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To go further, I personally don't think the first settlers to a piece of land have a better or more special claim over it than any subsequent group. That line o
by gottorf 2y ago
To go further, I personally don't think the first settlers to a piece of land have a better or more special claim over it than any subsequent group. That line of thinking feels like an appeal to cosmic justice more than anything else.
- vkou 2y agoShould the most recent settlers to it have a stronger claim, instead? Should they have an equal claim? Can I put in a claim to ownership of wherever you live?
- defrost 2y agoWe can resettle the two million acres of Ted Turner land then?
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2y agoIt's tricky because property rights are legitimately the foundation of a peaceful and prosperous society. It's bad to incentivize violent conquest and theft. But it's also bad to incentivize a society where the way to become wealthy is to tell the best sob story about stuff that happened to your ancestors generations and generations ago.
- gottorf 2y agoProperty rights, of course, exist within the framework of a civilization that upholds the rule of law, and I agree with you on its fundamental importance as a building block of prosperity. I realize now that my comment didn't make this clear, but I meant that at a civilizational level, there isn't something special to be the "first" group of people[0] to a patch of land; what matters is whether any civilization to occupy a territory at a given point of time builds enough wealth and strength to defend their claim and way of life against subsequent civilizations to come along. Numerous other commenters appear to dunk on me for this distinction, but I believe property rights within a civilization are not comparable to this scale. What framework exists at the supra-civilizational scale? [0]: How do you know anybody was first? Written history and archeological records only go so far.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago>builds enough wealth and strength to defend their claim and way of life against subsequent civilizations to come along. I don't agree with "might makes right", if that's what you're trying to argue. >What framework exists at the supra-civilizational scale? International law? E.g. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is sometimes said to be "illegal". I suppose one could argue that conquest only become illegal with the 1928 Kellogg-Briand pact. So one could argue that attempts to relitigate pre-1928 conquests essentially amount to applying international law retroactively, which might violate Article 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Of course, just because conquest was "legal" doesn't make it acceptable morally. However, I do think one could use the international law point to argue that Russia needs to pay reparations to Ukraine, but pursuing reparations for pre-1928 conquest isn't valid.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2y agoRe the Kellogg-Briand pact, see this book review: >Before the Pact, the expectations of everyday citizens of the world was that sovereign countries had the right to go to war. Today, most people expect the opposite: that war is unusual, morally wrong, and forbidden except in rare circumstances. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-the-internationalists https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-the-intern...
- kennyloginz 2y agoNice, so how is your special claim better?
- ImJamal 2y agoSo I can kill you and take your house? Or do you just apply this standard to the Native Americans?
- asacrowflies 2y agoNative American nakba let's go.