simplicio comments on 2012 Less Wrong Census/Survey - Less Wrong

65 Post author: Yvain 03 November 2012 11:00PM

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Comment author: simplicio 04 November 2012 10:04:10PM 24 points [-]

I am continually amused by how much nuance the contrarians of LW want in these questions. Even I thought the simulation question was ill-posed & wanted a "mu" answer.

Politics is always nearly hopeless, short of asking people to write a 14-page essay on their particular chimera of left-libertarian whig marxism, or whatever.

Comment author: Sarokrae 07 November 2012 02:54:52PM 3 points [-]

Upvoted for "left-libertarian whig marxism"

Comment author: RichardKennaway 07 November 2012 03:34:25PM 3 points [-]

Upvoted for "left-libertarian whig marxism"

That's Ken MacLeod, isn't it?

Comment author: simplicio 08 November 2012 03:36:46AM 2 points [-]

Don't tell me that that ideology, which I invented specifically to sound ridiculous, is actually HELD by somebody!

Comment author: RichardKennaway 08 November 2012 10:19:23AM 3 points [-]

The phrase he uses himself is "libertarian Trotskyist", but I don't think I can insert so much as a cigarette paper between that and "left-libertarian whig marxism". But no doubt the real left-libertarian whig marxists would castigate him as a splitter.

He's a writer of hard SF; this is his blog.

Comment author: MugaSofer 08 November 2012 10:37:15AM 0 points [-]

Do those words actually have meanings?

Comment author: RichardKennaway 08 November 2012 11:03:19AM 6 points [-]

Certainly they do. A Marxist is someone who identifies with the doctrines expounded by Marx, a Trotskyist the same regarding Trotsky (let them fight among themselves over exactly what those doctrines are), a Whig (nowadays) is someone who interprets history as the march of progress towards the present enlightened dispensation, a libertarian is one who regards personal liberty as a fundamental value and government as no more than a very doubtful means of its protection, and "left" means generally favouring collective organisation and distribution of production over personal creativity, initiative, and capture of the value one creates.

Whether they still mean anything when jammed together by a random political affiliation generator is another matter. Personally, I'm not sure why Ken MacLeod's head hasn't exploded yet.

Comment author: MugaSofer 08 November 2012 11:11:51AM 1 point [-]

Ah, OK. I knew Marxism, but I was under the impression that "Whig" was a political party of some kind and "left-libertarian" just sounded meaningless.

"left" means generally favouring collective organisation and distribution of production over personal creativity, initiative, and capture of the value one creates.

Is that regarding libertarians? 'Cause in the general population it just seems to mean "liberal".

Comment author: Larks 08 November 2012 11:27:49AM 2 points [-]

'Cause in the general population it just seems to mean "liberal".

Only in the American interpretation of the word "liberal", which is at odds to how it is used both in most of the world (British Commonwealth, Europe, etc.) and historically.

Comment author: MugaSofer 08 November 2012 11:33:07AM *  0 points [-]

I'm ... not American.

Comment author: Peterdjones 08 November 2012 12:31:41PM 0 points [-]

"left-libertarian" just sounded meaningless.

"The version of left-libertarianism defended by contemporary theorists like Vallentyne, Steiner, Otsuka, van Parijs, and Ellerman features a strong commitment to personal liberty—embracing the libertarian premise that each person possesses a natural right of self-ownership—and an egalitarian view of natural resources, holding that it is illegitimate for anyone to claim private ownership of resources to the detriment of others.[17] On this view, unappropriated natural resources are either unowned or owned in common, believing that private appropriation is only legitimate if everyone can appropriate an equal amount, or if private appropriation is taxed to compensate those who are excluded from natural resources. This position is articulated in self-conscious contrast to the position of other libertarians who argue for a (characteristically labor-based) right to appropriate unequal parts of the external world, such as land.[18"

Comment author: MugaSofer 08 November 2012 12:50:18PM *  0 points [-]

I said it sounded meaningless, and from context I had assumed it was deliberately so. That's why I was surprised to learn that it was an actual political philosophy. Read the grandparent.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 09 November 2012 02:25:10AM -1 points [-]

On this view, unappropriated natural resources are either unowned or owned in common, believing that private appropriation is only legitimate if everyone can appropriate an equal amount, or if private appropriation is taxed to compensate those who are excluded from natural resources.

I don't see how they propose the complex organization necessary for ensuring resources are only appropriated appropriately without severely compromising personal rights and liberties.

Comment author: [deleted] 11 November 2012 01:18:22AM 0 points [-]

BTW, left-libertarian is a retronym -- libertarian capitalists started to label themselves as libertarian about a century later than libertarian socialists did.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 08 November 2012 11:42:42AM 0 points [-]

I see there's actually a Wikipedia article on "left-libertarianism" and another on "libertarian socialism". On skimming them, "libertarian" in that context appears to mean having everything controlled by a democratic government to which everyone voluntarily submits. Democratic totalitarianism, in other words. "Liberty" is the freedom to do anything permitted by the other words that "libertarian" is yoked to.

Comment author: MugaSofer 08 November 2012 11:51:56AM *  2 points [-]

"libertarian" in that context appears to mean having everything controlled by a democratic government to which everyone voluntarily submits.

?! I gotta see this!

Oh, wait, nevermind:

Anti-authoritarian, anti-propertarian varieties of left-wing politics, and in particular of the socialist movement.

Libertarian socialism is the anti-state tradition of socialism.

The version of left-libertarianism defended by contemporary theorists like Vallentyne, Steiner, Otsuka, van Parijs, and Ellerman features a strong commitment to personal liberty—embracing the libertarian premise that each person possesses a natural right of self-ownership—and an egalitarian view of natural resources, holding that it is illegitimate for anyone to claim private ownership of resources to the detriment of others.[17] On this view, unappropriated natural resources are either unowned or owned in common, believing that private appropriation is only legitimate if everyone can appropriate an equal amount, or if private appropriation is taxed to compensate those who are excluded from natural resources. This position is articulated in self-conscious contrast to the position of other libertarians who argue for a (characteristically labor-based) right to appropriate unequal parts of the external world, such as land

Arguing that vast disparities in wealth and social influence result from the use of force, and especially state power, to steal and engross land and acquire and maintain special privileges, members of this school typically urge the abolition of the state. They judge that, in a stateless society, the kinds of privileges secured by the state will be absent, and injustices perpetrated or tolerated by the state can be rectified. Thus, they conclude that, with state interference eliminated, it will be possible to achieve “socialist ends by market means.”

I think you may have misunderstood the way "socialist" was being used there.