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Journal isotope23's Journal: Property and ownership rights 23

Journal by isotope23

Well, the debate with spun is proving interesting. Rather than lose the thread I'm moving to my journal.

"Yet, according to your interpretation all other property is public. It follows that the constituent elements from which I am made were once public property. Thus either I am public property, or through possession of the elements of which I am made they become mine and thus not all property is theft."

False dichotomy. You don't own you. No one owns you. You aren't the materials you are made up of. On average, in seven years time you won't have a single same atom in your body that you have today.

Wait a second....

Is there such a thing a public property? From your perspective it sounds as though you believe this to be the case, and that all property springs from public property. How can this be reconciled with your statement above? "You don't own you. No one owns you." My body is property, as a tangible physical item it must be.

So working from that assumption, I must be either public or private?

Unless you think that there is no such thing as property, or do you think there are two classes,
property and UN-property?

You aren't the materials you are made up of. On average, in seven years time you won't have a single same atom in your body that you have today.

You are dodging the point here IMO. I may not be the same atoms seven years from now, but for the purposes of argument let us take the state of my body at this particular moment. I am made up of a certain set of atoms, which for the next few moments at least will remain 99% the same. By using these atoms I am depriving you and all other parts of the universe of choice. I do in effect have temporary control of them. What better definition is there of ownership than control of a thing?

Please expound upon your view that I do not own myself....

Because before someone owned the resource, everyone shared it. Anyone could use it.

Yet at the moment they use a thing do they not control it and thus own it?

"Natural rights would then be the unabriged natural abilities which do not conflict between individuals."
Perhaps a clearer statement of my position needs to be made. At some point in our history man lived by unwritten "laws". Most likely in a tribal-village status. What I am trying to get to is the very bedrock of the social contract when mankind lived the closest to his natural state.

Besides that, the right of property does conflict between individuals. You take it, I can't use it, why should I agree to that?
 If it is property which you did not know existed or were unable to use, how can you or anyone else make a claim?

You may not agree with it. This is why we have conflict. Society is an attempt to judge how reasonable our conflicting claims are and to protect the better of the two.

For example: let us take the example of a farmer in africa. If both of us were to go there and try to use his lands, chances are the farmer AND his neighbors would think our claim most unreasonable. They would most likely defend his claim over ours. We would expect our neighbors to do the same for our property located here.

Look, I'm not saying the concept of property is bad, I just want to hear some good reasons for it.

The best reason I can think of is survival.
Through the ownership of propery I can better gauge my chances of survival for myself and my offspring.

As it is, I think of property as a contract. The rest of us agree that you can exclude us from it in exchange for you upholding the same right in us, and contributing to the common good.

I would take the stance that defense of property is a contract. I agree to help defend what you claim is yours if you help defend my claim. The common good is that together we stand a better chance of defending our own property.

I used to be a hard core anarchist. Not the bomb throwing kind (a media myth to discredit the movement) but the Trotsky kind.

I am somewhere between Minarchist and CLASSICAL Liberal.

However, I think for self governance to work, things need to be far more equitable and fair than they are now.

Not defending the current system, yet who said life was equitable or ever would be?

There are huge imbalances in the distribution of wealth that do not arise from merit.

I assume you mean by inheritence???

I admit I am uncomfortable with the current wealth distribution, yet should one not have the expectation of passing one's hard earned prosperity to your progeny?

The excellent and hard working should receive more than the lazy and stupid. But no one is worth hundreds or thousands of times more than another.

Yet there must be cases where this is so. Example a "peasant" farmer who is merely self sufficient versus a doctor who invents a new medical device which saves millions of lives.

I agree that we tend to place these valuations in the wrong areas IMO. (Lawyers, Actors, Atheletes) Yet they are voluntary so it is a true quandry.

Property rights are important for a healthy society. but it is important to realize where they really come from. They don't come from our ability to take and hold property by force.

You think so? I would say the basis for all rights is your ability either individually or collectively to defend them. If we are unable to defend our rights, then they will be taken away the first time we come into conflict over them. Indeed if I rely on society to protect my claim to property it will be done through force if needed.

Wait, you mean everyplace in the world is owned by someone, and you are excluded from most of them? Oops.

I am excluded from much of the world because of the nebulous Public ownersip of property which nation-states claim. They have laid claim rightly or wrongly through the fact of "being there first" for the most part, in addition to the ability to defend those claims with force.

You are free to leave the country at any time. Start your own.

Really? try to give up your citizenship without gaining another. You will be unable to leave the country (short of sneaking out). You will be unable to find work. In addition the US now has laws claiming if you give up citizenship you still owe the US taxes for up to 10 years. I hardly find that voluntary.

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Property and ownership rights More

Property and ownership rights

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  • Rather than respond to specific points you have made , I'll just make my points. Quoting back stuff someone said is a drag. It's right there! If I can keep a concept straight in my head, I should be able to lay it out so people know what I am talking about without having to re-quote specific points. Sometimes I think that style comes from a kind of intellectual laziness, but I do it all the time anyway.

    There is private property, public property, and non-property. Non-property is anything not being used exc
    • The can of worms is indeed a large one. (Just thinking about that has kept me up more nights than I care to remember)

      It would seem to me that morality is based upon the assumption of free will. If there is no free will, then by judging my actions you are attempting to judge the actions of the universe at large, a futile and meaningless gesture.

      Getting back to property vs public property vs non-property. If public property is property claimed for the exclusive use of a certain group backed by the threat of
      • I would say that on one level, an easy definition of morality is one of the reasons why the illusion of free will is important. However, as I believe that morality is an important concept, I also believe there is a deeper foundation to it, and that foundation is utility. A much less romantic basis than free will, to be sure, and one that I came to after long denying its necesity. But utility is the ultimate basis for all value systems in my essentially valueless universe. How does this value system benefit
        • Yet if morality is based simply on utility we must come to the conclusion that if the benefits of the majority outweigh the benefits of the minority, then the majority can "morally" take property through force in some circumstances. If morality is based solely upon numbers there can be no solid foundation for morality.

          Moral Justifications can be made for ANY action if in the opinion of the majority it benefits them more than the individual. When people identify with a group, they tend to feel protected, th
          • I believe I pointed out that the majority is made up of individual minorities of one. It is not some thing-unto-itself. If all individuals realize that they are individuals, and thus potentially need protection from the collection of individuals known as the majority, they will act in their own best interests to enact a system protecting the rights of any minority. This is the only rational basis for rights, "I will uphold and defend this right for you if you do so for me." A simple, some might even say gol
            • I believe you missed the point I was trying to make regarding individuals versus groups.

              I think that by joining a group the individual conscience can be submerged within it. The sense of belonging promotes a false sense of security, thus actions by the group against an idividual who does not belong generate no sense of empathy.

              Example, the nazis and the holocaust. By belonging to "the party" I am sure the individual felt no guilt for its actions. However, I am fairly sure that if you had asked the majorit
              • A valid moral code must be based on the voluntary interactions between two or more persons when those interactions have absolutely no impact on uninvolved parties. For example, my previous point about pollution. Just because I agree to let you dump toxic waste on my land doesn't mean it's right. Similarly, If I lay claim to some land and sell it to you, it is only morally proper if I have a proper claim in the first place, and I posit that a proper moral claim to property comes about not through mere posess
                • Considering your example of pollution. Assuming I was to allow someone to dump waste upon my land, I would have an obligation to ensure that the waste did not leave. I think we must also take intent into count. If it was my intent to keep the waste upon my own land (I build a containment pond etc.) and it flowed downstream obviously I have failed in my duty to respect others, and am honor bound to correct the problem. I am bound not only because of equitibilty, (my social contract with my neighbors) but bec
                  • You write as if people in the individual sense were noble and good and everything they do as individuals should be respected, but gather them into a society and they become selfish monsters who act with callous disregard for the poor noble individual.

                    Groups can just as easily be held accountable for their actions as can individuals. Assuming you have the power to do so. If I have a machine gun, I can hold a whole village of stone weilding peasants accountable. If I am a stone weilding peasant, I certainly
                    • I fully admit that individuals can act in reckless ways. Where we differ is I think is that an individual leading a group has more power, and thus more prone to act in an irresponsible manner, and can do much greater damage.

                      I prefer to believe that individuals without the fear of punishment from above will act in a responsible manner for the most part. In short people should be treated like thinking reasoning beings, responsible for their choices, not irrational animals to be led from point A to B.

                      How exa
                    • Founding a society on anything but moral relativism is founding it on a lie. Perhaps Plato was right, and we need the noble lie, but I prefer to believe, as you do, that human beings are reasoning beings responsible for their choices.

                      Here's the rub. Anyone can claim anything as a basis for protest, and if others don't buy into the concept, that basis is moot. You can get into a huff that others don't buy your concept that God says its The Right Thing/it's your Natural Rights/the Great Green Arkleseizure s
                    • You claim that moral relativism is and should be the basis for society. How exactly can an action deemed immoral for an individual to commit become moral for the individual to commit when acting on behalf of a group (i.e. other individuals)? I think you cannot change the moral yardstick because you are always dealing with the actions of individuals.

                      To use your example the individual can attempt to justify his actions, his theory: (I do this for the group) is absolutism as well. The group is always right.

                      I
                    • Good old Lazarus Long. He influenced my thinking as well. Ever read "The Dispossessed" By Ursula K. LeGuin? Her books are a great counterpoint to what some might call the escapist male fantasies of Heinlein. His later stuff especially got a bit out of hand in the oversexed female character department. Not that I minded that at the time I read those books ;-) I also recommend reading a recent author, China Meiville, if you like your science fiction on the philosophical side. And as a side note, you may want
                    • LOL talk about synchronicity!

                      One of my wife's friends just gave her "The dispossessed" for me to read. Frankly I had no idea he even read, let alone read any sci-fi.

                      For some reason your comments are in tune with Robert Anton Wilson's stuff. I am almost finished with Schrodingers cat.

                      With regards to differing morality, I can see differing mores from culture to culture. I think when you travel to another culture you have a duty to find out what they deem as acceptable skin, no skin etc.) as for causing unn
                    • Busy day yesterday, we finally got a hold of Voltaire and it turns out that they do support ROCKS 4.0, they just don't have a roll disk yet, only RPMs. Now we can't get the darn head node to recognize the Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet. The built in tg3 driver in the kernel isn't cutting the mustard, but luckily Broadcom has their own open source driver.

                      You know, I met Robert Anton Wilson once. I was helping a friend give a presentation at a conference in 2000 put on by disinformation.com. He was speaking too,
                    • Strange what a small world this can be. I've never met wilson, but I met Timothy Leary once. He was in town with G Gordon Liddy of all people! I had a nice chat with him after the event about computers and their use in imprinting new behaviors.

                      I don't think I give the game away at all. First, an issue of semantics, you stated that property ownership is a right granted by society. If granted it must be a privilege not a "right". I think where we differ is the foundation we are arguing from.

                      My belief is tha
                    • No, no, I agree, the individual is the basis. And a group is made up of individuals. You only have the rights that others agree to uphold in you. They are not granted, they are negotiated. I know this sounds cynical, but plenty of people have died protesting their rights were being abuse, and having the moral high ground won't stop a bullet. I'm being pragmatic here.

                      Your whole claim boils down to the concept of unused land. Well, you have to go back tens of thousands of years to find any. All land has been
                    • From a pragamatic side, whoever owned the land 1000 years ago is moot. Indeed the same issue 1000 years from now is moot assuming we do not live that long.

                      I acknowledge that I can better defend my property through reciprocity. However it is not based solely upon reciprocity. It is based upon my willingness to defend it on my own if need be. Indeed all my rights are based upon this principle.

                      The problem I have is the claim upon land by society as a whole. For example over 75% of the land in Arizona is owne
                    • Inflation is part of the problem. Not many people understand how our monetary system really works, how wealth is magically created out of nothing. Did you know that banks are allowed to lend more than they actually have? They can lend imaginary money! The percentage of money they actually have to have versus how much they can lend is set by the Federal reserve, and this is the primary means of controlling the money supply. The goal of the system is to keep unemployment around 5%. Any lower and you have infl
                    • Yes, I am very aware of the federal reserve and the magic wand theory of money. Funny how even with unemployment over 5% we still have a running inflation of 4-5% EXCLUDING energy and housing. (As if no one buys energy or housing) I find it very amusing that whenever the inflation rate exceeds 5% they try to "prefect" the formula by excluding things.

                      There are a couple of reasons why I think a commodity system is necessary:

                      1. Government has no easy way to spend more than it takes in.
                      2. A commodity backed e
                    • Treading water is right. The whole income tax system is designed to do the same thing. It's a tax on income, not wealth. And for the really wealthy, their sort of income is often taxed much less than the income of the middle and lower class.

                      Off on a tangent, I think we should start a slashdot debate club. Have a different debate topic each week, selection of the topic by the person hosting the debate in their journal that week, to be done in a round robin fashion. Tell all our slashdot friends (most of min
                    • Well, I finished the dispossed. Interesting book.

                      A debate club would be cool. I enjoy intellectual discussion even with those I may disagree with (as long as it doesn't degenerate into name calling). Any topic ideas?
                      suggestions:
                      2nd amendment, interstate commerce clause, constitutionality of the federal reserve, abortion, patriot act?

                    • Good political topic ideas. Some economic topic ideas: capitalism, the free market, corporate power, & collectivism. Some philosophical ideas: free will, definition of freedom, power vs. responsiblity, existence of the immortal soul, greatest conceivable being, & infinity vs. specificity.

                      Grrr, don't get me started on the interstated commerce clause. The supreme court has twisted that beyond any reasonable definition intended by the founding fathers. ANYTHING can be regulated under that clause becau

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