# Riboflavin, the question man **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 13, 2003, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riboflavin-the-question-man/154940 "2003-02-13T22:14:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![nogginhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5e9695/32.png) [@nogginhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nogginhead)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riboflavin-the-question-man/154940/121 "2003-02-18T15:11:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Lib[/] > > Neither do I think everything about Libertaria is peachy keen. Here are just a couple of the > things that I have (often) conceded are problems: > > 1. Corruption — in any governmental system, it is possible that governors will become corrupt, > and in Libertaria, governors could corruptly apply the noncoercion principle. > > 2. Facility — there is no satisfactory way of implementing libertarianism in an already > established authoritarian context, since there is too much dependence on government. Suddenly > removing the teat will almost surely starve the kittens. > > 3. Vulnerability — a libertarian government must of necessity maintain an extremely strong > military/police presence because it may be called upon to secure its citizens’ rights anywhere > in the world at any time, and so must be prepared to fight the strongest adversary in the world. I propose that the following be added to the list of things that can be a problem in either libert-utopia or libert-dystopia: 1. Poverty: Not a food-and-shelter problem (in libert-utopia, anyway); charity will attend to physical needs, as I understand it. However, the problem is individuals who cannot afford to pay for government, and thus cannot get the benefits is provides. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riboflavin-the-question-man/154940/122 "2003-02-18T15:52:37Z")
There is no reason to preclude charity from that, Noggin. If you cannot afford to pay, I will pay for you. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riboflavin-the-question-man/154940/123 "2003-02-18T16:22:32Z")
And I suppose we’d better hope and pray that Libertaria is filled with similarly charity-minded people. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Phoenix\_Dragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Phoenix\_Dragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phoenix_Dragon)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riboflavin-the-question-man/154940/124 "2003-02-18T19:40:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > **I’m even being asked now whether there are any taxes in Libertaria.** Well gee, if you _refuse to answer_, then of course people are going to wonder. And I _did_ say that I could have either missed any comment about taxes (Considering how many threads and posts there are on the topic, I wouldn’t be surprised if I had missed it if it was only mentioned once), and I _also_ said that it sounded like it wouldn’t, but instead of _assuming_ you to automatically mean one thing, I instead asked first, to make sure I wasn’t mis-representing your possition. And instead, I get ignored? How the _fuck_ is it an unreasonable question? I was trying to be civil and respectful by _not_ putting words in your mouth, and instead you complain about me asking a question. ---
**Author:** ![nogginhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5e9695/32.png) [@nogginhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nogginhead)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riboflavin-the-question-man/154940/125 "2003-02-18T22:19:54Z")
IANALibertarian, but my understanding is that there are no taxes as such, a tax being something you must pay to keep the man off your back. Instead, there is a fee the government charges you to protect your rights. This could be the government’s only function. Since there are competing governments, some might offer more services, like, say, roads, water, power, etc. But it’s possible that only the rich would be able to afford those many-frills governments. _Lib_ I appreciate your charity in wanting to provide some form of government for me in my desperate straits, but even in libert-utopia, I can’t imagine how it would be in anyone’s best interests to provide rights-enforcement to people who couldn’t afford it. In essence, I’d be paying someone to file for arbitration against me. This is different than paying for medical care or food or shelter for the indigent. The public relations value of providing rights-enforcement would be limited by all the times that the indigent filed for arbitration against my customers. Another question: would joint-stock companies or corporations exist? How would responsibility be allocated when an employee of such a corporation, in their course of doing their job, was accused of coercion? ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riboflavin-the-question-man/154940/126 "2003-02-19T02:19:21Z")
**Dewey Cheatem Undhow** Methinks we’re dealing with a paradigm problem here. Paradigms (read: world-views) tend to resist narrow factual probes. Permit me to work through an analogy. I’m a far lefty by US standards and a centrist by the standards of the remainder of the OECD. I’m also a free trader, which admittedly is a much narrower conceptual framework than libertarianism. Nonetheless, if somebody gave me umpteen examples of people who lost their job due to foreign trade, I wouldn’t find it very persuasive. (One problem is that while costs of free trade are concentrated, the benefits are diffuse, so it’s difficult to show specific counterexamples.) My defense of free trade ultimately would be on a different playing field, as it were. I would appeal to theory (tough to do here- the underlying argument is ultimately mathematical), as well as practice, specifically cross-country and historical comparisons (easier, though this evidence will always be mixed due to confounding factors). ## So when you point out a problem in Libertaria, a defender can respond that, “Ok, that’s a problem, but you haven’t shown that the status quo is superior, except within an overly narrow conceptual context.” One paradigm-breaking thought experiment might involve the following: “Lib, explain to me how you might be wrong.” I admit I don’t place enormous faith on this technique, but I’ll apply it to my free trade example anyway: ## I would oppose free trade under the following circumstances (and perhaps others) 1) the adjustment costs associated with free trade are shown to be greater than the adjustment costs of technological change, 2) the efficiency costs of income redistribution are shown to be much higher than currently estimated, AND 3) the adjustment costs associated with free trade are shown to be greater than the present discounted efficiency gains. ## I’ll now remind **Lib** of something he already knows. You can be a libertarian-leaning thinker without believing that (for example) all rules of human interaction can be derived from one, three or whatever Big Principles. But I think you know that. Finally: **Lib** : Bad screen name choice. Imagine what would happen if I changed my username to “Liberal”. It would be like painting a large and inviting target on my face. Now admittedly I shouldn’t talk, as “flowbark” is possibly the most retarded name I can imagine. What can I say, I wasn’t planning on sticking around this long. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riboflavin-the-question-man/154940/127 "2003-02-19T04:36:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by flowbark \* > **So when you point out a problem in Libertaria, a defender can respond that, "Ok, that’s a problem, but you haven’t shown that the status quo is superior, except within an overly narrow conceptual context."** That’d be great if **Lib** actually recognized that the things I’m bringing up are actually problems. He doesn’t. If he did, you could have a more productive conversation along the lines of “are the benefits of Libertaria worth the unjust results in the scenarios described.” But that isn’t what his argument is. His argument is either (i) the situation described won’t happen in Libertaria or (ii) the situation described is not a failing of Libertaria. Occasionally he falls back to the especially silly point (iii) the status quo isn’t nirvana either, which isn’t terribly relevant since the examples given are examples of where Libertaria is _worse_ than the status quo. ---
**Author:** ![Riboflavin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Riboflavin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riboflavin)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riboflavin-the-question-man/154940/128 "2003-02-19T14:09:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dewey Cheatem Undhow \* > 2. What possible _relevance_ does this line of inquiry have? Yes, there are failures in the status quo. I utterly fail to see how Libertaria would redress those failures, and I see plenty of ways in which Libertaria would make things worse. What’s even more interesting is that Lib fist started with the ‘failures in the status quo’ bit in response to questions like ‘How does Libertaria determine who is a parent, who is a child, and who is the parent of a child’, not in response to anything like ‘Libertaria doesn’t care for children’. I think the fact that Lib can’t entertain questions about what exactly it is he’s proposing (not even whether it would work) without going into an obvious dodge like ‘The current system doesn’t perfectly protect all children. Justify that!’ says a lot about how well Lib’s system would work in real life. > [@](#): > > Of course, ignoring perfectly valid questions comes at the expense of your own credibility. But it obviously isn’t forbidden.\*\*And so another thread ends with **Lib** refusing to answer perfectly legitimate questions about his vision for remaking the world. You really had me going there for awhile, **Lib** ; I thought maybe, just maybe, you had turned over a new leaf. Guess I was wrong. Color me unsuprised; Lib likes to spit out a few platitudes like “Parents have to care for their children in Libertaria. Are you saying that you don’t hink parents should care for their children?”, but real debate is beyond him. Note (I don’t feel like looking back through the messages for a quote) that Lib stated in this thread that questions from both of us about how Libertaria works make him feel like we’re accusing him of murdering children. I think that really says it all about Libertarian’s debate ‘tactics’; expect some vague feel-good statements, then that shocked offense that we all know so well as soon as someone just asks how, exactly, the feel-good statements apply to the governmental system he wants to have in place. ---
**Author:** ![Riboflavin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Riboflavin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riboflavin)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riboflavin-the-question-man/154940/129 "2003-02-19T14:13:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by flowbark \* > My defense of free trade ultimately would be on a different playing field, as it were. I would appeal to theory (tough to do here- the underlying argument is ultimately mathematical), as well as practice, specifically cross-country and historical comparisons (easier, though this evidence will always be mixed due to confounding factors). > > So when you point out a problem in Libertaria, a defender can respond that, “Ok, that’s a problem, but you haven’t shown that the status quo is superior, except within an overly narrow conceptual context.” The problem is that it’s not just pointing out problems in Libertaria that sends our old pal for a loop, it’s asking him how it functions. I mean, you like free trade. If someone asked how the Free Trade system you advocate determined, say, who is an interested party to a trade agreement, would you consider it an attack? Lib has stated that someone asking ‘How does Libertaria determine who is a parent and who is a child?’ makes him feel like he’s being accused of murdering children. ---
**Author:** ![Riboflavin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Riboflavin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riboflavin)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riboflavin-the-question-man/154940/130 "2003-02-19T14:17:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Phoenix Dragon \* > \*\*Well gee, if you _refuse to answer_, then of course people are going to wonder. And I _did_ say that I could have either missed any comment about taxes (Considering how many threads and posts there are on the topic, I wouldn’t be surprised if I had missed it if it was only mentioned once), and I _also_ said that it sounded like it wouldn’t, but instead of _assuming_ you to automatically mean one thing, I instead asked first, to make sure I wasn’t mis-representing your possition. > > And instead, I get ignored? How the _fuck_ is it an unreasonable question? I was trying to be civil and respectful by _not_ putting words in your mouth, and instead you complain about me asking a question. \*\* It’s simple really; if you try to guess at what Lib means, then you’re making unfounded assertions and putting words in his mouth. If you ask him what he means, though, that makes him feel bad too and he’ll probably start a pit thread over it. While there are a few people whose lips are sealed directly to Lib’s ass (Hi Fernis!) who believe that asking him ‘how does that actually work?’ is some sort of attack, rational people don’t. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/riboflavin-the-question-man/154940.md?page=6)