You didn't answer my question. Why is sex harmful? I can't answer your question without knowing where you stand on this (were you one of those priests ot 7 year olds)?

Mmmm.. rights are rights. If these guys can't understand that your rights don't come from your parents or your politician, no point in trying to explain IP rights. Though the "gotcha" question attempts do seem to end up being creepy. Still waiting for Hawker to swing this over into rape, or incest territory. Anything to make the other side lose by feeling uncomfortable I guess. Sometimes I'm honestly tempted to troll hard in reply...

After having "grown up" back when I was in my teens, I now live to try as hard as I can NOT to grow up. Growing up is no fun at all! Totally agree with you, and keep doing what you're doing. (Though I do admit at sometimes being ageist and thinking you are naive at times due to your age. I need to keep remembering that it has to do with ignorance, not age, and many older people here are far more ignorant than you)

Yes


I think that since the kids broke the law by having sex at 5 to 15, it is your position that they should be fined or jailed.


It doesn't have anything to do with rights. Everyone has a right to consent at any age. Not everyone has the ABILITY to consent. And a state can't determine when someone can consent, either. That is different for each individual.

Let me ask you something. Why do you believe that sex is harmful, at any age, if done with consent? Just curious.

By the way, in some US states, the minimum age at which a girl is allowed to strip for money is around 12 to 14. I guess since that's a law, and since rights come from law, 12 year olds have a right to strip for money, right?

But the 12 year old isn't locked up, or stopped. They get chastised, or punished by their parents, but as far as I know, there are no legal reprecussions for the 12 year old. And if that 12 year old has sex with another 12 year old, who is going to jail? Please tell me.


Oh my god! Even if I point out that saying this crap is totally idiotic and completely out of context, you still do it. If anything, since you were specifically explained a position, told that you would be an idiot for taking it out of contect to make it seem like it's something else, and then you went and did just that, the only thing we have established is that you are an idiot (or someone who specifically twists other peoples words with bad intention, but I don't think you're that mean/evil, yet). You keep throwing away important parts, like being sold into is NOT consenting, and that I specifically said "informed." Though, I guess, yes, if the 12 year old is somehow fully informed about sex (before puberty?), and if the parents just help them find clients but allow them to make all the decisions themselves, including what to do with the cash received, then yeah, I think it would be ok. It's a help of a lot better than how things were just 300 years ago, when that 12 year old girl would be sold to another family in "marriage" for some land or cows, when that 12 year old didn't know what sex was, did not consent to it, and was still forced to have sex (raped) and make babies. Do you support that good wholesome system?


Down to the point where the child is no longer able to make informed decisions. Getting into a drug habit and getting addicted was not a very informed decision to begin with. Give me a better example.

As I said, i have an issue with someone selling someone else's services without their consent. That's literally slavery. But if you believe that's ok, then why should they stop selling any of his services at some randomly picked age? Tommy is 50, his parents need some money for pills, they sell him to their neighmor who needs his car washed. What's wrong or inconsistent with that?



Their right is to make personal decisions about when they want to do things with their own bodies. One person's right in that respect is not infringing on anyone else's. Where is the conflict between those three that needs to be resolved or decided on? The 12yo can go off and have sex, the 16yo can wait till they are 16, and the last one can wait till they are married. Why is it any of their or our business what they want to do? More so, why do you believe this isn't the way things already happen? Why bring up a hypothetical world where such a decision has been made?

P. S. Sorry, but there's really no topic that I find taboo, so, apologies if your "Oh think of the children!" tactic isn't persuading me.

So, at what age do you believe it is appropriate to be sold into or forced into sex? I thinkbeing forced or sold into sex is not a decision the child him/herself makes, and is not right regardless if they are 10 or 90. This is a straw an that goes completely against everything libertarianis, and the whole idea of rights, stand for.
I don't think society should ever intervene if the decision was not coerced. And should always try to intervene if anything is coerced.
If little Tommy learns how to give blowjobs, and uses that to make some extra income for himself, I personally don't see that as being worse that little Tommy going around cutting peoples lawns with a lawnmower to make extra cash. Both jobs are dangerous, one just has a stupid sexual taboo associated with it.

Where do you think little Tommy should get his rights from, and why is him wanting to make money by giving blowjobs not a right he is allowed to have, if he does it willingly, consentually, and is aware enough of the risks to do it safely? (<- Since you've proven yourself an idiot at taking my words out of context before, I am forced to point out here that I don't necessarily hold the view that little kids should be giving blowjobs. Please note the "consentually" and "aware of the risks," which likely makes little Tommy above 14)

If the person wants to have sex at the age of 12, what's the problem? I would educate them on the risks and ways to mitigate those risks, but I can't stop them.

Why do you believe you "ought" to be able to eat the food you buy, listen to the music you hear, or think and dream about things you want? Who gave you that right?

This is really something you should be figuring out on your own, but since you asked, rights come from our human ability to reason, to understand logic, and to be able to for see series of logical events. Or something like that. They come from the fact that we are able to declare our own entitlement to our own lives and property, based on our ability to reason and make logical conclusions about those things. Societal laws are just extrapolation or perversion of that reason and logic.
In short, we are born with them.

I currently live in US. Did people have no rights before the Magna Carta, or were their rights just oppressed by kings?
We have a Bill of Rights here that lists stuff like right to free speech, right to trial, etc. It's not a document that gives us rights, it's a document that lists the rights that we already have that the government is not allowed to impose on. I suspect your Human Rights Act and European Convention on Human Rights from which it follows, are similar, in that instead of giving you rights, they are laws that prevent your government from taking those rights away.
When you are losing freedom in your example, what freedom are you talking about? If the law gives you rights, and the law is now taking them back, then they weren't rights to begin with, right? At least they aren't now, so since law is right, perhaps those freedoms should never have existed? Or are you now saying that freedom and rights are something that exist outside of law, and your own rights are now being imposed by the government laws version of "rights?"

Even instantly selling is ok. Bitcoin will be in someone's hands for at least a few seconds, and all those seconds added up still means a lot of bitcoin owned by a lot of people at the same time, and when they sell, it still means someone else is buying, like the next customer.

Don't mess the place up too much, guys. I plan to vacation there in a few month. Just remember, this isn't football (soccer) related 

Where's the law that gives me the right to use a keyboard? To trade stuff? To eat? To poop? To make personal choices? To think? If rights come from law, I shouldn't have the right to do either of those. It sounds as if you are suggesting that the default human society has absolutely no right to do anything, and as time progresses, more and more rights are bestowed on the population by government?

Actually that sort reminds me of the bible, where humans (Adam and Eve) were created with some limited rights to begin with,screwed that up and ended up with even fewer rights, and for the next few thousand years had more and more rights and restrictions dictated at them by their creator. Like, in the same way we were born with original sin, we are born with only the rights our creator allows us. Maybe that religious mindset is the physchological block here?

On a forum about a decentralized, unregulated, anarchy-enabling currency? Why are you surprised?

This isn't something that requires a lot of reading; just a lot of introspection and a very good understanding of logic. In the end, it makes sense in the same way as 2+2=4 makes sense, though with many more steps involved. There is a difference between a right and something you are able to do. You are able to shoot someone, you are able to destroy someone's property, and you are able to torture someone else's dog. Those are not rights, even if you are able to perform the actions without consequences.
Regarding what I said earlier about rights not being bestowed by law, as an example, I am able to marry someone of the same sex in any state I want because there are no "rights" to same sex marriage, just no laws respecting the contract from the government point of view. Just because there are no laws specifically making it legal, does not mean that same sex marriage is illegal. There is no need to confer that right to anyone. On the other hand, laws exist to take away rights, such as with the slavery example, where slaves had rights to begin with, and only the laws that punished them from excercising those rights and freedoms were the problem. As I said, laws are only able to take away rights, not give them. In the case of IP laws, it's not that IP laws give you rights to your own or someone else's intellectual property, as is often assumed. I have a right to use my own property, including data I bought and paid for, in any way that I choose. What IP laws actually do is prevent me from exercising that right. It's not that they give you rights to your IP, it's that they prevent me from doing things to your IP despite my ownership and posession of it. No laws give you rights to maim or torture animals. Laws just attempt to prevent you from doing so. Them able to do so does't necessarily make it a right of theirs either.
Ideally, I would love to see you guys go through these steps:

Define what a person is (I'll grant you the line is somewhat blurry, and even I'm not completely confident in my definition)
From that deduce what the most basic foundations of rights are
From that build upon the basic concepts of property rights
Finally, from that, deduce and expand the concept into more complex issues such as mutual respect, incentives through mutual benefits, etc.

I'm not going to hold my breath for even the first step though.

See? Like I said, you have no idea what rights even are.

You said "no track record at all" for our "idealized world." I gave you a track record of an issue that is heavily regulated in this country, and an ideallized world without regulation of that issue for comparison. It didn't matter what the topic is, just that there ARE examples of libertarian ideals which have better results than your pro-regulation ideals.

Track record:
USA has very strict laws on underage drinking. Result? Binge drinking, alcohol poisoning, drinking just to get drunk, and general alcoholism issues.
Italy has practically no restrictions on alcohol for minors. Result? Drinking is something done socially and responsibly, getting drunk is considered embarassing and a sign of weakness or lack of control. Alcohol abuse is very rare.