weenie

That is an objective statement. Another example of an objective statement would be "Value is subjective."

Dude, I get that governments are monopolists, and that they violate private property. What I'm trying to do is find a way to approach people with the idea of "what would it look like if they didn't?". I know that would make them not-governments, but it's a good way to present a new concept to somebody without freaking them out. What? You're right, that argument was pointless. Me not exercising ownership over something I created doesn't demonstrate anything. I still have to encounter a valid proof for private property rights being objectively valid. I must say i completely agree with them, it's only that I think my acceptance of them is subjective. They can't be proven in the same way as a painting can't be proven to be pretty.

1) "government" can refer to an administrative body for any sort of community as far as I know, it doesn't need to be monopolistic. I'll gladly use another word if it suits the role better, but I'm purposefully trying to use a vocabulary that resembles what people are already used to. 2) Not if you can actually pick and choose a government that actually does what you want it to. 3) The same is true for ISPs or mobile communication service providers, yet somehow we manage. I'm not promising people they'll get exactly what they want, but providing a system they can easily understand that gives them actual choices. Like with anything else, those choices will be limited, but so what? 4) What I'm putting forward is not an ethical model, but an implementation of governance, that should fit what you described. Right, I knew what I was writing sounded similar to something in the past. Anyway, just stating that use equals the exercise of ownership, doesn't prove it. There is no contradiction in me creating something and not believing I have the exclusive right of ownership over it. I am promoting free association. Panarchism is merely a way to word it so that statists can follow what you're saying. It's a way to help them to start thinking out of the box, because once you mention anarchy, they usually stop trying to understand. I'm not sure government is necessarily a monopolistic entity, I thought it could be used to describe an administrative body in general. If I'm wrong, I'll need to change my vocabulary.

Yes, that might be how it comes about. I'm not sure what you mean by businesses and families being conducted in this way. Was that meant internally? I don't think I understand what you're trying to say. If people think that government should do X, they can switch to a government that does X or create own, where's the problem. How do theoretical possibilities factor into this at all? As for theft, if somebody takes an apple from you and eats it, he never declared he has the exclusive right to control that apple, he merely ate it. You can't deduce he's accepted property rights just from that.

Well first of all, they wouldn't really be states, since people could join and leave them voluntarily and create their own, basically seceding on an individual level. The size would be determined by people joining up with governments contractually. As I can see it, this is an implementation of personal sovereignty. The shrinking would also work based on people switching their governments. Was the video unclear on this questions?

When debating with statists, I often find it useful to explain how a free society could work through panarchism. I think it's a way of implementing the principles of anarcho-capitalism, without the need to invent new words, like DROs. You can simply tell people, you think individuals should be able to switch governments without needing to move away, and how this would let everyone live under the laws they find just and under the government that adequately enforces them. From then on you can explain how this would lead to less social tension, less possibility of armed conflicts and to a system, that would be able to keep governments economically accountable. Do you ever approach any debates with this idea? Does anyone think there are some inconsistencies between panarchism and anarcho-capitalism? I also made a short presentation of panarchism, feel free to tell me what you think about it:

Yeah, I've always considered this pursuit of class interest the marxists seem so keen on as a form of group psychopathy. It's amazing how none of them has any problems with this us vs them mentality.

So I just uploaded a video to youtube where I try to be funny and philosophical:

I use the same standards actually, I accept private property, because it confirms what i already know to be true and it systematizes that knowledge, so I can use it to judge new situations, and I can have a tool for external validation with other people. However some people claim that by refuting UPB, you accept UPB, and that claim intrigued me, since it is similar to argumentation ethics. I wanted to know more about that.

And others have defined morality as UPB, so it is necessarily objective. My question is how can you objectively know any of this definitions are correct? Because I don't think you can. If you instead say that UPB is an ethical framework, you are left with showing that it's the correct ethical framework, which I don't think you can do either. I think you can only accept it as in line with your feelings or not.

Computers behave deterministically. Does this mean it is pointless for me to press button on my keyboard? No, because different input will result in different output, so if I want my computer to do something else from what it's doing now, I should press some buttons. That's why I said we are watching the match on tv. The people playing tennis have no idea who's watching them through a onw-way medium.

Imagine this scenario: You watch a live tennis match on your tv and then use your time machine to travel in time to the beginning of the tennis match. How will it play out? Will it be completely identical, because you didn't change anything simply by traveling back in time to observe it, or will people make different decisions because they have free will? I would say it would be the same. The players are in identical circumstances in both cases, so it's logical to assume they will make the same decisions they made the first time, unless their decisions were made randomly. Doesn't this imply people are a deterministic system, if equal entry parameters mean equal results?

I listened to the first podcast now, I think I already listened to the second one before, but it wasn't helpful. It's really hard to discern the central point of the first podcast, but as I understand it, people generally prefer to do some things, like eating and sleeping, which proves that universally preferable behavior exists. I really don't see the connection here, because we could figure out logically that some behaviors are universally preferable and some aren't, what does people preferring to eat have to do with that? There are different possible ethical frameworks, like negative rights, utilitarianism and UPB, how can you prove that one is correct and that others aren't? I've been listening to Stef for a long time now and I haven't yet come across a valid argument that proves UPB to be objectively correct. If you define moral truths as necessarily universal, then some moral claims will be false, because they won't be universal, sure. You can judge that objectively. But what makes you think that your definition of morality is the right one? If somebody like me comes around and says that morality is what you feel is right and wrong, how can you possibly say that your definition is in fact correct and my isn't? I could also say that morality is the greater good for the greater number of people, and you couldn't possibly say that's wrong, you could only say it differs from your definition. Maybe this will make things more clear: Take math as an example. You can objectively show that an assertion is either true or false based on the axioms of mathematics, but there is no way to show that the axioms are true or false. They are merely the ones that we find best suit our understanding of reality. If someone else came along with different but internally consistent axioms, we couldn't say that they are wrong, we could only say that they differ from what we're using.

I would really like to avoid reading the whole book, because the frist 30 pages really put me off of it. Is it really that hard to condense Stef's proposition for morality(I understand it as ethics but I'll be using the term morality to make it simpler) that I really have to read the book to get it? Otherwise it's really a semantic disagreement imo. What you call morality I call ethics, and I agree that ethical standards make you able to judge an action as either ethical or unethical objectively, but how do you know that standard is objectively correct? It's much like math, every conclusion objectively follows from the axioms or it doesn't, but how do you know the axioms are correct? Ethical by what standard? By my standards, those of private property, it isn't, but I don't think I can prove that my standrards are the correct ones. "Ownership is inherently exclusionary." It is, but use isn't. If you leave your house, you're not using it, so I can use it while you're gone. "For me to use myself to deny you use of yourself would be contradictory." Not really. Usage of your own body doesn't mean that oter people can't use your body, that's ownership. So If I don't own my body anyone can use it over me. Having the right to use implies ownership, but what if people don't agree that you have the right to use you body? Kepp in mind that this is not a position I hold. "The behavior of eating an apple IS the acceptance of private property." I disagree, because as stated previpusly usage doens't equal ownership. I think this is very similar to the is/ought dichotomy. Just because I use my body doesn't necessarily mean I sould use my body. Just like because the government takes my mone, doersn't mean that it should. "Eating an apple isn't the best example. Since apples occur naturally, the existence of an apple isn't necessarily proof that it belongs to somebody. Your attempt at counterpoint would've been better served using an item that doesn't occur naturally." True. "For all intents and purposes, ethics and morality are the same thing." As i've seen it used in practice, morality describes something personal, that you feel. One person may feel that an orphan stealing a loaf of bread is wrong another one may not. Ethics on the other hand is a sistematization of that, by which other people can also judge what is right and wrong. This is what I think is being discussed in this thread. "For what it's worth, I really appreciate this conversation. It's a topic that I'm enthusiastic about and I really enjoy being able to disagree with and being disagreed with without anybody making it personal. Seems like a rare commodity these days." True that brother

I'm not sure I follow. If I feel sad I think that's an objective fact. What's subjective about feelings in my opinion is that everibody has their own. A neuro-doctor(it's late) could plug me into a machine and find out that I'm happy, but that doesn't neccessarily make him happy as well.

Maybe I need to make myself clearer. I don't consider ethics and morality to be the same thing. Ethics is a branch of philosophy, that tries to construct frameworks, by which you can determine wether an action is ethical or not. This could be just a semantic difference, because I call morality the inner compas that makes you feel bad when somebody is stolen from or gets punched in the face for no reason. And because it's based on feelings it is by necessity subjective, because feelings are subjective. Now if you adhere to the ethics of private property, like I do, then actions can be objectively separated into ethical and unethical ones. I would use the term ethics instead of morality for what you're describing, but still I think you made some logical flaws in your argument: "You have consciousness and the capacity for reason, so you own yourself and the effects of your actions." That is a non sequitour. Me having consciousness and reason in no way proves that I should be able to exclude others from using myself and things I make. I do think that's the most sensible ethical framework ever laid out, but I don't think its validity follows from my consciousness. "Theft, assault, rape, and murder are behaviors that are binding upon others because they're the exercising of ownership over that which is owned by somebody else. They are immoral behaviors because they are the simultaneous acceptance and rejection of property rights." Not really. If somebody doesn't accept private property and eats an apple you grew, he's not imposing ownership over anything. He's just eating stuff. Ownership means excluding others from using something, not merely using something yourself. "When you say that morality is subjective the way that our feelings are subjective, that is to say that morality exists subjectively. And this is true. Morality is subjective in that sense. But when you say that it's "based on our feelings" this is to say that the way we establish the truth of moral claims is subjective. This is false." As said before, I think there may be a semantic discrepancy, and what you call morality is in fact what I call ethics. If that is the case, I agree with your statement. But I think UPB is actually what we should be talking about. I tried to read Stef's book, but I couldn't bear to plow through it. Could somebody here give me the fundamental thesis of his theory on morality(what I call ethics)? From what I gathered so far, it's that for a behaviour to be ethical, it must be preferrable by all people at the same time. If that is trully the case, I have concluded, that the theory is... problematic to say the least.

Is morality in fact subjective? If two people feel differently about the morality of an action, can either of them even be "wrong"? In my opinion no, they can't. Morality is based on our feelings and our feelings are of course subjective, therefore morality is also subjective. What are your thoughts?

I've been researching ways to avoid Obamacare lately, and I have stumbled upon Liberty HealthShare. From what I gather it's an insurance-like scheme, that lets you avoid the Obamacare regulation and penalties. I wrote up a short presentation:https://hackounting.info/content/2/

Hy everybody. I have created a site dedicated to people sharing ideas on how to circumvent state imposed laws and taxes, where this ideas could be rated and browsed and of course supported through donations in a wide variety of crypto currencies:https://hackounting.info/ Two ideas, or "hacks" have been uploaded by me, but one is in Slovenian, so it will probably be of no help to people on this board. Feel free to add any potential hacks you know of and rate hacks that other people post. Of course donations are welcome too

Josh F, what ST said, but I also wish to correct you on the mining of bitcoin. See, the production of bitcoin remains constant, no matter how many people mine them, because the difficulty level adjusts to the strength of the mining pool. That's why so many bitcoins were produced in the beginning, because it took a lot less effort to bring them into existence. Now that mining is fairly widespread, generating 1 BTC takes a lot more effort. So if the price drops, people will stop mining until so few miners remain, that it becomes profitable again.

This has nothing to do with my theory. I'm not trying to disprove the usefulness of bitcoin, I'm saying that the relationship between the price of bitcoin and govenment interference is inversely proportional. True, I exagerated when I said that the one empiric point proves my theory. My claim that it disproves Stef's theory might hold though. If you have a theory that says something must always happen after a condition is met and it doesn't, your theory is wrong or incomplete. Usingempirical proof for macroeconomics might be a bad idea though, as Mises pointed out, so maybe it's better to just leave it alone. I think my initial logical argument makes sense, if the market price of a commodity is indeed determined by supply and demand.

It is a great currency, but a currency nonetheless. You try to obtain it, because you believe people will exchange goods for it, on its own it's pretty worthless. That's why in the long run 1 bitcoin will be either worth a lot or 0. Heroin is unbannable too as it would seem, but it doesn't stop govenments from prohibiting its use. True, the example with China doesn't prove my conclusion, but it might disprove Stephan's. He said that if a country banned BTC, its price would rise. China partially bans BTC and its price falls. His theory must have a flaw. I don't think blaming it on irrational speculators is helpful either. Yes, that is true. It is constantly rising thoug, so we can easily account for that in regards to the price fluctuations. Why is that?

Stef had a calling show, where he said that the price of bitcoin would rise if governments would ban them. I think he's completely wrong, and would like to get my argument reviewed by others, so Stef can correct himself if I'm right.My argument: The price of heroin soared under prohibition, because heroin is a consumer good. That means its final intention is for users to consume it, so the government can't really alter the demand, because it rests solely on the wish of heroin users to get high. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is a currency, and its price can be negatively influenced by prohibition. If bitcoin gets banned, fewer merchants will accept it, and being traded for other goods is the only purpose of currency. That means demand will fall, without a decrease in supply, and the value of bitcoin will therefore decrease.The empiric proof for my argument can be found in the slump of the price of BTC, after China banned banks from using it. If Stef was right, the price should have soared, but it didn't, because the supply remained constant, but the demand decreased.What do you guys think?

I followed some of the links and found the articles that Stefan probalby based his conclusions on, but what I'm really interested in is some hard statistical evidence. I'm still going through all of the links in hope of finding some, but I tought that if anyone already did this, this would be the place to ask :)There's no gain in doing research that has already been done.

Hello everyone. I was looking for some data on correlations between the rate of crime and the medium expected incom on a person raised in a single parent family compared to that of a person raised in a family with both parents. Stefan mentions this factor as the most indicative predictor of a child's future well being, even more so than the income level of his family, but I haven't been able to find any statistical data supporting his claim. Any help will be appreciated.