The government and the internet (split from Alex Jones's Youtube account suspended)

[Thunder]

AJ supporters have been flooding forums and even Yahoo! Answers with posts about how Alex Jones' freedom of speech has been violated.

nothing prevents AJ to set up his own video service through his own website and host to post his videos to...

morons

freedom of speech can only be violated by the govt. a private business has no obligation to post anyone's thoughts.

[JihadJane]

Aren't private businesses individuals?

[kookbreaker]

Aren't private businesses individuals?

If that were the case, what does that have to do with anything?

[Thunder]

if i own a website, or an internet forum, or a newspaper, i can censor all the opinions i like. its my private property.

freedom of speech is only relevant in govt. funded institutions or public property.

[dudalb]

I've always said that corporate MegaTubes cannot be trusted. I was right.

P2P FTW!


Uh, Jones was NOT censored because of his opinions, but because he was a
bandwidth hog.
I guess you did not read that in your rush to post your usual "The Establshment and Everybody in a position of Authority Sucks" rant.

[Bobert]

I like how Alex claims "they (youtube) were looking" for a reason to suspend his account yet my guess is that they were responding to complaints from users.

[Alex Libman]

Uh, Jones was NOT censored because of his opinions, but because he was a bandwidth hog.

I never said he was "censored" - which would have been YouTube's right anyway, since it's their servers and all users agree to follow their rules. I said centralization of the Internet through companies like Google / YouTube, MySpace, FaceBook, etc is a bad idea, IMHO.

I'm very pro-business, but consumers should look out for their own interests, and retaining full control of their content and being able to proliferate it is a competitive advantage. Google is a publicly-traded company with an obligation to make profits - not that there's anything wrong with that, but that is likely to include fighting their customers' efforts to block their ads / tracking code, etc. That's why I'm often a big fan of "open source" and of decentralized content distribution solutions like P2P (optimized for steaming).


I guess you did not read that in your rush to post your usual "The Establshment and Everybody in a position of Authority Sucks" rant.

Great, I get called a "pro-establishment stooge" on one forum, a rebel hippie on an other... Anarcho-Capitalists are big fans of authority - as long as it is rightfully obtained (i.e. property rights), as it is in Google / YouTube's case. (Conspiracy theories about CIA funding of Google are a separate issue.) That doesn't mean, however, that users should put their own interests aside and not look to completing alternatives that are more reliable.

[Alex Libman]

(Please address me by my last name so I know if you're talking about me or that Jones charlatan.)


Liar. Anyone who is pro-business who immediately realized the entire internet since day one of its use has always been private. When you connect, it's to a private BBS or ISP. When you go to a site, it's being run on a private server and the site itself is run by a private company or individual (unless it's government funded)

On what basis do you say that YouTube is more privately owned or more "pro-business" than P2P?

Being "pro-business" means supporting an environment in which individuals are free to engage in capitalist pursuits, which human beings tend to naturally do for their individual interests. Being a capitalist means respecting the natural rights of other human beings, particularly in regard to private property, and acting in one's interest by exchanging value for value with others on a voluntary basis.

If something doesn't violate those rights, like governments do by operating through coercion, then it fits into the context of the capitalist philosophy, regardless of whether it is a for-profit operation or not. Things like charity, volunteer groups, the open source movement, and P2P are entirely capitalist in nature. Even selling or giving away a t-shirt that says "Capitalism Is Bad" is still a capitalist act (i.e. free speech), as long as you're not forcing anybody to produce, distribute, or wear that t-shirt.


The point is, anyone who claims the internet is some sort of free paradise is wrong. I'm sure even Alex Jones' sites is from a third-party server that doesn't care much about the idiot's content, as long as they throw cash at his end.

Exactly, the Internet is a good example of free market in action, and it would have been even better if the govenrment had stayed out of it entirely, like with the centralized DNS root.

What does this have to do with your allegation that users have to sacrifice and use inferior services just because they're owned by a big company like Google in order to be "pro-business"? (Whether their service is inferior is a subjective judgment, obviously, but this is in context of me stating that P2P has advantages over YouTube in terms of decentralization and dependability.)


I have noted that AnCaps seem to be less Pro Business then violently anti establishement.

That's not true: I am pro business, and I am not anti-establishment. I am anti-violence (i.e. government), but not fanatically so - what I advocate politically is a cautious and gradual transition through decades of Minarchism toward an ever-freer society.

And I tend to be more pro-business than anti-government, take for example my attempted thread in praise of Singapore (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=130209).


A lof of them, despite their loudly proclaimed love for The Free Market, really don't understand how it works very well.

Well, I believe I do, but I could be wrong about some things. Please do challenge me on the specifics.


I honest to god think that a lot of the AnCaps tossed a coin as to which Anti Establishment movement to join: Heads I become an Ancap, tail I become a Stalin/Mao level Marxist.

I grew up in the Soviet Union, and I hated Marxism even before I learned to ride a two-wheeler. Yes, I was a "democrat" in high school - I just didn't know any better. Then I started to think for myself, and I've been transitioning toward libertarianism ever since.


In Alex's case his fantasy of a totally free internet conflicts with a basic rule of economics; There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Someone has to pay.

Of course, individuals owning the hardware and wiring pay for their purchase and operation. They are then free to use that equipment however they see fit for their benefit. Profit motive will drive some of them to charge others for connectivity, others will choose to give access away for free.

Like in the dial-up BBS days that I'm old enough to remember, there eventually tends to be an overabundance of people willing to give it away for free, requiring the ISP's who charge for service to lower their prices and/or offer a competitive advantage. (Like Microsoft offers a perceived advantage over free software and is still able to make money.)

I believe we would have seen a lot more neighborhoods where someone is offering free wi-fi Internet by now (I probably would) if it wasn't for government intervention (i.e. hysteria over terrorists, piracy, kiddy porn, and any other excuse they'll be able to think of).

[Arus808]

On what basis do you say that YouTube is more privately owned or more "pro-business" than P2P?

wow you just demonstrated that you do not understand what the internet is about.


Exactly, the Internet is a good example of free market in action, and it would have been even better if the govenrment had stayed out of it entirely, like with the centralized DNS root.

wow, again you just demonstrated that you do not understand what the internet is about or how it works

[Alex Libman]

wow you just demonstrated that you do not understand what the internet is about.

How so?



wow, again you just demonstrated that you do not understand what the internet is about or how it works

How so?

[portlandatheist]

if i own a website, or an internet forum, or a newspaper, i can censor all the opinions i like. its my private property.

And if you were not allowed to do that with your private property, now that would be censorship.

[oldhat]

Exactly, the Internet is a good example of free market in action, and it would have been even better if the govenrment had stayed out of it entirely, like with the centralized DNS root.

Er...who wants to volunteer and tell him the US government invented the internet?

[T.A.M.]

Al Gore did...right???

TAM;)

[defaultdotxbe]

Er...who wants to volunteer and tell him the US government invented the internet?
the DoD no less lol

[Alex Libman]

Er...who wants to volunteer and tell him the US government invented the internet?

Yes, but the capital used to create ARPANET (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET) was involuntarily transferred from the private sector. Do you think that capital just wouldn't exist if the government hadn't stolen it? In fact, most of those technologies were developed by the private sector, the government just jumped in front of that parade because it could.

All things the government accomplishes can be accomplished more efficiently in the private sector, by competing entities that are actually accountable to their customers and don't have the "divine right" to use violence to get their way. Government regulation is the reason we didn't have the Internet and other technologies decades earlier than we did!

Sure, slavery can accomplish great things - just look at the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids, or the Soviet space program. But great according to whom? Were they done cost-effectively, at competitive quality, at the right time, in the right place, in the right way, and for the direct and proportional benefit of the people who've contributed? No, only voluntary action can ensure that!

[dudalb]

But ARPANET was a defense project meant to protect the people of the US, which is a legitimate use of Government.
Oh, I forgot. You are an Anarchists, and think that there is no need of a military, or a police department, or a justice system or any other function of government. You have never explained in a logical manner how a society can function without those without disingrating into total chaos where he who has the biggest guns rules, and I am not holding my breath for you to do so.

[Alex Libman]

But ARPANET was a defense project meant to protect the people of the US, which is a legitimate use of Government.

That's true, and if the government could be trusted to stick to its legitimate purpose indefinitely then I wouldn't be wasting any time thinking about government. Furthermore, the legitimate use of government should shrink over time as humanity becomes more civilized.


Oh, I forgot. You are an Anarchists, and think that there is no need of a military, or a police department, or a justice system or any other function of government.

First of all, I'm not an Anarchist, I'm an Anarcho-Capitalist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism). Calling me an Anarchist is like calling a chickpea a chicken.

Second of all, it's not that we don't believe in protection services, we don't believe in providing them through a violent and unaccountable power monopoly called government.


You have never explained in a logical manner how a society can function without those without disingrating into total chaos where he who has the biggest guns rules, and I am not holding my breath for you to do so.

Have you read everything I've said on this forum (http://forums.randi.org/search.php?do=finduser&u=26891) (for example on this thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=121399)), including all reference sources, like Murray Rothbard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)? If not - how can you claim that I've never explained it?

"Biggest guns rules" is what we have now - a power monopoly by the government. Sure, it projects itself as a benevolent force, but that is how it can incentivize its subjects to work hard and strive to create more capital for it to extract. What I am advocating is a gradual, cautious transition away from that and toward a voluntary society, where power isn't centralized and everyone keeps everyone else in check.

[dudalb]

What we have here, folks, is the textbook example of the "If reality conflicts with my ideology, reality must be disposed of" mentality.

[T.A.M.]

What we have here, folks, is the textbook example of the "If reality conflicts with my ideology, reality must be disposed of" mentality.

It is a growing trend in this new generation of CTists/Wooists. I know you don't post much over in 9/11 Ct much any more, but certainly you lurk, and therefore see that it is much worse...over there.

TAM:)

[Alex Libman]

You insult me and you claim that I'm wrong, and yet you still can't make a single rational point against my arguments.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Second of all, it's not that we don't believe in protection services, we don't believe in providing them through a violent and unaccountable power monopoly called government.


Sooo... violent and unaccountable private protection agencies, then? Corporate armies, perhaps? Lovely.

[Alex Libman]

Sooo... violent and unaccountable private protection agencies, then? Corporate armies, perhaps? Lovely.

No, private protection agencies don't have the "divine right" to initiate aggression that the governments currently have. (Read this thread more closely. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=121399))

We've been over various "rogue agency" scenarios countless times, it just doesn't make sense. No free market entity can ever become more powerful than the rest of the world combined, nowhere close. In fact, consumer activism tends to favor smaller companies for ideological reasons, thus maintaining a perpetual system of checks and balances that government lacks. Balance of power is what creates peace.

[oldhat]

First of all, I'm not an Anarchist, I'm an Anarcho-Capitalist.

That's very impressive.

Why don't you live in Somalia? There's no government regulation at all and it's a very capitalistic society.

It's an honest question. I'm not trying to make a point about middle-class armchair radicals who read some Ayn Rand scribblings and suddenly know how the world works.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Balance of power is what creates peace.


Two words: Cold War. Is that the kind of peace you're looking for?

[Alex Libman]

Why don't you live in Somalia? There's no government regulation at all and it's a very capitalistic society.

I find myself saying this 5-10 times per day on various threads: Somalia has a huge government, fragmented and dysfunctional though it may be. It is one of the most socialist countries in the world!


It's an honest question. I'm not trying to make a point about middle-class armchair radicals who read some Ayn Rand scribblings and suddenly know how the world works.

I was a libertarian for half a decade before I finally got around to reading Ayn Rand, who is an acquired taste (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquired_taste). And I'm not exactly "middle class": I was born into relative poverty, started making money programming when I was in high school, reached triple-digit hourly billing rates by age 23, and never filled out a tax form in my life - which landed me back into poverty, voluntarily of course. Gulchin' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulching) ain't easy...


Two words: Cold War. Is that the kind of peace you're looking for?

Not exactly. You're talking about international relations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_power_in_international_relations) between two violent and deceitful entities (U.S. vs Soviet governments). I'm talking about an economic concept: billions of people looking out for their own individual self-interest.

The vast majority of people in this world don't want to die or lose their freedom / pay restitution, and thus are willing to respect the rights of others. They will gang up on any entity that attempts to violate that. A thug who initiates aggression against your neighbor today can do the same tomorrow to you!

[TheDaver]

the legitimate use of government should shrink over time as humanity becomes more civilized.
Humanity becomes more civilized?

I'm not an Anarchist, I'm an Anarcho-Capitalist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism). Calling me an Anarchist is like calling a chickpea a chicken.
No, more like calling a rooster a chicken.

it's not that we don't believe in protection services, we don't believe in providing them through a violent and unaccountable power monopoly called government.
The government is unaccountable?

What I am advocating is a gradual, cautious transition away from that and toward a voluntary society, where power isn't centralized and everyone keeps everyone else in check.
Except that that isn’t what happens. There will always be people and groups trying to agglomerate so much power that they can’t be kept in check.

[Arus808]

guys take the political bs to the politics forum. this is about alex jones thinking that youtube censored him.

[Klimax]

On what basis do you say that YouTube is more privately owned or more "pro-business" than P2P?


There is huge difference!
YouTube is system of software,servers and people.
P2P is communication concept where every party can communicate with everybody else.You may mean Democracy now or Azureus but those are hybrids and still centraly managed only using P2P for file transfers


If something doesn't violate those rights, like governments do by operating through coercion, then it fits into the context of the capitalist philosophy, regardless of whether it is a for-profit operation or not. Things like charity, volunteer groups, the open source movement, and P2P are entirely capitalist in nature. Even selling or giving away a t-shirt that says "Capitalism Is Bad" is still a capitalist act (i.e. free speech), as long as you're not forcing anybody to produce, distribute, or wear that t-shirt.


P2P is not capitalist in nature! It is concept of communication with no agenda.Only usage itself is or isn't capitalist or with agenda.


Exactly, the Internet is a good example of free market in action, and it would have been even better if the govenrment had stayed out of it entirely, like with the centralized DNS root.

What does this have to do with your allegation that users have to sacrifice and use inferior services just because they're owned by a big company like Google in order to be "pro-business"? (Whether their service is inferior is a subjective judgment, obviously, but this is in context of me stating that P2P has advantages over YouTube in terms of decentralization and dependability.)

You want more fail?
Internet is colection of networks.Each network has/had to be founded and built.Often current providers/owners of networks purchased or got it by other means from goverment(See Eastern Europe). Costs are often bit high so at any place outside of larger cities you will find very few alternative providers wich have good quality of service and good prices.

Market fail.


Of course, individuals owning the hardware and wiring pay for their purchase and operation. They are then free to use that equipment however they see fit for their benefit. Profit motive will drive some of them to charge others for connectivity, others will choose to give access away for free.

Like in the dial-up BBS days that I'm old enough to remember, there eventually tends to be an overabundance of people willing to give it away for free, requiring the ISP's who charge for service to lower their prices and/or offer a competitive advantage. (Like Microsoft offers a perceived advantage over free software and is still able to make money.)

I believe we would have seen a lot more neighborhoods where someone is offering free wi-fi Internet by now (I probably would) if it wasn't for government intervention (i.e. hysteria over terrorists, piracy, kiddy porn, and any other excuse they'll be able to think of).

Yes those groups offering internet do exist but often it is routed directly to nearest ISP anyway.
And they do not exist everywhere.

[Alex Libman]

guys take the political bs to the politics forum. this is about alex jones thinking that youtube censored him.

Yeah, sure, this thread must be all about beating on the Jones clown, no deductive thinking allowed. :boggled:

It never fails to amaze me how bureaucratically-minded individuals will fear and resist new ideas, even when it comes to natural conversation shift that is inevitable to take place on a forum. If people like that ran the IT industry, anything more advanced that punched cards would be banned as "off-topic"!

That said, it would be nice if there was a feature to split threads without involving the wrath of the angry mods. I envision a forum plug-in where a regular user can mark posts to propose moving to a specific new thread, and the authors of the marked posts can either agree or disagree... Problem solved.


[...] P2P is not capitalist in nature! It is concept of communication with no agenda. Only usage itself is or isn't capitalist or with agenda.

Once again, we are talking about the different means through which Alex Jones could have chosen to distribute his multimedia content. I've simply said that one way would be more appropriate for Alex Jones to use than an other, for which I was accused of anti-business hypocrisy - a charge I am now answering.

One way is the MegaTubes - that is YouTube and much smaller competitive offerings from Yahoo, Microsoft, etc. Those use centrally-owned services to host content. Using those services has a downside, as Alex Jones has recently experienced. He can whine and complain about YouTube all he wants, but they are in the right to do whatever they want on their servers.

Another way would have been to utilize P2P technologies, which are currently very underdeveloped for streaming video - something that people like Alex Jones could have helped change. Imagine an "open source" Web browser plug-in that runs in the background pre-fetching / sharing videos from / to the fastest peers, simply using the HTTP or FTL protocol, and adds you to the peer list once you have the content to upload. When you press "play" on that plug-in's video box on a Web-site, the experience could be no different from that of YouTube, depending on the benevolence of other peers.

Both of those methods operate voluntarily: some people make it their business to "seed" videos for free, and some people make it their business to invest in centralized servers in hope of profit. One way isn't more "pro-business" than the other. Capitalism is not necessarily about money, it's about individual rights.



[...] Market fail. [...]

No such thing. The "market" is an abstraction for all human beings who operate on a voluntary basis. If none of them has chosen to do something, for profit or otherwise, then it simply isn't the right thing to do at that time. Sure, human beings aren't perfect, but the free system reflects the most objective means of deciding what should be done, when, how, and by whom.

If you think you know better - go ahead, you try to do it. If you succeed, there may be considerable profit to be made. But you cannot use violence (i.e. government) to get your way, you must use reason to persuade people that something should be done. Sure, violence can achieve visible results some of the time, but it's always a net loss. (See my paragraph mentioning the Pyramids above.)

[Arus808]

ALEX, nothing in that post had to with Alex Jones thinking that YOUTUBE censored him.

You have derailed the topic again. TAKE your political BS chatter to the POLITICS forum

YOUTUBE is not run by the govt, nor is it the govt.

[Tricky]

Split from the CT forum (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=4698283#post4698283). Please stay on topic and stop the bickering, or the next stop for this thread will be AAH.

[XxDeadlyNinjaxX]

Hmph, as for conspiracies, I've came to realize 99.9% of them are either half true or total lies themselves. Honestly what Alex Jones is doing is filling innocent minds with his truth garbage.

I thought about it from the Woo side, his whole deal could be a conspiracy in itself. He is gaining more and more "sheeple" being throwing trash at people. But the "Twoofers" cannot seem to understand that so they blindly follow him like he is some sort of all knowing deity.

[Alex Libman]

Like I said above, I like thread-splitting, but not all the whining and moderator threats that go with it. There's gotta be a better way...


ALEX, nothing in that post had to with Alex Jones thinking that YOUTUBE censored him.

I never said Alex Jones was "censored". (Do you even read my posts?) My first post on that thread (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4697406&postcount=7) (that didn't get moved over to this thread) was: "I've always said that corporate MegaTubes cannot be trusted. I was right. P2P FTW!"

It's not a matter of censorship, just a matter of consumer preference. It would make sense for people like Alex Jones to use data proliferation and distribution technologies where no central authority can remove their content. That's all I said. Then dudalb got on my case, calling me "anti-establshment" [sic], and I had to set the record straight...

Well, in any case, now that the thread has been split... Does anyone have any more "Internet not possible without Mommy Government" dogma for me to debunk? ;)

[theprestige]

That's true, and if the government could be trusted to stick to its legitimate purpose indefinitely then I wouldn't be wasting any time thinking about government.
And if people could be trusted to stick to their legitimate purposes indefinitely, we wouldn't need to establish governments at all.

Furthermore, the legitimate use of government should shrink over time as humanity becomes more civilized.
"as humanity becomes more civilized"? What does that even mean? What on earth makes you think that human nature is on some kind of evolutionary path from "worse" to "better"?

[Alex Libman]

(This post answers the posed questions, but please try to keep further questions specific to government involvement with the Internet.)


And if people could be trusted to stick to their legitimate purposes indefinitely, we wouldn't need to establish governments at all.

Circular logic - "we need government because we need government". You need to be more specific. And governments were not "established" rationally, they came to exist and continue to exist through force.

There is a specific list of reasons why we supposedly need government, and that list of reasons only represents a small fraction of the things the government takes upon itself to do, because on a long-enough time-line power inevitably breaks out of its bounds. Libertarians like me are in the process of debunking various items on that supposed "government does best" list, one by one. We could be wrong about some things, of course -- further debate and empirical observation will tell -- but most things the government does are clearly a net negative.

You do not trust regular individuals (who are naturally expected to respect the rights of others (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle)) to "stick to their legitimate purposes indefinitely", and yet you believe in the "divine right" (ex. through democracy) of some individuals to rule over others! That is an irrational belief.


"as humanity becomes more civilized"? What does that even mean? What on earth makes you think that human nature is on some kind of evolutionary path from "worse" to "better"?

Economic advancement is not guaranteed, but there is a natural incentive for people to do useful things in order to pay for their needs and desires (i.e. capitalism), which tends to push the human civilization forward. Over the centuries, this has lead to various inventions, and those inventions have an impact on society in various ways. All political ideas are contingent on those advances to some degree.

Slavery might have made sense at a certain point of human development, when people had to compete for finite resources violently and the alternative to taking war prisoners as slaves would be killing them. Slavery might have helped the most successful societies achieve an agricultural surplus, establish cities, and allow some elite individuals to have the free time necessary to invent things like writing, philosophy, and so forth. As civilization progressed, the advantage of "cheap labor" declined and the need for "smart labor" arose, and thus slavery (and all similar concepts, like feudalism) became ever-more economically harmful as the result.

During the past couple of centuries, as governments were no longer needed to maintain the "great chain of being (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_chain_of_being)", they found other justifications to retain power, the most rational of which was the need to defend from even more tyrannical governments that might invade if this government lets its guard down. In the smoke-filled rooms of power, that has been the ultimate justification for everything the government does. Why outlaw abortions? More cannon fodder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon_fodder) for the state. War on drugs? To prevent a situation similar to what has led to the Opium Wars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars). Religion or public schools? To indoctrinate individuals to obey the state. Welfare? To prevent some incompetent individuals from becoming disgruntled and susceptible to enemy propaganda. You get the idea.

As the world becomes more integrated, the need for centralized armies gradually declines to the point where an armed citizenry and private defense agencies can do a much better job. As literacy rates and Internet access increase, it becomes more effective to inform the consumer rather than limit his choices by force (i.e. the FDA, and pretty much all other regulation). The free market can handle roads just fine, but as transportation technology improves (ex. cheaper train tunnels and flying cars) that will become ever less of an issue. Etc.

The list of alleged rational reasons why we supposedly need government continues to shrink.

[dudalb]

When you ignore facts and reality, ANYTHING is plausible.

[oldhat]

Shorter Alex Libman: If we could somehow force everyone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguardism) to be an anarcho-capitalist, we could have an anarcho-capitalist society. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_cars)

Shorter shorter Alex Libman: My ideology is based on principles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectualization) independent of getting caught. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_avoidance_and_tax_evasion)

Shortest Alex Libman: I read a really good book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress) last night.

[INRM]

Granted a corporation doesn't have to follow the same free speech rules the government does. But if the government were to hypothetically pressure a company to censor a user... isn't that corporation sort of being used by the government and would still constitute a first amendment violation?

[Alex Libman]

When you ignore facts and reality, ANYTHING is plausible.

When you accuse people of being in error without mentioning specifics, NOTHING constructive is added to the conversation.


Shorter Alex Libman: If we could somehow force everyone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguardism) to be an anarcho-capitalist, we could have an anarcho-capitalist society. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_cars)

To "force" someone into Anarcho-Capitalism is a contradiction in terms, at least if you recognize individual rights to life, liberty, and property. Gradual transition toward ever-greater minarchism and possibly even Anarcho-Capitalism would occur as government force is gradually reduced due to government intervention being economically harmful. As brains and capital chase ever more freedom, relatively more socialist regimes will eventually run out of productive people to tax.

You've linked to Wikipedia articles on vanguardism and flying cars. The former is completely inappropriate in apolitical philosophical context. The latter implies skepticism that flying cars are possible, while in reality private flying vehicles have existed for more than a century. I have previously provided specific examples of how government intervention in the free market has discouraged improvements in energy production / storage and other technological innovations that would improve the utility / safety and reduce the price of personal flying vehicles. And, once again, libertarian ideas do not necessarily depend on flying cars, I just bring it up as yet another point why a government monopoly over transportation is harmful and unnecessary.


Shorter shorter Alex Libman: My ideology is based on principles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectualization) independent of getting caught. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_avoidance_and_tax_evasion)

Your link to the Wikipedia article on intellectualization suggests belief that I engage in tax resistance for straightforward monetary gain (i.e. save money on taxes), and invent libertarian excuses for that purpose. Nothing could be further from the truth. I lose far, far more money engaging in tax resistance, and I will lose a lot more if/when I am arrested. Even the time I spend on forums like this one is a financial loss.

And in order to be "caught", one needs to be free to begin with.


Shortest Alex Libman: I read a really good book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress) last night.

Heinlein has made many good pro-libertarian and anti-libertarian points, which have subsequently been expanded upon by others. What are you referring to specifically?

[TheDaver]

When you accuse people of being in error without mentioning specifics, NOTHING constructive is added to the conversation.
Try my specifics then.

[Alex Libman]

Oooh, I missed a post. My bad.


Humanity becomes more civilized?

See the second part of post #35.


No, more like calling a rooster a chicken.

No, a lot of people who call themselves anarchists are idiots who don't believe in natural rights. Anarcho-Capitalists have nothing in common with them.

They really should not use that term, because their ideas are so irrational and unstable that, if implemented (which won't happen because they have absolutely nothing going for them), they will inevitably lead to a drastic collapse of civilization, or at least a dictatorship - thus hierarchy. The only stable form of anarchy is Anarcho-Capitalism, where the government's power vacuum is filled by individuals' property rights. If the two are implemented side-by-side, Anarcho-Capitalist ideas will simply dominate the failed "anarchist" state one it becomes clear that their ideas simply don't work.


The government is unaccountable?

Yup. It doesn't matter what it does it you, it's still your government. You can't switch governments the way people switch churches or computer operating systems.


Except that that isn’t what happens. There will always be people and groups trying to agglomerate so much power that they can’t be kept in check.

Only through violent force, and only due to the wide-spread "divine rights of governments" delusion.