Penn Jillette - one of the only two (2) Celebrity Libertarians to ever exist - draws (reason.com/blog/show/131559.html) our attention to a ludicrous website called "What's the Harm" (whatstheharm.net) which attempts to show the harm in beliefs and activities that most people - in their ignorance - would consider harmless. They say it "does not pursue any hidden agenda, other than promoting critical thinking" (whatstheharm.net/faq.html). However, the site was a laugh-a-minute for the few minutes I spent there.
For instance, you might wonder, what could be the harm in something like Feng Shui? Well, prepare to have your eyes opened to its massive dangers!
The neighbors both believed in feng shui, but didn't get along with each other. When one put a mirror on their house to reflect bad luck, the other did the same and the feud escalated. The argument ended up in the street with one person dead.
That happened in Malaysia in 2004, and if it didn't involve a mirror no doubt the same people would have found something else to fight over. And, I'm going to guess that there are millions of people who've engaged in it without ending up in a gun battle. In fact, their page on FS is practically an ad for the practice, considering that they could only find four things bad that had happened to people because of it. Likewise with this page: whatstheharm.net/internetmisinformation.html. Those same people would have probably gotten into the same trouble if there was no internet.
Libertarian fail.
Sat, 02/07/2009 - 15:30 · Importance: 1
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