Individual I am...
Kindly refrain from sticking me into one of your boxes with some hastily chosen label slapped on the side. I must also seek to not stick myself into such boxes. You see there are actually very few labels that people would like to use today that fit me.
Human
Male
Heterosexual
Father
Grandfather
Poor Eyesight
Those are ones that work. There are likely a few others that you could come up with, but many of those would be subjective. The ones I listed above were ones that really are not subjective at all.
When it comes to ideologies whether political, philosophical, or religious I will sometimes apply labels to myself to speed up understanding with those with whom I speak. This can actually be dangerous and lead down some false paths and false impressions as most such labels have very subjectively interpreted definitions depending upon who stated them, and who heard/read them.
I sometimes call myself an Anarcho-Capitalist which can get so many different reactions. In practice, I am actually currently much closer to Libertarian with a goal of minimizing government as much as possible with the ultimate goal of some day being able to eliminate it completely. Some might call that a Minarchist. Yet even all these things I just stated. They still do not define who I am.
A person I consider a friend here on steemit from Germany named @thatgermandude finally got around to writing something I'd been asking him to for awhile. I gave him several lengthy replies. I also resteemed his article so the rest of you can easily find and read it if you like, and for context. (EDIT: He did a good job and I only just realized in rereading that that I may come across as criticizing or directing this post at him. That was not my intent. It was simply thinking about me calling myself a Voluntaryist in a reply to him and walking around thinking more about that which lead to this post.)
In the end I told him ultimately I am an individual and labels don't truly define me. I then said there was a label that worked.
Voluntaryist. I don't believe I should be able to force people to do things, and I don't believe they have the right to force me. I should be able to make my own choices and I should be responsible for my own choices.
However, I then walked away doing some further introspection as I often do. I realized even that label does not define me.
You see I do believe people should be able to acquire property. I believe I should have a home. I believe that inside my home I should be able to have conditions (aka rules) for what is acceptable in my home. This means my voluntaryism ends at the threshold to my property.
You can voluntarily enter my property I will not force you. Yet if you are voluntarily say SCREAMING AT THE TOP of your lungs and it is driving me crazy I may tell you to leave. If I have to force you to leave I will certainly do so.
I also will not support you voluntarily coming onto my property and seizing things I created and/or traded for and deciding YOU WANT THEM so you can have them.
So I guess you could say I am mostly voluntary. Yet I do believe in property rights. How extensive those property rights should be is a great debate and not one I have personally settled.
For me if I had to take a stab at that now:
- The abode I live in, and/or that I traded for. If every inch of the planet were not owned by someone I could come up with other criteria, but since it is that criteria is currently irrelevant.
- The things I create for myself with my own hands, or mind. If I am creating these things using someone elses tools and have agreed to do this for them through some voluntary contract then those creations are not mine. It all depends upon how the contract that we mutually agreed to was worded.
- If I pay for a factory to produce a product idea I have and all work constructing it is done via voluntary contracts then that factory is MY property unless there were stipulations stating otherwise in the contracts that the people who helped me make it agreed to. If I gave them partial ownership then that would be in the contract. This is true of people who voluntarily work in the factory later on.
- Within my property and with my property I can define how they are used. To avoid confusion such definitions should be available to others to view. If it is not explicitly stated then an implied one at least for abodes and places where I am the property OWNER would be that what I say is the rule unless overridden by a contract I agreed upon with someone else.
- What is fair is between me and those I form contracts with. Third parties have no say as long as such contracts were voluntarily entered into with no force, no coercion, etc.
I like to help people, and I care about people. I believe those of you that read my posts should know this by now.
I don't believe in people being FORCED to help other people. It should be a conscious decision, and I don't believe it requires a government or FORCE to make it happen.
I point out things like kickstarter.com, indiegogo.com, patreon.com, etc as perfect examples of 100% voluntary solutions to whatever problem people want to run a crowdsourcing campaign for. This is the model for how I believe most things should be solved. Couple that with an immutable completely auditable and open blockchain or similar tech and I actually don't see much of a need for the thing we call "government". In fact, we'd likely be far more efficient, and produce a lot less corruption and waste. We'd also likely not really see much of anything that we call war.
Though perhaps some people might crowdsource war. :P
I wonder how well that'd work out.
First and foremost I am an individual. Boxes and labels do not fit me. Personality matrices don't really fit me as I kind of can flit from one of those models to another as well. I find the urge for people to try to label people and stick them into a box as particularly annoying. Especially when they then treat people a certain way due to the box they arbitrarily decided to stick them in.
I am an individual. I change my mind a lot with new input, new information, etc. I don't support forcing people to do things EVEN if from an emotional point of view it sounds "fair" and like you are helping people. Being able to force people is a slippery slope that is very difficult to get off of once you are on it. It sets a nasty precedent. Instead if you believe something is truly a good idea use words, convince them, and if they agree they'll help you voluntarily. Sure that is a lot more challenging than simply being able to force them, but people need to really stop always looking for the EASIEST PATH. The easiest path is often not the best path, or even the GOOD path.
Thanks for the thought and discernment expressed here regarding the rights, even of a voluntaryist, to judiciously exercise force within his own proprietary domain. Excellent!
😄😇😄
We should stop labeling our selves and others.
we all are humans, well said post , appreciate it lot
It's nice to get to know more about the people here on Steemit, thanks for the insight into your view on things. I like to believe myself quite similar in some ways, I don't like boxes in general and I can fit in many different categories. Sometimes I change my mind as well, then those categories must change.
I spent some time on a response to the discussion you had with ThatGermanDude in his thought-provoking post My definition of Socialismthat seems relevant here as well, where I spend some time on the definition of 'freedom' particularly, I will just copy paste the relevant bit here to save you the jump:
How this interacts then with the idea of property rights is an interesting topic. If we take the proposition of 'freedom' as not having to do something you don't want to do, it seems to intersect nicely with property rights as you propose them.
To my mind It is worth pointing out that property rights are also absolutely critical to if not foundational for individual rights, insofar as each individual owns themselves. This idea opens up a can of worms among mandatory vaccine advocates, for example, who believe that self-ownership should be able to be infringed on by state mandate (a pre-emptory refutation here), that is a slippery slope that is just too close for my liking to the ability of the state to impose uncompensated labor requirements. Puh, do we live in interesting times!
I actually like that quite a bit. It is pretty accurate from my point of view.
I agree. MY own body is definitely my property and rarely do people debate with me against that idea (amend that to extremely rarely). The debate tends to fall as to defining outside of our body what is property. I myself don't have a perfect answer to that either. You saw here me attempting to define the closest I can come up with at the moment.
I do not like the idea of government, rules, etc. Yet ultimately property is one of those that kind of needs to be.
Yet, really does it. If I make it viewed what I view as my property and what I am willing to do if that is violated does there need to be a RULE imposed on everyone? If you want to carve out your little commune and no personal property zone then I won't really care as long as it is clearly marked, and doesn't appropriate me or my property. If it surrounds or entraps me then I'd have problem as well. Which brings up the potential that access and thoroughfares can be an issue. The thing is that people often cast things in false dichotomies as though these problems only leave choices (usually two either/or) when in reality there are often more choices than that. They may just take some effort and thinking outside of the box. Yet, the false dichotomy is more about forcing compliance and agreement than it is actually looking for alternatives and solutions.
It was nice to read your idea of how social contracts should work. But you know I see the biggest obstacle is actually point 1). We might get there through reformation, that would be really sweet, but it might turn out to be impossible.
Want is your opinion on stuff like star citizen? I like the idea of crowdfunding, but it is also a very exploitable system even the all beloved Anita Zarkeesian (I refuse to google her to check the spelling) was financed through kickstarter.
xD
I do not really condem people for doing so, as long as they 'keep the box open'
the question of "what is fairness?" "what is equality?" are the very reason you see so many different forms of socialism. To me the ultimate form of fairness and equality is a framework where everyone can live there live to the fullest potential. I want to achieve that with a very basic but omnipresent ruleset and social contracts, others - the "State Socialists"- want to achieve that through forcing artificial equality and detailed laws upon us, the results can be seen in our modern society and I really do not like them.
Reputation. There will be people that make bigger claims than they can keep, mismanage funds, etc. Some element of this will always exist as part of human nature.
Yet that also becomes part of the reputation. If people want to keep throwing funds at something like that then that is their risk to take. We must all be free to make choices, but also be responsible for the results of those choices.
Hopefully the person they backed that screwed them over would find it increasingly difficult to con people out of their money. Likewise, hopefully those so conned would be a bit more careful in the future.
I've seen a few such things. There will always be things like that due to human nature, and how often people PROMISE big ideas (especially in games) before they have written any code, designed the art, and thus encountered the technical difficulties that might make some of those promises false. I've seen this lots of times... not just from Star Citizen, that just happens to be a very high dollar one. One I was interested in but have ot spent a dime towards. ;)
That is a bit of my field... so I have some advantages there. I can recognize when people are promising some things with extreme technological challenges as though those challenges have been solved. :) I do realize most people having not made games, coded voxel engines, etc don't have that background to help them and the promises to them look great, when to me they are a red flag.
This one is pretty easy for me to explain my position. I've thought about equality. People are not all equal. Some of us are more attractive, some have mental gifts, some have challenges. So we cannot actually promise true equality. It is not possible. So when I say equality what I really mean is opportunity. I believe people should have the opportunity to try to pursue something that anyone else does. That does not mean they will have the necessary skills, geographical location, or other things. Yet, provided that opportunity is in their area and available to others they should be able to make the attempt if that is their interest. There of course need to be things that if they cannot do, they don't go further no matter how much they want it.
For example: A person not being able to do a critical task that any astronaut should be able to do for safety and mission critical reasons should not be sent into space as an astronaut just because they "deserve" the opportunity.
Another: A person in a wheel chair likely would not make a good front line fireman. If they came up with a way that they could be then great, but that does not mean there may not be other ways they could engage and help the fire department.
So when I say equal opportunity that does not mean everyone will realistically be able to do them. Sometimes this will be monetary and we cannot magically will that away either.
Equality for me is people never being turned away from opportunity for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they can complete the required tasks and such.
I agree, for me equality is the very same equality of opportunity. To put the details a little metaphorically: The doors should be open for everyone, but they should not expect to get carried through them.
That says it nicely.
meep
Thanks for the kind words and the resteem. I would have been honestly disappointed if you were to just comment "Great post, I 100% agree". I like to be challenged on a mental level - wait that came out wrong :D. I might act defensiv or even a little passive aggressive if I feel like I am misunderstood, often on the base of the baggage that the vocabulary I use brings, but that is in the heat of the moment.
Please do not ever feel like you have to hold back with criticism towards my ideas or even me as a person. Hell, you could even make rather mean joke at my expense and I would take it in a competative fashion. If there is one I hate about debate, it is that people sometimes really have to tryhard to not step on any eggshells.
I don't think there is any human that has completely identical opinions to mine, I would even like to talk to our Führer Ron Paul just to see where our differences are. I could not resist the pun, it is actually funny how much authority he is given by the Libertarian community even though he propagates an anti-authoritarian society. I can see why people do it though, some of his speeches and struggles made me shed a few tears as well.
There is one criticism I have towards some of your argumentation about voluntarism it is that you often make it seem like the "do not use force" aspect is a dogma - an absolute. I know you know that there are circumstances like self defense, where force might be needed. But I think it is always important to keep a close eye to the detail of the boundaries of force. To be fair you sometimes do that, I just feel like you do not do it thoroughly enough. There might of course also be the case that I just missed some of your post where you explain the boundaries in more detail. I am actually pretty sure you covered the topic in a more extensive way at some point.
I agree with you on the notion that you should not force people to help others. We have natural instincts that lets us care for the underdogs of society. This is also a reason why I am against charity of any organized kind; if you want help a cause you should really get involved and make your donations directly to the people and projects that you feel need/deserve financial support. If you donate to a charity organization about 50% will be "taxed by the organization for paying their "volunteers" and organizing fund raisers.
Edit: I am still reading "How extensive those property rights should be is a great debate and not one I have personally settled." actually explains why you sometimes don't go into as much detail on the boundaries of force as I hope you would.
That would be a really boring world I think.
It can be pretty nebulous/confusing and it isn't something I'm completely satisfied with my own ideas on yet.
Very interesting as aways :)
Thanks for sharing!
Me myself and I agree.
Especially liked the "Though perhaps some people might crowdsource war. :P
I wonder how well that'd work out."
part!
;-)
hmmm can we get some one to crowd fund a bot for that "self autonomous bot" ... ;-)
Government by AI, ... not a new idea. but hmm
Interesting times we live in.
namaste!
Well said... and how about we just GET RID of the damn box, so people don't have to worry so damn much about where they are, relative to "the box."
Boxes are awesome if you have cats. Best free cat toys... ever.
For humans? More of a source of annoyance than anything else.
I like toast 🍞
For humans we have titles ;)
I'm reading my own thoughts in this post! I often refer to myself as an ancap or a libertarian or an anarchist, but it all depends on who my audience is. Every one of those labels, outside of the conversation where I use them, can only limit me.
Appreciate the post very much! :)
Labels are useful for speed, but man can they cause some problems. ;)