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With Hoppe in Istanbul, May 2025Last week, after a trip to Nice with my wife (facebook), I joined some friends in Istanbul—Hans Hoppe, Saifedean Ammous, Greg Morin, and a few others (facebook) (some additional pix below). Had several interesting conversations, with Hans in particular. Since I sometimes act as his amanuensis—his Boswell to Johnson—1 I might as well record some of his comments I found interesting.

Touch as the most important sense.

First, we were discussing Hoppe’s admiration for the work of Peter Janich 2 and my view that manipulation and the use of one’s hands is crucial to real AI ever developing—that AI agent needs not only a mind, but also a body with the ability to act—to move and grasp and use things—and of course the ability to feel and detect things by the sense of touch. 3

Hans nodded along and observed that in some sense this is why touch is the most important sense—unlike, say, sight, where illusions are possible, human action requires actual causal manipulation of objects, touching, detecting, grasping, and wielding them. Thus, arguably the sense of touch is the most essential and primary, just as Janich emphasizes the importance of grasping and manipulating—one of Janich’s works cited by Hoppe is Handwerk und Mundwerk: Über das Herstellen von WissenCraft [handwerk] and Speech: On the Production of Knowledge.

One on spreading oneself too thin

Hans is notorious for refusing to grant interview or podcast requests, a notable exception being Michael Malice’s interview of Hoppe in 2018, but that was only because Malice was with Hans in person in Bodrum at his Property and Freedom Society conference and I pressured him into it. 4 The others were commenting on how many repetitive interviews I have given in podcasts on intellectual property and other topics, and Hans commented that perhaps I should make myself a bit more scarce, like he does. “Why do you do so many interviews on the same topic,” he asked? “I figure once I do it, it is done.” I said…. “I suppose it never occurred to me to say ‘no’!” He said, “It never occurs to me to say yes!”

I joked that maybe I should take his advice and start saying no. But then Thomas Jacob, who was there, said, no! I like the repetition! So, we’ll see.

Bankruptcy.

I also mentioned to him my tentative views on bankruptcy; 5 after hearing me out, he said that makes sense. As I posted elsewhere, I don’t mind operating without a net, but it’s nice to have one.

Optimal amount of money and demonstrated preference.

I also gave Hans my explanation of the error made by Block about the optimal amount of money, 6 and he completed my sentence before I had time to get it out and immediately saw it the same way. Again, “I don’t mind operating without a net, but it’s nice to have one.”

From Jay Baykal’s Facebook post.

More pix:

  1. I enjoyed James Boswell’s, The LIfe of Samuel Johnson (1791), and as a former Objectivist I always recall this savage review of Barbara Branden’s biography of Ayn Rand, Louis Torres, “Boswell’s Johnson—Branden’s Rand: ‘The Passion of Ayn Rand’ in Historical Perspective,” Aristos 3, no. 5 (May 1987): 1–6; see the obituary for Branden in Aristos, Dec. 2013. []
  2. See, e.g., Hoppe, My Discovery of Human Action and of Mises as a Philosopher; KOL272-2 | Q&A with Hülsmann, Dürr, Kinsella, Hoppe (PFS 2019); also Hoppe on Falsificationism, Empiricism, and Apriorism and Protophysics. []
  3. KOL464 | Law, Rights and Hoppe | Tyrants’ Den Ep 4KOL461 | Haman Nature Hn 119: Atheism, Objectivism & Artificial Intelligence. []
  4.  Interview by Michael Malice on “YOUR WELCOME”: Ep. 018 – On the Right – Hans-Hermann Hoppe. []
  5. On Bankruptcy in a Free Society. []
  6. On Gold, the Optimal Amount of Money, Hypersubjectivism, and Demonstrated Preference. []
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A few years ago I criticized a paper by William Barnett II & Walter Block, “On the Optimum Quantity of Money.” 1 See my post Comments on Block and Barnett on the Optimum Quantity of MoneyWalter Block on Money as a Sui Generis Good; and the section “The Optimal Supply of Money” in A Tour Through Walter Block’s Oeuvre.

Block argues that Rothbard and Mises are wrong that any supply of money is optimal, since if new gold is mined without violating rights, that consumers demonstrate their preference for this, thus demonstrating that the old supply was not optimal. I sensed something was wrong with this; that somehow Walter was conflating descriptive economics with normative, legal, and rights matters. The fact that rights are not violated in increasing the supply of money does not mean that the previous supply was not optimal. I sensed that this was some kind of hypersubjectivism run amok. [continue reading…]

  1. William Barnett II & Walter Block, “On the Optimum Quantity of Money,” Q. J. Austrian Econ. 7, no. 1 (2004): 39–52; see also idem, “The Optimum Quantity of Money, Once Again,” Economics, Management, and Financial Markets 7, no. 1 (March 2012): 9–24 (pdf). []
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On Bankruptcy in a Free Society

[From my Webnote series]

[This post needs to be organized, it’s here in raw form for now]

As I said in another post, “I ran this idea by Hans Hoppe last night by Hans Hoppe, with whom I was having dinner in Istanbul, and he immediately saw it the same way. I don’t mind operating without a net, but it’s nice to have one.”

Grok’s summary (not yet reviewed for accuracy): [continue reading…]

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[continue reading…]

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KOL464 | Law, Rights and Hoppe | Tyrants’ Den Ep 4

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 464.

I appeared on the new show Tyrant’s Den a few days ago. It was released today (May 2, 2025) along with the other initial episodes.

Chat GPT shownotes:

In this engaging episode of The Tyrants’ Den, host and guest delve into a wide-ranging discussion with Stephan Kinsella, a leading libertarian legal theorist and retired patent attorney. The conversation begins [0:01–7:20] with Kinsella’s background in patent law, where he candidly reflects on his anti-IP stance even while working within the IP system. He outlines how his libertarian beliefs shaped his legal career, how he avoided ethically troubling work like aggressive patent litigation, and how he transitioned to full-time libertarian scholarship, including his influential work on intellectual property and legal theory.

As the episode unfolds [7:20–59:45], Kinsella explores the philosophical foundations of law from Roman and common law to natural law, and discusses international law, war crimes, and higher-law principles that transcend statutory frameworks. He articulates his estoppel theory of rights, critiques legal positivism, and examines proportionality in justice. Later segments address libertarian perspectives on immigration policy, property rights, and the influence of Kant on modern libertarian thinkers like Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Kinsella closes by recommending his book Legal Foundations of a Free Society [59:00–59:45], which compiles decades of his work on law, rights, and liberty.

[continue reading…]

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From Twitter:

[continue reading…]

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The “Liberty Is Your Only Value” Canard

[From my Webnote series]

Many times I have noted that one criticism of libertarianism is that it is too simplistic, in that its “only value” is liberty. This is usually stated by some statist who grudgingly concedes that they value liberty, that liberty is a value, but for them it’s not the only value. 1 As I wrote previously,

Calling rights absolute is just a tactic of those who simply have no principled opposition to aggression. They believe aggression is usually wrong, or unjust—but not always. In other words, they think it is not unjust to commit aggression. This is why they do not respect property rights on principled grounds and are willing to infringe property rights if there is a more important value, like “freedom.” Or some other value, like equality or basic welfare rights, and so on. Those who favor “non-absolute” rights really favor or condone aggression (in some circumstances), and should not hide behind misleading characterizations of libertarian opponents of aggression as being “absolutists.” Liberty is not our “only value,” but it is a value, and we oppose aggression. As I wrote in my book:

Now, as a human being, I, like every other libertarian, have values other than liberty. We are not just libertarians, ever. However, we do value liberty, and we oppose aggression. For us it is a “side-constraint,” to use Nozick’s phrase: we believe aggression is simply wrong, or unjustifiable. As Nozick wrote, “Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights).”13 When the conservative, or liberal, or minarchist, or “bleeding heart” libertarian starts wagging their finger and tut-tutting that they oppose aggression but that unlike the “simpleminded” libertarian it is not their “only value,” you can be sure they are setting the stage to propose or endorse or condone some kind of invasion of liberty—some act of aggression. That is, when I hear people, even some libertarians, condescendingly denounce our focus on aggression as the primary social evil, …. I want to hold onto my wallet, because they are coming after it. Or as Ayn Rand says in “Francisco’s Money Speech,” “Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.”14 Likewise, when someone says aggression is not the only thing that matters, they are about to advocate aggression. Keep an eye on these people. 2

A recent example is by conservative James Orr in a debate with Stephen Hicks, an Objectivist if I am not mistaken, where Orr repeats this tired canard. 3 Orr says, around 1:01:34, “if you’ve got freedom as the highest value—and just and let’s just assume you can sequester it within a political domain—that’s only going to work if you’ve got, outside the political domain, a sense of what makes life meaningful that is shared at least to some degree…”

It’s like playing whack-a-mole with these aggression-condoning weasels.

 

  1. Stephan Kinsella, “On Libertarian Legal Theory, Self-Ownership and Drug Laws,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), text at n.14; Dominiak & Wysocki, “Libertarianism, Defense of Property, and Absolute Rights”; The Limits of Libertarianism?: A Dissenting View; KOL236 | Intellectual Nonsense: Fallacious Arguments for IP (Libertopia 2012), and its transcript, at 38:23; KOL341 | ESEADE Lecture: Should We Release Patents on Vaccines? An Overview of Libertarian Property Rights and the Case Against IP, at 37:22. []
  2. Kinsella, “On Libertarian Legal Theory, Self-Ownership and Drug Laws,” quoting “On Libertarian Legal Theory, Self-Ownership and Drug Laws,” p. 626. []
  3. The debate is featured in written form in Reason Papers vol. 45, no. 1. []
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Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 463.

A followup discussion with André Simoni of Brazil about some questions he had about applying my/Rothbard’s title-transfer. See also KOL457 | Sheldon Richman & IP; Andre from Brazil re Contract Theory, Student Loan Interest Payments, Bankruptcy, Vagueness, Usury. [continue reading…]

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