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This is the official comment thread for the anarcho-libertarianism debate thread in The Coliseum.

I will oppress spammy bullshit in this thread without mercy, people.

Be on your best behavior, or it's the oubliette for you.

Split off the rest because how it descended into garbage.

Try number 2. And this time, no locking, no warning, no splitting...just outright deletion.

No spamming, people.

It seems as though these sweeping generalizations:

From regulations to infrastructure to courts to security, no good or service is better provided or traded than in an open competitive voluntary framework. Voluntaryism opens all social services to open competition. And we all know that competition, through supply and demand, enhances efficiency, quality, innovation, and adaptability.

All sectors of society operate better in a free market framework. Society is more secure, more socially open, more competitive, and more prosperous in a free market framework. People view free and open societies in a friendly light.

and his numbered points make HUGE assumptions that are not yet in evidence. For example, point #1 of his states that it is possible for a regulated, governed state to be taken over by superior force. However, I think the point that it is less likely to be taken over than a voluntaryist society should be made.

I look forward to the pick-a-part of this first post by better individuals than myself.

Hmm, straight in there, we get stuff like "Voluntaryism recognizes that everyone reigns over themselves," that makes me wonder, what of the mentally ill? It seems to me that such people would either not be helped or controlled for their own safety, or the responsibility would fall to the family. If the family neglected them, since it's not an action but an inaction, would that be permissible under this philosophy?

What if the mentally ill have no immediate family, is it unethical to coerce the mentally ill into care?

"No good or service is better provided or traded than in an open competitive voluntary framework." Obviously, a claim that requires substantiation, as well as an explanation for how it deals with conflicts of interest between competition and ethical distribution of goods and services. Similarly "And we all know that competition, through supply and demand, enhances efficiency, quality, innovation, and adaptability." An example of this would presumably be drugs research, where companies refuse to let drugs get made at cheaper cost because they will lose money and so consequentially, people that can't pay the higher prices die.

Kodiak wrote:I look forward to the pick-a-part of this first post by better individuals than myself.

You said it man, those sweeping generalizations are painting a bullseye on himself. It seems he thinks in zeroes and ones, competition and no competition, and doesn't realize private versus public, regulated versus unregulated is all about trade offs.

It almost seems as if he's lost before he's started. To be honest if I were him, I would've tried to say as much as possible in as little words as possible and "probe" the other debator for weaknesses for the first few posts.

Voluntaryist wrote:The government claims a priori control and ownership over those it designates as its "citizens".

No it doesn't stupid retard, he should show where it does. Maybe dictatorial governments, but not western-democracies. Show us were German, Spanish, French, Dutch governments claim OWNERSHIP over their citizens. It's the other way around MORON; citizens claim ownership over the government.

Voluntaryist wrote:But government, on the other hand, believes that some people are inherently better and should be trusted with extra special rights over others in the vain belief that this ruling class will somehow produce superior results.

Yeah, that's why in most western-democracies every adult citizen can run for office right? Because the government thinks some people are inherently better? He should elaborate on that.

Voluntaryist wrote:...(Voluntaryist) Society is more secure, more socially open, more competitive, and more prosperous in a free market framework.

Why is it more secure again? Because he says so? What an imbecile twat, he didn't got that just repeating this things won't make them right.

Voluntaryist wrote:Government services are not subject to the checks and balances that a free market has.

You are totally right, they are subject TO MORE CHECKS. Compare the unregulated bottled water run by industries with no standards with the tap water regulated/checked by the government. If you are informed you'll see that often the tap water was healthier than the bottled one, or that sometimes they even bottled tap water and sold it more expensive.

Voluntaryist wrote:Government is the social theory that allows for rampant abuse and the proliferation of evil precisely because it gives to one minority group (the rulers) undue power, control, and ownership over everyone else.

He is talking about western-democracies like they were totalitarian dictatorships. What kind of pathetic little bitch doesn't know the difference?
"The rulers" = People with executive power, don't have undue power. Remember something called legislation, constitution, human rights and so on?
What is it with ownership over people? Where does it say that democracies OWN people? You are free to go asshole, to move around, would it be so if you were owned?

I wrote this before this thread was unlocked again addressing him directly, but since I don't know if they are allowed to post here, I had to change it a little bit. I think he is beyond hope and Surlethe won't manage to break his wall of ignorance. He is stating things that were already teared down in the other thread. I think his tactic will be, to try to discuss about details and then win there with one example and claim "victory".

It's really quite simple to argue when you redefine reality to fit your argument. I'll show you:

Government = Owners
Citizens = Slaves
Taxes = Theft
Free Market = Utopia (notice that he assumed we'd consider this sham a utopia in his opening argument)
Democracy = Illusion

I've left some out, but you can see that if you redefine everything, you'll always be right. It's going to be hard to get a sensible debate with such broad generalizations. I'm not even sure where the contenders will find common ground to go from.

Split Volly going ape bullshit, since it is meant to be one on one, and not him taking on everyone. Kept Wedge's bit because of the reason stated. HOSed the rest because retard needed to combat the unwashed mindless horde.

Wait, wasn't that the very thing he complained about at first?

Wedge wrote:I think his tactic will be, to try to discuss about details and then win there with one example and claim "victory".

If he manages to win a single point. Surlethe is a math guy and math guys are all about details. Every single one of Volly's points can be easily refuted with an empirical example, and Sur is not a newbie debator so he won't make debating mistakes especially when everybody's watching.

I actually hope Surlethe manages to cut to the bone and condense a billion bullshit points into a few, since there's so much bullshit the only way Surlethe could "lose" is if the thread got so fucking long nobody wants to read it.

edit: By the way I took another look at it and I like the way he defines a priori. I don't think he should get away with the bullshit of being able to redefine precise logical terms or even well-established terms at all, especially later in the debate when the very definition of anarcho-libertarianism will probably be in dispute.

I like that he totally ignores the economic necessity of having public services (yes, I'll admit that they are usually government monopolies). No company in their right mind would ever build a highway for any reason, because it wouldn't be profitable. I.E., the supply and demand curves never cross, and the demand curve is always lower than the supply curve, or the cross point is so high as to make the project an impossibility. This is why we get the government to actually build it, or next best thing, contract the work out.

He would argue the roads should have tolls.

The problem isn't that public works don't pay for themselves. They always do, and it can even be quantified.

The problem is the time scale. Corporations have to appease their shareholders, generally within their lifetimes. Sometimes they have to issue dividends. If a nuclear power plant takes one hundred years to start making returns, or a road fifty, then it doesn't make sense for corporations to invest in infrastructure at all. Even exorbant tolls to the point of limiting almost all traffic wouldn't make profit in a reasonable time frame. Meanwhile governments continue for hundreds of years and can afford to wait.

In other words, if human beings lived two or three hundred years, corporate infrastructure could work. Or if human beings looked after future generations rather than their own. It all ties in nicely with the idea that anarcho-capitalism would work -- if everybody played nice. It is a fantasy.

He dodges the issue of what happens if you don't have a government with monopoly on legitimate violence(i.e., you either end up with Somalia, the feudal system, or gangland, depending on how advanced your technology is), instead arguing that "competition" will keep things in check. It's a hopelessly unrealistic view; the reality is that there have always been disparities in war-making capabilities among individuals and states, and he doesn't really answer why such disparities won't lead to certain forms of states if the population size and technology allows it.

Well he would argue that despite the unlikelihood of his system, that people should aspire to it. For example crushing homophobia or racism, are still to be aspired to.

Of course, science has the answer. Science tells us, no matter what certain humanities students think about science in its infancy saying that blacks are inferior, that racism and homophobia makes zero sense. I am hoping for an ironclad biological angle to the debate (even if I don't fully understand it). That is, if Surlethe brings up evolution and cooperation amongst primates in building tools. Cooperation between groups automatically leads to the outsider being disadvantaged. Evidently Volly's never heard of the "third wheel."

brianeyci wrote:Even exorbant tolls to the point of limiting almost all traffic wouldn't make profit in a reasonable time frame. Meanwhile governments continue for hundreds of years and can afford to wait.

My argument was based on the implicit requirement of there being tolls. And actually, the opposite is true regarding the amount of the toll. The supply and demand curves may cross on the low volume traffic side, but they definitely do on the extremely high volume traffic side, such that the volume required to break even exceeds the capacity of the road. That's the odd thing with infrastructure. Large numbers of people aren't willing to pay market prices for the service until such a time that the number of people likely to pay exceeds the capacity of the service. The only other option in a free and open market is to go with the exorbitant tolls (which may not even work) or take some middle ground and hope that you added enough profit into your supply curve.

He also more or less ignores the role efficient institutions play in creating good market conditions, instead assuming that without government we will just naturally have efficient supply and demand. It's a load of shit; if you look at historical conditions, there are a whole host of requirements that generally have to be met before you get anything like a good market economy, among them a widely accepted currency, created market for supply and demand, and usually enforcement of property rights.

At least the libertarians generally acknowledge the need for the above in reaching a market economy. But he's an anarchist.

That was a laughable opening post. Wasn't he supposed to back up his claims?

So far, it's a load of worship for the perfect competition model. Customers always know everything about a company, customers always make rational purchasing decisions, they have access to all the information, it's impossible for a company to hide negative things about itself, there are no barriers to entry, etc.

It's really too bad that perfect competition is just a thought excercise, and not a realistic market model. Boo.

I mean, how many of you research a candy making company before buying a candy bar? For all you know, most of them could be killing puppies and grinding up kittens to add to their candy bars. And they'd stay on the market, because nobody cares.

That's because gaining information requires effort and resources, and most people won't expend resources to find out if their delicious 1.02 $ candy bar is linked to killing puppies.

This is the entire basis of his argument ; That competition always works according to the perfect competition model (therefore always producing better results than a monopoly, oligopoly or monopsony). It doesn't, and this assertion should be mercilessly destroyed by Surlethe.

Actually, I realized last night that I made some errors in my previous posts. I don't have time to detail them right now (class in 10 minutes), but when I get a chance, I'll come back and make the necessary corrections.

That's okay. I didn't notice it. My economics is weak.

But consider this: in Volly's free market, there would be zero regulation. That would mean every single price would be fair market value. A toll road would be like... a 100 year investment. You could charge a dollar or ten dollars or fifty dollars, depending on how excellent the road is or how much consumers are willing to pay. The problem is companies cannot wait one hundred years to turn a profit, so it all comes down to time scale again.

So... is Surlethe ok? Its been over a day.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:So... is Surlethe ok? Its been over a day.

Vollyball waited until yesterday to respond to the thread created Friday. I think we can Surlethe the same benefit.

And now, my comment:

Vollyball wrote:Voluntaryism, on the other hand, only recognizes consentual interactions as legitimate, and never sanctions the initiation of force. Within a free market framework, the initiation of force can find no place to hide, and no allowances are made to it.

I'd like to point out that Vollyball's "free market" has no framework. He uses the word "framwork" no less than five times in the post, yet doesn't show how it's created.

My economics isn't great either, but I should have noticed my errors earlier. I can't seem to find my intro econ text (I may very well have sold it four years ago), so I can't double check on my equations. What I was using previously was the regular demand curve, but I was dividing the supply curve by users (quantity). Where these two curves cross are the break even points, where under normal circumstances (ie without dividing by users) it is the max revenue point. However, with a private highway system, it could be that the max revenue point is so close to the first break even point that it's not even worth mentioning the difference. Instead, one must look to the second break even point (if it even exists) in order to realize any sort of profit. This point only exists if the demand price at infinity is greater than the supply per user at infinity, which is rarely the case.

So, going back to regular supply and demand curves, there is a max profit point, but in this case, I highly suspect that it occurs at a point less than one user.

At least I think all of this is correct.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:So... is Surlethe ok? Its been over a day.

I think it's payback. Volly made Sur wait, so Sur's making Volly wait.

Either that or midterms. But if a dick like Volly made me wait for days and days after saying, I've got something ready in a few hours (yes, he actually said he was getting something ready in a few hours but they turned into days), I'd make him wait at least as long.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:So... is Surlethe ok? Its been over a day.

Yes, I'm fine. This week has turned out far busier than I thought it would, so I've been scarcer than usual. This afternoon and tonight aren't looking good, either; hopefully, I'll have time on Friday. So, thanks for you concern, and thanks as well for your (meaning: everybody's) patience.

Surlethe wrote:

CaptainChewbacca wrote:So... is Surlethe ok? Its been over a day.

Yes, I'm fine. This week has turned out far busier than I thought it would, so I've been scarcer than usual. This afternoon and tonight aren't looking good, either; hopefully, I'll have time on Friday. So, thanks for you concern, and thanks as well for your (meaning: everybody's) patience.

Pfft, take your time. Seriously dufus took that long to come up with a regurgitation of his prior shit, you are easily given the time to present your case.