But you STILL haven't answered the real question clearly. Here it is *again*. Do you, or do you not, have the right to enter a negotiating room armed with a gun, where being so armed is not specifically prohibited? Just to remind you, you've already agreed that I have the right to immediately defend myself, with mortal violence if necessary, from any perceived threat to my life. Again, assume we live in your liberty-land.
More generically, do you think everybody in liberty-land should mutually agree on what is "freakishly absurd"?
More philosophically, do you think your ideology should address real-world problems, or just imaginary problems?
If there is no specific prohibition to possessing a weapon during mediation, you could arm yourself and would not have to relinquish that right. I'm not going to answer the "freakishly absurd" definition question, it's rhetorical. Any ideology should address all problems both real and perceived. Thank you for the clear response. Now (again, assuming we live in liberty-land): We have established that I am at liberty to defend myself from any perceived threat, AND you are at liberty to arm yourself with a (arbitrarily?) powerful weapon. I perceive some weapons as a threat, whether loaded, pointed, handled or not. Therefore, my liberty is incompatible with yours. Therefore, you and I cannot be members of the same society. In case I'm not explaining myself clearly: if there should happen to be some random conflict between us, violence would almost certainly ensue; and here I presume that the point of having a social ideology is so members of a society can co-exist peacefully. Likewise any two people who have incompatible definitions of "threat" or "weapon" cannot be members of the same society. If you disagree, please explain how can we co-exist, GIVEN that we enjoy the rights specified above AND that we are free to perceive things according as we see fit. The "freakishly absurd" question is not rhetorical. I think nukes in private hands is freakishly absurd and you don't; but you do think raindrop-triggered nukes are. Hawker, for example, would probably say that allowing sales of semtex or other high explosives to private individuals is freakishly absurd. How can we decide who to defend ourselves against if we happen to live in the same city? Or do you seriously believe that the crackpot umbrella-maker should be allowed to carry out his proof-of-faith in his umbrellas in the middle of a crowded city? I know it's absurd, but before you so dismiss it, bear in mind that people will sometimes take great personal risks in order to further their agenda - look at Lifelock CEO Todd Davis; look at suicide bombers; look at religious extremists; look at political extremists; look at organised criminals; look at anti-abortion extremists; look at homophobia; look at...... need I go on? Edit: fixed links. |
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Isn't progress the action of going forward to try new things, and learning from resulting mistakes?
Yeah. Something like that. So is many people dying some kind of progress then? If it is by their own choice, then yes. See: America, circa 1400-1500's But in this case it would often not be of choice, but from guys like Fred that want anyone to hold nukes. But it's extraordinary that you think many people dying, and humanity losing all their knowledge, that somehow people will learn. How can you learn from someone's mistakes if they're dead? How can you remember all the things they knew? Progress is generally defined by your ethical viewpoint - for example you might be utilitarian, in which case you consider it as progress when people become somehow happier overall, or it might be consequentialist, in which case you consider an increasing overall morality as an indicator of progress. But this, where the path to progress involves many people dying... well, that's a new ethics to me. Like I say, civilisation sure is taking a beating today. What happened in America circa 1400-1500? That was when the Americas was 'discovered' by Europe, right? I don't know of any large group of people choosing paths of action that led to their deaths. Please elaborate. |
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Then many people who have made a wrong choice will die, and humanity will learn from it to never make that mistake again?
Is that what you call progress? Isn't progress the action of going forward to try new things, and learning from resulting mistakes? Yeah. Something like that. So is many people dying some kind of progress then? |
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Then many people who have made a wrong choice will die, and humanity will learn from it to never make that mistake again?
Is that what you call progress? |
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I have a right to self defense but I don't have a right to the method of self defense? A dichotomy if I've ever seen one. The method is what matters the most. The only people you could remotely exclude from gun ownership might be those individuals who have used guns to commit crimes (unprovoked aggression, to be crystal clear).
Excluding anybody, other than criminals, and you'd be just playing the nanny/mother-may-I/overlord statist game again.
Well, even you agreed that raindrop-triggered nukes are not an appropriate tool for anything, though I could probably imagine a scenario where they might be useful for self defense - but it would admittedly be freakishly absurd. And hey, if such a nuke could be used offensively, then it could certainly be used defensively. So, in your libertarian world, would random people be allowed to hold raindrop-triggered nukes for defense purposes in a city where such things are not otherwise prohibited? But you STILL haven't answered the real question clearly. Here it is *again*. Do you, or do you not, have the right to enter a negotiating room armed with a gun, where being so armed is not specifically prohibited? Just to remind you, you've already agreed that I have the right to immediately defend myself, with mortal violence if necessary, from any perceived threat to my life. Again, assume we live in your liberty-land. More generically, do you think everybody in liberty-land should mutually agree on what is "freakishly absurd"? More philosophically, do you think your ideology should address real-world problems, or just imaginary problems? As for the nanny state, well you know, you make a good point. Recreational drugs are outlawed in many places even they might only affect the user - I mean drug use with no secondary direct/indirect passive/active effects on others. But I can see how it is necessary to restrict people from *abusing* drugs - it can often lead to crime and increased healthcare costs. The problem would be - how can you tell if someone is a drug user, or a drug abuser? I have no solution better than stringently regulating those drugs which are likely to lead to abuse, addiction and crime etc. For example, there could be drug-shops which would be the only possible place to buy the drug, every user has a fixed quota and must consume it right then and there. On the other hand, in the EU, I recall there was some legislation that prohibited restaurants from serving eggs sunny-side-up (that means not well cooked for those who might not understand the terminology). Now, eating eggs sunny-side-up can only increase healthcare costs on account of salmonella (edit: but maybe if you added up the extra cooking time & energy required for all the healthy eggs, maybe the overall cost to society would be higher; who knows.), but I hardly think it could lead to crime. So I would think that's an unjustified regulation. Again, these are lines in the sand, but I still think one line is better than a million, or none. I don't mean to post off-topic, but the nanny-state is relevant to the discussion of weapons regulation, personal liberties, property rights and, eventually, intellectual property. I'm quite certain he meant obtuse. The word has naturally come to my mind many times while here.
Yes, I meant obtuse, though I had to check thesaurus.com just to be sure. Now please don't say this is an ad hominim attack, fred - I asked if you were being "deliberately obtuse" which says nothing about what I actually think of your level of obtuseness or intelligence. Main Entry: obtuse Part of Speech: adjective Definition: slow to understand Synonyms: dense, dopey, dull*, dumb, imperceptive, insensitive, opaque, slow on uptake, stolid, thick, uncomprehending, unintelligent Notes: acute is an angle of less than 90 degrees; obtuse is one of more than 90 degrees Antonyms: bright, intelligent, quick, smart |
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The farmers will boycott a manufacturer if that manufacturer does something to put their personal safety in jeopardy, especially if that manufacturer has competition.
Are you seriously suggesting that farmers wil, en masse, voluntarily choose to pay more for an equivalent product simply because their usual producer doesn't make background checks on all clients? I say choose to pay more, because the producer not paying for security services and background checks, will have lower costs. It's funny, the libertarianism argument states that free market capitalism will save the day and everyone will bask in the glory thereof. However, here it seems that it would require people to make irrational economic decisions, and be far, far, far more informed about non market-related issues before making their purchases and sales. Somebody is going to come on here and argue that looking at a person the wrong way is considered aggression.
Someone already did. See the example of a kid pointing a toy gun at you here. |
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That is true, though here the question becomes exactly how valuable are some of those lives. Why not, instead of focusing on stopping the tribal violence, have the state focus on helping those wanting nothing to do with it relocate, leaving the tribes to just kill each other off? Hell sell them weapons even, if it'll drain them of their cash and help them kill each other faster. And if it's the types of religious bombers who want some other religious types off their land, why not give them their wish, and have them starve to death as no one wants to do any business with them?
So Rassah's position is at least more coherent. He justifies MightMakesRight, end of story. But worse, be considers that some people's lives are less valuable than others because of some generic attribute and NOT specific to any single person. Civilisation is sure taking a pounding here folks. Tell us, Rassah, if it was a tribe of white people fighting a tribe of black people, what do you think the 'state' should do? |
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Do you agree that you have a right to self-defense and ownership of a gun (among other things), or am I missing something? Seemingly you have no problem "engaging in mortal violence", so what's the problem?
I missed the question in here. I do think everyone has an automatic right to self defense, but I do not think that everyone has an automatic right to gun ownership. Like I said earlier, I'd use a baseball bat. You STILL didn't, and presumably can't, defend your ideology from the accusation of being fundamentally flawed. Please stop wasting people's time with illogical incoherent political rubbish please; read a few books and fix your ideas. |
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...My questions are: how can we resolve this conflict? Fred insists he has the right to carry a gun around unless otherwise prohibited. I insist he does not, and would be willing to engage in mortal violence if necessary to defend myself. I come from a country where guns are outlawed, but I've been in Texas - all I could do was take a big gulp, keep my head down, and try not to piss anyone off.
Funny how that quote (in bold) sounds awful Libertarian-like. As in, the right to defend oneself. I would carry a gun if necessary, so that at a moments notice, should someone threaten my life, I could defend myself. Taking the right to defend myself from me equates to unprovoked violence or threat thereto. Do you agree that you have a right to self-defense and ownership of a gun (among other things), or am I missing something? Seemingly you have no problem "engaging in mortal violence", so what's the problem? Oh my goodness - are you being deliberately obtuse? Is it not clear yet that I'm hypothesising a libertarian world? There is already a solution in the current system. The law states what is or is not permitted. This is not stated under libertarianism and, as such, any individual could potentially interpret almost any action as hostile. You yourself have said that a positive or negative interpretation of hostile intent could depend on whether the supposed assiland is SMILING or not. Do you not realise how ridiculous that is? So if there was nobody around me, or I was the last living human, I would become incapacitated, supposedly because I'm only enabled by those who permit me to have "personal liberty"?
Well if that happens, here's what you could try. Carry your nuke around with you and see if any ghosts object. It's *really* hard not to ridicule statements like this. Political philosophy is a *social* issue. If it's just you, there's no society, no political philosophy, no problem. It's not like we're giving you complicated problems to solve. If you make any problem complicated enough, then no political philosophy will solve it. But THESE ARE PROBLEMS THAT CONCERN THE VERY FOUNDATION STONES OF LIBERTARIANISM ITSELF. To wit: your liberty and my liberty ARE NOT COMPATIBLE, and I'm using the word 'liberty' in your sense of the word; that is, something I define for me, you for you, Hawker for Hawker, and so on. How can you "build on top" of something that is fundamentally flawed?
I am at liberty to do everything insomuch as it only concerns me and my things (excepting mutual contract), but I am not at liberty to prohibit you from the equal supremacy to act upon you and yours. Liberty is justifiably constrained by the NAP. Nothing particuarly difficult to understand about that. I agree that, if your actions concern only you and your property, you may do as you please. But when your actions involve me, directly or indirectly, actively or passively, I declare that you may not do as you please. And you STILL haven't resolved the problems - they are not 'edge cases' - they are simple situations which probably occur thousands of times a day around the world without resort to violence. Go on, you asked me who owns the room and I answered. Are you free to carry a gun in or not? Answer it, and the other questions, in your next post here, or I declare the discussion over - libertarianism, as proposed by you and b2c, is fundamentally flawed and unworkable in the modern world. No one. As mentioned below, just personal financial consequences. In extreme cases, perhaps even litigation from neighbors who believe you are negligently endagering them by having flamable property close to theirs without means of securing it if it starts to burn?
EXACTLY. You are negligently endangering them. Why don't you ask b2c or Fred if they will condemn an unqualified person who carries a nuke around with them. Or - just read back a few pages. They have already expressed themselves abundantly clearly. Now - this litigation - where does it take place? Which court? Who enforces the verdict? Admittedly, that may require the customers/land owners to be a bit more mobile....
So... I'd have to move house every time somebody from Texas happens to move in on my street? They could. There could also be a secondary overseeing body, like a BBB for security companies, that oversees multiple territories, helps enforce secority company contracts, and which the security company would have to be a member of if it wants to have any hope of doing business. The security BBB is not tied to any specific company or territory, and is not directly responsible for security, and thus will have incentive to keep all of the other companies in check (unless all of them colude, if which case the company exposing that collusion will likely end up with all the contracts)
Who pays for it? Is it obligatory to participate and to obey the rules of this BBB company? So what if you don't pay for security and to hell with the consequences - not having to pay for security or insurance will also enable you to provide a cheaper product than your competitors. [sarcasm] Ohhhhhh, of course, people will buy the more expensive product because they'll ALL know that you don't have insurance and they'll really disapprove of that even though your factory is thousands of miles from your market. [/sarcasm]
That's true. Though you're still exposing yourself to massive litigation risk, and as mentioned, people paying security companies to keep them safe will very likely expect that company to protect them from outside threats, not just from threats on their own property. If you own a nuke, and are not paying anyone for security, you should probably expect to have random companies to come by to try to extort you mafia-style, or have private contracts placed on obtaining either your nukes or your head, since, technically, neither one is well protected. Where does the litigation take place, given that your polluting factory is thousands of miles from your house, from your market, and, most importantly, from the security company defending you? And now you are suggesting that, under libertarianism, you can expect to be extorted by the mafia at any moment? That doesn't sound very satisfactory... And, let's be clear, if the Mafia is more powerful than the security company you already employ, well, you can expect them to come knocking anyway. Right? So MightMakesWinnerMakesRight? I can freely invade and take control of defenceless property and no-one other than the miserable owners will try to stop me?
Yes. Unless the owner is paying someone else to stop you. As far as i understand it, the main source of all might in libertarian society would come from customers handing out money. Voting is essentially done by whoever can get paid the most. In an unregulated world, money=guns. Damn, even *with* regulation, it's already like that. b2c and Fred propose libertarianism because they abhor the MightMakesRight status currently enjoyed by governments. You have just acknowledged that libertarianism=MightMakesWinnerMakesRight. By the way, need to point out that current insurance companies work the way my proposed security companies to. What's stopping them from simply running away with the money is that practically all insurance companies are themselves reinsured through other bigger specialized companies. It's easier to just take out a claim from the reinsurer, fix your customers, and continue to make money off them, than run away with whatever you have collected so far.
There's also the law and a small matter of being put in prison, though I concede that in the current system wealthy people seem not to end up in prison. |
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Fergalish, I think your problem is that you are assuming your questions are security-based, when they are much more cultural in nature. If we lived in a different culture , where carrying a gun and defending oneself is to be expected, people would be taught how to behave themselves accordingly from a young age, and the two questions you asked wouldn't even be relevant.
ABSOLUTELY! Where there is a cultural precedent AND everybody has similar ideas of what is and is not acceptable, then libertarianism would be great - like in a small isolated country village perhaps. But people travelling from far and wide, with different ideas of what is acceptable, would almost certainly feel threatened by normal behaviour for the place, or would make the inhabitants feel threatened by simply doing what they feel is normal. My questions are: how can we resolve this conflict? Fred insists he has the right to carry a gun around unless otherwise prohibited. I insist he does not, and would be willing to engage in mortal violence if necessary to defend myself. I come from a country where guns are outlawed, but I've been in Texas - all I could do was take a big gulp, keep my head down, and try not to piss anyone off. Start shooting holes in my idea... now.
At your service... When you own land, you will likely also have a contract with a private security company.
Lucky you said "likely", otherwise I would have asked: Who decrees that you should do so? Who enforces you to do so if you choose not to? That company will make to keep the territories under its contract safe
Who 'awards' territories to a private security company? What if there some people, e.g. nuclear bomb holders, there do not wish to adhere to the contract? Should some nutcase manage to sneak in and detonate a nuke on one of the properties protected by this company, the company will get have its reputation severely damaged, and will lose a lot of money paying for insurance claims and litigation (lawsuits). If nukes blowing up is something that is considered a serious problem in that area, the security company will likely step up to create methods and technologies to help prevent that from happening.
Or alternatively the security company could just shut up shop and run with the money. Unless, of course, everyone in that territory, now dead or dying, happens to have been all along secretly paying another honourable security company to hunt down the first, just in case the first one should run away from its responsibilities. Other security companies may also exist that to allow the ownership of nukes, though they will very likely require you to show that you have a good reason for owning it (likely industreal one only),
So what if you don't pay for security and to hell with the consequences - not having to pay for security or insurance will also enable you to provide a cheaper product than your competitors. [sarcasm] Ohhhhhh, of course, people will buy the more expensive product because they'll ALL know that you don't have insurance and they'll really disapprove of that even though your factory is thousands of miles from your market. [/sarcasm] As for what if someone decides to not have security company contract? That will mean that the person's property is practically defenseless, and they have no recourse against anything that happens to it, so will likely be considered as a very stupid thing to do.
So MightMakesWinnerMakesRight? I can freely invade and take control of defenceless property and no-one other than the miserable owners will try to stop me? |
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Stop avoiding the main issue; if I do prove that a nuke is a threat to me regardless of whether the owner intends violence, are you happy to recognise that we have a right to ban possession of nukes? It depends on what you mean by threat. If you simply mean that it's dangerous then no. So a mad crackpot umbrella maker *can* bring his raindrop-triggered nuclear device into a crowded city. In fact, any *arbitrarily* dangerous item can now be freely handled by any *arbitrarily* incompetent person, as long as they do not intend to use it, or to threaten to use it. Is that so? The mere existence of a gun doesn't show intent to cause you harm. Pointing it at you does.
You didn't answer my hypothesis of a child pointing his toy gun at you. Would you like to try? Here's the link. Nobody said nothing bad would happen in a Libertarian world. It's just the only ideology that has the fewest 'is-ought' constructs and logical incompatibilities. Your Socialist/Communist/Oligarchy/Fascist/Name-you-flavor-of-might-makes-right world isn't perfect either, in fact, far from it. I can point out more logical inconsistencies in your ideology than you can in mine. Libertarianism starts with the NAP and builds on that, yours is just majority rules, personal liberties be damned.
But of course you will say that libertarian ideas are too "simplistic" and we must "complicate" them because of the "real world", and due to these supposed "real world" problems, it's just easier to threaten violence upon your neighbor to achieve your goal, than envision some other way. There's more than one way to "skin a cat", and thus, not all means to an end should be justified. I know of one too many politicians, dictators, kings, princes, and thugs that espouse that sort of poppycock.
Once again, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PERSONAL LIBERTY EXCEPT INSOFAR AS THOSE AROUND YOU PERMIT IT. You have been proposed simple problems to solve, and you cannot solve them with your idealogy. Just in case you've fogotten, here they are again: If I am obliged to allow you to bring your normal nuclear weapon into a crowded city, even though I consider it to be extremely risky and hazardous, are you then obliged to allow some crackpot umbrella-maker to bring his raindrop-triggered nuclear weapon into the city, even though *you* consider *that* to be extremely risky and hazardous? To put it another way: is "freakishly absurd" just how *you* define it, or should we come up with a common definition that we all can understand and agree with? - Do I, or do I not, have the right to immediately defend myself, with mortal violence if necessary, as soon as I perceive a threat to my life?
- Do you, or do you not, have the right to carry a gun into a room where you and I are discussing the solution to a mutual conflict? [assuming guns are in no way regulated by any contract in the given circumstances]
CAN YOU RESOLVE THESE PROBLEMS OR NOT? It's not like we're giving you complicated problems to solve. If you make any problem complicated enough, then no political philosophy will solve it. But THESE ARE PROBLEMS THAT CONCERN THE VERY FOUNDATION STONES OF LIBERTARIANISM ITSELF. To wit: your liberty and my liberty ARE NOT COMPATIBLE, and I'm using the word 'liberty' in your sense of the word; that is, something I define for me, you for you, Hawker for Hawker, and so on. How can you "build on top" of something that is fundamentally flawed? If you cannot or will not solve those simple problems, then answer this: should your ideology be capable of solving real-world problems that real people face, or is it only for imaginary problems faced by imaginary ideal people in imaginary ideal worlds? |
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AFAIK that's already being done in Sweden. Taxes are high on undesirable things, such as pollution, and that finances low tax on desirable behaviour. All you need then is an acceptable society-wide definition of "desireable" and "undesireable". |
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If I am obliged to allow you to bring your normal nuclear weapon into a crowded city, even though I consider it to be extremely risky and hazardous, are you then obliged to allow some crackpot umbrella-maker to bring his raindrop-triggered nuclear weapon into the city, even though *you* consider *that* to be extremely risky and hazardous?
To put it another way: is "freakishly absurd" just how *you* define it, or should we come up with a common definition that we all can understand and agree with?
Fred, b2c and any other libertarian: do you dare to answer these questions? edit: - Do I, or do I not, have the right to immediately defend myself, with mortal violence if necessary, as soon as I perceive a threat to my life?
- Do you, or do you not, have the right to carry a gun into a room where you and I are discussing the solution to a mutual conflict?
Question 1: Yes. Question 2: It depends. Who owns the room? And you have still to answer question 2 in the circumstances where possession of a gun is not addressed in the t&c, if any, of the room where we stand. |
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Ahhhhhhhhhhh, AT LAST, we realize that it was Fergalish's, and Hawker's sole intent to annoy Freddy. They weren't interested in logic or reason, law or justice, just annoy and chide... Haaaaa Haaaa. It was just a joke. You really are Libertarians in Socialist clothes. Ahhh, funny, *busting a gut* now. How "Feraglishisly Absurd" and "Hawkishly Annoying"  Not so. My intent was merely to expose the flaws in your philosophy; I can't speak for Hawker but his posts have been reasonable, coherent and pertinent. Unfortunately, the only way to expose those flaws was to escalate the discussion to hitherto unknown levels of absurdity (unregulated nuclear weapons, raindrop-triggered nuclear weapons etc). Here is your philosophy in a nutshell if I may permit myself, and, by your own admission, it must be logical and coherent: 1. Do no violence except to defend from imminent perceived threats to life, health or property. 2. Do not threaten or damage the life, health or property of another. 3. Honour all your contractual obligations. Is that more or less correct? If not, please correct it. Items (1) and (2) are in direct contradiction with one another where two conflicting parties do not identically interpret the words "violence", "defend", "threat", "life", "health", "property", "damage" AND where the parties are not governed by a comprehensive contract covering ALL possible scenarios. So I'm not interested in annoying you - that's not the point of a good debate, in fact it would ruin a good debate. But your reaction here very clearly *suggests to me* that you are unable to resolve the contradiction. Therefore: your philosophy is flawed. Defend it or I will *conclude* that you cannot resolve the contradiction, and I will feel entitled to follow your every pro-libertarian comment on this board with a link to this thread stating that your philosophy is flawed and and you are unable to defend the accusation that your libertarianism is inherently contradictory. So, if we're willing to accept such an absurdity, then yes, "business prevails" logically follows as a violence inhibitor. Even then it doesn't work because there's no governing body forcing anything to abide by those agreements. I sign a contract with you that says if your kid gets hurt in my store, I'll pay all the medical bills. Sure enough, your kid gets hurt in my store. You come and ask for money for the medical bills. I laugh in your face and tell you pound sand - "make me pay out". Your only option is to resort to violence to hold me to the contract. There's just no way around it. It's the nature of our world. Violence will always be the ultimate decider of whose ideas prevail. This is why we have a centralized, democratic government that holds the biggest gun, and we all contribute to it to make mutually benefitial rules that we all agree to live by. Without that centralized power, the man with the biggest gun will make ALL the rules, all by himself. I agree with you, it is the nature of people and of the world; but try stretching your credulity to the point where, should my kid get hurt, and the owner doesn't pay, then the contractually specified court would convict the store owner and either the court-specified enforcement agency enforces the contract or, irrespective of the prices he offers, everybody stops shopping there because they don't trust the owner to safely operate a store and/or abide by his contractual obligations. I mean, like that, it could work - I mean IF EVERY SINGLE PERSON THE WHOLE WORLD WIDE suddenly changed their nature and started behaving honestly, it might work. Except in situations where an honest conflict arises because both parties honestly consider themselves in the right AND no mediator is specified, Fred & b2c have still not proposed an alternative to violence and therefore "MightMakesWinnerMakesRight". |
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Now you're just being freakishly absurd. Should we have nuclear weapons if they can be detonated when anybody accidentally sneezes too? If I rolled my eyes any harder, they'd get lost in the back of my head.
The problem with this line of argumentation, is that the second I concede (I won't), you can immediately justify regulating any object or compound as long as it can be proven to be potentially dangerous in at least one case, hypothetical or otherwise.
One more nail in the coffin of Liberty, six more feet under the thumb of Totalitarianism. I ain't buying, so stop trying to sell me.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, AT LAST, Fred reaches his limit. But, just for pride, he won't concede the point. You know, you're absolutely right, I am being freakishly absurd. In *my* opinion, *you* started being freakishly absurd a long long time ago (imagine! any Joe Public being allowed to handle nukes!). And that's the crux of the problem. Everybody draws their own absurd line. How's about this: If I am obliged to allow you to bring your normal nuclear weapon into a crowded city, even though I consider it to be extremely risky and hazardous, are you then obliged to allow some crackpot umbrella-maker to bring his raindrop-triggered nuclear weapon into the city, even though *you* consider *that* to be extremely risky and hazardous? If I can't legitimately stop you, then you can't legitimately stop him. Correct or incorrect? Actually, let me rephrase that: logically consistent, or logically inconsistent? edit: To put it another way: is "freakishly absurd" just how *you* define it, or should we come up with a common definition that we all can understand and agree with? |
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And...? This is pick on an exaggerated expression to divert the discussion to a non-sense place.
No. I'm being serious. If those conditions should come about, then the table could be constructed. Personally, I'm quite certain they never will. Never ever. Ever. Period. . Still, by that path, we've subatomics... the atom isn't the smallest particle of the universe and whatever the future will bring us I simply can not know, can you? We're already dealing today with numbers of a magnitude someone on the XVIII century would consider intangible.
Yes, you're right. If, as you say, humanity can also learn to store information in subatomic particles, and use those particles and communication and processing units, then the table will be constructed even sooner. Again, personally, I think it's unlikely to happen before tomorrow morning's coffee, to say the least. What do you think? Are those conditions likely to come about soon? |
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Let me try to reduce this to the minimum: - Do I, or do I not, have the right to immediately defend myself, with mortal violence if necessary, as soon as I perceive a threat to my life?
- Do you, or do you not, have the right to carry a gun into a room where you and I are discussing the solution to a mutual conflict?
Question 1: Yes. Question 2: It depends. Who owns the room? The owner died with no heirs. We have both laid claim to the room. This is the conflict we must resolve. Alternatively the owner is libertarian and his terms and conditions specify "Section 1: No person entering here may threaten another." and nothing more. I'm blue in the face trying to explain to you that SOMETIMES there would be interactions between people and/or businesses that would not be governed by the clauses of a contract. |
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There is no lie. Your own text shows you to be happy to have innocents killed.
By all means ignore me. You acknowledge that regulating materials works. You don't actually care about the consequence of not regulating them. I do. We won't agree.
What you are describing is a society in which people are being killed. A society where they know how they can save their own lives. Regulating materials will save them. But your strange ideology means they "shouldn't" do it. They should die.
Not nice.
Liar again. I pointed out your lies. Redact them, or admit you have nothing more to add other than ad hominem. Fred, you've lost. You've said you'd prefer a nuclear wasteland to infringing a single person's rights. You've said people can't act until they establish intent. You've said it's not possible to establish intent with an unknown assailant. You've said people can't prohibit dangerous goods even when they know there are such people as would use them violently. For you, the right to hold any arbitrarily dangerous item supersedes the right to life. Am I entitled to hold a nuclear weapon in a city, that is detonated should a drop of liquid fall anywhere on its surface? Assume I legitimately acquired all the raw materials to manufacture such a device, and my intent is merely to show how much faith I have in the umbrellas manufactured by my factory. EDIT: AND the city does not prohibit possession of nuclear weapons. |
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I know the sun example was obvious, but nevertheless necessary. I was asked whether I could respond to an unknown event, caused by an unknown assailant, that hadn't happened yet, or that didn't exist. How exactly would anybody respond to such nonsense. If you read my response, you would have noticed that observation is the key to determining intent, just like indirect observation of the suns emissions is one indication that the sun is hot. It's a corollary, and an obvious one at that. Sorry for the crushing simplicity of it.
So, in the libertarian world you are advocating, the rule is "if someone establishes that another intends to do him harm, he is entitled to immediately defend himself; through violence if necessary". You then stated that observation is necessary to determine a person's intent, but you admit that this is not always possible, and also that it is subjective. Let me repeat myself: In case you hadn't noticed, you've been trapped you into contradicting yourself even though I specifically drew your attention to your previous relevant statement.
Let me try to reduce this to the minimum: - Do I, or do I not, have the right to immediately defend myself, with mortal violence if necessary, as soon as I perceive a threat to my life?
- Do you, or do you not, have the right to carry a gun into a room where you and I are discussing the solution to a mutual conflict?
edit: the sun example was not necessary. It was pathetic. FirstAscent asked you a legitimate question, you replied with an absurdity. |
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So I must assume we know the entire universe. Rather call it a day, we call all science academies to shut off, because defxor here just came with a number of atoms in the universe. Nothing more to see, humanity has done its job.
Actually, he's more-or-less right; I mean, to within a couple of orders of magnitude: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe#Matter_content: Two approximate calculations give the number of atoms in the observable universe to be close to 10^80. 10^80 is roughly 2^266. Just knowing how many atoms there are doesn't tell you much about what those atoms are doing. Please make sensible arguments. A complete rainbow table for 50-char passwords is so-so-so-so-so many orders of magnitude beyond what the human race could ever possibly be capable of storing. Even if there were 100 billion galaxies, each galaxy with 100 billion planets, each planet with 100 billion people, each person with 100 billion computers, each computer with 100 billion hard discs, each disc with 100 billion bytes, you still wouldn't even prick the surface. AND, can you imagine the headaches your network administrator would have? Actually, wait, maybe if someday instant worm-hole travel & communication to remote regions of the universe becomes possible, AND assuming that the actual universe is 10 billion times larger than the visible universe, AND humanity can convert EVERY SINGLE ATOM of it into a combined processor-storage-networking unit..... yeah, ok, could be done. |
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