The Libertarians Are Coming

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MSimon
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Re: The Libertarians Are Coming

Post by MSimon »

hanelyp wrote:
To paraphrase H. L. Mencken, Nobody ever went broke underestimating the goodness of the human race.
I like to phrase that as pursuit of self interest being a constant of human nature.
(scope of self varying some with upbringing, and enlightenment to guide the pursuit being anything but constant.)
(for that matter, a constant of the nature of any successful species.)

As for the value of religion, a successful religion embraces memes that promote survival and expansion of the people. Religions embracing memes contrary to survival adapt or die. Protestant Christianity, so influential in the US for many years, is an amazing success judged by the prosperity of the people who followed it. And now that the US is turning away from those values, it and the world that so greatly prospered by indirect blessings are facing a very great spot of "bad luck".
Well not exactly. But it is close. The memes that the US prospered under were:

1. Small limited government
2. Government functions handled as locally as possible
3. Leave people to their own devices
4. Individual morality is an individual concern
5. Harming yourself may be a sin - it is not a government concern
6. Only crime (directly harming others) is a government concern

We now of course have government on the Catholic model.

1. Top down
2. Sin is a government concern
3. The individual must be controlled for the greater good - it takes a village - actually it takes a nation

The Catholic model is socialism. The Protestant model is liberty. In a sense we are all Catholics now.

The youth are rejecting religion for that very reason. The Catholic model is stifling. It is an end to progress. I suppose that is why the Catholic strain calls itself "progressive" these days. NewSpeak.
rossj503

The thing is that I have friends that are on all sides of the spectrum politically. I am a fairly conservative person. The GOP has caught themselves in a trap of using social issues to bolster their numbers. If Republicans would get out of the social issue morality game, more and more people would align themselves with Republicans. But that seems really difficult for them to do.

College Republicans latest to issue warnings for party's future
BTW that is the reason IMO that Catholics were so distrusted in our early history. The people of those generations knew socialism when they saw it.

All humans have a common morality. That morality is anti-force and anti-fraud. And of course tort law - negligence. But that is about it.

We used to put up with quite a bit of inconvenience for the sake of liberty.

So what have we gotten with all these laws against sin? We have lost considerable liberty. We are well on the way to a police state. And sin is as prevalent as ever. A net loss.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

mvanwink5
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Re: The Libertarians Are Coming

Post by mvanwink5 »

NewSpeak = word salad. Prog's are fluent in word salad. Liberal arts colleges specialize in it. The trick is to say things that seem to make sense, only there is no meaning in what is said. An example: Is it faster to Chicago or by train? Other popular word salad examples: GDP (gross domestic product), social justice, environmental justice, original sin. You get the idea.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

hanelyp
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Re: The Libertarians Are Coming

Post by hanelyp »

MSimon wrote:6. Only crime (directly harming others) is a government concern
A key point of contention is that some activities seen by libertines as harmless to larger society, not all of us see as harmless.
The daylight is uncomfortably bright for eyes so long in the dark.

Diogenes
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Re: The Libertarians Are Coming

Post by Diogenes »

hanelyp wrote:
To paraphrase H. L. Mencken, Nobody ever went broke underestimating the goodness of the human race.
I like to phrase that as pursuit of self interest being a constant of human nature.
(scope of self varying some with upbringing, and enlightenment to guide the pursuit being anything but constant.)
(for that matter, a constant of the nature of any successful species.)

As for the value of religion, a successful religion embraces memes that promote survival and expansion of the people. Religions embracing memes contrary to survival adapt or die. Protestant Christianity, so influential in the US for many years, is an amazing success judged by the prosperity of the people who followed it. And now that the US is turning away from those values, it and the world that so greatly prospered by indirect blessings are facing a very great spot of "bad luck".

You have expounded on the concept which I am trying to convey. People misrepresent me as being an advocate for Christianity, or even a specific denomination of it. I am not. I am merely pointing out that something like Christianity is the evolved process by which societies have gained success.


I am currently leaning towards Mormanism as being an even more successful iteration of the concept than is Protestantism.


I am not specifically advocating Christianity itself. Any religion that can derive the same societal doctrines would have the same societal success as has had Christianity. The specifics of the miracles or stories (fables) underlying the religion do not strike me as important so long as they can achieve the same doctrinaire results, the most important being that All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.


It is that doctrine of "equality under a benevolent God" which I think has tamed the baser nature of most of mankind. It is that doctrine which taught people that one man should not hold power over another without the consent of the governed.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

Diogenes
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Re: The Libertarians Are Coming

Post by Diogenes »

MSimon wrote:
hanelyp wrote:
To paraphrase H. L. Mencken, Nobody ever went broke underestimating the goodness of the human race.
I like to phrase that as pursuit of self interest being a constant of human nature.
(scope of self varying some with upbringing, and enlightenment to guide the pursuit being anything but constant.)
(for that matter, a constant of the nature of any successful species.)

As for the value of religion, a successful religion embraces memes that promote survival and expansion of the people. Religions embracing memes contrary to survival adapt or die. Protestant Christianity, so influential in the US for many years, is an amazing success judged by the prosperity of the people who followed it. And now that the US is turning away from those values, it and the world that so greatly prospered by indirect blessings are facing a very great spot of "bad luck".
Well not exactly. But it is close. The memes that the US prospered under were:

1. Small limited government
2. Government functions handled as locally as possible
3. Leave people to their own devices
4. Individual morality is an individual concern
5. Harming yourself may be a sin - it is not a government concern
6. Only crime (directly harming others) is a government concern

We now of course have government on the Catholic model.

1. Top down
2. Sin is a government concern
3. The individual must be controlled for the greater good - it takes a village - actually it takes a nation

The Catholic model is socialism. The Protestant model is liberty. In a sense we are all Catholics now.

The youth are rejecting religion for that very reason. The Catholic model is stifling. It is an end to progress. I suppose that is why the Catholic strain calls itself "progressive" these days. NewSpeak.


BTW that is the reason IMO that Catholics were so distrusted in our early history. The people of those generations knew socialism when they saw it.

All humans have a common morality. That morality is anti-force and anti-fraud. And of course tort law - negligence. But that is about it.

We used to put up with quite a bit of inconvenience for the sake of liberty.

So what have we gotten with all these laws against sin? We have lost considerable liberty. We are well on the way to a police state. And sin is as prevalent as ever. A net loss.


I find myself mostly in agreement with you on this. I have many Catholic friends, and I love them dearly, but their church's doctrine does seem far more inclined towards socialism than does various protestant denominations of which I am familiar.


I further note that the vast majority of the Christianized "third world" is dominated by Catholic nations. There seems to be something about Catholicism that stagnates economic activity.


My apologies to any Catholics who find this observation offensive, but that is just how it appears to me. If you disagree, i'm willing to listen to your arguments to the contrary.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

MSimon
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Re: The Libertarians Are Coming

Post by MSimon »

hanelyp wrote:
MSimon wrote:6. Only crime (directly harming others) is a government concern
A key point of contention is that some activities seen by libertines as harmless to larger society, not all of us see as harmless.
Prohibition is the answer. Alcohol Prohibition.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

MSimon
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Re: The Libertarians Are Coming

Post by MSimon »

I'd say we are due for a Reformation.

The libertarians are coming.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

MSimon
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Re: The Libertarians Are Coming

Post by MSimon »

D,

I can't believe we agree on something. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. If He exists.

The Protestant idea was that many things are up to the individual conscience. Thus the proliferation of Protestant sects. The libertarian idea is in fact a return to America's Protestant roots. Without the religion. I think it will work out OK. Once the Wars of Religion die out.

We are all (optimistically) Lutherans now. Well except for the Jews. But Jewish law for the last 1800 years has been that it is up to the individual to determine which observances to observe. Let your conscience be your guide. Which works out well enough for the vast majority. For the rest there are laws against malum per se. The malum prohibitum laws are in the process of being disgorged. You know. The laws against sin.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Diogenes
Posts: 6967
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:33 pm

Re: The Libertarians Are Coming

Post by Diogenes »

Might not be obvious to some, but this dovetails perfectly with my understanding of human nature.

Image


During the filming of Planet of the Apes in 1967, Charlton Heston noted

“an instinctive segregation on the set. Not only would the apes eat together, but the chimpanzees ate with the chimpanzees, the gorillas ate with the gorillas, the orangutans ate with the orangutans, and the humans would eat off by themselves. It was quite spooky.”


More to read at: http://www.futilitycloset.com/2013/12/13/skin-deep-2/
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

williatw
Posts: 1912
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Location: Ohio

Re: The Libertarians Are Coming

Post by williatw »

williatw wrote:
Diogenes wrote: *YOU* cannot be an example of an atheist having morality because you cannot separate the influence of Christianity from your moral decision making process. You are contaminated, tainted, infused with Christian doctrine/practice whether you realize it or not.

The only way to test Atheism as a moral system is to have a society which is completely atheist, and therefore which has no cross contamination from Judeo-Christian morality. So far, those types of societies haven't lasted long.
And therein lies the problem with someone like Dawkins. Their stubborn refusal to acknowledge the irrational impulses that drive human beings, his refusal to see that most people are not as rational as he thinks he is. Lennox tried to point that out in mentioning Stalin, Pol Pot, and Hitler, but Dawkins response is well they weren't necessarily atheist, and even if they were it’s beside the point because most atheist aren't like them. Yes the threat of the big bad daddy in the sky will punish you in the end if you mess up, even if no person manages to, is the basis for our laws/morals. The rise of Nazism, Communism, Fascism, etc. is the result of telling the masses that there is no afterlife, no big daddy in the sky who will ultimately hold you to account if you screw-up. The emotion based need in people to believe in something merely defaults to ideology, if there is no religion. Sure you would probably love you mother, father, sibs, relatives anyway, and to a progressively lesser degree those around you in order of your closeness to them, but when it comes to the "other" that isn't of your "tribe" Katie bar the door. I do not find Dawkins explanation for the orderliness of the Universe we live in and the way the rules/conditions seem to be setup to make life possible satisfying either. There are supposedly and infinite (or very large) no. of "multiverses" where everything is screwed-up and we just hit the winning lottery ticket universe so to speak. The fact that there is no evidence of these other universes is beside the point; it is the lesser extraordinary claim then that of a creator. If atheists like him succeed in getting rid of Judeo-Christian religion, it will either default to one of the above "ism's" or some virulent religion like Muslim extremism...love to see how someone like Dawkins would fare under the gentle rule of the Caliph.
Diogenes wrote:Atheists are forever forgetting that many humans simply aren't rational. I have, on numerous occasions, mentioned the joy I would express the day on which atheists were confronted by Islamists. I would chortle gleefully if I could but watch them trying to argue humanism with someone holding a knife.

Atheism is like a monostable multivibrator. It cannot exist for long in the Atheism state before it reverts back to the normal religious ground state.


Why Atheism is Vacuous Grandiloquence



Black Pigeon Speaks




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsn6hah_zJI

choff
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Re: The Libertarians Are Coming

Post by choff »

For me there's the Boltzmann Brain Paradox, plus a little extrapolation on quantum mechanics, plus the question of why consciousness exists, what it is. Can the universe be said to exist without at least one conscious observer. For that matter, can oblivion be said to exist without at least one conscious entity to contemplate the state thereof. To get even more into the mental masturbation, why would the universe not start out in a state of maximum complexity(consciousness) and devolve to the minimum, instead of the reverse.
CHoff

williatw
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Re: The Libertarians Are Coming

Post by williatw »

choff wrote:For me there's the Boltzmann Brain Paradox, plus a little extrapolation on quantum mechanics, plus the question of why consciousness exists, what it is. Can the universe be said to exist without at least one conscious observer. For that matter, can oblivion be said to exist without at least one conscious entity to contemplate the state thereof. To get even more into the mental masturbation, why would the universe not start out in a state of maximum complexity(consciousness) and devolve to the minimum, instead of the reverse.
Well not a theoretical physicists by any means...but the whole idea that observing something, that is the mental/physical act of a conscious being (us) examining/measuring something causing the thing being measured to "decide" on which condition/state it is; (& also its "partner" particle that might be physically very far apart) i.e. quantum mechanics, suggests strongly there is more to consciousness than meets the eye.

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