134 replies to this topic

[AdamSummerfield]

R&D: Internet was created by DARPA and CERN together. Space exploration achieved by governments worldwide, exclusively until recently which has had trickle down effects on other industries. Sometimes forced development of something highly important benefits everything.
Also, if you look at history, great empires, with relatively great qualities of life, have grown out of some forced existence of learning. The libraries and academies of Greece in the antiquity started all western ideas and technology.
The Royal Society was created by the English monarch - the British Empire and modern science were the result.

Debunked above.

The thing is - without government space agencies we would not have gone to the moon when we did, as there would have been no economic incentive for privateers to build the rockets and fly there ( because - to get what from there ? ).

Where would the money have been spent if it wasn't taken through taxation and spent (inefficiently) by NASA? The moon landing didn't really achieve anything, it was merely a fireworks display.

[AdamSummerfield]

Right now for example the issue of software patents, patentabsurdity(good free short documentary on the issue), is an area were the law is giving massive powers to corporations.

This is just another reason to privatise dispute resolution and law enforcement.

The large corporations gaining patent portfolios that can be used to litigate into submission or oblivion any smaller corporation. Devoid of such patents, the larger corporations could very well steal any unique idea that might give a small corporation an edge, but at least there would be a fighting chance.

If there are no patents, the larger corporation has no exclusive right to what they stole. It becomes open source, right? I think that in practise absence of IP rights don't discourage innovation, it also decreases end product prices (examples in the pharmaceutical industry include the price dropping by a factor of ten once IP monopoly laws removed).

[AdamSummerfield]

Two questions. In a Rothbardist society,

1) What role would regional development agencies play?
2) What would happen to boundaries - ward, county, and state? I ask because specifically wonder how a police force would be funded - by a city as a whole or by individuals? How would their jurisdiction be made clear on their squad cars? "NE Derbyshire Police" makes little sense to me because the U.K. Government wouldn't exist and so neither would NE Derbyshire. How would one know when one is moving into an area in which a different law enforcement agency is operating?

I realise that was more than two questions, but two lines of enquiry.

[Cameron]

This is just another reason to privatise dispute resolution and law enforcement.

Who's going to stop power concentration in the private law enforcement field? What will be stopping monopolies or oligopolies from occurring?

Nations, throughout history, have been unable to stop power from concentrating and've been unable stop force being used to subdue the population. What's to stop the corruption from taking root, time and again it's happened corruption has spread through the private landscape bypassing or circumventing all sorts of regulations. It would seem that lack of regulation would only hasten the process.

What makes corporations different from human societies, which often succumb to such problems? That is what makes fictional entities, corporations, immune to this? It's but a bunch of frivolous paperwork holding a group of men together. And paper cannot stand against the sword.

If there are no patents, the larger corporation has no exclusive right to what they stole. It becomes open source, right? I think that in practice absence of IP rights don't discourage innovation, it also decreases end product prices (examples in the pharmaceutical industry include the price dropping by a factor of ten once IP monopoly laws removed).

I do not think the abolition of IP laws will all of a sudden make things substantially better for the small guys. An inventor will not be able to capitalize on his invention if much better knock-offs can be thrown together quickly by large corporations.

[chris w]

R&D: Internet was created by DARPA and CERN together. Space exploration achieved by governments worldwide, exclusively until recently which has had trickle down effects on other industries. Sometimes forced development of something highly important benefits everything.
Also, if you look at history, great empires, with relatively great qualities of life, have grown out of some forced existence of learning. The libraries and academies of Greece in the antiquity started all western ideas and technology.
The Royal Society was created by the English monarch - the British Empire and modern science were the result.

Debunked above.

The thing is - without government space agencies we would not have gone to the moon when we did, as there would have been no economic incentive for privateers to build the rockets and fly there ( because - to get what from there ? ).

The moon landing didn't really achieve anything, it was merely a fireworks display.

Repeating after Val :

From Telegraph

Professor Martin Ward, Head of Physics at Durham University, and a former consultant to the European Space Agency, said: "Apart from the sheer wonder of seeing on live TV grainy images of man on the Moon, many people might ask 'What has the Moon ever done for us?'.

"There are superficial justifications for visiting our nearest neighbour, one being that space technology saw the advent of non-stick frying pans.

"However, the Apollo programme also pushed forward computer technology and the miniaturisation of electronics which benefit our lives today."

One can justly argue that for such a big hype it's not that big a deal in the end, but still I wouldn't call the operation of, for the first time in history of life on Earth, succesfully sending and bringing back in one piece a living organism to another celestial body merely a fireworks display, if it was fireworks, then that of a true wizard's stage. The single fact that it was achieved and for everybody to see in realtime TV I think took the recognition of importance and the abilities of science among people in the West to a whole new level, and politically it was the most significant blow to USSR in that time proving to both the rest of the world and themsleves that technologically they won't be able to keep up in the long run - thus bringing democracy a little step closer.

Also, would the current Mars projects have the funding they have and the feasebility, or would anyone consider this at all, if we had never yet been to our natural satelite first ? You don't run before you walk, right ? My guess is that if the human landing hadn't happen then ( with the pressure of ideological race of that time ), then a chance is we wouldn't be talking about it at all right now. Sorry if I messed the tenses here.

Where would the money have been spent if it wasn't taken through taxation and spent (inefficiently) by NASA?

Cadillacs and kitchens ?

If NASA did what was planned in 100%, then I'd say it was spent efficiently enough.

Edited by chris w, 15 June 2010 - 01:24 PM.

[platypus]

This is just another reason to privatise dispute resolution and law enforcement.

Who's going to stop power concentration in the private law enforcement field? What will be stopping monopolies or oligopolies from occurring?

History tells us that nothing will. Anarchy is not a stable state-of-affairs.

[e Volution]

The moon landing didn't really achieve anything, it was merely a fireworks display.

Just recently I watched a new TEDTalk by the engaging particle physicist Brian Cox: Why we need the explorers

He said regarding the Apollo program and costs:
"What's also not often said about the space exploration, about the Apollo program, is the economic contribution it made. I mean while you can make arguments that it was wonderful and a tremendous achievement and delivered pictures like this, it cost a lot, didn't it? Well, actually, many studies have been done about the economic effectiveness, the economic impact of Apollo. The biggest one was in 1975 by Chase Econometrics. And it showed that for every one dollar spent on Apollo, 14 came back into the U.S. economy. So the Apollo program paid for itself in inspiration, in engineering, achievement and, I think, in inspiring young scientists and engineers 14 times over. So exploration can pay for itself."

He also mentions as Al Gore has said it many times; regarding the earth rise photo taken on Apollo 8 "arguably, was the beginning of the environmental movement. Because, for the first time, we saw our world, not as, well, a solid, immovable, kind of indestructible place, but as a very small, fragile looking world just hanging against the blackness of space."

Edited by icantgoforthat, 15 June 2010 - 02:52 PM.

[Alex Libman]

As mentioned above, I can no longer permit myself to spend much time on this forum, so the endless saga of "Alex Libman promoting Anarcho-Capitalism" will have to continue on several dozen other forums but not here, at least until I find this thread exposed to Googlebot. Other people are obviously welcome to continue this debate in other directions if they so choose. I'll still reply to a few choice points, but my presence here will be gradually winding down.

As I explained to valkyrie_ice before, his religious faith that future technological advances will encourage any sort of a socialist utopia is completely unfounded. In reality technological advances tend to empower the individual, make education a lot more attainable, enable more informed market decisions, lower the cost of living relative to human effort, allow for more accurate tracking of externality costs, and otherwise destroy the 19th century socialist grievances for which his ideas have typically been marketed. The pushers of socialism are always looking for new propaganda tactics, with "environmentalism" being their most successful recent discovery, and this LIGHTSTUNNEL.PDF seems to represent yet another one of their tactics. All of their ideas over the past centuries ultimately boil down to "my emotions justify my violence", and there is no reason to believe that their ideas in the 21st century be any different. The socialists now want you to be afraid of the future, and to hide under their skirts lest your job becomes swallowed by an evil robot. The realistic future of free market capitalism -- where most people work for themselves, own their own means of production (and/or investments elsewhere), and can afford to live very well while working just a few hours a week -- is the socialists' worst nightmare.

I agree that "anarchy is not a stable state-of-affairs", and if you ever meet an anarchist in real life please give him a big kick in the balls on my behalf. Your confusion of the term "Anarcho-Capitalist" with "anarchist" is similar to me ordering a vegan chickpea falafel (not that I ever eat "fast food" or anything fried) and getting one made from dead birdflesh instead. Anarchy is dysfunctional and unstable because it creates a power vacuum (which to a lesser extent is also true of any statist system because individuals are disarmed and the governmental power monopoly is corrupt and ineffective), but in free market capitalism that power vacuum is abundantly filled with logically-indisputable Natural Rights, as well as well-informed and well-armed individuals who take the term "live free or die" quite literally.

If "Cadillacs and kitchens" is your idea of all that human beings are capable of spending their money on in a voluntary society, then the whole point of this thread has escaped you completely. Transhumanism is a perfect example of the insatiable human thirst for new discoveries and advances in our standard of living! Even if you could live to be 1000 years old while maintaining the level of health all modern 20-year-olds can only dream of, you'll still want to live longer and better, which, since we live in a tangible universe, will require resources that must be brought into the economy and processed within it. It should be up to each human being to decide for himself whether he wants a new Cadillac or a vacation in space, new kitchen counter-tops surfaced with New Hampshire mined granite or space asteroid mined platinum, a $7600 coffee pot for some useless pencil-pusher or a down-payment on a life-enhancing medical procedure, etc, etc, etc.

If going to the moon was a good idea then it would have been best achieved without government force - perhaps by educating people on why it is a good idea so that they would be willing to invest money in it voluntarily. The claims that the Apollo program (which ran from 1961 to 1975) brought a 1400% return on investment are most certainly greatly exaggerated, but to put them in context Apple Computer stock attained 7800% capital gains over the past 14 years! (And that's ending in a depression, and not counting the reinvested dividends!) Apple didn't have to throw anyone for life in prison for refusing to invest in their company - they were able to attract investors on the basis of merit. With spaceflight we cannot compare private to governmental achievements because the government has stifled the private sector's ability to reach space, but the difference probably would have been as drastic as the difference with Soviet government-made cars, computers, etc. The free market might have waited until navigation computers weighed grams instead of tons before planting any flags on the moon, but it still would have been ahead of the government's stalled space program by now due to the near-limitless profits that can be made from things like asteroid mining.

Edited by Alex Libman, 15 June 2010 - 05:43 PM.

[chris w]

And it showed that for every one dollar spent on Apollo, 14 came back into the U.S. economy[/b]. So the Apollo program paid for itself in inspiration, in engineering, achievement and, I think, in inspiring young scientists and engineers 14 times over. So exploration can pay for itself."[/i]

He also mentions as Al Gore has said it many times; regarding the earth rise photo taken on Apollo 8 "arguably, was the beginning of the environmental movement. Because, for the first time, we saw our world, not as, well, a solid, immovable, kind of indestructible place, but as a very small, fragile looking world just hanging against the blackness of space."

Space - Keynesism, me likey...Al Gore is the cheesiness king.

Edited by chris w, 15 June 2010 - 05:53 PM.

[rwac]

As mentioned above, I can no longer permit myself to spend much time on this forum, so the endless saga of "Alex Libman promoting Anarcho-Capitalism" will have to continue on several dozen other forums but not here, at least until I find this thread exposed to Googlebot. Other people are obviously welcome to continue this debate in other directions if they so choose. I'll still reply to a few choice points, but my presence here will be gradually winding down.

That's a great excuse for ducking out of the argument. You might have to find a new one when this thread is indexed again.

[Cameron]

...free market capitalism that power vacuum is abundantly filled with logically-indisputable Natural Rights, as well as well-informed and well-armed individuals who take the term "live free or die" quite literally.

Without a government I don't see many natural rights being honored, the rights to clean air, water, food, fair wage? I just don't see it, the masses are simply not smart enough, propaganda is enough to keep them questioning evidence for decades or indefinitely in some cases(even thing like the roundness of the earth, the age of the planet, the landing on the moon, evolution, etc). And a man with a gun is nothing compared to a well established military force. Countries were the government has failed to secure the lands, and were militias run rampant kidnapping, extorting, selling drugs, etc. They don't seem to be doing too well with the reduction in regulation due to a less effective more corrupt government letting them have their lower regulation ways.

As for the comments on lightstunnel, I think we can't simply dismiss it with the "we'll create more jobs!" mantra. The book addresses that response quite aptly. In my opinion, once unemployment reaches say something like 30~% for a few years and measures to remedy that are exhausted with no effect, the government will be forced to take action. It used to be a time when a high school degree was enough, now even bachelors degrees are found lacking, and even Phds go unemployed, machines and off-shoring have raised the bar that high. And sorry adding super PHd ain't going to make the job exponentially harder, there are limits to human capacity.

[chris w]

I apologize for falling behind with this thread. I've made a stupid harebrained mistake of failing to notice that some parts of this forum are blocked from public view, including this thread, which means my efforts can fall down the memory hole at any time. This greatly reduced the amount of time I can permit myself to spend on this forum...

Do I smell attention seeking issues ?

[chris w]

The pushers of socialism are always looking for new propaganda tactics, with "environmentalism" being their most successful recent discovery

It's hillarious that even when there isn't an apropriate opportunity to convey the "Warming is a freud" message, you will make one.

All of their ideas over the past centuries ultimately boil down to "my emotions justify my violence", and there is no reason to believe that their ideas in the 21st century be any different.

This has as much merit as me saying about Randianism boiling down to "my egoism justifies my indifference", on purely psychological level - I think that's the case in many individuals, but I won't use it as a serious argument more than once, because it's not discussable rationally, whereas you seem to be a fan of such attacks.

The socialists now want you to be afraid of the future, and to hide under their skirts lest your job becomes swallowed by an evil robot.

Funny that it happens to be you who is the biggest fearmonger here, constantly saying how the governments in the comming future will throw all of us into dungeons and slaughterhouses if they're not overthrown by the example set by seasteders and the like.

The realistic future of free market capitalism -- where most people work for themselves, own their own means of production (and/or investments elsewhere), and can afford to live very well while working just a few hours a week -- is the socialists' worst nightmare.

Did it ever occur to you, that you may be projecting your own situation into the whole rest of social reality ? If those "evil robots" swallow the low paid jobs, then you really think that people for example in the beaches of Bangladesh that live from ship - breaking for scrap metal will all of the sudden become succesfull computer programmers and investors ? And not like they will just be left with nothing ? You just say "things will be fine". And actually I would think that the picture of the future of capitalism that you paint here is the socialists' greatest wet dream, because we could all get lazy then as obviously all socialists fantasize their whole lifes

I agree that "anarchy is not a stable state-of-affairs", and if you ever meet an anarchist in real life please give him a big kick in the balls Anarchy is dysfunctional and unstable because it creates a power vacuum (which to a lesser extent is also true of any statist system because individuals are disarmed and the governmental power monopoly is corrupt and ineffective), but in free market capitalism that power vacuum is abundantly filled with logically-indisputable Natural Rights, as well as well-informed and well-armed individuals who take the term "live free or die" quite literally.

Because all of history points that humans are always very much into respecting what is logically indisputable, right ? Your belief in the wisdom of people is ... unbelievable. It's not like for example majority of them in XXI century still believe in good and bad deities that are watching over ? If I'm basically to hope that the "well armed and well informed individual" doesn't blow my head because it's against logic, then I won't take my chances, thank you. This place is when you border on the methaphysical, you seem to expect that in the next century not only will we have robots and stuff, but also somewhere along the way human nature will substantially change from insatiably greedy and violence - prone to rational and enlightened, circling around the logical Sun of Natural Rights that are supposedly rationally invincible . I'm affraid that the sad truth about humans is that to curb these instincts since the dawn of time, most of them have always needed external source of moral regulation in the form of religious traditions and the idea of possible eternal punishment and also state's armed authority to back this order and still it constantly failed to do the job, with only minority with a different attitude, and it looks like you think this minority will become majority, because it's only the government's violence and paternalism that's holding humanity back from achieving this.

If "Cadillacs and kitchens" is your idea of all that human beings are capable of spending their money on in a voluntary society, then the whole point of this thread has escaped you completely. Transhumanism is a perfect example of the insatiable human thirst for new discoveries and advances in our standard of living! Even if you could live to be 1000 years old while maintaining the level of health all modern 20-year-olds can only dream of, you'll still want to live longer and better, which, since we live in a tangible universe, will require resources that must be brought into the economy and processed within it.

Ok, so exactly how many people do you know today, that find the idea of living for a 1000 years not only acceptable, but would also be willing to invest ANY of their money into such endevour ? I don't know if you noticed, but majority of humanity today feel like they don't need indefinite lifespans because they have an immortal soul and when they die, they will go to a place of bliss and not just dissapear as a conscioussness which would be the most logical thing according to the present state of science. Their ignorance formidably hinders your and my chances of reaching the level of technology that we need, so I'm not very keen on waiting as they finally realise that it would be better not to check for yourself if there is an afterlife and start to invest in longevity tech, and I don't think it's rational in our situation to cut some hands ( governmental ) of the deck because they don't suit you ideologically. Using one of your favorite phrases - if tomorrow The Mommy Government decided to launch a new Manhattan Project to scientifically conquer the aging process, most of these ignorant people would think "well, if the government thinks it's good, then it must be good" and I don't know about you, but I definitely would not try to talk them out of it, even if we both knew that it would be just a manifestation of people's herd thinking and intelectual conformism. The growing problem with aging of the western societies is what in the next decades might indeed push governments in that direction if they are rational enough, and I hope they realise this soon enough for us to get on the train.

Edited by chris w, 17 June 2010 - 05:44 PM.

[chris w]

Apple didn't have to throw anyone for life in prison for refusing to invest in their company - they were able to attract investors on the basis of merit.

This indeed is a sad story, life long prison is atrocious concerning the magnitude of their crimes, moreover after reading the article I would say that Browns' place is definitely not in prison but in mental institution, you took "enemy of my enemy is my friend" to a whole new level. Still, what you forgot to mention is that :

At a news conference on October 5, 2007, U.S. Marshal Monier said that even more charges against the imprisoned Edward and Elaine Brown are now likely: "By their continuing actions, allegedly, to obstruct justice, to encourage others to assist them to obstruct justice, by making threats toward law enforcement and other governmental officials, they have turned this into more than a tax case.

Some pearls of wisdom from the Browns:

Once you've used the lawful word, you've done it the absolute proper way, and they still come at you, they are now attacking the Creator himself or itself,… You kill them. That is exactly what the Ten Commandments tell you to do.

We're not conspiracy theorists," Brown said, settling into a chair on his unfinished concrete porch. "We deal with conspiracy facts. Freemasonry and Judaism—that is the truth. That is the fact. That is where all the world's problems come from… I know for a fact that they're working together.

This is the beginning of one very huge movement. I'm not quite sure you understand the ramifications of what's going on right now. This is massive. This is international. We are fed up with the Zionist Illuminati. That's what this is all about. Loud and clear. Zionist Illuminati. Lawyers, whatever they are, okay, it's going to stop. And if the judge is a member of that, I know that McAuliffe [the Federal judge in Brown's tax case] is, I know that U.S. Attorney Colantuono is, they'd better stop. This is a warning

Once this thing starts, we're going to seek them out and hunt them down. And we're going to bring them to justice. So anybody wishes to join them, you go right ahead and join them. But I promise you, long after I'm gone, they're going to seek out every one of you and your bloodline.

The 1994 article reported that Brown believed the militia was setting up its own "courts… for the purpose of taking back America".

Brown said yesterday [August 9, 2007] that if those agents kill him or his wife, Elaine, his supporters will systematically find and kill Plainfield Police Chief Gordon Gillens, Sullivan County Sheriff Michael Prozzo and others Brown says are sworn to protect him.

"The United States does not have any employees because there is no longer a United States"; "There are no judicial courts in America and there has not been since 1789"; "There have not been any Judges in America since 1789"; "The Revolutionary War was a fraud"; "America is a British colony"; "Britain is owned by the Vatican"

All this, together with

twenty "suspected pipe bombs," nine "destructive devices," bags of high explosives hanging in the trees, smoke grenades, materials for partially constructed nail bombs, two .50-caliber rifles, 18 other guns, and over 60,000 rounds of ammunition.

and that

in 1960, Ed Brown was found guilty of assault with a dangerous weapon and armed robbery in connection with an attack on a man in Somerville, Massachusetts.

makes me think that these are not the kind of people I would want to shake hands with. But what do I know, my avatar says it all.

Edited by chris w, 17 June 2010 - 05:57 PM.

[chris w]

Dude, now seriously, just because I disagree with you on stuff doesn't mean I don't respect you afterall, you manage to keep your posts both artfully trollish and thoughtful whenever you hold yourself from high sounding propaganda, you seem like an OK person and I don't want some other armed bunch of paranoid rednecks that you decide to become allies with against the US government to hurt you, because in their lunacy they one day conceived that all Jewish people are natural ZOG collaborators even if they claim to be antigovernment. You said that Browns didn't have a problem with your ethnicity, but judging from this idiocies they uttered, it could very well go either way. Do what you like, just do Transhumanism a favor and watch out for your freedom lovin' ass, please.

Edited by chris w, 17 June 2010 - 07:01 PM.

[RandomNoobie]

Ed Brown defended himself against aggression. It is unlawful for another person, even if they call themselves the government, even if they bring with them a hundred men with guns, to steal the property of another man. It is lawful for him to defend his property with deadly force. Ed Brown is a hero for standing up to the most powerful and most evil gang of thugs in the entire world.

[RandomNoobie]

A man with a gun is nothing compared to a well established military force. I could not agree more. This is exactly the trouble with government. The truth about the world is that might makes right, and the powerful can do whatever they want and the powerless can only complain and submit. We would like to think that there is justice and greatness, but there is not, there is only power. There is no right to food or water. Rights are only negative demands. I have the right not to be molested by you or anyone else. You have the right that others may not lawfully take your property or damage it. There is no right to a job, right to health care, because these so called positive rights imply that someone must give these things to you. Who then is to be made your slave so that you must not provide for yourself?

You have the right to a fair wage - but fair to me means whatever someone is willing to pay you, and whatever you are willing to work for. Minimum wage laws simply outlaw specific types of labour and do nothing to raise wage rates (which, it is well known in economics, are determined solely by the marginal productivity of the worker). You mention pollution - which isn't really relevant to the issue of rights - but it is most clearly understood as the tragedy of the commons. Who owns the air and the water? In our current system, no one, or everyone. Why were the trout over fished? It is the tragedy of the commons. Have you ever lived with several housemates? Is it not easier to keep your own apartment clean? WHY? Because what everyone owns, no one takes care of.

Your criticism of a stateless society is the essential Hobbesian one, that absent a state we would see a war of all against all. But if this is true, if mankind is so inherently destructive that should our chains be unshackled we would all turn into wild beasts foaming at the mouth ready to kill one another, how is it then that the individuals who lead the state, who are, after all, of the same genetic stalk as the rest of us, supposed to be peaceful and calm, serene and unwarlike? What special qualities does the man from the state have that separate him from the savage condition of the rest of us?

As for why things are not getting better economically (well, first I dispute this, but I will leave that alone and posit what you are saying is true for the sake of discussion), perhaps it is because there is an organization controlling society which does not produce wealth but consumes roughly half of what is produced every year? What great wonders we could achieve, in every field, were this great albatross not hanging from our neck...

[EmbraceUnity]

Your criticism of a stateless society is the essential Hobbesian one, that absent a state we would see a war of all against all. But if this is true, if mankind is so inherently destructive that should our chains be unshackled we would all turn into wild beasts foaming at the mouth ready to kill one another, how is it then that the individuals who lead the state, who are, after all, of the same genetic stalk as the rest of us, supposed to be peaceful and calm, serene and unwarlike? What special qualities does the man from the state have that separate him from the savage condition of the rest of us?

That is exactly it, they don't need to be of a superior genetic quality, they just need unenlightened self-interest at minimum and anything more than that is just a bonus. Once a person is in power, it is in their self-interest to keep crime rates down so that they can collect taxes from the prosperity that results when crime is low. Also, of course, having a relatively content and prosperous people means you are less likely to be overthrown. In the case of democracy, since taxes don't go directly to a monarch, this later point is the more pertinent one.

I want to eliminate hierarchy as much as anyone, but I'm not so naive as to think we can just sweep it away. There are numerous systemic factors - think natural selection at the level of nation-states - which makes it extremely unlikely that seasteading or anarchy will become a predominant social form, barring techno-utopian scenarios like in the Culture series by Iain Banks. I can elaborate more on these systemic factors if you are interested.

[chris w]

<!--quoteo(post=414089:date=Jun 17 2010, 03:22 PM:name=RandomNoobie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RandomNoobie @ Jun 17 2010, 03:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=414089"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Your criticism of a stateless society is the essential Hobbesian one, that absent a state we would see a war of all against all. But if this is true, if mankind is so inherently destructive that should our chains be unshackled we would all turn into wild beasts foaming at the mouth ready to kill one another, how is it then that the individuals who lead the state, who are, after all, of the same genetic stalk as the rest of us, supposed to be peaceful and calm, serene and unwarlike? What special qualities does the man from the state have that separate him from the savage condition of the rest of us?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

That is exactly it, they don't need to be of a superior genetic quality, they just need unenlightened self-interest at minimum and anything more than that is just a bonus. Once a person is in power, it is in their self-interest to keep crime rates down so that they can collect taxes from the prosperity that results when crime is low. Also, of course, having a relatively content and prosperous people means you are less likely to be overthrown. In the case of democracy, since taxes don't go directly to a monarch, this later point is the more pertinent one.

want to eliminate hierarchy as much as anyone, but I'm not so naive as to think we can just sweep it away.

Right,I could only here add that simply looking at today's political reality ( I mean in stable democracies ) shows that indeed there's no need for some magical power to keep those wicked instincts among those in power relatively harmless - why don't we see accidents in Europe or US where the government that just lost an election says "No,we're staying" ? It is even seen as very inapropriate politically if for example a president aims to mess with the constitution to elongate his term or something like that.

[chris w]

Ed Brown is a hero for standing up to the most powerful and most evil gang of thugs in the entire world.

Had Ed Brown gone on a killing spree, if this war that he was hoping for indeed broke, where would he go with his guns, judging from his own words ? To masonic lodges ? Synagogues ? Would he shoot random policemen, random prosecutors ? You really, really think that each one of the officers of those who arrested him, each one of the judges who conducted his trials is an inhuman servant of an atrocious dark circle of power, yet Ed Brown to you is somebody more than an ill, hateful tape worm ? You can call a hero a man who wanted to "hunt down" other people, from which many of would not even know why they had to die of his hand ? Hey I think actually if they succeeded with „the courts to take back America” and other nice stuff, then (according to the definition pushed around here often by libertarians ) Mr and Ms Brown would become a government lol ! Some heroes you guys choose to have.

Edited by chris w, 21 June 2010 - 03:28 PM.

[rwac]

It is even seen as very inapropriate politically if for example a president aims to mess with the constitution to elongate his term or something like that.

Thing is, it may be hard to mess with things directly, but that doesn't stop politicians attempting to undercut our freedoms by applying all sorts of regulations that sound nice on the surface.

[Cameron]

Your criticism of a stateless society is the essential Hobbesian one, that absent a state we would see a war of all against all.

I don't see an endless war, but the concentration of power and the creation of a new state like entity only one without a constitution by the people or voting rights. In fact if corporations can continue to grow in power across nations, they might eventually hold enough power to take the powers away from them.

As for the comment on wages. I don't see how a vast population who does not own enough lands to sustain themselves, can obtain a fair-wage past a certain point in levels of automation. Worker productivity has also been constantly going up while wages have been virtually stagnant, all wealth sucked up to the owners and high execs, and unemployment has not been significantly falling down.

Accordingly to this state-free idea, we're to assume all state help and unemployment benefits should be removed from the 10% unemployed, they should be left to starve to death. Or the absence or the state will miraculously create 100% employment, and without laws the handicapped will be voluntarily employed or those unable to work provided the equivalent of social security benefits. When it has been the laws that have just diminished discrimination, and not even eliminated it, and it has been the law which has provided the means of survival for those unable to work.

[chris w]

It is even seen as very inapropriate politically if for example a president aims to mess with the constitution to elongate his term or something like that.

Thing is, it may be hard to mess with things directly, but that doesn't stop politicians attempting to undercut our freedoms by applying all sorts of regulations that sound nice on the surface.

Yeah, but to me this is more of an argument for a)strong checks and balances b) participating in the debates on vital issues wherever you live, watching lawmakers' hands and trying to keep people aware of the importance of looking deeper than the surface, so that they do their homework and vote concsiously in their own interest and not for the guy who happended to be the taller candidate and with whiter teeth. Whereas it looks to me like you guys want to throw the baby together with the bath water instead of doing ammends where they're needed.

Edited by chris w, 21 June 2010 - 07:51 PM.

[valkyrie_ice]

As mentioned above, I can no longer permit myself to spend much time on this forum, so the endless saga of "Alex Libman promoting Anarcho-Capitalism" will have to continue on several dozen other forums but not here, at least until I find this thread exposed to Googlebot. Other people are obviously welcome to continue this debate in other directions if they so choose. I'll still reply to a few choice points, but my presence here will be gradually winding down.

As I explained to valkyrie_ice before, his religious faith that future technological advances will encourage any sort of a socialist utopia is completely unfounded. In reality technological advances tend to empower the individual, make education a lot more attainable, enable more informed market decisions, lower the cost of living relative to human effort, allow for more accurate tracking of externality costs, and otherwise destroy the 19th century socialist grievances for which his ideas have typically been marketed. The pushers of socialism are always looking for new propaganda tactics, with "environmentalism" being their most successful recent discovery, and this LIGHTSTUNNEL.PDF seems to represent yet another one of their tactics. All of their ideas over the past centuries ultimately boil down to "my emotions justify my violence", and there is no reason to believe that their ideas in the 21st century be any different. The socialists now want you to be afraid of the future, and to hide under their skirts lest your job becomes swallowed by an evil robot. The realistic future of free market capitalism -- where most people work for themselves, own their own means of production (and/or investments elsewhere), and can afford to live very well while working just a few hours a week -- is the socialists' worst nightmare.

I agree that "anarchy is not a stable state-of-affairs", and if you ever meet an anarchist in real life please give him a big kick in the balls on my behalf. Your confusion of the term "Anarcho-Capitalist" with "anarchist" is similar to me ordering a vegan chickpea falafel (not that I ever eat "fast food" or anything fried) and getting one made from dead birdflesh instead. Anarchy is dysfunctional and unstable because it creates a power vacuum (which to a lesser extent is also true of any statist system because individuals are disarmed and the governmental power monopoly is corrupt and ineffective), but in free market capitalism that power vacuum is abundantly filled with logically-indisputable Natural Rights, as well as well-informed and well-armed individuals who take the term "live free or die" quite literally.

If "Cadillacs and kitchens" is your idea of all that human beings are capable of spending their money on in a voluntary society, then the whole point of this thread has escaped you completely. Transhumanism is a perfect example of the insatiable human thirst for new discoveries and advances in our standard of living! Even if you could live to be 1000 years old while maintaining the level of health all modern 20-year-olds can only dream of, you'll still want to live longer and better, which, since we live in a tangible universe, will require resources that must be brought into the economy and processed within it. It should be up to each human being to decide for himself whether he wants a new Cadillac or a vacation in space, new kitchen counter-tops surfaced with New Hampshire mined granite or space asteroid mined platinum, a $7600 coffee pot for some useless pencil-pusher or a down-payment on a life-enhancing medical procedure, etc, etc, etc.

If going to the moon was a good idea then it would have been best achieved without government force - perhaps by educating people on why it is a good idea so that they would be willing to invest money in it voluntarily. The claims that the Apollo program (which ran from 1961 to 1975) brought a 1400% return on investment are most certainly greatly exaggerated, but to put them in context Apple Computer stock attained 7800% capital gains over the past 14 years! (And that's ending in a depression, and not counting the reinvested dividends!) Apple didn't have to throw anyone for life in prison for refusing to invest in their company - they were able to attract investors on the basis of merit. With spaceflight we cannot compare private to governmental achievements because the government has stifled the private sector's ability to reach space, but the difference probably would have been as drastic as the difference with Soviet government-made cars, computers, etc. The free market might have waited until navigation computers weighed grams instead of tons before planting any flags on the moon, but it still would have been ahead of the government's stalled space program by now due to the near-limitless profits that can be made from things like asteroid mining.

And as expected, a long winded justification on "Why I refused to read the book lest it possibly make any impression in the iron rigidity of my belief system."

[valkyrie_ice]

A man with a gun is nothing compared to a well established military force. I could not agree more. This is exactly the trouble with government. The truth about the world is that might makes right, and the powerful can do whatever they want and the powerless can only complain and submit. We would like to think that there is justice and greatness, but there is not, there is only power. There is no right to food or water. Rights are only negative demands. I have the right not to be molested by you or anyone else. You have the right that others may not lawfully take your property or damage it. There is no right to a job, right to health care, because these so called positive rights imply that someone must give these things to you. Who then is to be made your slave so that you must not provide for yourself?

You have the right to a fair wage - but fair to me means whatever someone is willing to pay you, and whatever you are willing to work for. Minimum wage laws simply outlaw specific types of labour and do nothing to raise wage rates (which, it is well known in economics, are determined solely by the marginal productivity of the worker). You mention pollution - which isn't really relevant to the issue of rights - but it is most clearly understood as the tragedy of the commons. Who owns the air and the water? In our current system, no one, or everyone. Why were the trout over fished? It is the tragedy of the commons. Have you ever lived with several housemates? Is it not easier to keep your own apartment clean? WHY? Because what everyone owns, no one takes care of.

Your criticism of a stateless society is the essential Hobbesian one, that absent a state we would see a war of all against all. But if this is true, if mankind is so inherently destructive that should our chains be unshackled we would all turn into wild beasts foaming at the mouth ready to kill one another, how is it then that the individuals who lead the state, who are, after all, of the same genetic stalk as the rest of us, supposed to be peaceful and calm, serene and unwarlike? What special qualities does the man from the state have that separate him from the savage condition of the rest of us?

As for why things are not getting better economically (well, first I dispute this, but I will leave that alone and posit what you are saying is true for the sake of discussion), perhaps it is because there is an organization controlling society which does not produce wealth but consumes roughly half of what is produced every year? What great wonders we could achieve, in every field, were this great albatross not hanging from our neck...

What part of "MAN IS A PACK ANIMAL" escapes your comprehension?

Destroy a state, go ahead. I guarantee you within six months a NEW STATE will have been established. Eliminate a government, and a new one will form. destroy a social hierarchy, and WE WILL INSTINCTIVELY CREATE A NEW ONE.

Government is not the problem. It never has been and never will be. HUMAN SOCIAL INSTINCTS are the problem and always has been. Human social instinct forces us to create a social hierarchal structure, create a pecking order within it, and then expend every single bit of our effort beyond mere survival in striving to better our status within it. Greed is nothing but a drive to improve social status, to accumulate more "status symbols" to prove ones social value to which ever preferred mate you desire. Your concept of the "free market" does NOTHING to solve this. Instead, it merely gives it free license to allow the absolute worst excesses of human status seeking to occur. You bitch about "the law of might" and you utterly IGNORE the fact that you do nothing but plead for that very form of rule with your every breath. WHY? Because you are CONVINCED that if you had free reign to do things your way, YOU WOULD BE THE NEW ALPHA DOG.

And you are so pathetic in your non stop whining about how oppressed you are because you are not free to force everyone to make you their "glorious leader" at gunpoint.

[valkyrie_ice]

QUOTE (RandomNoobie @ Jun 17 2010, 03:22 PM) Your criticism of a stateless society is the essential Hobbesian one, that absent a state we would see a war of all against all. But if this is true, if mankind is so inherently destructive that should our chains be unshackled we would all turn into wild beasts foaming at the mouth ready to kill one another, how is it then that the individuals who lead the state, who are, after all, of the same genetic stalk as the rest of us, supposed to be peaceful and calm, serene and unwarlike? What special qualities does the man from the state have that separate him from the savage condition of the rest of us?

That is exactly it, they don't need to be of a superior genetic quality, they just need unenlightened self-interest at minimum and anything more than that is just a bonus. Once a person is in power, it is in their self-interest to keep crime rates down so that they can collect taxes from the prosperity that results when crime is low. Also, of course, having a relatively content and prosperous people means you are less likely to be overthrown. In the case of democracy, since taxes don't go directly to a monarch, this later point is the more pertinent one.

I want to eliminate hierarchy as much as anyone, but I'm not so naive as to think we can just sweep it away. There are numerous systemic factors - think natural selection at the level of nation-states - which makes it extremely unlikely that seasteading or anarchy will become a predominant social form, barring techno-utopian scenarios like in the Culture series by Iain Banks. I can elaborate more on these systemic factors if you are interested.

So, let me ask you this then. Are you willing to force 100% of humanity to undergo genetic modification to remove the biological instincts which force us to create hierarchal structures and seek status within them?


BTW, be aware that those instincts are directly tied to our mating instincts, sex drive, and reproductive biology. Removing them means eliminating sex entirely from the human race.


No?


Then you better start thinking of systems to COPE WITH AND WORK AROUND SUCH INSTINCTS rather than supporting systems that are guaranteed to promote the worst excesses of those instincts.

[valkyrie_ice]

It is even seen as very inapropriate politically if for example a president aims to mess with the constitution to elongate his term or something like that.

Thing is, it may be hard to mess with things directly, but that doesn't stop politicians attempting to undercut our freedoms by applying all sorts of regulations that sound nice on the surface.

Yeah, but to me this is more of an argument for a)strong checks and balances b) participating in the debates on vital issues wherever you live, watching lawmakers' hands and trying to keep people aware of the importance of looking deeper than the surface, so that they do their homework and vote concsiously in their own interest and not for the guy who happended to be the taller candidate and with whiter teeth. Whereas it looks to me like you guys want to throw the baby together with the bath water instead of doing ammends where they're needed.

Until just recently, we have never had the technological means to actually do this. That is the main difference between today and every time period in the past.


Democracy has indeed been just a mobocracy, in which a very small percentage of the population even understood the issue, let alone had an opinion on it.


Every anti-government type I have ever dealt with, regardless of political beliefs has been exactly the same. "I'm not in charge, and if things were done my way, I would be!"


It doesn't matter if they are a conspiracy theorist, a radical liberal, a gun crazy conservative or a "AN-CAP" randian. It's all the same whine.

[JLL]

What part of "MAN IS A PACK ANIMAL" escapes your comprehension?

Destroy a state, go ahead. I guarantee you within six months a NEW STATE will have been established. Eliminate a government, and a new one will form. destroy a social hierarchy, and WE WILL INSTINCTIVELY CREATE A NEW ONE.

Government is not the problem. It never has been and never will be. HUMAN SOCIAL INSTINCTS are the problem and always has been. Human social instinct forces us to create a social hierarchal structure, create a pecking order within it, and then expend every single bit of our effort beyond mere survival in striving to better our status within it. Greed is nothing but a drive to improve social status, to accumulate more "status symbols" to prove ones social value to which ever preferred mate you desire. Your concept of the "free market" does NOTHING to solve this. Instead, it merely gives it free license to allow the absolute worst excesses of human status seeking to occur. You bitch about "the law of might" and you utterly IGNORE the fact that you do nothing but plead for that very form of rule with your every breath. WHY? Because you are CONVINCED that if you had free reign to do things your way, YOU WOULD BE THE NEW ALPHA DOG.

And you are so pathetic in your non stop whining about how oppressed you are because you are not free to force everyone to make you their "glorious leader" at gunpoint.

Not one of your strongest posts, valkyrie_ice.

The free market does not attempt to get rid of man's greed. The voluntarist approach simply means that every man is free to be greedy, to hoard things and money and whatever pleases them, as long as they don't violate the rights of others in the process.

Yes, it allows the worst excesses of human status to occur, but as long as it involves only voluntary transactions between two parties, what is the harm in them? If I'm so greedy that I want to make a million, and my plan is to make a million by selling expensive cars, what is the harm in that? I am not hurting anyone. If I do make that million, it means that my customers preferred to hand over their cash in order to purchase one of my fancy cars. A voluntary transaction. Both parties win.

The government, on the other hand, allows for the same excesses of human status to occur, but it does not need voluntarism to achieve this. It can and does use force and violence. It can give me a shitty car and charge me money for it, simply because it has the firepower to do so.

Nothing in the government reduces man's greed. On the contrary, governments are by nature greedy, since it is only greedy people who yearn for political power.

[JLL]

Every anti-government type I have ever dealt with, regardless of political beliefs has been exactly the same. "I'm not in charge, and if things were done my way, I would be!"

No... I think you have it wrong. Or, if you have indeed met only people who are looking to be in charge, allow me to say that "I'm not in charge, and if things were done my way, no one would be".

And by "charge" I mean power that relies on violence... I don't mean a world where restaurants have no one in charge.

[valkyrie_ice]

Not one of your strongest posts, valkyrie_ice.

The free market does not attempt to get rid of man's greed. The voluntarist approach simply means that every man is free to be greedy, to hoard things and money and whatever pleases them, as long as they don't violate the rights of others in the process.

Yes, it allows the worst excesses of human status to occur, but as long as it involves only voluntary transactions between two parties, what is the harm in them? If I'm so greedy that I want to make a million, and my plan is to make a million by selling expensive cars, what is the harm in that? I am not hurting anyone. If I do make that million, it means that my customers preferred to hand over their cash in order to purchase one of my fancy cars. A voluntary transaction. Both parties win.

The government, on the other hand, allows for the same excesses of human status to occur, but it does not need voluntarism to achieve this. It can and does use force and violence. It can give me a shitty car and charge me money for it, simply because it has the firepower to do so.

Nothing in the government reduces man's greed. On the contrary, governments are by nature greedy, since it is only greedy people who yearn for political power.

You really don't get it, do you JLL? Even after posting your own definition of government for me.

THERE WILL ALWAYS BE A GOVERNMENT. Period. End of line. Put any group of people together, doesn't matter who they are, or what they believe in. They will ALWAYS SELF ORGANIZE INTO A HIERARCHAL STRUCTURE.

Organizing into a hierarchal structure is an instinct. It is hardwired. Built right into our DNA. We cannot escape from that.

So feel free to try your "government-less society". I guarantee you that it will inevitably result in a "Chain of Command" AKA a "GOVERNMENT"

Why you cannot accept that fact despite all of human history pounding that little lesson home, I simply cannot understand.

And the solution you propose does nothing to address this fact. It does the precise opposite of your intent. Rather than solving a problem, i.e. "the use of force", you instead describe a system in which the use of force becomes MANDATORY, and in which every person must be willing to engage in violence to simply survive. You think universal arming of all people would result in peace, yet history has shown repeatedly this is not the case. People with weapons USE THOSE WEAPONS TO GET THEIR WAY.

THIS IS HARDWIRED TO THE POINT THAT EVEN CHIMPANZEES OBEY IT! http://news.discover...r-behavior.html

Chimpanzees, our closest primate relatives, engage in war-like behavior to gain territory, new research finds.

The findings, published in the latest issue of Current Biology, explain why chimpanzees sometimes brutally kill their neighbors. The killings are most often done by patrolling packs of male chimps that are "quiet and move with stealth," according to lead author John Mitani of the University of Michigan.

To the victors go similar spoils of early human wars: land, often-improved security and strength, extra food and resources, and even better access to females.

Try to rationalize it as you will, you cannot expect instincts to simply cease to function, or expect every human to behave as you seem to expect.

Edited by valkyrie_ice, 24 June 2010 - 07:53 PM.