Philosophical status of TCS and Anarchy

[Jason]

Is there any difference between the philosophical status of TCS and
the philosophical status of Anarchy?

By this I mean things like whether the idea has criticisms that aren't
refuted, whether it has unrefuted rivals, the quality and kinds of
tests and criticisms that the idea has been subjected to, or other
relevant philosophical differences that I might not be aware of.

From a practical implementation standpoint I'm aware that parents can
implement TCS on their own whereas anarchy requires educating and
convincing a lot more people. So I'm not expecting them to be similar
in that way. But are there other ways in which the two ideas differ in
terms of philosophy?

--Jason

[Elliot Temple]

On Mar 9, 2014, at 3:05 PM, Jason <auv...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Is there any difference between the philosophical status of TCS and
> the philosophical status of Anarchy?

Sure, many differences. For example, "TCS" is reasonably unambiguous, while "anarchy" is very ambiguous – it has many different versions, different things people mean by it, and there's even a kind of ongoing debate there.

Lots of groups have called themselves "anarchist", but only one group has called itself "TCS".

> By this I mean things like whether the idea has criticisms that aren't
> refuted, whether it has unrefuted rivals, the quality and kinds of
> tests and criticisms that the idea has been subjected to, or other
> relevant philosophical differences that I might not be aware of.

So I think you meant some kind of *epistemological* status, specifically.

TCS is a best theory, unrefuted, unrivaled. "anarchy" is ambiguous.

TCS, further, is closely connected with other knowledge like about epistemology and liberalism. It's stabilized, shall we say, by these connections. If TCS were to be criticized, we'd have to consider whether we had the connections wrong, or whether we had epistemology and liberalism wrong, or what. What'd happen a lot if we'd find the criticism contradicts epistemology or liberalism, so it's not just in conflict with TCS, it has a bigger challenge than that.

-- Elliot Temple
http://beginningofinfinity.com/

[Jason]

On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 3:28 PM, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:
>
> On Mar 9, 2014, at 3:05 PM, Jason <auv...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Is there any difference between the philosophical status of TCS and
>> the philosophical status of Anarchy?
>

> Sure, many differences. For example, "TCS" is reasonably unambiguous, while "anarchy" is very ambiguous - it has many different versions, different things people mean by it, and there's even a kind of ongoing debate there.

I was thinking that the idea of anarchy itself was pretty
straightfoward and unambiguous: A society without government. But
perhaps this is analogous to an idea like "Permissive Parenting," -
Parenting without rules. It doesn't tell you much about what systems
take the place of rules / government.

So I'm thinking what you mean is ambiguous and debated about anarchy
is ideas about what people generally do without a government -
whether, for example, they generally respect each other's right to own
property or not and whether they generally resolve disputes by sitting
down with hired arbitrators or with street duels, and so on. Correct?

If so, is "anarcho-capitalism" unambiguous enough of an idea in that
regard that it's on par with TCS in terms of specificity, or is still
more specification needed?

If more specification is needed, are there any ideas about anarchy
that exist with as much specification as TCS and if so, what are they?

> Lots of groups have called themselves "anarchist", but only one group has called itself "TCS".

That seems like a dangerous standard to use, since any individual or
group can call themselves anything they want, often for explicitly
evil purposes. It seems like only an attribute of the newness and
relative obscurity of TCS that no one else has yet chosen to pick up
and use the name differently.

"Liberal", "conservative", "libertarian", and "christian", like
"anarchist", all have multiple groups claiming the label, yet with
sometimes really divergent ideas as to what it means in practice.
"Liberal" is the worst in terms of common usage this way, with people
commonly using the word "liberal" to mean diametrically opposing
things.

I don't think you'd criticize liberalism's philosophical status
because of the number of groups that use the word differently, would
you? Wouldn't it be better to establish philosophical status by the
best of what's known and written about an idea rather than by how many
different groups do or don't use the label?

With regard to multiple groups, I think it's important to specify
where it could reasonably be ambiguous, like saying, "By 'liberal' I
mean classical liberalism, not the liberalism promoted by most US
Democrat party politicians." Or in the case of anarchy by a term like
"anarcho-capitalism". But I don't think it affects the philosophical
status of an idea like liberalism itself that there's a bunch of
Democrats in the US congress using it badly.

>
>> By this I mean things like whether the idea has criticisms that aren't
>> refuted, whether it has unrefuted rivals, the quality and kinds of
>> tests and criticisms that the idea has been subjected to, or other
>> relevant philosophical differences that I might not be aware of.
>
> So I think you meant some kind of *epistemological* status, specifically.

Yes, that's what I meant - what is the state of the best available
knowledge about these ideas. I was attempting to differentiate away
from things like "how hard is it to try?" which I have focused on in
past discussions.

> TCS is a best theory, unrefuted, unrivaled. "anarchy" is ambiguous.
>
> TCS, further, is closely connected with other knowledge like about epistemology and liberalism. It's stabilized, shall we say, by these connections. If TCS were to be criticized, we'd have to consider whether we had the connections wrong, or whether we had epistemology and liberalism wrong, or what. What'd happen a lot if we'd find the criticism contradicts epistemology or liberalism, so it's not just in conflict with TCS, it has a bigger challenge than that.

Is anarcho-capitalism, or something even more specific than that which
I'm not aware of, similarly connected to epistemology and liberalism?

--Jason

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

On Mar 9, 2014, at 3:05 PM, Jason <auv...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Is there any difference between the philosophical status of TCS and
> the philosophical status of Anarchy?

Given your libertarian background, I take it by anarchy you mean anarcho-capitalism. Among other things, this term might be used by its proponents to mean:
- “Anarchy now” - something that would is desirable someday when we know how to do it
- “Anarchy someday” - the idea that we would be better off if the state were smashed now.

TCS, on the other hand, is generally used by its proponents as something that we can do NOW.

>
> By this I mean things like whether the idea has criticisms that aren’t
> refuted, whether it has unrefuted rivals

TCS & “anarchy someday” have no unrefuted criticisms or unrefuted rivals that I am aware of. “Anarchy now” has unrefuted criticisms and unrefuted rivals. For instance, it is refuted by the general principle that radical change, changing lots of things at once, is bad.

“Anarchy someday” is a matter of creating the necessary knowledge. It’s not clear when we’ll do it. For TCS, the knowledge is available now. I think an important difference, but I’m not sure if it’s a difference “in terms of philosophy”.

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

On Mar 10, 2014, at 8:58 PM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum <petrogradp...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Mar 9, 2014, at 3:05 PM, Jason <auv...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Is there any difference between the philosophical status of TCS and
>> the philosophical status of Anarchy?
>
> Given your libertarian background, I take it by anarchy you mean anarcho-capitalism. Among other things, this term might be used by its proponents to mean:
> - “Anarchy now” - something that would is desirable someday when we know how to do it
> - “Anarchy someday” - the idea that we would be better off if the state were smashed now.

Oops, I got these two mixed up.

“Anarchy someday” - something that would is desirable someday when we know how to do it
“Anarchy now” - the idea that we would be better off if the state were smashed now.