i love you stephan!....but to be honest from all 12 teachers i've had two inspired me to learn math and physics, now I am an engineer making good money but being raped by these parasites..I used to live in California, you can not believe the grossness of the violence there. Any way I couldn't take it any more I quit my job I took what ever I had saved and I moved abroad, now I am working side jobs all cash, I make less money but I feel free and happy!
So you're saying that without state violence, we wouldn't have things like theoretical physics, and indeed, most intellectual and artistic activity that isn't immediately useful to industry? That's the best argument for state violence I've ever heard.
As you know, in Ontario, government employees who make more than $100,000 per year are listed publicly. Do you know Steve Paikin, the host of TVO's main weekday political show makes like $275,000?
I understand your position; but I think it can be seen from another (milder) perspective. Why aren't "scientists" simply government employees, carrying on work that the gov sees as socially useful? Is everyone who takes a job for the state complicit in violence? Is it being complicit in violence to hire out to repair a mafia don's roof?
Loved the part about teachers waking up. For if tthey are knowingly teaching people the wrong ways of life ie to remember dissinformation and fit to their history books that are full of BS, they are largely to blame for the future. They are the tools that are used by the government to manipulate our children from 8 - 3, 10 months a year for at least 12 years of their lives, it just so happens this is when children are most impressionable.
@chrisangeluk Public education is the best PR program the government ever had. We need more choice and diversity in education. I advocate a voucher program as a transitional step towards a free market in education.
If your videos were around 9 minutes I'd probably be more inclined to watch them. What I do hear is interesting I just can't sit through 20 minutes of it. Maybe I am a victim of the next generation short attention span media saturated youth. 9 min segments would be easier to chew for a lot of people as well. Peace
Properly speaking, I consider you a capitalist "libertarian" and not a classical anarchist. A paid for society of coercion is still coercion. Your vision would involve free trade, exploitation of labor, and now I can see one of no theoretical science. Not to my liking. I still listen to you because you are interesting and engaging...but the society you invision is a corporatocracy and not true libertarianism.
Not necessarily. Even in today's society millions of dollars are raised for medical and other research that it would not be profitable for a private business to invest in. Charity, because it is voluntary, is a natural and healthy part of a free market.
@studentofsmith lol, so true. I'd like to add this: Anyone who complains about the tyranny of the market, ie the tyranny of free exchange, is somebody who wants his good through the only alternative mean -- theft.
I won't even address your absurd statement that physics is a "hobby." Given the FACT, and it is a fact, that fundamental research ultimately creates benefits to society which far outweigh the costs, how do you propose we conduct this research without the state? Would you really stunt our scientific development which has the potential to lift millions out of poverty and make us all better off for the sake of your ideology? How would this research get done with anarchy?
@mixtliful If you lived in the Soviet Union in the '70s, how would you propose that people get bread without the state? And don't you think that bread is a little more important to people than physics? Yet somehow you can go to any store in the good ole U.S. and the shelves are full of bread of all shapes and sizes.
@TreachMarkets Yes, I'm aware of the power of capitalism. I really don't see how any of this applies to the subject of discussion. A bread maker will make bread because they can make a profit. No one is going to do massively expensive fundamental research because there is no profit. Even if they find something that will allow applications, you can't patent fundamental facts of the universe, so there would be free riders, people using the results who did not contribute to R&D.
@mixtliful Free riders? If I'm forced to pay for it then everyone who currently benefits is a free rider! And half of this crap goes to military uses, which I find immoral, and you think it's fair that I get my money stolen and get no say in what it's spent on? I think you're the one that want to support Free Riders.
The point about bread is that if we really need colliders, we'll get colliders. If not, no colliders. People have chosen to buy bread instead of colliders for a reason.
@TreachMarkets My problem is not free riders themselves. Read carefully. The problem is that they would be in competition with the company that put up the capital up front for the R&D, so their total costs would be lower, prices lower, and they'd drive the original company out of business. That means there would be no incentive to build a collider, despite the huge societal benefits. I realize you don't get it and are blinded by ideology, so i'm done.
@mixtliful Ok, you've just argued for the existence of intellectual property rights, not proven that coerced scientific research is necessary. Check out the pharmaceutical industry, they seem to make a buck by selling the results of their R&D over the life of their patents.
Not to mention, what makes the government bureaucrat with the checkbook a better judge of the validity of projects than I am? Do you really think they are endowed with wisdom that the rest of us lack?
@TreachMarkets So Newton should have been able to patent gravity? Uhm, yeah. It's ok, my sister was also a tard.
As for your second question.. Youtube doesn't allow enough space for me to respond, but the basic answer is: think through the individual incentives. Whether you throw in $100 has little bearing on whether the collider actually gets built. If it does get built, you benefit regardless. Now, is the collider going to get built?
@mixtliful If he had a product that depends on gravity, sure, give him a 10 year patent. As far as the collider, you could use the same argument to justify any project. How about a Large Lint Collector? Would you mind having your paycheck stolen to fund a Large Lint Collector? If so, do you have the right to say no thanks? The right to say no thanks is the end of taxation. Again, you assume the wisdom of your 'betters', and I do not. That assumption is EXACTLY why wars happen.
@TreachMarkets Well, if you don't see the wisdom of fundamental research, fine. I wonder if there is some way to isolate you in a cave somewhere so that you don't free ride on all the benefits of fundamental research. I won't even make you pay taxes.
@mixtliful I absolutely see the benefit of research. I take medicine developed from the R&D of private companies. I drive a car made from the R&D of private companies. My computer is the result of R&D from private companies. I don't need any colliders, thank you very much. Make the case well enough and I may contribute to the collider fund, but please don't put a gun to my head for the money.
@TreachMarkets Do you have any idea how much of that R&D that has gone into your cars and computers came from government investment? How much was built from the work of public universities? How much came from government research bodies? Hell, even how much came from grants of kings in the olden days? The LHC could bring us closer to a final understanding of the fundamental laws of nature. Obviously I can't predict the benefits.. Who would have thought maxwells equations would have led to
@mixtliful If pointing a gun at people, taking their money, and then having government bureaucrats spend it properly was a winning proposition, the Soviet Union would be a high-tech paradise right now. I wonder what the return on investment is on government research spending. Do they release those statistics? All the government can do is forcefully redirect wealth, they can't create it themselves. It's immoral and inefficient, and the very occasional success story doesn't change that.
@TreachMarkets Most of the time, you're right. But it's not an absolute principle. Anywhere there can be a functioning market, I'm for letting the market work. Food, Electronics, housing, health care, education.. they all qualify. But not frigging particle colliders. If someone builds one, great. I don't see it happening without govt. I explained the incentive structure, how it's possible that something which is a net benefit might not get funding. The world is not black & white.
@mixtliful Your entire argument rests on the idea that they can spend my money better than I can. If you allow the government to steal your money and spend it as they see fit, arguing over the benefits of one expenditure or another is irrelevant, anyway. Either you have a choice, or you don't. I would gladly sacrifice the benefits of colliders to reap the rewards of a world without wars. Once you give up the choice, you give up the choice.
@TreachMarkets if you don't think paying your fair share of research is worth it, even to you, then yeah, I pretty much think I can spend your money better than you. And what a ridiculous straw man. If we build colliders, we must therefore have war? Can you pass me whatever you're smoking? If you'd really just forgo the benefits of research for your ideology, depriving society and your children of the massive benefits, there's really nothing left to say.
@mixtliful "Paying Your Fair Share" This is BS! I never asked for a collider to be built, so there is no fair share! My point is that if you don't have the choice, then arguing over one thing or another is irrelevant. 50% of the public was against the Iraq War, but they still had to pay their 'fair share'.
Watch stefbot's video on the Social Contract, it obliterates the whole 'Fair Share' argument. Fair Share implies consent, of which there is none in my case.
@TreachMarkets I'm sorry, I'm not a stefdrone. I read part of his book on morals and found it to be rubbish. The point is, you'd benefit from the LHC without paying anything for that benefit. So yes, you'd have a "fair share". Hope you're not part of his family destroying cult.
@mixtliful How would I benefit? Sell me on it. Seriously, I've never even been asked. I know I was told that I'd benefit from the Iraq War because Saddam was gonna nuke me, or some such threat. When they point a gun at you and describe the benefits, it's probably BS.
From what I've seen Stefan and I would disagree a bit on some topics, but he's not stealing my money to pay for his site or his books, and I do kind of appreciate that.
@TreachMarkets I'm not pushing war. War is horrible and a waste. War has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. The benefits are impossible to know. We will likely find new laws of nature ultimately. The discovery of thermodynamics led to the steam engine, lifting millions out of poverty and making us all better off. The discovery of Maxwells equations gave us electricity, telecommunications, and a basis for chemistry. QM has given us computers and lasers.. should I go on?
@mixtliful If they get the money by force, then I can't choose whether it's spent on a war or a high tech paradise. Once it's left my hands, I have no control. That's why they spent it on a war when 50% of the people were opposed, it's why they bailed out the banks when their phones lines were tapped out with people saying no way. They don't care. So telling me how great LHC is, I don't care! The same system that funds LHC by force funds the wars by force, and I have no control over either one!
@TreachMarkets incidentally, i'd highly recommend picking up a science book one day. There is more to life than anarcho-capitalism. Then maybe you'll actually understand what you're arguing against. Just arguing with you make me realize even more that fundamental research would not get funded without taxes, and society would stagnate.
@mixtliful I have actually chosen to purchase science books on my own. I wasn't forced to purchase them by the state, so I actually got some titles that I was interested in. The authors were paid money for the books, which they then put into research efforts for their next books. No gun was involved in the process.
I've also gone onto the internet, where I've been able to learn a lot about science for free. I go to a site, there's an ad somewhere that pays for the site, still no gun. Amazing!
@mixtliful Wow, you are hung up on this collider! Let's see, one the one hand we have the monopoly on deadly force to pay for wars, drug prohibition, wealth redistribution, the surveillance state, the occasional forced internment, bad schools, prisons loaded with minorities for nonviolent crimes, the devaluation of our money, bailouts for evil corporations, etc. On the other hand, now we can shoot protons at each other!
@TreachMarkets I am not advocating any of that. If you were listening, I said I'm mostly libertarian. I want a much, much smaller state, i'm against state schools, vice laws, wars, the fed, bailouts, and all that crap. none of that logically implies that we shouldn't fund research. There is nothing logically impossible about having a small government that only focuses on positive benefits that will not occur in a free market.
@mixtliful But who gets to decide? Who gets to choose what the free market-eluding benefits are? You are not a libertarian or you would already know that deciding how to spend other people's money by force guarantees a process that makes bad decisions! Once you hand over the money you've lost control over what it's spent on. Poll after poll shows that what the people would have the govt do w/ their money and what it does are never the same thing.
@TreachMarkets grrr. character limits suck. Who'd have thought maxwells equations would have given us the industrial revolution? Every time we discover new laws of nature, it opens up new frontiers.
This video demonstrates the problem with any axiomatic system of moral reasoning. They always succumb to reductio ad adsurdum.
Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, Ed Witten, Leonard Susskind, and Einstein should have gotten "real jobs"? They are "terrified" of having to work? Riiight. I'm about 15 minutes into your video and you keep getting more and more insane. "The black hole of violence is at the center of intellectual life". What the hell are you talking about?
@mixtliful Just curious, how much have you voluntarily contributed to physics research? Since this is something that you obviously feel strongly about, you must have written some pretty big checks to keep the work going.
@TreachMarkets With all due respect, this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I couldn't contribute a drop in the bucket for something like LHC. The only way it could get built would be if millions of people donated, which they are not likely to do because there is no direct benefit to themselves. No individual is going to invest because the returns are uncertain, and any discoveries would be socialized, pretty much guaranteeing a huge loss.
@mixtliful Wait a second. Leaving aside the validity of individual projects like LHC, you haven't been willing to donate money to ANY physics projects, yet you feel it's ok to force MEto pay for them? Don't you think that's a very immoral position to take? If you were sending in money hand over fist and out of desperation you turned to the state before your last dime was depleted, ok. But you haven't even given the first cent! So stop pretending like you care about physics.
@TreachMarkets I do give money to research. It's called taxes. That's why these projects exist in the first place. In your philosophy, these projects would just never get done. If you understand economics at all, you'd understand that. Again, they couldn't internalize the benefits. Only the costs. Yet these projects ultimately benefit humanity in enormous ways. If the implication of your philosophy is that we just forgo those benefits as a society, then the problem is YOUR moralty
@mixtliful You 'give' your taxes? How generous of you. The word give sort of implies a choice, like you mulled it over and then decided to send in the check. I understand economics. These projects are called 'malinvestments', they rip money out of the hands of people that would have spent it on other things. There's no magical money fairy that creates research money. You presume the right to decide that colliders are more important than what I might otherwise choose. That's arrogance.
@TreachMarkets I think you should know, I've read Mises and Hayek. I know what a malinvestment is, and so sorry, you're wrong again. A malinvestment is a project that is created because of false signals in the credit market due to low interest rates which may not be profitable at the natural interest rate. I'm talking about projects that are pretty much guaranteed to ultimately create benefits to everyone far in excess of costs that otherwise wouldn't get done due to incentive issues.
@mixtliful A malinvestment can also occur due to direct government intervention, like direct funding, or, say guaranteeing loans (GSEs anyone?). The market is me, with my check, deciding what I want to purchase. The government taking part of my check and spending it on colliders, or bad housing loan guarantees, or farm subsidies, or wars, etc, is the malinvestment.
If the project is guaranteed to benefit everyone, the money will come.
This just proves all the more that anarchy is the only true law i.e. do not initiate coercion against others and wherever that law is breached then the anarchy has ended. The anti-anarchists are those who earn not just through theft but through a theft alleged to serve a good cause, even the 'greater good' which we must surely be compelled to subsidise! Because then they get self-righteous-as with NHS nurses etc-& talk as if they couldn't fund their alleged 'productivity' by voluntary exchange.
Also scaring your enemies with tales about iatrogenic deaths is so FAIL. you tried it 3 mths ago via personal msg. Poisoning you were on about, radiation etc. and if it didnt work then, why wud it work now? Youre trying to conflate organised crime with the US govt and its dull already. In your BuildFreedom website..
DOES ANYONE KNOW WHO THIS GUY IS ?? please let me know his real name, his nationality and his current address. many thanks. its poss my message my get deleted, so please paste it up here if you could be so kind.
Elements (;0 of this have all been said before by the dialogue between moonAharshmistress and schmiggen, about 6 mths ago on Kelly Jones " Feminism (2of2)" video here on yt. I suppose you can repeat them with that silly arrogant "blowjob" gesture you keep doing with your tongue on this vid but it aint gonna convince anyone you dreamed it up. the references to threats, violence and blackmail of academics are all your additions of course, lol.
Forcing you to pay taxes on your hard earned money (and it IS by force - try not paying your taxes and see for yourself) which is then given to others is, in effect, robbery and violence. It is the same as the "protection money" the gangsters forced merchants to pay back in the 1920's and 1930's. Don't pay your dues (taxes) and the boys are gonna come looking for you. Same racket, only the name of the organization has changed.
I work very hard. I do not like seeing my money go lazy people.
Forcing you to pay taxes on your hard earned money (and it IS by force - try not paying your taxes and see for yourself) which is then given to others is, in effect, robbery and violence. It is the same as the "protection money" the gangsters forced merchants to pay back in the 1920's and 1930's. Don't pay your dues (taxes) and the boys are gonna come looking for you. Same racket, only the name of the organization has changed.
I work very hard. I do not like seeing my money go lazy people.
What is the point of life? You wake up you punch in and punch out. You come home, eat dinner, maybe waste a few moments watching TV or anarchist podcasts, and then go to bed. What is the point of society? A bunch of people shouting at each other or building things on a cold lonely world.
The point is science. The point is physics. The point is to open our eyes to the physical realities of the world around us. Life on earth is a journey of discovery.
Your reasoning is circular; life is not in itself pleasant therefore we should seek to understand it better therefore we should allow certain persons to fund that understanding through non-contractual violence? Let science co-operate with humanity, FUCK scientific white elephants and fuck giving other humans the right to steal for a living while blithely expecting that service of the nebulous 'public' will make them perfect altruists able to serve by forcing remunerative money from us
@fluff125 watch Nassim Haramein, David Wilcock, Gregg Braden, and Len Horowitz. They have excellent films on who we are, where we are going, and what is our purpose.
I wonder what Stefan's opinion is of Slavoj Zizek; a Freudian and academic philosopher whose writings are frequently? concerned with real and ideological violence. It's interesting to note that Zizek is regarded as somewhat of a maverick in academic circles, which may go some way to supporting Stefan's thesis here (the exception to the golden rule, if you like).
...and yet you are criticizing theoretical physics. You do realize the search for greater understanding is what lead us out of the dark ages and is responsible for the prospering modern society you live in?
No, because a lot of the science that got us into modern times was either privately funded, or the scientist found ways to fund the experiments.
Second, it wasn't all about science. There were many advances in a plethora of fields, professions and crafts that did not have a direct link to what we now call science.
The idea of science and the state in such tight collaberation was something that developed within the 20th century.
It doesn't really matter where the funding is coming from in the end although. Funding research is crucial at this point since we're way beyond the point where discoveries are made in the bathtub or being done by seeing apples falling from a tree.
Private founders almost never found any research that they won't see an immediate gain in funding.Therefore they aren't reliable when it comes to furthering the understanding of the universe.
It doesn't matter if I can provide proof or not since it's not relevant. Your side of the argument is still simply: "Waaah waaah, why is my tax money being used to fund something I as a *insert random profession* can see no use for?!!?"
It is relevant if there are already lots of finance money in the private sector for the sciences.
You see, it is not that I have to disprove that special interest A or special interest B does not deserve tax money. It is you who has to prove that they do. Tax money is intended for things when it is proven that there is either not adequete funding or when not enough people in theory benefit.
That statolatry is like a religion. That you can't see this and make no attempt to validate your belief in the magic of coerced enterprise as against co-operation, is not pleasant to see in the 21st century.
And on your assertion of the inadequacy of voluntarily funded science, private funding of science has no chance when govt crowds out the market for research funds. Broken window. You are like a preacher of violence: 'force money into students' hands regardless of yield!'
While academia is funded (at least in Canada) mostly by the government, it is increasingly being funded by private enterprise. This is missing from your argument. Would the privatization of universities clean the blood off of academic's hands?
Of course "Government" is only a word that we use to describe an institution that we've collectively agreed on or bought into. To see the truth of how this institution violently operates is only the first step. It would then require enough people to want to live non-violently. The fact that governments exist and grow seems to reflect that humanity is ripe for this kind of world. As I write this I hear myself thinking "I suppose we have to start somewhere".
Stefan I see the main thrust of what you are saying that scientists are removed from the suffering and pain, volence in the real world. But the state or government (nor vast majority of corporations) are the real culprit...it is those (largely private global banking entitities) who control and retain the power of issueing currency through centralized banking based on fractional reserve and usury bearing fiat money-as-debt.
It is NoT the government. Search for DEEP CONSCIOUS CAPITALISM
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wow.
there is an enormous difference between a man who plays guitar as a hobby and a man who plays in an orchestra as his profession. science is exactly the same.
it's the vocal minority of batshit insane absolute libertarians who ruin all chance of the movement ever becoming mainstream. be just a tiny bit pragmatic, please.
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just because something is delivered in the form of an insult does not mean it is not true.
your brand of libertarianism is batshit insane libertarianism, characterized by absolute beliefs regardless of context with little pragmatic value.
science has been, arguably, the most profitable endeavor of all time if the vitality that it brings to..just about everything is taken into consideration. to make all science funding private would not only destroy the current science infrastructure (and i
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know that this would be expected/intended), but it would cause for all other industries to slow as well; all as a result of much less overal invention and innovation. science is neither predictable nor immediately profitable, and that coupled with its esoteric nature, the simple fact that progress in science takes a great deal of time, and that scientific progress is not directly linked to profit make it a very poor candidate for private funding.
also, privatization would encourage secrecy, which greatly impedes progress in the sciences. the human genome was mapped much faster b/c craig venter's labs and the NIH decided to team up.
Well, you could be right, but I have expended an enormous amount of effort attempting to build up my philosophy from first principles, you might want to check out some of my free books if you are interested -- in particular, my book on ethics at my book on Practical Anarchy might be of interest. Best wishes!
@brolly2234 I suggest we hav to find ways to create a money system that belongs to everyone and not owned by anyone. And this money system will start a gov't that belongs to everyone and not owned by anyone. Open source money and open source gov't of mankind. - That will be paradise where greed will fade out.
Why would allowing profit to dictate what time and resources scientists can employ force scientist not to collaborate? There is always profit motive in purposive action-which is why I deride social contract 'theory'-because under contractual arrangement profit is directive from other persons. Force money into researchers' hands and you've ABROGATED co-operation over scarce resource in division of labour. Slavery.
BTW Stefbot, you're right, most academics seem to despise private enterprise.
In any case, aside from the lack of scientific value in your claims, your argument is merely that we alive now benefit from the depredations of our ancestors. By the same token, we benefit from wealth generated by slavery of blacks in cotton and sugar plantations, and the Russians worked to death in the Gulags.
@brolly2234 Trying to compromise on principle is the worst thing you can do to a movement. Just look at the conservatives with all their free market rhetoric. By selling out to the state, they are doing more damage than the explicitly communist.
@brolly2234 We tried doing things your way for years, Mr. Moderate. Got nowhere. End up looking like pussies and no one takes us seriously. Guess which is the #1 libertarian website in the world? Lew FUCKING rockwell.com, that's what. No backbenchers like you there.
okay. i'm going to try and post this comment for the third time:
I've known about Maslow's hierarchy of needs for quite some time, and yet I'd never translated the dependence of creative people on the state to a dependence on violence. The realization has left me somewhat heartbroken.
But a separate thought: Have you read The Republic of Nothing? It's a beautiful book about a man who transforms an island off the coast of Nova Scotia into an anarchist community. I think you might like it.
I've known about Maslow's hierarchy of needs for quite some time, and yet I'd never translated the dependence of creative people on the state to a dependence on violence. The realization has left me somewhat heartbroken.
But a separate thought: Have you read The Republic of Nothing? It's a beautiful work of fiction about a man who transforms an island off the coast of Nova Scotia into an anarchist community. I think you might like it.
"to contribute in a meaningful way, in a voluntary way"... I think saying "an immediately useful way" rather than "meaningful way" is a better phrase. "Meaningful" is a very iffy word, since it implies that the scientists' work is meaningless. Of course, their work is not meaningless at all. If their work is meaningless, so many other things are. & George Bush is the president because he played the game of politics. Power attracts corruptible people & entities. Just some thoughts..
Electromagnetism, the principle that allows you to broadcast your message, the self same principle that now allows us to peer behind the veil of media to see the truth, was once a great esoteric mystery being unfolded by these state coddled scientists. And at the time, of course no one else saw the future implications of this research, and they may not have wanted to pay for it. If there were never an exploration into the unknown, the human species would have fallen flat at the starting blocks.
No. But you're suggesting that it's an indulgence that scientists are allowed purely so that they can be bought. This may be true from the point of view of the state, but it still serves a purpose whether they realize it or not. For instance, research into the dark matter mystery may one day save us from utter destruction at the hands of some cosmic catastrophe. Until we solve the mystery we won't know, but I think it's slightly more noble than a nerd's indulgence that he accepts as a bribe.
Yes, Stefbot's got a point, but physicists working on things like predicting hurricanes, ocean current change, and technologies with military applications can hardly be expected to find it obvious that they are on welfare.
Maybe you have fewer listeners, when you stop going vastly over the top with every single statement, but sometimes it's almost impossible to stay consistent this way. First you name all intellectuals hobbyists and later you quote the intellectual Sigmund Freud, who had - according to your definition - never done anything useful for society or mankind and had better done a "real job" for living.
I still get your point, but sometimes a bit less would be more :-)
I get it better after watching more and more vids of your channel. I'm just distracted by unneccessary contradictions. Maybe I get used to it sometime :-)
pot heads wouldn't understand a word he says. Believe me, Stef is a couple of million light years ahead of those peace loving hippies who don't really know what they're for or what they're doing.
Blow it out your ass krakatau. There are a lot of brilliant ppl in every level of academia that are potheads and most of them certainly aren't hippies. You'd probably be surprized at how much software you use is coded by them. The constitution was written, in part, by them. Creative ppl have used drugs throughout history. Smart ppl understand the difference between use and abuse. It's a litmus test for intelligence and you just failed.
I find it fascinating that the Liberal Socialist Intellectuals, and scientists have taken the place of the Churches, Temples, Bishops and Priesthoods which once had the power, and that the scientists rebelled against. Even more ironic is the fact that deductive reasoning and pure science, which Anarchist is based upon is denied as "irrelevant". Science cannot truly progress as long as absurd biases pervert pure scientific rationalism.
I had spent most of my teen years concerned about getting into the university I wanted. Later on I began realizing what was going on, and stopped feeding the system. I went from being the "good guy" law abiding liberal to the "rebellious one" who was a "trouble to society". Scientific "heresy" is one of the most illogical and authority sustaining attitudes that have emerged over the past 200 years.
Stef you are crazy. It's not that I disagree with what you say, but how can you talk about historians and art students and how they are seeped in blood and such, and yet you YOURSELF have taken work with the department of education when they offered it to you... ????? And in one of your podcasts I heard you explaining that you thought it was better you got the money than somebody else... an argument from effect not morality.
So you think there is a difference between you getting paid by the state for your software and a scientist getting paid by the state for his research into space exploration, for example?
Davyjames: he actually says certain people who gain university/gov't funded jobs couldn't get work in the "real world", yet his "real world" is made of being an actor and a writer of second rate novels. Talk about real world jobs. Thanks for contributing to the real world stefbot. Just what we need, more actors and writers.
[quote]Hehe, really? You're making a public argument that the public does not listen to arguments? [/quote]
Not at all. I am not intending to convince anyone, much less Libertarians. They are unapproachable and can't be reasoned with. This is more entertainment value for me.
You just think you can get away with asserting whatever you feel like and the mindless choir nods its head because you've disguised a trite idea in lots of philosobabble.
I've always thought that every law is backed by the threat of violent death. But the problem with anarchy, to me, is that it seems to be an ideal that can be approached but never achieved.
If there were any advantage to having an anarchical community, wouldn't we have had at least one by now? We might imagine one existing, but it wouldn't take long to imagine how it would be defeated by simple human nature.
Still, maybe it's enough at this point to know that our society is based in violence.
2000 years ago, the Romans took slaves as part of the booty of war. The Gauls and Germans killed vanquished foes rather than use them as slaves.
There were successful cultures that had no slaves, but there has never been a long lived culture that had no government, except for hunter gatherer tribes, maybe.
Slavery has been a common part of human life, but government is endemic to humanity. It happens whether people want it to or not, and the only way to counter one gov't is with another one.
Did you ever consider that the people who are in power are never going to allow that to happen? Over the past several thousand years, the powerful continuously grow in strength.
The government is not going away, too many people are too lazy to do anything for themselves and rely on the government to provide for them.
There are too few anarchists to make a dent in our reality. This guy, stefbot, is just trying to sell his cheap novels on his website. Some anarchist.
Stefbot: You ask what would the life of intellectuals be without the state.
What would any of our lives look like without the state?
I've started businesses in the U.S., Europe and Asia. At my best, I had about 3.5K employees. None of that would be possible without the security provided by the individual states.
You are rambling, and I can tell you think you have something new to say, but I've not yet heard it.
Name any time and place in history where this was not the case.
The powerful rule the weak. It has never been different.
Even today, anarchists buy food grown by others, shipped on roads put down by the government. Check out stefbot. He is wearing clothes bought at a store, not homemade out of cloth woven from cotton grown and spun by himself. He uses computers, headphones, telephones, and then says he lives outside the system. What crap. He's another leach on the system, not producing.
If you Google "despite 14 years of anarchy" you'll find an article from 2005 that describes how life was in Somalia before the Islamists tried to take over and the US started paying Ethiopia to drive them out. A lot of things worked better than expected, but
"While at least some businesses are thriving, security is a headache. Most owners say they would happily pay taxes if government would drive out the protection rackets."
Government is public men with guns to counter private men with guns.
There's a difference between states funding security, and states funding security and monopolies and cartel protection and subventions and intellectuals and immoral laws etc etc. It's not necessarily no state on one side, and the states we now have on the other. Considering that all "services" provided by the sate rely on violence, the only moral imperative is to reduce them to a minimum, and if possible in practice to nothing.
You say that you happily pay taxes, then why are they taxes in the first place? Why can't they be volontary exchanges just like all the other exchanges on an open free market? I'd be happy to pay for roads, security, education, even to donate to associations that help people in difficult situations etc. But I wouldn't pay for the thousands of ridiculous programs that the state finances. Plus I want the services that I pay for to be open to competition so that the best services prevail.
And this "freedom" of moving to another country is illusionary at best: let's say that I break into your house, point a gun at your head, and give you the choice of either giving me $10,000 or moving somewhere else, how is moving away a valid "option"? This is only the "option" offered by a crime organization.
Addendum: most people aren't intelligent or considerate enough to understand what is necessary, what isn't, what is important, what isn't. There's no reason to allow people to "choose" in that sense.
Many people will not do or don't know what will maximize public welfare. I adhere to a Utiltiarian/Communitarian philosophy. I don't believe the masses will voluntarily do anything unless coerced. People are basically stimulus response organisms that respond to punishment, incentive, and coercion
Why is it important to have the person consent? Why should we care whether or not it violates his choice or his freedom to think? Most people aren't qualified to make important decisions in the first place, about what is important, what needs to be done, etc.
This especially applies to the United States. Half the population believes the world is less than 6,000 years old. They obviously aren't these mythical "rational agents" Libertarians assume exist. You can't deal rationally with them.
[quote]You are clearly avoiding the problem of the violence of the funding.[/quote]
I reject the entire concept promoted by Libertarian philosophy that it's wrong to use coercion to get things done. It's not. In fact, under many circumstances, it can be morally required.
Libertarians assume their premise and that everyone must agree with it. THere's no reason to other than their say so.
I don't really care if you consider it "violence" by taxation. SO what? Too bad.
@technocratic: not all libertarians adhere to a libertarian natural rights theory. People also arrive at libertarianism through economic or historical analysis. For people like me the immorality of violence is a general rule, a kind of shorthand ethical abbreviation of what I believe, rather than an absolute commandment to which there can be no exceptions.
If you can force me at gunpoint to do something against my will, why should I not kill you against your will in self-defense? (If you can, please don't justify your position by reference to majority rule, or the niceties of government bureaucracy, procedure, etc.)
The Objectivist position opposing coercion, whether government or otherwise, is that force negates the individual's mind. If you cannot convince a man to hand over a portion of his wealth by voluntary persuasion, then any alleged "reason" you have to take it by threat of violence does not and cannot morally supersede that man's judgment. Force directly negates his understanding and decision making.
If you cannot come up with a more convincing reason for him to consent to providing you with his money, I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere for funding for your pet projects.
in another video you show that most people are concerned with the welfare of the poor. can the same be said of science?
the average layman has no clue about how science and technology work, its all "white mans magic".
No-one would fund quantum mechanics, but this is the field that may bring us the quantum computer which would hugely more powerful than any computer to date.
Stef, i don't *think* anyone is disagreeing with the proposition that the state is evil and needs to be got rid of.
the problem is if you're going to get rid of state funding for scientists (good) you need to provide some method of funding pure scientific research or scientific and technological progress will be reduced to preindustrial speeds (bad).
"The years passed, mankind became stupider at a frightening rate.
Some had high hopes the genetic engineering would correct this trend in evolution, but sadly the greatest minds and resources where focused on conquering hair loss and prolonging erections."
Also, I don't see what your criticism is that people are turning their hobbies into careers. You've done it yourself! The fact that people enjoy doing physics only adds to the competition for places. Claiming that they don't have a "real job" seems to lack awareness of the rare skills many physicists have acquired, the amount of competition they had to face off to acquire their position, and the low salaries and poor job security they have to live with for many years.
But he's not on government funding. That's the big difference. He has turned his "hobby" (which I think is a little bit of a derogative term for such useful science, but that's digression) into a donation funded enterprise, from what I gather.
If that were so, why doesn't he just give them away? It's all pretend.
He talks about living outside the system, but doesn't, denigrates certain occupations, while he himself trained to be an actor. Talk about useless occupations.
He does not denigrate 'useless occupations'. He is clearly denigrating occupations that are funded by money acquired through violence (tax). The point of this video is that in the absence of this violence, many of these people would be out of a job, which is why they don't talk about it.
Stef may be an actor, but he does not get government grants for his acting work, I'm sure.
Again, Stef does seem to be willing to give books away.
Hit wikipedia for a bit dude. I think you're missing something
There's another reason the politicians pay.
Some decades down the road, the research really will have an application. Then, they can claim - "See, without us, where would you be?"
jeffiek 3 days ago
i love you stephan!....but to be honest from all 12 teachers i've had two inspired me to learn math and physics, now I am an engineer making good money but being raped by these parasites..I used to live in California, you can not believe the grossness of the violence there. Any way I couldn't take it any more I quit my job I took what ever I had saved and I moved abroad, now I am working side jobs all cash, I make less money but I feel free and happy!
boghdan2000 1 month ago
So you're saying that without state violence, we wouldn't have things like theoretical physics, and indeed, most intellectual and artistic activity that isn't immediately useful to industry? That's the best argument for state violence I've ever heard.
neurathsboat 7 months ago
As you know, in Ontario, government employees who make more than $100,000 per year are listed publicly. Do you know Steve Paikin, the host of TVO's main weekday political show makes like $275,000?
qtutoringhelps 8 months ago
Radio-man
I'm lost
It sounds like rambling
Think storybook--3 parts
ask a question--that I want to hang around for to find out the answer
plan it out
Zendout1 10 months ago
are teachers taxed on the land known as Canada?
bergweg 10 months ago
Paul Krugman anyone?
pretorious700 1 year ago
@pretorious700 You can be Joe sixpack and see that there is something wrong with that man.
nurbSoldier 5 months ago
Mr. Molyneux, please consider breaking with a banner that says, "commercial" every 9 minutes, Akkadian.
LAkkadian 1 year ago
I understand your position; but I think it can be seen from another (milder) perspective. Why aren't "scientists" simply government employees, carrying on work that the gov sees as socially useful? Is everyone who takes a job for the state complicit in violence? Is it being complicit in violence to hire out to repair a mafia don's roof?
GetMeThere1 1 year ago
Perfect.
Debatewithme 1 year ago
Loved the part about teachers waking up. For if tthey are knowingly teaching people the wrong ways of life ie to remember dissinformation and fit to their history books that are full of BS, they are largely to blame for the future. They are the tools that are used by the government to manipulate our children from 8 - 3, 10 months a year for at least 12 years of their lives, it just so happens this is when children are most impressionable.
Government translates to ruler of mentality.
Peace
chrisangeluk 1 year ago
@chrisangeluk Public education is the best PR program the government ever had. We need more choice and diversity in education. I advocate a voucher program as a transitional step towards a free market in education.
studentofsmith 1 year ago
If your videos were around 9 minutes I'd probably be more inclined to watch them. What I do hear is interesting I just can't sit through 20 minutes of it. Maybe I am a victim of the next generation short attention span media saturated youth. 9 min segments would be easier to chew for a lot of people as well. Peace
ApocalypticBliss 1 year ago
Properly speaking, I consider you a capitalist "libertarian" and not a classical anarchist. A paid for society of coercion is still coercion. Your vision would involve free trade, exploitation of labor, and now I can see one of no theoretical science. Not to my liking. I still listen to you because you are interesting and engaging...but the society you invision is a corporatocracy and not true libertarianism.
CHistrue 1 year ago
@CHistrue "no theoretical science"
Not necessarily. Even in today's society millions of dollars are raised for medical and other research that it would not be profitable for a private business to invest in. Charity, because it is voluntary, is a natural and healthy part of a free market.
studentofsmith 1 year ago
Any artist who complains about the tyranny of the market has never experienced the tyranny of a government grants committee.
studentofsmith 1 year ago
@studentofsmith lol, so true. I'd like to add this: Anyone who complains about the tyranny of the market, ie the tyranny of free exchange, is somebody who wants his good through the only alternative mean -- theft.
CircleBastiat 1 year ago
I won't even address your absurd statement that physics is a "hobby." Given the FACT, and it is a fact, that fundamental research ultimately creates benefits to society which far outweigh the costs, how do you propose we conduct this research without the state? Would you really stunt our scientific development which has the potential to lift millions out of poverty and make us all better off for the sake of your ideology? How would this research get done with anarchy?
mixtliful 1 year ago
@mixtliful If you lived in the Soviet Union in the '70s, how would you propose that people get bread without the state? And don't you think that bread is a little more important to people than physics? Yet somehow you can go to any store in the good ole U.S. and the shelves are full of bread of all shapes and sizes.
TreachMarkets 1 year ago
@TreachMarkets Yes, I'm aware of the power of capitalism. I really don't see how any of this applies to the subject of discussion. A bread maker will make bread because they can make a profit. No one is going to do massively expensive fundamental research because there is no profit. Even if they find something that will allow applications, you can't patent fundamental facts of the universe, so there would be free riders, people using the results who did not contribute to R&D.
mixtliful 1 year ago
@mixtliful Free riders? If I'm forced to pay for it then everyone who currently benefits is a free rider! And half of this crap goes to military uses, which I find immoral, and you think it's fair that I get my money stolen and get no say in what it's spent on? I think you're the one that want to support Free Riders.
The point about bread is that if we really need colliders, we'll get colliders. If not, no colliders. People have chosen to buy bread instead of colliders for a reason.
TreachMarkets 1 year ago
@TreachMarkets My problem is not free riders themselves. Read carefully. The problem is that they would be in competition with the company that put up the capital up front for the R&D, so their total costs would be lower, prices lower, and they'd drive the original company out of business. That means there would be no incentive to build a collider, despite the huge societal benefits. I realize you don't get it and are blinded by ideology, so i'm done.
mixtliful 1 year ago
@mixtliful Ok, you've just argued for the existence of intellectual property rights, not proven that coerced scientific research is necessary. Check out the pharmaceutical industry, they seem to make a buck by selling the results of their R&D over the life of their patents.
Not to mention, what makes the government bureaucrat with the checkbook a better judge of the validity of projects than I am? Do you really think they are endowed with wisdom that the rest of us lack?
TreachMarkets 1 year ago
@TreachMarkets So Newton should have been able to patent gravity? Uhm, yeah. It's ok, my sister was also a tard.
As for your second question.. Youtube doesn't allow enough space for me to respond, but the basic answer is: think through the individual incentives. Whether you throw in $100 has little bearing on whether the collider actually gets built. If it does get built, you benefit regardless. Now, is the collider going to get built?
mixtliful 1 year ago
@mixtliful If he had a product that depends on gravity, sure, give him a 10 year patent. As far as the collider, you could use the same argument to justify any project. How about a Large Lint Collector? Would you mind having your paycheck stolen to fund a Large Lint Collector? If so, do you have the right to say no thanks? The right to say no thanks is the end of taxation. Again, you assume the wisdom of your 'betters', and I do not. That assumption is EXACTLY why wars happen.
TreachMarkets 1 year ago
@TreachMarkets Well, if you don't see the wisdom of fundamental research, fine. I wonder if there is some way to isolate you in a cave somewhere so that you don't free ride on all the benefits of fundamental research. I won't even make you pay taxes.
mixtliful 1 year ago
@mixtliful I absolutely see the benefit of research. I take medicine developed from the R&D of private companies. I drive a car made from the R&D of private companies. My computer is the result of R&D from private companies. I don't need any colliders, thank you very much. Make the case well enough and I may contribute to the collider fund, but please don't put a gun to my head for the money.
TreachMarkets 1 year ago
@TreachMarkets Do you have any idea how much of that R&D that has gone into your cars and computers came from government investment? How much was built from the work of public universities? How much came from government research bodies? Hell, even how much came from grants of kings in the olden days? The LHC could bring us closer to a final understanding of the fundamental laws of nature. Obviously I can't predict the benefits.. Who would have thought maxwells equations would have led to
mixtliful 1 year ago
@mixtliful If pointing a gun at people, taking their money, and then having government bureaucrats spend it properly was a winning proposition, the Soviet Union would be a high-tech paradise right now. I wonder what the return on investment is on government research spending. Do they release those statistics? All the government can do is forcefully redirect wealth, they can't create it themselves. It's immoral and inefficient, and the very occasional success story doesn't change that.
TreachMarkets 1 year ago
@TreachMarkets Most of the time, you're right. But it's not an absolute principle. Anywhere there can be a functioning market, I'm for letting the market work. Food, Electronics, housing, health care, education.. they all qualify. But not frigging particle colliders. If someone builds one, great. I don't see it happening without govt. I explained the incentive structure, how it's possible that something which is a net benefit might not get funding. The world is not black & white.
mixtliful 1 year ago
@mixtliful Your entire argument rests on the idea that they can spend my money better than I can. If you allow the government to steal your money and spend it as they see fit, arguing over the benefits of one expenditure or another is irrelevant, anyway. Either you have a choice, or you don't. I would gladly sacrifice the benefits of colliders to reap the rewards of a world without wars. Once you give up the choice, you give up the choice.
TreachMarkets 1 year ago
@TreachMarkets if you don't think paying your fair share of research is worth it, even to you, then yeah, I pretty much think I can spend your money better than you. And what a ridiculous straw man. If we build colliders, we must therefore have war? Can you pass me whatever you're smoking? If you'd really just forgo the benefits of research for your ideology, depriving society and your children of the massive benefits, there's really nothing left to say.
mixtliful 1 year ago
@mixtliful "Paying Your Fair Share" This is BS! I never asked for a collider to be built, so there is no fair share! My point is that if you don't have the choice, then arguing over one thing or another is irrelevant. 50% of the public was against the Iraq War, but they still had to pay their 'fair share'.
Watch stefbot's video on the Social Contract, it obliterates the whole 'Fair Share' argument. Fair Share implies consent, of which there is none in my case.
TreachMarkets 1 year ago
@TreachMarkets I'm sorry, I'm not a stefdrone. I read part of his book on morals and found it to be rubbish. The point is, you'd benefit from the LHC without paying anything for that benefit. So yes, you'd have a "fair share". Hope you're not part of his family destroying cult.
mixtliful 1 year ago
@mixtliful How would I benefit? Sell me on it. Seriously, I've never even been asked. I know I was told that I'd benefit from the Iraq War because Saddam was gonna nuke me, or some such threat. When they point a gun at you and describe the benefits, it's probably BS.
From what I've seen Stefan and I would disagree a bit on some topics, but he's not stealing my money to pay for his site or his books, and I do kind of appreciate that.
TreachMarkets 1 year ago
@TreachMarkets I'm not pushing war. War is horrible and a waste. War has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. The benefits are impossible to know. We will likely find new laws of nature ultimately. The discovery of thermodynamics led to the steam engine, lifting millions out of poverty and making us all better off. The discovery of Maxwells equations gave us electricity, telecommunications, and a basis for chemistry. QM has given us computers and lasers.. should I go on?
mixtliful 1 year ago
@mixtliful If they get the money by force, then I can't choose whether it's spent on a war or a high tech paradise. Once it's left my hands, I have no control. That's why they spent it on a war when 50% of the people were opposed, it's why they bailed out the banks when their phones lines were tapped out with people saying no way. They don't care. So telling me how great LHC is, I don't care! The same system that funds LHC by force funds the wars by force, and I have no control over either one!
TreachMarkets 1 year ago
@TreachMarkets incidentally, i'd highly recommend picking up a science book one day. There is more to life than anarcho-capitalism. Then maybe you'll actually understand what you're arguing against. Just arguing with you make me realize even more that fundamental research would not get funded without taxes, and society would stagnate.
mixtliful 1 year ago
@mixtliful I have actually chosen to purchase science books on my own. I wasn't forced to purchase them by the state, so I actually got some titles that I was interested in. The authors were paid money for the books, which they then put into research efforts for their next books. No gun was involved in the process.
I've also gone onto the internet, where I've been able to learn a lot about science for free. I go to a site, there's an ad somewhere that pays for the site, still no gun. Amazing!
TreachMarkets 1 year ago
@TreachMarkets book commissions are going to pay for a particle collider. riiiiiight.
mixtliful 1 year ago
@mixtliful Wow, you are hung up on this collider! Let's see, one the one hand we have the monopoly on deadly force to pay for wars, drug prohibition, wealth redistribution, the surveillance state, the occasional forced internment, bad schools, prisons loaded with minorities for nonviolent crimes, the devaluation of our money, bailouts for evil corporations, etc. On the other hand, now we can shoot protons at each other!
TreachMarkets 1 year ago
@TreachMarkets I am not advocating any of that. If you were listening, I said I'm mostly libertarian. I want a much, much smaller state, i'm against state schools, vice laws, wars, the fed, bailouts, and all that crap. none of that logically implies that we shouldn't fund research. There is nothing logically impossible about having a small government that only focuses on positive benefits that will not occur in a free market.
mixtliful 1 year ago
@mixtliful But who gets to decide? Who gets to choose what the free market-eluding benefits are? You are not a libertarian or you would already know that deciding how to spend other people's money by force guarantees a process that makes bad decisions! Once you hand over the money you've lost control over what it's spent on. Poll after poll shows that what the people would have the govt do w/ their money and what it does are never the same thing.
TreachMarkets 1 year ago
@TreachMarkets grrr. character limits suck. Who'd have thought maxwells equations would have given us the industrial revolution? Every time we discover new laws of nature, it opens up new frontiers.
mixtliful 1 year ago
This video demonstrates the problem with any axiomatic system of moral reasoning. They always succumb to reductio ad adsurdum.
Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, Ed Witten, Leonard Susskind, and Einstein should have gotten "real jobs"? They are "terrified" of having to work? Riiight. I'm about 15 minutes into your video and you keep getting more and more insane. "The black hole of violence is at the center of intellectual life". What the hell are you talking about?
mixtliful 1 year ago
@mixtliful Just curious, how much have you voluntarily contributed to physics research? Since this is something that you obviously feel strongly about, you must have written some pretty big checks to keep the work going.
TreachMarkets 1 year ago
@TreachMarkets With all due respect, this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I couldn't contribute a drop in the bucket for something like LHC. The only way it could get built would be if millions of people donated, which they are not likely to do because there is no direct benefit to themselves. No individual is going to invest because the returns are uncertain, and any discoveries would be socialized, pretty much guaranteeing a huge loss.
mixtliful 1 year ago
@mixtliful Wait a second. Leaving aside the validity of individual projects like LHC, you haven't been willing to donate money to ANY physics projects, yet you feel it's ok to force MEto pay for them? Don't you think that's a very immoral position to take? If you were sending in money hand over fist and out of desperation you turned to the state before your last dime was depleted, ok. But you haven't even given the first cent! So stop pretending like you care about physics.
TreachMarkets 1 year ago
@TreachMarkets I do give money to research. It's called taxes. That's why these projects exist in the first place. In your philosophy, these projects would just never get done. If you understand economics at all, you'd understand that. Again, they couldn't internalize the benefits. Only the costs. Yet these projects ultimately benefit humanity in enormous ways. If the implication of your philosophy is that we just forgo those benefits as a society, then the problem is YOUR moralty
mixtliful 1 year ago
@mixtliful You 'give' your taxes? How generous of you. The word give sort of implies a choice, like you mulled it over and then decided to send in the check. I understand economics. These projects are called 'malinvestments', they rip money out of the hands of people that would have spent it on other things. There's no magical money fairy that creates research money. You presume the right to decide that colliders are more important than what I might otherwise choose. That's arrogance.
TreachMarkets 1 year ago 3
@TreachMarkets I think you should know, I've read Mises and Hayek. I know what a malinvestment is, and so sorry, you're wrong again. A malinvestment is a project that is created because of false signals in the credit market due to low interest rates which may not be profitable at the natural interest rate. I'm talking about projects that are pretty much guaranteed to ultimately create benefits to everyone far in excess of costs that otherwise wouldn't get done due to incentive issues.
mixtliful 1 year ago
@mixtliful A malinvestment can also occur due to direct government intervention, like direct funding, or, say guaranteeing loans (GSEs anyone?). The market is me, with my check, deciding what I want to purchase. The government taking part of my check and spending it on colliders, or bad housing loan guarantees, or farm subsidies, or wars, etc, is the malinvestment.
If the project is guaranteed to benefit everyone, the money will come.
TreachMarkets 1 year ago
This just proves all the more that anarchy is the only true law i.e. do not initiate coercion against others and wherever that law is breached then the anarchy has ended. The anti-anarchists are those who earn not just through theft but through a theft alleged to serve a good cause, even the 'greater good' which we must surely be compelled to subsidise! Because then they get self-righteous-as with NHS nurses etc-& talk as if they couldn't fund their alleged 'productivity' by voluntary exchange.
Nintendomanwill 1 year ago
Also scaring your enemies with tales about iatrogenic deaths is so FAIL. you tried it 3 mths ago via personal msg. Poisoning you were on about, radiation etc. and if it didnt work then, why wud it work now? Youre trying to conflate organised crime with the US govt and its dull already. In your BuildFreedom website..
MoonAharshMistress 1 year ago
DOES ANYONE KNOW WHO THIS GUY IS ?? please let me know his real name, his nationality and his current address. many thanks. its poss my message my get deleted, so please paste it up here if you could be so kind.
MoonAharshMistress 1 year ago
Elements (;0 of this have all been said before by the dialogue between moonAharshmistress and schmiggen, about 6 mths ago on Kelly Jones " Feminism (2of2)" video here on yt. I suppose you can repeat them with that silly arrogant "blowjob" gesture you keep doing with your tongue on this vid but it aint gonna convince anyone you dreamed it up. the references to threats, violence and blackmail of academics are all your additions of course, lol.
MoonAharshMistress 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
your wasting your time bud
MoonAharshMistress 1 year ago
if youre wanting to get some publicity space by being a featured video on my account you can think again.lol.
Your wasting your time bud...count the days till our new neighbours move out.
MoonAharshMistress 1 year ago
i think this video is very interesting, and i like the comments. makes me wonder...
MJMJMJMJMJMJable 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Forcing you to pay taxes on your hard earned money (and it IS by force - try not paying your taxes and see for yourself) which is then given to others is, in effect, robbery and violence. It is the same as the "protection money" the gangsters forced merchants to pay back in the 1920's and 1930's. Don't pay your dues (taxes) and the boys are gonna come looking for you. Same racket, only the name of the organization has changed.
I work very hard. I do not like seeing my money go lazy people.
FireSteels 1 year ago
Forcing you to pay taxes on your hard earned money (and it IS by force - try not paying your taxes and see for yourself) which is then given to others is, in effect, robbery and violence. It is the same as the "protection money" the gangsters forced merchants to pay back in the 1920's and 1930's. Don't pay your dues (taxes) and the boys are gonna come looking for you. Same racket, only the name of the organization has changed.
I work very hard. I do not like seeing my money go lazy people.
FireSteels 1 year ago
What is the point of life? You wake up you punch in and punch out. You come home, eat dinner, maybe waste a few moments watching TV or anarchist podcasts, and then go to bed. What is the point of society? A bunch of people shouting at each other or building things on a cold lonely world.
The point is science. The point is physics. The point is to open our eyes to the physical realities of the world around us. Life on earth is a journey of discovery.
So yes, call physics a "hobby" again.
fluff125 1 year ago
@fluff125
Your reasoning is circular; life is not in itself pleasant therefore we should seek to understand it better therefore we should allow certain persons to fund that understanding through non-contractual violence? Let science co-operate with humanity, FUCK scientific white elephants and fuck giving other humans the right to steal for a living while blithely expecting that service of the nebulous 'public' will make them perfect altruists able to serve by forcing remunerative money from us
Nintendomanwill 1 year ago
@fluff125 watch Nassim Haramein, David Wilcock, Gregg Braden, and Len Horowitz. They have excellent films on who we are, where we are going, and what is our purpose.
ancientwisdom2012 1 year ago
I wonder what Stefan's opinion is of Slavoj Zizek; a Freudian and academic philosopher whose writings are frequently? concerned with real and ideological violence. It's interesting to note that Zizek is regarded as somewhat of a maverick in academic circles, which may go some way to supporting Stefan's thesis here (the exception to the golden rule, if you like).
soapmode 2 years ago
Comment removed
soapmode 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Do you really think that scientists are useless? Your computer is evidence of the contrary. It is a "real" job.
diomedes39 2 years ago
No, of course I don't think that scientists are useless.
stefbot 2 years ago 8
@stefbot then why say they should get real jobs?
justicar5 2 years ago
...and yet you are criticizing theoretical physics. You do realize the search for greater understanding is what lead us out of the dark ages and is responsible for the prospering modern society you live in?
Xoid900 2 years ago
No, because a lot of the science that got us into modern times was either privately funded, or the scientist found ways to fund the experiments.
Second, it wasn't all about science. There were many advances in a plethora of fields, professions and crafts that did not have a direct link to what we now call science.
The idea of science and the state in such tight collaberation was something that developed within the 20th century.
nurbSoldier 2 years ago
It doesn't really matter where the funding is coming from in the end although. Funding research is crucial at this point since we're way beyond the point where discoveries are made in the bathtub or being done by seeing apples falling from a tree.
Private founders almost never found any research that they won't see an immediate gain in funding.Therefore they aren't reliable when it comes to furthering the understanding of the universe.
Xoid900 2 years ago
really? Do you have statistics to prove this, or are you basing this off of 'conventional wisdom' or what you consider to be 'common sense'?
nurbSoldier 2 years ago
It doesn't matter if I can provide proof or not since it's not relevant. Your side of the argument is still simply: "Waaah waaah, why is my tax money being used to fund something I as a *insert random profession* can see no use for?!!?"
Xoid900 2 years ago
It is relevant if there are already lots of finance money in the private sector for the sciences.
You see, it is not that I have to disprove that special interest A or special interest B does not deserve tax money. It is you who has to prove that they do. Tax money is intended for things when it is proven that there is either not adequete funding or when not enough people in theory benefit.
nurbSoldier 2 years ago
Even a liberal would say that a single tax dollar wasted is theft.
nurbSoldier 2 years ago
@Xoid900
That statolatry is like a religion. That you can't see this and make no attempt to validate your belief in the magic of coerced enterprise as against co-operation, is not pleasant to see in the 21st century.
And on your assertion of the inadequacy of voluntarily funded science, private funding of science has no chance when govt crowds out the market for research funds. Broken window. You are like a preacher of violence: 'force money into students' hands regardless of yield!'
Nintendomanwill 1 year ago
@diomedes39 It's just that science is funded and guided accordingly by the funders.
jan9ice1 1 year ago
@diomedes39 It's that science is funded and guided accordingly.
jan9ice1 1 year ago
While academia is funded (at least in Canada) mostly by the government, it is increasingly being funded by private enterprise. This is missing from your argument. Would the privatization of universities clean the blood off of academic's hands?
bloombust 3 years ago
I would argue yes.
nurbSoldier 2 years ago
Of course "Government" is only a word that we use to describe an institution that we've collectively agreed on or bought into. To see the truth of how this institution violently operates is only the first step. It would then require enough people to want to live non-violently. The fact that governments exist and grow seems to reflect that humanity is ripe for this kind of world. As I write this I hear myself thinking "I suppose we have to start somewhere".
DCLugi 3 years ago
Stefan I see the main thrust of what you are saying that scientists are removed from the suffering and pain, volence in the real world. But the state or government (nor vast majority of corporations) are the real culprit...it is those (largely private global banking entitities) who control and retain the power of issueing currency through centralized banking based on fractional reserve and usury bearing fiat money-as-debt.
It is NoT the government. Search for DEEP CONSCIOUS CAPITALISM
Lotusmita 3 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
wow.
there is an enormous difference between a man who plays guitar as a hobby and a man who plays in an orchestra as his profession. science is exactly the same.
it's the vocal minority of batshit insane absolute libertarians who ruin all chance of the movement ever becoming mainstream. be just a tiny bit pragmatic, please.
brolly2234 3 years ago
I don't think that insults qualify as intellectual arguments, but thanks for watching the video... :)
stefbot 3 years ago 9
This comment has received too many negative votes show
just because something is delivered in the form of an insult does not mean it is not true.
your brand of libertarianism is batshit insane libertarianism, characterized by absolute beliefs regardless of context with little pragmatic value.
science has been, arguably, the most profitable endeavor of all time if the vitality that it brings to..just about everything is taken into consideration. to make all science funding private would not only destroy the current science infrastructure (and i
brolly2234 3 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
know that this would be expected/intended), but it would cause for all other industries to slow as well; all as a result of much less overal invention and innovation. science is neither predictable nor immediately profitable, and that coupled with its esoteric nature, the simple fact that progress in science takes a great deal of time, and that scientific progress is not directly linked to profit make it a very poor candidate for private funding.
brolly2234 3 years ago
also, privatization would encourage secrecy, which greatly impedes progress in the sciences. the human genome was mapped much faster b/c craig venter's labs and the NIH decided to team up.
brolly2234 3 years ago
Well, you could be right, but I have expended an enormous amount of effort attempting to build up my philosophy from first principles, you might want to check out some of my free books if you are interested -- in particular, my book on ethics at my book on Practical Anarchy might be of interest. Best wishes!
stefbot 3 years ago
Thank you for this kind and helpful reply :D
brolly2234 2 years ago
Batshit insane would be your collection of baseless claims.
Kl0kw3rk 3 years ago
@brolly2234 I suggest we hav to find ways to create a money system that belongs to everyone and not owned by anyone. And this money system will start a gov't that belongs to everyone and not owned by anyone. Open source money and open source gov't of mankind. - That will be paradise where greed will fade out.
jan9ice1 1 year ago
Why would allowing profit to dictate what time and resources scientists can employ force scientist not to collaborate? There is always profit motive in purposive action-which is why I deride social contract 'theory'-because under contractual arrangement profit is directive from other persons. Force money into researchers' hands and you've ABROGATED co-operation over scarce resource in division of labour. Slavery.
BTW Stefbot, you're right, most academics seem to despise private enterprise.
Nintendomanwill 1 year ago
In any case, aside from the lack of scientific value in your claims, your argument is merely that we alive now benefit from the depredations of our ancestors. By the same token, we benefit from wealth generated by slavery of blacks in cotton and sugar plantations, and the Russians worked to death in the Gulags.
Kl0kw3rk 3 years ago
@brolly2234 Trying to compromise on principle is the worst thing you can do to a movement. Just look at the conservatives with all their free market rhetoric. By selling out to the state, they are doing more damage than the explicitly communist.
truevoice08 1 year ago
@brolly2234 We tried doing things your way for years, Mr. Moderate. Got nowhere. End up looking like pussies and no one takes us seriously. Guess which is the #1 libertarian website in the world? Lew FUCKING rockwell.com, that's what. No backbenchers like you there.
nurbSoldier 5 months ago
i don't get it? is he saying scientific research is evil or something?
ronian12 3 years ago
No, not at all, I am a huge fan of science -- just not of violence! :)
stefbot 3 years ago
okay. i'm going to try and post this comment for the third time:
I've known about Maslow's hierarchy of needs for quite some time, and yet I'd never translated the dependence of creative people on the state to a dependence on violence. The realization has left me somewhat heartbroken.
But a separate thought: Have you read The Republic of Nothing? It's a beautiful book about a man who transforms an island off the coast of Nova Scotia into an anarchist community. I think you might like it.
elisha117 3 years ago
I've known about Maslow's hierarchy of needs for quite some time, and yet I'd never translated the dependence of creative people on the state to a dependence on violence. The realization has left me somewhat heartbroken.
But a separate thought: Have you read The Republic of Nothing? It's a beautiful work of fiction about a man who transforms an island off the coast of Nova Scotia into an anarchist community. I think you might like it.
elisha117 3 years ago
"to contribute in a meaningful way, in a voluntary way"... I think saying "an immediately useful way" rather than "meaningful way" is a better phrase. "Meaningful" is a very iffy word, since it implies that the scientists' work is meaningless. Of course, their work is not meaningless at all. If their work is meaningless, so many other things are. & George Bush is the president because he played the game of politics. Power attracts corruptible people & entities. Just some thoughts..
HaoLong07 3 years ago
Very interesting
thank you
I love your enthusiasm
JudeHider 3 years ago
Electromagnetism, the principle that allows you to broadcast your message, the self same principle that now allows us to peer behind the veil of media to see the truth, was once a great esoteric mystery being unfolded by these state coddled scientists. And at the time, of course no one else saw the future implications of this research, and they may not have wanted to pay for it. If there were never an exploration into the unknown, the human species would have fallen flat at the starting blocks.
simex909 3 years ago
Do you think that I'm arguing against scientific curiosity?
stefbot 3 years ago
No. But you're suggesting that it's an indulgence that scientists are allowed purely so that they can be bought. This may be true from the point of view of the state, but it still serves a purpose whether they realize it or not. For instance, research into the dark matter mystery may one day save us from utter destruction at the hands of some cosmic catastrophe. Until we solve the mystery we won't know, but I think it's slightly more noble than a nerd's indulgence that he accepts as a bribe.
simex909 3 years ago
Yes, Stefbot's got a point, but physicists working on things like predicting hurricanes, ocean current change, and technologies with military applications can hardly be expected to find it obvious that they are on welfare.
givebirthathome 3 years ago
Maybe you have fewer listeners, when you stop going vastly over the top with every single statement, but sometimes it's almost impossible to stay consistent this way. First you name all intellectuals hobbyists and later you quote the intellectual Sigmund Freud, who had - according to your definition - never done anything useful for society or mankind and had better done a "real job" for living.
I still get your point, but sometimes a bit less would be more :-)
gnu11111 3 years ago
I am quite sure that you do not get my point at all.
stefbot 3 years ago
I get it better after watching more and more vids of your channel. I'm just distracted by unneccessary contradictions. Maybe I get used to it sometime :-)
gnu11111 3 years ago
Your point boils down to the ramblings of a pseudo-intellectual.
And by they way, we're not brothers.
harlon57 3 years ago
This anarchist talk is like listening to a bunch of pot heads discussing things they are never going to do.
harlon57 3 years ago
pot heads wouldn't understand a word he says. Believe me, Stef is a couple of million light years ahead of those peace loving hippies who don't really know what they're for or what they're doing.
krakatau666 3 years ago
>>pot heads wouldn't understand a word he says
Blow it out your ass krakatau. There are a lot of brilliant ppl in every level of academia that are potheads and most of them certainly aren't hippies. You'd probably be surprized at how much software you use is coded by them. The constitution was written, in part, by them. Creative ppl have used drugs throughout history. Smart ppl understand the difference between use and abuse. It's a litmus test for intelligence and you just failed.
TheStrangeRanger 3 years ago 4
At one famous engineering school I'm aware of, the computer folks weren't potheads--they were acidheads. It was almost ubiquitous.
givebirthathome 3 years ago
I find it fascinating that the Liberal Socialist Intellectuals, and scientists have taken the place of the Churches, Temples, Bishops and Priesthoods which once had the power, and that the scientists rebelled against. Even more ironic is the fact that deductive reasoning and pure science, which Anarchist is based upon is denied as "irrelevant". Science cannot truly progress as long as absurd biases pervert pure scientific rationalism.
TruthHidden 3 years ago
I had spent most of my teen years concerned about getting into the university I wanted. Later on I began realizing what was going on, and stopped feeding the system. I went from being the "good guy" law abiding liberal to the "rebellious one" who was a "trouble to society". Scientific "heresy" is one of the most illogical and authority sustaining attitudes that have emerged over the past 200 years.
TruthHidden 3 years ago
Stef you are crazy. It's not that I disagree with what you say, but how can you talk about historians and art students and how they are seeped in blood and such, and yet you YOURSELF have taken work with the department of education when they offered it to you... ????? And in one of your podcasts I heard you explaining that you thought it was better you got the money than somebody else... an argument from effect not morality.
davyjames 3 years ago
Ignorance does not define you; it's what you do after you learn the truth.
stefbot 3 years ago
So you think there is a difference between you getting paid by the state for your software and a scientist getting paid by the state for his research into space exploration, for example?
davyjames 3 years ago
Davyjames: he actually says certain people who gain university/gov't funded jobs couldn't get work in the "real world", yet his "real world" is made of being an actor and a writer of second rate novels. Talk about real world jobs. Thanks for contributing to the real world stefbot. Just what we need, more actors and writers.
harlon57 3 years ago
Way to miss the point completely.
lukeev 3 years ago
[quote]Hehe, really? You're making a public argument that the public does not listen to arguments? [/quote]
Not at all. I am not intending to convince anyone, much less Libertarians. They are unapproachable and can't be reasoned with. This is more entertainment value for me.
You just think you can get away with asserting whatever you feel like and the mindless choir nods its head because you've disguised a trite idea in lots of philosobabble.
Technocratic 3 years ago
Hey, you're doing it again! Cool.
stefbot 3 years ago
i am advocating that dick cheney step down for health concerns.
matrixcmitech 3 years ago
I've always thought that every law is backed by the threat of violent death. But the problem with anarchy, to me, is that it seems to be an ideal that can be approached but never achieved.
If there were any advantage to having an anarchical community, wouldn't we have had at least one by now? We might imagine one existing, but it wouldn't take long to imagine how it would be defeated by simple human nature.
Still, maybe it's enough at this point to know that our society is based in violence.
mutatron 3 years ago
That's like saying that, before the end of slavery, slavery was great because there was no alternative.
It was enforced by the state, just like statism is now.
stefbot 3 years ago
2000 years ago, the Romans took slaves as part of the booty of war. The Gauls and Germans killed vanquished foes rather than use them as slaves.
There were successful cultures that had no slaves, but there has never been a long lived culture that had no government, except for hunter gatherer tribes, maybe.
Slavery has been a common part of human life, but government is endemic to humanity. It happens whether people want it to or not, and the only way to counter one gov't is with another one.
mutatron 3 years ago
The world is full of aggressive and sometimes talented people who will always end up on top of any system. Winners and losers. It is unavoidable.
Anarchists talk, but don't typically walk the walk.
No, you sit on the internet, using local power and equipment you purchased, and talk about living outside the system, while you are using it.
Why don't you head out into the woods and build a cabin using your bare hands, and live off the land, mr anarchist?
harlon57 3 years ago
Did you ever consider that if we were allowed to leave the system, taking our property with us, we would?
I own my land. Not the government. It is not I who should "move into the woods", it is the government that should get the hell out of my land.
BinaryT 3 years ago
Did you ever consider that the people who are in power are never going to allow that to happen? Over the past several thousand years, the powerful continuously grow in strength.
The government is not going away, too many people are too lazy to do anything for themselves and rely on the government to provide for them.
There are too few anarchists to make a dent in our reality. This guy, stefbot, is just trying to sell his cheap novels on his website. Some anarchist.
harlon57 3 years ago
Stefbot: You ask what would the life of intellectuals be without the state.
What would any of our lives look like without the state?
I've started businesses in the U.S., Europe and Asia. At my best, I had about 3.5K employees. None of that would be possible without the security provided by the individual states.
You are rambling, and I can tell you think you have something new to say, but I've not yet heard it.
harlon57 3 years ago
So your mercantile successes were assisted by men with guns, is that correct?
bunabayashi 3 years ago
Name any time and place in history where this was not the case.
The powerful rule the weak. It has never been different.
Even today, anarchists buy food grown by others, shipped on roads put down by the government. Check out stefbot. He is wearing clothes bought at a store, not homemade out of cloth woven from cotton grown and spun by himself. He uses computers, headphones, telephones, and then says he lives outside the system. What crap. He's another leach on the system, not producing.
harlon57 3 years ago
The Argument from Tradition
bunabayashi 3 years ago
If you Google "despite 14 years of anarchy" you'll find an article from 2005 that describes how life was in Somalia before the Islamists tried to take over and the US started paying Ethiopia to drive them out. A lot of things worked better than expected, but
"While at least some businesses are thriving, security is a headache. Most owners say they would happily pay taxes if government would drive out the protection rackets."
Government is public men with guns to counter private men with guns.
mutatron 3 years ago
There's a difference between states funding security, and states funding security and monopolies and cartel protection and subventions and intellectuals and immoral laws etc etc. It's not necessarily no state on one side, and the states we now have on the other. Considering that all "services" provided by the sate rely on violence, the only moral imperative is to reduce them to a minimum, and if possible in practice to nothing.
MisterBozo 3 years ago
You state that "all services provided by the sate (I'm sure you meant state) rely on violence."
That is the kind of remark I would expect from someone who chose the name Bozo.
Many people happily pay taxes in exchange for services. Your position is that the government taxes with the threat of force.
You have the option to move to another country, the rest of us who don't mind paying for services won't miss you.
harlon57 3 years ago
You say that you happily pay taxes, then why are they taxes in the first place? Why can't they be volontary exchanges just like all the other exchanges on an open free market? I'd be happy to pay for roads, security, education, even to donate to associations that help people in difficult situations etc. But I wouldn't pay for the thousands of ridiculous programs that the state finances. Plus I want the services that I pay for to be open to competition so that the best services prevail.
MisterBozo 3 years ago
And this "freedom" of moving to another country is illusionary at best: let's say that I break into your house, point a gun at your head, and give you the choice of either giving me $10,000 or moving somewhere else, how is moving away a valid "option"? This is only the "option" offered by a crime organization.
MisterBozo 3 years ago
Stefbot. You seem to think that your idea is novel. That those in power use military and police force to secure their plans and property.
It has always been thus. You are saying nothing new.
harlon57 3 years ago
Addendum: most people aren't intelligent or considerate enough to understand what is necessary, what isn't, what is important, what isn't. There's no reason to allow people to "choose" in that sense.
Many people will not do or don't know what will maximize public welfare. I adhere to a Utiltiarian/Communitarian philosophy. I don't believe the masses will voluntarily do anything unless coerced. People are basically stimulus response organisms that respond to punishment, incentive, and coercion
Technocratic 3 years ago
Hehe, really? You're making a public argument that the public does not listen to arguments? [head explodes] ;)
stefbot 3 years ago
Why is it important to have the person consent? Why should we care whether or not it violates his choice or his freedom to think? Most people aren't qualified to make important decisions in the first place, about what is important, what needs to be done, etc.
This especially applies to the United States. Half the population believes the world is less than 6,000 years old. They obviously aren't these mythical "rational agents" Libertarians assume exist. You can't deal rationally with them.
Technocratic 3 years ago
Thank you so much.
Nielsio 3 years ago
What does he mean by a "real job"?
livythecanuck 3 years ago
[quote]You are clearly avoiding the problem of the violence of the funding.[/quote]
I reject the entire concept promoted by Libertarian philosophy that it's wrong to use coercion to get things done. It's not. In fact, under many circumstances, it can be morally required.
Libertarians assume their premise and that everyone must agree with it. THere's no reason to other than their say so.
I don't really care if you consider it "violence" by taxation. SO what? Too bad.
Technocratic 3 years ago
A agree that libertarians must make the case. If you'd like a free copy of my book making the case from first principles, just shoot me a message. :)
stefbot 3 years ago
@technocratic: not all libertarians adhere to a libertarian natural rights theory. People also arrive at libertarianism through economic or historical analysis. For people like me the immorality of violence is a general rule, a kind of shorthand ethical abbreviation of what I believe, rather than an absolute commandment to which there can be no exceptions.
libertopian 3 years ago
If you can force me at gunpoint to do something against my will, why should I not kill you against your will in self-defense? (If you can, please don't justify your position by reference to majority rule, or the niceties of government bureaucracy, procedure, etc.)
qtronman 3 years ago
The Objectivist position opposing coercion, whether government or otherwise, is that force negates the individual's mind. If you cannot convince a man to hand over a portion of his wealth by voluntary persuasion, then any alleged "reason" you have to take it by threat of violence does not and cannot morally supersede that man's judgment. Force directly negates his understanding and decision making.
qtronman 3 years ago
If you cannot come up with a more convincing reason for him to consent to providing you with his money, I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere for funding for your pet projects.
qtronman 3 years ago
in another video you show that most people are concerned with the welfare of the poor. can the same be said of science?
the average layman has no clue about how science and technology work, its all "white mans magic".
No-one would fund quantum mechanics, but this is the field that may bring us the quantum computer which would hugely more powerful than any computer to date.
Alexlaird87 3 years ago
Have you ever worked as an entrepreneur or VC? I'm guessing not, but if what you say is true, funding would not be an issue.
stefbot 3 years ago
Stef, i don't *think* anyone is disagreeing with the proposition that the state is evil and needs to be got rid of.
the problem is if you're going to get rid of state funding for scientists (good) you need to provide some method of funding pure scientific research or scientific and technological progress will be reduced to preindustrial speeds (bad).
Alexlaird87 3 years ago
Idiocarcy (2007)
"The years passed, mankind became stupider at a frightening rate.
Some had high hopes the genetic engineering would correct this trend in evolution, but sadly the greatest minds and resources where focused on conquering hair loss and prolonging erections."
Alexlaird87 3 years ago
Also, I don't see what your criticism is that people are turning their hobbies into careers. You've done it yourself! The fact that people enjoy doing physics only adds to the competition for places. Claiming that they don't have a "real job" seems to lack awareness of the rare skills many physicists have acquired, the amount of competition they had to face off to acquire their position, and the low salaries and poor job security they have to live with for many years.
libertopian 3 years ago
But he's not on government funding. That's the big difference. He has turned his "hobby" (which I think is a little bit of a derogative term for such useful science, but that's digression) into a donation funded enterprise, from what I gather.
psychosomaticism 3 years ago
Of course, I give everything away and people donate voluntarily.
stefbot 3 years ago
Stefbot: you say you five everything away and people give voluntarily, yet you are selling your crappy novels on your site.
You are a world class hypocrite.
harlon57 3 years ago
Purchasing a book from Stef is entirely voluntary. If you chose not to buy one, he will not use any force against you.
Incidentally, Stef has said a bunch of times that he is basically willing to give his books away, because he is more interested in truth than cash.
I don't think you understand the nature of voluntarism at all.
meatbix1 3 years ago
If that were so, why doesn't he just give them away? It's all pretend.
He talks about living outside the system, but doesn't, denigrates certain occupations, while he himself trained to be an actor. Talk about useless occupations.
harlon57 3 years ago
He does not denigrate 'useless occupations'. He is clearly denigrating occupations that are funded by money acquired through violence (tax). The point of this video is that in the absence of this violence, many of these people would be out of a job, which is why they don't talk about it.
Stef may be an actor, but he does not get government grants for his acting work, I'm sure.
Again, Stef does seem to be willing to give books away.
Hit wikipedia for a bit dude. I think you're missing something
meatbix1 3 years ago