8 ms·

How do I sue you if all you have to do is say "no thanks, not playing, fuck off"? Sure, some theoretical bs about how you're not playing the arbitration game m

How do I sue you if all you have to do is say "no thanks, not playing, fuck off"? Sure, some theoretical bs about how you're not playing the arbitration game may result in longer term loss of business etc, but isn't me hurting you (via badmouthing your business, causing others to refuse to enter agreement etc) for not compensating me via arbitration merely me enacting violence on you?

baddox 14y ago
The simple answer is private insurance. More detailed answers can be found in all sorts of essays, books, and propositions regarding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycentric_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycentric_law.
- sophacles 14y ago
  So then the insurance company becomes the government. (Insurance companies will merge until there is a single one... if the history of companies is to be believed). Or the insurance company also just says "No I don't like you, and since there is no actual way for you to enforce me paying you out, I just won't". Again, if the insurance company decides not to pay, they are enacting bad things on someone and not honoring an agreement. Fortunately since they have lots of free money and no expenses (other than those required to manipulate perception -- cheap payouts etc), they can just have their newspaper buddies out-shout anyone else and not actually be harmed by bad practices.
  - baddox 14y ago
    > So then the insurance company becomes the government. Why? Retail stores don't become the government or merge into one. Neither do private security agencies. It's unlikely that any organization could "become the government" unless a vast portion of society accepts them as the sole legitimate purveyor of violence, which is precisely what I don't want to happen. > Or the insurance company also just says "No I don't like you, and since there is no actual way for you to enforce me paying you out, I just won't". Then what would you do? Personally, I would stop paying them (and probably switch to another insurance company), and I suspect a vast majority of their customers would do the same thing, and probably long before it got to the point where it "became the government." The only ways for a private insurance company in a free society to remain dominant while consistently not honoring their agreements would be if society as a whole didn't care about the agreements being honored (which seems unlikely), if they gather enough power to physically oppress an entire region (which also seems unlikely these days, since very few governments are even able or willing to pull that off), or if they convince society that they should be allowed to have a monopoly on violence. That last one is a pretty good definition of "becoming a government," and it's certainly possible, but the whole argument I'm making is that society should not recognize any organization as having a monopoly on violence.
    - sophacles 14y ago
      Nope, not even close to a reasonable response. If insurance is supposed to pay out in the cases of the big black swan events, and I in good faith of the insurance agreement have put a significant amount of capital towards restitution, repairs, what-have you, expecting to be reimbursed. Now the insurance says "oh nope, fuck you"... What means do I have of paying a different company? What means do I have of getting word out that they have fucked me? I can't afford to buy off majority of reporters like a big insurance company does. I guess I could hope for one reporter to be nice... but all the others making crap up about me for a few $K would make the other customers not actually pay heed. No penalty for the shady insurance. Similarly you are making a big fuss over the difference between physical and economic violence. Yet you adamantly refuse to explain how a bunch of economic policies via collusion of the players, resulting in a scenario of "play by our rules or else get no way of eating or sheltering yourself" is any less violence than "do what we say or we shoot you". To me the difference is a false one: forcing me to do something with one death threat really isn't different than with another. Finally, you somehow are confusing free market with "open and transparent operation of all economic players". We already see that isn't the case - most business hide most information about themselves the best they can, and rebel against any attempt to shed light on them. In fact government is more open about operations than almost all businesses, yet somehow there will be magic knowledge transfer between consumers and business about what those businesses really do once you take away government.
      - baddox 14y ago
        > Now the insurance says "oh nope, fuck you"... What means do I have of paying a different company? What means do I have of getting word out that they have fucked me? I can't afford to buy off majority of reporters like a big insurance company does. How do people find out that certain automobile are crappy? How do people know to avoid certain hospitals or certain doctors? I would never make the ludicrous claim that any arrangement of society would be utopia. People will get ripped off and bad things will always happen. It would simply be less common without government. > you adamantly refuse to explain how a bunch of economic policies via collusion of the players, resulting in a scenario of "play by our rules or else get no way of eating or sheltering yourself" is any less violence than "do what we say or we shoot you". To me the difference is a false one: forcing me to do something with one death threat really isn't different than with another. In the former situation, the "collusion of the players" is offering a crappy deal (with no physical violence) as an alternative to starvation. That means that if you truly would starve without the crappy deal (which would require you to be incapable of growing your own food), you are genuinely better off taking the deal. I don't see how this qualifies as "violence." You could make a decent argument that it is exploitation, which is a different argument altogether.
- clavalle 14y ago
  What can private insurance do for me if I am killed? What if I can't afford private insurance? What if I am not allowed private insurance? Seems like decrying a 'monopoly of violence' and replacing it with a 'vibrant violence marketplace' is quite a few steps in the wrong direction.
  - baddox 14y ago
    > What can private insurance do for me if I am killed? What can anything do for you if you are killed? I don't understand the relevance. You could still have private life insurance to provide for your family, but that's no different than today. > What if I can't afford private insurance? What if you can't afford the fees associated with litigation in the government court system? I never claimed that my suggestion would suddenly make everything fine for poor people. It's always going to be worse to have less wealth, just like it is in our current society. > Seems like decrying a 'monopoly of violence' and replacing it with a 'vibrant violence marketplace' is quite a few steps in the wrong direction. I don't understand how. Neither system is a utopia, but a competitive system motivated by profit would probably be cheaper (because customers like lower prices) and less violent (because violence is expensive and risky) than a government monopoly.
    - sophacles 14y ago
      The only reason violence is currently risky is because the government will put forth a lot of resources (more than most businesses or individuals could afford or consider prudent) to stop violence or at least punish the perpetrators. In your system, there is no reason for me not to kill someone in a slightly sneaky manner - basically as long as it can't easily be pinned on me, there is no repercussion. No one will track me down. I can just come by and kill you whenever. Oh wait, you'd pay for security. Then the security companies would start enforcing rules in their zones (remember property doesn't exist without someone there to enforce the property). Those security guys could take over the zone next door. Oh and prevent people from living. Repeat for larger and larger groups. Suddenly we have government of the feudal or warlard kind all over again. Crap.
      - 14y ago

baddox 14y ago

The simple answer is private insurance. More detailed answers can be found in all sorts of essays, books, and propositions regarding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycentric_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycentric_law.

sophacles 14y ago
So then the insurance company becomes the government. (Insurance companies will merge until there is a single one... if the history of companies is to be believed). Or the insurance company also just says "No I don't like you, and since there is no actual way for you to enforce me paying you out, I just won't". Again, if the insurance company decides not to pay, they are enacting bad things on someone and not honoring an agreement. Fortunately since they have lots of free money and no expenses (other than those required to manipulate perception -- cheap payouts etc), they can just have their newspaper buddies out-shout anyone else and not actually be harmed by bad practices.
- baddox 14y ago
  > So then the insurance company becomes the government. Why? Retail stores don't become the government or merge into one. Neither do private security agencies. It's unlikely that any organization could "become the government" unless a vast portion of society accepts them as the sole legitimate purveyor of violence, which is precisely what I don't want to happen. > Or the insurance company also just says "No I don't like you, and since there is no actual way for you to enforce me paying you out, I just won't". Then what would you do? Personally, I would stop paying them (and probably switch to another insurance company), and I suspect a vast majority of their customers would do the same thing, and probably long before it got to the point where it "became the government." The only ways for a private insurance company in a free society to remain dominant while consistently not honoring their agreements would be if society as a whole didn't care about the agreements being honored (which seems unlikely), if they gather enough power to physically oppress an entire region (which also seems unlikely these days, since very few governments are even able or willing to pull that off), or if they convince society that they should be allowed to have a monopoly on violence. That last one is a pretty good definition of "becoming a government," and it's certainly possible, but the whole argument I'm making is that society should not recognize any organization as having a monopoly on violence.
  - sophacles 14y ago
    Nope, not even close to a reasonable response. If insurance is supposed to pay out in the cases of the big black swan events, and I in good faith of the insurance agreement have put a significant amount of capital towards restitution, repairs, what-have you, expecting to be reimbursed. Now the insurance says "oh nope, fuck you"... What means do I have of paying a different company? What means do I have of getting word out that they have fucked me? I can't afford to buy off majority of reporters like a big insurance company does. I guess I could hope for one reporter to be nice... but all the others making crap up about me for a few $K would make the other customers not actually pay heed. No penalty for the shady insurance. Similarly you are making a big fuss over the difference between physical and economic violence. Yet you adamantly refuse to explain how a bunch of economic policies via collusion of the players, resulting in a scenario of "play by our rules or else get no way of eating or sheltering yourself" is any less violence than "do what we say or we shoot you". To me the difference is a false one: forcing me to do something with one death threat really isn't different than with another. Finally, you somehow are confusing free market with "open and transparent operation of all economic players". We already see that isn't the case - most business hide most information about themselves the best they can, and rebel against any attempt to shed light on them. In fact government is more open about operations than almost all businesses, yet somehow there will be magic knowledge transfer between consumers and business about what those businesses really do once you take away government.
    - baddox 14y ago
      > Now the insurance says "oh nope, fuck you"... What means do I have of paying a different company? What means do I have of getting word out that they have fucked me? I can't afford to buy off majority of reporters like a big insurance company does. How do people find out that certain automobile are crappy? How do people know to avoid certain hospitals or certain doctors? I would never make the ludicrous claim that any arrangement of society would be utopia. People will get ripped off and bad things will always happen. It would simply be less common without government. > you adamantly refuse to explain how a bunch of economic policies via collusion of the players, resulting in a scenario of "play by our rules or else get no way of eating or sheltering yourself" is any less violence than "do what we say or we shoot you". To me the difference is a false one: forcing me to do something with one death threat really isn't different than with another. In the former situation, the "collusion of the players" is offering a crappy deal (with no physical violence) as an alternative to starvation. That means that if you truly would starve without the crappy deal (which would require you to be incapable of growing your own food), you are genuinely better off taking the deal. I don't see how this qualifies as "violence." You could make a decent argument that it is exploitation, which is a different argument altogether.
clavalle 14y ago
What can private insurance do for me if I am killed? What if I can't afford private insurance? What if I am not allowed private insurance? Seems like decrying a 'monopoly of violence' and replacing it with a 'vibrant violence marketplace' is quite a few steps in the wrong direction.
- baddox 14y ago
  > What can private insurance do for me if I am killed? What can anything do for you if you are killed? I don't understand the relevance. You could still have private life insurance to provide for your family, but that's no different than today. > What if I can't afford private insurance? What if you can't afford the fees associated with litigation in the government court system? I never claimed that my suggestion would suddenly make everything fine for poor people. It's always going to be worse to have less wealth, just like it is in our current society. > Seems like decrying a 'monopoly of violence' and replacing it with a 'vibrant violence marketplace' is quite a few steps in the wrong direction. I don't understand how. Neither system is a utopia, but a competitive system motivated by profit would probably be cheaper (because customers like lower prices) and less violent (because violence is expensive and risky) than a government monopoly.
  - sophacles 14y ago
    The only reason violence is currently risky is because the government will put forth a lot of resources (more than most businesses or individuals could afford or consider prudent) to stop violence or at least punish the perpetrators. In your system, there is no reason for me not to kill someone in a slightly sneaky manner - basically as long as it can't easily be pinned on me, there is no repercussion. No one will track me down. I can just come by and kill you whenever. Oh wait, you'd pay for security. Then the security companies would start enforcing rules in their zones (remember property doesn't exist without someone there to enforce the property). Those security guys could take over the zone next door. Oh and prevent people from living. Repeat for larger and larger groups. Suddenly we have government of the feudal or warlard kind all over again. Crap.
    - 14y ago