I’ve been wondering whether an unusual number of smart people these days are ones that were libertarians in their early twenties and have become less so later on. Possibly similarly as in an earlier generation an unusual number of smart people were communists in their early twenties and became less so later on.
There’s definitely a lot of background assumptions sympathetic to libertarianism on LW, but I haven’t seen much of the sort of absolutist first-principles stances I associate with the group of people I’m thinking of in grandparent comment. It’s the difference between thinking that free markets are a good starting metaphor for thinking about arranging human affairs and insisting that a strict adherence to a few easily listed axioms like absolute property rights can be pretty much the only thing you need to successfully run a human civilization.
I’ve been wondering whether an unusual number of smart people these days are ones that were libertarians in their early twenties and have become less so later on. Possibly similarly as in an earlier generation an unusual number of smart people were communists in their early twenties and became less so later on.
There’s definitely a lot of background assumptions sympathetic to libertarianism on LW, but I haven’t seen much of the sort of absolutist first-principles stances I associate with the group of people I’m thinking of in grandparent comment. It’s the difference between thinking that free markets are a good starting metaphor for thinking about arranging human affairs and insisting that a strict adherence to a few easily listed axioms like absolute property rights can be pretty much the only thing you need to successfully run a human civilization.