Is it just me or is distaste for Libertarianism contradictory to discordianism?

Started by navkat, July 01, 2009, 02:01:59 PM

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Prelate Diogenes Shandor

Quote from: Faust on February 25, 2019, 07:53:37 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 25, 2019, 05:33:31 PM
Some of you have never in your life sat in a boardroom and it shows.  The ONLY thing that regulates corporations is fines and the threat of prison.  The consumer isn't even on the radar.

:lol:  Still laughing about that.

For a history of corporate responsibility in society, I like to point at energy supply provider Enron. What they did was deliberately caused blackouts and at least partially contributing to the environment that caused the LA riots, who'd have thought when the lights go out, angry disenfranchised people riot.
They did so because some of them at least believed they were operating within the letter of the law, only just. They were just constricting supply when demand was high to trigger a more lucrative emergency measure energy payment.
People died in the riots. People died in their homes through accidents. And not just so a company could make money (they were already making a killing), but so they could make MORE money.

Wait, Enron actually had a service they provided? I had been under the impression that they were a pure Ponzi scheme that did nothing and produced nothing.
Praise NHGH! For the tribulation of all sentient beings.


a plague on both your houses -Mercutio


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrTGgpWmdZQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVWd7nPjJH8


It is an unfortunate fact that every man who seeks to disseminate knowledge must contend not only against ignorance itself, but against false instruction as well. No sooner do we deem ourselves free from a particularly gross superstition, than we are confronted by some enemy to learning who would plunge us back into the darkness -H.P.Lovecraft


He who fights with monsters must take care lest he thereby become a monster -Nietzsche


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHhrZgojY1Q


You are a fluke of the universe, and whether you can hear it of not the universe is laughing behind your back -Deteriorata


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Faust

Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on February 27, 2019, 10:35:49 PM
Quote from: Faust on February 25, 2019, 07:53:37 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 25, 2019, 05:33:31 PM
Some of you have never in your life sat in a boardroom and it shows.  The ONLY thing that regulates corporations is fines and the threat of prison.  The consumer isn't even on the radar.

:lol:  Still laughing about that.

For a history of corporate responsibility in society, I like to point at energy supply provider Enron. What they did was deliberately caused blackouts and at least partially contributing to the environment that caused the LA riots, who'd have thought when the lights go out, angry disenfranchised people riot.
They did so because some of them at least believed they were operating within the letter of the law, only just. They were just constricting supply when demand was high to trigger a more lucrative emergency measure energy payment.
People died in the riots. People died in their homes through accidents. And not just so a company could make money (they were already making a killing), but so they could make MORE money.

Wait, Enron actually had a service they provided? I had been under the impression that they were a pure Ponzi scheme that did nothing and produced nothing.
Worse then nothing, they actively caused blackouts. They created the conditions for an emergency mechanism to trigger lucrative outside of scheduled market payments.
Sleepless nights at the chateau

Faust

Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 26, 2019, 12:51:41 AM
Quote from: Faust on February 25, 2019, 07:53:37 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 25, 2019, 05:33:31 PM
Some of you have never in your life sat in a boardroom and it shows.  The ONLY thing that regulates corporations is fines and the threat of prison.  The consumer isn't even on the radar.

:lol:  Still laughing about that.

For a history of corporate responsibility in society, I like to point at energy supply provider Enron. What they did was deliberately caused blackouts and at least partially contributing to the environment that caused the LA riots, who'd have thought when the lights go out, angry disenfranchised people riot.
They did so because some of them at least believed they were operating within the letter of the law, only just. They were just constricting supply when demand was high to trigger a more lucrative emergency measure energy payment.
People died in the riots. People died in their homes through accidents. And not just so a company could make money (they were already making a killing), but so they could make MORE money.

Fortunately, they were stopped by consumer watchdog groups.   :lulz:
Is that how Enron were caught, is that a win for free market capitalism as proof of self regulation, or proof for the need FOR regulation
Sleepless nights at the chateau

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Pergamos on February 27, 2019, 10:03:17 PM
I feel like you all have a story in your head and you are ignoring what I am saying and fitting it into that story instead.  I am not, for a second, saying that corporations aren't that bad, or that they don't need to be watched.  I am saying that government is also awful, and is run by people like Trump who use it to HELP the corporations be worse, rather than preventing their awfulness.  Exactly how to keep them in line, from the consumer point of view, I still don't know, but government hasn't done it, and has kept Unions from keeping them in line from the employee point of view. 

YOu keep coming back with how awful and selfish corporations are, and how they act as badly as they can get away with.  This is absolutely true and I am not disputing it for a second, this is why we need groups that are more accountable than government to keep them in line.  More accountable to consumers, and less able to be bought up by corporations with a big fat budget devoted to exactly that.

We call them "voters".
Molon Lube

Don Coyote

Can we just all agree that Libertarians are just a bunch of toddlers who due their lack of object permanence and long term thinking just want to smoke weed and live in a more dystopic corporate dystopia?

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Don Coyote on February 28, 2019, 02:00:11 AM
Can we just all agree that Libertarians are just a bunch of toddlers who due their lack of object permanence and long term thinking just want to smoke weed and live in a more dystopic corporate dystopia?

Yes.  And they get in the way when you pop into the coffee shop on the way to work.  They sit there making it obvious that they're reading Atlas Shrugged, and wondering why none of the girls are chatting them up.
Molon Lube

Cain

Quote from: Pergamos on February 27, 2019, 10:03:17 PM
I feel like you all have a story in your head and you are ignoring what I am saying and fitting it into that story instead.  I am not, for a second, saying that corporations aren't that bad, or that they don't need to be watched.  I am saying that government is also awful, and is run by people like Trump who use it to HELP the corporations be worse, rather than preventing their awfulness.  Exactly how to keep them in line, from the consumer point of view, I still don't know, but government hasn't done it, and has kept Unions from keeping them in line from the employee point of view. 

YOu keep coming back with how awful and selfish corporations are, and how they act as badly as they can get away with.  This is absolutely true and I am not disputing it for a second, this is why we need groups that are more accountable than government to keep them in line.  More accountable to consumers, and less able to be bought up by corporations with a big fat budget devoted to exactly that.

No, my reply was a direct counter to your comments.

If government is weak, fickle and easily bought off, then consumers are even more so, with the power disparity between people and corporations being even larger than that between corporations and government.

Information asymmetry, tragedy of the commons and defections from the right course of action will be even more apparent with consumers leading the charge. For every successful court case, there are 50 that are settled out of court. Consumers will be bought off, allowing companies to continue with their behaviour.


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Telarus

And we are seeing "mandatory arbitration outside of court" clauses in all sorts of service and employment contracts nowadays.

Quote from: Don Coyote on February 28, 2019, 02:00:11 AM
Can we just all agree that Libertarians are just a bunch of toddlers who due their lack of object permanence and long term thinking just want to smoke weed and live in a more dystopic corporate dystopia?

My martial arts teacher likes to say they are "cos-playing the period when his country was a pirate-democracy and Americans had free reign to loot other countries' ships in international waters".
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altered

Quote from: Telarus on March 10, 2019, 07:42:46 PM
And we are seeing "mandatory arbitration outside of court" clauses in all sorts of service and employment contracts nowadays.

Quote from: Don Coyote on February 28, 2019, 02:00:11 AM
Can we just all agree that Libertarians are just a bunch of toddlers who due their lack of object permanence and long term thinking just want to smoke weed and live in a more dystopic corporate dystopia?

My martial arts teacher likes to say they are "cos-playing the period when his country was a pirate-democracy and Americans had free reign to loot other countries' ships in international waters".

I love the word "pirate-democracy" because it fully explains libertarians without further additions necessary. No matter what "pirate" brings to mind for you, it's basically accurate.
"I am that worst of all type of criminal...I cannot bring myself to do what you tell me, because you told me."

There's over 100 of us in this meat-suit. You'd think it runs like a ship, but it's more like a hundred and ten angry ghosts having an old-school QuakeWorld tournament, three people desperately trying to make sure the gamers don't go hungry or soil themselves, and the Facilities manager weeping in the corner as the garbage piles high.

Prelate Diogenes Shandor

Quote from: Telarus on March 10, 2019, 07:42:46 PM
And we are seeing "mandatory arbitration outside of court" clauses in all sorts of service and employment contracts nowadays.

Those definitely need to be banned
Praise NHGH! For the tribulation of all sentient beings.


a plague on both your houses -Mercutio


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrTGgpWmdZQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVWd7nPjJH8


It is an unfortunate fact that every man who seeks to disseminate knowledge must contend not only against ignorance itself, but against false instruction as well. No sooner do we deem ourselves free from a particularly gross superstition, than we are confronted by some enemy to learning who would plunge us back into the darkness -H.P.Lovecraft


He who fights with monsters must take care lest he thereby become a monster -Nietzsche


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHhrZgojY1Q


You are a fluke of the universe, and whether you can hear it of not the universe is laughing behind your back -Deteriorata


Don't use the email address in my profile, I lost the password years ago

altered

Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on March 11, 2019, 12:22:57 AM
Quote from: Telarus on March 10, 2019, 07:42:46 PM
And we are seeing "mandatory arbitration outside of court" clauses in all sorts of service and employment contracts nowadays.

Those definitely need to be banned

Currently they're effectively useless, since the companies with the heft to make that sort of thing happen have too many goddamn users to enforce it easily.

You can, after all, still take them to court (breaking the EULA) and 9 times out of 10 they can't stop you from signing back up. They're just a bad court ruling from becoming truly evil though, so I definitely would prefer them gone.
"I am that worst of all type of criminal...I cannot bring myself to do what you tell me, because you told me."

There's over 100 of us in this meat-suit. You'd think it runs like a ship, but it's more like a hundred and ten angry ghosts having an old-school QuakeWorld tournament, three people desperately trying to make sure the gamers don't go hungry or soil themselves, and the Facilities manager weeping in the corner as the garbage piles high.