Dodging questions. Yikes

Yes that is a tough spot for anyone in that position, so point guns at business owners and steal money from everyone through inflation? Personally I would keep working and look for other ways to make money. If you have an actual example I could comment further, like the working conditions and whatnot.

Yeah I was just one my phone and didn't feel like giving you a crash course mostly because of the way you treat people. I'm against initiating violence on peaceful people, theft, fraud and pro private property. Do the math.

Missed it, on my phone, don't worry its an easy one.

No, if I'm out in public I'm taking on the risk of something like this happening. Its like accidentally bumping into someone vs purposefully doing it.

So do I take it you both don't follow the NAP in your daily lives?

Of course not. Mainly because it's not a real thing that I can follow, but also because I pay taxes to fund a social safety net, and while my jimmies are unrustled about it, I also expect you to pay your taxes to fund social safety nets, under threat of police violence.

Interesting - in this case, the "bumping into someone" is the transmission of a potentially fatal disease that we're all hyper-aware of at this point. If I'm driving my car down the sidewalk, not really meaning to hit people but just kinda doing it without noticing, I'm still liable both legally & morally for the damage I do, right? Why is unintentionally but negligently giving COVID to the grandma next to me in line different?

The guns are pointed at everyone.
Americans aren't allowed to live off the land and roam around.

The system is designed to force people into laboring for others.
Some of us are more fortunate in that we can live fairly well while doing it but it's not like anyone has a choice.

I'm not sure why inflation is a factor in a slowing economy.
I'm not against the government compensating businesses and employees to motivate them to stay out of harms way. Then no force is needed.

Violence is baked into existence fwiw. The moral thing to do is try to use it justly, and not to oppress or exploit people. But business owners have certainly used it in the past just as government has. There's no reason to frame business owners as good and government as bad.

You find it hard to not initiate force on peaceful people or steal from them? I'm ok with social safety nets, as long as they are voluntarily funded.

Do you have any principles you follow consistently?


Driving a car on the sidewalk would fall under 'aggression' for me. Accidentally giving someone a disease would not be.

Sure people are irresponsible and do dumb and dangerous things, some of those instances the person who is hurt should be compensated, its really hard to make some kind of blanket statement or law regarding disease transmission, especially in a situation like this.

But it's clearly negligence leading to someone else's harm.

It seems quite bizarre to take a "well if you want to go out in public that's the risk you take" kind of stance here and call it libertarian. That's not a free market solution, that's unilaterally declaring in favor of the "spread COVID wild" faction and telling the people who wish to be in public safely (like, with masks) to shove it and stay locked in their homes.

A true free market solution would require people doing harms unto others (like spreading a disease) to bear the cost of their behavior. But of course, that's not the system we live under in USA#1 and I don't know any libertarians who want to change that aspect (but maybe you are one!).

No, of course not, but it's not because of some bullshit NAP that somehow seems to justify a whole lot of violence in response to non-violent actions, such as shoplifting, or non-payment of rent.

I am not, or at least, only in addition to mandatory safety nets.




See, lol, this is just making up what is aggression as you go.

Who is pointing the guns?

I'm not advocating for our current system but I think its a mistake to assume most people want to run their own business. Free Market Capitalism is designed to give individuals as much opportunity as possible to live a good comfortable life. No other system compares. It's all about the individual, which is the ultimate minority.

Creating more debt when production is low seems pretty bad. The Gov't can't really compensate someone without first taking from someone else, so there is always force when they are involved.

I'm not against violence, I'm ok with self defense. I agree with most of what you are saying here. I'm not framing all business owners as good (or I def didn't intend to). But on principle I don't want the State interfering with their business or property unless they are violating the NAP.

The US gov't is bad, they murder and steal from innocent poor people. The only way they can exist is through theft, no one would put up with their **** for a second if it was voluntarily funded. If you know of anything they do that heavily outweighs all the murder and theft they do on a daily basis I'm open to hear it.

How else do you determine land ownership? And who can tell a land owner what they can or cannot do on their own land?

Just because someone violates the NAP through low level theft or being late on rent doesn't justify some gigantic use of force. I don't know of any libertarian advocating that. The punishment should fit the crime obviously.




So driving a 4000 lb car where people normally only walk isn't aggressive or hostile? Just a totally chill thing to do huh? Wow you're pretty hardcore I guess.

lol (Yikes)

Hoe does it conflict with libertarian-ism? I'm saying let the people and business owners (the market) decide how to safely operate and go outside. Whats the solution when experts get things wrong, the media plays politics and the president is ******ed?

Yeah I'm sure there are situations where a transmission occurs and some form of compensation is in order. And there is some personal risk you have to take on when going out now, there is no way around that. I would think most business owners don't want their employees or customers getting sick and will take precautions. So leave it to them, most places I see have signs up with masks and other precautions they take, if you don't like it or think its too risky don't go in.

I'm using your metaphor. The government if I understand what you said correctly. They have the monopoly on use of force.



No, most people certainly don't want to run their own business.
But there's no option to live off the land as I said.
Your choices are limited and if you act outside of those limited choices you have to deal with the enforcement arm of society. (and by society I mean the aristocracy in a practical sense)

Creating debt when interest rates are non existent isn't really an issue.
Certainly not short term and the pandemic is a short term problem.

The government is a part of society like businesses are. They fill a need, even if they aren't perfect institutions. Expecting businesses and individuals to fill the needs that government does is naive.



This is why democracy is important. Government has a role in capitalism and it's to keep the playing field fair. And sometimes it needs to redistribute wealth to do that. Because capitalism is played as a zero sum game (Even though in reality it isn't).

Sure. They can be as bad as any big business. Especially when they're working for big business.
The only saving grace is that we can actually rein the government in if we collectively have enough of their bullshit. There's no way to rein in robber barons unless you can use the government. Kind of sucks when you look at it but it is what it is.

Let me rephrase, you should wear a cape and helmet that says STRAWMAN, followed by the definition of strawman, so you know how to apply it.

He's saying I'm making up what aggression is when driving a car on the sidewalk is pretty consistant with the definition.

Do any of you have any principles you can defend? Or do you just like to fail at nitpicking libertarian-ism.

How does the state fit into this, though? Businesses don't determine how we "go outside", and the decisions people make that you describe as "individual" are not actually very individual. Like, a grandma with comorbidities can't decide to go outside safely if anyone decides they want to go out without a mask - they are making the decision for grandma. It's not freedom to tell her that it's tough **** if she wants to enjoy the outside world anymore because the entire country has been dedicated a "freedom zone" for pro-spreaders. This is where libertarianism generally fails, imo, it treats every single issue as "individuals making decisions for themselves" when many things simply aren't that.

You might (correctly) wonder where the line is. Are we obligated to all wear masks outside at all times, our whole lives, to not infringe on the freedom of the permanently immunocompromised? Probably not. Should we more obligated to take protective measures, rather than let pro-spreaders dictate the country's response, if COVID had a fatality rate more like ebola? I hope you'd say yes unless you want all the "this is a hoax!"ers to kill us all in that scenario. So what's the answer?

Here's mine: let the state decide, that's their job, that's what they're there for. As a libertarian who hates the idea of a state idk how you square any of this, I guess in Free Market World everyone just dies as soon as something worse than COVID hits and society has no built-in safeguards against idiots, but for the rest of us on planet Earth it's not so existential of a problem*.

He's saying you're making up what aggression is because the line between "aggression" and "not aggression" is arbitrarily decided on by you based on what's convenient for your argument, rather than any kind of principle. He was not actually suggesting that driving a car down the sidewalk is not aggression, hence your post was a strawman, hope this helps you understand him better.

*offer not applicable in Arizona, Florida, or Texas

Yes exactly so less of those A-holes would be a good thing.



I'm not sure what you mean by live off the land but you seem to be for less gov't correct? So I agree, the State does limit our pursuit of happiness.


I don't want to get too off topic but I don't think they can even raise them now. They're just ruining our money, all fiats go to zero eventually.

The State IS a part of society yes, but unlike businesses in a major way, they can only exist through force and coercion. Businesses survive on voluntary interaction, in a true free market anyway. Maybe i'm wrong here but what does the State do that the free market couldn't provide? Remember they are destroying the dollar, killing innocent people here and overseas, and stealing from us. Even if you could find a program or 2 that couldn't occur naturally in the free market, does that justify their existence?

The gov't is just a group of people, and not even an impressive one at that.

I couldn't care less for democracy, I'm not interested in other people voting on my freedom or having rulers.

The State fails at keeping anything fair, they create monopolies, I don't even think you have to worry about monopolies in a truly free market. Wealth needs to be created, not forcefully redistributed by central planners that don't understand economics. And there is only one system/environment that creates wealth like no other.

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You can rein in corporations by not giving them your money, in a free market. We can't really rein in a gov't that prints currency and also steals ours. They won't stop growing and they won't stop looking for more power, it's their nature. I think the State would only rein in corporations enough to control them, not to protect us from them. The State gives corporations power they wouldn't normally have, like favorable laws or regulation that isn't in our interest, only the company's.

First of all, I don't know how everyone isn't a libertarian after watching how the US and China handled this mess. A Libertarian society would of handled it much better, PPE would have been everywhere. Also you can't really say Libertarian-ism fails here, in such an un-libertarian environment. In a Libertarian society we would have real money (not a failing fiat currency), more savings, less debt, less politics, no bailouts, less censorship just to name a few things. We would of been way more equipped and less at each others throats over binary political BS.

Grandma has to assess the risks and make her own decisions like everyone else, some people won't be affected by the virus because they are young and healthy and others will be, it sucks. But if you are going to make a certain group stay home, how do you choose that group? If there is a disease that only kills a certain type of person or people, why should the unaffected have to suffer? Why not work together and help the at risk group adapt their lifestyle to one that is safer in the current condition. Most things can be delivered these days. Also its not like people can't safely go outside right now, most places in the country its pretty easy to stay away from large groups.

And who is more adversely affected by staying at home? A young person or a grandmother?

I'm all for masks and distancing, I'm not for giving the State anymore power than it already has.

Yes I think people should take very protective measures, but honestly, the State can only lockdown down people for so long.

Do you think the State did a good job though? Did they justify their paycheck here? What built in safeguards? Fauci lied about masks so grandma couldn't get one. Why wouldn't a free market have safeguards? You think people can't work together for the greater good with out the State? Because thats what the free market is all about, thats why its so much more efficient than any government, w/o the monopoly of force.

Nah, just went off the standard definition. I'm not saying there aren't any grey areas but as usual, he has no real arguments or principles, just nitpick pivot, and repeat.

Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea did pretty well. The US did not.

If you go back to before 2009, wookie and goofy and alot of old reg date politards spent years arguing with acists and libertarians. I more or less think they are not taking you very seriously because all of your arguments have been made and most of them have been disassembled years ago.

Like vajennasguy said, we've heard it all from ACists and libertarians, about how it's a utopia but also totally unfalsifiable because it's never been tried in the right form before, much like communists who will tell you the USSR wasn't true communism, the right way is a utopia, trust them.

This state definitely didn't, we're one of the worst in the world. Earlier I asked if any other country in the world had managed to make "wearing masks" into a partisan political issue and Kelhus answered "BUT LIBS DO IT TOOOOO" which I guess is another way of saying "yes". Like ecriture said, though, plenty of other states did a way better job than us, and hardly presented an advertisement for libertarianism in the process.

Right, I don't think they can, there's no room in capitalism for "the greater good" if it takes away from individual profits. Why would it have safeguards? What's the profit motive?

What does libertopia's solution to COVID w/ ebola-esque fatality rates look like? Paint that world for us. From what I recall 10 years ago, every ACist/libertarian system ends up in some version of "well sure bad actors can ruin everything but we will defeat them with a successful system of shunning" but maybe the arguments have gotten better since then. (sorry for the extent to which this paragraph's negativity is the fault of libertarians who came before you)

Generally on the topic - Matt Levine wrote something interesting about how the largest investment funds, which own a comically large amount of the U.S. stock market, are telling all the companies they own large shares of "hey you should work with your competitors to develop a vaccine as quickly as possible". He's a great writer and I recommend reading his column but I'll attempt to summarize.

This would of course be great for society, and bad for the companies. Companies don't make money by collaborating with their competitors, they make money by beating them. The only reason such a suggestion is even realistic is because of common ownership. Large investment funds are losing more money due to the damage COVID is placing on other industries than they stand to make from one of their holdings developing the first COVID vaccine and making a ton of money off of it. So, they tell the pharma companies they own, "we don't give a **** about your profits right now, go save the world".

In this case, the quirk that we have individual actors that own an astounding amount of companies is what allows this to work in a way that could be beneficial for society. That common ownership almost acts as a socialist state here, to the extent that the goals of "what's good for society" and "what's good for BlackRock's investments" happen to line up nicely when it comes to making a COVID vaccine.

Now, a thought experiment: take that common ownership away and have all these pharma companies compete with each other to make a huge killing on being first to a COVID vaccine and selling it for $$$$. What does that outcome look like? Is it good for society or is it good for the winning CEO's wallet?

Wow all that practice and they still don’t have any good arguments or principles to stand on. Sorry if I don’t take your word on how they disassembled it years ago. I already got Wookiee to admit he’s ok with violently forcing me to pay for things I don’t want to pay for, because it’s for the greater good of course, said every dictator ever.