The Mindcrime Liberty Show with Dobson and Patton

Ep 76: What actually is decadence and degeneracy with Rik Storey.

The mindcrime liberty show discusses two words/concepts which conservatives,  paleo-cons, paleo-libertarians, reactionaries  and others accuse modernity of being: decadent and degenerate.   What do those concepts/words mean?  Is modern day western civilization, including the US and UK, a decadent and degenerate society?  Is this preventable? Do good times create weak men?  Was this inevitable?  Is this cyclical?  What can be done and will anything be done?  

Ep.75 Austrian Economics, the Cantillon Effect and Marxist Third Worldism.

The Mindcrime liberty show discusses one of the primary affinities or  darkside  of the moon agreements that the Austrian school of economics has with certain aspects of Marxism.  If one takes the Austrian business cycle theory/central banking critique as well as theory of state and combine them one can find an area where technically the Austrians agree with the Marxists in a way although the solutions are much different and it ironically depends on ones class (hint  Bernie Sanders supporters would not have as many victim points).  The Austrians consider much of inflation, economic crisis's and for that matter some of inequality to be the result of state banks policy which wouldn't exist if the market was free or "more free."  The state is also not merely a benevolent organization which makes mistakes or a "normal firm" as many of the classical liberals/Chicago type economists say it is rather the Marxists are correct in that it represents the ruling class.  The Austrians understand what power the central bank has in under-girding the states number one formal "soft" power weapon...ie its central bank.  Since in a scarce world there is no such thing as a free lunch the primary way one can make "printing money" "work" is through fraud/slavery/theft.  One can get irritated at that accusation as did the MMTer who debated Bob Murphy did; however, as the the Cantillon Effect explains this only works for the people who get the new printed money first combined with the state monopoly police force to enforce no counterfeiting laws This is except of course its own treasuries when they say so, thus, George Floyd at Cup's convenience store can't take a freshly printed note off his printer to buy scarce goods which is exactly what he did but the state can do it all the time. Money works because its an exchange good which preserves value and solves the double coincidence of wants problem.  The state hijacks  money as a means to pay for its expensive projects, maintain its power and give privileges out to its friends.   The way the state gets its monopoly on the production of money by most moral/philosophical/legal/religious analysis's  is also illegitimate.  As the new "counterfeit" money goes out further into the economy the purchasing benefits get less and less. The further away one is the greater the effect. What is interesting about the dissident Marxist doctrine of third worldism is that this is an area of total agreement yet both sides arguably are unaware of the technical arguments beneath it for various reasons.  One of the primary reasons we argue is that developed countries Marxists would be considered lower in the food chain in the cherished victim hierarchy. There are of course numerous other factors which explains the "Wealth of nations" such as competence, ingenuity, geography, luck and hard work but international Cantillon effects is one factor . 

Ep 74: Why do people have children?

The mindcrime liberty show discusses why people continue having more people?  Since the invention and proliferation of effective birth control the  production of children can be divorced from the act to create them.  Before then if people had sex children would most likely result "naturally" in the same way breathing happens. Of course one could abstain but that requires an act of will and self control which for the most part is uncommon.  Since child production in many places is now under the aegis of human action and not merely natural instinct why then do people choose to do so? Is it out of tradition? Is it a kind of hedonistic consumerism as Bryan Caplan describes?  Is it for religious reasons (ie fill the earth or have a quiver full of arrows).   Is it for political reasons in order to continue oneself or ones groups legacy?   What explains the reasons people choose not to do so?  Why is this a taboo topic still? Why is it for the most part so low since the invention of effective birth control? 

Ep 73: Has Bitcoin/Crypto currency already saved the world?

The Mindcrime Liberty show discusses whether the various crypto currencies such as Bitcoin, Doge and Ethereum has already saved the world.  Forget the does  it "work" question,  (it clearly works as in it exists and people use it no different than stamp collections) rather has, it prevented a crisis?   In the past 2 years governments around the world have printed incredible amounts of money.  This is on top of the pre 2020 existing situation.   The wider world has also witnessed considerable inflation in the past 2 years and governments have been paying people not to work largely by printing money out of thin air or allegedly through debt spending. Why do people continue to work and save in these financial environments if of course the value of the fiat money will be stolen by the state through inflation?   Has crypto saved the world by providing a financial lifeboat to many productive working people to place there value who lost faith in the state currencies or is it still merely a get rich quick ponzi scheme which is destined to collapse?  Where else ought productive workers put there value paid in state fiat currencies that is not used for immediate consumption? How does it compare against gold?  Is Michael Saylor right or is he just a conman? Why can't the bitcoin and gold people just get along? 

Ep. 72: What is a good environment?

The mindcrime liberty show discusses what would a human centered environment look like.  What wouldn't it look like?   Would higher or lower temperatures be preferable?   What kind of topography would most humans care to be near?   Would this change if humans only had pre industrial technology?  Were historical societies really that "nice" to the environment?  What areas are the best for growing certain foods?  

Ep 71: Do the Amish and Ancaps need Woodrow Wilson and B. Kristol to protect them?

The mindcrime liberty show discusses freeriding, pacifism and defense. Recently popular youtuber Peter Santenello interviewed a beachy Amish family and they stated that during times of war they were viewed as freeriders or scabs who didn't do their fair share but enjoyed the freedoms and luxuries provided by the broader society including the security state.  Is this criticism true?  Also recently Bill Kristol and Scott Horton debated the topic of regime change wars and whether they benefit the US.  The primary benefit for certain groups including libertarians and the Amish is a foreign power isn't destroying their property or lives.  Is this criticism true?  Would the Amish and a hypothetical Ancapistan be overrun by commies and nazis (or others)  if it wasn't for the "security" provided by the state led and created by acolytates of Bill Kristol and Woodrow Wilson? Is Libertarian foreign policy a naïve fairy tale compared to the realist position?  Are the Amish free-riders off the state?  Would the Amish and many other western groups be as wealthy if it wasn't for the US navy and formerly the British navy opening up markets and protecting shipping lanes?  How would industrialization look and would it happen at all if it wasn't for the state? Would more groups go the Amish way and choose to forgo certain consumer goods and industrial products if the state didn't subsidize their creation?  What industrial products would be produced and not produced? Would there be more river and air travel with shorter supply chains?  Is Wilson and Kristol a bigger threat to the Amish and a hypothetical ancapistan society?  

Ep.70 Are we all grifters now?

The Mindcrime liberty show discusses grifting.  What is it, is there an alternative and what are the implications if it exists? Grifting is an accusation which one will encounter if one spends enough time online or oneself is online.  It is not only "unrespectable proles" but even Glen Greenwald (although he may be an unrespectable prole anyways) gets this accusation thrown at him from time to time.  Dave Rubin and many people further to the right of him get this accusation thrown at them.  What are the incentive structures of producing content?  Why isn't this accusation thrown at more established corporate and mainstream media organizations such as CNN or NBC? Rachel Maddow reportedly gets 30 million per year for her show on MSNBC, Wolf Blitzer at 5 million, Shephard Smith at 15 million and Megyn Kelly gets reportedly 23 million.  Aren't they much more profitable then Glen Greenwald, Alex Berenson, Thaddeus Russel, Ron Paul or Jordan Peterson's substack column and youtube channel let alone Alex Jones who has been banished from almost the entire mainstream internet?  If grifting is a problem a critique ought to acknowledge the difference  between big money grifters and the small money grifters.  Glen Greenwald and Thaddeus Russel for all their intelligence and capability seem to be in the wrong business if grifting is the goal compared to Megyn Kelly and Rachel Maddow.

 

If the problem does exist what ought to replace it?  Public funding of media seems to produce content which is not only of an agenda it is increasingly considered bad by large segments of the population according to survey data.   NPR in the US is almost entirely watched by voters of the democratic party and to many is insufferable to listen to or watch.  Organizations like the BBC are in a parallel situation increasingly and as Peter Hitchens describes with its recent shows twist history and smear Brits. The problem with a good portion of publicly funded content, especially on controversial subjects, is easily recognized in other societies and is what Anglo-Americans would call propaganda if it wasn't their own government doing it.  The managerial elite and their supporters clearly dominate and watch organizations such as the BBC and NPR and if they alienate them too much would clearly lose the support of its backers leaving them in  a position which might be worse then Glen Greenwald or Michael Tracey's substack column. The primary benefit of the mass patron model is decentralized support as long as one doesn't ban people from using the means of exchange  and banning "unregulated" means of exchange like crypto.  It seems like everyone is in a way beholden to some sort of patron but one has to examine who exactly makes bank and who exactly gets by comfortably.  What is to be made of those who produce content for no money? Are they just "attention seekers" who like to here themselves talk? Is it not the case that the Marxist dream is a kind of profit free production of content?   Aren't we all grifters by some definition and is there any significance to that accusation as its usually applied?  

 

 

 

 

Ep 69: Borders, War and Physical Removal Part 2. Towards an ideal system of borders and relations.

in part 2 the mindcrime liberty show lays out what an ideal system of borders, conflict and relations would look like.    We continue to defend Hans Hoppe's  view of realistic libertarianism from characterological and emotive attacks and try to sketch out a possible future or ideal system.  The outline would consist of thousands of Lichtenstein's of various internal rules and mores all respecting each others property.  A world of a thousand Lichtenstein's all respecting one another's properties may be considered utopian but a one world state seems utopian at best and dystopian in practice.  Property doesn't require something like universal love to implement and is a rather realistic and constrained starting point. Interestingly, if one de-bundles the state as it would be done in certain societies some unlikely defenders of borders may arise including notably trade unions.  In certain other societies a self defense culture may arise as well. 

 We stress, like Hoppe, the primacy of borders as an extension of property and without the existence of it no theft can occur. Without property there is no theft. Without borders and property there is no foreign aggression to speak of because there is no such thing as a foreign land.   Without borders there is no localism and instead its centralized monocultural universalism. Borders and property's role in a free peaceful productive cooperative society ought not to be discounted even if some of the existing borders may be considered illegitimate.  

Ep 68: Borders, War and Physical removal. Part 1 Mainstream Incoherence.

The mindcrime liberty show discusses why most modern political theorists have an emotive incoherence and hypocrisy towards borders. With the rise of Donald Trump the libertarian movement split over the issue which ironically blew up in reverse with the shutdown. Many, but not all, "open border" therapeutic liberals (sadly some "libertarians" included) suddenly got rather friendly towards borders or at least less outraged at them for this rather politically correct usage of them. Internal borders in the EU and the US were actually erected! This recent issue notwithstanding we discuss why borders of some kind are necessary for all sorts of issues including something interesting which Glen Greenwald stated after the fall of Kabul: Leave Afghanistan for the Afghans. This has a very different vibe towards the politically correct crowd if someone said leave Sweden to the Swedes or leave Florida to the current Floridians. Why would Glen Greenwald state that statement even for the Afghanistan issue? When it comes to war without borders there is no such thing as territorial aggression or invasion. In the leadup to WWII both Stalin and Hitler operated "without borders" to their respective neighbors including Poland and the Baltic states. Most historical colonialist and empire builders, which the left hates, operated "without borders." The US government and its forces have operated without borders. Julian Assange for many years used the Ecuadorian border inside of the embassy to protect himself from Anglo-American prosecution. Hence its quite clear that without some admission of borders many of these socio political positions held by liberals, progressives, liberal libertarians and leftists make no sense. Libertarians like Hoppe can philosophically defend them merely as an extension of property rights to some degree but if one denies the existence of property/border then what does "foreign" aggression or "theft" or "invasions" actually mean? If no borders exist there is no such thing as as "foreign" aggression or invasion. There is no such thing as different clouds rather its one giant cloud. Are certain socio-ethnic groups (say smaller clouds) entitled to stay on their land? What happens when they can't defend it from a superior power? It could be power explains the what, when and why of when borders gets defended but most political theorists have a rather emotive incoherence when it comes to borders.

War and immigration are clearly linked and many mass movements of persons/groups occur after, during and before wars. As David Friedman argues if one lives in a good society one experiences immigration toward it and if one lives in a bad society one experiences emigration. This was obviously the case in West Berlin. This is also the case with the USA and its southern neighbors. Immigration done in large scale is a form of invasion as Hoppe argues. The left of course views certain immigration movements (say the settlement of North America by Europeans) as a kind of invasion. The story itself in that case is not as straightforward as they make it seem and the imperial Aztecs or Incas didn't care too much for their neighbors either! The left acted very much like and if not worse then Andrew Jackson and Marx held a rather low view or certain groups too! Mao didn't care that much for the borders of Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea which was carved out by US/UN/ROC troops and still defended to this day and as mentioned above Stalin physically removed and concentrated all sorts of ethnic groups around.

We also discuss the strange relationship that many liberals and leftist have with the philosophy they usually hold which is something like internationalism and universalism. Both seem to imply that their ideas (be they feminism, liberalism, 15 percent tax rate or democracy) must be in charge throughout the world. If one set of ideas is in charge everywhere there can be no competition or regional diversity in any significant area. It seems that what they (say John Dewey, LBJ, Woodrow Wilson, the Neocons, Marx and John S Mill) really want is a one world democratic state of some kind. In that society there can be no exile or "better" place to move if its been entirely homogenized.

We discuss these issues and many more in this episode. Part 2 coming next week.

Article we reference on the left case against open borders. American Affairs not current affairs as we incorrectly said. https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/11/the-left-case-against-open-borders/

Marxism is as alien as Capitalisms article. Marx actually referred to indigenous peoples like the Native Americans, Scottish highlanders, and Basques, along with hunter-gather societies and native tribes in the colonial era generally, as “non-historical peoples.”

https://attackthesystem.com/2020/08/17/revolution-and-american-indians-marxism-is-as-alien-to-my-culture-as-capitalism-2/

Ep 67 To Trust or Not to Trust the Experts? #iatrogenics #Predictions

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses what is an expert, do they exist and whether we should trust them if they do? Are experts merely an extension of a ruling class/ruling mantra in order to keep them in power? Are Michel Foucault and Thomas Kuhn right about science?  On some areas they might be.

We at the Mindcrime Liberty Show hold that you can best demonstrate expertise in fields/activities which have a physical good and some amount of skin in the game.  For example carpenters have to build structures that work.  One could philosophically quibble with what "work" means but in a way one knows what works and doesn't.  Chefs and bakers make food which tastes good and doesn't make one sick.  Again, one could quibble with taste and to some extent sickness but there is some standard that can be demonstrated.  Helicopter mechanics and manufacturers have to build relatively safe and reliable helicopters.  As Nassim Taleb points out, there is a statistical relationship between helicopter mechanics who must fly on the helicopter at random and the helicopters safety record.  So if one combines a testable product with skin in the game its quite clear that there are experts.  There also probably can be experts in fields like literature, history or film.  One is merely knowledgeable about known knowledge about a given topic and subfield using relatively known standards.

The problem occurs in areas outside of these narrow yet important areas, and of course in the gray zone middle. For one thing, social science prediction and computer modelling has no real testable proposition per se other than the future lived reality against their respective model and past data.  Even if the past data is correct, if the future doesn't meet the modelers predicted outcome (lets say an election forecast or death forecast if no one is wearing a mask) then is the data/modeler wrong or was there some additional missed variable?  Or are certain phenomena just unknowable or un-understandable? There obviously isn't any skin in the game or testable product outside of what the future is when it comes to most social science.   The limitations in many social sciences are quite clear.  Some of the more hard sciences it’s also unclear as well.  What exactly counts as evidence and what isn't evidence. Can layman or renegades interpret the texts or only certain accredited institutions?  In that past year and counting one particular hard science has taken over.  

 As far as doctors and various other medical professionals themselves are concerned, are they experts?  It is quite clear that in the past doctors and various other medical "experts" have behaved badly on behalf of their patients.  The patients at times have gotten sicker while in hospitals than outside of hospitals -  everybody should read up on the phenomena of iatrogenics or harm done by the healer.  Furthermore, clinics and hospitals themselves have a political ideology behind them which is quite clear to many of the founders of these organizations.   The rise of mass hospitals occurred at the same time as the rise of mass schooling, mass prisons and mass armies.  Mass hospitals are a very modern institution for better or worse.  Hospitals themselves are drab prison like buildings with mostly hideous utilitarian architecture.  Doctors (like educators) are some of the least criticized authorities and are generally viewed by most "normies" as being trustworthy and only operating on behalf of the greater good which is clearly demonstrably false. 

We at the Mindcrime Liberty Show  hold that doctors probably can cure broken legs and bones but then again there is more or less a physical product to show the results.   When it comes to other procedures such as preventing a contagious disease which was probably created by them in a lab (but for political and career reasons won't say anything...i.e. they are not merely operating out of pure good) what would "success" look like?  Its relatively easy to spot a working helicopter or a good cook but what exactly is a good empirical epidemiologists?  

It seems as if to the mainstream if the cases or deaths go up the vaccines, masks and mandates all work! If these numbers go down they work too!  One can see this quite well with Tom Woods (https://www.covidchartsquiz.com/) which may explain the opposite phenomona but then again where is the testable product and might there be a missing variable (let’s say natural immunity)? Or maybe Alex Berenson is right and virus gonna virus?  Its not entirely clear what the answer is but the American Medical establishment has stated that if one spreads misinformation based on the acceptable narrative they will lose their license.   To quote Upton Sinclair- It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. https://www.fsmb.org/advocacy/news-releases/fsmb-spreading-covid-19-vaccine-misinformation-may-put-medical-license-at-risk/