Deliberation Makes People Consistently Selfish

haidut

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The study was interesting b/c it also shows that even decisions based on intuition can be become selfish with time. The reason intuitive decisions may become selfish is our environment and negative experiences, not our genes. And if the environment changes, so do we.

http://news.yale.edu/2014/04/22/deliber ... elfishness

"..."In the early studies, participants contributed much more when we made them rely on their intuitions,” said Rand. “But as they gained more exposure to these kind of experiments, things changed.” Over time, participants’ intuitions became increasingly selfish. Decisions made after careful thought, however, stayed relatively selfish over the whole two-year period."

"...Even in our own daily lives, we can see effects like this, said Rand. “If someone you know asks for help, it’s natural to agree, and the first time you meet a panhandler asking for change, it’s the same — your instinct is to give. But soon enough, we get hardened, and our immediate response becomes ‘No.’” The findings illustrate that many of our social intuitions are malleable, not hard-wired by evolution, Rand added."
 

arien

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It isn't clear to me that the selfishness evidenced above is a bad thing. Giving people money for no reason (as in, according to intuition) does not help them. It subsidises whichever circumstances led them to needing to ask you for money. Giving people money under certain conditions is a completely different story and the fact that the study participants were simply handed out money to begin with is a complicating factor (they would behave as per the direct recipients of the Federal Reserve's Quantitative Easing measures, rather than the common man who receives his income via voluntary cooperation).

I think time-preference is a more useful concept: the discount of future consumption as compared with present consumption. The more stressed you are, the more YOU need nutrients now. You don't have the energy and structural substrates to wait around for longer, more efficient modes of production (i.e. lending someone money, in anticipation of a greater return for both parties). Nor do you have the energy to consider the longer term consequences of your behaviour (and Peat has argued that future-orientedness is a sign of a high rate of metabolism). Thus, people with a high time preference will tend to squander resources (both productive capital and consumer goods such as food), just as a stressed hypothyroid organism will tend to squander nutrients.
 
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haidut

haidut

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arien said:
It isn't clear to me that the selfishness evidenced above is a bad thing. Giving people money for no reason (as in, according to intuition) does not help them. It subsidises whichever circumstances led them to needing to ask you for money. Giving people money under certain conditions is a completely different story and the fact that the study participants were simply handed out money to begin with is a complicating factor (they would behave as per the direct recipients of the Federal Reserve's Quantitative Easing measures, rather than the common man who receives his income via voluntary cooperation).

I think time-preference is a more useful concept: the discount of future consumption as compared with present consumption. The more stressed you are, the more YOU need nutrients now. You don't have the energy and structural substrates to wait around for longer, more efficient modes of production (i.e. lending someone money, in anticipation of a greater return for both parties). Nor do you have the energy to consider the longer term consequences of your behaviour (and Peat has argued that future-orientedness is a sign of a high rate of metabolism). Thus, people with a high time preference will tend to squander resources (both productive capital and consumer goods such as food), just as a stressed hypothyroid organism will tend to squander nutrients.

Well, while a certain amount of selfishness is certainly necessary for survival I think the overall argument is that with a high metabolism selfishness (should) subsides since a person feels less in an immediate need of resourced to maintain health and/or life. So, in that sense selfishness is more of a bad "symptom" than a bad thing in and of itself. However, in studies with children as young as 18 months it has also been consistenly shown that children view selfishness as a morally bad thing and they "punish" selfish children by ganging up against them, refusing to play with them or share toys (even when having more toys than needed) or even helping them when they are in trouble. If children are our evolutionary future like Peat said than selfishness will not be viewed kindly by those future better versions of ourselves.
 

arien

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I think we need to be clear what we are defining as selfless or selfish.

The propensity to spontaneously give people money, labour or any other factor of production seems to me to be selfish. It might make you feel good presently, but it encourages bad habits in the recipient, diminishes the stock of capital available for investment, thereby inhibits the efficiency of production and thereby lowers the standard of living. Thus, the giver of charity feels a short term gratification (which seems a little perverse to me, being gratified by others' misfortune and consequent supplication), while in the long run rendering everybody worse off.

Western culture tends to regard thrift, saving and investment as selfish acts. As much as they do benefit the capitalist himself, it is precisely this behaviour for which the masses in the west are to thank for the unparalleled increase in their standard of living over the last two hundred years. This doesn't strike me as selfless action, but it is nevertheless that action which benefits others the most.

I don't think we should be striving to achieve those trends that emerge from analysis of the aggregate; those are the trends which represent the mediocre. Instead, I am concerned with achieving the excellent. I suspect the behaviour you cite in children is prototypical of the envy and subsequent hatred of the excellent by the mediocre, like the bullying children perceived as intelligent by their peers often receive. It seems to me that if you have a high metabolic rate, it won't bother you whether other people have more than you, while the bad feels associated with an impeded metabolism very much precipitate concerning oneself with the affairs of others, particularly those who seem to be doing well.
 
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haidut

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arien said:
I think we need to be clear what we are defining as selfless or selfish.

The propensity to spontaneously give people money, labour or any other factor of production seems to me to be selfish. It might make you feel good presently, but it encourages bad habits in the recipient, diminishes the stock of capital available for investment, thereby inhibits the efficiency of production and thereby lowers the standard of living. Thus, the giver of charity feels a short term gratification (which seems a little perverse to me, being gratified by others' misfortune and consequent supplication), while in the long run rendering everybody worse off.

Western culture tends to regard thrift, saving and investment as selfish acts. As much as they do benefit the capitalist himself, it is precisely this behaviour for which the masses in the west are to thank for the unparalleled increase in their standard of living over the last two hundred years. This doesn't strike me as selfless action, but it is nevertheless that action which benefits others the most.

I don't think we should be striving to achieve those trends that emerge from analysis of the aggregate; those are the trends which represent the mediocre. Instead, I am concerned with achieving the excellent. I suspect the behaviour you cite in children is prototypical of the envy and subsequent hatred of the excellent by the mediocre, like the bullying children perceived as intelligent by their peers often receive. It seems to me that if you have a high metabolic rate, it won't bother you whether other people have more than you, while the bad feels associated with an impeded metabolism very much precipitate concerning oneself with the affairs of others, particularly those who seem to be doing well.

My rant below is just for entertainment purposes, I am not looking to start an argument:):
I agree that at some point it would depend on the definition of selfishness. I like your last statement that a person with good health/metabolism would not concern themselves too much with the riches of someone else but will be busy improving their own lifestyle. As far as helping others, I think the situation where a charitable person gives money and encourages bad behavior in the recipient is in cases where the recipient is in a bad state of health and as such has no interest in doing anything productive, being rather "happy" to collect money from everybody else as donation. For that reason, I personally do not view handing out money to strangers as necessarily good thing.
However, what I do think is a good idea is help (mostly through time investment) the person in need so that their health/metabolism improves to a degree where they do not need or want handouts anymore, and then become productive and future oriented like their benefactors.
So, here is something from personal experience that I think would clarify my points. The Soviet system was keenly aware of the fact that if you consistently take from the excellent members and just give it freely to the lazy bums, very soon you would have an environment where nobody would want to work and the state will collapse. So, contrary to popular opinion and knowledge in the West, the Soviets (1950s and later) were very good at identifying those excellent individuals and encouraging their growth, as long as officially they stayed within the approved framework of views. Privately, the excellent people were allowed to do pretty much what they wanted to. For the "mediocre" and worse, the system devised a solution and sort of took it to the extreme. Basically, if you were a bum or somehow an unproductive individual, you were NOT allowed to beg on the streets or get charitable donations. In some situations, even your willing benefactors were prohibited from "helping" you b/c just like you mentioned the state believed that handing out help indiscriminately would encourage more unproductive behavior. So, if you were the bum you would be taken against your will and subjected to medical examination and/or treatment, and upon improvement in health you will be given a stern warning and a choice - no more begging, ever. If you want to eat and live well you will have to work for that and be productive. The state would find you work of course and as much as it was an involuntary system it did try to match whatever work preferences you had to the work you were assigned to do. Otherwise, if you were in demonstrably good health and refused to be productive you go to jail, where most often you will be forced to work whether you like it or not as part of some "rehabilitation" program.
So, the Soviet system viewed begging, laziness, and generally bummy behavior as a health issue that could be corrected, and for many people it was. There were some cases that were "incorrigible" and were assigned to a system for lifetime monitoring and maintenance, but even those were consistently being "treated" for some sort of condition.
Btw, Ray wrote about some of these issues and events in his "Mind and Tissue" book.
Now, I am not sure libertarians would agree with the state forcing individuals to do things, even if the thing you are forced to do is to improve your health. But the Soviet system was concerned with giving everyone an equal chance in life, maximizing the number of excellent people, and a large part of that "chance" is health. So, they viewed it as acceptable to force people on health matters so that then people will have a true choice to exercise their potential - a potential the Soviets thought was of equally great magnitude for everyone in good health.
Correct me if I am wrong, but in the libertarian world freedom of choice is paramount. So, already excellent people will continue to make excellent choices and tend to multiply that excellence through their children, while the lazy bums will continue to decay in their bad health and rely on handouts all as a result of their bad "choice". Btw, there won't be any handouts since libertarians view handouts as counterproductive and unhelpful in the long run. While on the surface it looks like everyone is exercising their free choice and the system "selects" for people based on their excellence, I would argue that the people with wrecked health hardly exercise a choice at all. Unless there is an external stimulus (or force) to bring the bums out of their health misery they will stay that way and propagate it through their children as well. The system will encourage a tremendous polarization, coming seemingly as a result of free choices. Note - I am absolutely NOT advocating just getting from the rich (healthy) to give to the poor (sick). That would probably be the worst choice, since likely it won't cure the sick and will also make the healthy sick as well by taking away both their resources and their motivation. However, the polarized system is NOT good and something must be done to at least initially help the poor/sick. How exactly this is done so that it complies with libertarian free choice I have no clue yet but I am thinking about it:):
Sorry about the long rant.
 
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j.

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But the Soviet system was concerned with giving everyone an equal chance in life, maximizing the number of excellent people

Not really, it was about hatred and envy of successful people, making everybody else equal by taking their things, but with the ruling class of communist intellectuals having a higher standard of living than others, all of stolen goods they didn't make.

Mass deaths weren't an accident; they were the result of purposeful action and the objective of the communists. Of course, when you want to kill a lot of people to feel good, you don't say that openly.
 
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haidut

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j. said:
But the Soviet system was concerned with giving everyone an equal chance in life, maximizing the number of excellent people

Not really, it was about hatred and envy of successful people, making everybody else equal by taking their things, but with the ruling class of communist intellectuals having a higher standard of living than others, all of stolen goods they didn't make.

Mass deaths weren't an accident; they were the result of purposeful action and the objective of the communists. Of course, when you want to kill a lot of people to feel good, you don't say that openly.

OK, I should have clarified. The idea behind the system, as described by Marx/Engels/Lenin and others was to treat everyone equally. How it was implemented and perverted by the ruling class is a whole separate story. I think this is where many people have a disagreement with Peat. When he talks about the Soviet system and its achievements, he is talking about the communist ideas and the science they generated based on themes like dialectical materialism and a belief that every individual is equally capable of great deeds. The actual Soviet state was certainly a brutal repressive regime, and I am sure Peat was/is not a fan of it. A similar analogy would be the scenario in the West that entrepreneurship and giving people the freedom to implement and market their ideas results in good economic outcomes and generation of wealth. In parallel with that idea you also have massive corporations beyond the rule of law, trying (and mostly succeeding) to manipulate (legally or illegally) every aspect of reality to their own financial benefit.
Every idea has the potential to be twisted and perverted by hypothyroid people and turned into something monstrous:):
 
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haidut said:
The idea behind the system, as described by Marx/Engels/Lenin and others was to treat everyone equally. How it was implemented and perverted by the ruling class is a whole separate story.

It wasn't perverted by the ruling class, the objective of Marx/Engels/Lenin was massive killing and oppression of innocent people. What you call the "idea" is the rationalization, deception, distraction.
 
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haidut said:
Btw, there won't be any handouts since libertarians view handouts as counterproductive and unhelpful in the long run.

False. Some people give to charity, some don't. Some libertarians give to charity, others don't. The libertarian view is that there should be no laws mandating or forbidding you from giving to charity, but it doesn't say what a person must do with that freedom.
 
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haidut

haidut

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j. said:
haidut said:
Btw, there won't be any handouts since libertarians view handouts as counterproductive and unhelpful in the long run.

False. Some people give to charity, some don't. Some libertarians give to charity, others don't. The libertarian view is that there should be no laws mandating or forbidding you from giving to charity, but it doesn't say what a person must do with that freedom.

My statement was meant as an answer to "arien" writing that handouts are bad b/c they encourage bad behavior. Most libertarians I know share that sentiment and believe it promotes an "entitlement" mentality. So, while in theory libertarians would be free to choose to be charitable or not, actually all of the ones I know are against it since it promotes reliance on handouts and feelings of entitlement.
 
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j.

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You probably talk to a tiny and unrepresentative number of libertarians.

Moreover, not everyone in a libertarian society is a libertarian. It's usually a minority, but a committed minority, that determines the type of society and the laws. So if a country at some point becomes libertarian, it would still be likely that a small minority would be libertarians. The vast rest of society would be free to give to or not give to charity, so there would be charity even if we assume (falsely) that libertarians won't give.

The non libertarians would be freer to give money to charity in a libertarian society because they will have more money in their pockets. The money that is taken by force from them to spend on welfare by the government is spent in a way that results in dependency to facilitate what amounts to vote buying.
 
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haidut

haidut

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j. said:
You probably talk to a tiny and unrepresentative number of libertarians.

Moreover, not everyone in a libertarian society is a libertarian. It's usually a minority, but a committed minority, that determines the type of society and the laws. So if a country at some point becomes libertarian, it would still be likely that a small minority would be libertarians. The vast rest of society would be free to give to or not give to charity, so there would be charity even if we assume (falsely) that libertarians won't give.

OK, that's probably true. My small sample of libertarian friends and co-workers is certainly not representative of the whole country.
How about some links/references to Marx and the rest advocating mass murder?
 
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haidut said:
How about some links/references to Marx and the rest advocating mass murder?

All I read is his own words, but carefully. From the same words other people have different conclusions than I, like the views you expressed about them somehow having good intentions. I won't try to convince anyone, just want to mention it so that some people maybe will reconsider their views.
 
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haidut

haidut

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j. said:
haidut said:
How about some links/references to Marx and the rest advocating mass murder?

All I read is his own words, but carefully. From the same words other people have different conclusions than I, like the views you expressed about them somehow having good intentions. I won't try to convince anyone, just want to mention it so that some people maybe will reconsider their views.

Understood, thanks. It is true that everyone's context is different, like Peat says. I do agree with the portion that some personas like Che Guevara and Mao did openly state that violence is a mandatory and crucial component of implementing communism - a view that I strongly disagree with. And I am also not for implementing communism, btw. But I do think there is something to dialectical materialism as an idea and guide of human development. It would be nice to have some other people with libertarian and left views jump in so we get a bigger discussion.
Last question - from a minarchist libertarian point of view, how would you enforce/implement a currency in a group of people? If everyone is free to exercise their own choices and has different value systems, then it seems it would be hard to get them to agree/accept a common currency. Just something I always wondered about.
 
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haidut said:
Last question - from a minarchist libertarian point of view, how would you enforce/implement a currency in a group of people? If everyone is free to exercise their own choices and has different value systems, then it seems it would be hard to get them to agree/accept a common currency. Just something I always wondered about.

I don't know what's exactly a minarchist, etc., but monetary systems are natural developments that occur from barter, without need of government intervention. The government should be as involved in the 'monetary system' as it is involved in the production of underwear.
 
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haidut

haidut

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j. said:
haidut said:
Last question - from a minarchist libertarian point of view, how would you enforce/implement a currency in a group of people? If everyone is free to exercise their own choices and has different value systems, then it seems it would be hard to get them to agree/accept a common currency. Just something I always wondered about.

I don't know what's exactly a minarchist, etc., but monetary systems are natural developments that occur from barter, without need of government intervention. The government should be as involved in the 'monetary system' as it is involved in the production of underwear.

I thought you exchanged some words with "arien" earlier in the thread and someone said they are a minarchist libertarian. Maybe it was "arien", sorry. I think it the expression stands for "minimal-anarchist libertarian", but maybe "arien" can explain better.
Anyways, thanks for the response.
 

charlie

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Ran across this recently.
In May 2009, a small experiment involving 13 homeless men took off in London. Some of them had slept in the cold for more than 40 years. The presence of these street veterans was far from cheap. Police, legal services, health care: Each cost taxpayers thousands of pounds every year.

That spring, a local charity decided to make the street veterans — sometimes called rough sleepers — the beneficiaries of an innovative social experiment. No more food stamps, food-kitchen dinners or sporadic shelter stays. The 13 would get a drastic bailout, financed by taxpayers. Each would receive 3,000 pounds (about $4,500), in cash, with no strings attached. The men were free to decide what to spend it on.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... story.html
 

arien

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haidut said:
My rant below is just for entertainment purposes, I am not looking to start an argument:):

Haha, no problem. Mine too.

haidut said:
I agree that at some point it would depend on the definition of selfishness. I like your last statement that a person with good health/metabolism would not concern themselves too much with the riches of someone else but will be busy improving their own lifestyle. As far as helping others, I think the situation where a charitable person gives money and encourages bad behavior in the recipient is in cases where the recipient is in a bad state of health and as such has no interest in doing anything productive, being rather "happy" to collect money from everybody else as donation. For that reason, I personally do not view handing out money to strangers as necessarily good thing.
However, what I do think is a good idea is help (mostly through time investment) the person in need so that their health/metabolism improves to a degree where they do not need or want handouts anymore, and then become productive and future oriented like their benefactors.

I agree completely, but I don't call this charity, I call it investment. Additionally, I think the best way to do this is to maximise one's own metabolic rate and capital goods; when you do want to help someone in this way, you will be much better at it.

haidut said:
So, here is something from personal experience that I think would clarify my points. The Soviet system was keenly aware of the fact that if you consistently take from the excellent members and just give it freely to the lazy bums, very soon you would have an environment where nobody would want to work and the state will collapse. So, contrary to popular opinion and knowledge in the West, the Soviets (1950s and later) were very good at identifying those excellent individuals and encouraging their growth, as long as officially they stayed within the approved framework of views. Privately, the excellent people were allowed to do pretty much what they wanted to.

I am reminded of Yuri Bezmenov:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qkf3bajd4

haidut said:
For the "mediocre" and worse, the system devised a solution and sort of took it to the extreme. Basically, if you were a bum or somehow an unproductive individual, you were NOT allowed to beg on the streets or get charitable donations. In some situations, even your willing benefactors were prohibited from "helping" you b/c just like you mentioned the state believed that handing out help indiscriminately would encourage more unproductive behavior. So, if you were the bum you would be taken against your will and subjected to medical examination and/or treatment, and upon improvement in health you will be given a stern warning and a choice - no more begging, ever. If you want to eat and live well you will have to work for that and be productive. The state would find you work of course and as much as it was an involuntary system it did try to match whatever work preferences you had to the work you were assigned to do. Otherwise, if you were in demonstrably good health and refused to be productive you go to jail, where most often you will be forced to work whether you like it or not as part of some "rehabilitation" program.
So, the Soviet system viewed begging, laziness, and generally bummy behavior as a health issue that could be corrected, and for many people it was. There were some cases that were "incorrigible" and were assigned to a system for lifetime monitoring and maintenance, but even those were consistently being "treated" for some sort of condition.
Btw, Ray wrote about some of these issues and events in his "Mind and Tissue" book.

In a private law society (no state; property rights enforced by competing security producers), each individual would be free to enact his own voluntary scheme to help others, absent coercion. Whoever was best at it would get the most out of it; their method would have a tendency to predominate. Absent property rights in a socialist commonwealth, there are no exchanges and therefore no economic calculation (profit/loss accounting). Thus, its allocation of resources is arbitrary and we cannot assess the efficacy of its programs.

Additionally, permanent unemployment is a facet of an unfree economy. Absent wage legislation (and other factors which I will further elaborate below), it will not be illegal to hire employees for the marginal productivity of their labour. Thus, unemployment will be a choice. Of course, in some situations, the prevailing wage may be desperately low and we may perceive that in the long run, employees and employer would be better off if the wage is increased. This is an entrepreneurial decision. In order to enact it, we need to have a low time preference and a stock of capital goods with which to finance it. Desperate situations imply high time preference, which implies a lack of capital.

Finally, Ray has written about the metabolic consequences of authority and their parallel in eccentric muscular exercise. If I understand him correctly, creating your own structure and function, making your own decisions is pro-metabolic. Having these imposed upon you gives you a passive attitude to life and impedes your metabolism. In order to accumulate capital, lower the time preference and thereby increase the standard of living, we need to let people make their own decisions.

haidut said:
Now, I am not sure libertarians would agree with the state forcing individuals to do things, even if the thing you are forced to do is to improve your health. But the Soviet system was concerned with giving everyone an equal chance in life, maximizing the number of excellent people, and a large part of that "chance" is health. So, they viewed it as acceptable to force people on health matters so that then people will have a true choice to exercise their potential - a potential the Soviets thought was of equally great magnitude for everyone in good health.
Correct me if I am wrong, but in the libertarian world freedom of choice is paramount. So, already excellent people will continue to make excellent choices and tend to multiply that excellence through their children, while the lazy bums will continue to decay in their bad health and rely on handouts all as a result of their bad "choice". Btw, there won't be any handouts since libertarians view handouts as counterproductive and unhelpful in the long run. While on the surface it looks like everyone is exercising their free choice and the system "selects" for people based on their excellence, I would argue that the people with wrecked health hardly exercise a choice at all. Unless there is an external stimulus (or force) to bring the bums out of their health misery they will stay that way and propagate it through their children as well. The system will encourage a tremendous polarization, coming seemingly as a result of free choices. Note - I am absolutely NOT advocating just getting from the rich (healthy) to give to the poor (sick). That would probably be the worst choice, since likely it won't cure the sick and will also make the healthy sick as well by taking away both their resources and their motivation. However, the polarized system is NOT good and something must be done to at least initially help the poor/sick. How exactly this is done so that it complies with libertarian free choice I have no clue yet but I am thinking about it:):
Sorry about the long rant.

Polarisation is caused by the state. As aforementioned, wage legislation creates mandatory unemployment in the very worst off; industry capture of the state apparatus cartelises various professions associated with wealth and status (science, medicine, engineering, law) creating barriers to entry in these fields; services are of a worse quality, lesser quantity and higher price than they otherwise would be. Legal tender laws permit central banks to engage in currency debasement; this impoverishes those who lack assets to the benefit of those who have them (if you own a house and there is inflation, it will tend simply to appreciate per the rate of inflation, with bubbles and crashes here and there. If you just have meagre savings in currency, inflation destroys them). Thus, the state tends to prevent those who lack capital and therefore have a high time preference (and therefore hypothyroid tendency) from accumulating any; this creates an impoverished class and a propertied class. Additionally, the presence of a state per se, therefore taxation and its propensity to increase taxation, particularly in its more subtle form of currency debasement, will also increase time preference. Why should you save and invest if its fruits will be taxed and this tax might increase? Why save if today's money is going to be worth comparatively little a year from now? The state creates a tendency toward spending, rather than saving, present and past orientedness, rather than future-orientedness. The state's advocacy of the polyunsaturated fats makes perfect sense from a libertarian perspective.

To paraphrased Hans Hoppe: In a private law society, the saver-investor lowers the time preference of the spender. His accumulation of capital goods diminishes the scarcity of labour services, this increases the height of wage rates. Higher wage rates imply greater supply of present goods, thereby time preference tends to fall. Lower time preference implies an environment that will generate greater longevity; goals in the distant future are added to wage earners' scales of values, thereby further increasing the tendency toward lower time preference. Per Hoppe: "His life ceases to be short, brutish and nasty, and becomes longer, increasingly refined and comfortable."

To clarify, minarchism is the advocacy of a minimal state. The state should do nothing other than enforce property rights and therefore provide police, courts, prisons and national defense. This is incoherent, as the state itself is a violator of property rights. Additionally, like the experience of the United States, such a system has a tendency to grow. I advocate what is variously called private property anarchism, anarcho-capitalism, private law, natural order etc, in contrast to the better known minarchist/Randian construal of libertarianism.

Money is the name for the most widely used medium of exchange, which has emerged in different cultures as gold, silver and platinum and palladium group metals. Modern money commenced as warehouse receipts for specific quantities of the precious metals (e.g. a pound sterling). In order to engage in some of the activities I have previously described, the state created legal tender laws, such that one could only use warehouse receipts which it has issued. In a private law society, people would use whichever medium of exchange they preferred, be it gold, silver, platinum, palladium, bitcoin or whatever.
 

Kappytal

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Haidut, pleasure to be communing with you.
When it comes to handouts I know I am not huge on them now because I already pay taxes which are supporting the people asking for handouts. I also don't see how anything extra I give will help. However, I am much more likely to assist my friends and family. The state has systematically devalued the family and friend networks, and the idea of community through its welfare entitlement programs. In its absence, I think family friends and community would be revived, and would voluntarily provide the safety net to those suffering misfortune. Of course, as it is voluntary there is always the possibility that if you abuse those helping, you will no longer receive assistance. This means the beneficiary will need to demonstrate that they are using the time or resources being given as intended.

Also, while I am not particularly interested in simply giving money to soup kitchens or what not, I might be interested in supporting a ray peat style program to help the unhealthy poor who were interested in improving their lives. This is not currently an option because the free or subsidised medical programs offered are statist medicine, which advocates estrogen, low carb, poly, and x-rays. Also, pretty much everything will be cheaper and better quality without the state. Peaty health, which treats causes rather than symptoms (lower time preference) will be available instead of the current system and doctors will be far cheaper without a state enforced monopoly. If it is the health of an individual which is the problem, they will be in a much better position to buy their own services in line with their own values, instead of being dependant on charity. This fact alone is likely to raise the metabolism of the needy.

I am reading a memoir in which the author states that back in the 1930's in Austria her paediatrician would come round every Saturday to give her children a quick check-up for an annual fee. This kind of service is unthinkable now (and shows a lower time preference than only thinking about health when actually ill). It would be hideously expensive to get a private practitioner to do this, and the public doctors couldn't possibly do this for everyone (nor would I want to receive check-ups from them). But that is the kind of thing which would be possible if consumers valued it and there weren't state imposed barriers.

Further, the state has in many cases co-opted charities and used their existence to distract people from the fact that they can't afford essential services. Instead of being angry that only the rich can afford to pay for doctors and lawyers, and that what passes for medicine and law now is so complex that the common person actually needs to go to a doctor or lawyer to get advice, people are made to feel grateful that the state provides them with public health and legal aid.

So I basically think that without the state there will be a lot less people needing handouts, they will be integrated in a larger personal support network to help them through tough times, and what charity that does exist will be much more productive than anything currently on offer and might therefore be better able to attract donations from a libertarian population. Like arien said, this system will be far closer to investment than to charity, which I think is a much better relationship for all parties. Hopefully that helps you see why we aren't worried about the lack of state welfare in a stateless society.

Charlie, nice to be talking with you too.
I think that all this study shows is that people need to be able to make their own choices. Once you stop trying to force people to do things they are likely to try what they think will work best for themselves. Beware the advocacy of some kind of guaranteed minimum income at the end of the article.

“No one is suggesting societies the world over should implement an expensive basic income system in one stroke. Each utopia needs to start small, with experiments that slowly turn our world upside down — like the one four-plus years ago in London.”

The state will try to use all empirical studies to justify an expansion of power. Just like the study which started this thread. Both of these misinformation are subtly trending towards a “don't think about it, that will make you selfish and then we will be justified in taking your property and giving it to the unselfish children who need it” direction. And suddenly even more people are dependant on gov handouts and need to feel grateful and hypothyroid instead of strong and independent.
 
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haidut

haidut

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Kappytal said:
Haidut, pleasure to be communing with you.
When it comes to handouts I know I am not huge on them now because I already pay taxes which are supporting the people asking for handouts. I also don't see how anything extra I give will help. However, I am much more likely to assist my friends and family. The state has systematically devalued the family and friend networks, and the idea of community through its welfare entitlement programs. In its absence, I think family friends and community would be revived, and would voluntarily provide the safety net to those suffering misfortune. Of course, as it is voluntary there is always the possibility that if you abuse those helping, you will no longer receive assistance. This means the beneficiary will need to demonstrate that they are using the time or resources being given as intended.

Also, while I am not particularly interested in simply giving money to soup kitchens or what not, I might be interested in supporting a ray peat style program to help the unhealthy poor who were interested in improving their lives. This is not currently an option because the free or subsidised medical programs offered are statist medicine, which advocates estrogen, low carb, poly, and x-rays. Also, pretty much everything will be cheaper and better quality without the state. Peaty health, which treats causes rather than symptoms (lower time preference) will be available instead of the current system and doctors will be far cheaper without a state enforced monopoly. If it is the health of an individual which is the problem, they will be in a much better position to buy their own services in line with their own values, instead of being dependant on charity. This fact alone is likely to raise the metabolism of the needy.

I am reading a memoir in which the author states that back in the 1930's in Austria her paediatrician would come round every Saturday to give her children a quick check-up for an annual fee. This kind of service is unthinkable now (and shows a lower time preference than only thinking about health when actually ill). It would be hideously expensive to get a private practitioner to do this, and the public doctors couldn't possibly do this for everyone (nor would I want to receive check-ups from them). But that is the kind of thing which would be possible if consumers valued it and there weren't state imposed barriers.

Further, the state has in many cases co-opted charities and used their existence to distract people from the fact that they can't afford essential services. Instead of being angry that only the rich can afford to pay for doctors and lawyers, and that what passes for medicine and law now is so complex that the common person actually needs to go to a doctor or lawyer to get advice, people are made to feel grateful that the state provides them with public health and legal aid.

So I basically think that without the state there will be a lot less people needing handouts, they will be integrated in a larger personal support network to help them through tough times, and what charity that does exist will be much more productive than anything currently on offer and might therefore be better able to attract donations from a libertarian population. Like arien said, this system will be far closer to investment than to charity, which I think is a much better relationship for all parties. Hopefully that helps you see why we aren't worried about the lack of state welfare in a stateless society.

Charlie, nice to be talking with you too.
I think that all this study shows is that people need to be able to make their own choices. Once you stop trying to force people to do things they are likely to try what they think will work best for themselves. Beware the advocacy of some kind of guaranteed minimum income at the end of the article.

“No one is suggesting societies the world over should implement an expensive basic income system in one stroke. Each utopia needs to start small, with experiments that slowly turn our world upside down — like the one four-plus years ago in London.”

The state will try to use all empirical studies to justify an expansion of power. Just like the study which started this thread. Both of these misinformation are subtly trending towards a “don't think about it, that will make you selfish and then we will be justified in taking your property and giving it to the unselfish children who need it” direction. And suddenly even more people are dependant on gov handouts and need to feel grateful and hypothyroid instead of strong and independent.


Thanks for clarifying.
No doubt, charities, like everything else in modern times is probably institutionalized and run like a business. I am not a fan of them since just like you said they are usually a front for pushing poison down to the people who can't say no and on top of everything get media coverage as being some kind of savior. Exactly what a corporation/monopoly wants.
Hopefully, the public is starting to wake up to the fact that the only way for progress is to take matters into their own hands. And it starts with their improving their own health by their own personal choices rather than being spoon-fed poison by "charitable" entities.
 

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