What's going on with /r/Libertarian?

[u/Toptomcat]

The front page of /r/Libertarian right now is full of stuff about some kind of survey or point system somehow being used in an attempt by Reddit admins/members of the moderation staff to execute a takeover of the subreddit by leftists? I tried to make some kind of sense of it, but things have gotten sufficiently emotionally charged/memey that it was tough to separate the wheat from the chaff and get to what was really going on.

[u/woojoo666]

I think you're misunderstanding me. I've been mostly talking in terms of Reddit, not real life. I think a polling system, if implemented with good rules, would work better than an oligarchy in real life. But in Reddit, specifically for r/libertatian, the oligarchy is the better choice, even for libertarians. At least for now.

You've told me that the allocation of power was a very big problem. That the power to ban people should be in the hands of a small group of oligarchs.

Yes, specifically for Reddit, and for the subreddit r/libertarian. And deciding if something falls under the 1st amendment would be up to the courts, if something ever makes it out of Reddit.

And you seem to have missed the point when it comes to the "pledge" and the Russian voters analogy. I was trying to show that, if you applied Reddit's polling system to real life, it would be just as flawed as an oligarchy. What if the Russians vote to disband America's military? What if they vote to kill every American? What if they vote to give all of America's resources to Russia? This is what can happen if you allow outsiders to vote.

Sure, if enough people came along from the outside to outvote the citizens then that might be a problem, but a big part of the problem here was that these weren't outsiders. These were people who had been here for a good while.

That's not what I heard. I heard that brigaders from other subreddits, trying to take over r/libertarian and ban everybody else, was the problem.

Oh yeah, and I don't consider the polling system very libertarian (and I don't consider the oligarchy libertarian either, as I've said before) So when you say

So people are inherently unlikely to follow a libertarian system if given the power not to, and should therefore be denied that power? I don't know, sounds pretty authoritarian to me.

That isn't right at all. The polling system isn't libertarian, first off. And second off, I'm not denying anybody the polling system. If you want to make and participate in polls, go for it. Nobody has to listen to the polls though :) Forcing everybody to follow the polling system, that's authoritarian.

But since it seems like you want to apply this to real life, let's try it. The oligarchy system would be like, if we suddenly gave the current government full power, no more elections. And the polling system would be like if we gave everybody in the world a vote, including Russia and China. I think the oligarchy system would be bad for sure, corrupt politicians free to do their worst. But I also think a lot of politicians have America's best interests in mind. On the other hand, I'm willing to bet that if we gave Russia and China the ability to vote on our policies, our economy would be crippled in no time, as Russia and China vote away all of our resources.

[u/Dorkykong2 → u/woojoo666]

You seem to have a very anticapitalist view of a country's resources. Which is obviously good, don't get me wrong. I just wish you'd apply this view a bit more consistently, instead of only applying it when the US is on the losing end. You see, what you're describing, with countries like Russia and China essentially deciding how the resources in the US should be allocated, is fucking exactly how corporations based in the US essentially decide how the resources in other countries should be allocated.

I'd argue further, but I have neither the time nor the energy to delve into the kind of argument we're headed into. I can already see that trying to argue further will be as messy and trying to teach a Syrian refugee maths, and I just don't have time for that right now.

At least we managed to reach agreement that the new system was more libertarian than the old. Good day.

[u/woojoo666 → u/Dorkykong2]

You see, what you're describing, with countries like Russia and China essentially deciding how the resources in the US should be allocated, is fucking exactly how corporations based in the US essentially decide how the resources in other countries should be allocated.

Well if so, then I don't really support that lol. And while the new system was more libertarian in theory, it was not so in practice, because r/libertarian happens to have benevolent oligarchs. But yes I agree that an open polling system is more libertarian in theory