/ancap/ - Anarcho-Capitalism

Give it a go. If the idea is good and well-executed, it will succeed.

>>275

Not sure how this board works, but if the moderator were to set it up somehow surely that would carry more weight? (and no, I am not interested in becoming a moderator here at this time).

Set me straight if I am misunderstanding something.

>>282
The board doesn't really work right now. Do your thing and see if you can change that. The moderator doesn't seem to be really active because pretty much nobody is.

Let's not have Stefan Molyhaux to represent our ideology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odh5KEK8dbs

>>299
So many people keep talking about his advocacy of de-fooing as though he was just telling people to cut off ties with everyone who disagrees with you, but he has time and again explained that this is not his position. He advocates challenging the people in your life to examine the premises of what they advocate, and if after years of discussion they simply refuse to stop believing in the moral validity of attacking you, they are not healthy people to keep in your life.

I've been having conversations with my friends and family and they're actually pretty receptive to the concepts of self-ownership and non-aggression. They still don't agree with me, but they're willing to examine their premises and their perspectives are gradually shifting, and I value them all the more for it. This process has strengthened my relationships, and helped me to just stop bothering with the people I hung around with out of a sense of obligation.

Much of the controversy surrounding Molyneux seems to center on the idea that his philosophy, if practiced, will disrupt your life as you know it. The lady in the video complains that it interfered with her family and career path. Well, of course. If your family situation is fundamentally unhealthy and you start to remove unhealthy things from your life, then you're in for a bit of pain. At no point was de-fooing promised to be easy or pleasant, and if cutting aggressive people out of your life involves destroying your relationships, then the discomfort you feel is a good thing.

I'm not an avid watcher, nor do I donate, and I've got some disagreements and concerns with some of his ideas, but it doesn't help anything to misrepresent him. Yes, some of his tendencies of emphasis are objectionable, and yes, he does seem to leverage his force of personality quite a bit to take control of discussions. I really wish he didn't do that. That does not invalidate the core of his philosophy any more than Ayn Rand's personal issues invalidate the fundamental basis of Objectivism.

I'd say Molyneux has a welcome place among our many respected but flawed intellectual forbears, who have each advocated some backwards ideas. Lets not toss out the baby with the bathwater. If you can find someone who offers the same valuable insights without the crazy, please provide them.

Well said, but it goes even further than that.

From what I've seen (watching maybe 100 of his call in show videos, plus many more of his other videos), he rarely advocates de-fooing, and only after seeking therapy/counseling and putting in a strong effort to reach a peaceful and harmonious understanding with the family members in question, most of which have been very abusive/toxic to the callers in the past.

If the person puts some serious energy into therapy/healing and calmly and repeatedly tries to resolve the conflict only to be attacked and rejected by said family, then there is nothing good to be gained (for either party) in continuing association, just as voluntary association with an abusive and unrepentant spouse would not be wise under similar circumstances.

He has advocated immediate de-fooing without prior therapy only once that I am aware of, that time being with a person who was at serious risk of killing himself due to the stress of dealing with the abusive family member(s) in question.

His advice seems to be in line with US best practices as determined by the prime psychology organization in that country, you can see his responses to this and other criticisms in his Joe Rogan podcast interview, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTRY7pUdENw.

Also keep in mind that much of the more controversial stuff was from his earlier videos (2008-2010), he has softened a bit since then.

In contrast, his opponents - especially on the defooing front - tend to be very angry and irrational (and deceitful) for the most part. Insofar as you can tell the quality of a person by their enemies, he is doing well on this front.

Might as well post some Woods.

Board owner here. Molyneux is a fucking retard.

>>302
This is good stuff! Keep it up!

>>300
I don't mind defooing really abusive parents, but if you see her interview on freedomfeens and read on fdrliberated you will understand what I'm talking about. Like all cults you won't see the really bad stuff on the outside. http://www.freedomfeens.com/2014/08/27/interview-with-colleen-who-defooed-the-cult-of-stefan-molyneux-freedom-feens-live-radio-archive/

http://www.freedomfeens.com/2014/08/31/the-truth-about-stefan-molyneux-from-two-people-who-were-in-his-inner-circle-freedom-feens-live-radio-archive/

In the second one there are actually pictures included in the shownotes of them hanging out with Molyneux.

Tom Woods is fine - I've bought a number of books because of his interviews.

Molyneux is an entirely different animal. Molyneux has said retarded shit like, 'if you talk to someone and they don't convert to Anarchocapitalism after a few conversations, you should ostracise them', even though it took him 20 years to get past Ayn Rand. And he just said that selling loose/untaxed cigarettes is a crime and that Eric Garner was justly arrested.

Just tripping over himself. Which is to be expected, I mean he has made a number of excellent videos for which he should get full credit, but he refuses to credit other people or admit he's wrong, ever. And he always veers any criticism of himself into a litany of extremely embarrassing questions about spanking, creates a psychological profile of his callers and then asserts that they disagree with him because they're traumatized from smacks on the bum.

I mean, the biggest red flag should be that he won't defend UPB in writing any more.

He also holds a number of racist (not using the word pejoratively) points of view which lead him to start talking about Judeo-Bolshevism. And I mean, that's fine in small doses, but he basically blamed the movement towards socialism in the west and the breakdown of nationalism on the Jews. Which, I mean, I'm a Hoppean and I would rather live in an ethnically homogeneous society, but there are far better explanations for that phenomena than the Jews did it to spite the Western capitalists (additional tax revenues, cheap labour, disintegration of civil society changes the balance of power between the individual and the state).

It probably comes from his previously held ideas about Objectivism.

So, like most of the people from whom we draw our information, Molyneux has a fair amount of crazy in him. Like you said, he has some good points. I just don't want to see people disregarding his work entirely because of some of his personal inconsistencies. He's a valuable intellectual asset, and I've personally built much of my philosophy by understanding and improving upon his. He's a better logician than your average bloke and he's got a good head for history. For instance, his lecture on progress and public hysteria was an insight I haven't heard anywhere else (though I would be delighted to hear more developed treatments of the topic).

Tom Woods I haven't heard much from. Having listened to this video, I can say I like what I'm hearing. Any more selections from him are quite welcome.

>>300

With due respect, the idea that S. Molyneux is some sort of a "cult leader" are fundamentally silly. Cult leaders seek to distort peoples ability to reason or gain self-knowledge, critical thinking abilities, or psychological independence, Molyneux does the opposite. Cult leaders also do not promote peaceful and rational parenting, or invite debates with a wide range of critics on live radio/podcasts. If anything, I think it is much fairer to call Molyneux the opposite of a cult leader than a cult leader (or anything similar). See for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTRY7pUdENw to hear him answer a variety of criticisms of this nature on Joe Rogan's podcast.

Oops, that was meant as a reply to >>306…

As for the criticism from the "Board Owner" about Molyneux's mental capacities, the fact that he did well in a nation-wide debate competition (7th place in his age group) after 3 months of study, has played leading roles in various plays, wrote a highly-acclaimed book, did very well in business with two different tech companies, and now makes a living doing an online philosophy show should soundly disprove any such ideas.

>> 307

I have never heard Molyneux say "if they don't convert to Anarchocapitalism after a few conversations ostracize them", thats a pretty severe distortion of his views as I have heard them (It's also more reminiscent of his earlier work than his later work which has reached more people.) He has stated that people should not be close friends with those who would be OK with them being thrown in jail for non-crimes (marijuana possession for example), but this is not at an undefendable philosophical position, as disruptive as it might be to the average person who might try to carry it out consistently. >>300 and >>301 also deal with this, and most people take more than six months to go to an-cap ideas from more libertarian ones (Tom Woods for example took 8), but a basic respect for human rights (life, liberty, property) seems like a fair base point for mutual respect and friendship.

As an uncap, Molyneux views taxes and arrests for non-harmful pseudo-crimes to be fundamentally unjust, so the idea that he genuinely promotes arresting or harassing people for selling untaxed cigarettes seems highly unlikely, and completely out of line with the everything else that I have ever heard him say. I would be extremely surprised if claims otherwise could be backed up *in proper context* to the rest of the video/article in question.

Re. criticism, he has admitted he has been wrong on numerous occasions, nuclear weapons and the source of homosexuality being two that come immediately to mind. He has credited numerous people for his success on many occasions, including Ayn Rand, various philosophers, his main therapist from his younger years, various writers on psychology, his wife, his friends, and his listeners/supporters (whom he regularly praises), among others. I'm not sure why anyone who has listened to him would think otherwise.

Re. defending UPB in writing, I'm not sure why defending his ideas in writing (where people can easily speak past each other at great length) is superior to defending his ideas in discussions/debates, which he has done a lot of over the years - indeed he puts those wishing to dispute his ideas at the front of his call-in show queue. He has said recently that he is only about 70% happy with his UPB book to to a lack of clarity, which would make getting to the heart of the matter via verbal discussions more succinct and useful IMO (he is also planning a re-write of the book to improve the clarity). If you want to see him defending UPB, you can find a ton of discussions in which he does just that.

The racist comment is way off, he holds all "races" (Judeo-Bolshevism is not a race btw) equal, which means he will criticize them equally to the degree that they mess up, which at this point in time is more for some groups than for others. As far as I know, Jewish intellectuals as a group were big proponents of socialism back in the day, and many still are. If you think you can demonstrate otherwise please do. The idea that widespread socialism breaks down communities is not without merit, consider for example the number of charities, church and community groups, lodges, friendly societies, etc. in pre-"Great Society" US (estimated at 20-25 thousand) than afterwards, when government effectively took over by way of increased taxes and social programs. See the work of Charles Murray, Tom Woods, Thomas Sowell, or the Mises institute (lots of articles and books on their website) if you disagree with this assessment. See the health care thread on this very board (Anonymous  10/20/14 (Mon) 17:48:34 d9b555 No.82, https://media.8ch.net/ancap/src/1413849859499.jpg and https://media.8ch.net/ancap/src/1413849875088.png) for just one example of the effects of this meddling in the present day.

I agree that his criticism of Israel and modern Judaism to date have been somewhat unbalanced, but to jump from that to an accusation of racism seems unjustified.

And when I said "Tom Woods took 8", I meant to say 8 years, not months..

>>323
Oops, assumed the guy with a Canadian flag (Moly is that U?) said seventh grade, not seventh place. Not that it matters either way; it's all macaronicraft and "Look why I did, mom!" shit in the end.

Much more interesting than a failed actor-failed IT specialist pontificating in a vulgarly pretentious accent on his poorly-researched talking points: http://therightstuff.biz/2013/01/26/a-bulbasaur-art-project-stefan-molyneux/

>>323
>This guy's a retard!
>Well, not really.
>You don't despise him? Clearly you worship the ground he walks on.

A tad rash there, don't you think?

>>312
>I have never heard Molyneux say "if they don't convert to Anarchocapitalism after a few conversations ostracize them", thats a pretty severe distortion of his views as I have heard them (It's also more reminiscent of his earlier work than his later work which has reached more people.) He has stated that people should not be close friends with those who would be OK with them being thrown in jail for non-crimes (marijuana possession for example), but this is not at an undefendable philosophical position, as disruptive as it might be to the average person who might try to carry it out consistently. >>300 and >>301 also deal with this, and most people take more than six months to go to an-cap ideas from more libertarian ones (Tom Woods for example took 8), but a basic respect for human rights (life, liberty, property) seems like a fair base point for mutual respect and friendship.
http://youtu.be/SZASruN-mIA?t=2m5s

>As an uncap, Molyneux views taxes and arrests for non-harmful pseudo-crimes to be fundamentally unjust, so the idea that he genuinely promotes arresting or harassing people for selling untaxed cigarettes seems highly unlikely, and completely out of line with the everything else that I have ever heard him say. I would be extremely surprised if claims otherwise could be backed up *in proper context* to the rest of the video/article in question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAVmImxy_6I&feature=youtu.be&t=18m50s

>Re. criticism, he has admitted he has been wrong on numerous occasions, nuclear weapons and the source of homosexuality being two that come immediately to mind…
…I'm not sure why anyone who has listened to him would think otherwise.
He filed a DMCA even though he's against copyright. According to himself, that's enough to dismiss everything someone believes alone. He's lied about his credentials, he's lied about his wife's punishment by the College of Psychologists of Ontario.
I mean, he thinks he's jesus, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIQOsUV2q34

>Re. defending UPB in writing, I'm not sure why defending his ideas in writing (where people can easily speak past each other at great length) is superior to defending his ideas in discussions/debates, which he has done a lot of over the years - indeed he puts those wishing to dispute his ideas at the front of his call-in show queue.
Because writing allows one to speak with more substance and abstraction. A great of Pure Reason couldn't be turned into an audiobook, people would not follow it. Also, Stefan can upstage people because he's classically trained in acting and was a professional salesman for a decade, even though though his actual ideas or arguments are 3 orders of magnitude less intellectual.

>He has said recently that he is only about 70% happy with his UPB book to to a lack of clarity, which would make getting to the heart of the matter via verbal discussions more succinct and useful IMO (he is also planning a re-write of the book to improve the clarity). If you want to see him defending UPB, you can find a ton of discussions in which he does just that.
He has stopped defending it in writing for coming on a decade now. There are great critiques of UPB. He doesn't respond to them. When people call into his show, he veers it into what is an extremely embarrassing interrogation of someone's childhood instead of actually defending his 'objective' libertarian ethic.

>The racist comment is way off, he holds all "races" (Judeo-Bolshevism is not a race btw) equal, which means he will criticize them equally to the degree that they mess up, which at this point in time is more for some groups than for others.
I'm explicitly not attacking him for being racist. I am racist to a certain degree. The problem is that he went on about Judeo-Bolshevism which is a conspiracy theory with basically no evidence beyond Jews as a group are rich, the rich favour X.

>As far as I know, Jewish intellectuals as a group were big proponents of socialism back in the day, and many still are…
You seem to think I'm criticizing him because I'm a socialist. I'm not. And most of his critics are not. Most of his critics are ancaps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2UcOeZ4Rgw
Also, those images you posted have nothing to do with the Great Society. Mutual aid societies were destroyed before the New Deal.

>I agree that his criticism of Israel and modern Judaism to date have been somewhat unbalanced, but to jump from that to an accusation of racism seems unjustified.
No, he's definitely racist, as am I.

>> 324

No, its not Stef, and he wasn't a "failed" IT specialist, but rather a well paid professional who not only had a leadership role in one successful company, but also helped startup and lead another successful IT company that make 15x or more ROII (return on initial investment). The other stuff (numerous real-world accomplishments) goes to his intelligence, which directly refutes the word "moron" that you saw fit to label him with.

With due respect, shouldn't a board owner of an an-cap board display more respect for leading members of the an-cap community than to call them "cult leaders", "morons", and similar? How do you expect other members of 8chan to take us seriously when the owner of a board jumps right to slander, not exactly what a healthy an-cap community at large would need to thrive in a lager context, emirate?

>> 326

Yes, if you take some clips of Molyneux out of context you can make him look stupid, or delusional, or abusive, etc., just as you could do with anyone with a large enough body of work, or simply a social media presence for that matter. Taking clips out of context however is not a fair thing to do, nor is it particularly useful..

As referenced elsewhere in this thread, your first clip is an old one and is significantly more severe than his newer videos, and therefore is not a fair representation of his work or ideas as a whole. As I recall, it was in response to someone looking to live a full-on an-cap lifestyle, and was not meant to be taken as general/quick advise to people as a whole. I suppose it is useful to see that he can be a bit hardcore and excitable at times, but to try to use that to discredit him overall is not fair..

Your second clip seems to be in regard to the legality of one case (whether a chokehold on a person with unknown medical condition was rightly termed "murder", and in a larger context ties into the whole idea of ignoring underlying issues in the US black community (single motherhood for example) in favor of calling anyone who might bring them up "racists" or "hating the poor", etc. Did he make the case that some harm was being done to the taxpaying store by having sell untaxed cigarettes right outside of it? Yes, and he is correct that some financial harm was indeed being done to the store owner under the current statist (high-tax, high-regulation, state-controlled police, etc.) system. Can anyone reasonably take this to mean that he supports the state and its harassment in general, when he has been clearly and consistently anti-state? I think not.

Related, he answers this criticism directly at 23:15 in that video:

Caller: "The precipitating cause of that [violence] is the state, and the laws that were enacted around that"

"Dude, that was exactly my point at the end of the video…"

Again, take things in context I think it is much more fair to say that he does not promote the actions overall, but was explaining how they could be interpreted as reasonable in a statist paradigm, which he clearly opposes.
(cont)

Re. your third paragraph, the DCMA was (according to his webmaster, who filed the claims) due to doxing and harassment of the callers showcased in those clips, which could be morally reasonable if true. (Seeing some of the hatred of the dedicated anti-SM forces I think this is a plausible theory.) Not a clear cut case though, may have very well been an overreach. Fair point.
Not sure what credentials he lied about, also not sure that he technically lied (maybe used a technical definition to avoid more hardship for his wife and her company) about his wife's "punishment". In any case, I think the drama there is overblown (if she was truly bad she would have been fired or de-licensed, especially with the strongly statist tendencies in Canada.) Therapists routinely suggest that people leave bad relationships, not sure why this would not apply to marriages, jobs, and friendships but not to toxic family members… As for your link, the cheeky/misrepresentative texts on the side do not bode well for the fairness of the presenter, and it seems to me that Stef is talking more of a calling than of "being Jesus", something that is pretty well accepted in other professions (doctors, teachers, priests, etc.). Yes, he does get unduly intense at times, but to write off his body of work because of this would be unfair..

Regarding the UPB book/written defense, he is working on an update to the book, presumably one which will address the more substantive written (and non-written) criticisms. That said, he has spent a ton of time defending it verbally, something which reaches more people and pays the bills (note that he is also a stay-at-home dad, so his time is limited.) I for one would rather the idea gets out to the masses than gets tailored to intellectuals who are mostly bought and paid for by the state anyways, and I think most of his audience would agree with that as well. As for Stefan's ability to "upstage" people, I think he has it to some extent but seeks to be as fair as he can be; in any case there are certainly people out there who can stand their ground against such things, and if a strong case can be made against UPB there should certainly be people who can verbally debate it with some success..

As for "veering into embarrassing interrogations of peoples childhoods instead of defending his logic", I think that is an unfair characterization. He does focus on peoples childhoods when he thinks it is a major contributing factor to bad reasoning, and it seems the majority of his callers and listeners are grateful for his efforts in this area (I being one of them). He seems fully willing and able to defend his reasoning and logic on their own as well, and mostly does this when talking about more intellectual ideas. Yes, he slips up at times, but to suggest that he is unable or unwilling to defend his ideas using logic and reason is completely unfair IMO, I think he does a good job of using logic and reason when appropriate.

Regarding the racist claim, I'm sorry you are racist, I don't condone racism but I do wish you luck in working through whatever the cause(s) of that are. Regarding Stefan, if you can prove that he is actually racist (judging people due to race alone) instead of trying to fairly critique bad ideas or practices within a group (ethnic groups included) of people, have at it. Similarly, if you can truly refute the claims in his videos, have at it, you would be doing us all a favor by deepening our understanding of things.

About the last video, it seems like a bunch of misrepresentations and ad hominems. I say to the author and other critics if they have the evidence and reasoning on their side, put it out there in a clear and well-referenced manner. Correcting Stefan (or anyone else for that matter) is a good thing if and when they go astray (I think Joe Rogan did a pretty good job in his interview), but without good evidence and reasoning these things can become questionable if not downright abusive and divisive (see for example the use of "cult" when completely inappropriate).

Regarding the destruction of mutual aid societies, thanks for the correction re. the timeline. Still done through government power for the most part, but earlier than I though. Any idea of how much of this was done in the 30's by chance?

>>300
Your second paragraph reminded me of an exchange I had with my brother.
>tell brother about the NAP
>he says that this sounds like a good idea
>tell him it would not compell anyone to help in case of a famine
>brother: "So what? It's their property."
And he never heard of anarchocapitalism before, mind you.

Funny thing is, I think he's a bit of a sociopath, yet he never commits any crimes, doesn't manipulate people and still supports the family and his friends. Goes to show that empathy is not necessary in being a good person if you adhere to the NAP and have the right set of values.

>>397
By the way, I've got past my reservations now. I checked out some of the most devastating famines, and they all seem to have been caused by government interference, with the possible exception of the current famine in Somalia.