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Author Topic: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole  (Read 49325 times)

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MacFall

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #165 on: August 05, 2010, 11:26:49 PM »

You crib offa me without asking, I get to call you an asshole publicly. That's it.

I'm just going to say I agree with this and leave it at that.
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Terror Australis

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #166 on: September 01, 2010, 05:45:13 AM »

    You are a socialist only if L Neil thinks you are. No matter how different they make the shire society declaration he will always claim it is his property. Its a wonder he hasn't claimed the free state project is infringing his rights because people signed a statement of intent. In future if anyone even thinks about joining a new society he will claim damages. Dont even bother joining with a group of people and signing a document because he will own the ip for it.Where does it end L Neil? How much different does the shire society document have to be before you will not claim ownership of it?

 
   

« Last Edit: September 01, 2010, 06:20:04 AM by Terror Australis »
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Cognitive Dissident

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #167 on: September 01, 2010, 11:33:27 AM »

He likes to build a straw man (collectivists, Proudhon) then collectivize everyone who disagrees under that tent by putting words into their mouths instead of listening to their reasoning, and use the ad hominem attack.  That seems to be all he has.

I'm wondering why he's still trying to argue his view.  Is he in an echo chamber?  Is he still getting advice from people that he's off his rocker?  Is his attitude costing him money and/or opportunity?
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BobRobertson

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #168 on: September 01, 2010, 01:03:46 PM »

I'm wondering why he's still trying to argue his view.

The polite answer is, "He thinks he's right, and if he doesn't counter the anti-I.P. works, they will 'win' by default."

Quote
Is he still getting advice from people that he's off his rocker?

If the fact that I worked with him on The Libertarian Enterprise since the beginning (15 years), copyedited, proof-read three of his books (Neil, vampires don't like garlic, as you said in chapter 1, how many times is he going to revel in garlicky goodness?), etc, and he now considers me his enemy due to disagreeing with him about copyright "Intellectual Property", I think what he is doing is isolating himself to only people who already agree with him.

Quote
Is his attitude costing him money and/or opportunity?

Wanna bet he doesn't put the typos and references to garlicky goodness that I found back in _Sweeter Than Wine_? So much for "enemy".

I haven't noticed that ads for his "Phebus Krum" have been canceled from Free Talk Live either, so it seems that actual business trumps personal peeves.
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Cognitive Dissident

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #169 on: September 01, 2010, 03:55:50 PM »

Is he still getting advice from people that he's off his rocker?

If the fact that I worked with him on The Libertarian Enterprise since the beginning (15 years), copyedited, proof-read three of his books (Neil, vampires don't like garlic, as you said in chapter 1, how many times is he going to revel in garlicky goodness?), etc, and he now considers me his enemy due to disagreeing with him about copyright "Intellectual Property", I think what he is doing is isolating himself to only people who already agree with him.

Wow...it's little short of a tragedy.  I keep hoping he'll "come around" in whatever is his own way.

Quote
Quote
Is his attitude costing him money and/or opportunity?

Wanna bet he doesn't put the typos and references to garlicky goodness that I found back in _Sweeter Than Wine_? So much for "enemy".

I haven't noticed that ads for his "Phebus Krum" have been canceled from Free Talk Live either, so it seems that actual business trumps personal peeves.

In a way, that's a small victory...the idea that free commerce (to the extent that it is or can be) conquers all.  I'm glad he didn't resort to anything more than petty verbal assaults in response.

I'm in the middle of reading his latest entry, and this caught my attention:

Quote from: ElNeil, Chapter 585
That's why I fervently support the notion of borders that are open to individuals who wish to escape tyranny and improve their lives and those of their families. It's also why I support the equal right of a free association of individuals called Arizona to resist invaders—spawned, in essence, by drug prohibition—with murderous habits and intentions.

(Emphasis mine)

It seems so-called "intellectual property" by virtue of solely being the first to convey an idea isn't his only "odd" notion of property.  Maybe he means "invaders" on their actual property, but I don't think it's what the people he apparently supports mean.


There's also this:

Quote from: ElNeil, Chapter 585
More lately, I have been called a "statist" and a "socialist" myself, because I was, and remain, willing to defend my individual rights against collectivists who have assaulted them—and then attempted to make a "philosophy" out of their pattern of criminal behavior.

No, he was called a statist for threatening to involve an attorney--a sworn "officer of the court"--I.E. abuser of state power.  I'm unclear in what context he was called a socialist, but he jumped right into calling people "collectivists" for not support supporting the state-sanctioned invention of "intellectual property" right off the bat.  Furthermore, I haven't seen him utter a single word in defense of the assertion that it makes us "collectivists," or "communists" or the assertion that we're "enslaving" him by disavowing his ownership of the ideas he shared freely.  No one forced him to write or to release personal control of his works and the ability to contract their disbursement.

Quote from: ElNeil, Chapter 585
Yet they quote Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the founder of socialism, famous for declaring "Property is theft", and sneer like any common parlor-pink at anyone who expects to be paid for his efforts.

I also missed that, but it's cleverly worded so he can backtrack on the harshness of the claim.

Quote from: ElNeil, Chapter 585
My view, and that of any working writer, is that what's mine is mine, without regard to how easy it may be to steal (which appears to be their principal "argument") or how difficult it may be to defend. If scavengers like these are free to expropriate the products of my intellect, then, employing different excuses, they can expropriate anything.

He collectivizes all writers here, and gives them his opinion.  Then he uses circular reasoning which requires his shared ideas to be his property in order to define using them as theft.  He further claims what he shared freely is "expropriated."  Finally, he claims the same logic can be used to "expropriate anything."  This would appear to be the mother of all "slippery slope" claims.

He goes on beyond that to claim that people trying to reason with him are telling him this ("theft") is the wave of the future, where I highly doubt that.  I suspect it's his twisted misinterpretation of the argument that IP being unworkable is a sign of its principled flaws, and that history will show this to be true.  "History," more often than not, tends to end or marginalize things like chattel slavery and the like, and it will eventually end the slavery of the mind, known as IP, which was invented by the state to enslave in the first place.



Oh, I initially skipped over this bit, but since I commented on everything else....

Quote from: ElNeil, Chapter 585
Those who don't feel secure enough to stand on their own two feet, physically or mentally or morally (or who have dedicated themselves professionally to exploiting the unfortunates with that problem), and, as a consequence, are inclined to identify more with the group than with the individual, naturally hate and fear individualism. They have done everything they could, over those ten thousand years, to destroy it.

I've always been uncomfortable about this conflation of liberty and individualism.  This Ayn Rand chest-pounding about the the Men of the Mind, ad nauseam, is really unattractive macho flash bullshit, and it has the additional "everyone else be damned" aspect to it.  Sometimes we "need" (aka "can benefit from the services of") others.  The reality is that in a state of liberty, we can all choose whether to work with others, and whom to work with in order to improve our human condition--quid pro quo.  

All too often this "individualism" stuff seems to imply that people can and should live as hermits, rather than voluntarily choosing our interactions.  It's great when we can "stand on our own two feet," but when we can't, we can offer our services to others, who can help us leverage theirs.  Thanks to the invention of money, we don't have to do this on a barter basis.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2010, 11:21:13 AM by What's the frequency, Kenneth? »
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Terror Australis

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #170 on: September 02, 2010, 12:43:39 AM »

Nice post Kenneth. "Intellectual Property" is a singularly statist invention. Imagine if the first caveman to light a fire or the first person who came up with the wheel had claimed IP rights? the idea is patently absurd.

Look at Drifter breaking a caveman's IP rights...

http://bbs.freetalklive.com/index.php?topic=33925.0


"Competition is theft!"-L Neil Smith
« Last Edit: September 02, 2010, 06:34:46 AM by Terror Australis »
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Cognitive Dissident

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #171 on: September 02, 2010, 11:25:20 AM »

Nice post Kenneth. "Intellectual Property" is a singularly statist invention. Imagine if the first caveman to light a fire or the first person who came up with the wheel had claimed IP rights? the idea is patently absurd.

Look at Drifter breaking a caveman's IP rights...

http://bbs.freetalklive.com/index.php?topic=33925.0


"Competition is theft!"-L Neil Smith

Thanks!  I actually considered the idea of the wheel being "property."  How absurd is that?  Yet, that's the sort of thing El Neil is defending.
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Alex Libman

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #172 on: September 03, 2010, 01:10:07 PM »

Possibly useful related idea:  Libertarian Intellectual Property Alliance.
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Cognitive Dissident

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #173 on: September 03, 2010, 02:14:58 PM »

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Alex Libman

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #174 on: September 03, 2010, 07:41:35 PM »

Yeah, sometimes I like to open with one of my world-famous acronym jokes.  :roll:

I hope they won't distract from the substance of that thread, because I'd really hope this idea (or similar / better ideas) get somewhere...
« Last Edit: September 03, 2010, 07:47:53 PM by Alex Libman »
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MacFall

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #175 on: September 03, 2010, 08:27:03 PM »

VAGINA works for me.

That's good; otherwise Libman would advocate that you have your stigma as a homosexual branded on your forehead.
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Alex Libman

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #176 on: September 03, 2010, 08:35:35 PM »

What happens on a trollthread, stays on a trollthread.
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BobRobertson

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #177 on: October 12, 2010, 02:08:33 PM »

On copyright in general, and the common utilitarian arguments in favor of it, I found this article very interesting:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/oct/05/free-online-content-cory-doctorow

"For me, the answer is simple: if I give away my ebooks under a Creative Commons licence that allows non-commercial sharing, I'll attract readers who buy hard copies. It's worked for me – I've had books on the New York Times bestseller list for the past two years.

"What should other artists do? Well, I'm not really bothered. The sad truth is that almost everything almost every artist tries to earn money will fail. This has nothing to do with the internet, of course. Consider the remarkable statement from Alanis Morissette's attorney at the Future of Music Conference: 97% of the artists signed to a major label before Napster earned $600 or less a year from it. And these were the lucky lotto winners, the tiny fraction of 1% who made it to a record deal. Almost every artist who sets out to earn a living from art won't get there (for me, it took 19 years before I could afford to quit my day job), whether or not they give away their work, sign to a label, or stick it through every letterbox in Zone 1."
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"I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776 to acquire self-government and happiness to their country is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be that I live not to weep over it."
-- Thomas Jefferson, April 26th 1820
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