5 ms·

Well, if there were no government, people's first instinct is still to defend their property. They might lose or decide it's a losing battle, of course.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> Well, if there were no government, people's first instinct is still to defend their property. No, it's to fight for what they want (or perhaps think they are entitled to) to control. “Property” is simply what the government says you are entitled to control.
- Matticus_Rex 7y ago
  Eh, by that logic "murder" is simply who the government says you're not allowed to kill. In the absence of all other criteria, that would be true, but theories of rights still exist in the absence of laws.
  - baq 7y ago
    Natural law is the same thing as natural products. Impossible to define at best. Law needs enforcement to be law, otherwise it’s just words.
    - Matticus_Rex 7y ago
      So if the government collapses, is murder still murder, or do we have to use different words? I posit that something need not be objectively defined to be meaningful. We have the intersubjective for that.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > theories of rights still exist in the absence of laws. Sure, everyone had their own theory of rights. And if by people acting to defend their property you mean “people will fight to secure access to those things to which their own personal theory of rights holds them to be entitled”, well, you’ll notice that's exactly what I described, but not at all what people mean when discussing “property” normally.
    - antepodius 7y ago
      Sure. But there is such a thing as a group of people with similar theories of right, or negotiated theories of rights. An example might be a not-entirely-tyrannical tribe. Our current systen descends from such things.
coliveira 7y ago
If there is no government, only the strong will have any property. We'll go back straight to cavemen times, especially if you have some kind of social disadvantage such as minorities, women, etc.
- squarefoot 7y ago
  Looking at how wealth and opportunities to create it are distributed around the world and among different people, I'd say we are on the right track for a reality with all the disadvantages of no government paired with all disadvantages of too much government.
  - coliveira 7y ago
    The main problem I see is the change in ideology that the rich have been able to implement. After WWII, government was supposed to promote the growth of the whole country. But in recent decades the elite convinced everyone that looking for the rich is all that matters. Being against this is now considered to be a "radical" or "communist". The rich have dismantled much of the democratic systems build since the French Revolution.
    - squarefoot 7y ago
      Yes, and sadly the issue would be really easy to explain to anyone: we live in a world with limited resources, but population is increasing while the few rich are becoming more richer at the expense of the many poor. All it needs is connecting dots by reasoning in 4 dimensions. This will lead to an era of disasters where most countries armies will turn themselves into private police protecting the 1% rich against the 99% poor. Capitalism and consumerism (these capitalism and consumerism) did work only when there were still free resources available, and pretty much stopped being viable when the last uncharted land was explored, mapped and exploited. Today taking control of a resource always means it is being taken from somebody else, that is, we can't make someone rich anymore without also creating like a thousand poors in the process. It doesn't work anymore, and simply painting critics as communists is so 1950-ish and so blatantly wrong.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> Well, if there were no government, people's first instinct is still to defend their property. No, it's to fight for what they want (or perhaps think they are entitled to) to control. “Property” is simply what the government says you are entitled to control.

Matticus_Rex 7y ago
Eh, by that logic "murder" is simply who the government says you're not allowed to kill. In the absence of all other criteria, that would be true, but theories of rights still exist in the absence of laws.
- baq 7y ago
  Natural law is the same thing as natural products. Impossible to define at best. Law needs enforcement to be law, otherwise it’s just words.
  - Matticus_Rex 7y ago
    So if the government collapses, is murder still murder, or do we have to use different words? I posit that something need not be objectively defined to be meaningful. We have the intersubjective for that.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > theories of rights still exist in the absence of laws. Sure, everyone had their own theory of rights. And if by people acting to defend their property you mean “people will fight to secure access to those things to which their own personal theory of rights holds them to be entitled”, well, you’ll notice that's exactly what I described, but not at all what people mean when discussing “property” normally.
  - antepodius 7y ago
    Sure. But there is such a thing as a group of people with similar theories of right, or negotiated theories of rights. An example might be a not-entirely-tyrannical tribe. Our current systen descends from such things.

coliveira 7y ago

If there is no government, only the strong will have any property. We'll go back straight to cavemen times, especially if you have some kind of social disadvantage such as minorities, women, etc.

squarefoot 7y ago
Looking at how wealth and opportunities to create it are distributed around the world and among different people, I'd say we are on the right track for a reality with all the disadvantages of no government paired with all disadvantages of too much government.
- coliveira 7y ago
  The main problem I see is the change in ideology that the rich have been able to implement. After WWII, government was supposed to promote the growth of the whole country. But in recent decades the elite convinced everyone that looking for the rich is all that matters. Being against this is now considered to be a "radical" or "communist". The rich have dismantled much of the democratic systems build since the French Revolution.
  - squarefoot 7y ago
    Yes, and sadly the issue would be really easy to explain to anyone: we live in a world with limited resources, but population is increasing while the few rich are becoming more richer at the expense of the many poor. All it needs is connecting dots by reasoning in 4 dimensions. This will lead to an era of disasters where most countries armies will turn themselves into private police protecting the 1% rich against the 99% poor. Capitalism and consumerism (these capitalism and consumerism) did work only when there were still free resources available, and pretty much stopped being viable when the last uncharted land was explored, mapped and exploited. Today taking control of a resource always means it is being taken from somebody else, that is, we can't make someone rich anymore without also creating like a thousand poors in the process. It doesn't work anymore, and simply painting critics as communists is so 1950-ish and so blatantly wrong.