What do you believe is moral?

[ErisDiscordia]

What would you like to know? (limit: one thing.  No cheating)  

Why can't you write coherent sentences?

He's an ex-Soviet, communist immigrant who's native tongue is Russian, who grew up in the severely brainwashing propagandist statist socialist state, where the concept of "property" and "good work" hasn't existed for almost a century. It's all "why should I do it, when someone else can do it for me" over there. Not entirely his fault. That he is a troll, and a lousy one at that, however, is entirely his fault.

I was born and raised in one of the countries east of the iron curtain and seeing the aftermath of socialism and the impact it had on peoples way of thinking made me very distrustful of government to start with and as time progressed and I learned more I distanced myself from government more and more. So yeah but that's me. Even with generations of people having lived under socialism the popular outcry during each scandal of governmental misuse of power seems to be "change the politicians" and not "change the system". So yeah, you can argue that it's "not his fault" but there we're getting into the "nature vs. nurture" debate. What influences people more? Their genes or their upbringing/social programming? I lean towards the latter, personally but that's not the point here. I'll just wait if he can present me with some coherent ideas. My questions were addressed to anybody who cares to answer, though.

Cultural programming brought about by (public) schools and (state owned) media runs deep, is very hard to get rid off and lots of people are suffering from its adverse effects. Crumbs here seems to have some sort of issue with communication for example. I sure hope it's nothing serious.

[crumbs]

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i can't make heads or tails of the Yogi Bear tazing

its perfectly analogous to the bully and the jungle gym. the unused half of the jungle gym is the unused wilderness areas. the bullies fist is the tazer. when the bully says ill beat you up if you play on the jungle gym thats the same as the ranger saying ill taze you if you build a house here. if the analogy is sound, and you agree that the bully does not have the moral high ground than it should follow that the park ranger is not morally justified in tazing you for building a house on unused wilderness land.

Try to look at it from a different perspective.  National parks, "unused wilderness," exist only because they are protected -- not because they have no value for anyone but you.  If no laws existed against it, logging companies would log, mining companies would stripmine, developers would develop, hunnters would hunt the shit out of them, etc., etc.  And, of course, people like you & me would go in, clearcut & burn huge tracts of land for farming, and rinse & repeat once the land is depleted.  The "unused wilderness" will get used up in no time. 

"Unused wilderness" is a finite resource, just like oil, iron ore, and anything you care to mention.  As soon as it's used, it's neither unused or wilderness, by definition -- it's gone, you took it away from all of the other people who it belonged to.  The "who will it hurt if i put up a shack in the middle of nowhere" argument simply fails to scale.

Morals are like standards -- you pick the one you like best

Yes i suppose this is true. I do not believe in objective standards of morality. my sense of morality is purely a product of my own subjective preferences. I prefer that peaceful people not be electrocuted and i would prefer that you prefer this also.

I prefer that too, but if we allow that there exists a thing called "crime" [long derivation, snipped for brevity*], a thing called "punishment" will emerge as a corollary.  It doesn't follow that the punishers are evil -- necessary evil is necessary

Let's say you bought the cookies, and your mom just didn't want you to spoil your appetite before dinner.

If the child legitimately earned those cookies out in the market than the mother has no right to take them away. That would be stealing. HOWEVER, the mother does own the roof over the child head. So if the child absolutely refuses to give up the cookies than she does have the right to kick him and his cookies out of the house. Of course the mother cant be allowed to have dozens of children and then kick them out of the house for refusing to comply with unreasonable demands resulting in their untimely demise. So the demands must be reasonable, and so long as the child complies with the parents reasonable demands the mother must have the duty to provide food, shelter, hygiene, water, love and mental stimulation.

If you feel that not allowing a seven-year-old to eat cookies before dinner is an unreasonable demand for a mother to make, and this is the type of tyranny you're accusing The State of, i'm afraid i'm all out of ammo.  I call shenanigans!   

still this little rant is not all that relevant so lets try to stick with the question of does officer yogi have the moral right to taze me for building a house out in the wilderness.

He's defending the property he was entrusted with, like a bank cop would defend the vault from robbers.  The money isn't being used while it's in the safe (it's just sitting there), but neither the bank nor the depositors whose monyz that is want the robbers to have it.  Call it greed.

[crumbs]

Thank you crumbs. Thanks to you, I had a very satisfying and stress relieving Iaido and Kendo class tonight, and am now way more relaxed and content. Now back to the discussion...

Not even going to ask...

Why did you buy this appartment if you knew you were buying a ton of things you didn't want? And why don't you sell it and trade it for something that doesn't have those things?

To get the things that i do want?  Duh. I don't have an infinity of choices -- i have to chose from the few apartments in the neighborhood that i like, which i can afford.

Afford? You are paying for a place with a manicured lawn and a doorman. I'm sure there are plenty of more affordable places without those perks. You have 50 states to choose from!

I don't want to live in 49 of those states, are you telling me how to shop for apartments?

Let's stick to the topic here.

Ok.  You're done with helping me to shop for apartments?

You are paying for things in your apartment that you don't want to pay for. You are claiming you are forced to pay for them, and that this is no different from how one is forced to pay taxes for things. I asked if you are actually getting the services you are being forced to pay for. Obviously you are, since you are the one seeing the manicured lawn and the doorman that money pays for. I asked if you were aware of these costs before choosing to buy this property. I suspect that was disclosed somewhere in your purchase agreement. I asked why you don't move if this is something you don't want to pay for. You didn't really answer. Every state has a ton of properties that don't come with lawn services and doormen. The point is that (1) you had a choice to live where you live and voluntarily picked the place yourself, (2) you are actually getting the services you paid for, even if you are being forced to pay for them, and (3) you are very free to move around and pick a different place to live that is either cheaper, or offers other services for you to buy. None of those apply to a government, which doesn't give you a choice where you are born, forces you to pay for services you never need, and restricts you in where you can move to, in the case of USA even continuing to charge you for services when you are living on foreign territory.
This is why being forced to pay apartment fees is not at all the same as being forced to pay taxes.

I guess you're not done with lecturing me on apartment shopping.  I'll play along.

Yes, i am getting the services i'm paying for, even though i do not want them.  I find some of them not only useless, but bothersome -- i do not enjoy the polite exchanges with doormen, i'd pay a few bucks a month to avoid them, but i have no choice.  The other qualities of my apartment -- location, location, location -- more than make up for the inconvenience.

Likewise, you are getting the services your taxes pay for -- arming statist thugs is one of them.  You may not want the service, but you get it nonetheless, it's *a part of the package,* just like my doormen.  Don't forget to tip them well on Christmas.

Recently, my large format printer broke.
I spent $27 on a serpentine belt.  A cardboard box arrived in the mail (i didn't want the cardboard box, i wanted the belt).
Inside of the cardboard box was packing popcorn (i didn't care for it either, i wanted the belt)
...and another cardboard box (see 1)
Inside was a plastic ziplock bag (do not want.)
Inside of that bag was a smaller plastic bag (do not want)
Inside of *that* bag was the belt (do want!)

As i have hopefully made painfully clear, of all the stuff i was forced to pay for, i only wanted one measly belt -- a glorified rubber band.  I was robbed!!1!

As far as being born into this draconian state (you weren't), there's a wonderful tax loophole -- babes are born naked, and thus have no property tax to pay.  They tend to be cared for by their parents for the first few years, thus not working & not paying income tax.  See how this shit works out?  It's all good, dood

Is your premise that USA government owns all the property in the entire country, and thus has the right to charge maintenance fees on everything and everyone? If yes, why do we bother to buy property from each other, since we don't actually own any of it? If no, then what?

Please answer this question. If you must "explain iRL" to me, which I thought was the whole point of the question, then please do. Then, maybe strain some brain cells and explain to me why you support this iRL the way it is, or why you think it should be changed.

The reason i explain how IRL works is so you may understand it before trying to fix it -- an approach that i found to work fairly well when dealing with broken things.
The reason i "support" IRL is obvious:  No matter how shitty one way of doing things may be, *it is still the best way* unless a better way is found.  Protip: It's not a better way if it doesn't work, or works only in a child's imagination.  While i don't disagree with the Nietzschean notion that a house & its foundation must be destroyed before a better one could be built, there's no reason for the demolition crew to masquerade as builders.  That's just clownish

You specifically said that it was my parents that burdened me with the ownership of whatever (Citizenship? Social contract?), and made me have to pay the fees for owning that whatever. So I'm asking you, why is it that someone else can force me to own this whatever?

I merely suggested that by leaving the fruited plains of Soviet Union and coming to the US of A, your parents have abandoned the Soviet goodness & dragged you to this hellhole.

Which still doesn't answer why, just because I was dragged here against my will and when I was too young to make decisions on my own, that the US government now owns me, or is forcing me to own whatever it is I am being forced to pay taxes for.

The US government does not own you, that's simply absurd.  Unless you're wanted for serious crimes, you can simply walk across the boarder to Mexico.  Freedom!

Again, why is it that your father can't move you into a house, and then force you to assume ownership of that house, including all the fees that come with it,but my parents can can move me into a country, and then force me to assume ownership of that country, including all the fees involved with that. Or an even better question, why do you think that this is just and should remain that way?

This is nonsense.  You are not forced into anything, at least no more than a landlord forces you to continue renting.  I know loadin'up the truck & moving to Beverly is a pain, but if you don't like the place or the rent?  Somaaalllia!  It will remain that way until a better (and stronger) system emerges, power & success is what seems to work.  Whether it *should* be that way doesn't seem to matter to IRL.

Are you content with someone being robbed, raped, or murdered, as long as it doesn't involve you personally?

I'm not sure what you mean.  You call taxes theft, while colorfully describing them as robbery, i have no idea of what you consider rape & what's surprise butsecs, and murder?  I'm afraid to ask.  So, i'll tell you that going by *my* definitions of those words, i'd probably be happier if those didn't happen, but that's just my take on things.  Why'd'you ask?

I ask because I am not content with theft and murder. So when I see someone, be it a person or an organization, stealing from people and murdering people, it bothers me, and I speak up about it. I see taxation as theft, and I see war as murder. You asked why I'm debating this, or why I'm bothering with wanting to change things instead of just accepting iRL like you do. That's your answer. It's OK if you don't see taxation and war and theft and murder, though. People didn't think there was anything ethically wrong with slavery and communism, either.

You have a deeply rooted, albeit poorly defended idee fixe that taxation is theft.  It's unlikely that reason will convince you otherwise, though i'll admit it's fun trying.  As far as war=murder?  These things have almost nothing to do with taxes.  Sure, taxes pay for wars, but *money* pays for wars & people fight them -- does that mean that money & people should be done away with?  Rape, as far as i know, is not caused by taxation, and "Holy F8ck!  I got raped by the IRS!" & "kiss me before you hand me that bill" are just colorful phrases

What term do you use to describe people who force you, with the threat of either a gun or forced imprisonment, to give them your posessions?

I bet this is another one of your trick questions, you silver-tongued devil you!  Is the correct answer gob'ment?  BTW, imprisonment is *always* forced.  And stop it with the gun business already.  Unless you're running shine & it's the prohibition, i doubt most folks at IRS even carry sidearms.  Anyhow, all they ever want from you is dollars, and we all know how worthless that fiat shit is, right?  

Not a trick question. I think the correct answer was thieves. The follow-up question is what makes thieves different from organized government?
As for the gun business. What happens if I refuse to pay taxes? Will I just be left alone? Or will someone come to take me away? What if I prevent them from taking me away? Will they just leave me alone? Are you really claiming that any of us can simple stop paying taxes, and live in peace without the IRS or their enforcers bothering us?

See my  Critique of Jaywalking  Rehashing is only good for coinz.

Follow-up question: Are you ok with such people doing things? Why and under what conditions?

What such people?  The cleaning people who get rid of your worthless fiat?  Do you at least tip them well for their service?

Assuming that you aren't going to be left alone if you simply don't pay taxes, are you OK with the people who work for the government coming to either force you to pay, or take you away, at the point of a gun if need be.

At least as much as i approve of being evicted, at the point of a gun, for refusing to pay rent.  ¡Viva la Revolución!

[crumbs]

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He's an ex-Soviet, communist immigrant who's native tongue is Russian, who grew up in the severely brainwashing propagandist statist socialist state, where the concept of "property" and "good work" hasn't existed for almost a century. It's all "why should I do it, when someone else can do it for me" over there. Not entirely his fault. That he is a troll, and a lousy one at that, however, is entirely his fault.

...Whose family risked everything for exit visas and came to US, a move better known as "Stop whining, or GTFO & find a better place."  I'm happy to say they found what they came for & haven't regretted the move.

[Rassah]

You negotiated for its trade? What does that mean? You traded money for what exactly? Certainly not absolute dominion over the land being purchased. Tell me, did the owner you bought it from have absolute dominion over it prior to him selling it to you? I suspect not. So, how exactly did he sell to you what he never had? Or are you just gullible? Absolute dominion only exists by having the power to back it up. Did the owner sell you his reputation and standing army as well? I don't think so.

He sold me the deed for his property in exchange for something of my own. Why didn't he have absolute dominion over his property? A better question, why does some other entity calling itself government claim to have absolute dominion over that property? What gave government that right? It sounds like the right of a king or some other thing we have long decided was illegitimate and immoral.
(P.S. I can supply my own standing armies, or defense/protection systems, if needed).

In prior conversations I've had with you, it's clear your understanding of land usage, preservation, and conservation is quite a few notches below mine. Best you just adhere to some basic regulations.

It's not below, just different. You believe that maintaining land in pristine condition is in the interest of the regulator. I believe maintaining the land in pristine condition is in the interest of the landowner. The regulator's incentive is his paycheck, which doesn't really change much based on how well he regulates, and is only threatened if he does a really bad job. The land owner's incentive is the loss of value of his own property. The owner wants to keep the value up, either because he lives on that land, or wants to sell it later. I believe I mentioned that, as crumbs would say "in the real world," the reason we have so many issues with resource extraction companies ruining the land they mine is because they only get leases for that land, not ownership. So, they can do whatever they want with the land, as long as they stay within the regulations that their own lawyers wrote up and their own lobbyists pushed through congress, and when they are done screwing the place up, they just give it back to the government, and task it with cleaning up their mess. If governments actually sold those companies that land, and even charged them property taxes, then it would be in the company's best interest to either maintain the land, or to clean it up, so that they can resell it, recoup their initial costs, and get rid of the property tax burden. It all really comes down to incentives.

A better question is, why do you believe people who come together and call themselves "government" should have absolute dominion over my land, even when they have nothing to do with it? Why does the Queen of England have absolute dominion over a large chunk of land on the other side of the planet, just because a sailor stuck a flag on its beach?

They were there before you, for one thing. And, as I pointed out a few sentences ago, they can and do back it up with force. The Queen of England lost in that department, but it took a revolution, which is decidedly a bit more than Rassah's bitcoin forum complaints.

How were they there before, if most of them haven't even been there more than 40 years ago? It's just a group of people forming an organization, and the organization, run and owned by that group of people, is claiming dominion. So all I have to do to claim dominion over your property is just to get hired by that group. No hard work, toil, time, and savings necessary. Doesn't seem very right. As for revolutions, wars cost money. I am really hoping that bitcoin will deprive those organizations that wage war of money needed to sustain them.

I gave up something of value in exchange for something else of value. Why does it matter if that something of value is land or a doll? Why doesn't government claim absolute dominion over Barbie dolls, and charge property tax on those? You'll have to explain to me why land property is different from doll property.

Because Barbie dolls are not a resource worth controlling or preserving.

So, a group of people, calling themselves government, can arbitrarily claim dominion over things as long as they feel it's worth controlling? So, if I were to create a really awesome and fancy Barbie doll that was really valued, some arbitrary random individuals can just step in and say, "Uh, this is a worthwhile resource. We know we didn't have anything to do with creating it, and haven't had any ownership of it before, but now we do, just because we say so." Why is that even remotely a good thing?

The entity that owns what's inside the walls actually built what was inside the walls. They spent their own time and labor on it. At the same time, they don't own and have no right to control what's actually between those walls. There are some basic rules against doing things that will damage those walls and what's inside, but just because the inside of the walls belong to someone else, doesn't mean that someone else can dictate to me what I do with my money, my body, and the stuff residing inside my apartment. It's that thing I mentioned where your landlord can't force you to pay for someone else's health insurance or pool, remember?

We already addressed this. Why do you keep erroneously thinking a landlord isn't forcing you to pay for their own healthcare? Do you have some contract that stipulates that the rent money you pay must go 100 percent back into building maintenance? They are in it for profit, and do indeed use those profits to buy whatever the fuck they want, such as dinners, automobiles, health insurance, or pools for their own home.

*sigh* You are conflating "I get charged for something, and then that money gets spent on whatever,"  with "I get charged for something, and then also get charged for a lot of other somethings, while only getting the first thing I was charged for." A landlord is forcing you to pay for the property you reside on. Nothing more. What that landlord does with that money afterwards is their business. Your rent bill is "Property Rental + Building Maintenance + Utilities." It's not "Property Rental + Building Maintenance + Utilities + Miss Frederick's Health Bills + Hired guns for that personal war I'm having with a gang in another town + My mom's retirement account + Pool for the folks across town + Extra rent for that poor person who would otherwise be homeless." If your bill included that, it'd be ridiculously high, and no one would pay it, because there would be plenty of other landlords who would only charge for rental, maintenance, and utilities, and nothing more. So, to reiterate, I am not saying that when you are, buying an apple, you are also paying for the apple seller's whatever-the-hell-he-wants-to-spend-that-money-on. I am saying that, if the apple seller was a government, he would charge you for the apple, and then ON TOP OF THAT charge you for a ton of other crap that has nothing to do with the apple, and then give you some of those other things you bought, while giving the rest of the things you bought (besides the apple) to some other people. Or, more precisely, he would FORCE you to buy that apple, charging you for a whole shitton of other things on top of the apple, while only giving you the apple. Put another way, it's like you spending the night at a hotel, and then getting a bill for your room,  and on top of that, a bill for some other random people's porno rental and mini fridge use, which I assume you would have objections to. Does this explain it any better?

So, with land ownership, I'm fine with government claiming what's above my land, below my land, and around my land, just like your inside of walls example, but they shouldn't be able to claim ownership of the land itself or what's on it. Even their claim of land ownership is specious, since they didn't actually do anything to build our create it. Even more so, they shouldn't be able to claim ownership to my body and to my time, labor, and money, as they do with restrictions on what I can do on my own property, how I spend my money, and taxation.

Do we define "above your land" as one centimeter above the topsoil? Do we define "below your land" as one centimeter below the ground surface? If so, you're left with less rights than have actually been granted you. It seems you just admitted that you're "fine with government" (your own words) making claims, without specifying the details. Now you've gone and admitted that there are details, and you're fine with them.

I'm fine with land use and FAA regulations, where everything above 6 feet (~2 meters) below the surface, and all airspace below 1000 feet, is my property (to start with, anyway). Yes, I'm fine with government existing. I'm just not fine with it intruding on my property. Just as, if an Anarcho-Capitalist "state" was formed somewhere, it's residents would be fine with governments existing and doing their thing around the rest of the world, just as long as it doesn't intrude on their land.

As for them not doing anything to build or create it, what exactly do you call surveys, inventories, mapping, land usage doctrine, road building, border defense, etc?

I'm not looking to buy roads, so that's irrelevant. As for the rest, I'd call it observation. If I do surveys, mapping, and defense on my land too, then do we jointly own it? What if a bunch of other people come in and start doing surveys and mapping? Will they become owners too? Doesn't Google own the entire world then? Why doesn't Google charge property taxes for it's worldwide surveying and mapping?

I know they do, and I know they are able to get away with it. My point is that they shouldn't. Partly because it's not ethical, not any more than the earlier bully and jungle gym example, and partially because such power apparently always leads to extreme corruption without a possible fix.

Why is it not ethical? How is it less ethical than a landlord telling you to pay up so he can go spend your rent money on luxuries?

See my hotel sticking you with a bill that includes other people's expenses example. In the case of a landlord, it would be unethical if you had a rental contract with him, saying that you will rent from him for 12 months at $1,000 per month, and he comes in and tries to get more than that from you for luxuries. If he asks, you can just say no. If he threatens to kick you out, that would technically be extortion and breach of contract. Those two things don't need government to be considered unethical.

[Rassah]

I was born and raised in one of the countries east of the iron curtain and seeing the aftermath of socialism and the impact it had on peoples way of thinking made me very distrustful of government to start with and as time progressed and I learned more I distanced myself from government more and more. So yeah but that's me. Even with generations of people having lived under socialism the popular outcry during each scandal of governmental misuse of power seems to be "change the politicians" and not "change the system".

What has been really bothering me is that a lot of those who came from there (including my parents) automatically see anything socialist as wrong, and anything opposite as right, so, in their case, they don't like Democrats, and automatically assume that Republicans are good, no matter what. That wasn't really a problem until Bush came into power, and my parents and their soviet friends basically started to wholeheartedly support all the same fascist borderline-totalitarian BS that Soviet Union was known for. Now they're all slamming Edward Snowden as being a traitor to their new "motherland," are are all super-paranoid about those muslims coming to steal our freedoms, and are supporting near totalitarian expansions of powers and military as a result. I swear, it's as if they don't care about what the government does, as long as it doesn't use the words they don't like 

[Rassah]

National parks, "unused wilderness," exist only because they are protected -- not because they have no value for anyone but you.  If no laws existed against it, logging companies would log, mining companies would stripmine, developers would develop, hunnters would hunt the shit out of them, etc., etc.  And, of course, people like you & me would go in, clearcut & burn huge tracts of land for farming, and rinse & repeat once the land is depleted.  The "unused wilderness" will get used up in no time. 

Your government and misinformed environmentalist brainwashing is showing.

Logging companies - The biggest logging company on this side of the planet is in Chille. It has been logging the same land for decades, and understands that if it just cut down all the trees and that's it, it would be out of business in no time. So, it tends the land, making sure to cut in ways that keeps the ground fertile, continuously replants new trees, and even created a species of fir that can grow to adult stage within 8 to 10 years, meaning they can replenish the forest in less then a decade. As new technologies in logging and genetic engineering are developed, they hope to cut that by even more years.

Mining companies - Mining companies strip-mine because they don't own the land. They lease it from the government, strip-mine it, and wash their hands of it, since once they're done, it's no longer their problem. If mining companies were instead required to buy the land, for the full price that it's worth, first, that would immediately cut out any mining company that doesn't know what it's doing, and second, it would impose an enormous cost on the company, one that it will be required to account for and restore. Companies are in it for the profits, and it's more profitable to either be more careful with the land, or to restore it once you're done with it, so you can resell it and recoup your costs. The actual real problem with strip-mining isn't a lack of regulations, it's a lack of company's responsibility/ownership, and the fact that mining regulations are written by the experts working for those mining companies (i.e. they are writing their own regulations).

Developers - Developers would only develop if there are people willing to go and use the areas they develop. If you are worried about sprawl & crawl, look at the issues with subsidized oil, roads, and housing that make it cheaper and more convenient to continue to sprawl out into the wilderness, than to live in tightly packed cities as people do in places without those things. Look at Canada, where gas is expensive, downpayments are required, and mortgage interest isn't deductible. LOTS of open wilderness, yet most people live in tightly packed cities.

Hunters - There are private game reserves. If a huge chunk of land happens to be well suited for supporting wild life, the owner would very likely keep it as such, and just charge for the  privilege of hunting. Since that will be his source of income, he would also make sure that the game isn't all hunted out, and will help the animals survive, by making sure the place is kept clean and safe for the animals (minus the threat of hunters).

Farming - Again, the issue is huge subsidies. It's not profitable to farm. Anyone can start doing it, and can undercut everyone else. Farming is exactly like Bitcoin mining in that way (at least during the GPU era). As a farmer, you have little choice as to how much it costs to grow your food. So, the price of your food has to be at least as much as it cost you to grow it. If not enough people want to pay that price, you go broke. If someone else enters the market, and no one wants to pay their food prices either, they go broke. So farmers won't enter the market. The problem we have now is the huge government subsidies. For example, it currently costs more to grow corn than farmers actually sell it for, but they are sustained by those subsidies. As a result, we have WAY WAY WAY more farming than people would actually want to pay for, if they had a choice in whether to pay for it. But as it stands now, we are all forced to "buy" corn, whether we actually buy it at the store or not.

Believe it or not, a lot of this is actually covered in MBA Finance/Economics classes.

[Vandroiy]

The questions cited in the OP are underdefined. I think it is moral if there is a rational reason that the taxation is required for a peaceful and productive society.

The modifications to the questions such as "official", "elected" and so forth are irrelevant. In a way, the Nazis were elected. Being elected has little implication as to whether one's decisions are morally acceptable or not.

Also, the word "steal" is misleading as it implies secrecy. "Forcefully taken" would be correct, maybe "robbed" if you want to be dramatic.



In other words, all the cited decisions can be morally wrong. I'm not certain whether any of them must be. If there is no more police and some warlord manages to rob you instead, nothing is gained -- it just trades a vote majority for a weapon majority.

[Rassah]

Yes, i am getting the services i'm paying for, even though i do not want them.  I find some of them not only useless, but bothersome -- i do not enjoy the polite exchanges with doormen, i'd pay a few bucks a month to avoid them, but i have no choice.  The other qualities of my apartment -- location, location, location -- more than make up for the inconvenience.

Likewise, you are getting the services your taxes pay for -- arming statist thugs is one of them.  You may not want the service, but you get it nonetheless, it's *a part of the package,* just like my doormen.  Don't forget to tip them well on Christmas.

Recently, my large format printer broke.
I spent $27 on a serpentine belt.  A cardboard box arrived in the mail (i didn't want the cardboard box, i wanted the belt).
Inside of the cardboard box was packing popcorn (i didn't care for it either, i wanted the belt)
...and another cardboard box (see 1)
Inside was a plastic ziplock bag (do not want.)
Inside of that bag was a smaller plastic bag (do not want)
Inside of *that* bag was the belt (do want!)

As i have hopefully made painfully clear, of all the stuff i was forced to pay for, i only wanted one measly belt -- a glorified rubber band.  I was robbed!!1!

Meh, too easy. You are forced to pay for the apartment things, and safe packaging of your belt, and as a result you get access and use to all the apartment things, and get a belt safely delivered. With government, you are forced to pay for things, A LOT of things, but don't get access to them. Do you get subsidies for your apartment? Do you get a free cellphone? Do you get access to people's private data like the NSA? Do you even use libraries and schools? No? Then it's not the same. Point is, you are choosing to pay for things, because you like them, and you are getting the things you paid for. With government, you are forced to pay for things, whether you like/need them or not, and most of the things you paid for you never even get. It's no more complicated than that.

Is your premise that USA government owns all the property in the entire country, and thus has the right to charge maintenance fees on everything and everyone? If yes, why do we bother to buy property from each other, since we don't actually own any of it? If no, then what?

Please answer this question. If you must "explain iRL" to me, which I thought was the whole point of the question, then please do. Then, maybe strain some brain cells and explain to me why you support this iRL the way it is, or why you think it should be changed.

The reason i explain how IRL works is so you may understand it before trying to fix it -- an approach that i found to work fairly well when dealing with broken things.
The reason i "support" IRL is obvious:  No matter how shitty one way of doing things may be, *it is still the best way* unless a better way is found.  Protip: It's not a better way if it doesn't work, or works only in a child's imagination.  While i don't disagree with the Nietzschean notion that a house & its foundation must be destroyed before a better one could be built, there's no reason for the demolition crew to masquerade as builders.  That's just clownish

Is your premise that USA government owns all the property in the entire country, and thus has the right to charge maintenance fees on everything and everyone? If yes, why do we bother to buy property from each other, since we don't actually own any of it? If no, then what?

Regarding your reasons, I guess the follow-up question is, why are you so hostile to even suggestions for better ways? You said "unless a better way is found," yet you attack any and all attempts at trying to find a better way with extreme child-like hostility. Protip: No one is advocating destroying foundations. Based on your protests, like "But how will we have laws and security and blah blah blah without government," it sounds as if you keep assuming that they will be. No one is advocating that, and everyone, including me, keeps pointing out that we already have established bodies of law, structures, and companies to support all those things, and more such supports are being developed every day. The most that will happen is that government will fade out due to simply being irrelevant. Why bother with banking regulations when you have Bitcoin that does the same thing? Why bother with manufacturing regulations when you can have thousands of "hackers" debug and improve your 3D printed devices like they do with Linux? Why bother with things like police, social security, and fire protection, when you can have private security, insurance, and private fir protection and fire suppression systems, all of which work based on the exact same community-supported standards and beliefs as they do now?

The US government does not own you, that's simply absurd.  Unless you're wanted for serious crimes, you can simply walk across the boarder to Mexico.  Freedom!

Everything I do, the government claims to own a piece of. If I create and sell something, they want a portion of my labor. In my eyes, them claiming ownership of my time and labor is pretty much analogous to them claiming ownership of me.

Again, why is it that your father can't move you into a house, and then force you to assume ownership of that house, including all the fees that come with it,but my parents can can move me into a country, and then force me to assume ownership of that country, including all the fees involved with that. Or an even better question, why do you think that this is just and should remain that way?

This is nonsense.  You are not forced into anything, at least no more than a landlord forces you to continue renting.  I know loadin'up the truck & moving to Beverly is a pain, but if you don't like the place or the rent?  Somaaalllia!

But I am forced into something. It's colloquially called the "social contract." All my labor and time is partially owned by the government. Even if I move to Somalia, if I don't renounce my citizenship (and consequently place myself on this country's shitlist), I can still be taxed for my time and labor even while living there. Again, the question isn't really how are things working now, it's where do they get this power from?

You have a deeply rooted, albeit poorly defended idee fixe that taxation is theft.  It's unlikely that reason will convince you otherwise, though i'll admit it's fun trying.  As far as war=murder?  These things have almost nothing to do with taxes.  Sure, taxes pay for wars, but *money* pays for wars & people fight them -- does that mean that money & people should be done away with?  Rape, as far as i know, is not caused by taxation, and "Holy F8ck!  I got raped by the IRS!" & "kiss me before you hand me that bill" are just colorful phrases

I am a very logical person. Almost to a fault. You don't have to try to argue or reason with me based on feelings or emotions. All you have to do to convince me is to explain to me why one group of people taking your stuff against your will while giving you nothing in return is theft, while another group of people taking your stuff against your will while giving you nothing in return in taxation. (I'm separating taxes for services I use, like roads, from taxes for things others use and I never will).

Regarding war, people will spend money to fight wars they believe need to be fought. I would have been in full support for spending money to go fight Hitler, and likely would have bought war bonds. The problem is that we don't really have those kinds of wars very often. I was for the Afghanistan war, but not the extended protracted one it became. I was completely and adamantly against the $1.5 trillion dollar Iraq war (though now I think it may be the straw that will have completely broken the government's budget back, and may be the catalyst for it's demise). Yet governments can wage such wars because they force people to pay for them, even if those people don't want those wars. That's a problem.
As for rape, the whole thing was just an answer to you as to why I would still be against government even if I moved to Somalia. I would protest injustice even if it doesn't affect me, as I hope you would protest it even if you weren't the victim.

What term do you use to describe people who force you, with the threat of either a gun or forced imprisonment, to give them your posessions?

See my  Critique of Jaywalking  Rehashing is only good for coinz.

Ok, follow-up question: What's to stop an entity called government from passing laws against walking on sidewalks, or on your front lawn, or in your house, if the goal was to arrest you? It just seems a bit arbitrary that they would make a rule, but only punish you for resisting arrest after breaking that rule. I mean, hell, you could claim that all major criminals who were in police shootouts weren't punished for their heinous crimes, but were punished because they refused to be arrested, which would make refusal to be arrested the biggest crime in US, punishable by death. And that's just a tad silly.

Assuming that you aren't going to be left alone if you simply don't pay taxes, are you OK with the people who work for the government coming to either force you to pay, or take you away, at the point of a gun if need be.

At least as much as i approve of being evicted, at the point of a gun, for refusing to pay rent.  ¡Viva la Revolución!

Which brings us back to the original question: Where does the government get the right to claim ownership of its property? For your landlord, the answer is obvious: he bought and/or built the property you are renting from. The government didn't buy or build it, it just staked a claim to it, like we did centuries ago. Is that the system we should continue to operate under?

[Rassah]

...
He's an ex-Soviet, communist immigrant who's native tongue is Russian, who grew up in the severely brainwashing propagandist statist socialist state, where the concept of "property" and "good work" hasn't existed for almost a century. It's all "why should I do it, when someone else can do it for me" over there. Not entirely his fault. That he is a troll, and a lousy one at that, however, is entirely his fault.

...Whose family risked everything for exit visas and came to US, a move better known as "Stop whining, or GTFO & find a better place."  I'm happy to say they found what they came for & haven't regretted the move.

Your family are socialist democrats? I find that surprising, as every family I know that came from USSR, including my parents, are republicans, constantly complaining about taxes, socialism, and excessive government regulation.

[crumbs]

National parks, "unused wilderness," exist only because they are protected -- not because they have no value for anyone but you.  If no laws existed against it, logging companies would log, mining companies would stripmine, developers would develop, hunnters would hunt the shit out of them, etc., etc.  And, of course, people like you & me would go in, clearcut & burn huge tracts of land for farming, and rinse & repeat once the land is depleted.  The "unused wilderness" will get used up in no time. 

Your government and misinformed environmentalist brainwashing is showing.

Logging companies - The biggest logging company on this side of the planet is in Chille. It has been logging the same land for decades, and understands that if it just cut down all the trees and that's it, it would be out of business in no time. So, it tends the land, making sure to cut in ways that keeps the ground fertile, continuously replants new trees, and even created a species of fir that can grow to adult stage within 8 to 10 years, meaning they can replenish the forest in less then a decade. As new technologies in logging and genetic engineering are developed, they hope to cut that by even more years.

More absurdity.  Learn to context.
You're quoting a reply to Anon136, who finds government regulations pertaining to public land morally flawed. Public.  Not private.  The hypothetical logging companies in my example *do not own the land.*  Anon136 feels land as property to be a morally flawed concept, something i happen to agree with on a gut level, though things get messy on a practical level.  I understand your need to be catty, but please, pay attention ffs!  It's not all about you, tiger.

Mining companies - Mining companies strip-mine because they don't own the land. They lease it from the government, strip-mine it, and wash their hands of it, since once they're done, it's no longer their problem. If mining companies were instead required to buy the land, for the full price that it's worth, first, that would immediately cut out any mining company that doesn't know what it's doing, and second, it would impose an enormous cost on the company, one that it will be required to account for and restore. Companies are in it for the profits, and it's more profitable to either be more careful with the land, or to restore it once you're done with it, so you can resell it and recoup your costs. The actual real problem with strip-mining isn't a lack of regulations, it's a lack of company's responsibility/ownership, and the fact that mining regulations are written by the experts working for those mining companies (i.e. they are writing their own regulations).

See above, +:
What responsibility?  With 0 resale value (land is not owned in the Anon136 example) & lack of regulations, blast, strip, move on.

Developers - Developers would only develop if there are people willing to go and use the areas they develop. If you are worried about sprawl & crawl, look at the issues with subsidized oil, roads, and housing that make it cheaper and more convenient to continue to sprawl out into the wilderness, than to live in tightly packed cities as people do in places without those things. Look at Canada, where gas is expensive, downpayments are required, and mortgage interest isn't deductible. LOTS of open wilderness, yet most people live in tightly packed cities.

Hunters - There are private game reserves. If a huge chunk of land happens to be well suited for supporting wild life, the owner would very likely keep it as such, and just charge for the  privilege of hunting. Since that will be his source of income, he would also make sure that the game isn't all hunted out, and will help the animals survive, by making sure the place is kept clean and safe for the animals (minus the threat of hunters).

Farming - Again, the issue is huge subsidies. It's not profitable to farm. Anyone can start doing it, and can undercut everyone else. Farming is exactly like Bitcoin mining in that way (at least during the GPU era). As a farmer, you have little choice as to how much it costs to grow your food. So, the price of your food has to be at least as much as it cost you to grow it. If not enough people want to pay that price, you go broke. If someone else enters the market, and no one wants to pay their food prices either, they go broke. So farmers won't enter the market. The problem we have now is the huge government subsidies. For example, it currently costs more to grow corn than farmers actually sell it for, but they are sustained by those subsidies. As a result, we have WAY WAY WAY more farming than people would actually want to pay for, if they had a choice in whether to pay for it. But as it stands now, we are all forced to "buy" corn, whether we actually buy it at the store or not.

Believe it or not, a lot of this is actually covered in MBA Finance/Economics classes.

Fail.  See what happens when you don't pay attention?

[ErisDiscordia]

What has been really bothering me is that a lot of those who came from there (including my parents) automatically see anything socialist as wrong, and anything opposite as right, so, in their case, they don't like Democrats, and automatically assume that Republicans are good, no matter what. That wasn't really a problem until Bush came into power, and my parents and their soviet friends basically started to wholeheartedly support all the same fascist borderline-totalitarian BS that Soviet Union was known for. Now they're all slamming Edward Snowden as being a traitor to their new "motherland," are are all super-paranoid about those muslims coming to steal our freedoms, and are supporting near totalitarian expansions of powers and military as a result. I swear, it's as if they don't care about what the government does, as long as it doesn't use the words they don't like 

People should read more Korzibsky and realize that the map is not the territory, the menu is not the dinner and any word ending in "ism" is just that - a word, a concept a model and nowhere near fully descriptive of reality. Maybe then they would stop falling prey to false dichotomies this easily. You know things are bad, when your peers think you can be either a democrat or a republican and no other options exist. Then you can be certain, that all higher mental activity has ceased and the person(s) in question are simply acting out whatever programs have been input into their emotion-territorial circuit of intelligence. Similarly a political division into "left" and "right" is a joke as well.

[crumbs]

Yes, i am getting the services i'm paying for, even though i do not want them.  I find some of them not only useless, but bothersome -- i do not enjoy the polite exchanges with doormen, i'd pay a few bucks a month to avoid them, but i have no choice.  The other qualities of my apartment -- location, location, location -- more than make up for the inconvenience.

Likewise, you are getting the services your taxes pay for -- arming statist thugs is one of them.  You may not want the service, but you get it nonetheless, it's *a part of the package,* just like my doormen.  Don't forget to tip them well on Christmas.

Recently, my large format printer broke.
I spent $27 on a serpentine belt.  A cardboard box arrived in the mail (i didn't want the cardboard box, i wanted the belt).
Inside of the cardboard box was packing popcorn (i didn't care for it either, i wanted the belt)
...and another cardboard box (see 1)
Inside was a plastic ziplock bag (do not want.)
Inside of that bag was a smaller plastic bag (do not want)
Inside of *that* bag was the belt (do want!)

As i have hopefully made painfully clear, of all the stuff i was forced to pay for, i only wanted one measly belt -- a glorified rubber band.  I was robbed!!1!

Meh, too easy. You are forced to pay for the apartment things, and safe packaging of your belt, and as a result you get access and use to all the apartment things, and get a belt safely delivered. With government, you are forced to pay for things, A LOT of things, but don't get access to them.

wat  "Access to them"?  You're getting loopy.  If i'm renting a server in a datacenter halfway around the world, do i have access to it?  If i'm dumb as dirt & own PMBs, do i have access to them?  What are you saying?  You'd like to tour an army base or a sub?  Visit a school?  That sort of hands-on access is what you're looking for?  What frickin difference does it make if i have physical access to cardboard boxen & packing popcorn i DO NOT WANT?  It takes time/money to rid myself of those things, i'd rather *not* have access to them.  I'm forced to pay for things i do not want, and then to *pay again* to dispose of them.  At least you never had to leave a sixpack of beer on top of a Tomahawk missile just to make sure the garbagemen took it away

Do you get subsidies for your apartment? Do you get a free cellphone? Do you get access to people's private data like the NSA? Do you even use libraries and schools? No? Then it's not the same. Point is, you are choosing to pay for things, because you like them, and you are getting the things you paid for. With government, you are forced to pay for things, whether you like/need them or not, and most of the things you paid for you never even get. It's no more complicated than that.

I chose to pay for the extra boxes & the dormen, none of which i wanted & would gladly have paid a token amount to be rid of, just like i pay my taxes -- not everything goes toward stuff i would personally choose, but it's a part of the package called "Living in USA," which i find more attractive than the alternatives.  As for you, you're welcome to choose any country that is willing to take you.  Learn to play with others or Happy shopping!

Is your premise that USA government owns all the property in the entire country, and thus has the right to charge maintenance fees on everything and everyone? If yes, why do we bother to buy property from each other, since we don't actually own any of it? If no, then what?

Please answer this question. If you must "explain iRL" to me, which I thought was the whole point of the question, then please do. Then, maybe strain some brain cells and explain to me why you support this iRL the way it is, or why you think it should be changed.

The reason i explain how IRL works is so you may understand it before trying to fix it -- an approach that i found to work fairly well when dealing with broken things.
The reason i "support" IRL is obvious:  No matter how shitty one way of doing things may be, *it is still the best way* unless a better way is found.  Protip: It's not a better way if it doesn't work, or works only in a child's imagination.  While i don't disagree with the Nietzschean notion that a house & its foundation must be destroyed before a better one could be built, there's no reason for the demolition crew to masquerade as builders.  That's just clownish

Is your premise that USA government owns all the property in the entire country, and thus has the right to charge maintenance fees on everything and everyone? If yes, why do we bother to buy property from each other, since we don't actually own any of it? If no, then what?

Regarding your reasons, I guess the follow-up question is, why are you so hostile to even suggestions for better ways? You said "unless a better way is found," yet you attack any and all attempts at trying to find a better way with extreme child-like hostility. Protip: No one is advocating destroying foundations. Based on your protests, like "But how will we have laws and security and blah blah blah without government," it sounds as if you keep assuming that they will be. No one is advocating that, and everyone, including me, keeps pointing out that we already have established bodies of law, structures, and companies to support all those things, and more such supports are being developed every day. The most that will happen is that government will fade out due to simply being irrelevant. Why bother with banking regulations when you have Bitcoin that does the same thing? Why bother with manufacturing regulations when you can have thousands of "hackers" debug and improve your 3D printed devices like they do with Linux? Why bother with things like police, social security, and fire protection, when you can have private security, insurance, and private fir protection and fire suppression systems, all of which work based on the exact same community-supported standards and beliefs as they do now?

I'll answer everything this time, but try to limit yourself to one silly point per paragraph in the future -- this is really getting out of hand.  Onward:
1. Yes, The Gobment partially owns *everything* short of your soul.
2. The reason we pay each other for stuff is we don't get it if we do not.
    Example:  You are unlikely to give me your house if i do not pay for it, even though you know damn well that you don't *really* own it because gobment.
3. I'm not hostile to better ways, i love better ways they are good i must have them.  I'm irritated by *stupid ways.* They shit up the place, making people believe that *everyone* bucking the status quo is an idiot.
4.  Who's everyone?  You're obviously not using the "royal we" here, so who?  There are a few here who loosely share your views, but most people stop in, see how full of fail this thread is, tell you you're nuts & GTFO.
5.  As far as your list of examples, i'll address the only one that has cold hard facts:  Linux.  Linux, a free operating system, makes up 1.28% of desktop operating systems, and doesn't even rate on mobile (no, silly, Google is behind Android).  This is particularly lolzworthy since unlike Linux, Win & osX are far from free.  Try again, tiger.
*i have nothing against linux, use it every day.

The US government does not own you, that's simply absurd.  Unless you're wanted for serious crimes, you can simply walk across the boarder to Mexico.  Freedom!

Everything I do, the government claims to own a piece of. If I create and sell something, they want a portion of my labor. In my eyes, them claiming ownership of my time and labor is pretty much analogous to them claiming ownership of me.

If this place is such a pit, why not do what you suggest to the mothers working for a pittance to feed their kids -- go peddle your ass elsewhere?

Again, why is it that your father can't move you into a house, and then force you to assume ownership of that house, including all the fees that come with it,but my parents can can move me into a country, and then force me to assume ownership of that country, including all the fees involved with that. Or an even better question, why do you think that this is just and should remain that way?

This is nonsense.  You are not forced into anything, at least no more than a landlord forces you to continue renting.  I know loadin'up the truck & moving to Beverly is a pain, but if you don't like the place or the rent?  Somaaalllia!

But I am forced into something. It's colloquially called the "social contract." All my labor and time is partially owned by the government. Even if I move to Somalia, if I don't renounce my citizenship (and consequently place myself on this country's shitlist), I can still be taxed for my time and labor even while living there. Again, the question isn't really how are things working now, it's where do they get this power from?

You have a deeply rooted, albeit poorly defended idee fixe that taxation is theft.  It's unlikely that reason will convince you otherwise, though i'll admit it's fun trying.  As far as war=murder?  These things have almost nothing to do with taxes.  Sure, taxes pay for wars, but *money* pays for wars & people fight them -- does that mean that money & people should be done away with?  Rape, as far as i know, is not caused by taxation, and "Holy F8ck!  I got raped by the IRS!" & "kiss me before you hand me that bill" are just colorful phrases

I am a very logical person. Almost to a fault. You don't have to try to argue or reason with me based on feelings or emotions. All you have to do to convince me is to explain to me why one group of people taking your stuff against your will while giving you nothing in return is theft, while another group of people taking your stuff against your will while giving you nothing in return in taxation. (I'm separating taxes for services I use, like roads, from taxes for things others use and I never will).

Having to show so much fail puts a crack in my monitor.
I go to a computer store, find a monitor just like mine, and start taking it apart -- to get at the LCD panel.
Store clerk walks over and asks WTF
I reply that i don't need the whole thing, i just need teh panel itself.
He patiently tells me they don't sell just the panel, buy the whole thing or GTFO!
I repeat myself.
He repeats himself.
wat do

Regarding war, people will spend money to fight wars they believe need to be fought. I would have been in full support for spending money to go fight Hitler, and likely would have bought war bonds.

So ... that war ain't murder?  The point you wished to make was "some wars are murder"?  Talk about "meh."

The problem is that we don't really have those kinds of wars very often. I was for the Afghanistan war, but not the extended protracted one it became. I was completely and adamantly against the $1.5 trillion dollar Iraq war (though now I think it may be the straw that will have completely broken the government's budget back, and may be the catalyst for it's demise). Yet governments can wage such wars because they force people to pay for them, even if those people don't want those wars. That's a problem.
As for rape, the whole thing was just an answer to you as to why I would still be against government even if I moved to Somalia. I would protest injustice even if it doesn't affect me, as I hope you would protest it even if you weren't the victim.

That's nice i suppose.  I bit rambling, but nice.

What term do you use to describe people who force you, with the threat of either a gun or forced imprisonment, to give them your posessions?

See my  Critique of Jaywalking  Rehashing is only good for coinz.

Ok, follow-up question: What's to stop an entity called government from passing laws against walking on sidewalks, or on your front lawn, or in your house, if the goal was to arrest you? It just seems a bit arbitrary that they would make a rule, but only punish you for resisting arrest after breaking that rule. I mean, hell, you could claim that all major criminals who were in police shootouts weren't punished for their heinous crimes, but were punished because they refused to be arrested, which would make refusal to be arrested the biggest crime in US, punishable by death. And that's just a tad silly.

That's not silly at all.  Criminals who are killed in shootouts are shot not because they are being punished.  Even with absurdities like the Patriot Act, the suspect must be *engaged in endangering lives* before a he could be fired upon by teh law. Regardless of the warm affection i feel towards cops, they aren't intended to be executioners.  You'll get to pay for courts & room & board before anyone gets killed, law-style.  So, no, not silly.

Assuming that you aren't going to be left alone if you simply don't pay taxes, are you OK with the people who work for the government coming to either force you to pay, or take you away, at the point of a gun if need be.

At least as much as i approve of being evicted, at the point of a gun, for refusing to pay rent.  ¡Viva la Revolución!

Which brings us back to the original question: Where does the government get the right to claim ownership of its property? For your landlord, the answer is obvious: he bought and/or built the property you are renting from. The government didn't buy or build it, it just staked a claim to it, like we did centuries ago. Is that the system we should continue to operate under?

You're wrong.  The landlord owns the property (let's keep it simple & make it plain *land* -- we'd get to the same point through a bunch of regressions anyhow) only in the same sense that a tenant farmer owns the land he farms -- as long as the contract's fulfilled (farmer, pay landlord.  landlord, pay state), they "own" the land.  Once the contract's broken (farmer falls behind on rent.  landlord fails to pay taxes), that ownership is ... no more.  Sad but true.

[Rassah]

Your government and misinformed environmentalist brainwashing is showing.

Logging companies - The biggest logging company on this side of the planet is in Chille. It has been logging the same land for decades, and understands that if it just cut down all the trees and that's it, it would be out of business in no time. So, it tends the land, making sure to cut in ways that keeps the ground fertile, continuously replants new trees, and even created a species of fir that can grow to adult stage within 8 to 10 years, meaning they can replenish the forest in less then a decade. As new technologies in logging and genetic engineering are developed, they hope to cut that by even more years.

More absurdity.  Learn to context.
You're quoting a reply to Anon136, who finds government regulations pertaining to public land morally flawed. Public.  Not private.  The hypothetical logging companies in my example *do not own the land.*  Anon136 feels land as property to be a morally flawed concept, something i happen to agree with on a gut level, though things get messy on a practical level.

From what I understood, Anon136's main issue isn't with land ownership, it's with public land ownership, i.e. government. And although he said it would get messy, I am pretty sure he also said that we already have ways of dealing with that mess, leaving it to experts, and NOT that we shouldn't bother changing things, because they will get messy. I may be wrong, but that's what I got from reading his replies.
And, I guess the root of the problem here then isn't laws or regulation, but public vs private ownership.

Mining companies - Mining companies strip-mine because they don't own the land. They lease it from the government, strip-mine it, and wash their hands of it, since once they're done, it's no longer their problem. If mining companies were instead required to buy the land, for the full price that it's worth, first, that would immediately cut out any mining company that doesn't know what it's doing, and second, it would impose an enormous cost on the company, one that it will be required to account for and restore. Companies are in it for the profits, and it's more profitable to either be more careful with the land, or to restore it once you're done with it, so you can resell it and recoup your costs. The actual real problem with strip-mining isn't a lack of regulations, it's a lack of company's responsibility/ownership, and the fact that mining regulations are written by the experts working for those mining companies (i.e. they are writing their own regulations).

See above, +:
What responsibility?  With 0 resale value (land is not owned in the Anon136 example) & lack of regulations, blast, strip, move on.

Responsibility to shareholders or private owners to make a profit. You will make much more in profits if you maintain the resale value, and resell the land, recouping your initial costs, than you will if you just screw it up and abandon it. Same thing applies to most machinery and property companies invest in when they start up or expand their operations. That's, like, business 101 (depreciation and resale value). Land is a very scarce resource, and people would be willing to pay a lot for it. Land that is not owned, or publicly owned, again, is the problem here, and not lack of regulations.

Fail.  See what happens when you don't pay attention?

FYI, though this was a reply to you, it's just general info for everyone else's use as well. So, not everything in my replies is about you.

[crumbs]

Your government and misinformed environmentalist brainwashing is showing.

Logging companies - The biggest logging company on this side of the planet is in Chille. It has been logging the same land for decades, and understands that if it just cut down all the trees and that's it, it would be out of business in no time. So, it tends the land, making sure to cut in ways that keeps the ground fertile, continuously replants new trees, and even created a species of fir that can grow to adult stage within 8 to 10 years, meaning they can replenish the forest in less then a decade. As new technologies in logging and genetic engineering are developed, they hope to cut that by even more years.

More absurdity.  Learn to context.
You're quoting a reply to Anon136, who finds government regulations pertaining to public land morally flawed. Public.  Not private.  The hypothetical logging companies in my example *do not own the land.*  Anon136 feels land as property to be a morally flawed concept, something i happen to agree with on a gut level, though things get messy on a practical level.

From what I understood, Anon136's main issue isn't with land ownership, it's with public land ownership, i.e. government. And although he said it would get messy, I am pretty sure he also said that we already have ways of dealing with that mess, leaving it to experts, and NOT that we shouldn't bother changing things, because they will get messy. I may be wrong, but that's what I got from reading his replies.
And, I guess the root of the problem here then isn't laws or regulation, but public vs private ownership.

I can't expect you to do your own readin', so i plucked this out for you

..."I do not believe that land is private property, to be bought, sold or leased." (yes/no)
Corollary:  "A tenant farmer owns his landlord nothing -- his landlord can not charge rent for something he has not built & can not own." (yes/no)[/b]
...

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yessssss. Oui. Ci. Is that strong enough for you?
...I think a person has a legitimate claim to the things that he builds ontop of land, and so while he doesnt own the land per se, he does own the right to restrict other people from putting their wrecking balls in the place that his house is located with out his permission. ...
You are conflating the idea of private property ownership and land ownership. You are trying to make it seem as if they are the same thing when they are totally different things. you can have a world with private property that doesnt have private land ownership..

if you go out into land that is in a state of nature and you plant a crop, you dont own the land you own the crop. do you understand? You can have it so that if you dont plant a crop there next year it is no longer yours, while still having it so that the person who planted the crop has the right to prevent people from lighting it on fire, and the right to trade the produce with his neighbor.

so incase you didnt figure it out. if the world worked the way i outlined above, farmers would never pay rent to land lords for the land that they farm.

Mining companies - Mining companies strip-mine because they don't own the land. They lease it from the government, strip-mine it, and wash their hands of it, since once they're done, it's no longer their problem. If mining companies were instead required to buy the land, for the full price that it's worth, first, that would immediately cut out any mining company that doesn't know what it's doing, and second, it would impose an enormous cost on the company, one that it will be required to account for and restore. Companies are in it for the profits, and it's more profitable to either be more careful with the land, or to restore it once you're done with it, so you can resell it and recoup your costs. The actual real problem with strip-mining isn't a lack of regulations, it's a lack of company's responsibility/ownership, and the fact that mining regulations are written by the experts working for those mining companies (i.e. they are writing their own regulations).

See above, +:
What responsibility?  With 0 resale value (land is not owned in the Anon136 example) & lack of regulations, blast, strip, move on.

Responsibility to shareholders or private owners to make a profit. You will make much more in profits if you maintain the resale value, and resell the land, recouping your initial costs, than you will if you just screw it up and abandon it. Same thing applies to most machinery and property companies invest in when they start up or expand their operations. That's, like, business 101 (depreciation and resale value). Land is a very scarce resource, and people would be willing to pay a lot for it. Land that is not owned, or publicly owned, again, is the problem here, and not lack of regulations.

Fail.  See what happens when you don't pay attention?

FYI, though this was a reply to you, it's just general info for everyone else's use as well. So, not everything in my replies is about you.

In other words, in a point-by=point reply to my comment, you decided to take a break to pontificate?  Give a business 101 lesson?  Talk about unwarranted sense of self-importance

[Rassah]

wat  "Access to them"? 

If you are paying your landlord for the pool and the doorman, then you get access to the services or use of that pool and doorman.

If i'm renting a server in a datacenter halfway around the world, do i have access to it?

If you are paying for remote access to the server, you get remote access to the server. If you are paying for physical access to the server, you get physical access to the server. Access, as in you are able to use or get benefit for the things you paid for, which you paid for specifically in order to get that use or benefit.

If i'm dumb as dirt & own PMBs, do i have access to them?  What are you saying?  You'd like to tour an army base or a sub? 

I don't know what PMBs are. No, I don't want physical access to an army base or a sub. I would like to get the services that they provide in exchange for me paying for them. And I would like the option of not buying their services if I don't need or want them, too.

Access to services. Like  пoльзoвaтьcя. Learn to english.

I'm forced to pay for things i do not want, and then to *pay again* to dispose of them.

You're forced to pay for them? So now you don't want to be forced to pay for them either? I mean, if you were ok with it, you wouldn't be being forced, you'd be paying voluntarily...

As for you, you're welcome to choose any country that is willing to take you.  Learn to play with others or Happy shopping!

This country is unjust. Most other countries are like this one. I live here too. So it's much easier for you to move elsewhere that's the same as this country, like Europe, Canada, Brazil, or Australia, and for me to try to change things here, than for me to move to a place that doesn't exist yet. So. i.e. you gtfo.

Everything I do, the government claims to own a piece of. If I create and sell something, they want a portion of my labor. In my eyes, them claiming ownership of my time and labor is pretty much analogous to them claiming ownership of me.

If this place is such a pit, why not do what you suggest to the mothers working for a pittance to feed their kids -- go peddle your ass elsewhere?

Remember the robbery/rape/murder thing? Should I explain that again?

You have a deeply rooted, albeit poorly defended idee fixe that taxation is theft.  It's unlikely that reason will convince you otherwise, though i'll admit it's fun trying.

I am a very logical person. Almost to a fault. You don't have to try to argue or reason with me based on feelings or emotions. All you have to do to convince me is to explain to me why one group of people taking your stuff against your will while giving you nothing in return is theft, while another group of people taking your stuff against your will while giving you nothing in return in taxation. (I'm separating taxes for services I use, like roads, from taxes for things others use and I never will).

Having to show so much fail puts a crack in my monitor.
I go to a computer store, find a monitor just like mine, and start taking it apart -- to get at the LCD panel.
Store clerk walks over and asks WTF
I reply that i don't need the whole thing, i just need teh panel itself.
He patiently tells me they don't sell just the panel, buy the whole thing or GTFO!
I repeat myself.
He repeats himself.
wat do

Are you asking me how you can buy a replacement LCD panel? Wait, do you seriously think that's not possible?
And, again, when you are forced to buy the whole monitor, even if all you need is the LCD pannel, you are still getting the whole damn monitor. Let me state this in big letters so you don't have to squint and misread my statements:

YOU ARE EXCHANGING SOMETHING OF VALUE FOR EQUAL VALUE

Does this makes sense? Now, when it comes to taxation, you are exchanging your value for something of LESSER value, because a lot of the value you are giving up goes to someone else. Or, in other words,

YOU ARE EXCHANGING (by force) SOMETHING OF VALUE FOR LESSER OR NO VALUE

Come back to me when you grasp the difference.

Regarding war, people will spend money to fight wars they believe need to be fought. I would have been in full support for spending money to go fight Hitler, and likely would have bought war bonds.

So ... that war ain't murder?  The point you wished to make was "some wars are murder"?  Talk about "meh."

That was a defensive war, and one where murderers, those who agressed first, were punished. If someone is murdering someone else, it's not murder to kill them in defense. Honestly, I would me much more for small precise tactical teams that come in and only take out the people at the top responsible for the crimes. But we didn't have the means or the technology to do that back then.

Ok, follow-up question: What's to stop an entity called government from passing laws against walking on sidewalks, or on your front lawn, or in your house, if the goal was to arrest you? It just seems a bit arbitrary that they would make a rule, but only punish you for resisting arrest after breaking that rule. I mean, hell, you could claim that all major criminals who were in police shootouts weren't punished for their heinous crimes, but were punished because they refused to be arrested, which would make refusal to be arrested the biggest crime in US, punishable by death. And that's just a tad silly.

That's not silly at all.  Criminals who are killed in shootouts are shot not because they are being punished.  Even with absurdities like the Patriot Act, the suspect must be *engaged in endangering lives* before a he could be fired upon by teh law.

So, let's ignore the "why" and focus on the "what" instead. You break a law. It may be a public law, it may be a secret law, it may be just not paying taxes. Next step, people come after you. You don't think you broke any laws, so you don't let yourself get arrested. Next step, people with guns come after you. You get shot. You die.
So, to repeat:
You don't pay taxes -> you don't get arrested -> you get shot.
You smoke weed -> you don't get arrested -> you get shot.
You drive while black - you don't get arrested - you get shot.
You hide some jews in the attic -> you don't get arrested -> you get shot (just to point out that laws aren't always just).

It sounds as if all the laws give you only two options: get arrested, or get shot. And if you don't think you broke the law, or want to resolve the situation peacefully in court without having to wait in jail, or just think that the laws and the goons coming after you with guns or tazers are unjust, you get shot.

No, you're right, it's not silly.

Which brings us back to the original question: Where does the government get the right to claim ownership of its property? For your landlord, the answer is obvious: he bought and/or built the property you are renting from. The government didn't buy or build it, it just staked a claim to it, like we did centuries ago. Is that the system we should continue to operate under?

You're wrong.  The landlord owns the property (let's keep it simple & make it plain *land* -- we'd get to the same point through a bunch of regressions anyhow) only in the same sense that a tenant farmer owns the land he farms -- as long as the contract's fulfilled (farmer, pay landlord.  landlord, pay state), they "own" the land.  Once the contract's broken (farmer falls behind on rent.  landlord fails to pay taxes), that ownership is ... no more.  Sad but true.

Yay! Another explanation of how things work iRL, without actually answering my question! Let me restate it. Please try to focus this time: Where does the government get the right to claim ownership of its property?

Maybe eventually I'll even get to ask you things like "what do we do about these issues, how do we fix them, and what do we do to improve the crappy state of affairs in this country?" But I don't think we're anywhere near that. Especially since I'm pretty sure your answer will be, "Our government consists of the Executive branch, the Legislative, branch, and Judicial branch, and all representatives in the Executive and Legislative and picked by a majority of voters, with all laws being enacted by the Legislative and approved by the Executive"   which, you know, will tell me absolutely nothing new.

[Rassah]

From what I understood, Anon136's main issue isn't with land ownership, it's with public land ownership, i.e. government.

I can't expect you to do your own readin', so i plucked this out for you

..."I do not believe that land is private property, to be bought, sold or leased." (yes/no)
Corollary:  "A tenant farmer owns his landlord nothing -- his landlord can not charge rent for something he has not built & can not own." (yes/no)[/b]
...

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yessssss. Oui. Ci. Is that strong enough for you?

Fine, I guess I was wrong.

FYI, though this was a reply to you, it's just general info for everyone else's use as well. So, not everything in my replies is about you.

In other words, in a point-by=point reply to my comment, you decided to take a break to pontificate?  Give a business 101 lesson?

Yes, because your "Oh woes me! We need the regulations to protect out lands and waters and such, because the evil mean corporations will totally destroy them if we don't!" line is a very common misconception about that thing you love to talk about, that being "how things work in the real world." You very obviously and blatantly stated the exact same BS claim that many other pro-regulation pro-environment types state, and I posted, for your benefit, as well as anyone else's who might hold your view (of which, as I mentioned, is many) that in the "real world" government employees are low-paid, low-skilled types who often don't understand what they are regulating (if they did, they'd be working for the company they are trying to regulate), in the "real world" regulations are written by the experts, which happen to be the lawyers working for the companies the regulation is written for, in the "real world" regulatory laws are passed by senators influenced by lobbyists working for the company to be regulated, not by the voting representatives of those senators, and in the "real world" regulations often don't do anything other than help establish the large companies as monopolies, or make the crimes against nature perpetrated by those companies technically "legal."
When was the last time someone(s) at the head of a mining, oil, or hell, even banking industry went to jail, or even had to pay a fine?

[crumbs]

From what I understood, Anon136's main issue isn't with land ownership, it's with public land ownership, i.e. government.

I can't expect you to do your own readin', so i plucked this out for you

..."I do not believe that land is private property, to be bought, sold or leased." (yes/no)
Corollary:  "A tenant farmer owns his landlord nothing -- his landlord can not charge rent for something he has not built & can not own." (yes/no)[/b]
...

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yessssss. Oui. Ci. Is that strong enough for you?

Fine, I guess I was wrong.

Thank you for a direct & concise reply.

FYI, though this was a reply to you, it's just general info for everyone else's use as well. So, not everything in my replies is about you.

In other words, in a point-by=point reply to my comment, you decided to take a break to pontificate?  Give a business 101 lesson?

Yes, because your "Oh woes me! We need the regulations to protect out lands and waters and such, because the evil mean corporations will totally destroy them if we don't!" line is a very common misconception about that thing you love to talk about, that being "how things work in the real world." You very obviously and blatantly stated the exact same BS claim that many other pro-regulation pro-environment types state, and I posted, for your benefit, as well as anyone else's who might hold your view (of which, as I mentioned, is many) that in the "real world" government employees are low-paid, low-skilled types who often don't understand what they are regulating (if they did, they'd be working for the company they are trying to regulate),

Don't mean to be rude & break your run-on, but are you suggesting we raise taxes, so we could increase the pay of government employees & attract creme de la creme candidates?  Fabulous idea!  Just might work!

in the "real world" regulations are written by the experts, which happen to be the lawyers working for the companies the regulation is written for, in the "real world" regulatory laws are passed by senators influenced by lobbyists working for the company to be regulated, not by the voting representatives of those senators, and in the "real world" regulations often don't do anything other than help establish the large companies as monopolies, or make the crimes against nature perpetrated by those companies technically "legal."

Whew.  Thank goodness i didn't wait for this sentence to end.  IRL regulations are written by people who write regulations, and not by "lawyers working for the companies the regulation is written for."  What you're asking, OTOH, is for those regulations to be stripped altogether!  On what grounds?  On the grounds that the companies which are to be regulated had a say in them   gasp! 

When was the last time someone(s) at the head of a mining, oil, or hell, even banking industry went to jail, or even had to pay a fine?

Your reasoning:  I try steering this car, and still i bump into stuff once in awhile.  I'm just going to take my hands off the wheel & see how that goes!

[FirstAscent]

I can't expect you to do your own readin', so i plucked this out for you

..."I do not believe that land is private property, to be bought, sold or leased." (yes/no)
Corollary:  "A tenant farmer owns his landlord nothing -- his landlord can not charge rent for something he has not built & can not own." (yes/no)[/b]
...

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yessssss. Oui. Ci. Is that strong enough for you?
...I think a person has a legitimate claim to the things that he builds ontop of land, and so while he doesnt own the land per se, he does own the right to restrict other people from putting their wrecking balls in the place that his house is located with out his permission. ...
You are conflating the idea of private property ownership and land ownership. You are trying to make it seem as if they are the same thing when they are totally different things. you can have a world with private property that doesnt have private land ownership..

if you go out into land that is in a state of nature and you plant a crop, you dont own the land you own the crop. do you understand? You can have it so that if you dont plant a crop there next year it is no longer yours, while still having it so that the person who planted the crop has the right to prevent people from lighting it on fire, and the right to trade the produce with his neighbor.

so incase you didnt figure it out. if the world worked the way i outlined above, farmers would never pay rent to land lords for the land that they farm.

This is just such idiocy (what anon is saying), that it becomes impossible to have a discussion with these people. If he were willing to educate himself on things he knows nothing about, then it might be worthwhile, but he refuses to believe he needs to know more about land usage.

Changing an ecosystem is a serious matter. It has far reaching consequences, related to water quality, biodiversity, erosion, general ecosystem resources, etc. I pointed out to him a post I wrote a long time ago, but he just closes his ears.

I'll just repeat the post here, for the lazy, such as Anon:

To begin with, many species do not reproduce well in captivity. It took 112 years to yield a successful Sumatran rhino calf. Furthermore, poachers are simply not likely to expend such efforts, even if sanctioned, as it's much more profitable to simply poach, i.e. go out into the wild and kill. One need only look at the case of shark fins to understand the cost dynamics. Secondly, you are failing to acknowledge the public backlash in breeding megafauna for the cruel purpose of maiming (or in the case of pelts) killing the animal.

Before we go on, let's enumerate some well known cases of poaching:

- Gorillas for bushmeat
- Elephants for ivory
- Sumatran rhino for their horns
- Sharks for shark fins
- Tigers (and other big cats) for their pelts

Cattle are not killed for their horns or hooves alone. Cattle is an industry, and it does not analogize well. Most of the public accept the cattle industry. Most of the public do not accept killing animals which are endangered for specific parts, usually decorative. All of a cattle's parts are used when killed. This includes muscle tissue, organs, bones, hides and hooves. As an example, did you know that gummy bears are made from cow hooves?

I can sense that at this point, you might feel poised to counter some of the points I've made, and if you took one or two individually, you might feel that you'd have a case. But we haven't even begun, as I haven't yet shared with you what the real reason is for why I declared your statement to be based on false assumptions.

So let's begin. Some of the following material is derived from posts I have written in the past, but I think it will have greater effect if I merge it together here with a few edits and additions. Please read it through thoroughly.

Ever heard of the Spotted Owl and the controversy surrounding it? What was all that about?

The Spotted Owl is a top level predator in the northwest. It was declared an umbrella species (otherwise known as a keystone or flagship species), and listed as endangered. The timber industry had an issue with this. Here's why. The purpose of listing the Spotted Owl as an umbrella species was because in order to preserve the Spotted Owl population, the old growth forests in the northwest would have to be preserved as well. That meant the timber industry would not be allowed to harvest existing old growth forests.

Why are old growth forests important? Because they offer what are called ecosystem services. Secondary growth forests do not offer all those ecosystem services, nor at the same level that the old growth forests do. And that's it in a nutshell. It has been demonstrated that the Spotted Owl can live in secondary growth forests, but it cannot viably breed in secondary growth forests.

Thus, species such as the Spotted Owl are declared umbrella species to act as a protective umbrella for their respective environments as a way to protect those environments in perpetuity, because once they're all gone, the possibility of regaining all those ecosystem services that those ecosystems provide is pretty much nil.

Biodiversity, it's very definition, implies diversity, which arises from the existence of thousands, tens of thousands of species within any given ecosystem. This then results in the ecosystem being able to provide its services, known collectively as ecosystem services. The goal is to protect biodiversity by protecting ecosystems. A general technique for doing so is to declare a top level species within its respective ecosystem as endangered (because it is endangered or will become extinct if its ecosystem is destroyed) as an umbrella species. The ecosystem is then preserved under the umbrella of the umbrella species. This protects biodiversity.

Myrkul provided an example of relocating the Scimitar Oryx to a Texan hunting preserve as an example of species preservation, but it is not a case of protecting biodiversity.

As long as we don't disrupt natural ecosystems, they will provide everything listed below:

- Freshwater supply and flood control
- Generation and maintenance of soils
- Ocean flood protection
- Natural pest control
- Amelioration of the weather
- The cycling of nutrients
- Pollination of plants

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, published in 2005, breaks it down like this:

Supporting Services:

- Nutrient cycling
- Soil formation
- Primary production
- Preservation of genetic resources

Regulating services:

- Climate amelioration
- Flood control
- Agricultural pest control
- Water purification

Provisioning services:

- Food
- Timber and fiber
- Fresh water
- Fuel

Cultural services:

- Esthetic
- Spiritual
- Educational
- Recreational

Other disruptive effects to the ecosystem services enumerated above include harvesting resources (collateral damage), toxic waste, atmospheric pollution, garbage waste, over harvesting (fish), pesticides, noise, etc.

What disrupts the above?

Reduction in the number of top level predators. Top level predators, such as raptors, wolves, cats, etc. regulate the ecosystem by preventing overgrazing of vegetation, which plays a role in providing habitat to the smaller organisms, all the way down to the microscopic level, which in turn plays a role in nutrient cycling, water purification, soil formation, etc. In other words, top level predators ultimately affect the health of the entire ecosystem. This process, where top level species affect the environment as a cascading effect are known collectively as trophic cascades.

As an example, let's examine the case of wolves. Numerous species of wolves were eradicated in the twentieth century (by cattle ranchers, incidentally). As it turns out, it was determined that they played a role within the dynamics of the ecosystems. Their elimination resulted in a deleterious effect on the ecosystem services, due to the removal of a trophic cascade effect.

When in the presence of wolves, ungulates generally do not browse in riparian zones. Riparian zones are the areas of rich vegetation along the banks of streams, creeks and rivers. The reason ungulates do not browse in such areas when wolves are present is because their escape route is hindered by the slopes of the river bank, the body of water itself, and the denser vegetation. When wolves are removed, ungulates in general decimate the vegetation in these riparian zones, which in turn results in habitat loss for numerous species, typically beginning with rodents, and cascading all the way down to the microscopic level, where numerous species exist within the soil. This loss of habitat within the riparian zones results in a huge loss of ecosystem services, including nutrient cycling, soil formation, flood control and water purification

Edge effects are another disrupting process to ecosystems and the ecosystem services they provide. Typically, property ownership is the cause. The fracturing of an ecosystem disrupts its viability, by inhibiting migration, reducing territorial area needed by top level predators (see above), and this ultimately reduces biodiversity, which reduces genetic information, a resource required for medicine, material science, engineering, computer science, etc.

Edge effects are a direct result of ecosystem fracturing, which will be defined and discussed. There is a whole cascade of effects and interrelated issues that apply here. They are:

- The importance of wildlife corridors
- The dangers of ignorance
- Exploitation via corporations
- Lack of regulation
- Solutions via private enterprise
- Habitat loss
- Information loss
- Bioproductivity loss
- Natural capital
- Water quality
- Trophic cascades
- Policies

The list goes on. And on.

The whole substrate upon which humanity, society, and life depend on begin in the soil and water (essentially our planet), as nourished by the incoming sunlight from above.

Here's a thought for you: the very complex systems which naturally occur within the soil and above the soil define everything we have to support ourselves and they define everything we have available to educate ourselves (outside cosmology and related fields). There is more going on here than you think. Humanity thus far has been built from those systems, but humanity itself is also depleting, fracturing (and thus destroying) the very systems which allowed it to come this far.

Edge effects: What are they? Imagine a parcel of land that is fairly large and of a particular shape, mostly undisturbed. Let's say it's unspoiled rainforest. We'll begin with a circle 100 miles in diameter.

The circle: A circle 100 miles in diameter has an edge that is 314 miles long. It's area is a little more than 7,500 miles. The ratio of area/edge is 7,500/314 which equals about 24.

The fractal shape: A fractal shape with an area of 7,500 miles but with a ragged edge that is 1,000 miles long has a ratio of area/edge of 7,500/1,000 which equals 7.5.

Among the two shapes described above, each say being a rainforest ecosystem, the circle will generally be healthier and more viable. What does this mean? The circle, will in general, be richer in all of the following:

- Number of species
- Lower extinction rate
- More nutrients within the soil
- Lesser vulnerability to drought, heat, cold, etc.
- More information, complexity and potential knowledge to be discovered within
- Greater productivity within: (i.e ability to nourish, support and grow)
- Ability to support larger fauna

A circle was used above as an example. One could just as easily substitute a square instead and get similar results. Therefore, consider a square 100 miles on a side. It has a ratio of area/edge of 10,000/400 which equals 25.

Assuming that square contains rainforest (but it could just as easily be another type of ecosystem), let's now fracture it. We'll turn it into a checkerboard of 64 black and white squares. Black are rainforest squares. White are squares burned to remove the trees, and then tilled for agriculture.

Our total area of rainforest within the checkerboard is now half what it was. The original square contained 10,000 square miles of rainforest. It now contains 5,000 square miles of rainforest. But look at the change in rainforest edges. The original square had only 400 miles of rainforest edge. The checkerboard has 1,600 miles of rainforest edge.

And so we can get a sense of the difference between these two extents of land. Recall that the unspoiled square had 10,000 square miles of rainforest and total edges measuring 400 miles with a ratio of 25. Look at the ratio of the fractured checkerboard to get a sense of how less rich its potential is. It's ratio is 5,000/1,600 which equals 3.125.

Compare the two numbers: 25 vs. 3.125.

What are some cases which cause edge effects?

Repurposing of land: Examples include agriculture, urban and suburban sprawl, etc.

Clearcutting: Clearcutting by the timber industry creates edge effects. Make no mistake about it - the ecosystem has been changed, and replanting of trees will not revert the area back to the original ecosystem in a period equal to the time it takes for the newly planted trees to mature. The original forest was an old growth forest, and when the newly planted trees finally mature, the resulting forest will be a secondary growth forest, which does not provide the same environment as the original old growth forest.

Roads: Going back to the circle example, if a road is placed through the center, then an edge effect is created. Depending on the type of road and how busy it is, the effect is dramatic. Essentially, you end up with two areas, each half the area of the original circle, and each area having an edge length not much less than the original circle. This is one of the reasons (among many) why there is such opposition to the idea of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It's not just the idea of potential damage from oil spills (which is real), but the road systems which would need to be built to access the enterprise.

Fences: Land left in its natural state, but fenced, also creates an edge effect. A very damaging example would be the fence proposed along the U.S./Mexico border by certain politicians.

That's a start. Let me know when you want more, as there is plenty more...

[FirstAscent]

Above post pretty much decimates Rassah's reverence for a timber company in Chile.