Comment thread for Anarcho-Libertarian Coliseum debate

[Darth Servo]

So, Surlethe has until Wednsday midnight, or is it Thursday?

Probably 72 hours from the last posting.

[CaptainChewbacca]

There is indeed something to be said for focusing on one or two key flaws in his argument rather than trying to address all of them. The problem with his argument is that it contains so many flaws that one could go gray trying to address them all. If one could either focus only on the most critical ones or try to condense many of them into classes of flaws, it would be helpful.

It's tempting to try and answer every single piece of bullshit that someone throws your way, but that's falling into the Darkstar trap, where he tries to exhaust you with sheer quantity, repetition, and obfuscation.

You know, if he does that, V is going to just say 'Since you've ignored these other arguments I'm going to take that as a concession'. He did it often enough in the original thread.

[Surlethe]

I've worked the past hour on a reply, and I'm nearly halfway through (I count 20 or so points remaining to reply to; I've answered 16 so far). As far as cutting through the crap to the key flaws in his argument, I'm content so far being thorough, as long as Voluntaryist doesn't start doing sentence-by-sentence dissections of my replies. After all, 72 hours is plenty of time now that school's winding down. If it does start to drag, though, I'll consider addressing key points.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I've worked the past hour on a reply, and I'm nearly halfway through (I count 20 or so points remaining to reply to; I've answered 16 so far). As far as cutting through the crap to the key flaws in his argument, I'm content so far being thorough, as long as Voluntaryist doesn't start doing sentence-by-sentence dissections of my replies. After all, 72 hours is plenty of time now that school's winding down. If it does start to drag, though, I'll consider addressing key points.

How about just trimming superfluous nested quotes? My eyes would thank you.

[Darth Wong]

There is indeed something to be said for focusing on one or two key flaws in his argument rather than trying to address all of them. The problem with his argument is that it contains so many flaws that one could go gray trying to address them all. If one could either focus only on the most critical ones or try to condense many of them into classes of flaws, it would be helpful.

It's tempting to try and answer every single piece of bullshit that someone throws your way, but that's falling into the Darkstar trap, where he tries to exhaust you with sheer quantity, repetition, and obfuscation.

You know, if he does that, V is going to just say 'Since you've ignored these other arguments I'm going to take that as a concession'. He did it often enough in the original thread.

He can address classes of arguments as a group, and compose an essay format response, of the type that is typical in editorial exchanges or verbal debates. The formatting mechanism of actually quoting pieces of your opponent's text in your own response is a web peculiarity and does not need to be strictly observed as long as you address all your opponent's main points. If it so happens that he repeats the same basic point eight times, you really only need to address it once. But if you quote one of those eight repetitions prior to your response, he might choose to be dishonest and rhetorically ask why you "ignored" the other seven. Better to simply summarize a class of his arguments in your own words and then respond to it, which is how written or verbal debates are often conducted outside Internet forums.

[Surlethe]

I've worked the past hour on a reply, and I'm nearly halfway through (I count 20 or so points remaining to reply to; I've answered 16 so far). As far as cutting through the crap to the key flaws in his argument, I'm content so far being thorough, as long as Voluntaryist doesn't start doing sentence-by-sentence dissections of my replies. After all, 72 hours is plenty of time now that school's winding down. If it does start to drag, though, I'll consider addressing key points.

How about just trimming superfluous nested quotes? My eyes would thank you.

Definitely happening. I'm keeping it to two maximum nested quotes.

[Sidewinder]

I'm not even talking about forcing scientific developments to occur. I'm talking about the fact that big pharma isn't even trying to discover a cure for diabetes, in spite of millions of people demanding it. Why do they do this? Because they make far more money with us buying insulin for the rest of our lives.

The person(s) who discover a cure for diabetes is GUARANTEED to win a Nobel Prize, so I don't think big pharma is thinking they'll make more money by forcing diabetics to buy insulin for the rest of their lives. It's more likely that, in the past, they TRIED to find a cure for diabetes, failed REPEATEDLY, tried to find out WHY they failed, failed to do that, became disheartened and gave up.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Wow, that was quick! Looking at Surlethe's rebuttal, its really staggering how much of V's argument is based on 'trust me, everything I'm saying is true." Its terrible, really.

Oh, and Surlethe; He's right about Somalia. It is currently slightly less of a shithole because there's no single central warlord running things and skimming government money away from the people.

[K. A. Pital]

He's right about Somalia.

Is he? I won't let his stuff slide so fast. Somalia got the following things from collapse of government:
a) civil war
b) general war
c) another collapse of currency
Due to the war, it's almost impossible to evaluate it's economic performance (and honestly, even the most optimistic projections have Somalia's growth at around 2%). After a privatization crisis in Somalia. And the Civil War, which essentially ravaged the economy in 1989-1990 - it's not hard to imagine the economy somewhat recuperating from large Civil War ravage, you know. And the growth rates of Somalia obviously fall behind most nations with a central authority, hell, even dictatorial ones.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Hell most of the things that Libertarians dispise about our current fairly free republic are things that were nessessary for our state to survive the civil war. (speaking as a yank)

---edit---
note I will not refer to the United States as a "Democracy" since it's a republic, representation by elected officials with limited true democratic legislative abilities on the local/state level.

[Vohu Manah]

Is he? I won't let his stuff slide so fast. Somalia got the following things from collapse of government:
a) civil war
b) general war
c) another collapse of currency
Due to the war, it's almost impossible to evaluate it's economic performance (and honestly, even the most optimistic projections have Somalia's growth at around 2%). After a privatization crisis in Somalia. And the Civil War, which essentially ravaged the economy in 1989-1990 - it's not hard to imagine the economy somewhat recuperating from large Civil War ravage, you know. And the growth rates of Somalia obviously fall behind most nations with a central authority, hell, even dictatorial ones.

And then you need to ask yourself which part of Somalia are you talking about? You've got one portion in the north, Somaliland, which wants full independence and has its own government (they're relatively stable). Puntland, Somaliland's eastern neighbor, wants autonomy as part of a restored Somali Republic but is effectively not part of the TFR right now. In the south you have the Transitional Federal Republic of Somalia which while internationally recognized as the official government of the country it is almost solely dependent on Ethiopia for support (arguably few Somalis support this government). And this doesn't include the minor factions, disputed territories or southern areas which are complete clusterfucks.

[Darth Wong]

Most importantly, people identify improving living conditions in Somalia by looking for stable regional governments and restoration of order: precisely what they should not be doing according to Voluntaryist thinking.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Technically Anarchists are like fundamentalists. They are actively ignorant of nature. Lets face it, autocratic leadership is a primary characteristic of social animals. There is always a pack Alpha, lead dolphin in the pod, matriarch of the lion pride etc. A voluntary association can only work in a solitary/opportunistic hunter grouping (such as feline males outside of a pride.). This is like when the fundies say that homosexuality is against nature. They apprently don't realize just how many same sex pairings there ARE in nature. Likewise social animals from your insect hive, to your primate troops tend to form social hierarchies, and governments of their own.

---edit---

Even hunter/gatherer societies amoung humans have governments, as disputes will always exist, and mutual defense/needs will have to be enforced.

[TC Pilot]

Surlethe: 4 Voluntaryist: 0

I wonder if the moron can scrap together a reply in three days.

[Darth Servo]

Surlethe: 4 Voluntaryist: 0

I wonder if the moron can scrap together a reply in three days.

Of course he can. People who employ the broken record debate strategy can go on ad-nauseum.

And what happened to Valleytard's late penalty?

[The Yosemite Bear]

well they DO need a thesarus to say the same damn thing in slightly different words...

[CaptainChewbacca]

Surlethe: 4 Voluntaryist: 0

I wonder if the moron can scrap together a reply in three days.

Of course he can. People who employ the broken record debate strategy can go on ad-nauseum.

And what happened to Valleytard's late penalty?

He requested a 1-day extension and was granted it. I don't think he got a penalty.

[Darth Servo]

He requested a 1-day extension and was granted it. I don't think he got a penalty.

Little joke between me and TC.

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... &start=226

Even with the extension, he still ran over three hours past midnight, PDT.

[TC Pilot]

And what happened to Valleytard's late penalty?

Quiet, you! Score keeping is harder than you think!

[The Yosemite Bear]

after all you can't devide -1 by Zero....

[Terralthra]

Surlethe, it's not like you need the help at this point, but if you should need an example of free markets not working as Voluntaryist claims they will, you need only mention Hong Kong. Despite having little to no restriction on starting a business or owning a business, almost every industry is controlled by monopolies, cartels, and other forms of oligolopolies. New competitors are simply beaten down or bought out, and consumer prices and customer satisfaction are both among the worst in the developed world.

[Graeme Dice]

The person(s) who discover a cure for diabetes is GUARANTEED to win a Nobel Prize, so I don't think big pharma is thinking they'll make more money by forcing diabetics to buy insulin for the rest of their lives.

A Nobel prize has a cash value of about $1.7 million. This is a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of money for a pharmaceutical company (On the order of 0.1% of their multi-billion dollar marketing budgets). It's not the least bit controversial to point out that pharmaceutical companies have little incentive to develop cures instead of treatments.

[The Yosemite Bear]

kinda like how Gates/Microsoft can take the maximum amount of fines currently allowed under law and still make a serious profit.

[PeZook]

I find it funny how Volly keeps slithering away from the accusation that he keeps using government services while advocating an abolition of government.

I think that he knows, deep down, that if he ever tried to gather a group of like-minded individuals, buy a tropical island and move there to form a voluntary society, he would end up miserable, hungry and contantly threatened by a group of stronger individuals within one year.

After all, it's not that hard doing this experiment: you can buy a small island for one million $, so all you have to do is get a thousand voluntaryists to contribute one thousand dollars each and voila. Your own voluntaryist libertopia.

[Surlethe]

Surlethe, it's not like you need the help at this point, but if you should need an example of free markets not working as Voluntaryist claims they will, you need only mention Hong Kong. Despite having little to no restriction on starting a business or owning a business, almost every industry is controlled by monopolies, cartels, and other forms of oligolopolies. New competitors are simply beaten down or bought out, and consumer prices and customer satisfaction are both among the worst in the developed world.

Thanks. He actually mentioned Hong Kong as an example of the good things about free markets; I took him at his word because the reply was taking long enough as-is and I didn't want to research all of his examples. If you have any links to outside sources verifying your description of Hong Kong, feel free to post them.