square4

There are lots of groups that are more likely to commit a crime statistically. For example, those in poor neighborhoods. And they are also more likely to claim government welfare. So should we support locking down poor neighborhoods with fences? Of course not. A peaceful immigrant is not responsible at all for the existence of a welfare state. So to evaluate the morality of interacting with the immigrant, it is irrelevant if there is a welfare state.

The counter argument is very simple: It is never justified to attack the innocent. Although some immigrants are criminals, not all are. Also, state borders do not even remotely correspond to valid borders of private property. So with closed borders, it means that innocents will be attacked. If you disagree, please explain how your proposal will avoid initiating force against peaceful people. Also please explain who you would want to employ for this (government agents?), and how you propose to finance it (through taxation/theft?). I know about how the government in my country (a country in Europe) has horribly mistreated immigrants. I strongly oppose such practice.

do you have a transcript available?

We cannot randomly do things and expect a bridge to emerge, so there are some required principles of bridge building. Or do you want to reserve the word "principles" for moral principles?

To build a bridge, it is required to follow the correct principles of bridge building. Therefore we should build a bridge, because it is correct ??

It appears there are some hidden steps or assumptions made in the argument for self-ownership. Based on hints by people in other threads, I now think the complete argument (implicitly) goes like this: 1. Morality means acting according to universal and consistent principles. 2. Morality is not seen as something you "ought" to do, avoiding the Hume is-ought gap. The claim is: IF you want to be moral (that is, IF you want to act according to universal consistent principles), THEN, to reach that goal, you should do this or that. 3. Based on the idea of the subjectivity of value, that each person has its own arbitrary preferences, ethical theories cannot make any objective distinction between different actions, as long as they are not forced on another person. 4. Based on the idea that people are not fundamentally different, ethical theories cannot make an arbitrary distinction between people. 5. Any action (including speaking and debating) is consistent only with the principle that you have the right to do so, and generalizing based on point 3 and 4, that people own themselves. 6. Any violent action that denies the victim the possibility to control himself, would be in line with the principle that people own and do not own themselves, but that is inconsistent (or contradictory). Based on point 1, such an action would be immoral. Please correct me if this reconstruction is wrong. Hopefully, this will help us to better critically examine the argument, and have a more productive discussion.

Hello QE Infinity, welcome on the boards. One of the principles of good ethics, is that it can be applied universally, without making arbitrary distinctions. If we remove arbitrary distinctions from state border control, it boils down to: "attacking travelers", which of course no one would argue for. State borders are arbitrary, and do not correspond at all to valid borders of private property. No one knows how "border control" would be in a free society. Suppose you can prove that border control is not evil, it still would not be something that should be "required". Because similarly, if you can prove bread is not evil, it does not mean that bread should be required. You run into the some problems as regular democracy that the preferences of the majority are enforced on the minority. So the only thing you could do, is require that your part of the tax money is spent on this or that, but you cannot decide for other people. And even for valid borders of your own private property, it would be prudent not to employ for this the state, because it is an organization known for its very bad behavior. I also differ about your description of a free society. The type of free society I envision and would want to live in, there would be a right of way for large owned areas, for example when crossing a corn field. The property rights in such large areas would be in that case to protect the crop, not for exercising arbitrary control over passing travelers. The idea of complete ownership of every plot of land of the earth, with legal authority over aspects they did not create in any way, I don't see how such a thing could be justified or preferable.

When someone says to me "that's your opinion", I would conclude that they think I am wrong, and moreover, that they think I have spoken with too much certainty, because I said it as if it were an established fact, and they dislike that, and want to correct me on that point. It tells me they are not convinced at all of the truth of it, and that I have not provided enough evidence or arguments to convince them, or that maybe they know about counter-arguments or evidence that I don't know or haven't fully thought through.

hypocrisy ?

Arguments against the supernatural or paranormal are interesting, but provide no explanation for what actually happened. I also want to see spontaneous regrowth of amputated body parts, but while it is not happening, in the mean time, I would like to explain the things that actually did happen. Below is an example miracle account, written around 1916 by a surgeon named John H. Bowen: "... I saw, I suppose, over one hundred healed of incurable diseases, such as we doctors can do nothing for; consumption, pellagra, Bright's disease, cancer, blindness and valvular heart trouble (or regurgitation of the blood). I saw these diseased persons healed two years ago and all of them that I am personally acquainted with are healed today. I will also mention two children I saw healed, one eighteen months old, who was born blind and seemed to have no marks of human intelligence; was badly deformed; had curvature of the spine so much so that the backbone was curved in such a manner as to be much higher that the shoulders. When Sister Etter prayed for it the eyes received sight; the human intelligence came in; that awful curvature of the spine straightened out; the baby stood on its feet and smiled for the first time of its life, so the father and mother said, and of course they shouted and praised God ..." The explanation "outliers on the bell curve" doesn't work if something is repeated too often. Maria Woodworth-Etter, who did the praying in this case - in a certain phase of her life, people have reported miracle after miracle, while other people experience no such thing. There must be a reason for that. I would like to know what is the best possible naturalistic explanation for these kind of things.

I would like to understand better what are the available naturalistic explanations for miracles. As definition for miracle: simply those things that are commonly seen by religious people as a miracle, such as a person recovering from a seemingly incurable disease after prayer. My questions include things like: - What kind of diseases or mental problems can heal spontaneously, and which cannot? if so, how often (statistics), and by which means? - What does modern science say about emotions having effects on your body (placebo effect etc.), and what are the limits of these effects? - Suppose a miracle is a myth (it never happened), how do such myths arise? Do there exist information sources that contain a comprehensive and rigorous treatment of this subject? giving the best possible naturalistic explanations for the various types of miracles, given the current state of science, including a probability analysis. Pointers in the right direction would be appreciated.

It seems that most people do not consider themselves strictly bound by what they contractually or otherwise have agreed to. I wonder what is the cause of this, and if this is expected to ever change, especially in a free society. When most people do not feel obliged to do what they have agreed to, this means that there will be little market pressure applied to the conditions in such agreements, except to the degree that these are enforced. This means people who are strictly honest, will pay a price for it, which means there is an incentive to be dishonest, reinforcing the existing situation. If you feel obliged to do what you sign to do, to ensure compliance, it is needed to at least read the complete text, which people often do not do. As an example, when using web services, most people click agree without reading the agreement, and companies even expect you will not read it. For example, on the Skype website, it said that registering only takes a minute or two. But the register process included an agreement, which requires you to confirm that you have read it (and accept it). If you would actually do so, it is 14165 words, with a reading speed of 300 words per minute, it takes 47 minutes. As a counterargument someone might say, I do not have to read it all, I only have to agree to the legal consequences of the agreement. If that were the actual agreement, then fine, but in most cases, that's not the actual content of the agreement, so the counterargument fails. The Wikipedia article on Standard form contracts has interesting analysis of why people sign such contracts. Then there are also issues in the actual content of contracts, which is to be expected with the lack of market pressure on them. In some cases, the conditions in contracts are not even intended to be followed, but are intended only as a legal cover. If a contract says, you will not do X, it's legal intend is often that if you do X, they cannot be blamed. They actually don't mind if you do X. I have even experienced that the same company that had asked to me to contractually sign to not do X, verbally asked me to do X, which is contradictory. What is your analysis of the situation?

A socialist commune is compatible and allowed within a voluntarist anarcho-capitalist society, and its (collective) property right claims would be respected. The question to you is if socialists would similarly allow a freely chosen capitalist society within their socialist commonwealth, and respect their property. Within this question, let us assume that this capitalist society will only claim resources in their own area, and those they have imported through voluntary trade. Further assume that the capitalist area does not contain a disproportional amount of natural resources, compared to the rest (such as Hong Kong, compared to China). Would this be acceptable?

Suppose someone has created a machine, and offers another person a job to work for a wage, using this machine. By doing so, he does not diminish the available options for the laborer. It is still possible to work without the machine. It is still possible to use similar resources, and make a machine yourself. By offering a job, the capitalist is adding an extra possibility. How could that be called coercion? Suppose the laborer accepts the job, then the produced product will be the result of both of their labor, right? So what is the full fruit of ones labor? The production of capital goods and the offering of the job, should be taken as one process. Before this process began, the capital goods did not exist, and the worker also did not have the possibility to use those and receive its full produce. So this option has not been removed; it never existed. Similarly, a person who bakes bread and sells it, is not removing the option of getting bread for free, because that option never existed.

By social wealth, do you mean the benefits gained through interactions between individuals, through division of labor, and the like? If these were voluntary, as demanded by anarchism, these should already have been beneficial to the parties involved, which means they already received some compensation, although indeed not necessary in an equal fashion. But with regard to natural wealth, as far as these natural resources are unimproved by men, I agree that ownership of it cannot be justified. But isn't the price of most products for only a very small portion determined by the raw materials in their original natural form, and most of it determined by the value added to it by the various laborers? This labor includes also the labor required for the production of the capital goods that were used during production. And if this labor was voluntary, this means they already felt compensated for it, when agreeing to the salary.