Fail Quotes

[Ibrahim90]

tell me about it...

I was going to cite the whole hyper Statist beliefs of Ancient Egypt, where Pharaoh was literally a god on Earth, who could commune with the other gods to bring in the good times, and had the right to control every aspect of everything people did in Egypt, but D beat me to it.

Or what the Hittites believed (that while the Monarch was not absolute, people were still bound by oath to obey his commands under the penalty of being struck by lightening, courtesy of the storm god, and where the laws that were passed literally went so far as to govern how much a person may or may not work.

And of course, we all know the Qin Empire was founded on Libertarian philosophies... *sarcasm*

I could go on, and discuss how people of almost every religious and philosophical persuasion believed in the divine right of Kings and associated absolutist shit, to one degree or another. Like they did in the Middle ages in Europe, or with the Umayyads and Abbasids in the Arab world, who held that because they were related to Muhammad (especially Abbasids, who descended from the Prophet's uncle), had the divine right to be Caliphs, and everyone who disagreed was relieved of his head, and were known to force/bribe/put words in mouths of people to make up hadiths to support their bullshit. And I can go on and on about the sheer number of Statists who had or hold religious views to this day.

so yeah, there are more statist theists than atheists. of course, it helps there are more of them, but the point is, religion doesn't necessarily make people less statist: often, it can make ppl more so--especially if you spin it right.

[Lord T Hawkeye]

http://www.cracked.com/article_20186_6-ridiculous-myths-about-middle-ages-everyone-believes_p2.html 

Haven't got time to go into details atm but I'm smelling a LOT of BS in this one.

[MrBogosity]

http://www.cracked.com/article_20186_6-ridiculous-myths-about-middle-ages-everyone-believes_p2.html 

Haven't got time to go into details atm but I'm smelling a LOT of BS in this one.

There's some correct stuff, but some BS as well. The flat Earth thing is a complete strawman, and although the monks did a lot for the preservation of knowledge, they had to do so in secret because it wasn't allowed by the church.

[Ibrahim90]

http://www.cracked.com/article_20186_6-ridiculous-myths-about-middle-ages-everyone-believes_p2.html 

Haven't got time to go into details atm but I'm smelling a LOT of BS in this one.

well, I'll break it down:

6. He's largely right, albeit simplified: One thing for example, is that while autopsies and dissections were acceptable back then, it was only to be performed in certain circumstances:dissections were only done on those the Church denied a Christian burial to, and Autopsies were largely if the death was suspicious or mysterious. Also, while the Catholic Church's attitude to science in the Dark and Middle ages can be described as conflicted at best, hostile at most, most of the stories you hear about repression of knowledge are from the counter-reformation (e.g. Galileo and Bruno's cases), or late antiquity (closing down the Academy in Athens), not the middle ages. Doesn't mean it didn't happen--It did, but generally, and it shouldn't come as a shock, they only really ramped it up when the Church's political and financial power was directly threatened. tells you something about their principles (or lack thereof)

5. He's perfectly correct actually: while Hygenic standards weren't as stringent as today (or medieval Near Eastern standards), they certainly bathed a lot--and communally (I can't vouch for their shaving though XD). Arabs in the Levant and Iraq still do it in some towns. Both inherited this from Roman practice: Arabs started doing it in the Umayyad period. Germans even did it, to look Roman (i.e. to look cool)

4. Yeah, he's right (obviously). The baby eating was at Ma'arra. It's worth pointing out that Urban II's intention was to strengthen the Catholic church's influence in the East, and in Europe itself, at the expense of the Orthodox Church (this is in the aftermath of the Great schism of 1054): he saw the Byzantine Emperor's calls for help as an opportunity, after they made the stupid twin errors of breaking a peace treaty, and doing so with Alp Arslan.....

3. yeah, people in general were probably uninhibited: adultery, orgies, prostitution, all that shit did happen (Saladin's secretary made fun of them for it: to be "fair", they were kicked out when things got ugly as penance, but apparently it didn't work ). The Church condemned sex for pleasure (some even condemned all sex), but they couldn't really force their will on people who weren't retarded enough to deprive themselves of natural urges. Heck, they couldn't even force their will on the staff: Monks were often caught going to Brothels, and it wasn't unusual for Nuns go find some sex outside the walls of their cloisters. So the Church basically joined it: the resulting hypocrisy and corruption was one thing Martin Luther Bitched about. Interestingly, Priests were allowed to marry in the Catholic church till the 10th century, when the Church felt that too much money was leaving the Church and going to a lot of new landowning ladies and families.

2. sounds about right, going by what Saladin's secretary had to say (while we're at it, the Europeans said the same thing about Saracen Women). Most of the shit I heard about comes starting in the Renaissance, though the Church's attitude towards women predates even the middle ages (That woman was responsible for the fall, are sin, all that other weird guff). In the Near east, it came earlier--right after the Mongol Invasions in the 1250's, though the Crusades didn't help.

1. Nothing wrong with what he said: there were at least 80 "Holy days" a year, plus Christmas, Easter, and in the Midsummer, and yes, you worked no more than 8 hours a day. Further, the lord had the duty to take care of and protect the peasants in exchange for paying their rent, in sickness and health. And once a person survived their 5th year, you were more like to make it to your 60's or 70's. Things didn't change till the black death, when the relationship between peasant and master changed. doesn't mean life was easy--it certainly wasn't, but it was not exactly brutish...

[AnCap Dave]

Just posted this in the podcast thread for this week, but may as well post it here. Anytime Krugman opens his mouth, it's full of fail.

[yt]4em8VkGTR7c[/yt]

[MrBogosity]

Prepare for a critical mass of fail: http://huppi.com/kangaroo/GOVERNMENT_SUCCESS_STORIES.htm

Someone actually posted this to my YouTube channel as something that PROVES Libertarianism is wrong.

[VectorM]

Prepare for a critical mass of fail: http://huppi.com/kangaroo/GOVERNMENT_SUCCESS_STORIES.htm

Someone actually posted this to my YouTube channel as something that PROVES Libertarianism is wrong.

Notice the complete lack of sources on that "GOVERNMENT SUCCESS STORIES" page.

[R.E.H.W.R.]

Prepare for a critical mass of fail: http://huppi.com/kangaroo/GOVERNMENT_SUCCESS_STORIES.htm

Someone actually posted this to my YouTube channel as something that PROVES Libertarianism is wrong.

Under the "Free market failures" The media and monoplies parts made me laugh.
Ya, because the media is free market. Oh, that's right. The FCC!

[evensgrey]

Prepare for a critical mass of fail: http://huppi.com/kangaroo/GOVERNMENT_SUCCESS_STORIES.htm

Someone actually posted this to my YouTube channel as something that PROVES Libertarianism is wrong.

One of the "Government Success Stories" is the Pony Express...which was a private enterprise that went out of business when the US Postal Service came in thanks to heavily subsidized railways.

His "Free Market Failures" are filled with things caused by governments.

[MrBogosity]

One of the "Government Success Stories" is the Pony Express...which was a private enterprise that went out of business when the US Postal Service came in thanks to heavily subsidized railways.

And was bought by Western Union, which was able to outcompete the post office despite having to pay the post office postage for every letter they delivered.

[evensgrey]

And was bought by Western Union, which was able to outcompete the post office despite having to pay the post office postage for every letter they delivered.

I suppose that shouldn't be surprising (both the requirement to pay the post office or out competing it anyway).

Here in Canada, our government protects us from price gouging by courier companies by requiring them to charge a minimum several times what the post office does for the same item.

All you have to do to out-compete an agency as inflexible as a public postal service is offer something they don't.  In Canada, that's as simple as delivering to all addresses (it's been decades since Canada Post stopped even pretending to do that).  Not having home postal delivery has been recognized as reducing property values due to the inconvenience (it's pretty irritating for me, and I'm right next door to the post office where my postal box is).

Western Union did, as I recall, two things that the post office didn't bother competing in:  Speed and handling money.  Western Union's original main business was telegrams, so instead of taking at least several says to get a message across the country, it would usually reach the recipient within a few hours.  You could also wire transfer money, with similar speed.  When telephones started coming in, they ended up with being mostly about money transfers.

[MrBogosity]

Here in Canada, our government protects us from price gouging by courier companies by requiring them to charge a minimum several times what the post office does for the same item.

That's what ended up happening here; you can't deliver mail for anything less than (I think) $3.

All you have to do to out-compete an agency as inflexible as a public postal service is offer something they don't.

Or even just provide the service better. UPS and FedEx constantly do better than the USPS at parcel delivery, even though it's generally more expensive to go through them because they don't have a first class mail monopoly to subsidize it. But they offer better package tracking, free $100 insurance with every package, and other features that make them more desirable than the USPS.

[evensgrey]

Or even just provide the service better. UPS and FedEx constantly do better than the USPS at parcel delivery, even though it's generally more expensive to go through them because they don't have a first class mail monopoly to subsidize it. But they offer better package tracking, free $100 insurance with every package, and other features that make them more desirable than the USPS.

Just being able to accurately track where the package is is all it takes.  I've been on the other side of this, and for calming down the irate customer who wants to know where their delivery is there's nothing like pulling it up and telling them.   Now, if only it hadn't been necessary for one of my employers to drop one of their national freight carriers due to persistent high rates of 'loss'...

[R.E.H.W.R.]

Prepare for a critical mass of fail: http://huppi.com/kangaroo/GOVERNMENT_SUCCESS_STORIES.htm

Someone actually posted this to my YouTube channel as something that PROVES Libertarianism is wrong.

Wow, they are full on lying about what happened at Love Canal.

[evensgrey]

Wow, they are full on lying about what happened at Love Canal.

I'm shocked, SHOCKED I tell you!

Interesting how he acknowledges what really happened, then claims it isn't actually true?