Many people who delve into the deep parts of analytical philosophy will end up feeling at times like they can't justify anything, that definite knowledge is impossible to ascertain, and so forth. It's a classic trend. Hume is famous for being a "skeptic", although almost everyone seems to misunderstand what that means within the context of his philosophical system.
See here for a post I wrote which I could have called The Final Antidote to Skepticism.
https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-for-autodidact-physicists provides payed serious feedback as a service.
Wow, that was pretty grating to read. The tribal emotions were off the charts. The author seems to derive great satisfaction from being a member of the physics section of Team Science.
In each possible situation, it's useful to have an authority available who has final say over disputes. But it's not necessarily for every process in society to depend on the same authority.
Then who gets to decide who that authority is for every particular situation?
This is a predictable response from someone who's skeptical of libertarian economics. Just as it's natural to observe the order in the world and therefore assume that there must be a designer (God), it feels reasonable to the human mind to witness the structure inherent in society and thus expect that there must be in each instance a particular person who made a conscious decision to put the institution into place.
There are many facets to human society, so giving a comprehensive answer would require a book-length treatment. But to give an example, investors tend to have a large amount of power in many cases. Collectively they use their expertise in predicting future states in the economy in order to choose which companies are kept in the market and which are pushed out. Companies have internal power structures, where the final say could be an individual or a panel or individuals. Therefore, the "proximate final say" in this situation may be a certain person or group of people, where the "ultimate final say" may be based on the collective support or non-support of investors.
See here for how law and order could fit into a decentralized market system as well.
Oh, I was talking about general, mainstream hysterics (go look at pretty much any mass media for examples), not about anything rationality-connected.
Reasoning is when you tell your arguments to another person. Thinking is when you make decisions for yourself.
I now see what you mean by fallacies being X (errors in argumentation) and cognitive biases Y (errors in thinking).
However, you're using an idiosyncratic definition of the word "reasoning", and I would advise you to update your understanding so you reduce the chance of confusing more people in the future. "Reasoning" in many cases refers to internal thinking, as you can see explained here.
Not me.
In general, I think hysterics over Trump are much overdone.
What hysterics are you thinking of, specifically?
I've noticed that Sam Harris has been rather vocal about his deep concern about a possible Trump presidency, saying that it would be extremely dangerous and so on. Who else relevant to the rationality movement has been overdoing the hysterics? Or were you referring to the mainstream media?
I don't know what "an unusually high preference for liberty/freedom" means. Every single political philosophy claims that it is pro-freedom. Even totalitarian regimes claim to be pro-freedom. Without reference to specific policy positions, claiming to be 'pro-freedom' seems meaningless to me.
So that reduces your definition of libertarianism to 'far-off-the-center position on the individualism vs collectivism axis'.
For a stable society to exist, at some level everyone has to agree upon some central authority with final say over disputes and superlative enforcement ability. Do you agree with this or not?
For a stable society to exist, at some level everyone has to agree upon some central authority with final say over disputes and superlative enforcement ability. Do you agree with this or not?
I'm not completely sure what you mean, but my guess is that I don't agree with you.
In each possible situation, it's useful to have an authority available who has final say over disputes. But it's not necessarily for every process in society to depend on the same authority.
They are fallacy cards. Fallacy can be explained as "faulty reasoning" or "bad argument", and cognitive bias is "mistake in thinking". They have many similarities and intersections, though.
What's the difference? I don't see a distinction between the phrases "faulty reasoning" and "mistake in thinking".
What surprises me is that you would even ask that question... what rational justification is there for libertarianism?
To me libertarianism is more a community than a specific set of doctrines. There are certainly core values and epistemological underpinnings which define the ideological innovators and leaders in the libertarian community, and contrast them with those of opposing movements. But your discovery that the arguments for libertarianism "constantly shift around and are hard to pin down" is simply expected for an evolving community.
In terms of epistemological underpinnings, I'd say what best defines the libertarianism movement is a peculiar recognition of the nature of partial knowledge in thought and action. Hayek went to great lengths over the course of his career to explain why individuals who find enjoyment and skill in mathematics, physics, and so forth tend to react with skepticism to the arguments of libertarianism and free-market economics. To delve into the full depth of his thesis, begin with this book. For a quick summary, see the first few minutes of this video.
You say that libertarianism is obviously irrational. When we look at libertarianism as a community rather than a specific set of doctrines, your claim seems to boil down to the following: "The people in the libertarian community are clearly irrational." I assume that means they're incompetent and misguided? That they're unlikely to put into effect real, useful, and sustainable change in the world's economic and social systems?
I have a related question: What do you think about Bitcoin?
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What makes you think that people can pattern-match sociopathy by looking at someone's face? Sociopathy usually doesn't lead to low charisma and people getting the sense not to interact with the person.
In certain cases people can pattern-match sociopath by looking at someone's face. I didn't mean to suggest the average person can do it on a consistent basis.