Yeah there is a certain thing wrong with (right) libertarians, I have called it the inability to see exceptions to rules before (which leads to the weird logic about NAPs, and the dumb ‘defending the undefendable’ book and a lot of discussions with libertarians where they use some weird thing to claim that their logic holds because the other side beliefs a few things which, when taken to the extreme, are contradictory) but it is more than just that, this inability to see that a billionaire stealing millions once is a bigger crime than a few people doing a bit of shoplifting or drugs or whatever crime they think is equivalent to the billionaire is baffling.
I used to think this libertarian freedom thing was allright, and then I read libertarian books, and listened to libertarians argue. Not sure if Ben_West is a libertarian btw, im just going into an anti liberarian rant. (This all has not been helped by the fact that some libertarians I used to know turned hard far right a couple of years ago).
Oh man I learned about “Defending the Undefendable” last month. It’s amazing to see the original source of all the stupidest arguments I’ve seen around the internet.
It is not only a pretty dumb book (loved by libertarian logicbros), but it also has for some reason a homophobic cartoon in it. It was really weird, and it came out of nowhere in the bit about stripmining (it also strawmans the anti-stripmining people). Content warning, but here it is. (I was so ‘wtf’ when I read this I made a screenshot of the cartoon when I read the book years ago, and now I’m thinking of this comment by David). Note it is a book from 1976, so that makes it even weirder in a way, you could say ‘ha, the point was to upset people, he got you!’ but this was before the aids crisis even, being a homophobe wasn’t something that was that unpopular.
E: and forgot to mention, one of the funny things of the book is that he defends Ebenezer Scrooge, as being a penny pincer is good or something, but that wasn’t the main point of a Christmas Carol, his misanthropy is way more a point that him being a miser, his lack of connection to the rest of humanity is the problem (and well him ranting about ‘surplus population’).
Oh, so that’s where the punching someone when you see a yellow car/VW beetle thing comes from. Interesting to note that of all the customs to observe in a social encounter (such as “don’t suddenly punch people for stupid reasons”) Duncan chooses the convention mostly followed by tween boys for the purpose of annoying each other.
Anyway, I guess the book fails to defend the undefendable, then? Seems pretty obvious, to be honest.
No I was just ranting about that book and libertarians, I have no idea where the game comes from. And yeah Duncan picked a really bad example (just as the book does) to defend his points.
Yeah there is a certain thing wrong with (right) libertarians, I have called it the inability to see exceptions to rules before (which leads to the weird logic about NAPs, and the dumb ‘defending the undefendable’ book and a lot of discussions with libertarians where they use some weird thing to claim that their logic holds because the other side beliefs a few things which, when taken to the extreme, are contradictory) but it is more than just that, this inability to see that a billionaire stealing millions once is a bigger crime than a few people doing a bit of shoplifting or drugs or whatever crime they think is equivalent to the billionaire is baffling.
I used to think this libertarian freedom thing was allright, and then I read libertarian books, and listened to libertarians argue. Not sure if Ben_West is a libertarian btw, im just going into an anti liberarian rant. (This all has not been helped by the fact that some libertarians I used to know turned hard far right a couple of years ago).
Oh man I learned about “Defending the Undefendable” last month. It’s amazing to see the original source of all the stupidest arguments I’ve seen around the internet.
It is not only a pretty dumb book (loved by libertarian logicbros), but it also has for some reason a homophobic cartoon in it. It was really weird, and it came out of nowhere in the bit about stripmining (it also strawmans the anti-stripmining people). Content warning, but here it is. (I was so ‘wtf’ when I read this I made a screenshot of the cartoon when I read the book years ago, and now I’m thinking of this comment by David). Note it is a book from 1976, so that makes it even weirder in a way, you could say ‘ha, the point was to upset people, he got you!’ but this was before the aids crisis even, being a homophobe wasn’t something that was that unpopular.
E: and forgot to mention, one of the funny things of the book is that he defends Ebenezer Scrooge, as being a penny pincer is good or something, but that wasn’t the main point of a Christmas Carol, his misanthropy is way more a point that him being a miser, his lack of connection to the rest of humanity is the problem (and well him ranting about ‘surplus population’).
Oh, so that’s where the punching someone when you see a yellow car/VW beetle thing comes from. Interesting to note that of all the customs to observe in a social encounter (such as “don’t suddenly punch people for stupid reasons”) Duncan chooses the convention mostly followed by tween boys for the purpose of annoying each other.
Anyway, I guess the book fails to defend the undefendable, then? Seems pretty obvious, to be honest.
No I was just ranting about that book and libertarians, I have no idea where the game comes from. And yeah Duncan picked a really bad example (just as the book does) to defend his points.
Oh I was referring to David’s post. I was just surprised the punch bug thing was international.