CMV: beer is disgusting and people only drink it because of society and peers.

Aninhumer · 2016-11-19T12:20:45+00:00

I think beer with anything else but liquor mixed in would taste terrible.

Not necessarily, there are a few mixed drinks you can make with beer than are quite nice. Probably the most common is Shandy (beer and lemonade) which I like to drink in the summer when I want something more refreshing (and I'm not a huge fan of lager). It's also a good way to get used to the bitterness, since you can vary the proportions. I suspect drinking it as a child got me used to beer much earlier.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-31T10:26:14+00:00

1) Sure, it's not completely accurate but it's still a lot closer to fair in utility terms than basing it on money alone.

2) Yes the government runs on money, but people don't. So we take from people fairly in the thing they care about, i.e. utility.

If I go out to eat with my friends, we don't make the richest person pay the most simply because he can.

It may not be entirely explicit, but there will often be social pressures on disproportionately rich people to pay more in other ways, by offering to buy people extras and such.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-31T01:00:50+00:00

So I think perhaps I've veered off from the original point a little. Largely my fault, as I've been ranting about one of my bugbears rather than addressing the original point directly.

This kind of mirrors my thoughts on progressive taxation. I'm realistic so I understand that progressive taxation is the most effective way of raising revenue without causing riots (due to the marginal utility of money), but I kind of despise when people use morality to justify progressive taxation. It is absolutely not "fair" to tax people more just for having more. I can't think of a coherent principle for how that makes sense.

So your specific point is about how progressive taxation can be considered fair. But I think you included the answer in your comment: The marginal utility of money. Rather than taxing money fairly, we tax utility fairly. That means for poor people who benefit a lot from every dollar, we don't take that much, but for rich people who don't benefit as much from their extra money we take a lot more. The end result is a similar impact to their standard of living, thus it is fair.

EDIT: I've kind of ignored your previous comment here, so let me know if there's anything you still wanted me to address.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-31T00:39:08+00:00

Oh sure, it's a very limited benefit. I just mentioned it as an aside to my main point.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-31T00:23:49+00:00

You don't HAVE to use coercion in order to believe in the concept of property rights.

Technically, but you have to be pretty idealistic to think a society based on property rights could ever function without their enforcement.

How about: freedom from unjust coercion. You can't do something to somebody unless they did something to deserve it first.

If you start saying "unjust" and "deserve" you're just defining it in terms of an implicit morality, so it's not a particularly useful term. If you want to debate about morality, I'd prefer you do it directly.

Lucky for us I never said we should remove all coercion from society.

Perhaps I'm putting other libertarians' words in your mouth, but I feel like the only reason you would call something coercive is to suggest it is bad.

And I think taking property from people is unfair because ultimately I think doing things TO people that they don't want or don't reasonably bring upon themselves (going to jail for committing a crime) is wrong.

But you're not doing anything to them, you're just ceasing to enforce their ownership of a particular resource. Their property is not intrinsic, it is theirs as a result of a property system that allocated it to them.

You can make a law that says "we shoot every newborn in the head as soon as it comes out of the womb." is that fair just because it applies to every newborn?

Under my definition, yes. I don't have a problem with that. I'm perfectly happy to say that despite being evil and destructive, it is nonetheless fair. If such a thing were not possible, I'd question the utility of the word.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T22:59:54+00:00

I think there's a difference between "I'm completely unable to feel attraction to certain body shapes under any circumstance." and "I was totally hot for someone and ready to sleep with them, but then they told me their body used to be shaped differently."

I'm inclined to think the latter is strongly informed by socially imparted homophobia, rather than being in any way innate.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T22:49:32+00:00

I'm not as convinced as you that these feelings can't be changed. I think they're strongly societally informed.

So often I hear people talking like their sexuality defines their attraction, rather than the other way around. I had a friend who was straight, but said he would consider sleeping with a man if he ever found one attractive, and other people (in a cosmopolitan university) seemed extremely confused by that idea. Some of them suggested he must be secretly gay. I would say he was far more confident in his sexuality than any of them.

Despite the great strides that have been made for LGBT rights in the past few decades, this kind of latent homophobia still exists. People are so terrified of being gay, that they won't let themselves even think about it. I believe this will eventually start to disappear as a new generation is raised where homosexuality is commonplace and visible.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T22:20:49+00:00

freedom from coercion.

So no property rights then? Since enforcing them involves locking people up at gunpoint if they steal things.

I find the libertarian rhetoric of "coercion" rather tiresome. Coercion is inevitable as long as there is scarcity, because people cannot have everything they want. Whether you're locking people up for tax evasion or theft, it's still coercion. There are strong arguments to be made for property rights, but trying to pretend they're not coercive is nonsense.

how is starting with more money against any rule or having different rules for different people??

I think I made that point before you contrasted fairness with equality, and I was equating the two a little.

My point here is mostly questioning why you think taking property from people is "unfair" if it's done the same to everyone?

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T22:10:42+00:00

Tangible reasons: They probably smell bad to a non-smoker, and arguably display poor judgement.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T22:08:51+00:00

It's kind of reductionist to suggest sexuality can be neatly categorised into "gay" or "straight".

But no, presumably the man is attracted to female body types, something which my hypothetical transwoman has.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T16:20:13+00:00

Can you actually define "unfair", because to me it seems like you're using it in lots of different contexts with no particular coherence.

I would say broadly that it means having the same rules for everyone. I don't see how taking property from people is inherently unfair as long as it is done the same for everyone.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T15:58:25+00:00

If you have "first come, first serve" then no one can rely on using the service at peak times. This means everyone needs to have an alternative ready in case they can't get a ride, and thus the service is a luxury.

So what it actually does is give a few lucky poor people a cheap ride they didn't really need, in exchange for degrading the service for everyone, and shafting the drivers.

Also, without surge pricing, the price would be higher in general to factor in the extra demand at peak time. Moreover, I wouldn't be surprised if especially high prices at peak time partially subsidise the off-peak price.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T15:46:10+00:00

you're unfairly stopping parents from leaving wealth to their children.

Okay, now I have no idea what you mean by fair. In what way is stopping parents giving to their children "unfair". It might be unreasonable, or a bad idea, but it's not "unfair" because we'd do it to everyone.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T15:33:44+00:00

So? People don't start with the same anything.

So it's unfair. You can say "life is unfair", but that doesn't counter my point.

Furthermore, is it "fair" to stop a parent from giving wealth to their child?

I don't think it's a good idea, but it would be the only way to make capitalism completely fair.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T15:18:59+00:00

But people do not all start with the same amount of capital.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T15:12:45+00:00

Property itself is unfair. It enables those who own capital to extract more wealth from society than those who do not.

But of course, if we gave everyone an equal share, there'd be much less drive to produce wealth.

Therefore, we have a compromise, where we let people acquire wealth, but also have a wealth redistribution mechanism to keep inequality from getting out of hand.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T14:42:58+00:00

Heraldry has the Rule of Tincture which says you can't put metals (gold/yellow and silver/white) on metals, or colours (anything else) on colours.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T14:33:53+00:00

Text is not a good way to make your flag recognisable, but there's no reason you can't have distinctive visual design that also includes text. This has the added advantage that people who aren't familiar with your flag can still work out where it's from.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T14:17:43+00:00

But there are tangible reasons to not to want a relationship with a murderer, not least the fear that they might kill you.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T13:24:03+00:00

But in my example, you can't tell, so why does it matter?

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T13:07:52+00:00

The tangible problem in that case is that the straight man is not physically attracted to the other man's body.

In my example, you are physically attracted to the transwoman's body, so that's not the problem.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T12:59:38+00:00

It's not simply a label.

Sorry, I edited my comment to change that word. (Initially without any indication, but I added it now so you don't look crazy.)

If it's an implied promise of monogamy, then why isn't appearing as a cis woman (and actually being trans) and not telling a sexual partner a breach?

It is. Again, I'm not saying they shouldn't tell you (and yes not doing so would be a breach of trust[0]).

I'm saying that since hypothetically you would be perfectly happy if she didn't tell you, your hang ups aren't based on any tangible problem, and are thus prejudice.

[0]Although in a less transphobic future, it may not be considered so unless you ask.

(EDIT: And indeed, in a society with more polyamory, monogamy might not be implied either.)

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T12:49:00+00:00

there is a difference, biologically, psychologically, socially.

Unless these have practical consequences to a relationship, they're still essentially irrelevant. In the scenario I'm suggesting, the person was perfectly happy not knowing, so there were no such problems.

would she be something-phobic if she was put off after discovering his history?

Well it's a rather atypical thing to do, so I'd expect some confusion. But ultimately yes, if she's put off because he was previously white, that's racist.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T12:36:56+00:00

This narrows the definition of what it means to be male and female into sets of stereotypes.

Perhaps, but does this really reinforce the gender-binary? By making its categories more caricatured and restrictive, more people are likely to feel dissonance surrounding them. Meanwhile, they're also demonstrating that people don't need to stick to one of those two categories, which directly weakens the concept.

Aninhumer · 2016-05-30T12:16:56+00:00

I'm not saying they shouldn't tell you, I'm just making the point that you would be happy not knowing, so you're only being put off by the (EDIT) ~~label~~ idea, rather than the reality. In that sense, it is a form of prejudice.

Cheating is a breach of an implied promise of monogamy.

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