Gyroscopic Investing

Any_Ayn_Rand_book wrote:I worked hard.  I should eat filet mignon and drink premiere cru wine.  You?  You can do the same if you work hard like me.  If you don't, it's only natural that you should eat shit and die.

Simonjester wrote: i have only read atlas shrugged, so i cant speak about all the caricatures in all her books but it seemed to me that the heroes in that book didn't lack empathy, they just refused to let empathy rule their reason. they felt for the men who had nothing.. but instead of letting that feeling lead them into accepting theft and the doomed to fail ideas of the poor being entitled to the benefits of other peoples work.. they instead wanted to be creators, innovators and employers and provide opportunity for those poor to work and provide for themselves.

putting reason before empathy is not quite the same as not having any.. i don't see any reason why libertarians would measure any more likely than the norm for lacking empathy.. i would expect politicians (people driven to power) regardless of how liberal or empathetic they sound in speeches (or which party the are in) to be more likely to be devoid of actual empathy.

Simonjester wrote: putting reason before empathy is not quite the same as not having any

rickb wrote:

Any_Ayn_Rand_book wrote:I worked hard.  I should eat filet mignon and drink premiere cru wine.  You?  You can do the same if you work hard like me.  If you don't, it's only natural that you should eat shit and die.

Sounds like a psychopath to me.

I'm not saying that all libertarians are psychopaths, but I'd guess that more people who profess to be libertarians than the general population would measure as lacking empathy.

madbean wrote:

rickb wrote:

Any_Ayn_Rand_book wrote:I worked hard.  I should eat filet mignon and drink premiere cru wine.  You?  You can do the same if you work hard like me.  If you don't, it's only natural that you should eat shit and die.

Sounds like a psychopath to me.

I'm not saying that all libertarians are psychopaths, but I'd guess that more people who profess to be libertarians than the general population would measure as lacking empathy.

I first learned about libertarianism through Harry Browne's excellent anti-war writings, wherein I first learned of the prime directive of libertarianism - the non-aggression principle. How that translates into a form of psychopathology involving a lack of empathy is beyond me.

Robert and Elizabeth Bernard Higgs wrote: A widely embraced social taboo against aggression is necessary, but probably not sufficient, to achieve and keep a free society. Empathy and charity for the down and out also play vital roles.

moda0306 wrote: The question I would ask libertarians, who I would admit are often more rational than libs/cons, is to what ends are you employing your rationality in this discussion?

Usually, it's one of these three things:

1) To their own subjective personal happiness/preferences (selfishness, for lack of a better term... I say this without judgment... like Ayn Rand style).

2) To some sort of preferred utilitarian outcome (high GDP, maximum societal happiness, safety, etc)

3) Acknowledgement and respect for certain Kantian-esque "rights-based" arguments that respect consistency of behaviors toward one another.


Like us all, they still tend to bounce around these preferences.  If you take your typical hardcore libertarian, usually they lean heavily on #3, but then use the fallacy of composition to bounce into #2 due to people's natural motivation to maximize #1 (this is HB, to a large degree, except he spent very little time moralizing about #3 and just accepted private property as a given).

The problem is, and we've seen it here, it's almost impossible to be 100% consistent without reaching points where your arguments don't "work" anymore for anything that would resemble a reasonable response.  To the degree a libertarian might give his rational argument that his policies will create a functional utilitarian ideal, we can poke tons of holes in that, because they almost always rely on fallacy of composition.  To the degree that they simply prefer personal autonomy, we can point out that it is just their preferred EMOTIONAL state driving their opinion, rather than a rational societal structure.  And to the degree that they want to lament about rights, you can easily point out to them that property rights, especially in any sort of workable modern form, are a huge utilitarian societal fabrication with only modest fundamental connection to human achievement.  And that in many cases their rational position for rights in that sense has very loose grounding.

Then the typical dance from point to point occurs, where libertarians (and, in fact, most people with die-hard political opinions) bounce from selfish arguments, to utilitarian arguments, to rights-based arguments as soon as they start to get pushed into the corner on their rational opinion.


It's the same problem we have with liberals and conservatives... it's just not usually as bad, because usually libertarians are rational enough to know a good argument when they see it.  They're rational to some ends sometimes, but those ends change.  Even their preference for personal liberty is 1) emotional in nature (personal preferences = a state of well-being, as HB would put it), and 2) up to some debate on how to actually define in a world where so much of our land and resources are claimed as property and sold for profit.


A libertarian may be accused of being "cold" because they put their rationality ahead of their empathy.  But this is only rational to certain ends as opposed to others.  If those ends change when you approach their positions from a different angle (going from a personal preference for liberty to a utilitarian argument that universal liberty will make us all happier overall, and then to an argument that it is a fundamental right that can't be violated), it's probably emotion at work, and the "rationalizing" comes later.  So if they are rational towards certain ends, but those ends change on subjective emotional preferences, then how rational are they, really?

I'll repeat myself...  Libertarians aren't the only ones who do this.  In fact they do it a lot less than other folks.  It's just disappointing as they don't realize their doing it (often), but have the rational wherewithal to if they really tried.

moda0306 wrote: Mountaineer,

If there was such a thing as a widely-accepted source of morality, OR an objective source of morality, much less the combination, I might know what the heck you're talking about. 


Not to mention all the people that operate on a "self-source" and then rationalize it with what they think thier "objective source" would want.

I Shrugged wrote: This is something I've struggled with intellectually.  Especially coming to libertarianism from the Ayn Rand point of view, which the authors mention specifically.  I find the argument to be persuasive.

rickb wrote: One could certainly argue that existing social safety nets are too generous and should be scaled back or modified.

moda0306 wrote: I'll repeat myself...  Libertarians aren't the only ones who do this.  In fact they do it a lot less than other folks.  It's just disappointing as they don't realize their doing it (often), but have the rational wherewithal to if they really tried.

I Shrugged wrote: Article by Robert and Elizabeth Bernard Higgs:
http://www.independent.org/publications ... asp?a=1058

Abstract:
A widely embraced social taboo against aggression is necessary, but probably not sufficient, to achieve and keep a free society. Empathy and charity for the down and out also play vital roles.


This is something I've struggled with intellectually.  Especially coming to libertarianism from the Ayn Rand point of view, which the authors mention specifically.  I find the argument to be persuasive.

Pointedstick wrote: However, I'm not sure the kind of person demanded by this assessment actually exists. People most interested in helping others tend to be nosy busybodies who are unproductive of much economic value, and those most interested in production and freedom tend to be cold, penny-pinching loners (guilty as charged). While the intersection of these personality traits is possible, it is rare. I'm not hopeful.

Semi-related: http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/ot ... idealists/

Stewardship wrote:

Pointedstick wrote: However, I'm not sure the kind of person demanded by this assessment actually exists. People most interested in helping others tend to be nosy busybodies who are unproductive of much economic value, and those most interested in production and freedom tend to be cold, penny-pinching loners (guilty as charged). While the intersection of these personality traits is possible, it is rare. I'm not hopeful.

Semi-related: http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/ot ... idealists/

I find your perspective incredibly sad, Pointedstick!  I hope it changes someday.

MachineGhost wrote: Well, PS, you went from an ultra liberal whackjob enclave to an isolated conservative whackjob flyover country.