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Comment by Apocryphon | Hacker News Reader

Since when do hackers bleat about obeying laws and regulations? What happened to having a "we can do better" mindset?

Since when does hackerdom constitute blindly following dogma, whether it be libertarian or not?

Strange that you would respond with that, given that I'm arguing exactly against "following dogma". What I'm saying is that, as hackers, we have traditionally taken on a mindset that says "we can use our intellect, reason, science, etc. to figure out better solutions" without regard for dogma. And more and more people seem to be drifting away from that and just punting and saying "fuck it, the State will make everything OK". That's what gets me, is the way hackerdom seems to be losing that spirit of independence that it used to have.

The very fact that you treat this state as a separate entity from the people is a problem. In a republic, the state is the citizenry. Hackers are part of the state and can influence the state and should work with the state. No one here is agitating for delegating all responsibilities to the state. The point is that private businesses should work with the state and seek to change and reform regulation when necessary, not permanently act in defiance of the laws of the state. Hackers understand the use of a good tool, and if the state is one, then hackers should use that tool. To throw it away is blind libertarian dogma with empty rhetoric about "nanny states" and other bogeymen.

Furthermore, even supposed would-be laissez-faire capitalists know this- I doubt that startups pass up the chance to use government policies to their own advantage, or pursue rent-seeking behaviors that help their startups. The perfect libertarian society you envision exists next to the perfect communist society, as utopias that contravene human nature.

In a republic, the state is the citizenry.

In theory. I think we're pretty far removed from that in reality.

So...apparently for Apocryphon, the American citizenry is Trump? Interesting.

The citizenry may have severe differences of opinion with the leader in charge, but they have so far seen fit to endorse the system that brought him into power. So yes, the citizenry is Trump because Trump is a citizen, and he has won the electoral process that the citizenry did not work up the effort to reform or change to make it otherwise.

So if "the citizens", or some subset thereof, are unable to change the system, then they're assume, as a group, to be endorsing the system and its actions? And to be genuinely represented, indeed manifested, by its officials, even when those officials are aggressively at odds with each other?

Remarkable.

There's different degrees of endorsement. There's "agreeing with every jot and thistle of the system's actions" and there's "not trying to violently overthrow the system as bullshit." Most people live somewhere in between, closer to the former position than the latter. Most people want to change the system, but do not dispute the necessity of the system. As such, that means "the state is made of the people" is truer in the consent of the governed sense, and not the dystopian Soylent Green sense. That isn't to say there is no need for large-scale reform and changes; of course there is.

Of course there's degrees of endorsement, there always is. I'm just responding to the notion of yours that "in a republic, the state is the citizenry." Well, no, it's not, and it doesn't need to be - and indeed, there's no real way for it, in fact, to be so. Certainly, it can represent certain preferences of the citizenry, through various mechanisms and political tools, but the state isn't the citizenry, it's an institution with particular powers and structures. That's not objecting to the concept of endorsement, it's just pointing out the distinction.

It's fair to point out the distinction between the elected representatives (and the unelected appointed civil servants, bureaucrats, etc.) and the citizens who elected them. My original statement was to remind minarchists that ultimately, though, the state is still made up of the people it rules. The libertarian inclination to view the state as an alien, nefarious entity, doesn't lead to much room to improve it. Certainly your distinction is correct.

Okay, fair enough.

"ultimately, though, the state is still made up of the people it rules."

Well, that's one reason why it can be so dangerous. It's made of humans! :)

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