While We Wait: Writer's Block & Other Lame Excuses

[Luckymoose]

What do you think is a proper reply to this gentleman? I ask you because 1. you have the most expertise 2. you're the most polite

I don't want the guy to think he's actually smart, but I don't want to be snarky either. But I'm not intelligent enough on this issue to be thorough

Pretty sure he'd get fired if he mentioned climate change under Harperstan.

 

[erez87]

Stuff

Ask him, what sort of evidence is he looking for.

In my opinion strongest evidence for the influence of CO2 is probably the ocean's acidification. It has nothing to do with climate, and it is a terrible disaster that is ongoing - and the reason for it is pure and simple - more CO2 in the air causes more CO2 in the oceans. (Adding that rising acidity of oceans may be connected to the Permian extinction, and none of the others, to my knowledge, should probably help there. It was the biggest extinction - by far).

 

[Thlayli]

THIS IS WHAT LIBERTARIANS ACTUALLY BELIEVE

All of the successful libertarians (and I know a few) just go work for hedge funds and tend not to bother with YouTube comments.

But isn't the hypothetical increase in the political power of corporate interests something that liberals/socialists harp on a lot? I don't see how saying "the undue influence of large financial institutions in politics is bad" becomes untrue just because the person saying it doesn't like big government.

Just to clarify, in disagreeing with that admittedly alarmist poster, are you saying that the current level of corporate influence in DC is good or acceptable, or are you just taking issue with the statement that a tight-knit alliance between the corporate sector and government functionally resembles the economies of historically fascist countries?

 

[Angst]

Denmark has this tradition of having governmental bodies closely cooperate with private ones making them get huge deals that give them huge edges in the market. But it's not like a nepotist system of lobbyism. (Corruption is extremely low here.) Rather different businesses compete heavily for participating in the governmental services and the best business gets the offer and the market edge.

Denmark is popularly categorized as a nanny state with a somehow functioning liberal market.

I'm not sure why I'm saying that but I'm just throwing it out there. Masada will tell me why the system is terrible in 3. 2. 1.

 

[Symphony D.]

"CONVINCE ME WITH SCIENCE NOT RHETORIC!"

What do you think is a proper reply to this gentleman? I ask you because 1. you have the most expertise 2. you're the most polite

I don't want the guy to think he's actually smart, but I don't want to be snarky either. But I'm not intelligent enough on this issue to be thorough

The easiest thing to do would be to just link him to, you know, the IPCC reports. IPCC AR5 isn't done but IPCC AR4 is, if 7 years out of date. Realistically somebody clamoring "convince me with science!11" should have actually gone out to seek out the science themselves, but if that's what he wants the simplest thing to do is drop it on him without further comment. If he tl;drs then he wasn't serious to begin with.

or are you just taking issue with the statement that a tight-knit alliance between the corporate sector and government functionally resembles the economies of historically fascist countries?

Industrial policy is about as good an indicator of FASCISMS as an affinity for leather is.

THIS IS WHAT LIBERTARIANS ACTUALLY BELIEVE

Considering Iceland, which I don't think anyone would not describe as socialist, is the only country that actually allowed big banks to fail, while so-called fiscal conservatives in say, America, refuse to cut oil and farm subsidies, this dude must exist in a permanent state of ideological existential dread.

 

[Crezth]

All of the successful libertarians (and I know a few) just go work for hedge funds and tend not to bother with YouTube comments.

All of the successful democrats (and I know a few) just go and get elected President. I mean, what exactly is your point here? It's not like being a hedge fund manager means your ideology suddenly acquires inherent truth or anything.

Also, and by no means exhaustive: conflating national socialism and fascism; conflating any and all regulatory policy with totalitarianism; faith-based assertion that the mythical "free markets" are not to blame, and how dare we question the wisdom of The Mighty, But Shy So Please Don't Go Looking For Him Invisible Hand; over-all tinfoil assumption that banks doing what banks do is tantamount to Junkers, Krupp und Heer. Open your eyes, sheeple!

I mean, I'm not a big fan of neo-liberalism either, but appeals to the "free market" almost always go back to the kind of rhetoric that lets this stuff go on in the first place. Fine, sure, that's just what economies do. But convincing people that the frothing mouth isn't the problem, it's the muzzle, sabotages any realistic attempts at improving the situation.

 

[Thlayli]

I just think that going and pulling out stupid comments by the dumbest advocate of any particular belief system and saying "THIS IS WHAT [ALL] THESE PEOPLE BELIEVE" is disingenuous and helps nobody but the "let's mock people we disagree with" circlejerk.

And if I did the same for YouTube comments by armchair teenage socialists you'd accuse me of the same. It's childish.

 

[Crezth]

Go ahead. I invite you to. You can find the kernel of stupidity in every ideological strain, and within that kernel is, erm, another much smaller kernel which is the kernel of truth.

Like I said, I think libertarians are either A. willfully ignorant as to the relationship between the markets and the state, or B. sinisterly aware, which is exactly why they continue to push forward this notion that "it's those fat cat bureaucrats! down with big government! buy mcdonald's!"

 

[Shadowbound]

The government shouldn't give out welfare to unemployrd lazy bums. Now wherr's my social security check?

 

[Symphony D.]

I just think that going and pulling out stupid comments by the dumbest advocate of any particular belief system and saying "THIS IS WHAT [ALL] THESE PEOPLE BELIEVE" is disingenuous and helps nobody but the "let's mock people we disagree with" circlejerk.

And if I did the same for YouTube comments by armchair teenage socialists you'd accuse me of the same. It's childish.

Counterpoint: most of the people who self-identify (loudly) as Libertarians have never actually gone and read Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Robert Nozick, or Hillel Steiner, do not make any distinctions between left and right libertarianism, are not aware of any distinctions between left and right libertarianism (or likely, any of the people I named above), and their political affinity can largely be traced back to events like "I read Atlas Shrugged when I was like, 13, man, and it really spoke to me," e.g., Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan, to his credit, has read at least Hayek in the intervening time, and has had the good sense to jettison Ayn Rand to save his political career, not that he apparently ever understood her to begin with. The average person who loudly campaigns for "libertarianism" on the internet is seldom even so astute.

I'm sure that somewhere there is some radical young socialist or communist whose only actual exposure to the ideology is really Che Guevara's The Motorcycle Diaries but they at least have more decency in being less visible. I am unaware of anything like MarxCoin.

 

[Azale]

The easiest thing to do would be to just link him to, you know, the IPCC reports. IPCC AR5 isn't done but IPCC AR4 is, if 7 years out of date. Realistically somebody clamoring "convince me with science!11" should have actually gone out to seek out the science themselves, but if that's what he wants the simplest thing to do is drop it on him without further comment. If he tl;drs then he wasn't serious to begin with.

I did this with predictably loltastic results. First he compared the IPCC to the Vatican, then he got insulted that I would insinuate he hasn't read the reports and informed me he HAD read them in-depth. So either he's too stupid to get even a basic understanding of ice (as NK points out) or he's lying because I'm skoolin him in the skoolyard.

 

[Symphony D.]

The IPCC are just all those scientists who are lying to fulfill their secret DARK SCIENCE AGENDA, not real scientists. A story by Aaron Diaz.

In other news, EA/Maxis get told:

“We’re not out to kick anyone in the balls” wrote Paradox’s Shams Jorjani on today’s Cities: Skylines ‘Ask Me Anything’ session, “SimCity was OK.”

[...]

Again, the Cities: Skylines team poked barbed fun at SimCity with their response to a query about playing offline: “Thankfully advances in technology have enabled us to do all city management calculations locally on your PC. We don’t have to do them in the cloud anymore, which you know, was the ONLY way to do it a few years ago.” Pointed stuff.

 

[North King]

I, for one, look forward to the bright new future that is offline gaming.

 

[Darksaber1]

Pretty sure he'd get fired if he mentioned climate change under Harperstan.

Didn't you hear? The new official name is Harpertopia, as part of a trade deal for the import of lumber of Kazahkstan (in order to avoid insulting them; we need to import cheap lumber for use by Harperian crony industries, and use our own to gouge everyone else)

 

[Amon Savag]

Like I said, I think libertarians are either A. willfully ignorant as to the relationship between the markets and the state, or B. sinisterly aware, which is exactly why they continue to push forward this notion that "it's those fat cat bureaucrats! down with big government! buy mcdonald's!"

Libertarians as far as I know simply look at the entire world as one giant market and states as bad actors in the market, forcing people to trade on the terms of the states. No one in the libertarian movement that I know of would say "buy mcdonald's!", though no one would threaten force on you if you were to buy (what some people call) food from that particular vendor.

To respond to Symphony D on iceland, one socialist country takes an action different than all the other socialist countries, but you take this one socialist country to be your example of socialism? You've heard of exceptions, have you not? And your comment about "fiscal conservatives" is mute on libertarians. There are no real fiscal conservatives in american federal politics. Not 1. Ron Paul was the only fiscal conservative in washington when he retired. These "fiscal conservatives" you talk of are no different than the liberals, in reality. They don't argue over the morals of forcing people at gunpoint to subsidize things they might otherwise not, they argue over which things and how much money to force people at gunpoint to subsidize.

 

[Symphony D.]

To respond to Symphony D on iceland, one socialist country takes an action different than all the other socialist countries, but you take this one socialist country to be your example of socialism? You've heard of exceptions, have you not? And your comment about "fiscal conservatives" is mute on libertarians. There are no real fiscal conservatives in american federal politics. Not 1. Ron Paul was the only fiscal conservative in washington when he retired. These "fiscal conservatives" you talk of are no different than the liberals, in reality. They don't argue over the morals of forcing people at gunpoint to subsidize things they might otherwise not, they argue over which things and how much money to force people at gunpoint to subsidize.

Speaking of exceptions: have you considered the implications concerning the general public acceptance of a philosophy when not a single elected official in federal government is truly representative of that philosophy in any way, shape, or form?

It's almost as if Americans overwhelmingly don't like or want Libertarianism.

 

[Amon Savag]

Speaking of exceptions: have you considered the implications concerning the general public acceptance of a philosophy when not a single elected official in federal government is truly representative of that philosophy in any way, shape, or form?

It's almost as if Americans overwhelmingly don't like or want Libertarianism.

Ahw man you got me! I guess this means I have to turn into a fascist like everyone else, because otherwise I won't have any friends .

JK XD. I believe the American populace is more libertarian than they realize, but with the apparent merger between the state and literally all media outlets stating that if you don't vote for one of the 2 party coalitions you're throwing away your vote, and a general idiotic competitiveness the Americans have even in politics (Where once I was told that "i lost" the election and he had somehow "won", by getting his guy in. And somehow this made him better than me?), not to mention real libertarians would probably stay out of the public sector, just as some in the south didn't own slaves pre-emancipation for reasons of morality.

EDIT Disclaimer: The example given about the election competition was before I had taken my views on government to their natural conclusion, and participated in both the USMC and the electoral process. Both of which I now have complete disdain for.

 

[Symphony D.]

You are aware that a two-party state is more or less a direct and inevitable consequence of a FPTP voting system, right? And that the American FPTP voting system is enshrined in the Constitution? I mean, I think FPTP is pretty crap myself, but the odds of getting it changed are about as good as getting the Bible edited. So was it the Framers who set us up to be "Fascists like everyone else?" They built the system after all.

And they were always really into that unswervingly patriotic imagery, the cult of personality around George Washington, the Manifest Destiny...

 

[Azale]

hey, that's all on the federalists

Who were also the only ones with any clue what the hell they were doing in economic policy. It makes choosing sides between the D-R's and the Feds pretty rough.

 

[Amon Savag]

Yes. The framers set us up to be "fascists like everyone else." This is where conservatives and I have a complete falling out. They believe that small government is the answer, I ask "What happens when you only cut out 90% of a cancerous tumor?"

The framers cut out 90% of the tumor, leaving 10% to then regrow into the full blown cancer. The first act of the federal government under the constitution was to enact violence on people who were simply trying to trade peacefully without government violence involved. (whiskey rebellion)

Government bad. Constitution (charter from which government assumes power) bad. Patriotism bad. All these things I said are bad are institutions of violence.