Political Theory

Re: environment and ideology

liberty student — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:02:23 GMT

I'm not trying to convert you. I'm looking for rational people with an open mind. The more someone supposedly "knows" the more unlearning they have to do, and I simply do not have the patience (I lack the virtue as an individual, not as a libertarian) to do so. It's your journey, all I can do is provide some sketchy directions and wish you good luck. Each and every step is your own. It has to be that way, because I don't want you to think like me. I want you to find out the truth.

Re: environment and ideology

Speckles — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:52:29 GMT

If you want to try to convert me, please go to the "Have we been going about it all wrong?" thread, I'm giving out pointers and stuff. If you specifically want to know why I think libertarianism makes the environment particularly vunerable to fanatics this parody sums up my argument fairly well. I'm not going to go back and forth on this issue too much in this thread though, as it's a bit off topic. I'm just going to restate that liberty student's attitude is a good way to scare people off. I'm actually sort of picking on him in the other thread too . I hope he's not too sensitive.

Re: environment and ideology

Jon Irenicus — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:31:46 GMT

So how exactly is arguing that peak oil isn't a problem since the market solves everything, then refusing to read anything that didn't argue that it isn't a problem any different?

Is any of the "peak oil" literature addressed to unhampered market economies? Or is it addressed to hampered ones? Or better yet, is it addressed to "unhampered" market economies which are in effect hampered ones? Because the difference between each is radical, and if it is ignored, any such literature is pretty much a waste of time.

-Jon

Re: environment and ideology

nhaag — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:34:01 GMT

Speckles:

As a person who is not libertarian and is somewhat knowlegable about global warming and other pressing enviromental problems, I've got to verify that liberty student is doing a pretty good job of turning me off of libertarianism in general.

Well, you are a libertarian already, you just have to digg through the fallacies you, as we all, have learned to believe during your life :-)

Speckles:

I mean, if I were to go off on how free trade was stupid, arguing that the increased motivation of the American worker would more then make up the difference, then refused to read any non-Marxist economic books you'd probably go off on me for being closed minded and irrational. So how exactly is arguing that peak oil isn't a problem since the market solves everything, then refusing to read anything that didn't argue that it isn't a problem any different? How exactly is a Libertarian society going to be able to handle any sort of crisis if that's the best one of its committed members can do?

Refusing to aquire knowledge is always a weak thing. How is a socialist, environmentalist, religious, atheist [write your favorite society here] going to be able to handle any sorts of crisis if members do not all ave the same perspective?

This is the real difference in your current point of view and ours. We do not think that everyone has to be the "new super human" being that has the same altruistic beliefs as anyone else, or, if he is not already there, needs to be "educated", which often means coerced to, at least act "as if".

We belief that there are no humans that have "the knowledege" and therefor are allowed to rule, which always means by use of force, to save the world, univers, McDonalds, the democracy, a glas of milk every day.

History shows that the central planners always failed, as there is no way to take all variables of a living system into account. Central planning and therefor, expert planners, does not work. We know from the same history, that laissez fair works. Now, works to achieve what? Works to achieve prosperity, allows for 6 billion people to live on earth, has been proven to be ingenious (planner are not invent anything they assume to go with what is already there), gave independence and toothbrushes to those people that implemented laissez fair even partially, like the US and parts of Europe. Managing the status quo is no way to evolve, it is a sure way to decline though -another lesson from history.

We libertarians believe that the individual is the the basis of all society and that societies are merely a group of individuals acting in consent. Society is not an entity with separat rights, it is a category of the mind to have a name for a group of consenting individuals. Therefor, all rights derive from the right of the individual to own itself. No rights can be valid that do not derive from this single basic right. A group can not declare to have rights, that a single person does not possess. Because you can not grant something you don't own, and because no individual owns the right to coerce others, you can not declare a right of a group to do so.

Speckles:

Also, just because the government is doing it doesn't make it okay. Saying the govenment is allowed to pollute, why can't I? is a school yard argument. Unless you have a realistic plan that, by maintaining or increasing your own pollution, you stop the government, I'm just going to roll my eyes at you.

The libertarian view is not, if the government can do it I can do it too. Quite the oposite, if I do not have the right to do it, the government can't have that right too, because I can't grant it to the government. If I pollute the environment that is not in my possesion or if the pollution agresses against a third party, than this pollution is a criminal act, that requires me to compensate the violated. This is true for a single person and therefor it is true for a society.

Remember what the society did to the farmers whos property rights where agressed against by the railroads by smoke and moreover by igniting their crops through the engines spitting out burning pieces of coal? I would say, the railroad corporations where liable to the farmers, as they violated their property rights. But what happend? The judges decided, that the "common good" of having mass transportation is more important than the harm done to the farmers.

This is how a society claims rights on its own. I believe this is not justified. Because if it was, society was worth more than a single human being and therefor has the right to sacrifice you and me for any reason it wants. All society needs to do is to declare it is for the common good, and maybe have some experts arguing this to be the case. But because society is no entity in its own but only a category of mind, at the end of the day, this category boils down to a set of people - the government - that is to decide what rights you and I have. Now we have an oligarchy, that lives of the work of those not part of this elitist group. You think that is appropriate?

If I was to go into a bank and rob $ 100,000 only to give it to the needy, would that make me a rightful person instead of a thief? I doubt it. If a group of people do the same, call it taxation, now all of a sudden it is legitimate? Another slight doubt I have.

Libertarians are individualists that claim that a group has no inherent rights and that each human being owns at least itself. This is contrary to all collectivst systems, where the group -society, the state etc. - has more rights and can define rights without deriving it from the basic right of selfownership.

If you believe that the group has special rights, including the right to make rights, than you have to believe that there are either of two types of human beings, one that owns (controlls) other humans -that is the master human- and one kind that is controlled by the masters. Or you have to belief that every human being owns a part of every other human being on earth, say 1/6,000,000,000 of every human being is yours. Now as you can not controll your tiny part of all the other human beings that you own, someone would have to controll at least parts of them, and we are back to belief number one, the master and slave belief.

Only the idea that every man, and sure every woman, is a selfowner can prevent this.

Does that make sense to you?

Else I have to tell you that I want you to send me the part of yourself that I own

Re: environment and ideology

Speckles — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:39:14 GMT

As a person who is not libertarian and is somewhat knowlegable about global warming and other pressing enviromental problems, I've got to verify that liberty student is doing a pretty good job of turning me off of libertarianism in general.

I mean, if I were to go off on how free trade was stupid, arguing that the increased motivation of the American worker would more then make up the difference, then refused to read any non-Marxist economic books you'd probably go off on me for being closed minded and irrational. So how exactly is arguing that peak oil isn't a problem since the market solves everything, then refusing to read anything that didn't argue that it isn't a problem any different? How exactly is a Libertarian society going to be able to handle any sort of crisis if that's the best one of its committed members can do?

Also, just because the government is doing it doesn't make it okay. Saying the govenment is allowed to pollute, why can't I? is a school yard argument. Unless you have a realistic plan that, by maintaining or increasing your own pollution, you stop the government, I'm just going to roll my eyes at you.

Re: environment and ideology

macsnafu — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:55:02 GMT

Peak Oil is not fact, but an ideology. That oil is a finite resource seems certain, as is the fact that we would eventually run out if we continue a linear consumption curve. Of course, economics clearly shows that the consumption curve would not be linear, and thus, at least some of the fears of Peak Oil people are irrational and unwarranted.

But Peak Oil ideologists don't simply argue that we will run out of oil, but that oil is a "cheap' and powerful source of energy (energy efficient), and that running out of oil will mean chaos and disaster, a return to a pre-industrial age for humanity. They also think that we will run out of oil very soon, like within a generation.

People with more than a smattering of science (or those who think they have more than a smattering) will tell you about how much energy we get out of oil, and that no other energy source is comparable to it. Again, economics tells us that there are always substitutes (at least in the broader sense, and not necessarily a one-to-one correspondence), and shows us that economic incentives will encourage alternative energy development. If oil supplies run low, prices go up, and alternatives become more cost-effective.

There's more, but those are the points I can remember off the top of my head.

Oil as a finite resource? Fact (although there are some who mention making oil from other sources, but those, too, would be finite, although they may last longer than currently existing oil).

Peak Oil? Ideology, not fact.

Re: environment and ideology

nhaag — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:31:30 GMT

Just to give you some more on this to read, here is my favorite introduction to the global warming topic.

http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html

And, whatever is right or wrong regarding that issue in a scientific sense, what happens right now by conquering this issue to increase state power and opress people is sure wrong. This is, in my opinion, one of the biggest assaults against liberty ever.

Re: environment and ideology

Solid_Choke — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:21:52 GMT

Juan:
I really don't know if peak oil's been reached or not, and AGW may be a fact. But you'd have a harder time arguing that 'ecological balance' is an objective and scientific concept - No offense intended =]

Peak oil might be reached soon, but I don't worry about it any more than people should have worried about peak whale oil. When something becomes to expensive due to scarcity than people move onto something else. If we have a regularly free market in oil then the transition should be pretty smooth.

Re: environment and ideology

liberty student — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 02:12:32 GMT

ozzy43:
First, perspective does not matter.

Tell that to an artist!

ozzy43:
Anthropogenic global warming (hereafter, AGW) is either factual or it is not.

The $100 trillion dollar question.

ozzy43:
If I choose to disbelieve in gravity, it does not stop operating, so my perspective on it is immaterial.

Maybe. If you adopt a philosophy of heavy pants to explain why you don't float away, that works too.

ozzy43:
Anyone who has read Socrates/Plato knows this.

My first job was at McDonalds. I didn't study Socrates or Plato. I wore heavy pants.

ozzy43:
So, in short, enough about belief. Enough with the magical thinking already.

Does this mean Santa isn't real?

ozzy43:
I don't care what anyone BELIEVES.

That's good, because I don't think many people care what you believe either.

ozzy43:
I care what they think, and can back up with logic, fact and evidence.

In the absence of perfect knowledge (which seems to be the standard you are setting), people make guesses. They adopt stances based on imperfect information. I have done this. I don't know about AGW. I know the ice caps have more ice than they were supposed to. I know the earth has not been getting much warmer since 1998. I know in the 70s everyone was obsessed with global freezing. I know that when people like Al Gore tell us that man is evil for breathing out, and people like Gordon Brown tell us we have to reduce our food consumption as he gobbles down a 9 course lunch at the G8 meetings in Japan, something is awry.

I don't trust statists. So when they promote something with sketchy science that a lot of people are confused and concerned about, I am likely not to buy into it. Not when it oh so conveniently happens to come with a tax and regulation hit that will be devastating to mankind, and promotes the idea that man is evil and should be controlled/punished by his betters. Namely, the same Al Gore whose house needs a nuclear power plant to keep lit up, and the same Gordon Brown who has a little extra heft around his waistline, as he's taking my unfinished dinner away from me.

I appreciate you are very passionate about this topic. You are probably much more knowledgeable about it. However, I have yet to see an ironclad, irrefutable argument made for man made climate change. Oh I *believe* climate change occurs, but how much of the impact is man's, and how much of the impact is from driving, or running our air conditioners, or flatulence, I don't know, and I doubt anyone else does either.

PS, you know what I think about all of the time? How all of the big trucks on the road spill out a lot of bad air. How all of the fighter jets, tanks, and armoured personnel carriers, aircraft carriers, and battleships must not be very fuel efficient or environmentally friendly. Shame I will have to give up my car so we can keep bombing people back into the stone age. But then, I am the environmental criminal, not the state.

Re: environment and ideology

ozzy43 — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 06:29:27 GMT

Juan:
I really don't know if peak oil's been reached or not, and AGW may be a fact. But you'd have a harder time arguing that 'ecological balance' is an objective and scientific concept - No offense intended =]

Well, perhaps - I am using the term conceptually, with no intended implication of human-ordered balance (i.e. as the eugenicists used to use it), and I think it's intuitive at that level. Ecosystems are webs of life where the individual components are interdependent. For example, it's been published by those who study such things that we've fished about 90% of the large, top-o-the-food-chain fish from the oceans. I think intuitively, most people can grasp that this is an example of humans, in just a few centuries, putting 'out of balance' a system which evolved into a stable (in terms of human lifetimes) 'ecological balance' over millions of years. Is this somehow dangerous for us? We don't know. Certainly, the fisherman who now catch the enormous number of jellyfish (their natural predators having been largely eliminated) are able to sell their catch - but they're fishing DOWN the food chain. That seems like an unsustainable situation to be in, caused by this human impact on ecological balance.

I simply think we have a responsibility to our kids and their kids not to leave them a huge mess to clean up (or maybe one that cannot be cleaned up) - and to have left them oceans with plenty of big tuna and sailfish instead of jellyfish woulda been nice.

What seems clear is that biodiversity is buffer. Strip away the buffer and you find youself in a marginally less survivable environment (analogy of monoculture farming is a good one - you need to constantly be spraying ever more chemicals to keep the plants - now utterly vulnerable - from insects and disease). Keep stripping it away, it becomes non-survivable eventually. Not rocket science.

Why do humans reproduce sexually? Because sexual reproduction keeps us a step ahead of the pathogens which are forever trying to catch up - it's an arms race. If we reproduced asexually, i.e. clones, then we'd almost certainly have died off because more of us be far more susceptible to a single strain of virus, or a single harmful bacteria. But we're not clones - the combination of father and mother grants us - diversity. Which renders us less vulnerable. No different anywhere else in nature. Reductions in diversity translates into increased vulnerability. Again, not rocket science.

Simple hyperbolic example: say we, unwittingly, somehow manage to undercut the ecosystem which supports plankton populations, and these creatures begin dying in vast numbers. That will in turn change the oxygen content of the atmosphere. Probably not good for us. But then, oxygen was a poison when it first appeared in large quantities in the atmosphere. Maybe we represent the long awaited revenge of the ancient methane breathers. ;-)

I think the following analogy is relatively apt:

We are children living in a huge glass machine, which crystal clockwork gears everywhere. We know the machine has *some* capacity for self-repair, but it's not clear to us how this works or how effective it is or where the 'weak links' might be. We know very little about how it operates (though most of us assume we know a lot more than we actually do). We do know that if it were to fail, in any of a number of ways, we would all die. So what do we do? We run around swinging sledgehammers and assuming that we won't break anything *too* important.

Our species is not 'homo sapiens' - it is 'homo sapiens sapiens' - that's how much we think of our brains - it's what we've named ourselves after, twice - wise, wise, men. Does running around swinging a sledgehammer in the glass machine that keeps you alive sound wise to you?

And what is the entity that has given us BIGGER sledgehammers and encouraged us to swing ever faster? The State, of course, which swings the biggest, fastest sledgehammer there is! Read about the toxicity and heavy metals contamination across Siberia sometime - average life span in many industrial towns is back down to under 40. Really astonishing how stupid and reckless we are - for such wise, wise men.

Re: environment and ideology

Juan — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 03:02:20 GMT

I really don't know if peak oil's been reached or not, and AGW may be a fact. But you'd have a harder time arguing that 'ecological balance' is an objective and scientific concept - No offense intended =]

Re: environment and ideology

ozzy43 — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 02:42:08 GMT

banned:

And here you demonstrate faith in my having faith in something I've already said I'm not prepared to make a conclusion on. I wish you luck as well.

The conclusion you stated in your post: "Free markets would solve the problem of peak oil."

Thanks, but I don't need luck - I have reason and logic, coupled with an often maddening determination to seek truth, regardless of where it lies.

I'd guess you are not prepared to take advice from me, and I don't blame you, but nonetheless, I'll leave you with some Sir Francis Bacon in the hopes that it will register:

"The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects; in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate..."

Re: environment and ideology

ozzy43 — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 02:36:40 GMT

Juan:
So because I understand that Peak Oil is not a 'theory' [more on 'what do we mean by scientific theory' here], and because I have determined that the evidence is compelling for a biodiversity crisis, both of which have immense and grave and relatively near term implications for our species,

Ecological balance - which all 6B of us depend on utterly for our very lives - not worth looking into?

That is as clear a statement of pure faith as any I have ever heard from James Dobson or Pat Robertson.

Have you considered joining the Republican Party? Sorry, couldn't resist. I'll continue...
Ozzy, Have you considered joining the green party ? Sorry, couldn't resist...

LOL touche...nicely done...;-)

Re: environment and ideology

Juan — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 02:29:44 GMT

So because I understand that Peak Oil is not a 'theory' [more on 'what do we mean by scientific theory' here], and because I have determined that the evidence is compelling for a biodiversity crisis, both of which have immense and grave and relatively near term implications for our species,

Ecological balance - which all 6B of us depend on utterly for our very lives - not worth looking into?

That is as clear a statement of pure faith as any I have ever heard from James Dobson or Pat Robertson.

Have you considered joining the Republican Party? Sorry, couldn't resist. I'll continue...

Ozzy, Have you considered joining the green party ? Sorry, couldn't resist...

Re: environment and ideology

banned — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 02:06:49 GMT

ozzy43:
You say you know nothing about chemistry or biology

I said I didn't care for the two... Of course I've only had high school level chemistry, so I won't really contest that.

ozzy43:
(though this does not stop you from commenting on "chemical renewable" oil)

I raised a point of disagreement towards your universally true claim that oil is non-renewable (at least in a short term sense). Since there's still a contest as to whether or not it is, I think saying it is true beyond theory is utterly false.

ozzy43:
and you say you feel no inclination to learn about the actual facts of this matter,

I said I had no inclination to delve further into abio/biogenic theories, atm. I'm trudging through Human Action and getting ready for a new semester and cant be bothered. I have read some of Gold's Deep Hot Biosphere though.

ozzy43:
you *know* that the market is capable of overcoming this particular, and by extension any and all, physical and geological limits that mankind may encounter.

Do you question whether a free market can overcome peak oil? My statement was not faith based, It's fairly easy to prove.

ozzy43:
If you are saying that our currently heavily subsidized and regulated market (and nowhere more heavily regulated and subsidized than in the energy industry!) can yield the same exact benefits as libertarians are claiming are reserved to a free market, then you just torpedoed every practical libertarian/ancap argument for why we need to get the State out of our economic lives.

I never said anything of the sort. But peak oil is not the problem, the problem is the group of thugs who steal and control property titles.

My statement stands.

ozzy43:
As far as being debatable, you need both sides of a debate to be able to withstand minimum scrutiny. The abiotic side cannot - this theory was conclusively disproven with data and evidence which was not available when the theory was proposed, 50 years ago but which is available now (only you would not know that, not having been motivated by a quest for 'truth' to do any due diligence).

And yet, they still hold debates on something that has been thuroughly disproven. How strange.

ozzy43:
and you have made no attempt to KNOW

false

ozzy43:
(and you are clearly not interested in KNOWING)

Blasted Trade offs.

ozzy43:
because it is sufficient for you to BELIEVE.

Is that what you BELIEVE?

ozzy43:
The truth doesn't matter - only ideology.

I'm not the one who's quick to claim that there are unconditional truths in the Natural Sciences.

ozzy43:
This is the same obstacle that I have observed in libertarians for years, and I think it is one reason (though only one, and not a primary one) why libertarianism has made so little headway. People get a whiff of the irrational ideologue and shy away.

Because Ad Homs are totally rational.

ozzy43:
You've been the perfect subject, and have demonstrated my point conclusively, thanks. Good luck with that faith thing.

And here you demonstrate faith in my having faith in something I've already said I'm not prepared to make a conclusion on. I wish you luck as well.