You obviously haven’t listened to the debate, or read these twoposts in this very thread. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
I really wish people would at least have the first clue before making declarative statements (as opposed to questions). I’m quickly beginning to understand why Kinsella ends up coming off hostile in the comments around the Internet. It’s because people like you run your mouth without even gathering the first bit of knowledge, and pontificate as experts when you’re not even amateurs.
Only it isn’t not like whoever is more in line with Rothbard wins. It’s like whoever understands the problematic better wins.
And actually Kinsella understands Rothbard perfectly, only he notes that what Rothbard spoke about works for 2 parties, but breaks down when you introduce the 3rd party. So actually Kinsella considered the problem more in depth than Rothbard ever did, and understood it considerably better. That is which it is clear.
And to top it all off Rothbard explicitly did not necessarily consider his solution the be it end all on this problematic, but had on the contrary called for others to try to exceed him.
So this is how John James engages in a discussion: “You obviously haven’t listened to the debate, or read these twoposts in this very thread. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Anybody who disagrees with him is automatically assumed to be clueless. Very sane! Btw, I have followed the debate for quite sometime now. So stop bullying. Just be a good moderator.
No, that’s how I respond to ignorant statements that prove you either didn’t listen to the podcast, or don’t understand English.
No, anybody who exhibits signs of cluelessness, I assume to be clueless. i.e., You.
Yeah I read that the first time you posted it. I also noticed how this is the second time you’ve implied being familiar with this podcast without actually stating that you’ve even listened to it (let alone providing any evidence of such a thing). One wonders why you wouldn’t respond with “I did listen to the debate. I heard every word…” and (god forbid) offer any sort of support for your claims about the arguments that were made in it.
All you’ve done by claiming for a second time that you’ve “been following the clash” is further solidify my assumption that you have in fact not actually listened to the debate (and no, turning it on for a few seconds/minutes so that you might hear some of the words doesn’t count as “listening to the debate”). Because if you had, you would not have made the statement that I was originally responding to. It’s quite evident that you’ve done little more than perhaps skim a few of Bob’s posts on EPJ, and maybe skim some of the comments here and there. But as pointed out in the last post, you obviously didn’t read my review, nor Conza88’s…let alone actually listen to the full podcast yourself.
Yet you insist on making a judgement about it and actually making claims about the arguments put forth in it. I stand by my previous statement. You are clueless and have no idea what you’re talking about.
P.S.
Notice here again you provide absolutely no support for your bare assertions, but yet simply try to focus on and attack me. You might want to look up the phrase “Ad hominem”. It’s a logical fallacy. Something that is not part of logical discourse.
Wenzel worships Rothbard the way Kim Il Sung is worshiped in North Korea.
All hail the great Murray Rothbard, the Eternal Leader of the Libertarian Movement, the Infallible Guide of the Anarcho-Capitalist World Revolution, the Brilliant Genius of Libertarianism, the Radiant Sun of All Mankind! His imperishable teachings, full of wisdom and prudence, will live eternally in our hearts!
If Wenzel’s views were the same as Rothbard, then at some point during the debate shouldn’t he have said that we should abolish all government IP laws as they exist, and move towards a more contractually based system? As far as I know, he said nothing of the kind. Then the debate would have shifted onto whether Rothbard’s contractual system would work and is consistent with libertarian theory, but instead it got stuck forever on some side point.
He basically did say that several times, but of course each time it was immediately shut down by Kinsella pointing out that there’s simply no way to replicate IP through contract law. I illustrated an example of this in my own review post under “The closest Wenzel gets to making a point”.
I honestly don’t get what’s so difficult about this. I have to believe that people just don’t listen. Wenzel himself kept going back to this point several times, but you’re also not the only person who has raised this in the various comment sections.
The only thing I can think of is that the pro-IP dipshits willingly ignore the points that kill their position, and the honest people who are still trying to figure out where they stand seriously just aren’t paying attention.
I mean this is not only brought up in virtually every anti-IP work, (including Kinsella’s monograph), but it’s literally discussed multiple times in the very podcast in question.
Seriously people, if you won’t listen to the damn podcast, at least read the summaries/reviews Kinsella provided. He put three great ones in his blog post. See all them starting with “Stephen Davis” summary.
This is a complex topic that you need to invest some time in to really understand… there’s no misinformation going on here, the “debate” speaks for itself.
Bob’s supposed preparation was apparently (he didn’t get to everything..thank god) just a bulleted list of cherry-picked minor nitpicks of Kinsella’s book (which weren’t even good ones, nor very relevant to the overall topic of whether any form of IP is defensible). I went into the thing pretty open minded, having only read part of Against Intellectual Property before, but I wasn’t expecting such a one-sided stomping. For crying out loud, the book is like 1/4 made up of footnote references, and yet he’s calling it “sloppy” like it was thrown together without any effort.
Myself, I got to learn one or two new types of logical fallacies–thanks Wenzel! It wasn’t a complete waste of time afterall!
1:45:40 “You asked a question, so now you get to have an answer, and you can listen, maybe you’ll actually learn something, which I won’t consider a violation of my property rights.”
“Stefan Kinsella doesn’t know the idea in my head, thus he’d owe me money if he were to come up with the same idea in his head and then express it after I’ve already done so.”
Prashanth, did you listen to the podcast yet? He went on and on about the Hertz thing and it didn’t go anywhere. I don’t think they’re even in disagreement on that example, because they’re apples and oranges.
I had a hard time with that Wenzel blog post (i.e. I decided my time was being wasted, so I stopped). He has the nerve to call Kinsella “sloppy” while responding with rubbish like:
Hertz rents a car to B, who is supposed to return it in a week, but who instead sells it to C. B has removed all stickers and other identifying marks from the car that would identify the car as belonging to C [He means belonging to Hertz. Sloppy stuff Bob!], so that C is not aware that the car is a Hetrz [sic] rental.
Of course the real problem with this example is not the crude way it’s written; a car is simply not the same as an idea. A car is rivalrous, but an idea is not. During the entire podcast Wenzel proved he did not understand the economic concept of rivalry, nor how that poses a problem when treating something non-rivalrous as property. Bob was using the word in the conventional sense (=competition) rather than the economic. For someone posing as an expert, he should understand this.
So despite being told the problems with his example numerous times, he’s still repeating the same discredited garbage - who has time for this repeated stupidity? Arguing with this guy over years, it would get very frustrating. I think the guy means well, but would test relatively low on an IQ test. Far too low to be hosting some show or to be representing libertarians on any stage. Not saying it to be mean-- he’s just not comprehending a solid opposing argument and I can’t find any reason other than low IQ or hidden evil intent (which I’m assuming is not the case).
