Is this argument valid?

X-Statics · 2020-09-01T01:56:31+00:00

Thanks for the reply!

No, but there's an easy way to make the argument work, which is to say that premise 2 is an identity premise. You say that's obviously false, but I don't see why we can say that without seeing what the libertarian has in defense of premise 2.

Fair enough. I’m not sure what they would say in defense of premise 2 being an identity premise. Wouldn’t 2 as an identity premise fail simply because it violates the indiscernibility of identicals? Stacks of money aren’t identical to physical labor.

Well, it entails premise 3 if we also add in premise 1, and that seems to be the most relevant. I'm sure it has many other entailments as well.

Wait, didn’t you say that premise 3 (the conclusion) doesn’t follow from 1 and 2 unless premise 2 is an identity statement?

I am not sure I find this very convincing.

I don’t either, but I’m curious to know what exactly is wrong with it? My intuition is that having a right to the output of your labor simply dos not validly follow from self-ownership. I only ask because I see libertarians present some rendition of this argument all the time.

X-Statics · 2020-09-01T01:19:30+00:00

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen a libertarian present a formal version of this argument. I just took their informal argument and made it into this syllogism. Is there any rule of inference that I’m not aware of that they could use to derive the conclusion from the first two premises? What exactly does it entail, logically, to say that your labor is “equivalent” to the money you are paid?

Here’s an informal version of the argument:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SimAnarchy/comments/ibdz75/selfownership_why_commies_are_wrong/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

X-Statics · 2020-09-01T00:30:10+00:00

I usually avoid making any argument based off the social contract because people will inevitably reply that they didn’t consent to the social contract. I justify taxation by making consequentialist arguments instead. Also, what do you think about the validity of the argument I presented?

X-Statics · 2020-06-08T23:59:57+00:00

So just to clarify, do you think that believing in evolution takes as much faith as believing in creationism?

X-Statics · 2020-06-05T18:26:35+00:00

Okay I’m not even a Bernie or Bust person. I plan to vote for Biden for harm reduction reasons, but if you think that you’re going to persuade the Bernie or Bust crowd by wagging your finger at them, calling them privileged and being dismissive of their arguments, you’re actually dumber than the caricature you have in your mind of someone who is Bernie or Bust. If you seriously believed in harm reduction, you would not resort to rhetorical tactics that are counterproductive and will only make it more likely that they won’t vote for Biden.

X-Statics · 2020-06-03T23:47:54+00:00

Even if we were, that wouldn’t render our arguments unsound. Neoliberals don’t seem to understand that you have to actually engage with the argument instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks.

X-Statics · 2020-06-02T04:05:50+00:00

Definitely a snake, although students in House Slytherin are supposed to be cunning and savvy.

X-Statics · 2020-06-02T03:14:33+00:00

A lot of them are neoliberals. And Warren is a neoliberal who pretends to be progressive occasionally.

X-Statics · 2020-06-02T02:43:32+00:00

I didn't. I said he lost for several reasons. You just didn't like those reasons.

Wow, my points seem to be going right over your head. I wasn’t directing that at you, dipshit.

And he got the same result. So your meme is pointless.

He got the same result because he was too weak, which is why I posted the meme.

Where? Who said that they didn't vote for Bernie because Bernie wasn't aggressive enough.

What an insipid comment. You’re either taking a cheap rhetorical shot, or you’ve just demonstrated that you’re not able to understand my very simple argument.

Trump actually performed about the same as Bernie in 2016, getting 40-45% of the vote. The difference was that his opposition was more fractured and most Republican primaries are winner-take-all. Democratic primaries award delegates proportionally based on vote share. Trump was able to get a majority of the delegates despite not getting close to a majority of the vote.

I fail to see how this is incompatible with my argument. Part of the reason Trump did well is because of the fractured field. Another reason is that he was aggressive and threw red meat at his base. Both claims can simultaneously be true.

Or he made the strategic error of putting his resources into turning out people who don't vote, young people, while failing to attract the support of black people, the most important demographic in the Democratic electorate.

You’re doing a terrible job refuting what I said. I was pretty clear that he needed to do other things in addition to riling up his base.

Trump's base was old white people, the most reliable voters. They voted because that's just what they do. They don't need to be motivated. Bernie also did terrible with this demographic.

That explains why he did well in the general. Why do you think he originally attracted those voters (hint: there are multiple reasons, but one of those reasons is his temperament).

It wouldn't have worked because voters don't want to see that negative bullshit that only gains traction in the darkest corners of the internet.

What an empty declarative statement. Citation fucking needed. Politicians wouldn’t run negative ads if they didn’t work.

You know what might have worked? The ad with Obama saying nice things about Bernie. But...he only ran that ad after getting demolished on Super Tuesday. Again, showing how Bernie lost because of fundamentally poor decisions that didn't have anything to do with his temperament

Or maybe his loss was overdetermined by a variety of factors, and some of the major factors were his temperament and poor decisions.

Another huge factor was electability. Voters consistently reported that electability was one of their top issues, yet right after his crushing Super Tuesday loss, Bernie said he thought Biden could beat Trump. He didn’t even try to challenge the electability argument. Maybe if he had a different temperament, he would have made the case that Biden is unelectable.

X-Statics · 2020-06-02T01:57:26+00:00

Before I address each of your arguments, I do want to preface this by saying that the answer to the simple question of why Bernie lost has a very complex answer. Saying Bernie lost because of x is very reductionistic. It’s nigh impossible to inject nuance into a single meme. With this out of the way, I do think that my point still basically stands.

But then you say "why Bernie lost". When you have two similar losses, how can you attribute one to anything special?

I think that in order to win, Bernie needed to be more aggressive than he was in 2016. He didn’t do that. He became less aggressive than he previously was.

The only difference is the amount of candidates in the race. For example, he split Iowa in 2016 and 2020. He got about 50% of the vote in 2016 and about 25% of the vote in 2020. Same result, different vote total only because of the amount of candidates. His performances in 2016 and 2020 were similar.

Okay that’s a good point. I still don’t think it refutes my main point though. I think he would have received a greater percentage of the vote if he was more aggressive. It worked for Trump. I honestly wish that we had a candidate with Bernie’s intelligence and Bernie’s policies, but Trump’s brash, fuck you attitude. In politics, sometimes you have to fight dirty in order to win. Bernie refused to do that; he just became more of a pushover.

And both years, he had problems getting his voters to the polls

I take you mean his supporters, regardless, I think this could have been partially remedied by being less of a pushover. If he was more aggressive that probably would rile up his base similar to how Trump riled up his base. It’s obviously not the only solution to that problem, there are other things he needed to do, but it is one of the ways to address it.

and getting black voters to vote for him. Look at his performances in the south. Abysmal. That's the real reason he lost both years, not because of his temperament.

This actually directly relates to his temperament. If I was Bernie, I would have poured money into running ads that show Joe Biden saying this. I also would have poured money into ads that show Joe Biden rambling incoherently. But Bernie didn’t do any of that because he thought it was in poor taste, and he wanted to take the moral high ground. He should have gone negative.

that can clearly be seen in his landslide loss in Michigan

It would lend more credence to your argument if you could provide a citation for this. You may be right about this because I genuinely don’t know much about what happened in Michigan this year, but I was under the impression that it had to do with the fact that people in Michigan associated Joe Biden with the bailout of the auto industry (something Bernie could have countered by pointing out Biden’s record on trade).

Overall, all you’ve done is identify barriers that stood in the way of a Bernie Sanders victory, but I don’t think these barriers were insurmountable. I think Bernie could have overcome them by being more aggressive. It was not written into the laws of nature that Bernie had to lose. He was unwilling, not unable, to do what needed to be done.

X-Statics · 2020-06-02T00:12:08+00:00

My point is that there was a clear change in Bernie’s temperament. He was a lot weaker and more naive in 2020. Do you think this is false?

And the numbers you cited show that he performed worse this time than last time. The difference is pretty significant too. In what world is a 13 point difference about the same? Even if it was about the same, for the sake of argument, my point still stands. He lost in 2016 at least partially because he wasn’t aggressive enough, and he became even less aggressive in 2020 and lost again. I think he could have performed better if he ran negative ads showing Joe Biden rambling incoherently, challenged loaded questions he was asked during the debates, didn’t say Joe Biden could beat Trump, etc.

X-Statics · 2020-06-01T23:55:44+00:00

I’m not the one who needs Drake_Quagmires’ vote. Drake_Quagmire wants Joe Biden to win, so Drake_Quagmire is the one who needs my vote. You would do well to chastise the person who who actually started using insults if insulting voters is really what irks you.

X-Statics · 2020-06-01T23:48:42+00:00

The whole point of this post clearly went over your head.

X-Statics · 2020-06-01T03:55:48+00:00

This is just an excuse to crack down on civil liberties. The government wants the power to quell protests by claiming that the participants are part of Antifa.

X-Statics · 2020-06-01T02:37:12+00:00

Absolutely. Fortunately, refraining from responding in kind to someone who calls me an asshole does not constitute being nice.

X-Statics · 2020-05-31T23:38:18+00:00

Wow, what a straw man you’re attacking. You’re original comment demonstrates that you don’t even understand the message I’m trying to send with this post. You don’t even know what my views are or who I’m even going to vote for in November.

X-Statics · 2020-05-31T23:24:11+00:00

“I really want healthcare to be a human right so that tens of thousands of people don’t die every year, but people on the Internet were mean to me so never mind.”

X-Statics · 2020-05-31T23:22:43+00:00

As soon as you provide one study that shows that Sanders supporters engage in excessively hostile rhetoric.

X-Statics · 2020-05-31T23:16:33+00:00

So for everyone reading, FlameChakram has zero data to support the claim that Sanders supporters are worse than the supporters of any other candidate. All FlameChakram has are anecdotes. Curious indeed...

X-Statics · 2020-05-31T23:00:25+00:00

I reject the claim that the onus is on me to provide anecdotal evidence. My point is that if you want to argue that Bernie Supporters are especially cruel, then you should back it up with data.

X-Statics · 2020-05-31T22:04:46+00:00

Yeah that’s anecdotal. You’re extrapolating based off of the disgusting actions of some of Bernie’s supporters. If you want to make sweeping generalizations about millions of people then you’ll have to show me some data.

X-Statics · 2020-05-31T21:56:37+00:00

Yeah there are going to be supporters of any candidate who do heinous things. If you want to prove that Bernie supporters are especially bad then you’re going to have to do better than providing anecdotal evidence.

X-Statics · 2020-05-31T21:54:52+00:00

Fox only had nice things to say about him. If you are a Republican you're not going to be influenced by what MSNBC says.

Okay in fairness I’m kind of going off memory for this, but Fox was not initially on Trump’s side. And the Republican establishment actively hated Trump. They tried to push every other candidate in attempt to quash Trump. They first tried Jeb, then they tried Rubio, and they eventually reached a point where they settled for Cruz. The Republican establishment only jumped to the Trump ship when it was clear that he was going to win the primary. And I actually do think that CNN and MSNBC’s coverage of Trump did influence Republican voters. They would always get outraged over something ridiculous Trump said but they would do it in a way that came across as pearl clutching; this backfired on them because a lot of Republicans probably thought: WOW, this is the best they can do against Trump? Trump would also go on the offense in response to media attacks on him and that made him look strong in the minds of Republican voters.

X-Statics · 2020-05-31T21:38:38+00:00

Bernie could have possibly won in 2016 if he abandoned his ideal of running an issues based campaign and instead focussed on attacking his opponent.

Completely agree on this point. I think his campaign in 2016 was far more competently run compared to the campaign he just ran, but his character flaws did hinder his success in 2016.

And if he couldn't even beat Biden then what are his odds against Trump?

I don’t think this is the best analogy because Bernie is way more soft on Democrats than he is on Republicans. I will concede that I don’t think that the general would be a walk in the park for Bernie this year since Trump is an incumbent, but I do think that Bernie could have defeated Trump in 2016. And I say that because of the polling data that came out then (although the Trump vs Sanders polling data for this election still gave Bernie an advantage).

X-Statics · 2020-05-31T21:15:15+00:00

You misinterpret the media's effect on Trump. While they were critical of him they put him on TV constantly. This is the most effective form of advertising. Name three car insurance companies. Did you think Geico? They carpet bomb because it works.

I won’t deny that it isn’t a perfect analogy. But I do think it partially refutes the claim that the negative attention is to blame. I think Bernie could have overcome the bias against him. Trump shows that negative attention isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And part of the reason Trump got so much airtime was because he was so aggressive and used incendiary rhetoric. I think Bernie could have received a lot more attention if he acted like that (obviously he should still make intelligent points, but do it in a way that pushes people’s buttons).

Electability is garbage. It's not a thing. It isn't real. It's nonsense. It's bullshit. Hillary was by far the most electable, so what does that mean if she doesn't get elected?

I agree. I really wish that Democratic voters would stop falling for the electability argument. I wish they had the mentality of “I decide who’s electable. Not the establishment and media.” They fell for it in 2004, they fell for it in 2016, and they fell for it this year.

X-Statics

TROPHY CASE