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Comment by detritus | Hacker News Reader

Funnily enough, I have a few vaguely 'libertarian' (in a UK-sense) friends who don't see that if everyone broke societal 'politenesess'/manners as they do, ekeing a small personal advantage, then everything goes to shit. Sure, one or two do it and they can advance. Well done, them. Everyone does it and back in time we step. People forget that most manners were purely an invention of post-medieval society, not some naturally-inherent instinct.

I feel as much about how Big SV Corps get forward, by externalising little bits of shit that the rest of society has to wipe off its collective face. Looking at you, Amazon.

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This feels like some cartoon villain stereotype of a libertarian. Actual libertarians are big into contracts and contract law. They aren't against agreements, let alone politeness or manners. Heck one of the reasons I eventually became a libertarian (UK sense) myself was due to noticing how unfailingly polite and unassuming they all of were despite often being faced with the most vile hatred.

Consider how nonsensical your comparison really is. The problem in question appears in Russia, a place where the largest official political alternative to Putin is the former Communist party. It's the opposite of a libertarian country. Places like New Hampshire or even relatively non libertarian places like the UK on the other hand, simply can't imagine behaviour like that. It's the whole reason it's an interesting anecdote to begin with.

If only I'd said something like "vaguely ‘libertarian’" to dismiss any notion of orthodoxy in the matter. Curiously, my good friend who most suffers from the what I accuse him here also holds himself in similarly-noble terms as you appear to. And yet... .

I don't think prefixing the word vaguely would change anything about your point, which is about ideology and which doesn't make sense for logic reasons alone independent of personal views on whichever is preferable. You can't use people's social behavior in a formerly communist country (one that still has many communist approaches to things), to derive conclusions about libertarians i.e. the exact opposite kinds of people. Russia is like China, it's a nightmare society for libertarians. Nothing about it is libertarian.

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