Contraversial AC Related Thread (TL;PR)

[pvn]

I've missed a few posts in this thread, I'm trying to get back to them all but I may be replying out of order.

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The goodness of music is relative just like the "right"ness of actions is relative. There's nothing precarious about it. It's just like "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". You can disagree, but you'll have to come up with an objective standard of beauty, which I'll tell you right now is impossible.

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Of course it's possible. You can come up with *any number* of objective standards.

You can even determine that some of those standards are "better" than others, using objective standards.


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You cannot provide objective evidence for something like "Picasso is a great painter" or "I am entitled to defend my property". That's what I mean by subjective.

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Except one CAN do those things. Of course, one must select an objective stanard under which to work, first.

[pvn]

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I don't consider your "therefore" logically sound, but that's besides the point.

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You don't? Well that's scary. So if I work endless hours painting a beautiful portrait, you're maybe entitled to have this portrait if you want it?

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I own A.
Therefore I own anything produced by A.
B was produced by A.
Therefore I own B.
Not logically sound. Ask any Philosophy or Logic 101 professor. The problem is with the second statement. It is opinion. Basically like "if I own something then I should own anything it produces". It's a valid opinion, but not a provable deduction.

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A is some collection of stuff ("materials" perhaps).

B is some other collection of stuff ("machinery" perhaps).

I own A and B.

Using B, I rearrange the stuff in collection A. I might even discard some of A.

The result is called C.

C is a subset of A (which I own).


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Wow...

Wow...

bs dude.

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(&c.)

When I said earlier that "I see where this is going" this is pretty much what I had in mind. :|

[wtfsvi]

"Because B would not exist if it was not for A."

So if something would not exist without a thing (A) you own, you own that something in the same way you owned A? And this is your idea of a logical deduction?

If I introduce you to your future wife, I guess that means I'll own your future children [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

On a serious note, there are two problems with this:
1. It is not logic, it is opinion. That's not really a problem, of course - as long as you realize it.
2. It's hopeless to know why something exists. (or what it would not exist without.) Both because there are always multiple causes and because we can't observe causality. (Of course, if we don't accept causality there can be no morality. 2 is mainly an argument that shows part of the reason why 1 is true.)

[MrBlah]

Man walks into a barbershop and threatens the owner with violence if he refuses to give the man a haircut.

Man walks into a barbershop, gives the owner € 30 for a haircut and afterwards threatens him with violence if he refuses to give back the money.

Would you say the man's actions are moral in one instance and immoral in another? If so, how do the situations differ?

[wtfsvi]

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Man walks into a barbershop and threatens the owner with violence if he refuses to give the man a haircut.

Man walks into a barbershop, gives the owner € 30 for a haircut and afterwards threatens him with violence if he refuses to give back the money.

Would you say the man's actions are moral in one instance and immoral in another?

[/ QUOTE ] No?

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If so, how do the situations differ?

[/ QUOTE ] I don't know. I have a feeling you are about to tell me.

edit: Ok. I got it now. The hair cut = his labour, the money = the fruit of his labour. Why did you include the threat of violence in the questions? That obviously ruins them.

[MrBlah]

I wanted to edit but was too lazy.
Let's say instead of threatening him with physical violence he uses some kind of mind control serum.

[wtfsvi]

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I wanted to edit but was too lazy.
Let's say instead of threatening him with physical violence he uses some kind of mind control serum.

[/ QUOTE ] That would using violence in stead of threatening him with violence. That doesn't fix anything.

[MrBlah]

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I wanted to edit but was too lazy.
Let's say instead of threatening him with physical violence he uses some kind of mind control serum.

[/ QUOTE ] That would using violence in stead of threatening him with violence. That doesn't fix anything.

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You're right.
But the point remains: Regardless of how you do it, it is morally wrong to make me work for you against my will.
And therefore, regardless of how you do it, taking something away that I have produced through my labour is also wrong, because essentially, that's like making me work for you against my will.

[wtfsvi]

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I wanted to edit but was too lazy.
Let's say instead of threatening him with physical violence he uses some kind of mind control serum.

[/ QUOTE ] That would using violence in stead of threatening him with violence. That doesn't fix anything.

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You're right.
But the point remains: Regardless of how you do it, it is morally wrong to make me work for you against my will.
And therefore, regardless of how you do it, taking something away that I have produced through my labour is also wrong, because essentially, that's like making me work for you against my will.

[/ QUOTE ] While I'm inclined to agree that it's morally wrong to have someone working for your benefit, without them knowing beforehand that their work will benefit you (or that it will not benefit them), I think it's immoral on a whole different level than violently imposing your will on someone. You're basically saying that tricking someone to do something and forcing someone to do something under the threat of violence, are morally the same. Or I don't know if that's what you're saying, but that's a position I whole heartedly disagree with. Of course, I can't stop you from having different moral views than me, but I argue that mine is the one who is deducted solely from self ownership, while yours in fact contradicts the idea of unlimited self ownership always being the highest norm.

[ALawPoker]

Lighten up, it's tough love. Half the reason I'm so vicious towards you is that you're like a tease. You'll spend a few posts doing a good job and getting to the bottom of something, then when it comes time to reach some sort of conclusion you'll pull an Adanthar and say anything (regardless of what merit it actually has) to wiggle out of having to concede a point.

I'm not trying to belittle you or anything. Well, I am. But if I didn't think you were capable of better, then I wouldn't respond. I think you're well capable of seeing some of the flaws I see in your reasoning; but I think that you're so convinced AC must be bad for some reason (since hey, government seems like such a standard part of life) that you (even if subconsciously) justify mistakes because you truly trust your conclusion.

Challenge yourself to trust nothing. Pro-government biases are so ingrained in us that you almost have to actively will yourself to see the other side. If you're comfortable with the way things are and would rather not think about them, that's one thing. But it's clear that you are intellectually curious, so (not that you aren't trying already) you'll do yourself a good service to keep in mind that you really need to almost "force an open mind" if AC/anti-AC arguments are going to be valuable.


I mean, if I or another ACist so much as doesn't word something well it will turn into a 13 paragraph quote pyramid, which is fine if you're just trying to get to the bottom of what we were trying to say. But then when we make it clear you'll rebut it with the inane idea of no one owning the roads people drive on and there not being rules against drunk driving. That's just not the way humans behave, but you enter it into the discussion as if it's viable just because you said it. If you want to be semantical and nitty, you need to make your hypotheticals less sloppy. That's my biggest problem with what you do.


[ QUOTE ]
I own A.
Therefore I own anything produced by A.
B was produced by A.
Therefore I own B.
Not logically sound. Ask any Philosophy or Logic 101 professor. The problem is with the second statement. It is opinion. Basically like "if I own something then I should own anything it produces". It's a valid opinion, but not a provable deduction.

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I don't need a geek to write a textbook to know that I'm on to something.

Ultimately nothing is provable. Time preference rounds out why the "if I own something then I own anything it produces" is so sound. Since it can be logically demonstrated that regard for property rights encourages high time preference, eventually you have to be willing to say that which encourages high time preference is not necessarily better than that which hinders it if you want to say the reasoning is not necessarily sound.

If you're gonna hide behind "ultimately everything is subjective" every time it's handy, then discussing ideas doesn't mean a whole lot. It's like playing a basketball game to 11 and then when someone gets there you say "well that doesn't mean anything, now let's play to 15" and so on. Even if you don't want to consider it "objective" shouldn't you still go with what seems most logically sound? I just don't get it. Prove to me that living is better than dying. Ultimately you can't do that either.

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I suppose attempting to belittle you and accuse you of being insincere would make me a good person like you guys. Please don't start this BS again, you did it last time when you ran out of counter-arguments.

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Ya, you really stumped me!

(Actually I'm not sure which thread you're referring to. Chastity belt thread? Sklansky doesn't realize he's an ACist thread? I'm probably not gonna get into it, but I'm real curious to know when you think you may have stumped me. It should be a good insight into how you think.)

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I don't give a s--t about defending someone's property. I'm acting to stop him from hurting himself or someone else.

[/ QUOTE ]Persons' bodies are not property now??

[/ QUOTE ]I was talking about the road. If you look at that statement in context, then that should be completely obvious. That is, I don't care about defending the road.

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Yes, it was obvious that by 'property' you meant 'roads'. But by 'property' it should have been clear that I meant all of it (since they're intertwined). The reason drunk driving is a problem is not that you're increasingly likely to put a pot hole in the road. So when you responded by saying "I don't care about property" (referring literally to roads), it didn't make any sense, since I was also (and most directly) referring to the people. So that's what I was trying to call to your attention.

This is a good example of one of those things that just makes me scratch my head and wonder about you.


In response to what I would do if there was no rule against driving drunk:

What could I do? It's not my road.

But why would that road exist?

What would you do if someone insisted on eating at the fast food chain that serves poisonous beef? There isn't a good answer because the poison burger would not last long, so it's an artificial hypothetical. It's a problem the market solves and not one you need to worry about.

If poison burgers or authorized drunk driving would exist in the absence of government, then I would probably be a tyranist.


I didn't respond to the entirety of your post but I didn't deliberately ignore anything. If there's anything in particular you want a response to, let me know. (Or feel free to think I "ran out of counter-arguments" lol.)