{"id":190,"date":"2004-12-02T04:49:34","date_gmt":"2004-12-02T09:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/server97.snhdns.com\/~ravik\/wp\/?p=190"},"modified":"2004-12-02T04:49:34","modified_gmt":"2004-12-02T09:49:34","slug":"confessions-of-a-libertarian-rationalist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/classic\/200412\/confessions-of-a-libertarian-rationalist\/","title":{"rendered":"Confessions of a libertarian rationalist"},"content":{"rendered":"

The discerning intellectual reader is worried. I mean, here was one of
\nthe last bastions of logic and reason in this evil world.
\nAnd to see it being overrun by “nonsense” and “garbage” that denounces
\nreason and libertarianism…my goodness. The reader shakes his head and takes his tension-headache pill.
\nThe apocalypse is not nigh, he nods vigorously to himself, portents and omens
\nto apocalypses are not logical after all. He fortifies himself and takes
\nanother look at the blog. And sees some posts about some Automaton or something
\n– many parts at that – and he can’t make head or tail out of it either.
\nOverwhelmed and cornered by such unsurmountable odds, our intellectual bursts into tears.
\n
\nIf this describes you, dear reader, I do apologize. I’ve been a bit unclear in
\nmany posts, sarcastic in others, and to top that had some general sarcastic fun
\nin the comments area as well. I just want to say this one thing: I need to make a post on Indians and sarcasm.<\/p>\n

Well that, and to give an explanatory appendix to the various posts made recently. No, my earlier posts weren’t some illogical nonsense, albeit they seemed to bait reason, libertarianism, ethics and the like.
\nAnd no, I am not a postmodern subjectivist who hates reason, or a neocon who
\nhates ethics and libertarianism or something. My previous posts were actually meant to bolster these memes. Let me elaborate:<\/p>\n

a.Libertarianism: That post<\/a> was written in a hurry, and when I reread it now, I see it was more than a bit unclear. <\/p>\n

Here is a redux: The goal of society is to maximize its utility. Libertarianism
\nadvocates doing this by allowing each individual complete liberty to maximize his INDIVIDUAL utility.<\/p>\n

I criticized this saying this optimizes utility to the entire society pretty slowly. Granted individuals are connected to each other, but for the effects to
\npropagate requires time and costs.<\/p>\n

What I said above was CORRECT. What is the problem? It is this – libertarianism
\nin the absence of an information system that passes information between individuals quickly and cost-effectively is INDEED slow. The discerning reader would’ve got what I mean to say – one needs to construct and NURTURE the information system of a MARKET. And libertarianism does include a full and functioning market as one of its “axioms”!<\/p>\n

From various “libertarian” questions asked\/postings made, I see even the cartel
\nmembers pay no heed to this important COMPONENT of libertarianism – the
\nmarket. It is not an automatic thing in nature – it has to be constructed with care. And one needs to use all the current technology to bolster the market information system. THAT should be the function of any central system or government, not meddling in the individual optimizations – but to bolster the market, the information-flow system basically. <\/p>\n

b. Reason:
\nIn an earlier post, I had argued that deductive logic is a lesser sibling compared to induction. The goal was not to belittle deduction, but to make the reader think what “reason” meant.<\/p>\n

Reason basically is a SET of formal systems for deriving statements based on
\ndeductive logic. Look at AI researchers – they formalize induction using various
\nFORMAL SYSTEMS like probability and so on. That is what all science is about as
\none reader did say – science is about creating new formal systems.<\/p>\n

What do I mean by formal system – it is a set of axioms, and a set of “logic rules” to derive fresh statements using the axioms and rules.<\/p>\n

I know I’ve lost 1\/2 the readership at this point, maybe I got too technical here,
\nI apologize for that, but it was important to say this.<\/p>\n

We need to explore and create more such formal systems that mimic the formal-system-components of human “reason”.<\/p>\n

What I wanted was to bash people’s conception and understanding of “reason”, and what is “logical”. I did not want to bash “reason” itself. <\/p>\n

For example, many atheists say that atheism is more “rational” than theism.
\nI agree with that – but to argue it out, one needs the tools.<\/p>\n

And now to my initial post –
\nc. Do women make good managers?
\nNo they don’t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The discerning intellectual reader is worried. I mean, here was one of the last bastions of logic and reason in this evil world. And to see it being overrun by “nonsense” and “garbage” that denounces reason and libertarianism…my goodness. The reader shakes his head and takes his tension-headache pill. The apocalypse is not nigh, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}