[AMA Thread] Dr. Michael Huemer, Professor of philosophy

So what did Heumer say?

You still have 14 hours

The thread doesn't close until 8:40pm CST

Looks like most people have asked what they want to ask, and we have quite a few questions already, so I will email Huemer now. If he joins the site, hopefully everyone will have the opportunity to ask him more if they wish.

Also, I apologize for not including your question about age of consent. There were a lot of questions, and I didn't want to run the risk of scaring him off by sending your question verbatim. (The Unabomber question was toeing the line already.) I was going try and rephrase your question in a broader way to make it seem more appropriate, but I honestly forgot and just remembered after sending the email.

Anyway, I hope this guy is as enthusiastic about free speech as he says, because our site has a lot of trolling.

Usually, those in favor of free speech are only in favor of free speech because it stands as opposition to what they see as government tyrannical control of speech. But rarely does anyone remain in favor of free speech after they see what I post, and I am not even at my best(worst) since there are still rules limiting me.

I actually appreciate trolls. They are usually very entertaining.

Having been a skinny guy myself for a lot of my life with a very similar build to Huemer I can tell you unless he bulked up hard and hit the gym regularly, he'd perish in no time at all if Anarchy hit.

I am legit allowed to diss him that way, he needs to get a grip on that the law saves weaklings, I'd know as I grew up being one.

Guys built like Huemer would get tossed like ragdolls within the first week of anarchy, left in rags (pun intended) bleeding. He has no clue what anarchy is.

Would you want to debate Huemer if he offered? You'd have to commit putting in maximum effort (no forfeits), since we want to make a good impression on academics we are recruiting to the site.

No because getting famous on this account is as dumb as it gets. Freedom to say wild thoughts and opinions here are tied to the lack of it hitting back on me in a real reputational sense.

Id also encourage him to hide who he is here if he arrived and to deny to you that it's him. Unlike him, I know when being afraid matters and it's why I appreciate the law saving me from unsavoury types.

However, unlike him, I think I'd actually last in anarchy as I am naturally talented at some degree of martial arts and have built up enough fitness over time that I would be able to withstand the 1 on 1 or even 2 on 1 thugs to some degree. Nobody can withstand a gang, Brucelee 1v6 shit is for fantasy only and if they have even 1 gun, you're basically screwed as it gets.

At that point the smarter and weaker alike would immediately band together (especially the women, just being realistic) and realise that 'rules of the game' need to be set ASAP so they aren't murdered in their sleep or raped and stolen from regularly. Eventually even many of the thugs would dislike needing to always be on guard and have seen what their own gangster allies do to others and be traumatised by it and perhaps coup the pseudofreedom thugs and help the uprising of law against freedom, ironically.

It's not really a debate but what happened to us across the world already in the past.

He can have his fantasy btw. His utopia exists. Move to a true, proper downtown ghetto, favela, slum whatever there is. Probably within 120 miles of wherever he is at. Go there. Stay there. Survive.

That's ancap. Wish him luck.

There he can stand with his expensive professor suit and say oh yes we must fight the police and have no rules and the thugs next to him will smile with their underbrushed teeth, barely able to afford healthcare of any kind and say "yes my G, we need anarchy, now how bout em shoes and the suit, watch, phone, wallet and any keys to anything cars and gouse alike or do you prefer a gashed bashed up body and us getting it anyway?"

And he'll hand them over and say woop woop anarchy and they'll laugh at him, beat him for a laugh anyway and walk off.

You too.

Bullshit. I would keep him safe. 

Have you heard of the dunning Kruger effect, RationalMadman?

Yes I have, it tends to start with committing ad hom when presented with pure logic about how flawed one's suggestion is such as that.

Good luck with that, he'd stab you in the back in the blink of an eye. After all, it's what attracts him to anarchy. People who are prone to repay those who keep them safe loathe anarchy.

You have no ideal what his premises even are, and are arrogant thinking you know more than somebody who spends 40 hours a week thinking about it

40 hours a week thinking about caveman politics, wow.

Fantasizing that someone like Huemer, who gave his time to educate people on his political philosophy, would be bashed and robbed whilst saying you would take a 2 v 1 against thugs seems like Dunning Kruger.

 

I wouldn't enjoy the risk or want that life. Let's say I'm totally wrong about the 'me' part. The him part is still 100% true. He can't fight properly with a build like that and his age too. I reckon life expectancy in true anarchy, capitalist especially (which will have a selfish ethos) will be around 64ish maximum. The stress and proneness to mug others etc will be far too commonplace for it not to be severe exceptions that last longer than that. He can die from piosoning from food be buys at a shop because there is no law enforcing the ingredients are honest or that the factory it's produced in is doing so in an honest manner.

It’s funny this guy who even by debateart standards sucks at debating is trying to discredit the PHD philosopher with over 80 published articles.

Ancap is survival of the fittest, point blank period. That's all it is. He isn't the fittest. It's that simple.

This is such a poor understanding of anarchy, it is literally the dunning kruger effect that you take this caricature of anarchy and “slam” it so proudly.  

Nope, it's an accurate understanding and that is the reason you need to attack me as a debater, intellect and person rather than address the points I'm raising. It's the exact traits the losing side of an argument that suffer from dunning-kruger need to resort to in order to avoid defeat.

If everything is “big guns win”, why didn’t the USA dominate Vietnam or successfully occupy Afghanistan? Why doesn’t it just invade Canada for the sake it?

The thing is as I told you, Ancap already exists in full effect until cops show up. It exists in every ghetto, favela, slum or equivalent for whatever country you choose. 

The world isn't AnCap, that's why. People have a sense of justice and don't like it being survival of the fittest.