6d ago

Penn Jillette is No Longer A Libertarian

381 comments

I got turned towards Libertanianism when I lived in Germany for a while and if you ever had you'd know why. Then I lived in Asia where it's the exact opposite and that turned me towards socialism. My point being is that there's definitely a golden mean to freedoms and any absolutist should be immediately ignored because they are objectively wrong.
- I got turned towards Libertanianism when I lived in Germany for a while and if you ever had you'd know why.
  Living in Germany rn. I don't get it? Can you please explain?
  
  Not OP and couldn't see myself moving towards Libertarianism, but I can kinda see where OP is coming from. Germany does have a huge amount of regulations for almost everything. A lot of projects take far too long because there are so so many rules and laws to be considered. People working in administration got so used to that, that they tend to avoid responsibilities and hide behind rules and regulations (saying this as someone working in administration, trying to establish better digital processes, which tends to be quite frustrating). On an individual level, everything (except the Autobahn without its speed limit) is always made, so even the biggest idiot can't hurt himself. Sometimes that ruins the fun for everyone else...
  
  I'll take ruined fun over ruined lives.
  
  Where do you draw the line? Because that's what it's about: how much risk is acceptable for efficiency, personal freedom, etc. The answer is obviously not "zero" or else we wouldn't have room for cars, construction, stairs, public beaches, the list goes on. Most of life is inherently or potentially dangerous, how much of that danger should be blocked by the state and how much left to the individual to manage?
  
  There is no The Line, obviously. It's all decided on case-by-case basis, and decisions have to be made in context. The only thing you can do in advance is to answer the question "do you prefer momentary efficiency, or do you prefer safety" and then go from there.
  
  It's not even about monetary efficiency. Ruined fun/ruined life. You said you were on the side of "ruined fun" but how much fun are we talking about? I assume you have some kind of stance because you joined the conversation.
  
  I started to observe a pattern recently, when people on this platform refuse to read the text of the comment they're replying to. It leads to all kinds of bad faith arguments.
  Don't be like that. Read the text, and engage with the text, not with what you imagined someone might say to you.
  
  It's not bad faith I'm just not taking you very seriously because you aren't saying anything. "I’ll take ruined fun over ruined lives" is a noncommittal platitude that avoids having an actual stance or argument, it's vague enough to let you fill in post-facto whatever context helps you while being morally untouchable because obviously nobody is on the side of ruined lives. It's intellectually lazy at best.
  So I pushed, and you stayed noncommittal and only addressed the first part of my response instead of the part about the role of government in this thread about the role of government in regulation.
  So I pushed again, and instead of having a thought when pushed you went right into accusing me of engaging in bad-faith. I am reading the text and there's nothing there so I'm trying to provide you with anything to grab onto. "How much of that danger should be blocked by the state and how much left to the individual to manage?" was not a rhetorical question, it was a natural continuation of the dialogue within context.
  
  ruined fun is a ruined life
  
  It's just Kafka-esque bureaucracy of everything. It's almost impossible to get anything done and it's incredibly demotivating.
  
  That's not "leftism", that's just unchecked, unquestioned bureaucracy.
  
  Not saying it is, just quite the opposite if what libertarianism is.
  
  Its 90% of european continent , ita burried under 10 layers of buirocracy ... we even have a joke here "you're gonna need a form ym1p (you're missing 1 paper) on your third visit, otherwise you wont get anything done" , doesnt translate as well tho
  
  Yes I'm generally pro regulation and government oversight but the way European countries implement this sometimes feels like a purposeful moat to protect the rich.
  
  Gee, I can't imagine why Germany would want to slow down government actions...
  
  Can you give some examples? I really don't understand what you're talking about
  
  Have you ever had to visit a DMV?
  
  No, I've never lived in US. Why?
- Maybe I'm oversimplifying but I tend to think money is the problem. Supposing all wealth were equally distributed, libertarianism makes a lot of sense to me as maximizing personal freedoms. It generally becomes a problem when people use wealth to abuse others, either by hoarding wealth and restricting the freedom of others that way, or by using inequality to purchase things that no person should be able to purchase.
  
  Another thing to keep in mind is that libertarianism wants everyone to focus on the individual, when society itself is an organized group that looks toward the collective (ideally, anyway)
  Without guardrails or penalties for being caught, people that abuse the system will hoard wealth and power until they can call the shots
  
  Or get shot , libertairanism slides into feudal/oligarchical structure if left unchecked
  
  These thought experiments are fun and truthful and all but I really dont see much value in this speculation tbh. In my 40something years in different cultures I've became a staunch believer in Golden Mean of politics. Use the right tool for the right job. Times are good - work on more fteedoms, times are harder - maybe it's time to tighten up the belts.
  
  But what if the hard times are caused by rich people abusing the commons? Should we just keep tightening our belts while the rich take more and more?
  I agree in general, like if there's a drought expect less food. But most of our scarcity is artificial. I believe there are solutions to the challenge of surviving.
  
  No the golden mean also applies to your example too. If rich get too toxic it's time to bring out guillotines
  
  Oh interesting, that's not what it sounded like. Is that your personal view, or a tenet of the Golden Mean? Is there a particular thinker that you cleave to more than the others?
  The Wikipedia page is pretty nebulous on this, other than allowing for a limited aristocracy (and monarchy?? Lol no thanks on that).
  I'm not sure how you'd decide exactly how limited this aristocracy is without importing from other philosophies and value systems.
  
  Golden Mean is a philosophy of Aristotel who said that all things have a golden mean (or balance) where existence is optimal.
  Basically avoiding any sort of extremism will always be the most efficient path because of uncertainty and imperfection of our existence.
  He mostly applied it to virtues of living like justice or wisdom. Sure you can close yourself off and study non-stop or fight all of the injustice in the world without sleep but this is not sustainble and diminishing returns reaches a point where the energy input is no longer returning positive results or even decreasing the overall output.
  Imo this applies to basically everything including politics. Because political systems are so complex (and people are so complex) it's imposible to control the systwm without leaving space for imperfection. So you can be a socialist but you still need to respect some individual freedoms, you can be a libertarian but you still have to admit that some things need to be forbidden for smooth sailing basically.
- I can certainly second this as an American who emigrated to Germany. I considered myself a strong "Bernie-leftist" in the States yet gravitate more towards the political center here.

381 comments