Reply to a Crank

As readers of my work know, I am usually very patient with sincere questions from newbs. But sometimes I reach my limit.

I received this email, unsolicited, from some guy I apparently made the mistake of replying to before, thus apparently encouraging and emboldening him. I’ll share my reply to him below. I’m so tired of these losers/cranks besieging me.

In his first email to me, earlier this year, he wrote:

Hello,

First of all, I want to thank you so much for your intellectual contributions! From what I have understood, you have also contributed to A Spontaneous Order which is personally my favorite book which with Busting myths about the State and the Libertarian alternative constitute the foundations for my worldview (i.e., the correct Austro-libertarian one which is not muddied by the o so many Statist fallacies ). I have also listened to other occasions where you have spoken, such as your interviews with Jeff Deist and Bob Murphy — all of which have been great pleasures to listen to. You are one of the intellectuals I respect the most.

Secondly, sorry if it comes off as egotistical for me to come at you with this relatively long mail concerning a personal matter. It just happens to be the case that I as a 21 year old [] male who studies Information technology and who has a strong interest for societal matters relate very much to the following quote from your book Legal Foundations of a Free society: “As my interests became more sharply political and philosophical, my girlfriend (later wife) and friends urged me to consider law school. I was by this time in engineering grad school. Unlike many attorneys, I was not one of those who had always wanted to be a lawyer. In fact it never occurred to me until my girlfriend suggested it over dinner, when I was wondering what degree I could pursue next, so as to avoid having to enter the workforce. At the time I thought one had to have a pre-law degree and many prerequisite courses that engineers would lack; and I feared law school would be difficult. I remember my girlfriend’s chemical engineer father laughing out loud at my concern that law school might be more difficult than engineering. In retrospect, I can say that law school is not easy, it is a lot of work—but it is not that conceptually difficult. Lots of morons graduate from law school.”.  After having read A Spontaneous Order and having contemplated Austro-libertarianism’s principled, clarifying and transparent conceptions of law and justice, I realized that law was way more interesting than I previously thought which has had me reconcidering my educational choice. Since I seem to be in a similar situation as you were, I suspect that you are in a unique position to judge my reasoning. 

I think that engineering is interesting since it allows for refining and creating new means with which to generate greater profits (as in the general praxeological sense), but, at my core, I would say that I am very passionate about finding truth and delivering justice also.

With regards to truth, I go by the attitude that once you attain truth, you are able to mercilessly demolish the opponent’s arguments and act with knowledge. In order to do this, I have decided to educate myself on or at least listen to a variety of perspectives to be able to hold a nuanced perspective (though I have realized that so much of market skepticism and cynicism is based on such blatant demagoguery). In my freetime, I have thus engaged with recommended reading such as Friedrich Engels’ Socialism Utopian and Scientific, the silly goose anarcho-communist Peter “What even is violence?” Gelderoo’s Anarchy works, a mainstream economics textbook in my country by the name of Vår Ekonomi of around 300 pages, my country’s Social democratic party’s internal cadre education material and of course the Austro-libertarian texts which I cherish the most. I have especially liked the Austro-libertarian texts since they have provided such comprehensive and transparent reasoning which clarifies practically all matters of political economy. I also subject myself to listening to leftists’ confusion to refine my worldview by listening to how they reason, and thus why they are wrong directly from their own mouths. My notes to A Spontaneous Order and Busting Myths about the State are also filled with devil’s advocate arguments I have made for myself regarding diverse statements. I have never been someone to feel comfortable stating things I cannot back up, but want to be able to cite some evidence for my statements, since having such evidence will allow for satisfying righteous action. While I would have imagined this attitude to be intuitive, it is evidently not widespread as demonstrated by the fact that people don’t make it easy for themselves by just consulting/demanding respective side’s best arguments and reasoning when making up their mind

I basically have to contain myself from discussing political matters, such that one of my friends I meet at the gym has been subject to me discussing free market anarchism to him between sets and I have urged two of my other friends to read A Spontaneous Order and Busting myths about the State and the libertarian alternative and my passionate accompanying notes. The times I have been able to talk about political and philosophical matters with someone knowledgeable have been one of my most pleasurable occasions. I very much enjoy Rothbard’s writing style and humor. Consequently, I enjoy reading texts on societal matters since I am able to find them humorous as I am able to detect ironies and connect the content to what I already know, which I would imagine could be fitting if you are to read a lot of legal cases.

All the while, I kind of fear that all of this passion is one big Dunning-Kreuger effect since I imagine that it is conceptually easier to engage with political and philosophical matters than technical ones. Like, I find that the contrast between engineering and societal subjects is so striking. The former produces so much knowledge whereas the latter contains such blatant confusion, even if it could so easily produce much knowledge if only we were to apply the dialectical method rigorously. I feel that it is easier to have an opinion on political matters than on technical matters:  faulty reasoning in engineering has direct and easily falsifiable consequences. At the same time, it feels that I have a mindset and knowledge that can actually produce good analysis of societal matters, but I have yet to apply it and thus be sure that it really is the case…

With regards to justice, A Spontaneous Order also made me realize how critical it is important to have truth in order to be able to deliver justice, as lack thereof will render a crime unaddressed and/or create a new crime… at least according to natural law. After all, if Joe has stolen an apple from Tim and a judge concludes that it is not the case, clearly a horrible injustice has prevailed since the truth has not been recognized. I feel that it should not be hard for people to learn to have this kind of “hear out the best/most prominent arguments of each side before making up your mind”-attitude, yet everyday I am reminded of so many that fail to live up to it, which makes me think that I may have the correct nuanced mindset. Conceptually, to get to work with such evaluation of arguments and evidence as well as creation of evidence-based argumentation seems very interesting..

Signs That Law May Be a Good Fit for You: Self-Assessment Guide | BCGSearch.com I did some superficial research and found this article, whose description at least seems inciting superficially. Getting to research as to find the truth and and disprove falsehoods for a living, that sounds exciting!

I don’t know how well one can judge someone’s compatibility with a profession just by what they write in a mail, but here are my thoughts.

Thanks in advance for your patience!

Thus encouraged, he sends me and several other randomly selected prominent people (most of whom I know) an email—without bcc, of course, this (with some attached files which I omit):

I have read a lot of libertarian theory and debated a lot of Statists and have as a consequence come up with these following texts which contain the reasoning necessary to successfully argue for self-governance and liberty. Explaining how a region of 1000 Liechtensteins (as per Hoppe’s famous motto) may defend itself against a larger State is a difficult task, but one which every libertarian nonetheless should know about – otherwise one will never be able to escape the trap of having to fall in line in the end due to the public enemy number one of the time.

I would like to find the forums in which I can share these insights to ensure that they are spread as wide as possible. I would wish for every libertarian to know these insights: it would make the advocacy razor-sharp and put Statists on the backfoot. Where may I share these texts or modified versions thereof as to make them be spread as widely as possible?

The core of the insights are the following:
* Because people can refrain from aggression and aggression is objectively ascertainable, anarchy is possible. Ambiguities regarding the how such a state of affairs may be attained can never disqualify the why of anarchy – the argumentative indefensibility of Statism. Questions regarding the how are mere technical questions on how to make this practically achievable justice reign.
* Upon this natural law basis, larger polities may arise. A territory with smaller polities will work for the same reason that a free territory will work: security will be allocated such that people will have their persons and properties ensured. Prominent examples of these are the Holy Roman Empire, the 13 Colonies and Medieval Ireland.
* Smaller polities systematically favor libertarian ends. Civil society is reared in respecting the NAP on each other, so once State power lessens, then this NAP-rearing will take more emphasis in governance.

My reply:

You really need to learn some manners. This is just spam. You don’t just send off a rambling screed to a random assortment of people without explaining who you are, why you are writing, and what exactly you are asking. Are you asking for someone to do something for you? In which case it’s rude to just ask strangers for a favor, and incredibly unrealistic. Or are you asking a question to which you want an answer? In this case you simply say “Hi, I’m X, I’ve read your work, I wonder if you would be willing to answer a question about/share your views on XYX”–and then simply ask your question. Even this would be somewhat inappropriate but at least the victim/target can simply say “I don’t know, have a good day” or “just go read this paper, that you should have read before pestering me” but of course this never satisfies you people and you never read what is suggested anyway. But no, instead you send a rambling screed to 7 random strangers without any clear reason given.

I think you do not realize that people like me who have a name and are prominent get this kind of crank shit all the time and frankly, it’s exasperating.

I am sure your other victims here are also tired of getting these crankish missives and are simply quietly ignoring you and hoping you go away and slink back into the darkness and mind your own business, but I for one request that you stop spamming me. I am glad you seem to think you are some kind of anarchist, but leave me alone.