6 ms·

You're being facetious but I will address a few of your points regardless. >Going for a walk? (Are there sidewalks anymore?) Have you negotiated with each indi

by ancap 10y ago

You're being facetious but I will address a few of your points regardless. >Going for a walk? (Are there sidewalks anymore?) Have you negotiated with each individual sidewalk owner for right of passage? If you like walking around your neighborhood, then you'd probably live in a neighborhood where you'd either have ownership rights or an easement to walk around a bit. If you like walking around at work, you'll probably want to work somewhere that has those opportunities available. Around businesses? Obviously every business can make their own rules about their property but I would guess most businesses would welcome people, potential customers, walking in front of their store. As for roads I will let the reader research that out; there's been plenty written on private roads. Private roads predate our current public road system so I'm not sure what's so unfathomable about them. >Lucky thing you saved some extra breathable air coupons Air is probably too abundant for people to want to try to commercialize. It would be a failing business. >I was struck when I read that last line at how dismal a world it would be to live in It's unfortunate that you lack the imagination. In the past several centuries we have seen a level of personal freedom which is unprecedented. With that increased freedom we have the highest standard of living, ever. Now when someone comes along and theorizes on how we might increase that freedom you seem to fear the possibility of change--like the slave afraid of what's beyond his plantation. Luckily, this isn't really written for you. There will be those who will read this and wonder "Could we really make private roads work?", they will do the research and come to their own conclusion. You may think this fringe, and it may be, but it does not take long for the fringe to grow.

st3v3r 10y ago
"It's unfortunate that you lack the imagination. In the past several centuries we have seen a level of personal freedom which is unprecedented. With that increased freedom we have the highest standard of living, ever. Now when someone comes along and theorizes on how we might increase that freedom you seem to fear the possibility of change--like the slave afraid of what's beyond his plantation." Except you're not theorizing on how to increase freedom. You're theorizing on how to carve people into separate little boxes. There is no freedom whatsoever there. Only servitude to the corporate masters who would control things.
- ancap 10y ago
  >There is no freedom whatsoever there. Only servitude to the corporate masters who would control things. Source?
- Frondo 10y ago
  Well, that's just it. It doesn't seem more free to me to have to think about getting out my wallet each time I go for a walk...or negotiating a series of easements all along my planned walk to the corner store! It seems like taking away all common resources (land, air, though ancap says air would remain common) just adds a whole new layer of mental burden to engaging with the world. Like, for me, going out and buying stuff or negotiating for it isn't fun, isn't how I'd choose to spend my time. Telling me that suddenly I have to do it for literally everything, and that's an increase of freedom, that makes no sense.
  - ancap 10y ago
    >air, though ancap says air would remain common I said no such thing. I said it is too abundant to commercialize. It can still be owned. >just adds a whole new layer of mental burden to engaging with the world. If everything was made public (communism) you could be free from a vast number of other mental burdens which we are currently plagued with. I don't buy it. We have a system around us now with all sorts of burdens and processes that are just part of life (you mean I have to stop through the checkout line before leaving the store--oh the horror of those evil capitalists who are trying to enslave us!). People adapt and are used to the system they are in. >Like, for me, going out and buying stuff or negotiating for it isn't fun, isn't how I'd choose to spend my time. Yet you do this already. I would wager a lot of your leisure time is spent on the private property of others, playing by their rules. Even the websites you go to and the video games you play have their rules and terms of service.
    - Frondo 10y ago
      As I said, I'm grateful that yours is such a fringe view. It's still jarring to see someone actually posit "no commons would be an improvement," but the more I read what you have to say, it jut gets sillier and sillier. Especially since you're trying to bolster support for your claim that "you gain freedom by having to negotiate easements with anyone whose sidewalk you'd like to use" with the new claim that "it's just like buying stuff at the grocery store!". Well, ok, except it isn't. But hey, you know, if your ideas were so compelling, it seems like you'd be able to find a neighborhood somewhere where you could convince people to try out the experiment: "everyone sell/negotiate access to sidewalks for everyone else". I mean, if it's such a good idea, surely you could get some people to try it, and then they'd see what a lovely new feeling of freedom they enjoyed, and the idea would spread from there? Come on, ancap, let's see your fringe ideas grow and take off. Enough philosophizing, let's see this thriving new free society of sidewalk easements! After a few years of sidewalk easement negotiating under their belts, the people in your experimental neighborhood should have some pretty compelling "new feelings of freedom" results to share. In fact, this really doesn't seem like so big a challenge at all. So, where's the beef?
wavefunction 10y ago
>Private roads predate our current public road system Private roads as a concept? Societies have built and maintained public roads for millenia.
- bmelton 10y ago
  I assume that he's referring to the private roads in America, which frankly, were generally good, until they were crowded out by the tax-funded roads that were, in many cases, literally built right next to the private roads. It's often hard to parse history without hearing it through the bias of the historians, but while many private roads had a hard time finding a profit, they weren't entirely unsuccessful, and they definitely weren't unpopular.
Frondo 10y ago
Heh, way to sell the idea, telling me I "lack the imagination" to understand it. You're offering me more freedom when I now have to schlep around seeking easements to walk on the sidewalk (or shop around for a neighborhood where walkable sidewalks are part of the package!!)? It's more freedom to have to fit all of my interactions with the world into a transactional model of "someone owns everything and I have to work the price of accessing/using everything into my mental model of the world"? You can say it's somehow more free to have to seek easements to walk on sidewalks, or that I merely lack the imagination to understand how this is so, but to that I'd say, pull the other one. It's got bells on, and it's yours for $4.97. (Air not included.)
- ancap 10y ago
  You have shown not even the slightest intellectual curiosity on how things might work in a system without a commons, and instead have mocked it. Pretending to be offended by my comment on the "lack of imagination" is disingenuous at best.
  - Frondo 10y ago
    You're really not trying to sell me on the idea here. Show a little enthusiasm. If "you have to negotiate with every homeowner for sidewalk access on your way to the store" is such a good idea and leads to expansive new freedoms, it shouldn't be at all hard to make a positive case for it. So, make a positive case for it! Show me how my freedom's increased in this situation! Instead you're just whining and insulting me. If this is a good idea, surely you can do better than that. Especially since, on a techie libertarian-leaning forum like this, I'm even asking you to make a case. Go into a suburb somewhere and tell people about this and they'd look at you like you had a third arm growing out of your head. I'm the easy audience here. Wanna try again?

by ancap 10y ago

st3v3r 10y ago

"It's unfortunate that you lack the imagination. In the past several centuries we have seen a level of personal freedom which is unprecedented. With that increased freedom we have the highest standard of living, ever. Now when someone comes along and theorizes on how we might increase that freedom you seem to fear the possibility of change--like the slave afraid of what's beyond his plantation." Except you're not theorizing on how to increase freedom. You're theorizing on how to carve people into separate little boxes. There is no freedom whatsoever there. Only servitude to the corporate masters who would control things.

ancap 10y ago
>There is no freedom whatsoever there. Only servitude to the corporate masters who would control things. Source?
Frondo 10y ago
Well, that's just it. It doesn't seem more free to me to have to think about getting out my wallet each time I go for a walk...or negotiating a series of easements all along my planned walk to the corner store! It seems like taking away all common resources (land, air, though ancap says air would remain common) just adds a whole new layer of mental burden to engaging with the world. Like, for me, going out and buying stuff or negotiating for it isn't fun, isn't how I'd choose to spend my time. Telling me that suddenly I have to do it for literally everything, and that's an increase of freedom, that makes no sense.
- ancap 10y ago
  >air, though ancap says air would remain common I said no such thing. I said it is too abundant to commercialize. It can still be owned. >just adds a whole new layer of mental burden to engaging with the world. If everything was made public (communism) you could be free from a vast number of other mental burdens which we are currently plagued with. I don't buy it. We have a system around us now with all sorts of burdens and processes that are just part of life (you mean I have to stop through the checkout line before leaving the store--oh the horror of those evil capitalists who are trying to enslave us!). People adapt and are used to the system they are in. >Like, for me, going out and buying stuff or negotiating for it isn't fun, isn't how I'd choose to spend my time. Yet you do this already. I would wager a lot of your leisure time is spent on the private property of others, playing by their rules. Even the websites you go to and the video games you play have their rules and terms of service.
  - Frondo 10y ago
    As I said, I'm grateful that yours is such a fringe view. It's still jarring to see someone actually posit "no commons would be an improvement," but the more I read what you have to say, it jut gets sillier and sillier. Especially since you're trying to bolster support for your claim that "you gain freedom by having to negotiate easements with anyone whose sidewalk you'd like to use" with the new claim that "it's just like buying stuff at the grocery store!". Well, ok, except it isn't. But hey, you know, if your ideas were so compelling, it seems like you'd be able to find a neighborhood somewhere where you could convince people to try out the experiment: "everyone sell/negotiate access to sidewalks for everyone else". I mean, if it's such a good idea, surely you could get some people to try it, and then they'd see what a lovely new feeling of freedom they enjoyed, and the idea would spread from there? Come on, ancap, let's see your fringe ideas grow and take off. Enough philosophizing, let's see this thriving new free society of sidewalk easements! After a few years of sidewalk easement negotiating under their belts, the people in your experimental neighborhood should have some pretty compelling "new feelings of freedom" results to share. In fact, this really doesn't seem like so big a challenge at all. So, where's the beef?

wavefunction 10y ago

>Private roads predate our current public road system Private roads as a concept? Societies have built and maintained public roads for millenia.

bmelton 10y ago
I assume that he's referring to the private roads in America, which frankly, were generally good, until they were crowded out by the tax-funded roads that were, in many cases, literally built right next to the private roads. It's often hard to parse history without hearing it through the bias of the historians, but while many private roads had a hard time finding a profit, they weren't entirely unsuccessful, and they definitely weren't unpopular.

Frondo 10y ago

Heh, way to sell the idea, telling me I "lack the imagination" to understand it. You're offering me more freedom when I now have to schlep around seeking easements to walk on the sidewalk (or shop around for a neighborhood where walkable sidewalks are part of the package!!)? It's more freedom to have to fit all of my interactions with the world into a transactional model of "someone owns everything and I have to work the price of accessing/using everything into my mental model of the world"? You can say it's somehow more free to have to seek easements to walk on sidewalks, or that I merely lack the imagination to understand how this is so, but to that I'd say, pull the other one. It's got bells on, and it's yours for $4.97. (Air not included.)

ancap 10y ago
You have shown not even the slightest intellectual curiosity on how things might work in a system without a commons, and instead have mocked it. Pretending to be offended by my comment on the "lack of imagination" is disingenuous at best.
- Frondo 10y ago
  You're really not trying to sell me on the idea here. Show a little enthusiasm. If "you have to negotiate with every homeowner for sidewalk access on your way to the store" is such a good idea and leads to expansive new freedoms, it shouldn't be at all hard to make a positive case for it. So, make a positive case for it! Show me how my freedom's increased in this situation! Instead you're just whining and insulting me. If this is a good idea, surely you can do better than that. Especially since, on a techie libertarian-leaning forum like this, I'm even asking you to make a case. Go into a suburb somewhere and tell people about this and they'd look at you like you had a third arm growing out of your head. I'm the easy audience here. Wanna try again?