The Peter and Stefan Comic Strip (Ancap vs TVP RBE)

[Armitage]

I took my liberty to point out what ideas do I get during my plentiful listenings to Stefan's radio show. I think Stefan's great with psychological and philosophical themes, but when it comes to the economic system itself, I can see there's a work for me. I can't improve what is perfect, but I can show a mirror to what I think is flawed - but fun! I did my best to keep the comic strips tasteful and intelligent and maybe even funny. However, be sure I'll post them on many occasions when I need to illustrate a point, literally.

 

I'll add more when I get any other ideas. 10 in the first day is good enough. Please mods, if you like the topic, make it sticky   To all the offended parties I profusely apologize. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[_LiveFree_]

First off, thanks for this thread!! 'Tis gonna be phun!   
 
Wow. I think the only thing you got right was the angry look on Peter's face. 
 
Lemme take a crack at rewriting the first one...



PJ: So, Stefan, what do capitalists do with resources that they extract from Earth?
SM: They refine them into usable products and then sell those products to manufactures who then produce usable goods. The manufacturers sell their products to distributors, who sell to stores, who sell to the end user. It's an interconnected web of peaceful voluntary trade that raises humankind out of dirt dwelling poverty. 
 
PJ: Does that mean you steal from Earth and never pay back the price plus interest?
SM: ....wait. What?
 
PJ: Thanks for clearing that up. I think I created some resources that were parked in your garage last night. It was difficult breaking in there, so I suppose it's OK with you.
SM: Tell me about your father, Pete.
 
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Ok, that was way too fun not to do the 2nd one, too!
 

 
 
SM: So, Peter, was I able to convince you that a free market is the only morally good economic option?
PJ: Your words are violence.
 
SM: ....wait, what?
PJ: I've got to sell my kids' house chores bonds on the stock market, change some coins for my home washing machine, . . .
 
PJ: ...and pay sex bills to my wife.
SM: Tell me about your mom, Pete.
 
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Oh my! I chuckle like a fat bastard.
 

 
PJ: What's happened to you?  (notice how SM is about to die, and PJ isn't all that worked up)
SM: Dude! I exposed taxation as theft and the statist mafia threw me to the sharks! I'm drowning! Will you help me?!
 
PJ: So your problem is breathing scarcity. If you want oxygen from my suit, that will be $9.95 per minute. (still not worked up he's watching a human being die.)
SM: But the water is killing me! Why don't you help!?
 
PJ: Stefan taught me (talking like SM isn't even there), water isn't a person, it can't initiate violence against you. BTW, there's no way I'd destroy a perfectly good oxygen market.
SM: But I am a person and you're committing great evil by passively aggressively murdering me. Since you're not going to help me, go listen to podcast 308 "Projecting Torture". Then, since I'll be dead, if you have any questions, go talk with my 4 year old daughter. She'll be able to answer all of your questions.
 
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I can't stop. I'm enjoying this too much.
 

 
SM: Price is the indicator of how much energy it takes to deliver a good to the market. One sentence. You get it yet?
PJ: Eh, wonderful. I didn't understand Economics 101 until now. So, is the free market really free?
 
SM: By free, we mean free of coercive violence. 
PF: Wow, that sounds really "free".
 
SM: Yes, it does.
PJ: .........my mom was passive aggressive with me. 
 
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interlude

 

SM: What if 100 million people want cell phones, but there are only enough resources to produce 80 million?

PJ: Are you F-ing kidding me?

 

SM: ...No. 

PJ: So what if everyone in a free market decided they want a cell phone?

 

SM: Competition drives the quality up and the price down. What used to cost $10,000 you can now get for $20. No elusive no-where-to-be-found algorithm required! 

PJ: ....but, DENIAL OF PRINCIPLE CONTINUUM!!

[Armitage]

PJ: So, Stefan, what do capitalists do with resources that they extract from Earth?SM: They refine them into usable products and then sell those products to manufactures who then produce usable goods. The manufacturers sell their products to distributors, who sell to stores, who sell to the end user. It's an interconnected web of peaceful voluntary trade that raises humankind out of dirt dwelling poverty.  PJ: Does that mean you steal from Earth and never pay back the price plus interest?SM: ....wait. What? PJ: Thanks for clearing that up. I think I created some resources that were parked in your garage last night. It was difficult breaking in there, so I suppose it's OK with you.SM: Tell me about your father, Pete.

In the 2nd and 3rd one I deal with the notion, that trade is peaceful (nope) and voluntary (nope) and that it raises humankind out of poverty (not necessarily). And that people like you explain Economy 101 much more than necessary, missing the real point.Claiming to raise people out of dirt-dwelling poverty is like my current politicians claiming to protect us from the past Communistic regime. Being marginally better is not enough. They steal about 10 % of state budget and squander the rest, but their most pathetic argument is, "at least we're better than Communists!" Being better than nothing or marginally better is not good enough. But that's exactly what trade needs - an offer needs to be just better than circumstances, better than death, in order to be accepted. And if someone controls the circumstances, it's all a cheat. We today do control almost any circumstances on Earth, short of geo-engineering. What do you think? Are we still these brave trailblazers with forests full of wolves just behind the tarpaulin? In reality, nature is this thin shell of biosphere on the surface, in constant danger of industry. Usable goods is the most relative and misused of market talk we see today. As long as people think they're usable, they are usable to move money around, that's the market delusion. 

SM: So, Peter, was I able to convince you that a free market is the only morally good economic option?PJ: Your words are violence. SM: ....wait, what?PJ: I've got to sell my kids' house chores bonds on the stock market, change some coins for my home washing machine, . . . PJ: ...and pay sex bills to my wife.SM: Tell me about your mom, Pete.

As I said in #1, market is based on the idea, that we can first take from Earth for free and then sell to our fellow men. This is a common human practice, we need the motivation of ownership to work. That used to be all right. But today, in light of Resource-Based Economy, it becomes painfully obvious that nature is so easy to steal from wholesale, so easy to destroy, that we can't treat it as a part of the economy. We have to treat it as a real trade partner with full rights and trade partner deserves his value back plus interest or profit, in a way which nature can use. People can add to nature. Nature or environment is not our enemy or property, but an euphemism for "the things that keep us alive". Our goals are one and our origins as well, the matter of our bodies is made of natural resources. That is a fact. Ownership is a legal fiction. If it wasn't, nature would own us all.

 

 

 

PJ: What's happened to you?  (notice how SM is about to die, and PJ isn't all that worked up)SM: Dude! I exposed taxation as theft and the statist mafia threw me to the sharks! I'm drowning! Will you help me?! PJ: So your problem is breathing scarcity. If you want oxygen from my suit, that will be $9.95 per minute. (still not worked up he's watching a human being die.)SM: But the water is killing me! Why don't you help!? PJ: Stefan taught me (talking like SM isn't even there), water isn't a person, it can't initiate violence against you. BTW, there's no way I'd destroy a perfectly good oxygen market.SM: But I am a person and you're committing great evil by passively aggressively murdering me. Since you're not going to help me, go listen to podcast 308 "Projecting Torture". Then, since I'll be dead, if you have any questions, go talk with my 6 year old daughter. She'll be able to answer all of your questions.

No, it's not SM, it's some random unfortunate guy, threatened by circumstances, the environment, or by structural violence. Sometimes it's not people who threaten us, yet somehow, in Stefan's incomplete philosophy, only people count as threats that the system has to deal with, the environment within and without is ignored. If you were a sociologist, you'd know that the individualism (and interest in capitalism) of Max Weber was outweighed by collective effort of people like Durkheim, Elias and Marx. In other words, ancap is sociologically and technologically almost illiterate. It's better than the current system, but that is never enough!

 

Another point here is, actually solving the problem means destroying the market. The most profitable behavior is to sell the most superficial of solutions at the highest of prices. Then anyone who come next can offer just marginally cheaper solution and call it "market competition". If nobody else comes or cartel negotiations are successful, the price stays high and the trade remains a ransom.

 

 

 SM: Price is the indicator of how much energy it takes to deliver a good to the market. One sentence. You get it yet?PJ: Eh, wonderful. I didn't understand Economics 101 until now. So, is the free market really free? SM: By free, we mean free of coercive violence. 

 

But we are CONSTANTLY threatened by coercive violence! Time, nature, our bodies, we are in their thrall and we have to do as they demand. People can pay really high prices when under coercion from their own body (i.e. hungry). A trade is always "good", meaning it is always "better than nothing". But that can be still quite a worsening to previous situation, as the drowning guy shows. "Better than nothing" is not good, not voluntary. 

 

There is no such thing as a voluntary market. All market is involuntary, the only voluntary actions are taking and giving. Not exchanging. Exchanging has an element of giving up and regretting loses. This isn't obvious, but it plays a role in always striving to get the better end of the deal.

 

If trade was voluntary, first thing we'd try to do, would be to give our customer the best service possible for least money possible. Without the threat of competition, best service is the last thing that market subjects want to do. If it wasn't, people would provide quality service even in Communism. (which they didn't)

 

 

SM: What if 100 million people want cell phones, but there are only enough resources to produce 80 million?PJ: Are you F-ing kidding me? SM: ...No. PJ: So what if everyone in a free market decided they want a cell phone? SM: Competition drives the quality up and the price down. What used to cost $10,000 you can now get for $20. No elusive no-where-to-be-found algorithm required! PJ: ....but, DENIAL OF PRINCIPLE CONTINUUM!!

 

Market has the right to deny people what they need, under the pretext that they don't have money. This is the "algorithm" of the market. This used to make sense, when people and money were involved in production, instead of automation and resources. The market system gives us products, but it takes away our time. We pay ransom for our own time! We can have a part of our time dead, or have it all dead. How is that different from taxes?

And what makes the resources so scarce? Isn't it making hundreds of different cell phone models? They all need rare earth metals, silicon and stuff. It is cheaper on resources to make everything in top quality (all can be easily downgraded with software, if wished), than to have a cell phone industry for making hundreds of various models. 

 

 

In TVP, scientists deal with the shortage by researching a substitute material. Only they do it right away. If 100 million people really want a cell phone, we will ask them and we will know beforehand what we need to prevent theft and envy. Either way, people are not forced to go to work if they want a cell phone. They get to keep their free time to spend in any way they want. The cell phone is only something extra on top of free time, not something we sacrificed our workdays for. That certainly makes the demand a lower and the waiting easier. It's not perfect, just better than the current system and better than ancap.

[LovePrevails]

the comic artist should have replace Peter Joseph with Himself in the comic since he is a far better debater and rhetorician than Peter

 

Stefan should respond by challenging him to a debate.

[Armitage]

the comic artist should have replace Peter Joseph with Himself in the comic since he is a far better debater and rhetorician than Peter

 

Stefan should respond by challenging him to a debate.

Thanks! I honed my skills for last 4 months in a debate against a local Libertarian website manager. The debate has more than 1000 posts. I tried to explain him the basics of history, sociology, law, philosophy and all the other "soft subjects" that one needs to understand a holistic socio-economic system that was developed by a genius inventor for 75 years. He didn't have to know anything, yet I had to know it all and be able to explain it to him (simply), or I lost the argument by default. 

 

So I think I might have a chance to get a point or two across to Stefan, if it wasn't for his peculiar blind spot. There are times when Stefan seems to have a blind spot without being aware of it, he sees nothing but market forces regardless of impact on human beings and society. Once the market topic is off the table, he is as acute as ever at pointing out social injustices and connections between them. He even talks about society. While he's in a market fever, he typically refuses to acknowledge there is such a thing as society, only a sum of individuals. That gives me a little worry.

 

I think Stefan has equated capitalism with economy and has suppressed all possible other ways of thinking about economy. Which is logical, because all the so-called alternatives ended as failures or disasters, but it's not useful when we need a whole new economic system. I might make a point by showing him, that there are working non-monetary and non-violent economies all around us for most of human history. What we need to do is to use modern technology to re-create similar conditions on a greater scale.

[Jer]

Armitage: Have you ever considered that you may have a blind spot?

How's your relationship with your parents?

[LovePrevails]

well, I for one am willing to debate you.

[Armitage]

Armitage: Have you ever considered that you may have a blind spot?

How's your relationship with your parents?

Better than most people's who call Stefan   But I am one of these people who call Stefan. Mildly autistic and thus not good at relationships in general. His talks about childhood spanking really opened my eyes, plus I have read the Mazlish books "How to talk so kids/teens will listen & how to listen so they'll talk" Turns out my folks weren't especially good parents or good at communication and problem-solving. Better than average yes, well-meaning and trying, but too much in inertia of general views about parenting, house, life and so on. 

One of their liberal efforts was to not make me baptized, which I appreciate. But instead there might be less screaming and yelling if they came home from work and the house wasn't cleaned up. And less loud arguments about money. (here comes my leftist habitus)

 

OTOH, my folks were trying hard to be what they thought is decent. Never used a nasty swear word, not even in rage. No hint of domestic violence (except against children, a few times a year at most)  Not even when dad turned out to be unfaithful and they got separated. I loved them both, but I liked dad more, because he was more chilled out, if you know what I mean, he didn't sweat the small stuff. Anyway, now I realize, considering they both came from highly violent parents and halfway abusive households/unhappy marriages, they did pretty well. They just never heard of ideas "children are people too and beating them is a form of torture" and "what is more important, a relationship with a child, or a clean house?" 

 

Anyway, their separation was just one of a few disasters that got to me in the last few years and I don't think I have many blind spots left. Or emotions, for that matter. I saw through them all and almost got a breakdown every time, so I could be called an expert on blind spots.

 

Warning: unpleasant stuff ahead

I know what to look for, what signs do they produce - there are always conflicts with people, conflicts we don't understand, but we tend to rationalize them away. Either other people are jerks, or we think this is normal, either way, we are innocent. The conflicts may increase so much, that we suffer from them too much to bear and we start to think about them, study what is happening. We may feel like we're maybe missing something, something everyone seems to know but we don't, something important. Then months or years of attention and research will reveal the ugliest truth about ourselves and more suffering proceeds, just after the shock and utter bewilderment wears off. Then comes the usual mourning about the death of self-image and also a great shame. During the process we may catch ourselves guilty of slipping back into the old habits and we stop ourselves... But there is nothing to rebuild this gaping hole in the wall of the self, so we may become instead obsessed with the real and turn against all that might be a false pretense in our personality and the personalities of others. We may embrace destruction and self-destruction of all that isn't real. Much damage may be done until we just hit the rock bottom and give up on everything. The truth is, the whole ego or self-image is a false construct. Personality is just a fancy idea we give to a meat sack. It is a predictable mechanism of saving face. But we really need it to get up in the morning and brush our teeth. This is not the whole truth about the process, but it's the bad part. This bad part is often described in literature and this is what Christian mystics turned into guilt porn dogma and what often killed off philosophers and artists or drove them to madness. Only artists were good at expressing this experience, so they drove to madness also many other people. Fortunately, most people either don't have large blind spots or they don't even need to tackle them, they can live well enough as they are.

 

So it could be said I'm done pulling a proverbial plank out of my eye and now I see a proverbial splinter in thy brother's eye. Stefan is special. He's more than good enough, but his blind spot is a serious one and it sits right in the middle of his broadcast service as one of central topics. Thus it could be said he's spreading delusion left and right (or only right  ), one that he would be really embarrassed if he saw what I see when he talks about market. Fortunately it doesn't impact his other topics, but the more unaware he is of the problem.

well, I for one am willing to debate you.

What would you like to debate about? If that's about The Venus Project, I should point you towards educational resources, depends what would you like to know. All disagreements I had about TVP so far was with people who did not understand what it is, didn't read a single book about it. (there are freebies, btw) 

 

As for economy, I see it from so many points of view, that I don't know where to start. The more specific you start, the better.

[Mike Fleming]

Market has the right to deny people what they need, under the pretext that they don't have money. This is the "algorithm" of the market. This used to make sense, when people and money were involved in production, instead of automation and resources. The market system gives us products, but it takes away our time. We pay ransom for our own time! We can have a part of our time dead, or have it all dead. How is that different from taxes?

 

 

The "market" does not exist.  There are just people.  We work and provide resources for each other.  We do this because some of us are more efficient at certain things than others.  Everyone wants and needs a certain amount of resources, but providing what we need just by ourselves is essentially impossible unless you have a poverty level existence.

 

People and money involved in production instead of automation and resources?  What on earth are you talking about?  It's always been resources.  You can't eat money.  You can't do much of anything with money.  And automation?  It's been around for a long, long time.   Wind and water have been used to automate physical processes for centuries now.   It's not a new invention.  It's just that we are getting better and better at it.

 

The market gives us products but takes away our time?  Of course.  Because someone has to use their time to make them.  This goes back to my point above about the market not existing and it's just people.  It's a fair exchange of time for time.  Money is the abstraction that allows this exchange to occur. 

 

 

Honestly, do you guys understand the market(people trading) at all?  This is why we say free market = freedom.

[LovePrevails]

I'd porbably debate you on free market

[Armitage]

The "market" does not exist.  There are just people.  We work and provide resources for each other.  We do this because some of us are more efficient at certain things than others.  Everyone wants and needs a certain amount of resources, but providing what we need just by ourselves is essentially impossible unless you have a poverty level existence.

I don't understand. Why would you say that market does not exist? What is your notion of market and of existence?According to Wikipedia,A market is one of the many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. 

People and money involved in production instead of automation and resources?  What on earth are you talking about?  It's always been resources.  You can't eat money.  You can't do much of anything with money.  And automation?  It's been around for a long, long time.   Wind and water have been used to automate physical processes for centuries now.   It's not a new invention.  It's just that we are getting better and better at it.

This question is kind of tricky. There are still fewer people in primary or secondary economy. People move on to services and most of these services are not about resources, they are basically paperwork for keeping track of money. On the other side, machines replace people in dealing with resources. And machines start driving people even out of the service sector. And economy can not run on service sector alone. 

The market gives us products but takes away our time?  Of course.  Because someone has to use their time to make them.  This goes back to my point above about the market not existing and it's just people.  It's a fair exchange of time for time.  Money is the abstraction that allows this exchange to occur.   Honestly, do you guys understand the market(people trading) at all?  This is why we say free market = freedom.

Yes, trading time on market used to be necessary. Nowadays businessmen just install machines that can run all day long and require just a few people to watch over them. Suddenly the workers' time is obsolete and the fair exchange is ended. The most sought after jobs today are engineer and programmer, the jobs that eliminate even more jobs. Productivity is increasing, number of jobs remains roughly the same and unemployment increases. The problem is, when we take people out of equation, money don't get returned into the economy. And when people don't have money, they can't buy back the product they produced - or that the machines produced.Thus money is not an abstraction, it's a real entity, a real gear in a gearbox of economy that turns between two other real entities - people and products. And it presents a problem in itself, a hindrance to true technological production of pure resources and state of the art technologies.

Money are also a powerful cultural artifact, comparable in fame, power and impact only to the idea of God, as the sociologist Georg Simmel noticed.

[Mike Fleming]

I don't understand. Why would you say that market does not exist? What is your notion of market and of existence?

According to Wikipedia,

A market is one of the many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange.

 

 

A market does not exist in the way a forest does not exist.  It is just a collection of trees.  And that governments do not exist.  They are just people stealing and killing.  It's important to drill down to see what we are actually talking about.  The word market is so abused in popular culture and made out to be like some mythical dragon or something.  It's important to recognise that the market is just people trading with each other, just as the government is people stealing and forcing others to do things at gunpoint.  When you look at things at that level it is clear that one is OK and one is not.

 

It's also important to realise that central planners and the people who depend on them, academia and media particularly,  will always be quite eager to denigrate the idea of the market because if you look at markets closely you realise that not only can they work without central planning, but all evidence and logic points to them working much better without central planning.  Central planners, of course, don't want you to know this and want you to think the opposite.  I'm pretty sure Stalin railed against the free market too.

 

This question is kind of tricky. There are still fewer people in primary or secondary economy. People move on to services and most of these services are not about resources, they are basically paperwork for keeping track of money. On the other side, machines replace people in dealing with resources. And machines start driving people even out of the service sector. And economy can not run on service sector alone.

 

 

 

The services you talk about that are mainly paperwork are to do generally, though not always with government.  Bookkeeping is an important part of the economy whether it is paper or computer based.   I would argue that many of these services are not "just paperwork".  There are all kinds of services that people provide in the local economy around me.  Why not get ahold of your local yellow pages and have a look?   Have a flick through and measure the thickness of it.  You'll see most of the services provided are not book-keeping.

 

Yes, trading time on market used to be necessary. Nowadays businessmen just install machines that can run all day long and require just a few people to watch over them. Suddenly the workers' time is obsolete and the fair exchange is ended. The most sought after jobs today are engineer and programmer, the jobs that eliminate even more jobs. Productivity is increasing, number of jobs remains roughly the same and unemployment increases. The problem is, when we take people out of equation, money don't get returned into the economy. And when people don't have money, they can't buy back the product they produced - or that the machines produced.

 

Thus money is not an abstraction, it's a real entity, a real gear in a gearbox of economy that turns between two other real entities - people and products. And it presents a problem in itself, a hindrance to true technological production of pure resources and state of the art technologies.

Money are also a powerful cultural artifact, comparable in fame, power and impact only to the idea of God, as the sociologist Georg Simmel noticed.

 

 

You are still trading time.  Even if you have machines doing the work you still need people to use their time to look after the machines.  The difference is that with automation, people's time becomes more valuable.  They can get paid more because their time is so much more productive.  As this happens the economy starts to evolve and new jobs that weren't economically viable before now become viable and we are all better off.  Or I should say this is what happens in a free market setting.  Unfortunately, so much of the West has been weighed down with rules and regulations that markets aren't working very well at all.   And so the economy can not dynamically adapt to fit the new circumstances.  This is government doing it's best to hold back change.  That's what it always attempts to do and has unfortunately been wildly successful.

 

It's why the communist countries failed.  And it's why China was failing until it implemented market reforms.  People need to be free to enjoy the fruits of their labours.  Otherwise, they lose interest in working.   It turns out that our systems are only slightly more successful than the communists.  They are failing for very similar reasons.  Government interference.  It just took a bit more time for the problems to pile up because our masters weren't as heavy-handed as the communists.

[Think Free]

[The following comics:]

 

The earth doesn't have property rights because the earth isn't human. If you take away the product of a man's labor, he's going to stop laboring. Earth isn't going to keep producing fossil fuels and stop if we keep taking them.

 

 

 

If you're using non-violent parenting, all the things you list are negotiated and are paid for. A marriage traditionally is, among other things, a contractual agreement.

 

 

Oh! I finally am beginning to understand the reasoning behind RBE. I see that RBE is really just people (at their own expense) going around helping mafia victims drowning in the ocean. And here I thought the RBE was about dealing with normal and realistic situations. That idea, never made much sense to me because, under normal circumstances, there's nothing unreasonable about asking people who consume more expensive resources to contribute more of their effort toward acquiring those resources.

 

 

As already stated the free market is free of coercion from other people. To imply that threats of getting your prices undercut is some kind of coercion is like implying that the threat of other men wooing and marrying women is some kind of coercion.

 

Instead of the dating market, I think we should have a giant computer that uses "science" to assign everyone a mate that then has to have sex with you. This way, nobody will have to voluntarily choose to try and be attractive or desirable. That would be a real tragedy.

 

 

 

If everyone in the free market system wants a car made of gold, the market will determine the price and the people that can afford it and want it badly enough will pay for it.

 

 

"...but, yes, my wants are infinite." 'Nuff said.

 

 

As the free-market produces wealth all automation becomes profitable eventually government simultaneously suppresses wealth production while making automation profitable early (by making labor unnaturally unprofitable), causing inefficient automation techniques to be adopted early, further reducing wealth creation and putting people out of jobs (which again, reduces wealth creation).

 

 

It's a perfectly reasonable question. What are "demand signals"? Consumption =/= demand. The free-market price of something is the best clue we have of the demand for it..

 

 

In the statist case, the chicken is lucky if the government doesn't catch him and kill/incarcerate him. In the free-market case, he's free to cross the road. Of course, the laws of reality apply in all cases (RBE, excepted, of course).

 

 

Stefan's daughter is a criminal? She's stealing and committing violent acts against other people???

[Armitage]

The earth doesn't have property rights because the earth isn't human. If you take away the product of a man's labor, he's going to stop laboring. Earth isn't going to keep producing fossil fuels and stop if we keep taking them.

Earth is the euphemism for "the thing that keeps us alive". Earth is not our property, we are its extension. If Earth made the laws, we would be Earth's property, because Earth made us of its own material. We should look away from the legalism of law and realize, that laws are like computer code, they can simulate reality or create a virtual reality. Legal norms like ownership can be given, taken away and re-defined. The Communist constitution had four types of ownership. The social democratic constitution has one type, but with four or five exceptions when it can be restricted.The Libertarian ideal of Common law is basically an open-source law which can say anything it wants, because it is not statist. But Bolivia recently made a classical statist law that gives Earth rights and it is perfectly legal and legitimate to give or take rights away. It'just a paper. Paper invented legal persons known as corporations and I heard they have now in USA some kind of human rights. If that is possible, for something that does not even physically exist, then it damn well is possible for Earth.It has nothing to do with being human. Nothing at all, unless you've got a damn good definition of a human and damn good justification for it. Chimps are 98 % human, genetically speaking. Banana is about 30 % human. Human is a legal fiction, like "mental health", which medically does not exist. 

If you're using non-violent parenting, all the things you list are negotiated and are paid for. A marriage traditionally is, among other things, a contractual agreement.

The point was, that within family we do solve the economical information problem without money, we keep track of stuff in our own head, as it is a computer, and so family is within itself a Resource-Based Economy. RBE is principially possible and we all grew up in it. Nobody pays their dinner at the family table. 

Oh! I finally am beginning to understand the reasoning behind RBE. I see that RBE is really just people (at their own expense) going around helping mafia victims drowning in the ocean. And here I thought the RBE was about dealing with normal and realistic situations. That idea, never made much sense to me because, under normal circumstances, there's nothing unreasonable about asking people who consume more expensive resources to contribute more of their effort toward acquiring those resources.

No, that was a parody of Peter parodying capitalism. It's the reality of "pay or perish", which is so familiar to every leftist. Market is a problem, capitalism means never solving this problem totally, only postponing it for a price. Give man a fish, you're at loss. Sell the man a fish, you get profit. Teach the man to fish, and he'll be free and you won't earn a dime but gain a competitor. Employ the man to fish for you and you'll live off the profit comfortably till the rest of your life. 

As already stated the free market is free of coercion from other people. To imply that threats of getting your prices undercut is some kind of coercion is like implying that the threat of other men wooing and marrying women is some kind of coercion.

It is coercion, but from the side of women! Historically, they always wanted a monopoly on their men. 

Instead of the dating market, I think we should have a giant computer that uses "science" to assign everyone a mate that then has to have sex with you. This way, nobody will have to voluntarily choose to try and be attractive or desirable. That would be a real tragedy.

Indeed it would be, because this is not how TVP works. The only ones who have the information on who wants what are the people themselves. A global digital network links them to the computer, which is just a correlation center, a glorified Amazon storage management. What counts aren't money, but direct clicks, direct digital demand. Sure there would be a lot of statistical calculations involved, but the basis is people providing the data on what they want. 

If everyone in the free market system wants a car made of gold, the market will determine the price and the people that can afford it and want it badly enough will pay for it.

But they don't want it badly enough, so why should a global economic system be designed to meet such needs, while neglecting needs of life and death? Do you say all needs are equal, the need to stay alive and the need to have a golden car? If so, then you are a relativist and as Xelent said, relativist is the worst kind of leftist. Either that, or Xelent is full of crap. I'm OK with both choices    

"...but, yes, my wants are infinite." 'Nuff said.

Does that mean Einstein was also right about you? 

As the free-market produces wealth all automation becomes profitable eventually government simultaneously suppresses wealth production while making automation profitable early (by making labor unnaturally unprofitable), causing inefficient automation techniques to be adopted early, further reducing wealth creation and putting people out of jobs (which again, reduces wealth creation).

I wonder when it would become profitable, according to free market, to invent computers and cure black plague.  

It's a perfectly reasonable question. What are "demand signals"? Consumption =/= demand. The free-market price of something is the best clue we have of the demand for it..

Why can't people just click on web application what they want ordered and delivered? Provided that all the articles are produced by automated lines which can speed up or slow down depending on the rate of demand. 

In the statist case, the chicken is lucky if the government doesn't catch him and kill/incarcerate him. In the free-market case, he's free to cross the road. Of course, the laws of reality apply in all cases (RBE, excepted, of course).

Yeah, but in both cases the chicken is equally in exile and homeless. In RBE it means Earth is our home, we are shareholders of Earth and so we have access to free living anywhere. (also, all the cities look almost the same  )

 

Stefan's daughter is a criminal? She's stealing and committing violent acts against other people??? No, but criminals are people too. Today, most of them are not even responsible, they are driven to crime by their environment. And they are a valuable source of information on what made them commit the crime, about the environment. Which is a useful information in a system which uses design of the environment, such as TVP. In anarcho-capitalism, the environment is still a wild frontier and nobody knows what's in there. All the cultural stupidity of past generations, petrified into traditions and habitus is permitted to exist, under the label of freedom.

 

 

[STer]

A market does not exist in the way a forest does not exist.  It is just a collection of trees.  And that governments do not exist.  They are just people stealing and killing.  It's important to drill down to see what we are actually talking about.  

 

This way of thinking is so key to anarcho-capitalism. And yet I still don't understand why people who use it don't quickly see the flaw in it, as displayed below:

 

"Trees do not exist. It is just a collection of cells"

"People do not exist. It is just a collection of cells"

"Cells do not exist. It is just a collection of organelles and membranes, etc."

"Cells, organelles and membranes do not exist. It is just a collection of atoms." 

 

And so on. The point being that it is really meaningless to debate whether emergent levels of things "exist" or don't "exist." To do so is to imply that only the absolute fundamental level of matter is relevant. This failure to accept the nature of emergent properties and holons is, I believe, one of the most enormous flaws in the thinking of many anarcho-capitalists.

 

I think an ecologist would say that there is a big difference between a forest and a random collection of trees. It all has to do with emergent properties. A bunch of isolated trees act one way. But when they relate in such a way as to be called a forest, the forest takes on properties of its own that are irreducible to the individual trees. Just as a family acts differently than any of the members would act separately were they not part of the family. The relationships, which cause us to give the group a name, actually change the nature of how things function.

[Mike Fleming]

This way of thinking is so key to anarcho-capitalism. And yet I still don't understand why people who use it don't quickly see the flaw in it, as displayed below:

 

"Trees do not exist. It is just a collection of cells"

"People do not exist. It is just a collection of cells"

"Cells do not exist. It is just a collection of organelles and membranes, etc."

"Cells, organelles and membranes do not exist. It is just a collection of atoms." 

 

And so on. The point being that it is really meaningless to debate whether emergent levels of things "exist" or don't "exist." To do so is to imply that only the absolute fundamental level of matter is relevant. This failure to accept the nature of emergent properties and holons is, I believe, one of the most enormous flaws in the thinking of many anarcho-capitalists.

 

I think an ecologist would say that there is a big difference between a forest and a random collection of trees. It all has to do with emergent properties. A bunch of isolated trees act one way. But when they relate in such a way as to be called a forest, the forest takes on properties of its own that are irreducible to the individual trees. Just as a family acts differently than any of the members would act separately were they not part of the family. The relationships, which cause us to give the group a name, actually change the nature of how things function.

 

This is very pertinent.  Just because you call something a family does not then mean that the parents have rights beyond the children because it is a family structure.  You still have to look at the actions of the individual actors to know whether they are right or wrong.  You don't say, "oh, it's a family so therefore the children must respect the mother and father" for example.

 

I mentioned above that the reason this is necessary is because the market is ascribed all kinds of properties by media and government, many of which are untrue.  Just as the family is also in society.  But people get away with it when they use the abstract grouping.  To get to the truth you have to look at individual behaviour.  .

 

And also, people are essentially separate from each other, your body isn't.  I can separate myself in space from other people, but it's not a good idea if I start trying to separate my body parts.   The people who are separate from each other still function the same.  Remove body parts and they will quickly die.  

 

Honestly, the difference isn't hard if you choose to actually think about it.

 

The point was, that within family we do solve the economical information problem without money, we keep track of stuff in our own head, as it is a computer, and so family is within itself a Resource-Based Economy. RBE is principially possible and we all grew up in it. Nobody pays their dinner at the family table.

 

This goes back to Stef's contention that RBE'ers are still children who feel robbed because they did not get their needs met as children and now expect some kind of external agency  (in this case a computer) to look after them as an adult.  It's because there are so many people like this currently in society that we have nanny governments.  

[STer]

This is very pertinent.  Just because you call something a family does not then mean that the parents have rights beyond the children because it is a family structure.  You still have to look at the actions of the individual actors to know whether they are right or wrong.  You don't say, "oh, it's a family so therefore the children must respect the mother and father" for example.

 Agreed. But at the same time, if the family does something as a group, you can't just look at each individual for answers (or, frankly, even if only one member does something while enmeshed within the family system). You have to look at how the relationships between the people leads to things that none of them alone would do. (This is why therapists recognize that some problems are best dealt with in group or family therapy rather than individual therapy and vice-versa, which is actually a huge point emphasize deeply in IFS). So the point is that with complex systems made up of multiple levels, each with emergent properties, you have to look at the influences going both up and down the levels together to really understand the functioning of the system.

 

I mentioned above that the reason this is necessary is because the market is ascribed all kinds of properties by media and government, many of which are untrue.  Just as the family is also in society.  But people get away with it when they use the abstract grouping.  To get to the truth you have to look at individual behaviour.

It's certainly true that a high level system, like a market, can be ascribed false properties. But that isn't because it doesn't have properties irreducible to its parts. Some people just incorrectly name what those properties are. Markets do act in ways as a whole that none of the individuals in them would act if acting in isolation. That's why whole market behavior is almost impossible to predict even if you knew all the individuals in that market. Markets do have emergent properties.

 

Again, you're right that sometimes, to understand, you have to look at the individuals. Heck, sometimes to understand you have to go even deeper and look at one region of someone's brain or their hormones - as some scientists do. But other times, it's the opposite and to understand why individuals are doing what they do, you have to go up to the higher level and look at the relationships and influences going on throughout the system. Anarcho-capitalists tend to have a bias for looking at individuals to explain larger systems, but not understanding that you sometimes have to look at the larger system to explain the individual behavior just as much. And they also tend to ignore that sometimes you have to go to an even smaller level than the individual to understand. It's all levels, all interacting. And the tough part is deciding in a given situation which levels are most relevant. And sometimes it's more than one. 

And also, people are essentially separate from each other, your body isn't.  I can separate myself in space from other people, but it's not a good idea if I start trying to separate my body parts.   The people who are separate from each other still function the same.  Remove body parts and they will quickly die.   Honestly, the difference isn't hard if you choose to actually think about it.

There are a number of things I disagree with here that go to the heart of what complex systems and emergent properties teach us.

 

1) Trees are also separate from each other in space the way you're thinking of it. Yet when they are close enough, they can grow roots that share soil and interface in many ways, etc. The outputs they make can influence the whole area so they are all connecting in certain ways. Humans share the air, the land, our inputs and outputs affect each other constantly. There is an interconnected dynamic going on in the space between us at all times, even if it isn't obvious to the eye.

 

2) People do, in fact, remove some body parts. There are transplants and so on. Does the organ in one body function the same as in another body? Or is it changed based on which person it is in at the time?

 

3) People who are part of a system and then separate do not necessarily function the same as they would have had they not been part of that system. They are very much influenced by the system the developed in and the systems they become part of. Of course, that's exactly why we worry so much about abuse in the family - because that individual is not separate from the system and cannot just easily go his own way as if the larger system had no influence. It takes tremendous work to undo the influence of that previous system and hardly anyone ever is able to do that without some helpful influence from another healthier system. (IFS refers to these as constraining and sustaining systems, respectively)

 

I could probably write a lot more. But all I'm trying to show is the deep interconnections between these multiple levels, which I think contrasts with how anarcho-capitalists try to fetishize the individual human being level and disregard the emergent properties higher levels have and the fact that there are countless levels both higher and lower than the individual human level that have influence. There are things we can learn and predict at each level that we can't from any other level. The individual human level is not unique that way. The individual human level does have some special, unique properties. But so do many other levels.

[_LiveFree_]

In the 2nd and 3rd one I deal with the notion, that trade is peaceful (nope) and voluntary (nope) and that it raises humankind out of poverty (not necessarily). And that people like you explain Economy 101 much more than necessary, missing the real point.Claiming to raise people out of dirt-dwelling poverty is like my current politicians claiming to protect us from the past Communistic regime. Being marginally better is not enough. They steal about 10 % of state budget and squander the rest, but their most pathetic argument is, "at least we're better than Communists!" Being better than nothing or marginally better is not good enough. But that's exactly what trade needs - an offer needs to be just better than circumstances, better than death, in order to be accepted. And if someone controls the circumstances, it's all a cheat. We today do control almost any circumstances on Earth, short of geo-engineering. What do you think? Are we still these brave trailblazers with forests full of wolves just behind the tarpaulin? In reality, nature is this thin shell of biosphere on the surface, in constant danger of industry. Usable goods is the most relative and misused of market talk we see today. As long as people think they're usable, they are usable to move money around, that's the market delusion.

Trade being peaceful, voluntary, and that it raises humankind out of poverty is not a "notion". It is a fact. And a very simple one to grasp. I don't understand how you miss it. The next part doesn't make a lick of sense to me, whatsoever. I can't even comprehend what you're trying to say. I'd love for you to make a numbered "cause and effect" list and show me exactly how freely exchanging things leads to violence.   

As I said in #1, market is based on the idea, that we can first take from Earth for free and then sell to our fellow men. This is a common human practice, we need the motivation of ownership to work. That used to be all right. But today, in light of Resource-Based Economy, it becomes painfully obvious that nature is so easy to steal from wholesale, so easy to destroy, that we can't treat it as a part of the economy. We have to treat it as a real trade partner with full rights and trade partner deserves his value back plus interest or profit, in a way which nature can use. People can add to nature. Nature or environment is not our enemy or property, but an euphemism for "the things that keep us alive". Our goals are one and our origins as well, the matter of our bodies is made of natural resources. That is a fact. Ownership is a legal fiction. If it wasn't, nature would own us all.

  Oh my, what a heap of nonsense this is. Here is why. . .  It is impossible to do anything for free except die. Movement itself requires energy; energy that must be acquired from somewhere else and then transformed. To extract raw materials from the earth takes quite a bit of energy whether you are doing it manually, or with large machines (the latter being far more efficient). When you are extracting manually, it requires time and calories. Time is what you bought by working earlier, calories are energy that you transformed from eating plants or other working animals. Nothing in life is free except death. There is no way around this, it is simply a fact of existence. Infants believe that things are free because all they see are their parents magically providing for all of their needs. Adults and bugs and birds and fish understand that if you need something, you have to expend labor to get it. "Treat nature as part of the economy"....goodness. Human beings are a part of nature! "Economy" is a word to describe human interaction. That means "Economy" is used to describe how one part of nature interacts with itself. Now if you're talking about polluting and stripping resources bare, then you need look no further than governments. It makes no sense in a free market system to strip your owned resources bare. You want a constant renewable source of resources so you can maintain a constant flow of income. Only when governments move in do resources get stripped and pollution runs rampant.  You're talking like "Nature" is some type of personified thing. It is in no way a person. "Nature" is a word to describe "the universe", but in a more local sense. You say we come from nature and actually are nature, but then speak as if we're separate. If you think ownership doesn't exist in nature, go try and take a freshly killed gazelle from a lion. Or even a piece of steak from a hungry dog. Ownership absolutely exists, the difference being that humans have figured out how to maintain ownership peacefully.  "Our goals are one..." what does that even mean? Nature doesn't own anything because "Nature" isn't a conscious being. It is a word used to describe our local environment in the universe.  

No, it's not SM, it's some random unfortunate guy, threatened by circumstances, the environment, or by structural violence. Sometimes it's not people who threaten us, yet somehow, in Stefan's incomplete philosophy, only people count as threats that the system has to deal with, the environment within and without is ignored. If you were a sociologist, you'd know that the individualism (and interest in capitalism) of Max Weber was outweighed by collective effort of people like Durkheim, Elias and Marx. In other words, ancap is sociologically and technologically almost illiterate. It's better than the current system, but that is never enough! Another point here is, actually solving the problem means destroying the market. The most profitable behavior is to sell the most superficial of solutions at the highest of prices. Then anyone who come next can offer just marginally cheaper solution and call it "market competition". If nobody else comes or cartel negotiations are successful, the price stays high and the trade remains a ransom.

Appeal to authority fallacy. Either you can explain your point or you can't. Here, you've shown that you cannot.  "The market" is a word we use to describe the concept of the play of voluntary human interaction. In other words, what people peaceably do is the market. The only way to destroy the market is to destroy all people. (which is what I would argue TVP wants to do anyway) "The most profitable behavior is to sell the most superficial of solutions at the highest of prices." You simply have no idea what you're talking about. This is an emotional argument wrapped up in intellectual jargon. The most profitable behavior is WIN-WIN. What you described is WIN-LOSE and, therefore, unsustainable. Anyone who engages in WIN-LOSE interactions will be unable to maintain that behavior for very long because people will recognize that by engaging this person they can only lose. Therefore, they will find someone who engages in WIN-WIN interactions. (For instance, if FDR charged a fee to post on their message board, and then severely limited your daily posting count, that would be a WIN-LOSE situation. Why? Because posting is so incredibly cheap. FDR would make money at first, but then not enough people would post, which would discourage others from joining in. What's the point of paying a fee to have a conversation that is very limited? WIN-WIN is when it's free to sign up and post, and then those who find value donate to maintain the board.) This is a real world example of an instance of a free market interaction that is WIN-WIN.  Here is another example of WIN-WIN. For $100/month I get to use a phone that can call any other phone in the United States at any time and talk for as long as I want. I also get to use this same phone to surf the web for as long as I want. A short way to say this is "I'm paying $100/month for phone service." A long way to say this is "I'm paying $100/month for my phone company to maintain a nationwide grid of cell phone towers, technicians, customer service reps, and freaking satellites they launched into orbit to make it all work." You know, $100/month ain't bad at all. They win because they get my money, I win because I get a phone. Not only that, but when I started my service I got my phone for free. And then after 2 years, I got a brand new phone for free. Those sons of bitches!!   Once, I ordered a pizza from Papa Johns. They took 2 hours to get to me. When the driver arrived my pizza was only a bit warm. If I had taken the pizza it would have been a WIN-LOSE. They would have still got my money, but my food would have been not good at all. But seeing that WIN-LOSE coming, I told the driver no thank you, I called the store and said I wanted a refund, and I got my refund. I rejected a WIN-LOSE and turned it into a WIN-WIN when I ordered from Domino's and got a piping hot pizza in 25 minutes.  My real world examples trump, nay, completely demolish your appeal to authority-ness, completely irrational, and meanderingly meaningless logic abortions. Cartels can only exist through institutionalized violence (a.k.a. governments). In a free society, there are no cartels because there is always free competition. A cartel is only profitable with the protection of the state.   

But we are CONSTANTLY threatened by coercive violence! Time, nature, our bodies, we are in their thrall and we have to do as they demand. People can pay really high prices when under coercion from their own body (i.e. hungry). A trade is always "good", meaning it is always "better than nothing". But that can be still quite a worsening to previous situation, as the drowning guy shows. "Better than nothing" is not good, not voluntary.  There is no such thing as a voluntary market. All market is involuntary, the only voluntary actions are taking and giving. Not exchanging. Exchanging has an element of giving up and regretting loses. This isn't obvious, but it plays a role in always striving to get the better end of the deal. If trade was voluntary, first thing we'd try to do, would be to give our customer the best service possible for least money possible. Without the threat of competition, best service is the last thing that market subjects want to do. If it wasn't, people would provide quality service even in Communism. (which they didn't)

  No we aren't!  Time, nature, and our bodies commit violence against us???  If I have ever heard someone so outrightly and with the loudest voice proclaim "I WAS ABUSED AS A CHILD!!", it's with this statement right here.  Time is abusive = parental neglectNature is abusive = unsafe environment at home. No privacy.Bodies are abusive = you were physically abused (i.e. your body was used against you) 

(I am so very sorry you experienced these things. I experienced them, too. Being neglected had the most negatively profound effect on me. If you would ever like to chat about what happened, pm me anytime.)

It is <<NOT THE NATURAL STATE OF A HUMAN BEING>> to feel abused by themselves and their environment! Why is this so important?? Because abused people who think they can save the world end up murdering millions! Save yourself! Leave the rest of us the hell alone! Here is a contradiction you just made. In your first post, you said that extracting resources from Earth was free. But here you say that people can pay a high price when "under coercion" from hunger. As far as I know, extracting resources from the Earth makes a person VERY hungry!  Therefore, by your own definition of violence, it is impossible to get anything for free.  Here you continue on with the win-lose hubbub. Again, this logic fail is not because you lack smarts. You're very intelligent. But if you think the whole world operates on WIN-LOSE interactions, you're still seeing the world through the eyes of your abused child self. Until you've decided to save yourself, it is almost impossible for you to see the world as it is, and not how it was for you when you were horribly mistreated.  

Market has the right to deny people what they need, under the pretext that they don't have money. This is the "algorithm" of the market. This used to make sense, when people and money were involved in production, instead of automation and resources. The market system gives us products, but it takes away our time. We pay ransom for our own time! We can have a part of our time dead, or have it all dead. How is that different from taxes?And what makes the resources so scarce? Isn't it making hundreds of different cell phone models? They all need rare earth metals, silicon and stuff. It is cheaper on resources to make everything in top quality (all can be easily downgraded with software, if wished), than to have a cell phone industry for making hundreds of various models.   In TVP, scientists deal with the shortage by researching a substitute material. Only they do it right away. If 100 million people really want a cell phone, we will ask them and we will know beforehand what we need to prevent theft and envy. Either way, people are not forced to go to work if they want a cell phone. They get to keep their free time to spend in any way they want. The cell phone is only something extra on top of free time, not something we sacrificed our workdays for. That certainly makes the demand a lower and the waiting easier. It's not perfect, just better than the current system and better than ancap.

 

You're right. TVP way is not perfect. But you're wrong in that it's better. What you've just described has been tried except without all the silliness of an "algorithm" to solve all our problems. An algorithm which does not exist, btw. 

 

Let me tell you something I know for a 100% fact. As soon as someone comes along and says that they have figured out how to save me, that I just have to buy into their "plan", I know I've met a complete loony toon. There is absolutely NO WAY you know what's best for me. This is the FUNDAMENTAL difference between TVP and anarcho-capitalism. TVP pretends to be able to solve all of my material needs, but EVEN I DON'T KNOW what all of my material needs will be. Nor do I know how they will change. 

 

TVP is no different than a government. We have the largest, wealthiest, most technologically advanced government in the history of the world and it can't even make a $600 million dollar website work properly. 

 

If you really want to prove that TVP works, go set up somewhere and show us all that we're wrong. An-caps have example after example to show freedom works. 

 

All of the "problems" you have with anarcho-capitalism are not inherent in the market and only exist through government. The fact that you haven't faced the abuse your parents so unjustly heaped upon you means that you are unlikely to see this, though. You have justified anger, but you're pointing it in the wrong direction. 

 

Put down the philosophy of social organization before you hurt yourself and others.

[Mike Fleming]

...

I could probably write a lot more. But all I'm trying to show is the deep interconnections between these multiple levels, which I think contrasts with how anarcho-capitalists try to fetishize the individual human being level and disregard the emergent properties higher levels have and the fact that there are countless levels both higher and lower than the individual human level that have influence. There are things we can learn and predict at each level that we can't from any other level. The individual human level is not unique that way. The individual human level does have some special, unique properties. But so do many other levels.

 

Now you are just getting needlessly abstract.  The reality is that a human makes a choice.  That is one choice.  The market never does that.  It's all the individuals making their choices individually that is described as the market.  There is no market organism that can think for itself.

 

We judge individuals on their choices.  You go into a courtroom and you are not judged as part of a group, you are judged specifically on what your actions were.   If one member of a group kills someone, that doesn't mean the other members of the group are guilty of murder.  You have to assess each individual's actions on it's own merits.  

 

Assigning properties to a group of people, like say the government, is what gets us into trouble.  The reality is, we, individuals, all have the exact same rights and putting people into a group does not change the individuals rights nor does it mean they are absolved of their actions.

[STer]

Now you are just getting needlessly abstract.  The reality is that a human makes a choice.  That is one choice.  The market never does that.  It's all the individuals making their choices individually that is described as the market.  There is no market organism that can think for itself.

 

We judge individuals on their choices.  You go into a courtroom and you are not judged as part of a group, you are judged specifically on what your actions were.   If one member of a group kills someone, that doesn't mean the other members of the group are guilty of murder.  You have to assess each individual's actions on it's own merits.  

 

Assigning properties to a group of people, like say the government, is what gets us into trouble.  The reality is, we, individuals, all have the exact same rights and putting people into a group does not change the individuals rights nor does it mean they are absolved of their actions.

 

This all comes down to the very nature of emergent properties. Again, emergent properties cannot be reduced to the sum of their parts. That is why studying each individual person and their choices in a market still can't tell you what that market will do. This is something that I think really upsets the anarcho-capitalist worldview if they base it on a form of rigid sanctity of the individual human. It is just not possible to predict market behavior based on the sum of individual choices. A market is more than just a bunch of individual choices, because the choices are in a constant stream of mutual feedback.

 

There are many reasons why systems like markets are more than the sum of their parts. But just one of them, to show why the individual choices aren't enough to consider, is that individuals make different choices when in relation to others in a system like a market than they do elsewhere. The reason we call it a market is because not only does it consist of a bunch of individuals, but a bunch of individuals in a specific arrangement related to each other. That arrangement matters and changes the choices made and their consequences. If the very same group of people is arranged in a different way, we no longer call it a market. If they are arranged one way we may call it a family. If they are arranged another way, we call it a political party. These things very much matter because the choices do not come out the same in these different arrangements.

 

In a courtroom, whether someone acted alone or as part of a group is very much relevant. The influence of others in the group is often considered a mitigating factor or an exacerbating factor. Also, there are specific crimes, like conspiracy, that distinguish acting as an individual from acting as part of a group and the cases are different depending on which it is. That is because the law does, in fact, recognize these differences between isolated individual vs. group action.

 

Assigning properties to any system, whether an individual human or a group or anything else, that it does not have is problematic. But ignoring properties it does have is also problematic. I believe anarcho-capitalists far too often ignore the properties that systems other than individual humans do have. And I think they ignore them because it's very uncomfortable to admit the implications of that - that our conscious individual choices are not the full story of why we do what we do.

 

An important example is the ability of social level predictions. People can predict very well many large-scale outcomes without even interviewing any individuals. I can predict with almost total certainty that Utah will vote Republican in the next presidential election. I didn't talk to anyone in Utah about their choices. I just know that the population of Utah, as a group, has a certain property which is a Republican-leaning bent. I'd be willing to bet you a huge amount of money on that prediction even without knowing a single person in Utah and how they make individual decisions.

[Mike Fleming]

You don't get rights beyond those of individual rights when you join a group.  I don't know how to simplify that more.  Since when does peer pressure change your rights?  "Oh, someone made me do this or someone said I should do this or everyone else did it so I just followed."  None of these are excuses.   

 

I think people who can't accept the fact that government is basically, by any reasonable standards, a criminal organization, just don't want to accept these facts.  

 

You don't get rights by joining a group therefore people in government can't have the rights they claim to have.  Simple . Done.  Individuals can't violate the rights of other individuals.  Voluntary trade does not involve the violation of rights, because they are choosing to trade.  It turns out that this is the most effective way of providing resources to people and lifting people out of poverty.   And it's logical when you think about it.   People will work harder if they get to retain the fruits of their labour.  The more work done, the more goods and services available to society, the better off is everyone in general.

 

You don't need to make things more complicated than they are.

[STer]

You don't get rights beyond those of individual rights when you join a group.  I don't know how to simplify that more.  Since when does peer pressure change your rights?  "Oh, someone made me do this or someone said I should do this or everyone else did it so I just followed."  None of these are excuses.   

 

I think people who can't accept the fact that government is basically, by any reasonable standards, a criminal organization, just don't want to accept these facts.  

 

You don't get rights by joining a group therefore people in government can't have the rights they claim to have.  Simple . Done.  Individuals can't violate the rights of other individuals.  Voluntary trade does not involve the violation of rights, because they are choosing to trade.  It turns out that this is the most effective way of providing resources to people and lifting people out of poverty.   And it's logical when you think about it.   People will work harder if they get to retain the fruits of their labour.  The more work done, the more goods and services available to society, the better off is everyone in general.

 

You don't need to make things more complicated than they are.

 

You still aren't accurately reflecting what emergent properties are. It's not surprising because they are very tricky to grasp. How is it that something can be more than the sum of its parts? And yet we know they are. Just stop and consider that for a second without any further judgment. You can have a group of things and together they are more than the sum of their parts. The group does things that cannot be explained even when you take into account each individual in it. Soak that in. And that isn't even a remotely controversial statement. That's something almost boringly well-established.

 

You keep trying to reduce emergent properties to something more direct. But it isn't direct. There is simply no way to get the whole from looking at the sum of its parts.

 

Where you went with it in the end of your post supports my point that this is not about the discussion itself, but the fact that anarcho-capitalists don't like the implications of emergent properties. So you veered off the topic of whether emergent properties exist - the fact that systems have properties that cannot be reduced to the sum of their parts - and started simply arguing against something you think might be an implication of that if it's true.

 

The existence of emergent properties does not depend on whether you are comfortable with the implications of it. If you agree that emergent properties exist, we can then talk about what the implications might be. But first we need to decide if you're on the same page with their existence. If you don't agree that they exist and you think that systems' behavior can be reduced to the choices of the parts that make them up individually, then we simply disagree and I think you are disagreeing with the overwhelming facts of science.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

Another RBEer proving nothing. I wish you would just go make your RBE. Who's stopping you?

You still aren't accurately reflecting what emergent properties are. It's not surprising because they are very tricky to grasp. How is it that something can be more than the sum of its parts? And yet we know they are. Just stop and consider that for a second without any further judgment. You can have a group of things and together they are more than the sum of their parts. The group does things that cannot be explained even when you take into account each individual in it. Soak that in. And that isn't even a remotely controversial statement. That's something almost boringly well-established.

 

You keep trying to reduce emergent properties to something more direct. But it isn't direct. There is simply no way to get the whole from looking at the sum of its parts.

 

Where you went with it in the end of your post supports my point that this is not about the discussion itself, but the fact that anarcho-capitalists don't like the implications of emergent properties. So you veered off the topic of whether emergent properties exist - the fact that systems have properties that cannot be reduced to the sum of their parts - and started simply arguing against something you think might be an implication of that if it's true.

 

The existence of emergent properties does not depend on whether you are comfortable with the implications of it. If you agree that emergent properties exist, we can then talk about what the implications might be. But first we need to decide if you're on the same page with their existence. If you don't agree that they exist and you think that systems' behavior can be reduced to the choices of the parts that make them up individually, then we simply disagree and I think you are disagreeing with the overwhelming facts of science.

If you have any proof that a certain emergent property exists then fucking prove it and stop alluding to it. Before you assert that violence comes out of peaceful interactions (or whatever you're trying to say) then show how that happens. 

Prove that An-caps don't like the implications of emergent properties. Prove it or concede you can't.

[Armitage]

Trade being peaceful, voluntary, and that it raises humankind out of poverty is not a "notion". It is a fact. And a very simple one to grasp. I don't understand how you miss it. The next part doesn't make a lick of sense to me, whatsoever. I can't even comprehend what you're trying to say. I'd love for you to make a numbered "cause and effect" list and show me exactly how freely exchanging things leads to violence.

Yes, it is too simple to be true. "Freely exchanging" is an oxymoron, it involves giving up things that we might use, such as money. I don't have a numbered sequence, but this post comes close to it. http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/37703-a-fresh-i-hope-perspective-on-the-zeitgiest-debate/#entry345415 

Oh my, what a heap of nonsense this is. Here is why. . .  It is impossible to do anything for free except die. ... Nature doesn't own anything because "Nature" isn't a conscious being. It is a word used to describe our local environment in the universe.

Capitalism is not synonymous with economy and economy is not synonymous with nature. Why? Because in capitalism we have a trade exchange, while in nature we do not give anything back, we do not exchange. This is not a question of nature being conscious or having rights. It is a question of systems theory and nature is an integrated system just like any other, including our economy or physiology. Does the nature need to be owned, in order to be managed sensibly without exhaustion? In that case, capitalism is inherently not sensible, because it must be compensated by enforcement of law, such as ownership. 

Appeal to authority fallacy. Either you can explain your point or you can't. Here, you've shown that you cannot.

So you admit that you are not informed of the sociological science, its content, importance, authors and so on? I recommend you to grab a read of Harrington's "Modern social theories" to catch up a little. Sometimes I wonder what would be left of the Ancap movement, if they studied sociology, because none of them seem to. This is not an appeal to authority, because I don't expect you to know who was Durkheim, the same way you know who was Einstein. But I find it absurd to interpret society from the view of economy and not sociology. Economy is a big topic in sociology, but it is rounded out by the actual sociology.

Ancap is economism, explaining everything with economy. And as Christopher Hitchens said, answers that explain everything, explain nothing.As for the voluntary market, see the link. As for the second "argument", corporations do not play for the WIN-WIN ratio or the highest overall yield of game theory. They play for the highest individual profit, because they and their competitors and customers are separate and have opposite interests. They engage in great manipulation of environment (buy politicians) to make this possible. This is generally not possible in digital environment. (hence Stef provides his stuff for free, because he's a great guy and knows people would pirate it anyway) 

No we aren't!  Time, nature, and our bodies commit violence against us???  If I have ever heard someone so outrightly and with the loudest voice proclaim "I WAS ABUSED AS A CHILD!!", it's with this statement right here.  Time is abusive = parental neglectNature is abusive = unsafe environment at home. No privacy.Bodies are abusive = you were physically abused (i.e. your body was used against you) (I am so very sorry you experienced these things. I experienced them, too. Being neglected had the most negatively profound effect on me. If you would ever like to chat about what happened, pm me anytime.)It is <<NOT THE NATURAL STATE OF A HUMAN BEING>> to feel abused by themselves and their environment! Why is this so important?? Because abused people who think they can save the world end up murdering millions! Save yourself! Leave the rest of us the hell alone! Here is a contradiction you just made. In your first post, you said that extracting resources from Earth was free. But here you say that people can pay a high price when "under coercion" from hunger. As far as I know, extracting resources from the Earth makes a person VERY hungry!  Therefore, by your own definition of violence, it is impossible to get anything for free.  Here you continue on with the win-lose hubbub. Again, this logic fail is not because you lack smarts. You're very intelligent. But if you think the whole world operates on WIN-LOSE interactions, you're still seeing the world through the eyes of your abused child self. Until you've decided to save yourself, it is almost impossible for you to see the world as it is, and not how it was for you when you were horribly mistreated.

I regret we are unable of having conversation, because we are so prone to blame everything on childhood abuse. I have no right to claim I was abused as a child, because I wasn't. The things I hear on Stef's podcast, I shudder and I'm glad none of that happened in my home. I've got a plenty of problems, but they kicked in much later.I study sociology (having studied many other subjects) and so I must think broadly. We are on physiological level motivated by forces of biology in time. Forces, I say. We are forced and it matters not if that force comes from unconscious natural processes. We only don't notice them or not consider them as forces, because most of us didn't go hungry too much or homeless over the winter. We instead submit to subtler social forces of capitalism and education to secure us from the worse forces of nature. But it's still not a voluntary activity and there are still consequences, see the link above.Yes, in the current system it's impossible to get anything for free, because between us and nature are antagonistic parties with their own private interests - buyers, sellers, corporations, banks... In the current economyTVP is an economy of sophisticated dark passengers on Earth, where between a person and natural resources is nothing but a mindless, automated system that has no vested interest in our payback. The automated system puts a cap on consumption if renewal rate of resource is exceeded, this is where the massive research facilities of TVP kick in, to look for substitutes, which is something that science is very good at. 

You're right. TVP way is not perfect. But you're wrong in that it's better. What you've just described has been tried except without all the silliness of an "algorithm" to solve all our problems. An algorithm which does not exist, btw.  Let me tell you something I know for a 100% fact. As soon as someone comes along and says that they have figured out how to save me, that I just have to buy into their "plan", I know I've met a complete loony toon. There is absolutely NO WAY you know what's best for me. This is the FUNDAMENTAL difference between TVP and anarcho-capitalism. TVP pretends to be able to solve all of my material needs, but EVEN I DON'T KNOW what all of my material needs will be. Nor do I know how they will change.

News for you: TVP does not have a magical algorithm of economic calculation. All it does is like Amazon warehouse management, or a glorified phone exchange. It asks people for preference and industry for resources (condition of automated mass production and strategic access) and then adds one and one together.Furthermore, if we have a proven scientific knowledge of universally applicable social organization and human behavior, we are morally obliged to use it, or people get hurt needlessly. TVP is application of this knowledge.

 

If you really want to prove that TVP works, go set up somewhere and show us all that we're wrong. An-caps have example after example to show freedom works.  All of the "problems" you have with anarcho-capitalism are not inherent in the market and only exist through government. The fact that you haven't faced the abuse your parents so unjustly heaped upon you means that you are unlikely to see this, though. You have justified anger, but you're pointing it in the wrong direction.  Put down the philosophy of social organization before you hurt yourself and others.

The concept proof of TVP is no different from building and running a NASA facility. And TVP itself is no different from the full-scale continental or global industry we see today, it is not a cornucopia, competitive against all odds. It's a cooperative economy, relying on effectiveness of standardized mass production and design, peak efficiency in technology and integrated automated management of resources, so that the tragedy of commons can't happen.Ancap has a very limited and outdated notion of freedom, way below the technological capability of 21st century. We are only as free as much purchasing power we have and as our cultural indoctrination allows us. If I lived in 19th century, I'd be all for Ancap, because if nothing else it works, but we should have jumped off that bandwagon long ago, it won't get us any further, not against automated industry. Economy is getting automated and that is a proof that RBE works. One of the greatest industries of today is the industry of job elimination, that's what engineers and programmers do. Human labor is obsolete and money are obsolete too, machines do not run on money. Problem is, people do.

This goes back to Stef's contention that RBE'ers are still children who feel robbed because they did not get their needs met as children and now expect some kind of external agency  (in this case a computer) to look after them as an adult.  It's because there are so many people like this currently in society that we have nanny governments.  

If parents have fights or arguments, it's abusive, no matter if that's because of alcoholism, bad communication or money problems. It does not bide well for capitalism either way. Stef would realize that if he wasn't working from home at the best job on Earth.

 

As for the family, I mentioned purely the internally economic aspect. Once the groceries are bought, the price tags are useless. They are managed directly as inventory in our minds. Family household economy is a RBE, so is the physiology of our bodies. Behind our doors and mouths, we do not have endless growth, market corrections, economic boom and bust and when the bankrupcy comes to our body, it comes but once. 

[Rob_Ilir]

**But we are CONSTANTLY threatened by coercive violence!**

 

 

How many times have you been threatened in this forum?

 

 

I think what you meant to say is that, your choices lead to 'CONSTANTLY threatened by coercive violence' by people you are surrounded with. I can sympathise with that.

 

To me the distasteful cartoons are a way to intellectualise people who CONSTANTLY threatened coercive violence against you.

[Armitage]

**But we are CONSTANTLY threatened by coercive violence!**

 

 

How many times have you been threatened in this forum?

 

 

I think what you meant to say is that, your choices lead to 'CONSTANTLY threatened by coercive violence' by people you are surrounded with. I can sympathise with that.

 

To me the distasteful cartoons are a way to intellectualise people who CONSTANTLY threatened coercive violence against you.

If you read the book "The secret lives of INTPs" by Anna Moss, you notice one thing. INTPs are somewhat sensitive to what others consider a commonplace thing. Others, outwardly oriented find it less of a bother to take out trash manually than an INTP inventing a new elaborate system of taking the trash out, which nonetheless saves the work for the future. Similarly, most people find it less of a bother to participate in society and the life routine than to think if all the daily pains and annoyances are all that necessary, if some of them might be remedied by a more intelligent arrangement. 

 

Have you ever worked in a friendly job collective and then it came to differences in money, promotion or who gets fired? Did the friendly relationships stay as strong as ever?

 

Turns out there is a lot of inherent stress (structural violence) in our society, Stefan with his focus on childhood spanking (culturally acceptable) and traumatized soldiers (culturally acceptable) uncovered just a tip of the iceberg of suffering that is completely needless and preventable. We are so resilient and de-sensitized that we ignore the suffering that is today totally unnecessary. Well, some of us aren't so resilient and so they notice the absurdity of today's world (and market!) when someone shows them. And we see what to do about that.

[Mike Fleming]

If parents have fights or arguments, it's abusive, no matter if that's because of alcoholism, bad communication or money problems. It does not bide well for capitalism either way. Stef would realize that if he wasn't working from home at the best job on Earth.

 

 

I'm sorry you had problems with your parents.  I did too.  Many here have.  You are safe to talk about it here.

 

As for Stef's best job on Earth?  Do you realise how incredibly risky it was for him at the start?  It was an unproven business model.  There was no way to know whether there was any longevity to it.  He wasn't getting paid all that much compared to what he could get in the market.  The amount of work that it has taken for Stef to get this far is absolutely enormous.  I honestly wouldn't expect someone who wants everything for free to understand this though.

 

 

As for the family, I mentioned purely the internally economic aspect. Once the groceries are bought, the price tags are useless. They are managed directly as inventory in our minds. Family household economy is a RBE, so is the physiology of our bodies. Behind our doors and mouths, we do not have endless growth, market corrections, economic boom and bust and when the bankrupcy comes to our body, it comes but once. 

 

 

Just more affirmation.  You are telling us everything here.

You still aren't accurately reflecting what emergent properties are. It's not surprising because they are very tricky to grasp. How is it that something can be more than the sum of its parts? And yet we know they are. Just stop and consider that for a second without any further judgment. You can have a group of things and together they are more than the sum of their parts. The group does things that cannot be explained even when you take into account each individual in it. Soak that in. And that isn't even a remotely controversial statement. That's something almost boringly well-established.

 

You keep trying to reduce emergent properties to something more direct. But it isn't direct. There is simply no way to get the whole from looking at the sum of its parts.

 

Where you went with it in the end of your post supports my point that this is not about the discussion itself, but the fact that anarcho-capitalists don't like the implications of emergent properties. So you veered off the topic of whether emergent properties exist - the fact that systems have properties that cannot be reduced to the sum of their parts - and started simply arguing against something you think might be an implication of that if it's true.

 

The existence of emergent properties does not depend on whether you are comfortable with the implications of it. If you agree that emergent properties exist, we can then talk about what the implications might be. But first we need to decide if you're on the same page with their existence. If you don't agree that they exist and you think that systems' behavior can be reduced to the choices of the parts that make them up individually, then we simply disagree and I think you are disagreeing with the overwhelming facts of science.

 

As the poster above says, prove that your emergent behaviour has relevance in this context.  It's like talking about Quantum Mechanics.  Everything is quantum when you get right down to it but what relevance does that have to the discussion we are having about human behaviour?

[Guest Exceptionalist]

As already stated the free market is free of coercion from other people. To imply that threats of getting your prices undercut is some kind of coercion is like implying that the threat of other men wooing and marrying women is some kind of coercion.

 

 

It is even more complex, you have to be highly effective and efficient to keep your market share, offer an extra benefit for a competetive price. If you cannot be better than the competitor, you have to be more efficient, which means to be more affordable.

[Armitage]

I'm sorry you had problems with your parents.  I did too.  Many here have.  You are safe to talk about it here.

My parents weren't perfect, but they always meant well. If I have any problem, it's with my dad, who got himself a lover and betrayed the family - that's what really gets my goat. True, 50 % of marriages divorce, but I'd never tell him the type, he works as sort of a psychological and marriage counselor himself. Having an affair does things to men, they try to justify that by slandering the wife.Let's just say the digital age preserved some internet conversation my dad had with his mistress over the net and it was not a nice read. 

As for Stef's best job on Earth?  Do you realise how incredibly risky it was for him at the start?  It was an unproven business model.  There was no way to know whether there was any longevity to it.  He wasn't getting paid all that much compared to what he could get in the market.  The amount of work that it has taken for Stef to get this far is absolutely enormous.  I honestly wouldn't expect someone who wants everything for free to understand this though.

It was incredibly risky, you see? And yet Stef preferred this instead of the common drudgery at the conveyor belt or 9-5 office paperwork, both of which would make his daughter a part-time orphan and would not have any higher philosophical meaning whatsoever, much less helpful to anyone. So there is something seriously wrong with most of jobs. When Stef talks about the benefits of market and work, I feel like he he praises what he did his best to get away from and took enormous risks too. Neither does bide well for capitalism.And yes, I expect we must have everything for free. We care for our children for free, we take from the nature for free and the machines work for free, not for money. Money are imaginary, what is real is energy, information, time and resources. Our problem is, we don't apply the technology consistently enough. The idiotic primitive "technology" we use is wage slaves holding green papers with numbers and running back and forth, pretending to be electrons in a great computer of market calculation. 

Just more affirmation.  You are telling us everything here.

Oh, c'mon! Arguments that explain everything, explain nothing. I can only be glad that Stef is not a follower of Sigmund Freud. 

As the poster above says, prove that your emergent behaviour has relevance in this context.  It's like talking about Quantum Mechanics.  Everything is quantum when you get right down to it but what relevance does that have to the discussion we are having about human behaviour?

I wouldn't call the structural violence quantum or nanoscale, I'd call us callused by the structural violence beyond noticing. So when the speed of modern life increases greatly and social pathology with it, we seek explanations everywhere but in the system itself. We think there is a quick fix. There's not, structural violence is an integral part of the system. If we want a stress-free life, we need a whole different system, not based on competition.

[Think Free]

Earth is the euphemism for "the thing that keeps us alive".

This is false. The earth killed most humans for millenia. The reason it stopped is because humans got control of their environment. Most of the places people live today would be unlivable if it weren't for humans changing their environment. Humans keep themselves alive through innovation. 

Earth is not our property, we are its extension. If Earth made the laws, we would be Earth's property, because Earth made us of its own material. We should look away from the legalism of law and realize, that laws are like computer code, they can simulate reality or create a virtual reality. Legal norms like ownership can be given, taken away and re-defined. The Communist constitution had four types of ownership. The social democratic constitution has one type, but with four or five exceptions when it can be restricted.The Libertarian ideal of Common law is basically an open-source law which can say anything it wants, because it is not statist. But Bolivia recently made a classical statist law that gives Earth rights and it is perfectly legal and legitimate to give or take rights away. It'just a paper. Paper invented legal persons known as corporations and I heard they have now in USA some kind of human rights. If that is possible, for something that does not even physically exist, then it damn well is possible for Earth.

You are confusing rights with laws. Rights (true rights) are an objective feature of reality, and are basically mean "things a rational person cannot ever be rationally expected to irrevocably surrender." These things are life, liberty, and the fruit of one's labor because to surrender any one of these things is to surrender everything else. 

It has nothing to do with being human. Nothing at all, unless you've got a damn good definition of a human and damn good justification for it. Chimps are 98 % human, genetically speaking. Banana is about 30 % human. Human is a legal fiction, like "mental health", which medically does not exist.

Actually, there is at least one "damn good" definition of human, but this is a red herring. The fact is, even without any clear definition, there is actually no kind of thing known to man that isn't either clearly human or clearly not-human. There are examples of humans where we wonder whether they have lost their humanity, through, for example, brain death. But humans remain remarkably distinct from every other known thing. 

The point was, that within family we do solve the economical information problem without money, we keep track of stuff in our own head, as it is a computer, and so family is within itself a Resource-Based Economy. RBE is principially possible and we all grew up in it. Nobody pays their dinner at the family table.

The economic calculation problem isn't solved in families--it's ignored, and rightly so. There's a cost even to solving the economic calculation problem, and on small enough scales, the cost exceeds the value. So families do okay without it and every attempt to ignore it on a large scale has failed miserably. But in a peaceful family, all the fundamental rights of the free-market are still in place, which is the most important thing. 

No, that was a parody of Peter parodying capitalism. It's the reality of "pay or perish", which is so familiar to every leftist. Market is a problem, capitalism means never solving this problem totally, only postponing it for a price. Give man a fish, you're at loss. Sell the man a fish, you get profit. Teach the man to fish, and he'll be free and you won't earn a dime but gain a competitor. Employ the man to fish for you and you'll live off the profit comfortably till the rest of your life.

Teach a man to fish and you can charge him more than you can for a fish. Some people will pay for the fish, some for the teaching, depending on what they think they need. 

It is coercion, but from the side of women! Historically, they always wanted a monopoly on their men.

Right, just as women have the right to control access to their bodies by giving them to the more attractive men only, people have the right to control the fruits of their labor by trading them only in the most competitive trades. 

Indeed it would be, because this is not how TVP works. The only ones who have the information on who wants what are the people themselves. A global digital network links them to the computer, which is just a correlation center, a glorified Amazon storage management. What counts aren't money, but direct clicks, direct digital demand. Sure there would be a lot of statistical calculations involved, but the basis is people providing the data on what they want.

Clicking "I want this" isn't the same as expressing demand. Some people want some things more than other people. Some people want things so they can provide services to others while others just want to consume them. Price conveys this information. Price, furthermore, let's the consumer know how many resources they're consuming with each product they might want. Price allows people to be moderate in their consumption.Regarding statistical calculations, if anything can be manufactured immediately and delivered with the click of a button, statistics aren't necessary. Statistics are only necessary if you have to predict demand (impossible) or make decisions for people (tyrannical). And what exactly are these statistical calculations anyway? 

But they don't want it badly enough, so why should a global economic system be designed to meet such needs, while neglecting needs of life and death? Do you say all needs are equal, the need to stay alive and the need to have a golden car? If so, then you are a relativist and as Xelent said, relativist is the worst kind of leftist. Either that, or Xelent is full of crap. I'm OK with both choices 

Of course not all needs are equal. But the idea that the production of golden cars is somehow competing with food production or something is ridiculous. The reasons people are starving are well known, and it has nothing to do with the production of fantastic luxury goods. 

Does that mean Einstein was also right about you?

Einstein didn't have anything to say about me. However, if you're trying to convince me that human stupidity is infinite, you are doing a very good job.I wonder when it would become profitable, according to free market, to invent computers and cure black plague.

 

The only way to find out when the free-market will do something is to let it do it. History suggests that if people had been free from the beginning, we would be centuries ahead in technology.  

Why can't people just click on web application what they want ordered and delivered? Provided that all the articles are produced by automated lines which can speed up or slow down depending on the rate of demand.

 

Now it's your turn to answer the question, what happens if everyone, all at once, decide they want a golden car? 

Yeah, but in both cases the chicken is equally in exile and homeless.

 

 

People looking for a job are equally in exile and homeless as people fleeing for their lives from the government??? I'm not even going to honor this with a list of very real and important differences. It shouldn't take you more than a few seconds to think of them yourself if you should choose to think for yourself. 

 

 

Stefan's daughter is a criminal? She's stealing and committing violent acts against other people??? No, but criminals are people too. Today, most of them are not even responsible, they are driven to crime by their environment. And they are a valuable source of information on what made them commit the crime, about the environment. Which is a useful information in a system which uses design of the environment, such as TVP. In anarcho-capitalism, the environment is still a wild frontier and nobody knows what's in there. All the cultural stupidity of past generations, petrified into traditions and habitus is permitted to exist, under the label of freedom.

You can't have it both ways. You can't know that their environment drives them to commit crimes without knowing how their environment drives them to commit crimes. Regardless, how crimes are dealt with is not a fundamental part of free-market theory, so none of this matters. When people are truly free will see how they deal with criminals.

[Rob_Ilir]

 Armitage Have you been threatened in this board with violence or not?

 

Lets solve that before we dive deeper, into your intellectualisation, as that is your whole argument. 

[LovePrevails]

This way of thinking is so key to anarcho-capitalism. And yet I still don't understand why people who use it don't quickly see the flaw in it, as displayed below:

 

"Trees do not exist. It is just a collection of cells"

"People do not exist. It is just a collection of cells"

"Cells do not exist. It is just a collection of organelles and membranes, etc."

"Cells, organelles and membranes do not exist. It is just a collection of atoms." 

 

And so on. The point being that it is really meaningless to debate whether emergent levels of things "exist" or don't "exist." To do so is to imply that only the absolute fundamental level of matter is relevant. This failure to accept the nature of emergent properties and holons is, I believe, one of the most enormous flaws in the thinking of many anarcho-capitalists.

 

I think an ecologist would say that there is a big difference between a forest and a random collection of trees. It all has to do with emergent properties. A bunch of isolated trees act one way. But when they relate in such a way as to be called a forest, the forest takes on properties of its own that are irreducible to the individual trees. Just as a family acts differently than any of the members would act separately were they not part of the family. The relationships, which cause us to give the group a name, actually change the nature of how things function.

 

explained:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIlOtkBhRvI

[PatrickC]

I'd suggest to everyone that they leave Armitage to his own thoughts. None of us are going to convince him. He is otherwise ensconced in his own ideas, for reasons that most of us probably understand..

 

I hope he talks to Stefan and gets some resolve either way. Because this conversation is going nowhere, either for him or the rest of the board.

[Armitage]

 Armitage Have you been threatened in this board with violence or not?

 

Lets solve that before we dive deeper, into your intellectualisation, as that is your whole argument. 

Not on this board, it doesn't even seem possible to me. Isn't this world violent enough? Aren't internet boards the refuge?

 

 

I'd suggest to everyone that they leave Armitage to his own thoughts. None of us are going to convince him. He is otherwise ensconced in his own ideas, for reasons that most of us probably understand..

 

I hope he talks to Stefan and gets some resolve either way. Because this conversation is going nowhere, either for him or the rest of the board.

Yes, talking to Stefan is the main point. But I never give up. I have so much to give and I see so much need. Sociology, the distant sister of economy is totally unknown here. Society is meant to be seen with sociology, economy is just second opinion.

[Mike Fleming]

My parents weren't perfect, but they always meant well. If I have any problem, it's with my dad, who got himself a lover and betrayed the family - that's what really gets my goat. True, 50 % of marriages divorce, but I'd never tell him the type, he works as sort of a psychological and marriage counselor himself. Having an affair does things to men, they try to justify that by slandering the wife.Let's just say the digital age preserved some internet conversation my dad had with his mistress over the net and it was not a nice read. 

 

Good.  These are the issues you need to resolve.  Don't fall into the trap of thinking that you can force people to be good.  Or thinking we just need to set up a system where everything is free and everyone will be happy.  These are traps.   Straighten this out in your head and the desire to control others will be removed.