http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/09/the-case-for-abolishing-patents-yes-all-of-them/262913/
Source date (UTC): 2012-09-28 06:56:00 UTC
Category: Commentary, Critique, and Response
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” … the most improper job of any man, even saints … is bossing other men. No
” … the most improper job of any man, even saints … is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity”
– JRR to Christopher Tolkein
(Thanks to Skye Stewart for the longer quote.)
Source date (UTC): 2012-09-24 21:21:00 UTC
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Bit Of A Rant But Priceless Tolkein
http://peacerequiresanarchy.wordpress.com/A Bit Of A Rant But Priceless Tolkein.
Source date (UTC): 2012-09-24 21:20:00 UTC
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ON NONSENSE “Some people think that nonsense is too silly to answer. But not ans
ON NONSENSE
“Some people think that nonsense is too silly to answer. But not answering it can just allow nonsense to prevail.”
— Thomas Sowell
(Thanks to Greg Ransom)
Source date (UTC): 2012-09-19 12:18:00 UTC
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Untitled
http://www.capitalismv3.com/2012/09/19/krugman-straw-man-of-the-day-iphone-5-shows-we-are-all-keynesians/
Source date (UTC): 2012-09-19 12:14:00 UTC
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HANS HOPPE’S NEW BOOK “THE GREAT FICTION” I joined the Jeff Tucker’s new club ju
HANS HOPPE’S NEW BOOK “THE GREAT FICTION”
I joined the Jeff Tucker’s new club just so that I could get the book immediately on my iphone rather than wait a few days for a hard copy of it. I suppose that’s the most fannish behavior I’ve ever demonstrated in my life. But then, I feel I’ve learned almost everything of value about political philosophy from Hoppe, and that’s more respectable than being a fan of a hair band, and certainly more so than an advocate of a politician.
It’s mostly just a case of crowing that I’ve already got The Great Fiction. I’m sure others have too – probably before I have. But I still feel like a kid who got tickets to a concert after waiting in line for three days.
I’ve only managed to make time to savor four chapters so far, and none of them is from the new material he’s included. But it seems to be better written or at least, better edited. And as such, I think the book is eminently accessible. Something that The Economics and Ethics of Private Property is unfortunately not. But then, that books is an argument, and The Great Fiction appears to be wisdom.
In one chapter, he creates such a wonderful narrative about the difficulty in bridging intellectual disciplines, and you can hear the subtle disappointment with mankind that has come with his age, where once would have been the bravado challenge and opportunity for demonstrating one’s intellect.
Unfortunately, while Hoppe’s intellectual personality comes across better in this book than his prior tomes, I feel a slight loss for those people who only come to know him through his works, rather than his lectures. Because in person he makes the irony of history and our folly with it, come alive with both humor, wit and insight. He ridicules the folly of our human vanity, so that we may comfortably step back and see our most cherished beliefs as patently objectively falsehoods no less mythical than our fairy tales.
I’m savoring these essays, and I don’t want them used up too soon. As a kid, I’d carefully save the halloween candy, so I’d always have some around until Easter. The Great Fiction is this fall’s bag of treats, and begs the same treatment. 🙂
Curt Doolittle.
Source date (UTC): 2012-09-09 16:46:00 UTC
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CREATE GREATER DISPARITIES IN RACIAL INCARCERATION? This is one of those things
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/prison.htmLIBERALS CREATE GREATER DISPARITIES IN RACIAL INCARCERATION?
This is one of those things that just would annoy my friends in Ottawa. 🙂
La Griffe Du Lion is always priceless.
His Smart Fraction theory alone would be worth reading his work. THe fact that he’s hysterically good using modern socratic characters only makes it more enjoyable.
Thanks Ashtad for the pointer.
Source date (UTC): 2012-09-08 22:03:00 UTC
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PROBLEM The American Austrian school (The Rothbardian MIsesians) are motivated p
http://www.professorfekete.com/articles/AEFATaleOfTwoSchools.pdfONE PROBLEM
The American Austrian school (The Rothbardian MIsesians) are motivated primarily by political rather than economic interests. Their leadership, in particular, that of Rockwell and the MI, adopted the Marxist ideological strategy of the community organizers on one hand, and public intellectuals on the other.
And that strategy has proven eminently successful – nearly taking over the term ‘libertarian’ as ‘liberal’ was taken over by the left. So the American Austrians should be appreciated in the context of their ambitions and achievements. Intolerance is necessary for including people in an ideological identity. Politics is emotional by its nature, and ideology is more effective at inciting political action than is reasoned argument. So with their strategy, the Rothbardian Misesians of the American Austrian school have altered the political landscape – for the benefit of all libertarians.
They have been so successful at introducing anarchic thinking that the rest of the libertarian movement has adopted their methods. And as of last year, have begun openly fighting for their identity against the Rothbardians.
It is probably a better strategy to criticize the intellectual problems in their message while complimenting the ideological success. By doing so we do not violate their principle of purity, which we see as intolerance.
(FB Note: Shared so that I don’t lose this comment)
Source date (UTC): 2012-09-06 13:05:00 UTC
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@jbbigf @tuppington @PhilBest That’s about right. But I can’t tell how much of t
http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/02/mitt_romney_is_living_every_social_scientists_nightmare @jbbigf @tuppington @PhilBest That’s about right. But I can’t tell how much of that is pandering.Diamond’s full argument is that all other things being equal, humans develop at a fairly constant rate given the natural resources available to them. HOWEVER, cultures often choose or evolve institutions that allow them to be out gunned, germ’ed and steel’ed, so to speak. And cultures can create institutions that allow them to advance or inhibit advancement. So Diamond generally argues that he answered the objection. He’s just emphasizing his primary contribution. Not diminishing it’s counter-effects.For example, we can visibly demonstrate the points at which both Chinese and Islamic civilizations became destructive. And we can see why they became destructive: they could not solve the problem of institutions. The west didn’t so much solve the problem of institutions as solve more of the problem than others did – preventing stagnation and regression. Even if that solution was an accidental byproduct of the church’s greed, caused by forbidding cousin marriage, and granting women property rights, in order to collect land in the Church’s name more easily.
Source date (UTC): 2012-08-13 18:44:00 UTC
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A Critique Of Jason Brennan’s Thought Experiment: Just War Is A Utilitarian And Contractual, Not Absolute Moral Concept
Some Thought Experiments Involving Assassination by JASON BRENNAN 1. Suppose an evil demon appears before you and says, “I plan to kill hundreds of thousands of foreign civilians and destroy their country’s architecture unless you kill this one innocent person.” Under these extreme circumstances, might it be permissible for you to kill that innocent person? 2. Suppose an evil demon appears before you and says, “I plan to kill hundreds of thousands of foreign civilians and destroy their country’s architecture unless you kill this Mafia don, a criminal who has himself killed many people and who plans to kill many more.” Under these extreme circumstances, might it be permissible for you to kill that Mafia don? 3. Suppose an evil demon appears before you and says, “I plan to kill hundreds of thousands of foreign civilians and destroy their country’s architecture unless you kill the president.” Under these extreme circumstances, might it be permissible for you to kill the president? 4. Suppose the evil demon possesses the president. The evil demon, in the guise of the president, plans to invade a foreign country. Suppose you know that the invasion is unjust–it clearly violates the correct theory of just war. Suppose you also know that the war will kill hundreds of thousands of foreign civilians and destroy their country’s infrastructure. Suppose killing the demon-possessed president will stop, or at least has a good chance of stopping, the invasion. Under these extreme circumstances, might it be permissible for you to kill the president? 5. Suppose there is no evil demon. However, suppose the president, though not possessed by an evil demon, acts just like the possessed president in 4. The president appears before you and says, “I plan to invade a foreign country.” Suppose you know that the invasion is unjust–it clearly violates the correct theory of just war. Suppose you also know that the war will kill hundreds of thousands of foreign civilians and destroy their country’s infrastructure. Suppose killing the president will stop, or at least has a good chance of stopping, the invasion. Under these extreme circumstances, might it be permissible for you to kill the president?
Jason, 1) Humans war. They always have and always will. It is impossible to resolve all conflicts by peaceful means. 2) The demon and the president are participants in a war. 3) As participants in the war they are outside daily civil legal and moral prohibitions we have constructed for peaceful interactions: our prohibition on violence does not apply. War revokes the prohibition on non violence. That is the purpose and point of demarcation of ‘war’. 4) Moral rules are general rules. They are a shortcut that allows us to propagate contractual terms which help us reduce our error in calculating property transfers when they are beyond our perception and knowledge. Moral rules are not abstract truths. The confusion is created by the priority one gives to the genetic structural categories of family, tribe, and nation, versus the egalitarian structure limited to the categories of the individual and humanity. Much religious content seeks to extend the familial category to the universal as a means of creating an opposition to the state. And approaching questions of property as questions of morality is an artifact of applying religious techniques that seek to simplify complexity into emotionally accessible social rules, to what are practical contractual constructs the articulation of which is too complicated for general use. 5) There is is no longer a genetic composition to war – the need to fight other tribes for genes to persist – which necessitates one’s participation in tribal war. Wars are now, and have been for a long time, conducted for economic interests, even if those economic interests apply only to the costly norms, status signals, property rights portfolios, and political systems that vary between groups. Therefore the individual is free to choose sides. 6) As free to choose sides, one may calculate his interests and those interests of those with whom he shares interests, and determine if he is benefitting or harming those with whom he shares interests. And if it is in his interest and the interest of those with whom he shares interest, then he may act to kill the demon/president/minister/general or not at his will. Propertarianism is correct: all human ethical and political statements can be reduced to property rights, and done so without contrivance. That is because all morals and all human moral feelings, are expressons of property rights when property rights are articulated such that they fully encompass the entirety of those things which humans treat as property. It is hard to do this topic justice in short form. But hopefully this is enough of a sketch to illustrate the problems of both moral parlor games, and treating war as other than a utilitarian construct. So the thought experiment misleads the reader with false premises. a) Argued on abstract and loaded absolute moral grounds, not articulated contractual grounds, in order to mislead the reader. b) Moral statements are general contractual rules for peaceful mutual exchange. c) And war by definition is outside of that contractual environment. d) ‘Just War’ is not an abstract moral truth but a contratual proposition between parties who seek to limit their own costs (See Kagan). So, the thought device is dependent upon the error of the common parlor game, in which one which poses false dichotomies in order to confuse the participants into thinking (like the train-lever parable) that morals are absolute rules foiled by specific extremes, rather than that morals are general statements of property rights loaded with emotional content so that they propagate more easily. The error here is confusing a statement of abstract and absolute truth, with one of utilitarian contract. The first is the meme. The second is a fact. Sometimes we must take risks. Otherwise, we risk also confusing convenience with conviction.