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189 sats \ 22 replies \ @BlokchainB 11 Feb \ on: Are Most Bitcoiners Statists? bitcoin
What I hate about this framing is the idea that the state is the faceless shapeless entity that we have no control over and you must bend to its will or perish. But in reality the state is nothing but people.
Politics is just war by other means. A way for humans to boss each other around for better or for worse. I fell out of favor out of with libertarian ideals because this idea that all humans can mutually agree on what’s right and what’s not is fleeting. All it takes is one psychopath to completely destroy that way of governance.
Plus I don’t take any libertarians who enjoy life in a stable government seriously . If such person lived if a failed state where it was a daily struggle just to get food and water 99% of them would beg for the state to save them from their misery. Plus anyone who truly wants to be free no government is stoping them from leaving their country and finding self sovereignty on some undeveloped land and live your ideals out there. But don’t be surprised as soon as another nation can take advantage of you they will.
Libertarians simply cannot survive in the modern world. I've come to believe that freedom of speech and western ideals will not persist unless the USA continues to flourish. As Europe commits seppuku, without the threat of the US and its military might, there is no deterrent that keeps China, Russia and other countries from expanding their empires.
Your homestead farm with your bunker, your neighborhood militia, and feeble gun collection will never survive a modern drone swarm attack, or defend against a pack of armed robot dogs.
Very soon with universal surveillance enabled by AI you will never again be able to mount an organized protest, much less an effective attack against a totalitarian government. See how quickly protestors in HK and Russia have disappeared.
So the dominant US state must continue to thrive, for libertarians to live their little fantasies elsewhere throughout the world. Unfortunately it will not survive if the USD goes to zero and enters an irrecoverable debt spiral into bankruptcy.
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I mean what you aren't saying is that as long as "libertarians" vote Trump they will survive just fine... right? Or am I misunderstanding. What is it that they need to do to survive? Vote? Turn in their guns? Stop building local community? Paint a positive picture. You are simply describing a dystopia and I'm not sure how an average voter survives that either let alone better? Honestly the way you describe Libertarians they sound more like Republicans to me.
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Well my vision of the future is pretty dystopian lol
Gun rights were great in theory to safeguard against a tyrannical gov through the 20th century, but will be completely inept against a AI weaponry of the very near future.
Putting aside my other dystopian AI fears, I don't see how we "stop the train" as Lyn says, at which point everything we take for granted unravels...
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Fair enough. I don't disagree but you made a pretty big straw man to be fair. This whole post reminds me of why I'm not a libertarian myself. I share many common views with the movement and like a ton of people in it... but its so big and amorphous the label is just an easy straw man.
I still don't know what a non-libertarian does that does help them survive? Nothing? There's no point? FWIW I think we see tyrannical gov destroy itself given enough time. If they push to hard to fast they fail.
When it comes to gun rights I don't think you are framing it right. Its just the right to defend one's self from any threat. That could be the gov but that is more of a balance of power to keep local authorities from just running over people. The world you describe is accurate and guns are just one form of arms. Bitcoin, encryption, malware, and many other things are used against states. Its a constant arms race. Even without guns when a state loses the faith of the people its walking dead. Don't underestimate the utility of an armed public. Of course they are out gunned. That's not the point of most gun owners I know including libertarians.
Most libertarians I've run across and know are not thinking in the ways being described in these threads. I really mean it when I say this is a straw man. For most its a philosophy of how people should interact. I don't think many actually think humanity is anywhere near adopting that philosophy or that the states of the world are just gonna roll over.
What I think happens is that people call themselves libertarians online. Kids really. They are naive and full of ego. They don't understand economics or global conflict. I see these people too. Next week they will be Trump supporters. If you wanna know how all over the place libertarians actually are take a look at the libertarian party. Its wild how massive the tent is.
Even the anarcho-capitalists I've read are far from naive. On the contrary they are often the most realist people you will read. If you want real critical perspectives on both the left / right politics you can't really get it unless you are outside of it.
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I really believe Trump has libertarian voters to thank for his victory. I keep thinking about all the libertarians that voted and openly supported Trump every time someone makes the arguments you have put forward. I think you need to adjust your frame of what you think a libertarian is and is not.
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Its funny to me how people in comments jump to libertarian as if they aren't statists. Most are. The opposite of a statist is an anarchist not a libertarian. Libertarianism is a massive tent and some are anarchists but in my experience that's the exception. But I think they reason it comes up is it's an easier strawman.
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Great comment
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Your comment is good for a few reasons so please don't take this as an attack. I think many share your view and experience based on my experience. I share them as you are expressing thoughts I have and have had. Here's some food for thought though.
Many of the changes being enacted today are coming from the liberty movement. Its a big tent full of libertarians, small state minarchists like Ron Paul(Someone that is also a statist but one I have massive respect for), and anarchists. I firmly believe we need people on many sides pushing their ideas. Bad ones should fall to the side and good ones which time has not come should not die. They may have to be refined.
I'm not a utilitarian but the utility of ideas does matter to me. What do I mean? Well slavery might work for the slave owner but I'm morally opposed to it. Here's the deal, slavery actually can be argued to make society more poor. Even for those that are not slaves. I believe the same is true of the state. Communism is the most extreme example and we have seen how that plays out. What we see in western democracies is different in levels of degree but there are still massive issues around the rights of the individual and the manipulation of the free exchange of property and ideas. I hope that in time humanity will learn from our mistakes but I'm no utopian. One might have described freedom to a man living under communism and be called a utopian. Personally I think the folks from the WEF are the utopians, not the liberty movement.
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I fell out of favor out of with libertarian ideals because this idea that all humans can mutually agree on what’s right and what’s not is fleeting. All it takes is one psychopath to completely destroy that way of governance.
I mean... that's utopian. I reject this idea. Freedom of association. I just don't get how the state fixes this. It seems to do the opposite. Force people into one system. Centralize power so that groups seek to control the central entity.
What we should seek is a society where we can agree to disagree. Privatize schools for example. I don't have my money stolen to pay for education I find morally evil. And visa versa, others should not be forced to pay for things others want. Make it voluntary. This is the core battle over and over again. The state is like the most massive single provider that lacks market competition and has the "right" to kill those that oppose it.
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But that is my biggest beef. No one is forcing you to pay for schooling you find terrible. You aren’t living in North Korea. You can renounce your citizenship and lose the good (food, water, energy) to not pay for the bad (taxes going to a morally bankrupt school system)
In free societies the choice is yours. You can quit your job and completely liberate yourself from anything you don’t like about the state.
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You have a society today where people are absolutely opposed on many issues. There really is no compromise or middle ground. The way my brain works is to think about solutions to this. The political method is one attempt but we seem to moving towards violence instead of away from it. I think this is largely due to the state.
One side gets power and lords it over the other. Then the other side gains power and does the same. I'd love to see a gradual move away from this. Focus on common ground. Shrink the state's influence over the people. Let them localize solutions.
It doesn't seem like you are interested in this sadly. We have a golden opportunity right now as gov spending is being exposed. Both those happy about the cuts and those mad about them. As you say, we aren't in NK. We can voluntarily fund most things pretty easily today. Most of USAID stuff people are talking about could be done without taxes directly by the people. What's wrong with that. You don't just jump to the hardest problem first like national defense.
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The political method is one attempt but we seem to moving towards violence instead of away from it. I think this is largely due to the state.
I disagree. Humans are inherently selfish and violent. Kids come out the womb hitting, lying, and wanting to claim everything as if they own it despite only having a few years of age.
Shrink the state's influence over the people. Let them localize solutions.
Sure this works in a utopia. The real world doesn’t function this way. Everyone is at each others throats to gain access of the same things. Food, water, energy, power and influence. Plus ideals like the one I quoted above ignore human nature of greed, jealousy, and envy.
As soon as this little community will prosper all it takes is another band of humans who don’t care about your way of thinking and have complete dominion over you.
I agree with you government hasn’t gotten way to large but I don’t understand why we have to eliminate everything about government when bitcoin the tech every libertarian rallies around is a product of tons of government investment and research.
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Come on man you know that's BS. You are straw manning again like you read nothing I wrote. My choice is leave my family and culture and if I don't what? I can't think that things should be different? I never said this was NK. Personally I choose to live here as many people do. Many are not 100% pleased with how it is. Are you 100% happy with how the government acts? Do you support all their actions? I highly doubt that.
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Of course not the government is outta control. The concept of America died with JFK. And American men are so cucked we put up with this terrible government and believe in possible revolutionary ideas like bitcoin but yet become captured by material gain.
It’s so odd to me that bitcoiners say proof of work about this or that but completely write off the good the state has done for humanity. Governance is a very complex problem that humanity has yet to solve.
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I thought the state was just people. If so... why do you not say the good the people have done?
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I do!! Look at how easy and convenient life is.
- Stores full of food
- Justice for crime committed that don’t cause you to go bankrupt
- Access to water
- Access to power
- Access to internet
And so on.
People have this illusion that the free market solves everything and I think that’s a farce because it doesn’t account for opportunity cost.
Look at this AI bubble we are in. This is the free market pouring billions into a technology that they are hoping and praying pays off. As soon as one company gets a massive moat aka a natural monopoly it’s game over for all competitors.
And some fool will blame it on the state as to why they can’t develop the next algorithm to compete with the company with the largest moat.
What I hate about this framing is the idea that the state is the faceless shapeless entity that we have no control over and you must bend to its will or perish. But in reality the state is nothing but people.
This is true. But also the state is an idea. An ideal that people believe in and that is the real threat. That outlives people. Think of this as a social protocol that has its own set of incentives. Some of us do not believe in the state as an ideal. We believe it is evil. It is a powerful entity given power by belief. Given power by people sacrificing their life force to it.
Plus I don’t take any libertarians who enjoy life in a stable government seriously . If such person lived if a failed state where it was a daily struggle just to get food and water 99% of them would beg for the state to save them from their misery. Plus anyone who truly wants to be free no government is stoping them from leaving their country and finding self sovereignty on some undeveloped land and live your ideals out there. But don’t be surprised as soon as another nation can take advantage of you they will.
With respect, you are describing many libertarians and also pretty much all people. People on the left. People on the right. I stopped calling myself a libertarian a long time ago as well but it wasn't due to the ideas as much as the people. Its such a massive tent of ideas and I do not prescribe to many of them. I'm not a libertine. I believe in law. I believe governance has value.
All that said, you are creating a straw man here. You seem to be assuming that people do not understand that a little poison may not kill you but more will indeed kill you. You also seem to be confusing chaos with freedom. I often say the USA and most of the prosperous nations are prosperous due to free markets. Would you agree? Prosperity is not coming from the state. Governance is required. The state fill many roles that are required for modern society. Very few libertarians reject the idea of governance. They simply suggest that governance should be a free market, not a monopoly decided by violence.
An interesting observation is those communist nations that received more freedom. Look at how much better their lives have become. Just as more centralized intervention leads to less prosperity more prosperity come from more freedom.
I think you are missing the point of this post though. As I said, statism is simply a category. A frame if you will. When I think about the goal, I think about finding ways to avoid violence. Not excuse it. There are many aspects of our current world that I love, many that are terrible. We need different perspectives. I'm not the type to take my ball and go home. I value living in a society. I just don't believe we are setting our goals high enough.
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