Comment by foxhill | Hacker News Reader

Comment by foxhill | Hacker News Reader

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this is seriously the most hilarious response to a hacker news thread i have seen in a long time. it's got it all;

> Here we have a group of objectivist libertarians

wild conjecture? you bet.

> who believe that there should be effectively no laws other than the law of economics and self-interest

please, tell me, what else do they think? perhaps next you can tell me what i think, i'd love to hear it.

> We need the government! Please, come find the guy who took all of our illegal drug money and give it back to us so we can continue to say you aren't necessary

that's funny, you've quoted one thing, and decided it means the opposite. if he wanted government, he'd have called the police FBI. no, he is calling the victims of the crime to exact justice. there is no centralised government or organisation being called upon. it's the self interest thing you mentioned earlier.

> In the interest of the community?! Bwahahahaa!

i don't get what's so funny about that - do you find the word community funny? silk road is a community. they buy and sell drugs, which is obviously illegal as hell, but it is still definitely a community.

> "I will fight here by your side, even the greedy bastards amongst us." Like everyone on the site?!

whoa soldier! making a generalization or assumption about a one or two people is.. understandable. but calling thousands of people greedy because they trade illicit substances? i'm not sure my brain can cope with much more wild conjecture.

> "The only way to reverse a community’s greed is through generosity." Just like Ayn Rand said my brothers!

so.. this guy is a freedom fighter now? wat.

> notices the massive hypocrisy

what exactly would that be? drugs are illegal - yes, but are they morally wrong? does taking them somehow devalue a persons worth or their opinion? on the other hand, i think everyone will agree that taking something that does not belong to you is morally wrong. so, i'd love it if you could clarify what you mean here.

secondly, on hypocrites - if ted bundy told you not to kill someone, would you disregard his advice because "oh my god why should i listen to him, he kills people all the time". or perhaps if lance armstrong gave you cycling advice, you'd ignore it because he took performance enhancing drugs?

please.

I won't wade into all of the waters here. Not even sure what my opinion is at this point. But, I do have a question:

If these guys decide to band together to exact some form of "justice" against the thieves, then isn't that a form of "government"? Aren't they making a kind of de facto law?

More generally, there seems to be some sort of "code" that evolves out of any given community. And, if everyone agrees on acceptable conduct or behavior in order to participate in the community, then how is that different from, say, a democratic government? Here, of course, I'm speaking of an actual democratic government, not what we currently have in the U.S.

I'm not sure that democratic consensus is the same as democratic government. If the Silk Road 2 community grows and its new users have different ideals than the old ones -- maybe they don't support this kind of retribution against thieves, or they're against selling certain goods on Silk Road -- then a government would require new users to abide by the old rules, whereas a consensual arrangement would acknowledge that the consensus has changed.

If you do think that Silk Road 2 has some form of government, what kind is it? That is, how do they define and maintain their code of behavior? An oligarchy of old and influential users might claim to have authority; DPR 2 might act as a monarch; a majority of users might claim that everyone accepted a "social contract" just by joining Silk Road. But a de facto agreement among members on how to behave isn't enforced: it's de facto, so it happens to be the case, but it could change as easily as it formed.

> If these guys decide to band together to exact some form of "justice" against the thieves, then isn't that a form of "government"?

It depends on what kind of "justice" it is. Anarchist libertarians define government as a group of people that routinely initiate violence against other people, or routinely steal from other people.

That means, if you are protecting somebody from violence, or protecting someone's property from theft, you are not government. If you grab a thief and return the stolen goods to the rightful owner, you are not government. If you won't allow a known thief on your property, or otherwise refuse dealing with a thief, you are not government. If you prevent theft by exposing or shooting the thief, you are not government.

However, if you exert some kind of retributive justice on the thief, like, take all stuff from him, and shoot him in the back, that makes you a criminal (by definition, not necessarily in the eyes of the people), and if you do so routinely, that makes you a government. Likewise, if you force random people to pay for the incarceration of the thief, that makes you a government.

Interesting. I think that where things start to get gray is when a.) There's a collective vs. individual action/response involved (even in the cases that are defined as "not a government") and b.) when the "crime" involved is not as clear cut as, say outright theft. In the latter case, someone has to define what's acceptable for a given community (i.e. laws) and all parties must agree to it.

And, of course, there then must be some form of "policing" as well as an agreed upon penalty when a violation occurs.

>if you force random people to pay for the incarceration of the thief, that makes you a government.

The people who pay in a "democratic" society (presumably via taxation) aren't random, right? In theory, they have an interest in laws that, say, prevent theft of their property. Likewise, in a community like SR2 people are "forced" to pay via additional fees that SR2 must levy (whether stated explicitly or not) in order to police, prosecute, etc.

>if you exert some kind of retributive justice on the thief, like, take all stuff from him, and shoot him in the back, that makes you a criminal (by definition, not necessarily in the eyes of the people),

I'm not sure how we get to a definition of what's criminal without it referring back to what's acceptable to "the people". Again, we can hold out things that appear to be obvious (like theft), but even that can be gradated.

I'm not trying to split hairs. In fact, it seems that some of the definitions of libertarianism seem to do just that when drawing contrasts with other forms of government. It all sounds great when speaking on an individual basis, but whenever collective activity is involved (as it invariably will be), it seems to break down. That is, something is needed that at least approximates a form of what we'd recognize as government.

Haha, Ted Bundy? The ultimate strawman slippery slope argument!

Oh so good, all your defenses do nothing but point out the deeper contradictions in the statements. Seriously go back and read your replies to my replies. They're even funnier.

In the sense that we're actually laughing with him, yeah his is funnier.

Yes, you said it so it must be true, but when you read his comment you see that he's actually pointing out deeper hypocrisy in their statements. Most of them are so deeply flawed they can't be recovered.

But go ahead and demonstrate you don't think for yourself by laughing with him being wrong.

ah, we've gotten to the "i know you are, but what am i" stage already.

well, i'm glad you made it to the ted bundy part, but i can only assume you read one out of every 8-10 words, as that last bit was about hypocrisy in general (and why it's pointless to claim someone is a hypocrite in order discredit someone's argument). in no way was a "slippery slope" argument invoked.

Well, in his defense, your Bundy and Armstrong examples are just awful, and the bit about whether X is moral or Y is moral is even worse. You've begged the question of what defines morality entirely and replaced a rational basis for evaluation with the assumption that most people you know would consider one thing "worse" than another.

Here's an equally worse argument. If I took a knife away from Ted Bundy, when I encountered him walking around a park at night, wouldn't that be immoral, because taking things that belong to other people is wrong? If I took a syringe of enhancement drugs away from Lance Armstrong, as we both prepared for a race, wouldn't that be immoral.

Your Bundy example implies that the only reason one would or would not kill someone is whether they listen to Ted Bundy. That's a ridiculous mockup. Personally, if Bundy begged me not to kill someone, I'd assume the person was his accomplice. As for Lance, cycling advice isn't moral advice, and it would be perfectly reasonable to refuse to have anything to do with someone, because you found them morally reprehensible. In fact, taking cycling lessons from Lance at this point would simply reinforce the notion that what he did was not seriously wrong and this make one complicit.

In any event, since you are bandying the word "morality" around, let me bring up the issue of "moral authority." If someone's moral authority is suspect, one should not, in general, look to them for moral guidance.

my rant about hypocrisy had nothing to do with morality, and i wasn't suggesting you accept moral advice from either person. i thought that was pretty clear.

given the recent news regarding pot - i'm pretty sure that assumption was a safe bet.

my first example is ridiculous. that is the point. no sane person would do that. i went less over the top with armstrong. he's obviously a very skilled cyclist, and knows a lot about it. if he offered me cycling advice i would probably listen to it. facts are facts and are independent of who says them.

Your need to dismissively laugh at views that you do not agree with is highly obnoxious

I don't mind assholes when they are smart and correct, but you're just being a dolt.

You're embarrassing yourself all over this thread.

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