From: Jim Burnes <jim.burnes@ssds.com>
Date: Sat, 6 Dec 1997 03:54:35 +0800
To: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
Subject: Re: Censorial leftists (Was: Interesting article)
In-Reply-To: <19971204174655.45349@songbird.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.95.971205111305.360C-100000@is-chief>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




On Thu, 4 Dec 1997, Kent Crispin wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 04, 1997 at 05:22:23PM -0700, Jim Burnes wrote:
> [...]
> > > And Singapore survives quite well being a totalitarian capitalist
> > > society. Sure, you can pick nits and claim that Singapore's not entirely
> > > capitalist, but it's more capitalist than this country and certainly
> > > less free, too.
> > > 
> > 
> > hmmm..  no one says that singapore doesn't work anyomore than
> > that they say that a team of horses under a whip doesn't work.
> > the difference is that in singapore the policeman is inside.
> 
> Nope.  I have several friends who are from Singapore, and that is 
> simply not the way they see it.  They like their country, and they 
> are proud of it.  They know it isn't perfect, but they think it is 
> pretty damn good.  From their perspective your statement simply 
> reflects the narrowness of your point of view.
> 

Nice try, Kent.  This is to be expected by people who have the
internal policeman.  This is like a kitchen slave that says
they like their kitchen.  From a kitchen slave's point of view
a wandering minstrel that doesn't eat as often or as well may
not be as well off.  That just means the kitchen slave is fatter
not more free.  Just wait until they try and leave the plantation.

Indeed this is pretty much the viewpoint of every person in
every country unless the authoritarians have really clamped
down.  My country good or bad with exceptions.

> [...]
> 
> > there is a fundamental flaw your case.  economic freedom is really the
> > same as social freedom.
> 
> This also represents a terribly narrow view of the world.  Freedom is 
> psychological state as much as it is a social or an economic one.
> 

Only from someone who doesn't understand the basics of economics.  I
am differentiating between freedom and hapiness.  I start from the
premise, "as it harms no one, do as you please".  How many nation
states allow this?  Freedom is the opposite of slavery.  I don't
want happiness.  I don't want the nanny state.  I want freedom.
It is a real state, Kent.  I want to do everything I'm personally
capable of short of harming others...and that better be real and
tangible harm.

Lets think about this, Kent.  I am showing you that it has real,
tangible properties -- not some myth or religious belief.  Take
an example citizen unit "Sally".  

Sally want's to contract with a company to provide programming
services.  She doesn't want social security.  She justs wants all
the money she contracted for.  Nothing more, nothing less.  The
amount she contracted for has real tangible benefits.  Food she
can buy, free time, better clothes, better education for her
kids etc....

Mr Big Brother steps in and takes a big chunk of it without her
permission.  This decreases the net number of hours left in
Sallys life.  She must work longer hours now.  If Sally is not
the person who decides how the hours in her life should be spent
she doesn't even own her own life.  Who owns it?  I'll give
you one guess.

I'll give you the fact that Sally is permitted (at least in most
Nation States) to become a hermit and own herself again.   But remember
we're talking about the freedom of a society.

I'll also give you the fact that she is limited by other things
like environmental factors, acts of god, her own emotional decisions
to support her parents or something.  These are all voluntary
decisions.

> > In either case, the act of buying and selling things is the ultimate
> > expression of free association/assembly.
> 
> Nonsense.  The ultimate expression of freedom is skinny dipping in a 
> mountain lake.

I'm sorry Kent, but that is a NOP.  Go back to the hermit argument.
Besides, who now is talking about feelings.

> 
> > I might mention, since this is the cypherpunk list, that crypto
> > is *exactly* what big brother is afraid of because we might realize
> > what *kind* of slaves we are and what kind of masters they are.
> > Incidentally it might actually free us from this prison some
> > day.  The first step to escaping from your jail cell is understanding
> > that you live in a jail cell and what kind of cell that is.  Most
> > new citizens units have a room reserved from birth.
> > (slave: birth to grave)
> > 
> > Freedom to make purchasing decisions is *the* major component of freedom
> > in any advanced society.   It is the medium by which we interact
> > with society at large.  Red Hat software doesn't know who the hell
> > I am and they probably can't afford to care that much.  What they
> > do know is that if they configure a really decent version of Linux
> > that I will give them $50.  It allows me to do my thing and it puts
> > food on their table.
> > 
> > Economic freedom is what makes it possible for society to evolve into
> > to something better.  Lack of it eventually dooms the inhabitants
> > to decide whether to become a hammer or an anvil -- a host or
> > a parasite.
> > 
> > If you don't think that the population is prevented from making
> > purchasing decisions then you better get the sleep out of your
> > eyes and take a good, hard look. 
> > 
> > </pedagogy>
> 
> Actually, it's dogma, not pedagogy.  The notion of "freedom" to a
> libertarian is like the notion of "faith" to a Christian -- a
> self-reinforcing mental trap, a span of circular thinking that is just
> a little too large for them to notice and say "Haven't I been here
> before?"

Allright, Kent.  Lets play a little thought experiment.  Sometimes
its helpful to remove extraneous bullshit from an argument.  Lets
start with the most obvious cases of non-freedom and work outwards.

(1) You are dead
(2) You have been kidnapped, bound by duct tape into a chair - hand,
    foot and mouth.
(3) You are a physical slave.  Being unlucky enough to be born into a
    slave society or captured during warfare you grow up a slave.  Your
    life is at the disposal of your owner.  You are probably well aware
    of your condition, but have not the resources do alleviate it.

..tell me when to stop, Kent....

(4) You are a psychological slave.  Having let someone else make your
    decisions for you, your mental and physical faculties are at the
    the disposal of the meme controllers.
(5) You are an economic slave.  Having the misfortune of your wealth
    being tied to the fiat of a nation-state, the value of your time
    and the stability of your day-to-day world are at the disposal of
    those who worship power.
  
Each of these forms of servitude requires more and more information
to detect.  Many citizen units, like fish in a fishbowl, endlessly
swim in circles, happy and content -- never seeing the fishbowl
until they bump straight into it.  The usual reaction is to say,
"hmmm...thats strange" and then they go on swimming in circles
again.  Eventually the housecat comes by and eats the fish next
to them.  This is scary for the fish, but bound by the limitations
of the fishbowl will simply assimilate it and chalk it up to
an act of god.

> Like moths they flit around the bright emotional icons that
> blind them, define their world, and trap their thoughts in endless
> repetition. 

Very pretty, Kent.  You get an 'A' for prose, but an 'D' for
reasoning.

OK...I'm flitting about those bright emotional icons.  Feeling pretty
good.  I don't like slavery, Kent.  Why?  I don't know.  I'll admit it. 
Is it rational?  I don't know.  I am a human being with my own will.  I
don't like slavery and submission any more than I like a hot poker in the
eye. If I am bothered by it and continue returning to contemplate it,
please forgive me. Maybe that makes me human. I prefer to voluntarily
serve my fellow citizens.  If you prefer to serve in the kitchen, no
matter how well stocked or lavish, then I pity you.

Did this stuff bother me before I saw it? No.  Did it affect me?
Most definitely.  But I've always had an extreme dislike for
bullys.  Maybe thats another emotional icon, Kent.

> 
> For all the brave words about reason and logic, and all the endless
> discussion about it, libertarians don't ever actually sit down and
> think "what does the word 'freedom' mean, anyway?".

OK.  I think we took care of that.  Freedom doesn't mean external
factors.  Freedom means living in an environment and having the
ability to alter or manipulate that enviornment and expand beyond
the environment.  Obviously the jail cell is only free until you
get to the bars or wish to be free from them.  Maybe were getting
somewhere here....

Freedom is relative to your desires much as wealth is.

(desired actions - external-human-imposed-limitations) = slavery
(desired wealth - actual wealth) = poverty

If you are a totally integrated Zen monks who has achieved
enlightenment maybe you could be very happy in a jail cell.

If you play video games all day and eat pizza all night
you are free.

If you discover the limitation that have been imposed on you
and think they are nonsensical, artificial and human imposed
then you are a slave...unless you don't care to explore beyond
those limitations.

What kind of human do I want to be?  I don't want to escape into the
internal.  I don't want to permanantly bury myself in hedonistic pleasure
(but the thought has occurred to me) I don't wan't to immerse myself in
9-5 wage slavery. I wan't to explore the internal and the external.  I
wan't to become more than I am.  I realize these things are available in
this world.  Its just that I don't want to subject myself to the
psychological subjugation that it takes.  Read that "kissing up".  I've
almost reached the point where individual effort can max out without
massive kissing up.  Perhaps that's my own self-imposed prison, but I'd
prefer to advance by serving others in the free market.

But don't worry, I'm still trying.

>  Instead, their thinking goes down to a point where they can repeat some mantra like
> "Freedom to make purchasing decisions is *the* major component of
> freedom in any advanced society", and they never realize the exact
> circularity involved.

Maybe you could explain it.  I base my beliefs on the fact that
any civilization beyond a few thousand people must interact via
some type of money, or stagnate.  If you don't understand mutual
coincidence of wants, I could explain it to you.  The society
is then defined by the dynamics of that currency because it
defines the nature of free association beyond the boundaries of
the merely personal (ie: families, friends, jumping in mountain
lakes).

Who or what guarantees the integrity of that money(s) defines
the nature of the civilization.  Whether it grows or contracts,
whether the people save their hard-earned cash or spend it, the
nature of level of debt, waste, etc.

Notice I'm not suggesting we all return to gold.  But the above
observations still hold.  Who or what guarantees the moeny?  Does the
president guarantee it, the banks individually, the banks severally, the
central bank, the head of the central bank, or emergent market forces?

And people who believe that money is root of all evil are
simply falling prey to psychological slavery.  That meme must
have been invented by people threatened by freedom.  Money
simply allows you the freedom to interact with the society
at large.  It allows you to do anything you would normally
do - good or evil.

  It might as well be "Freedom to worship the
> Lord is *the* major component of freedom in any advanced society." Or
> "Being a slave to purchasing decisions is *the* major component of
> slavery in any advanced society."
> Thinking in platitudes is not thinking.
> 

Well I suppose you could argue this, but its provably wrong.

Proof by counterexample:

There are places where you are free to worship the lord, the devil,
the trees or the cracks in the sidewalk if you like.  Without
economic freedom, the freedom to sell or not to sell, to purchase
or not to purchase we'd be living in little mud shacks without
many of the modern advances of civilization.  Money enables
large sectors of the populace to interact without barter.  These
large sectors then specialize and the results of this specialization
and advancement are the history of science.

Personally I like those advances.  

Other than that I will agree to disagree with you, Kent.

Have a better one,

jim