Why not just define your terms and let those too lazy to investigate your substantive opinions wallow in their ignorance?
A private language is fairly useless.
Really? Tell that to physicists.
Catering to idiots is what's useless.
Nonsense. Idiots control the world. Not turning them off by an unpopular or off-putting label is a good first step.
A friend of mine -- the only other ancap person I know personally -- uses the term austro-libertarian, which I like but most people would have no idea what that means.
Not turning them off by an unpopular or off-putting label is a good first step.
Pearls to swine.
Exactly. If you want to spread ideas (pearls) don't call the people swine.
I believe in calling a spade a spade.
Fine. Don't expect much in return.
Trying to convince people who don't care is a waste of time. I'd rather spend the energy and time making myself free, and dealing with those willing to learn. The typical anti-intellectual person is going to be of little use for liberal ideas.
You really aren't going to make yourself free without their becoming educated as well.
I doubt they're educable to begin with. Freedom in the political sense occurs when the elite become anti-state, the masses follow suit with the same blind religiosity that they worshiped Mithra and Leviathan. Freedom in the personal sense occurs when I take command of the things I can control, instead of obsessing with things that are completely outside of it.
Angurse: You really aren't going to make yourself free without their becoming educated as well.
Then we are totally screwed!
Fortunately I don't agree with you.
If I wrote it more than a few weeks ago, I probably hate it by now.
We will see the destruction of everything that the government does happen like this. We don't need to win the approval of inert people beforehand. No dullness and clumsiness on the part of the masses can stop the pioneers of improvement.
I agree totally with this. The populist orientation of many libertarians is, I think, a fallacy derived from democratic theory.
Yeah, that post just skips the underlying How? How do you repair the split. How do you transition from government to the market. You definitely won't by just ignoring (or alienating) the public, as Mises correctly said.
Angurse: Yeah, that post just skips the underlying How? How do you repair the split. How do you transition from government to the market. You definitely won't by just ignoring (or alienating) the public, as Mises correctly said.
No, the split is just in our theory.
I wasn't saying that there is an actual split in the real world, but just that there is a split in our theory.
I'm not prescribing anything, but just describing the fact that, if you repair this flaw in your theory - which I already have - you will realize that, for the state to collapse, it won't really matter what the masses think.
I doubt they're educable to begin with. Freedom in the political sense occurs when the elite become anti-state, the masses follow suit with the same blind religiosity that they worshiped Mithra and Leviathan.
And the elite just exist in a vacuum?
Freedom in the personal sense occurs when I take command of the things I can control, instead of obsessing with things that are completely outside of it.
Since you could easily do both, would you be both free and un-free?
Have you ever heard of scarcity?
You are correct that due to economic laws the state shall collapse regardless of what the masses think, however, that doesn't mean that its falling apart in any fashion will yield positive results.
Angurse: You are correct that due to economic laws the state shall collapse regardless of what the masses think, however, that doesn't mean that its falling apart in any fashion will yield positive results.
I think that you are still misunderstanding me.
(Did you read the other post that I linked to in the one that we are talking about right now?)
I'm not saying that the state will collapse because of "economic laws", but that the state will collapse simply because entrepreneurs will create better tools. After all, whether you believe that the people running the state know what is going on or not, people accept the state as a tool. If some entrepreneurs come around who can build and market a better tool, it really doesn't matter what the masses think before that happens. They might laugh at somebody talking about private defense agencies; but, when one comes around capable of protecting them from state taxation or something like that, those people will "scramble" for it. It doesn't matter that the masses think that our theories are crazy, because they will accept them once a new generation of anti-statist entrepreneurs start putting it into practice.
We need to convince somebody, but we don't really need to convince the masses. If all of the geniuses in our society are trapped in the statist paradigm, nothing is going to come of this. But, if the geniuses start realizing this stuff, and start escaping from the statist paradigm - and I'm sure that this is happening right now, then we could expect something to happen. In other words, if everybody - including the geniuses - are still trapped in the statist paradigm, those "economic laws" might still make states collapse, but they might just end up being replaced by other states; but, if the movers - the geniuses - are able to escape from the statist paradigm, things will start happening - and they have.
I'm not saying that the state will collapse because of "economic laws", but that the state will collapse because entrepreneurs will create better tools. After all, whether you believe that the people running the state know what is going on or not, people accept the state as a tool. If some entrepreneurs come around who can build and market a better tool, it really doesn't matter what the masses think before that happens.
Spooner created a better Mail Service, has the U.S. postal service dissolved since?
We need to convince somebody, but we don't really need to convince the masses. If all of the geniuses in our society are trapped in the statist paradigm, nothing is going to come of this. But, if the geniuses start realizing this stuff, and start escaping from the statist paradigm - and I'm sure that this is happening right now, then we could expect something to happen.
"The geniuses" don't exist outside of the public sphere of influence. They won't be able to escape the state without, at least, public acceptance. If the public resents the geniuses having their own courts, they will use the state to take it away.
I agree with your main point, in fact, I've argued similarly elsewhere. Claiming that the best way to spread liberty was to convince wealthy people that they need private security forces and then let the envious middle class adopt them, and so on. However, this all still rests on the publics acceptance, as they still know the state to be a tool at their disposal, and the more they understand about real economics and less they believe in folk-economics the more likely it will be accepted.
Angurse: Spooner created a better Mail Service, has the U.S. postal service dissolved since?
Since when did history start proving anything?
Angurse: I agree with your main point, in fact, I've argued similarly elsewhere. Claiming that the best way to spread liberty was to convince wealthy people that they need private security forces and then let the envious middle class adopt them, and so on. However, this all still rests on the publics acceptance , as the state is still a tool, and the more they understand about real economics and less they believe in folk-economics the more likely it will be accepted.
I agree with your main point, in fact, I've argued similarly elsewhere. Claiming that the best way to spread liberty was to convince wealthy people that they need private security forces and then let the envious middle class adopt them, and so on. However, this all still rests on the publics acceptance , as the state is still a tool, and the more they understand about real economics and less they believe in folk-economics the more likely it will be accepted.
No, that isn't at all what I'm saying.
Hopefully I can clear this up in the next part of this post:
Angurse: "The geniuses" don't exist outside of the public sphere of influence. They won't be able to escape the state without, at least, public acceptance. If the public resents the geniuses having their own courts, they will use the state to take it away.
But we need to make a distinction between "practical acceptance" and "theoretical acceptance".
I'm saying that it is a mistake to look for theoretical acceptance, because they simply don't care about your theories, but that we should look for practical acceptance. I don't care what the masses think in theory, but only what they do in practice.
I don't care what the masses think in theory, but only what they do in practice.
Yes. Theory without practice is the same garbage we got from the liberalism of the 'founding fathers'. It does, of course, help if people support liberalism theoretically. However, de facto liberalism is the goal; people's beliefs are only a means to this end, and often not a very practical one.
But we need to make a distinction between "practical acceptance" and "theoretical acceptance". I'm saying that it is a mistake to look for theoretical acceptance, because they simply don't care about your theories, but that we should look for practical acceptance. I don't care what the masses think in theory, but only what they do in practice.
And I think its a mistake to make a large distinction between the two. I think peoples actions are heavily influenced by their ideas and the more people understand and adopt good ideas (theory) the more likely they are to practice and accept them.
I think peoples actions are heavily influenced by their ideas and the more people understand and adopt good ideas (theory) the more likely they are to practice and accept them.
Ever been to church. Ever seen how Christians behave? For most people 'ideas' are about fitting in, not figuring out.
Do you consider liberalism to be a religion?
For most people, yes.
I didn't ask about most people.
It's not necessarily, but very few people adopt abstract ideas on the basis of facts or reason.
It also doesn't mean it would be worth the diversion of resources it would require.
'Spooner created a better Mail Service, has the U.S. postal service dissolved since? '
Well Spooner was taken to court and wasn't allowed to continue his mail service.
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
To be clear, I'm not against talking to ordinary people about liberal ideas. I just think it's of very limited effectiveness.
Angurse: It does if it ultimately depends on public acceptance.
It does if it ultimately depends on public acceptance.
Did you read this post?
That "public acceptance" is so trivial as to already exist.
Angurse: Did the court he was taken to exist outside the public's sphere of influence? Any upstart PDA could also be taken to court and shut down.
Did the court he was taken to exist outside the public's sphere of influence? Any upstart PDA could also be taken to court and shut down.
We are going to need more than just one person like Lysander Spooner to take down the state.
This thread was going well.
But I think I"m going to puke now...
In States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. ... In short, a law everywhere and for everything!
~Peter Kropotkin
The most extreme example of this is a company saying "ok, the state takes 20% of your income per year; if you sign up with us, we will require only 10% per year and will defend you from the state". After a while, when other companies competing with them keep lowering it, we will finally be left with such a powerless state that we will need something other than the state to provide protection from petty criminals; and those companies would probably morph into general defense agencies.