I agree that an appeal to authority coming from a Libertarian would be pretty ridiculous. Which is why you'd think that would be enough to stop you from jumping to such an absurd conclusion but unfortunately not. Somehow you managed to twist a simple question into an appeal to authority even while acknowledging how ridiculous it would be coming from me. That's pretty impressive.

Now, would you like to know what my point actually was in asking that question or would you like to just keep putting words in my mouth?

I wonder if any of you know what text was in the blockchain's genesis block.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/09/nyregion/metro-news-briefs-connecticut-judge-rules-that-police-can-bar-high-iq-scores.html

Literally.

If you want to solve a really hard problem then you need a few more Einsteins and other really exceptional geniuses. Do you know how you get more geniuses? You create a few more billion people and a certain percentage of them will be exceptionally smart.

Besides, what good is a pristine planet when there's nobody around to enjoy it?

Good luck with that.


There's no precise definition but basically, a failed state is characterized by political and economic failure. A non-state isn't necessarily characterized by those things. What Libertarians desire is a society not based on statism but with a thriving political and economic system that is entirely voluntary.

Getting back on topic...


They don't sound like very smart business owners. If they were then they'd follow the money and ignore the rest. Doesn't sound like a huge loss here.

Most people don't want violence in their daily lives, just want to be left alone and are basically decent human beings when they know other people are watching. That being the case, the majority of people can easily defend themselves against a violent minority that don't care who knows they're murdering thieves.

You're right that authority grows from the barrel of a gun which is why we need to make sure that most of us decent folks that don't want constant violence, don't want to harass others and don't want to kill and steal, are well enough armed and organized to keep the minority at bay. That kind of power is simply self-defense and if you think that self-defense is morally wrong then you might as well just lay down and wait to die.


I think it's evidence that the kind of crowd that's interested in Bitcoin has strong opinions about politics and therefore political debate is inevitable. Therefore, it makes more sense to give it a place to happen rather than having it sprinkled all over the forum. A moderator can now come along and split the thread, moving the political debate posts to the proper section. That's pretty much why the politics section got started in the first place.

Citation needed.


A failed state is not the same as no state.


I'm not against organization. I'm against aggression. If you think that you need to use aggression against others to protect them from aggression, you need to reevaluate your logic.

If you have sex with 1,001 people and 1,000 consent but 1 does not, you're a rapist. If you take money from 1,001 people and 1,000 consent but 1 does not, you're a thief.

You accuse anarchists of being Utopians but it's you that is being unrealistic if you really think that people can't govern themselves but somehow will be able to govern others.

First of all, I would never advocate the breaking the law. I advocate abolishing it. Second of all, overthrowing governments is what the United States of America was founded on. It's pretty amazing to me how one can be considered a "radical" or "extremist" just by advocating values that this country is based on. Have you really never heard of the American Revolution or read the Declaration of Independence?


We overthrew the colonial English government and created a new government based on our own ideals. Somehow people should be freaked out when we suggest that it might be time to do that again? It's depressing that we've grown so far apart from our roots. The words in bold mean that we grant authority to the government, not the other way around, and if we don't like what they do with the authority we give them, it's our right to revoke it.

Experts in general are competent in their field but incompetent in others. In this case, they're good with computer science and engineering but bad with economics and political science. Also, there have been several stories about Bitcoin. The Slashdot crowd hates repetition and attention-seeking. Many people perceive the spate of Bitcoin stories to be a way to pump up the value of Bitcoin. That combined with the jealousy over not getting involved earlier makes them generally bitter.

I agree with you but the reason why my answer still stands is because the keyword is record. There's no way to determine who the rightful owner is without some sort of record. If I bought a parcel of land from Alice, who bought it from Bob, who bought it from Carol, and so on, then all that is considered legitimate unless you can demonstrate that at some point it was stolen from someone, for example Carol stole it from Dave. Otherwise, the current titles can be considered legitimate. If you disagree then you have some sort of burden of proof. Also, I did mention "eminent domain" in the post you're responding to. So you can't say that I didn't already acknowledge your point before it was even made.

Not with this offer but I'll probably do something like that in the future.

Unless there is some record of theft, we assume that the current owners are the rightful owners. The exception, as I hinted at, is when there is a record of theft, for example, my family owned a farm for dozens of generations and then the government seized it under "eminent domain" to build a road. That land would be returned to me.


They don't own the whole moon, no. They own part of it. You need to understand homesteading. To claim unowned property, you have to mix your labor with it and you only own so much as you've mixed your labor with. If you build a base on the moon, you don't own the whole moon or even that chunk of the moon all the way to the center. You've never been to the center of the moon. You only own that area on the surface and enough below it so that if I dig beneath you, I'm not compromising the structure of your construction. If it's found out that there's a lot of valuable resources below that, I can dig at an angel to retrieve them, as long as I don't damage the integrity of your base.

You really need to read some books on Libertarianism. I would suggest Walter Block's "The Privatization of Roads and Highways" as he discusses how to homestead things that are currently unowned as well as things that are currently owned by the government, which presents a slightly different problem.

You can read his book online: http://mises.org/books/roads_web.pdf


You have to be able to exclude others from using it. You can't own a farm and then yell up at the airplanes to stop trespassing. However, if you build a glass dome over your land then you can own the air, the radio waves as well if you can stop them from leaving your property. Rivers are a slightly more complicated issue because if there are people downstream from you, you can't dam it or pollute it because that would be damaging their part of the river and you can't damage other people's property. However, if the rest of the river is unowned, you can do whatever you want and someone can't come in later, notice a dry riverbed and then demand that you tear your dam down so they can have some water. You were there first.

I am, by the way.


Well, if he wants to steal property and since a Libertarian society doesn't permit theft then he will be forced not to steal. Likewise, if he wants to murder people and since a Libertarian society doesn't permit murder then he will be forced not to murder. In a way, he will be forced to abide by Libertarian ideals. However, the question is, why should we care about disallowing theft and murder? Am I really supposed to feel pity for a murdering thief? Why should I, when such a person has no pity for their victims?


It's voluntary because you aren't forced at gunpoint to refrain from doing anything that doesn't violate someone's natural rights. If you think you should be free to take money from people, too bad. That's nonnegotiable as far as I'm concerned.

The current system isn't voluntary because we are forced at gunpoint to refrain from doing things that don't violate someone's natural rights i.e. there are certain drugs we can't consume, we can't pay or be paid less than minimum wage, we can't keep all the money we earn and not be forced to pay taxes, and the list goes on. Again, if you think you should be free to steal from others in the form of taxes or kick down their doors because they are smoking a joint, that's just too bad. I don't feel sorry for coercing you to leave other people alone.

Since we're making analogies to religion, your argument is kind of like when some religious person claims that atheists have faith because they can't prove God doesn't exist. So yes, I am forcing you to leave other people alone and keep your mitts to yourself. If you think you should be able to steal and kill, there's nothing stopping me from doing the same to you. You can't have it both ways. You can't claim you should be free to strip others of their freedom. You really need to acknowledge the difference between self-defense and aggression. One is justified, the other is not.

Notice how I responded to your argument without resorting to name calling. I didn't accuse you of "whining" or "sucking the teat of the government" or any other insults. Please give that a try because that kind of cruft adds nothing to the discussion. It's just noise.

So, you think you should be free to deny other people their freedoms? Then why should we respect your freedom? It's nonsensical. You aren't special. If you make a rule such as, it's alright to deny people their freedoms, then the same rule applies to you. It's like saying that you should be free to kill other people but they shouldn't be free to kill you. It's not even something that merits debate.

Libertarian society is simply "keep your hands off other people and their property unless you have their permission". Are you really going to argue disallowing that is tantamount to coercion? Do you really think you should be free to deny others their freedom?

If you want to form a Democracy, Theocracy or Communistic society you're perfectly free to do so as long as the people that are participating do so voluntarily. You just need to refrain from using aggression to force others to do what you want them to do and it'll still be a Libertarian society.

Like I said, all human interactions should be voluntary. Try couching your argument in those terms and see if you can make sense of your complaint of being forced to not force others to do things they don't want to do. I don't think that's even coherent.

Abolition of aggression is also a single issue.

The belief that all human interactions should be voluntary isn't a very complex issue.

I'm confused as to what you're actually saying. Can you explain for those of us that have never used the service?

The same goes for the abolition of slavery. I guess that'll never happen either. Oh wait...


Yet again, you're engaging in name calling, attaching negative labels to ideas you disagree with.

Awesome, I've added you 3 to the list.