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Re: Education and voluntarism

liberty student — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 16:50:13 GMT

Micah71381:
I am suggesting that because we can not predict human action

We're not predicting human action. We're predicting the consequences of human action. What do you think economics is?

Micah71381:
it is possible but improbable that statism actually is preferable to anarchy due to factors we can't account for.

Prove it. And don't say you don't know, because if you don't know, stop saying it is possible.

Micah71381:
I think the chances of that are unlikely in the modern era but low probability does not equate certainty

What does this even mean? It's not a matter of random chance. Actions have consequences. To deny this is to deny rational, purposeful human action.

Micah71381:
It sounds to me like you are suggesting that it is logically impossible for statism to be competitively advantageous?

Absolutely.

Micah71381:
Given two otherwise equivalent societies, the one that chooses anarchy is guaranteed to have a competitive advantage over the one that has chosen statism when it comes to a competition for resources?

Absolutely. Although the competition for resources isn't how an anarchist measures the health of a society.

Micah71381:
Without knowing enough about a (such as whether or not it's positive) that statement is not always true.

Try using deduction. Define your terms. Remove contradictions.

Re: Education and voluntarism

z1235 — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 12:52:05 GMT

Liberty Student:
Z, thank you for your post, but I suspect it is one massive non sequitur to my argument.

Sorry you think this is the case. I was hoping to create a more beneficial exchange.

Re: Education and voluntarism

z1235 — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 12:46:56 GMT

filc:
This is the very reasoning and purpose for the entrepreneur.

Who is (has been) stopping the entrepreneur? (This is both a rhetorical and an actual question.)

Re: Education and voluntarism

EvilSocialistFellow — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 09:08:14 GMT

Micah71381:
The problem I have with your third option is that it does not best prepare humanity for future problems. Right now humanity is mostly fighting known opponents and problems and they are all reasonably solvable for us. However, what happens at some point in the future when we have to compete against a yet unforseen opponent? Simple sci-fi examples are aliens or robots. Perhaps more 'realistic' examples are asteroids colliding with the planet or a nearby star going supernova and ejecting some large chunk of matter at us.

If we do your 3rd option humanity as a whole will not be as advanced as in option 2. When the time comes that we have to deal with an as of yet unknown opponent in our quest for survival our chances of surviving will be higher with option 2 than with option 3. So in option 3 the chances of all of humanity being wiped out are higher than in option 2, which is why I have such a big problem with option 3 (and 1). I want humanity to have the highest chance of survival (as a species), regardless of the cost.

Wow, this thread has derailed (partly my fault, sorry guys). I'm going to wrap it up here for this particular reason.

Re: Education and voluntarism

Micah71381 — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 08:30:12 GMT

EvilSocialistFellow:
Swap 99 people for 90% of the population and swap the 1 person for 10% of the population and you can see why this kind of reasoning becomes a problem in terms of real life (and the lines subsequently become blurred). This is a massive moral dilemna that is not easy and evidently, we have to decide which outcome is preferable. For me, enhancing overall living standards should not merely be a game of survival of the fittest; there should also be a moral stance..

The problem I have with your third option is that it does not best prepare humanity for future problems. Right now humanity is mostly fighting known opponents and problems and they are all reasonably solvable for us. However, what happens at some point in the future when we have to compete against a yet unforseen opponent? Simple sci-fi examples are aliens or robots. Perhaps more 'realistic' examples are asteroids colliding with the planet or a nearby star going supernova and ejecting some large chunk of matter at us.

If we do your 3rd option humanity as a whole will not be as advanced as in option 2. When the time comes that we have to deal with an as of yet unknown opponent in our quest for survival our chances of surviving will be higher with option 2 than with option 3. So in option 3 the chances of all of humanity being wiped out are higher than in option 2, which is why I have such a big problem with option 3 (and 1). I want humanity to have the highest chance of survival (as a species), regardless of the cost.

Re: Education and voluntarism

Micah71381 — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 08:18:55 GMT

EvilSocialistFellow:
To be honest, I hadn't really thought about it like this but it could be kind of true. I suppose I'd prefer it if there were 100 people in the world with 'decent' living standards (1st option) than if there were 99 people in the world who became supermen but just 1 person who became incredibly ill and weak and suffered terribly, especially if these 99 supermen completely refused to help this 1 person (2nd option). I think this is where my old socialist ways come creeping back in...

But there is a third option (and this is where things start to get complicated and the lines get blurred) and that is that 1 person only suffers moderately but the other 99 people all become very well adapt (but not supermen). The third option is my preferred one but then there is the risk that these 99 people become supermen themselves and no longer see a reason to help that one person (who in turn suffers terribly) - (3rd option - somewhere 'inbetween' 1st and 2nd option).

It seems like we have reached a common understanding (always a nice point in a debate). :) Unfortunately, both of us can't have the world the way we want it which means we'll have to fight over it. :P Unless you are willing to allow me to run some part of the world my way (which includes some absolute poverty) and you run your world your way someone is going to lose.

Before anyone tries to argue "the poverty from my society can go to his society", this doesn't work in the case of child abuse. In my society there may be some child abuse and while it is unfortunate, it would be an act of war to try and take memers of my society away from me without the consent of that member (which includes 3 year old children).

Re: Education and voluntarism

Micah71381 — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 08:00:07 GMT

filc:
...

I am suggesting that because we can not predict human action it is possible but improbable that statism actually is preferable to anarchy due to factors we can't account for. I think the chances of that are unlikely in the modern era but low probability does not equate certainty, which is all I was trying to point out to liberty student originally.

It sounds to me like you are suggesting that it is logically impossible for statism to be competitively advantageous? Given two otherwise equivalent societies, the one that chooses anarchy is guaranteed to have a competitive advantage over the one that has chosen statism when it comes to a competition for resources? All variables that I can account for point to that conclusion but I also acknowledge that there are variables I am unable to account for (e.g.: human action).

It's like saying: 10 * a > 2 * a

Without knowing enough about a (such as whether or not it's positive) that statement is not always true.

Re: Education and voluntarism

liberty student — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 07:17:38 GMT

Z, thank you for your post, but I suspect it is one massive non sequitur to my argument.

Re: Education and voluntarism

EvilSocialistFellow — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 06:51:38 GMT

Micah71381:
I followed you in a, b and c, it seems that d is where you are losing me.

As long as you understand why the impact of science on human action as little relevance to the study of human action itself, we are good :)

My argument for a Darwinistic society is just that my personal goals are directly linked to the technological advancement of the species, therefore in order to achieve my goals I am willing to sacrifice other humans along the way. It seems to me that your goals are not directly linked to the technological advancement of the species but rather linked to a reduction in suffering of the current set of humans in existence. These goals are contrary to each other so I don't see how I can convince you that anarchy is better or you convince me that statism is better. We are better off trying to convince each other to change our goals.

To be honest, I hadn't really thought about it like this but it could be kind of true. I suppose I'd prefer it if there were 100 people in the world with 'decent' living standards (1st option) than if there were 99 people in the world who became supermen but just 1 person who became incredibly ill and weak and suffered terribly, especially if these 99 supermen completely refused to help this 1 person (2nd option). I think this is where my old socialist ways come creeping back in...

But there is a third option (and this is where things start to get complicated and the lines get blurred) and that is that 1 person only suffers moderately but the other 99 people all become very well adapt (but not supermen). The third option is my preferred one but then there is the risk that these 99 people become supermen themselves and no longer see a reason to help that one person (who in turn suffers terribly) - (3rd option - somewhere 'inbetween' 1st and 2nd option).

Swap 99 people for 90% of the population and swap the 1 person for 10% of the population and you can see why this kind of reasoning becomes a problem in terms of real life (and the lines subsequently become blurred). This is a massive moral dilemna that is not easy and evidently, we have to decide which outcome is preferable. For me, enhancing overall living standards should not merely be a game of survival of the fittest; there should also be a moral stance..

My own thoughts are that a minarchist government would be able to provide the third option but that an anarchy would result in the second option (super human progress but some people are not just in relatively poverty - they are in absolute poverty). The first option is utopia that can never happen and reduces everyone to the lowest common denominator. The first option inevitably means socialism in which everyone becomes poor (absolute poverty). The third option arguably means far greater human progress but some people get left behind (absolute poverty).

Relative poverty is fine; absolute poverty is not.

The same logic can and must be applied to child abuse.

Re: Education and voluntarism

filc — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 05:33:16 GMT

z1235:
The question is rather how does the non-parasitic (productive) portion of humanity best deal with its parasitic counterpart. I don't know the answer to that question. Perhaps, the humanity is still experimenting toward finding this answer in the laboratory of history.

This is the very reasoning and purpose for the entrepreneur.

Re: Education and voluntarism

filc — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 05:23:50 GMT

Micah:
Again, this assumption relies on prediction of human action. You are assuming that if you take away the thieves the remaining population will perform in a way that will result in an increase of community wealth.

Incorrect.

A) We are assuming ceteris paribus. In other words the remaining 70% continue to act in the exact same way as they have been.

B) I said the potential for is greatest(several times). I did not guarantee. If society wants to build itself off of thievery no amount of statism will stop it. If society would prefer to murder and pillage, Statism will not stop it. So it's not an argument against anarchy. We are not making judgements here. However in this case, the greatest amount of ends are stil met in anarchy not in statism. So we can still make a quantitative judgement. We aren't passing a value judgement, we are merely stating the facts.

C) If society wants to be less productive or more productive, it's meaningless. The point is that the highest degree of ends are capable of being met in anarchy. We do not even need to pretend to know how humans will behave to know this as a truism.

Re: Education and voluntarism

z1235 — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 05:05:09 GMT

Liberty Student:
Do you know what the state is? Institutionalized theft and violence. Nothing more. Any peace, property and prosperity loving person is better off without the state. That's evident, because institutionalized theft and violence are not compatible with peace, property and prosperity.

Humans act. Human parasites are human. They act, too.

By definition, human parasites are those humans which hamper voluntary exchanges between humans for their own benefit. The "state" can only be eliminated to the extent that human parasites can be eliminated from the human population. AE does prove that humanity without human parasites, i.e. humanity in which voluntary exchanges are unhampered, is one which creates most peace, wealth, and prosperity, but AE can not prove the non-existence of human parasites. Empirically and historically, they've always been among us.

So the question is not whether one prefers a world with human parasites to a world without them. The question is rather how does the non-parasitic (productive) portion of humanity best deal with its parasitic counterpart. I don't know the answer to that question. Perhaps, the humanity is still experimenting toward finding this answer in the laboratory of history.

Re: Education and voluntarism

Micah71381 — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 03:32:22 GMT

filc:
Here is another example. Given a community where 30% of it's members are practicing thieves we can assume that this community would be wealthier absent those thieves.

Again, this assumption relies on prediction of human action. You are assuming that if you take away the thieves the remaining population will perform in a way that will result in an increase of community wealth. Perhaps those thieves played a crucial role (psychologically) in causing wealth increasing behavior in the other 70% of the population. Since we cannot predict human action we cannot safely assume that removal of the thieves will result in a certain set of human actions by the other 70% of the population.

I personally believe very strongly that the removal of those thieves will result in a wealthier community. However, I do not feel that I can make a claim to logical proof of the matter beyond my ability to predict human action.

I just want to make sure we are clear that I am not arguing against the advantages to market economics vs planned economics or anarchy vs statism or free will vs coercion. I am simply arguing against the logic of predicting actions by humans or predicting the state of a system that involves human action.

Re: Education and voluntarism

liberty student — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 03:26:33 GMT

Micah71381:
So when liberty student claimed that "Anarchists KNOW they can be living better." he is trying to claim that a future value judgment is somehow predictable in a logical/provable way.

What is so hard to understand about the statement that "anarchists would know they would be living better without the state"?

That's why they are anarchists. Do you know what the state is? Institutionalized theft and violence. Nothing more. Any peace, property and prosperity loving person is better off without the state. That's evident, because institutionalized theft and violence are not compatible with peace, property and prosperity.

Honestly, I try somewhat to be tolerant, even when people insist upon avoiding reasoned arguments, jumping into discussions without doing research, and accusing me of things they cannot substantiate or are outright lies. But there comes to be a point where I get a little pissed off.

Re: Education and voluntarism

liberty student — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 03:14:37 GMT

Micah71381:
filc:
This is why LS is asking you if you understand Austrian Economics.
I disagree. I think that liberty student is yet again trying to bait me off topic with a red herring. :P

When I ask if anyone understands AE, I am implying that the methods being used (and the arguments for those methods) are not compatible with AE.

It is NOT my fault that you will not acknowledge the use of deduction in the social sciences or that what you call logical fallacies frequently ARE NOT logical fallacies.