Collapse of Civilization

[Dilip Panjwani]

Because of you, Dilip, I started some months ago to do a bit of reading on libertarianism. I'm not claiming to be educated; still a beginner. One thing that is clear to me is that Libertarianism, like any other political / socioeconomic 'ism' has many variants. Based on the above quote, you apparently support a variant where intellectual property rights aren't recognized. Am I interpreting your remarks correctly? A practical question: in your libertarian world, how would you raise the massive amounts of money required for drug research and development if you can't provide prospective investors with the confidence that any successful outcomes will be protected by patents/etc long enough for them to recoup and profit from their investment?

Very good question, Peter. In reality almost all useful research is done by intellectuals at Universities, and that should be available to everyone, not just a few who manage to purchase it for a paltry amount of money. And the real researchers should be rewarded by public taxation...

[Peter McKillop]

This Thiel guy did more good for our society by developing and popularizing the use of PayPal, than he ever could by donating his billions!
And if we had a Libertarian society, he would not have become ultra-rich in the first place, because we would have scores of entrepreneurs developing variants of PayPal, making society even better in their small way...
As for the title of this thread, proliferation of nasty trolls incessantly barking nonsense is one way of achieving it...

Because of you, Dilip, I started some months ago to do a bit of reading on libertarianism. I'm not claiming to be educated; still a beginner. One thing that is clear to me is that Libertarianism, like any other political / socioeconomic 'ism' has many variants. Based on the above quote, you apparently support a variant where intellectual property rights aren't recognized. Am I interpreting your remarks correctly? A practical question: in your libertarian world, how would you raise the massive amounts of money required for drug research and development if you can't provide prospective investors with the confidence that any successful outcomes will be protected by patents/etc long enough for them to recoup and profit from their investment?

[Dilip Panjwani]

Lets take Bob's underwear and distribute them to the homeless.

This Thiel guy did more good for our society by developing and popularizing the use of PayPal, than he ever could by donating his billions!
And if we had a Libertarian society, he would not have become ultra-rich in the first place, because we would have scores of entrepreneurs developing variants of PayPal, making society even better in their small way...
As for the title of this thread, proliferation of nasty trolls incessantly barking nonsense is one way of achieving it...

[Pargat Perrer]

I agree, Pargat. 'The Atlantic' online version recently had an article about Peter Thiel, one of PayPal's founders and a billionaire. Here's a quote from the article in which we get a pretty good feel for Thiel's views on altruism:

Thiel feels that giving his billions away would be too much like admitting he had done something wrong to acquire them. The prevailing view in Europe, he said, and more and more in the United States, “is that philanthropy is something an evil person does.” It raises a question, he said: “What are you atoning for?”

Altruism is evil?? I wonder what Dilip's revolutionaries would do with people like Thiel? A 're-education' camp perhaps? A gulag?

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...-views/675946/

The Ayn Rand Libertarians would do nothing, because massive wealth can be won in "fair competition", an undefined term.

Trump rises up in the New York City real estate market because he doesn't pay his contractors and declares bankruptcy? Fair competition!

[Pargat Perrer]

. . . .
(Socialism) is evil. It simply can't work. It can never be pure. It can never work because of human nature.

It is very interesting that both extreme left-wing politics and extreme right-wing politics can BOTH be shown to be unworkable due to one thing ... human nature, aka greed.

Does this mean that what the USA has had for many decades now, which is a constant cycling from very moderate right-wing to slightly less moderate left-wing politics, is actually the very best politics to have?

Many taxpayers complain that all politicians are the same .... and yes, as I recently pointed out to Dilip, Reagan, a moderate right-wing President who argued "government is the problem", actually INCREASED the size of the Federal workforce throughout his 8-years in office. Dilip argues it was all military, but no, 75% of it was non-military. So in effect Reagan was a Democrat. He certainly didn't cut the size of government.

In fact, none of the recent U.S. Presidents except Bill Clinton a moderate Democrat actually decreased the size of the federal government. This is why I say the left-wing part of the cycle is slightly less moderate than the right-wing shifts, with the Bill Clinton terms being the exception (because the internet dot-com boom allowed the shrinkage of the size of government without the worst effects). Once George W. got into office, there was the dot-com collapse and there was no more appetite to shrink the size of government.

All these government shutdown threats we are seeing lately, that get kicked down the road another 3 months or 6 months, are part of an awareness within the moderate right / left conglomerate that the size of government simply cannot be reduced without drastically bad economic consequences. It is this congealing of the moderate right and left that is leading to such discord within both Republican and Democratic parties as they deal with their extreme wings, but at least the extreme left is not calling for cuts to the size of government. Thus the fight within the Republican Party is much more severe and chaotic.

So the conglomerate fights the ultra-wealthy who are pushing the agenda to drastically cut government spending and size. Drastically bad economic consequences? Not for them, they have their bunkers! BRING IT ON! is the chorus from them.

We are in a perilous time where the ultra-wealthy may get their way and the world as we have known it for over a generation will suddenly collapse, as the title of this thread suggests.

I believe this IS the agenda of the ultra-wealthy. And I bet Dilip pushing his Libertarianism (pushing for the collapse of society) either has a bunker or really badly wants one.

[Vlad Drkulec]

I wonder if Peter Thiel is one of those billionaires who is building one of those personal home bomb shelters Pargat mentioned. I have a solution for his lack of altruism, my billionaire wealth tax. All wealth in excess of $ 1,000,000,000 is taxed at 100%.

Looting is unbecoming.

Billionaires are extremely mobile. They will go where the local government will not confiscate their wealth and that principality will prosper. You should be more concerned with the precedent that such a looter policy would set. For example with some of the brilliant people in charge at the moment it is quite possible that a period of hyperinflation could render everyone billionaires and then you've gone and given the government license to take all of your money as well.That's pretty much what every socialist paradise eventually descends to.

The mentality that the government owns everything and are entitled to loot everything that someone else has inevitably leads to less wealth and more poverty. Your turn will come for confiscation. Is it fair that you have two weeks of underwear (assuming daily changes of underwear) and the homeless person has only what he's wearing? Nope! Lets take Bob's underwear and distribute them to the homeless.

Socialism inevitably leads to the consumption of zoo animals for protein, but sooner or later you run out of zoo animals and then you get to the point where "soylent green is people". The idiocy has never ever worked anywhere but foolish people keep thinking that it will work this time in this place because this time it will be pure socialism but it won't be. It is evil. It simply can't work. It can never be pure. It can never work because of human nature.

[Peter McKillop]

....

To paraphrase somebody (me forget who): if we can put one billionaire in space, why the hell can't we put them all there?

[Bob Gillanders]

I agree, Pargat. 'The Atlantic' online version recently had an article about Peter Thiel, one of PayPal's founders and a billionaire. Here's a quote from the article in which we get a pretty good feel for Thiel's views on altruism:

Thiel feels that giving his billions away would be too much like admitting he had done something wrong to acquire them. The prevailing view in Europe, he said, and more and more in the United States, “is that philanthropy is something an evil person does.” It raises a question, he said: “What are you atoning for?”

Altruism is evil?? I wonder what Dilip's revolutionaries would do with people like Thiel? A 're-education' camp perhaps? A gulag?

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...-views/675946/

I wonder if Peter Thiel is one of those billionaires who is building one of those personal home bomb shelters Pargat mentioned. I have a solution for his lack of altruism, my billionaire wealth tax. All wealth in excess of $ 1,000,000,000 is taxed at 100%.

[Peter McKillop]

....
(1) the 75% who are so altruistic 75% of the time are the BOTTOM 75% of society in economic terms. Their altruism may come about because of shared suffering / experience. If you know what it's like to be walked all over like you don't exist, you will be more likely to help others in your situation.

(2) the other 25%, the top 25% economically, are acting out of greed close to 100% of the time in their daily economic decisions.

And as we all know, the top 1% of the population hoards the vast vast majority of the world's wealth, so they are the greediest of all. ....

I agree, Pargat. 'The Atlantic' online version recently had an article about Peter Thiel, one of PayPal's founders and a billionaire. Here's a quote from the article in which we get a pretty good feel for Thiel's views on altruism:

Thiel feels that giving his billions away would be too much like admitting he had done something wrong to acquire them. The prevailing view in Europe, he said, and more and more in the United States, “is that philanthropy is something an evil person does.” It raises a question, he said: “What are you atoning for?”

Altruism is evil?? I wonder what Dilip's revolutionaries would do with people like Thiel? A 're-education' camp perhaps? A gulag?

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...-views/675946/

[Pargat Perrer]

Do you really need to explained: Like any other law, and because they are reps?
Don't ever ask such stupid questions in a debate... the audience would altruistically recommend you to seek mental help...

Yes, like any other law: by force. Therefore no one will have any means of appeal if they are convicted of a violation of Natural Law. Voila, dictatorship.

If circle reps advance to the next circle simply by being reps, then the second question gets transformed to "How do reps get chosen?" And we all know the answer to that... based on how well that rep will ensure benefits will trickle down to that circle.

Glad you spelled it out for us. Dictatorship and greed, the guiding principles of Libertarianism.

Now here's a third question, the most important of all which you refuse to answer and which I'm sure you will also characterize as a "stupid question"...

What scenarios will be considered "fair competition" which allows exclusion from following Natural Law? Since literally everyone on the planet would many times during their life be accused of violating Natural Law by the police state of Libertarianism, everyone needs to know the exact definition of "fair competition".

Here comes the technobabble, meant to confuse.... if he even deigns to answer the "stupid question".

[Pargat Perrer]

Hi Pargat:

78 years of being helped by people, many times strangers, when it cost them "something".

You sound like you have never been helped?

I'm being a bit facetious......I understand that you are questioning why my two 75% figures........to you they seem excessively high I take it, given your own life experience?.........much less help from family, friends and strangers than you had expected, and certainly not 75% altruism?

Do other CT'ers also find my 75% figures too high?

Bob A

I am not basing anything on my own life experience, that is an ignorant and insulting conclusion you are drawing.

I am basing it on the state of the world, which this thread is all about. If there is so much altruism, why is the human species near to self-extinction?

Even IF we assume your numbers are correct, I would draw 2 conclusions:

(1) the 75% who are so altruistic 75% of the time are the BOTTOM 75% of society in economic terms. Their altruism may come about because of shared suffering / experience. If you know what it's like to be walked all over like you don't exist, you will be more likely to help others in your situation.

(2) the other 25%, the top 25% economically, are acting out of greed close to 100% of the time in their daily economic decisions.

And as we all know, the top 1% of the population hoards the vast vast majority of the world's wealth, so they are the greediest of all. They are the ones buying all the survival bunkers and hurrying the world along to mass dieoff of the population.

So you can end your simplistic idea that altruism is guiding the world along more than greed. You didn't quite say that, but it appears to be what you are suggesting.

[Dilip Panjwani]

asking how the LIbertarian Natural Law will be enforced is a "stupid question". Asking how reps from one circle become elevated to members of the next circle is a "stupid question".

Do you really need to explained: Like any other law, and because they are reps?
Don't ever ask such stupid questions in a debate... the audience would altruistically recommend you to seek mental help...

[Dilip Panjwani]

Enforcing a Natural Law for everyone is a form of dictatorship. There are other ways to prohibit anyone from harming others.

A rose by any other name is still a rose....

[Bob Armstrong]

One View on Altruism

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Pargat:

78 years of being helped by people, many times strangers, when it cost them "something".

You sound like you have never been helped?

I'm being a bit facetious......I understand that you are questioning why my two 75% figures........to you they seem excessively high I take it, given your own life experience?.........much less help from family, friends and strangers than you had expected, and certainly not 75% altruism?

Do other CT'ers also find my 75% figures too high?

Bob A