarchism?

Not necessarily. When you get to the most radical edges of libertarianism, you find the anarcho-capitalist types who are (depending on who you ask) a type of anarchist. Libertarians who hold to a strict adherence to the "NIF Principle"[1] are opposed to most of what passes for law enforcement in contemporary society since it largely involves initiation of force and isn't for self-defense.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle

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