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"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 increa

by st3v3r 11y 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 11y ago
>There is no freedom whatsoever there. Only servitude to the corporate masters who would control things. Source?
Frondo 11y 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 11y 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 11y 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?
    - ancap 11y ago
      >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? No need. There's already communities where the roads and sidewalks are all owned through an HOA. There are communities with private roads yet no HOA. Are you suggesting those who live in these neighborhoods have some extraneous burden over them as they go for a stroll through their neighborhood? You say fringe, but they already exist in reality.
      - Frondo 11y ago
        If HOAs are your idea of expansive new freedom, I think you can probably do better than that. HOAs get a really bad rep for absolutely limiting the freedoms of the people who live there--from things like restrictions on what colors they can paint their houses to restrictions on what kind of political signage they can put up. HOAs are so completely recognized as little hotbeds of conformity (and abuse of authority, like all these stories about when HOA boards get it in for one of their residents, and end up booting that person out of their home!), it's actually surprising that you're positing them as sources of more freedom for the inhabitants. And, also, I don't know how many people in these HOAs you're talking about chose them for their freedom-maximizing non-government-maintained sidewalks (which, to them, are of course de-facto commons anyway!). I imagine if you asked any of them, they wouldn't even think about it, just that they'd pay a sidewalk tax one way or another. I dunno, the whole thing keeps sounding stupid. Not that I lack imagination, but that you've gotten ahold of some dumb ideas and aren't letting go.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

by st3v3r 11y ago

ancap 11y ago

>There is no freedom whatsoever there. Only servitude to the corporate masters who would control things. Source?

Frondo 11y 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 11y 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 11y 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?
  - ancap 11y ago
    >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? No need. There's already communities where the roads and sidewalks are all owned through an HOA. There are communities with private roads yet no HOA. Are you suggesting those who live in these neighborhoods have some extraneous burden over them as they go for a stroll through their neighborhood? You say fringe, but they already exist in reality.
    - Frondo 11y ago
      If HOAs are your idea of expansive new freedom, I think you can probably do better than that. HOAs get a really bad rep for absolutely limiting the freedoms of the people who live there--from things like restrictions on what colors they can paint their houses to restrictions on what kind of political signage they can put up. HOAs are so completely recognized as little hotbeds of conformity (and abuse of authority, like all these stories about when HOA boards get it in for one of their residents, and end up booting that person out of their home!), it's actually surprising that you're positing them as sources of more freedom for the inhabitants. And, also, I don't know how many people in these HOAs you're talking about chose them for their freedom-maximizing non-government-maintained sidewalks (which, to them, are of course de-facto commons anyway!). I imagine if you asked any of them, they wouldn't even think about it, just that they'd pay a sidewalk tax one way or another. I dunno, the whole thing keeps sounding stupid. Not that I lack imagination, but that you've gotten ahold of some dumb ideas and aren't letting go.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]