"Of course I won't do it voluntarily, and you clearly won't either. That's why the government needs to step in and MAKE me do it. And you too. Raise taxes, limit imports, whatever it takes."

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I had to read that twice to believe you'd written it, zeroworker.

Don't you realize how truly grotesque an admission that is?

I'm wrote this in the comment section of a blog, where you have to be brief. So sometimes distinctions and nuance get lost in the interest of not writing 10,000 words.

Did I mean literally anything it takes, including serving babies for lunch in the downtown restaurants? No, of course not.

If something's not intrinsically worth doing voluntarily, why in the world would you want the State to force people, including yourself, to do it?

Do you depend on the State to keep you from robbing or killing people, too?

You've clearly missed the point. Our biology works against us here. Sometimes I swear it's only the libertarian types who have trouble with this stuff.

Our brains are wired to want wealth and power, and to want immediate gratification, because back in the day, when we were hunter/gatherers, that generally meant a better chance of increasing fitness (in the biological sense - i.e., more offspring). I'm playing a bit fast and loose here, but again, space is limited and I'd like to go to bed before sunrise.

We are animals. We have the capability for rationality, but quite often we are anything but. This is a prime example. To get a bit more scientific, the brain severely discounts the future. Offer someone who is trying to lose weight a candy bar, and more often than not he'll eat it. The brain works against him, because he wants it NOW, and even though his cortex knows he'll suffer the consequences of not losing weight, the animal brain often takes over and he eats the candy bar anyway.

It is the same thing with energy use. Even if you study the issue, and you know you are going to ruin the planet if you keep driving and taking vacations, well, it's cold in New England today and Florida is in the 80's. Next decade be damned, I'm taking the family to Disney!

Just like the dieter, who would be more likely to lose weight if an external actor helped him by keeping him away from candy bars, we need an outside force strong enough to help us do what is best for ourselves and wean us off carbon based energy (unless of course you consider a future of massive human die-off a desirable one).

How many times have you seen someone voluntarily give up their Hummer and McMansion, or even their modest ranch and Prius, for a bike and a commune? Never? Maybe once? It has happened, but the exceptions are so few and far between as to prove the rule. How many times have politicians campaigned on a platform such as - "I'll reduce your standard of living!" People naturally gravitate towards a soothing message - we WANT to believe it - so we do.

Look, I'm all for freedom and liberty. It's wonderful. But not when the habitability of the planet is at stake. If you're only interested in having a little fun for the next decade or two, and then it's OK with you if the planet turns into a (LITERAL) hell on earth, then you're a sick fuck.

You and your Libertarian brethren are hopeless.

If you want to ignore the facts about the real world in favor of the comfort of your insular ideology, that's your choice. But it makes discussion impossible.

OK, I'll try to engage you one more time.

I take it that the irony is lost on you of your believing that your own ideology is determined by your wired animal brain, but that my ideology, which involves freedom of thought and action, is "insular."

I don't have an ideology - I seek only the truth. LOL!

What could be more insular than your believing that your thoughts and actions are limited to those permitted by the wiring of your animal brain?

This is the kind of BS that pisses me off, and makes discussion virtually impossible. I never said any such thing.

Here is the deal - we have a neocortex, and the cortex is capable of rational, logical though. However, we still have the older, more primitive portion of our brain too. The cortex doesn't always supercede the impulses we get from the older, "animal" brain.

That is not the same thing as saying that we are prisoners to our animal brains. Just that we are at times susceptible to the impulses from it. This is not difficult, yet you seem to consistently get it wrong.

There is a long list of ways in which humans are irrational, and this is well documented. We tend to overvalue new information over old information, we severely discount the future, we give different answers to the same problem when it is simply worded differently. Etc.

Should I also gather from what you've asserted that you're unaware that we can change the structure of our brains by means of our exposing them to internal and external stimuli?

I've never asserted this, although after speaking with Libertarians I wonder if they are the exception to the rule - that external stimuli have no effect on the Libertarian mind.