RE: Libertarianism and Mining GORP (Trail Mix) [about to hit 9k follower!!!]
wow...interesting to see so many commenters that didnt even bother to read the post
limited resources is very much a "who gets there first" concept, *so your daughter is just fine mining M&M's.
Is it nice? No. Can it create blowback? Of course.
The answer is to create more resources. Fresh water is not as limited as people think. Water reclamation should be the first priority of any self-supporting individual and community.
What about governments that impose restrictions on such methods?
We've seen fines and legal attacks on people who put water collection barrels on their own property.
This is "mining" done by the community at large on the individual, and it is blatant theft.
This kind of theft is supported by individuals that choose to have children w/o being able to support them...the problem isn't states, as much as it is people who think that other people should support them w/o any responsibility for themselves
So when we talk about taking care of each other, we also have to put the rent-seekers and leeches on the spot.
Of course, the logic then moves into controlling other's behavior, and that is decidedly anti-libertarian ;>
In any case, Merry Christmas!
I cannot agree, as @aggroed owns the M&Ms. While he can allow her to use his resources however he sees fit, he sees it as not proper to mine the Gorp, and should.
Were the M&Ms a natural resource, and essential to survival, mining them such that others died for their lack isn't only wrong, it's criminal.
salient point
three points here:
I don't think the moral issues are cut and dried, and the example of the monopolists slapping water bottles out of dehydrated baby's hands is certainly an extreme, but over all, I value property rights over the riot of humanity.
Otherwise, you simply have the takers stealing from the makers at every opportunity. We need to teach humanity to be makers as a moral priority.
Well, property rights are merely one of the rights 'the riot of humanity', each and every one, hold. Valuing their properties more highly than them is exactly how monopolists slapping water bottles out of dying babies hands has become potential.
It is exactly why the poor have so many children. Some of them might get lucky, and live, while most do not.
It's also a tautology, and breaks logic.
Isn't this exactly the problem, and why you post? The monopolists don't get destroyed by starving mobs. The starving mobs are dashed against the defenses of the monopolists.
The takers demonstrably prosper. The makers are prey.
It is clear from history that what stops the poor from having 15 kids is prosperity - in other words, fix their poverty, and the reason for large families is removed. Additionally, the enjoyment of prosperity is decreased by such large families, and this is the conscious reason for adoption of contraception by those who have been born into large families that transitioned from dire poverty, as my father's generation did, into the middle class.
My father was one of 14 siblings. I was one of three. I have three sons.
He was raised in the Great Depression. Subsequent generations of my line have not been. This is the pattern we see around the world, wherever affluence has been potentiated.
The statement that "fresh water os not as limited as people think" is Just wrong.
Fresh water IS a limited resource. You Mat not think It is only because its easy to Just open a faucet and let the water flow.
There is lots and lots of proper scientific studies (UNESCO,
Populationinstitute.org, pacific Institute, conservativo.org, and so many more) that points that the world water supply is Constant or decreasing while the population grows.
There is a lot of places where there is shortage of fresh water. To aquire water on these places is not as simples as Just build a Wheel, or go to the closest river. There is limited resources.
Lets say that in one of these places there is only one Wheel drilled by the First person that found It. This Wheel drains the hole underwater resource from a region, so Any other New Wheels Will run dry, or at least exponentialy cost more.
Deny, or require an absurd high fee acess to fresh water to these people is Just plain evil.
And that kind of thing is allowed by libertarian, as far as i know.
Libertarianism looks like a good idea, but to me, It generates humanitarian faults.
There is no balance in libertarianism. Its Just let the most greedy ones to thrive. Doesnt allow Fair competition.
Like i said elsewhere, too many regulations kill the competition, too little regulations kill the consumer.
To me the idea that one very big criminal organization is gonna prevent the formation of many small ones and that this is something to be happy about is absurd. Let's aim for no criminal organizations instead.
Is not about be happy about It. Is to allow It, and what i have seen about libertarianism It allowes that.
Small people Very rarely have enough Power fight the powerful, and when that happen, a lot of damage has already been done.
Catchy! I like it. However it leaves the correct amount of regulation unspecified, so it's no more than criticism. It'd be nice to have some universal truth we could agree on.
We won't all agree, for various reasons.
That is the hard part. How much is enough regulation? And How de we reach that agreement?
To me, enough regulations would have to have this objectives:
Allow a Fair market
Prohibit actions that do enviromental damage
Allow people to have acess to Basic needs at minimum possible price (food, water, education, housing)
Criminal laws that cover damage to others(self damaging people May need help, but It is their choice to do whatever they want with their body)
If there is no fairness in the game It cant be Just.
I disagree that regulations should take the form you posit.
I am more inclined to craft intrapersonal agreements, which can be employed to create broad alliances of persons based on aligned principles. This potentiates communities of purely voluntary integrants that can act per those principles to counter their enemies.
Specifying laws which impose tyrannical control on hapless sheep isn't the way to attain justice.
Further, we see that the USA publishes about ~700 new regulations EVERY DAY. It is physically impossible for such regulations to specify every particular variable, and far more impossible for individuals to even be aware of these regulations, much less be capable of conforming to them.
Since the law specifies that ignorance of the law is no defense, then the system is creating of every single person subject to them criminals, and the penal industrial complex can simply pick those it seeks to prey upon from the total population arbitrarily - in fact, it cannot justly and fairly enforce these regulations.
It is physically impossible.
What is possible, and just, is for autonomous people to craft interpersonal agreements based on their principles, and to defend their interests against those that oppose them.
Nothing will be perfect, but freedom is better than despotism.
You do have a point, and you are talking about contracts, wich is a good way to establish rules between two or more parts.
But still, some rules cant be put in contract or agreement form. Especially when some agreement affect people that arent directly involved in them.
But yeah, no doubt there is to many regulations with personal agendas involved.
What is needed is to reduce them to a minimum. The big question is How.
I actually agree with this statement, but point out I did not propose rules be specified, but principles by which alliances could form. Clearly those alliances would propose means of supporting their principles, and opposing their enemies, and these could be considered rules.
I submit that my proposal does reduce regulations and the corruption they potentiate to a minimum, in fact eliminating them.
Do please provide examples of how this would not work, for my edification. I can learn nothing unless others teach me what they know, and I do not.
Phrasing this way i understood better, and yes, i does make sense, and can work as long as all parts have a consensus over that.
But how would we reach consensus in other way than having written and enforced rules that everyone on the community agree with?
Would your proposal then be an unwritten social contract?
I don't think consensus is attainable. I believe that, for the foreseeable future, at least, conflict and tension between opposition parties is inevitable.
I propose no unwritten contracts, but only interpersonal agreements to which individuals set their hands, and can withdraw from at their sole option.
Unwritten social contracts are, I think, addressed by this proposal, as the principles of most folks recognize such, and their agreements would reflect their understandings.
You and I could agree on much. We would continue to disagree on other things, but the areas of agreement could be matters where we could work together, until our work ran up against one or the other's conflicting principles, at which point we could affably disagree, limiting our communal effort.
If those limitations proved to too limit the effection of our purposes, we could also choose to change our minds, and undertake a broader range of agreement.