Corporatist idiots.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Corporatist idiots.


Says the guy who voted for Obama.

I like the music choice of "You Sexy Thing."

I mean, I hadn't thought about it before you posted this but sure I'd fuck Ron Paul (because he's so sexy). I'd fuck him hard in the roast beef old man ass.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Corporatist idiots.


Speaking of corporatists, why is it he seems to get left out of the debate when the corporate media covers the primaries? Obama gets plenty of attention from the corporate media, and so do the neocons and dominionists from the GOP.

For example, this article just came out yesterday. Ron Paul polled in 2nd place, but the headline reads: "Poll: Romney leads New Hampshire, Huntsman in third, Perry in fourth". Looks like the big corporatists are afraid of Paul yet love them some Obama. They practically pitched Obama into the White House like a softball to the voter's.

It seems like a problem that Ron Paul is like 80 years old.

Since it's probably a safe bet that libertarians have the highest average IQ and net worth of the 3 major parties, why aren't there young, dynamic libertarian leaders on the national stage? For instance, here in Silicon Valley, we have young super-competitive hyper-intellectual libertarians like Peter Thiel.

Seems like the Libertarian Party should be grooming talented young libertarians (particularly women) for the national spotlight as part of their long-term strategy.

I don't get a super 'High IQ' vibe from right-libertarians, which isn't to say they are stupid - they are certainly more thoughtful than your typical conservative. But as far as intellectuals go, right-libertarians have a shallow bench. When Milton Friedman is your most revered intellectual, you've got problems...

I think part of the problem with finding young leaders is that in right-libertarian circles, it's generally considered taboo to question free market doctrine. While this kind of ideological purity is good at creating loyal and aggressive followers, it's not the kind of thing that inspires the critical thinking necessary for a good leader. That's why the younger leaders end up being creepy, dictatorial narcissists like Stefan Molyneux. Political fundamentalism isn't much different from religious fundamentalism in that respect.

The ego has no bounds.

@dystopianfuturetoday

Yeah, I'm sure most libertarians aren't high-IQ types, but I can't think of a strong counter-argument against the statement about averages. I think the argument for it is:

1. Libertarianism is described by advocates as contributing to the world through successful individualism in an economic meritocracy, whereas liberalism and conservatism are described by advocates as contributing to the world through collectivist goals and social tastes.

2. Liberalism and conservatism both have strong below average IQ segments. Among conservatives, it's in the form of hillbillies and the religious, and among liberals, it's in the form of educational achievement gaps among non-Asian minorities (with Asian minorities and Jewish minorities scoring above European-descended groups). I can't think of any below average IQ segment within libertarianism.


Personally, I haven't read much Milton Friedman, but the people I've been exposed to who seem to me to be the smartest people alive - Peter Thiel, Paul Graham, and Steven Pinker - are all libertarian.

The problem with market libertarianism is that it is "liberty" only from a wealthy person's perspective. Unregulated markets do nothing to guard against chattel or wage slavery, labor abuse, environmental destruction, violence or other kinds of exploitation. The libertarian defense to this is usually 'if you work hard enough, you too can be rich', but this argument quickly falls apart when you ask yourself "well, if everyone works hard enough, can everyone be rich?" Of course not. It's a pie in the sky. The other defense is that 'the magic hand will make everything right', which, to me, is indistinguishable from religious faith.

Market libertarianism is the best attempt yet at a moral justification for plutocracy. This is why you see plutocrats like the Koch brothers and the Scaife Foundation spending so much money promoting libertarianism. Though these are generally dishonest people, I don't think they are dishonest in their support of market libertarianism, I think they are true believers every bit as much as you or blankfist.

However, if you look at places like Chad and Somalia that have free market principals in place (small governments, little regulation and low taxes), the quality of life is very low.

In places with stronger social democracies like Belgium, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, the UK (among others) you see happier, healthier people and far less suffering, poverty and unemployment.

If you looked a little deeper past the ego stroking rhetoric about 'individualism' and 'meritocracy' you will see there is no substance to market libertarianism. It's a racket used to sucker citizens into freely giving away democratic power.

I agree that right-libertarians are the most intellectual (and arguably the most pure) type of conservative. Still, these people are generally anti science and anti academia, so (IMO) I don't think they've earned the right to justify that title just yet.

@chilaxe I challenge you to be more critical with your politics; to question what you've been taught, who taught it to you, and what these people stand to gain from your support?

@dystopianfuturetoday

1. "well, if everyone works hard enough, can everyone be rich?" Of course not. It's a pie in the sky.

One of the biggest differences between careerists and collectivists is that careerists view society as a multi-sum game rather than a zero-sum game. (In a multi-sum game, the more one person contributes, the more he and everyone else benefits. In a zero-sum game, if one person gains, another must lose, and the balance is always zero.) Steve Jobs revolutionizing technology 5 times didn't make everyone else poorer, it made them even more lucky than they already are.

Liberalism is created by a genetic 'yuck factor' against hierarchy, so liberals feel that we can only be happy if we're well-off relative to our neighbors, rather than well-off in more absolute terms --that is, relative to the 99.99% of humankind throughout human history that were poorer than us.



2. In places with stronger social democracies like Belgium, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, the UK (among others) you see happier, healthier people and far less suffering, poverty and unemployment.

Those places are wealthy because they're filled with white people and they inherited infrastructure from previous generations. They could run just about any government policies and they'd still have high academic test scores. Use the same measurement on the US (only count white people (or count Asian Americans also)) and the US performs even better than Europe on just about all metrics (crime rates, academic test scores, health and medicine, etc.)



3. "Still, these people are generally anti science"

As soon as liberals stop opposing the human sciences, they can criticize others for being anti-science. I left academia to become a capitalist because I realized liberals were always going to prioritize tribalism over science, so the professional pursuit of knowledge was useless unless it's for the purposes of making money. Indeed, they view it as bad faith to even bring up the human sciences, despite their importance to human knowledge.



4. "@chilaxe I challenge you to be more critical with your politics; to question what you've been taught, who taught it to you, and what these people stand to gain from your support?"

I accepted your challenge years ago and became critical of my liberal upbringing. My entire family's liberal, and 95% of the people I've ever met are liberal. (I grew up in northern Califiornia.) I began to question what I'd been taught by my teachers and professors, 100% of whom were liberal.

1. Why is it that the more we move away from social democracy and towards fundamentalist capitalism, the more stratified our culture becomes. With record high profits, record low taxes, deregulation of the financial sector and privatization of the government, why is there more corruption, more inequality, more violence, more war, more unemployment, more inflation, more poverty and more misery rather than less. Why are your beliefs so at odds with reality?

And also, individualism is a zero sum game by definition - my me mine. Collectivism is a ‘multi-sum’ game by definition - us we ours. You have it completely backwards. You can’t have it both ways. A functioning democracy works in concert with markets and regulates them to make sure they remain working in a 'multi-sum' manner.

2. You didn't explain why countries that lean more towards social democracy have a happier, healthier, better off populous than countries that lean more towards deregulated markets? Do you dispute this disparity? If so, back it up. Why is it that the more we stray from the New Deal in our own country, the worse our country suffers?

3. Liberals oppose human science? As in eugenics? Liberals prioritize tribalism over science? What does that even mean? Knowledge is useless unless it can make you money? This section is incomprehensible. This is an area of argument I've not heard before. I'd be interested to hear you flesh it out in a more straightforward manner.

4. Cool, let’s get to the heart of the problem:

What does capitalism have to do with liberty? Doesn’t it seem manipulative to define your partisan economic outlook as the embodiment of liberty? How would you feel if I started using social democracy and liberty as the same word? (note to self: fun argument applications here.) How would unregulated markets deal with chattel or wage slavery, labor abuse, environmental destruction, violence, unemployment, vast social inequity, or other kinds of oppression? Why would unregulated markets care that people are suffering?

Why has there never been a successful free market society?

Why is it that the individual tenets of the free market (lowering taxes,lowering wages,deregulation,privatization,austerity) seem to have such a negative and destructive effect on society?

@dystopianfuturetoday

1a. Social stratification is increasing in every country around the world. It's due to globalization and automation, not to domestic policy. People who work smart and hard doing 21st century work are contributing more to society every year, and people who prefer work that can easily be automated are contributing less to society each year. Resistance to that is just the luddites burning down loom machines all over again.

1b. My lazy collectivist friends who grew up with more advantages than I did all contribute hardly anything to society, whereas large numbers of consumers enjoy the results of my labor. Economics is multi-sum by definition because unless both parties benefit, no trade can be completed. Trade creates value all around.

Some regulation is reasonable.

2. Problems in the US are generally due to (1) inevitable globalization (only 21st century labor is valuable now) and (2) to population replacement. (We're in the process of replacing a high education white/jewish/asian society with a low education non-Asian minority society. That's why California went from being one of the most well-off states in the country to being literally #50 out of #50 on some measures, despite having very liberal policies on education spending, teacher salaries, etc.)

3. Read the NYT article that was linked, and then wonder why virtually all liberal academics will lie about that article and about HBD (human bio-diversity) in general if you ask them about it. Reading Pinker's Blank Slate is a good start.

4. A free society means you don't have to cover the costs of your stupid neighbors who are exercising their right to be stupid and to reject your sound advice. Arguments counter to that are just an excuse for liberals to avoid pursuing their human potential and working smart and hard. My productivity already subsidizes my lazy friends that I grew up with... it's weird to try to increase subsidies for stupid ideas.


It appears to be the case that even if we assume voting liberal is best for society, holding liberal beliefs in your private life greatly reduces your ability to contribute to society, because liberalism makes its adherents think of smart hard work and careerism as slavery rather than contribution and personal development.

1a. The ravages of globalization are the result of a lack of effective regulation. We can’t regulate the world, but we can end the international trade agreements that pit our labor against 3rd world slaves. We can create public sector jobs to take up the slack for the failings of the market. We can tariff the fuck out of countries (looking at you China) that pollute the environment and lower the value of labor. It’s not a matter of skilled vs. unskilled jobs. Unemployment is hitting the working class and working poor alike. Much of the current disparity is between people with similar levels of education.

1b. Huge double standard here. You recognize private contributions to society as things of value, but you are blind to the benefits the public sector provides you every waking (or sleeping) moment of your life. Whatever satisfaction you provide your consumers pales in comparison to the security, infrastructure, safety standards, constitutional rights, court system, labor protections and other benefits that have allowed you the opportunity to live, work and thrive in this society. You take these things for granted because you’ve never known a life without them. Spoiled libertarian brat (is there any other kind).

2. I believe there is a lot of truth to this.

3. Obviously this is important to you, but I’m not getting the significance of the article you linked to or it’s political or scientific ramifications? Some scientists are skeptical about a controversial hypothesis. Are they holding up the creation of a master race of brilliant chess playing super-Jews? I’ve got enough to read at the moment. Give me the cliff notes version.

I don’t want to live in a society of slaves and masters. I don’t want to live under absolute socialist equality either. A hybrid system that strikes a compromise between the benefits of socialism and capitalism, run with the oversight and transparency of a working democracy would be best.

The market should be free to do it’s thing just so long as it does not become harmful to society (and itself). When the market fails to create jobs, the public sector should step in. When markets pollute or exploit, the public sector should step in. The public sector should also handle services that are too important to gamble away in the private sector like health care, social security and education.

It really comes done to whether or not you believe that humans have a moral obligation to care for one another. I do absolutely. I don’t want to be anyone's slave or master. I don’t want to be a millionaire. I’d just like to live in a country that doesn't punish the meek and powerless for being meek and powerless.

Don't tell blankfist, but you are a much better debater than he. Good chatting with you, Chilaxe.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Don't tell blankfist, but you are a much better debater than he. Good chatting with you, Chilaxe.


He probably doesn't have to tell me. I'm actually pretty good at reading. It's debating I'm terrible at... oooooooooh. I see what you did there.

A peaceful man stands tall. Just like the pied piper led rats through the streets. We dance like marionettes.

@dystopianfuturetoday

1a. Some of globalization might be improved, but a lot of it is inevitable. At most, we can hope to reduce the efficiency of humankind by blocking people in developing nations from fairly being employed where they're most needed (by 1st world companies). If we had to overpay for unskilled labor, automation in the US would just increase even more quickly, so transferring labor from humans in the developing world to machines in the US wouldn't be a big help overall.

1b. Yeah, the public sector is definitely good at a lot of things, like the areas you mentioned. But the point still stands that, in effect, I'm probably more prosocial than my collectivist friends because I pursue career like an individualist, and it's through our careers and our resulting personal development that we contribute to the world.

2. Ok.

3a. The cliff notes version of human bio-diversity is that most problems with society that liberals dislike are caused by neurogenetic inequality, not by policy. The current push by liberals to restore racist discrimination against Asian Americans at California universities is tacit admission of this.

3b. The problem with regulation is that liberals moved the goal post by replacing the population of our society with the population of a poorer society. The result is things like fabricated "failures of the market" like widespread unemployment, permanently lowered academic test scores and health outcomes (which increasingly correlate with cognitive complexity as personal health management becomes more complicated) and a workforce that's too unskilled for society to be able to afford things like infrastructure and cutting edge 21st century healthcare.

3c. The good news is that, by all appearances, reprogenetics (reprogramming genetics) will begin around the middle of this century to solve all the problems caused by natural neurogenetic inequality. Embryo selection has been in use in in-vitro fertilization clinics for several years to screen out embryos with disease genes, and its use will continue to grow as genetics knowledge continues to advance at an exponential rate.


Good chatting with you also, DFT