Des

As a species, we now adapt our environment to suit ourselves, and the state is one example of that. Our environment will be more adapted to our species without the state (because the innovation of insurance is better than the [earlier, and now obsolete] innovation of the state), so, we will probably get rid of it, if I am correct in predicting that correct ideas win out over time, especially with life-expectancy increasing to hard-to-imagine lengths (how many lies will a man still believe when he has lived 1000 years?).

To clarify, I am not ordering you to separate, I am proposing to ignore my concerns about your dispute if you insist on remaining within the same system of social order in the same embordered territory as each other (you ignore my suggestion, I ignore your dispute).

A well-drafted contract will say, effectively: I will do x, and if I don't then you have recourse y. For example: I will abort, and if I do not, then you can refuse child support. Think how this will work if the contract is to give birth: I will give birth to the baby (unless the danger to my own life exceeds w%), or you can recover from me a penalty of $z. If you can't get a signature to a penalty, you have no assurance at all, and if you can get that signature, you still may end up with financial compensation and no child. Would a rational woman sign a contract that read: I will give birth to the baby (unless the danger to my own life exceeds w%), or you can lock me in a cage for z many years? I think not, and that is why no such law will exist where people are only bound by laws they agree to. People who are very different in their acceptance of abortion when the threat to the life of the mother-to-be is "usual", should not be trying to live in the same geographic area under the same law - the resolution to their differences over preferred law (or custom), is to separate and live separately.

Contract terms (if competently written), will say "I agree to do x, and if I fail to do x, the other party may have recourse y". Nobody has to do anything, but contracts permit specific recourse by the one party if the other party fails to perform to contract. Again, if competently written, neither party suffers a disaster if there is any failure on either part. I agree with MrNlul77 on there being an issue with validity of contracts: the issue is that you need other people to support the enforcement of a contract, and a contract could be outrageous to the extent that people (mobs, perhaps) would restrain the enforcers of the contract. The pound of flesh in a shakesperean play which was renamed to "Merchant of Venice", comes to mind (recourse for not repaying the sum loaned, was the lender could cut a pound of flesh from the borrower). A vaguely competent court outside of a statist system, would toss out some contracts, because they want repeat business, and some hypothetical crazy contracts would, if upheld for enforcement, discredit the court that ruled on it, and collapse that court as a business. Ditto for any court-ruling-enforcement business.

I want a new culture: Don't make a baby unless there is a trust fund. Whoever wants to be a grandparent can chip into the fund. Whoever doesn't want a grandchild that strongly, don't give him a grandchild. Got pregnant consensually without a trust fund in place? Silly you. Tough luck. Your problem. He/his parents did not chip in before you consented to make a baby? Same. Make do with what is in the fund. There is lots of value/money in the world, why are people making babies on a 20-year payment plan instead of a pay-up-front contract?

In principle, extending life is a matter of having nanomachines in each cell of the body, turfing out whatever should not be there. It is do-able, just hugely complicated to specify the details, and of course, we are not yet building the nanomachines that will build the nanomachines that will do that job. One example of what the panacea machines will do, is, detect whatever old-person skin cells do that messes with production of elastin and collagen, and correct that, so they work like young-person cells. Trees live thousands of years, some fish apparently close to 1000 years, the error in human biology is a result of evolution doing whatever makes genetic patterns survive, with complete disregard of your preference. Now we are the masters each, of our own longevity, if we co-operate, and we can now assert our individual preferences for being alive longer (it is error from my perspective, natural process from a more external view). Bringing it back to the topic of this thread: you have helped me find other words for what I wish to communicate: I predict people will in general switch from seeking the extra quality of life that adds risk of death, and find safer ways to enjoy more time alive (because the ceiling on life expectancy will practically disappear). Okay, maybe you are correct that people need not regard their behavioural adjustment as "becoming moral". Perhaps they could see instead the personal benefit of using best practices of "conflict resolution". Hoppe uses the term "conflict-resolving" often, when explaining the benefit of the concepts of private property and natural law (another term he uses). From Hoppe, I understand that a key problem with voting in a state, is that the voter cannot sell up his share and buy into another state instead. This is a conflict-producing (or immoral) way to treat the citizen. He can't take his share and join people of like mind with himself: instead, other people take his share and use it to buy human action (war, abortion, regulation), that he would never agree to buy with his share. The citizen endlessly argues with his fellow citizens over this, instead of making a clean and civilised break away from them.

Yup. If one of my customers prayed his way to my office instead of driving here, I'd know he was more than 0,01% theist.

The position "x is the moral decision", is a position one can either accept rationally, or reject as illogical, if one can show illogic. The position "no decisions have moral content" is not one I have a need to argue against. I don't need to argue against this position, because I can ask you, as the holder of such a position (correct me if your position is different), I can ask: Will you agree to a non-aggression pact with me, and can you give me references I can contact to establish whether or not I can trust you to abide by the non-aggression pact? One answer I can't get, from (your / that) position on morality, is: "I can't make a non-aggression pact with you because such a pact would be immoral". On the other hand, a person professing obedience to one or more deities, would have to know his deity pretty well to able to make a non-aggression pact with me. I'd expect something more like "Sure, I won't kill you unless like Abraham, I'm commanded to". Another point that I keep re-typing in various forms, is: When technology improves life expectancy, long before it reaches the point of a mere 1000 years maximum (for the technology of the time), life expectancy actually tends to infinity (because how much better will the technology get in the next 1000 years?). With near infinite life expectancy, the quality vs quantity balance tilts over permanently to one side. [Edit: I am referring to life expectancy before factoring in accidents and murder, tending to infinity. After accidents and murder factored in, there should be a pretty finite number there, but a malleable finite number depending on the risk of accident and murder. Precisely why murder and (non-)aggression will become an area of huge concern] If one can but dodge death 100 more years, how much quality might one cram into those 100 to make up for the slight loss of quality that may come from being non-aggressive and trustworthy? Because this is a predictable aspect of the future, We can already advise planners to plan accordingly. Why plan a system with some aggressive content (like taxation), when it is certain that all such (q:q balancing) systems will eventually be dismantled? Taxation and the government supported by taxation, has been made obsolete by the innovation of insurance. This was not recognised until long after insurance was first introduced, but Hans-Hermann Hoppe observed this (and I think he did not put it in the succinct summary sentence I have just typed here - but he did write the detailed observations).

For you (for example for you) to hold wealth, it is necessary to have enough of the other existing intelligences (human or non-human), support the principle that you are the owner of that wealth. Currently, you do hold some wealth because they do support that principle (to some degree). You (for example if you are the majority shareholder in a vast global corporation) cannot expect that support on a planet where 99% of 7 billion people are struggling to survive. Your options are: Start killing other intelligences and somehow escape being killed in whatever ensues, or, help the other intelligences live, by sharing some of the wealth. Notably, a key strategy for retaining wealth would be to hire other intelligences to assist you to persuade enough people that you own what you say you own, and, to hire some to physically defend your posessions from whoever has no regard for your ownership. Being correct in the assertion that item x is owned by you, is important, but you cannot hope that your 100 day survival rations will last you 100 days on a desert island with 99 other marooned people and no other food. No need to implement some grand scheme, people are already paying other people for time-wasting stuff, because when people have what they need, they think of paying for artwork on their fingernails, or a massage (not that all massages are time-wasting, but some are). So, the wealthy will share somehow, and I would suggest that they share by voluntary contractual basic income (as opposed to coerced taxation). I think contractual basic income will free up some people from time-wasting activities that wealthy people will buy, and allow them to do something they prefer, for some of the time, with the resulting contentment (among the less wealthy) being good for the security of the wealthy people (meaning the security costs less if some security is bought from armed men, and some is bought by bribing the people who might otherwise rouse themselves to fight the hired men with guns). All of this done, though, without lying to people about nations and states and gods and devils.

I can see how it can work. Instead of telling people who have the technology to make everything abundant, that you plan to steal from them, you ask them to what extent "sharing" is one of their values. We allow society to sort into small territories where people have similar values. Specifically with the sharing value: if your level of sharing is: everyone contribute 10% of what they own at year-end, and share it out to all adults in the neighbourhood as 12 monthly payments, then you will join a 10% sharing community. Otherwise join one with a different percentage, all the way down to zero. If your concern is that everyone with something to share will go into the 0% communities, then you think all wealthy people hate sharing, but if that were true, there would be no taxes currently, because wealthy people would have paid mercenaries to eradicate all tax systems already. If you think "those people are too mean", "those people are excessively generous", then don't hang out with them, go live with people compatible with your level for the value of "sharing". No, you don't go door-to-door each month with your sharing cheque, you type in your authorisation code in your bank's software system, and they do the rest.

We can say what is not rationally and objectively in your self interest. What is not rationally and objectively in your self interest is for you to be dead. Using that standard, we can derive that ingesting addictive substances, making immoral decisions harmful to people who could otherwise be trusted to treat you morally, and many other types of decisions objectively go against your self interest, based on the statistical likelihood of the outcome that the decision will be instrumental to your death.

I can't see any reason to argue against the proposition that preferences are subjective. Nevertheless, people universally prefer to be alive in the way that horses universally have 4 legs. With an exception to either of above - there is clearly something wrong with that horse/person. Trading my moral behaviour for the moral behaviour of others, can be objectively linked to the preference for being alive. If I have that preference, I want others to be moral. Why should they? They should because I'm going to undermine any deal in which they get to act immorally, and I won't necessarily abide by moral rules in opposing those who don't abide by moral rules (why should I?). Alternately, if I trust someone to abide by moral rules, I will restrict myself to those rules in dealing with him - so it is a valuable deal (it is objectively valuable if he prefers life [which is a universal preference because the exceptions are faulty people in the way that 5-legged horses are faulty horses]). I see in the above quotes, Max referring to a particular preference being subjective, and Nathan discussing the different proposition that all values are subjective. If you two disagree, please disagree over the same proposition (that would be my personal preference for you to regard howsoever you will).

Re-stated: "I advise everyone to prefer truth over falsehood" - well okay then, what argument can be made against that advice? "I advise everyone to prefer falsehood over truth" - Well is it true that this is good advice? If so, we should prefer that which is false, and not prefer to accept that this is good advice. "I advise everyone to be indifferent to the truth or falsehood of all statements" - okay, then we can be indifferent to the question of whether or not that is good advice (and ignore it as advice). "I advise everyone to be moral except where moral decision endangers the life of the decision maker (and at own discretion even when it does endanger his life)" - what is the argument against this advice? I don't think I need to construct the arguments against advising immorality or advising indifference to immorality (but i could). If the question is "Why follow the above advice to be moral (conditionally)?", the answer is: because that conditional compliance with morality is likely to save your life. If I say "be moral", and you say "Ha, you're a moralist". Then okay, you called me a name. Does not explain why I should desist from advising morality.

Umm, shouldn't we be estimating whether the philosophic propositions are correct, rather than whether they are nihilistic, or assigning them to the proposer as if he owned them? I get your point, though. If the proposition that all values are subjective, can itself be taken as a subjective proposition, then it would be within reason to take it as false, from one's subjective perspective. However, that was not Max's proposition. Max proposed that preference for the truth is not universal, which diverges from the proposition that preference for the truth is not universalisable (i.e. we can all prefer truth over falsehood, without this preference creating some logical or physical conflict).

"Attempt to discover the truth, rather than attempting to confirm what you already think you know", is the advice you would give to people you care about, for example to your children. "Be moral, except where you endanger your life by doing that", is in the same category of good advice. Why would we say: "Be moral because reality is an absolute dictator that can rule you" ? Why would we not say: "Be moral in interaction with other moral people, because that way reality in the form of human reaction to your decisions, is less likely to bite you in the rear end" ? "Try to avoid knowingly typing or speaking incorrect statements into the public internet" is similar good advice, so if someone points out an incorrect statement, he is assuming the author is following that advice (if he isn't, there is no point interacting, is there?). I am not sure if I am correctly interpreting the question "Why be moral?", if I am interpreting it the same way as most other readers. My interpretation is as if I as manager advised the business owner: "buy this machine", then the "Why?", would be a request for a letter of motivation, and the synopsis of the answer would always be "because that will probably make more money than any other deployment of the funds". The synopsis of the answer to "Why be moral?" is: "Because that will probably benefit you", and should be read with the question-answer pair: "When to be moral?" and "Whenever that does not endanger your own life, and sometimes when it does endanger your life, but in those cases use your own discretion". Like the motivation for a company capital outlay, there is detail in the full motivation, but the synopsis of the answer is quite simple. [My italics are an edit, customer phone call distracted me]

I may be wrong, but I estimate that to get enough stability for the benefit to outweigh the risk cost of coercion, the aggressor must deceive in ways that are about to become very difficult (because the truth has leaked already). I estimate the smarter people are on the path to abandoning ideology for philosophy, abandoning government and adopting peaceful trade. I expect that those who don't do their own thinking, will just copy what the smarter people do, because most people are smart enough to do that (to see what works and imitate it).

My adaptation of what I looked up: To abstain is to refrain from doing what one has some inclination to do. So I modify my thief example: The thief has some inclination to also rape his victim, but he does not. His theft is evil, but his abstention from rape is virtuous. The caller is correct in so far as the desire or inclination has some relevance to the virtue or vice of the act, but the muddle comes in by not examining the virtue in restraining oneself from an act, versus the evil in not restraining oneself from the desired act, when the circumstance or context or the act (no consent), makes the act evil. We would look at the actor's desire, and the "acted upon's" consent (which is not desire - the "acted upon" may desire the act, but refuse consent to morally uphold a prior contract for fidelity).

Conclusions about what can be moral, what cannot be moral, and what a person should do in a given situation, are of value to anyone doing his own personal planning, or compiling advice for a friend or loved one. The should or ought : is not to be derived as command from an "is", but as advice to self or other (advisory should or ought from the "is" of reality). For example, one should not (one ought not to) cut a deal with someone whereby he buys at exorbitant price, the right to slap you upside the head whenever he wishes. This is a deal for immorality, similar to the citizen's deal with government, in which the government gains the right to treat the citizen immorally. Inverse example: one should not (one ought not to) cut a deal with someone and slip in some permission to act immorally towards that person, because that would set up an unstable relationship in which that person may both renege on the contract and signal that end of contract with some immoral act like murder. From these examples of advice given in the best interest of the contracting parties, one can derive what morality is and must be (at minimum): no aggression, no fraud, keep your word.

I don't mind how it is labelled, I need for it to be non-aggressive. I could also say "according to minimum basic ethics". In fact, I derive that minimum basic ethic as the prohibitions to which you agree because if you fail to agree to those, nothing else you agree to is worth anything to me. Actually, leaders in South Africa worry a lot about being killed, it is a job hazard. Sure, I won't do the killing, I'm just typing the words which will undo what they have organised,

Quite. Mobs hunt murderers because murderers are a threat. Those who assault or steal or defraud are also a threat to those who are willing to (generally) avoid aggression. Why people should be moral (as distinct, for example, from being democracy-preferring), is repercussions. Democracy as a method of cheating by obfuscation of theft, assault, kidnapping and enslavement, cannot be sustained, because there is now clarity, where there was fog. Sooner or later, those who prefer democracy (for example) to morality, will face repercussions. That is the self-interested motivation for people to care what morality is, and to adjust their behaviour to align with what morality is.

Can I restate that as the answer "Because I'm not attacking or defrauding you (and I will not), and am therefore no threat, whilst I may be of value to you in future" ? In other words, your moral abstinence from aggression could be viewed as motivated by a desire to not be killed off as a threat. Thus answering what I understood by the question "Why be moral?". I understood it as referring to human motivation.

I am with you on your comments about religion. I was suggesting that it is like using cheat codes when playing the game of life. I am proposing the view that the "moral rules" are in fact the rules you require me to agree to, and must trust me to adhere to, for you to be better off allowing me to live. What has to be in that set of rules? Do no aggression, do no fraud, and that's it.

So, if you and I are alone on an island, I'm going to ask you if you have my back. If you have a desire to live, you will answer yes. So then, I will ask myself if I trust you to be (at minimum) non-aggressive towards me. That's how I'll decide if you live long enough to see me lie down to sleep. What I arrive at here, is your motivation for being moral, is that you want to live, and I won't buy any deal for your life, that does not include non-aggression towards me (at minimum). Bump it up to 5 people on an island: 4 rational people and one crazy guy who murders one of those 4 in front of the other 3. The 3 kill the murderer, because they haven't the resources to deal effectively with the threat in any other practical way. If "crazy guy" had instead been a rational person with a preference for being alive, he would not have murdered. So, we come to a rational, self-interested motivation for non-aggression (or minimum basic morality), which is distorted in larger groups of people that include irrational believers in undetectable entities. The answer to "Why be moral?" (at least at the minimum standard of no aggression or fraud), is that the deity and democracy religions are about to fail as an alternative (or cheat) for being moral (the cat is out of the bag), there is no other cheat for morality, so: all we have left is honest trade of non-aggression for non-aggression, or, taking our chances by using aggression without religious cover, and thereby risking death.

I care about being alive (because I am enjoying being alive). My interest in morality is to the extent that it preserves my life. If we were alone on an island and you suspected I might kill you the first time you sleep, would you take that risk (leave me alive) to be moral, or be immoral (kill me pre-emptively) to maximise your odds of preserving your life? Is it good advice to someone you love, advising them to be moral at any cost (refer to above example), or is it good advice to advise them to get agreement for reciprocal non-aggression from trustworthy people, and stick to that non-aggression pact with those trustworthy people, in order to remain trustworthy (and have improved odds of survival). Is it not the main wish you have, for those you love, that they survive (as long as possible, as long as they can enjoy life)? Does it help to view it from the perspective of an advisor to a loved one? My intention for my topic is to reveal the motivation for moral conduct. If i could reliably motivate you to be non-aggressive toward me, without offering to also be non-aggressive toward you, that would meet my need for maximising my odds of survival. However, I estimate that I can't. Neither religion nor statism can be relied on, so I must abandon them and attempt to trade with you, non-aggression for non-aggression.

Would "because I will reciprocate your not attempting to kill me, by not attempting to kill you" be a correct paraphrase of your motivational statement to me, as to why I should comply with a standard that at least says I should not come looking for you to end your life?