Lumifer comments on 2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey - Less Wrong

88 Post author: Yvain 26 October 2014 06:05PM

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Comment author: Lumifer 17 November 2014 09:06:03PM *  3 points [-]

I think that "libertarian" is what you're likely to get when you take "conservative" and remove all the opinions associated with religion.

I don't know about that. For a simple counter-example, conservatives tend to love law and order, libertarians -- not so much.

A common simplistic understanding of libertarians is "conservative economically, liberal socially", but even then you don't get there from conservatives just by removing religion.

Comment author: Nornagest 17 November 2014 09:15:48PM *  2 points [-]

Cladistically, libertarianism comes out of the Left, not the Right, and in fact shares fairly close historical ties with socialism. This is obscured somewhat by the fact that modern libertarians talk a lot like modern conservatives and tend to use "socialist" as a loose secular synonym for "the spawn of he whom we call the Desolate One", but that's a trend that started no earlier than the Seventies or late Sixties.

Comment author: Jiro 17 November 2014 10:10:01PM *  0 points [-]

For a simple counter-example, conservatives tend to love law and order, libertarians -- not so much.

True, there are some non-religious issues which separate conservatives and libertarians, but someone doesn't have to believe in every libertarian issue to be a libertarian. Are there enough prominent non-religious issues such that someone who takes a conservative position on only the non-religious issues would be considered closer to the conservative side than to the libertarian one?

A common simplistic understanding of libertarians is "conservative economically, liberal socially", but even then you don't get there from conservatives just by removing religion.

Don't you? Most issues where libertarians are socially liberal have the conservative side heavily influenced by religion.

Comment author: Lumifer 17 November 2014 10:19:12PM *  0 points [-]

Let's check internationally. In Japan, for example, religion (Shinto and/or Buddhism) is not a prominent factor in sociopolitical issues. So does this mean that Japanese conservative politicians are essentially libertarians? Doesn't look like that to me.

Comment author: Jiro 18 November 2014 02:58:48AM 0 points [-]

In Japan, Shinto is associated with Japanese nationalism. Just because it doesn't affect people's views on gay marriage doesn't mean that it has no effect on politics.

Comment author: Lumifer 18 November 2014 05:24:32AM 1 point [-]

Recall that the original issue was whether libertarians are just conservatives less religion. Are you applying this claim globally or you think it's purely a US thing?

Going back up a thread a bit

Most issues where libertarians are socially liberal have the conservative side heavily influenced by religion.

I suggested law and order as a conservative issue. You think it's "heavily influenced by religion"?

Comment author: Jiro 18 November 2014 07:43:13AM -1 points [-]

"Most" is not "every issue".