>>387 (OP)
I'll actually play along OP. Time to piss some people off. My ranking is entirely personal.
>S Tier
My criterion for this tier is "You got me to stop thinking about politics all the goddam time and get me to be libertarian in my actual personal life."
Stefan Molyneux/Harry Browne
Harry Browne because he has this whole philosophy that's incredibly personally helpful. By thinking in an entirely local way, I find I can have actual chance at ekeing out freedom for myself no matter the political climate, which is a very white pilled way of thinking. Also, pointing out, and this goes with Stef, 90% of your lack of freedom in your life is due to your personal relationships, not the State.
Harry/Stef really helped me think carefully about where I should work and live, which paid off big time later because I didn't have to suffer through the mask covid bullshit as other places had (OR STILL HAVE) to.
Stef made me confront the alcoholics in my life, which was hard, but something I needed to do.
Hoppe/Murphy
Hoppe because "Democracy the God that Failed" really shook me out of the mythology I held for Democracy, and Murphy because he handled my "What about the Warlords" argument that held me from anarchocapitalism, as well as the fact that he introduced me to Arrow's Paradox, which really helped shake me out of the mythological status I held Democracy to.
>A Tier
My criteria for this tier is "Entry drug" or "These guys got me here."
Hayek/Mises
High consideration for S Tier, because until I met Hayek, I was a socialist. It was his Road to Serfdom that caused me to question socialism, and it was his Nobel prize essay about measurement that together with Mises that shook the whole "But if we had a powerful enough computer, we could..." myth that I held on to for a looooooooooooong time.
On a more personal note, and this is why I consider putting Hayek S Tier, I feel like he helped me realize all the times I'm being arrogant or conceited. That Nobel price essay was almost more of a humble pie for me.
Friedman/Ron Paul
If Hayek helped break me from socialism, Friedman's "Free to Choose" series and Ron Paul's campaign really carried me a long way to here.
Rothbard
Ethics of Liberty (combined with Hoppe's take on Ethics), I feel put me on some solid ground.
>B Tier
My criteria for this tier is "I personally know a guy who this person brought them here."
Ayn Rand
I have one uncle who is a night watchman state libertarian, thanks almost entirely to Rand's book.
Gatto
This guy railing on public education helped at least one public school teacher friend of mine become libertarian.
Kinsella
His thoughts on how terrible copyright and patents are changed a lot of my friends' minds. Just in general, I think Kinsella is underappreciated for how influential that work was.
Satoshi Nakamoto
There are a lot of people who wouldn't be libertarians today if it weren't for the rise of Bitcoin.
Snowden
Got my mom off of Facebook. Honestly considered putting him S Tier just for that alone.
>C Tier
My criteria for this tier is "When/If they passed, or if I think of them dying, I feel a tiny twang in my heart."
Timothy C. May
Authored the Cyphernomicon. Huge white pill for me, and I could argue is the main reason I went through the trouble to find this forum. Made me care about privacy. Also, Bitcoin wouldn't exist without him, arguably.
Julian Assange
Opened my eyes to the obvious: that the U.S. government is a monster. Fought the good fight, and is a martyr.
David Friedman
Has made me really think about unschooling.
Hazlitt
His book "Economics in One Lesson" really taught me a lot of economics really fast. Also, I am TERRIBLE at rhetoric, so having his dumb one little lesson helped me out in the heat of debate. He also wrote two other books that...take them or leave them (one on willpower which wasn't too bad, and the other was a really Saturday-morning-cartoon-villain bad novel).
>F Tier
My criteria for F tier is, "They probably count as libertarians, but they've actively harmed the movement."
Tyler Cowen
His essay "Why am I not an Austrian economist" destroyed a lot of libertarianism I feel. It's also just bad logic. Like it's on the level that I wonder if Tyler Cowen is a paid State propaganda artist.
>D Tier
My crtieria for D tier is, "The jury is out on them yet."
Walter Block
I have a tough time with this, because there's so many good things from Block. His book Defending the Undefendable is more of an apology for contrarianism that I think is sorely needed today and helped me to try to be contrarian myself and is the main reason I want to keep him up here. However, he seems like a fair-weather libertarian. He was against libel laws, until he sued for libel. He was against war, until he supported Israel's latest war. He commonly argues that "You should get on benefits from the government." That sort of stuff just starts tipping the scale hard in the other direction.
>E Tier
I just got this as a template, and I can't be arsed to remove this tier.
Alright, there's more but that's all I feel like writing for now.