Psychohistorian comments on Our society lacks good self-preservation mechanisms - Less Wrong

12 [deleted] 12 July 2009 09:26AM

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Comment author: Psychohistorian 14 July 2009 01:51:26AM 3 points [-]

"Libertarian" doesn't carve out a very precise cluster in people-space any more. Pretty much anyone who's reflexively wary of government intervention in the private market can call herself a libertarian. Some libertarians will support meaningful government intervention in tragedy of commons type problems; some may even go so far as to support some level of government assisted/coerced redistribution of wealth. You can argue 'till you're blue in the face that that's not a "real" libertarian, but usage defines meaning, and I think enough such people self-identify that way that the word has become fairly imprecise.