Comment thread for Anarcho-Libertarian Coliseum debate

[The Yosemite Bear]

appeal to authority fallacy. Trust me I was horribly awful during college debates, because I could find evidence or quotes to support just about any arguement. Mind you, I can thank various naughty un-objective political science think tanks to thank for that success. Needless to say, I was an asshole when I was on the poli-sci debate team.

[Patrick Degan]

And while the USSR beat the snot out of the Nazis, it lost many more soldiers and suffered far heavier losses and had inferior equipment compared to the Nazis. The Russians in fact got lots of their best war supplies from the US, and if it wasn’t for the support from its free-market allies, the USSR would have likely been overrun by the Nazis.

I would have pounded the retard into the ground with statistics and data on vehicle performance here, but I fear it would be pointless.

You should do it anyway just to embarrass the dumb little fuck.

[wjs7744]

So he's still harping on the same examples? That is of course a fine sign of cherrypicking (as if we didn't know he was doing that already). Most of them have already been covered, but I'll take a look at some others.

The court examples: Apparently Volly didn't get it when I pointed out that he expects criminals to volunteer to go to court, so I'll continue.

He claims that supply and demand will provide superior court service, but naturally doesn't consider what this actually means. What do people want from their courts? Well, the law-abiding majority do indeed want the courts to dispense justice, but it Volleytopia the courts are not being paid for by the law-abiding majority. They are being paid for by the criminals, who do not want the courts to rule justly; they want them to rule in their favour. In other words, Volly wants to take the control of the courts out of the hands of the majority who currently pay for them (with teh evil taxxors!), and hand it over to those who most benefit from their corruption. Great plan, Volly! "Buying a judge" is currently a figure of speech, and this apparently offends you.

Somalia: This one is much simpler. Volly notes that conditions in Somalia have improved since the Government folded, and commits the ever popular Complex Cause Fallacy™ and concludes that this is obviously because the Government collapsed.

I don't really get Volly; does he honestly expect to convince anyone here of his position, or is he just trolling? Anyhow, I also note that he continues to concentrate on the flaws in governments and redirecting away from his own system with generic plattitudes, just like a good creationist.

[Darth Servo]

Yeah, I already pointed out that under a free market system, the "best" courts would be the ones that handle the most cases in the least amount of time, thereby turning the most profit. That people getting to "choose" the court they want, anyone with an once of sense will realize those involved in any kind of court case, be it civil or criminal, will obviously choose the court they think will be most likely to rule in their favor. Clearly no one will ever be able to decide on a venue as they have every reason in the world to not want the court their opponent wants. It is utterly laughable that Valleytard thinks this will be an improvement.

Isn't Surthlethe's next post due in a few hours?

[K. A. Pital]

You should do it anyway just to embarrass the dumb little fuck.

Well, Voluntaryist probably doesn't know how to compare military losses, but I'll try to explain what he tried to say. For statistics, I will use the Russian post-war statistical assessment using all loss documents on all fronts by Krivosheev, and for the Germans, I will use the FRG Statistical Institutes official assessment, which is also the official data for Germany (and satellites).

RKKA lost 11.944.100 men as "irrecoverable losses" during the conflicts with Germany and Japan. "Irrecoverable losses" mean KIA, MIA and POW. Of those, 11.932.069 men were lost in the European Front, and 7.373.369 were KIA.

The opposing forces in the European, German-Russian Front were not just Germany alone, but Nazi satellites too. The factual "irrecoverable losses" of Germany (Wehrmacht+battle SS) and satellites were: 8.725.600 men.

Of those, 4.948.300 men of the German Wehrmacht, SS battle formations, including foreign collaborators, and from the Armies of Nazi satellites were KIA on the Eastern Front.

If we compare the German irrecoverable Eastern losses, to the USSR's German front irrecoverable losses, we will get 1:1,36, or the USSR losing on the average around 36% more men. If we compare the KIA ratio, it will be 1,49:1, or the USSR losing on the average around 50% more men.

Is that too drastic a difference? In such a large war, actually no. Especially considering the incredibly high losses inflicted on the yet undeployed Soviet army by the German Wehrmacht in the early war months, and the fact that Germany was far more brutal towards the USSR than it was towards any other adversary.

So people might wonder - what makes up a large part of the disparity between German and Soviet losses? I'll answer. The POWs, upon return, are calculated and substracted from the military "irrecoverable losses".

Out of USSR's POWs, of whom there were 3 396 400 men, over a half - 1 783 000 - were murdered by the Nazis. If we substract those murdered POWs, or at least lower the death toll on Soviet POWs to the relative number of Axis POWs dying in Soviet captivity after Stalingrad and onwards - 11,9% of Axis POWs died in Soviet captivity. That rate applied to the Soviet POWs in the Reich, would mean a total of 373 000 Soviet POW dead - we would have to substract 1 410 000 men from the Soviet total military dead, meaning the ratio of Axis to Soviet losses would be lowered to almost 1:1.

So the higher ratio is not really a testament to Germany's superior warfightng abilities, or it's particular care about it's soldiers - when the war turned on Germany, their army quickly started losing water and 1943-1944 was a breakback where Germany started losing mega-large 500,000-1,000,000 groups in encirclements, just as the USSR lost in 1941 after the German attack.

The higher loss ratio is a profound testament to the brutality of Germany towards the USSR POWs. So Voluntaryist is essentially exalting the Holocaust, or a part of it - the brutal and unhinged exterminatin of Soviet POWs, as it lowered Germany's loss ratio against the USSR and, to an idiot layman, would prove that Germany fought "more effectively".

As a matter of fact, I think that Volly should apologize for making this statement, because it really is insulting. So if you murder the enemy's POWs wholesale, you are the better fighter. I'll take note of that train of thought.

[TC Pilot]

Odds are, he's relying on the 20+ million Soviet casualties figure to base that assumption (which is even more stupid, since it also attests to the sheer unstoppable strength of the Soviet system to sustain such losses for so long on its own sovereign territory.

Of course, that does not even begin to scratch the surface of the moronic thought process and ludicrous jingoism involved in claiming that not only was American lend-lease war material shipments universally superior to Soviet and German equipment, but that it constituted a gigantic enough percentage of the Red Army's equipment (never mind the logistical nightmare of relying on the tenuous North Sea supply lines to outfit part of an army with foreign equipment while outfitting the rest with domestic equipment) while America itself was equipping and training millions of its own citizens.

And that's ignoring the absurdity of the claim the United States was a free market during the war. But then again, we've all known Voluntaryist is completely ignorant of historical fact.

[Surlethe]

Didn't Germany not move to full war footing until 1943 or so, when it was too late? I don't remember where I saw that, but that's what's sticking in my mind.

[K. A. Pital]

Odds are, he's relying on the 20+ million Soviet casualties figure

In that case he is even more repugnant, because that figure inclused the massive civilian Holocaust Germany started on the Soviet territories, and the ~17,5 million civilians who died in the extermination of Slavs by Germany.

For comparison, Germany's civilian losses are 1,600,000. For all theaters of war. And somehow it's a testament to it's superior warfighting? Te extermination of 17 million people?



You can see how USSR's military losses are around 1,3-1,5 that of the German ones and pretty on par with the general Axis losses (around ~80% of all European Axis losses came from the Eastern Front), but Germany's civilian losses are 10 times less than the USSR. Of course, with such a massive extermination policy, that's pretty easy to achieve. Germany managed to achieve a 1,7 per minute murder rate in Belorussia, murdering around 30% of the population, or every third person, cleansing it from the "untermensh".

Same with China and Japan really.

That's why Allies lost more people, because Germany and Japan ruthlessly exterminated the citizens of the assaulted nations. Not because they were better fighters or anything.

[Darth Servo]

On the one hand, I applaud Surlethe's cutting away the crap and posting a single essay summarizing the main points. However, I think you were a bit lenient on a lot of his bullshit.

[TC Pilot]

I would say he's about as lenient as Ivan Androgo killing Apollo Creed in Rocky IV.

*ding ding ding*

Surlethe: 9 Voluntaryist: -3

(Surlethe gets +5 for essentially winning the debate with that post)

EDIT - There's no way Voluntaryist can respond to that in any substantive way in 3 day, given his past behavior.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Stas Bush

The guy's an idiot. I'm not sure how he can even call the lend lease anything related to the free market when the governments of those countries practically appropriated the munitions and supplies from their own factories and gave them away nearly for free (except for the use of bases). If the free market had it their way, there won't be any supplies being delivered to any of the nations, since it knows, it wouldn't get much in return. After all, everyone, except the US, was dead broke after the war.

[Darth Servo]

What does everyone say to putting a preemptive stop to Valleytard's annoying but predictable response to any of criticism of anarchy? If his response to criticisms of anarchy contains any of his "nuh-uh, its governments that do that" crap, he automatically forfeits.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Or alternatly we could start a volly-ball drinking game, but I don't know if our livers could take that....

[CaptainChewbacca]

Surlethe doesn't fail to impress. I doubt I would've been able to break from a wall-of-text feedback loop.

[Plekhanov]

Yes, I know. You are repeating yourself, but you are not supporting your assertion. I responded to you by pointing out that government, not voluntaryism, is utopian because it gives the ruling class special powers over everyone else, while voluntaryism does not. I supported my assertion. You have ignored the support I gave for my argument and you simply repeated your unsupported claim like a broken record.
Can you please explain why a free market, which only legitimizes consentual interactions, and affirms the sovereignty of the individual, is utopian? Don’t just claim it, but explain why?

And can you please explain why government is not utopian even though it gives the ruling class power over others in the idealized expectation that it will act in the best interests of society?

I find it hard to believe that anyone could be so deluded as to keep on repeating this risible non-argument.

Utopia

1 An imaginary or hypothetical place or state of things considered to be perfect; a condition of ideal (esp. social) perfection. M16.

b An imaginary distant region or country. Now rare or obs. E17.

2 An impossibly ideal scheme, esp. for social improvement. M18. Source NSOED

How can anyone seriously be so retarded as to claim that the system they, all the people they know live in doesn't exist?

[PeZook]

To comment further on Russian Lend-Lease, it is enlightening to actually look at the list of PQ convoys.

Lend lease was important because it delivered support supplies, rather than tanks and airplanes. Soviet-made weapons were far superior to American-made ones, anyway - it's the trucks, aviation gasoline and locomotives which were really important. And, of course, it satisified only a small part of the overall demand of the front lines.

Stas posted the statistics a while ago, and anybody can look them up easily. Volly just gets his history from the History Channel, apparently

How can anyone seriously be so retarded as to claim that the system they, all the people they know live in doesn't exist?

It's an interesting thought experiment to copy Volly's logic and check its predictions. For this utopia nonsense, we get:

Road-bound cars exist and are imperfect.
Teleporters would be so much better for personal transport.
Therefore, road-bound cars are unrealistic and utopian.

Sounds idiotic? It is, but it's exactly what he's proposing.

[Surlethe]

On the one hand, I applaud Surlethe's cutting away the crap and posting a single essay summarizing the main points. However, I think you were a bit lenient on a lot of his bullshit.

A couple of reasons for that. First, I didn't want to take the time to go point-by-point in this response, and that necessitated not responding to a lot of detail points. Second, I was working on the deadline and I simply didn't have the time if I wanted to get it up at a reasonable hour and get a halfway-decent amount of sleep. I'm afraid that I was a little too optimistic in my assessment earlier of my finals workload, but it'll definitely be out of the way by the time for my next reply.

[PeZook]

A couple of reasons for that. First, I didn't want to take the time to go point-by-point in this response, and that necessitated not responding to a lot of detail points. Second, I was working on the deadline and I simply didn't have the time if I wanted to get it up at a reasonable hour and get a halfway-decent amount of sleep. I'm afraid that I was a little too optimistic in my assessment earlier of my finals workload, but it'll definitely be out of the way by the time for my next reply.

Myself, I find what you did okay. It's no use getting caught up with things like Eastern Front casualty figures - we can embarass the idiot just fine here, in the comments thread.

You attacked the crux of the problem with his arguments, and he hasn't answered those. So, good job.

It's also a big plus for the readers.

[The Vortex Empire]

Excellent, Surlethe, you've essentially won with that.

$100 says Volley repeats his old points again.

[Darth Wong]

No matter what Volly says next, I'm cutting it off at five rounds anyway, which means each side gets one more response in. I never explicitly stated five rounds as a limit but it's what I've always used as a limit in the past, and I think it's actually rather charitable to give Volly even one more round in light of the fact that all he ever does is repeat a series of a priori declarative statements and then churn out deductions from them.

[BountyHunterSAx]

I think of all the volleys fired in the volleyball debate, this one had to be the most interesting - and certainly served as an excellent summary of the arguments.

I compliment you once more Surlethe, you really do have a knack at making people see the cold, bare logical/illogical core of their arguments without coming off as condescending or asshole-ish. Bravo. Bravo.

-AHMAD

PS: And yes, I know that being rude, condescending, and assholeish doesn't imply stupidity or immaturity - but it's still something that I value in a person and strive for myself.

[The Yosemite Bear]

dude, Oscar Wilde was one of the most rude and condescending folks in english/irish history. And the way he verbally emasculated folks required quite a bit of intellect.

[Sidewinder]

Volly just gets his history from the History Channel, apparently

Hell, at least the History Channel performs SOME research on the topics of their shows. Voluntaryist's ignorance suggests he performed NONE.

Road-bound cars exist and are imperfect.
Teleporters would be so much better for personal transport.
Therefore, road-bound cars are unrealistic and utopian.

Sounds idiotic? It is, but it's exactly what he's proposing.

I concur.

[Darth Servo]

Road-bound cars exist and are imperfect.
Teleporters would be so much better for personal transport.
Therefore, road-bound cars are unrealistic and utopian.

Sounds idiotic? It is, but it's exactly what he's proposing.

I concur.

Not quite. Teleporters probably would be superior to cars for transporting a lot of things (not necessarily people) even though they don't actually exist. Valleytard's system would be worse than the status quo, never mind wouldn't function even if someone did try and implement it.

[PeZook]

Not quite. Teleporters probably would be superior to cars for transporting a lot of things (not necessarily people) even though they don't actually exist. Valleytard's system would be worse than the status quo, never mind wouldn't function even if someone did try and implement it.

Except they don't exist and can't be made using current technology, but according to Volleyball's logic, we should use them rather than cars anyway.

If we could edit every human to be nice and good and not inclined to violence or wanting power, then we could implement anarchism. But we can't, yet volleyball claims we should try anarchism anyway.