Portion of Bitcoin enthusiasts who are into Ayn Rand?

[smscotten]

Why do we need a video of what this would look like? We have empirical examples of the way businesses organize themselves when they have no court system to fall back on to handle disputes: drug cartels and street gangs. Gee, wouldn't it be better if Coca-Cola and Pepsi could just shoot at each other and blow up each other's factories to determine their market share?

What happens when multiple law-creation firms disagree on their verdicts or their sets of standards? What, do we only do business with customers who have subscribed to the same law-creation firm? Oh wait, we know what THAT looks like too: we have that situation and have for thousands of years. When law-creation firms disagree with one another, they kill each other until they come to some sort of agreement. Great. And when Jack assassinates Joe what do we do? Oh, well, Jack didn't subscribe to any law-creation firm so I guess there is no way to sanction that behavior. Carry on, Jack.

Or maybe it's my opinion that since Jack killed Joe he might kill me too, so I'm justified in killing Jack. Which means you're justified in killing me. Or hey, why am I even using the word "justified?" It doesn't matter whether my idea of right and wrong agrees with anyone else's idea of right or wrong. It's a sociopath's paradise!

But anyway, you're right about one thing: you don't know what it would look like. And you seem to agree that there have to be some standards for behavior and some form of recourse against violation of those standards in order to have a free market. So come up with a better system and I'll be happy to have a conversation about working toward it. In the meantime, Ayn Rand said that the proper role of government was to preserve individual rights. She and I may not agree on the best ways for government to go about it, but that's a starting point I'm comfortable with and I think my energy is best spent working toward that rather than overthrowing all forms of statism.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=arc_ayn_rand_the_nature_of_government

My own take on Ayn Rand, she was absolutely right as far as she goes, but there is a larger picture she did not paint. The "more to the picture" does not contradict what she wrote, but it's wrong to think there isn't more to it. And the majority of people I've encountered that think she was wrong have a malformed idea of what she wrote. She wrote that someone who earns it deserves money. Her detractors seem to think she said that if you have money it means you must have deserved it. In fact, Atlas Shrugged has more despicable wealthy characters than admirable ones, and more admirable characters of modest means than despicable ones. If you think she idolized the rich, you haven't read what she wrote.

[TheButterZone]

Only watched Atlas Shrugged Part 1, thought it was this close to describing reality, or at least where we're being led by the endless parade of worse tyrants in government. So...

[Kluge]

Yeesh - first on the agenda in the new forums: decent polling code. Jaw opened when I saw how few read her books (like her or not) before realizing the results are borked. I spent most of my last two years in high school reading her books and writing reports for independent classes. Fountainhead's required in many US AP classes. Came to like her less the more I read. I don't think she ever topped We The Living (was the third book I read, after the major two). Everything else bored me and was dragged out many times more than needed.

Bitcoin's just a tool. It enables many things, including liberties which weren't easily-obtainable before, but it can also be a tool for what Rand would consider as evil. I don't consider Bitcoin being ideological, so I don't think it could be compared to Rand's ideas, books, or personality in any way. Though... if practical results (right now, and since the beginning of Bitcoin) could be associated to any particular person's ideology, it'd have to be Spooner.

[Spendulus]

Yeesh - first on the agenda in the new forums: decent polling code. Jaw opened when I saw how few read her books (like her or not) before realizing the results are borked. I spent most of my last two years in high school reading her books and writing reports for independent classes. Fountainhead's required in many US AP classes. Came to like her less the more I read. I don't think she ever topped We The Living (was the third book I read, after the major two). Everything else bored me and was dragged out many times more than needed.

Bitcoin's just a tool. It enables many things, including liberties which weren't easily-obtainable before, but it can also be a tool for what Rand would consider as evil. I don't consider Bitcoin being ideological, so I don't think it could be compared to Rand's ideas, books, or personality in any way. Though... if practical results (right now, and since the beginning of Bitcoin) could be associated to any particular person's ideology, it'd have to be Spooner.

I would agree, We the Living was the best book (the Italian movie, so so...)

Fountainhead has a complex plot, and AS is more a philosophical study superimposed on stereotyped characters.

I do like the two Atlas Shrugged movies, and expect the third and final one to be equally good.  They are not perfect, but are entertaining as any future dystopian movie might be.

Is Bitcoin just a tool?  I think you may be wrong there.  Rand greatly favored gold and silver over paper money, and spoke about this at some length.  Gold and silver were property to her, and paper money was not, it's use just being sanctioned by the government that owned it.  I can't help but think that she would have considered bitcoin as property, and treated it perhaps equally with gold and silver for that reason.

Another aspect would have been that Bitcoin was the creation of a money by free individuals, and she would have really, really liked that.

Well, that's just my opinion.  But I think that spending an hour or two looking up her exact words would support that opinion.

[Rassah]

What means does anyone have to protect their own property except by force? And what does it mean when two parties have different ideas about the division of property (eg how much profit each partner keeps in a profitable venture, where property boundaries lie, etc)? What recourse does an individual have against fraud?

Rules against fraud and force need to have an impartial arbiter, and that arbiter needs to have the means to enforce rulings as to the outcome of disputes.

We have empirical examples of the way businesses organize themselves when they have no court system to fall back on to handle disputes: drug cartels and street gangs.

What happens when multiple law-creation firms disagree on their verdicts or their sets of standards? What, do we only do business with customers who have subscribed to the same law-creation firm?

But anyway, you're right about one thing: you don't know what it would look like. And you seem to agree that there have to be some standards for behavior and some form of recourse against violation of those standards in order to have a free market. So come up with a better system and I'll be happy to have a conversation about working toward it.

The means are private dispute settlement and arbitration. Two parties that can't decide about division of property can both agree to a single arbiter. Two people who wish to make a transaction and wish to avoid fraud can decide on a single escrow agent. We have plenty of examples of this in the real world, ranging from multinational businesses that don't exist in any specific country settling disputes among each other, to even the mafia being hired as arbitrators in black market transactions to make sure the two parties don't try to steal from each other. There's no issues with multiple law firms/arbitrators disagreeing with each other, since the only thing that matters is that the two people in dispute agree on one of those firms. Likely the two disagreeing parties will realize that picking an arbitrator that both of them are at least ok with will be cheaper, more productive, and healthier than just going to war with each other. And the arbitrators (even the mafia) have a huge incentive to make sure they make just rulings and don't play favorites, since no one will ever use their services again if they prove to be unfair.

So, we know exactly what that will look like, simply because we already have all that. And it has only been made much more prevalent in the last decade thanks to globalization and vastly expanded international trade, where free market reigns without the  supervision of any specific government.

[countryfree]

I checked that I've read The fountainhead but I haven't, I watched the movie instead (old one, with Gary Cooper). I liked it a lot, I watched it twice.

It tells the story of a man's right to live the way he wants, and everyone can only enjoy the idea.

[smscotten]

The means are private dispute settlement and arbitration. Two parties that can't decide about division of property can both agree to a single arbiter. Two people who wish to make a transaction and wish to avoid fraud can decide on a single escrow agent. We have plenty of examples of this in the real world, ranging from multinational businesses that don't exist in any specific country settling disputes among each other, to even the mafia being hired as arbitrators in black market transactions to make sure the two parties don't try to steal from each other. There's no issues with multiple law firms/arbitrators disagreeing with each other, since the only thing that matters is that the two people in dispute agree on one of those firms. Likely the two disagreeing parties will realize that picking an arbitrator that both of them are at least ok with will be cheaper, more productive, and healthier than just going to war with each other. And the arbitrators (even the mafia) have a huge incentive to make sure they make just rulings and don't play favorites, since no one will ever use their services again if they prove to be unfair.

So, we know exactly what that will look like, simply because we already have all that. And it has only been made much more prevalent in the last decade thanks to globalization and vastly expanded international trade, where free market reigns without the  supervision of any specific government.

If every disagreement were an honest one, and if everyone on the planet was judicious and thoughtful before employing retaliatory force when wronged I might agree. I don't trust human nature enough not to want group oversight over the use of force, and i don't trust human nature enough to trust that the use of force is unnecessary. I've handed over my belongings to a stranger when looking down the barrel of a gun and I can tell you—that's not free trade.

Now maybe if we could round up all the sociopaths and shoot them, and then engineer our genetic sequences so that no new sociopaths would ever be born… but that's a nightmare of a world I'm suggesting. Instead we have pragmatic, imperfect solutions to dealing with disputes,

And for frack's sake why are we even having this STUPID conversation. The authoritarians will kill us or strangle us into submission while we're busy arguing how far to dismantle government. Government is growing in power every day. Don't you dare lump me in with the statists for wanting markets to be free of fraud and force. If anarchists won't see libertarians as being on their side, they won't have any friends left.

[herzmeister]

Question of scale.  

http://c4ss.org/content/4043

Sounds like a case of semantics  It has always bugged me that we talk about anarcho-capitalism, but never talk about capital, the main feature of capitalism.  So it's not that Joe Schmoe can't protect his property, it's that Richguy Bill who saves a fortune by using the state as his free-of-charge protection for all the property that he owns.  Without state authority to protect the billionaire's property, the billionaire would be forced to spend a whole lot of money on private security to ensure his property is left unharmed; considering a lifestyle in which one begins at the bottom, such an exponential growth in spending cash to protect absent property would discourage people from amassing all that property in the first place--rather, people would be more inclined to own very few businesses, if more than one, thus completely thwarting wage slavery, nearly blurring the line between the rich and the poor.

So really, most of us are anarchists, who want to make a distinction from the anarcho-communists et al, but in reality, the anarcho-capitalist is just someone who believes in money over sharing.  Very very interesting, thank you for that link.  I'm gonna just relate to anarchism from now on, since anarcho-capitalism as most of us (and I say this but I have no idea if I'm the only one who actually thinks this way) know it, isn't actually very related to real capitalism.

Largely, I agree, yes. I think libertarians, when investigating their opinions more deeply, will either tend towards pure anarchism (probably you) or capitalism (the mises.org and Tom Woods crowd -- von Mises also was a minimal statist for exactly the same reasons).

I already said in another thread that the reasons why "anarchy with property rights" aka "Proprietarianism" is popular in the US is probably because they have enough land and don't feel the aftermath of Feudalism that practically still is in effect in Europe to this day. That's why European Anarchists are very sensitive towards the issue of land ownership (or more generally: the question of ownership of the means of production), identifying it as the root cause of conflict and war throughout history, and the only way to overcome this is a more co-operative, open and communal mindset (voluntarily, without authority, mind you) in the people's spirits.

[Zarathustra]

Question of scale. 

http://c4ss.org/content/4043

... I'm gonna just relate to anarchism from now on, since anarcho-capitalism as most of us (and I say this but I have no idea if I'm the only one who actually thinks this way) know it, isn't actually very related to real capitalism.

Actually? Anarcho-Capitalism has never been related to reality. It is science fiction, written by aristocratic elitists in Vienna.

[Spendulus]

Question of scale. 

http://c4ss.org/content/4043

... I'm gonna just relate to anarchism from now on, since anarcho-capitalism as most of us (and I say this but I have no idea if I'm the only one who actually thinks this way) know it, isn't actually very related to real capitalism.

Actually? Anarcho-Capitalism has never been related to reality. It is science fiction, written by aristocratic elitists in Vienna.

Oh come on.   I would prefer Arachno-Capitalism.

[Rassah]

Question of scale. 

http://c4ss.org/content/4043

... I'm gonna just relate to anarchism from now on, since anarcho-capitalism as most of us (and I say this but I have no idea if I'm the only one who actually thinks this way) know it, isn't actually very related to real capitalism.

Actually? Anarcho-Capitalism has never been related to reality. It is science fiction, written by aristocratic elitists in Vienna.

Oh come on.   I would prefer Arachno-Capitalism.

I just spit out my cup of tea. Thanks   

[smscotten]

Oh come on.   I would prefer Arachno-Capitalism.

Ah, the work of the brilliant economist Sherkaner Underhill. I totally agree.

[dancupid]

Ayn Rand is Tolkien for libertarians - ie second rate literature from the L. Ron Hubbard school of writing.
It's not literature.

[smscotten]

Ayn Rand is Tolkien for libertarians - ie second rate literature from the L. Ron Hubbard school of writing.
It's not literature.

Let me guess: that's why you've never read any of it?

[smscotten]

(Plus, Atlas Shrugged is more like H P Lovecraft for libertarians.)

[dancupid]

(Plus, Atlas Shrugged is more like H P Lovecraft for libertarians.)

The difference between H P Lovecraft and Ayn Rand is the same difference between this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpWVk3h2SA8

and this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3W6yf6c-FA

[Spendulus]

(Plus, Atlas Shrugged is more like H P Lovecraft for libertarians.)

The difference between H P Lovecraft and Ayn Rand is the same difference between this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpWVk3h2SA8

and this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3W6yf6c-FA

If you have a point, it is not clear what it is.  This is both your fault in the two video analogy, and that of the assertion which you responded to.  That assertion:

Plus, Atlas Shrugged is more like H P Lovecraft for libertarians.

...is totally flawed because it assumes a fairly uniform response (a) to Lovecraft (b) in the beliefs and attitudes of libertarians.  Neither, of course, is accurate.  Lovecraft was, and can be considered,  brilliant or just b-grade horror.  Libertarians, one subcategory is those who follow Rand, others have different views.

In turn I would make a wild guess that these comments are both by people who have not even read Rand's work, but I'll leave them to comment on that.

[CIYAM]

Personally I found Atlas Shrugged to be a lot like Kafka's The Castle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_%28novel%29) - it just keeps re-iterating its point (of being powerless under the powers that be) to the point of "boring me to sleep".

It has some points but the constant re-iteration just destroys the book as it becomes more like a "rant" than a discourse (and literally I feel asleep reading the longest speech in it and ended up just skipping most of it as it was so boring).

Its fans are of course the "believers" (as is the case with any book that "preaches to the converted") but I think it is very unlikely to be the kind of book that would have a chance of converting non-believers (it didn't change my thinking about anything at all - although after reading it I am not likely to ever read another book written by her).

[Richy_T]

whoever has the best guns simply takes everything.

Guess what?

[Richy_T]

Oh wait, we know what THAT looks like too: we have that situation and have for thousands of years. When law-creation firms disagree with one another, they kill each other until they come to some sort of agreement.

Thank God governments are here to keep us safe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll