[gnaritas]

> and Statists

Your bias is strong, it's far more likely you're the one with misunderstandings than the OP. The unbiased don't go around calling people statists; nation states are the norm in the world, they're properly just called people. As the anti-statist and the one who isn't the norm, the label more appropriately belongs on you. Humans are tribal animals, always have been and always will be, nation states are merely the current expression of this normal natural human behavior.

Bitcoin is simply not attractive to the ordinary person because they don't have this anti-state bias that makes it so attractive to you. The dollar is incredibly stable, that stability comes from a central authority who actively manages the currency to keep it so, and people like it that way. As a currency, Bitcoin is terrible and doesn't come close to approaching the utility of the dollar. Bitcoin is little more than a speculative tech commodity attractive to a small minority of people who think they can either make money or escape the state. It has a place, a small one.

[njarboe]

Murder is also a "normal natural human behavior", especially when one has a strong tribal bonds and are dealing with those outside the tribe. Suppressing or sublimating some normal natural human behavior with culture is probably a good thing. Choose wisely.

[and0]

Murder isn't really a "normal natural human behavior". Deferring to people's desire for a stable currency in a modern economy does not mean normalizing murder.

Seriously: what?

[njarboe]

I am not advocating for murder or the fall of the state. I was suggesting one think about normalizing tribal behavior. "Choose wisely". Death rates due to violence vary dramatically in non-state societies[1], up to 60% is some cases. I was just pointing out the problem with saying that just because things are "natural" (however one would define that), they are the best way of being. With such a sensitive subject I guess one must be much more clear about intentions.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/ethnographic-and-archaeological-e...

[paulmd]

A huge amount of capital-L Libertarian philosophy centers around advocating things that can be broadly defined as "antisocial behavior". For example, Rothbard was highly in favor of total parental ownership of children as chattel slaves (including sale), and assassination markets are a recurring theme in such ideologies. It's a fantasy Mad Max scenario where everyone can imagine themselves as the warlord and not the slave begging for a cup of water.

(whereas soft libertarianism tends to be "Republicans but with legal drugs")

And more generally speaking Libertarians tend to take a "try and stop me" philosophy to all such problems (including any tragedy-of-the-commons situations). And of course they insist that you stop them without using your "statist" laws, so this becomes a de-facto argument for anarchy or rule of the richest/strongest. It's deliberately creating a scenario in which nobody will be able to stop whatever travesties occur and rationalizing that it should happen because that's what the market decides.

Obviously this example pre-dates modern Libertarianism a bit, but nothing epitomizes Libertarianism quite as well as Crassus. Crassus owned a fire brigade back in Roman times, and when your building caught fire he'd make you an offer. You can either sell your property to him for pocket change and his brigade will put it out, or you can watch it burn to the ground. Unsurprisingly people usually chose the "pocket change" option over "nothing", and he became immensely wealthy.

Libertarians tend to imagine themselves as Crassus and think this sounds like a great idea - many of them are probably excitedly muttering about free-market fire brigades and fire insurance at this juncture. But past people weren't stupid, they reacted to the same pressures we do. The same drives to take long-tail risks that are improbable but have huge downsides exist today. And in the horrible statist world this is a completely solved problem - you pay property taxes that fund the fire department and nobody loses their house to a freak accident, or gets ripped off at a moment of disadvantage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting

You can see a modern example of this today in Colorado Springs, where Libertarianism is huge and taxes are so low they can't fund basic services. Now you have to pay to turn your street lights on. Same thing is happening with fire brigades in some areas - if you don't pay a separate premium the fire department won't come put out your house.

So yeah, welcome to Libertopia, coffee is over on the left, sex slaves are down the hall and on your right. Don't worry, the sex slaves definitely aren't going to be you or any of your loved ones. If they are, the transaction was probably approved by their new owner's friendly neighborhood Arbitration Corporation as repayment for your debts. Don't worry, you'll always retain the option of a "kinetic appeal" of your case from Blackwater - if you've got the cash.

This sounds like a great idea to Libertarians because there's no force or coercion at all, since Libertarians uniquely define force/coercion as coming from the state. Whereas having to pay tax is like ten megahitlers on the oppression scale.

People have hated paying taxes since time immemorial. Even Jesus had to tell people to shut up and pay their taxes. Libertarians are just pretentious enough to try and build a whole philosophy around it, with hookers and blow (literally: it's not a coincidence that Libertarian philosophy spends so much time on slaves and legal drugs).

[gnaritas]

No, murder is a rare human behavior practiced by a tiny tiny minority of people and is considered quite abnormal. Normal human behavior is to not murder others. Normal is a synonym for typical, does the typical person you know go around committing murder?