In these trying times, I decided to go over a few short points I may have covered before, in a different format. A refresher, if you will.
There has been speculation in some libertarian circles of the effect the pandemic will have on liberty. Some see new minted libertarians with every government abuse and protest. But for every one of those, there are two new minted authoritarians hating those damn wreckers from preventing the virus from going away under the awesome might of government magic. For every anti lockdown protester there are 10 true believers calling them brainwashed morons or, in Romania, Putin trolls. And looking at the direction of things, 2020 will end up a net loss for liberty. Which is, to be sure, the expected outcome most years.
Libertarians are fully aware that, in general, liberty is a hard sell. They may not fully get the why, but understand the basic fact. What is generally frustrating to me is that the general non libertarian world is not honest about it. Few people say outright they don’t want liberty. Sure they do, they just define it as non-liberty. So the word liberty is a much easier sell than the actual concept behind it.
Some are all for liberty for themselves, but not so much for others. Others could not handle it at all. If different people want to do different things, liberty should, in general, cover the full variety of human experience, not just the part I like or approve of. All this was debated at length on libertarian sites, and I don’t want to go over it again. Just as the fact that liberty does not mean liberty to harm / infringe upon others, something libertarians have to keep reminding people, even though it is part of the concept and goes without saying. Liberty is inherently about lack of constraints from other humans. Liberty is not “I do what I want” it is “I choose my action within the limits of nature, my possibilities and the rights of others.” Boilerplate stuff, really.
A major thing about liberty that reduced the appeal is that it is not without danger. It is risky, and each person has a different risk management preference. This is an important part of its lack of popularity. It is natural for some people to want to impose their particular risk aversion on the world. But in my view, this part is the essence of the thing.
Some say what is liberty on an empty stomach? Well it is the same as on a full one, as the fullness of one’s innards is not part of liberty. In the end, some actions one may take will lead to an empty stomach. And if you are not free to take the decisions that lead to empty stomach, you are not free. And if you take those decisions and force someone to feed you, than that other person lacks liberty. Supporting liberty in its purest form is supporting it as an end in itself, not as means to an end. The ends may vary.
What I want to point out is that danger is not an unfortunate side effect, but in a way an integral part of the concept. The spice of liberty. The whole point of wanting liberty is that you accept things can go wrong and want it nonetheless. There is no great feat in saying, “I want liberty as long as nothing can go bad.” Sure. Why wouldn’t you? But what if things can go bad? Do you want to go skiing? Only with zero chance of injury… Well it would not be as fun in that case…
Everything in this world has a cost and it is easy to want things as long as they don’t cost anything. If someone offers me a bottle of Laphroaig 30 for nothing, I take it, but for $1500 I will pass.
I believe, for example, that liberty to play somewhat unsupervised and explore and such is good for children. But if you let children climb a tree, they may fall and get hurt. Is the alternative of not allowing them out of the house better? I doubt it. And a very small but non zero number of kids may even die playing. But it is a minor risk worth taking. I want to do only what I want, but nothing should ever go bad is no kind of liberty. Except in the minds of small children who do not understand the world, but soon will if the parents allow a few injuries here and there, a risk parents need to take so that children learn to manage their own risks. In the end, risks exist even if you helicopter parent them. And helicopters are for commies, not kids.
Furthermore, what most libertarians believe but sometimes do not stress sufficiently, an aspect of liberty is not necessarily in simply doing whatever you want, but in having the choice to do whatever you what and doing the cost benefit analysis and deciding for yourself. Another part of it is doing what is right, even when it is not the most pleasant thing. There is little virtue in doing something that costs you nothing, and in fact quite the opposite – see the NBA attitude in the US vs China. There is little virtue in involuntary charity. Voluntarily sacrificing to do the right thing, even if having the choice not to, that is virtuous.
Liberty is the possibility of making bad decisions. You should try not to, but you will anyway. And some suffering may come. To you or others. Which is a part of it. A strenuous life and all that.
As a disclaimer this was scheduled for publishing a bit faster than usual and if it was not I would have considered maybe trashing it because in hindsight I am not really happy with it. But it is here so carry on.
I was about to say that it sucks, but you did it for me.
I kid, I kid….
I liked it.
What aren’t you happy about? (Other than using than instead of then) 😉
“No Households Mixing Indoors or in Private Gardens, Unless in your support bubble”
So sex on the beach is still ok?
dogging I think they call in in merry old England
My favorite British euphemism for sex is, “rodgering”
Not rooting?
I thought that was Aussie?
It is. I missed the British qualifier.
I think the was specifically covered by the bottom item.
Looks like England Banned Abortion as non-essentail
An “elective procedure” if there ever was one. A tiny minority excepted, of course, when the pregnancy poses a clear and present danger to the mother’s. err, host’s, health.
This. I see a lot of people who believe that “If people just followed the rules for 2 weeks” we could have this licked and never have to worry about it again! There may be some libertarians minted, but there are also a lot of Karens being created who just want everyone to “listen to the experts” so that they can get back to normal after this is “all over”.
the awesome might of government magic
Yeah. Anyone who believes in that, and there are many, is never in this lifetime going to come to liberty. They’ve maybe even seen it, and want no part of it. Hoffer has very sufficient explanation.
Funny how ‘the experts’ never have to prove themselves right, or even competent.
Could it be that ‘expert’ is just a job title?
“Ex” – “former”
“spurt” – “glob of matter discharged by a penis”
Sounds legit.
Reminds me of an interview with one of those wacky Libertarian Party presidential nominees from way back in the day (Badnarik maybe?). He was discussing the etymology of the term “politics,” with “poli” derived from “many” and “tics” being tiny bloodsucking parasites.
In the same interview he said that Dick van Dyke is a stage name, changed from Penis van Lesbian.
FLaTTeN THe CuRVe!
And if nobody engaged in sex outside of marriage there’d be no AIDS, herpes or syphilis.
And considering how many people died of AIDS, the obvious solution is to degree exrramarital sex illegal. And mandate chastity belts.
We already tried following the rules for two weeks once before, and it didn’t work.
Europe had the experiment foisted on them even more severely.
Spot on, Pie. Most people I know have no interest in liberty as we envision it. And cost/benefit analysis is an important component being free. Which is why most people suck at it.
It makes me slightly ill at how pussified we have become. Yesterday I saw a neighbor kid shoveling the driveway in a surgical mask.
The system has worked as envisioned. “Keep me safe, Daddy Government!”
Bah.
In the end, risks exist even if you helicopter parent them.
Indeed. Helicopter parenting or any form of radical risk aversion has its own risks and costs.
Because of where I work, I see a fair number of infants and toddlers. While I doubt that wearing a mask has much an adverse effect on them, I wonder about how it affects their development to not see adult faces other than their parents for months on end. It can’t be good. But nobody seems to want to look into the potential downsides of mask wearing. I think they are substantial. Even some of the Branch Covidians I know are starting to bemoan the lack of normal socializing; its almost like they are this close to realizing that people are social animals, and that demanding and enforcing anti-social behavior may not be an entirely good thing.
This was the subject of Tom Woods’ email yesterday.
Here.
I think this is horrible for kids – which is why the authoritarian pricks love it so much.
Ugh. Side point, I make it a point to ensure I remove my mask when I am at the store and I see little ones so they experience a smile or silly face from someone other than their immediate family.
This whole thing is like Stanger Danger on steroids in their little forming minds.
I think they absolutely do know.
Every week we get a Distance Learning update from the school district. I have yet to get one that talks about education. They are all filled with psychological, behavioral and social support groups and phone numbers.
Hell, the district has even admitted that suicide numbers among students this year alone are way up…
Maybe the everday person on the street isn’t thinking about it, but our officials know damn well the massive impact they are imposing upon the populace
Yup, same here. Kids’ schools (and there are 5 of them across both offspring) are all about safety, not education. And really, about feeling safe as much as actual safety.
The one exception is one child’s trade-focused school program: They are chomping at the bit to get back to in-person, and you can see them walking the PC line in their updates.
And like the TSA security theater bullshit, part of the reason for doing it is to inculcate in children the idea that it’s normal for the state to control you like this.
My two oldest kids have some emotional/mental health issues and I spent lots of time in group therapy with them. I saw lots of kids there with depression, self harm, suicide attempts. I saw first hand what isolation and poor quality of life can do to a person. Those are the kids I think about a lot lately. There is an enormous crisis brewing that nobody is talking about.
Yep. If I was as hormonal as I was a kid I’d probably be dead right now. It’s hard to imagine the amount of psychological terror they must be experiencing whether they realize it or not. It’s seems many 21st century kids have been bred on little more than fear. Fear of Terrorism, fear of climate change, fear of political enemies, fear of deviation of thought, fear of disease, fear of social contact. To Pie’s point: Fear of Risk Itself.
‘…people are social animals, and that demanding and enforcing anti-social behavior may not be an entirely good thing.’
This. Even people like myself, who are slightly misanthropic in nature, have begun to feel the effects of prolonged withdrawal from basic human contacts and it obviously hasn’t helped my mental stability. I can’t blame the Covid theatre entirely for my quasi-nervous breakdown but *not so much as hugging another human being for over six straight months isn’t good for anybody’s state of mind.
*again, not entirely or even mostly Covid related, my personal life is a mess…but it sure hasn’t helped.
I’ve never felt so disconnected from my fellow humans.
I’d hug you.
(No homo)
Just having you all in my life is enough for now. Seriously, without this place I don’t know where I’d be and I’m not referring to my recent shameful begging.
Just watch that show Alone and see grown men reduced to tears because of the isolation.
I’ve never been one of those people who watches videos of stuff they do themselves. ;p
“…people are social animals…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSqJBFj5y-Q
I think the most important point here is “risk”. COVID will eventually become like swimming pools, flu, and speed limits. People will accept a certain amount of risk and just not think about it. But we’ll never get to that point if we have media and government drumming up panic. Mass hysteria is a hell of a thing.
We’re going through this at my house. My MIL has COVID, and we last saw her 10 days ago. Supposedly you can test positive for up to 14 days after exposure, so you are supposed to self-quarantine for that time. Mrs. TOK has a trip planned for this weekend and is planning on going. People are giving her a lot of shit for it. I wanted more information so I checked out the stats. Turns out the median time between exposure and symptoms is 5 days, and 97.5% of people show symptoms within 10.5 days if they are infected. There are 6 of us in my house, and I would say the odds of all of us going the 10.5 days without symptoms, then suddenly becoming positive, is miniscule.
Good for her. Fuck this noise.
We’ve got limited time on this goddamn rock. We’ve already wasted too much of it.
People are giving her a lot of shit for it.
People need to STFU about things that are none of their business.
It’s family and close friends. The argument is usually, “but what if you are a carrier and get someone else sick, and they die?”
That’s a bullshit argument. If they die from the ‘vid, something was gonna get them sooner rather than later. No matter how hard the Karens push the risk, it’s eminently survivable for almost everyone.
What if we lock everyone inside, people get depressed and kill themselves?
That has been happening, and compared to the “excess deaths”* from wuhan, happening at a higher rate.
*I hate that term, but it’s still technically the correct one.
According to the video I linked below, the excess deaths in the UK are now occurring in the 15-44 age group and primarily at home. In other words, not covid related. Instead, they are primarily lockdown related.
The argument is usually, “but what if you are a carrier and get someone else sick, and they die?”
Nope. Still none of their business.
If they are worried about your wife getting them sick, then they should isolate themselves from your wife, not demanding that your wife isolate herself to keep them safe.
^^^THIS^^^
On the other hand, if you know you are sick, STAY THE FUCK AT HOME.
Quarantines are for the sick, and I am fine* with mandatory quarantines for those who have tested positive.
*ish, I still worry about it being taken too far.
Let’s look at what you’re actually saying:
I am fine* with
mandatorystate enforcedquarantineshome imprisonment for those whohave tested positive, after the usual mission creep, were forced by state officials to take a mandatory test for any infectious virus, even if it is a false positive and the tests were given disproportionately to dissidents.That’s a hard no for me. Imprisonment without due process? Fuck that.
Eh, quarantine was how the US dealt with measles, mumps, polio etc. before vaccines existed. My mother went through a lot of that considering all the children her parents had. IDK exactly what the process was and how due it would be considered today. Other than, of course, that it would be racist.
Measles, mumps, smallpox.. they all had obvious symptoms.
Now we’re saying “We don’t even know if you are sick but stay in quarantine indefinitely because one half-assed, unverified test that can’t even tell if the virus is active or a dead remnant.”
If the science was better, the risk-assessment would be better. But the risk-assessment is demonstrably worse.
Depends on what you mean by “test”.
The PCR test which is being used as 99% of the tests is garbage. We know this because the FDA never approved it for anything but emergency use. It’s never gone through full trials, the false positive and false negative rate is unknown, and the “control” is the test is only a tiny fraction of the virus genome because it’s never been purified.
So I’m with prolefeed on this one – you’d better be exhibiting actual symptoms before any quarantine – even voluntary quarantine – is even a reasonable idea.
Everybody dies- Elon Musk
Everybody Hurts – R.E.M
Everybody poops – Taro Gomi
A story played in reverse.
But it is my business if you infect Grandma and me!
/Karen
I am perfectly willing to do you a favor and nail all of your doors and windows shut from the outside to keep you and grandma safe.
Then, with all due respect, ma’am, don’t do things that place you at higher risk.
Jair Bolsonaro
Perhaps a bit crude, but yes. Live, be free.
I think that translation is bullshit. I looked up the word and the primary definition would be more like “pussy.”
I like pussy better than fags, not judging others’ preferences.
Thanks for articulating this better than I can. I should keep this handy so I have better responses in real life, as this all seems so obvious to me all I can do is shake my head at the responses I get that mirror the ones you mention here. Ie “so it’s ok to just kill somebody!!??? What do you say to that!!??”
so it’s ok to just kill somebody!!??? What do you say to that!!??
Some people need killin’?
You don’t. It wouldn’t matter to them, anyway. Live your life.
“It’s okay to just kill somebody”
Depends, is ‘just’ inplying ‘without cause’?
Ask why they’re such a racist Obama-hating racist?
We are ruled by Karen. Karen votes religously and complains at town hall meetings. Most people have more important things to do. For Karen, imposing their social mores on others is the most important thing.
Hardly a new thing. See the temperance movement, satanic panic, kidnapping scares, Tipper fucking Gore for reference. Its Karens all the way down.
Yes. I keep reminding myself that mass hysteria is nothing new. Being able to simultaneously freak out across the globe is the only new part of this.
I find myself reading this like a goddamn mantra. Kipling and Mencken keep me from losing it. We are stupid apes and always have been.
+1
I hadn’t read that before. Very nice.
I dig that. I find most poetry self-indulgent nonsense but I ejoyed that.
Ivor Cummins has a new youtube video. I wish he were in America, as it is very eurocentric. And this one, especially, Ireland-centric.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mboEkVl9ooc&feature=emb_logo
Keep in mind I am open to receiving free whisky.
There’s an adage you may want to remember – You get what you pay for.
The common refrain I get is “but what you describe is not a victimless act – you are affecting the rights of others.” For instance, if someone doesn’t wear a mask or doesn’t get vaccinated, then their actions are potentially harmful if their infection lands on you which is as much an assault as punching you in the nose. At a bit more remove are things like drug taking, and prostitution, which may cost someone more tax money to clean up the health care mess made by your victimless crime. If one keeps going, then over-eating to obesity to diabetes and heart disease should be controlled by legislation because “as a taxpayer, I’m going to have to pay for your rights to do whatever you feel like doing.” Even if one stresses that along with liberty comes individual responsibility, many folks just don’t buy it that government (and they as taxpayers) isn’t going to have to step in and spend big money because you just wanted to be left alone. For many, having too many choices – in their view – is both inefficient and unnecessary, so “someone” (armed agents of our democracy) has to put limits on other people.
honestly this is not fully covid focused just generic applied to the current thing
For instance, if someone doesn’t wear a mask or doesn’t get vaccinated, then their actions are potentially harmful if their infection lands on you which is as much an assault as punching you in the nose.
If you believe our Public Health Masters, other people wearing masks, etc. only reduces that risk, but ultimately you are your own best line of defense. Isolate yourself, wash your own damn hands, change your clothes when you get home, wear a properly fitted N95 mask, wear an eye shield, etc. And don’t stop doing so when you are at home with family, because that is who you are most likely to catch it from. IOW, if you are that frightened, then whether other people are wearing masks or not, you should follow the same protocols as COVID ICU nurses, who are exposed all day long and very rarely come down with the ‘Vid.
Dont spend 10 minutes talking to anyone. Which is why the home spread rate is so high.
“well we just need to force people to sleep in different rooms and wear masks at home”
And soon it will be:
“Most spread is done by 2 year olds who are exempted from wearing masks”
My nephew’s wife testing positive recently. She spent two weeks in a bedroom with him taking care of the two kids – they brought her meals.
It worked, none of the rest of them got it.
It’s not obvious your nephew’s wife isolation played any role in avoiding further infection. Did she have any symptoms? Without symptoms it’s hard to infect anyone. Some people are less likely to get infected even in the presence of the virus. Is your nephew’s blood group O+?
Yes, she had symptoms. Mild flu-like, loss of smell. No clue on blood type, but my sister is counting on that!
I am A+, on the other hand.
Yup.
What I try to communicate in those situations – which come up whether I’m speaking with conservatives or progs or whatever – is that they have just articulated a great argument for limiting the amount of “help” we are forced to provide to others through taxes and government programs.
Short reaction to your second sentence about “…if someone doesn’t wear a mask….then their actions are potentially harmful…”: mask-wearing provides no benefits to either the wearer or ANYONE ELSE. It actually INCREASES the risk to both.
The Law of Conservation of Mass means that every single thing that a wearer is breathing out is still getting out, with the vast, vast majority going right into the air. The tiny fraction that might stick to the mask (stick – it’s not a filter) then either gets re-inhaled right after you just got rid of it, or it’s hanging out there for you to touch, since you’re touching the mask all the freakin’ time.
Masks make it more risky to you and others.
Rant over.
One thing i really can’t stand is how quickly they brush off the economic argument of it all:
“We’re going to lockdown everything, but we’ll make sure people are taken care of by… sending them money?”. In the end the bulshit doesn’t matter. It may make people feel ok for a little, but all that money in consumers hands has only one way to go and that is Prices going up. You can’t create something from nothing, and you can’t feed your family on electronic credits at your bank.
And the places shutting down permanently won’t effect those people at all.
Besides, who wants to support their family working at a movie theater, concert hall, bar, restaurant, etc…
RC Dean –
I sent the backyard pub link to my wife. Her response was, “Lets do it.” She figures we already have 1/2 of what we need. I have been planning the same kind of thing out for in our garage, we don’t have room in our backyard in our current location. If that changes, we will either have a larger backyard or a basement to do it in. We will have both of those, where to locate it is the question.
Consider your invitation to hang out in your backyard pub accepted.
If you can find it, you are welcome to come in.
If and when it happens, I will post pics. Maybe write an article!
[Note to self, make sure geo information is not encoded in photos]
You vastly overestimate my ability to doxx.
Clicked too soon.
I will simply ask reddit to find the location by analyzing the flight patterns of migratory birds in the background, or whatever it is they do.
That’s 4chan, boomer.
I defer to your expertise on the . . . danker. . . recesses of the intertubes.
It was cool, but I guess I am still left wondering…why? Does a den inside your house not accomplish the same goal?
My thought was actually to do it two stories, with a shed on the bottom, and the pub on the top. And maybe a hot tub deck to the side, 1/2 way up the stairs.
That would be cool.
We we’re going to get a nice hot tub that would fit just outside the basement bar doors, but it’s not going to happen this year. Depending on the shit that’s going down, maybe not ever.
Yeah, I had this idea for my back yard at my last house. A small pub/bar in my basement of my next house is probably my best hope.
I’d post some photos, but there’s evil people on the intertoobs. Some might be lurking here.
But of course.
Was that wrong? I wasn’t supposed to do that?
Big Guy says it’s OK. Just make sure he gets his cut next time.
The Chairman approves this comment.
Pie, thanks for this. Well done. In the article, you said:
This is something that I struggle to articulate, but I believe it speaks to a subtle fallacy that we fall into with all the statistics and data nowadays. Specifically, we come to believe that because there is some stated probability for an event to occur (not arguing the accuracy of that evaluation), therefore that probablity can be directly applied to ME or YOU.
For example, if there are 1000 people shoulder-to-shoulder in an area, and someone throws a ball in the air above that crowd, then there is a near 100% chance someone will be struck. BUT! There is a very low chance that **I** will be hit if I’m in that crowd.
Or the fact that more men than women are either geniuses or mentally hadicapped is true, but says nothing about a given, specific person and where he or she falls on that statistical curve.
Yet when we’re talking about risk in daily life, people take a statistic (10% of kids experience {BadThingHere}), and say that their child then has a 10% chance to have this occur. However, this almost certainly not the case. The raw statistical probablity masks their individual circumstances and all the variables that would influence that particular event’s probablity in their life.
Forgive me if this doesn’t make sense (again, I struggle with articulation), but I think the bottom line is that most people can’t separate specific risk in their personal situation from the larger population, and think that it’s a 1:1 correlation. Thus, most people are unable to evaluate critically their – or especially their children’s – risk and engage in liberty.
And a very small but non zero number of kids may even die playing. But it is a minor risk worth taking. – dunno bout America but here in Romania when I was a kid we would swim in rivers and lakes by ourselves. A few kids each year drown. Les than 10 maybe. But it happens.
Aye, and what I was attempting to highlight is the mindset of “since it happens to some child, it will happen to my child” which often leads to anti-liberty legislation or movements whereby we ban swimming in rivers and lakes so as to eliminate the risk.
I hurt my shoulder as a kid diving into shallow water and hitting a rock. A few inches and it wold have been my head.
Yeah, this is a good point and something that people don’t always get. And I’ll admit I don’t always understand the details because my math skills are not great. But someone used a “silly” example to make this point earlier this year:
Every year, 41 Americans are attacked by sharks. So, it’s a very small risk. But, if I spend the whole in, say, Iowa, then the chances I will get attacked by a shark are 0. If I surf every day in California, then my chances are higher than the average.
/starts searching for water park shark attacks in Iowa
Land shark!
I was thinking more like this IT Crowd scene.
I’m curious how you get here. Not that you’re wrong. I get there, but through an icky Jesusy path.
Utilitarianism would say that as long as the harm of involuntariness is more than offset by the good of the charity, then there is still virtue.
Beyond ends not justifying the means, it seems that one has to accept that the means can wholly and irredeemably corrupt the ends in order to say that there is little/no virtue in involuntary charity. After all, a charity dollar is a charity dollar, whether or not it was forcibly removed from its previous owner.
I’m curious how you get here. – reason. Also basic logic: no great feat i doing what you like. That is why you like it
I get there, but through an icky Jesusy path. – I know and I disprove 🙂
disapprove goddamnit
no great feat i doing what you like. That is why you like it
Suffering is virtue, pleasure is vice. ?
not really. I am all for pleasure. But sometimes you have to do a bit of the opposite to help others. Because suffering is bad even if it is not you suffering.
Even this is not exactly it… you don’t need to suffer to help. Just give a shit about more than yourself.
Or better, not suffer but not do anything that maximizes your gain irrespective of other considerations. Especially if you have enough for everything you need and want.
Also, you need not even do anything. Just don’t pretend virtue when what you do costs you nothing. Because virtue signaling is trying to gain something for nothing.
Are we discussing libertarianism or morality?
The two are not the same.
both? neither? beer?
Is “virtue” a concept thats even relevant to libertarianism? I guess in some limited sense where you have to define aggression as vice, everything else becomes virtue by default.
NAP is not the be all end all of things
I always considered libertarianism to be a theory of moral governance, whereas morality generally refers to personal choice.
Can you formulate an argument for libertarianism that does not involve a concept of virtue? I think absent some conseption that increasing liberty itself is a moral good you are left with something like, I want to do what I want without hindrence, and I am not capable of being successful in a power hierarchy. I certainly want to believe I am pro liberty for everyone, not just acknowledging my inability to reach a status that allows me to do the things I desire.
conception. I suppose I should just give up and recgnize that my level of inability to type is indistinuishable from illiteracy.
My original response got dumped into the ether, so you get the Cliffnotes version.
There are other aesthetic and emotional paths, but I think you’ve nailed the primary social path.
I’ll skip the exposition on my “you can’t generate an effective moral system ex nihilo” hobby horse.
I am probably the most friendly to Christianity agnostic possible, but I’ll admit that one thing that gets my back up is the argument you are alluding to. It does not require an order from the divine to found a system of morality. A system not based on divine writ is not therefore Ex Nihilo. The world exists, Human Beings exist, Reason exists, however rare it may be, and the only difference between Christian theory, which says that God implanted a moral sense in each of us, and my thinking is that I do not insist that God implanted it. Reason is the spark of the divine, whether the spark is all that exists or whetehr there is a God it harkens to I do not know.
Reason is the spark of the divine, whether the spark is all that exists or whetehr there is a God it harkens to I do not know.
The issue that always seems to distill out is the appeal to emotion that undergirds the reason. You peel back enough layers of the onion and you eventually get to either “everybody knows that [insert moral primitive that snowballs into a definition of Good with application of Reason]” or “Good is equivalent to social harmony”.
tl;dr: reason is a tool and thus susceptible to being led in any direction by hidden premises
Anyway, I’ll leave it at that because it tends to get contentious when I pull on the thread too much (not saying that you’d be the one being contentious, Jar).
It all seems pretty simple to me. I’m not sure if this is morality or not…
I’m alive and I want to live. If I’m to work together with others, and I assume other humans feel the same as me, then the first principle is that we don’t interfere with each others’ ability to stay alive.
Because suffering is bad even if it is not you suffering.
*libertarian card REVOKED*
I think it is good marketing at least to say libertarian != asshole
-1 Ayn Rand
Ayn was asshoe
When i was young and in my first year in college i took a principles of ethics class and we had a subsittute (graduate student) instructor one day. He got to teach us about the “Trolly Problem” and most of us young (duly indocrtinated by the state) kids chose the utilitarian option. He then revealed he was not a utilitarian and would not flip the switch. I was really shocked.
I now look back at those days as someone who rejects utilitarianism and have a lot of respect for that guy. Don’t know what his moral philosophy was, but it was certainly not a well received one. One of the reasons why i believe a genocide/democide is absolutely possible here, is because most of the American populace has been taught to be at least somewhat utilitarian, if they have any moral philosophy.
I remember in junior high we had the situational ethics session with the Lifeboat problem (people are starving, who do you eat first? kind of thing). I threw a bit of a wrench in things when I stated that I sacrifice myself in order to provide for the group. Teacher really really wanted us talking about who was more useful to society. I couldn’t tell you why back then, but that pissed me off.
If my kids told me their teacher had said something like that, i would write a very strongly worded letter about the teacher teaching abject depravity as some sort of moral system.
:Realizes how stupid that sound:
And then i’d torture the teacher till he agreed with me.
:hopes to rebuild his cred:
[stern look of disapproval]
And just why did you overlook the option of feeding the teacher to your orphans?
This is the right answer.
“Those who can’t do, teach. We need doers on this liferaft Mr. Educrat, not teachers. “
and teach the orphans to expect meat?
Oh, my folks were quite put out. I seem to remember that we knew it was coming, but I didn’t want to get pulled from class, so went through it.
I think that “Situational Ethics” were a thing for a while in my youth. Now they just teach it as truth and don’t label it anything…
The substitute:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9dEI-Ru1CI
I remember in junior high we had the situational ethics session with the Lifeboat problem (people are starving, who do you eat first? kind of thing). I threw a bit of a wrench in things when I stated that I sacrifice myself in order to provide for the group. Teacher really really wanted us talking about who was more useful to society. I couldn’t tell you why back then, but that pissed me off.
I think you can get there thru psychology too. Or evolutionary biology. Or something. The icky Jesus path is the easier way.
Its just the way people work. Most people enjoy giving. For whatever reason, it gives them pleasure. Most people hate having money stolen from them. The money, at the end, may do the same good, but the effect on the source of the money is entirely different.
Also, selection bias. Thieves have different choices for their “chartity” than givers. It is pretty basic economics that the latter will work out better for the recipients.
But it’s not a dollar for charity. It’s whatever is left over after the bureaucracy that extracts the dollar gets paid. Enforcers don’t work for free. Nor do pastors. Money that “goes to charity” gets a chunk siphoned off for the apparatus in charge of disbursing the charity. The only real way to avoid this is to never go through intermediaries.
Here’s a little something to cheer you up – more proof that money doesn’t buy results in politics. I’m going to post this to piss off my proggie circle on FB (although they probably all have me unfollowed these days).
I’m thinking, if i get some time, about writing up a document that will be an interesting take on the polls and how awful they were this year around. People were shitting all over Trafalger group (Cough: Nate Silver :Cough) but then taking quipinac as gospel.
Hell, my “centrist” friends are issuing ultimatums that I contact my representatives and tell them to tell Trump to concede or they’ll “unfriend” me.
I’m rapidly losing my ability to keep my mouth shut.
*contacts representatives to tell them you support Trump’s efforts to confirm the validity of the voting*
“Just contacted my representatives about Trump conceding. We good now?”
Tell them to send nudes or you’ll unfriend them first.
Better make sure that’s what you really want first.
The right could gain a lot of followers by saying “Hey, we don’t care if you don’t take political action to stand with us or against us, we’ll still be your friend”.
Seriously the people like that are not “centrists” but there though process is “What do i have to say to get you to do what i want”.
This is the same thought process that has Democrats trying to berate christians about “Who would Jesus vote for?”
Who would Jesus vote for?
“Hard to say, but probably not the people calling His followers bigoted racists for opposing free late-term abortions.”
I think there’s a lot of spinelessness. In this case, he’s trying to simultaneously appease his rabid left acquaintances and even gain cred with them while banking on the goodwill of his friends on the right who he’s probably hoping will just ignore it.
I’m done ignoring this bullshit.
Imma guess Jesus would not vote for the people that liked crucifying others.
For your friends.
Off topic, but a note on Chains of Custody.
An auditable chain of custody is required and taken as a given for many different kinds of critical bits of evidence. For instance, when a sample is taken from an effluent stream from a manufacturing plant as part of a legally mandated reporting plan, there must be a chain of custody from the person doing the sampling all the way through the lab technician who analyzes the samples, and the storage or disposal of the tested sample. This is usually a paper document that each handler of the sample is in turn required to sign and date, often with notes on what they did with the sample.
In laboratories of all kinds, lab notebooks are tracked religiously. This goes for the above mentioned testing of required samples, to R&D labs. Blank lab notebooks are issued to technicians and investigators, and tracked, logged, and stored under controlled conditions for later reference and/or audit.
At my company, we have outright fired employees for altering or falsifying lab notebooks and operations logs, with no warning or appeal, even when the records in question are not legally required. It is understood that we make very important decisions on this data and it has to be unquestionably traceable and accurate.
In many industries the requirement for data to be carefully managed and protected is treated as a given. Why not in our election processes?
That question is racist. You’re racist. And undermining democracy.
Because a system that is shady and unaccountable, full of “plausible deniability” benefits all the politicians who are in power.
I’m looking at the UT-4 Election. On election night Brian McAddams (D-Incumbent) was up by 3% IIRC. Now after a week of counting he is down by 0.5%. I don’t know why the same arguments that Trump is making don’t apply to him too. UT is heavily run GOP, and we were pretty much mandated to do Mail in ballots.
I keep getting Gateway timeout errors trying to connect today.
Am I alone, or do other Glibs see this problem too?
I have been, as well. Seems to be occurring after I attempt to post a comment.
It seems more prevalent when trying to load the dashboard.
It was a polite way of soft banning you, but you won’t take the hint.
Ok for me.
I realized that I like to drink on days a post of mine drops which means I drink more than I usually do on weekdays which means glibertarians owe me a new liver.
Swiss is the kindey donor. I think HM is responsible for livers.
I enjoyed that read, Pie. Thanks. I’ve seen a few Romanian license plates recently, and thought of you. There are still a lot of Romanians here, doing the work that lazy British welfare queens refuse to, or say isn’t there. I guess when the UK finally leaves the EU we will have to put them all in concentration camps or something.
Enjoyed the read Pie.
Thanks for the article, Pie. You’re pretty sane, for being undead.
Lol.
I’m torn between “there’s no way you can know that” and “I really hope it’s true.”
The Albany county hack in charge of coofing was whining about how it’s not her fault the ‘rona is spreading because “60% of people lie as to how they were infected” which is stymying her contact tracing efforts.
Good
The fucksticks in charge want us to become like East Germany where the informants outnumbered the citizens.
East Germany was on it’s way to being prosperous. The wall was unfortunate, but necessary to keep people in till it could bootstrap itslef to prosperity **
** This is not satire, i have seen this exact argument in the wild.
60% of people lie as to how they were infected
And she knows this, how, exactly?
Made up for sure, my guess her numbers didn’t show bars after 10pm of gyms, churches, or family b-day party as where they possibly caught it so to her its a lie
The briefing yesterday from DeWine (Douchebag – OH) said that the issue was informal gatherings. So if the trend lines don’t bend down by next Thursday, he’s going to close down bars, restaurants, and fitness centers again.
He isn’t hanging by his own entrails from a lamppost?
Ohio, I am disappoint.
Apparently wordpress disapproved of that remark.
I approve.
At least I got my weekly swim in before my Y closes down again, and I have reservations for group exercise classes tomorrow and Saturday. (Can only book 48 hours in advance.)
GT: The spin studio I go to didn’t have classes available to be booked for next Saturday until around noon today. They usually have them up two weeks in advance.
You can only book about 8 days in advance. I’ll make my attempt to book for the 20th in a couple of hours.
A computer model, obviously
SCIENCE!
They’ve done studies, ya know.
Because they fail to find any cases intersecting the purported vector.
But then again, you can’t tell where you caught a bug, it’s not like being shot, it takes a few days for symptoms to appear.
38% of statistics used in passing conversation are just made up on the spot.
The other 62% were made up earlier and then published in whatever source the user is citing.
I thought it was 42%?
I might or might not have given a fake name and the Clown Prince’s office’s phone number to the staff of the only restaurant so far to insist on contact information.
Restaurants in NH are now required to gather contact information of customers for contact tracing under the Clown Prince’s latest edict. I think the edict, interestingly, leaves it up to the restaurant about whether or not to deny service if the customer doesn’t hand over information.
I was meeting a group at this restaurant. Everyone else in the group might or might not have done the same thing I might or might not have done.
Related to the conversation above about what lockdowns are doing and isolation is doing to kids
https://news3lv.com/news/local/young-students-suicide-attempt-shows-reality-of-mental-health-crisis-amid-pandemic
FtA; “His parents asking what, why? And really what are – the only things they got out of him was, I miss my friends,” said Larry. “I don’t have friends.”
I have been to redo the locks on one suicide a few months back of a woman who specifically killed herself due to the lockdowns. She wrote a letter to the building owner, mailed it and told him she would be found dead in the apartment. My dad a few weeks back found a dead guy in one of his rental units. 52 years old, worked at a bar that has been shut down for 8 months now. He drank himself to death alone in the apartment. I don’t doubt that we will see a massive uptick in suicides and drug addiction this year. It is beyond fucked up.
And when it does we’ll get inundated with “we need to spend [Obscene amount] on [Professional Lobbying group] to ensure we are meeting the needs of mental health problems” and “no one could have predicted this was going to happen”.
It’s not showing up in the data so far. We’re looking.
Have you looked in the COVID deaths data?
Yes
Have you looked in the PA election results? I heard there’s a lot of dead people there.
Homicides are up.
Starting to see more bars and restaurants giving up the ghost here in Tucson.
I think I’m seeing a little uptick in vacant storefronts, but its hard to be sure. Incredibly, I am seeing some new businesses. The balls on someone opening a new retail-oriented business during the Current Unpleasantness . . . . Good on them, and I hope it works out. If anything can crush their dreams, it will be Biden and his merry band of public health megalomaniacs, though.
With Eziekiel in charge, we’ll be longing for the return of Fauci.
18 month hard lockdown? No vaccines for Americans (well, Americans who don’t matter, at least) until everyone else on the planet has been vaccinated? No treatment for people over 75? That guy?
Yes, the Joseph Mengele of America
Nah, Fauci is Mengele.
Emmanuel is Klaus Barbie.
But don’t they know that a “short” six week lockdown will “save” the economy?
Seriously, how can people be so frigging idiotic to actually believe a 2, 4, 6 week lockdown, no matter how hard it is, would do the slightest thing to the ultimate death rate of this thing? It boggles the mind to think that intelligent people are eating up this pure shite sandwich and remarking how tasty it is. Do they believe that a virus just goes away if it can’t find enough humans to affect for a few weeks (or even a few months)? I’m really scared we are going to be getting some more lockdowns coming up this winter. It is highly depressing and I’m not much prone to depression.
I dove into some comments on a twitter thread someone posted here a day or two ago.
I know… two mistakes. One, go to twitter and two, read the comments.
Anyways, lots of Aussies claiming to be from Melbourne praised the lockdown there saying it stopped the spread. Sure. You’re entering summer down there. Let’s see what happens when the cold weather starts up again.
And what do you do when it inevitably shows up again?
And again?
And again?
I think we all know the answer to that one.
You mean a twitter link showing up again?
Well, you see, I’m not very smart.
With the lockdown of Damocles hanging over the bars/restaurants, I’m making it a point to go pick up a growler on Saturday from the brewery that had the misfortune of opening on February 29th this year.
” The balls on someone opening a new retail-oriented business during the Current Unpleasantness ”
They were 90% done with the process before the shit hit the fan and the bills are coming due whether they open or not. Might as well open as a beta test.
Well, the 4883C letter is supposedly resolved. The IRS rep was witchy. There’s a non-zero chance I’m audited every year for the rest of my life.
You stole someone’s identity?
Yes, I stole some middle-aged, middle-class schmuck’s identity so I could stroke a check to the IRS.
This is totally your fault for filing taxes in the first place.
That brief site failure was a result of the IRS locking its targeting software on Sean.
I have an accountant. It’s his problem.
True enough.
So who all is planning on setting up some businesses to get some of that “Build Back Better” Cheeze?
I’m starting a small business. And I could use some cheese.
https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/
I live in Brookhaven township out in Long Island. Might be the least free place in the country.
Just had a shed dormer built to give me another bedroom for one of my daughters.
Had to pay an architecht to draw up the plans, had to brong the plans to the building dept and ask permission to change the shape of my own house which i already pay 12k a year in property taxes.
Also needed a new survey done-before starting work i was literally down 5 thousand dollars.
Did the framing inside myself, hired someone to do electric
Did the new floor and insulation, me and the family are all excited to do sheetrock and finish this puppy.
Come to find out i nedd to get an electrical inspection, plumbing inspection for baseboard heat, insulation inspection and framing inspection. First available was the plumbing inspector who can be here around the end of December.
I have to sit around with a half finished room while my daughter sleeps on the floor for another month and a half.
Now i grew up in Brooklyn where the building regs were nothing like this. Is this the way things are in the rest of the country or is it a NY thing?
Several years ago I paid $192 for a permit to install $250 in insulation in my roof. City and county building inspections are a giant fucking scam.
Unreal-just found out that i need to get the electrical inpection done myself–another $350.
I might just skip these inspections and deal with whatever happens.
Whatever happens is they show up and make you tear it all back out at your own expense. Once they’ve inspected any part of your addition you have to follow through. They will make things 100 times worse if you don’t.
This, 1,000%.
When I bought my current house, I had a vision of enclosing a screen porch in commercial glass and putting on a second floor with a sundeck. The whole project had about $100,000 feel to it.
Talking to the inspector, I could not get a straight answer. I finally asked directly about a ballpark figure for the second floor. He said that it would require an impact fee.
Impact fee? What is an impact fee?
Well, the city needs to charge for the extra water and sewer and traffic.
What? I have to pay for water and sewer. I pay by how much I use. There would not be any additional hookups. and it’s still going to just be my family living here. No new cars added simply because we added on a bedroom.
Okay, never mind. How much is an impact fee?
Well, he considered thoughtfully as he looked at the water behind my house. Probably about 45,000 dollars.
45,000 dollars. In an impact fee.
On a $100,000 project.
Basically, what he was letting me know is that the market was rapidly increasing and the city was looking at a bunch of people who are making $50,000 to $100,000 fixing up and flipping houses. The city had decided they wanted in on it. They were going to start extracting a big chunk of that money in the form of fees.
Remember all those weird libertarians who used to say government is organized crime? Yeah, that’s how I learned that they were not crazy weird old coots, they had just lived a little bit longer than I had and had experienced government firsthand.
Im just learning myself. I just dont understand how we got to a place where people are ok with this garbage.
1. Most don’t have to deal with it. How often do you (knowingly) do a permitted improvement?
2. Many will pay it, whether they can afford to out of pocket or not (see also: not haggling at the car dealership)
3. Many have connections that can work around the process
4. Some directly profit off of it
5. When it comes to “blighted” places, shit just doesn’t get done. West Baltimore, East Cleveland, nearly all of Detroit, every one of these places has code inspectors — who do nothing but stand in the way of affordable improvements, then retire and suck even more money out of the city budget for 20-40 years
6. Up to the point where the place you live becomes wholly governed by an unassailable party domination if the individual impacted pushes back hard enough the bureaucrats often fold rather than risk a court determination that the rule or fee constitutes a taking, or violates the 4th, 5th, 6th or 8th amendment.
they were doing zoom inspections where I was living during the pandemic is was hysterical.
I know of commercial construction sites where the superintendents were walking around with their cell phones on a video call so inspectors could “inspect”
I live by a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” standard when it comes to local regulations
City and county inspectors have a very high rate of greasy palms syndrome. “The joist nails in that deck don’t look like they are the right length, and I cant see them without pulling off all of the decking. It’s a shame you are going to have to loose a whole day of work and materials.” “I wish there was something to make me feel better about those nails”
An acquaintance of mine who opened a brewery had some very… colorful… rants about the inspection guy who came that they had to get to approve the brewery setup and electrical work.
In these parts ive heard stories of them using google earth to find out who has been building decks in their yards without permission.
Funny that you should write about liberty being a hard sell. I have been taking the rare step of talking politics online under my real name of late, specifically arguing for liberty.
With the massive grab for power at the tech companies, they went from shadow bans and the odd outright shutdown of a conservative voice here and there to wholesale censorship of ideas they don’t like. So I have been pushing back in my own tiny way.
One of my favorite topics other than liberty is science and skepticism. Because of the intermingling of politics with scientific topics, particularly surrounding covid 19, several channels have been banned or demonetized or have had warnings placed on their channel for debunking disinformation about covid 19. I took this as an opportunity to reach a new audience and speak to them in a context where they might understand our point of view.
I hope I have reached some. But there has always been pushback.
There is a large contingent in this skeptic community, particularly among the leading personalities, that believes that censorship of ideas that they don’t like is not just acceptable or desirable, but it is the only true and just course. They believe that people who pedal “misinformation” should be shut down and shunned from society.
Since some of them were getting caught up in the bycatch of censorship, I thought I might reach them. I explained that the correct response to bad speech or misinformation is always more speech. It is never to forcibly silence other people.
I was given an opportunity in the form of some videos debunking the flat Earth. Some people who do debunkings had taken on the flat Earth, and also had gotten shut down or demonetized for debunking myths about the pandemic.
So I explained to them how their entire existence depended on their freedom to speak and disagree with others. I further explained that their speech detailing what is wrong with flat earth theories was far more effective and persuasive than attempting to ban people from making silly claims. They should know this intuitively, since they go to all the trouble of making a bunch of videos about that very topic.
I thought it was a fairly easy leap from something that they care about their own right to speak about two other people’s right to speak, and from the effectiveness of speech encountering bad speech to the inherent dangers of using force to combat speech.
Yeah, I was pretty much wrong. They did not get it. Even in the context of the mask discussion, which is under active academic research and has some very mixed real-world results coming in, most of them did not understand why the freedom to speak was important on these issues. Basically, the consensus seems to be that only experts and people who agree with them are allowed to have opinions and share them. Everyone else should be silent and listen.
I hope that the results of my rhetorical skills reach beyond the vocal minority who took time to respond. Because they didn’t move an inch. They are fully opposed to censorship. But people saying things that they disagree with is not free speech, and preventing them from speaking is not censorship. Orwell would be proud, and it made my head hurt.
So you’re saying we should ban you for having been wrong about the best way to stop wrong information?
I am quite certain that there are a large number of folks in that cohort who would happily see you and I frog marched off to the gulag for wrong think.
Sorry, i was trying to make a hamfisted “meta” joke about you spreading false information about how these people would understand what you were putting forward, and so we should have you censorded
No, I got it.
I was just building upon the point… My experience is that these people are dangerously clueless and way too enthusiastic about trampling other people’s rights.
I imagine we are headed either to a moment where reality strikes and these quite people become more vocal and tell everyone on the “Pro-censorship” train to shove off, or for a long, dark period, of “Bad Luck”
Reality will not set in until the personal cost to them is so great that it’s already too late.
I actually used this argument directly. As in, you rely on the freedom of speech to carry your message of scientific skepticism. How difficult would it be for big pharma or big supplement companies to put pressure on social media platforms to shut you down for daring to speak against their huge cash cow that is homeopathic remedies? Can you not see how easily these tools can be turned against you?
Nobody could see the parallel. At least nobody who was writing replies.
They literally will be giggling smugly as they are walked up to the wall and handed their blindfolds, secure in the knowledge that they are on the side of right and that the worm could never turn against them.
I think it is a function of a high lack of empathy. They cannot put themselves into the shoes where what is “True” is being suppressed. They are speaking the Truth, so it would be wrong to suppress what they are saying. Furthermore, they can’t comprehend the idea of “Maybe i’m wrong about this”, and then see how the people they are clamoring to be censored would feel, because thats how they _do_ feel.
A lot of people think that anyone who is disagreeing with them are knowingly lying. i.E He knows i’m right, but is refusing to go along with it for his own reasons.
They’re intellectual cowards. Their egos are so large and so fragile, that they simply cannot take the risk that they would be wrong. By removing all of the opposing viewpoints, their personal risk of being wrong is distributed across all who agree with them, ie everyone.
Somewhat germane, the company I worked for launched a points based system for their users, and while I was working with the developer on the project, I told him it was creepy. He didn’t understand why, since this would maybe encourage people to be nicer, etc. I told him it was going to be used like Chinese social credit. Sure enough, we launched, and the product team immediately started talking about how they could review the users who had negative points and get rid of them. He messaged me with the dawning realization that I had been right.
Ouch!
I kind of want to laugh in the face of everyone who thought this shit would end after election day. The shit would end if the people in power were cynical. They aren’t cynical, they are evil.
We voted for Joe, please let’s go back to 2008.
Yeah there is a large contingent of that, including republicans.
You are spot on…. Unfortunately, 2008 was when the media finally gave in and truly learned to love big brother. That was the year that they crossed over from “biased” and into “propaganda”.
Maddening, ain’t it?
At the basest level, what they desire is to have the power to fix the world. If only they had power, then it would be utopia.
They’re useful idiots who are being lined up against the wall and still asking “Why me?”
It makes me wonder if we have quit requiring students to read the dystopian writings of the last century. When I was coming along one had to read animal farm and 1984. Somehow I suspect that they did not read these books. Harrison bergeron was an important touchstone for me. I really don’t think they have any idea that that story exists.
It also brings to mind Pink Floyd’s album The Wall. In the last act, our protagonist takes to the stage and starts screaming about various groups that need to be put up against the wall.
From this behavior we know that he has gone completely mad.
I wonder what this new generation hears if and when they listen to that album. Do they hear that he is finally awakened and learned to love big brother? Do they miss the descent into madness portion and only think him a racist and homophobe? Somehow I think that they cannot grasp the same context that I hear when I listen to that album.
Do they hear that he is finally awakened and learned to love big brother?
Probably, since these days a good prog is on board with “truth and reconciliation”, like our own “progressive leaders”.
If they understand the story, they are put on anti-depressants (like Syd Barrett) and learn to love big brother (like Roger Waters).
Yeah. Inasmuch as they do read them they probably get the “Hillary Clinton” form of analysis, where 1984 talks about how dangerous it is to question the Mainstream Media.
Right. Huxley as a how to manual.
Overheard in a restaurant recently.
Mom: “What books are you reading in school?”
Daughter: “Animal Farm”
Mom: “I think I remember that, what’s that about?”
Daughter: “Pigs and stuff, I dunno, kind of boring really.”
Mom: “Yeah, I think I didn’t like it either.”
Made my 10 year old read Animal Farm over the summer, and my 14 year old read both Animal Farm and 1984. They recognize what’s going on pretty clearly. And truth about Harrison Bergeron; I should dig that one up for both of the kids next.
And Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery.
My fifth grade english teacher had us read: The Lottery, The Midas Plague, Harrison Bergeron, and Animal Farm. One of the few teachers I still remember clearly decades later.
It is impossible to communicate rationally with a person who is irrational and emotional. Their minds are closed if not absent.
I hope that the results of my rhetorical skills reach beyond the vocal minority who took time to respond. Because they didn’t move an inch. They are fully opposed to censorship. But people saying things that they disagree with is not free speech, and preventing them from speaking is not censorship. Orwell would be proud, and it made my head hurt.
Sounds like they didn’t reason themselves into their position.
Funny that you mentioned that……
I actually quoted studies about cognition that show that positions that are arrived at not by reason but by emotion and that are closely held are almost impossible to dislodge.
I linked to the scientific studies to show them that trying to force people to change their mind will only make them dig in deeper.
I intended it as a double road map. first, to understand the people they are trying to win over and how censoring them would not have the desired effect.
But secondly, hoping to hold a mirror up that they might understand what part they play in the whole thing.
Yeah, don’t go looking for introspection. You rarely find it. Not even among people who operate under the pretension that they exist only in a world of rationally arrived at positions.
I believe the same bullshit that this expert over here believes, therefore my bullshit is logical and scientific.
“Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired…” – Swift
And here is why you cannot convince them.
They, skeptici superiori, believe that they have more reason than thou. Their stubbornness was logically arrived at.
It always boils down to arrogance. I got annoyed with the skeptic community a long time ago because it seems to be dominated by egocentric wannabe authoritarians.
I think that is what really bothers me.
I have this pretense of my own, that logic and reason inevitably lead to a humbleness of spirit that inevitably results in a libertarian philosophy.
Kind of an inverse dunning Kruger effect operating not only for the mind but for the soul. Once you get enough knowledge of philosophy and science, you come to know your own limitations. The inevitable consequence of this knowledge for me is a rejection of the hubris that is lording over others and believing that you are smart enough to tell them how to live their lives.
Unfortunately, even if I am right, most people never escape the trough of the dunning Kruger effect, gaining enough knowledge to realize just how much they do not know.
I attempt, usually unsuccessfully, to convince people that a unitary approach to any societal problem carries the greatest risk because if it is wrong, then everyone suffers.
The chaos of a distributed solution, the market, is far better because it limits the downside risk, but it will never eliminate it.
They simply prefer that if anyone loses, everyone loses. It’s only fair and the side benefit is that they are never judged in comparison to those who performed better or had better ideas, thus preserving their fragile egos.
I can definitely see this effect at work.
I would say that they should all have to immediately go read Harrison Bergeron… But somehow I doubt they would understand the message.
Heck, I doubt they could listen to “the trees” by Rush and figure it out.
The everyone’s fair (we all win or lose together) angle, as well as the fact that a lot of “we can’t have people be wrong!” if we all do the same thing, eventually we will all get to the right answer.
That right answer being mass graves.
Enthusiasm.
Also, Trump won a lawsuit in PA today, slapping down the PA SoS.
I have it under good authority that this is misinformation.
Every major publication and most minor publications have made it clear. Even the hallowed pages of reason have told me that all of Trump’s lawsuits are entirely without merit.
Ergo, ipso facto, therefore and in conclusion, you must be a Russian bot spreading disinformation.
DEBUNKED!
I was going for some audition writing for Snopes or some other fact check organization.
But I see that you have trumped me with your much more succinct analysis. I think that USA Today might be calling for your services in their fact check desk.
Is the lead vehicle an unmarked police car? I see red flashing lights.
Maybe private security?
Why on earth would they need private security?
Maybe they are worried that someone wlll peacefully protest them.
Maybe?
Did they hire an escort like cops do for funeral duty?
taking an Escort to a funeral seems pretty tacky.
Liberty = Freedom From Responsibility
The self-esteem movement agrees.