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by jfasi
922 days ago
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Libertarianism is a two-part ideology that holds that first, despite all the clear signs around us, the world is simple. In a simple world, what is the point of regulation, policy, or any other collective action, for that matter? Why not abolish everything? On its face, this isn't an insane point of view. It's natural to look at the scope and complexity of government and as yourself "is all this really necessary?" While it'll never achieve mainstream status, some tinges of libertarianism contribute meaningfully as a counterweight to the tendency of government to grow beyond the point of diminishing returns to society. The problem is, the ideology has a second, usually unspoken tenet: anyone who suffers brought it upon themselves. Hacker stole your bitcoins? Should have used a hardware wallet. Hospital bills driving you to bankruptcy? This is what you get for not saving for a rainy day. Poisoned by shoddily produced medicine? Hey, you get what you pay for. It's an ideology of arrogance. Both intellectual arrogance, as its dunning-kruger afflicted adherents look over the vast and complex world and say "how hard could it possibly be?" to every challenge they perceive, and also of moral arrogance, as those same people cast their eyes over the depth of human suffering and inexplicably think "I've got mine, you all are on your own." The reason why libertarians always lose is because anyone who isn't a billionaire would spend their entire existence looking over their shoulder in terror at the infinite ways life can screw you. And even then they would probably fail. Any reasonable person would gladly hand over the right to sell medicine they mixed in their own basement in exchange for knowing they won't be poisoned when they need help themselves. |
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Side note, dunning Kruger has been discredited as statistical bias, I only know because I see a post about it on this site almost once a week.