Author: Db0

Dissecting the Libertarian mind

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Right-Libertarians tend to use to most misguided way of perceiving reality. Starting from their morals and denying all facts which do not agree with them.

There Is No Alternative to global free-market ...
Image by charles.hope via Flickr

Disclaimer: When in this post I write about Libertarians, I mean Right-Libertarian

My recent posts on Capitalism, “Free Market” and the subsequent heated discussions with Libertarian ((or possibly Objectivist, I can never be sure but I think it was mostly the former as they weren’t arrogant or rude enough)) stormtroopers let me to an insight which you all now have to suffer through.

The thing is this: Libertarians are staunch supporters of unregulated Capitalism along with unrestricted personal freedom. They insist on non-aggression and only on specific government intervention, generally only enough to protect the basis of Capitalism: Private Property.

And here we reach our first problem. Every time I’ve discussed with Libertarians, they explain these wonderful concepts,  they drill me on my freedom-loving, and eventually we get to arguing economics.

Now a peculiar difference in methodology appears.

My Way

I am a (far) left-libertarian. I’ve reached this position by at some point in my life wondering “How can the world become better?” ((I can already hear the questions coming to ask me how I define what is better and why should it be my opinion that counts. *Sigh*)). This question coloured the research I did and the answers I sought.

I moved gradually to the left because I noticed that Capitalism is the only economic force in the world and yet it’s totally incapable of solving even the worst of our problems. Indeed, our situation is only deteriorating. My opinion is more nuanced than that of course but this is what I’ve discovered from looking at a broken capitalistic socioeconomic system and continuously asking the same question.

Once I figure out a few ways with which the world can become better, I modify my morality to be compatible with them.

The Libertarian Way

The Libertarian starts from the premise: “(Negative) Freedom is good” and then builds his whole belief system with ways to achieve more of this freedom. For it naturally follows, if freedom is good, then when the largest amount of humans have the maximum amount of freedom, the world will be the best it can be. Thus anything that is compatible with more freedom, must be good as well.

But their premise is unargued for. They never turn to ask: Why is Freedom good? Or, if they do, they start running around in circles with their rest of their beliefs. For example:

  • The “Free Market” is good because it can create a lot of wealth for some people and that should be allowed because to do otherwise would be to restrict one’s freedom which is not good because it is not compatible with the only thing that is works in the world, the “Free Market”.
  • Capitalism is good because it is the only thing that is compatible with the human nature of greed which is good because Capitalism requires it to work.

I think you get the point.

This was made especially clear in my recent discussion with a member of the audience who, while arguing that current mainstream economics are based on the scientific method (they’re not), informed me that Libertarians do not base their morality upon the superiority of those but rather, their belief is simply reinforced by them working (theoretically).

Thus, the Libertarians simply start from the conclusion and then finds beliefs to reinforce it. They have formed their morality and are choosing to believe whichever data are compatible with it.

Needless to say, such a take on reality and morality is not only misguided but it is diametrically opposite to the scientific and sceptical thought. The human mind’s ability to see the hits and ignore the misses is well known and understood, and this is why in order to even have a chance of finding the correct position, we need to start from the observation.

So Libertarians, I implore you. Ask yourself: Why is (negative) freedom good? Try to answer this question without running around in circles with the “Free Market” and the like. You will eventually discover that the only philosophy which attempted to truly base this moral grounding is Ayn Rand’s Objectivism. And she has failed miserably.

If you do believe you can defend a morality  centered around negative freedom, by all means jump in and let me know why I’m wrong.

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The Free Market is your God

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Your God has revealed itself and its name is Free Market. Consumerism is its Holy Religion and consumption your daily prayer.

Illustrates the intersection of supply and dem...
Image via Wikipedia

Your God has revealed itself and its name is Free Market. Consumerism is its Holy Religion and consumption your daily prayer.

Do not seek to understand your god, only to serve it and its prophets. It works in mysterious ways but you, its chosen people, will always live and prosper, as long as you respect and fear it.

Listen to the prophets of your God, for they know better than you. They have received its holy blessing through the mentoring of prophets that came before them, all the way back to the first ones who heard its call.  Be assured when they all sing the same tunes, for that is the one true song.

Do not listen to the false prophets, for they have spurned your God and will lead you astray. There is no higher God than the Free Market and no matter what they promise you, it is false. Your God will not allow it.

Do not anger your God by challenging its Holy Religion. There is no higher honour for your God than spending your money on More Stuff®. Hear its higher calling and follow it. When you can’t keep up anymore, your God is most wise, most benevolent and has foreseen it. It has given you…Credit!

Your God will occasionally become enraged and turn against you. Know that this is because you were unfaithful to your God and you let false prophets to lead you astray. Do not seek to understand its anger but only to appease it. Its prophets will show you how.

When your God demands sacrifice, do not falter, do not bulk. Lay the bodies of the worthless to its altar of prosperity so that their blood may oil the gears of wealth. Your God sees all, knows all and is most benevolent. When enough souls have perished, its blessings will return once more.

Do not pity the poor, for this is just punishment from your God. They deserve their place for they have not been chosen by birth. However your God is most wise, most merciful and its invisible hand will ocassionaly raise new disciples from even the lowest of the low. The faithful enough can even become its new prophets and spread it’s blessed song.

Do not pity the worker for their life has become better through its touch. It has created new desires for him that only it can fulfill and he is now truly happy. Some workers will end up as offerings when It becomes enraged but the rest will live to enjoy its new blessings.

When the going gets rough, admit that you did not believe enough in your God. You were unfaithful and doubting. Use your blessed Credit to follow the Holy Religion and do your prayers. If that is denied of you, understand that you were not faithful enough and spend the rest of your life atoning for your sins.

Do not seek to control your God, for you will only end up enraging him sooner. Trust in its Wisdom and let it decide what is good for you.

For it is the Free Market. Most Benevolent. Most Merciful. Most Wise. And it is your God.

And this is basically what I understand when discussing with Libertarians

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How to load a javascript through your wordpress plugin

Db0

I’ve been struggling today to manage to make Backlinks to use the Scriptaculous script library in order to have the list of backlinks hidden until the viewer chooses to see them. While in the Division by Zer0 I already have those libraries loaded for my navigation, it’s certain that not everyone who is going to use it does the same.

Initially I was thinking of simply asking everyone to use a plugin loading these libraries as a dependency but that’s simply over the top for something this simple. Instead I decided to find out how to load the script within the plugin and to my delight I found out that not only does wordpress has functions explicitly for this purpose, but it already includes most common javascript libraries, inclusing Scriptaculous.

Unfortunately, although there were a number of guides trying to explain how to use this, none of them was complete. Simply adding enqueue_script in my function didn’t work and I couldn’t see a full example.

Fortunately someone had thought to add a mailing list discussion which gave me the solution after a few pages. I need to use the template_redirect hook (wp_head is not good, I tried) and I need to put that at the very start of my plugin, after the information but before any function begins. It then needs to call a function which enqueues the scriptaculous effects of which “blind” is used by Backlinks

The end result looks like this

add_action('template_redirect', 'addeffects');
function addeffects() {
if (function_exists('wp_enqueue_script')) wp_enqueue_script('scriptaculous-effects');
}

Of course, the name of the function can be anything you like and you can call any javascript library you wish instead of scriptaculous-effects. Feel free to download the whole plugin to see the whole code.

Backlinks

Db0

I just created a new plugin which allows you to display backlinks for your posts similar to the way it exists in Blogger. It is called, appropriately Backlinks.

If you do not like that wordpress does not display links coming from blogs that utilize trackbacks, or if you simply want a simply list of incoming links (instead of having them scattered in your comments), this is for you.

If it still in the very first version so it is quite basic. I plan in the future that have a configuration page, the ability to hide or display the links (just in case the list gets too long) though scriptalicious etc. For the moment you can simply put it anywhere in a template and it will automatically show you blogs linking there.

Let me know what you think or if you have any ideas that might make it better.

UPDATE: I’ve now managed to get the plugin to hide the results until the header/link is clicked. This will save people with a lot of incoming links from having a huge list in the middle.

Quote of the Day: Legacy

Db0

Quoth Andrew Lahde

Appointments back to back, booked solid for the next three months, they look forward to their two week vacation in January during which they will likely be glued to their Blackberries or other such devices. What is the point? They will all be forgotten in fifty years anyway. Steve Balmer, Steven Cohen, and Larry Ellison will all be forgotten. I do not understand the legacy thing. Nearly everyone will be forgotten. Give up on leaving your mark. Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life.

Very true. All these people who spend all their life trying to amass more and more wealth or power simply end up taking up more pain that this is worth. They have reached the point of diminished returns and yet, they stilll keep at it, while making  things worse for everyone in the meantime.

Back to the needs of Capitalism

Db051 Comments

It seems I’ve been informally challenged to a debate. Robert from Making my Way is attempting to refute the points I raised in the needs of Capitalism.

There were various points raised which I will attempt to counter.

There can be no infinite goods.

Yes and no. While Robert took ‘infinite’ in the literal sense, I did not mean or require it that way. My first example was not of machines producing infinite food but quite enough food to feed everyone five times over, thus bringing the price of food to nearly zero.

Robert’s explanation of how such thing can never happen due to limited resources is simply skirting the issue. Not only that but we already have the capability to produce infinite goods (digital goods due to their nature are infinite, and yes, Copyrights are very much indeed a form of artificial scarcity) and enough food to feed the world population. The reason why we do not is exactly the problem I raised in misery and profit.

This is not strictly about self-generating goods. It is about having enough goods so that the price, due to supply, drops to (nearly) zero. Even when such thing would be overwhelmingly positive for the whole of humanity, as in the case of food or shelter, for capitalism this is negative.

The argument about trends is laughable. They do not apply to everything and people impoverished do not care about them. Honestly I don’t even know what you are replying with that.

Basic needs for free are not possible

Here I believe I need to clarify. Of course someone will have to do the work to produce the food people eat but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about having enough increased production from each food maker that the amount of food produced by very few people (or none as in the case of the theoretical incredible food machines) is enough to feed everyone in the earth. As these few people do not need to be paid a lot for the staggering amount of food they would provide, the relevant costs of this for each person would be close to zero.

Now you have to realise that we’re talking theoretically here. It may very well be the case that we may never reach this level of production (although the rising production per worker in the modern day points otherwise) but we’re talking that if it were possible, it would not be even feasible under capitalism.

It’s unclear why you conflate work with misery, when work is simply a fact of life. You might as well say life is misery.

You misunderstand, I do not say that work is misery. I say that misery is what Capitalism uses to make people do the unwanted work.

Capitalism is the best thing we have because of how the world is

This is actually false. Capitalism is not here because it’s the best thing. We can already feed and shelter everyone in the world, even without infinite resources (as humans are not infinite either) but that would mean that there would have to be a redistribution of wealth. The rich would have to become less rich in order for poverty to go away.

Because of Greed, these people do not allow that to happen. Because of misery, the endless brutal cycle continues.

The fact that Capitalism is what is in force now does not make it exempt from criticism. Shutting your eyes does not make it’s problems go away. There are indeed systems that can work better than Capitalism and even if there weren’t, it should be our duty as humans to invent them.

Things that were not addressed

While Robert attempted to refute or skirt what was generally easy, the basic issues were not addressed.

Capitalism requires misery and Capitalism requires greed.

Pingback and Trackback eater identified

Db0

To my dismay in recent weeks I’ve noticed that I’m not receiving any trackbacks or pingbacks anymore. This was especially annoying as it happened right on the time I posted the Carnival of the Godless and received approximately 17 linkbacks (of which about 5 must have included proper pingbacks, blogger as always sucks in that regard).

So after getting annoyed enough, I’ve managed to discover the perpetrator of these disappearances. It seems for some reason the BcSpamBlock plugin was just chewing everything up without letting anyone know. I disabled it and the problem went away.

I think this may have to do something with relation to Dreamhost as if it happened to everyone, everywhere, surely someone might have noticed sooner. Nevertheless, if you’re missing pingbacks, at least you have an idea where to look.

Unfortunately all the ones I should have gotten by now are lost forever…unless the good people who linked to me make the trouble to do it manually again 😉

Reddit helps you show what is best on your site

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Once again reddit innovates

Now you have the ability to show all the posts of your domain which have been submitted to reddit and sort them by the best. That way new visitors have a quick way to find out what is best to read first.

Along with things like AideRSS’s top posts widget (mine you can see on the top slidebar) you can put your best content, by popular vote, to the forefront. Unfortunately AideRSS does not update as soon as I’d like so it’s good to have the alternative of reddit.

Another good addition from reddit is that you can now customise the colour of your buttons. Finally I can add it to my own webpage and have it fit. This is my classic problem with widgets in that they never fit my dark colour scheme. The Alien needs some antialiasing work I think but generally it looks good.

To tell the truth, I really wanted to the button to be on the botton right of the post so that people can use the buttons once they’re finished reading the article but there was no realistic way to do it. Putting the button after the content meant that it fell next to the similar posts and bunched them up (which I didn’t like). Using the css “position” property I could move it a couple of dozen pixels upwards to have it within the content but unfortunately the word-wrapping did not follow it and thus it just ended up obscuting the text.

If anyone has any idea on how to achieve this without having to manually put code in the content each time I’d love to hear it.

Ah, I forgot to mention that you can also put something nice in your sidebar to show others what you liked

Enjoy 😉

How Epicurism can alleviate Poverty

Db0

LONDON - OCTOBER 13: A grim reaper figure hol...

I just noticed that today is the blog action day for Povertry and I felt the need to participate. Although the people for whom this blog day is about will probably never read it, I’m hoping this post to perhaps give insight and ideas for people who are, or might be struggling with povertry.

Povertry is unfortunately a major problem in the world still. Even with the rise of technology to such a great degree and the amazing enhancements food production has undertaken, millions of people are without the basic things of life. Food and Shelter.

LONDON - OCTOBER 13: A grim reaper figure hol...
Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I just noticed that today is the blog action day for Poverty and I felt the need to participate. Although the people for whom this blog day is about will probably never read it, I’m hoping this post to perhaps give insight and ideas for people who are, or might be struggling with poverty.

Poverty is unfortunately a major problem in the world still. Even with the rise of technology to such a great degree and the amazing enhancements food production has undertaken, millions of people are without the basic things of life. Food and Shelter.

This is, incidentally,  the biggest failing of Capitalism. It is not that we do not have enough food to feed everyone in the world, it’s that we don’t know how to make a profit while doing so. How can you sell food to someone who does not have any money? Thus the invisible hand of the markets wipes itself of any responsibility and leaves the suffering to go unattended or alleviated through charities so that the companies can still make money.

In a our society, poverty is something expected and indeed I would argue, welcomed. You cannot have a perfect capitalist society just because poverty is something necessary. Not only does it force the impoverished people to do the worst jobs for the longest time within an unbreakable cycle, but as George Carlin famously said, it is the perfect tool to keep the middle class in line. What better way to be an obedient little worker, than to see everyday what awaits you if you dare to anger the powers that be?

I can’t really help the people who are impoverished, although I do have some ideas ((Which I’ve been consistently told will never work)) but what I can do is explain how all but the worst types of poverty need not be the end of life. The answer lies in what you need to live.

As a social human, most of us require three basic things to have a good life. Food, Shelter and Friendship. The rest is simply extravagance. When one has conditioned itself not to require anything other than these three to be happy it will take only the worst type of poverty to shake the foundations.

Food is generally cheap. Even if you cannot grow your own foo, one can easily find the food that is cheap and filling. When I was living with £100 per month for general & food expenses in London, I went on a diet of noodles and rice. While I not only learned to cook these simple things more interestingly, it also sustained me without ruining my organism as would eating junk-food have achieved.

Shelter is unfortunately at the moment quite expensive. Due to the concept of private property, land that could have very adequately sheltered people if put to use, now is just left unattended as the owner has no benefit in either using it, or letting others use it.

Fortunately, there are options available for the unfortunate ones. In a society who respects itself, there should be shelters for the poor. Not only are these necessary to protect the most unfortunate of us but they are a necessary stepping stone in making people a productive member of society again. It is amazingly difficult to find a job when you haven’t taken a bath for over month. Societies that do not have shelters for the homeless are especially criminal in this regard as they only keep this effect going.
Once someone has even a little money, options could include finding a cheaper place in a more remote area of the country (where the rent must be much cheaper) or along with a few others cohabitate, even if they may be a bit tight. At least that might help in the final necessity

Friends are (or should be) the final need of any human. Fortunately the good ones they are notoriously cheap to come by. Hell, all one needs is a bit of empathy and a non-toxic character and they come gratis. Not only do friends fill the basic social needs of all of us but good friends are the ones who will act as your own personal safety net when poverty is rearing its ugly head.

If one manages to be content with these three basic things, it will take the worst kind of abject poverty to put them down and even then, the way up is easier.

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