Derp Pirate Roberts

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/derp-pirate-roberts/

by wikiburner • 13 years ago

23 24 13 years ago

krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

jere• 13 years ago

If Krugman can use that kind of language in an article, I can use this kind:

Old

dasil0032• 13 years ago

I expect a critique of Krugman's Bitcoin derp to be forthcoming.

jaynos2• 13 years ago

It's a blog post...he's allowed a more casual tone.

dasil0032• 13 years ago

You must be too young to realize that Krugman is too old to use the word derp.

broolstoryco• 13 years ago

much substance

ogreyonder• 13 years ago

Normally I'd downvote the doge on HN, but this is particularly apt.

The article abuses the word "derp" to sound hip, makes weak shots at people and ideas left and right (without ever arriving at an argument), and generally rambles on for a whole page.

What a waste, how did this make HN top 20?

medecau• 13 years ago

krugman.nyt

chimeracoder2• 13 years ago

I'm not a libertarian, but if I were, I would find this horribly offensive.

What you also get from the report is just how connected all this stuff is with libertarian derp

Much of prominent libertarian philosophy is derived from principles of nonviolence. Of course, it is infer thaf this statement to apply to all libertarians, but simply dismissing them as 'libertarian derp' based on one violent individual is deliberately misleading.

Also, talking about Amy Adams and her cleavage? This is the New York Times, not Maxim.

I expect better from Krugman.

eudox• 13 years ago

I expect better from Krugman.

lol

dredmorbius6• 13 years ago

DPR espoused and was embraced by Libertarians.

Turned out to be a contract-killing, drug-dealing, law breaking psychopath.

Seems to me there's a couple of avenues to turn onto here. One is to defend Libertarianism against its critics by badmouthing those who point out that Ulbricht really wasn't a particularly nice guy or a close adherent to the nonviolent principles screed on his LinkedIn page.

The other would be to disavow Ulbricht and make clear that his views have no place within the Libertarian camp, and that he's a false representative of the goals of the philosophy. Not that I'm any defender of Libertarianism (it's an infantile philosophy based on fabricated principles coopted by psychopathic timocrats, but that's a longer rant).

Which, in a slightly different context, is pretty much exactly the same sort of point that's been made with regards to extremest violence carried out in the name of Christian or Muslim traditions. Or corporate violence against individuals or groups. Or nationalist violence carried out by the any of a number of countries: Argentina, Syria, Egypt, the US, UK, Belgium, Japan, Germany, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, the USSR, South Africa, .... I'm not singling anyone out here, there's plenty of outrage to go around.

Yours, however, is misplaced.

chimeracoder2• 13 years ago

DPR espoused and was embraced by Libertarians. Turned out to be a contract-killing, drug-dealing, law breaking psychopath.

Nelson Mandela has been embraced by people and organizations that I would otherwise classify as peace-loving. And they knew the entire time that he was a "terrorist"!

Ideologies are complex. One may agree with parts of a person's work, but not other parts of their means (or vice versa, or any other possible combination).

It's unfair to say that DPR's shady behind-the-scenes actions are somehow characteristic of an entire ideology that happened to agree with some other consequences of his work, and therefore grounds to dismiss them entirely.

VMG4• 13 years ago

Turned out to be a contract-killing, drug-dealing, law breaking psychopath.

Libertarians like myself generally don't have a problem with the drug-dealing and law-breaking part. The contract-killing is unfortunate, I agree.

VexXtreme• 13 years ago

I expect better from Krugman.

You're kidding right?

panarky• 13 years ago

It might help to define the salient term here, "derp". In July 2013, Krugman defined "derp" [0]:

  People who take a position and refuse to alter that position no matter how
  strongly the evidence refutes it, who continue to insist that they have
  The Truth despite being wrong again and again.

Krugman has indefatigably chronicled the failure of libertarian principles to predict outcomes in the real world. Here are a couple examples of spectacular failures in recent years.

* Predictions that the Federal Reserve's bond-buying program would result in double-digit inflation (or worse, Weimar-style hyperinflation), but then failing to change their views as the inflation rate hit historic lows.

* Claims that the rising price of gold indicates "true" inflation, but then continuing to rail about inflation as the gold price declines 36% from its highs.

Similar themes of sound money, the gold standard and Austrian economics are featured prominently in DPR's writings [1].

Krugman considers these to be "Zombie ideas" [2] that have been refuted by real-world experience, yet they continue to shamble forward. Hence, "derp".

[0] http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/06/regions-of-derpi...

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/04/29/collect...

[2] http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/bodyguard-of-zom...

bradleysmith• 13 years ago

He called American Hustle heavy-handed at times; I find his parallel between the DPR case and that movie very heavy-handed, the whole time. Talk about a stretch.

It seems he's happy to have found a criminal proceeding involving "libertarian derp". Besides this implied negativity (not familiar with Krugman, but his language reveals his standings) and a poignant "amazing stuff" reaction at the bottom, Krugman actually offers no analysis, opinion, reaction, or addition to anything at all on the DPR proceedings. His quoting of this[0] story was entirely framed as an example of why being in the FBI "these days is a lot more fun" than in the setting portrayed in American Hustle.

Judging by the title, I was really hoping for a disection of bad opsec decisions. Guess I'll conflate 'krugman' with 'rhetoric' from here on out.

[0] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/business/eagle-scout-ideal...

tl;dr - Krugman watched American Hustle, then drew a half-hearted parallel between the movie and the criminal activity in the DPR and Silk Road case. He did this without saying much of anything about either subject while insulting libertarian belief systems with the use of the word 'derp'.

Derp Pirate Roberts

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