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McCarthy, Dixie Chicks & the New Economy

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Tue, 2013-05-21 07:31

#152

Smokeskin

Decivre wrote:Smokeskin wrote

Decivre wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
I am quickly reminded why I never talk to you. You propose a ban on food stamp trading. When I call you out on that, you say it is a currency, not just food stamps. Now, without all talking in circles: why do you think you should decide that poor people should get food but not sneakers, alcohol or hookers? Do you know better what they want? What improves their lives the most?
The whole point isn't to give them what they want, but need. Food stamps and other means of distributing free essentials is an attempt to withhold free everything, in order to maintain the option for a capitalistic system. If free and clear money is distributed to the masses, it completely changes the paradigm of capitalism; either you require redistributing the money already held, or issuing new currency to devalue it. Food stamps are an intermediary that prevents both. I mean I thought you didn't want the distribution of wealth? If this is the case, why would you be so adamant against alternatives which avoid this inevitable conclusion

I am certainly not against distribution of wealth. I am for it (to the extent it is needed to cover basic needs and such). However, whatever my personal opinion about it may be, I do not believe I have the right to participate in robbing other people of their property so the money can be spend how I want them to be. That's the difference between us anarchocapitalists and big government types like yourself. We can have an opinion on how things want to be without this desire to make everyone else conform to our will. We don't believe in dictatorships, democracy or other oppressive societal models. And no matter how you cut it, you're proposing to rob people. If you had the money or food, go ahead and distribute it as you see fit. But that's not what you're saying. You're trying to dream up schemes where you subtly rob people to support your idea of charity. And if I were to help the poor, I'd give them money, not food stamps. Maybe Joe prefers to go hungry so he can take the girl he's in love with to the movies, and maybe they'll be happy forever after because of that. Maybe John wants to use it for a fresh set of clothes for job interviews. Maybe Ben wants to use it on drugs. I'd rather see the Joe's and John's skip their meal to improve their lives than limit their options just so the Bens won't squander their money on drugs.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
Getting watched all the time so the government can see when you break the law and then fine you is police state tactics. Fines are robbery. Not paying fines results in people coming and robbing you, and if you resist and defend your property armed men in dark uniforms will hurt you and/or lock you up in a small room. But please, describe to me how you total surveillance isn't police state tactics. Explain to me how you're going to get me to pay a fine without threatening me with police state violence. And fining people who are on foot stamps, man that's both low and futile.
Actually, the term is sousveillance... the act of the people spying on the government, and the people. We see this all the time today. Nearly nothing is not recorded in public circles, and the majority of this recording isn't done by big brother, but by every cell phone in a 10-yard radius. In fact this already happens right now. I have seen several people get caught reselling food stamps thanks to privately-owned supermarket cameras. So unless you are saying that it should be unlawful for a private business to monitor it's own building, the infrastructure already exists for keeping an eye on people who resell.

How on earth do you equate supermarket CCTV to stop shoplifting with government employees watching for people trading food stamps so they can fine them? Don't you see the difference between private shop owners protecting their propery and government surveillance?

Quote:
As for fines, there's really no need for armed robbery, or any of the other scary claims you make. Money transfer is already becoming a rapidly digital process. Here in the U.S., governmental services can already freeze and access the assets of people who owe money. This process is going to get more and more easy as all markets shift further and further to the digital paradigm. This isn't me shifting toward communism, but being a realist. [i]This is already the world we live in, and I'm not going to pretend that human behavior is going to shift away.[/i] Digital currencies and banks are convenient, and people have a preference for convenience. If we're calling that a robbery, then we might as well call every imposed transaction a robbery: paying for my basic needs is a robbery, paying rent for something I already live in is a robbery, and paying for health services is a robbery.

1) So if I hacked your bank account and took your money, you would just think that was convenient. It's not stealing. Right? 2) When you pay for basic needs, rent, or health services, you're doing it freely. You can just say no to the seller and go somewhere else. That's not really how it works when hackers or the government steal money from your account. 3) If I moved my money into places where the government couldn't just pilfer it away, are you proposing they wouldn't then proceed to robbery? That people wouldn't show up at my house and take my stuff, under threat of violence if I resisted? Because unless that's the case, they're collecting fines under threat of robbery and violence.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
You're dodging again. Mr. Anarchist, The point was that you wanted to fund government without direct taxes and thought just printing money was a great way to do it. Which is obviously stupid and will result in people changing currency, though I expect you would just ban other currencies.
I don't think I ever talked about funding government. But if we want to discuss it, fine. [i]How is the current economic system that the entire planet basically runs on anything but the printing of money to fuel the government and economy?[/i] Isn't that what both the printers of the Euro and Dollar are doing as we speak? I might be an anarchist, but I'm also a realist. I'm not going to pretend that the entire planet is going to magically shift overnight to a decentralized society with no central trade currency. It's literally not going to happen soon, and I probably won't even see this in my lifetime (short of Eclipse Phase's plot actually happening). But can you honestly say that the current status quo satisfies you? Are you really okay with the largest governments on Earth printing money as they please?

You're clearly not an anarchist. And you don't understand printing money. I don't think there's any western nation where the government prints money. It is handled by central banks which operate independently of governments, exactly because everyone agrees that giving politicians the power to print money would get out of hand. So governments rely on taxes, loans and bonds to fund their activitives. They don't print money.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
You don't want people to have the freedom to give the fruits of their labor to their children? Sure, that's nepotism, but is nepotism some magic word that makes it wrong? Is it only my children I can't give gifts, or does it apply to everyone? Can I give to charity? Mr. Anarchist, what am I allowed to do? Are you sure you're not a communist?
Nepotism is the primary system by which power is centralized. When land and resources stay in the same hands and doesn't have a means to circulate, those who already have it in large quantity are the only ones who continue to attain more. The mortgage crisis didn't hurt old money and their land, now did it?

That's bullshit. I'm in the real estate business and I know several people who started from nothing and accumulated 100s of millions of dollars worth of assets. My parents had nothing when they started their business in the beginning of the 1970s, and now my family owns real estate for over 1 billion.

Quote:
And it's ridiculous to boil this down to "I can't give my kids gifts". A watch is a gift. A car might be a gift. "All my land and monetary assets" is clearly not a gift, but an inheritance. I'm all fine for providing for one's kids. But I see a significant difference between providing your children with everything necessary to keep them on their feet, and continuing a legacy of feudal ownership. If you honestly can't see the difference between giving your child a few hundred thousand... or hell, even a few million dollars to keep them secure; versus giving them several billion and a micro-nation worth in land, that's a skosh bit ridiculous.

So you think it should be illegal to give your kids more than a few million. Can you give more than a few million to charity, or should that also go to the state, so they can redistribute it? Can you invest more than a few million on some entrepeneur's risky business venture (and what if the entrepeneur is your daughter)?

Tue, 2013-05-21 07:44

#153

Smokeskin

Decivre wrote:

Decivre wrote:
Yes, the person who owns the food stamps cannot be fined. But the resale of food stamps generally doesn't involve two parties on food stamps... because the whole point is for people with food stamps to trade with someone who doesn't have food stamps, so that the latter can make a profit while the former can get a currency with no limitations. Just as with the immigration problem, the trick is to hit the target on the higher end of the social ladder, not the lower.

Hint: People sell foot stamps at a loss because they want other things than food. Why are you so hell bent on keeping them from getting the things they want? And here's another problem. You give poor people foot stamps. They resell them at a loss - that's one additional cost you've forced on them. And you've forced them to waste valuable time too. Now you want to fine the buyer, and because of that risk he'll offer even less for the food stamps. That's even less money for the poor, and more time spent on finding willing buyers and safe places to trade. You sure are making it expensive to be poor!

Quote:
But remember that defense means protecting society from threats both foreign and domestic. Economic squandering and the disparity of resources is a domestic threat. Why is it the one threat we aren't allowed to defend ourselves against?

Ironically, the government has always been king of economic squandering, hasn't it? And terribly inefficient too, if private companies provided such slow and crappy service they'd go out of business. And you're still giving off a really strong communist vibe. Is it seriously a threat that Barbara Streissand has a ton of money and squanders it away on an extravagant life style? A threat against what? Is it the sort of threat needs to be dealt with by paramilitary forces, or should we make being wealthy illegal, or what is it that you propose?

Tue, 2013-05-21 08:00

#154

nizkateth

nizkateth wrote:What I don't

nizkateth wrote:
What I don't get is where this "you're going to take my money" idea comes from. Why not instead take quotas from businesses to get the supplies the government would need to provide for people, and give those businesses a tax break in turn? Then people can get the necessities for free, and it actually reduces taxes on companies. Not sure how it works in the rest of the world, but here income tax isn't what's used for social programs. That money comes from things like corporate taxes or property taxes. Income tax is mainly used to pay off debt, such as to the Federal Reserve... a private, for-profit company that we allow to print our money and charge us for the privilege of using. Get rid of the privately owned banks, and suddenly we would have no real need of income tax at all.

Figured I'd shift this one back up, since it was never addressed. So, how about it? Getting people what they need by way of reducing tax cost on business... with no "theft" of your money. Though I am so very tired of the "taxation is theft" argument.

—

Reapers: Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball. My watch also has a minute hand, millenium hand, and an eon hand.

Tue, 2013-05-21 08:14

#155

nizkateth

I further find it strange

I further find it strange that libertarians have major problems with power-inequality in terms of the collectively agreed rules of society (taxes and laws and police and such) but no problem with power-inequality via monetary influence. So, if it's wrong to have police enforce the rule of "you pay a percentage of your wealth so everyone can prosper better"... what if an extremely wealthy person said "you all are donating to my fund to make everyone prosper, and my privately-hired security forces will force you if you don't"? Isn't that just them exercising their right to use their money however they like?

—

Reapers: Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball. My watch also has a minute hand, millenium hand, and an eon hand.

Tue, 2013-05-21 08:38

#156

Smokeskin

nizkateth wrote:nizkateth

nizkateth wrote:
nizkateth wrote:
What I don't get is where this "you're going to take my money" idea comes from. Why not instead take quotas from businesses to get the supplies the government would need to provide for people, and give those businesses a tax break in turn? Then people can get the necessities for free, and it actually reduces taxes on companies. Not sure how it works in the rest of the world, but here income tax isn't what's used for social programs. That money comes from things like corporate taxes or property taxes. Income tax is mainly used to pay off debt, such as to the Federal Reserve... a private, for-profit company that we allow to print our money and charge us for the privilege of using. Get rid of the privately owned banks, and suddenly we would have no real need of income tax at all.
Figured I'd shift this one back up, since it was never addressed. So, how about it? Getting people what they need by way of reducing tax cost on business... with no "theft" of your money.

Taking "quotas" is no less theft than taking money.

Quote:
Though I am so very tired of the "taxation is theft" argument.

How tired do you think we are of hearing that you want to steal even more of our money so the lazy can just refuse to work and go on welfare?

Tue, 2013-05-21 08:43

#157

nizkateth

Not if quotas are voluntary.

Not if quotas are voluntary. Economic incentive to do so however. So companies that donate will prosper more.

Smokeskin wrote:
How tired do you think we are of hearing that you want to steal even more of our money so the lazy can just refuse to work and go on welfare?

Yes, I am terribly sorry for insisting that people have a right to live, regardless of how useful they are economically.

—

Reapers: Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball. My watch also has a minute hand, millenium hand, and an eon hand.

Tue, 2013-05-21 08:50

#158

Smokeskin

nizkateth wrote:I further

nizkateth wrote:
I further find it strange that libertarians have major problems with power-inequality in terms of the collectively agreed rules of society (taxes and laws and police and such)

I never agreed to these rules. They're just forced upon me, exactly like being forced to pay protection money to the local gang.

Quote:
So, if it's wrong to have police enforce the rule of "you pay a percentage of your wealth so everyone can prosper better"... what if an extremely wealthy person said "you all are donating to my fund to make everyone prosper, and my privately-hired security forces will force you if you don't"? Isn't that just them exercising their right to use their money however they like?

Of course not. Then he'd just be robbing money at gunpoint like states do. It's really simple. Taking people's property or limiting their freedom is inherently oppressive and you need a REALLY good reason to do so.

Tue, 2013-05-21 09:24

#159

Smokeskin

nizkateth wrote:Smokeskin

nizkateth wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:
How tired do you think we are of hearing that you want to steal even more of our money so the lazy can just refuse to work and go on welfare?
Yes, I am terribly sorry for insisting that people have a right to live, regardless of how useful they are economically.

In this case, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a person who you want to have the right not to work. His right to live has never been disputed. He is offered a job that he is able to do, and this will provide him with the means to live. That's the example Nezumi put forward, and you wanted welfare to be an option for such a person too. Such persons are rightly called moochers. Some people believe everyone on welfare are moochers, and that obviously isn't the case. But such a person really is a moocher, he was defined as such. I don't feel bad about all my taxes. Some of them do go to reasonable things that I'd support anyway. Other parts of it are squandered away on ridiculous things or gross inefficiency, and those are just plain theft. Other parts of it are used for grossly unfair things, like drug enforcement which limits my freedom, throws innocent people in jail and creates a market for violent criminals with lots of human suffering as a consequence. Such things infuriate me. It is equivalent to Al Qaeda stealing my money and using it for terrorism. Your suggesting falls in the latter category. You will hinder the capitalistic system by drastically reducing the incentive to work. You will reduce global productivity and economic growth. In the western world we'd just enjoy a lower standard of living for now, but with less growth comes less research and development, and for example medical technological progress will take longer and cures will come much later, causing hundreds of millions to lose years of life or wast them in the misery of illness. In the developing world, things will be much worse. Without the western world to fuel growth, hundreds of millions will sink back into deep poverty. Billions will lose the possibility of escaping deep poverty, which they would likely manage under the current system in the coming few decades. What you're suggesting is not just oppressive, it is a humanitarian disaster. All just for the right to not work. So yes, I'm getting tired of it. We could have a meaningful discussion about say if charity levels in an anarcho-capitalistic society would be enough to keep people from starving in the street, if people could be expected to pay as much towards charity, defense, etc. as the tax rate they're in favor for in the current society (adjusted for the efficiency gains from anarcho-capitalistic institutions operating on a free market compared to the current system of government monopolies). Those are reasonable, interesting discussions that I wouldn't get tired of.

Tue, 2013-05-21 10:55

#160

nizkateth

Smokeskin wrote:Of course not

Smokeskin wrote:
Of course not. Then he'd just be robbing money at gunpoint like states do. It's really simple. Taking people's property or limiting their freedom is inherently oppressive and you need a REALLY good reason to do so.

So, assuming an anarcho-capitalist society, my question becomes: how do you propose to stop him? Working under the assumption that he has more money than you and thus can hire more guns. There seems to be this fantasy that in such a society, the only way force would ever come into play is defensively, that only security contractors would exist. Somehow, the idea that really wealthy people might want to force their will on others, and that people would fill that economic niche, never enters the equation. Hell, I'd start such a company. "Maximum Force Inc: We go beyond security into enforcement!" "Hey clanking masses, tired of being spat on and powerless? Join Maximum Force today and get a free upgrade to a sleek and powerful Reaper morph (subject to contract with MF Inc)!" For a fee, we'll make other people do what you want. The more money you have, the more control you can enforce. Anarcho-capitalism wouldn't eliminate oppression, it would just privatize it.

—

Reapers: Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball. My watch also has a minute hand, millenium hand, and an eon hand.

Tue, 2013-05-21 15:32

#161

Decivre

Smokeskin wrote:I am

Smokeskin wrote:
I am certainly not against distribution of wealth. I am for it (to the extent it is needed to cover basic needs and such). However, whatever my personal opinion about it may be, I do not believe I have the right to participate in robbing other people of their property so the money can be spend how I want them to be. That's the difference between us anarchocapitalists and big government types like yourself. We can have an opinion on how things want to be without this desire to make everyone else conform to our will. We don't believe in dictatorships, democracy or other oppressive societal models. And no matter how you cut it, you're proposing to rob people. If you had the money or food, go ahead and distribute it as you see fit. But that's not what you're saying. You're trying to dream up schemes where you subtly rob people to support your idea of charity. And if I were to help the poor, I'd give them money, not food stamps. Maybe Joe prefers to go hungry so he can take the girl he's in love with to the movies, and maybe they'll be happy forever after because of that. Maybe John wants to use it for a fresh set of clothes for job interviews. Maybe Ben wants to use it on drugs. I'd rather see the Joe's and John's skip their meal to improve their lives than limit their options just so the Bens won't squander their money on drugs.

If that's how you feel, then alright. I only offer food stamps as an alternative to prevent the need for redistribution, assuming that is what you are against. If not, then so be it. But I have to ask: do you really believe that there is enough generosity to fix the starving epidemic worldwide? Currently, plenty of private-run charity organizations and generous philanthropists exist today, yet starvation is still not remotely a solved problem. If the western world were to become Anarcho-Capitalist overnight, do you honestly believe that these problems would be any more improved?

Smokeskin wrote:
How on earth do you equate supermarket CCTV to stop shoplifting with government employees watching for people trading food stamps so they can fine them? Don't you see the difference between private shop owners protecting their propery and government surveillance?

And again, why would government surveillance be necessary? The observation framework already exists for seeing who is using food stamps, and it is privately-owned.

Smokeskin wrote:
1) So if I hacked your bank account and took your money, you would just think that was convenient. It's not stealing. Right?

The freezing of your assets by government organizations is a completely legal process that you consented to allow when you signed your agreement with your bank. It's right there in the terms of use contract. If you don't like it, don't use banks. Hacking, on the other hand, is a crime.

Smokeskin wrote:
2) When you pay for basic needs, rent, or health services, you're doing it freely. You can just say no to the seller and go somewhere else. That's not really how it works when hackers or the government steal money from your account.

Actually, in many cases you [i]don't[/i] have the [i]ability[/i] to go anywhere else. Slums often exist because people cannot afford better or proper housing, and they are often completely full... so even slum hopping isn't a real option for the very poor. As for health services, if I go to a hospital with a potentially fatal injury or illness, I can't just get up and go someplace else if I don't like their prices. Urgency breeds monopoly.

Smokeskin wrote:
3) If I moved my money into places where the government couldn't just pilfer it away, are you proposing they wouldn't then proceed to robbery? That people wouldn't show up at my house and take my stuff, under threat of violence if I resisted? Because unless that's the case, they're collecting fines under threat of robbery and violence.

How is that any different than the "fines" we pay for the essentials, like food or drink? I mean if we were to allow people to own air, would you be okay with paying a "completely voluntary cost" for the right to breathe? If so, then fine... but if not, why are you then okay with "completely voluntary costs" regarding everything else you fundamentally need? Because that's the way it's always been?

Smokeskin wrote:
You're clearly not an anarchist. And you don't understand printing money. I don't think there's any western nation where the government prints money. It is handled by central banks which operate independently of governments, exactly because everyone agrees that giving politicians the power to print money would get out of hand. So governments rely on taxes, loans and bonds to fund their activitives. They don't print money.

Actually, the United States Federal Reserve is both privately and publicly owned. The Board of Governors is appointed by the President, confirmed by Congress, and serves 14-year terms. While it acts autonomously and receives no congressional appropriations, the Federal Reserve still must report to Congress, and cannot print money without explicit permission of the United States Department of the Treasury. Yet it has private shareholders that it answers to... so it's a bizarre hybrid of the two. I don't know about the Euro, but that is how the Dollar is handled. And China's central bank is completely owned by the Government. But one has to wonder how much power a person can accumulate before you say that they are effectively a government in power, whether or not they claim to be a government structure. United Fruit, Standard Fruit, and Cuyamel Fruit once had so much influence in Honduras that they could decide who lived or died without criminal consequence. Do you consider that too much power, or do you consider that the beauty of capitalism at its finest?

Smokeskin wrote:
That's bullshit. I'm in the real estate business and I know several people who started from nothing and accumulated 100s of millions of dollars worth of assets. My parents had nothing when they started their business in the beginning of the 1970s, and now my family owns real estate for over 1 billion.

Sure. There's still plenty of land to own right now. Acres of it in my desert region. But to claim that this will always be the case is very short-sighted. Land isn't infinite, and people are buying it in massive acreages.

Smokeskin wrote:
So you think it should be illegal to give your kids more than a few million. Can you give more than a few million to charity, or should that also go to the state, so they can redistribute it? Can you invest more than a few million on some entrepeneur's risky business venture (and what if the entrepeneur is your daughter)?

Sure. I'm not particularly against any of that. I'm against people granting a significant (ie: majority) percentage of their assets to someone as a means to prevent its distribution to those who might benefit from it, especially as a post-death act, to spite a broader community potential for those assets. I'm against the centralization of resources, which can potentially grant a small group of people powers comparable to a government with regards to the larger community around them.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Wed, 2013-05-22 06:20

#162

Smokeskin

nizkateth wrote:Smokeskin

nizkateth wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
Of course not. Then he'd just be robbing money at gunpoint like states do. It's really simple. Taking people's property or limiting their freedom is inherently oppressive and you need a REALLY good reason to do so.
So, assuming an anarcho-capitalist society, my question becomes: how do you propose to stop him? Working under the assumption that he has more money than you and thus can hire more guns. There seems to be this fantasy that in such a society, the only way force would ever come into play is defensively, that only security contractors would exist. Somehow, the idea that really wealthy people might want to force their will on others, and that people would fill that economic niche, never enters the equation.

Of course it enters the equation. I don't imagine ancap has less security forces than current democracies (except for the effects of ending the war on drugs and such). How do you expect even someone extremely wealthy to go up against that? No one imagines that people just "hire guns". They have a security contract that works much like insurance. Very few people have the money to rebuild their house if it burns down, just like ordinary people couldn't afford to hire a bunch of mercenaries to fend off a rich man's private army. But we pay a small amount each year in insurance, and the insurance company will pay if disaster strikes. Obviously each insurance company can't handle unlimited losses, especially if you have a small, local or regional insurance company. Stuff like storms and earthquakes would destroy such a company, so how can they offer reliable insurance? Through reinsurance. Insurance companies, small and large, are reinsured against huge losses. We had a major storm some years ago in Denmark, and iirc the largest Danish insurance company paid less than 20% out of their own pocket, the rest came from reinsurance. When you think about what sort of economic power the average person can wield through the private market, you should look at the insurance payouts after natural disasters. We don't need governments for that. As a further illustration of mutual aid, NATO serves a similar purpose. Denmark is a small country of 6 million people, most countries would roll over us. But our NATO allies would respond through the musketeer oath in the Nato Treaty Article 5. Just like no one would take insurance at a company that would go bankrupt if a storm hit your area, no one would sign up for a security contract with a company that didn't have insurance or a musketeer oath with other security contractors that kicked in case they needed to defend against a rich man's private army. I wouldn't even go without a contract that covered military defense, we need tanks and jet fighters too.

Wed, 2013-05-22 07:33

#163

Smokeskin

Decivre wrote:Smokeskin wrote

Decivre wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
I am certainly not against distribution of wealth. I am for it (to the extent it is needed to cover basic needs and such). However, whatever my personal opinion about it may be, I do not believe I have the right to participate in robbing other people of their property so the money can be spend how I want them to be. That's the difference between us anarchocapitalists and big government types like yourself. We can have an opinion on how things want to be without this desire to make everyone else conform to our will. We don't believe in dictatorships, democracy or other oppressive societal models. And no matter how you cut it, you're proposing to rob people. If you had the money or food, go ahead and distribute it as you see fit. But that's not what you're saying. You're trying to dream up schemes where you subtly rob people to support your idea of charity. And if I were to help the poor, I'd give them money, not food stamps. Maybe Joe prefers to go hungry so he can take the girl he's in love with to the movies, and maybe they'll be happy forever after because of that. Maybe John wants to use it for a fresh set of clothes for job interviews. Maybe Ben wants to use it on drugs. I'd rather see the Joe's and John's skip their meal to improve their lives than limit their options just so the Bens won't squander their money on drugs.
If that's how you feel, then alright. I only offer food stamps as an alternative to prevent the need for redistribution, assuming that is what you are against. If not, then so be it. But I have to ask: do you really believe that there is enough generosity to fix the starving epidemic worldwide? Currently, plenty of private-run charity organizations and generous philanthropists exist today, yet starvation is still not remotely a solved problem. If the western world were to become Anarcho-Capitalist overnight, do you honestly believe that these problems would be any more improved?

I don't think they would just get fixed no. But neither has the current system, so it isn't reasonable to demand that of ancap.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
How on earth do you equate supermarket CCTV to stop shoplifting with government employees watching for people trading food stamps so they can fine them? Don't you see the difference between private shop owners protecting their propery and government surveillance?
And again, why would government surveillance be necessary? The observation framework already exists for seeing who is using food stamps, and it is privately-owned.

Look, if the government is looking at feeds from a private camera network, it is still government surveillance. And government surveillance is necessary in your "fine the food stamp traders" scheme. How else would they know who to fine? Snitches? Do you want to pay shop owners and citizens with cell phone cameres for evidence of illegal trading?

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
1) So if I hacked your bank account and took your money, you would just think that was convenient. It's not stealing. Right?
The freezing of your assets by government organizations is a completely legal process that you consented to allow when you signed your agreement with your bank. It's right there in the terms of use contract. If you don't like it, don't use banks. Hacking on the other hand is a crime.

The government uses its monopoly on violence to force all banks to have such a clauses. Of course I'd choose a bank without such clauses if the government didn't forcibly keep them from entering the market (and if it wasn't moot to begin with, due to the government simply throwing armed men in dark uniforms at me if I try to not pay a fine). You have to understand that I don't share your view that the government is more legitimate than a criminal. Think of a local mob. It helps the local community in many ways and has support from the majority of the people. It also runs protection rackets, demands cuts in all businesses, and they have rules you have to follow or they'll come and wreck your business or beat you up. Exactly like the government. I'm willing to concede that most western governments are more benevolent than your average crime organisation, but they are no more legitimate.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
2) When you pay for basic needs, rent, or health services, you're doing it freely. You can just say no to the seller and go somewhere else. That's not really how it works when hackers or the government steal money from your account.
Actually, in many cases you [i]don't[/i] have the [i]ability[/i] to go anywhere else. Slums often exist because people cannot afford better or proper housing, and they are often completely full... so even slum hopping isn't a real option for the very poor. As for health services, if I go to a hospital with a potentially fatal injury or illness, I can't just get up and go someplace else if I don't like their prices. Urgency breeds monopoly.

You are making no sense. If you are bleeding profusely, yes you'll have to walk into the nearest emergency room. You could call that a case of monopoly. But how you get from that to "monopolize it all" is beyond me. How you get from single instances of individuals being in such a desperate situation they can't choose alternatives to "we should remove alternatives for everyone" is beyond me. What you're sayins is equivalent to "some people are paraplegic, let's break everyone's neck."

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
3) If I moved my money into places where the government couldn't just pilfer it away, are you proposing they wouldn't then proceed to robbery? That people wouldn't show up at my house and take my stuff, under threat of violence if I resisted? Because unless that's the case, they're collecting fines under threat of robbery and violence.
How is that any different than the "fines" we pay for the essentials, like food or drink? I mean if we were to allow people to own air, would you be okay with paying a "completely voluntary cost" for the right to breathe? If so, then fine... but if not, why are you then okay with "completely voluntary costs" regarding everything else you fundamentally need? Because that's the way it's always been?

Are you suggesting that we can't own food? So farmers don't own the food they produce and then sell it?

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
You're clearly not an anarchist. And you don't understand printing money. I don't think there's any western nation where the government prints money. It is handled by central banks which operate independently of governments, exactly because everyone agrees that giving politicians the power to print money would get out of hand. So governments rely on taxes, loans and bonds to fund their activitives. They don't print money.
Actually, the United States Federal Reserve is both privately and publicly owned. The Board of Governors is appointed by the President, confirmed by Congress, and serves 14-year terms. While it acts autonomously and receives no congressional appropriations, the Federal Reserve still must report to Congress, and cannot print money without explicit permission of the United States Department of the Treasury. Yet it has private shareholders that it answers to... so it's a bizarre hybrid of the two. I don't know about the Euro, but that is how the Dollar is handled. And China's central bank is completely owned by the Government. But one has to wonder how much power a person can accumulate before you say that they are effectively a government in power, whether or not they claim to be a government structure. United Fruit, Standard Fruit, and Cuyamel Fruit once had so much influence in Honduras that they could decide who lived or died without criminal consequence. Do you consider that too much power, or do you consider that the beauty of capitalism at its finest?

Clearly I consider that too much power. And note that there is a difference between capitalism backed by a government with a monopoly on violence, pure free market capitalism, and anarcho-capitalism. Anarcho-capitalism needs a framework to start, it needs companies that provide services like security and legal arbitration on a free market, or it is quite likely it will simply develop into some form of oppressive regime like a dictatorship or democracy. But once the instution-like company structure is in place, it should be very hard to unsettle, just like other power structures. Capitalism alone does not breed anarcho-capitalism. You can make a parallel to for example Iraq where some rather naive democracy-fanatics thought that if you just gave them democracy, everything would work out great. Of course it became a hotbed of corruption and civil war instead, because the institutions were weak. On the other hand, western democracies are extremely stable because its institutions are established (and stable doesn't necessarily mean good, in the US for example the corruptive effects of lobbyism are strongly locked in).

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
That's bullshit. I'm in the real estate business and I know several people who started from nothing and accumulated 100s of millions of dollars worth of assets. My parents had nothing when they started their business in the beginning of the 1970s, and now my family owns real estate for over 1 billion.
Sure. There's still plenty of land to own right now. Acres of it in my desert region. But to claim that this will always be the case is very short-sighted. Land isn't infinite, and people are buying it in massive acreages.

People just trade the existing real estate, we don't need new land.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
So you think it should be illegal to give your kids more than a few million. Can you give more than a few million to charity, or should that also go to the state, so they can redistribute it? Can you invest more than a few million on some entrepeneur's risky business venture (and what if the entrepeneur is your daughter)?
Sure. I'm not particularly against any of that. I'm against people granting a significant (ie: majority) percentage of their assets to someone as a means to prevent its distribution to those who might benefit from it, especially as a post-death act, to spite a broader community potential for those assets. I'm against the centralization of resources, which can potentially grant a small group of people powers comparable to a government with regards to the larger community around them.

You do realize what you said is pretty much devoid of any real meaning? Who says I'm giving it away to "prevent its distribution to those who might benefit from it"? Who defines what "who might benefit from it" means? What do you mean you are against the centralization of resources? Should it be illegal to be as rich as Bill Gates? To have a net worth of over 50 million dollars? 10 million? But at least we can invest freely. I'll have my kids start a business, and give my money to that.

Wed, 2013-05-22 14:15

#164

nizkateth

Come to think of it, why

Come to think of it, why would my wealthy patron need more money to do his projects? No no, what he needs is cheap labor. So Maximum Force Inc can just go after people who can't afford to get protection insurance, or at least not good insurance. Wal-mart brand protection insurance, ie a couple mall-cops will come running in yelling "Here I come to save the day". We can track these people down and enslave them at gun-point to work for our patron. After mowing down what little protection they can afford. And if anyone tries to stop us, we can do the responsible corporate thing and have protection insurance of our own. So when push comes to shove, not only are we an armed company, we have back-up paid for. The slave labor shouldn't mind their new state. After all, if they wanted any rights they should have had more money.

—

Reapers: Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball. My watch also has a minute hand, millenium hand, and an eon hand.

Wed, 2013-05-22 17:48

#165

nizkateth

...come to think of it, this

...come to think of it, this is sounding like an idea for an EP adventure. "Hostile Takeover" A rising hypercorp seeks to claim some autonomist territory with the aid of hired guns from multiple agencies, possibly including Extropians. Using normal weapons on cheap or worthless morphs (cases and such), and stun weapons on more valuable ones, the group begins capturing transhumans. The captives are strapped into an ego-caster and uploaded to mining equipment (heavy restricted and hobbled synth morphs) or cold storage, depending on temperament. Their morphs are then sold.

—

Reapers: Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball. My watch also has a minute hand, millenium hand, and an eon hand.

Wed, 2013-05-22 22:07

#166

Decivre

Smokeskin wrote:I don't think

Smokeskin wrote:
I don't think they would just get fixed no. But neither has the current system, so it isn't reasonable to demand that of ancap.

I should think that I could at least demand that any replacement system be at least a slight improvement over whatever system is already in place. If the world will be business as usual, I don't see what benefit the shift could possibly have.

Smokeskin wrote:
Look, if the government is looking at feeds from a private camera network, it is still government surveillance. And government surveillance is necessary in your "fine the food stamp traders" scheme. How else would they know who to fine? Snitches? Do you want to pay shop owners and citizens with cell phone cameres for evidence of illegal trading?

This seems almost contradictory to me. You have no problem with private companies watching over customers, but do have a problem with it if this information is granted to some larger oversight with the word "government" written on their lapels. Why is that? Most U.S. businesses already [i]volunteer[/i] their surveillance video to our government (not to be read as "are forced to give it", Walmart alongside most other major retailers give that info freely), so at what point does it become something scary to you? I should think if you don't like being recorded, you wouldn't like it at any point.

Smokeskin wrote:
The government uses its monopoly on violence to force all banks to have such a clauses. Of course I'd choose a bank without such clauses if the government didn't forcibly keep them from entering the market (and if it wasn't moot to begin with, due to the government simply throwing armed men in dark uniforms at me if I try to not pay a fine). You have to understand that I don't share your view that the government is more legitimate than a criminal. Think of a local mob. It helps the local community in many ways and has support from the majority of the people. It also runs protection rackets, demands cuts in all businesses, and they have rules you have to follow or they'll come and wreck your business or beat you up. Exactly like the government. I'm willing to concede that most western governments are more benevolent than your average crime organisation, but they are no more legitimate.

I don't see why you keep trying to strawman my views. I don't remember ever talking about the legitimacy of governments to begin with, much less which ones I consider to be legitimate. I think "legitimate" is a bullshit buzzword, whether used to reference the legitimacy of governments, or the legitimacy of land ownership (two interrelated concepts... you can't own land on this planet unless a government sanctions it).

Smokeskin wrote:
You are making no sense. If you are bleeding profusely, yes you'll have to walk into the nearest emergency room. You could call that a case of monopoly. But how you get from that to "monopolize it all" is beyond me. How you get from single instances of individuals being in such a desperate situation they can't choose alternatives to "we should remove alternatives for everyone" is beyond me. What you're sayins is equivalent to "some people are paraplegic, let's break everyone's neck."

Actually, what I'm saying is "don't pretend that people have a choice". Choice in the modern market is often an illusion for the most downtrodden, propagated by the presence of "options" well beyond their means to purchase. If you have the choice of buying unhealthy food or healthy food at four times the price, do you really have a choice at all? Is it really a choice to pick between starving on healthy food or suffering with a belly full of low-quality product? How about the United States' medical system, where an ambulance ride will often cost you 2 grand, excluding any and all actual treatment you receive during or after the trip. My point was never that we should remove alternatives. My point is that there aren't alternatives, and the "free market" deludes people into thinking that there are.

Smokeskin wrote:
Are you suggesting that we can't own food? So farmers don't own the food they produce and then sell it?

Then can I own air? Can people who propertize trees which oxidize this planet charge everyone else for the privilege of breathing? It is, after all, thanks to their plants that we have that ability... no?

Smokeskin wrote:
Clearly I consider that too much power. And note that there is a difference between capitalism backed by a government with a monopoly on violence, pure free market capitalism, and anarcho-capitalism. Anarcho-capitalism needs a framework to start, it needs companies that provide services like security and legal arbitration on a free market, or it is quite likely it will simply develop into some form of oppressive regime like a dictatorship or democracy. But once the instution-like company structure is in place, it should be very hard to unsettle, just like other power structures. Capitalism alone does not breed anarcho-capitalism. You can make a parallel to for example Iraq where some rather naive democracy-fanatics thought that if you just gave them democracy, everything would work out great. Of course it became a hotbed of corruption and civil war instead, because the institutions were weak. On the other hand, western democracies are extremely stable because its institutions are established (and stable doesn't necessarily mean good, in the US for example the corruptive effects of lobbyism are strongly locked in).

My problem is that anarcho-capitalism often sounds more and more like the capitalist counterpart to Karl Marx's utopian vision. And I have a hard time buying into any government system which effectively says "If the right conditions happen in the right sequence at the right time, we'll have the perfect government." Systems don't form in a vacuum, and they'll always be subject to outside pressures... which is exactly why democracy is failing in the Middle East. This is why I'm more pragmatic about how to implement anarchism. I know that large-scale anarchist systems, especially on the national level, are likely not going to happen (they tried to with the USSR, and ended up with one of the biggest totalitarian regimes at the time). I know that the best way for such things to form is on a small scale, and allow them to grow naturally. That's how all the successful cooperatives... the best examples of communism today... all formed. But I don't see how anarcho-capitalism could start at a grassroots level. Unless some organization with extropian views decided to try out a large-scale social experiment, I don't see how anarcho-capitalism could blossom.

Smokeskin wrote:
People just trade the existing real estate, we don't need new land.

Yes, we do. Unless you know a way we can distribute that land among a growing population, new land or a different way of portioning it needs to come about. When A single man owns 1/1000th of the United States by himself... in a country of three hundred million people, there's a significant problem brewing.

Smokeskin wrote:
You do realize what you said is pretty much devoid of any real meaning? Who says I'm giving it away to "prevent its distribution to those who might benefit from it"? Who defines what "who might benefit from it" means? What do you mean you are against the centralization of resources? Should it be illegal to be as rich as Bill Gates? To have a net worth of over 50 million dollars? 10 million? But at least we can invest freely. I'll have my kids start a business, and give my money to that.

The centralization of resources is exactly that... when a small group of people control all the resources, and they gain power far beyond what a single person should have. Much like you, I don't like governments with too much authority. But unlike you, I recognize that a government doesn't have to be a group of elected officials, or a declared king. It can be one or two people, with all the resources necessary to control the lives of others. A private tyranny is no better than a public one. I don't see why you dislike the latter, while seemingly loving the former so long as it exists under the illusion of a free market.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Thu, 2013-05-23 11:18

#167

Smokeskin

nizkateth wrote:Come to think

nizkateth wrote:
Come to think of it, why would my wealthy patron need more money to do his projects? No no, what he needs is cheap labor. So Maximum Force Inc can just go after people who can't afford to get protection insurance, or at least not good insurance. Wal-mart brand protection insurance, ie a couple mall-cops will come running in yelling "Here I come to save the day". We can track these people down and enslave them at gun-point to work for our patron. After mowing down what little protection they can afford. And if anyone tries to stop us, we can do the responsible corporate thing and have protection insurance of our own. So when push comes to shove, not only are we an armed company, we have back-up paid for. The slave labor shouldn't mind their new state. After all, if they wanted any rights they should have had more money.

Look Nizka, you keep missing the same thing. It was the same with welfare. When I say I don't want government welfare, that doesn't mean I don't want welfare. I just want to pay for it myself through charity, rather than have the government rob me and then spend the money as the government sees fit. And I expect that a lot of people are also willing to give significant amounts to charity, given their democratic voting behavior. In ancap society, charity welfare doesn't just mean getting people food. It means getting people security too. Of course I don't want the poor to be unprotected or enslaved, just like I don't want them starving. And if poor people get their charity money and don't pay for security, well then they're choosing to take that risk because they thought something else was more important and I'm perfectly ok with that. I'm not inclined to force people to live their lives safely if they don't want to. If people want to rock climb without a safety rope or go insult a group of violent bikers or smoke cigarettes or do hard drugs or eat themselves obese, I can't really stop them from that either. I'm also enough of a softy that I'd still be inclined to help the injured rock climber without medical insurance or free the morons who didn't pay for security from their slave camps. The only way your ancap horror story would come to pass was if everyone was bastards, but since everyone isn't voting Tea Party, that's obviously not true.

Thu, 2013-05-23 11:44

#168

Smokeskin

Decivre wrote:Smokeskin wrote

Decivre wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
I don't think they would just get fixed no. But neither has the current system, so it isn't reasonable to demand that of ancap.
I should think that I could at least demand that any replacement system be at least a slight improvement over whatever system is already in place. If the world will be business as usual, I don't see what benefit the shift could possibly have.

Decivre. You have to get into thinking mode. Of course there are other parameters than starvation in foreign countries to look at. Of course there might even be a lessening of that starvation without the entire problem being fixed. It is incredibly difficult to discuss with you when you bring up some strange aspect and then blow it all out of proportion like this.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
Look, if the government is looking at feeds from a private camera network, it is still government surveillance. And government surveillance is necessary in your "fine the food stamp traders" scheme. How else would they know who to fine? Snitches? Do you want to pay shop owners and citizens with cell phone cameres for evidence of illegal trading?
This seems almost contradictory to me. You have no problem with private companies watching over customers, but do have a problem with it if this information is granted to some larger oversight with the word "government" written on their lapels. Why is that? Most U.S. businesses already [i]volunteer[/i] their surveillance video to our government (not to be read as "are forced to give it", Walmart alongside most other major retailers give that info freely), so at what point does it become something scary to you? I should think if you don't like being recorded, you wouldn't like it at any point.

Private companies don't tend to go through recordings to look for people doing harmless stuff like trading food stamps, and when they do find people who do so, they send them extortion letters (which is what a fine is - "send us money, or armed men in dark uniforms will swing by your house and rob you"). So I'm not really worried about the recording as such, I'm worried about government officials looking through the footage to find excuses to extort people.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
The government uses its monopoly on violence to force all banks to have such a clauses. Of course I'd choose a bank without such clauses if the government didn't forcibly keep them from entering the market (and if it wasn't moot to begin with, due to the government simply throwing armed men in dark uniforms at me if I try to not pay a fine). You have to understand that I don't share your view that the government is more legitimate than a criminal. Think of a local mob. It helps the local community in many ways and has support from the majority of the people. It also runs protection rackets, demands cuts in all businesses, and they have rules you have to follow or they'll come and wreck your business or beat you up. Exactly like the government. I'm willing to concede that most western governments are more benevolent than your average crime organisation, but they are no more legitimate.
I don't see why you keep trying to strawman my views. I don't remember ever talking about the legitimacy of governments to begin with, much less which ones I consider to be legitimate. I think "legitimate" is a bullshit buzzword, whether used to reference the legitimacy of governments, or the legitimacy of land ownership (two interrelated concepts... you can't own land on this planet unless a government sanctions it).

When you think that the government stealing from me is just "convenient", but when people not in the government do the exact same thing it is criminal, then you're talking about legitimacy, are you not? What else causes you to accept one and not the other?

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
You are making no sense. If you are bleeding profusely, yes you'll have to walk into the nearest emergency room. You could call that a case of monopoly. But how you get from that to "monopolize it all" is beyond me. How you get from single instances of individuals being in such a desperate situation they can't choose alternatives to "we should remove alternatives for everyone" is beyond me. What you're sayins is equivalent to "some people are paraplegic, let's break everyone's neck."
Actually, what I'm saying is "don't pretend that people have a choice". Choice in the modern market is often an illusion for the most downtrodden, propagated by the presence of "options" well beyond their means to purchase. If you have the choice of buying unhealthy food or healthy food at four times the price, do you really have a choice at all? Is it really a choice to pick between starving on healthy food or suffering with a belly full of low-quality product? How about the United States' medical system, where an ambulance ride will often cost you 2 grand, excluding any and all actual treatment you receive during or after the trip. My point was never that we should remove alternatives. My point is that there aren't alternatives, and the "free market" deludes people into thinking that there are.

Once again for the dimwitted: My system: Everyone has options on how to spend their money. Poor people are given money so they can afford choices. Your system: Government forces the same set of services on everyone, probably at the crappy quality and low efficiency that is typical of monopolies. See the difference? Take a look at how US veteran disability is being handled and tell me that's a good way to do things.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
Are you suggesting that we can't own food? So farmers don't own the food they produce and then sell it?
Then can I own air? Can people who propertize trees which oxidize this planet charge everyone else for the privilege of breathing? It is, after all, thanks to their plants that we have that ability... no?

You're being stupid again. Of course you can own air. If people collected the oxygen from trees and bottled it and sold it, that's fine. If they let it drift into the air and try to charge me for breathing it elsewhere, that's just as stupid as sending out radio transmissions and trying to charge me for receiving them.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
Clearly I consider that too much power. And note that there is a difference between capitalism backed by a government with a monopoly on violence, pure free market capitalism, and anarcho-capitalism. Anarcho-capitalism needs a framework to start, it needs companies that provide services like security and legal arbitration on a free market, or it is quite likely it will simply develop into some form of oppressive regime like a dictatorship or democracy. But once the instution-like company structure is in place, it should be very hard to unsettle, just like other power structures. Capitalism alone does not breed anarcho-capitalism. You can make a parallel to for example Iraq where some rather naive democracy-fanatics thought that if you just gave them democracy, everything would work out great. Of course it became a hotbed of corruption and civil war instead, because the institutions were weak. On the other hand, western democracies are extremely stable because its institutions are established (and stable doesn't necessarily mean good, in the US for example the corruptive effects of lobbyism are strongly locked in).
My problem is that anarcho-capitalism often sounds more and more like the capitalist counterpart to Karl Marx's utopian vision. And I have a hard time buying into any government system which effectively says "If the right conditions happen in the right sequence at the right time, we'll have the perfect government."

So let me get this straight. You have a hard time buying into any government system with those requirements. And then in the next paragraph - see the following quote - you go on to list democracy and your own version of "anarchism" to have the same requirements! So you have a hard time buying into democracy and your own anarcho-communistic-big-government ideas?

Quote:
Systems don't form in a vacuum, and they'll always be subject to outside pressures... which is exactly why democracy is failing in the Middle East. This is why I'm more pragmatic about how to implement anarchism. I know that large-scale anarchist systems, especially on the national level, are likely not going to happen (they tried to with the USSR, and ended up with one of the biggest totalitarian regimes at the time). I know that the best way for such things to form is on a small scale, and allow them to grow naturally. That's how all the successful cooperatives... the best examples of communism today... all formed. But I don't see how anarcho-capitalism could start at a grassroots level. Unless some organization with extropian views decided to try out a large-scale social experiment, I don't see how anarcho-capitalism could blossom.
Smokeskin wrote:
People just trade the existing real estate, we don't need new land.
Yes, we do. Unless you know a way we can distribute that land among a growing population, new land or a different way of portioning it needs to come about. When A single man owns 1/1000th of the United States by himself... in a country of three hundred million people, there's a significant problem brewing.

Why is that a problem? It looks to me that people are far worse off in countries where private citizens can't own land, or where they don't have capitalistic systems that allow individuals and corporations to accumulate land. You're the richest country in the world with the vast majority having an incredible quality of life.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
You do realize what you said is pretty much devoid of any real meaning? Who says I'm giving it away to "prevent its distribution to those who might benefit from it"? Who defines what "who might benefit from it" means? What do you mean you are against the centralization of resources? Should it be illegal to be as rich as Bill Gates? To have a net worth of over 50 million dollars? 10 million? But at least we can invest freely. I'll have my kids start a business, and give my money to that.
The centralization of resources is exactly that... when a small group of people control all the resources, and they gain power far beyond what a single person should have. Much like you, I don't like governments with too much authority. But unlike you, I recognize that a government doesn't have to be a group of elected officials, or a declared king. It can be one or two people, with all the resources necessary to control the lives of others. A private tyranny is no better than a public one. I don't see why you dislike the latter, while seemingly loving the former so long as it exists under the illusion of a free market.

So I can't invest in a company that belongs to my kids?

Thu, 2013-05-23 17:06

#169

Decivre

Smokeskin wrote:Decivre. You

Smokeskin wrote:
Decivre. You have to get into thinking mode. Of course there are other parameters than starvation in foreign countries to look at. Of course there might even be a lessening of that starvation without the entire problem being fixed. It is incredibly difficult to discuss with you when you bring up some strange aspect and then blow it all out of proportion like this.

Starvation was just an example. There are plenty of issues I have with anarcho-capitalism that I don't see it fixing. Wealth disparity is another big issue, as is the multitude of people that live well below the poverty line. The complexities of contract law, and the already endemic problem of people signing contracts that they don't understand (a problem that will become even more exacerbated in a world where everything is defined by a contract). The problems of property distribution, the problems of social welfare. Starvation is just the most obvious one I brought up.

Smokeskin wrote:
Private companies don't tend to go through recordings to look for people doing harmless stuff like trading food stamps, and when they do find people who do so, they send them extortion letters (which is what a fine is - "send us money, or armed men in dark uniforms will swing by your house and rob you"). So I'm not really worried about the recording as such, I'm worried about government officials looking through the footage to find excuses to extort people.

As someone who lives in the very country that created the DMCA, I don't draw the distinction. Private companies are just as capable of extortion tactics as public bureaus.

Smokeskin wrote:
When you think that the government stealing from me is just "convenient", but when people not in the government do the exact same thing it is criminal, then you're talking about legitimacy, are you not? What else causes you to accept one and not the other?

I'm not fond of either, but the former is a reality that already exists, for good or bad. I think you misinterpret much of what I say. I don't say "I like big government, it's ability to confiscate your goods, or it's ability to observe everything you do". I say "Welcome to reality: governments have been able to confiscate your goods and observe your every action for over a decade. Don't pretend they can't." Unfortunately I don't see this improving anytime soon. Thanks to data mining, even private companies can keep tabs on who you are, what your habits and patterns are, and figure out the sort of person you might be... without the need for direct observation. Even if tomorrow every government were to give every citizen back their personal privacy, we would still live in a world where your digital footprint can tell private companies that [url=http://americablog.com/2013/03/facebook-might-know-youre-gay-before-you-... are gay before you even know[/url]. And even without government intervention, you have private companies like Paypal that freeze your assets because [i]they don't like you[/i]. So no. The age where a big government was necessary for tyranny is long gone. Private corporations are just as capable of generating tyranny as anything else. I'm not going to delude myself into believing this world will ever go away, even if we were to become ancap overnight. We're all under the watchful eye of a greater system in a brave new world... and that's likely forever.

Smokeskin wrote:
Once again for the dimwitted: My system: Everyone has options on how to spend their money. Poor people are given money so they can afford choices. Your system: Government forces the same set of services on everyone, probably at the crappy quality and low efficiency that is typical of monopolies. See the difference? Take a look at how US veteran disability is being handled and tell me that's a good way to do things.

What part of anarcho-capitalism implies that every market is guaranteed a choice? What part of anarcho-capitalism implies that bigger, older companies can't make it cost-prohibitive to enter the market and compete? Sure they won't have a governing body to help them do so, but that doesn't mean it is impossible. Standard Oil's monopoly had no help from government regulations when it became the largest multinational monopoly in history. The government's only hand in the issue was when it tore them apart. Look at the cell phone industry right now. There hasn't been a real new entrant to the market in almost 10 years. The cost of setting up new cell phone infrastructure is prohibitive when you need to compete with already-established networks. In the United States, you have four total competitors that control the network, and they are paired off on two different protocols (Verizon and Sprint on CDMA, AT&T and T-Mobile on GSM). All new competitors that even want to dream of entering the market either have to become local competitors (which rarely works... people with mobile phones want to be mobile) or piggyback on one of these larger networks with a contract (how Amazon Kindle, Republic Wireless, and other similar small companies get a foot in the market). How exactly would anarcho capitalism handle monopolies? Simply making it so that anyone can enter the market isn't a good enough control scheme. As I mentioned many times before, when a small group owns a large amount of resources, their powers become comparable to a government.

Smokeskin wrote:
You're being stupid again. Of course you can own air. If people collected the oxygen from trees and bottled it and sold it, that's fine. If they let it drift into the air and try to charge me for breathing it elsewhere, that's just as stupid as sending out radio transmissions and trying to charge me for receiving them.

I dislike the implications of this. It's the sort of thinking that could create even more problems for the human race than it already has.

Smokeskin wrote:
So let me get this straight. You have a hard time buying into any government system with those requirements. And then in the next paragraph - see the following quote - you go on to list democracy and your own version of "anarchism" to have the same requirements! So you have a hard time buying into democracy and your own anarcho-communistic-big-government ideas?

It's not particularly hard to form micro-communes, cooperative businesses or other small social structures for what is effectively an anarcho-socialist unit to form at a small scale. Anarcho-socialism is based around the concept of a community, and can flourish just fine regardless of how small it might be. Even democracy functions with only a few actual players (arguably better... you don't need representatives at the small scale). The biggest functional anarcho-socialist structure started as a trade college and paraffin heater manufacturer, and is now the 7th largest corporation in Spain. But anarcho-capitalism relies on the production of a market, as that's what it is... a completely free market that relies on tort, contracts and competition to thrive. How does that sort of thing form without an existing infrastructure of at least a dozen legal and security entities, alongside other secondary industries to support it? I mean unless you want it to start off with monopolies (a terrible place to try and start your anarcho-capitalist concept from), you need to have a market with pre-existing competition. This is a very serious question, and goes to whether such an entity could actually form. How would you personally propose getting an anarcho-capitalist micronation formed? Presuming that was your end-goal.

Smokeskin wrote:
Why is that a problem? It looks to me that people are far worse off in countries where private citizens can't own land, or where they don't have capitalistic systems that allow individuals and corporations to accumulate land. You're the richest country in the world with the vast majority having an incredible quality of life.

Incredible in what sense? One in six people do not have any form of health care, our life expectancy is among the lowest for western nations, and the median income for an American sits well below the poverty line for the first time in history. Most businesses don't pay their employees enough for them to rent an apartment [i]and[/i] purchase food, it's not hard in this country to work 60+ hours a week and still qualify for food stamps, and the wealth disparity in our country is actually the worst on the planet, beating out even the extremely-corrupt nation of the Philippines. I live in a country where you are more likely to be unemployed as a war veteran, nearly half the country wants us to teach that evolution is a lie in schools, and private corporations have used such severe practices for natural gas, that many small towns have flammable tap water. But I guess it's incredible. Less than 20% of us are illiterate, and we have a better life expectancy than Somalia. I'm not being burned as a witch for not believing in god. So there's that.

Smokeskin wrote:
So I can't invest in a company that belongs to my kids?

It's a tough issue. How do you allow the free market to thrive without inevitably allowing the concentration of resources and the formation of a private tyranny? I'm willing to take outside input on this dilemma.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Fri, 2013-05-24 19:23

#170

Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture

blantyr wrote:I sympathize

blantyr wrote:
I sympathize with the opinion of many that EP has left leaning tendencies in its setting. The hypercorps are often portrayed as absurdly evil, so sure of themselves that they will oppress and antagonize without concern for consequences.

Anyone who's spent any amount of time studying actual corporate activities in the real world won't find anything "absurd" about this at all. Even here in the United States they still commit some fairly heinous acts, but to really get a taste of what amoral organizations that are held accountable only for the amount of profit they produce while wielding vast amounts of power are capable of achieving, take a few minutes to look at how they behave in third world countries: Vast ecological catastrophes. Factory conditions so poor that the workers commit suicide.

Quote:
The autonomist system is portrayed as lacking flaws, making them the elves of the setting. I figure the new economy ought to have flaws.

There are four ways of interpreting the autonomist system. First: It's really just capitalism with the currency being renamed "rep" and society is wealthy enough that it can afford to provide a very high standard of living as a system of basic welfare. In this scenario, the flaws of the "autonomist" system are the exact same flaws as capitalism. Second: As per the first option, but with the addition that corporations are not legally possible. The plus side is that no one can find personal immunity for their actions behind the facade of an amoral organization. The flaw, however, is that collective action is both difficult and inefficient. Third: It's actually just communism or tyranny with a facelift. This is strongly suggested on pg. 63 of the core rulebook where citizens are required to work at tasks assigned by either a central committee or single individual who controls the raw resources. Post-scarcity technologies have significantly reduced the required tithe of service, but the last one is pretty much neo-feudalism. Fourth: It actually works exactly as advertised. People do stuff in order to maybe, possibly earn rep. Other people are willing to do stuff for you or give stuff to you because you've got an A+++ rating on Ebay. The flaw in this version of the "new economy" is that it simply doesn't work: Economic systems need to motivate people to undertake tasks that would otherwise not be undertaken (because they're unpleasant or boring or whatever). They also need to determine how scarce resources will be distributed. This version of the rep system does neither. It would work if the world of Eclipse Phase was truly and completely post-scarcity (although it's a true post-scarcity society could ever be achieved), but the world of Eclipse Phase patently isn't post-scarcity. This fourth option is basically a commune with a techno-digital desktop theme. Historically speaking, a society like this might work in the short run and on small scales. But if it gets too large (more than 50 or so people, although post-scarcity technologies might expand the tolerance) then it will rapidly deteriorate and collapse.

—

The Alexandrian

Fri, 2013-05-24 19:28

#171

Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture

Decimator wrote:Funny thing

Decimator wrote:
Funny thing is, McCarthy was right. There [i]really were[/i] communist infiltrators all through the US government.

Well... not really. If a raving looney in August 2001 said, "There are terrorists flying on every single commercial flight in the United States!" They weren't proven right by the events of 9/11.

—

The Alexandrian

Fri, 2013-05-24 22:38

#172

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Any economic system will have

Any economic system will have issues, and the more "pure" it is, the more crippling those issues become. Absolute anarcho-capitalism tends to resolve into robber barons, which is a rather undesirable set of circumstances, and absolute socialism/communism tends to resolve into despotism, which is also pretty terrible. We resolve this by creating hybrid systems. Even the 1780s US, which was about as anarcho-capitalist as you're going to find had some basic "socialist" programs; -- free and unbiased courts -- tax-funded defense -- federally-managed printing of currency etc. A smart nation applies their economic system and 'patches' the worst failures of it with other systems. However, this is still a matter of balance. Just like anything else, moderation is key, and getting that perfect balance is very difficult. Additionally, what that perfect balance is will vary from state to state, based on the needs and goals of the population. In the US, I feel comfortable saying our biggest priorities (in approximate order) are: - self-determination - equality in opportunities and under law - physical security (from violence, starvation, etc.) These three are definitely intermingled. If you starve to death, you don't have self-determination. Similarly, if you are denied opportunities based on things you cannot change, that also impacts your self-determination. In the case of welfare, if you take $1 from me to keep someone alive, that is reducing my self-determination by $1, but increasing that other person's by an immeasurable amount (because he is alive). However, if you are taxing me $1 to give someone else who is at no threat of death $1, that reduces my self-determination by $1, but increases his by $1. At first glance, that appears to be a net gain, but in fact it is not, for two reasons; 1) Self-determination includes enjoying the fruits of one's labors. I earned my $1. He did not. Therefore, while that's $1 of self-determination for me in buying power, it's also $1 in my ability to control my own property and my own labor. For the other guy, it increases his buying power, but it has no bearing on his own labor. 2) When judging moral questions, sin by action is always worse than sin by inaction, all other factors being equal. Taking my $1 is worse than leaving him without $1. So the end result is, we have caused a net LOSS of self-determination, but have done nothing significant to meet our other goals. If you are in a nation where the first goal is comfort or equality, the equation works out differently. One of the beautiful things about the US is each state is best able to understand and address the desires of its population. If Virginians believe comfort is the primary driver, they can create a more socialist set of programs. If Maryland believes self-determination is most important, they can create a more libertarian set of programs. Both can co-exist peacefully! However, once you decide at the federal level, "the majority of these two hundred million value comfort as their primary driver!" it harms the 90,000,000 people (or however many) who may disagree. That rule of thumb does scale down. If you're in Maryland and your township decides it wants a more socialist program, that's great! You're causing very little harm for very much gain. Ironically, a libertarian structure is supportive of this. If a group of people in a free society decide they want to curb their liberties for some other goal, they are free to do that. However, the reverse is not true. A group of people in a socialist society cannot agree to curb their comfort levels for increased liberties.

Sat, 2013-05-25 03:36

#173

Decivre

Justin Alexander wrote:Well..

Justin Alexander wrote:
Well... not really. If a raving looney in August 2001 said, "There are terrorists flying on every single commercial flight in the United States!" They weren't proven right by the events of 9/11.

Yeah, McCarthy started a witchhunt. The fact that he was right a few times doesn't justify the wrongful executions and innocent people that were blacklisted in the fight against communism.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Sat, 2013-05-25 03:58

#174

Decivre

nezumi.hebereke wrote:In the

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
In the case of welfare, if you take $1 from me to keep someone alive, that is reducing my self-determination by $1, but increasing that other person's by an immeasurable amount (because he is alive). However, if you are taxing me $1 to give someone else who is at no threat of death $1, that reduces my self-determination by $1, but increases his by $1. At first glance, that appears to be a net gain, but in fact it is not, for two reasons; 1) Self-determination includes enjoying the fruits of one's labors. I earned my $1. He did not. Therefore, while that's $1 of self-determination for me in buying power, it's also $1 in my ability to control my own property and my own labor. For the other guy, it increases his buying power, but it has no bearing on his own labor. 2) When judging moral questions, sin by action is always worse than sin by inaction, all other factors being equal. Taking my $1 is worse than leaving him without $1. So the end result is, we have caused a net LOSS of self-determination, but have done nothing significant to meet our other goals.

Yes, and no. Self determination as defined by income is only valid when that income is directly equal in value to the work put out. But the value of work is a liquid concept, controlled by either the demand that the world has for your work, the amount by which people are willing to pay you by, or (in the case of entrepreneurs and businessmen) by the amount that you can demand as a byproduct of your control over the market. In the first case, it is optimal. If everyone was actually paid by how much a job was actually in demand, most people would probably be happy with life. But unfortunately the latter two are the most likely scenarios in modern society... and both are bordering on arbitrary.

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
If you are in a nation where the first goal is comfort or equality, the equation works out differently. One of the beautiful things about the US is each state is best able to understand and address the desires of its population. If Virginians believe comfort is the primary driver, they can create a more socialist set of programs. If Maryland believes self-determination is most important, they can create a more libertarian set of programs. Both can co-exist peacefully! However, once you decide at the federal level, "the majority of these two hundred million value comfort as their primary driver!" it harms the 90,000,000 people (or however many) who may disagree. That rule of thumb does scale down. If you're in Maryland and your township decides it wants a more socialist program, that's great! You're causing very little harm for very much gain.

But you're making the presumption that comfort is the goal behind socialism. It isn't. The primary goal behind the various forms of socialism is removing a person's needs as a marketable product. Just as you and I don't pay for air, socialism works under the presumption that all your other needs should be just as free. The biggest argument is in what we define as a "need".

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
Ironically, a libertarian structure is supportive of this. If a group of people in a free society decide they want to curb their liberties for some other goal, they are free to do that. However, the reverse is not true. A group of people in a socialist society cannot agree to curb their comfort levels for increased liberties.

Sort of. A socialist society cannot form unless there are resources for the community to use. So a socialist society is only capable of forming if the capitalistic society has the opportunity for those resources to be acquired. As was already mentioned by you, a truly anarcho-capitalistic economy risks falling into plutocracy, and no socialist sub-society could form in such an environment. The same is true in the inverse. A truly anarcho-socialist structure, with no central state, would allow any community to form a capitalistic structure, so long as it does not interfere, impede or work to the detriment of other communities. The only time a capitalistic society could not form is in the least optimal scenario, when a centralized statist structure has taken control of the communities as a whole.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Sat, 2013-05-25 10:00

#175

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Decivre wrote:Justin

Decivre wrote:
Justin Alexander wrote:
Well... not really. If a raving looney in August 2001 said, "There are terrorists flying on every single commercial flight in the United States!" They weren't proven right by the events of 9/11.
Yeah, McCarthy started a witchhunt. The fact that he was right a few times doesn't justify the wrongful executions and innocent people that were blacklisted in the fight against communism.

Which wrongful executions?

Sat, 2013-05-25 10:43

#176

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Decivre wrote:Self

Decivre wrote:
Self determination as defined by income is only valid when that income is directly equal in value to the work put out.

So your argument is that I'm wrong, because you can't define value? I'm not buying that.

Quote:
But you're making the presumption that comfort is the goal behind socialism. It isn't. The primary goal behind the various forms of socialism is removing a person's needs as a marketable product. Just as you and I don't pay for air, socialism works under the presumption that all your other needs should be just as free.

1) I consider freedom from having to work to be a comfort. People in any society of course will need to define the line between 'needs required to live' and 'comforts' though, so I'm comfortable with the idea of a capitalist-hybrid that provides beds for free or one that does not as providing for basic needs. 2) I'm giving an example. If you want to replace 'comfort' with any other word, you may do so. My argument stands. Socialism and capitalism can be neighbors, as long as they both operate under a primarily libertarian framework or 'higher level'. Socialism and capitalism cannot be neighbors under a despotic or socialist framework. So in the US, libertarian federal government permits socialist states, but the reverse is not true. (For most nations, there is no higher level or framework, which is about as libertarian as you can get.)

Quote:
Sort of. A socialist society cannot form unless there are resources for the community to use. So a socialist society is only capable of forming if the capitalistic society has the opportunity for those resources to be acquired. As was already mentioned by you, a truly anarcho-capitalistic economy risks falling into plutocracy, and no socialist sub-society could form in such an environment.

This is not true. Poverty-stricken socialist states exist. (Unless you're arguing, 'in environments where there are not enough resources for a state to exist, there are not enough resources for a socialist state to exist.)

Quote:
The same is true in the inverse. A truly anarcho-socialist structure, with no central state, would allow any community to form a capitalistic structure, so long as it does not interfere, impede or work to the detriment of other communities. The only time a capitalistic society could not form is in the least optimal scenario, when a centralized statist structure has taken control of the communities as a whole.

You're going to have to explain how an anarcho-socialist structure would even work in a large community. AFAIK, no such thing has ever existed before in communities larger than 500, or in communities with any sort of diversity in cultural backgrounds or ability to conduct work. (Perhaps you're referring to the Autonomist states from EP, the precise case whose feasibility kicked off this whole thread in the first place?)

Sat, 2013-05-25 14:41

#177

Decivre

nezumi.hebereke wrote:So your

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
Which wrongful executions?

Ethel Rosenberg is the most famous. She was convicted on her brother's testimony, which he gave to keep his wife out of prison. He waited until he was freed before he recanted, because he didn't want to die in prison. And it wasn't hard to convict her because her case was tied directly to her husband's (and he was guilty as hell). EDIT: After further research, I couldn't find other executions. So just Ethel Rosenberg.

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
So your argument is that I'm wrong, because you can't define value? I'm not buying that.

Actually, my argument is that you aren't wrong... but the money that is part and parcel to self-determination is only the money that is equal in worth to the job you are doing. Anything you earn above and beyond it, for whatever reason, is excess... and in an optimal world, that would be the part that would be taxed.

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
1) I consider freedom from having to work to be a comfort. People in any society of course will need to define the line between 'needs required to live' and 'comforts' though, so I'm comfortable with the idea of a capitalist-hybrid that provides beds for free or one that does not as providing for basic needs. 2) I'm giving an example. If you want to replace 'comfort' with any other word, you may do so. My argument stands. Socialism and capitalism can be neighbors, as long as they both operate under a primarily libertarian framework or 'higher level'. Socialism and capitalism cannot be neighbors under a despotic or socialist framework. So in the US, libertarian federal government permits socialist states, but the reverse is not true. (For most nations, there is no higher level or framework, which is about as libertarian as you can get.)

Socialism and capitalism couldn't be neighbors under the conditions of a despotic capitalist structure either. A private tyranny is no more superior than a public one.

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
This is not true. Poverty-stricken socialist states exist. (Unless you're arguing, 'in environments where there are not enough resources for a state to exist, there are not enough resources for a socialist state to exist.)

I'm arguing that a socialist micro-state without the means to provide for its citizenry is barely anything, except maybe a group of people with altruistic views to one another.

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
You're going to have to explain how an anarcho-socialist structure would even work in a large community. AFAIK, no such thing has ever existed before in communities larger than 500, or in communities with any sort of diversity in cultural backgrounds or ability to conduct work. (Perhaps you're referring to the Autonomist states from EP, the precise case whose feasibility kicked off this whole thread in the first place?)

As I mentioned already way up on the thread, the Mondragon Corporation is the largest anarcho-socialist organization in existence, at nearly a hundred thousand people in implementation. And it's successful, being the 7th largest corporation in Spain.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Sun, 2013-05-26 14:41

#178

nizkateth

If the purpose of money is to

If the purpose of money is to provide incentive for doing the unpleasant jobs... why do those jobs typically pay so poorly, and we pay people better the further from those jobs they get?

—

Reapers: Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball. My watch also has a minute hand, millenium hand, and an eon hand.

Sun, 2013-05-26 21:25

#179

Decimator

nizkateth wrote:If the

nizkateth wrote:
If the purpose of money is to provide incentive for doing the unpleasant jobs... why do those jobs typically pay so poorly, and we pay people better the further from those jobs they get?

Because they are unskilled labor. The pool of possible applicants is vast, so you can fairly easily find someone willing to work for a relatively low wage, even if the job is nasty or dangerous.

Mon, 2013-05-27 06:03

#180

Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture

Decivre wrote:Ethel Rosenberg

Decivre wrote:
Ethel Rosenberg is the most famous. She was convicted on her brother's testimony, which he gave to keep his wife out of prison. He waited until he was freed before he recanted, because he didn't want to die in prison. And it wasn't hard to convict her because her case was tied directly to her husband's (and he was guilty as hell).

Communist propaganda and the Rosenberg's defense attorney tried to impugn David Greenglass' credibility (what other choice did they have?). Greenglass did, in fact, attempt to recant his testimony in 1996, but his timing sucked: Just a couple years later, it would become evident that his recantation was a lie. In the present day of 2013 we have seen the intercepted KGB cables indicating they were both spies; we have had multiple KGB officials testify that they were both spies; and seen multiple people emerge with documentary evidence from the KGB saying that they were both spies. If Ethel Rosenberg wasn't working for the KGB, somebody went to a lot of trouble to convince the KGB and everyone else in her spy ring that she was.

nizkateth wrote:
If the purpose of money is to provide incentive for doing the unpleasant jobs... why do those jobs typically pay so poorly, and we pay people better the further from those jobs they get?

Decimator already partially answered this: The jobs you're thinking of as "unpleasant" are unskilled labor. But your definition of unpleasant also needs to be significantly broadened: How many people in this world do you think would keep doing the job they currently hold if they didn't need to earn money in order to pay for the things that they need and want?

—

The Alexandrian

Mon, 2013-05-27 07:37

#181

nizkateth

Justin Alexander wrote:How

Justin Alexander wrote:
How many people in this world do you think would keep doing the job they currently hold if they didn't need to earn money in order to pay for the things that they need and want?

I would think we only really need the want. ^_^ Humans are covetous and ambitious animals. Give us the basics we need to be essentially comfortable, then show that there's a lot more we could have beyond that, and we'll work for our wants. No need to withhold needs for motivation. It would even be less stressful, which is better for overall health and productivity. We work better when we feel secure. We'd be overall more productive and successful if we knew there was a solid standard we couldn't fall below. It's likely we'd actually take more chances, more people would start businesses of their own, and compete. Thus stimulating that capitalist system stacked on top of the covered basics. The only difference being that there's a gentler consequence for failure. So go ahead and try that business idea you had, because it's not like you'll lose your home if it doesn't work. It's all about the positive motivation of "you'll get more if you do" as opposed to the negative motivation of "you'll suffer if you don't." A child is more likely to do their chores if there is a positive incentive for doing so (clean your room and you can have ice cream for dessert tonight) as opposed to negative (clean your room or you get nothing for dinner tonight).

—

Reapers: Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball. My watch also has a minute hand, millenium hand, and an eon hand.

Mon, 2013-05-27 17:38

#182

Decivre

Justin Alexander wrote

Justin Alexander wrote:
Communist propaganda and the Rosenberg's defense attorney tried to impugn David Greenglass' credibility (what other choice did they have?). Greenglass did, in fact, attempt to recant his testimony in 1996, but his timing sucked: Just a couple years later, it would become evident that his recantation was a lie. In the present day of 2013 we have seen the intercepted KGB cables indicating they were both spies; we have had multiple KGB officials testify that they were both spies; and seen multiple people emerge with documentary evidence from the KGB saying that they were both spies. If Ethel Rosenberg wasn't working for the KGB, somebody went to a lot of trouble to convince the KGB and everyone else in her spy ring that she was.

Actually, it wasn't a lie. Ethel Rosenberg's code name in the cables as David testified was in reality Greenglass's wife. He lied so that Ethel would go to prison rather than her. Taking that into account, not a single cable referenced Ethel at all. She was convicted based on David's testimony and Ruth's codename. The big debate that still goes on is whether Julius was a spy. Many people still claim him to be innocent to this day. I personally doubt that, but there has been little evidence to show that Ethel was guilty of anything except for "being the wife of Julius Rosenberg".

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Tue, 2013-05-28 02:14

#183

Justin Alexander Justin Alexander's picture

Decivre wrote:Actually, it

Decivre wrote:
Actually, it wasn't a lie. Ethel Rosenberg's code name in the cables as David testified was in reality Greenglass's wife. He lied so that Ethel would go to prison rather than her. Taking that into account, not a single cable referenced Ethel at all. She was convicted based on David's testimony and Ruth's codename.

Ya know, it's odd. Some Rosenberg apologists claim that Ethel must be innocent because she doesn't receive a code name in the VENONA cables. Other Rosenberg apologists (including you) claim that Ethel must be innocent because the code name that everyone says belongs to her actually referred to someone else. The reality is that there wasn't any confusion between Ruth Greenglass' code name and Ethel Rosenberg. Both Ethel's and Ruth's names appear in clear text in the VENONA cables. And while some effort has been made to claim that the VENONA cables don't provide a slam-dunk conclusion on the extent of Ethel's involvement in the spy ring, the cables leave no doubt that she WAS involved. And, of course, there are all the OTHER documents which have emerged implicating her.

Quote:
The big debate that still goes on is whether Julius was a spy.

I'm afraid that this is the same "big debate" as the Earth being flat, climate change being a hoax, and Francis Bacon writing the complete works of Shakespeare.

—

The Alexandrian

Tue, 2013-05-28 03:46

#184

Decivre

Justin Alexander wrote:I'm

Justin Alexander wrote:
Ya know, it's odd. Some Rosenberg apologists claim that Ethel must be innocent because she doesn't receive a code name in the VENONA cables. Other Rosenberg apologists (including you) claim that Ethel must be innocent because the code name that everyone says belongs to her actually referred to someone else. The reality is that there wasn't any confusion between Ruth Greenglass' code name and Ethel Rosenberg. Both Ethel's and Ruth's names appear in clear text in the VENONA cables. And while some effort has been made to claim that the VENONA cables don't provide a slam-dunk conclusion on the extent of Ethel's involvement in the spy ring, the cables leave no doubt that she WAS involved. And, of course, there are all the OTHER documents which have emerged implicating her.

Well then, in the immortal words of Alexander the Great: "sauce, or GTFO". Okay, maybe that was just quoted from a 4chan poster. Still, I'd like to see your source on this.

Justin Alexander wrote:
I'm afraid that this is the same "big debate" as the Earth being flat, climate change being a hoax, and Francis Bacon writing the complete works of Shakespeare.

Well, I happen to live in the United States, the only western country where evolution is still a "big debate" topic. Sorry that puts your pants in a knot.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Tue, 2013-05-28 07:58

#185

nizkateth

Decimator wrote:Because they

Decimator wrote:
Because they are unskilled labor. The pool of possible applicants is vast, so you can fairly easily find someone willing to work for a relatively low wage, even if the job is nasty or dangerous.

Yes, I know that. The argument was made that we need a monetary system to provide incentive to do the jobs no one wants to do but are necessary. Thus, I can't help but wonder what it says that we create a system to force people to have to do the crappy jobs, then also have those jobs pay the worst, while much better jobs also pay much more.

—

Reapers: Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball. My watch also has a minute hand, millenium hand, and an eon hand.

Tue, 2013-05-28 09:48

#186

Decimator

nizkateth wrote:Yes, I know

nizkateth wrote:
Yes, I know that. The argument was made that we need a monetary system to provide incentive to do the jobs no one wants to do but are necessary. Thus, I can't help but wonder what it says that we create a system to force people to have to do the crappy jobs, then also have those jobs pay the worst, while much better jobs also pay much more.

All it says is that people don't care enough about the unpleasantness of a job that they will refuse to do it for a low wage.

Tue, 2013-05-28 14:04

#187

Decivre

Decimator wrote:All it says

Decimator wrote:
All it says is that people don't care enough about the unpleasantness of a job that they will refuse to do it for a low wage.

Alternatively, it says that we have created a scenario of poverty in which people are so desperate for any wage that they are willing to even work at unpleasant jobs for paltry sums.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Tue, 2013-05-28 14:41

#188

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Firstly, a monetary syste,

Firstly, a monetary syste, isn't a way to force people to do the jobs no one wants to do. Currency is a way to establish value, and to trade that value easily. A monetary system is the way we manage that currency. An economic system is the system by which value is created, distributed, and 'spent'. So ultimately, we don't 'need a monetary system to force people to do jobs no one wants to do'. We use an economic system to push people into creating value. There is value in mopping the floors, as well as in running a corporation. Since the latter requires a very specialized set of skills and impacts the wellbeing of so many people, it is more valuable.

nizkateth wrote:
I would think we only really need the want. ^_^

And I'd argue that your position is pure speculation. Until you have real evidence, speculation isn't anything to gamble the wellbeing of yourself, and everyone else in your nation-state on.

Quote:
It would even be less stressful, which is better for overall health and productivity.

Actually, stress is good, even necessary, for health and productivity. The problem isn't that our system has stress; it's that sometimes it has too much stress. Moderation in all things and all that.

Quote:
It's likely we'd actually take more chances, more people would start businesses of their own, and compete.

Interesting you bring this up because the US, while being the least socialist of Western nations, has the highest rate of entrepeneureship. The evidence would seem to suggest your position requires some further inspection.

Quote:
It's all about the positive motivation of "you'll get more if you do" as opposed to the negative motivation of "you'll suffer if you don't." A child is more likely to do their chores if there is a positive incentive for doing so (clean your room and you can have ice cream for dessert tonight) as opposed to negative (clean your room or you get nothing for dinner tonight).

I would also argue you likely don't have children :P

Quote:
Actually, my argument is that you aren't wrong... but the money that is part and parcel to self-determination is only the money that is equal in worth to the job you are doing. Anything you earn above and beyond it, for whatever reason, is excess... and in an optimal world, that would be the part that would be taxed.

I've not seen this position before, and I find it intriguing, but I'm not sold on it. If I'm understanding you correctly, your issue is that currency decides "worth" based both on the amount of work you had to invest in it, and on the availability of that product on the market. So a basketball player may work as hard at his job as an author, but makes crazy amounts more, because of the nature of pro sports. So ideally, everyone would get a guaranteed base pay rate per hour (modified by things like education), with all pay beyond that taxed at a high rate, and pay below that being made up for by tax benefits? Is that correct? My big issue there of course is the impacts on the economy. Any system which pulls from the public coffers to support buggy whip producers probably isn't a very efficient system.

Quote:
Socialism and capitalism couldn't be neighbors under the conditions of a despotic capitalist structure either. A private tyranny is no more superior than a public one.

I did previously specify that you can't use a "pure" version of either system, that you'd need to mix it in with other systems to get something functional. However, a capitalist-hybrid permits socialist children, while a socialist-hybrid squashes any libertarian communities.

Quote:

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
This is not true. Poverty-stricken socialist states exist. (Unless you're arguing, 'in environments where there are not enough resources for a state to exist, there are not enough resources for a socialist state to exist.)
I'm arguing that a socialist micro-state without the means to provide for its citizenry is barely anything, except maybe a group of people with altruistic views to one another.

I feel pretty comfortable that I caught the essence of your sentiment then. THe same applies to capitalism, of course.

Quote:
As I mentioned already way up on the thread, the Mondragon Corporation is the largest anarcho-socialist organization in existence, at nearly a hundred thousand people in implementation. And it's successful, being the 7th largest corporation in Spain.

I must have missed that. It's been a long thread. I'll have to read up on them (although don't expect me to know anything worthwhile about them today).

Tue, 2013-05-28 15:15

#189

nizkateth

Decivre wrote:Decimator wrote

Decivre wrote:
Decimator wrote:
All it says is that people don't care enough about the unpleasantness of a job that they will refuse to do it for a low wage.
Alternatively, it says that we have created a scenario of poverty in which people are so desperate for any wage that they are willing to even work at unpleasant jobs for paltry sums.

It just strikes me as yet another traditional hierarchy of 'haves' and 'have-nots' where the 'have-nots' are the ones doing the hard and unpleasant work. In other words, the only real difference between the current system and a feudal system is: "do this work or I'll kick you off my land and starve your family" became "do this work or you won't get paid, and so you and your family will lose your homes and starve." Which is a very significant difference.

—

Reapers: Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball. My watch also has a minute hand, millenium hand, and an eon hand.

Tue, 2013-05-28 15:30

#190

nizkateth

nezumi.hebereke wrote

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
nizkateth wrote:
I would think we only really need the want. ^_^
And I'd argue that your position is pure speculation. Until you have real evidence, speculation isn't anything to gamble the wellbeing of yourself, and everyone else in your nation-state on.

Let me ask you this then: if you were provided a small but comfortable apartment, $200 or so a month in food-supplement, free access to second-hand clothes, and free medical coverage... would you want nothing else? Would you be content and see no value in earning money for anything beyond that?

Quote:
Quote:
It's all about the positive motivation of "you'll get more if you do" as opposed to the negative motivation of "you'll suffer if you don't." A child is more likely to do their chores if there is a positive incentive for doing so (clean your room and you can have ice cream for dessert tonight) as opposed to negative (clean your room or you get nothing for dinner tonight).
I would also argue you likely don't have children :P

You may be surprised. :P Then again, you may also be surprised that I was an economics major back in college. *** And really, this is me trying to compromise with you capitalists. Instead of pushing a complete communal cooperative system, trying to incorporate the basics of my preference with yours.

—

Reapers: Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball. My watch also has a minute hand, millenium hand, and an eon hand.

Tue, 2013-05-28 22:06

#191

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

nizkateth wrote:

nizkateth wrote:
Let me ask you this then: if you were provided a small but comfortable apartment, $200 or so a month in food-supplement, free access to second-hand clothes, and free medical coverage... would you want nothing else? Would you be content and see no value in earning money for anything beyond that?

What about a guaranteed retirement, health care, and college education for my kids? Right now my expenses are about 95% for housing, food, education, retirement funding, car and gas, and taxes. This month I spent $30 on video games, which is a lot for me. My kids clothes are already second-hand, when I can find them. My clothes are nicer, because I'm expected to wear nice clothes for work. So yes, if the question is, would I work if everything was already provided for, the answer probably is no, at least not in my current career choice. $200 a month in spending money would be sufficient, and I get that from writing. Frankly, aside from needs and kids, I don't know what else I WOULD spend money on.

Quote:
And really, this is me trying to compromise with you capitalists. Instead of pushing a complete communal cooperative system, trying to incorporate the basics of my preference with yours.

But no one is telling you not to create a complete communal cooperative system. Decivre gave the excellent example of the Mondragon Corporation, which is precisely that, and it exists within a capitalist country. The best part is though, with Mondragon existing within a capitalist country, you can opt out of that commune. If you made all of the US a commune, no such option exists. Please, if you want to create a commune, go to it. I will cheer you on all the way. But don't try to force it with the strength of law. Try to show some tolerance for other beliefs. That's where socialism usually fails.

Wed, 2013-05-29 00:17

#192

Decivre

nezumi.hebereke wrote:What

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
What about a guaranteed retirement, health care, and college education for my kids? Right now my expenses are about 95% for housing, food, education, retirement funding, car and gas, and taxes. This month I spent $30 on video games, which is a lot for me. My kids clothes are already second-hand, when I can find them. My clothes are nicer, because I'm expected to wear nice clothes for work. So yes, if the question is, would I work if everything was already provided for, the answer probably is no, at least not in my current career choice. $200 a month in spending money would be sufficient, and I get that from writing. Frankly, aside from needs and kids, I don't know what else I WOULD spend money on.

Luxury. Providing your kids a college education (assuming college wasn't provided free). The chance to try out entrepreneurship, and start a business for yourself. Or if you aren't much into helping yourself, the chance to better the lives of others. Or hell, maybe you would just use that time to become a full-time dad. Make taking care of and raising your kids your sole priority. That's great. Our youth needs the attention and nurture to prepare them for the future, something that our society isn't really designed for considering how many couples don't have the ability to have one house spouse. That's the beauty of eliminating your needs as a priority for you to focus on. You now get to determine what you want to do with that freedom. That's really how socialists see the concept. Much like the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to defend oneself, we believe that there should be a freedom to live... one that isn't constrained by a need for cost-of-living wages. I don't need to spend money to receive the other three freedoms, why should we need to pay for this one?

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
But no one is telling you not to create a complete communal cooperative system. Decivre gave the excellent example of the Mondragon Corporation, which is precisely that, and it exists within a capitalist country. The best part is though, with Mondragon existing within a capitalist country, you can opt out of that commune. If you made all of the US a commune, no such option exists. Please, if you want to create a commune, go to it. I will cheer you on all the way. But don't try to force it with the strength of law. Try to show some tolerance for other beliefs. That's where socialism usually fails.

Actually, this is wrong in two ways. Many locations are not favorable to the creation of communal structures, even when they are capitalist. Zimbabwe has illegalized certain housing cooperatives, and New York City has been battling the pre-K coops that have formed due to the shortage of public school openings. And we don't even have to go into the way that this administration has cracked down on grow-ops here in California. So capitalism in itself does not create some universally compatible system. Furthermore, to form a commune there must be enough resources for the commune to gain autonomy. A commune without the capacity for autonomy is like a constitutional republic without a written constitution. As for communes, you presume that the only structure for communism is single-authority, centralized socialist structures. But those are terribad, and even Mondragon isn't designed in that fashion. Instead, it is better thought of as a collective federation of separate coops under a single banner, which share resources and intermingle ideas during the decision-making process. But they are independent coops with separate business structures, minimum wages, management heirarchies and more (or as it's commonly known, anarcho-socialism). With that in mind, how would a decentralized socialist structure where individual communities are left largely to their own devices to decide how they should govern themselves be hostile to the formation of a capitalist sub-society? The only limitation would be that it could not compete with other communes in a manner that it would risk their autonomy. But such a restriction is no more limiting than, say, restricting your right to rape and murder.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Wed, 2013-05-29 13:42

#193

nizkateth

I find it strange that a

I find it strange that a double-standard seems to be present. On the one hand insisting that anarcho-capitalism will [i]not[/i] devolve into robber barons and monopolies and people living off 'store credit' for their pay (all of which happened). On the other hand insisting that socialism will [i]inevitably[/i] devolve into a communist dictatorship (as happened in some cases, but not in others).

—

Reapers: Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball. My watch also has a minute hand, millenium hand, and an eon hand.

Wed, 2013-05-29 16:53

#194

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

nizkateth wrote:I find it

nizkateth wrote:
I find it strange that a double-standard seems to be present. On the one hand insisting that anarcho-capitalism will [i]not[/i] devolve into robber barons and monopolies and people living off 'store credit' for their pay (all of which happened). On the other hand insisting that socialism will [i]inevitably[/i] devolve into a communist dictatorship (as happened in some cases, but not in others).

I'm not sure who has insisted that. I've specifically "insisted" to the contrary, several times, that ANY system must adopt traits of other systems in order to avoid that undesirable end-game (usually despotism, under one guise or another).

Decivre wrote:
That's the beauty of eliminating your needs as a priority for you to focus on. You now get to determine what you want to do with that freedom. That's really how socialists see the concept. Much like the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to defend oneself, we believe that there should be a freedom to live... one that isn't constrained by a need for cost-of-living wages. I don't need to spend money to receive the other three freedoms, why should we need to pay for this one?

You make a very compelling argument, and ultimately, you're right; economic freedom can fall under the banner of libertarianism. This is why I'm comfortable calling myself a libertarian, while still championing programs like public education and food stamps. I think though I have three issues with what you bring up. 1) Where is the line between "freedom to live" and "freedom to luxury" (for lack of a better term). Of course, if you starve to death, all your other freedoms become moot. But there's also a point where you're claiming "freedoms" you don't have any right to (just, in this case, a priviledge). For example, if we as a society decided that chocolate is guaranteed to be purchasable with food stamps, and all people have a "right" to food (including chocolate). However, chocolate isn't required to live; it's a luxury item. I'd argue at that point, you're overstepping the bounds of what we have "rights" to. This is more of a "hey, this needs consideration", rather than a point that you're wrong. I'm concerned though that what for instance nizkateth thinks we have a right to is well beyond what I'd be comfortable with, and a society of people who vote like her are then quickly stepping beyond your social libertarian argument. 2) Most certainly in a perfect world where manna fell from heaven, I'd argue everyone has a right to food and shelter and so on. But in this world, food and shelter need to be produced through work, and if you're taking the products of someone else's labors against that person's will, that's a violation of those libertarian principles. I brought this up prior and, while you seemed to feel that the gap between 'what we get paid' and 'what we earn' should provide for that, I don't think we came to a conclusive answer, and I'm still not convinced that Bob's right to get me to pay for his apartment is morally right or best protecting the freedoms of both of us. 3) Again referring to perfect worlds, and ours not being one, all economies are built on people creating value. However, creating value is hard work, and probably the major motivator for people to do that hard work is paying for things that they need (not want, but need), including food and shelter. Take away that driver and many people don't have the motivation to work. After all why, be a bus driver when I can play Minecraft all day?

Quote:
Many locations are not favorable to the creation of communal structures, even when they are capitalist.

I hear you, and I agree. Funny, the three places you picked out aren't exactly examples of capitalist/democratic/libertarian joy either. But you're also cherry-picking. There's nothing inherent in a capitalist system which makes it unfavorable to socialist children.

Quote:
As for communes, you presume that the only structure for communism is single-authority, centralized socialist structures. But those are terribad, and even Mondragon isn't designed in that fashion. Instead, it is better thought of as a collective federation of separate coops under a single banner, which share resources and intermingle ideas during the decision-making process.

All of the previous examples of socialist GOVERNMENTS are single-authority centralized social structures. I'd argue that your example of multiple states participating as a single federation is analogous to what I was saying earlier; the overall federation is rules-light, libertarian, likely capitalist, with each state being socialist. Reading your statement, I believe you and I have identical visions, with the difference being you see socialist communes being more common, while I see capitalist ones being more common. I find both visions agreeable, as long as both types of communities are allowed to thrive and meet the requirements of their citizens. A homogenous system is quite disfavorable.

Wed, 2013-05-29 18:24

#195

Decivre

nezumi.hebereke wrote:You

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
You make a very compelling argument, and ultimately, you're right; economic freedom can fall under the banner of libertarianism. This is why I'm comfortable calling myself a libertarian, while still championing programs like public education and food stamps. I think though I have three issues with what you bring up.

Believe it or not, anarchists and libertarians have nearly the same views, such to the point that most anarchists also identify as libertarians (myself included). The biggest difference is in how we think government should be. Libertarians generally want a government that is largely insignificant, that primarily serves an arbitration role for a greater private society. Anarchists, on the other hand, essentially want the concept of "people" and "government" to be unified, so that a community of 200 people is also a nation of 200 government officials.

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
1) Where is the line between "freedom to live" and "freedom to luxury" (for lack of a better term). Of course, if you starve to death, all your other freedoms become moot. But there's also a point where you're claiming "freedoms" you don't have any right to (just, in this case, a priviledge). For example, if we as a society decided that chocolate is guaranteed to be purchasable with food stamps, and all people have a "right" to food (including chocolate). However, chocolate isn't required to live; it's a luxury item. I'd argue at that point, you're overstepping the bounds of what we have "rights" to. This is more of a "hey, this needs consideration", rather than a point that you're wrong. I'm concerned though that what for instance nizkateth thinks we have a right to is well beyond what I'd be comfortable with, and a society of people who vote like her are then quickly stepping beyond your social libertarian argument.

This is definitely something that needs consideration. Groups in such a system could push for more and more luxury goods to be considered a "right" rather than a luxury or "want". And this would potentially encroach on a hybrid for-profit structure considering that a right is something you cannot profit from. But this would be one of those inherent discussions that would have to be had during the creation of such a system. Which crops will be "needs" and which crops will be "wants". Which animal byproducts? Which animal meats?

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
2) Most certainly in a perfect world where manna fell from heaven, I'd argue everyone has a right to food and shelter and so on. But in this world, food and shelter need to be produced through work, and if you're taking the products of someone else's labors against that person's will, that's a violation of those libertarian principles. I brought this up prior and, while you seemed to feel that the gap between 'what we get paid' and 'what we earn' should provide for that, I don't think we came to a conclusive answer, and I'm still not convinced that Bob's right to get me to pay for his apartment is morally right or best protecting the freedoms of both of us.

True to an extent. The two biggest and most important aspects of shelter aren't so much the labor, but the land it resides on and the resources that make it. Look at the Mumbai slums of Dharavi: an area of 175 hectares cobbled together by the very community that resides on it, merely from the detritus and scrap that they could muster in the region. The only reason it looks like crap is because they lacked the quality resources necessary to build homes, not because they didn't have the voluntary labor force. These people MacGyvered a single-story city from trash. Why shouldn't quality materials necessary for home construction be something you have a right to, alongside something to live on?

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
3) Again referring to perfect worlds, and ours not being one, all economies are built on people creating value. However, creating value is hard work, and probably the major motivator for people to do that hard work is paying for things that they need (not want, but need), including food and shelter. Take away that driver and many people don't have the motivation to work. After all why, be a bus driver when I can play Minecraft all day?

But why justify wage-slavery? The idea that you should be shackled to a job just so that you don't die in the streets is [i]wrong[/i], regardless of whether it's how society has always been. We finally dismantled the government-accepted institution of traditional slavery a little over a century ago, despite that being the way things always were. Why are we all still completely fine with the idea that you should be a tradeable commodity that businesses use for labor, that deserves to die when you are unwilling or unable to be treated as such?

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
I hear you, and I agree. Funny, the three places you picked out aren't exactly examples of capitalist/democratic/libertarian joy either. But you're also cherry-picking. There's nothing inherent in a capitalist system which makes it unfavorable to socialist children.

True, but that was the point. I'm not saying that all capitalism is unfavorable to socialism. I'm saying that the conditions have to be right for them to be compatible. The same is true in reverse.

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
All of the previous examples of socialist GOVERNMENTS are single-authority centralized social structures. I'd argue that your example of multiple states participating as a single federation is analogous to what I was saying earlier; the overall federation is rules-light, libertarian, likely capitalist, with each state being socialist. Reading your statement, I believe you and I have identical visions, with the difference being you see socialist communes being more common, while I see capitalist ones being more common. I find both visions agreeable, as long as both types of communities are allowed to thrive and meet the requirements of their citizens. A homogenous system is quite disfavorable.

While I'd agree that most large-scale socialist experiments have ended in totalitarian states (and failure), I'd also like to note issues with that. Not all socialism is the same, and we could point to failures of capitalism that were just as problematic if not moreso. Furthermore, anarcho-capitalists have never accepted the USSR, PRC or any of those communist states simply because they failed to have any anarchistic elements within them. It's like trying to make a peanut butter sandwich, but all you had was peanut butter, between two window panes with a spread of car grease... sure there's peanut butter, but that doesn't make it a sandwich. As for the creation of a federation, I don't really consider a federation to be a small government. The federation only needs enough rules to establish the decentralized network. It's really more of a treaty than a government in and of itself. But at least we agree on this. Unfortunately though, I think you wish too much with regards to heterogeneity... if only because this doesn't seem to be a common human trait. When new social orders become successful in our species, they tend to spread and overtake systems that are less successful in a sort of memetic Darwinism. Democracy has been rapidly killing monarchies and dictatorships worldwide for almost a century now, and capitalism killed off feudalism back in the Renaissance. Freedom of speech and religion (and women's rights for that matter) are spreading worldwide as we speak, dismantling the cultural mindsets of nations that refuse to acknowledge them. And even today, the concept of copyright is being battered at by newer cultural shifts towards copyleft. If you and I both had our dreams fulfilled, and we had a world with both anarcho-communist and center-libertarian governments within it, those two structures would eventually come to clash against one another. Not perhaps violently, but inevitably by memetics.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Fri, 2013-05-31 15:05

#196

Smokeskin

Decivre wrote:Smokeskin wrote

Decivre wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
Decivre. You have to get into thinking mode. Of course there are other parameters than starvation in foreign countries to look at. Of course there might even be a lessening of that starvation without the entire problem being fixed. It is incredibly difficult to discuss with you when you bring up some strange aspect and then blow it all out of proportion like this.
Starvation was just an example. There are plenty of issues I have with anarcho-capitalism that I don't see it fixing. Wealth disparity is another big issue, as is the multitude of people that live well below the poverty line. The complexities of contract law, and the already endemic problem of people signing contracts that they don't understand (a problem that will become even more exacerbated in a world where everything is defined by a contract). The problems of property distribution, the problems of social welfare. Starvation is just the most obvious one I brought up.

Wealth disparity, property distribution: these are non-issues. Jealousy isn't a valid argument. People living below the poverty line, social welfare: Many of the things that creaty poverty and unemployment like minimum wages will be non-existing, which will help greatly. You won't have governments forcing up costs on things like health care with legislation. You won't have government inefficiency in welfare programs. And I don't know why you think there won't be welfare in anarcho-capitalism. How many people do you know who thinks there should be zero welfare? How many people do you know who wouldn't care if other people didn't contribute? Your argument only makes sense if you truly believe that people will only give to the poor if the government is threatening with violence if you don't. Contracts people don't understand: Buy a consumer rights code and have it apply to all transactions. With consumer rights code being privatized it will adapt faster and serve customers rather than serving the politicians (which tends to care more about campaign donations than protecting people). It is a step up, rather than the current legal system that is rigged in favor of corporations.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
Private companies don't tend to go through recordings to look for people doing harmless stuff like trading food stamps, and when they do find people who do so, they send them extortion letters (which is what a fine is - "send us money, or armed men in dark uniforms will swing by your house and rob you"). So I'm not really worried about the recording as such, I'm worried about government officials looking through the footage to find excuses to extort people.
As someone who lives in the very country that created the DMCA, I don't draw the distinction. Private companies are just as capable of extortion tactics as public bureaus.

Anarcho-capitalism tends not to recognize intellectual property rights, and there is no state with a violence monopoly that the companies can bribe to pass such legislation. What you're afraid of ONLY works if you have governments. Such oppression can happen in a democracy, but not anarcho-capitalism. You keep on forgetting that government is what enables corporations to do these things.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
When you think that the government stealing from me is just "convenient", but when people not in the government do the exact same thing it is criminal, then you're talking about legitimacy, are you not? What else causes you to accept one and not the other?
I'm not fond of either, but the former is a reality that already exists, for good or bad. I think you misinterpret much of what I say. I don't say "I like big government, it's ability to confiscate your goods, or it's ability to observe everything you do". I say "Welcome to reality: governments have been able to confiscate your goods and observe your every action for over a decade. Don't pretend they can't."

This discussion has never been about what governments can and do. It is about whether it is legitimate or not. You mentioned government ability to siphon money from my account as a counter to my claim that governments passed fines under threat of violence, as if their legal stranglehold under threat of violence on banks somehow made it all ok.

Quote:
Unfortunately I don't see this improving anytime soon. Thanks to data mining, even private companies can keep tabs on who you are, what your habits and patterns are, and figure out the sort of person you might be... without the need for direct observation. Even if tomorrow every government were to give every citizen back their personal privacy, we would still live in a world where your digital footprint can tell private companies that [url=http://americablog.com/2013/03/facebook-might-know-youre-gay-before-you-... are gay before you even know[/url]. And even without government intervention, you have private companies like Paypal that freeze your assets because [i]they don't like you[/i]. So no. The age where a big government was necessary for tyranny is long gone. Private corporations are just as capable of generating tyranny as anything else. I'm not going to delude myself into believing this world will ever go away, even if we were to become ancap overnight. We're all under the watchful eye of a greater system in a brave new world... and that's likely forever.

I don't care about companies collecting data. I care when I'm robbed and threatened, which is what governments would do with such data.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
Once again for the dimwitted: My system: Everyone has options on how to spend their money. Poor people are given money so they can afford choices. Your system: Government forces the same set of services on everyone, probably at the crappy quality and low efficiency that is typical of monopolies. See the difference? Take a look at how US veteran disability is being handled and tell me that's a good way to do things.
What part of anarcho-capitalism implies that every market is guaranteed a choice? What part of anarcho-capitalism implies that bigger, older companies can't make it cost-prohibitive to enter the market and compete? Sure they won't have a governing body to help them do so, but that doesn't mean it is impossible. Standard Oil's monopoly had no help from government regulations when it became the largest multinational monopoly in history. The government's only hand in the issue was when it tore them apart. Look at the cell phone industry right now. There hasn't been a real new entrant to the market in almost 10 years. The cost of setting up new cell phone infrastructure is prohibitive when you need to compete with already-established networks. In the United States, you have four total competitors that control the network, and they are paired off on two different protocols (Verizon and Sprint on CDMA, AT&T and T-Mobile on GSM). All new competitors that even want to dream of entering the market either have to become local competitors (which rarely works... people with mobile phones want to be mobile) or piggyback on one of these larger networks with a contract (how Amazon Kindle, Republic Wireless, and other similar small companies get a foot in the market). How exactly would anarcho capitalism handle monopolies? Simply making it so that anyone can enter the market isn't a good enough control scheme. As I mentioned many times before, when a small group owns a large amount of resources, their powers become comparable to a government.

First off, you completely dodged my question about how governments sets up a HUGE amount of monopolies and provides citizens with absolutely crappy service and high cost. Your can't just ignore the extreme problems from government monopoly and then go on to complain about minor ancap issues. Secondly, there are a huge number of monopolies at present, backed by government-enforced patents and IP rights. This would also go away under ancap. A lot of stuff is way too expensive because some company has a monopoly on producing it. Third, monopolies that are not backed by governments through patent or IP protection are exceedingly rare. And the only way they can keep their monopoly is by making it unprofitable for competitors to enter the market, which puts a threshold on how bad they can do. Cornering the market is not easy at all.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
You're being stupid again. Of course you can own air. If people collected the oxygen from trees and bottled it and sold it, that's fine. If they let it drift into the air and try to charge me for breathing it elsewhere, that's just as stupid as sending out radio transmissions and trying to charge me for receiving them.
I dislike the implications of this. It's the sort of thinking that could create even more problems for the human race than it already has.

That's how things are now. You can bottle air and sell it. Maybe you're seeing problems where there aren't any?

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
So let me get this straight. You have a hard time buying into any government system with those requirements. And then in the next paragraph - see the following quote - you go on to list democracy and your own version of "anarchism" to have the same requirements! So you have a hard time buying into democracy and your own anarcho-communistic-big-government ideas?
It's not particularly hard to form micro-communes, cooperative businesses or other small social structures for what is effectively an anarcho-socialist unit to form at a small scale. Anarcho-socialism is based around the concept of a community, and can flourish just fine regardless of how small it might be. Even democracy functions with only a few actual players (arguably better... you don't need representatives at the small scale). The biggest functional anarcho-socialist structure started as a trade college and paraffin heater manufacturer, and is now the 7th largest corporation in Spain. But anarcho-capitalism relies on the production of a market, as that's what it is... a completely free market that relies on tort, contracts and competition to thrive. How does that sort of thing form without an existing infrastructure of at least a dozen legal and security entities, alongside other secondary industries to support it? I mean unless you want it to start off with monopolies (a terrible place to try and start your anarcho-capitalist concept from), you need to have a market with pre-existing competition. This is a very serious question, and goes to whether such an entity could actually form. How would you personally propose getting an anarcho-capitalist micronation formed? Presuming that was your end-goal.

Assign a date where the government dismantles itself, put up government institutions for sale in small pieces, share the proceeds equally among all citizens, and let the markets and entrepeneurial creativity sort it out.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
Why is that a problem? It looks to me that people are far worse off in countries where private citizens can't own land, or where they don't have capitalistic systems that allow individuals and corporations to accumulate land. You're the richest country in the world with the vast majority having an incredible quality of life.
Incredible in what sense? One in six people do not have any form of health care, our life expectancy is among the lowest for western nations, and the median income for an American sits well below the poverty line for the first time in history. Most businesses don't pay their employees enough for them to rent an apartment [i]and[/i] purchase food, it's not hard in this country to work 60+ hours a week and still qualify for food stamps, and the wealth disparity in our country is actually the worst on the planet, beating out even the extremely-corrupt nation of the Philippines. I live in a country where you are more likely to be unemployed as a war veteran, nearly half the country wants us to teach that evolution is a lie in schools, and private corporations have used such severe practices for natural gas, that many small towns have flammable tap water. But I guess it's incredible. Less than 20% of us are illiterate, and we have a better life expectancy than Somalia. I'm not being burned as a witch for not believing in god. So there's that.

I said the vast majority have an incredibly quality of life. You're talking about the bottom. And again you're bringing forward problems with the status quo as an argument AGAINST changing it. That makes no sense at all.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
So I can't invest in a company that belongs to my kids?
It's a tough issue. How do you allow the free market to thrive without inevitably allowing the concentration of resources and the formation of a private tyranny? I'm willing to take outside input on this dilemma.

Free markets don't tend to do what you suggest. And the reality is that the current system concentrates resources MORE than ancap would. Ancap doesn't have a government with politicians that corporations can bribe to get them to pass laws that aid the corporations in consolidating their power (and ironically get ordinary citizens to pay the salaries of the armed men in dark uniforms that enforce the monopoly on violence while the corporate tax code is made so full of loopholes the corporations don't pay). The democratic system does not work in your favor Decivre. The politicians and the wealthy have rigged the system for the and against you.

Fri, 2013-05-31 15:49

#197

Smokeskin

nizkateth wrote:Decivre wrote

nizkateth wrote:
Decivre wrote:
Decimator wrote:
All it says is that people don't care enough about the unpleasantness of a job that they will refuse to do it for a low wage.
Alternatively, it says that we have created a scenario of poverty in which people are so desperate for any wage that they are willing to even work at unpleasant jobs for paltry sums.
It just strikes me as yet another traditional hierarchy of 'haves' and 'have-nots' where the 'have-nots' are the ones doing the hard and unpleasant work.

Nobody set up such a hierarchy. That's just the way things are. And let's not pretend that high-paying jobs are always fun, easy and interesting. High-paying jobs tend to be long hours and lots of stress.

Quote:
In other words, the only real difference between the current system and a feudal system is: "do this work or I'll kick you off my land and starve your family" became "do this work or you won't get paid, and so you and your family will lose your homes and starve." Which is a very significant difference.

You're misrepresenting the situation really badly. The reality is: "do this work or you won't get paid by me, and if you're not willing or able to work for anyone at all, and you're one of the few that no one wants to give welfare, then you and your family will lose your homes and starve."

Fri, 2013-05-31 15:53

#198

Smokeskin

nizkateth wrote:I find it

nizkateth wrote:
I find it strange that a double-standard seems to be present. On the one hand insisting that anarcho-capitalism will [i]not[/i] devolve into robber barons and monopolies and people living off 'store credit' for their pay (all of which happened). On the other hand insisting that socialism will [i]inevitably[/i] devolve into a communist dictatorship (as happened in some cases, but not in others).

It is not a double standard. There are very good game theoretic arguments for why that is the case.

Fri, 2013-05-31 16:07

#199

Smokeskin

Decivre wrote:Luxury.

Decivre wrote:
Luxury. Providing your kids a college education (assuming college wasn't provided free). The chance to try out entrepreneurship, and start a business for yourself. Or if you aren't much into helping yourself, the chance to better the lives of others. Or hell, maybe you would just use that time to become a full-time dad. Make taking care of and raising your kids your sole priority. That's great. Our youth needs the attention and nurture to prepare them for the future, something that our society isn't really designed for considering how many couples don't have the ability to have one house spouse. That's the beauty of eliminating your needs as a priority for you to focus on. You now get to determine what you want to do with that freedom. That's really how socialists see the concept. Much like the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to defend oneself, we believe that there should be a freedom to live... one that isn't constrained by a need for cost-of-living wages. I don't need to spend money to receive the other three freedoms, why should we need to pay for this one?

That's just not how it works. Socialist countries tend to actually force people to work. You're not allowed to be a stay-at-home dad. If you're able to work, you must work. You can't just accumulate capital and then use it to live of, that's typically regarded as exploitation. Your time is not your own, you are a work unit that must be put to work for the state. And to top it off, they tend to eliminate markets. You don't get your say on what goods you want at what price. Production quotas and prices are set. Product and services are uniform instead of diversified. Productivity is low, efficiency is low. Markets are wondeful things. Not only are they ruthless in weeding out those who are inefficient. They provide information wrapped in an incentive. If there is a shortage of something, prices go up. This tells producers that there's is a demand for more of such goods, and it provides an incentive for producers to meet that need. This is the mechanism that ensures that people get what they want. That's why capitalism produces wealth. That's what socialism and even government (non-market exposed) services in capitalistic societies lack and results in such abysmal performance in covering the needs of the citizens.

Fri, 2013-05-31 16:28

#200

nizkateth

Smokeskin wrote:Markets are

Smokeskin wrote:
Markets are wonderful things. Not only are they ruthless in weeding out those who are inefficient.

Including weeding out those who are inefficient at competing in the market to survive? That's the big concern. I don't honestly give a crap about the people who are succeeding in the competitive market of capitalism. They don't need any more help or defense, they are doing fine. I am concerned about those who are failing. Regardless of why they are failing. Especially given the consequences of failure. No one should be able to fail at life. There should be a minimal standard that we do not let people fall below. Ever. If those who are doing well have to pay some to provide that, so be it. Quite frankly, if someone is making millions of dollars a year and upset about paying a small percentage so some poor people can eat, too damn bad.

—

Reapers: Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball. My watch also has a minute hand, millenium hand, and an eon hand.

Fri, 2013-05-31 19:16

#201

nizkateth

I'd also like to see some

I'd also like to see some evidence to back up these anarcho-capitalist ideas. Frankly, a lot of it seems just as idealistic and probably unlikely as any other ideal system. That somehow, people will manage to, without coordinated and centralized leadership, manage to build and maintain a society based entirely on mutual willing agreements. These agreements will not screw anyone, will be totally optional, and people who opt not to be involved with them won't be screwed for doing so. Or at least, that's the impression I keep getting. My concerns may be hinged upon the idea of people being all jerks (or at least enough of them), but this whole ancap concept seems to be based on the opposite idea: that people are all good and honest and no one with significant resources would (or would be able to) wield that to the detriment of others. And that in a system based entirely on money, that somehow no one would end up just as bad off because they didn't have any. I just don't have that kind of faith in people. I expect that overall, if not required to socially or legally, not nearly enough people would donate to help the poor. I expect that if not restricted by regulations and labor laws, that some companies would do exactly what they did when we didn't have regulations or labor laws: employ children in factories for 14 hours a day, sell human meat ground into beef after accidents, pay people in store credit so they can never get out of the job they work an owe the company everything when they die. That kind of stuff. Most of the regulations and laws we have now exist for a reason, because we once didn't have them and things were worse. Because really, we have seen these things before. The early days of the settled American west had little to no law, and business was typically very exploitative. This isn't theoretical, it happened. And it was awful. How is ancap not, in at least some if not many ways, just a return to such a time?

—

Reapers: Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball. My watch also has a minute hand, millenium hand, and an eon hand.

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