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Myrkul, I thought this would be better off in it's own thread.

Lets start with a definition of what ancap is, then I'll tell you the things that make me raise an eyebrow  :P

Reserved.  :)

AnCap, A.K.A. Market Anarchism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism), is...


I think Wikipedia does a fine job of defining it, and I will be using that page as a reference for this thread.

Lets start with privately funded security.

What happens when one such security provider becomes tyrannical and starts abusing people?

Then they are criminal, are they not?

What happens when any organized criminal group starts abusing people? The other security providers put a stop to it.

I just don't agree. The more likely scenario would be multiple other security providers getting involved on both sides of the dispute and we'd have a series of mini-wars between them.

We can see the examples throughout history in feudalism. Or even in the american old west (where is was quite common for a company to have it's own army of hired guns).

Now I would feel just fine defending my personal property and liberty from another individual --- but how is 'everyman' supposed to secure himself and his property from any number of 'security providers' taking orders from... anyone who pays them?

In a sentence what ppl are fearful of in this model is

Uneven administration of justice.  Unpredictable and arbitrary outcomes.

But to the extent that our own 'democratic' representative governments deliver unpredictable and arbitrary outcomes at the cost of taxpayers other models seem appealing.

I don't find it likely that many (or, for that matter, any) other agencies would side with the abusive group. If nothing else, they'd want the customers of that abusive group to come to them, and so would not act to protect the abusive group from the consequences of it's actions.

He wouldn't have to. Security providers provide security. They defend people, places, or property. There's no incentive to conquer, when defense is so much easier, not to mention safer. Keep in mind, also, the basis of AnCap:

What if the abusive group is also in control of the worlds oil?

Or the MPAA decide anyone that uses a camera is violating their rights?

Or any large group of private police want to be the ONLY private police?

What happens if someone is living in an area where parody is a protected right, and the original owners of the material don't agree? does smalltown inc. police fight against the larger force? or just lay down and take it?


Personally I think private police could be a much better system than we have now, Government thugs, but it would also have its problems...

All of it? Everywhere? Setting aside the fact that that's absolutely ridiculous, there's plenty of alternatives. Hemp oil, for instance, works great as a diesel fuel.

Good luck trying to enforce that.

See "criminal group," above.

Well, small forces like that would likely have mutual aid contracts with larger forces, and that's even assuming it gets to violence. Arbitration would have it hashed out long before that.

Security is a service, just like drycleaning. And just like in drycleaning, monopolies suck at providing that service. Market competition delivers it much better.

Why do you think this is unlikely?  People take sides and have points of view.   People do not operate is this neutral manner and only with their customers best interest.  

I should stay the hell out of this thread:


We are already living in an ANCAP society. Feudal warlords and thugs evolved into what we have today. Is this thread a kind of back to the roots of dog eat dog?

Would we all benefit if society was a motor cycle club?

ANCAP supreme court:
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/peea/assets_c/2012/01/mad-max-thunderdome-thumb-450x301-107572.jpg

What make you believe that you wont be slaves in such a society?

Yes, you should.


But it's not in their customer's best interest that they're doing that. They're acting in their own (and possibly their shareholder's) best interest. More customers means more money. More money is good for the company. Siding with the group of people that are abusing their customers will not get them more customers. It might (read: definitely will) even lose them some (read: most, if not all) of their customers, to groups that aren't OK with abusing their customers.

Look at it this way: If you lived in North Korea, and moving to South Korea were as simple as signing a piece of paper, would you do it?

In text-book this may be written.  The world is not that simplistic.  People and companies do many ranges of actions for many reasons that sometime fit in your mold and many times do not.   I actually find more money can many times be quite bad for a company, they lose their culture, character, what they stood for in the market place.  History is litter with examples.  Perfect example in modern times, Google and Apple.   Example from history, British East Indian Company, Llyods of London, Standard Oil, etc..

You are mingling the current system with what may be under anarcho-capitalism. I don't think companies would be as big as they are today under anarcho-capitalism because they cannot rent seek (spend resources to lobby government for the purpose of increasing barriers to entry for competition).

The basic premise of anarcho-capitalism is that individuals accept consequences of their actions, whether they are considered positive or negative. It's not a utopia because "bad" things (rape, murder, crime, etc.) can and will happen.

You may need to revise your history. I'm not familiar with the story of Lloyds of London, but I do know that the British East India company was a Crown Charter. In other words, a royally granted monopoly. Yeah, pretty much exactly what I'm advocating removing. Standard Oil (http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Standard_Oil) reduced oil prices drastically. They had, at their peak, only about 88% of the market share.

Google and Apple, I don't see doing anything I would remotely complain about - especially since they're pretty much in direct competition at this point.

The one thing both capitalists and communists agree on is that you can always count on a capitalist to be a greedy fucker. Communists view this as a bad thing, to be stomped out. AnCaps see this as a good thing, to be harnessed.

Now, he was talking about not outsourcing, here, but the key part of the quote is this:
"By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it."
Even 230 years ago, we knew that people acting in their own interest, as long as they don't act specifically against others' interest, will result in a more prosperous society.

That's what I have an issue with right there --- the entire idea of NAP ever working globally. I would assert that any time a majority (or even a vast majority) agrees with the NAP --- then it's going to spur those who don't into drastic action that would end with destruction on a massive scale.

The purely logistical problems involved with letting anyone use another security provider at will is going to make actually providing that security next to impossible. You'd need to have perfect information and nearly instant transportation (think beam down a security team).

Assuming people moving between providers, you've either have a single provider over large areas (as they're clearly dominant and the best at the job) - or your have complete fragmentation (like we do with internet service providers, cell phone providers etc). In the first case, we end up with a very large armed security force with a scary amount of power, sitting on a large territory, just waiting to be corrupted --- and in the second case, we've got a bunch of providers who because of the cost and logistics aren't agile enough to defend against... much of anything really.

What, you think the agressionists are going to nuke the world? Possibly, but possible in today's society, too. And arguably, more likely.

That old addage, "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away." wouldn't change, and it's no less true now than it would be then. Which is why AnCap supports the right of every individual to see to their own defense by carrying whatever personal weapons they see fit.

But the police don't typically stop crimes, either... At least with a market system, the incentive would be to try, rather than to just tell the poor schlub "Sorry, no duty to protect." And even the mass of little agencies can effectively defend against external threat. Arguably better, in fact, due to the fact that there would be no central authority to capture, and they would be a defense-in-depth rather than a shell defense.

I think the defense in depth portion of this is correct, assuming that the invader makes a distinction between civilian and military. If they're only goal was to kill everyone and take the land - then I think we'd regret getting rid of the state military. Any sort of external invasion is highly unlikely in my opinion (largely due to information traveling so quickly via internet).

Good point - police don't actually prevent crime.

Ok, so given that the police aren't able to prevent crime currently - and neither could a security provider... then I don't see any real incentive for anyone to pay for that service. Instead I'd imagine we'd simply have a wanted list - paid for by the victims (or relatives of them) and our security providers have become bounty hunters... with no economic incentive to grow large enough to worry about corruption.


~

Lets move on to the issue with civil disputes - We have to assume that property rights exist and are globally accepted in some way. How would someone be made whole after grand-theft... other than simply hiring a bounty hunter to go after the crook?

Maybe, maybe not... after all, a State military defending a disarmed populous means you need only defeat the military, and the population is easy fodder. A defense-in-depth, combined with an armed populous is a very tough nut to crack. Took the Brits hundreds of years to take over Ireland. If they intend to just nuke the population with a Neutron bomb or something, I'd point out that citizens of a democratic republic die just as easily to that method as do AnCaps.


Well, insurance is typically how someone is made whole nowadays, after a large loss like that, I see no reason to change that. That would, however, put the incentive on the insurance agency to recover the money, or at least prevent further loss from that source.

It's funny how people say "I am terrified that in Ancap, we won't have even administration of justice, unpredictable and arbitrary outcomes, <insert fear mongering here>", all the while they are blithely unaware that that's what they already have.

Anyone who thinks that the statist "justice" system exists for their protection and security obviously hasn't tried to use the "justice" system yet.

Company References - These are all examples of companies that started out small and as they got bigger (more money), they became more non-competitive and monopolistic.   This came from the statement you made the more money for a company is a basically always a good thing.  I was refuting this claim.

Now Google and Apple - I don't have time to recount their history but l'll leave it here, both had very idealistic founders that came into the business to compete with the big boys and in Google case "Don't be evil".    Well Apple is exactly what they didn't want to become, the 800-pound gorilla that is trying to limit choice when they started as the computer "choice" from IBM and Microsoft.   Google, you don't even know what they are collecting and who they share it with and they defend it with a paranoid zeal if you ask any questions.  Nuff said.

Adam Smith - If you going to quote Wealth of Nations, I suggest you read his first book "Theory of Moral Sentiment" first. 

That is the claim you were refuting, but unfortunately, not the claim I was making. "More money is good for the company." Not necessarily the society, or the original company culture, but for the company. Or do you deny that companies seek more money?

I deny companies seek more money, I do challenge that more money is always good for a company.  Now you are tending to make me believe that profit seeking regardless is beneficial.


I now need to ask a more important question before we continue.   Tell me about the nature and how money is issued in the AnCap society?

Lets just use bitcoin - since it already exists and is fair.

No, first off, I believe Myrkul believe in AnCap before Bitcoin ever existed so I want to know the nature of money and how it should be issued.  Using Bitcoin would be intellectually lazy.  Plus Bitcoin would only cover the issuing part and I am not sure if he would even want Bitcoin to be that method.  :)

I don't think you quite understand the term "capitalism" a company will always seek more money, unless bypassing that money gives it other, better benefits. Profit seeking is almost always beneficial, in a market without coercion, because the way you seek profit in such a market is to offer goods or services to people who want them. That is, in fact, the only way to seek a profit in such a market.

That you ask that, on this forum, is pretty humorous. In addition to things like Bitcoin, there would be numerous gold and silver currencies, minted privately, and probably smaller private currencies, like the local currencies you sometimes see small communities issue to help keep the money local.

Basically, everything except a huge central bank.

Issue whatever money you want and if people use it good for you. Once you start forcing people, well yea maybe you can... but a defining feature of ancap is lack of blind acceptance towards such things.

Haha

Statists fumbling to provide responsive rebuttals to arguments.  Entertaining.

/s

And then, some people don't even bother, just making shit up as they go.

More blahblahblah from wawahwah.

I suppose all the rational people are either convinced by now, or have simply resolved to agree to disagree?

I am convinced.

lol.. yeah, but I can't take credit for that. ;)

I for one don't think AnCap can exist in the outside world because there are too many competing forces vying for control.  I don't think enough people can agree to a nonaggression pact so that those that do attack others to take over some resource could be stopped.  I do think that AnCap societies can be realized in the online world through cyrpto-anarchy.

While this might be true, at least in an ancap society aggressors will get killed or ostracized, which is an improvement to what happens in a statist society, where they get to be presidents and cops and judges and soldiers, killing / ruining / caging / robbing everyone by the millions, with absolute impunity.

How about we work on the AnCap society with the bitcoin economy first then move into more mainstream economic areas next.  The Securities forum is a good place to start with enforcement of contracts.  Most scams degenerate into reporting the scam to the statists when it should be handled in another way.

This is some solid advice. Maybe Phinn can run a doxxing service to help keep scammers from just making a new ID.

Well if nothing else you've convinced me that it's going to be nearly impossible to implement something like this on the sort of scale that would actually make it anything other than an obscure oddity. Given the roadblocks I'm willing to bet that it doesn't happing in my lifetime. Thus I can stop thinking about it entirely.

How so? I'll bet you BTC10 that a voluntary society happens somewhere on the globe before I die. Most likely New Hampshire.

Hey, all you guys claiming that AnCap may lead to things like big powerful companies using their strengths to bully the little guy, keep two things in mind:
1) It is MUCH more expensive to bully someone and take things from him by force than it is to trade with him and have him give you money/materials by his own choice. If, say, WalMart started to use military tactics to take out the competition, not only would that cost them way more than just beating them in the market, but it would kill their profits, and almost everyone would boycott them, and hired guns , or private security firms, don't work for free. Which leads me to point...
2) In a society without government that includes corporation-written laws that protect those corporations by supplying them with essentially free military and police forces, it would be VASTLY more expensive to piss people off when those people can take up arm and just come after you. Presently, we have oil companies in various parts of middle east (not really we, per se, but global oil companies), and those oil companies are not being very good guests. The locals are letting them know that they don't want them there on their property, usually with guns and bombs, and the US military is providing those oil companies with free protection, using our own troops, because "oil is vital to national security." Same deal is happening in Africa, and other nations are using their millitaries to protect their corporate interests in other parts of the world. In an AnCap society, there is no such protection, so you either spend a ton of money on security and sleep lightly with a gun under your pillow, or you play nice with everyone.

Statists resort to this belief as a form of fearmongering.  It is, of course, a lie.  They can't possibly know whether this would happen in a stateless society, and we know this is so, because whenever they want to "prove" their belief, what do they do?  They bring up examples of statist societies, where the examples of organizations who supposedly are "very dangerous" have, in fact, been empowered by (you guessed it) a state.

It's nothing but projection, see?  Statists project the fact that in their statist system, they support the accumulation of murderous power in the organized criminals doing business as "government", who, of course, trample on the little guy as much as they want.  They pretend this is a form of "protection", but, of course, it isn't protection any more than any other Mafia charging you "protection money" to "protect your business from burning down".

Their whole "argument" boils down to "I want the strangers I worship to kill / cage / rob me if I disobey them, because I am scared of strangers killing / caging / robbing me".  Anyone with two brain cells to rub together understands how pathologically lunatic this Livestockholm Syndrome is.  It is a classic example of projection of abuse to deny their own abuse.

Yup... it's what they would do, so it's what they expect others would do.

OK, I'll bite


You are correct, there won't be anyone to declare them as doing something illegal. What will happen is they will either be breaking contracts they have signed with their customers, which would damage their credibility and make it harder to get new contracts, or they get any new customers, and thus money. Private security firms survive by receiving payments from customers, not by roaming the lands, looting and pillaging. And customers can chose not to send them money.



Want to avoid dealing with corrupt arbitrators? Then just don't deal with them. If you are setting up a contract, make sure you and the person you are dealing with pick an arbitrator or a private court you can both agree on. In our current system, a corrupt judge still gets a government paycheck. A private arbitrator, or a private law firm, will need to survive based on their reputation, and doing shady things will mean a quick death for their business.


The difference is that in government's case, power-hungry people get power through popularity, and make their money through forcibly collected revenue. They get power and get paid even if they are scummy fucks. In the market, power-hungry people get power through business competition, and make their money by giving people products and services the people want to pay for. They can only be scummy fucks as long as the good they are doing for people outweighs their scummyness. For example, who is a bigger asshole? Rick Santorum (or your flavor of idiot politician you don't like)? Or Mark Zuckenberg? Hell, even Sheldon Addelson, the scummy fuck who gave tens of millions to the Romney campaign, didn't get what he paid for, and made his money by building an absolutely BEAUTIFUL replica of Venice, complete with canals and plazas, next to his casino in Vegas.


What in the actual hell? Slavery and freedom are two sides of the same coin? If you value property rights, you shouldn't be surprised when other people try to take away your rights? The hell are you on about?

Quite frankly not everyone has as much time on their hands as you to get involved in debates on a niche forum about your cooky ideologies, some of the shit I have read on these forums these past weeks in 'politics & society' ( not just you Myrkul, though you are a busy boy, aren't you) makes me feel no hope for the human race... not that I had much in first place.

Anyway, pointless thread, on a pointless forum, with generally pointless people, so I thought I would add in my pointless opinion. Which is: FUCKING THINK ABOUT WHAT YOUR TYPING/SAYING... THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU THINK.

Idiots for the most part, the lot of ya.

This actually sounds like it might be fun to watch.

Of course, the participants would both have to agree to be on the show, just like using any arbitration service, so there's your barrier to this sort of thing getting "out of control": the participants themselves.

I hate to bring that place up, because of the inevitable "Why don't you move there you think it's so great?" stupid comments, but we do have real world examples of private security in Somalia. Those "roving bands of warlord mercenaries" have settled down and set up territories they protect. If you live on their territory, you pay them protection money, and they keep the peace within the territory, and keep bandits and others at bay. If you want to own a weapon to protect yourself, you can do that too. And if you don't like their service, you are free to move; they won't stop you. The "war lords" have long since become professional businessmen rather that bandits and looters, who have not only realized that they can do better by providing others with a service rather than stealing from others, but now actually take pride in protecting their territory and their people.

As for the arbitration thing, that's how it works already. Especially now, with globalization creating multinational companies that don't operate under a single country. There is currently a special set of international laws being worked out, based on general consensus among large businesses rather than some country's legal precedent, which has to rely on arbitration, and businesses forming contract agreements decide which arbiter they wish to be involved with.
Also, don't confuse criminal law with contract law. If you're dealing with a business, and they screw you somehow, you deal with contract law and arbitration (or civil court). If they use their power to screw your property or steal your money, that's a crime, and you deal with that using criminal courts and force, which may include people with guns. It really is no different from how it works now.


I think you misunderstand the purpose of such legal disputes. The value of arbitration, i.e. the legal dispute, is not in how much you pay the lawyers. What businesses look for is someone who can fairly decide for, and protect, both parties. They are looking for someone who can provide a just resolution for both people involved, or at least not screw them too much if they fail somehow. So this Super Arbitrator providing his services for free won't matter, and they won't be interested in shams and showmanship. Also, the amount of witnesses doesn't matter in these. A decision will be closely watched by any other business involved with those who had the dispute, and depending on how the two parties act after the decision, they'll make their own informed opinions on whether to continue to deal with them. If a business that went through arbitration screwed someone else, or failed to compensate someone fairly, there's a good chance they will be dropped by other businesses, and the business will die. Very few businesses nowadays work all by themselves (you almost always have to buy materials and labor, and sell it to someone else).
You're also forgetting that the angry mobs already exist. They're called consumers, who avoid buying products from companies they don't like. So, again, there won't be much change compared to what we have now.

Just to give you an arbitration example: Let's say company A bought 10,000 widgets for $1 each from company B, and 5,000 of those widgets turned out not to work, possibly damaged during unloading. Company A demands 5,000 replacements or $5,000, and company B claims the widgets were damaged by company B, and thus they don't owe anything. A crappy arbitrator would listen to both sides, and decide that Company A needs to pay $5,000, or that company B is at fault. A great arbitrator would decide that company A needs to sell 5,000 more widgets to company B for $0.25 to $0.50 each, and company B MUST buy 10,000 more widgets from company B at full price their next round. Both companies come out on top in the end.


You can't have a majority rule or dictatorial system without a government deciding on laws, and enforcing them through forcefully collected money. If no one pays for what the dictator is offering, he won't be a dictator for long.


That, and viewers, ratings, customers, companies wishing to associate themselves through advertising...

By the way, I do enjoy the mental chess of sorts. Most of the crap I'm spewing isn't stuff I read somewhere or already know, but is just my own mental exercises of being given a "but what if...?" question, taking the few things I've learned here and there (business school, politics, other discussions), and trying to logically deduce where they would go if placed in a different situation. Yes, we may be inventing worlds that don't yet exist (and I do love writing fiction), but at least our worlds are logically consistent. Not to say the other sides' is not, theirs is just based on reality they see in front of them (which at times CAN be inconsistent).

Seriously though.  Getting anarcho-capitalists together and actually doing something is like herding cats.  I believe the only way to actually initiate an AnCap society is through cyrpto-anarchy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-anarchism).  The only way to do that is to set up online PAZ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_Autonomous_Zone) where members can stay anonymous yet set up trust ratings that are dependable and intuitively easy to use.

The fact that SR is the most successful PAZ is frustrating.

Perhaps it should be educational, instead.

I went to a voluntaryist meeting last weekend, and it was awesome, and it was really not difficult to organize at all.  They're happening everywhere, check out Meetup.com for more info.

Fallacy: begging the question.

You make an assumption that security is only provided by privately funded security businesses and then you make a conclusion that we ancaps should now argue against. Well many ancaps may fall into this trap, but I wont. I never conceded to your assumption that private security firms would be the only way security would be provided in an ancap society. Quite the opposite, I strongly think that in an ancap society people would generally realize that ultimately they themselves bare the responsibility for their security and that means they themselves would need to find ways of providing it.

How does this change your argument? Well it changes it a lot. Originally your assumption (which I did not concede to) assumes that people have no choice, or better said no other means to protect themselves from a rouge agency that they hired to provide for their security. The truth however is much more likely that people would be highly capable of quickly dealing with such an agency and that even the threat of such a swift defense would be enough of a deterrent for such an agency to never even attempting it.


And here's a broader point you have to understand about ancap theory. We ancaps usually, if we are honest, do NOT have almost any answers as to how certain problems in such a society would get solved. Why? Because the solutions could only ever come from a market regulated strictly by consumption i.e. a free market and not any single person. Just like no person 200 years ago could have given a correct or even an answer in the right neighborhood when asked how the fields would be worked on and food produced if slavery was abolished.

But not having any answers is irrelevant. What are relevant are the foundational principles upon which a society is structured. It didn't matter that no one could have given the answer that "big metal machines with many consecutive tiny explosions of petroleum inside of them" would work the fields because all that was important was that if you want to live in a society that will offer you a good life, slavery couldn't be a principle upon which it was built.

And this will be pretty much the same answer of an honest ancap to any of your "issues" you might raise of how an ancap society might solve certain problems: "We don't know, but it's also irrelevant that we don't. Our theory is valid because of the principles not because of the solutions any one of us might be able to imagine."

This.

Sad to say I fell into that one myself. I'll have to watch for that in the future.

Great job.

To be fair, I no longer answer questions like the one you're answering, where the hypothesis is privileged by constructing a crazy fictional scenario of Mad Max statelessness.

Why?  Simply because (a) said questions are not really genuine questions, (b) because when I flip the question their "solution" is worse than AIDS + cancer, (c) because people asking the question are simply mad.

--------------------------------------

(a) To understand the folly of this question, I offer a simplified version:

If I complain that there is a bully who steals half of what everyone makes, and as a response my interlocutor asks "What?  You wanna do away with the bully?  Then how are you going to solve the problem of random people becoming strong and bullying others?", it's obvious that the question is not really a question -- it's merely an attempt to evade a painful reality.  It's nothing but a stupid complaint in the form of a question, that erroneously complains about the very situation they're already in, as if they weren't in that situation.

Why do they dare demand you give them a solution for fictional bullies, when they are already living under the thumb of a very real bully?  Hint: it's not because they care about the truth -- it's because they hate it.

--------------------------------------

(b) Now, let's flip the original question around and ask:

What do statists do when their "security" provider becomes tyrannical?  Vote?  Hah, no they don't.  Look at history.  They all quietly and impotently are murdered by the millions.  Even in "non-tyrannical" societies, many millions are in cages for "legal" decisions that could only be described as malevolent and clearly unjust.  In these societies, their "security" provider will murder them, if they resist the orders and demands of their "security" provider using any effective means.

If their theory of "society" can't stand the scrutiny of their own question, I hardly feel obligated to answer it.

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(c) Not to mention that, to portray as a "security" provider any group of people that can make demands of you, and can kill / cage / brutalize you with impunity if you disobey, is rampant madness.

That is why I use scare quotes around the word "security".

---------------------------

In sum:

(a) Their solution to an imaginary problem is a real nightmare.
(b) They do not ask the question because they want to know the answer.
(c) They are mad.

Thus, I know that the ten minutes I waste answering their bullshit "question" will surely be met with a change of subject, an insult, or denial.

Now you know why I don't waste my time explaining the basics of reality to such people anymore.

Awww, but it's fun to answer hypotheticals with hypotheticals. For instance, iRobot makes Roomba robot vacuum cleaners and Scooba robot floor washers. They also make robots for the military that are used to defuse bombs, and can carry weapons to go in, investigate, and clear out buildings. So, an iKillbot to provide the security, and a Roomba and Scooba to clean up the mess and blood. Security problem solved!

Rudd-O, while you are quite likely absolutely correct in your analysis of their question I do not agree with your approach for a response or lack thereof.

If we are ever going to get to an ancap society it will require a lot more people adhering to the same principles as we ancaps already do. Since people do, what they were taught by their parents, friends, teachers, priests and other gurus it's really pointless to blame them for their beliefs or worldview because it's not their fault they got taught bullshit. It's likewise pointless to point out to them their coping mechanism because it does not teach them anything of value but instead likely turns them even further away from listening to you and your ideas, not to mention some may consider your approach borderline trolling.

Why not instead recognize that what they know and how they live their life is not their fault, recognize the likely coping mechanisms they deploy to deal with the fallacies they base their principles on and find a way around all of that to help them realize where they are wrong on their own? In other words why not do your best to teach those willing to listen instead of going on rants?

Of course this has reasonable limits but don't you think you at least have to give them a chance if we are ever going to get enough people reasoning correctly?

I disagree.

People with minds broken beyond repair won't change their minds.  Either the world will change without them and they will not matter, or they will die off and be replaced with people who do have healthy minds and will change the world.

In any of those cases, trying to reason with a person who has been made mentally ill by societal abuse, is not going to work.

I give people a chance when they behave in a way that leads me to believe they will take the chance.

That of course is up to you, but be advised that many may not afford you the privilege to conduct yourself in this manner in their communities. Specifically this forum.

Take this as a friendly advice, as I once had to myself, if you can't think of a constructive way to contribute, don't contribute at all.

Look, I appreciate the advice.  I mean that.  But I will not take it.  While I do contribute constructively -- many forum members have bit-tipped me already -- I also have no problem calling out mad people for what they are, and giving up on them.  I really don't have time to yell at clouds.

To share with you what I've seen in the past week: I've already had two forum mods remove posts where I point out "So-and-so is on my ignore list for <X negative or dysfunctional behavior>".  It would appear, from my perspective, that madness and verbal abuse is openly tolerated here, but pointing out those behaviors in people is not.  That is already a sign of a dysfunctional community, where the bullies run amok, and the people who are affected by the bullies are not permitted to weigh in on that.

And, you know, I will probably be banned very soon.  I am okay with that.  If me pointing out the sociopathy and other assorted dysfunctional behaviors of certain people here, is going to get me banned, then that would mean the forum owners inexplicably *want* these dysfunctions here.  I would rather not participate in a community of that character, so getting banned for that reason would be good for me.  I already have plenty good people in my life -- I have a real-world community of real-world voluntaryists in my area, a radio show, a Facebook page with quite a few followers, hundreds of followers on Twitter, thousands of RSS subcribers to my blog, lots of people who follow my Reddit feed, and my own Reddit communities.  If I really need to talk to sensible people, there's plenty willing to listen to and support me, as surely as I am willing to listen to and support them.

Proof enough that a true Ancap society is practically impossible, simply because the bootstrapping process from where we are to get there would require something very close to a worldwide destruction event to be plausible.  And assuming that the NAP is actually in application, the ancaps who would repopulate and educate this planet would be prohibited from effecting such an outcome.  If the event is natural, it is just as likely, perhaps more likely, that ancap social theories would simply die out with those who advocate them in the near term event.

So if you wish to take over the world, you're simply going to have to out-breed the rest; and ancaps aren't known for this skill.

Just because you don't have a good answer for a question doesn't mean it shouldn't be asked. In every case in human history a hierarchy develops which includes groups of armed men... and it keeps escalating until some group starts abusing people and then there is death, destruction and war.

So, while I happen to agree morally with the precepts ancap puts forth... it isn't remotely possible that it would work unless you can convince every human alive to follow those same principles.

I can't really read what MoonShadow or firefop have said, because both are on my ignore list (the first one for openly admitting that he physically abuses his children, which I am firmly against, and the second one for verbal abuse against other people in this board).  If they have said anything in response to my comments, you'll forgive me for not responding -- I prefer not to interact with bad people.  I'm mentioning this because I think you all deserve to know who you're interacting with, and also because I don't want to look like I "didn't have any response" to their (usually not so clever) responses.

Or in the case of ancap, they'll simply destroy it before it ever really gets started... which is sort of my whole point... why commit to a losing strategy?

From my perspective, you seem to have way too much time to "yell at clouds"


Madness is tolerated, while verbal abuse is not.  I do have a problem with your methods, Rudd-O, but you remain here because it's not my opinion that matters. 


You seem to have a distorted view as to whom is the victim and who is the bully in these events, Rudd-O.


Sadly, that's almost certainly not going to happen.  While I have, personally, pointed out that you are a sophisticated troll in many threads; (and others have done the same) the consensus is that you are not a consistant enough of a troll to demand action from the admins.  (Mods do not have the power to ban unilaterally, excepting newbie accounts)  So if you don't mind, feel free to step it up a notch so I can toss you out, okay?

I think I just like replying to his posts because I know he isn't reading them.

That being said - Isn't it interesting that the people he ignores for being bad people, are actually much more respectful of others than he is? I mean the rest of us are actually having a conversation and trying to learn something here... and he's just being insulting and advocating writing off anyone who doesn't agree with him.

I wish that I, as a mod, could employ that ignore button.  Unfortunately, my responsibilities require that I actually see what you post.

No point in debating someone with their mind made up, so disrespectful and assuming.   

I didn't say I don't have an answer, I said that the specific question you asked was a fallacy.

But I also said that even if it weren't, even if you raised a valid question I couldn't answer it because only a market regulated strictly by consumption i.e. a free market could possibly answer it. And I also said that the fact that I couldn't answer it is irrelevant to the validity of the ancap theory.

Also don't assume that your system is the correct way as well.  This should be a respectful discussion where "we" challenge each others ideals.  Just as you believe I have fallacies, I believe you hold some fallacies as well based on how your perceive the world around you and your frustration with how government structure have and currently are operated.  

If we are not trying to have a discussion where both sides are intellectual at the point where you could be swayed by another's ideas, then this is really just propaganda and nothing more.  

What societal abuse brought you to your conclusion of this alleged better system of government?

See, you call me names (not the first time, by the way), but you never actually bother responding to arguments (mine or others') with valid rebuttals.  Yes, I've seen your posts.  You pretend to have a debate, but then you respond to arguments by calling them names all the time, and if that doesn't shut your interlocutor up, you call them names directly.  You try to pretend that your interlocutor "is not listening" or "does not want to have a debate", when those empty complaints of yours describe your very behavior.  I have yet to see a valid rebuttal coming from you... and I'm kind of tired of waiting for that, and seeing cheap stalling tactics instead.

You're going straight to my ignore list.  This is not a punishment -- I simply do not need to read your anti-contributions to the boards.

In my opinion he is not wrong, but he is not being productive either. I will also strongly condemn anyone who uses the initiation of violence against other people in order to get them to obey their arbitrary rules but I might try and persuade them with an argument first. Perhaps he feels he exhausted that option..

I did exhaust that option.  Every single person on my ignore list, I either added because (a) they openly abused people who were making serious and sensible arguments, or (b) I tried to persuade them peacefully and calmly, and they bit back like virulent angry dogs.  I want to stress that has been the case for every single member of my ignore list.  I don't just gratuitously add people who disagree with me.

Anyway, I am not the topic of discussion here.  The fact that we're discussing me, and that I was brought up as a topic by these people, is proof enough that these people have managed to derail the conversation and make it about me, to stall and avoid actually thinking about the ideas we were discussing.

I will post this so other can read this:

1.  No point in debating someone with their mind made up, so disrespectful and assuming - This is a fact is not calling you a name?  If so, what name?

2.  If anyone cares, read the 2 posts I didn't respond two and tell me I should allow myself respond to such a disrespectful tone?

In closing, I am actually glad Rudd-O ignored me so I don't need to respond to valid questions from people with a lack of patience, tact and general manners in a debate/discussion.

Actually you are the topic of discussion and you methods are exactly what derails these discussions.  Just start from the beginning before you posted a single reply and see what direction and how the tone changed in this thread.   I find it quite obvious.  Me and Myrkul don't see eye to eye, but we can communicate with one another directly but not crossing the line into something else.

No, no he is not. To remind you all, the topic is:

"Myrkul Sells AnCap..."
Does anyone have a contribution along those lines? (ie actually debating the merits and flaws of AnCap)

I'm not because I never said that.

Because I never conceded that the assumption that the only way anyone could get protection is by hiring a security agency.

That would be a black & white fallacy, whether or not it's a vaild question or not.

Well, I'm not that motivated at the moment, so I'm fine with it not happening.

The fallacious assumption behind that fallacious question:


is that there will be a need for a private funded security. I never conceded that people would need private funded security, the OP just assumed that that is what would happen, that that is how people would provide for their security.

I don't think I can spell it out any more clearly than that.

Apparently the same thing that is happening in states with privately run prisons - police arrest people for stupid minor infractions, just so that the prison can make extra money, and no one is willing to stop it because "crime is bad."
Or the same thing that happens in every social republic turned dictatorship.
So, in other words, AnCaps will have to figure out how to deal with that just like democratic government types have had to. It's a stupid question, because someone else can just say, "What happens when voting becomes suppressed, and a democratic government becomes tyrannical? See? Democracy is bad/doesn't work!"

BTW, nice thing about AnCap is that, unlike Zeitgeist, AnCap can be started with a small community. It's even starting to materialize online. So, the answer to what will we do with free-loaders, irresponsible people who didn't save for retirement, and the lazy who never bother to learn personal responsibility is easy: we'll deport them to your countries  ;D

They'll be happier among their kind, anyway.

It isn't a fallacy (and most certainly isn't 'begging the question') -

Of course people have no better means to protect themselves from a large group (security force) than having their own large group to defend. When we're talking about defense of someone's personal property 5 or 10 guy are an army vs a single man. And I'm not saying that the security that you hired would attempt to violate your rights (I would expect they wouldn't) but I'm asking the question of what happens when a large enough security group (or mercenary group if you will) arrives to kill or steal from you because someone else hired them to?

It's a legitimate question. Power corrupts and armies (historically) do enjoy pillaging. You simply can't rule out the chance that at some point in the whole thing some security providers would become predatory and/or immoral. Look at what some corporations already do to people.

~~~

I should also point out that Myrkul already answered this question in a way that satisfied me. You can review the thread if you're curious as to what his answers were and what conclusions I drew based on them.

I don't know... what do people do about it when it's happening now?


I guess what we have now isn't any better then?

Very true, what we have now is far from ideal. But the primary issue I have with the possibility of ancap this: you'd have to have nearly universal adherence to the NAP in order for it to work on any scale. Otherwise, you'd have all the problems we have now - except they wouldn't from a central source (the government) they'd be from multiple groups all at once affecting a much smaller area, with the likely hood of many of them overlapping in a way as to compound many of these issues.

Once we figure out how to end the benefits of being aggressive then aggressive actions will end.  Once aggression has no positive benefit for the aggressor then there won't be any aggressive actions that a person would do toward others.  Once there are no more aggressive people then there won't be any need for a state.  This is because of two things.  (1) the state will lose its ability to use aggression to coerce other people, and (2) it would lose its legitimacy because it cannot say it is needed to subdue 'criminals' or other nations.

Fallacy or not, that's just plain false, right there. A professional fighting force is certainly one way to do it, and it would certainly require fewer pros to defend a given area than it would militiamen or the like but "no better means" is pushing it a little bit. Remember "defense in depth"? He didn't say it, but the quote attributed to Adm. Yamamoto holds true: "We can't invade America. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass." Invading a country with armed citizenry is dangerous. Invading one where the average citizen might have any weapon you do (http://www.webscription.net/chapters/1416520724/1416520724___4.htm) is suicidal.

And yes, there are people who whether because of religious or philosophical belief, or some other reason will desire someone else to do their defending for them. That's fine. They will be provided for. But even then, it need not be a large group that does it. Perhaps the community bands together, and the pacifist does the bandaging, in times of need.

What do you think we do? We shoot the fuckers. It's not rocket science. Smart security/merc companies know this, and would charge exorbitant prices. The really smart ones would refuse.

Comparing today's corporations, hiding behind the regulations they paid for, to companies that would operate in an AnCap environment is like comparing a wolf to a dog. Sure, they're both canines, but one is a dangerous beast, and the other is tamed.

No better means. I wouldn't call one guy attempting to take out a group of attackers 'best' in the sense that he's unlikely to survive. So, we agree that a larger group could potentially provide more efficient security? Being that it would be a free market, wouldn't the efficient organization become prevalent?

Wolf vs Dog - which is which?

Did I say "one guy" anywhere in that? No, no I did not.

Because the efficient way is also more expensive. I can hardly predict the entirety of all market interactions, so I can't predict whether there would be more people who just sign up for security contracts, or more who train a few hours every week at home, or more who do both. (If I were running a security company, I would offer discounts for agreeing to - and training to - help out in the event of an invasion - allows me to keep my staff small, and my profits high.)

Can't you guess?
I think you already know:

Oh so you say that AnCap corporations would be tamed.   Where is your proof of that?  Corporations would have the same motivations as they do now except they would have less rules and regulations because the people who would be the most capitalistic in the AnCap society would not "voluntary" agree to more rules and regulations.   I see this aspect of society regressing if we had AnCap than a Nation-State.

Sounds like something I wouldn't want to leave to chance or market gyrations. 

Well, first off, they wouldn't be corporations. Not in the sense we use the word. They might still be Joint Stock Companies, but they would not have the legal and liability protections granted them by the government. Nor would they have their artificially high barriers to entry, provided by the regulations they paid for. Competition for their market share would be fierce. And how do they keep that market share? By serving the customers. Because we have the money they want, and without the guns of government to make us give it up, the only way to get it is to give us what we want.


So instead you give it to a monopoly, and let them use their guns to make you pay for it?

Thank you for clarification on them being Joint-stock companies and how they would operate, sounds promising and I would like to see that in-place in our current system.

I am sorry you can't handle a mandatory tax for basic services.  I am also not going to continually defend it or apologize for it.  You obviously have a lower bar for what I believe is needed for the general welfare and well being of a functional society. 

Not gonna happen. Lobbying is cheaper than competing.

On the contrary, I have a much higher bar. You accept aggression as a matter of course, I do not.

I would would heavily restrict lobbying if it was on my watch and I am not sure if I would even let companies participate.  Public official need to focus on domestic non-business issues almost exclusively.


You can live in your fantasy all you want.   I live in the real world where the reality is that humans are aggressive just like all top-tier animals in nature. 

Is that so?

Who have you killed today? On your drive to work, did you just plow out into the freeway, slamming other cars aside, or did you wait for a spot to open up before you moved over? When another car tried to get on the freeway, did you ram them over the guiderail, or did you let them on?

Actually I took the ferry to work that is supported by my sales tax and rider card revenue.  It is affordable, dependable, clean and I trust in the people running it.

All this arguing is pointless.  Aggression is a biological problem, once that problem is solved there will be no need for many services that the government claims it must exist to provide.

Aggression has very little power if a person cannot be executed, feel pain, or be imprisoned.

Just you wait for the robot rebellion.

We will be the robots.

Then with your own statement, we will never be without Aggression.


A person murders in cold blood - He will be executed

Feeling pain is part of life and a survival function

People will be imprisoned when they are a threat to society and if their crime was heinous enough, possible executed. 

Once the biological problem of dying is solved then there will be no more aggression.  As people cannot die, cannot feel pain, and cannot be imprisoned due to technological advances, then the government and other people cannot use aggression to gain a benefit for themselves.  Aggression is just a tool for the aggressor to get something that they want.  When that tool has no more power then it won't work.

I know this is hard to imagine at some time in the future (if we don't cause our own extinction) immortality is a real possibility.  We have been a species for 100,000 years yet within the last 100 years we have tremendously increased our technological advances.  Imagine a time when people can backup their own mind and have an non-aging body and you can see that the use of aggression as a tool to coerce others to do things against their will is over.

Step one on your trail, you have to realize that rules and regulations exit to protect corporations, not to restrict them. Many regulations are structured in such a way that only the corporations can afford to follow them, essentially keeping all smaller competitors off the market. Also, business people know business very well, while politicians who pass laws do not. So any laws and regulations that get passed are often written by the corporations themselves. The most egregious offense in regards to this abuse is corporations helping pass regulations that either make what what do actually legal, even if it is unethical, or they pass regulations with suggested fines, which when levied are actually way too small to punish. Heck, look what happened when BP spilled oil in the Gulf. All their safety regulations were followed, because they wrote them, and the regulators were too incompetent to follow up on and enforce them, and the "huge" fine they had to pay, which they got in exchange for not being allowed to be sued by anyone else, was tiny and way less than the cleanup cost.
In an AnCap state, the first thing that may go is the corporation's "limited liability" status. If the person running it fucks up, HE has to answer for that, not the shareholders out of who's stock the fines get paid out of. The second thing will be that there wont be a government with its laws making what the corporation is doing "legal." If it's not screwing people, it will do well. If it is, it wont have a  veil of "legality" to protect it. Here's another thing: what do you think will happen now if a corporation screwed people so much that the people decided to go beyond simple boycotts, and staged a violent protest, trying to kick the corporation out of their area? In AnCap nation, either the corporation will have to leave, or it will have to spend enormous amounts on private security 24 hours a day. Now, the corporation has such a security force, in the form of the police force and US military, providing that security protection for them for free, paid for by taxing those very same people who are protesting!

In short, misbehaving in an AnCap setting will likely be much more expensive than playing by the rules and staying ethical,  which is very much not the case now. What I am wondering is, I keep saying and explaining this point over and over and over.... So why doesn't it sink in, and these same stupid hypotheticals keep coming up again?

Oh dear fucking god, we will have actual real trolling in actual real life  :-\

Because logic is something the statist mind is carefully stripped of.

"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups." - George Carlin

It is hard for some people to grasp that corporations as entities never existed before the state made the laws to create them.

It is just like patent laws and antitrust laws.  The state is the entity that grants patent and copyright monopolies, then claims it has to regulate the monopolies that it helped create.  This is a common scenario.  A organization is created to solve some problem but its own creation creates another problem.  Instead of going extinct to solve this new problem, it instead tries to find a solution to the problem of its own existence.

I was a statist too, so that can't be it...

Sorry, starting to get burned out on all the malignancy. Maybe it's just willful ignorance.

Ah, the ferry. Excellent opportunity to let your natural aggression out. How many people did you push into the water? How many died to ensure you were first onto the boat? You did fight it out, right? You didn't wait in line like some pussy, did you? Humans are naturally aggressive, after all.

Tell you what. Let's start fresh. Watch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muHg86Mys7I
and then tell me if you disagree with anything in there.

I never conceded that your assumption that a person would only be able to defend themselves vs a larger force by hiring a security firm. Basing a question on that being accepted as true therefor makes it a fallacy of begging the question.

The fact is we don't know how an individual would acquire enough firepower to defend themselves. Would he own missiles? How about flying robots? Maybe a sentry machine gun? Maybe DNA based chemical weapons? Would he ask his friends and family living nearby for help? Would he form a neighborhood watch of sorts with his neighbors and call them?

You assume it's a security firm, while the truth is WE DON'T KNOW how it would happen because ultimately only a market regulated strictly by consumption i.e. a free market can figure that out.



It is a fallacy because you assume you are correct that the form of defense vs a larger force will be a security firm and then you imagine a problem this creates and you ask us to solve it. Well, I don't agree this problem would exist in the first place because I don't agree a security firm would be hired in the first place.

Completely misleading and false. Corporations also pay taxes, therefore a corporation is also entitled to protection as is the individual.


All you have is assumptions without any scientific evidence to prove the hypothesis. In other words, what you have is a fantasy world which will never exist outside the delusional imagination of some users in this forum.

OK, a little misleading. Yes, they pay taxes, though not a lot, and the people it is abusing do still pay (in part) of the security force that is keeping them down. And if it's a government entity that is being abusive, then it's directly people paying to keep themselves at bay. At least with AnCap you could hope that those people would stop buying/paying for services provided by that security firm.


Actually, no. This wasn't somethingI just pulled out of my ass. I'll admit, "trading peacefully is way more profitable than using force" isn't even my original idea. It's supported by most of last century's history. See Japan, and more recently China, and America's relationship with both as a blatant example, and there are many more out there.

No aggression is very simply "don't hurt me, or take my stuff without permission." Nothing more. There's no "cherry-picking."
What do you mean by "continuation of violence?" Are you saying that if someone violently robbed you, you should just let them go and let them keep the stuff they took, because doing otherwise would be a "continuation of violence?"
Can you give an example of your activity based on greed and narcissism that causes harm to society? There are two ways someone who is greedy can satisfy their greed: take what they want by force, or exchange their wealth and labour for it. Our premise is that the former is aggression, and will be checked by aggression in kind, and the later only works if the greedy person has something of value to exchange and contribute to society. So I want to know how else might a greedy person be greedy and cause harm?

I do not believe corporations will change their modus operandi.  People still run these organization with their own greed and status.  More likely they will get more covert in their actions.  You can setup this alternative method of state but in the end, how to we change human nature to this point?  How do we get people to genuinely care about about other people, the environment, future generations.  AnCap does answer any of these and the only promise is less force and less government.   I only see even more abuse of a larger portion of the Strong vs. Weak.

You have to measure the value of your society from the base, not the apex.  I don't see AnCap doing that.

Incorrect. efficiency implies lower costs per it's definition -

dictionary.com
ef·fi·cient  [ih-fish-uh nt]  Show IPA
adjective
1.
performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort; having and using requisite knowledge, skill, and industry; competent; capable: a reliable, efficient secretary.
2.
satisfactory and economical to use: Our new air conditioner is more efficient than our old one.
3.
producing an effect, as a cause; causative.
4.
utilizing a particular commodity or product with maximum efficiency (usually used in combination): a fuel-efficient engine.


Gain efficiency by reducing waste, but also by centralizing processes, training etc. So when we're talking about armed (and potentially violent) interactions - it's always going to be more efficient to have a group of highly trained tactical troops with the best (and probably most expensive) equipment, who do nothing but 'soldier'... instead an unorganized group of people who won't be as effective simply because it isn't their source of income, and they can't devote nearly the amount of time to training compared to that other group.





 

I love the air of arrogance in your statements like this.  "The Statist Mind".  If you want to use Logic and Reasoning then lets just take it back that Humans are highly evolved animals and we still have maintained basic animal instincts and they is exactly why you need a government of force to keep the people from turning this place in utter chaos.   I will admit when we had much fewer people and more land to spread out, we didn't need to be as competitive but now, that is not the case.  

Have you watched the video yet? It's only 8 minutes.

And? Still more expensive than a mutual aid and training group, neighborhood watch style, or simply buying a rifle and training with it. Both are viable options, if not as efficient when it comes time to actually fight as having a professional soldiery. I can't predict how many people would choose which option, and neither can you.

Yes I did and here is the flaw in the line of reasoning.   Property.  You can have your life and liberty and I support and would challenge any attempt against taking that unless you have aggressed against someone else in the same manner.

Lets take property.   First off, you had no property when you came into this world so you have no automatic claim to any.  Once you start claim rights over property, NOW, you have to start following rules and they are mandatory, not voluntary, unless you decide to violate them then at the point, the person or body or persons would be justified to come after you to regain their property.

Now we can get into a debate and claims and how they should be handled and who gets what, but I want to focus on the fact that you came into this world like me, which no inherent property other that your life and freedom.

So unless we deal with prior claims to property which at this point, nation states have all laid claim to, you have no way to IMPOSE AnCap anywhere and unless you deal with that, it is just a fantasy with some good points we could use to reform the current State system.

I am not sure you want to start debating this with me.  Let see if you can talk your way out of this.   I almost already know what you will try and say so I am waiting.  Good luck and as always, I do enjoy our debates, your a worthy opponent.

Dalkore

Who owns your body?

As stated above your life (body) is your own and only your own.   If you didn't read this I wrote, I'll will re-post it "You can have your life and liberty and I support and would challenge any attempt against taking that unless you have aggressed against someone else in the same manner."

Why not go directly at my statement instead of asking a question that has a stated answer?

Good luck.

Because you directly contradicted it. Your body is your original property. From it, come all other property claims. You didn't actually bother to Google "self-ownership" didja?

Don't try that, I did Google that.  I think it is wrong the the fact that everyone comes into a world with "pre-claim" before them so you are not the SOLE owner of your output.  In America for example, we have a Constitution, Bill of Rights, USC, Common Law, Roman Law, State Law, Admiralty Law, etc.  When you come into existence in America you have rules to follow and there is a claim on your output.   You may object but the fact is that you don't come into the world in a bubble or vacuum.   Things were put in place to allow you to come into the world in the manner it is at anyone point.   Any debate to that is just a protest against the FACT.

So if we want to protest the system and talk about reform and complete change, that is one thing and I would like to talk about that.  But to sit there and preach "self-ownership" and that is why you should not be forced to do anything is patently absurd.  Who wants a world of people that don't feel they have any responsibility to anyone except their "self".   Sounds quite selfish to me.

So, again, we're back to: Who owns you?

So I take it you don't have an answer or know where this will lead if you start defending your position.  I answered your question but you can't obviously accept the answer.  Truth hurts.  

I own myself (body, mind and spirit) and I understand that I am not the only claimant on my output that is codified in our taxation system, in America.  

To Myrkul:  "Check"

Then you accept that someone has greater claim than yourself over your body. Who?

So by what authority does the "codified taxation system" have on your property other than just a bunch of people want to take your stuff?

Now that is a different discussion.  You really should open a new topic for that question and I will be happy to start a dialogue of ideas and thoughts.


Response:  We first off, I would say that the infrastructure and safety you and your parents enjoys so they could meet, make relationship and have you as a baby would first off be items I would say were not there before and did provide services to us all. 

At least in America we have a number of services that are taxed and provided for everyone (I know our current system is screwed up, lets say pre-1913 or pre-1971 to give a time-frame).  Unless you are a 100% Native American, your parents either immigrated or were brought as slaves so they signed themselves up and you defacto when they came here. 

Anyone is welcome to go somewhere else and try and claim their absolute sovereignty but at least from where I am at, I am in America (U.S.) and we have rules/laws and to try and challenge the most core basic ones, you better have a much better argument than claim liberty of self-ownership.   

Now characterizing a government codifying tax laws as "other than just a bunch of people want to take your stuff?" just really shows a very myopic and extreme point of view.  I believe you would need to back away from the assertion for us to have a meaningful debate.   You show your position quite clearly with no room to debate and or compromise. 

Yes, reality is known for being uncompromising.

I don't believe they will change, either. There will always be assholes in any society. What will change is whether there is a government to enable the corporation's bad activities. Instead of the people saying "That's wrong!" and the government saying, "Well, it was still perfectly legal," there will only be people saying "That's wrong!"

As for how do we get people to genuinely care about about other people, the environment, and future generations, we don't actually "get people to do that" now. People already care about that, and they only pass (ineffective) regulations to try to enforce it. People will still care in AnCap society. They will just have to figure out how to enforce those regulations without a government that gets most of it's lobbying funds from the corporations it's trying to regulate (e.g. Boycott bad businesses and anyone dealing with them, use force to protest them, donate to private "awareness" groups who can help spread the message, etc. Imagine if Greenpeace had the funding, resources, and ability to own battleships, instead of rubber boats)

In the end, the value of the society will truly be measured from the base, with the people deciding what is important to them, what they believe to be moral, whom they wish to fund, and how to spend their money, instead of having all of that dictated to them by the government (for example, personally I would prefer all the taxes I pay that go to fund the wars and oil/farm subsidies, go to NASA instead, but I don't have a say in that)

Well there you have it.  AnCap's only answer is get rid of government and hope things get better and self-organize itself to work better than what we have.

Good luck selling that.  Corporations are already run by powerful people with their own interests, take away the only flimsy defense (up to this point) we have had is a much scarier prospect. 

I have proven why to "no government" movement will never get seriously considered from the common person, it is because the common person is more scared of the actions of other common people than their government and the corporations that lobby it for their own benefit.  Until you change that, YOU GOT NOTHING. 

Except a few good ideas that could be used as good reform tools.

Chosen to ignore me, Dalkore?

Such a shame, so soon after calling me a "worthy opponent"

I would do no such thing.  I didn't see anything that required a response.   You just made a statement.

I asked a question.

Wouldn't there be a lot of hitmen, who are hired to kill people anonymously?

Either get rid of government, OR start our own society elsewhere without it, OR slowly make government irrelevant, the same way BitTorrent made their copyright powers irrelevant, Bitcoin+Tor is making their drug policy irrelevant, and 3D Printing will soon make regulations on what you can and can't have irrelevant (gun control laws will have to be rethought when anyone would be able to print almost any weapon at home). And self-organizing isn't that farfetched. We are social beings who do it all the time with or without government.


You are contradicting yourself in the bolded parts. Is it "people are more scared of corporations," or "people are more scared of other common people?"

I think you need to realize that you are the ones who are headed towards nothing. Do you disagree that corporations lobby politicians and help write the laws? Or that those who know the industry go to work for corporations who pay more, and only those who don't understand it completely, and thus don't know how to regulate it right go to work for the government? There is no fix for this. You can't legislate it away, because corporations write the legislation and pay to elect politicians. This has only gotten worse over the last few decades. How do you stop it?

Dalkore, just caught up reading the rest of your arguments. The gist of your claim is that, since you were born in this society that provided you, you now "owe" that society for the things it provided. Fair enough. So, tell me, how much is that debt, exactly, and how can one pay it off? I'm not even suggesting "i paid of my debt, so nowI can ignore rules and laws when I'm visiting others or am on public property." Rules that others establish for their own property I'm fine with. I mean, how much do I have to pay to buy back the claims that the state has laid on me and my own property, so that I can be free  to have my own rules on the land I own, and pay taxes only for services  I want?

Yes. Yes there would be. But they wouldn't be cheap. Someone would have to be worth way more dead than alive for someone else to spend the $50,000 or so it takes to hire one.

I reject the premise that you believe you are the SOLE claimant to your output in the country you reside in.  Also having a claimant, you shouldn't automatically assume that claim is higher than mine, it is in addition.  

I don't know, I am not sure you are up to task for this.  I can feel preaching about "how can you allow an other claims on your labor" to come on this thread.  I think I have got this system in check and I don't know if you can maneuver it out of it.

You only real argument is that somehow you claim you have not obligations to anyone except yourself.   That is a tough position to defend when we use reason and logic.  I know you will defend it but you will be wrong unless you have something better to add than "self-ownership" and Youtube video about someones views on Liberty.  

If they can legitimately force you to give it up involuntarily, then their claim is higher to it than yours.

So, I ask again, Who has a higher clam than you to you?

And I'll also ask, again, if you do indeed have obligations to others, which I agree is a reasonable statement, how much is that obligation/debt/claim worth, and what does it cost to pay it off?

Now we are getting somewhere, thank you Rassah.


1.  How much is that debt, exactly, and how can one pay it off? I'm not even suggesting "i paid of my debt, so now I can ignore rules and laws when I'm visiting others or am on public property."

Response:  Well even if you did pay the off, you couldn't ignore laws but I do think some of our problems people should be able to opt-out to take those claims on you as an American citizen to a minimum.

2.  Rules that others establish for their own property I'm fine with. I mean, how much do I have to pay to buy back the claims that the state has laid on me and my own property, so that I can be free  to have my own rules on the land I own, and pay taxes only for services  I want?

Response:  Well I believe there are a few service we are all responsible as terms of being a citizen.  But most should be able to be removed.  Property taxes are one I don't like.  You should be able to own land.

Well, yes, we are making a little progress. You feel that land is something you should be able to own without any other claim on it. But there's a bit of a disconnect. How? How does one establish such a claim on land?

Against, none of us was born into a world without existing laws, rules and claims.  You may think you can talk away those claims and come up with fantasy lands but in the end, you do owe something to the forefathers, your parents, our society and to future generations.   I reject the notion you put forth based.  The world is more complex and has been around much longer than you and I.   You may think it is just that simple as asserting your statement, but in reality it is not.

P.S.  I got called away for work, didn't mean for such a long delay.

The purchase price for land should be all in and you pay for the maintenance of your utilities and access which would be handled by the local utilities. 

Like I said, we need major reforms and I can point out countless areas, inconsistencies and conflicts.   What you are advocating to getting rid of the government entirely and I disagree, AnCap would be worse for more people overall even with out current reckless system.

With what?
And how did the original owner get the claim on the land?

Usually payment is in some form of value like money.

I guess we would need to research a specific claim to give you that information.

Which you got, how?

I don't want a specific case. I want general terms. How does a property owner legitimately establish an original claim on a natural resource such as land?

I knew I found the weakness earlier in this AnCap and this line of reasoning.  The burden of proof is on AnCap and not the other way around.   

They can't even understand that you are born "into" a world with set laws and customs that operated before they got their life/liberty. 

I'm not even an anarchist, but this line of reasoning is faulty on your part.  The early American colonists established ownership via homesteadong. The marked off a plot of and that no one seemed to have yet, and began to work it.  There was even a term for it at the time, 'corn rights'.  Only later did a state arise and recognize those existing claims.  A community is required, but a community does not a government make.  An ancap society is as likely to be communal as any other.

Wrong. You made an assertion that one can own property without self-ownership. We are determining how, and the burden of proof lies upon you.

I never made that exact distinction.  Wrong, those are your words.

That is my interpretation of your words:


If you are not the sole claimant, you do not own yourself. At best, you share ownership. If I am wrong, explain your position, so that I may better understand.

Also: you're wrong again:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agorism

When it comes right down to it - the entire concept of ownership depends on force (and thus aggression) to define it.

Stake out a claim, defend it from all comers until everyone decides that it belongs to you --- aka the cost of invading you is considered too high because you keep winning. Historically this is how wars get started. Family vs Family - Tribe vs Tribe - State vs State.

I think the very idea of ownership goes against the NAP. One more reason that ancap would never survive for long.

It could also depend on verbal agreements. You keep this land, because you know how to use it best, I'll keep this land because I know how to use it best, and we'll both agree to be good neighbors, just because life will be easier for both of us.

Seriously, it's like you think the only thing stopping people from turning into marauding bands of murderous thieves is laws on some books. People can be decent and courteous human beings just because. This whole thing reminds me of how perplexed and stupified some christians are when you try to explain to them that atheists can still be moral even without some book telling them what to do.

So you do not own your body?

I think you have greatly misunderstood AnCap. Property and community are the most fundamental parts of nature. When a wolf catches a rabbit, that rabbit is now the wolf's property. When that wolf chooses to take that rabbit back to his pack, he is sharing it with his community. AnCap can't deny property or community any more than nature can.


Why is this an issue with AnCap? An AnCap society will likely have very many communities. They'll just be voluntary.

---

As I said, I'm agreeing with you that we come into this world with some claims on us. We have a debt to society by the virtue of us being safely born in that society which provided for us. But how much is that debt actually worth? $100,000? $1,000,000? If it is a debt, there should be some determined amount that we can pay off. If it is just some nebulous, infinite debt, then that's no longer a debt or a claim. It's indentured servitude for the entirety of one's life. Even indentured servants had a specific amount they owed which they could pay off and be free. And regarding taxes, why should they be required? What is it that we MUST be forced to buy and pay for? Why can't someone simply choose not to use any government services or protections, and not have to pay for anything? (Of if they have a debt to society, why can't they pay it off?)


Not all land has been claimed. Not all seas have been claimed (look up seasteading). And weak governments fall apart all the time, opening up access to previously public or contested lands. The most realistic path, though, is also the most probable and inevitable: technology is making governments get weaker and slowly lose power to collect taxes and enforce regulations (Bitcoin is an obvious example), and globalization is eroding arbitrarily established national borders, with their own dispersed and wildly irregular legal structures, and is replacing them with economic zones and privately agreed-on global laws. This has been happening for over a decade already, so the discussion about AnCap is really more about how to speed it up and be ready for it - i.e. what will the world be like, hypothetically - rather than just wishing about fantasies.

The following article about mining rights during the California Gold Rush is topical.

http://www.stanford.edu/~write/papers/Order%20Without%20Law.pdf (http://www.stanford.edu/~write/papers/Order%20Without%20Law.pdf)

Interesting facts:
1) Rights were developed through community consensus in the absence of state authority.
2) The community elected to legitimate the seizure of claims (claim-jumping). (i.e. if you leave you are not continuously working your claim, then it is up for grabs)
3) The community defined different classes of rights for different social groups (i.e. better to be English than French, better to be French than Mexican, and god help the Chinese miner).
4) The community chose a rights sytsem that was relatively egalitarian and wasteful of resources (encouraging frenetic, labor-intensive, small-scale mining; rather than large-scale mining of private land that would almost surely have been more efficient).

I think this is a reasonable depiction of AnCap in practice. The interesting thing is that there is no convergence to strong private property rights as Myrkul would suggest (based on crazed fanaticism I think). The community picks a system that everybody can agree on. This consensus system will likely be relatively egalitarian and consequently inefficient with respect to resource use. It will also likely disenfranchise minority groups present in the community.

I'm really surprised that no one else has challenged this statement, because it's false.  The United States made it from 1776 to 1913 before any form of "required" tax was imposed.  I say this, because an excise fee isn't an involuntary tax; nor is an import license.  When libs & ancaps talk about taxes, we are talking about taxes upon income.  Tax upon wages.  If you don't own all of the fruits of your labor, then you don't own yourself.  Thus, you are a slave to the state.  Taxes upon the production & distribution of alcohol, although bad in their own way, can be avoided by simply not byuying alcohol, or making it yourself.  Property taxes are pretty bad, also, for similar reasons.  If you own your home, then the city has no claim upon it whether or not you pay your property taxes.

Tariffs were a form of taxation of all goods imported into the United States since atleast 1790 and it was reflected in all goods in increased prices.  You can either see yourself as a nation made-up and part of you or not.  Calling it "slavery" is just a use of shock value tactics to try and trigger emotional responses.  I further reject the notion I need to own all my labor to not be a slave. 

I find AnCap's position on this very selfish, anti-social and greedy. 

You were born into the world, you did not come into it like magic or teleportation.  Yes, I believe a portion (that is debatable) is owed to my nation of allegiance and no I am not a slave because I can freely at anytime expatriate if I so choose.   

If the slave can pick another plantation, then, he is not a slave?

And you would be correct, as you could voluntarily enter into an agreement that a part of your labour will be owned by someone else in exchange for goods/services or repayment of debt. The issue here is when someone lays claim to a part of your labour without your consent, and enforces it against your will. What makes it OK for a government employee to come by and take something of yours, but not OK for me to do it?



Is it  a portion of a determinable size?  A portion that you pay in exchange for the services you wanted to buy and use? Or some indeterminate amount equal to a portion of the rest of your life? Do we own land and the things we make and buy, or do we just rent property and equipment from the government that technically owns everything?

I find that some elected politicians being able to just come by, take away my stuff, and use it for their own personal reasons, like wars of choice, earmarks, or payoffs to their business buddies, to be very selfish, anti-social, and greedy too.

And, just FYI, I'm very much an AnCap supporter, but I still donate to charities in times of need, don't hesitate to give cash to someone stranded asking for bus fare home, and help run Bitcoin100, to which I have donated as well. If you think AnCaps are greedy, you are likely misplacing your opinion of the population as a whole on the AnCap group specifically:
AnCaps simply believe that people should be left alone, and be allowed to do what they choose with their wealth. You believe that people in general are evil greedy bastards, and reject that idea as terrible. AnCaps believe people are generally decent and considerate, and believe their system will work. Maybe the biggest difference between us is just that we are more optimistic than you?

It's funny how wanting to keep your money is greedy, and taking someone else's isn't.

Statist logic.

Here's another one from Rothbard:
"The greatest non sequitur committed by defenders of the State is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State."

1.  I consent to some taxes to pay my share of the collective cost of all the public services I take advantage of or have access too.  You are not the Government, it is different than a single person coming to take taxes, I do not consent to that.

2.  I do not require that my taxes only go to things I only use.  That is very selfish to think that is how it should be used.  Yes, as long as someone resides in the United States, they should have to pay some taxes.  When I use United States, you can insert any other nation as well, I don't want people to think I only apply it here.  

3.  Do we, should we, can we, are we, why we?  Now we are getting into even more abstract discussions.  I am here to talk about AnCap vs. Nation-States right now.  My position is that AnCap is not a form of progression of government but a regression of it where it will become even more survival of the fittest with less responsibility taken on a whole of society because AnCap can't handle the idea of ANYTHING not being 100% voluntary.  It is an idea that tries to has legitimacy but rejects history except to use to say that all forms of government that are not 100% voluntary are evil.   I say to you, you are wrong and people here before you have more say on how things should be run before you do.  Society is an evolution and governments are a evolution.

Wanted to use and have access to your government services and not agree that not 100% of your output is yours is greedy.

I never said I wouldn't pay for services I use. Wanting free shit is indeed greedy.

1. The only difference between me and the government is the ID badge someone else gives me. Here's the kicker- I actually am government, and own such an ID. I can't take your money, but I do have some discretion in how it's used after someone else takes it from you. You consent to paying taxes, but what about those that do not? What if someone lives in an area of US where they are not using any government services? What if someone consents to only some taxes on things they wish to pay for, but not for others, because they are extremely against those other things?

2. What if the selfish person who wants to be selective about where their taxes go wants to pay taxes for things like social security and medicare (which I still support), and doesn't want to pay for things like the drug war and private prisons? Why should that person still consent to having his things taken if his desires are obviously not selfish?

3. "My position is that AnCap is not a form of progression of government but a regression of it." No, it's not a regression, it's a total abolition of it. I don't know why you are afraid of things being 100% voluntary, and almost everything outside of government is 100% voluntary already. Where you shop, what you buy, what products are available, how you interact with others, where you work, how you use technology, whom you buy your tech services, etc. All 100% voluntary, and working just fine. No government is just that one extra small step, really. Unless, of course, you are relying heavily on the government forces to do something in your favor. I can't even say "unless you are relying on unemployment checks or some government handout," since most of those services are easily privatized as well.

Neither of these happen to be the case but that's not really relevant to a general discussion. You still have not specified a source for the authority other than the will of some people.

I like this line of thought.

One question, though: How would this not be a slave purchasing their own freedom?

Oh, it surely would be. But, as you say, even many slaves got to purchase their freedom. I think this just highlights the fallacy of the "You are born owing a debt" bullshit.

I'm actually kind of agreeing with the "you are born owning a debt" thing, especially if you were born in  a public hospital, went to public school, and used public services your parents never fully paid for. The fallacy I'm trying to point out is that a debt can be paid back, because it has a specific value, but this debt is like the debt they recently highlighted as a problem in India, where a father borrowed some money, is having to work at  a clay brick making place to pay it off, dies (from old age or exhaustion) leaving his family with the debt, and the children are having to work, stuffing clay into molds morning till dawn, to pay off the debt they inherited. The main problem with that debt is that the kids and their mothers are illiterate and can't count, so they don't actually know how much they still owe. They could be told $300, or $50, and it won't make a difference, because they don't understand how much that is, and the company doing this isn't going to let them off. I don't know what to call that situation. Slavery? Deceptive and fraudulent loan practices? Taxes? Either way, that's kind of the situation we find ourselves in, all the unfair horribleness and all. Though I'm actively avoiding using inflammatory words like "slavery" because I am trying to keep the discussion cool and logical, instead of being dismissed for using absolutes.

Authority is gained and negotiated over time.  Also it is not just "the will of some people", most people agree with having some form of central government.  They would choose it given a choice because they distrust most people they are not in direct contact with.  This is the point this fringe AnCap movement is missing, people are social and are naturally inclined to form methods of hierarchy. 

Your delusional to think you had no societal obligations when you were born.  Again more of the selfish attitude and line of reasoning.

Myrkul - You keep using the term "slave" to get emotional sympathy to your point of view.  It shows how weak your argument is.   Settling an obligation is just that, nothing more.  You just want to call it slavery because your case is so weak that to use other relevant terms would show the selfishness of the position that you came into the world with no obligation to it.

You keep saying selfish like it's a bad thing. Self interest is how you stay alive.

Selfish is a bad thing, it is a major reason society is messed right now.  Everyone so focused on themselves with their narcissistic tendencies has let our republic some to the point of almost utter collapse.  Participation in your community and your government is how you keep a prospering society (I don't mean financially, I mean socially and culturally). 

You just represent the next step towards a point where it is fully justified to be selfish and cut-throat with no moral reservation to the impact of your behavior to people other than your own personal benefit.  Life becomes only cold calculation for the most part and our humanity just dies off in general because no one cares and they don't feel it is their responsibility to care and or do something.

This is one of the major flaws of the AnCap ideology.   

You seem to be using two words interchangeably that you should not be. Selfish is self-interested. Narcissistic is self-loving, specifically to the exclusion of others. Narcissistic is indeed a bad thing, but selfish is not. Self-interest is, again, how you stay alive. If you are not self-interested, you don't eat when you're hungry. If you are not self-interested, you don't clean up your waste. If you are not self-interested, you don't seek the best job for your abilities.

So if you're not selfish, you're broke, wallowing in your own shit until you starve to death.

Now, I've used this quote before, but you keep making this mistake, so...
"The greatest non sequitur committed by defenders of the State is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State." - Murray Rothbard

Let me take these statements and give you my perspective in my daily life:

If you are not self-interested, you don't eat when you're hungry. - I eat because I am hungry, just because my body tells me its time to eat doesn't mean it was motivated by self-interest.

If you are not self-interested, you don't clean up your waste. - I clean up my waste because I care about my actions and how it affects other around me.  That is called personal responsibility. 

If you are not self-interested, you don't seek the best job for your abilities. - I seek jobs I enjoy doing, will provide value to the company and will provide a proper income for my family. 

Here are the definitions below, sounds like major guiding force we want to in society, doesn't it? NOT

Definition:
Selfish:  "Lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure"

Self-interest:  "taking advantage of opportunities without regard for the consequences for others."

If you had no self-interest, you wouldn't care that you're hungry.

If you had no self-interest, you wouldn't care about your actions.

If you had no self-interest, you wouldn't care about your family. Hear me out: Why did you start that family? Purely out of concern for the continuation of the species? Did you pick your wife solely on genetic factors? Do you want your children to thrive simply because they are human beings? No, you have self-interested reasons for all of that. Face it, you're selfish. It's not a bad thing. It's how humanity has progressed this far, and it's how we will continue to make progress.

I am sorry that is how you have been conditioned to see the world.  We just have different perspectives and I think you are wrong about your theory of human nature and behavior.  We are much more complex than that. 

On the contrary, my conditioning was the same as yours, to see sacrifice as virtue, to see loss as gain, to see suffering as joy.

I had to work long and hard to break that conditioning.

I don't think it's missed at all. I think the point is that it should be voluntary.

Note the need to ascribe sinister motives to those with a different opinion. You don't just have a different perspective on life, you are bad, evil etc.

Any of those other reasons would also be self-interest. Actions are either neutral, self-destructive or for self-interest. If I stand in the cold dishing out soup to the homeless, it is because it provides me with something, even if it is only a feeling of well-being or just assuaging some white guilt.

Good point.

That is Myrkul and Rich_T showing their true self. They think everyone is selfish like them, therefore they try to convince people to accept a false condition to justify their own condition. Since their are selfish, they try to fool people into think they are selfish like them, so they can free themselves from the criticism against selfishness.

See and now you reveal yourself.   I never said anything that you could construe into sinister motives and I do not think you are evil at all.  We have nothing more to talk about.  At least Myrkul one of most respectful and intellectually honest one of the bunch. 

You can keep that point of view all you want.   You just discredit yourself even further. 

Sure about that, buck-o?

Stating my opinion is not the same as calling you a bad person.  If I wanted to do that I would just do it.   

I'll leave it here and people can decide for themselves if they believe it is a good or bad thing:

Definition:
Selfish:  "Lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure"

Self-interest:  "taking advantage of opportunities without regard for the consequences for others."

Until you can explain how we can possibly settle that obligation, we'll just have to call it slavery, if only for a lack of a better word  :P If you can provide a better word for an obligation that can not be settled, or describe how to settle that obligation, please do so.

Two can play the definition game:
"Enlightened self-interest is a philosophy in ethics which states that persons who act to further the interests of others (or the interests of the group or groups to which they belong), ultimately serve their own self-interest."

"Rational selfishness is a term generally related to Ayn Rand's objectivist philosophy, and refers to a person's efforts to look after their own well-being, to cultivate the self and achieve goals for the good of the self. The focus in rational selfishness might be considered to be more self-directed (where the benefit to the group or society is a possible by-product) than the focus of enlightened self-interest which is more group-directed (and the benefit to oneself might be more of the by-product)."

There are two kinds of selfishness:
1) Keeping what you have all to yourself, refusing to give any of it to others
2) Wanting to acquire something, and working actively and ruthlessly with the goal of acquiring it.

Unless you can eat and survive off of whatever it is you are squatting on in #1, you'll starve to death. Problem solved.
For #2, you can either acquire what you want by force, or by trade. If you do it by force, you can expect to receive force in kind. If you do it by trade, the ONLY way for you to be selfish is to give others what they want in return. You are selfish with money, because you are ruthlessly squandering your labor, and throwing it away at your employer, in order to get money in return. You are selfish with your lover, because you are giving up your affections, time, and money in exchange for their love (at least I hope it's in exchange, and not one sided). All businesses and corporations are selfish: they exist to pursue profits, and the only way they can do that is by giving you the best products and services they possibly can. And all those products that you are buying were invented by selfish men who thought "I bet I could make money if I figure out how to do/make this." Without selfishness, we would essentially be dead, because there would be no motivation to invent or do anything. "Why should I bother inventing, or doing, if someone else will do it and share it with me?" That's why communism was a failed system.

I suggest The Social Contract from Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04335a.htm

I reckon the plantation owners felt they could do some pretty good rationalization too.

Aside from the "public property" quip, that's a description of an AnCap phyle, or society group. The whole "forming an association," forming a contract, giving of oneself to work together to overcome obstacles of life, etc. The reason is that what is being described is a contract. What we have in reality isn't a contract, since contracts are voluntary agreements between two or more people.

More pseudoscience from Myrkul....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightened_self-interest


The term 'enlightened self-interest' was used by John Ikerd in his article Rethinking the Economics of Self-Interests, 1999...

http://web.missouri.edu/ikerdj/papers/Rethinking.html


...and by Mastiff in his blog post "Enlightened Self-Interest" vs. Communal Responsibility, 2005:

http://criticalmastiff.blogspot.com/2005/07/enlightened-self-interest-vs-communal.html


'Enlightened self-interest' is not a philosophy in ethics. It is just a fancy use of words by two random writers.

More idiocy from AugustoCroppo... You're not fooling anyone, numbnuts.

No, it is not:



So, what you have if is not the social contract?

Of course I am not fooling anyone. That is what you are trying to do, not me. I am preventing critical thinkers to waste time checking your references, so they can efficiently understand how you try to fool them. I am not concerned with you, I am concerned with the readers observing the discussion.

Edit: By the way, you did not subverted my user name this time. I am glad you are learning to respect the name which people owns. I therefore offer my apologies for the name I subverted to teach you a lesson. I will edit the posts where I made that.

Total straw man. In such a group, even with peer pressure and weak or strong members, an individual is always free not to participate (hopefully). Barns can get built without the need for a tax collector.

Always the allusion to the settler days and the wild west. Nostalgia is fun! Homesteading, a gun on your hip, staking your claim.

I love Albert Bierstadt too: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sugexp=les%3B&gs_rn=1&gs_ri=hp&cp=9&gs_id=5b&xhr=t&q=albert+bierstadt&safe=off&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.b2I&bpcl=40096503&biw=1107&bih=1027&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=io3UUL_6BcaA2QX3z4HwBw

Did you like Heaven's Gate? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVUfnWwqNAg

What? Please do tell what has superseded barns in your part of the world? Some high-tech solar-powered force-field perhaps?

He's a suburban Angelino. Probably hasn't ever seen a cow that wasn't already ground up.

It also occurred to me that other than driving the country into the ditch, this guy is also well known for something not completely dissimilar

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/JimmyCarterPortrait2.jpg/220px-JimmyCarterPortrait2.jpg

Almost completely correct, myrkul, except for everything in your post. I grew up with a barn and two horses on our property. I've helped build one barn and one horse shelter. For many years I lived in a house across the street from an open range where cattle grazed. I've ridden a Thoroughbred, a Mustang and a Quarter Horse, none of which were rental horses. And I'm not an Angelino. Sometimes you just can't figure people from their Internet posts.

So, then, you're what, 110, 115, to have done these things back in the "settler days"? After all, the comment that started all this was in response to:
And you then implied that barns only needed to get built back in the wild west. So, I assume, since you have built a barn, It was for Sheriff Earp? Or did you go on one of those "Old west" camping trips? How much did you pay for your "authentic" experience?

Sorry, but my experiences were unpaid and just plain real life. But the ideas you put in my head are of the Wild West, precisely because of your attitude, which is, drum roll, please...

Homesteading, a gun on your hip, and staking your claim

Well, I'm glad you have a more romantic vision of me than I do of myself. I won't be going up Brokeback Mountain with you, however. Sorry if I have disappointed you.

Disappointment somehow implies a previous respect for you. And to be honest, you're free to head up Brokeback Mountain with your current partner, whomever he may be. I don't go in for that sort of thing.

You had me fooled there, what with how much of a crush you have on me. So maybe, if you don't want to jump my bones, you should leave me the fuck alone.

Writing software and building automation machines can be done without a tax collector, too. And what's wrong with rent? Why the need to homestead? And how many times a year do you people have some stranger knocking on your door, asking to see your deed to the house, threatening to kick you out and homestead on your property if you don't have it readily available?

I don't recall anyone saying it couldn't.

Renting is fine. Provided that the actual owner of the property established ownership in a legitimate, rights-respecting manner. The way to do that is to homestead it, or to acquire it in voluntary exchange with someone who did, or with someone who acquired it in voluntary exchange from someone who did, etc.

That's not homesteading, it's eviction. And it's irrelevant.

I wasn't talking to you. I was pointing out that the barn idea can be used in modern examples, and that having to rely on homesteading and force without the government is a stupid fear.