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I could part with 2 fpga singles... what're you wanting to pay?
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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.
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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? 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.) 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. |
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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. 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 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. 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? 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. 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.
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? |
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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?
I don't know... what do people do about it when it's happening now? Look at what some corporations already do to people.
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. |
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Lets start with privately funded security.
What happens when one such security provider becomes tyrannical and starts abusing people?
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." Just because you don't have a good answer for a question doesn't mean it shouldn't be asked. 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. 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. |
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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 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. |
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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. 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? |
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Lets start with privately funded security.
What happens when one such security provider becomes tyrannical and starts abusing people?
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." 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. |
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I suppose all the rational people are either convinced by now, or have simply resolved to agree to disagree?
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. |
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Yeah, I saw that. Those are all mild variations of their base menu. None of that stuff requires additional equipment or expertise. You can ask for special orders in almost any restaurant.
It's strange, because I remember I never went there more than once or twice precisely because they refused to leave off certain ingredients. Either that's changed, or my memory is faulty.
I couldn't say for certain (and my better half is fairly picky) but I'd guess you'd just have to check. |
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[snip] 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. |
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You really like In-N-Out, don't you FirstAscent?  They have a really limited menu. Your choices are basically hamburger (with or without cheese), fries, and drink. That probably saves them a lot of time and money. They probably have a grill, a fryer, shake machine, and soda fountain. At the McDonald's where I worked, we had all that plus multiple grills for different meats, an extra set of fryers for chicken products, a steamer, a cafe setup, a microwave for the cinnamon melts, a device for marinating the McRibs, a counterside fridge for salads, and probably more things I don't even remember. Buying and maintaining all these things must cost quite a bit. I'm not really sure what this has to do with minimum wage though. Raising the minimum wage isn't necessarily going to cause more places to adopt In-N-Out's business plan. On the "limited menu" You have to try stuff out to find out what's it called - they'll make anything (I'm big on animal style)... But here's a starter link http://daviswiki.org/in-n-out_secret_menu |
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7970 - ~300w @ (lets say) 600 mh/s.
Huh? I have a single 7970 "space heater" running at 620MHs and drawing 275W at the wall for the entire system. Admittedly the other components are efficient (Sandy Bridge i5, SSD, 80 Plus platinum PS), but still ... Welcome to the world of people tweaking numbers in order to save face in an online argument... No. We used maximum draw per ATI for both cards. Stock no tweaking the 7970 pulls down ~560. |
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I agree with what you are saying but...
Airplanes are the most successful gun free zone? Did you forget about 9-11 by chance? At least give the pilots guns! They already hold the lives of everyone on board in their hands.
Personally, I avoid places where I am unable to protect myself and others.
Rather than banning guns - lets ban cars... after all cars killed 3 times more people last year than guns did. A much better solution would be to mandate that every public functionary carry a handgun - that would pretty much end violence in public schools (and other public venues as well). |
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What is the minimum wage of a cat? I think she get a good social welfare system and do not need to work Similarly, rich people having too much production power, they could afford to have some people walking around in the city without doing anything, just like pets. Or more positively, they want a pleasant social environment that everyone has a good living standard, so that they enjoy seeing everyone walking on the street have smile Interesting idea. On the other hand, my cat pulls his own weight around the place. He keeps my outbuildings free of rodents (which he eats - mostly) and keeps stray cats away from the house. Sometimes he warms my lap when I sit on the porch and makes very relaxing sounds when I scratch him under his chin. In exchange for these benefits, I feed him once in awhile (mostly left over chicken parts that I'd just throw away anyway - or the last bit of milk or cream that's in the process of turning) and a handful of cat chow whenever I feel happen to feel like it (mostly on really cold or rainy days). I'd call it more of a barter arrangement... Now if you could convince some welfare recipient to keep people from asking me for spare change or cigarettes every time I walk around downtown... in exchange for the heels of my loaf of bread, the left over bits of vegetables that I've cut off my food before I cook it and the occasional day old donut, dollar burger or left over burrito AND be willing to sing/hum a catchy tune whenever I they were around... Then yes, I suppose that idea might work. |
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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. 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. 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? |
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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: In Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism, there would first be the implementation of a mutually agreed-upon libertarian "legal code which would be generally accepted, and which the courts would pledge themselves to follow." This legal code would recognize sovereignty of the individual and the principle of non-aggression. Aggression, for the purposes of NAP, is defined as the initiation or threatening of violence against a person or legitimately owned property of another. Specifically, any unsolicited actions of others that physically affect an individual’s property or person, no matter if the result of those actions is damaging, beneficial, or neutral to the owner, are considered violent or aggressive when they are against the owner’s free will and interfere with his right to self-determination or the principle of self-ownership. 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. |
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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? |
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Lets start with privately funded security.
What happens when one such security provider becomes tyrannical and starts abusing people?
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