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Re:Twenty Questions with Steven Pinker by gadders on Tuesday February 20, 2018 @09:12AM (#16420397)
Actually, I was trying to defend Ayn Rand-style libertarianism, but it just goes to show how people's perspective differs.
Re:Twenty Questions with Steven Pinker by optimuspaul on Tuesday February 20, 2018 @10:01AM (#16420785)
that is one that I occasionally struggle with. I am fairly liberal but I find the absolutist attitudes that many libertarians have to be naive and often repugnant. I don't think it's a stretch at all to place them in the same bucket as those other groups. They all have taken simple defensible ideas to extremes and tend to offer no compromises.
Re:Twenty Questions with Steven Pinker by interfixus on Tuesday February 20, 2018 @10:29AM (#16421029)
As St. Randall of Munroe has put it: I had a hard time with Ayn Rand because I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at 'therefore, be a huge asshole to everyone'.
Re:Twenty Questions with Steven Pinker by gadders on Tuesday February 20, 2018 @10:05AM (#16420826)
Well, you could order those groups by death toll? I'm not aware of Ayn Rand-style Libertarianism killing people.
Re:Twenty Questions with Steven Pinker by JoeAltmaier on Tuesday February 20, 2018 @10:09AM (#16420860)
Opposition to building codes? vaccination? pretty much any organized effort to make society safer (or avoid societal catastrophe)?

Libertarianism is pretty much "the tragedy of the commons" as a political ideal.

Re:Twenty Questions with Steven Pinker by AndrewDucker on Tuesday February 20, 2018 @10:56AM (#16421242)
The US healthcare system definitely leads to more death than other developed nations, and the arguments against fixing it are generally Randian in nature.
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Re:Twenty Questions with Steven Pinker by Letmesleep69 on Tuesday February 20, 2018 @09:56AM (#16420735)
I feel like these comments are not very productive. Bit too strawman for my taste. and if you paint them as inspired by Nietzsche you're not wrong.
Re:Twenty Questions with Steven Pinker by edpazu on Tuesday February 20, 2018 @10:37AM (#16421095)
Libertarians are not Nazis. Full Stop.
Re:Twenty Questions with Steven Pinker by rusk on Tuesday February 20, 2018 @10:54AM (#16421233)
No, but like Nazis they are, shall we say prone to a certain class of delusion borne of over-rationalisation to the point that their expectations of what's best for the world and what is (more empirically, and thus harder) actually best for the world diverge dramatically.

In all cases there's a certain kind of lazy theology at play, in that all you need is a simple kernal of an idea and the details will look after themselves, to whit:

- Libertarianism: Everyone look after themselves and we'll be okay.

- Naziism: Lets just look after ourselves and we'll be okay.

- Fascism: Lets put the weak in their place and we'll be okay.

- Bolshevism: Let's just make sure everyone has the same stuff and we'll be okay.

Each and every one notwithstanding the fact that reality is always for more nuanced.