Buzz Killington:A corporation is a corporation.
... That's not a definition.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
See thesaurus'
Since this is the low-content rant/vent thread...
You know what pisses me off? People who aren't willing to define their terms. Oh and also people who try to pass off non-definitions (e.g. "a corporation is a corporation") as though they're actual definitions.
I see what you did there.
So are you a hippy if accept the Carsonian narrative of political economy?
The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger
Also, technically they wouldn't as corporations are a state-chartered legal shield. That doesn't mean, however, that large businesses would be impossible. The term corporation actually has nothing to do with the size of a company.
Just found out that somebody on YouTube's username is "SchittReport." Whoever this person is, he/she likes to post videos with Cenk Ugyur supposedly "owning" Ron Paul, and comments on how libertarians are people who just say "tough luck" when it comes to helping out the poor.
Is it possible to be a libertarian and at the same time not feel extreme hate through how people constantly lampoon the ideology through arrogant stupidity?
To me it feels like banging ones head against the wall sometimes. The obstacles to being understood are so great.
1. As Jacob once sagely wrote, most people are in arrested development and cannot use logic.
2. Bertrand Russell's observation that people would rather die than think, and he sees that every day.
3. The schools proactively deter students from thinking rationally, forming lifetime habits.
4. There is a flood from all sources of constant brainwashing preaching economic [and other] falsehoods.
5. There is great emotional resistance to admitting one is wrong.
6. To most people, seeing is believing, meaning they don't grasp what they cannot physically see before their physical eyes. Economic principles cannot be so exhibited.
7. The effects of economic actions are often not immediate, so that cause and effect are seperated in time, obscuring the connection.
Any more?
My humble blog
It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer
My rants:
1. I was very surprised to discover that I am the de facto bitcoin opponent. Where is everybody? I also was surprised that so few people chose to deal with the gist of my argument: Refute Mises' Regression Theorem, or show why bitcoin doesn't contradict it. In reply, I got a flood of verbiage about how bitcoin makes buying and selling more secure online, and other irrelevencies.
2. I feel I have pretty much contributed what I have to offer to the forum, and have learned what there is to be learned here. It's like the end of a good summer camp, bitter sweet and emotional. I think also that there has been a movement in two directions lately in the forum that have left me behind.
First, there is much more interest in libertarian toipics than economic ones, it seems to me. My interest is in understanding economics. I take the libertarian stuff for granted.
Second, there is a trend here to try to squeeze AE into the Procustrean bed of the economics people are learning in school. The Keynesianism you are fed in the classroom stays with you, in ways you don't suspect. I prefer to start AE with a clean slate, and from a sound foundation of AE, look at what the mainstream is saying [and how absurd it is].
3. I find I am slipping lately. I've made dumb mistakes on my blog that I have had to correct. Not sure what that means.
4. In real life I am a pleasant character, easy to get along with, cheerful, respectful of others, [or at least able to hide my contempt of the contemptuous]. I don't like that my sarcastic side lets loose here, but can't seem to help it. Where did that evil Mr Hyde come from?
I also don't like that I like being patronizing to those who need it. Dave, I thought you are cultured.
5. I think the up and coming stars here are Wheylous and Gotlucky. They seem to appreciate my writing, the surest proof of someone who knows what's what.
Smiling Dave: First, there is much more interest in libertarian toipics than economic ones, it seems to me. My interest is in understanding economics. I take the libertarian stuff for granted.
I'm the opposite. I take the economic stuff for granted. I work slowly through the AE stuff because for me, it's enough to know that the specialists understand what's what, so I don't need to understand all of the more subtle and complex aspects of AE. I plan to go more in depth as time goes on, but I don't feel the need to binge on AE.
I think some of the people who study it in the classroom are actually economics majors, so they have to do it anyway. Anyway, there are still a fair amount of topics related to economics and praxeology, but I think a lot of newbies are trying to imagine what a private law society might look like, so I think that's why there are a lot of questions about libertarianism.
*Thumbs up*
Don't forget Neodoxy. It was a sad time when he went on break.
My turn to rant:
I hate when people make an argument and then refuse to engage in a debate about it. I'm not talking about bickering and insulting. I mean refusing to defend their argument from criticism and pretending that they have some moral high ground. Doesn't happen too often, but I hate it when it does. If you don't want to defend what you wrote, have the cojones to say it.
UNBELIEVABLE
What are some strategies to take down bureaucracies? I'm thinking of things like in this article: http://lewrockwell.com/north/north1108.html
Define "define", Auto, you may be using a different meaning than I am.
I seriously doubt it.
What do you mean by "doubt"? For that matter, what is this "I" you are referring to?
@ gotlucky
So...what prompted this?
DerpStatis response to me (or lack thereof) in the thread about one of Kinsella's arguments against IP.
gotlucky:What do you mean by "doubt"? For that matter, what is this "I" you are referring to?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_notion
Well played.
Oh why thank you.
"Neodoxy, clearly his point was just to make you shut up and go away. I hope he didn't succeed."
I've never been very good at debates on the internet. A big part of that is because I am good at picking my battles. When someone is spitting off incoherent doggerel like using economic jargon to say that the minimum wage decreases unemployment in most cases even thought this is disproved in basic micro courses, that is a fight that is in no way worth having, because it won't go anywhere, and I have better ways to waste my time than by arguing with someone who is wrong, will not be convinced, and who will make me angry because I am arguing with them.
Saying you're good at picking your battles implies that there's an objective standard for picking battles. There isn't.
You let him off too easy! What is this "http" he talks about?
There are some pretty strange symbols too. What is ":" and "/" and "."?
Enjoy your infinite regression, guys!
"Saying you're good at picking your battles implies that there's an objective standard for picking battles. There isn't."
I didn't mean the implication then, there is only what I consider the standard to be, and by my standard I am good at it, and I think that few people would have a vastly different standard.
@Gotlucky
And why the f*** is it blue?
What are you talking about, Neodoxy? I'm pretty sure it's red. And there's this strange squiggly line beneath it when my rat hovers over it.
Just learned the "federal definition" of parental involvement in a student's education.
Public education = child abuse
I have a story that leads to a "rant", so there will be a point to this eventually.
Anyway at one of my jobs (PetSmart) I found out that recently that we are a "red store" because of an internal theft problem we had. I found out it was our previous janitor who left in August (I never asked why he left, the PetSmart reply is always "he's no longer with us" about a fired employee, etc.) This morning I asked one of my managers about it and she said he stole $5,000 worth of flea and tick medications (over a period of time of course). During the sitaution they noticed they had a theft problem and contacted loss prevention, and by the time corporate responds my managers already had an idea of who it was. One morning corporate had someone staked out from 6 to 9 am in a car watching the back of the store and watched the janitor when he got off, and went to the back in some bushes and took two bags with him.
Now, when we take trash out and damaged goods we throw them away, we supposed to open any bags of food or anything else and dump them out so they can't be used in anyway. He was being sneaky with stuff and hiding it. My managers told me he was also suspicously finding the package lock containers that are on more expensive medications to keep from being stolen under the shelves (he's going to the register, unlocking them, and then saying he found them while he hides the products), and that he was always really urgent to take the trash out before he got off.
So they caught the guy, they had evidence, the had the paperwork from corporate, when confronted he played dumb and then said he'd pay back what he stole, when asked to sign a form consenting to his guilt he refused - I guess at this point he "quit."
I asked if he went to jail and my manager said he didn't because they didn't have actual evidence (I guess the guy staking out didn't take pictures) and he didn't consent. I suppose PetSmart can't do anything beyond that. The guy steals $5,000 worth of product over the course of a few months and gets away with it. Makes sense? I guess my rant has to do with how something like that can just happen, in all the paperwork and knowledge of the situation, someone can still get out with a couple thousand because they denied it and just walked off.
(Our store is a new store and for some reason has everything except security cameras, so he doesn't have to hide too much what he's doing, especially in the early morning when it's just a manager, stocker, and janitor all busy with their own thing.)
That's an unfortunate aspect of justice - even if you're right and you have been violated to the greatest extent, if you have no evidence, then you have nothing. That's life, I guess.
Autolykos: Since this is the low-content rant/vent thread... You know what pisses me off? People who aren't willing to define their terms. Oh and also people who try to pass off non-definitions (e.g. "a corporation is a corporation") as though they're actual definitions.
I've seen a few of your posts on here. Why do you insist on needing to clarify definitions for everything? By believing that definitions are circumstantial or relative, you must admit that you commit an ontological fallacy. How are we communicating at all but by using words to define the words we're defining, thus negating any possibility of true communication. G.E. Moore would probably have a nice conversation with you, if you can even call it a conversation. It seems that when you are backed into a logical corner that you resort to the whole, "How do you define..." argument, thereby admitting to defining something differently than your intellectual opponent and finding a convenient back-door exist to the argument altogether. Weak.
Have you ever talked to left-anarchists, TR?
Nope, is that dude Auto one?
Uhm, I don't quite think so.
You gain a certain appreciation for definitions of terms when you start talking to left anarchists. They thrive behind a mist of undefined words.
Wheylous, speaking of which, look at the post I made in MCB about language, I'd like to expand on leftists and language, but I feel like it'll fall short of even being a criticism of people I've debated with online.
The only leftist who was ever good with language and definitions was George Orwell. Other than that...well, Wheylous is correct, they all like to obfuscate their meaning with ambiguous and undefined (or poorly defined) terms.
Technically they are too good with language and definitions, it's fashionable to come off as some psuedo-intellectual and at the same time act like you are not, easy to hide the core of an idea, just convey a vague notion of it.
I know I have been guilty of that myself at times, as have other right-libertarians. I try to avoid it now. It's best left for the left.
And what's right is best left to the right.