"Freedom" thread or something

thellama73 wrote: This is you, Geoff: "Big government progressivism is like when you add milk to cereal to make it tasty, but then the cereal gets all soggy and gross, but you keep adding more milk and then it spills on the table and ruins the finish! See what a good argument I have made?"

When you convince Gerinski and millions of other Europeans like him that their cereal is soggy, you might have a point.

thellama73 wrote: My point, which you have hilariously missed, was that you constantly make absurd analogies that have no relation to the thing you are criticizing.

How is my computer code analogy an absurd analogy?  It's a very good one, because every line of code I write is essentially a law that the computer follows.
The way I see it, Libertarians and Republicans who go on about "small government" (or no government, if you're crazy) are arguing over the wrong thing.  To use the computer program analogy, the customers are sick of all the bugs.  So the software company has distracted them by getting them to argue over how there should be less code.  This is not the customers' problem, though - it's a problem the programmer has to face, and he/she should deal with it on his/her own.  The customers just want their damn bugs fixed, and they want it done as soon as possible.  And that's what they should be pushing for.  As a customer, I don't give a damn if you fix my bug with C# or VB.NET, and I don't care if you use 1 line or code or 10 (though if you put in a thousand lines and end up with a slow program, that's going to piss me off too), I just want the damn bug fixed!  And that's why I have such a problem with Libertarians.  You guys are bogged down in the minutia of telling the programmer how many damn lines of code he/she should use and what technology is acceptable - that's not your job!  That's the programmer's job!  You, as the customer, should be telling the programmer what you want!  But you've been fooled into thinking that the answer is to argue about less code or the even more ridiculous "no code at all" fantasy.

dtguitarfan wrote: thellama73 wrote: My point, which you have hilariously missed, was that you constantly make absurd analogies that have no relation to the thing you are criticizing. How is my computer code analogy an absurd analogy?  It's a very good one, because every line of code I write is essentially a law that the computer follows. The way I see it, Libertarians and Republicans who go on about "small government" (or no government, if you're crazy) are arguing over the wrong thing.  To use the computer program analogy, the customers are sick of all the bugs.  So the software company has distracted them by getting them to argue over how there should be less code.  This is not the customers' problem, though - it's a problem the programmer has to face, and he/she should deal with it on his/her own.  The customers just want their damn bugs fixed, and they want it done as soon as possible.  And that's what they should be pushing for.  As a customer, I don't give a damn if you fix my bug with C# or VB.NET, and I don't care if you use 1 line or code or 10 (though if you put in a thousand lines and end up with a slow program, that's going to piss me off too), I just want the damn bug fixed!  And that's why I have such a problem with Libertarians.  You guys are bogged down in the minutia of telling the programmer how many damn lines of code he/she should use and what technology is acceptable - that's not your job!  That's the programmer's job!  You, as the customer, should be telling the programmer what you want!  But you've been fooled into thinking that the answer is to argue about less code or the even more ridiculous "no code at all" fantasy.

*sigh*

1. We are not customers purchasing government. Government is forced upon us.
2. A bug in a computer program is not similar to a law that allows oppression of individuals.
3. People can simply choose not to use the computer program if they don't like it. We have no such choice with government.
4. Customers of computer programs don't care how much code there is because they don't see the code itself, only the effect. We do care about laws, because each law is visible and has an effect on us.
5. I am telling the programmer what I want. I want more freedom.
6. Computer programs don't kill people. Governments do.
7. Code is a law the computer follows. Laws are laws people follow. People are not computers.
8. There is no distinction between the "programmer" and the "customer" in real life. All programmers are also customers.
9. The "programmers" have been trying and failing to fix the bugs (at least the bugs we care about) for hundreds of years, and yet they refuse to try the suggestions of the customers, many of whom are quite educated in computer science.
10. We are not bugged by minutia. We care about very big, important problems that affect people's lives in major ways.

It is not a good analogy. It fails on many, many levels.

dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: Viruses are programs too, right?  Ones that steal system resources, access private information, and spy on users? So my computer got a virus.  So that means that operating systems are evil and no one should ever have an operating system, eh?

I''m completely lost. Is the computer the government or is the operating system the government? What is the virus? Who are the people using these computers and what are they trying to do on them?

dtguitarfan wrote: The Operating System is the Federal Government.  The Libertarian view is that there should be no Operating System.  Only smaller programs.  Which is absolutely ridiculous - you still have an Operating System, it's just called "DOS", and it's a frigging pain in the ass to use. Look, you say that if there had been no Federal Government, slavery would have eventually been abolished.  But what I see happening in that case is that instead of one big battle over the issue (the Civil War), there would have had to have been many, many, many smaller battles.  Oh joy, doesn't that sound fun.

But that's not real! You just made that up! It would be like me saying "The federal government is like a balloon. If you expand it too much, it explodes." Why is the federal government like a balloon? Because I say so, that's why! The federal government is not like an operating system, and no amount of you saying so will change that.

Also, the Civil War had more than one battle.

thellama73 wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: The Operating System is the Federal Government.  The Libertarian view is that there should be no Operating System.  Only smaller programs.  Which is absolutely ridiculous - you still have an Operating System, it's just called "DOS", and it's a frigging pain in the ass to use. Look, you say that if there had been no Federal Government, slavery would have eventually been abolished.  But what I see happening in that case is that instead of one big battle over the issue (the Civil War), there would have had to have been many, many, many smaller battles.  Oh joy, doesn't that sound fun. But that's not real! You just made that up! It would be like me saying "The federal government is like a balloon. If you expand it too much, it explodes." Why is the federal government like a balloon? Because I say so, that's why! The federal government is not like an operating system, and no amount of you saying so will change that. Also, the Civil War had more than one battle.

So basically you're against analogies.  You don't want anyone to ever use an analogy.

Excuse me, but that's stupid.

thellama73 wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: thellama73 wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: The Operating System is the Federal Government.  The Libertarian view is that there should be no Operating System.  Only smaller programs.  Which is absolutely ridiculous - you still have an Operating System, it's just called "DOS", and it's a frigging pain in the ass to use. Look, you say that if there had been no Federal Government, slavery would have eventually been abolished.  But what I see happening in that case is that instead of one big battle over the issue (the Civil War), there would have had to have been many, many, many smaller battles.  Oh joy, doesn't that sound fun. But that's not real! You just made that up! It would be like me saying "The federal government is like a balloon. If you expand it too much, it explodes." Why is the federal government like a balloon? Because I say so, that's why! The federal government is not like an operating system, and no amount of you saying so will change that. Also, the Civil War had more than one battle. So basically you're against analogies.  You don't want anyone to ever use an analogy. Excuse me, but that's stupid. I can always rely on you to display your usual level of thoughtful analysis. Analogies are fine as far as they go, but they are a limited tool and always involve simplifications. When dealing with something as complex and finely tuned as an economy or politics, they have little practical use, especially when they aren't very apt analogies to begin with.

I never said my analogy was perfect.  But to understand something as complex as government/economics/society/etc., it becomes necessary to use tools such as word pictures to help understand the problems we face.  And every time I try to do so, you seem to object to the very practice of using word pictures.  It seems like all you really care about is making sure the only arguments that are allowed are the arguments you can easily shoot down.

dtguitarfan wrote: thellama73 wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: The Operating System is the Federal Government.  The Libertarian view is that there should be no Operating System.  Only smaller programs.  Which is absolutely ridiculous - you still have an Operating System, it's just called "DOS", and it's a frigging pain in the ass to use. Look, you say that if there had been no Federal Government, slavery would have eventually been abolished.  But what I see happening in that case is that instead of one big battle over the issue (the Civil War), there would have had to have been many, many, many smaller battles.  Oh joy, doesn't that sound fun. But that's not real! You just made that up! It would be like me saying "The federal government is like a balloon. If you expand it too much, it explodes." Why is the federal government like a balloon? Because I say so, that's why! The federal government is not like an operating system, and no amount of you saying so will change that. Also, the Civil War had more than one battle. So basically you're against analogies.  You don't want anyone to ever use an analogy. Excuse me, but that's stupid.

^Plus the fact that it's a false analogy in the first place because the government is nothing like an operating system; government isn't the force that makes society run, government is in place to make sure it doesn't run out of control.

dtguitarfan wrote: Ambient Hurricanes wrote: ^Plus the fact that it's a false analogy in the first place because the government is nothing like an operating system; government isn't the force that makes society run, government is in place to make sure it doesn't run out of control. Fine, so say that I am trying to write a new virus protection software.  And don't come in here and say "that's a bad analogy" - computer code is an EXCELLENT analogy, because every line of code is a law, just like government writes laws.  So I'm trying to write a new virus protection software.  You, being Libertarian, insist that my resulting software must be no bigger than...oh...*pulls some number out of my ass*...20MB.  Do you see how stupid that is?  No, just tell me what you want and let me do my work.  Then if it's not working right after I've written you some software, tell me what's wrong and let me fix it.  Don't insist on arbitrary rules that make absolutely no sense at all.

What arbitrary rules do libertarians insist on that make absolutely no sense at all? I'm not aware of any libertarian arguments that say "there must be exactly 107 laws" or anything of the kind. You say "tell me what you want and let me do my work." Okay, I want a government that doesn't coerce people. Go do your work and make that happen.

Also, it is a bad analogy, because each line of code is a law that applies to the computer, not the user. Also, lines of code are not analogous to laws, because lines of code interact with each other in complex ways and are mainly useless if taken out of context of the rest of the program. You can't just repeal random lines of code without destroying the program, where it is quite easy to do that with laws.