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I agree. But no one except you is suggesting that it does! No one except you has said anything about anyone being the governments property. You've invented a li

I agree. But no one except you is suggesting that it does! No one except you has said anything about anyone being the governments property. You've invented a line of argument to be concerned about. As another user said, your line of reasoning doesn't at all follow. I've tried to point that out twice now and I guess you don't want to acknowledge that.

WalterBright 5y ago
> No one except you has said anything about anyone being the governments property Read again the post I replied to.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  > You don't need to be the government's property for the government to optimize Right, so like I said. I mean you even quoted this part and then proceeded to not explain why perhaps you believe this is inevitable, but simply restate it. You're assuming you're correct but not justifying it. Or perhaps you mean the prior comment where someone said "People dying in auto accidents costs the government money in lost economic activity as well as things like medical care." which you took umbrage with. But there's again, nothing that implies property here. I don't think that the businesses on my street are my property, but I can still support policies that benefit them, because a robust local economy still benefits me. Nor do I think I hold any sort of right of ownership over an average schoolchild, and yet I benefit from a well educated citizenry and so support robust public education. Direct property ownership is not the only method by which people can benefit from things, and regulation is not necessarily done out of a sense of "entitlement". Some regulations are actually just good and improve the world.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    > But there's again, nothing that implies property here. Yes, there is. You're implying you're entitled to the work those people might do, and so you get to control their behavior. This is ownership.
    - joshuamorton 5y ago
      So just to clarify here, does my boss or employer own me? Because he both is generally entitled to the work I do, and as such can control my behavior? But more generally, I don't agree that exerting some amount of influence over behavior that affects me is ownership, as long as it is limited to the behavior that affects me. And as that user mentioned, there are costs society bears beyond the potential lost productivity (healthcare/rehabilitation costs as an example) so you can completely ignore this line of reasoning and their point still stands.
      - abecedarius 5y ago
        Employment is at-will on both sides. In the case of the state, you could also renounce your citizenship and try to get one with a more suitable country: so far as there's a wide range of choices and it's realistic to do that, you're not owned. One of these cases is dramatically more realistic than the other. Cost/benefit thinking has value. But realize you're taking one form of coercion (a state forcing others to pay for my medical costs whether or not I would choose to insure myself) to justify another (forbidding you to do something a bit risky to yourself). You might conclude the ownership is worth it, but it doesn't negate WalterBright's point. There's a cost in individual freedom.
        joshuamorton 5y ago
        I don't disagree with anything you've said! I take issue specifically with the idea that coercion implies ownership, which, well, it doesn't
        WalterBright 5y ago
        Ownership is the power to coerce someone to do your bidding. It's not a piece of paper.
        joshuamorton 5y ago
        > Ownership is the power to coerce someone to do your bidding I could maybe agree with this. But I find the gap between "helmet laws" and "you're forced to do the government's bidding" rather wide. Like as far as I can tell this reduces to "any reduction in rights is ownership", so the government limiting your right to murder people means that the government owns you already.

WalterBright 5y ago

> No one except you has said anything about anyone being the governments property Read again the post I replied to.

joshuamorton 5y ago
> You don't need to be the government's property for the government to optimize Right, so like I said. I mean you even quoted this part and then proceeded to not explain why perhaps you believe this is inevitable, but simply restate it. You're assuming you're correct but not justifying it. Or perhaps you mean the prior comment where someone said "People dying in auto accidents costs the government money in lost economic activity as well as things like medical care." which you took umbrage with. But there's again, nothing that implies property here. I don't think that the businesses on my street are my property, but I can still support policies that benefit them, because a robust local economy still benefits me. Nor do I think I hold any sort of right of ownership over an average schoolchild, and yet I benefit from a well educated citizenry and so support robust public education. Direct property ownership is not the only method by which people can benefit from things, and regulation is not necessarily done out of a sense of "entitlement". Some regulations are actually just good and improve the world.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > But there's again, nothing that implies property here. Yes, there is. You're implying you're entitled to the work those people might do, and so you get to control their behavior. This is ownership.
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    So just to clarify here, does my boss or employer own me? Because he both is generally entitled to the work I do, and as such can control my behavior? But more generally, I don't agree that exerting some amount of influence over behavior that affects me is ownership, as long as it is limited to the behavior that affects me. And as that user mentioned, there are costs society bears beyond the potential lost productivity (healthcare/rehabilitation costs as an example) so you can completely ignore this line of reasoning and their point still stands.
    - abecedarius 5y ago
      Employment is at-will on both sides. In the case of the state, you could also renounce your citizenship and try to get one with a more suitable country: so far as there's a wide range of choices and it's realistic to do that, you're not owned. One of these cases is dramatically more realistic than the other. Cost/benefit thinking has value. But realize you're taking one form of coercion (a state forcing others to pay for my medical costs whether or not I would choose to insure myself) to justify another (forbidding you to do something a bit risky to yourself). You might conclude the ownership is worth it, but it doesn't negate WalterBright's point. There's a cost in individual freedom.
      - joshuamorton 5y ago
        I don't disagree with anything you've said! I take issue specifically with the idea that coercion implies ownership, which, well, it doesn't
        WalterBright 5y ago
        Ownership is the power to coerce someone to do your bidding. It's not a piece of paper.
        joshuamorton 5y ago
        > Ownership is the power to coerce someone to do your bidding I could maybe agree with this. But I find the gap between "helmet laws" and "you're forced to do the government's bidding" rather wide. Like as far as I can tell this reduces to "any reduction in rights is ownership", so the government limiting your right to murder people means that the government owns you already.