This is an open thread. Is there anything you’d like me to make a post on? Have you ever pondered on a problem and thought “I wonder what that pompous, arrogant and condescending Cartelian Ravi would say about this?” Ask it here. If there is any topic from my previous posts where you’ve thought that I did not address, maybe evaded, a point, ask it here. I will answer some of the questions that in posts.
I will prefer those posts that make me think. For example, I really wanted to answer this comment:
Would you say there should be a legislation that will punish this judge? If so of what kind? Or is this to be viewed as okay in the interest of free speech? Thanks.
This was on my post on burning the American flag. The link in question related to an Indian judge making derogatory remarks about women lawyers. I don’t know if it was asked as a sarcastic question, but it is still an interesting one and I would like to answer it. Likewise which question would you like answered?
One question, coming up very soon
1) What is libertarian position on incest? What is yours?
2) (Supplementary) What is libertarian position on social taboos? What is yours? To be specific, are they just smokesscreen for good old power play or do they provide some sort of equilibrium
Regards
PS. Forget inbreeding for 1), I am not concerned with propogation of species at this instant.
Dear Rao,
I feel extremely sad that now the world knows you are not what your writings suggest- a headstrong fellow who is sans joy or humour. It might win you new fans , but to me, the ‘older’ ravikiran was the man!!
Meldo itni chocolatee kaise bani?
Are you still in the US and are you planning to come to Canada ?
This question should be treated with the highest priority since it effects can be far reaching. 🙂
Question 1:
If we consider a nation-state to be a large company with the shareholders being the citizens; then democracy, with the election an executive, etc. mirrors that of a typical corporation.
The revenues of many large corporations is greater than the GDP of many nation-states.
In light of this, antagonism towards centralized government can also be construed as antagonism towards large corporations and vice versa.
But far leftists hate the latter and love the former;
while libertarians hate the former and love the latter.
What do you have to say about this?
Question 2:
In light of evolutionary evidence, it seems all our instincts and much of our ethics are evolutionarily “forced upon us” e.g. we are “hardwired” to think a certain way when we see large female hips as opposed to small female hips. This hardwiring mostly occured due to societal pressures in the hunter-gatherer period, but this process of societal brainwashing is still going on e.g. a Muslim girl brought up in an extremely orthodox Muslim household might want to subject herself to Burkhas et al.
The point is that all this hardwiring and softwiring which has been going on since the hunter-gatherer period has ended up changing what we want to do.
To summarize,
1. These wirings are products of coercion.
2. These wirings affect the way people maximize their utility functions (i.e. whenever they use instinct over reason something which ALL humans do); but most importantly these wirings have affected the utility functions themselves.
In light of this, how can you justify complete individual liberty as an axiomatic guiding principle? Not only does it seem superfluous, it seems harmful since it actively puts down intellect in favor of instincts.
You had posted long back claiming that the Iraq war had ended. You had also poked fun on people who opposed the war claiming that they were in some imaginary world where they dreamed up a long drawn war that would only leave this world a worser place than the one with Saddam in power.
Incidentally at that time, one of Saddam’s statues had fallen (I should say was brought down) and everyone somehow mistook that to be the end of the war. You were one of them too – so can’t blame you for taking a uniquely unacceptable position like you usually do. 🙂
In that post, you had also asked the opposers of the war the question – “Did you actually believe something else would happen?” After that post, understandably, you didn’t post much else on the Iraq War. It is very much understandable because, in your world, the Iraq War had ended. There was nothing else to talk about it. Nothing worth your attention. Atleast not as important as your latest obsession with American Toilet Systems.
The post that I am talking about was in your older blog and hence is unretrievable unless through a convoluted process.
My question to you is, do you still stand by that statement? That the Iraq war has ended?
An interesting idea.
My (first) question is:
People who’re in favour of the free market keep saying that it cannot function without the rule of law. Clearly, most judicial systems are failing right now. Do you blame the Left for this? If yes, why? Also, assuming we move closer to free markets, how are we going to ensure that the ‘rule of law’ functions effectively?
I don’t know if it was asked as a sarcastic question,.
I was ( and am ) only curious, not sarcastic. And no logical connection or contradiction was hinted at between possible replies to that and what you had already written.
I would also like to know the libertarian position on bestiality, and if there can be regulations for animal rights that are consistent with libertarianism.
And seven_times_six’s question reminds me – is complete liberty according to libertarianism an end in itself or is it mainly treated as the means towards maximising or atleast enhancing ( possibly not fully defined ) “utility functions”? Thanks.
When man was first created, he was alone with a few others. There were no inherent rules or no particular social order. i.e there was an anarchic social system, out of which arose what we have today. So that is to say, if the society were to be left free-to-choose it would not choose what it has.
Also please to explain exact stand wrt anarchism vis-a-vis libertainism.
Cheers,
Vulturo, if it doesn’t come soon, you may need to see the doctor.
Here’s a question:
Suppose we would like to transition from an excessively regulated economy to a more market-oriented one. What is the best path for this transition? Is it always optimal to simply “take the plunge” or is there the possibility that there should be some form of transition period to allow people and firms to adjust to the new environment?
7*6, Governments have legal monopoly over force/violence. Big corporations don’t.
7*6, Governments have legal monopoly over force/violence. Big corporations don’t.
Reposting using my full name to avoid being confused with “the other gaurav”(pun somewhat intended :)). doubtinggaurav, I suggest you do the same.
What is the difference between Rambo and Sambo?If you are planning to come to Canada,make sure you know the right answer
There aint no “other gaurav”.
I be the greediest capitalist upper caste north indian hindu naazi mcp.
6*7.
While I assume that communists are enamoured of state, I do not think they have any love lost for nation. I think communism is very internationalist in nature (ironically similiar to libertarianism).
Regards
Hehe, you misunderstand me. By “the other gaurav” I meant the gaurav who is still active on the other india blog. I am familiar with your views and I know you are quite right-of-centre.
And why “not sabnis”? You can use your own last name.
I prefer not using my surname unless unavoidable (for example opening a new e-mail account).
That there are so many Gaurav in India goes on to show how unimaginative earlier generation was.
And I am nothing like “right of centre”, I am so much right that I have banished left or centre from my world view.
Oh yes, we Gauravs can actually be a votebank by ourselves.
The question is up, Ravi
Gaurav Sabnis:
My broader question is whether a nation-state with a centralized democratic government is a natural consequence of spontaneous libertarian order.
Just as corporations — a group of people getting together to form an economic unit which operate under many mutually agreed upon behavioral restrictions — form in a free-market, so would nation-states.
Your comment was close to identifying where the analogy breaks down:
law enforcement is an apriori (free-market) assumption in the formation of corporations. The nation state otoh has to supply the law enforcement. With a squinting of the eye, one could consider the private security force of a company as the corporation counterpart of law enforcement.
Also note that the nation-state constitutes one corporation. Talking disparagingly of a monopoly within a corporation goes against the grain of large corporations. E.g. Suppose Walmart buys all its office supplies from Company X and hence Company X holds a monopoly in Walmart-world; but this is hardly something to be upset about.
This question is with regard to the phrase “Where I torture reality till it confesses the truth”. Since information obtained as a result of torture has frequently been proven unreliable, doesn’t this title basically suggest that this blog will be torturing, or manipulating facts (reality) in order to elicit conclusions that possess questionable validity? Or is the title merely a superficial play on words without any deeper meaning?
gawker: I know you’re kidding; but for the benefit of semantically challenged others:
Any metaphor is not an exact equivalence; drawing conclusions by assuming otherwise, would be ironically what one might call a superficial play on words without any meaning.
1. Assuming that we have 100% reliable evidence of Global Warming happening. The consequences of the warming are known to by typhoons, climate changes, loss of habitat due to rise in sea levels, epidemics, mass migrations etc. What measures would you suggest to tackle the problem? Wouldn’t it necessarily involve taxation?
2. Related to 1. Is there any general rule liberatarians follow when an attempt to maximize profits by a single entity leads to a net loss of wealth for all other entities involved? Or do you believe that no such situation can arise? In computer science libertarian philosophy corresponds to solving an optimization problem by following the greedy algorithm which in general can only guarantee a local maxima. Non-linear optimization problems cannot be trivially solved by greedy algorithms. Any comments?
3. Free markets are never adequate for a disaster response system. Inspite of prior infromation and zero govt regulation no free market solutions developed around Katrina relief. Why do you think free markets failed in Katrina?
4. In the Asian tsunami scenario, consider a merchant X who owns the only local granary decides to auction food to the highest bidder. Only the richest are able to buy food and the poorer starve until food arrives from alternative relief sources or die. Would you support a govt regulation that rations or freezes food prices in such a short term monopoly scenario?
5. A private corp has a 99% monopoly over PSTN networks in a country. To fend off competition it charges impossibly high rates for commercial 3rd parties who want to connect to this PSTN network, far higher than what an individual consumer would pay for the same connection. As a consequence PSTN consumers receive poor service for a high premium.
Do you believe that consumers would be best served by
A. No govt intervention. Let the market develop alternative networks like wireless or voice over IP networks. The consumer should wait until such alternative technologies develop and stick to monopoly PSTN until then.
B. Govt intervention that forces the corp to charge the same rates to commercial entities and individual consumers.
I am not interested in knowing what you think is the right thing to do from a libertarian or freedom or private property perspective. I want to know which of A and B you think will be more beneficial to the consumer and why so?
I have asked too many questions. You can of course pick what you want to answer.
Is there such a thing as a ‘good’ regulation?
@Reader
In computer science libertarian philosophy corresponds to solving an optimization problem by following the greedy algorithm which in general can only guarantee a local maxima.
Er, I dont think libertarianism can be meaningully compared to anything in comp. sci. Definitely not something so narrow as a greedy algorithm. Libertarianism says nothing about how profits ought to be obtained etc. It merely asserts that each individual has a right to produce and consume as he sees fit.
I just reread that last sentence of mine and it doesnt make any sense. I think what I meant was this: each individual has a right to transact with his property as he sees fit.
“It merely asserts that each individual has a right to produce and consume as he sees fit. ”
Isnt this greedy algorithm ?
Regards
Isnt this greedy algorithm ?No. Let me elaborate.
I think what Reader originally was talking about when he said optimum was economic efficiency. His question, as I understand it, is: since markets and greedy algorithms are similar, and since greedy algorithms dont work for many optimization problems (such as for linear programming problem, which is, IMO, somewhat similar to the economic efficiency problem), can we be sure markets allocate resources in the optimum way?
The whole fallacy here is again the comparison between greedy algorithms and markets.
1. The greedy algorithm(or most algorithms for that matter) is sequential and step-by-step. That doesnt even closely resemble a society/market. A society/market is much more parallel and without any visible centre of control.
2. A whole lot of choices are made in the matket; the person/entity that made the most efficient set of choices wins and the market, wily-nily, adopts the most efficient choice. Ok, the most efficient choices dont win the market sometimes; still the market does not a priori favour any one kind of choices over another. Greedy algorithms, on the other hand, make choices that are all of one template, and the choice at step i will be very similar to the choice at step j.
Ravi, you better start answering these questions soon for FSM’s sake.
Oh yes, with reference to the first question I asked….I would also like you to answer what the hell is Meldo?
Venu: Reader is right; maximizing individual utility is greedy if you believe you want to maximize a certain “global humanity” utility. The point is that libertarianism starts from individual liberty as an axiom; it’s very goal is allowing each individual to maximize his utility. So the question as posed is uninteresting to any hard-cored libertarian.
One of my questions posed a related quandary that allowing each individual to maximize his utility is to akin to according complete freedom to a brainwashed person to fall off a cliff. Even if you assume complete individual liberty as a goal; it might not be the best immediate means. One might have to remove the brainwashing first for only then does one have individual freedom and consequently only then can one use it.
To follow up on the prev. comment; libertarianism and classical liberalism and others such have the same mistaken assumption: humans think rationally. We do not; I think one of the biggest brainwashings of the Enlightenment period is to convince humans that they are rational.
The lesson from the Enlightenment period should have been: we should become rational because rationality is the only way to make sense of the phenomenal world.
Forcibly instituting social policies that make such a strongly wrong assumption might not further cause of the Enlightenment period. Communism is one such example, but are we sure Classical Liberalism isn’t? The only reason Classical Liberalism hasn’t received such a bad rap is that true individual freedom hasn’t been tried out as yet; a mixture of statist and social conditioning has contributed to tricking humans into behaving in a highly “globally optimal” way. Many of our instincts are also, to be fair, reasonable approximations to a rational response.
Whatever your goal is, to summarize more broadly, your means should not be liberty but creative progress.
@7*6:
I would say that the major problem with utilitarianism is that it is quite meaningless to measure global human utility. Each individual has his own notion of maximising utility and you cant easily say if a certain act maxmised utility across all individuals(see this and this.)
In any case, libertarianism doesnt even require that an individual maximise his own utility. If you sacrifice yourself for the sake of someone else, you wont be going against the grain of libertarianism. It does say that you have no right to force others to act according to your own notions of self-sacrifice for increasing overall utility.
One might have to remove the brainwashing first for only then does one have individual freedom and consequently only then can one use it.
I would say that all moral theories are fuzzy and unreliable around the margins. Still, to go with your scenario, I would say that the nearest of kin “own” the deranged person, so it ought to be first their responsibility (so long as they dont do anything criminal). If nobody claims such a person, you can claim them and un-brainwash them.
A moral theory that works in most of the cases is good enough; when it contradicts our own moral intuitions grossly, we have no option but to fall back on our intuitions (such as in this case (first para).)
@7*6:
[I didnt see your second comment (left the window open and came back later). ]
libertarianism and classical liberalism and others such have the same mistaken assumption: humans think rationally. We do not; I think one of the biggest brainwashings of the Enlightenment period is to convince humans that they are rational.
You are mistaken: Enlightenment period tried to persuade people to act rationally, not convince them that their primal instincts are rational. It is a belief that, with an effort, we can become rational. This is what :
a mixture of statist and social conditioning has contributed to tricking humans into behaving in a highly “globally optimal†way.
What is this “globally optimal” way? How do you decide what is globally optimal? I hope you arent talking about economic efficiency.
[Oops. Looks like I forgot to close a couple of tags. That quote is from Immanuel Kant, in his “What is enlightenment”]
Venu: I hope you realize that I agree with you and Kant. In fact, the gist of all my previous comments is that I’m actively arguing against considering ourselves (and our instincts) to be rational; and that the lesson from Enlightenment should be that we should try to be rational. The thing is that this rationality consideration is implicit in most contemporary theories. Even though very few might explicitly attest that humans are completely rational; they still believe humans are “by and large” rational, which I feel is a misconception that owes its origin to (misrepresentations of concepts from) the Enlightenment period.
Also; I see you have a restrictive notion of utility. A mother who sacrifices her well-being for her child is maximizing her utility if her utility function accords greater priority to the well-being of the child. Utility is not equivalent to personal material well-being.
In response to your last comment; I feel one should only infer moral-code and goal notions from the minimalist axioms of the evolutionary process; which leads one to infer creative progress as a “global” goal. Check out these posts for more on this — [1][2][3]
To follow up on the prev. comment; libertarianism and classical liberalism and others such have the same mistaken assumption: humans think rationally.
Thats not true. It might be true of libertarianism-cased-utilitarianism, but not of libertarian per se. The basic premise of libertarianism is that humans are free to think/act in any manner they want, as long as it doesn’t infringe upon someone else’s rights to do the same. Rationality doesn’t enter into it at the premise or assumption stage.
7*6:
I feel one should only infer moral-code and goal notions from the minimalist axioms of the evolutionary process; which leads one to infer creative progress as a “global†goal.
Completely mystified. The posts you have linked to dont help at all. Do you mean by creative progress just plain technological progress and a raise in standard of living?
GauravSabnis: true. If you take liberty as an axiom, you do not need to “rationalize” it; what I was referring to would then be utilitarian or consequentialist libertarianism as you suggest.
But then, if there’s one lesson one should learn from history, it is to be suspicious of moral axioms that do not make utilitarian sense.
A vanilla libertarianism that would shrug off a minimum rationality as a prerequisite to according complete freedoms also seems too naive — what about the case of children and parents having power of proxy over them upto a certain age?
OK, I do not want to actually participate in the discussion in this comment thread, because I want to take the questions one by one in the order they were asked (so as not to give me an excuse to cop out of any one.), but don’t let that stop you guys. I want to say that these are all really good questions and I will answer all the questions asked so far (bug me if I don’t). Given my posting frequency, these questions are going to take me a good amount of time, so anyone asking a question after this should know that I might take a long time to answer them, if I get to them at all.
7*6, you are a comp sci student. Was it fair of you to confuse the technical use of “Greedy” with its colloqual use?
And Gaurav, what the hell is Meldo?
Venu: By creative progress I mean enhancing of the body of creative work and consequently of our creative faculties itself. Technological progress is one aspect of it.
To summarize the posts I linked to:
Bacteria —> replication
Animals —-> happiness
Humans —->creative progress
Each of these are finer nuances of survival which when engaged in by a large set of interacting agents end up evolutionarily taking the notion of survival to the next level. Regressing to coarser levels of survival like happiness or mere replication would be harmful to the cause of survival.
Creativity is an extremely intriguing concept and I suspect it transcends our conventional notions of rationality. In fact, science — considered to be a temple of rationality — has scientists arriving at hypotheses and theorems and theories in highly non-rational ways, and then using rationality to check the soundness and consistency of their hypotheses. And that is what rationality is: a method for organizing a set of hypotheses. We cannot arrive at truth using it, and we (read the scientists) do not. It has no connection to reality/truth basically.
Kant assumed a set of pre-existing “templates” which help us arrive at the “truth”.
And where do these templates come from? He conjectured that it was God; but he did not know about evolution; which is obviously the source.
Equally obviously, these reality templates are quite coarse since they were only evolutionarily required to do simpler tasks such as understanding behaviors of other organisms.
These templates; which are an aid to arrive at reality from the phenomenal world; have fascinatingly come from mere chance (i.e. evolution)!!!!
Technology helps us to extend the reach of the phenomenal world e.g. by microscopes; but are we using these templates to the fullest extent? Can we increase their powers?
Can we, to pose the singlemost important question, arrive at a complete knowledge of reality?
I do not know the answer to that; but what I do know is how we’d NOT arrive at a complete knowledge of reality and that is by not evolving our creative faculties. And that, to complete my Kantian tangent, is what I mean by creative progress.
Ravikiran: Since we were tallking about global optimization I took greedy algorithm in his case to mean a local (read individual) optimization. A greedy algorithm in Comp. Sci. is a stage-wise search procedure which did not make any sense in that context.
To get the discussion somewhat back on track, do you believe that libertarianism hinders creative progress? As I have said before, libertarianism is not hedonism; it makes no normative claims about what we ought to maximise. I cant see how greater freedom can undermine the “evolving of our creative faculties”. If anything, it helps it.
If anything, it helps it
Which is why I support “greater freedoms”.
I’m wary of complete freedom however, which is what you’d have to demand if you took liberty as a moral axiom.
Essentially, I’d support (soft) coercion and brainwashings in support of rationality and creative progress; a libertarian wouldn’t. Ironically, I demand this in order to negate pre-existing brainwashings. And also, because people need help in order that they behave rationally. Any societal ideology that shrugs that off is inimical to rationality.
Really, I am not quite sure how your soft coercions can impinge on anyone’s freedoms. You can still “soft-coerce” people by writing a book that changes the way people think and helps them behave more rationally. You seem to imagine this complete freedom in a kind of vacuum. People will still freely associate and exchange ideas and influence each other in a “completely free” society. I think you are caricaturing libertarianism. You *can* help people in a free society.
seven_times_six Says:
Ravikiran: Since we were tallking about global optimization I took greedy algorithm in his case to mean a local (read individual) optimization. A greedy algorithm in Comp. Sci. is a stage-wise search procedure which did not make any sense in that context
This is exactly what I meant.
This is exactly what I meant.
And what do you mean by global optimization, if not global economic efficiency?
Venu: It is you who’re caricaturing; viz. the extent of coercion required; and attesting that it need not violate the common law of libertarian society.
I never said writing books and talking to people is enough to make them behave rationally and get them rid of all their evolutionary and societal brainwashing. I actually wish it were so; but then it is not.
Are we to assume then that your coercion is stronger than a mere communication of ideas? What are talking here, lobotomy? 🙂