Glad someone else asked this question, I was curious myself. . nice to see there are a couple of “older” folks here.
I win the old guy award – 44.
I am glad that there are such bright young people out there that care about serious things.
My. God. We are all the same age.
It’s not proper. Liberty champions are supposed to be angry old men, not kids!
26
I think I’m the youngest person so far, 17.
And 15.
Technically I wouldn’t have associated myself with AE until perhaps last year. However, that’s mostly because I didn’t know what AE was. I’ve been interested in libertarianism since perhaps 6 years ago when I was 22 (28 now, obviously). Prior to that I did not associate myself with any political title in particular.
I’d say my “portal” to AE was originally an organization called Bureaucrash which has since become little more than a CEI puppet as far as I know. The guy that was running it at the time (as well as the next guy) went on to do Motorhome Diaries.
I did get involved with the RP movement but do not define that as a particularly important moment in my development.
CEI?
Competitive Enterprise Institute. I don’t have time to look into it at the moment but I thought they were more of a big business oriented conservative “think tank” but it appears I may have been mistaken. If the ideas and facts are good I suppose it is irrelevant.
I always thought krazy kaju was much older than 19. Actually, I assume all moderators to be at least in their 20’s.
I’m 26 and got into AE and libertarianism about 18 months ago, mainly because of sudden interest in economics spurred by the recession and Peter Schiff & Ron Paul mentioning Austrian Economics.
It really is fascinating when you truly open your eyes and mind and realise that what many of us were thought was propaganda and ignorance of human right to liberty.
Seventeen, found Austrian economics when I was fourteen. Was an anarchist at thirteen (Stirner/Nietzsche-inspired individual anarchist).
I’m 32. I started studying Austrian Economics last year. [EDIT: Oops. I have to correct myself. I was counting when I started live-blogging Menger’s Principles in January 2009 as when I started studying AE. But I just remembered I had read Rothbard’s History of Economic Thought (understanding very little of it at the time) before that (must have been late 2008).]
27, 26 when I found out who von Mises was
I’m 32. I started studying Austrian Economics last year.
Did you read anything Austrian beforehand? I remember you mentioned on here before that you’ve read Human Action around 8 times.
I don’t know if anyone finds it as surpising as I do, but it seems a lot of the people on here seem to be pretty new (1-2 years in) to Austrian economics and anarcho-capitalism, but yet have a firm grasp on the theories and ideas.
- I must had been around 17 when I first read something by Rothbard (albeit naturally then I had no idea who that was). It was an article about Rwanda insisting the Tutsis were smarter than the Hutus. I thought it was a stupid article and in indignation over it didn’t visit LRC for over a week.
You’re a quick learner.
I started studying Austrian Economics last year.
Oops. I have to correct myself. I was counting when I started live-blogging Menger’s Principles in January 2009 as when I started studying AE. But I just remembered I had read Rothbard’s History of Economic Thought (understanding very little of it at the time) before that (must have been late 2008).
I remember you mentioned on here before that you’ve read Human Action around 8 times.
7 of those times were with the Jeff Riggenbach audiobook. With audiobooks, it’s awesome how much you can learn in the in-between times of the day (as well as long car-trips).
Gah, this thread makes me feel old. I’m 29, and just discovered AE about 8 months ago.
It seems like most here have been studying AE for less than 3 years. Do people just get “too advanced” to stoop to posting here after that? Or is AE really 99% relative newcomers? Or do they tend to move on to other views? Or do you just stop worrying about economics once you feel like you have a pretty good handle on the truth?
- So I got you beat, Mike. I first heard of AE about 7-8 years ago, so I was in my mid 40s. It’s very encouraging seeing all you younger folks here.
Or are the numbers like Gaberiel’s Horn- huge base, thin at the top(base=0yrs, top=long time)
expanding as time goes on?