About the Debate with Peter Joseph and clear/objective language

[Kevin Beal]

I do a lot of absurd things that should never work, they only work because I've tried enough times. In fact, I am yet to see a problem I could not solve, design/progamming wise.

 

That's great. How do you design software like the kind you are talking about then? Please offer any detail of any kind.

[masonman]

I'm one of the people who actually develop this technology, and that is the main difference between TZM and TVP. TZM is about pointing out the shortcomings of society, TVP is about coming up with solutions. I'm not in any way affiliated to TZM.

 

If you are going to ask about technology development, make sure you ask the right people.

 

 

The status: We are building the base API and coming up with ways to automatically feed the software with freely available data.

 

 

I would be very very interested to see a flowchart or other similar graphic to layout (in general steps) how the software works. Are you guys planning on developing something of the sort to give folks like me a better idea of the concept?

[Mike Fleming]

Also, when this software is developed that is designed to efficiently allocate resources, do we all have to abide by it's decisions?  And what happens if we don't?

[FriendlyHacker]

You're the kind of people who think things are impossible before even trying, I don't waste my time convincing people about what is possible, I rather ignore you and actually focus on getting things done. 

 

 

If I had listened to your advice, I wouldn't be alive today, if Stefan had listened to your advice, there would be NO Freedomain Radio. It's easy to come to this website, and support a very successful enterprise AFTER it became successful. The reason we have space age technology and stone age mentality, is because people have repeatedly refused to change and have repeatedly crushed anyone who proposes anything different. You see, it's easier to build technology than to change someone's perspective in life, computers don't try to crush your spirit every step of the way.

[FriendlyHacker]

I think I understand some of PJ's points

His  argument against voluntarism is that if defined narrowly it makes perfect sense but the surrounding situation makes the choice involved coerced. The surrounding situation being the culture and established norms. An example of what I think he means might be if a parent gave a child the choice of being beaten with a strap or an open hand. If you focus on whether the child has a choice you are missing the point and PJ would argue that voluntarism does just that.

 

His argument against the free market is I believe that the State is a product of the free market. That given inevitability of some achieving riches and the inevitability of their decay in capability and increase in competition they will deduce the only way to continue being wealthy is to ensure one or the other of those factors is significantly reduced. Being that decreased capability is inevitable the only factor that can be effected is competition and the only way to control that is through force, the State is merely a framework for justifying this use of force, but other non state frameworks are possible, in fact some framework is inevitable.

 

Another thought I had whilst listening was that Stef's home life was wretched and despicable but could be logically foreseen to have an ending when he grew big enough to make the physical attacks he suffered dangerous to perform. It makes me wonder what PJ's home life was like.

 

Completely agree on your first paragraph.

 

I'm not sure if that is what PJ says or not (second paragraph), and am not sure how someone can know if the market created the state or if the state created the market. How would such information have an impact in the world today?

 

By looking at how the corporation owned private industry actually dictates who gets elected and the policies to be adopted within the government, I can't understand Stefan's point of view on how getting rid of the government would stop corruption and war, given that those completely corrupt corporations wouldn't all of sudden start caring about people instead of profit. They might not be able to hire state thugs anymore, but have more than enough money to have their own thugs, specially how warfare is actually done nowadays.

 

In a resource based economy, there is neither money or government.

 

I just finished listening to the Joe Rogan's talk, and could certainly understand how this guy would want to become strong and learn martial arts, because I've done the same. But once I realized that violence would not happen again from the outside, but within the martial arts cycle I had experienced and leached out more violence than in any other circumstance, I've came to despise it, nowadays I feel physically ill from watching two huge guys trying to kill each other while people applaud their efforts. I guess you have to experience violence in order for non violence to become your most fundamental moral principle.

[MarkIX]

Completely agree on your first paragraph.

 

I'm not sure if that is what PJ says or not, and am not sure how someone can know if the market created the state or if the state created the market. How would such information have any impact in the world today?

 

By looking at how the corporation owned private industry actually dictates who gets elected and the policies to be adopted within the government, I can't understand Stefan's point of view on how getting rid of the government would stop corruption and war, given that those completely corrupt corporations wouldn't all of sudden start caring about people instead of profit.

 

I just finished listening to the Joe Rogan's talk, and could certainly understand how this guy would want to become strong and learn martial arts, because I've done the same. But once I realized that violence would not happen again from the outside, but within the martial arts cycle I had experienced and leached out more violence than in any other circumstance, I've came to despise it, nowadays I feel physically ill from watching two huge guys trying to kill each other while people applaud their efforts. I guess you have to experience violence in order for non violence to become your most fundamental moral principle.

I have considerably refined my position since this post, but it still has the same direction.

In answer to the point about whether the market created the State or vice versa. It matters more to PJ than Stef in terms of the effect on their solutions. Stef wants to remove the cause of the creation and therefore doesn't have to deal with it at all while PJ's solution requires the control of those causes. This means the knowledge is important to TVP, you could say foundational.

 

If you thought that Stefan's position was simply that getting rid of the government or state would bring about a free society then you are mistaken. If your only exposure to Stefan was this "debate" then I fully understand how you may have come to this conclusion. It has been Stef's stated position for at least the last several years that the acceptance of State power is an effect of family conditioning/child abuse. He has also stated on many occasions that the current corporate structure is a function of State granted monopoly, and not a free market entity.

I don't have much to say about the Joe Rogan interview, I found it entertaining.

[Kevin Beal]

People have been asking the Venus Project for evidence that such a piece of software could even exist since the 70's. As far as I know, no evidence has ever been given. Instead it's consistently avoided.

 

I'm not saying it's impossible necessarily, I'm saying it's effectively impossible. Billions of decisions (daily) have to be made in order to make a system such as this. The idea that it can be centrally planned is fantastical.

[Kevin Beal]

Please, by all means, build amazing pieces of software. I'm just telling you, that this particular example is too impossible to even describe.

[zg7666]

The basic problem Peter has is not non-initiation of force (voluntarism) it is property (private property in everyday language), which is in factually (not as adjective) Marxist view of world (mercantilism in its origin). It denies Self-ownership (or sovereignty of the individual, individual sovereignty or individual autonomy), bodily integrity.

[Wesley]

I believe it could happen (theoretically) once quantum computing becomes mainstream. A quantum supercomputer could theoretically test all billion decisions at the same time to search for optimal outcome. I would very much agree that it is functionally impossible with modern computing technology.

 

Even with a quantum computer, the software would have to have an insane amount of monitoring which would become the next hurdle. How to gain input from everywhere about everything, which would not be possible for the foreseeable future until social media turns into an actual life recording that counts/categorizes events.

 

Those are just the massive hurdles that TVP would need to begin to be overcome in order to see what the next hurdles are.

 

You easily could build a simple model around a handful of variables, but that would not approach the many multiples (exponentials even?) of decisions that occur in the world.

[FriendlyHacker]

Interesting you mention quantum computing, I'm writing this little introduction to Quantum Cryptography right now, should I post it on the forum?

[Kevin Beal]

I believe it could happen (theoretically) once quantum computing becomes mainstream. A quantum supercomputer could theoretically test all billion decisions at the same time to search for optimal outcome. I would very much agree that it is functionally impossible with modern computing technology.

 

Test compared to what? That's the issue. The computing power is not the reason a centrally planned supercomputer makes no sense. There are fast enough computers today to handle it already without quantum computing (probably) with, I think, a billion quadrillions of operations a second.

 

As Stef said in his discussion with PTV, if there is a 2 + 2 = 5 problem, it doesn't matter how fast you make the computer. A computer performs the logic that's programmed into it. It doesn't actually reason logically the way billions of consumers do.

 

So, how do you replicate the price mechanism? How do you determine economic efficiency using engineering efficiency? How does a computer reason this out for you?

 

It's not impossible like an airliner to a neandertal, it's a whole other class of impossible.

[Wesley]

Test compared to what? That's the issue. The computing power is not the reason a centrally planned supercomputer makes no sense. There are fast enough computers today to handle it already without quantum computing (probably) with, I think, a billion quadrillions of operations a second.

 

As Stef said in his discussion with PTV, if there is a 2 + 2 = 5 problem, it doesn't matter how fast you make the computer. A computer performs the logic that's programmed into it. It doesn't actually reason logically the way billions of consumers do.

 

So, how do you replicate the price mechanism? How do you determine economic efficiency using engineering efficiency? How does a computer reason this out for you?

 

It's not impossible like an airliner to a neandertal, it's a whole other class of impossible.

I said there are likely many more hurdles. I was assuming that calculation is possible, and these were just the technology gaps that I could see to start with by which calculation could be achieved if you had the nearly infinite data.

 

I do agree there are many more problems. I was going from the angle of practicality without addressing the psychology or virtue or whatever as FriendlyHacker seems to do.

 

Even assuming it is possible to do, we are at least tens of years off (from the first two technological problems) from being able to achieve this.

 

I think I may not have been as clear in writing what I was thinking as I meant to be by claiming theoretical impossibility, but hopefully this post clarifies some. Sorry for the confusion.

[FriendlyHacker]

If you thought that Stefan's position was simply that getting rid of the government or state would bring about a free society then you are mistaken. If your only exposure to Stefan was this "debate" then I fully understand how you may have come to this conclusion. It has been Stef's stated position for at least the last several years that the acceptance of State power is an effect of family conditioning/child abuse. He has also stated on many occasions that the current corporate structure is a function of State granted monopoly, and not a free market entity.

 

I'm aware that he has said things such as "not a perfect solution, but best one I know". I'm also aware of his position on how war is only possible because of Government, and my reply was directed to that.

 

As Stef said in his discussion with PTV, if there is a 2 + 2 = 5 problem, it doesn't matter how fast you make the computer. A computer performs the logic that's programmed into it. It doesn't actually reason logically the way billions of consumers do.

 

If your values of 2 are large enough, even a super computer would round it up to 5. Not actually related to our conversation, just showing how things are not always what they seem.

You're the kind of people who think things are impossible before even trying, I don't waste my time convincing people about what is possible, I rather ignore you and actually focus on getting things done. 

 

 

If I had listened to your advice, I wouldn't be alive today, if Stefan had listened to your advice, there would be NO Freedomain Radio. It's easy to come to this website, and support a very successful enterprise AFTER it became successful. The reason we have space age technology and stone age mentality, is because people have repeatedly refused to change and have repeatedly crushed anyone who proposes anything different. You see, it's easier to build technology than to change someone's perspective in life, computers don't try to crush your spirit every step of the way.

 

I'm really sorry for my angry reply here, I've struggled all my life with people telling me that if they can't do something or don't understand how it's possible, I wouldn't ever be able to do it. Some people tried to impose me a life style that was not worth living.

 

There are a lot of people out there, who feel that having certificates, credentials and entitlement, means that they can tell you what is possible or not, what I've learned in reality is that any average Joe can do a better job than an expert, given enough effort.

[LovePrevails]

Peter was so bad in this debate I found it embarassing to listen to him almost right up until he gave his idealistic speach at the end, whcih was actually quite compelling.

he kept not responding to facts about how the state was the corrupting influence, not the market

[Kevin Beal]

If your values of 2 are large enough, even a super computer would round it up to 5. Not actually related to our conversation, just showing how things are not always what they seem.

 

A calculator can do that if you program it to, but you have to program it to. Computers don't think, they just do as they are programmed. The power of computers is how they are programmed, and only secondarily how fast they are.

[masonman]

FriendlyHacker (and anybody else who understands a good deal of the RBE concept), I have a few rather general questions. I've done a little bit of reading on the RBE, and I see a lot of cool looking ideas and designs for efficient and futuristc ways to exist, but how does the RBE as a whole balance human wants and environmental concerns? Like, at some point, humans that go beyond hunter gatherer style living tend to reproduce and consume resources. Since the RBE system is based around efficient use of resources, where is the line drawn? If somebody wants a bigger house, how big can he go? If somebody wants his own car instead of public transport, can he acquire that? Where is the line drawn between human want and ecological protection? It seems like an important thing to be clear about.

 

The reply I usually hear is essentially "people wont need any of that because the system will be so efficient that such things will be redundant." Ok, but then THAT statement is drawing a line, saying essentially if you have a want, you are limited to exactly what meets the basic elements of that want, and nothing more.

 

i.e. if you want communication you can acquire one highly efficient communication system of some sort. If you want one that is wired differently, or one in a certain color scheme, thats excess that isn't necessary to meet the basic requirements of what you want.

[Mike Fleming]

There are already computer programs today that are created and run by corporations to allow them to better and more efficiently serve the market or use their resources if you will.  This is an ongoing evolutionary process.  

 

It seems to me that the Venus Project wants to take this over completely and just be, basically, the only company.  You can't do this without having a central authority, which I guess is why they are so keen on central governmental ideas, if not the current governments themselves.  

 

I actually knew a Zeitgeist enthusiast who was always talking about how we need technicians to control everything.  It's all just central planning.  But if the VP wants to design and develop computer programs then that is their perogative.  Just so long as they don't go to any of the govts and try to get them to impose them on everyone.  As long as they do it in a voluntary sense, that is, they go to customers and say they have the most efficient, and therefore cheaper means, of providing products.  I'm fine with that.  

[Mick Bynes]

Whoa, it's been quite some time since I posted on this awesome forum.  I thought I'd never post here again.  Well I did!  I've enjoyed the latest videos Stefan Molyneux has released recently.

 

A close friend of mine shared me this link when I shared the debate video, plus I don't think he really agreed with this one link where it shows how TZM is communism and it also puts down Jacque Fresco & his Venus Project.  I won't share that here, but I'll share ya this.  Here's the link to the article my friend shared and he told me that Peter Joseph is telling the truth.  It's about perfectly good food from a closed grocery store is wasted in an area where there's a lot of poor, the poor people try to get the food, but then the police restrain them.

 

My friend totally doesn't agree with anarcho-capitalism and he feels that there should no money at all period.  One time I remember him telling me over the phone that anarcho-capitalism will lead into the capitalism we have today.  I watched the first couple of Zeitgeist movies and a little bit of the third... I was impressed by them at first.  Then I found Stefan's videos and well I totally disagree with TZM completely.

[Chris Laforest]

This isn't something we are going to, or really need to, wrap our heads around. This "debate", and all of the commenters on youtube, are really getting to me and I keep having to force myself to realize that the argument from authority, and the argument ad populum and so on are not real. Childhood lessons die hard. We don't need, and it would be a implicit justification for irrationality, to run around and test for the empirical manifestation of the fact that 2+2 is 4. Stefan's Socratic approach to a dialogue with TZM is, I think, clearly a very good method of calling out to the yearning true-self in people who are stuffed to the gills with logically fallacious habits and so on. However, it is a very fine line, in my humble opinion, between acting as a beacon of truth for the suppressed true-self in others, and self-abuse - abusive in the sense that we encourage abusive and irrational behavior, in general as well as to ourselves in particular, by continuing to imply validity in irrationality by giving it credence, I would say, even beyond one or two aggressive offences. Joseph was extremely offensive in this debate, and his audience relished, erroneously, in Stefan's use of the Socratic method as though he didn't actually know what was going on in the conversation. These people take a lack of knowledge as some kind of Achilles Heel, rather than concentrating on our thirst for further knowledge. This, to me, is a prototype of the argument from authority; where what we know is a whole lot more important to them than how we know it. I don't want to say that it is completely useless to engage with these people further, but I fear that it could degrade the quality of the philosophy if we condone self-abuse. That said, where does one even begin to deal with the arguments of TZM? But, they don't actually have any arguments, as far as I can tell. That seems to put a pretty big damper on my ability to approach their thoughts rationally. Kind of damned if I do, damned if I don't. We can't help any of them out of their trance without discussing with them. But we will, on the other hand, only reinforce the power of their trance by engaging with them if that means self-abusive. Similarly, attempting to approach a bottomless pit where an argument is supposed to be with logic just doesn't make any sense. It seems to me akin to an engineer approaching what he knows is a ravine telling himself that it is a merely flawed foundation in order to correct it. But there is no foundation, and so he is clearly abusing himself. Am I way off here? 

[Mick Bynes]

You are right.  One of my closest friends is totally for the Zeitgeist movement.  He got me into it, but I got myself out of it once I became more aware how it was a really really bad movement riddled with Marxism, communism and socialism.  It is major fail.

[David Ottinger]

Review of the Debate

 

Stefan and Peter both talked passed each other. The problem was that there was no direction to begin with. Even worse was that there was no defining of terminology, let alone various phrases that alluded to very distinct concepts.

The thing is that both have a very good understanding of the subject matter, but that doesn't mean one should not build from first principles when putting forth a concept for discussion, especially a rigorous form of discussion.

Peter expressed how he was not being understood, and rightfully so because he's not presenting his argument from first principles. Stefan tried to get him to do that, but it didn't work out, so when Peter said something that caused Stefan to take a double-take, he had to question it -- no matter what it was. No matter where it went! That's how one properly follows a train of thought. However, it was a philosophical fiasco.

Had Peter taken the time to establish concepts so that one can follow without drawing assumptions or conflating terms from the different paradigms, then there could've been a more fruitful discussion of ideas. But, Peter felt he was above it all in some manner.

It would be like submitting a peer review paper and skipping parts of the proof because, "Well, we all studied the topic matter so you should know this stuff exactly like I do."

But that's not how coherent discussions work. It's a tedious process, but you have to do it in order to avoid this kind of a cluster fuck.

And then when Stefan presented his ideas advocating the free market and anarchism, those concepts weren't exactly addressed by Peter directly. When he tried, he just loaded on adjectives. And he got called out on it.

Eventually, the whole problem that caused this cluster fuck can be seen when Peter says, "Well, that's your definition."

This whole lack of conducting oneself formally caused a communication break down, and as a result both tried to get their points across as best as possible by essentially talking passed each other in the hopes that something would stick.

If you watch from the start, Peter thinks he's above conducting a discussion like that -- not realizing the importance of arguing from first principles in order to have a coherent discussion.

You can see this right off the bat when Stefan has to immediately interject in order to define a term for the sake of argument and the audience's understanding.

 

I don't know if Stefan could've done anything better as much of this falls on Peter's side to communicate his arguments as simply as possible -- which includes defining terms.

 

On a side note, I hope Stefan rewatched the debate and better understood why Peter thinks he's forced to trade, and that the objection about living in the woods is on par with statists telling voluntaryist to go live in the woods if they don't want to participate in government.  If not, Peter is asserting that there can be an economic system where trade is no longer a tool for distribution of resources.  I find this to be erroneous because a market is simply a location, whether virtual or real, where one goes to assert his/her interests for aquiring goods/services, but nonetheless that is his point. 

[prohexa]

I'm one of the people who actually develop this technology, and that is the main difference between TZM and TVP. TZM is about pointing out the shortcomings of society, TVP is about coming up with solutions. I'm not in any way affiliated to TZM.

 

If you are going to ask about technology development, make sure you ask the right people.

 

 

The status: We are building the base API and coming up with ways to automatically feed the software with freely available data.

 

I look at TVP much like I look at determinism. In a theoretical world were we would have a supercomputer with all the information about every particle in the universe we could probably both predict the future and tell the past. But we don't have this, and we never will, for both technical and theoretical reasons.

 

Too much of the TVP debate seems to be centered around the technical implementation details. I personally don't think TVP could succeeed before we have reached the technical singularity, which obviously would be quite a game changer. In other words, from the technical aspect, I think the best TVP can hope for is (True A.I.) -> (Technical Singularity) -> (Magic Resource Machine) or something along those lines.

 

But that's irrelevant, because even having the ability to perfectly allocate resources globally does not mean that everybody has access to everything at all times. Only magic could solve that, which means that at least distribution itself would demand a free market. Imagine that (in TVP-world) I'm taking a walk in the forest, hungry, with a can of soda in my pocket. I meet a fellow comrade who only has a sandwich but is very thirsty. May we voluntarily trade drink for food? That's the free market, right there.

 

In principle I'd have nothing against TVP, assuming it is introduced as a part of the free market. If you really can create a magic machine that sufficiently fulfills all needs and desires for everyone - peacefully and for free -, then don't let anybody stop you. I'm certain you would soon outcompete every other company on the planet. The only reason to not join this futuristic TVP society would be that something else solves my problems better, right? And if that would happen to be the case, no one would use force against me for solving my issues through voluntary trade with other likeminded people, right? Otherwise TVP would only be another totalitarian, tyrannical system, right?

 

In the end, it does not matter if we are being beaten up by policemen, soldiers or robots. If you can't take coercion out of the TVP equation then it is not something anyone should strive for.

[Lians]

Can anyone familiar with The Venus Project point me to the theoretical foundations for their work? I can't find their definitions of economic value and efficiency. Good programmers develop a theoretical model before they start writing code. I'm yet to see anything that even remotely resembles a theoretical model with regards to RBE. If such a model exists, why isn't it open to the public? You can't model something that you don't understand even if you're a rock star programmer. Moreover, you can't model something where the complexity or sheer scope of the problem exceed the available computational capacity.

 

Developing a framework for collecting data on available resources and consumers' preferences is laborious yet quite easy conceptually. What I see as enormously difficult is translating these data sets into actions. Even a novice programmer can do this with a random number generator. I don't see the point of RBE unless this is done objectively. Does such an objective approach even exist? Mathematicians throughout the 19th century wasted decades trying to invent a theoretical foundation for mathematics that is both consistent and complete. This was later proven to be impossible. Why did it take so long until someone addressed such an obvious problem? Why has no one involved with TVP published a refutation of the most obvious argument against RBE - Mises' economic calculation problem? If Mises' criticism is valid, wasting your efforts any further will be entirely unproductive. You see, mathematicians didn't have Godel's incompleteness theorems when they set out to develop a "rational" foundation for mathematics. They didn't stubbornly refuse to look at the evidence because no evidence had ever been presented. However, the economic calculation problem was outlined when Jacque Fresco was only 4 years old. What is your excuse for refusing to look at the evidence?

 

Finally, I've heard people talk about the development of an algorithm for efficient allocation of resources. For the sake of argument, I'll assume that you can somehow circumvent the economic calculation problem. Why isn't this algorithm broadly available? There are people out there who specialize in proving the correctness of algorithms. You can leverage the enormous pool of programmers out there. Why are you expecting other people to take you seriously or respect your ideas when you're not taking the same approach with your own work? Set up a site, publish the algorithm there and ask for feedback. It's not possible to see through all the fog surrounding the technical implementation of TVP without falsifiable propositions. When you're dealing with something of such importance, you better make damn sure you've got things right before you proceed with the implementation. Millions of people have died because of bullshit theories.

[gwho]

Yes!. seriously. I'd say "Can you point me to the economic foundations for their work." Every speaker from TZM i've ever heard fall pretty hard on the second step of the explanation race, so to speak. Concepts like scarcity... overcoming the double coincidence of wants... currency being naturally facilitating, and therefore if people are free, they will implement some form of currency when they want to trade scarce resources with each other (because you will hit production delays, bottleneck production times, shortages of rare resources on earth, shortages of land, etc. 

Can anyone familiar with The Venus Project point me to the theoretical foundations for their work? I can't find their definitions of economic value and efficiency. Good programmers develop a theoretical model before they start writing code. I'm yet to see anything that even remotely resembles a theoretical model with regards to RBE. If such a model exists, why isn't it open to the public? You can't model something that you don't understand even if you're a rock star programmer. Moreover, you can't model something where the complexity or sheer scope of the problem exceed the available computational capacity.

 

Developing a framework for collecting data on available resources and consumers' preferences is laborious yet quite easy conceptually. What I see as enormously difficult is translating these data sets into actions. Even a novice programmer can do this with a random number generator. I don't see the point of RBE unless this is done objectively. Does such an objective approach even exist? Mathematicians throughout the 19th century wasted decades trying to invent a theoretical foundation for mathematics that is both consistent and complete. This was later proven to be impossible. Why did it take so long until someone addressed such an obvious problem? Why has no one involved with TVP published a refutation of the most obvious argument against RBE - Mises' economic calculation problem? If Mises' criticism is valid, wasting your efforts any further will be entirely unproductive. You see, mathematicians didn't have Godel's incompleteness theorems when they set out to develop a "rational" foundation for mathematics. They didn't stubbornly refuse to look at the evidence because no evidence had ever been presented. However, the economic calculation problem was outlined when Jacque Fresco was only 4 years old. What is your excuse for refusing to look at the evidence?

 

Finally, I've heard people talk about the development of an algorithm for efficient allocation of resources. For the sake of argument, I'll assume that you can somehow circumvent the economic calculation problem. Why isn't this algorithm broadly available? There are people out there who specialize in proving the correctness of algorithms. You can leverage the enormous pool of programmers out there. Why are you expecting other people to take you seriously or respect your ideas when you're not taking the same approach with your own work? Set up a site, publish the algorithm there and ask for feedback. It's not possible to see through all the fog surrounding the technical implementation of TVP without falsifiable propositions. When you're dealing with something of such importance, you better make damn sure you've got things right before you proceed with the implementation. Millions of people have died because of bullshit theories.

[shirgall]

This is not an argument, just my impressions.

 

I think this has boiled down to "You have something that I don't. Come see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!"

 

I have watched the Zeitgeist films, and I cannot help but be reminded of Major's speech from Animal Farm, "The soil of England is fertile, its climate is good, it is capable of affording food in abundance to an enormously greater number of animals than now inhabit it... [N]early the whole of our produce of our own labour is stolen from us by human beings... Man serves the interests of no creature except himself. And among us animals let there be perfect unity, perfect comradeship in the struggle."

 

There is no arguing with the above positions, as the one side is not interested in changing its mind if it runs aground in the truth. The truth is that scarcity exists, in resources, situation, and ability. It is the engine of trade that allows one to leverage one's assets to overcome one's weakness that increases the overall value of the system. What I don't understand is the desperation that leads folks to cheat the system, but the system is not set up to cheat just because you want to address what you lack. There are many ways to skin the cat, and most people choose the non-violent way when given a choice.

The free market people think that the seller who says, "I will give you this thing you want if you give me that thing I want." The structural violence people think that the seller is saying, "I won't let you have this thing you want unless you give me that thing I want." For one it is an offer. For the other it is a threat. But I don't think the two are morally equivalent.

 

I think for there to be structural violence there has to be deliberate manipulation of scarcity to maximize the value of transactions in favor of the manipulator. Is it the case that all such manipulations are initiation of force?

[gwho]

 

The free market people think that the seller who says, "I will give you this thing you want if you give me that thing I want." The structural violence people think that the seller is saying, "I won't let you have this thing you want unless you give me that thing I want." For one it is an offer. For the other it is a threat. But I don't think the two are morally equivalent.

 

can you expound? One sounds worse than the other, and may involve a hostile attitude, but the attitude is independent of the actual reality.Both stem from property rights. So if you don't want to give it, property rights says you don't have to. You can, if you want to trade it for something else. But there is only one reality. If you don't have to give it to someone else, that means you will not give it to another, provided on such and such a condition.What would be the alternative? There is only one. Someone gets to take it away from you, even if you don't. You either have property rights or you don't.Can you see another possibility?It seems to me like you're framing the same scenario in two different ATTITUDES, and thus cast two shadows to fool yourself and others into thinking there are two objects (scenarios).____________________________

Also, what determines structural violence? If some level of production is possible, and it is not met, then it's structural violence? So if there is a breakthrough in technology that can improve productivity, then everyone who isn't employing that is suddenly become violent? What made that increase in productivity possible? Not doing what is possible is violent? So what if we don't research to increase productivity, and instead use that labor for present consumption at present production levels - there is clearly an opportunity cost of not raising the productivity capacity associated with that, and therefore is not reseraching structural violence? I think calling not doing something made possible by work and effort in one form or another, is a dishonest outlook.

[shirgall]

I am not claiming to understand "structural violence" as a concept, but at its core the difference seems to be manipulating the situation to be a power play instead of a free exchange. The effects are the same, the motives appear totally different. Peter seems to view the natural consequence of the free market is the development and exploitation of scarcity to extract more value than would be considered "fair".

 

Stefan relies on (what I call) the "jerk" theory of karma to discourage people from doing this, but I see a lot of jerks getting away with crap all the time.

 

Here's a scenario. On a desert highway rest area 100 miles from the next exit there's a single gas station--a gas station that pays other gas vendors to stay away. A gas station that charges highway robbery rates that easily covers all of their costs and a significant profit as well. I can see the idea of structural violence here but it would only catch the unwary soul that decides not to carry extra gas to bypass this troll booth in the desert. Is paying off the others in order to build a local monopoly initiation of force? It's not quite fraud or misrepresentation, right?

 

(In fact, this shows up as a movie trope where someone's car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and the only repair shop charges way too much to fix things, see National Lampoon's Vacation.)

[gwho]

I am not claiming to understand "structural violence" as a concept, but at its core the difference seems to be manipulating the situation to be a power play instead of a free exchange. The effects are the same, the motives appear totally different. Peter seems to view the natural consequence of the free market is the development and exploitation of scarcity to extract more value than would be considered "fair".

 

Stefan relies on (what I call) the "jerk" theory of karma to discourage people from doing this, but I see a lot of jerks getting away with crap all the time.

 

Here's a scenario. On a desert highway rest area 100 miles from the next exit there's a single gas station--a gas station that pays other gas vendors to stay away. A gas station that charges highway robbery rates that easily covers all of their costs and a significant profit as well. I can see the idea of structural violence here but it would only catch the unwary soul that decides not to carry extra gas to bypass this troll booth in the desert. Is paying off the others in order to build a local monopoly initiation of force? It's not quite fraud or misrepresentation, right?

 

(In fact, this shows up as a movie trope where someone's car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and the only repair shop charges way too much to fix things, see National Lampoon's Vacation.)

I'm starting to see what you're seeing.

 

I have to still stick with my guns tho. all that happened there was the market size decreased. supply became limited and demand is high. The fact that the guy is there is better for you than not You're still able to reject his offer, and it would be as if he wasn't there.While this may seem like a problem, it's something that will obviously get solved, just like how statists cannot see how a lack of a government to provide some sort of pretense of security would result in entrepreneurs providing a solution in the long run. In this case, people will have problems like these. Entrepreneurs always hear things, and come up with ideas. we actually have a solution to this right now. AAA.TRUE violence, structural or not, would be to force that guy to accept a lower pay (how else would you do this except violate NAP?)... or force him to provide that service and giving him compensation would be a matter of giving crumbs, after already forcing him to provide you the service - you can see how if you forced him to provide the service, any compensation you give him is... out of 0 obligation.Without the outrage that ensues with high prices in a high-demand, low-supply situation, a solution wouldn't occur. the outrage would provide more psychological demand for a solution to this, sending signals to entrepreneurs to give them more confidence that a solution like AAA will be a success. Had the prices been somehow kept to normal market levels outside of the guy just being nice, you would not get a more robust, responsive, hassle-handling enterprise similar to AAA to provide help. Instead, you would only have a prayer for a random passerby who happens to have the solution to your problem.QED.P.S. Regardless of whether you were talkign about structural violence or not, let's put that aside for now, and just talk about your situation put forth. Philosophically, you either have a choice or you don't. The guy can either help him voluntarily or not. He has property rights to his time and labor. You can only get him to provide the service for you if you get him to agree. anything else would be a violation of property rights and a violation of NAP. you either have property rights or you don't. It's binary. And from a utilitarian perspective, i've explained why this guy overcharging for repairs is a good thing. It more quickly invites a better long-term solution earlier. All of this can be generalized and applied to any other industry. market forces, high prices, leaving problems to be solved by the market and not by violation of property rights or NAP, invites true, longer term solutions, and competition, and is better for everyone, and cuts short the time where people have to make do without this better system.P.P.S. This is the level of argumentation that I would have liked to see between Peter and Stefan. Instead, Peter simply went "If you can't see that a state is simply an extension of free competition, then I don't know what to say" (paraphrased), and continued to make big, leaps regarding economic conclusions with just as little development, and just as little homage to concepts learned in econ 101, like scarcity, and the fact that money is a rationing system with the ever-so crucial feature of feedback built into it.... which would have to be artificially coded and designed in the supercomputer.... which may fall behind or become outdated..... whereas a monetary system would always take into account all the desires and preferences of infinite number of people....I'm not even an econ major and I can see through the flaws of TZM so easily. I really have to conclude at this point that TZM are economically illiterate, and are missing the same logical reasoning that socialists and the left miss. They're like the left of the libertarians.

[FreedomPhilosophy]

I think it's very important to challenge the meaning creep that the left produce to condemn consequences rather than individual actions. I deal with this in my reply to PJs review of the debate with Stefan.

 

 

(In fact, this shows up as a movie trope where someone's car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and the only repair shop charges way too much to fix things, see National Lampoon's Vacation.)

 

 

Any service provided "in the middle of nowhere" will usually have to pay higher prices for it's consumables and will typically enjoy a lower level of custom, so it is perfectly reasonable that it charges prices higher than average. This is not monopolization.

[shirgall]

 

Any service provided "in the middle of nowhere" will usually have to pay higher prices for it's consumables and will typically enjoy a lower level of custom, so it is perfectly reasonable that it charges prices higher than average. This is not monopolization.

 

Don't forget the scenario includes the single supplier paying off competition to keep them away, as the reward of the monopoly than the reward of a competitive system... thus it is structured to fleece the unwary traveler.

[FreedomPhilosophy]

Don't forget the scenario includes the single supplier paying off competition to keep them away, as the reward of the monopoly than the reward of a competitive system... thus it is structured to fleece the unwary traveler.

With no doubt sky high prices, how many customers will they get? Just the few unfortunates, yes?

[shirgall]

It's not worth fine-tuning an example, but I suspect they would offer different prices to different people and still manage to cover their expenses.

[JamesP]

One thing I would like to point out: it's counter productive to attack someone's point of view, simply because you don't agree with it, in that sense people act like they are competing to see who "wins" the argument. I have no such notion of winning and won't become upset or attack anyone with a different point of view, because I see we are here to help each other and not to compete.

 

There is a difference between attacking the person and attacking the idea, hence ad hominem.

[gwho]

Don't forget the scenario includes the single supplier paying off competition to keep them away, as the reward of the monopoly than the reward of a competitive system... thus it is structured to fleece the unwary traveler.

 

why is this so? why can't people not be in some places just because? the natural state is emptiness. people go there and start to be there. Just because people aren't in some place, it doesn't mean that they paid others not to be there.

It's not worth fine-tuning an example, but I suspect they would offer different prices to different people and still manage to cover their expenses.

it's not fine tuning. it's making a point - that scenarios such as those are limited in occurrence before the long-term solution pops up.