4 ms·

All property in my mind is a "government-granted monopoly", so it's confusing what distinction you're trying to draw.

pessimizer 3y ago
This is absolutely true, but when you talk about government-granted monopolies you can discuss things in their specifics. Confounding the possession of physical objects with any sort of government-issued imposition of rules on other people's behavior usually clouds this issue rather than illuminating it. Ownership of objects usually consists of restrictions on other people taking those objects from you or damaging those objects. When you remove the objects from this idea, it just becomes a restriction on other people.
ronsor 3y ago
"Property" is a natural concept since with physical objects you either have them or you don't. There may be many Teslas, but there is only one of your Tesla. On the other hand, digital content can be copied endlessly, without the original creator losing access to it.
- grt_thr 3y ago
  [dead]
- slondr 3y ago
  > There may be many Teslas, but there is only one of your Tesla. That isn’t a “natural” concept, it’s still a legal one.
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    NOT true at all. Consider (say) a particular banana, in the hand of a particular hungry gorilla. That banana is the property of that gorilla. This concept of property is quite natural, and baked into the instincts and behaviors of animals far, far more simple than even the bottom end of the primates. Vs. even comprehending the concepts of copyright and intellectual property requires a very modern human education and worldview. (But consider how many $millions are paid to a great many lawyers, contingent on their managing to convince a great many people that those two very different concepts of "property" are the same, and a certain famous quote by Upton Sinclair.)
    - tender_euler 3y ago
      I would say that banana is the property of the tree the gorilla "stole" it from. And I don't think animals see this banana as "property of the gorilla" as you suggested. I think they see it as "if I try to take this banana from that gorilla, I will get slapped"
      - simondotau 3y ago
        The bananas weren’t stolen, they were sold to the gorilla in return for seed distribution services. The tree wants the gorilla to distribute the banana seed within a fertiliser package (poop) some distance away. And the gorilla wants calories, which the tree can endlessly produce using solar power. It’s a fair trade.
      - bell-cot 3y ago
        Didn't the banana plant (not a tree, technically) produce that banana using nutrients stolen from the soil, carbon dioxide stolen from the air, energy stolen from the sun, etc.?
        midoridensha 3y ago
        Exactly: the whole system is based on theft, and should be stopped.
    - andrekandre 3y ago
      > That banana is the property of that gorilla. is there a semantically relevant distinction between property and possession? i might be inclined to have said "the gorilla is in possession of the banana" but im not sure about "property of"...?
- krapp 3y ago
  "property" is a legal concept. I live in my apartment, but it isn't my property because i'm renting it. I can "have" food in a supermarket but that doesn't mean I can just walk out with it - it's only my property after I've paid for it. In both cases, property is only property when and how the law determines.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  Copyright does not mean the right to make copies. It means the right to benefit from the value of making copies. It doesn't matter if those copies are made by pushing bits over the Internet or hewn into the side of a mountain by thousands of masons. It's an access and use right, not a physical instantiation. Copyleft, open source, CC-by-N etc don't change this or subvert the concept. They're simply ways of asserting that the benefit should be collective instead of individual. This makes perfect sense for group efforts, but no sense at all for content creators who would derive no benefit at all if copyright didn't exist. Either you believe in property and access/benefit rights or you don't. You can't believe in them selectively just because you want something and are terribly offended if you're asked to pay for it. And if you don't believe in property rights - fine. Let's make everything collectively owned, including money. (Which is in fact just bits that can be pushed over the Internet.)
  - JellyBeanThief 3y ago
    > Either you believe in property and access/benefit rights or you don't. Information isn't property. Property is a concept we use to maintain order and peace around scarce resources. Information is not scarce anymore and never will be again, and applying notions of property to it has always been a misuse. If you want to encourage the arts, then shorten the work week. People don't need to be incentivized to create art. You couldn't stop them if you tried. And we have more movies, music, books, television, photos, etc than anyone could ever hope to enjoy even in 10 lifetimes. If you want to encourage basic research, give money to scientists and then get out of their way. People don't need to be incentivized to investigate the universe. You couldn't stop them if you tried. If you want to encourage innovation, then make source code and blueprints for commercial products open source by law. People don't need to be incentivized to learn about and improve the tools they own. You couldn't stop them if you tried. And artists wouldn't stop making money. Commissions don't depend on copyright. Neither do thank yous and more elaborate call outs to patrons. As long as an artist can make a decent living at some other job, they'll make art in the time left over that any would-be greatest free country in the world makes sure all its citizens have to actually be free in. Assuming we want the world's best research by the world's best researchers for the public good, then we need to pay for their equipment, supplies, and workspace. And then when we want the worlds best trained graduates, we pay the researchers to teach them. And as for innovation, that's not really something we need to incentivize at least right now. We have more technology available then we can keep up with. We don't need dishwashers with Bluetooth, we need dishwashers that you can pay the neighbor's kid 50 bucks under the table to repair, and you'll only be one of four people who paid them this week. Not to mention the gigantic leg up it will give to developing countries struggling to bootstrap their industries. If you want to play around with patent law for businesses above a certain size (either by revenue, customer base, employee count, or whatever), then I think there's plenty we can do there to challenge big businesses to stay ahead of the curve while making sure small and maybe medium businesses keep nipping at their heels. But at the end of the day, information is not scarce. So let's stop pretending that we need to manage it like it is.
- II2II 3y ago
  What is preventing me from walking up to their Tesla and driving off with it?[1] Yes, there are security mechanisms and social norms that would prevent most people from doing that sort of thing. Yet there are more than enough people out there who would gladly take exception to that sort of thing and gladly take the Tesla as their own. The whole notion of property rights is a social construct. We use governments to enforce that social construct. Until humanity can learn how to share things (rather than just take things), we are certainly better off for it. Copyright is somewhat different in the sense that it is relatively easy to copy without depriving someone of their copy, yet it can still be viewed as depriving the creator of the potential value of their work. [1] Don't worry. I don't drive.
- pmoriarty 3y ago
  > "Property" is a natural concept since with physical objects you either have them or you don't. The word "have" is just a linguistic feature (in English, no less[1]), or (at most) a concept. It's not inherent in the physical world.[2] The concept of ownership is ultimately a linguistic and/or social convention. (Some) humans choose to think in terms of ownership, but they need not do so. [1] - which might not even be present in some other languages, or might not be as natural to talk about as in English [2] - except to the extent that all thoughts might be argued to be physical, if they are considered to be in the brain and everything in the brain is physical
  - f33d5173 3y ago
    Other languages have words with equivalent meaning. Even animals have property they defend
    - smegsicle 3y ago
      in other words property doesn't exist because government grants it, government exists because everyone agrees its better than personally defending their property
    - pmoriarty 3y ago
      > Other languages have words with equivalent meaning. Some languages do. It doesn't mean that all languages do, and even in those that do the use of such language may not be as natural as it is in English. > Even animals have property they defend Animals do things that some humans may interpret as defense, and and that some humans may interpret as "property", but that doesn't mean that that's what animals are doing, much less that animals think of anything as "their property".
      - f33d5173 3y ago
        At a certain point, I can redefine your entire response as agreeing with me, hence obviating the need for a detailed reply.
  - kelnos 3y ago
- cute_boi 3y ago
  To some people property means something where we pour essence of our life. It takes a lot of effort to create digital content even though it can be copied endlessly.
- LinAGKar 3y ago
  At this point, no Tesla is truly your Tesla
johngladtj 3y ago
Does property no exist in somalia?
- EvanAnderson 3y ago
  Scarcity of tangible property exists in Somalia. The ability to have your property rights enforced may not.
ersatzz 3y ago
Do you genuinely believe this or do you just approach property at large from a realist's perspective?
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  Governments can withdraw the right at any time, with or without compensation. They usually don't without an exceptional reason. But if they want to, they can.
  - ersatzz 3y ago
    Governments can say whatever they want. My question was rather that if the government ceases to provide protection to... my exclusive right to my wallet, are others free to take it? Would this be theft, liberation or recovery? What happens if I simply begin to assert this exclusive right? What would this phenomenon be called? Is it really the case individuals can not assert their rights without a governments backing?
    - andrekandre 3y ago
      > Is it really the case individuals can not assert their rights without a governments backing? doesn't the word "rights" itself presuppose a governing/arbitrating body?
      - ersatzz 3y ago
        No there exists natural/universal rights and legal/customary rights. I should've left the quoted part out as its presumptuous, my bad.
kelnos 3y ago
Not really; physical property rights are a social construct. Sure, in many cases a government will help you enforce that construct with police and violence. But in places of the world[0] where government doesn't have its hands (and eyes and ears) into everything, property rights are sometimes enforced on an individual level, if the social construct fails. You might point a gun at someone who tries to steal from you, and you might even pull the trigger if the threat of that gun doesn't deter them. And conversely, there are communities (sadly not so many these days) where property rights don't need to be enforced by anyone, because the social construct is just that strong. [0] Or times in the past.
efitz 3y ago
This is not the US concept of property. The United States views rights (including life, liberty, and property) as being natural, i.e. they exist in the absence of governments, and that government can only infringe on those rights to the minimum extent necessary to accomplish the tasks set out for it in the Constitution. Things have drifted quite a bit over time but that’s the foundational notion behind the US Constitution. It’s really a remarkable document in that conceptually it makes the government subject to the citizens, not the citizens subjects of the government. If you read it carefully it says quite clearly “the government is allowed to do these X things, and nothing else, and by the way it is expressly forbidden from doing these other things that we didn’t give it authority to do but we know that they’ll try to do anyway so just no”.

This is absolutely true, but when you talk about government-granted monopolies you can discuss things in their specifics. Confounding the possession of physical objects with any sort of government-issued imposition of rules on other people's behavior usually clouds this issue rather than illuminating it. Ownership of objects usually consists of restrictions on other people taking those objects from you or damaging those objects. When you remove the objects from this idea, it just becomes a restriction on other people.

ronsor 3y ago

"Property" is a natural concept since with physical objects you either have them or you don't. There may be many Teslas, but there is only one of your Tesla. On the other hand, digital content can be copied endlessly, without the original creator losing access to it.

grt_thr 3y ago
[dead]
slondr 3y ago
> There may be many Teslas, but there is only one of your Tesla. That isn’t a “natural” concept, it’s still a legal one.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  NOT true at all. Consider (say) a particular banana, in the hand of a particular hungry gorilla. That banana is the property of that gorilla. This concept of property is quite natural, and baked into the instincts and behaviors of animals far, far more simple than even the bottom end of the primates. Vs. even comprehending the concepts of copyright and intellectual property requires a very modern human education and worldview. (But consider how many $millions are paid to a great many lawyers, contingent on their managing to convince a great many people that those two very different concepts of "property" are the same, and a certain famous quote by Upton Sinclair.)
  - tender_euler 3y ago
    I would say that banana is the property of the tree the gorilla "stole" it from. And I don't think animals see this banana as "property of the gorilla" as you suggested. I think they see it as "if I try to take this banana from that gorilla, I will get slapped"
    - simondotau 3y ago
      The bananas weren’t stolen, they were sold to the gorilla in return for seed distribution services. The tree wants the gorilla to distribute the banana seed within a fertiliser package (poop) some distance away. And the gorilla wants calories, which the tree can endlessly produce using solar power. It’s a fair trade.
    - bell-cot 3y ago
      Didn't the banana plant (not a tree, technically) produce that banana using nutrients stolen from the soil, carbon dioxide stolen from the air, energy stolen from the sun, etc.?
      - midoridensha 3y ago
        Exactly: the whole system is based on theft, and should be stopped.
  - andrekandre 3y ago
    > That banana is the property of that gorilla. is there a semantically relevant distinction between property and possession? i might be inclined to have said "the gorilla is in possession of the banana" but im not sure about "property of"...?
krapp 3y ago
"property" is a legal concept. I live in my apartment, but it isn't my property because i'm renting it. I can "have" food in a supermarket but that doesn't mean I can just walk out with it - it's only my property after I've paid for it. In both cases, property is only property when and how the law determines.
TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
Copyright does not mean the right to make copies. It means the right to benefit from the value of making copies. It doesn't matter if those copies are made by pushing bits over the Internet or hewn into the side of a mountain by thousands of masons. It's an access and use right, not a physical instantiation. Copyleft, open source, CC-by-N etc don't change this or subvert the concept. They're simply ways of asserting that the benefit should be collective instead of individual. This makes perfect sense for group efforts, but no sense at all for content creators who would derive no benefit at all if copyright didn't exist. Either you believe in property and access/benefit rights or you don't. You can't believe in them selectively just because you want something and are terribly offended if you're asked to pay for it. And if you don't believe in property rights - fine. Let's make everything collectively owned, including money. (Which is in fact just bits that can be pushed over the Internet.)
- JellyBeanThief 3y ago
  > Either you believe in property and access/benefit rights or you don't. Information isn't property. Property is a concept we use to maintain order and peace around scarce resources. Information is not scarce anymore and never will be again, and applying notions of property to it has always been a misuse. If you want to encourage the arts, then shorten the work week. People don't need to be incentivized to create art. You couldn't stop them if you tried. And we have more movies, music, books, television, photos, etc than anyone could ever hope to enjoy even in 10 lifetimes. If you want to encourage basic research, give money to scientists and then get out of their way. People don't need to be incentivized to investigate the universe. You couldn't stop them if you tried. If you want to encourage innovation, then make source code and blueprints for commercial products open source by law. People don't need to be incentivized to learn about and improve the tools they own. You couldn't stop them if you tried. And artists wouldn't stop making money. Commissions don't depend on copyright. Neither do thank yous and more elaborate call outs to patrons. As long as an artist can make a decent living at some other job, they'll make art in the time left over that any would-be greatest free country in the world makes sure all its citizens have to actually be free in. Assuming we want the world's best research by the world's best researchers for the public good, then we need to pay for their equipment, supplies, and workspace. And then when we want the worlds best trained graduates, we pay the researchers to teach them. And as for innovation, that's not really something we need to incentivize at least right now. We have more technology available then we can keep up with. We don't need dishwashers with Bluetooth, we need dishwashers that you can pay the neighbor's kid 50 bucks under the table to repair, and you'll only be one of four people who paid them this week. Not to mention the gigantic leg up it will give to developing countries struggling to bootstrap their industries. If you want to play around with patent law for businesses above a certain size (either by revenue, customer base, employee count, or whatever), then I think there's plenty we can do there to challenge big businesses to stay ahead of the curve while making sure small and maybe medium businesses keep nipping at their heels. But at the end of the day, information is not scarce. So let's stop pretending that we need to manage it like it is.
II2II 3y ago
What is preventing me from walking up to their Tesla and driving off with it?[1] Yes, there are security mechanisms and social norms that would prevent most people from doing that sort of thing. Yet there are more than enough people out there who would gladly take exception to that sort of thing and gladly take the Tesla as their own. The whole notion of property rights is a social construct. We use governments to enforce that social construct. Until humanity can learn how to share things (rather than just take things), we are certainly better off for it. Copyright is somewhat different in the sense that it is relatively easy to copy without depriving someone of their copy, yet it can still be viewed as depriving the creator of the potential value of their work. [1] Don't worry. I don't drive.
pmoriarty 3y ago
> "Property" is a natural concept since with physical objects you either have them or you don't. The word "have" is just a linguistic feature (in English, no less[1]), or (at most) a concept. It's not inherent in the physical world.[2] The concept of ownership is ultimately a linguistic and/or social convention. (Some) humans choose to think in terms of ownership, but they need not do so. [1] - which might not even be present in some other languages, or might not be as natural to talk about as in English [2] - except to the extent that all thoughts might be argued to be physical, if they are considered to be in the brain and everything in the brain is physical
- f33d5173 3y ago
  Other languages have words with equivalent meaning. Even animals have property they defend
  - smegsicle 3y ago
    in other words property doesn't exist because government grants it, government exists because everyone agrees its better than personally defending their property
  - pmoriarty 3y ago
    > Other languages have words with equivalent meaning. Some languages do. It doesn't mean that all languages do, and even in those that do the use of such language may not be as natural as it is in English. > Even animals have property they defend Animals do things that some humans may interpret as defense, and and that some humans may interpret as "property", but that doesn't mean that that's what animals are doing, much less that animals think of anything as "their property".
    - f33d5173 3y ago
      At a certain point, I can redefine your entire response as agreeing with me, hence obviating the need for a detailed reply.
- kelnos 3y ago
cute_boi 3y ago
To some people property means something where we pour essence of our life. It takes a lot of effort to create digital content even though it can be copied endlessly.
LinAGKar 3y ago
At this point, no Tesla is truly your Tesla

johngladtj 3y ago

Does property no exist in somalia?

EvanAnderson 3y ago
Scarcity of tangible property exists in Somalia. The ability to have your property rights enforced may not.

ersatzz 3y ago

Do you genuinely believe this or do you just approach property at large from a realist's perspective?

TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
Governments can withdraw the right at any time, with or without compensation. They usually don't without an exceptional reason. But if they want to, they can.
- ersatzz 3y ago
  Governments can say whatever they want. My question was rather that if the government ceases to provide protection to... my exclusive right to my wallet, are others free to take it? Would this be theft, liberation or recovery? What happens if I simply begin to assert this exclusive right? What would this phenomenon be called? Is it really the case individuals can not assert their rights without a governments backing?
  - andrekandre 3y ago
    > Is it really the case individuals can not assert their rights without a governments backing? doesn't the word "rights" itself presuppose a governing/arbitrating body?
    - ersatzz 3y ago
      No there exists natural/universal rights and legal/customary rights. I should've left the quoted part out as its presumptuous, my bad.

kelnos 3y ago

Not really; physical property rights are a social construct. Sure, in many cases a government will help you enforce that construct with police and violence. But in places of the world[0] where government doesn't have its hands (and eyes and ears) into everything, property rights are sometimes enforced on an individual level, if the social construct fails. You might point a gun at someone who tries to steal from you, and you might even pull the trigger if the threat of that gun doesn't deter them. And conversely, there are communities (sadly not so many these days) where property rights don't need to be enforced by anyone, because the social construct is just that strong. [0] Or times in the past.

efitz 3y ago

This is not the US concept of property. The United States views rights (including life, liberty, and property) as being natural, i.e. they exist in the absence of governments, and that government can only infringe on those rights to the minimum extent necessary to accomplish the tasks set out for it in the Constitution. Things have drifted quite a bit over time but that’s the foundational notion behind the US Constitution. It’s really a remarkable document in that conceptually it makes the government subject to the citizens, not the citizens subjects of the government. If you read it carefully it says quite clearly “the government is allowed to do these X things, and nothing else, and by the way it is expressly forbidden from doing these other things that we didn’t give it authority to do but we know that they’ll try to do anyway so just no”.