Penn Jillette on Capitalism, Magic and Morality

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Hear the full interview: http://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-podcast/lying-service-truth

Penn Jillette, H.L. Mencken research fellow at the Cato Institute, is the louder, bigger half of the magic/comedy team Penn & Teller. He and Teller co-host a series on Showtime that looks to debunk junk science, scares and scams with reason and logic.

Interview by Caleb O. Brown. Video produced by Caleb O. Brown, Austin Bragg and Evan Banks.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• magic
• capitalism
• teller

[tugger]

Penn and Teller are fucking awesome! 

[MrHamncheez]

@MrAdamFontana click on the "hide annotations" button and they will go away.

[Berelore]

why not show the video of the entire interview? podcast is only ~7min longer

[BatmanOneOhOne]

"The West Wing: Liberal Porn" - Penn Jillette

[Pseudologic]

@666or999 Yes, of course, I'm the one, who got it wrong.

[666or999]

@Pseudologic I'm a libertarian and i don't believe this. I think you are misunderstanding what people mean when they talk about people doing x in a free market system because it's more rational. We're not saying that everybody will 100% of the time do that thing just that someone who doesn't do what is more rational choice most of the time isn't that likely to be succesful and so it's more likely that in a situation that a successful person would pick the more rational choice.

[AGeekWithAShotgun]

@Pseudologic

"To doubt the government is to doubt the system"

The system is corrupt and benefits the aristocracy known as the greedy politicians who use the corporate market to their advantage to scam the People and the business owners, ergo the government is corrupt as well.

"who can't afford a doctor and education in the society."

Life isn't fair and it ought not be. I'm not trying to be a condescending asshole, but forcing altruism down other's throats is bullshit.

[AGeekWithAShotgun]

@Pseudologic

"The government is made of people, selected through democratic process"

There is nothing "Democratic" about how Bush and JFK were elected. Bush had the Florida vote rigged and JFK's father bought him his presidency.

"you just haven't given me a good enough reasoning of why it's good to have a lot of desperate poor people"

Maybe because to have Federal intervention would inevitably lead to societal collapse?

You're a government-sympathizing nanny-statist.

[Ichiboy900]

@Pseudologic I wasn't trying to convince you, this the internet and in the history of the internet no has ever convinced anyone of anything. I was just showing you an example of a libertarian that doesn't think people are rational.

[Pseudologic]

@Ichiboy900 The government is made of people, selected through democratic process. To doubt the government is to doubt the system. Gay marriage and legalization aren't harmful to society, but removing safety net and allowing great wealth concentration is. You've made your case, you just haven't given me a good enough reasoning of why it's good to have a lot of desperate poor people, who can't afford a doctor and education in the society.

[Ichiboy900]

@Pseudologic I don't know what's best for all people, but neither does the government. I don't think "The Government is Bad", but too much of it could be. Just curious, are you for gay marriage or legalization of marijuana? The government seems to think that society would collapse if two men married each other. Do you agree with that?

[Pseudologic]

@Ichiboy900 Sure it makes sense, when you deal with stupid concepts like "government is bad". Who decides, which programs are needed and aren't? You? And I presume you have the omnipotent knowledge that leads to maximization of utility for the society? Social security was started by people, who thought that poor old people dying in the streets isn't good for economy or any society that wishes to call itself civil. And yes, there are plenty of money to go around, if the few don't own most.