[AkimChristine]

Human beings with a brain, in discussion with other humans, creating the kind of world they want to live in. Just like everything else in the world is decided.

It makes no sense at all to pretend that humans are too stupid to understand what is and is not good for our planet. The whole point of having language and intelligence is that it should be used, not just discarded with some discredited hand wave that "if we just do nothing, everything will work out for the best!"

[lmm]

> It makes no sense at all to pretend that humans are too stupid to understand what is and is not good for our planet. The whole point of having language and intelligence is that it should be used, not just discarded with some discredited hand wave that "if we just do nothing, everything will work out for the best!"

Centrally planned economies have been tried. The Soviet Union discouraged a lot of research into areas like psychology that they saw as pointless; artists had to conform to traditional styles. It didn't turn out very well. Letting the market allocate resources has a lot of inefficiencies, but it works better than any alternative that has been tried.

[flumbaps]

> Letting the market allocate resources has a lot of inefficiencies, but it works better than any alternative that has been tried.

I don't think we've ever tried having the market solely allocate resources. I think pretty much every government has regulated trade, collected taxes, that sort of thing. What seems to have worked best would be letting the market allocate resources to some extent, but collecting taxes and investing in long term goals (such as research and infrastructure). But maybe this isn't necessary, maybe in a truly free market there would always be genius entrepreneurs like Elon Musk appearing every now and again to progress humanity. Still, there's a massive difference between the kinds of long term planning that modern western democracies already do and a communist dictatorship.

[RodericDay]

I don't understand how you can think this is the be-all-and-end-all of economic thought. You are literally regurgitating a line ("Letting the market allocate resources has a lot of inefficiencies, but it works better than any alternative that has been tried.") you were probably taught in middle school without the slightest hint of irony.

I'm not saying it's untrue because it's taught early, but I am saying that it seems you haven't done much due diligence beyond that.

[lmm]

I was a communist until age 20 or so, but keep beating up that strawman.

[eli_gottlieb]

The question of Neoliberalism versus The Soviets is a completely false dichotomy. In the real world, Western-style social democracy has appeared to work best when tried, and that is not, by any means, a pure market system.

(Indeed, in a certain sense, neoliberalism can no longer be called a "pure" market system, since the government becomes property of the financial and landowning rentier classes, and is used to fight a class war by actively suppressing all other profits and wages in order to increase rent and debt.)

[grandalf]

I think you misunderstood my point. I meant who should decide for someone else what he/she ought to work on? Who should decide for someone else what kind of world that person should want to live in?

[flumbaps]

I think you're creating a false dichotomy here. It's perfectly possible for a government to encourage people to work in certain areas without descending into tyranny.

Most modern democratic governments already regulate their financial markets, and already invest in research grants, infrastructure projects and support for start ups. The fact is, providing incentives to work towards long term goals is exactly the kind of thing that free markets aren't good at.

[grandalf]

The fact is, providing incentives to work towards long term goals is exactly the kind of thing that free markets aren't good at

To claim that markets are not "good" at this kind of optimization entails the belief that they should be.

I'd argue that capital allocation in the face of risk and uncertainty is a hard problem, and that while governments (in their role as infrastructure providers) make the problem easier, they (governments in their role as social planners) enact policies to alter the risk landscape to achieve desirable social/economic ends and sometimes rents for specific interest groups.

[AkimChristine]

>(governments in their role as social planners) enact policies to alter the risk landscape to achieve desirable social/economic ends and sometimes rents for specific interest groups.

Yes. And this is a GOOD thing. Because society as a whole (not to mention the human fucking species) is better off when certain special interest groups are advantaged: Children. The Elderly. Parents. Altruistic people. Social services. Healthcare. Investment in basic science research. Space exploration. Protecting the environment.

...and when certain people are disadvantaged: Killers. Psychopaths. Rapists. Thieves. Bullies. People who exploit market inefficiencies. Monopolists. Oligarchs that buy elections and bribe politicians. Aristocrats who throw their weight around to abuse and bully.

If you think certain types of people ("special interest groups") should NOT receive advantages or disadvantages based on their value to the human species... well... then you are f u c k i n g d u m b.

Who decides these things? WE DO. SOCIETY. YES, LIBERTARIANS, SOCIETY IS REAL.

[grandalf]

Well, to be fair, governments also do things like create internment camps for Japanese Americans, Gitmo, horrible prisons, genocides, etc.

The worst atrocities of history are generally Government power run amok, where governments use propaganda mechanisms to rally the public into a frenzy and then do horrible things (like the Iraq war, Holocaust, etc.)

There is a big difference between the constructive activities of governments (solving coordination problems, building roads and other infrastructure, basic criminal justice) and the perverse social engineering that corrupt governmental organizations seem to universally gravitate toward.

[krapp]

I don't think that is entirely fair, as it seems to presume the scale of atrocity for any government necessarily outweighs the scale of its benefit. It isn't the case that events like you describe (genocide, internment camps, the Holocaust) are inevitable or constant. Governments do these things, when they do, because governments are the only power structures capable of it -- one would have to prove that corporations given the same opportunity or power would somehow not engage in anything similar. Other governments also fight against them. The only difference between a company hiring Pinkertons to shoot striking miners and an army killing civilians is in scale, I don't believe it says much about the implicit evil of government versus the implicit good of a free market.

Most of these events had some measure of popular support. Many people wanted to put the Japanese in camps. Many people wanted to rid Europe of Jews. A lot of Americans wanted the Iraq war, and a lot of Americans want prisons to be horrible, believing we're a Christian nation and that a Christian nation should punish the wicked and smite the infidels. It is, I think, a mistake to presume that government even in the act of tyranny necessarily separates people from the better angels of their nature through deception or coercion.

[AkimChristine]

I'll tell you who. Everyone should decide together. Like mature adults with a brain. This is how society is and always has worked.

Parents decide how to raise their kids.

Bosses decide how their employees will act.

Elected leaders decide on what norms the country will have.

You are promoting a kind of ridiculous individualism that is completely disconnected from reality. No one is an island. We all exist in a community and a society and the rules of our society are determined--ideally--through mutual discussion, thinking, negotiation, agreement.

"Who should decide for someone else?" WTF are you talking about? Society should decide social issues. That's who.

[grandalf]

Not sure if you're trolling or not. Trying to give you the benefit of the doubt but your comments have been killed and now I can't reply to them.

[GudaYakub]

I'm not trolling I'm just ranting. You're not going to change my mind--I've already assumed that you're an uneducated computer nerd with no understanding at all of people or society. I just come here to rant at libertarians. I make a new account every time because if you swear or sound "uncivil" some of the moderators will blackball you.

[grandalf]

How would you define uneducated? Do you consider yourself educated?

Why do you consider yourself someone who understands people?

Also, why do you use profanity in your HN comments. Profanity can certainly add some rhetorical impact at times, but your use of it comes off a bit more like trolling than rhetoric.

[GudaYakub]

I don't give a shit what computer janitors think about my language. I fucking swear because I fucking swear. Real people swear. Swearing is an excellent way to express your distaste.

I'm educated because, factually, I am fucking educated. Computer nerds--even the ones with computer science degrees who are fewer and fewer these days--always receive extremely narrow technical educations and are complete idiots when it comes to anything that isn't code. This is why they are libertarians. Libertarianism is the dumbest mass movement since puritanism. It's utterly bankrupt of culture and can only exist in the minds of people who severely overestimate their knowledge.

I come here to vent my hatred for libertarians. There are lots of libertarians here. They think the best way to solve major social issues is literally to do nothing and have no government, no community, no society. It's the dumbest ideology ever but it's very well funded by Koch, Thiel, etc. The Tea Party and austerity politics are the achievements of libertarians.

In my perfect world libertarian billionaires would be convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death.

[grandalf]

Ironically you describe mutual discussion, thinking, negotiation and agreement and then proceed to list some exact opposites.

[AkimChristine]

You think bosses just spring up out of the ground? Or political leaders? Or parents? All of these authorities are created by society through social processes and their behaviour is determined by social processes. Parents are given authorities XYZ based on social consensus, but denied authority to e.g. abuse their kids. Bosses are given authorities ABC but denied other authorities and so on. These roles are all socially defined and came about through social processes.

"Who should decide?" The appropriate authorities that have been selected by social processes to have that authority. Your question is so fucking dumb because it pretends to be oblivious to the fact that legitimate authorities are put into power precisely because the community has delegated the job of deciding to them.

Your question amounts to saying "It's wrong that the legitimate authorities who have been elected, selected, chosen to decide questions within their sphere are making decisions within their sphere! What right do those legitimate community chosen leaders have to make decisions on behalf of the community!?"

Fucking idiot. The community leaders have the legitimate authority to make the community decisions precisely because the entire purpose of their office, and the reason they were put in that office, is so that they would and could make those decisions.

You're begging the question. "Who should decide?" is a retarded libertarian talking point that just emphasizes how little you understand co-operation and the entire fucking purpose of government.

"Who should decide?" The fucking GOVERNMENT. THAT IS WHY THEY EXIST. TO BE THE ONES WHO DECIDE.

[grandalf]

It appears you share the views and reasoning of Edmund Burke, father of Conservatism.