Last week, as part of his latest book-shilling tour, Steven Pinker looked us straight in the eye and threw down the gauntlet with his Big Think rumination “Why libertarianism is a marginal value and not a universal value.” Pinker argues that “the free market has no way to provide for poor children, the elderly, and other members of society who cannot contribute to the marketplace.” Furthermore, Pinker claims a robust social safety net as a necessary characteristic of a “developed” economy.
Of course, this is argument is even more laughably fallacious than his criticisms of the connectionist model of language acquisition. To support his premise, Pinker indulges in a false choice fallacy, argumentum ad populum, and the beloved ‘Somalia fallacy‘. It truly is a mediocre bit of hackery that exposes the poverty of his arguments in just a little over 4 minutes.
Split Pinker’s wig and bust his cheeks open in the comments below, and when you are finished, you can wash your ears out with this.
Comments
56 responses to “Two in the Pinker; One in the Stinker”
Where to begin?
By being first, of course!
“Would” that cartoon
The raging strawman of “libertarian paradise = no social spending” stands out.
And employers providing health insurance is not “welfare”, it’s compensation.
Get your hands off my social security before you get off my lawn! You know, because I paid for both.
The Somalia link is being blocked by AVG.
Here, try a similar link.
Thanks, that one works.
Except for, I dunno, the fact that it’s a free market, and plenty of people (even in our not-that-free-market) think these are worthy enough causes that national charity isn’t exactly suffering.
We have a link on the right side of our very own homepage that refutes that shit.
I’d click it if you hadn’t sugarfree’d it!
That site is going to turn poor people into slaves, isn’t it?
Sex slaves.
Ok, I’m in.
Who built orphanages and hospitals before the State?
Orphans?
Brother owners in the Wild West.
/Thad Russell
Brothel owners! Not brutha owners …. though they probably did, too.
Well you see the Better Angels of our Nature are only invoked by coercive threats of violence on the part of government. That’s how you get generosity in support of those in society who are unable to fend for themselves.
“the free market has no way to provide for poor children, the elderly, and other members of society who cannot contribute to the marketplace.”
Worldwide declines in the poverty rate, with the introduction of liberal economics, would beg to differ. What is the point of trying to refute someone who propagates falsehoods?
Jinx! Ish!
And I do agree–you can’t refute people who are blatantly disingenuous like that. They’re impervious to empirical evidence.
Great minds think alike, or, in my case, eventually some of the nonsense I spew should make sense
Infinite monkeys, infinite typewriters.
You could just say it like this, if you were honest.
I have a bunch of guys with guns. So I’m going to take all of this land here and make you pay me some rent to be on ‘my’ land. I’m going to give some of the peasants part of your money so that they will also support my theft, so I can keep it up. It’s all about equality. It’s not about me, because I had to take all of this land for myself and steal from you in order to promote equality. No mind that I’m more equal, someone had to do it. Now shut up and pay your fair share.
It is more fair for children to equally starve than for ones to have more than others
It looks like Rob Lowe aged forward 40 years.
It’s typical that a Canadian who probably has his health insurance covered twice, by Canada and Harvard, does not understand the impact that the ACA has had on premiums.
The only reason it’s still around is because the GOP is full of chickenshits.
“Since 26 January 1991, most of Somalia has had neither, yet the economy has not only been resilient, some sectors have shown remarkable growth.”
Ok, I’m worried now, they aren’t going to get roads are they? Damnit, the last libertarian paradise could be ruined!
Roadz are white privilege
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The funny thing about Pinky with no Brain is that he is hated by left and right alike. Which is fair since he is worse than H man
I watched that, and kept waiting for when he was going to start talking about “libertarianism”, but he never seemed to get there until 3mins in, where he defined “Libertarianism” as “govt with no social spending”, a seemingly out of the blue non-sequitur
he correctly observes that wealthy countries are more concerned with social-welfare than poor ones; this isn’t the same as “welfare spending”. people have an interest in preserving prosperity, once attained.
he also correctly observes that employers/businesses have an interest in the welfare of their workers in a prosperous society.
somehow he fails to connect the dots here and grok that the root of ‘social welfare’ isn’t “big govt programs”, but the outgrowth of prosperity itself.
Basically, he confuses the ‘most popular mechanism’ for social-welfare as its cause.
*shorter:
he pretends “markets have no interest in welfare”
But his own argument shows that markets are what create the prosperity which is a necessary precondition for any welfare-system. Markets are the sine-qua-non in the whole equation.
you can have social-welfare systems without govt, but you can’t have any social-welfare without the wealth markets create.
It’s a weird blind spot that he has. His latest book is a defense of Enlightenment-era values: rationality, the scientific method, humanism, and a belief in progress. He seems to ignore that the thread which weaves all of those concepts together is classical liberal economics. Which is even more puzzling as Pinker argued in The Blank Slate that evolution has shaped human nature so that we tend to be rationally egoistic, preferring ourselves and family over abstractions like “society,” “nation,” etc.. Again, the individual as the fundamental unit of society is the cornerstone of the Enlightenment, of which free-market economics is this belief put into action. All of the progress that he points to as evidence of the world getting better is a result of freer markets.
Why aren’t there any libertarian websites? TOS went full retard today on immigration while ignoring several CA laws that are clearly unconstitutional. The comments were fun.
https://reason.com/blog/2018/03/14/jeff-sessions-case-against-californias-s#comment
Sessions is a disgusting old dinosaur, but I don’t think there’s much of a constitutional case for sanctuary cities. I mean unless trying to protect a sovereign country from invasion is unconstitutional. If it is, then I would think that immigration laws and even borders existing would also have to be unconstitutional. I don’t see how it could be both ways. So either borders and immigration limits are unconstitutional, or there is no case for sanctuary cities. Which is it?
I don’t think there’s much of a constitutional case for sanctuary cities
I think there’s a good case that the locals can’t be forced to actively participate in the enforcement of federal laws.
However, there’s also a good case that the locals can’t actively obstruct the feds who are enforcing federal laws.
Between the two is a gray area – passive non-cooperation and/or changing normal procedures specifically to frustrate federal law enforcement. The line between active and passive/inactive can actually be pretty hard to draw. Not reporting a suspected illegal to the feds – fine. Releasing suspected illegals immediately, when you would keep a citizen behind bars, so the feds don’t pick up the illegal from your jail – starts smelling like obstruction.
And grandstanding politicians are always going to try to up the ante, which means they are likely to cross the line from passive non-cooperation to active obstruction.
I think there’s a good case that the locals can’t be forced to actively participate in the enforcement of federal laws.
Heh, there was even a popular-with-the-right Supreme Court decision on that. Uh, back when the right/Repubs were against federalizing everything.
It would be fun to have a reason post about how they were all wrong about libertarianism. And then they become mother reason
I can name one.
Me too.
Pornhub.
And this one:
https://thenarrowgateweb.com/2016/12/12/24-made-in-a-hollywood-basement/
That was awesome.
Now that work is over for the day.
Founder’s Porter
Pretty good porter.
Wow you work to 21:50? Impressive
When I start at 6:50am, I do. I mean that’s the norm. It could be more, but not today.
Wait, it’s not 21:50, it’s 15:50 and I would have been officially done at 14:50. You must be on some that funny furen time or something.
Their Breakfast Stout is quite good also.
the free market has no way to provide for poor children, the elderly, and other members of society who cannot contribute to the marketplace
I think what he is claiming is that people who cannot generate economic value cannot receive economic value in the a marketplace that consists solely of purely economic actors making purely economic decisions. What he has done is strip the marketplace of any other values than pure economic return, and isolate it from the society in which it exists.
Make any scenario artificial enough, and you can get it to demonstrate anything you want.
You might as well say that because children’s legs aren’t long enough to reach the pedals in a car, that children will never ride in cars.
OH SHIT… HM LYNX!
A few repeats in here, but also a few of the all-time best busts.
http://archive.is/lmuz5
1, 2, 3, 4, 5(!!!), 11, 19, 22, 27, 35.
What is the commentariat’s stance on visible boob veins? Under the right circumstances, I think they’re sexy.
No, the racists and omnisexualphobes that run this site still won’t let me post AM/PM links.
Also, number 1 gives me an uppercase penis.
30
I was wanting to reach through my cell phone screen and beat the shit out of that patronizing fucktard.