Charlie StrossRight-libertarians are all sociopaths. No exceptions.
(It's taken me decades to settle on this opinion—I dislike generalizing about groups of people—but there's nothing tentative about it any more.)
Leszek KarlikBest summed up by the famous Twitter quote of "During my research I interviewed a guy who said he was a libertarian until he did MDMA and realized that other people have feelings, and that was pretty much the best summary of libertarianism I've ever heard" (by @hilaryagro@twitter )
Justin Dearing@Leszek_Karlik @cstross I'm not sure how suddenly developing empathy would make you think a political philosophy built around maximizing letting people do whatever the hell they want is bad. Other people have feelings. We should therefore let them feel them and express them as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else seems like a more logical conclusion.
Libertarianism is not a political philosophy built around maximising freedom, it's built around maximising negative liberty for rich people to do whatever they please with poor people using indirect violence of threatening them with starvation and homelessness. (Which is why the US, one of the richest countries in the world has such a large population of working poor who are not able to afford housing despite working full time)
A philosophy of maximising positive freedom would be democratic socialism or something akin to it.
Dan@Leszek_Karlik @cstross yuuuup.
Me? I have never met a libertarian with a sick or destitute family member. Strangely every single one suddenly changes beliefs.
Me? I have never met a libertarian with a sick or destitute family member. Strangely every single one suddenly changes beliefs.
Simson Garfinkel@Leszek_Karlik @cstross The amazing thing about both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged is that that science, politics, and economics all align to show the superiority of Libertarianism over all other forms of moral philosophy and economics.
Of course, both of those books are works of fiction.