[ExI] libertarians nominate none of these

[efc at swisscows.email]

On Sat, 30 Mar 2024, Kelly Anderson via extropy-chat wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 29, 2024 at 5:30 AM efc--- via extropy-chat
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> > As a stoic, I don't see death as the worst thing in the world. As a
>> > transhumanist, I also want radical life extension. So there is an
>> > internal conflict there, to be sure.
>>
>> How do you deal with that conflict? Have you attempted any type of
>> reconciliation of your values?
>
> Well, if I die, I won't care. I don't believe in any sort of
> afterlife, so that's a non-issue for me. I currently feel sorrow for
> my future loved ones should this happen, so I try my best not to die
> and to do things that are likely to prolong my life. But if I die
> tomorrow, or in 1,000 years, death holds no sting for me. I don't
> mourn dead friends or family, they are simply gone. But I regret that
> I was not able to get my dead friends cryopreserved. I would love to
> be cryopreserved myself, yet I still rank my family's well being over
> spending money on cryopreservation. Should I get enough money that it
> won't hurt them for me to be cryopreserved, then I will do that. I
> also desire to donate organs, and to donate my body to science other
> than my brain and donated organs if any scientist will have such a
> body. I really don't know, but I'd hope they could use the leftovers.
> So is it really a conflict? Or simply a cost-benefit analysis where
> the cost of cryopreservation doesn't yet balance against not having a
> sink that drains properly yet? Maybe I'm just a transhumanist until I
> die, unless there is some cheat code I can afford. I don't feel
> conflicted about it much, to be honest. But maybe I haven't thought it
> through enough.

Thank you for sharing, makes a lot of sense.

>> Children and childrens rights is one of the hardest problems for
>> libertarianism in my opinion, at least from a philosophical point of
>> view.
>
> I've dealt with the barrel end of the DCFS gun, so I have some pretty
> strong feelings that child services mostly hurt children and almost
> always hurt families. Their activities are not well known outside of
> those with direct experience because the privacy of the children keeps
> the press and the public out of their courts. While I'm in favor of
> keeping children safe in principle, in practice the government doesn't
> know how to do it anyways and therefore, probably best to let parents
> be parents. It's sad when religion allows parents to legally
> physically hurt children, but I feel that's a pretty small group of
> people compared to the hundreds of thousands that are hurt by the

That's an interesting point and something to keep in mind in any
libertarian debate. Is it a niche case, then maybe it is worth it even
though there is no perfect answer.

> system. I was raised religious, and I don't feel it was irreparably
> harmful to me. It did take a lot of work to recover, to be sure, but
> that's the price for living in what little freedom we have left.

>From my european point of view I think it is difficult to imagine living
in a deeply american christian conservative community. I was brought up
protestant on paper which meant going to church at most once a year and
a little bit of jesus talk around christmas and easter. My mother was
spiritual and sort of an anarchist christian in that she did her own
thing and didn't really like all organized stuff, except when we lived
abroad for a few years when she did become active for a bit in the local
church, but more as a social thing and definitely not any services.

I think my final point of departure from organized religion was when I
started to work and saw that 0.4% of my income tax was a church tax, and
that's when I left. ;)

>> Then you end up in the theoretical battle grounds of "what is parents
>> want to kill their child, if he's their property, they are entitled to
>> do that, ergo... libertarianism is wrong". Well, I'm sure you all know
>> the drill from there.
>
> I've never met any Libertarian that would argue that, other than for
> unborn children which is obviously a big can of worms. I've only ever
> heard the occasional Democrat argue for fourth trimester abortions,
> and I certainly don't agree with that formulation.

How would you argue for childrens rights, and when it would be right for
external people to step in and take a child away from abuse parents? And
I'm thinking from a philosophical/ethical point of view. From a common
sense perspective, I imagine if things get bad enough common sense
people would step in anyway.

>> I think anti-government, in this day and age, is a very healthy point of
>> view. I'm very anti-government too, because for a big part of my life I
>> was forced by threat of violence, to hand over about 65% of my income to
>> the state and I feel this has robbed me of opportunities for developing
>> myself and living the way I want do.
>
> Couldn't agree more. But as long as people keep voting in folks who
> will give them stuff... it's not going to get better.

True. The mainstream systems are designed to promote and strengthen
themselves.

I wrote in another post about what would be needed to live more free on
a personal and collective level.

>
> Idiocracy isn't just in the future...
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax-2i71bqGw

Ouch, that was painful! I could not take more than 15 seconds!

>> Now I'm in a better position, but the ultimate goal of 0% still sits at
>> the end of the rainbow. ;)
>> Best regards,
>> Daniel
>
> 0% tax? I don't see how that will fly with our current populace....

No, at the moment it is only possible on an individual level with the
help of some kind of legal structure and some good lawyers _or_ if you
move to any of the following countries (in person, or on paper):

Brunei, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, The Bahamas, Bahrain,
Cayman Islands, Bermuda.

Knowing my wife, when retirement comes, arabia is out of the question,
but maybe I could make a case for the Bahamas, Cayman Islands or
Bermuda! =)

Best regards, 
Daniel


>
> -Kelly
>
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