RationalWiki:Articles for demotion/Libertarian paradise

Libertarian paradise | Result: Silver

Libertarian paradise (edit|talk|history|protect|delete|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Proposal

1. I have merged the page with Seasteading, completely reviewed it, cleaned it up, and given it better background information (via Craib's book Adventure Capitalism. Bongolian (talk) 21:57, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
2. Carthage (talk) 22:08, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
3. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 22:33, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
4. BobJohnson (talk) 23:14, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
5. Laughing at libertarians is such fun sport.-Flandres (talk) 19:02, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
6. Id like to see a top image, but the rest looks fine. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 23:26, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Goat

I'm a bit on the fence here. I appreciate the work Bongolian put here, but is the topic that relevant to RW's mission? Indeed, Libertarian paradises are cranky ideas, but I'm not sure if they are relevant enough for silver (and possibly gold in the future). GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 22:29, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Our mission covers both authoritarianism and pseudoscience, and contrary to what right-libertarians posit right-libertarianism lends itself to a kind of feudalism, which is absolutely authoritarian. If only the most wealthy can afford to live in a paradise, with everyone else being subjected to systemic violence to maintain an even nastier form of capitalism than what exists in the already pretty laissez-faire United States, how is that not authoritarian? People already need three jobs to pay rent nowadays, and if they lose even one of those jobs they got violently thrown out onto the streets. Now, imagine that but without any social infrastructure. Bongolian, for instance, posited that one potential downfall of Tuvalu moving to Meta is libertarians getting control of the now virtual country and evicting anyone too poor to pay citizenship fees. The market can easily lend itself to authority, as it's democracy-neutral. Carthage (talk) 22:34, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Right-libertarianism (as any form of stateless society) lends itself to feudalism.[1] Which I agree. But it's not on the article. The rest of your rant is irrelevant, since the US is not a libertarian paradise, not even according to the article. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 22:37, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

No it isn't. I was comparing the US, which is dominated in large part by laissez-faire polito-economics, to a hypothetical ancapistan. It serves a rhetorical point. Libertarian utopias would be even worse than the American socioeconomic situation, which already fucking sucks. Carthage (talk) 22:44, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

...Something that, again, is not on our article. Also, I don't want to derail this topic, but the US is far from being dominated by laissez-faire politico-economics, don't use terms that you don't understand. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 22:47, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

I said "in large part". The US' welfare state is a lot weaker compared to, say, the Nordic Model or even the UK. Regulations are pretty weak and receive weak enforcement too in a lot of cases, and there is a strong laissez-faire tradition here in the states. Please explain how I don't understand these concepts then. You're quotemining me and ignoring the rest. Would you prefer I say "neoliberal"? The US is as close to laissez-faire as you can get and still have a regulatory welfare state. Carthage (talk) 22:50, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Because that's not remotely what laissez-faire is. A Laissez-faire economic system is one with unrestrained capitalism. The US in the XIXth century was a good example, but the post-New Deal, post Great Society (two overall good, important programs, if you want my opinion) is not. Saying that the US is close to it just because other countries have a larger social security is silly to say the least, almost like saying that Sweden is socialist because the government does stuff there. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 22:56, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Also, you don't know what quotemining is either, but yeah, "neoliberal" is good enough. Not that it addresses the points I've made. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 22:57, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Can you stop insulting my competence for once? It was either "cherry-pick" or "quote-mine" (and you are paraphrasing me whenever you respond), and given how you're ignoring large sections of my argument including my mentioning of Bongolian's Tuvaluan scenario, both arguably fit. Also, either way large sectors of the US economy run without meaningful regulation. Take rent for example. The rent crisis is unsustainable, and as of now there is no meaningful government intervention into the problem. Carthage (talk) 23:04, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ (EC) Can you please stay on topic for once? If you don't want your competence to be checked, then start showing it. Your only argument that is relevant for this subject is about Vanuatu. And I'm not convinced that a single case on this huge article is enough for it to be missional. The word "authoritarian" appears only three times on this article, in none of them it is suggested that libertarian paradise is inherently authoritarian. Which is, if you want my opinion, but is not clear enough yet why. Right now, the pseudoeconomics (surprise, social sciences are sciences) of libertarian paradises are more prominent than authoritarianism, if you want to see missionality here. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 23:13, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

1) You were the one who cherrypicked my usage of the US as a rhetorical tool in the first place. Neoliberalism has been compared to laissez faire in the literature before, even if you continue to insist otherwise and ignore all arguments to the contrary. (Like my argument about the rent crisis and the complete or near-complete lack of intervention that could mitigate it.)

2) You can have degrees of anything. Just because the US isn't purely laissez-faire is not an argument that it's deregulationist tendencies are in spirit laissez-faire (that is, reducing or eliminating government intervention in the economy).

3) You continue to ignore the Tuvalu argument. (That is, Tuvalu moving to Meta. As Bongolian pointed out on the Saloon Bar libertarians could take over and evict any people too poor to afford citizenship fees. You know, systemic violence. You know: an unjust application of authority. You know what that's called? Authoritarianism.

4) Systemic violence would be needed to enforce a libertarian utopia. (Take the fact that libertarian utopias would lend itself to feudalism. Any rebellion against that would be met with overwhelming force. Ie, an unjust application of authority to keep the serfs in their place.) How is that not authoritarian?

5) The article covers scams, so even if you're not convinced of the authoritarian angle scams are still missional.

6) You have not demonstrated that my competence is in doubt, at least not fairly. What you've been doing is poisoning the well. It grows tiresome.

7) You responded to my argument, and therefore paraphrased segments of it in responding. The fact that you cherrypicked one specific part of my argument can be arguably called quote-mining as a result. Carthage (talk) 23:18, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

(EC)1 It is an stupid argument (as it is, indeed using Hayek and Friedman as the main authors of neoliberalism in 2023. Just read what they used to say and compare with any modern "neoliberal" textbook, they were radicals). Anyway, this is offtopic.

2 Yes. And the US is not remotely close to laissez-faire. And this is also offtopic.

3 No, this is a blantant lie. [2]

4 And you don't want me to question your competence. I already said that it is two or three times. What I said is that is not as prominent on the article as it should be.

5 Scams are missional, but not crucial to our mission, just read them. And I said that pseudoeconomics are missional.

6 and 7 Offtopic. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 23:26, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Libertarian paradise is a crank idea; that's why it fits the mission. There are parallels with "libertarian paradise" and other topics covered in RW like survivalism. For survivalism, there is no argument that being prepared for emergencies is a good thing, however the fringes of the survivalism movement are obsessed with nutty, anti-society ideas that range from the impractical to the batshit insane. Often these fringes have absolutely no idea on how humanity works in the wake of a disaster. Likewise, while there are certainly cases where reducing government bureaucracy is a good thing, libertarian paradise advocates often have extremely cranky ideas about both government and how the human communities work, which is why libertarian paradises have tended to fail spectacularly when put into practice. While not the same topic, Bitcoin/crypto is another topic attractive to libertarians that is mostly mission oriented due to the huge amount of crankery and scams surrounding it. BobJohnson (talk) 23:27, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

That's a better argument. But out bitcoin argument explains the pseudoscientific ideas behind it, while I'm not sure this one does. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 23:30, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Bitcoin is a separate concept, though related, to Libertarian paradises. This articles does a pretty good job of explaining the crankiness behind it. It also goes to cover the colonial history of such ideas, including their roots in 19th century adventurism in Central America. Carthage (talk) 23:37, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

I think it's more pseudo-legal / anti-legal than pseudo-scientific myself. Generally speaking, my impression is that libertarian paradise idealists have very little concept of how "the law" works or even why laws exist, and promote a fantastical world that has no (or extremely little) government, bureaucracy, law, or taxes due to various personal reasons. When attempting to implement this in the "real world", it's no wonder the lot runs into problems (including outright scams). Extend the libertarian paradise attitude only a little further, after all, and you end up with nonsense like sovereign citizen and freeman on the land.

Unfortunately, I was not able to find (at least by the Google) of too many resources looking more in depth at the philosophical problems of what other places probably would call a "libertarian commune" (libertarian paradise is the pejorative term for these sorts of community attempts). A lot of articles tend to focus on the implementation disaster of various attempts. I guess the problem is kind of like the "sovereign citizen" / "freemen on the land" angle; you can't just make laws and taxes and whatnot (and the societies that build them) disappear by magically waving your "wand" and making them go away, and its hard to even attempt to take something very seriously which is so out of whack, and contrary to human society for centuries or even millennia. Humans have always been social species that have thrived in part by cooperating in groups, something that the extreme "going Galt" crowd seems to hardly understand. But yes, I don't think it's a problem if an expansion is made on the crankery, should we find some good source material that goes into it. BobJohnson (talk) 00:21, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Here's a good interview on the subject. One area we could potentially expand upon is the impact libertarian adventurism has on local communities in the areas the libertarians are trying to colonize. The article notes that "just the mere prospect of exiter schemes created enormous political and social stress as communities worried about land loss and new forms of colonization." Carthage (talk) 00:27, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

That's what I was arguing. Extreme deregulation lends itself to absolute disaster. I was using the US as a rhetorical tool to showcase that the US is the furthest conceivably you can go with having a deregulationist society and still be somewhat functional. Libertarian utopias would be an absolute disaster as a result. I love how GJK comes bulldozing in, throwing shade at me, and then when met with objections calls them irrelevant despite being the one to throw shade in the first place. Whatever. Are we done here? Carthage (talk) 23:32, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

No, that's not what you were arguing for, but whatever (and even if it was the case that would be wrong, as societies that were far more deregulated than the US today prospered, even though it's not a desirable model for 2023). I'll probably add a section on how a libertarian paradise cannot provide public goods in the future. Then I might change my mind. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 23:37, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Which segments of society in those societies prospered? Also, it is what I was arguing for, despite your insistence to the otherwise. "People already need three jobs to pay rent nowadays, and if they lose even one of those jobs they got violently thrown out onto the streets. Now, imagine that but without any social infrastructure." Social infrastructure = welfare programs in this context. Please tell me how that's not what I was arguing when it was literally what I was arguing. The argument being that libertarians would prefer no protections for tenants at all, nor for social programs to provide, say, low-income housing. All of which falls under "social infrastructure". So, yes, I was arguing the same exact thing as Bob. This is ignoring the systemic violence angle BTW. So I would appreciate it if you toned down the passive-aggressiveness just a little bit. It's excessive and uncalled for. Carthage (talk) 23:42, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘This has gotten way off topic for the most part. I think the idea that it is not missional enough seems like a bogus argument. Not once since 2012 has the issue of missionality been raised on the talk pages (Talk:Seasteading or Talk:Libertarian paradise). It's clearly missional based on the commonly-used category Category:Libertarianism), it's neo-colonial aspects, and its obvious nuttiness if for no other reason because of endless failures of permutations of the idea. Bongolian (talk) 01:32, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

@Bongolian I mean, it's missional for main space, I'd never AfD it, but is it missional for silver and gold? as per RationalWiki:Article rating, only articles that are highly relevant should be demoted. That was my question. Also, I'd like to see a better exploration of the pseudoscientific aspects of a libertarian paradise (like their difficulties to provide public goods and deal with externalities). Sure, you can argue that I should write about them myself, but I'm already doing it on the anarchocapitalism page [3] and I'm not sure how to do it without making articles redundant. Do you have any ideas at how we can analyze the theoretical problems of libertarian paradises? GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 02:03, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I can't actually recall that ever being raised as an issue for demotions before. There are some such silver/gold articles essentially grandfathered-in that seem kind of quaint at this point now that there are only essentially two geezers left holding up the fort at CP. Bongolian (talk) 03:02, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Both Conservapedia:Burning the evidence and Blazing Saddles would be promoted if GJK got his way. Libertarianism is also a silver-level article, which is of direct relevance to this AfD. Carthage (talk) 03:17, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Uh, no? I'd support deleting the Conservapedia:Burning the evidence article (or any article on the CP space that we still have), but the Blazing Saddles covers racism a lot, which is missional. Also, let's keep in mind that until not so long ago, demoting an article was far less easy than it is today. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 03:34, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

And Libertarian utopia deals with crank pseudoeconomics, far-right politics, and the harmful effects of neocolonialism and unfettered market worship. All of which are easily missional enough for silver, if racism is enough for Blazing Saddles. The only objection you have is a poor and ultimately arbitrary one. Carthage (talk) 03:46, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I'll pretend you forgot our conversation from not so long ago when I said that the article doesn't cover enough of pseudoeconomics (the words "externalities" and "public goods" are not mentioned a single time on the article) nor authoritarianism (hence you can only give one example, Vanuatu). GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 03:50, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Clearly you haven't read the article since it mentions the Filibusterers in Central America, who were very authoritarian. The article also covers crypto and the associated pseudoeconomics underlying it. It might not be enough to your arbitrary standards, but we already have a silver-level article on libertarianism (which you keep ignoring). As for the Filibusterers, I already mentioned how the article could go more in-depth on the effects of libertarian adventurism on local communities. Either way, it's still mentioned. The article also covers the coup and follow-up authoritarian government in Honduras. Carthage (talk) 03:59, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘(EC) What does the libertarianism article has to do with anything? Yes, the article talks about crypto, but still doesn't touch other important aspects of pseudoeconomics. In other words, it is incomplete in this regard. If it mentioned public goods and externalities, but not crypto, my vote would remain. So, there are two examples of authoritarianism in the article (one of them, according to you, could be more well-developed). I still think it's not enough for a problem this big. The article has many, many examples, but the authoritarianism in most of them is not explored. Also, I don't think you understand how voting on a Afdem works. Of course the my vote is based on subjective standards (which, for me, they don't pass). Sorry if I have higher standards than you. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 04:08, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, here we have another example of you poisoning the well. It's tiresome. Please justify my supposed lack of understanding of AfDEM voting. This article is illustrated, is well-formatted, and covers the subject of libertarian utopias in-depth even if it's lacking in a few areas. This is silver, not gold. The exhaustive detail criterion is for gold, not silver. If anything, you don't understand how this works. Also, I'm criticizing your standards. That doesn't mean I don't understand the process. Carthage (talk) 04:11, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

(EC) I already did. You can vote according to your own subjective standards. Anyway this is offtopic (again). Since you're clearly not engaging with my points, I'll stop answering. Go ahead, have the last post, I know it's very important for you. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 04:14, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

sigh Carthage (talk) 04:20, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I think the concept is dumb enough to be missional. It might be completely discredited, but the idea is funny and interesting to me. Note that I haven’t read the fight above cuz I ain’t got time for that. Just my two cents. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 18:52, 14 September 2023 (UTC)