Bitcoin Forum

I see that the teenaged suburbia-dwellers are out in full force.

These sad people are deluded into thinking that disarming themselves against large companies (concentrated power and wealth) will make them free. It should come as no surprise that such propaganda comes primarily from corporations themselves. Luckily, most people understand that democracy is probably the only way that we (humans) can coexist in relative freedom and decency.

You honestly believe material wealth alone gives entities oppressive power?

Unfortunately, more or less than 49% of individuals get fucked over in a democracy.

A free society do not exist by coercion and violence.

A free society exists by peaceful cooperation and consent.

That is the doctrine of Voluntarism.

So let disperses with the idea of democracy and deal with each other one on one using the Golden rule principle.

I think it goes a very long way.


I'm thinking more like 2% -- the percentage of people that really own my country, for instance. Of course, it we're talking about human rights and basic standards of human decency, then even 2% is too much. The good news is that most Americans don't like messing with other people for no reason. This suggests that democracy is not the poison that some insist.


Here are some facts:

http://robertdfeinman.com/society/gmu.html

http://exiledonline.com/a-people-history-of-koch-industries-part-ii-libertarian-billionaires-charles-and-david-koch-are-closetcase-subsidy-kings-who-milk-big-government-tyranny-but-want-to-slash-spending-on-anyone-else/

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

The hits just keep on coming in that piece.

And there are others. The Koch bros. are just a very obvious example. Of course, they didn't just fund the tea partiers. Pretty much every "libertarian" outfit that you've heard of (and some that you likely haven't) have been bankrolled by others like them.


The golden rule and democracy are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I think they are truly compatible. So no, I won't "disperses" with the idea of democracy.

Well, I fail to see anything shocking here. How are the Koch brothers infringing on people's rights again? Getting rid of the state tax? Avoiding their own taxes? More power to them. I don't like taxes either.

They have some of the largest private companies? Good for them.

Yeah, they use government subsidies but when everyone else is you can't let yourself sink. It's only a symptom of a bigger problem, bigger than the Kochs themselves.

Also, democracy is one of the worst forms of coercion. Tyranny of 51%.

http://bradtaylor.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/spider-on-voting1.jpg

Yes. Every rich person's greatest problem is what to do to keep from giving anything back to the society that made their success possible in the first place. The end result of a society in which this is permitted to go unabated is pretty horrible.

For everyone else, like you, taxes help pay for things like clean water and many other things that libertarian types consistently forget all about.

Well, I don't know... Do you like roads? How about knowing that there are regulations that keep you from getting poisoned by tainted foods? Or the building codes/inspectors that keep the country from looking like Somalia? Or the internet? It was built using tax money. What's that? You thought the free market made all this happen? Nope. Taxes levied by representative (flawed, but existent democracy) government.

Th problem is clear: the rich will continue to abuse you until you realize that you can put an end to it. They use many tools. A favorite tool is propaganda - to fool you into supporting policy that sets favorable conditions (for them) that ensure that you will never be able to compete.


This must really make people like the Koch brothers smile. Yeah - good for them. For you, not so much.

As for the cartoon. I don't think that society is composed chiefly of "sinners, whores, freaks and unnameable things that rape pit bulls for fun." Maybe you do, but that's not my problem.

The rich doesn't own "society" anything. They are either productive or are thief. That's all that should matter.

Libertarians don't ignore stuff like that. I don't even like roads. In fact, I think public roads are subsidy for corporations, as well being killers.


Nonsense. The media get rich by catering to people's bias and belief, not that the media is designed for propaganda of the few and powerful.

Beautiful. Your response makes it difficult for me to take you seriously. How are people supposed to get around? What would you prefer? Rail? Good luck with that... unless you're talking about paying for it with taxes.

Go to any major American city except those without good public transit (like NYC or San Fran). Ever been to Houston? Atlanta? Good luck trying to get anything done without a car. Although I agree that rail would be far better than just roads.

It's called private roads. Plus tax is theft.

This is a caricature. The teenage in this thread is strong.

It is easy to say that taxes are theft while enjoying the society that is in some large part built upon them. Actually, it is just funny/sad (depending on how much I've had to drink).

Society doesn't have to be built or depend on taxation. Voluntary cooperation can produce a much better result.

It is theft according to libertarian ethical theory. Therefore, it is wrong even if I live on cushion of tax supported activities.

I cannot pay back the taxes back to the people who was forced to pay, but at the very least I can do is be committed to being a productive member of society to make up for those stolen money.

Folks, seriously, we've been over all this territory a million times.  What happened to discussion of the Free State Project?  Ignore gene and he will go back to reading the New York Times.

Split from The Free State Project (https://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=2988.0).

wtf roads are the ugliest piece of shit ever. why the fuck does every person need to own a car with parking right outside his house because their fat ass is too lazy to walk 20 m to a car-park or take a train.

here in europe everywhere is accessible by means of public transport. the reason american cities are so retarded (needing cars to go everywhere) is a result of amazingly retarded urban design due to extreme government regulation (suburbanism).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/64/Revised_petrol_use_urban_density.JPG

It's like suburbanists prefer to build cities for cars, not people.

See New Urbanism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGJt_YXIoJI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fz-eSj9kQ4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_urbanism

If roads wouldn't exist as much as they do now if government didn't exist, then perhaps it's because we dont need them EVERYWHERE!!

suburbanism is the failed idea of a city being micromanaged by a central party, partitioned into specialised zones according to the industrial revolution philosophy. it's an epic failure. roads congest despite being optimised for efficiency (you have to travel from one specialised zone to the other side of the city for the next). people are depressed from spending all their time inside cars and lack of human interaction from bustling city centres. it's expensive, bad for the environment, urban sprawl, segregated (leading to rich areas and inner-city ghettos). absolute disaster.

You miss the elephant in the room. If there wasn't a government there would be no-one to bribe . Then what are the billionaires going to do to control people? Hire an army? No, its easier to pay a politician or lobby group. If you are so concerned about billionaires paying off government , why have government at all ?

So,in the abscence of the state who will they pay off to point guns at people ?

As for roads - without regulations we would all be flying cars around by now. No need for roads at all. In fact they are incentivised to keep roads and not innovate because of all the revenue from pointing guns at motorists. They are an easy target. Without roads your couldnt milk your population dry.

I appreciate your post. This plot basically makes my point for me. Check out Houston. Guess which city doesn't have zoning laws ("keeping gubmint regulation out of our lives"). Also, it and those cities in that cluster were built about the idea of the car as personal transport as opposed to decent mass transit. Guess who lobbied the hell out of this idea. (Hint: it ain't named "Texas tea" (think Houston) for nothing).

You see those red European cities? I believe that is what libertarians call "socialist, fascist, communist, statist..." They could have expanded outwards into suburbs in the 60s and 70s. But they didn't. Wonder why.

The point is that we need transport. And it ain't gonna happen "voluntarily." It requires taxation, mostly by those who have lots of money (like the Koch bros and their companies which have profited from society and from their lobbying). Most people understand this, even though they may not realize how little these people (very few who own/run these companies) give back to the country.

I should add that all media, being corporate controlled, is party to corporate propaganda. I don't know why anyone thinks I like the NYTimes -- my ideas are in discord with the establishment doctrine put forth my what are called "liberal" newspapers. These news companies cover news in predictable ways, corresponding to their respective audiences and advertisers. It seems it is an easy label (reader of X) to apply to people who disagree with you. I've been called a reader/watcher of everything from Fox to WSJ to NYTimes to you name it. This is basic tribalism: same teenager thought process in play. I don't take offense to it -- same way I don't get upset when babies cry. This is to be expected.

And I noticed that nobody has even attempted to address the points regarding the Koch bros. I'll repeat that they aren't the only ones doing this kind of thing. I am sorry to say that the whole libertarian movement is a farce being perpetrated by those with huge amounts of money and influence. The good news is that it's never too late to realize that you are being duped.

Because until such a time as private power can be kept in check without a mediating force, expect to be taken advantage of by private power. Democracy is the best way we know of to handle this problem. Democracy gives each person equal power. Markets assign power based on money.


Um, private "security" (mercs). This is so obvious as to be embarrassing. It has happened before and will happen again. Concentration of power and capital does not require a state.

BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAA. Oh. Oh. Flying cars... ok, I'm better now.


Again, we can see right now, today the effects of what you are advocating and compare to what I am advocating. Look at those red dots and blue dots. Let's discuss how those commie statist red dots managed to get things done. Well, it wasn't by deregulation and without taxes.

All mainstream media are very sophisticated propaganda machine. The only difference is who you think the propaganda is intended for.

Most of humanity only read what they wanted to read and what agree with their views. If the news did not say what the masses think the world should be, the mainstream news will be forced out of the market.


The problem with your statement is that libertarians fight over each other who is the most idealogical pure. I remember hearing some libertarian diss the Koch bros or complaining something about them.

The kind of infighting makes it hard to perpetrated any sort of control over an entire group of people. Even though this community contains lot of libertarians, most of our comrades don't want to join the bitcoin cause. As you can see, the infighting makes it hard for us to organize politically.

Cartels in free market are known to fall apart. They're unsustainable due to the force of competition.


Good for you. Libertarian literature had much to say about how they think private defense agencies will work.


If you do not wish to discuss this seriously, by all means continue to laugh. However, mocking the other side's points and belief does not contribute to change in position.

This is why I never argue with statists . The only answer they have is to laugh at you as they get a proxy to take all of your property by force.

In b4  you are paying tax for people  with luxury cars to take their kids to public schools.

is there not a way to be anti-statist and support taxes, voluntary taxes like an investment scheme, opt in or opt out.

Its fine if everyone agrees and wants to have a government...its when you refuse that the problem begins.

With government there is no opt-out clause. They say if you dont like it then leave but if that is not a viable option you are no better than a slave.

So gene what would you do to me if i refused to participate in your society ?

I really hope there is more reasoning that goes into a statist perspective than what appears on the surface.

So we're all agreeing that gene is not a real anarchist?

Well anybody who laugh at the idea of taxation as evil is a statist in my book.

"Concentration of power and capital does not require a state."

I think this rules out all of the anarchos.

I take no view either way about most things (healthcare, public safety), but over regulation of city development is most definitely bad. It's because the US regulations for city development are a ton more stringent than here in Europe.

Go to any pre-communist country and you'll see everywhere filled with huge motorways and nameless grey office blocks. Those kinds of cities are depressing for the people that live in them because there's very little variety as they're sheep herded around the city.

All the most famous European cities (Prague, Krakow, Belgrade, Barcelona, Rome, Sofia, ...) are built around an old pedestrian city centre with the format of: main high street (usually without cars), monument (marker for orienting yourself) and park/greenery. That's natural development. Suburban cities have no such structure.

You could draw an analogy here with if the internet was centrally controlled. Websites were 'allocated' and required strict planning permissions instead of evolving naturally to fit a need.

The United Kingdom today has incredibly restrictive planning laws. People love the old city centres, but you could never get permission to build anything similar today. Doesn't meet planning requirements for car parking and disabled access, and has too many big windows pointing in the "wrong" directions.

You dodged my question. What would you do to people who dont want to join your society or participate in its existence ?

you quoted genjix not gene

Ah sorry genjix.

Statist. What an awesome word. ;D


This has not been shown. This is repeatedly conjectured (no evidence) by the fine people at mises.org. Also, companies don't actually like competition, which is why they spend so much time and money trying to distort markets. So the conditions which are supposed to foster this fabled competition don't even exist. They definitely won't exist if it is up to them. So this argument, which is critical for everything else that supposedly follows, falls pathetically flat.


This "literature" amounts to what is essentially an echo chamber of unsubstantiated conjecture. Funded by the likes of the Koch bros, let's not forget. Propaganda which teenaged suburbia dwellers and middle-aged white men just eat right up. This is not meant as an ad-hominem, incidentally. Those are perhaps the most important target demographics for this sort of claptrap, as professed by the spinmasters themselves.


He was being serious?  He did mention flying cars, didn't he? ::)


Probably what happens to shut-ins and recluses today. They languish in isolation. Or they write existential poetry. Most people won't care if you refuse to participate, as you're not controlling some important resource.

Now, if rich people, who made their money in large part because of favorable conditions established by society, don't want to give back to that society, then they will have to answer to their peers. Here is what separates you and me: I trust people to make the proper choices. In the old days, they used to tar and feather those people. I don't think that would happen today, but most likely, rich people who refuse to give anything back (via taxes) would have to face fines. This seems reasonable to most people and to me. It fits the offense.


This is my favorite (semi-incoherent) quote in this thread.


Statements of fact don't say much about the person who utters them. I'll also note that the irresistible impulse to affix appellations is symptomatic of the tribalism I mentioned earlier.


Demonstrably untrue. Houston is a glaringly obvious example.


I'm not sure what you mean by "pre-communist" or what this has to do with the fact that public transportation and roads are funded via taxes. You are not providing any instance of a functional system of privately-owned transportation infrastructure. Nobody here has. I think we know why.

Look, for all of you who hate roads, just build your flying car and have at it. Just don't expect any tax-funded air traffic controllers to help you navigate or tax-funded paramedics/firemen to scrape your body from the impact site when you realize what "an herioc" idea it truly was.

Sorry, the "jetsons" image just makes me mock like a mofo.


With respect to urban sprawl, you're providing the perfect instance to make my point. Thank you. ;D


And yet, this is precisely the sort of central planning that large media conglomerates are currently trying to establish. They are openly planning on how to control the infrastructure (paid for by taxes, of course) so as to allow them to double-bill media "producers" and "consumers." To try to make the internet just like cable television. Thank you again. ;D

.

Competition is the best weapon for combating abuses by private powers. Look at the cellular industry. Google dragged cellular network providers kicking and screaming to providing better plans to android users. It's not impossible to bring competition in this skewed environment as google have shown.

It will be a lot easier to introduce competition in an environment where corporations will borne the cost of warring by themselves and where privilege and monopoly are not as widespread.

This is how agorists(I am NOT one because I am a chicken) combat abuses, by counter-economic revolutionary activities.

Whats to laugh at ?

http://www.moller.com/ (http://www.moller.com/)




If you want an extreme example of your system in action move to North Korea.

Look at all the pretty lights that the government keeps on

http://www.atr.org/userfiles/korea-by-night.jpg (http://www.atr.org/userfiles/korea-by-night.jpg)


.....oh wait.


Best Korea or better Korea ?

Gene, you may be unaware that us anarcho-libertarians refer to the minarchist pseudo "libertarian" outfits funded by the Koch brothers using the derogatory term "Kochtopus" (type it into your favorite search engine).

Here's an 1984 article by anarcho-capitalist Murray Rothbard dissing the Kochtopus: "The State of the Movement: The Implosion" (http://www.scribd.com/doc/36448467/Kochtopus-1983-Libertarian-Moniker).  The term "kochtopus" was first used by the agorist (a form of libertarian anarchism advocating for counter economics to bring freedom) Samuel E. Konkin III.

Btw, does Gene actually use bitcoin?  Freedom of money seems to go against everything he believes.

Nice false equivalence.

Also, flying cars (airplanes?) are not exactly new technology. The absurd proposition that they make for good personal transport is what I find laughable. Aside from what is an extremely energy-intensive task (flying - a bit less efficient that rolling) you now have to handle navigation in 3 dimensions of unconstrained space. With many many other operators. This seems... unrealistic.

But keep bringing it up. Extra points for building and flying around in one. Super extra points for becoming an hero.

They are cheerleaders for unregulated business. Several posters here are right there with them.

Help me understand the distinction. What do you think of unregulated business?

Unregulated business=bitcoin.

I love unregulated business. What do you want to do about it ?

This is incoherent. Bitcoin is not a business. It is a currency, sort of.

Everybody is for "regulation".

Sometimes government controls have the effect of "regulating".

I think free people would be much more effective at "regulating".

And no, gene, free does not necessarily mean disempowered.

N.B. trolls eat flying cars.

Watch, he's going to argue democracy is the effective way for people to "regulate".

How many more pages are you going to dodge that one simple question?

What are you going to do if I refuse ?


If you dont answer it I will consider that I won this argument.

Honestly, this argument is so shallow. We are only arguing the basic sequences of our beliefs.

 ???

I did answer you, on the last page:

Prove to us that government force actually provides more favorable conditions than a freer society. Prove to us that prosperous people should truly owe their prosperity to the current state-of-affairs, if you will.

lol @ "fines"

What if you dont pay your fines ?

I suspect that you're young and maybe a little inexperienced in discussing these matters with somebody who disagrees with you, but let me explain why I will ignore that paragraph.

The first part is a classic example of begging the question:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

It is also filled with loaded terms.

Finally, a hypothesis or theory cannot be proved. The best one can do is to try to disprove the null hypothesis.

I suspect that you're young and inexperienced in these matters, but let me explain why I will ignore that paragraph.

The first part is a classic example of an ad hominem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

you come here to argue. you don't need to use schoolchild fallacy put downs. if your argument is strong enough then state the facts.

Rest assured that I did not mean to condescend. I think that Atlas is honestly trying to discuss the topic, but that the terms of the discussion can be improved. I think that he is young because I used to discuss things in the same terms when I was young.

I'll humor you and admit that I am young. 17 years old. I appreciate your good intentions.

I wasn't trying to find out how old you are, but I think we should all try to clarify important terms and discuss things without letting rhetorical tricks (unfortunately all around us in our day-to-day lives) get in the way. The Orwellian "language of politics" has effectively done away with politics today.

Big business are usually the most powerful enemies of free markets.

They hate being the slaves of consumers, so they seeks way to crush their competitors so they don't have to work their butt just to thrive. Human beings hate having to work so much for food, so it is reflected in how corporations acted.

Often, they used the government to make laws favorable to corporations at the expense of their competitor. Their competitor lobby to defend themselves, creating a vicious cycle.

Soon, everybody will be worse off in the long run. 

One way to eliminate such problem is to remove the vector altogether. That's not a complete solution. You'll need to introduce competition to force them to be efficient enterprise that serve the customers, their master.

I agree.

The law of unintended consequences says that anything the government does fails. They stop market signals getting through and people end up investing when they shouldn't , causing boom and bust cycles.

Sure they are great at having good intentions but in the end it causes worse problems. Interference in the natural order and market signals causes most mal-investment.

That's why I call myself a "free-market anti-capitalist".