I considered myself a Libertarian for a few years. I was a disillusioned Republican during the George Bush days and Libertarianism really grew on me. I voted for Gary Johnson twice.
As I became more concerned about climate change, I could not see a viable Libertarian solution to it. Private business is more than happy to keep chugging away with fossil fuels until it’s far too late.
For Libertarianism to work, these same private businesses need to do the right thing voluntarily. In Atlas Shrugged, those businessmen and women are doing what is right for their business and it just so happens to be what is right for everyone else, that isn’t always the case. All too often, what is right for business goes against what is right for society. Once I realized this, everything unraveled for me.
So anyway, here I am, years later, voting for Democrats because I’ve got no other option as the GOP became more and more insane since I left.
Libertarianism also was my first stop out of my childhood religious right upbringing. I still tend to see issues from a libertarian framing – i.e., if it’s not hurting anybody why should the government care? – but most US libertarians seem weirdly fixated on ideas like “why can’t I dump 5,000 gallons of hydrofluoric acid into a hole in the ground if the hole is on my own property?” or “why shouldn’t I be allowed to enter into a contract with somebody that allows me to hunt them for sport?” or especially “why can’t I have sex with a minor if they say it’s OK?”, where there’s really obvious personal and societal harms involved and the only way that you can think otherwise is if you’ve engaged in some serious motivated reasoning.
Whereas my thinking these days is more like, “who does it hurt if somebody decides to change their outward appearance to match how they feel inside?” and the like – i.e., the right to personal autonomy and free expression, rather than the right to do whatever I want to others as long as I can somehow coerce them into agreeing to it. I don’t have much patience for the anarchist side of left-libertarianism – in my experience you need robust systems in place to keep bad actors from running amok, and a state without a monopoly on violence is simply ceding that monopoly to whoever wants to take it up for their own ends – but that starting point of libertarian thought, that people sold be free in their choices until those choices run up against somebody else’s freedoms – is still fundamentally valid.
Whatever quality of life you have enjoyed beyond living naked in a cave eating bugs and berries you owe to the people who came before you. Not just your ancestors, but the people who invented tools and discovered natural laws and organized societies and legal systems, the people who built the cities with their sewage systems and hospitals and electricity, the people who developed fertilizers and antibiotics and undergarnments that don’t itch like a thousand angry fleas are having a rave in your crotch. And now, after enjoying the fruits of 10,000 years of civilization, you decide that you’re the be-all and end-all of people and everybody who comes after you can go fuck themselves? Bad person. Plain and simple.
To be honest I’m in all to human extinction, actually I’m all for all life extinction. Life is based in predatory model mostly with exception of some plants and bacteria.
Life can be wonderful and precious. If your life in particular happens to be “shit, crap and nothing”, are you really so self-centered that you think everyone’s life is just like yours and we’re all only pretending it isn’t?
Life is what you make of it. There are happy people in slums living under awful conditions, and then there are people like Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and obviously miserable. Anybody can be happy and enjoy life with a simple shift of perspective, and work to improve whatever bothers them.
If your life sucks so much that you’d rather all life become extinct, have you considered the possibility that you might have unipolar or bipolar depression? This is not at all a normal way of seeing things, and medication might help you immensely. And if that is the case, then I take back what I said about you being a bad person. Mental illness takes a large toll on our worldview and often renders us incapable of expending the energy to care about anyone other than ourselves. We behave and think just like a bad persom, but it’s not actually our fault. We just aren’t capable of being any different. I’ve been there. Thankfully I’m not there anymore.
Genuine question: why do you care about climate change if you would be dead by then?
Empathy, or caring about how other people are affected, even if it doesn’t affect you personally. Empathy is normal and healthy.
Better question is, why are 60+yo Capitalists who already have more wealth than they could possibly spend before they die, so desperate to hold and collect even more wealth?
But most of this people doesn’t even exist in the present. I mean, isn’t better that stop having kids, you can kill 2 birds this way: Reduce footprint to ZERO, avoid future generations suffering of global warming.
I considered myself a Libertarian for a few years. I was a disillusioned Republican during the George Bush days and Libertarianism really grew on me. I voted for Gary Johnson twice.
As I became more concerned about climate change, I could not see a viable Libertarian solution to it. Private business is more than happy to keep chugging away with fossil fuels until it’s far too late.
For Libertarianism to work, these same private businesses need to do the right thing voluntarily. In Atlas Shrugged, those businessmen and women are doing what is right for their business and it just so happens to be what is right for everyone else, that isn’t always the case. All too often, what is right for business goes against what is right for society. Once I realized this, everything unraveled for me.
So anyway, here I am, years later, voting for Democrats because I’ve got no other option as the GOP became more and more insane since I left.
Libertarianism also was my first stop out of my childhood religious right upbringing. I still tend to see issues from a libertarian framing – i.e., if it’s not hurting anybody why should the government care? – but most US libertarians seem weirdly fixated on ideas like “why can’t I dump 5,000 gallons of hydrofluoric acid into a hole in the ground if the hole is on my own property?” or “why shouldn’t I be allowed to enter into a contract with somebody that allows me to hunt them for sport?” or especially “why can’t I have sex with a minor if they say it’s OK?”, where there’s really obvious personal and societal harms involved and the only way that you can think otherwise is if you’ve engaged in some serious motivated reasoning.
Whereas my thinking these days is more like, “who does it hurt if somebody decides to change their outward appearance to match how they feel inside?” and the like – i.e., the right to personal autonomy and free expression, rather than the right to do whatever I want to others as long as I can somehow coerce them into agreeing to it. I don’t have much patience for the anarchist side of left-libertarianism – in my experience you need robust systems in place to keep bad actors from running amok, and a state without a monopoly on violence is simply ceding that monopoly to whoever wants to take it up for their own ends – but that starting point of libertarian thought, that people sold be free in their choices until those choices run up against somebody else’s freedoms – is still fundamentally valid.
Genuine question: why do you care about climate change if you would be dead by then?
Because “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit” - Greek proverb
If we don’t cover the things that our children (or nieces/nephews) will benefit from, no one else will. There are no adults in the room. It’s just us.
What children? I will not have nieces nor nephews because I do not have first grade brothers or sisters. I mean sorry but I don’t care.
Then you’re a bad person. It’s quite simple.
Whatever quality of life you have enjoyed beyond living naked in a cave eating bugs and berries you owe to the people who came before you. Not just your ancestors, but the people who invented tools and discovered natural laws and organized societies and legal systems, the people who built the cities with their sewage systems and hospitals and electricity, the people who developed fertilizers and antibiotics and undergarnments that don’t itch like a thousand angry fleas are having a rave in your crotch. And now, after enjoying the fruits of 10,000 years of civilization, you decide that you’re the be-all and end-all of people and everybody who comes after you can go fuck themselves? Bad person. Plain and simple.
To be honest I’m in all to human extinction, actually I’m all for all life extinction. Life is based in predatory model mostly with exception of some plants and bacteria.
You have a very limited view of what life is. I pity you deeply.
And what is life? 70 years is shit is crap is nothing.
Life can be wonderful and precious. If your life in particular happens to be “shit, crap and nothing”, are you really so self-centered that you think everyone’s life is just like yours and we’re all only pretending it isn’t?
Life is what you make of it. There are happy people in slums living under awful conditions, and then there are people like Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and obviously miserable. Anybody can be happy and enjoy life with a simple shift of perspective, and work to improve whatever bothers them.
If your life sucks so much that you’d rather all life become extinct, have you considered the possibility that you might have unipolar or bipolar depression? This is not at all a normal way of seeing things, and medication might help you immensely. And if that is the case, then I take back what I said about you being a bad person. Mental illness takes a large toll on our worldview and often renders us incapable of expending the energy to care about anyone other than ourselves. We behave and think just like a bad persom, but it’s not actually our fault. We just aren’t capable of being any different. I’ve been there. Thankfully I’m not there anymore.
Empathy, or caring about how other people are affected, even if it doesn’t affect you personally. Empathy is normal and healthy.
Better question is, why are 60+yo Capitalists who already have more wealth than they could possibly spend before they die, so desperate to hold and collect even more wealth?
But most of this people doesn’t even exist in the present. I mean, isn’t better that stop having kids, you can kill 2 birds this way: Reduce footprint to ZERO, avoid future generations suffering of global warming.
So you don’t feel bad for future humans because they’re assholes for existing?
I can’t feel empathy for people that doesn’t exist. Simple as that.
How about a 1yo baby that will suffer the effects of climate change their whole life, can you feel empathy for a 1yo baby?
I feel more anger about the parents that brings that child to suffer to this world.
Okay so you’re too hateful towards complete strangers to have empathy for a 1yo baby.