Post: #26

For clarity: I wasn't attempting a sort of "It's the Current Year" argument, though in retrospect it probably looks a lot like that. I'm more trying to make an observation about the culture we're in and the cultures that Marx, Von Mises and Rothbard et. al. were writing for. To wit, they're very different, and any method of dealing with our present malaise in the West has to take that into account - unless, as said, we bomb or spend ourselves back to the 1940s or so.

Marx wrote for the mid-19th century: Class was still a real and distinct thing, God was under serious challenge as a concept, and not a lot of industrialisation was mechanised, thus resulting in a large workforce of low-paid, uneducated workers who could be hammered into a compliant uprising at the hands of Lenin and similar. Of course Marxism was going to be popular: it promised power to the powerless, "fairness" to people who had been browbeaten into believing there was no fairness in the afterlife. In our time, it's primarily the free shit aspect that is most liked, because the idea of a social contract is fading.

Von Mises and Rothbard were late 19th, early 20th century thinkers. (I should be plain that there are certainly elements of their theories that seem to hold up and which they seem to be right about: their ideas about fiat money, for example, when it comes to government seem to match, again and again, the historical record.) But their ideas didn't get much play back in class-scarred, battle-scarred Europe: no, for their ideas about prosperity and small government to work, they had to export them to a culture which was (a) prosperous, especially after World War Two because its mainland hadn't been bombed into oblivion and (b) was at least theoretically inclined towards small government, until FDR had finished his work and shot the idea of US small government right between the eyes.

What I'm saying is that, even though their work may have had important truths about economics to render, they were still shaped by and writing for cultures that were particular to them to a large extent. They had default assumptions about their audiences: you can't build an economic theory unless you have a default idea about how the individual is going to behave, economically. The problem for us is that our culture and technology are evolving too quickly.

Yes, you can still absorb useful insights from them, in the same way that the West has absorbed exceedingly valuable insights about democracy and philosophy from the ancient Athenian culture. But there are large tracts of that culture which are, simply put, foreign if not getting on alien to our present culture. Technology and cultural change are moving with incredible speed in our own time; people respond with genuine incredulity about some of the ideas in the 1950s, for Christ's sake, only 70 years back.

As I often do, I'd leave the last comment to The Last Psychiatrist. When asked why he focuses so much on narcissism, he provides this:

Q. Describe the march of history over the past 100 years.
A. Fascism, then Marxism, then narcissism.
Q. What distinguishes the three?
A. Technology.
Q. What followed fascism?
A. War.
Q. What followed Marxism?
A. War.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #27

(02-23-2017 10:02 PM)All or Nothing Wrote:  

(02-23-2017 10:00 PM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  Imagine some of the negative consequences of that scenario, but this time for a company you value, who you think is doing decent work. And imagine the regulatory body being staffed by lifelong (near un-fireable) bureaucrats and/or plants, who would seek out "victims" of said company to use as legal missiles against them.

You see the government as a curb on freedom while I see the corporations as a curb on freedom.

You see the increase in power of the government as a move towards autocracy while I see the increase in power of technology companies as a move towards technocracy.

One thing we have to ask ourselves though is which view is more libertarian as a whole.

The power of technology companies to suppress speech is the antithesis of libertarian ideology, it is the antithesis of individual freedom. These companies are infringing on our civil liberties for freedom of thought and expression.

So you have to ask yourself, which view is more libertarian? Regulating companies to maximize freedom of speech for the collective society or to allow technology companies the maximum amount of freedom to suppress political speech?

I don't know what anyone means by libertarian anymore. Maybe we can agree on a simpler focus, like "I can't be forced to do things I don't want to do" and its corollary "and others ask the same of me".

You can call it NAP, or do unto others, or whatever.

A technology company starts a platform. It's their playhouse. They don't force me to join it, but if I do join it, they make the rules.

Doesn't stop me from leaving, doesn't stop me from making my own platform.

It may be HARD to make my own platform; I may really want to use their platform even though I don't like their rules. But such is everything in life.

A government regulates this technology. Now I can't even start my own platform without their permission. Now I can't choose to leave the platform (if they make it the only game in town... which they eventually lead to, one way or another).

It's sort of like the difference between a negative and a positive right.

Negative right = don't physically hurt me
Positive right = guarantee my safety at all times

For the realists out there, which one is impossible?

Post: #28

(02-23-2017 08:50 PM)Paracelsus Wrote:  Fair enough that Fakebook and Ogle are in bed with government, but at the same time, is there any world you can conceive of where they would not be, libertarian or otherwise? Indeed a trim, lean, efficient government would likewise have a trim, lean, efficient and therefore terrifying secret service that would be inside all of these organisations anyway. And that's the best position you can imagine.

I don't think it would because by definition, you can't get much power from the government when it is small and not taxing the citizens at such a high rate, and being subject to less copy right laws, libertarians are very lax about copyright.

Businesses collude with governments because they can gain massive advantage over competitors, if the incentive is not there, the collusion won't be there either. Why would a private company pay some politician money if he can't deliver the goods, they'd be more worried about shareholders and customer satisfaction.

A libertarian style government would look a lot like America did before the 1900s. For example a permanent income tax didn't exist in America before 1913.

Post: #29

Quote:The new policies mark a sharp turn for Google, which has historically largely hewed to its position as a neutral host of outside sources of online content. However, as the company has grabbed a greater share of digital advertising -- and bids for more television ad dollars -- criticism of its stance has grown. This came to a head in recent days after the London-based Times newspaper reported ads from marquee brands in the U.K. were running with videos that promoted terrorism or anti-Semitism. Several marketers pulled their ads from Google properties in the country in response.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...ube-videos

Google has now changed their policy so they will be able to cut off funding for any content they don't like.

Orwellian thought police are coming via these tech monopolies!

Post: #30

Further proof that Youtube, Google, Facebook, Twitter, et al. need to be regulated.

Steven Crowder keeps saying that Google is a private company, which gives them the right to muzzle conservative voices. WRONG! Google, Youtube, et al. are MONOPOLIES that have absolute power over the mediums they provide through which people can communicate. This means that what they are doing to Steven Crowder is illegal since it is a violation of his First Amendment rights.

Again, this provides further ammo for the narrative that we need to transfer over the FCC regulations that were applied to radio and TV over to Google, Youtube, et al. as far as content providers go. We need a bipartisan commission to review content creators and if they find that content creators were FCC compliant and were muzzled by Youtube (or Twitter et al.) because of their political views the company needs to be swiftly fined (hopefully a large multi-million dollar fine) and the decision reversed.

We need to stop these rogue tech companies who are violating the American people's First Amendment rights.

Post: #31

Is YouTube a monopoly? Vid.me looks pretty good. The comment section is better in every way.

Post: #32

(03-29-2017 01:05 PM)Samseau Wrote:  Is YouTube a monopoly? Vid.me looks pretty good. The comment section is better in every way.

Based on these statistics (from a quick google search):

https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/online-video/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/2662...o-portals/

Youtube oscillates between 65-80% total marketshare when it comes to video sharing medium based on the perspective you take. I would say that yes, Youtube has close to monopoly control over video sharing market. This is especially since the market's profitability and sharing is driven by size of user base, so the medium that Youtube provides will tend towards monopoly.

Editing just to drive my point home:

Based on the statista information provided, Youtube has control over 77.6% of the views that people give to online videos. Imagine this translated to the past. Imagine if there was a man who controlled 77.6% of the radios in the nation during the first half of the 20th century. Now imagine if that man decided that he did not like Franklin Delano Roosevelt's political views and decided to ban him from the radio. This means that 77.6% of the nation would no longer be able to hear FDR's political views or receive his political message even if FDR was not inciting violence or hate, rather he was just promoting his political view that was different from the owner.

This is what Google is doing today by muzzling conservative voices. Google controls 80% of the search market and 77.6% of the video market and they are using this power to prevent 80% of the search users and 77.6% of the video watchers from seeing the conservative side of the political argument. Previously such an abuse of power was prevented through FCC regulation, and I am saying that due to Google's abuse of power we need to transfer over previously created FCC rules to the market's that Google (plus Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit) controls in order to ensure that the American people can hear both sides of the argument.

Post: #33

The alternative tech switches I've made so far and haven't been disappointed with:
- DuckDuckGo search engine
- Brave browser

The alternative tech switches I've made so far but were a disappointment:
- Linux

Prospective alternative tech switches:
- Replacement for Youtube (Vid.me?)
- Replacement for Gmail (Proton mail?)

If the system is too corrupt to tame the beast, then it needs to be starved and gutted.