LibertyCon 2017: The Adventure of the Second Day – Between the Idea and its Realisation
Prague, Czech Republic — “Focus on learning instead of winning” spoke Wolf von Laer, Students For Liberty’s CEO, during his presentation on ‘Communication on liberty’ at the second day of LibertyCon. The 6th edition of Europe’s biggest pro-liberty student conference was organized in Prague this year by the student-driven association European Students For Liberty. Von Laer’s speech was a resume of the liberty movement itself: its principles, main elements and culture.
“What makes this even unique is the variety of content and the level of involvement. I am very proud that we have not just a great number of different countries and backgrounds represented at LibertyCon, but also a huge number of speakers. All of them are real experts in their area of interest. In addition, this whole package full of ideas, thoughts and practices is connected and dedicated to one aim.” said ESFL Events and Communications Associate Michal Šindlar.
The second day of LibertyCon started with a block of lectures, analyzing theoretical approaches in practice. James Lark, professor of Systems Engineering and Applied Mathematics at the University of Virginia, presented his ideas on how the decreasing cost of information allows markets to reduce the size and scope of government. Challenges and opportunities to promote liberty via the sharing economy were analyzed by Tim Andrews, the Founder and Executive Director of the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance. News Editor at the Institute of Economic Affairs Kate Andrews gave a presentation titled “The future is flexible: the nature of work in 2017 and beyond”. At the same time, Enrique Fonseca, a former political consultant, discussed the question “Why Marx is sexier than Hayek?” with his audience.
“We were happy to have an opportunity to present Jennifer Grossman and her speech, called “Would Ayn Rand AirBNB? Why a ‘superhost’ is a selfish host?”. She discussed trader principles applied to the micro-entrepreneurship of the home sharing movement.” said ESFL Events and Communications Associate Michal Šindlar.
Besides lectures, two panel discussions also took place at LibertyCon. In one of them, it was discussed how less regulation in terms of services leads to gaining a better reputation. This panel was moderated by ESFL Local Coordinator Deimantė Rimkutė. The topic of the other panel was animal welfare, this discussion was moderated by ESFL Board member Marie Hemelrijk.
The highlight of the day was the “Interview with Ayn Rand” by the Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education Jeffrey Tucker, and Ayn Rand (played by Jennifer Grossman of the Atlas Society).
As Michal Šindlar pointed out, this conference is not just about presentations and seminars: “For the first time in the history of our conferences, we’re trying to present a brand-new format to connect our participants even better. We had a great number of different workshops today. The “Shooting Range” workshop, for example, showed participants around one of Europe’s most beautiful capitals, and the “Introduction to transhumanism” workshop focused on the effects of technologies on human beings.”
The second day of LibertyCon finished with the keynote lecture of Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education Jeffrey Tucker, who presented his thoughts on the intellectual commitment of the current generation.