Maggie's Farm

It's hard to know where to start when unpacking rote Z-Bot fallacies. For they are many and they are all besides the original point.

The problem with simplistic philosophies is that, while they are seemingly self-consistent and complete, they crumble when confronted with reality.

In the abstract that may be passively true but this isn't the abstract. If Z-Bot mean to apply this to Friedman, and then from Friedman to life - with this "reality" it claims - then it's a completely unbacked opinion the Z-bot aims to point to the its next barrage of nonsense:

Food safety is an example. One simplistic answer is to avoid businesses that have bad reputations. The problem is that it can be difficult to determine the source of food poisoning, and relying on the mob may result in injustices to a business that is not responsible while letting the guilty off free. Another simplistic solution is that people sue when their food is tainted. However, most people think it is better to prevent food poisoning through enforced sanitary measures than it is to sue afterward, when the damage is often diffused and difficult to monetize.

Food safety is not an example, of course, but it's these sorts of fallacies that Z-Bot is programmed to dispense. Ironically, neglecting food safety in fact is a potentially criminal offense when it is abused at harm or cost to others, which falls under two of the three allowable forces under Friedman.

None of Z-Bot's aim is philosophical, of course, and it therefore neither applies to Friedman nor to structural public sector interests as such a contractual philosophy has always gone and goes. This applies to the usual hazards of life, especially life as a free man. Here Z-Bots conflicts the philosophy of liberty - for it is a philosophy - by slipping in "most people think" as a tacit lead into "most people prefer", the populist mob having nothing inherently to do with a valid philosophy of the kind that formed the republic by the principles of The Enlightenment. Typically that mob is at express odds with that structure.

See, most people prefer bondage. Most people prefer unbuttered. Most people prefer strawberry. Most people prefer Chevy. But most structural principle in the American sense - which by "most" I mean all - "prefers" liberty, which takes food safety and sets it and a hundred thousand things like it outside of the public sector - except as matters of crime or tort - and certainly outside philosophy, except as a means - when collectivized and made into the dysfunctional Orwellian State - corrosive to Friedmaneque philosophies.

What Z-Bots has done is rhetorical Alinskism. It is not an philosophical argument but a gutter-level diversion.

Another example is modern medical drugs. Few people can properly assess the efficacy and safety of modern pharmaceuticals.

Which is a hazard of life quite utterly distinct from Friedman. It's not an example of anything except a canard.

Caveat emptor is a necessary, but not sufficient check in modern society.

The only "check in modern society" - if by that we mean an enlightened, philosophical society that hews primarily and fundamentally to liberty, which was Friedman's obvious, singular focus - is that established precisely by his philosophical equivalent of the negative, meaning real, right.

Of course you have no right to not be harmed. You have a right to limited recourse, that being fundamental to Friedman and his invocation of what it takes for a free, responsible, autonomous, adult mind to function at the highest level.

But 'bots don't function at high levels. Bots are programmed. Typically as part of a collective of other bots in service of their master's whim.

Bots cannot learn. Bots cannot think in abstracts. But bots can be programmed.

And here we find Z-bot(s) resorting to standard deflecting programming:

It may fall under a negligence standard of criminal behavior, but without universally agreed standards, then criminalization would be arbitrary, and without inspections, enforcement would occur after the fact.

Here Z-bot(s) rolls out a fallacy, another fallacy, and empty assertion, in that order.

Obviously "universally agreed standards" is not only a whimsy, it's a fiction in the context of Friedman and his tort authority, which Z-bot(s) glosses over, that being its programming. This context simply is not Z-bot(s) desired top-down authoritarianism, but per Friedman what I previously correctly asserted was the condition and character of a people equipped to see to its own self-governance, that being its philosophy according to a higher virtue 'bot programming cannot fathom.

Z-bot(s) then trots out the magical universal criminality principle, another asserted construct neither in evidence or valid pursuant Friedman and his free people. Fallacious.

Lastly, Z-bot(s) makes an empty, arbitrary assertion based on these fallacies that in a civilization basing itself on Friedman's individual accountability, enforcement occurs after the fact. No, policing occurs both before and after the fact, whether self or public. Presented in the negative as somehow contrary to a functional system based on a sound philosophy, "enforcement after the fact" is an open-ended piece of rhetoric pursuant an implied condition not in evidence at any level pursuant Friedman.

The divide, in modern society, between food production and food consumption, resulted in problems in the food supply, and that resulted in government action to protect the food supply.

And the cow jumped over the moon. And the sun set. And she sang an aria. Here Z-bot(s) deploys a meaningless observation, one as devoid of relevant context as its other programming. Humans see this and naturally remark, so what, all the more so in the context of Friedman's views.

Ten: See, most people prefer bondage.

Actually, most people prefer not to be in bondage. But perhaps you see representative democracy as tyranny.

And lastly, Z-bot(s) here indicates the absence of a sarcasm routine as well as an overt deflection, which, as we consistently see, is part of the program.

A 'bot asserts vague and deflecting rhetorical abstracts as if the 'bot was capable of actually wielding a valid philosophical abstract, which we see evidently it cannot. A 'bot can be programmed but it cannot be educated.

Part of 'bot programming is swamping the loss with noise. This, it is assumed, also diverts attention. To wit:

The point raised...

Was Friedman's philosophy. The Z-bot(s) themselves diverted that meaning - "the point" the Z-bot(s) "raised" - with a deflection into food supplies and an appeal to presumptive preventative authoritarianism it eventually warped into an ersatz definition of "democracy".

...was that democratic societies...

The "democratic" tyranny of the majority is implicit in Friedman, one naturally reminds the Z-bot(s), (assuming bot(s) reason and are educable, which one realizes is a bad bet.)

...have found it efficacious...

Assertive and fallacious by way of its appeal to convention and to a success of principle not in evidence. Begs the definition of "efficacious" while denying a fuller perspective on related pragmatism, not that Friedman applies to same. Therefore, also unrelated to Friedman.

...to implement rules...

Ergo, vague authoritarianism.

...for production in order to safeguard the food supply.

Rather, in order to assert that such authority "safeguards" any target it is brought to bear on, given the record, again violating Friedman.

...We pointed out the problems with relying solely upon tort...

Untrue. The Z-bot(s) did no such thing, and instead at best asserted an implicit connection, not a virtuous condition. Again we find the diversion well violates Friedman, that being the reason he observed the structure he did: One has not to observe a corrective except that it's counter already exists. Here Z-bot(s) simply steamroll - or handwave - the obvious philosophy and, as I right noted, swamp the error in more noise.

...which you disregarded.

Blatantly dishonest, as noted.

...Waving your hands is not an argument.

Implies a victory over the subject not remotely in evidence, and yet again, violates the meaning of Friedman's philosophy, not least of which his causes and effects, they being more than sufficiently visible and confirmed to negate the Z-bot'(s) entire specious counter-claims even as weak and transparent as they are.

Another example is pollution, where the damage is too diffused to result in practical tort absent a legal framework that addresses pollution directly.

Fallacious: B is not rendered true because A can be asserted to be true.

Z-bot(s) programming fails to recognize that presumed correlation is not universal, uniform causation, and Z-bot(s) fails to recognize that its diversion simply doubles down on the same rote repetitive non-argument every time the lines of code are reprocessed.

I believe the term is hand-waving. Recall that 'bot(s) are not educable.

the argument.

And here Z-bot(s) issues its most potent deflection, namely that the original credible, observable, real point somehow evaporated to be replaced, somehow more credibly, by the Z-bot'(s) own deflection.

A deflection based on a deflection, in other words.

From this Z-bot(s) descends into its usual and characteristic end-program, claiming that its own hand-waving constitutes a valid entry into logic and reason.

Running that same program again, Z-bot(s) retort:

Yes, the argument. For example, with air pollution, the damage is too diffuse to be amenable to amelioration by tort.

Naturally, Friedman lodged a philosophy, a philosophy requiring a perspective on its dismal alternative. Humans grasp this, humans such as The News Junkie.

Z-bot(s) therefore conjured an "argument" false on its face, recently dangling the canard that authority cannot justly sue for damages, or that if it can, such tort is inadequate for the purposes of this "democracy" Z-bot(s) then goes on to malign the contextual meaning of.

In other words, this open-ended "democracy" turns out to be the establishment of self-supporting force while constitutional liberty, as Friedman rightly grasps it, has a prior contract and fundamental legal structure and precedent whose very purpose is to limit and constrain the populist and eventually rogue "democracy".

This liberty (not philosophically but with respect to the meanings of words) is incumbent in rudimentary programming. It simply repeats, unilluminated.

There being zero parallels between Friedman and a crude program, and despite there being therefore no shared level, naturally Z-bot(s) endlessly deflects, appealing to its own construct as means to gain hopeful rational entree.

The interesting thing is that Z-bot(s) co-opts entire phrases and re-deploys them with no regard to precision. This then is not thought. It is rote habit constructed on the simple premise that an audience willing to be abused by it is somehow convertible to it.

The science shows that particulates result in a statistical increase in asthma. However, it's generally not possible to show that a specific case of asthma is due to or aggravated by particulate pollution, and if there are several emitters, it's generally not possible to determine which emitter is at fault. The damage to an individual may be difficult to monetize, and will vary considerably from simple irritation to a shortened projected lifespan. Furthermore, individuals can rarely mount a successful tort against large corporations regardless of the merit. In other words, the damage is diffuse, and the costs to recover are high. In a representative democracy, these and other considerations are balanced through legislation.

Here is another example of a random assertion gussied up, the program insists, as an "argument. It's actually meant appeal to an implicit fallacy, one that itself somehow never qualifies for the true definition of hand-waving.

What its saying - copiously and with abuse to words like "recover", "representative", "democracy", and especially "balanced" - is that harms happen and by their nature, are difficult to resolve, if resolution is a suitable goal in a "democratic" society interested not with Friedman's liberty, but with the shackles of force and equality and thus, with gross subjectivity, failure, unfairness, and eventually, oppression.

As opposition we find not just Friedman but, on a different tangent, Vonnegut, another real human mind who perceived the fuller perspective of the philosophy of liberty from force and who having correctly done so, brought the thought vividly to life.

These threads humans understand, which is why the principle thereof resonates and produces works not just of intellectual precision but of meaningful art.

How 'bot hand-waving therefore comports with any of this is anyone's guess, especially, evidently, Z-bot(s) programmer(s) who hithertofore expresses little appreciation for broader abstracts, no matter how appealing and compelling and elegant they may be to live humans.

This is called an argument. You may now resume waving your hands so as to avoid having to address the argument.

And that may be the final line of code. We shall see; of that one has no doubt.