Intellectual Dishonesty

[Commissaris]

I think you have the wrong idea. I'm not defending political ideology, I'm criticizing political ideology.

You've made it pretty clear that you're not speaking from your own beliefs (aside from your beliefs on terminology anyway). I've been interested in two things during our exchanges:

- Whether or not "libertarian socialist" is a contradictory term or not. I believe we can conclude that we are at an impasse of definitions, and I hope I've explained why I believe that ascribing intellectual dishonesty to the YouTuber is based on weak argumentation.
- Whether or not "choosing to sell your labour" is free and/or desirable in the concrete and the abstract. I argue that is neither, both in practice and in theory. In practice selling your labour isn't a free choice because there is no sufficient alternative within developed capitalism as it actually exists and in theory the same applies and in addition that freedom indirectly leads to harm, causing me to reject it as a desirable freedom.

In both cases you don't have to take a position, but in your argumentation you were/seemed to be drawing on the importance of the freedom to sell one's labour even if it were functionally out of reach:

Then there's the choice of C, to become an entrepreneur yourself, but this choice doesn't need to be easy to mean you still have freedom of choice. Not all choices have to be perfectly equal to be choices.

If I read that incorrectly you weren't contradicting what you said before but you'd also have to agree with me that being theoretically able to pull yourself up by your bootstraps is meaningless if you're not effectively able to do so to a reasonable degree (if you could only do it by literally never sleeping would be an unreasonable degree as a dramatic example). We'd both need to conclude that the alternatives to selling your labour to someone need to be within a reasonable grasp for people in order to argue that there's an actual, effective choice being made.

I've run out of time for tonight so I'll pick things up later. Have a good one.

[brimstoneSalad]

- Whether or not "libertarian socialist" is a contradictory term or not. I believe we can conclude that we are at an impasse of definitions, and I hope I've explained why I believe that ascribing intellectual dishonesty to the YouTuber is based on weak argumentation.

Could you agree that it's a spectrum of intellectual honesty/dishonesty?
The fact that these terms are a little more loose and varied probably gives Libertarian Socialist Rants some more wriggle room than a Deepak Chropra or an Isaac Brown using aberrant definitions in the context of Science and Philosophy.

In modern discourse, however, and particularly in primarily English speaking countries like the US and Canada, these terms have settled into certain political/ideological niches, and I don't think the way they fell in this respect is at all arbitrary but rather based on innate logical compatibility of the various ideologies. Words come into their definitions by brute force cultural evolution/dialectical computing that I think a wise person will see the wisdom in and not dismiss them too casually within their spheres of expert usage.

Libertarian within a political context means libertarian at least in a substantially similar way to how it is used in modern U.S. politics; one probably based on a more rigorous application of its inherent ideology.

There are no doubt arbitrary terms in politics, like "Democrat" and "Republican" which bear little resemblance to their original etymology (if they ever stemmed from those things). But I don't think either Libertarian or Socialist are such.

Using older terminology in politics is somewhat like using older terminology in science; like using the definition of "energy" before we understood e=mc^2. It's lacking in a century of context and political knowledge, and disregarding all of that post-Marx advancement in usage and meaning is, I believe, intellectually dishonest because it either results in some manner of deception or stems from an indifference to how and why these terms have evolved as they have. Again, not an extreme or obvious a break with intellectual honesty as a Deepak Chopra or an Isaac Brown, but none the less it is something to take pause at.
You may not think very much of individual politicians, but the machine of politics is pretty good at differentiating and categorizing ideologies in it's brute force manner of operation.

I don't think there's much more I can say on that without digging into the issue of contradiction and the qualities of socialism and libertarianism that make them ideological and mutually incompatible (at least when both considered as absolute priorities).

- Whether or not "choosing to sell your labour" is free and/or desirable in the concrete and the abstract.

Whether it's free or desirable are very different questions.

For desirable: It can be answered simply with another question: What does the science say? What results in the most well being?
I have little interest in political speculation sans evidence, and I think if somebody is reaching into ideology to answer questions that science has not that in itself is probably an issue of intellectual honesty. We can certainly have personal inclinations, but should be willing to admit uncertainty on these measures and in that sense we should be parsimonious enough not to want to enforce political ideology upon others when it's not supported by the preponderance of evidence.

Drugs are a good example: superficially, drugs are very harmful, so it seems to make sense to ban them. But alas, the ban is harmful too. Few things are so one sided that it's wise to leap before we look, and political hypotheses are the epitome of that.

Don't be a socialist or a libertarian, just be a scientist and wait for the science to come in, and then make a choice based on the evidence of how it affects well being.

For free: This is a more interesting philosophical question, although we must not confuse the outcome (whatever that is) with desirability.

I'm glad to discuss this one if you'd agree we don't really know whether it's desirable or not, and whether it's free or not doesn't really matter much to that end (beyond human perception, but that's another question for science to answer).

I'd rather not discuss it if we're assuming the outcome is extremely important to desirability, though. I feel like that would slant the conversation, with a lot riding on it for you and nothing riding on it for me because I don't think it matters.

This is to me an issue that ties in with the free will question. Perhaps interesting intellectually, but of little import beyond that.

In practice selling your labour isn't a free choice because there is no sufficient alternative within developed capitalism as it actually exists

Define sufficient. Is it arbitrary? Is it subjective?

in addition that freedom indirectly leads to harm, causing me to reject it as a desirable freedom.

Net harm? Why do you believe this?
There's no evidence of this. You'd need controlled experiments, and to thoroughly assess alternative systems and all of their consequences to make a reasonable assessment of cost/benefit.

And if you reject it because it leads to any harm, even if the benefits outweigh the harm and alternatives cause more harm, it seems you're bound to apply that logic to everything and be trapped in analysis paralysis for eternity or until you come upon a unicorn of a truly harmless system that satisfies everybody. I don't think that's useful.

In both cases you don't have to take a position, but in your argumentation you were/seemed to be drawing on the importance of the freedom to sell one's labour even if it were functionally out of reach:

Then there's the choice of C, to become an entrepreneur yourself, but this choice doesn't need to be easy to mean you still have freedom of choice. Not all choices have to be perfectly equal to be choices.

If I read that incorrectly you weren't contradicting what you said before

I wasn't saying it's important, I was just speaking to the philosophical questions of freedom. I would look to science to tell us how important freedom in itself actually is, psychologically and in practice to the economy.

but you'd also have to agree with me that being theoretically able to pull yourself up by your bootstraps is meaningless if you're not effectively able to do so to a reasonable degree

What's reasonable?

(if you could only do it by literally never sleeping would be an unreasonable degree as a dramatic example).

That's physiologically impossible for human beings. I accept that it can not be physiologically impossible to all humans and still be free; the choice to fly by flapping our arms is also not a choice.
How about a non-dramatic example that is possible yet difficult?

We'd both need to conclude that the alternatives to selling your labour to someone need to be within a reasonable grasp for people in order to argue that there's an actual, effective choice being made.

And we'd need to find an objective definition of reasonable, otherwise we'd just be throwing our opinions at each other and probably wouldn't get very far. We also have to contend with luck and statistics.

I've run out of time for tonight so I'll pick things up later. Have a good one.

I'll try to keep this up, but I have a bunch of stuff to do in the next week, so we might have to postpone until the end of October if that's OK.
Have a good night.