Somalia

[Borodog]

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Consider not only my argument, but also the animal kingdom. It goes on even though it is rife with predation.

edit: every living thing consumes some other living thing (or something that was once living) to survive. Yet the system does not collapse but rather flourishes as a whole.

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Do you think a species would flourish if it only consumed those of its own species?

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Of course not. But are humans going to give up eating animals and vegetables and turn instead to cannibalism? I don't believe so.

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That's what "pradation" in the Hobbesian sense essentially means; predation upon the property of others is predation upon their person, since that's what "property" is; an extension of self ownership to produced goods. In the presence of such predation, who will bother to produce more than what they can carry and defend with their own hands? Nobody. If you think such a scenario can possibly lead to any kind of "flourishing" . . . I don't know what to say.

[John Kilduff]

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Consider not only my argument, but also the animal kingdom. It goes on even though it is rife with predation.

edit: every living thing consumes some other living thing (or something that was once living) to survive. Yet the system does not collapse but rather flourishes as a whole.

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Do you think a species would flourish if it only consumed those of its own species?

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Of course not. But are humans going to give up eating animals and vegetables and turn instead to cannibalism? I don't believe so.

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That's what "pradation" in the Hobbesian sense essentially means; predation upon the property of others is predation upon their person, since that's what "property" is; an extension of self ownership to produced goods. In the presence of such predation, who will bother to produce more than what they can carry and defend with their own hands? Nobody. If you think such a scenario can possibly lead to any kind of "flourishing" . . . I don't know what to say.

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I think humans would still predate more upon other species than upon their own, even using "predate" in the very broad sense.

That everyone may be a predator in the hypothetical scenario, does not mean that they will all be voracious or reckless predators. Predators must be very leery of getting hurt in their attempts to predate, and generally must select only targets perceived as weaker. An all predator scenario does not mean they will all just immediately attack the closest target. And as mentioned earlier, humans would still predate upon other species for the most part.

A group endued with unstoppable powers over others, on the other hand, very well might become highly voracious because there would be no deterrent or potential heavy cost to their predations.

Are we perhaps talking past each other somehow?

[Borodog]

We must be, because as far as I can tell you're saying:

"No, you can have perpetual war of all against all and it'll be great. We'll be just like animals; it'll be some awesome flourishment."

In any event, I'm not really interested in this rabbit trail. Peace.

[John Kilduff]

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We must be, because as far as I can tell you're saying:

"No, you can have perpetual war of all against all and it'll be great. We'll be just like animals; it'll be some awesome flourishment."

In any event, I'm not really interested in this rabbit trail. Peace.

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I'm more trying to say that the perpetual struggle you describe would likely be highly mitigated and circumscribed as compared to the all-out war of conquest that might easily result when one group possesses overwhelming power.

But we can drop it if you like. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[Borodog]

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We must be, because as far as I can tell you're saying:

"No, you can have perpetual war of all against all and it'll be great. We'll be just like animals; it'll be some awesome flourishment."

In any event, I'm not really interested in this rabbit trail. Peace.

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I'm more trying to say that the perpetual struggle you describe would likely be highly mitigated and circumscribed as compared to the all-out war of conquest that might easily result when one group possesses overwhelming power.

But we can drop it if you like. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

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Well I think you're letting the actual nature of mankind taint your analysis of what would happen under Hobbes's views on the nature of mankind. Remember, Hobbesian anarchy is based on his belief that man is men's wolf, which is false. As Copernicus unwittingly noted, Hobbesian anarchy requires a state to get out of the chaos (although how all of these non-cooperating wolves are supposed to cooperate enough to choose and install the state is never made clear by Hobbes), whereas the actual nature of mankind, which is more inclined to cooperation than conflict, does not. Social cooperation and order arises spontaneously out of self-interested individuals engaging in specialization, the division of labor and exchange, based on the logic of serving self-interest through mutual accomodation and eschewing costly and risky conflicts.

[Copernicus]

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We must be, because as far as I can tell you're saying:

"No, you can have perpetual war of all against all and it'll be great. We'll be just like animals; it'll be some awesome flourishment."

In any event, I'm not really interested in this rabbit trail. Peace.

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I'm more trying to say that the perpetual struggle you describe would likely be highly mitigated and circumscribed as compared to the all-out war of conquest that might easily result when one group possesses overwhelming power.

But we can drop it if you like. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

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Well I think you're letting the actual nature of mankind taint your analysis of what would happen under Hobbes's views on the nature of mankind. Remember, Hobbesian anarchy is based on his belief that man is men's wolf, which is false. As Copernicus unwittingly noted, Hobbesian anarchy requires a state to get out of the chaos (although how all of these non-cooperating wolves are supposed to cooperate enough to choose and install the state is never made clear by Hobbes), whereas the actual nature of mankind, which is more inclined to cooperation than conflict, does not. Social cooperation and order arises spontaneously out of self-interested individuals engaging in specialization, the division of labor and exchange, based on the logic of serving self-interest through mutual accomodation and eschewing costly and risky conflicts.

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Unwittingly? the only thing unwitting about it is what youre point in discussing it is, since its a prime example of a philosophy based on erroneous assumptions, which, when corrected lead to a state. Thats not what I understand your philosophy to be.

[Richard Tanner]

Damn Boro, that's some deep research, bonus points for calling me "Dick Tanner" not many people do that and I'm rather fond of the name.

That said, this has gone on long enough, you're either obviously missing the point or purposfully being obtuse. What I, and from the looks of things several others, are saying is that of all the possible governmental systems, certainly AC will be better then some of them. Much the same as of all the possible results of AC (ACtopia to Thunderdome) statism will ceratinly be better then some of them.

This is neither new, nor suprising. So what gives with all the shock and awe.

Cody

[Copernicus]

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Damn Boro, that's some deep research, bonus points for calling me "Dick Tanner" not many people do that and I'm rather fond of the name.

That said, this has gone on long enough, you're either obviously missing the point or purposfully being obtuse. What I, and from the looks of things several others, are saying is that of all the possible governmental systems, certainly AC will be better then some of them. Much the same as of all the possible results of AC (ACtopia to Thunderdome) statism will ceratinly be better then some of them.

This is neither new, nor suprising. So what gives with all the shock and awe.

Cody

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Deflection from his OP and the mises article which are so absurdly non-indicative of AC. Accept a concession of a made up position, sound optimistic about the course of future debate, even sound conciliatory. Standard face saving tactics when you've been exposed.

[adanthar]

Hell, I'll go one further:

AC-land is doomed to real world failure because, among many other reasons, it's a gigantically inefficient hamster wheel where everyone spends 24 hours a day paying off a myriad of transaction costs or dying from 'unfortunate market failure' prior to 'market correction' (which happens over and over). This inefficiency is an asset on one level, however; a genocidal, worst case scenario government is far more efficient than AC-land in slaughtering its population in the short term. That's not to say that AC-land wouldn't result in (insert horrible outcome or neo-feudalism here), but it'd take longer - Mogadishu is one of the most violent places on Earth, but enough money, resources or know-how buys you a chance at survival. Therefore, I'd probably rather live in AC-land than under the Khmer Rouge, having more faith than I would still be alive after the "thank God it's finally over" ending of one than the other.

Is that a huge concession, or what?

[Copernicus]

subsitute "Rube Goldberg device" for "hamster wheel" and I agree completely, lol.

Which reminds me, I saw "Fractured" the other night. An okay movie, pretty obvious from the start. But Anthony Hopkins character built these awsome "ball roller coasters" (almost rube goldberg devices, less gimmicks though).

Spoiler in white:
<font color="white">Probably an easy fix, but Ive been staring at numbers too much today. What about double jeopardy in AC? How do you (efficiently) prevent a deep pocket from repeatedly dragging you into one DRO after another until he gets the result he wants?</font>