

L.P.D.: Libertarian Police Department - minikites
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2014/03/libertarian-police-department.html

======
bogs_carut
Seeing various media outlets attempt to portray Bitcoin as some kind of
Randian fetish with criminal undercurrents is getting rather tiresome.

"computer money invented to buy drugs." \-- come on.

I get that the New Yorker is middlebrow yuppie polemic, but they could at
least put a modicum of effort into an attempt at satire.

~~~
cromwellian
The majority of the cypherpunks behind the development of the crypto in
Bitcoin are libertarians, that's just the unavoidable fact. Hal Finny, Nick
Szabo, you name any of the heavy hitters of the original cypherpunks list.

Then, if you move on to look at the Bitcoin Talk forums, you'll see they're
infested not only by libertarians, but crazy right wing gold-bug types.

Maybe as bitcoin goes more mainstream, you can claim it outgrew these
sensibilities, but you can't ignore the disproportionate number of rabid anti-
government types who are the early adopters.

~~~
bogs_carut
Some of the community is like that, sure. But it doesn't follow that the
technology as a whole was created as a political vehicle, nor does it follow
that it will necessarily serve as one.

A technology cannot possess sensibilities.

But there are plenty of people willing to assert otherwise.

~~~
cromwellian
Are you aware of the history of cryptocurrencies and who is behind them? See
[http://www.cypherpunks.to/faq/cyphernomicron/chapter4.html#1...](http://www.cypherpunks.to/faq/cyphernomicron/chapter4.html#11)

The core people who worked on the algorithmic components that form the basis
of Bitcoin, are not only sympathetic to Libertarianism, but are sympathetic to
anarcho-capitalism.

I used to be heavily involved in cypherpunks myself (search for "cromwell" in
the cyphernomicon, see my Anonymous Remailer stuff
[http://marc.info/?l=cypherpunks&m=85281458701690&w=2](http://marc.info/?l=cypherpunks&m=85281458701690&w=2)
or search Cromwell here [http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/papers/privacy-
compcon97-www...](http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/papers/privacy-
compcon97-www/privacy-html.html) to see my note on the Decense Project, one of
the very first anonymizing web proxies), and I used to be a rabid libertarian
myself and I can tell you from personal experience it's not an exaggeration to
say where the sympathies of the creators are.

I personally developed cryptotools for anonymous double blind mailing lists
(neither the recipients of the list nor the list itself know each other's
addresses), shamir sharing, and distributed publishing, on the basis I
believed I was defeating government surveillance and censorship. At the time,
there was a vague notion that untraceable anonymity, absolutely secure
communication, and digital cash would permit the creation of an online world
which was 100% free of government.

~~~
bogs_carut
That's lovely for you, but not terribly relevant to anything I've stated.

An appeal to personal experience does not constitute a refutation of the
assertion that a technology cannot possess sensibilities. Nor does it provide
evidence that the majority of the present Bitcoin community shares such
beliefs -- asserting otherwise constitutes a fallacy of improper
generalization.

It's quite possible that the views most frequently articulated on Bitcoin
Talk, etc. are those of a vocal minority.

~~~
cromwellian
Unless you have a statistical survey of the bitcoin community, all we have is
the anecdotal evidence. And the anecdotal evidence, both from my personal
experience, as well as _objective sampling of the celebrities of the
community_ is that libertarianism is disproportionately represented compared
to the populace in general.

And since the early adopters and pioneers of a community often mirror the
philosophy of their founders, it is highly probable that the bitcoin community
is overrepresented with libertarians.

That this seems surprising to you or you're so defensive over it seems
strange. It seems pretty self evident. As if you found a community of gun
owners producing crypto-guns, and were shocked to find they were NRA members
too.

~~~
bogs_carut
> Unless you have a statistical survey of the bitcoin community

I don't, and I don't think it's appropriate to make generalizations unless one
has access to a sufficient body of empirical evidence. So I'm not making
generalizations.

With that in mind, none of your opinions strike me as self-evident in an
objective/empirical sense. Perhaps they're self-evident to you, but that
doesn't make them the basis for sound argumentation.

It's unclear to me how I might have come across as defensive with respect to
your comments; I merely don't find what you're saying to be convincing.

------
breischl
I can't tell if this is an intentional misrepresentation for attempted comedy,
or if the author's only research into libertarianism consisted of jokes he
heard at a party while shooting up that heroin mentioned the first paragraph.
My bet is on the latter.

------
mlieberman85
There are valid criticisms and parody of libertarianism. There are valid
criticisms and parody of Bitcoins. This article doesn't provide any of that.
It's just a big straw man.

------
Aloha
The 'Fountainhead' reference annoyed me, privately funded police and courts
are not a real objective as per randian ideology - Rand was an objectivist,
not a Libertarian.

The rest of the article is just stupid stereotypes piled one on another.

------
rayiner
"Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs®" really captures the Zeitgeist of
Silicon Valley libertarianism. Public services are ad supported! Although, it
falls a bit flat because without the government trademark monopoly there's no
incentive to spend so much money advertising to build up brands.

------
just_reading
Funny, and at the same time accurately representing their subscriber's
understanding of libertarianism
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Kael#Alleged_Nixon_quot...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Kael#Alleged_Nixon_quote))

------
cromwellian
"Brought to you by Carls Junior!"

"Why do you keep saying that?"

"Because I get paid everytime I do! If you're so smart, how come you don't
know that?!"

~~~
cromwellian
For whomever voted it down, this story mirrors similar concepts presented in
Mike Judge's _Idiocracy_.

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jedberg
Libertarians still believe in a publicly funded police force (and military).
It's one of the few things Libertarians feel should be publicly funded.

~~~
UVB-76
Does such a consensus really exist? Who decides what the libertarian consensus
is on a particular view?

~~~
jedberg
I based it on the Libertarian Party platform.

~~~
rainmaking
Ah, but the Libertarian _Party_ by definition represents those Libertarians
who see a role for the state.

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tlrobinson
_" I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A
pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth."_

Huh? Why does this person think libertarians would believe secondhand smoke is
a myth? They might argue against laws prohibiting smoking indoors, but it
wouldn't be because they believe second hand smoking is a myth.

This piece is filled with non-sequiturs.

~~~
rayiner
It necessarily follows. Even libertarians acknowledge that people's rights
don't extend to hurting others. So any libertarian that opposes a smoking ban
must believe that second hand smoke is a myth.

~~~
samolang
These libertarians oppose smoking bans imposed on private establishments. They
believe that second hand smoke is fine if it only affects people who
voluntarily enter the establishment (similar to how they're fine with people
throwing concerts even though the noise level of concerts can damage the
listener's ears).

------
api
Libertarian != anarchist.

(I am not either of these, just pointing out that this is a straw man.)

~~~
afsina
Correct. But they can intersect. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-
capitalism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism)

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rainmaking
As a Libertarian, this is pretty funny.

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Torgo
Was this just copied from a 4chan troll post?

~~~
bogs_carut
4chan usually does a better job than this.

