bitcoin changing my ideology from socialism to libertarianism! What about you?

[spiceminer15]

blah blah

just another asshole who is too cowardly to steal for himself, so they get government to do it

[jonald_fyookball]

Beliathon cant objectively explain or define capitalism without regressing into meaningless pejoratives and circular reasoning.  At least I havent seen it.  So without clear defintions, you cant discuss intelligently. Sorry but its true.

So with the market’s ability to assess values, it’s true that a broad, robust, well-managed market can do this thing. But our current leveraged, opaque, unmanaged markets do just the opposite, as evidenced by the series of economic bubbles that have ruined our economy.

totally agree so I'm not sure why you persist in blaming capitalism (The essence of free-trade) instead of politics (interference with free-trade)

[BADecker]

This country needs to learn, once and for all, that capitalism is not perfect and that radical capitalism is destructive. Markets, trade, money, all the normal stuff is generally fine, but the special status afforded the Too Big to Fail club puts them beyond the law yet dependent on government to save them when they’ve gone too far. They get all the speech rights of an individual, only their speech is money and they have pretty much all of that.

This, my friends, is called “tyranny”. And it has got to go.

Yet, the base that drives capitalism is a thing that lives in all of us. It is called selfishness. Selfishness satisfied becomes greed.

Consider a mother with her infant. Mother loves her infant. Mother might even give up her life to protect her infant. Is it love, or is it selfishness? I'd say, both combined. The selfishness part is that mother instinctively knows she just could not live if her child died. This is an exaggeration, of course. Many mothers live, long after they lose their children. But the feeling? Is it love or is it selfishness, or both?

Think of everything that you do in life. Is it because you just love to do it? Or is it something you do out of necessity, because you are afraid that you will starve, or be left without clothing or shelter, or maybe die if you don't do it? Pure altruism doesn't exist. Altruism that is mixed with selfishness is rare. Mostly it is selfishness way down deep, or maybe, not so deep down.

So, what happens when a person gains a lot of wealth? All his needs are met, and he can see that he is in no danger of poverty, or death (at least in the short run). What kinds of feelings enter in? The feelings are the feelings of eliteness. These feelings sneak and creep into the minds of even the most humble and altruistic of wealthy people. Some few wealthy people recognize it, and manage to retain some similitude of humility. But it changes even them, somewhat.

[Beliathon]

Yet, the base that drives capitalism is a thing that lives in all of us. It is called selfishness.

"Despite the mounting research evidence that humans are wired for empathy and often express their empathic regard by engaging in altruistic activity, the naysayers cling to the defense that people act that way because they have learned, through past experience and conditioning, that helping another person mutes their own empathic distress and provides them a sense of relief and, on occasion, even pleasure, because they have been morally accountable. Hoffman points out that just because one feels better because he or she was able to help another in distress doesn't mean that it is the sole or even a major reason for being altruistic. The pleasure might be an unexpected by-product, but not a prime motivating factor, for engaging in altrustic behavior in the first place."
-Jeremy Rifkin, The Empathic Civilization



https://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_rifkin_on_the_empathic_civilization

[cuddaloreappu]

oh common now we are now back to square one...

"despite the mounting evidence that humans are wired for empathy"

did we disagree?

certainly not!

all humans have empathy as a result of the expression of altruism which is coded in our genes!

the same genes also have expressions of selfishness. .

it is just that humans as any other species have selfish individuals in majority of the population!

you can disagree! but have to prove with scientific evidence that humans as species are more altruistic than selfish...

take a look at history and look at all the wars! genocide! exploitation! violence and compare that with events where humanity stood for empathy and altruism!.. empathy becomes miniscule in comparison.

and in this 10 thousand history reign of human selfishness and greed we now turn around and try to build an utopia believing that humans are wired for empathy based on experiments run in labs with very limited sample size while the contrary is so evident in all our history books!

yes we both want to built an utopia!

my take is I accept for what a human is and suggest a system that satisfies both his selfishness and greed and at the same time improve the standard of living of all humans altruistically..

that I believe is libertarian free market capitalism!

[Spoetnik]

you like labels huh ?

never spent any of my time in my entire life worrying about that lol

seems like a big American thing.. bordering psuedo-racism or at least stereo-typing

get info.. make decision.
info changes ? re-make decision.

re-apply a new label to what you are ?  

i tell ya guys i am seriously tired of hearing this discussion all over the web endlessly..
little bickering fests all over on each site where guys label each and attack each over labels.
it's dumb .

there is your label lol

[Beliathon]

oh common now we are now back to square one...

Yes we are. Because you haven't read any of the books or articles I've linked, you haven't taken the time to understand the hard science which demonstrates human beings are neuro-biologically wired for empathy, not selfishness, which is a temporary cultural obsession along with conspicuous consumption / materialism / narcissism.

http://www.narcissismepidemic.com/aboutbook.html

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-narcissism-epidemic

i tell ya guys i am seriously tired of hearing this discussion all over the web endlessly..

Does your computer control what threads you click without your consent? You should really get that checked out, man. Could be malware, or just typical user logic error.

[cuddaloreappu]

oh common now we are now back to square one...

Yes we are. Because you haven't read any of the books or articles I've linked, you haven't taken the time to understand the hard science which demonstrates human beings are neuro-biologically wired for empathy, not selfishness, which is a temporary cultural obsession along with conspicuous consumption / materialism / narcissism.

http://www.narcissismepidemic.com/aboutbook.html

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-narcissism-epidemic

i tell ya guys i am seriously tired of hearing this discussion all over the web endlessly..

Does your computer control what threads you click without your consent? You should really get that checked out, man. Could be malware, or just typical user logic error.

as far as the dozens of links you provided  it sure will take time to read though! but I will complete it..

Meanwhile do you seriously believe that selfishness is just a cultural obsession and an expression of conspicuous consumption!

Even a dog and a bird selfishly collects food for its off springs!

You definitely have to read this, I recommend this to everyone in this thread

Altruism, Selfishness, and Genes
   

[cuddaloreappu]

 With more than 1300 citations according to Google scholar, One cannot simply ignore this scientific paper about Altruism by W.D. Hamilton

The Evolution of Altruistic Behaviour

And if we think rationally, we can  even say empathy and altruism are just a strategy to maximize the gene pool by the selfish genes!

[BADecker]

With more than 1300 citations according to Google scholar, One cannot simply ignore this scientific paper about Altruism by W.D. Hamilton

The Evolution of Altruistic Behaviour

And if we think rationally, we can  even say empathy and altruism are just a strategy to maximize the gene pool by the selfish genes!

This !!! 

[practicaldreamer]

     About 25 years ago, over the Christmas holiday, in a small north of England town, a young girl was playing alone on the ice on a pond in the local park. The ice fell through and the girl plunged into the freezing water. As I remember she was around 7 or 8 years of age.
   There was an off duty fireman walking his dog. Upon seeing what had occurred he plunged himself into the water to try to save the girl. I remember that he was an off duty fireman because I remember thinking that he must have been aware of the risks. Both the girl and the fireman were now beneath the surface of the water.
    Another man by chance walking by also witnessed the incident - and himself then also plunged into the pond to try to save the girl - and possibly at this point maybe to save the fireman also.
     None of these 3 people were related to each other - and were strangers.

 I remember the incident for many reasons, but not least because for around 48 hours after the bodies were recovered from the depths of the pond the doctors at the local hospital tried to slowly "warm" up the bodies. There have been cases whereby people who have died in such circumstances have been able to be slowly revived and brought back to life.
    Thousands of people in the vicinity who were aware of the tragedy, for the 48 hours that they tried to revive the 3 souls, silently prayed. I know I did - and I'm not really a religious man - at least in the conventional sense.
     But it was to no avail. All three died.


    How were the men above possibly acting selfishly ?

I know it can be argued thus, using rational and reasoned argument - but to be honest, when you explain to yourself actions such as those above by those 2 men as deriving from selfishness and/or survival instincts etc, you are in effect denying that which is most noble in humanity. You are denying that which fundamentally makes life worth living - and in the process of so doing you are taking a free ride off the back of it.

    You are denying the possibility of love, one human being to another.

We are the stuff that dreams are made of - your world must be a dark place if you don't believe that.
 

[rugrats]

    About 25 years ago, over the Christmas holiday, in a small north of England town, a young girl was playing alone on the ice on a pond in the local park. The ice fell through and the girl plunged into the freezing water. As I remember she was around 7 or 8 years of age.
   There was an off duty fireman walking his dog. Upon seeing what had occurred he plunged himself into the water to try to save the girl. I remember that he was an off duty fireman because I remember thinking that he must have been aware of the risks. Both the girl and the fireman were now beneath the surface of the water.
    Another man by chance walking by also witnessed the incident - and himself then also plunged into the pond to try to save the girl - and possibly at this point maybe to save the fireman also.
     None of these 3 people were related to each other - and were strangers.

 I remember the incident for many reasons, but not least because for around 48 hours after the bodies were recovered from the depths of the pond the doctors at the local hospital tried to slowly "warm" up the bodies. There have been cases whereby people who have died in such circumstances have been able to be slowly revived and brought back to life.
    Thousands of people in the vicinity who were aware of the tragedy, for the 48 hours that they tried to revive the 3 souls, silently prayed. I know I did - and I'm not really a religious man - at least in the conventional sense.
     But it was to no avail. All three died.


    How were the men above possibly acting selfishly ?

I know it can be argued thus, using rational and reasoned argument - but to be honest, when you explain to yourself actions such as those above by those 2 men as deriving from selfishness and/or survival instincts etc, you are in effect denying that which is most noble in humanity. You are denying that which fundamentally makes life worth living - and in the process of so doing you are taking a free ride off the back of it.

    You are denying the possibility of love, one human being to another.

We are the stuff that dreams are made of - your world must be a dark place if you don't believe that.
 

Poignant. Heartbreaking. Beautiful.

[rugrats]

With more than 1300 citations according to Google scholar, One cannot simply ignore this scientific paper about Altruism by W.D. Hamilton

The Evolution of Altruistic Behaviour

And if we think rationally, we can  even say empathy and altruism are just a strategy to maximize the gene pool by the selfish genes!

This !!!  

Self-professed libertarians, riddle me this!

Prototypical libertarian, John Locke, wrote this line in Second Treatise of Civil Government (Chapter 2):

"Every one as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his Station wilfully; so by the like reason when his own Preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of Mankind, and may not unless it be to do Justice on an Offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the Preservation of the Life, the Liberty, Health, Limb or Goods of another."

Less than three centuries later, Ayn Rand wrote this in The Virtue of Selfishness (Chapter 1, The Objectivist Ethics):

"The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that just as life is an end in itself, so every living human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others—and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. To live for his own sake means that the achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest moral purpose."

Over three centuries after Locke's death, Ron Paul emerged to become the public face of paleolibertarianism. I would bet a satoshi or two (I'm cavalier that way), most of the self-professed libertarians in this thread were converted to the cause by Paul. However, despite Paul's latter day apparent support of voluntary altruism, his past tells a different story. In his own words,

"The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. The fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism."

I won't even bring up his newsletters, his off the cuff comments or his remarks to his homosexual aide.

Instead, I'll finish this riddle with this question: Has libertarianism undergone a 180 degree turn in the past 330 years, or is this merely the case of a personality cult?
Because my friends, this battlecry of individualism is, to be frank, fucking scary to listen/read.

Oh, and watch this before responding: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=632CHpeHYZE

[tvbcof]

ps. I reckon a big part of your beef is with bureaucracy tvb.

I've never read Kafka mostly because I've not read much fiction at all.  I should.  I'm familiar enough with the meaning of 'kafkaesque' having many times run across it in context.

Yes, many aspects of our increasingly complex and globalized world are very 'kafkaesque'.  The more I look (and feel the impacts of) our modern world, the more kafkaesque things seem.  While on some level this provides entertainment value, it's simply to damaging to to many people.  It has great utility to those who are engaged in complex (and often somewhat nefarious) projects, but I firmly believe that more people would be better served by having systems based on the principles of 'open source' (for lack of a better modern term.)

Libertarians and Anarchists tend to be simple people with simple ideas.  I feel that the end result (to the extent that there is an end) will almost certainly be better with more simplicity and straightforwardness in implementation.  That is what these groups bring to the table and why they increasingly have my support.

[BADecker]

    About 25 years ago, over the Christmas holiday, in a small north of England town, a young girl was playing alone on the ice on a pond in the local park. The ice fell through and the girl plunged into the freezing water. As I remember she was around 7 or 8 years of age.
   There was an off duty fireman walking his dog. Upon seeing what had occurred he plunged himself into the water to try to save the girl. I remember that he was an off duty fireman because I remember thinking that he must have been aware of the risks. Both the girl and the fireman were now beneath the surface of the water.
    Another man by chance walking by also witnessed the incident - and himself then also plunged into the pond to try to save the girl - and possibly at this point maybe to save the fireman also.
     None of these 3 people were related to each other - and were strangers.

 I remember the incident for many reasons, but not least because for around 48 hours after the bodies were recovered from the depths of the pond the doctors at the local hospital tried to slowly "warm" up the bodies. There have been cases whereby people who have died in such circumstances have been able to be slowly revived and brought back to life.
    Thousands of people in the vicinity who were aware of the tragedy, for the 48 hours that they tried to revive the 3 souls, silently prayed. I know I did - and I'm not really a religious man - at least in the conventional sense.
     But it was to no avail. All three died.


    How were the men above possibly acting selfishly ?

I know it can be argued thus, using rational and reasoned argument - but to be honest, when you explain to yourself actions such as those above by those 2 men as deriving from selfishness and/or survival instincts etc, you are in effect denying that which is most noble in humanity. You are denying that which fundamentally makes life worth living - and in the process of so doing you are taking a free ride off the back of it.

    You are denying the possibility of love, one human being to another.

We are the stuff that dreams are made of - your world must be a dark place if you don't believe that.
 

Wrong!

Nobody is denying love. But you are forgetting the thing that empathy does, especially when love is involved with it.

Many similar things have happened throughout history, around the world. In some cases the people didn't die, and the whole group was saved. In most cases, there are people who have enough sense in their empathy and love to realize when the situation is hopeless, so they don't simply jump in. And, true, there are cowards.

Emotions are strong things. Often they cloud logic. Often they cloud logic deeply. The mind works very fast. Empathy and love are activated in a fraction of an instant.

Here is the selfishness in the above story. Both of the guys used empathy and love to put themselves into the "shoes" of another person. It was their feeling of, "If that happened to me, I would want help," that drove them to do the thing they did.

Either the guys had no experience of falling into cold water like that, or their experience told them that they could take it, or they were older and in weaker health than the last time that they were in cold water like that, or they had just eaten and forgot that metabolism changes after eating, or any number of things.

Yet the thing that caused them to do what they did was love combined with empathy to form selfishness in their hearts, selfishness that said, "What if it were me."

There is one other very important operation in all of this. The angels take care of little children. The Spirit of God, Himself takes care of little children. At the same time, when we look at the world, we see that there is evil all around at the same time. Because of how things work, and the freedom that God allows, man's and the devil's evil often limits God in some ways. The world contains both, evil and good, at the same time.

The point in talking about God? The men may have been urged on by the Spirit of God inside them. If this was the case, the three are sitting in the glories of Heaven right now. There is heart-rending damage from our point of view. But they are in joy and glory that is wonderful beyond understanding, right now.

Now, I may have said this in a way that sounds mean, but I don't mean it like that at all. It is difficult to talk the details of something like this in short form in a forum like this. Take the points I have made, and think about them.

[BADecker]

With more than 1300 citations according to Google scholar, One cannot simply ignore this scientific paper about Altruism by W.D. Hamilton

The Evolution of Altruistic Behaviour

And if we think rationally, we can  even say empathy and altruism are just a strategy to maximize the gene pool by the selfish genes!

This !!!  

Self-professed libertarians, riddle me this!

Prototypical libertarian, John Locke, wrote this line in Second Treatise of Civil Government (Chapter 2):

"Every one as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his Station wilfully; so by the like reason when his own Preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of Mankind, and may not unless it be to do Justice on an Offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the Preservation of the Life, the Liberty, Health, Limb or Goods of another."

Less than three centuries later, Ayn Rand wrote this in The Virtue of Selfishness (Chapter 1, The Objectivist Ethics):

"The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that just as life is an end in itself, so every living human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others—and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. To live for his own sake means that the achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest moral purpose."

Over three centuries after Locke's death, Ron Paul emerged to become the public face of paleolibertarianism. I would bet a satoshi or two (I'm cavalier that way), most of the self-professed libertarians in this thread were converted to the cause by Paul. However, despite Paul's latter day apparent support of voluntary altruism, his past tells a different story. In his own words,

"The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. The fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism."

I won't even bring up his newsletters, his off the cuff comments or his remarks to his homosexual aide.

Instead, I'll finish this riddle with this question: Has libertarianism undergone a 180 degree turn in the past 330 years, or is this merely the case of a personality cult?
Because my friends, this battlecry of individualism is, to be frank, fucking scary to listen/read.

Oh, and watch this before responding: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=632CHpeHYZE

LOL >>> "I would bet a satoshi or two (I'm cavalier that way)..."

Because of the way God is trying to rescue us from evil, good and evil have been combined within the hearts and souls of all of us, and even in the whole world. The wicked have some good, and the righteous have some evil.

My understanding of Ayn Rand leads me to believe that she used the good that was within herself to further evil. My understanding of Ron Paul is that he has sifted out much of the evil from his life, and is passing on the good to us. Only God knows the heart. Both of them understood/understand good and evil... at least to some extent. Let us pick up the good, and put the evil to rest once and for all.

[shawshankinmate37927]

Because my friends, this battlecry of individualism is, to be frank, fucking scary to listen/read.

Objectivism and libertarianism aren't the same thing, although they do share a lot of the same principles.  Ayn Rand didn't care much for libertarianism.

What part of individual liberty scares you?  There's nothing in libertarianism that says you can't form a voluntary collective, if collectivism is your thing.

[BADecker]

Because my friends, this battlecry of individualism is, to be frank, fucking scary to listen/read.

Objectivism and libertarianism aren't the same thing, although they do share a lot of the same principles.  Ayn Rand didn't care much for libertarianism.

What part of individual liberty scares you?  There's nothing in libertarianism that says you can't form a voluntary collective, if collectivism is your thing.

This is true.

The basics for living a right life, before the time of Jesus, were:

Love God above all things;
Love your neighbor as yourself.

The basics after Jesus are:

Love your neighbor as yourself... because Jesus is bringing us into God so that God is now, also, our neighbor.

One simple way is to apply the following:

1. Do no harm to your neighbor. At times this includes protecting him from harm;
2. Do not damage your neighbor's property. At times this includes protecting your neighbor's property;
3. Fulfill your contracts and agreements as long as they do not "break" the first two.

These things can be difficult to do, even if you have a willing heart, and an able body.

For more information, fill yourself on the Bible.

For some of the best, practical, legal ideals and methods, the themes of which fit our "free" societies today, read and study Blackstone.

[Beliathon]

What did you learn in school today?

[tvbcof]

    About 25 years ago, <two guys die trying to save a kid who also dies.  Tragic.>
 

<snip - love, empathy, God, etc>

Some Scientific American article I read a long time ago discussed birds warning of predators (or not warning as the case may be.)  They modeled the selfish gene strategy (e.g., your genetic material does better if you save your first cousin but not your second cousin who might compete with your closer relatives for instance) and found that what these birds do matches the mathematical models quite closely.

Humans evolved to live in much smaller groups and tribes.  It makes sense that one would care for and risk oneself for most persons one might find in need both because of the selfish gene principle and because of other psycho-social and economic strategies.

Some time ago I saw some video of a guy on the ledge of a building in New York with the crowd urging him on to jump.  Not a lot of empathy there.  These are the kinds of psychological things we are going to need to deal with as we ram people into large population centers in order to 'save the earth' which, as an engineering endeavor is probably inseparable from Socialism and is currently being driven by groups who are highly motivated by that line of political thought.

I believe that we have all of these mixed senses that came from our more primitive past and invent a variety of names for them, invent crazy belief systems to explain them, etc, but at the end of the day they are pretty understandable and nothing particularly special.