HN is toast. Its being overrun by statists/socialists.
There are lots of nice ideals in voluntarism and total free-market economics, but I'm less and less convinced that they could work at any significant scale in the real world...
Free-market solves everthing best with most stability.
I think empirically history shows that lack of regulation can be as bad as too much regulation. The reality is more of a balance, and black-and-white faith in the free market solving everything looks more and more to me at least as a dangerous delusion.
You cannot stop every bad things in the world. Otherwise you will end up creating more unstability and, as a result, worse things.
Libertarianism/Free-Market does not claim to iradicate all the bad things humans do to each other. It just that it will give you best fighting/winning chance.
> The reality is more of a balance, and black-and-white faith in the free market solving everything looks more and more to me at least as a dangerous delusion.
You got it opposite. Its the libertarians believe that world is too complex to be understood by one entity and better left to multiple entities (aka market). Libertarians wont go around claiming they understand the intention of every employers and ban them for asking certain questions.
Free-Market is smallest abstraction. Free-market can reduce to Statism if there is a demand. But Statism wont reduce to free-market.
This maximalist position is crazy. Our experience shows that there are some things which are most efficiently solved by the (mostly) free market, but nobody managed to conclusively prove that the free market (and which type of free market is that anyway?) solves everything. That's the point where Libertarianism shifts from an ideology to a religion.
Most libertarians have varying stances that all develop from the non-aggression principle ("in a free society, you have the freedom to do whatever you want so long as it does not infringe on the rights of anybody else.") I have never heard a compelling argument against the NAP, because it can be interpreted so broadly. Even some of the pro-no-asking-questions people on this thread are using the NAP, if unwittingly, to justify their positions.
Thats not NAP if rights is anything but right to be not physically assulted.
NAP is basically: do no (physical) harm.
You not only allowed to be aggressive in other ways (such as economically) but its relied upon to tackle overly powerful entities (like megacorps).
Its simple by design. Its easiest to get universel consent.
> I fall on the other end of the scale where indirect damage through social/economic/environmental channels can be considered to infringe on liberty. Slander laws, noise ordinances, and non-localized environmental pollution all fall into this category and are eligible to be addressed through regulations which actually improve liberty. However, not being allowed to ask questions does not fall in this category in my opinion.
Sure you can create such contract. But it cannot be called NAP. Otherwise it will lead to miscommunication.
And it falls down as soon as you want to enforce any other rules, like say, property rights.
If I reach to take your property and you slap my hand away, you have broken the NAP as you define it. Or you let me take it, but then expect the police or security company to punish me, they are breaking the NAP.
You are right. For this desirable, two universal consents are needed: 1. NAP 2. Land Registry (eg blockchain based).
I claim that there will be 99%+ consent among inhabitants of a perticular region, which is good enough.
This have to be mentioned that no society (ancapism or socialism) can function without some minimum level of cooperation from all which is safe assumption because we are after all social animals. When this characterstic is not found, people migrate as they have been doing since ages.
Corporations/LLC's: these entities have obtained special government privileges (being detached from any personal liability/ ability to seize an owner's assets), and so it seems reasonable that they can be considered to 'meet some public standards' in exchange for these privileges. Anti-discrimination falls into that category in my opinion.
At the same time, though the business owner also contributed their own taxes to the situation.
I think I agree with your distinction and stance, with the idea being that the market will correct because it's shitty business to turn away a customer over an irrelevant detail like that
HN appears to lean left of moderate liberals, though. The hive-mind can be a major turn-off at times...
Most people won't agree on a definition of "property" or "aggression" rendering the point moot, however.
First of all, the only relevant definition in the NAP is "aggression." Regardless, I think it's incredibly useful to have a fundamental basis that people agree on, which can be used as a pillar of debate. It's the closest you can come to a 'scientific method' in political discussion, as opposed to the Democrats'/Republicans' strategy of just picking and choosing what 'sounds fair, sounds right.'
Literally in the first paragraph:
"Aggression", for the purposes of NAP, is defined as initiating or threatening the use of any and all forcible interference with an individual or individual's property.[1]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle
>Regardless, I think it's incredibly useful to have a fundamental basis that people agree on
That's hilarious. Not only is the definition of "property" completely open to interpretation, so is the word "aggression", the word "initiated" and the word "threaten".
This principle is clearly meant to be as vague as possible so people can attach their own meaning to it. It resembles religion.
I laid out my definition in a prior comment; the most succinct version is "your only right is the right to not be aggressed against." Adding property is a nice way of delving into specifics, but it's not the most fundamental definition.
> That's hilarious.
Sounds like you have a personal bias against libertarianism. This is nothing new -- I deal with contrarians all the time, who are usually dead set on dismissing alternative views instead of building their own. Yes, nothing in the world is "pure" and "perfect," but I'm curious what criteria you use to evaluate policy, or if it's just a doozy and you agree with whatever you read in the New York Times.
Not trying to insult you, but please, for your sake and everyone else's: don't be a contrarian. This is serious life advice. Multiple companies I've worked for have had rules like "don't complain unless you provide a better solution," and they're right. You don't need to blindly pat everyone on the back, but arguing against something without proposing or referencing something better is one of my pet peeves.