Friday 25 November 2022

The Costs of Being Left Alone

Prompted by a recent tweet, I began to ruminate on the idea that certain people only want to be left alone. Now, that can seem extremely enticing, indeed for some even desirable. The problem is, many of the people who want to be left alone don't really want to leave you alone necessarily.


The tweet in question is provided by famous whistleblower and defector Edward Snowden. In it he compares being afraid of Libertarians politically to being afraid of cats. I do admit that, on some level, there is a bit of a point as the Libertarian Party of the United States is so whacky in its politics that the odds of them ever forming a stable government are damn near impossible. However, the ideas that they do hold are downright terrifying in what they could do to you.

Lest it sound like I'm just down on libertarians, I'm not really. Libertarian ideology actually has a few principles in personal liberty, property rights, freedom of speech, and various decriminalization ideas that I do admire. However, most of that was coopted from it's original libertarian socialists/anarchists of the late 20th century and bastardized into an extremely schizophrenic defense of laissez-faire capitalism, which means many of the good things about the ideology do come from a completely different place in the political spectrum. That one of the main ideas of libertarianism is that it wants to completely dismantle many existing government regulations on just about everything and let "the market" take over is really just an enormous problem. Essentially, while I like their take on personal liberty and rights, I find their look at trying to craft a society to be downright horrific.

I've written a bit before using fictional examples of how this is probably a bad idea, but I'd like to just make a quick summary of why that is. For reference, in the Libertarian Party's platform is a stated desire to allow employers to refuse to recognize a worker made union, effectively negating the leverage of collective bargaining or such protections. While it is not against unions, it does not offer any protection or inherit legitimacy, which is an enormous blow to the mere existence of labor organizing when one traces its history.

Secondly, it supports free market solutions to healthcare. The free market solutions in the United States as it already exists are so hideously expensive and inefficient in delivering care that it's near cartoonish, and this is with minimal government intervention in the healthcare system. Among wealthy nations it has the highest rate of hospitalizations from preventable causes, and the highest number of deaths from preventable causes. Quite simply, it spends an enormous amount of money on healthcare, while creating an enormous financial barrier to actually seeking that care (indeed, most bankruptcies in the US result from unexpected medical spending). Any objective analysis would conclude that the problem rests with the issue of making healthcare a commodity rather than a public service, but the Libertarian Party concludes the opposite.

Thirdly, it supports market based solutions to the environmental crisis. This is, put simply, almost so ludicrous that it barely rates a comment. However, it is an insidious idea that is in vogue that we can simply use the free market to get out of climate change, even though oil and gas companies spent decades running climate denial propaganda, and private corporations are notoriously unaccountable for the environmental damage they cause, while overselling their commitment to fighting it. But the market will solve all!

While these are just small examples of what is really wrong with the Libertarian platform and ideology, let me swing this back to Snowden's original message. He says "Sure, they're not in power now, but someday they might take over and... uh, leave you alone, I guess, since that's kind of their whole deal."

Let's look at this for a second; on one hand, he's saying that with a Libertarian government they will say "We can't tell you what to do," and well, sure, here's a question? What's the flip side of "we can't tell you what to do?" It's "You can't tell me what to do."

That's where the problem sets in. It's a similar problem I have with anarchism, where it depends very much on community norms and peer pressure to enforce conformity, but in libertarian ideology the extreme emphasis on individualism creates a Randian nightmare where what you want doesn't really matter if no one is going to bother to help you. With one ideal of libertarian ideology being a "night watchmen state" which merely enforces contracts through the judiciary and police, while enforcing the 'non-aggression principle' through the same and defending liberty with an army, the ability to do much beyond basic property rights becomes a bit complicated.

Broadly speaking this is a problem with both libertarianism and anarchism since both tend to look at the vacuum a loss of government function would create and assume utopia. As the old adage goes, nature abhors a vacuum and so something must fill it. In the libertarian world that's the market, which as I lay out in my longer essay, has no accountability to the public good. 

As an example, let's say for instance that a company builds a factory on a river. Since there is no regulation on what kind of waste they can dump into that river, they begin dumping harmful industrial byproducts into it. This causes the local environment to be poisoned, leading to the drinking water supply of a local town to be contaminated and people die. Naturally, some people will organize and try and sue the company that caused it. In the libertarian philosophy, case closed, but is it? Quite a lot depends on the people being able to afford a good legal team, and a company which has the capital to build that factory in the first place will almost overwhelmingly be able to afford a good legal team (or potentially SLAPP suit the problem away before it starts). The corporate legal team will almost inevitably win this, and the people who have lost loved ones or who are still living with a poisoned water supply will still have that problem. The overwhelming legal defense for the corporation might be "it was their individual responsibility to prepare for what might happen, no one stopped them from looking into living downriver from a factory might be like, it's their fault if they weren't prepared!"

If that seems like a ludicrous idea, projective personal responsibility onto the victim, allow me to refer you to the story of the MacDonald's Hot Coffee lawsuit. Despite becoming the poser child for a frivolous lawsuit, most of what you know about the case is actually wrong. The victim, Stella Liebeck, was a 79 year old woman who was in a parked car when she accidentally spilled coffee on herself, because the coffee was at 180–190 °F (82–88 °C) it caused third degree burns to her legs an genitals, nearly killing her, requiring extensive surgeries and skin grafts, costing 20,000$. Liebeck merely wanted her medical expenses covered, but MacDonald's framed this as a case of greed, among a litany of other crazy claims. Indeed, this was framed as a 'personal responsibility issue" and a concentrated effort was made to portray this as a "clumsy, greedy woman wanted money for her own mistake" rather than "company serves coffee capable of melting skin" to the public. That Liebeck won was astonishing.

Though let me give you another, more concretely libertarian example. In his book A Libertarian Walks into a Bear,  tells the story of personal liberty run amok in a New Hampshire town called Grafton. A weird mix of libertarian activists moved in and, effectively, took over the town government. They cut services to the bone, paring down police, fire, road maintenance, and even the public library to an absurd degree to the point where they almost existed in name only. The town's legal fees skyrocketed because it became an extremely litigation heavy region, the local police force was so handicapped by budget cuts that they could hardly ever put their single police cruiser on the increasingly pothole cratered roads for fear it was so unsafe, and the number of accidents and medical incidents practically overwhelmed what medical services were available.

The title comes from the fact that, by doing away with bylaws and many other ordinances that prevented big groups of people from living in the woods, trash began to be dumped everywhere. So bears showed up. With easy food, and some people even feeding them just because they enjoyed it, bears lost their fear of humans. That led to confrontations and bear attacks. When some frustrated people got mad at people who fed the bears, they were told that anything that happened wasn't really the bear feeders problem.

As I said, the flip side of "we can't tell you what to do" is "you can't tell me what to do" and as seen here, with the government pared down to nothing, life got immeasurably worse as no one bothered to take responsibility for anything. The book did show a fascinating divide among the libertarian ideology, and how many people had such broad ideas on what libertarianism is. The author treats most of the people sympathetically, and does an excellent job showcasing the slow motion collapse of a civil society. While he treats the people with sympathy (and occasional incredulity) I can say for certain that there was a lot of "fuck you, got mine" on display, which unfortunately tends to be a very common underlying theme in many proponents of libertarianism. 

These examples are, overall, just a few reasons why people are genuinely afraid of libertarianism politically. While the broad ideas of freedom and individual liberty are indeed admirable, they come attached to a series of poorly thought out other political ideas. From dismantling healthcare to effectively ceding economic primacy to unaccountable corporations, libertarian political emphasis on individual freedom does not make up for the broad structural damage it could introduce from a lack of protections or responsibility. 

Friday 18 November 2022

Manticore Ascendant Series

Beginning in 1993, readers were introduced to the world of Honor Harrington and the cold war between the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the People's Republic of Haven by David Weber. We see Manticore as it is gearing up to fight one of the greatest conflicts in the Post Diaspora era in 1900 PD. However, it was not always so, and the Star Kingdom had a very rough beginning. This review will be as spoiler free as possible.


The Manticore Ascendant series coauthored with Timothy Zahn (and Thomas Pope) which brings us all the way back to 1529 PD, centuries before Honor Harrington was born, and well before the Royal Manticoran Navy ever reaches its prime. The Kingdom is beset by political troubles, the aftermath of a deadly plague, a navy which is merely occupied by career chasers, well meaning patriots, and dead weight looking for a paycheck. In short, not the well disciplined, elite force which people have come to know and love.

Enter Travis Uriah Long, a well meaning kid adrift in a family situation defined by indifference. After getting caught up with a bad crowd, he gets the chance to turn his life around in the Navy in A Call to Duty. Joining the navy however, Travis is seeking structure and comradery, and he finds that structure in the rules and regulations that all spacers are supposed to follow. Unfortunately, he finds himself instead mocked and disliked for his "Stickler" attitude to rules and the way they can be too binding at times.

This plays out poorly with his fellows, and leaves him on a fast track to being stuck at low ranks forever. However, when an effort to sell warships in the Secour system is highjacked by pirates, Travis plays an instrumental role in saving the day. However, he becomes embroiled in national politics as his brother Gavin, Baron Winterfall, is enmeshed with the schemes of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Earl Breakwater. This sets the stage for a political saga which will roil the Kingdom for years to come.

Meanwhile, an unseen enemy is plotting against the Kingdom, and in the sequel,  A Call to Arms, the Kingdom is on a slow roll to invasion that Travis must also fight against. It's a steady burn towards an absolutely momentous series of action packed battles which culminate in the first threat to the Star Kingdom in centuries.

From there, the series heads to A Call to Vengeance where the perpetrators of the attack are tracked by Manticore and her allies across numerous star systems in order to attempt to bring them to justice. From the Silesian Confederation to the outer edges of Haven space, Travis and his friends track the men responsible for the brutal assault on their homeworld. It combines the best aspect of space warfare with some clever diplomatic and spy thriller drama. 

I can't spoil the resolution, since it was genuinely surprising and fun for me, but I will say that it does an excellent job at fleshing out the larger Honorverse. Introducing more of the politics of the Andermani Empire, and the broader context of the Silesian Confederacy well before we saw it in Honor's time.

The most recent installment, A Call to Insurrection, picks up a few years after the last great engagement, and leads us directly into some of the fallout from the battles after the attack on Manticore. Here, we see that Gustav Anderman's new empire is, if not in turmoil, still not as secure as he made it out to be. Rebellion and rivalry still crop up at all levels, and many are worried that whoever inherits the Empire will not be able to fill his shoes. 

While not quite as action packed as the previous installments, it does deliver a finale to be proud of. I really enjoyed the wider look at the Honorverse, while also seeing how the characters were growing.

The series truly is a wonderful successor (precursor?) to the Honorverse main series. It shows us the rough edges of Manticoran politics, and the time before it was a power to be reckoned with on the galactic stage. From backbiting politics, the troubles of monarchs, and the rough and tumble nature of early space travel, we see a lot of what it took to create a modern, vibrant star nation.

Travis is our principle viewpoint character, but he's not the only one. His Academy friend, Charles "Chomps" Townsend, is our second most encountered character, and the way he deftly works through intrigue and the intricacies of various politics will leave you guessing as to his ultimate assignments, and his journey is one you really have to read to enjoy! Gavin Velacott is the next most used character as he keeps us up to date with the various trials the politics of Manticore are undergoing. The little "slice of life" moments for all of our characters really do flesh out the universe too.

Each book is rounded out by a larger supporting cast, and an equally colorful array of villains (and so far only one overarching antagonist) who interact and often plot against one another. These all tie together in a series of plots which, as yet, have yet to reach their full ramifications. It's going to be interesting to see how it all ties up!

Of course, it also delivers on prime space battle action, which if you're reading David Weber, isn't that what you're looking for? The exploration of early Honorverse warfare is perhaps one of my favorite matters. From early impeller rings, the logistics of using spinning habs to keep people from experiencing full weightlessness, and big radiators hanging off the side! It makes for a very different form of battle from what we see in later novels.

Readers who love good military science fiction will be enthralled by the stories told and the battles fought. The collaboration between two great authors in a familiar setting has produced some excellent results. I can't wait to see what they produce next, and you should definitely check out the series!