The Mindcrime Liberty Show with Dobson and Patton

Ep 137: Defending the Undefendable: The NSA and Mass Surveillance

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses surveillance. If one isn’t doing anything wrong should one care about surveillance and spying? Can one have privacy in the modern world if one chooses to participate in its various technologies? How private was the past? Should one expect privacy and is it a genuine right?

Ep. 136: Are organized crime gangs states? feat. Keith Preston

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses with Keith Preston whether organized crime and street gangs are like states/megacorps. What is the relationship between street gangs, organized crime and the formal state? Is Thaddeus Russell right in that crime gangs have provided America (and elsewhere) a steady stream of goods/services that the formal society outlaws and thereby a kind of material freedom? In the US, gangs provided alcohol during prohibition and in certain state socialist countries there was a trade in iconography/religious artifacts. Do certain gangs and organized crime syndicates resemble the state itself? Do they rival the state in certain areas or are they even the de facto “State” such as in parts of Somalia, Russia, Mexico and Lebanon?. In certain areas the police/state might not be the most powerful monopolist in power even in so-called first world countries. What should libertarians and anarchists think about these organizations?

Ep. 135: The Essence of the Political: the Right, Carl Schmitt and the State Ft. Lukas Eidolon

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses Carl Schmitt with Lukas Eidolon of Metanaissance. What can one, in particular libertarians and anarchists, learn from Schmitt’s concept of the political? Why has the friend/enemy distinction been such a relevant concept? What would Schmitt think of Thomas Hobbes and vice versa? Is trying to abolish the state unrealistic? Does the sovereign actually have truly independent power? https://metanaissance.com/

Ep. 134: Do intellectuals and environmentalists want to reduce the world’s population?

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses whether environmentalists would prefer a world with fewer people. Environmentalists of the Left as well as the Right have pursued a variety of policies in particular forms of birth control as well as higher education for girls which has lowered the birthrate in most, if not all, industrialized developed countries. Intellectuals like JS Mill spent a night in prison for the crime of distributing materials related to birth control and abortion. Many traditional people of the Right have complained about the effects of industrialization and urbanization on the family as well as its secularization tendency. Aristotle seems to suggest that a polis over a 100,000 persons is simply too big to govern with his ideal form of government. Would plenty of intellectuals prefer a smaller population? If people are a good thing isn’t it great that industrial modernity has more of them? What would be the ideal population?

Ep. 133: Are teachers and college professors prison guards?

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses, are school teachers AND college professors merely prison guards? Is this rhetorical extremism? Are state schools merely about warehousing and disciplining children in order to create obedient soldiers and corporate employees? Why is there so much sympathy toward school teachers as well as college professors from the general public? Is there really any difference between “lower” and “higher” education? How much of a free choice is university/college education considering the need for credentials in order to get a decent job? Why is the Left, including so called left-libertarians, fairly uncritical of most college professors as well as school teachers given the authoritarian boss-like power they are granted with? Does anyone learn anything useful from college or public schools other than the hidden curriculum of obeying orders as well as the sheepskins/credentials? Why is it, from a 30,000 foot view, so many public schools and certain universities look so similar to minimum security prisons? Do they have the same purpose? Could society exist without them and what would education look like in a free society?

132: Are voluntary militias for the defense of a stateless society compatible with mass immigration?

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses whether mass immigration is compatible with the idea of a volunteer militia. The defence of a stateless society is a common point of criticism made against libertarians and anarchists. One of the solutions, other than rights protection agencies, proposed by theorists like Roderick T. Long and David Friedman is the adaptation of a much older form of organization: a voluntary militia. Can voluntary militias be compatible with mass immigration which many left libertarians such as Roderick T. Long support? Will the stateless society which is mass immigration friendly fight as a unified cohesive whole or will there be too many divisions, free riders and even fifth columnists?

Ep. 131: Who won the Nassim Taleb vs. Gary North debate?

Who won the Nassim Taleb and Gary North “debate"? There was no actual debate that happened; rather, the Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses an early essay written by the legendary Mises institute speaker and author Gary North, which critiqued Nassim Taleb’s very first and arguably best book, Fooled by Randomness. In that essay North perceptively picks up that Taleb is a Hayekian by adapting the evolutionary defense of the market and for that matter society. North, a Misean and Creationist, is of course opposed to this randomized view of society which is further strengthened by the fact that a robust account of evolution isn’t exactly random either. What does Taleb get right and what does Gary North get right? Is Taleb (as well as Hayek) really an intellectual suicide bomber as North argues? North does praise Taleb at times but even that praise is somewhat backhanded. How predictable is the world and what kind of mathematical models can be used to understand social and physical reality? Does not Taleb and the Miseans, like North, agree that most mathematical models used in social sciences are quite useless, if not harmful? The only difference is that Taleb thinks his mathematical empiricism is better because it takes into account rare events and extreme risks where current models don’t. Would a Taleb informed mathematical economics (as well as social sciences) be an improved enemy for the a prior praxeological based Miseans to deal with?

 

Ep. 130: The Euthyphro dilemma of art, music and films

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses the Euthyphro dilemma of art, music and films. To paraphrase the Euthyphro dilemma of theology, is good art merely good because powerful people and institutions say it's good, or are there some timeless propaganda-free and power-free ways to judge art? If the New York Times or Guardian reviews a film highly but more independent critics and the audience “pan” it, can they make a bad film (or other forms of art) “good.”? Can powerful persons and institutions deem “bad” art “good” merely by using their clout to create tastes? More practically how should lay persons treat professional critics and reviewers?

Ep. 129: If abortion is murder, is contraception murder?

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses whether contraception, including natural family planning, is murder, if indeed abortion is murder? If humans, in particular couples who view abortion as murder, engage in sex while knowingly frustrating the natural consequences of the act, what is the difference between that and many abortions (in particular those that occur early on which are the majority)? The humans doing this intercourse are not ignorant of the mechanics of the act, unlike certain supposed isolated tribes or animals, thus ignorance is not a defence. Even if this process isn’t murder, what is the ethics of “family planning?” If one "steelmans" the pro-choice argument, as well as looking at the empirical data, abortion is a kind of ersatz family planning which is used by people of low impulse control which was infamously pointed out by Richard Spencer. Even if contraception isn’t murder and abortion is, what are the ethics of using contraception especially if one thinks abortion is murder? Will the pro-life movement go after contraception? Should they? How many children ought a couple, or a society, have? If sex is merely about peer bonding and not procreation what exactly do so many paleo-conservatives have to complain about with respect to other sexual acts?

Ep. 128: Is marriage a form of slavery?

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses whether marriage is a form of slavery. Feminists, as well as other radical thinkers, view marriage as a form of slavery from which the individual needs to be liberated. Currently many men's rights advocates would posit that men of all classes can and do get exploited by marriage laws. It seems that both sides have a low view of marriage, yet unlike chattel slavery, marriage is a social institution which continues on. Marriage rates may not be as high as in the past but why do both men and woman (as well as same sex couples) choose to become part of this seemingly reactionary institution? Free love seems to be the revolutionary position as opposed to monogamy, and if one asks Plato/Socrates the ideal system is a kind of common ownership of children. Why don’t other forms of human relationships get tried and what explains the persistence of this seemingly reactionary institution? Is it a killer app and the only reasonable way to raise children? Is marriage really a form slavery? Are people choosing to “sign” themselves up for slavery?