The person who robbed me in uninsured so my safety support representative denied my claim
Source: twitter
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
Maybe they hired the author of this pasta for DE, I think it predates it.
Sacred and Terrible Air actually came out a year before the New Yorker article where the pasta comes from - but I doubt Tom O'Donnell bought a copy. https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department
The historic opportunity for Disco Elysium 2 has passed. It will not come back anymore. However hard I try, whatever I do.
I'd rather shop local and go with whatever street gang runs my block. You're not going to get good or timely service with the faceless megacorp
Just pay for the Deluxe Extended After Hours Coverage™, and your protection will be fine
For the introductory period
After that you'll want to shop around again to ensure you're getting the best deal!
I trust the mafia's protection racket before I trust ADT with limitless power.
i love worldviews/systems based entirely on the false assumption that war is irrational/unprofitable, lol.
If corporations could have armies and do war they would. My evidence is that they do already now.
Does logging companies committing genocide count?
Or do you mean, like, company on company warfare?
I was thinking PMCs but any question about this starting with 'do you mean..' could probably be answered with 'yes, also that'
90% of the economy of ancapistan is dedicated to lawyers, pr firms, arbiters, mediators, private militaries, and an army of actuaries endlessly calculating the risks associated with enforcing a particular property claim vs. the odds of winning a dispute with the client's estate claimants? pretenders? usurpers? after denying their security coverage because enforcement is the expensive part and anyway i'm pretty sure this whole scheme just recreates the genocidal incentive structures inherent to settler-colonialism
And reputation is this nearly omnipotent force in their world, where a court being biased would immediately make them lose all their power somehow.
anyway i'm pretty sure this whole scheme just recreates the genocidal incentive structures inherent to settler-colonialism
It does, while also atomizing it to an individual level
Truly deranged that people actually think like this
Isn't anarcho-capitalism a completely conflicting ideology? How are these hierarchical corporate structures built on authoritarian principals not unjust hierarchies that need to be dismantled?
i mean it pretty much exists solely to retroactively justify/absolve themselves of genocide by asserting "homesteading" as the only valid basis for ownership, and of course private ownership as the only valid basis for control of labor, land, and resources.
so it's a bit like the divine right of kings, clearly a bunch of bullshit that only exists to justify absolutist monarchy. it doesn't really have to be internally consistent, people with a strong enough incentive are still going to convince themselves that some people have magical sperm.
Literally just recreating the government, but fracturing it into a million different private entities that you have to separately subscribe to, rendering getting anything done completely impossible. The total yearly subscription costs you pay to simulate the government now exceed the lifetime taxes you would’ve paid under an actual state
Private court huh? There is the state.
A court merely gives a judgement, there needs to be something to enforce the same. Who will that be? And what if the corps use their own protection rackets and go corpo wars. Epic cyberpunk chungus
there needs to be something to enforce the same. Who will that be?
Whatever this is supposed to mean. I guess they comply to keep reputation with other businesses and because they’re ideologically committed or something?
Ring stands down and allows ADT to impose the punishment, due to the mandate from Its backup contract partners and the discipline of constant dealings.
It literally just sounds like a parody of ancaps. Like the libertarian cop story.
Actually the private courts will have their own representative company that will be the enforcer. They first have to settle with the opposing sides enforcer to make sure they can get justice. If the enforcer doesn't agree, the enforcer is covered by the agreement bureau who will work on creating agreement terms with the opposing sides agreement bureau, if that doesn't go through the agreement bureau has their own term enforcer who-
Hey, there's a third option. All the security forces form a cartel and collaborate in whatever way profits them the most, and in no way actually aiding their subscribers in a meaningful way.
Instead of having a centralized justice apparatus, the private courts will simply pay private cops to send you to private prisons, that contract their work out to private guards. Simple and efficient.
A court merely gives a judgement, there needs to be something to enforce the same. Who will that be?
The EULA obviously
Private courts do exist, the arbitration ones in trade agreements
Ohh!! Ohh!! Let me get Sam Seder in here.
Ok pause it. I own ADT and I'm not appreciating how often Amazing Adjucation rules against my customers- it's killing my market share, the customers are all running to my competitors, who are all advertising double digit higher win rates compared to ADT, because they paid off their adjudicators. I'm a lot bigger than Ring and if Amazing Adjucation loses our contract they'll probably go out of business. Sure this might encourage my customers to steal more, but so what? The more wealth they have, the more I get to charge to insure it. So I'm going to let Amazing Adjucation know they have an ultimatum, and if Ring and Ring customers don't like it, they can deal with my much larger mercenary company. Sure we can't go after Amazon and their customers, because they have the nuclear arsenal, but most other people are fair game- we'll almost always rule in favor of ourselves.
At this point, ADT is essentially a piracy conglomeration. Is that your utopia?
did this remind anyone else of that hilarious story about the hotel in Laguna last summer? when 20 armed thumbskulls got into a melee trying to arrest each other for trespassing. the city had to shut it all down and issue a restraining order against any of them carrying firearms.
Hotel Laguna reopens after clash between rival security guards
Faceoff stems from dispute between local operator-developer and investment groupLaguna Beach police officers were called to the Hotel Laguna at 425 South Coast Highway last week for a 20-person physical altercation in the lobby between armed guards from two private security firms.
can you imagine being on vacation, walking around the touristy beach town with your family, drinking your Jamba Juice or w/e and seeing 20 ARMED rent-a-pigs in various uniforms getting into a fight while trying to arrest each other?
i would be far too enchanted by the spectacle to look away and end up catching a stray in my bathing suit area.
Why would anyone find this convoluted social order desirable in any way? Any time I'm a victim of a petty crime I have to get an arbitrator to prevent corporate warfare over my insurance payout? Feudalism sounds more orderly.
Because in such a system the uninsured are esentialy outiside the law. Sociopaths can do whatever they want to them. Then again in medieval times there were waifs and exiles...
The only Person who finds this desirable is a Person who thinks wealth will Transfer over from our current system to that one and they will Just be their own little Duke in their area because they own the protection Agency.
Honestly I suspect most AnCaps are knowingly doing a bit. They know AnCapism is bullcrap, what they really want is to regress back to feudalism so they can be an Earl who gets to have Prima Nocta with the peasant girls but they know that looks bad so they just advocate for an ideology that would essentially lead to that. They're just doing feudalism with extra steps.
The patron saint of ancaps, Murray Rothbard, was 100% doing a bit. He was being a complete contrarian and trying to make other academics mad. Like one time another professor asked him to name a few historically anarcho-capitalist societies and Rothbard answered exclusively with societies that used slavery, like medieval Iceland. He wasn't being serious. He didn't believe it would become a real society either, he was just an asshole.
Modern ancaps seem to be mostly deep level internet obsessives, so I do believe they buy into the ideology. I don't think they consider the full implications, but there is a massive overlap with ancaps and pedophiles. Or like those weirdos who move to Panama or Chile to do their stupid little projects where someone gets shot.
definitely the "dark enlightenment" weirdos who basically just advocate for neofeudal technocracy somehow layered over libertarianism. ex Peter Thiel
Why would anyone find this convoluted social order desirable in any way?
Because it implies a bunch of value added labor - investigations, peaceful civil arbitrations, equitable adjudications, amicable and fruitful conflict resolutions - that don't exist in the real world but seemingly should if liberal theories of social order are accepted.
It's a fairytale of civil justice, told by babies to babies, to soothe their own anxieties about the civil nature of the modern world.
Any time I'm a victim of a petty crime I have to get an arbitrator to prevent corporate warfare over my insurance payout?
You make a single phone call and everything sorts itself out.
Absolutely Utopian.
Feudalism sounds more orderly
That’s because feudalism was at least centralized so you don’t incur all the social penalties involved with distributed human networks. Feudalism is to this what monopolies are to free markets: a centralization of communication patterns.
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
Once again, Ancaps don’t want to end the state, they want to privatize it
Pray tell - how is having private property, with contracts and arbitration courts, not a form of government?
Yeah. Why would both warlords subscribe to the same sage lord to arbitrate disputes? Amazing Adjudication is, for all intents and purposes, the governing body that regulates everything else and appears to have a monopoly in the space portrayed.
My favorite part of this whole thing is the libertarian assumes the only two options between two competing private security companies are either war or third party arbitration. What's more likely is they'd both get nothing done and fleece their subscribers for money, do nothing, then get bought out by a much larger private security company that disregards the problem entirely.
sage lord
I tried looking this up and just got anime shit. Could you explain the intended reference?
well it doesn't say "government" or "state" anywhere on the building
Libertarian theory: Imagine a perfectly spherical contract in a frictionless vacuum...
Libertarian praxis: Our town got overrun by bears because we couldn't organise bin collection.
To avoid the enormous costs of war, the two firms agree to arbitrate in a reputable private court
But let's say Ring is substantially larger than ADT, their deep pockets would allow them to hire substantially more private mercenaries, therefore the mere threat of war would be enough to intimidate competitors in a conflict. Sure, Ring probably can't afford a war every time they're in a legal dispute, but if you're ADT, do you risk calling their bluff?
But if that's the case, then more people would keep using Ring and then Ring would be the defacto law of the land with a monopoly on the use of violence. This would adhere to the definition of a state and it would be like what we have now but with different people in charge! Are you sure this is a good and cool ideology?
Also, what if ADT is willing to do war crimes? Their threat of biological warfare might make Ring do concessions and then ADT suddenly jumps ahead of them substantially in the market and then they continue to threaten nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, indiscriminate drones, etc. that nobody else is willing to do and then you get a bunch of the most fucked up people ever invented enacting tyrannical rule over everyone else.
Doesn't even have to be larger. It might be strategically placed at the Gulf of Aden, with the ability to shut down traffic through the Suez Canal.
sequel
