257 upvotes, 12 direct replies (showing 12)
View submission: Curtis Yarvin Says Democracy Is Done. Powerful Conservatives Are Listening.
It's because Libertarianism is an ideology that lacks answers to basic foundational aspects of how a society functions. It lacks any empathy or perspective and is based solely around selfishness and self interest.
Comment by florinandrei at 19/01/2025 at 17:50 UTC*
118 upvotes, 11 direct replies
The writings of Ayn Rand were nothing but her attempt to exorcize the demons living rent-free in her head after the Communist revolution. She was a teenager at the time, her family lost everything, got thrown out of their prosperous house, wandered around the country nearly starving occasionally, and when she tried to get a good start in life as a smart young woman she encountered many obstacles due to her "unhealthy origin" (bourgeois family i.e. not poor). She ran away at the first opportunity, and started her writing career in America.
The amazing entrepreneurs in her books are just idealized, worshipful images of her dad, the pharmacy business owner. The "looters" are the dumb, brutish mobs (I mean "revolutionary brigades", lol, sorry comrade Lenin, please don't shoot me) that kicked them out of their house. Her "philosophy" is just Communism naively flipped over, made opposite in every single way.
She was like someone who nearly drowned while swimming, got PTSD, and then went around telling people how water is evil, and they should never take a bath, never wash their hands, run inside when it's raining, and don't even drink water, it's evil! She tried to conjure up the opposite in every way of the ideology that kicked her family out of their house, even when the opposite makes no sense, even when the opposite is just as evil as the original.
There are no good guys in her life story, it's bad guys all the way down, including her, since she became a major factor in normalizing ideas that ended up jettisoning ethics and the moral compass out of the American political discourse.
I grew up in the Eastern Bloc, and I'm familiar with the stories of the horrific abuse that followed the communist takeover. And yes, some people were never again right in the head, as a result. She's one of them.
It's a very sad, depressing story all around.
Comment by redlightsaber at 19/01/2025 at 14:12 UTC
82 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Ie: literally and symbolically, the functioning of a teenager.
Comment by AdminIsPassword at 19/01/2025 at 14:28 UTC
42 upvotes, 2 direct replies
This is also why most billionaires are or are described as libertarian in their beliefs. It's a belief system that justifies unlimited greed.
Comment by kingofshitmntt at 19/01/2025 at 18:29 UTC
14 upvotes, 2 direct replies
They argue for removing or reducing state power and letting corporations reign free. Arguably the most dystopian ideology out there.
Comment by Novel_Wrap1023 at 20/01/2025 at 00:15 UTC
7 upvotes, 0 direct replies
"why bother with society if we could just have no society at all?"
Comment by Cautious-Progress876 at 19/01/2025 at 15:24 UTC
24 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Which is why it is so popular among neurodivergent people. It took me years to get out of the headspace of “I am an island” and away from Libertarian thought. But I know a ton of really smart people who have done really well in Tech despite being Autistic and/or having severe ADHD— a lot of them have been treated like shit and “other-ized” for so long that they have no real empathy for people who disagree with them or get in their way.
Comment by BassmanBiff at 20/01/2025 at 22:04 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It also doesn't require any understanding of history, which is why it keeps producing little microstate experiments that fail in hilarious ways[1].
1: https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project
Comment by geekfreak42 at 22/01/2025 at 05:35 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
They don't believe in society. They believe in guns. A healthy society is the ultimate self-interest, but they'd rather have school shootings and market driven racism
Comment by raouldukeesq at 19/01/2025 at 17:22 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It's literally a fantasy in par with fairies and unicorns.
Comment by timpin345 at 20/01/2025 at 03:41 UTC
1 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Wow, you are very confident in your ignorance. Society’s don’t function because a bunch of politicians sit around bossing us around. They function because individuals act in a voluntary manner cooperating with Each-other for mutual self interest.
Comment by ClockOfTheLongNow at 19/01/2025 at 17:18 UTC
-3 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Listen, I get that libertarianism provides simple (and questionable) solutions to complex problems, but saying it lacks empathy and is focused on selfishness and self-interest isn't correct. You can't get more empathetic than saying "I won't use the levers of power for my pet causes." You can't get less self-interested than opposing things you would otherwise benefit from.
Comment by Project2025IsOn at 20/01/2025 at 04:52 UTC
-1 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Empathy was invented by the weak.