https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_Jillette#Politics
Jillette has previously identified as a libertarian, and stated in 2003 that he may consider himself an anarcho-capitalist. He was a fellow at the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute.
Huh. Thanks. I didn’t even know he was a libertarian, only knew him as an atheist skeptic guy (besides the illusionists part). And according to Wikipedia, seems he’s no longer a libertarian:
In a 2024 interview, he said he renounced his libertarianism […] adding “Many times when I identified as Libertarian, people said to me, ‘It’s just rich white guys that don’t want to be told what to do,’ and I had a zillion answers to that — and now that seems 100 percent accurate.”
Wow. He has completely changed. Good on him for seeing the errors of his ways. Also, I’m going to paste a bit before what you pasted to add context, because I think it’s worth adding.
In a 2024 interview, he said he renounced his libertarianism as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic after a libertarian group asked him to speak at an anti-mask rally. “The fact they sent me this email is something I need to be very ashamed of, and I need to change”
In 2020, Jillette distanced himself from aspects of libertarianism, particularly surrounding COVID-19. In an interview with Big Think, he stated, “[A] lot of the illusions that I held dear, rugged individualism, individual freedoms, are coming back to bite us in the ass.” He went on to elaborate, “[I]t seems like getting rid of the gatekeepers gave us Trump as president, and in the same breath, in the same wind, gave us not wearing masks, and maybe gave us a huge unpleasant amount of overt racism.”[53]
I just didn’t want to make it bulky, so tried to bring in the core statement. My thought was that for more details, the Wikipedia link is right there.
AnCaps are among the most extreme libertarians. Lots of more moderate libertarians think of them as kooks, similar to how leftists think of tankies.
I myself believe in altruism, mutual aid, but also smaller and more effective government. I view large governments and large corporations with skepticism: concentrations of unchecked power are prone to abuse.
I just think humans work better in smaller groups overall. That’s where empathy and personal relationships actually work. When everything turns into statistics we lose our humanity.
AnCap here. Unfortunately in our world there is no possible way to create an AnCap society, so you live within the bounds of what you have.
I’m of the mind that all of the forms of anarchism are utopian. They assume people will behave in certain ways which are contrary to reality. When people don’t behave in those expected ways the whole system breaks.
Game theory helps, as does training in computer security for similar reasons. Basically the idea is that you need to always assume people will try to break the system somehow if they think they can benefit from it.
