How to be a Hypocrite Staring Stefan Molyneux

If you’ve been involved in libertarian circles for a while you’ve probably heard the name Stefan Molyneux. He is a self-proclaimed philosopher who considers himself an anarcho-capitalist. In addition to that he’s also a narcissistic ass who mirrors a cult leader more than an individual who supposedly opposed rulers. As with most narcissists Molyneux doesn’t handle criticism well. Any form of criticism, in his opinion, must be ruthlessly crushed even if it requires him to be a hypocrite to do it. A group calling themselves Tru Shibes have been putting together videos on YouTube that point out instances where Molyneux has been inconsistent. Since Molyneux does hour and a half monologues Tru Shibes have had a lot of material to work with. But Molyneux decided he had to prove that his inconsistencies know no bounds. The man claims that he opposes intellectual property but decided to use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to silence Tru Shibes:

Either way, Molyneux, who writes and speaks frequently about being against “state” violence and has spoken out about how he doesn’t support intellectual property law, apparently chose to make use of the DMCA to take down a bunch of videos from “TruShibes” an account that apparently has mocked Molyneux and apparently hypocritical actions/statements he’s made.

I think Tru Shibes should consider this their single greatest victory. This story also brings up a point that I feel needs emphasizing from time to time. Us anarchists subscribe to a philosophy that opposes the state. For me that means avoiding interaction with the state as much as possible. I don’t want to use the state to solve my problems, which means I have little interest in calling the cops on somebody, taking somebody to court, or filing a DMCA take down notice to silence my critics (don’t worry, all of my shit is public domain so I don’t even have claimed copyrights I could use for a DMCA take down). But from time to time I see self-proclaimed anarchists use the state they supposedly oppose to silence their critics either by filing a lawsuit or utilizing some stupid law like the DMCA.

If anarchism is to thrive it must be able to provide alternatives to the state. One of the state’s longest claimed monopolies is dispute resolution. When two individuals have a disagreement they take it to the state’s courts. Dispute resolution is one of the markets where anarchists could provide some truly creative alternatives. It’s also a market that acts as a litmus test for statists. As far as they’re concerned the only way to resolve disputes is to have a third party with a lot of guns command people who disagree to behave. If anarchists can come up with a functional alternative for dispute resolution it would do a lot to demonstrate its effectiveness.

So if you consider yourself an anarchist take Molyneux’s recent act of cowering behind the state and its DMCA as an example of what not to do. Instead when you find yourself involved in a disagreement work to find a solution that doesn’t involve the state and its coercive violence.

7 thoughts on “How to be a Hypocrite Staring Stefan Molyneux”

  1. Let’s also not forget his comments on the matter while on the Joe Rogan Podcast.

    TL;DR: (not verbatim) “I banned those videos because they showed the identities of several callers on my show and we thought that this was somehow aggressive or something.”

    I still listen to some of his call-in shows as a reminder of 1. just how bad my childhood was and family still is and 2. to remind me that many others had it worse. He does give some good advice… but it’s also hilarious to hear him try to blame stuff on women being beautiful and other weird dren. Does he bring up some good points from time to time? Certainly, but that doesn’t make him any less of a smeg-head.

  2. Moly is becoming a bigger and bigger embarassment as a self-annointed representative of libertarianism/anarchism. It’s good to see so many now starting to ostracize him for the meglomaniacal cult leader he really is. I suppose that’s why he’s scraping the bottom of the barrel with more association with Alex Jones and why he’s pandering to tabloid so much news now.

    Sorry To Interrupt Your Cult Of Hypocrisy
    The Untruth About Freedomain Radio
    http://dana.nutter.net/blog/?date=2014-08-18

  3. And it’s also hilarious to see him double-down on the crazy while everyone around him slowly walks (read: quickly sprints) away from him.

    I do feel sad for the Kool-Aid drinkers. I had someone today trying to tell me how birth certificates are our parents’ way of signing us away to the government, your name in capital letters is a corporation, and how you can “buy a car using your social security number as a bank account and sending the bill to the government.” Yet somehow (and oh so shockingly!) he hasn’t done this to get himself a “free” car. I did what little I could in trying to talk sense into him, but at least I was able to tell him about true anarchism and, as a self-appointed chaplain, discordianism.

  4. At this point, I’m not sure which I find more entertaining:

    1. The various videos, radio interviews, and posts by former “inner circle” members of, as I’ve heard it called, the cult of “Holy Moly” PLUS the multitude of lies coming from Moly himself.

    or

    2. The Gamergate/Zoe Quinn media blow-up.

    Both seem to be following the same strategy almost to the letter:
    1. Ignore the problem
    2. Quickly realise that the problem is terrible and needs to go away
    3. Attempt to silence your critics by removing all dissent from the interwebs
    4. Streisand effect
    5. Backlash and blow-back
    6. Backpedal or double-down?
    7 Too late to think about this rationally, let’s attack our critics for daring to disagree and to punish them for exposing us!

    To be fair, so far Moly has been light on step seven, but I have popcorn and viking metal on standby!

    1. For me number one is the most entertaining. This is mostly due to the fact that I’m more tied into libertarian circles than gamer circles. But number two has certainly contributed to filling my popcorn bucket.

      And I think Stefan did hit step seven pretty hard by issuing those DMCA take down notices. Doing so was, as far as I can see, nothing more than a thinly veiled attack against those who disagree with him.

  5. @Christopher
    I only meant that he was “light” on that step in comparison to the gaming sites. Holy Moly hass worse than a drunken thunder god swinging around his ban-hammer on his own forum, but I can only see a handful of attacks whereas GamerGate has happened across dozens or even scores of sites. But he is very quick to lie and call his attackers bad people for telling the truth.

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