4 ms·

You seem to be saying a lot but not really addressing any of the questions I raised. The following being a prime example: > Also, note that I didn't say that p

by ancap 11y ago

You seem to be saying a lot but not really addressing any of the questions I raised. The following being a prime example: > Also, note that I didn't say that private property is "nothing more" than a social construct. I said it is a social construct, and as a social construct it's a lot I'm really confused at what you find controversial about what I said or how it is relevant. Regardless of whether private property is "constructed", the reality is we do have property rights. If you are going to distribute that property there is only one way to accomplish that: by force.

pron 11y ago
> The following being a prime example... Oh, I simply meant that most or all values are built around social constructs, so they all have similar validity. > If you are going to distribute that property there is only one way to accomplish that: by force. And my point was that preserving that private property is also accomplished by force. The question is, what do you mean when you say "force". If you mean coercion, then many things in society are achieved through coercion. That is pretty much the essence of civilization (see Freud's Civilization and its Discontents). Coercion and freedom will always live side by side. Most values conflict with one another at some point and need to be prioritized, but freedom is rather unique in that it conflicts with itself. If you have a society (i.e. two people or more interacting), then an individual is either free to restrict the freedom of another or she is not. In either case, someone's freedom is restricted -- through coercion. And it turns out that surprisingly many of the things we do in our interactions can restrict the freedom of others, which is why freedom (without qualification) is a self-conflicting value and therefore not a well-defined one, as different kinds of freedom then need to be prioritized and balanced; that also means that coercion, or "force" (without qualification) is not a negative value by itself. So the question is, what kind of force? So when you say that distribution of property is done coercively, then there's nothing really special about it.
- ancap 11y ago
  > If you mean coercion, then many things in society are achieved through coercion... So when you say that distribution of property is done coercively, then there's nothing really special about it. It sounds like you're perfectly fine with my original reductio ad absurdum that it would be ok to force everyone in a wheelchair, or force everyone to shave their head, etc. >And my point was that preserving that private property is also accomplished by force. No it's not. When you or I own something we are not using force at all. Now it is possible that there are those who possess things which they obtained by force, but discussing those individuals in relation to private property is only an example of the violation of such ownership.
  - pron 11y ago
    > It sounds like you're perfectly fine with my original reductio ad absurdum that it would be ok to force everyone in a wheelchair, or force everyone to shave their head, etc. How do you figure? I don't follow. > No it's not. When you or I own something we are not using force at all. Of course we are! We've just internalized it[1] are so we don't notice it (which is why we need to learn about power in order to see it), but it's there: Suppose you have a lot of money and I want some. So I hack your bank account and take it, except you don't let me because you call the police who arrest me, or maybe just the threat of arrest deters me. Either way, you are using force to restrict my freedom to take the money lying there in the bank. Now, if you say that you didn't give your consent to my taking the money, and it was I that used force when taking it, then we will get into a very long discussion about what consent means, and I will say that consent or coercion are not binary but a spectrum and a person is almost never at either extreme (as various psychological experiments have shown). For ownership to be effective it must be enforced by violence or the threat of violence towards those who want to violate it, hence -- it requires force, and is therefore a restriction on freedom. [1]: Internalized mores and self-supervision are in themselves very powerful forces that have been studied extensively, but I'm not going to discuss them here. For a beautiful demonstration of how we've gradually internalized things over history to the level where they seem "natural" to us, see Norbert Elias's seminal work, The Civilizing Process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Civilizing_Process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Civilizing_Process)
    - ancap 11y ago
      >How do you figure? I don't follow. You dismissed the idea that forceful redistribution of capital is a problem at all because force already exists throughout society. By extension you must be perfectly fine with the other forms of force enumerated. >Suppose you have a lot of money and I want some. So I hack your bank account and take it, except you don't let me because you call the police who arrest me, or maybe just the threat of arrest deters me. Either way, you are using force to restrict my freedom to take the money lying there in the bank. Now, if you say that you didn't give your consent to my taking the money, and it was I that used force when taking it, then we will get into a very long discussion about what consent means, and I will say that consent or coercion are not binary but a spectrum and a person is almost never at either extreme (as various psychological experiments have shown). In other words you've perverted the definitions of otherwise very clear words as to make this discussion entirely worthless. >For ownership to be effective it must be enforced by violence or the threat of violence towards those who want to violate it, hence -- it requires force, and is therefore a restriction on freedom. I think I understand what you're getting at but I still fail to see how it's relevant. Yes, if I own something and I protect it from theft, I will use violence. But when I previously mentioned force, it was not the reactionary use of violence I was referring to. In theory, I have no problem with the use of violence in reaction to an offense on person or property. I'm not sure what your comments on restrictions of freedom have to do with the conversation as I have not called for unbridled "freedom."

by ancap 11y ago

pron 11y ago

> The following being a prime example... Oh, I simply meant that most or all values are built around social constructs, so they all have similar validity. > If you are going to distribute that property there is only one way to accomplish that: by force. And my point was that preserving that private property is also accomplished by force. The question is, what do you mean when you say "force". If you mean coercion, then many things in society are achieved through coercion. That is pretty much the essence of civilization (see Freud's Civilization and its Discontents). Coercion and freedom will always live side by side. Most values conflict with one another at some point and need to be prioritized, but freedom is rather unique in that it conflicts with itself. If you have a society (i.e. two people or more interacting), then an individual is either free to restrict the freedom of another or she is not. In either case, someone's freedom is restricted -- through coercion. And it turns out that surprisingly many of the things we do in our interactions can restrict the freedom of others, which is why freedom (without qualification) is a self-conflicting value and therefore not a well-defined one, as different kinds of freedom then need to be prioritized and balanced; that also means that coercion, or "force" (without qualification) is not a negative value by itself. So the question is, what kind of force? So when you say that distribution of property is done coercively, then there's nothing really special about it.

ancap 11y ago
> If you mean coercion, then many things in society are achieved through coercion... So when you say that distribution of property is done coercively, then there's nothing really special about it. It sounds like you're perfectly fine with my original reductio ad absurdum that it would be ok to force everyone in a wheelchair, or force everyone to shave their head, etc. >And my point was that preserving that private property is also accomplished by force. No it's not. When you or I own something we are not using force at all. Now it is possible that there are those who possess things which they obtained by force, but discussing those individuals in relation to private property is only an example of the violation of such ownership.
- pron 11y ago
  > It sounds like you're perfectly fine with my original reductio ad absurdum that it would be ok to force everyone in a wheelchair, or force everyone to shave their head, etc. How do you figure? I don't follow. > No it's not. When you or I own something we are not using force at all. Of course we are! We've just internalized it[1] are so we don't notice it (which is why we need to learn about power in order to see it), but it's there: Suppose you have a lot of money and I want some. So I hack your bank account and take it, except you don't let me because you call the police who arrest me, or maybe just the threat of arrest deters me. Either way, you are using force to restrict my freedom to take the money lying there in the bank. Now, if you say that you didn't give your consent to my taking the money, and it was I that used force when taking it, then we will get into a very long discussion about what consent means, and I will say that consent or coercion are not binary but a spectrum and a person is almost never at either extreme (as various psychological experiments have shown). For ownership to be effective it must be enforced by violence or the threat of violence towards those who want to violate it, hence -- it requires force, and is therefore a restriction on freedom. [1]: Internalized mores and self-supervision are in themselves very powerful forces that have been studied extensively, but I'm not going to discuss them here. For a beautiful demonstration of how we've gradually internalized things over history to the level where they seem "natural" to us, see Norbert Elias's seminal work, The Civilizing Process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Civilizing_Process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Civilizing_Process)
  - ancap 11y ago
    >How do you figure? I don't follow. You dismissed the idea that forceful redistribution of capital is a problem at all because force already exists throughout society. By extension you must be perfectly fine with the other forms of force enumerated. >Suppose you have a lot of money and I want some. So I hack your bank account and take it, except you don't let me because you call the police who arrest me, or maybe just the threat of arrest deters me. Either way, you are using force to restrict my freedom to take the money lying there in the bank. Now, if you say that you didn't give your consent to my taking the money, and it was I that used force when taking it, then we will get into a very long discussion about what consent means, and I will say that consent or coercion are not binary but a spectrum and a person is almost never at either extreme (as various psychological experiments have shown). In other words you've perverted the definitions of otherwise very clear words as to make this discussion entirely worthless. >For ownership to be effective it must be enforced by violence or the threat of violence towards those who want to violate it, hence -- it requires force, and is therefore a restriction on freedom. I think I understand what you're getting at but I still fail to see how it's relevant. Yes, if I own something and I protect it from theft, I will use violence. But when I previously mentioned force, it was not the reactionary use of violence I was referring to. In theory, I have no problem with the use of violence in reaction to an offense on person or property. I'm not sure what your comments on restrictions of freedom have to do with the conversation as I have not called for unbridled "freedom."