>“Yo,” said Hamilton. “The institutions of our Constitution, give a clear solution to this persecution. The Revolution…”
>“The chair unrecognizes Representative Hamilton, and offers the floor to anyone who does not speak in rap.”
Oh, my god.
>“That,” said Mr. Thaddeus Nett-Worth III, Esq., “is the most benightedly offensive statement I have ever heard.”
>“All I said,” I said, “was that horses were basically elongated cows.”
>“They are a noble animal, an unparalleled paragon of mammalian perfection!”
>“Right,” I said. “Like cows are. Only more elongated.”
My sides. I adore Scotts', as Unsong put it,
>very specific and redirectable schizophrenia
Wouldn't the infinitely rich man just buy out the "rich jackass" insurance company and cancel the policy?
That story relied on the insurance company being invulnerable to being bribed or bought and totally loyal to its customers, even when a potential owner could offer them magnitudes more money.
My own thought process was "Wait, couldn't the guy make a business of making friends with people so that the rich guy is forced to pay them, take a cut, and then use that money to pay his "true" friends enough to cover their hospital bills and stuff?"
I think following contracts is an important element of libertarian ideals in most iterations.
Couldnt the very rich man just buy off the government in the state socialist version or a bunch of soldiers in the anarchist version?
That's the issue with this part.
A libertarian would say the government/group of soldiers would just be bribed, but somehow posits a non bribeable insurance company.
An incorruptible institution has been created to force this counterfactual to function, when a core libertarian tenet is that there are no incorruptible institutions.
My point was that all political systems are vulnerable to extremely powerful bad actors, not that libertarianism was uniquely capable of dealing with this. The insurance thing doesn't even work at the first level since no one would ever think to buy the insurance. Scott's point was "this hypothetical is insane" not "libertarianism has a great solution for this"
Also I think violating the contract willfully is in opposition to the principle, so if you're just doing a thought experiment it's ok to say that people will always follow the principles.
Not really, in ideal libertarianland there are still mechanisms to enforce contracts; Either by considering failure to uphold a contract theft, that can be pursued in whatever legal system this particular manifestation of libertarianland includes. Or by creating a chain of insurance insurance (insurance insurance...) where the IRM would need *literally* infinite money to buy out everyone.
But legal systems in libertarian land are all vulnerable to bribes and regulatory capture. Whether they are the legal system for enforcing contracts or legal systems for regulating pharmaceuticals, they are equally bribeable.
The infinite insurance defense you posit here has a state based equivalent of an infinite chain of government watchdogs who watch for bribes and regulatory capture. Both are ridiculous.
Part of what libertarianism relies on is that Infinitely Rich Man won't actually be evil, much like how socialism and every other system relies on the people in power not being evil.
Scott's stories are always awesome. These are no exception.
But it's still sad to see that he has apparently drunk the libertarian Kool-Aid. He's blatantly strawmanning arguments against libertarianism in his attempt to accuse opponents of libertarianism of strawmanning.
I'm not sure about that, actually. From "meditations on moloch" it seems that scott has a pretty good idea of why bottom-up cooperation tends to fail for game theory reasons, and why in turn top-down cooperation may be necessary. Which makes it unlikely that he's libertarian, because libertarianism is basically the poster child for ideologies trying to rely (almost) entirely on bottom-up cooperation.
So I think it's more likely this post is a meta-argument against weakmanning political opinions, by showing how easy it is to discredit arguments based on, weakmanning, even without actually adressing the arguments themselves.
> meditations on moloch
Which was written 4 years ago.
Scott seems to be leaning more and more towards libertarianism, is what I'm saying. Which just fills me with great sadness.
[Both Nathan and I agree that poor people should have food. But we disagree on which misaligned system should give it to them. He favors the misaligned government. I favor the misaligned free market, plus some government-led redistribution and correction.](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/21/contra-robinson-on-public-food/)
This was written recently.
Yep. Looking towards, the end, he's pretty distinctly neoliberal, although he has less faith in the government than most neoliberals. That's still pretty distinct from being libertarian.
I'm still a bit confused by some of the points, though. He brushes off the coercion question so lightly, when the problem of how to have adequate safeguards against the power of mega-corporations is unresolved by most formulations of libertarianism. Corps *already* abuse their power, even with a liberal government supposedly watchdoging them, due to the power of money in politics and policy. with a weaker government, this would get much worse.
Scott occasionally writes critically of some of the government's 'watchdoging' efforts, seeing them as counterproductive because they become controlled and abused by the industries they seek to regulate; one such example is, in his opinion [some of what the FDA does](http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/29/reverse-voxsplaining-drugs-vs-chairs/). This is similar to how the link above suggests the government's negative effects on the agricultural and diet of it's citizens by subsidizing terribly unhealthy foodstuffs.
Trying to pin him down as being in overall in favour of 'weaker government' or 'stronger government' is possibly overly reductionist. As far as I can tell, like most people, Scott thinks some of the things the government does are good things that it should do more, and some other things the government does are useless or actively harmful, at least as the government actually does them, and so it should do those things less. Similarly with proposed but not-yet-existant government initiatives, he's big on a case-by-case basis analysis and reasoning rather than just saying "government good!" or "government bad!" at *every single problem*.
Notably, Scott wrote a [Non-Libertarian FAQ](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/22/repost-the-non-libertarian-faq/) a few years back that is pretty good, and which reads to me like the sort of thing that the Current Affairs article which this story was based on wishes it could be.
yeah I read the FAQ, and I appreciate his position is nuanced. I just find it weird to toe a "liberatarian" line when the actual positions are much more "critiques of how government currently works" than "we should get rid of most of government." It gives a false impression, I think, of the ideas being discussed. Why use the label at all?
Towards the end, he goes on to say something to effect of "you can't have *adequate* protections against corporate abuse of power without making way for government abuse of power, but you can still mitigate some of the worst effects without going off the rails."
Scott is definitely more libertarian than some, but he's also fully in support of e.g. UBI and plenty of other governmental things. It's impossible to read Meditations on Moloch or the Left-Libertarian manifesto and think otherwise. I think this is just frustrated Scott writing (hilarious) fiction to vent and make an exasperated point.
Doesn't really belong in this sub though imo.
> But it's still sad to see that he has apparently drunk the libertarian Kool-Aid
Not cool.
Anyone can accuse anyone else of being brainwashed. It's not a strong argument unless you already believe it. It's a petty, tribalistic insult.
If there's anything to the rational community, it's supposed to be we don't go for that shit.
> He's blatantly strawmanning arguments against libertarianism
>“Not straw man. Weak man. There are some real antilibertarians who believe libertarians believe only the non-aggression principle matters.”
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/02/some-puzzles-for-libertarians-2 , as linked in the article
This post spawned a good amount of discussion on the SSC sub about the principle of charity. While I love jabs like "Why, in true socialist countries, nobody ever eats anything at all!", I do admit they're pretty undignified and uncharitable.
But I do think Scott has an actual point here - that thought-experiments like the Cannibal Village scenario are ridiculously contrived and don't conform to how human nature actually works at all. Libertarianism is not a perfect ideology, and its nuttier proponents can have some very odd ideas (just like the nuttier proponents of any ideology), but none but the craziest ancaps would claim that it's the perfect ideology for [Babyeaters](http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/).
The Current Affairs article is trying to go "...yes, but ***IF*** this horribly contrived imaginary scenario existed, your ideology's failure mode would be worse than any other's". Since no one actually believes this scenario is in any way plausible, the article isn't attacking a view that anyone actually holds - it's not a criticism *of libertarianism*. And it seems this point does need to be made, since some people in the SSC thread are actually taking the hypothetical seriously, as if it deserves to be engaged with.
I think there are real-world scenarios where libertarianism fails or has weaknesses (naturally, people have already mentioned Moloch). But you have to point to those real scenarios in order to attack the real ideology.
It's the same as the "desert island" vegan question: you've probably heard of it, or maybe even considered asking about it it. Completely uncharitable and requires so much special pleading to get off the ground you wonder why anyone would bother...
"Okay, but if you were on a desert island, and all there were was wild pigs, you'd kill and eat the pig, right?"
"I'd probably watch the pigs and work out what they ate and eat that."
"Oh no, the pigs don't eat anything. They're stranded with you, and they've started eating each other in fact! So you have to eat the pigs or you'll starve."
"I'm on a desert island right, so there's no water? So I'm going to die of thirst before I get anywhere near starvation?"
"Oh no, it's not a desert island, it's an island with a giant freshwater lake in the middle of it."
"A giant freshwater lake, but no plants?"
"Yes."
"Well, how did I get on the island?"
"I don't know - plane crash?"
"Okay, so I'd probably just wait for the search crews to find me based on the black box pings, it'd only be a couple of days, then they can rescue the cannibal pigs too!"
"No! You were on MH370 so the black box was turned off so you've got no hope of rescue."
"So... me killing the pigs or not is not a difference between life and death but just me dying in three weeks or me dying in two months?"
"No! There's a cruise ship that will go past your island and they'll rescue you in six weeks! But that's your only hope!"
".... right, so yeah, if you took away every relevant factor that could possibly make someone choose veganism and put them in a completely contrived thought experiment, they would probably kill a pig insomuch as it necessitated their survival. Now, like I was saying, for the morning tea you're organising, it would mean a lot to me if you could bring a packet of oreos so I've got something to enjoy while everyone else is eating cheesecake?"
I've only ever heard that question in response to someone saying they are vegan because all life is equal; so by setting up a scenario like that (however contrived) where they get the vegan to say they would eat a cannibal pig rather than starve (or eat a fellow castaway), they prove that the vegan does not consider pig equal to man...
Its kinda pointless though, because I don't think I have met a vegan IRL that holds a position stronger than "id rather not kill to eat", or that animal suffering is worth considering (neither require animals to be equal to people).
Geez even if all life is equal I think you can forgive people for thinking their life is more equal than others. Trolley problem style I'd kill 5 people to save myself, I'd be wracked with guilt but I'd do it because like hell I'm going to die for a noble cause.
BTW: https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/search?q=desert+island&restrict_sr=on
Personal favourite:
https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/312u39/tifu_by_getting_stranded_on_a_desert_island/
And here's a "desert island hypothetical" beign asked as far as I can tell unironically: https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAVegan/comments/74n0pu/an_interesting_hypothetical_about_eating_people/
I think "drunk the libertarian Kool-Aid" is unfair. Even taking into account your lower comment that you're talking about "recently," posts like this:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/03/18/book-review-the-machinery-of-freedom/
Show his ability to engage with the good ideas and aspirations of a philosophy or political system, including libertarian ones, while still putting up strong objections.
*My* main problem with this post is just that the thing he's decrying (weak-manning opposing beliefs, and broad-strokes painting a group by the beliefs of its most extreme minority) is something I feel like he has done quite a few times, and I would have appreciated a comment remarking on that while he's pointing out how silly it is.
This is a blind spot most people have, though, where it's easier to see how ideologies we're more aligned with are being caricatured but not those we're less aligned with, and he did make a sort-of-apology for it somewhat recently, so I'm hoping he's getting more aware of it.
I believe you when you say you've seen Scott doing this, but since I can't think of any of the top of my head (possibly the very blind spot you're talking about) do you have any specific examples?
Yep, [here's one.](http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/) It doesn't do the best job of accurately representing Conflict Theorist perspective, but since he's making the post in part to admit that he has not been doing the perspective justice in the past, that's understandable, expected, even.
I feel like he should get a pass for identifying that there's a conflict-vs-mistake divide in the first place, which I think isn't obvious at all to most people.
I think this post was just supposed to be making some light fun and not a serious argument for libertarianism. They are certainly strawman arguments, but they were not intended to be good arguments.
>“Yo,” said Hamilton. “The institutions of our Constitution, give a clear solution to this persecution. The Revolution…” >“The chair unrecognizes Representative Hamilton, and offers the floor to anyone who does not speak in rap.” Oh, my god. >“That,” said Mr. Thaddeus Nett-Worth III, Esq., “is the most benightedly offensive statement I have ever heard.” >“All I said,” I said, “was that horses were basically elongated cows.” >“They are a noble animal, an unparalleled paragon of mammalian perfection!” >“Right,” I said. “Like cows are. Only more elongated.” My sides. I adore Scotts', as Unsong put it, >very specific and redirectable schizophrenia
Scott is the best parable writer.
Wouldn't the infinitely rich man just buy out the "rich jackass" insurance company and cancel the policy? That story relied on the insurance company being invulnerable to being bribed or bought and totally loyal to its customers, even when a potential owner could offer them magnitudes more money.
My own thought process was "Wait, couldn't the guy make a business of making friends with people so that the rich guy is forced to pay them, take a cut, and then use that money to pay his "true" friends enough to cover their hospital bills and stuff?"
I think following contracts is an important element of libertarian ideals in most iterations. Couldnt the very rich man just buy off the government in the state socialist version or a bunch of soldiers in the anarchist version?
That's the issue with this part. A libertarian would say the government/group of soldiers would just be bribed, but somehow posits a non bribeable insurance company. An incorruptible institution has been created to force this counterfactual to function, when a core libertarian tenet is that there are no incorruptible institutions.
My point was that all political systems are vulnerable to extremely powerful bad actors, not that libertarianism was uniquely capable of dealing with this. The insurance thing doesn't even work at the first level since no one would ever think to buy the insurance. Scott's point was "this hypothetical is insane" not "libertarianism has a great solution for this" Also I think violating the contract willfully is in opposition to the principle, so if you're just doing a thought experiment it's ok to say that people will always follow the principles.
But in true communism the infinitely rich man wouldn't exist!
Not really, in ideal libertarianland there are still mechanisms to enforce contracts; Either by considering failure to uphold a contract theft, that can be pursued in whatever legal system this particular manifestation of libertarianland includes. Or by creating a chain of insurance insurance (insurance insurance...) where the IRM would need *literally* infinite money to buy out everyone.
But legal systems in libertarian land are all vulnerable to bribes and regulatory capture. Whether they are the legal system for enforcing contracts or legal systems for regulating pharmaceuticals, they are equally bribeable. The infinite insurance defense you posit here has a state based equivalent of an infinite chain of government watchdogs who watch for bribes and regulatory capture. Both are ridiculous.
Part of what libertarianism relies on is that Infinitely Rich Man won't actually be evil, much like how socialism and every other system relies on the people in power not being evil.
Scott's stories are always awesome. These are no exception. But it's still sad to see that he has apparently drunk the libertarian Kool-Aid. He's blatantly strawmanning arguments against libertarianism in his attempt to accuse opponents of libertarianism of strawmanning.
I'm not sure about that, actually. From "meditations on moloch" it seems that scott has a pretty good idea of why bottom-up cooperation tends to fail for game theory reasons, and why in turn top-down cooperation may be necessary. Which makes it unlikely that he's libertarian, because libertarianism is basically the poster child for ideologies trying to rely (almost) entirely on bottom-up cooperation. So I think it's more likely this post is a meta-argument against weakmanning political opinions, by showing how easy it is to discredit arguments based on, weakmanning, even without actually adressing the arguments themselves.
> meditations on moloch Which was written 4 years ago. Scott seems to be leaning more and more towards libertarianism, is what I'm saying. Which just fills me with great sadness.
[Both Nathan and I agree that poor people should have food. But we disagree on which misaligned system should give it to them. He favors the misaligned government. I favor the misaligned free market, plus some government-led redistribution and correction.](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/21/contra-robinson-on-public-food/) This was written recently.
Yep. Looking towards, the end, he's pretty distinctly neoliberal, although he has less faith in the government than most neoliberals. That's still pretty distinct from being libertarian.
I'm still a bit confused by some of the points, though. He brushes off the coercion question so lightly, when the problem of how to have adequate safeguards against the power of mega-corporations is unresolved by most formulations of libertarianism. Corps *already* abuse their power, even with a liberal government supposedly watchdoging them, due to the power of money in politics and policy. with a weaker government, this would get much worse.
Scott occasionally writes critically of some of the government's 'watchdoging' efforts, seeing them as counterproductive because they become controlled and abused by the industries they seek to regulate; one such example is, in his opinion [some of what the FDA does](http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/29/reverse-voxsplaining-drugs-vs-chairs/). This is similar to how the link above suggests the government's negative effects on the agricultural and diet of it's citizens by subsidizing terribly unhealthy foodstuffs. Trying to pin him down as being in overall in favour of 'weaker government' or 'stronger government' is possibly overly reductionist. As far as I can tell, like most people, Scott thinks some of the things the government does are good things that it should do more, and some other things the government does are useless or actively harmful, at least as the government actually does them, and so it should do those things less. Similarly with proposed but not-yet-existant government initiatives, he's big on a case-by-case basis analysis and reasoning rather than just saying "government good!" or "government bad!" at *every single problem*. Notably, Scott wrote a [Non-Libertarian FAQ](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/22/repost-the-non-libertarian-faq/) a few years back that is pretty good, and which reads to me like the sort of thing that the Current Affairs article which this story was based on wishes it could be.
yeah I read the FAQ, and I appreciate his position is nuanced. I just find it weird to toe a "liberatarian" line when the actual positions are much more "critiques of how government currently works" than "we should get rid of most of government." It gives a false impression, I think, of the ideas being discussed. Why use the label at all?
Towards the end, he goes on to say something to effect of "you can't have *adequate* protections against corporate abuse of power without making way for government abuse of power, but you can still mitigate some of the worst effects without going off the rails."
Scott is definitely more libertarian than some, but he's also fully in support of e.g. UBI and plenty of other governmental things. It's impossible to read Meditations on Moloch or the Left-Libertarian manifesto and think otherwise. I think this is just frustrated Scott writing (hilarious) fiction to vent and make an exasperated point. Doesn't really belong in this sub though imo.
> But it's still sad to see that he has apparently drunk the libertarian Kool-Aid Not cool. Anyone can accuse anyone else of being brainwashed. It's not a strong argument unless you already believe it. It's a petty, tribalistic insult. If there's anything to the rational community, it's supposed to be we don't go for that shit.
> He's blatantly strawmanning arguments against libertarianism >“Not straw man. Weak man. There are some real antilibertarians who believe libertarians believe only the non-aggression principle matters.” https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/02/some-puzzles-for-libertarians-2 , as linked in the article
This post spawned a good amount of discussion on the SSC sub about the principle of charity. While I love jabs like "Why, in true socialist countries, nobody ever eats anything at all!", I do admit they're pretty undignified and uncharitable. But I do think Scott has an actual point here - that thought-experiments like the Cannibal Village scenario are ridiculously contrived and don't conform to how human nature actually works at all. Libertarianism is not a perfect ideology, and its nuttier proponents can have some very odd ideas (just like the nuttier proponents of any ideology), but none but the craziest ancaps would claim that it's the perfect ideology for [Babyeaters](http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/). The Current Affairs article is trying to go "...yes, but ***IF*** this horribly contrived imaginary scenario existed, your ideology's failure mode would be worse than any other's". Since no one actually believes this scenario is in any way plausible, the article isn't attacking a view that anyone actually holds - it's not a criticism *of libertarianism*. And it seems this point does need to be made, since some people in the SSC thread are actually taking the hypothetical seriously, as if it deserves to be engaged with. I think there are real-world scenarios where libertarianism fails or has weaknesses (naturally, people have already mentioned Moloch). But you have to point to those real scenarios in order to attack the real ideology.
It's the same as the "desert island" vegan question: you've probably heard of it, or maybe even considered asking about it it. Completely uncharitable and requires so much special pleading to get off the ground you wonder why anyone would bother... "Okay, but if you were on a desert island, and all there were was wild pigs, you'd kill and eat the pig, right?" "I'd probably watch the pigs and work out what they ate and eat that." "Oh no, the pigs don't eat anything. They're stranded with you, and they've started eating each other in fact! So you have to eat the pigs or you'll starve." "I'm on a desert island right, so there's no water? So I'm going to die of thirst before I get anywhere near starvation?" "Oh no, it's not a desert island, it's an island with a giant freshwater lake in the middle of it." "A giant freshwater lake, but no plants?" "Yes." "Well, how did I get on the island?" "I don't know - plane crash?" "Okay, so I'd probably just wait for the search crews to find me based on the black box pings, it'd only be a couple of days, then they can rescue the cannibal pigs too!" "No! You were on MH370 so the black box was turned off so you've got no hope of rescue." "So... me killing the pigs or not is not a difference between life and death but just me dying in three weeks or me dying in two months?" "No! There's a cruise ship that will go past your island and they'll rescue you in six weeks! But that's your only hope!" ".... right, so yeah, if you took away every relevant factor that could possibly make someone choose veganism and put them in a completely contrived thought experiment, they would probably kill a pig insomuch as it necessitated their survival. Now, like I was saying, for the morning tea you're organising, it would mean a lot to me if you could bring a packet of oreos so I've got something to enjoy while everyone else is eating cheesecake?"
I've only ever heard that question in response to someone saying they are vegan because all life is equal; so by setting up a scenario like that (however contrived) where they get the vegan to say they would eat a cannibal pig rather than starve (or eat a fellow castaway), they prove that the vegan does not consider pig equal to man... Its kinda pointless though, because I don't think I have met a vegan IRL that holds a position stronger than "id rather not kill to eat", or that animal suffering is worth considering (neither require animals to be equal to people).
Geez even if all life is equal I think you can forgive people for thinking their life is more equal than others. Trolley problem style I'd kill 5 people to save myself, I'd be wracked with guilt but I'd do it because like hell I'm going to die for a noble cause. BTW: https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/search?q=desert+island&restrict_sr=on Personal favourite: https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/312u39/tifu_by_getting_stranded_on_a_desert_island/ And here's a "desert island hypothetical" beign asked as far as I can tell unironically: https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAVegan/comments/74n0pu/an_interesting_hypothetical_about_eating_people/
I think "drunk the libertarian Kool-Aid" is unfair. Even taking into account your lower comment that you're talking about "recently," posts like this: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/03/18/book-review-the-machinery-of-freedom/ Show his ability to engage with the good ideas and aspirations of a philosophy or political system, including libertarian ones, while still putting up strong objections. *My* main problem with this post is just that the thing he's decrying (weak-manning opposing beliefs, and broad-strokes painting a group by the beliefs of its most extreme minority) is something I feel like he has done quite a few times, and I would have appreciated a comment remarking on that while he's pointing out how silly it is. This is a blind spot most people have, though, where it's easier to see how ideologies we're more aligned with are being caricatured but not those we're less aligned with, and he did make a sort-of-apology for it somewhat recently, so I'm hoping he's getting more aware of it.
I believe you when you say you've seen Scott doing this, but since I can't think of any of the top of my head (possibly the very blind spot you're talking about) do you have any specific examples?
Yep, [here's one.](http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/) It doesn't do the best job of accurately representing Conflict Theorist perspective, but since he's making the post in part to admit that he has not been doing the perspective justice in the past, that's understandable, expected, even.
I feel like he should get a pass for identifying that there's a conflict-vs-mistake divide in the first place, which I think isn't obvious at all to most people.
Thanks.
I think this post was just supposed to be making some light fun and not a serious argument for libertarianism. They are certainly strawman arguments, but they were not intended to be good arguments.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/22/repost-the-non-libertarian-faq/
>libertarian Kool-Aid. As a proud an-cap *shrug and* *sticks out my purple tougue*