Hello all,
I am rather new here (obviously), so allow me to post how I got here/my current philosophical background/etc..
After trying to write how I got here first, I thought it would be better to first post up my current philosophical background. My first thoughts of government came when playing Civilization 2. Admitedly, probably not the best introduction, :p. I eventually asked someone what "Communism" was, and was painted with a very beautiful picture. From there, and for a while I thought of myself as a communist/socialist (I didn't know the difference between the two terms, and admittedly, I still hardly know the difference between the two terms). I began studying some basic physical science and algebra in early High School, about 9th grade, and got a fairly billiard-ball deterministic view of the universe (so far, I'm starting off completely opposite here XD). I eventually got introduced to Adam Smith, but instead of really reading his treatise, I skipped over it to the ethical theory of utilitarianism. And, for a while, I thought with a deterministic state of the world, a giant machine could be fed the inputs and make us all happy.
No, seriously, I thought this.
Until that point when that machine could be made, we had to make the best approximations as possible. This is what I thought of economics then. I took a course at a community college in economics, and although this strengthened my deterministic/utilitarian mindset, it did; however, make me more amiable to the thoughts of free trade/basic human freedoms.
After this, I was a thorough Keynesianist. And I stayed that way until I was introduced to Milton Friedman, and then I became minarchist. After this somewhat radical change (for me), I noted that I really only knew of two schools of economic thought: Keynesianism and Neoclassicalism. So, I researched other schools, and was introduced to Austrian Economics, and took my stay at austrianforum.com for a while. Those guys were probably the biggest leaners to making me a Voluntarist/AnCap/whatever the kids call it now-a-days. I was quite pleased with Austrian Economics, because I had begun to study Mathematics in earnest and appreciated a axiomatic basis, particularly after I came upon the argument that, "Hey, technically, the scientific method uses an axiom as well."
However, I had this kind of "contradictory ambience" for a while. Since one of the axioms of Austrian Economics was subjective value, yet I was a determinist. Around this time I was taking a "Debate-class" of philosophy, of which the professor adamantly told me that I should pick up and read The Road to Serfdom, which I am very glad for. After reading this, I became even more minarchist. Also during that class, I noticed the contradiction of determinism/subjective value. And, furthermore, I was learning enough of physics by now that I became aware of different Quantum interpretations. In order to stay consistent with determinism, I was a follower of Bohm. This was, until, I became aware of Bell's Theorem.
Bell's Theorem was really the crushing blow to me, I was forced to believe that "God plays with dice", take up the Copenhagen interpretation, throw away determinism, bring out free-will, and with determinism gone I could no longer accept utilitarianism. Fortunately, I was taking an ethics class around then, and was handedly introduced to natural rights. That summer I introduced myself to Rothbard's Ethics of Liberty, and called myself a free will, natural rights, amatuer Austrian economicist, and Anarcho-capitalist.
My first encounter with FDR was through Lew Rockwell's blog, where I viewed the nicely told tale of "Space Aliens in Luxembourg". I found FDR again at Strike-the-Root. Since then I thought nothing of it until I was trying to find out if Youtube had any PRO-market anarchist and NOT objectivist videos, and I was lead to Stef :p. I searched through things a bit, found out he had actually went through the trouble of defining his motives from a very base ethical standpoint (of which I was quite pleased), and a number of other podcasts. This was probably about a month ago. After that I thought nothing of it again until, after being teased by my friends for Anarcho-Capitalist views, I made up a manifesto labeling all the different ethical bases AnCaps were defended by, one of them being FDR. I then noted that I really didn't know FDR's approach to ethics, and decided to see what was up, and check out what FDR was about. I noticed an 'introduction' section, of which I am currently slowly going through, and an interesting podcast on 'procrastination', which probably had the opposite effect for me.
I was on the chats a few times, and unfortunately, one of the first things I found out about the place was 'defooing'. My immediate reaction was CULT. However, with great timing Stef came onto chat, talked about an interview where he had been accused of being a cult-leader, and laid out a series of good arguments that he was not one (all, ironically, without me really even talking to him).
So, anyways, that's where I stand now, it will take me a while to get through the intro-series, because I don't really have internet right now! (I'm at a university library) Other than that, I'm a graduate student at Purdue.
Thanks for reading this far!
~Fep