I’ve been wondering about this for a little while now, and since I’m not a GD denizen, I’ve not been able to verify my conclusions.
On this message board, Libertarians and squids are often spoken of in the same messages, even when there’s no obvious reason for it. What’s the calamari connection?
Here’s my guess: Libertarianism depends on a mostly rational, cooperative population. To attack that premise, one must posit a powerful person who will never cooperate with others, even when it may be in his best interests. As such a person would be a rather dislikable, ugly yahoo, the term `squid’ is used to refer to the miscreant.
I believe our own poster Libertarian was asked at least once what the libertarian reaction to giant squids would/ ought be when faced with their valid title to the lands of the earth.
There’s a lighthouse in there for good measure too.
Basically I think it’s because Libertarian tends to need about 10 arms to deal with the outrageous things fired at him when he starts in on libertarianism.
To libertarians, competition and cooperation are not neccessarilly diametric opposing forces. Companies compete to see who can cooperate with each other best. Likewise, we all have to cooperate to ensure certain underhanded acts (i.e, ways of cheating the system) don’t occur outside the purview of the law and/or the market.
I’m not getting what you’re saying. By the way, I’ve voted Libertarian in every presidential election going back to 1980, so I think I understand how libertarians think for the most part.
Could you name something specific that cooperation is necessary in the libertarian model to keep some underhanded acts from occuring? I mean, things that wouldn’t be against the law - we’re not anarchists, after all. I’m not trying to challenge you, saying you’re wrong, I just can’t imagine what you’re describing.
CurtC: Libertarians cooperate to the extent that we play fair and compete within agreed-upon boundaries, instead of going out and deciding things via armed conflict. There’s always going to be people who don’t want to play fair, who either don’t think the rules apply to them or decide to flout the rules anyway, but a society where most people cooperate will find those people out and punish them.
An example would be property rights: A farmer owns 40 acres of good hunting land. Come deer season, he can cooperate and allow hunters to cull deer there (perhaps for consideration) or he can not cooperate and prohibit any hunting. Both are allowed under a Libertarian model, but the first is vastly preferred. If enough farmers decide to be grabby and noncooperative, the hunters are left out in the cold in a bad way. Because the hunters can’t use their rifles to make the farmer cooperate (no initiation of force), they rely on the cooperation of the area farmers to hunt.
In a philosophical way, cooperation is really a form of advanced selfishness: By cooperating with the hunters, the farmer is able to reduce the strain on his crops due to deer, possibly get some venison (if that was agreed-upon), and gets the good feeling of knowing he’s helped someone else have fun. So cooperation serves both parties’ self interest, which is why Libertarians generally feel it doesn’t need to be forced on anyone, with the obvious exception of prosecuting criminals.
Back to the OP (and don’t I feel good contributing to the hijack of my own thread!): Well, that’s certainly one way to introduce giant squids into a political debate! Thank you all for all your information.
As for the hypothetical: I’m still thinking, dammit!
I think we’re still playing by GQ standards, so I’ll continue. I still don’t get it. Why is the former preferred? By whom? If the farmer doesn’t want someone hunting on his land, he just doesn’t let them hunt his land (it’s his land, after all). If the hunters get more desperate to hunt, the price of a hunting lease goes up, which might make the farmer reconsider. But if he doesn’t, that’s perfectly acceptable from society’s viewpoint.
You said that government force is required in the case of prosecuting criminals, but you didn’t mention enforcing private contracts. AFAIK, the libertarian model uses government force to enforce contracts. Is this what you’re talking about, that you don’t view that as a proper role for government, so would depend on cooperation and goodwill? That wouldn’t work at all.
In a philosophical way, cooperation is really a form of advanced selfishness: .
Interesting notion, and one that happens to overlap a number of theories of evolution. I think it’s in Pinker’s recent book, The Blank Slate, that a fairly long discussion occurs as to the evolutionary benefits of altruism. Essentially, my chances of surviving - and passing on my genes - are enhanced if I help others, since that way, I’ll be less likely to develop threatening enemies. In fact, that’s really the derivation of the term, the Selfish Gene.
Thank you all for all your information.