Political Theory

Re: Why I don't believe in the non-aggression principle.

ToxicAssets — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:36:21 GMT

Well it was a military school, so you the only option was basically complying or going home.

But the thing is that when you eventually earned the right to drink a beer with the senior cadets it was rewarding because it meant you passed the test.

Or like when you apply for a job, say in a top tier Wall St investment bank, and you put on your suit and you shave and you get your hair cut and go on and do the whole 17 (!) painful interviews with the entire team scattered all over the globe, from the scumbag junior associate to the bigshot partner, and they test everything you've learned and make you all kinds of tricky questions, and then they eventually pick you.

Now you know you have earned their respect and you are ready to do a really badass job. Not like some jackass who was hired after an informal meeting with his boss at Mc Donald's. This dude won't give a fuck about his job or his boss or anything. He was signed in a fucking McDonald's table.

Re: Why I don't believe in the non-aggression principle.

Vítor — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:28:04 GMT

when you get to be senior and you can torture the new cadets

I have to strongly disagree on this.

In some portuguese universities there is still some non-sense traditions like this. I think they are a waste of time (must of activities are much less fun and rewarding that drinking beer in cafe with colleagues/friends) but since everything is optional - if someone forces something you can call the cops of course - it's ok by me.

When there is no choice, that us just bad.

Re: Why I don't believe in the non-aggression principle.

ToxicAssets — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:23:39 GMT

I believe that more and more people will educate themselves to both the waste and injustice of state-monopolized justice. Right now, the thinking of most people is believes religiously in centralized violence. They do not know how to think outside the box.

We libertarians produce alternative models that can potentionally convince people to reject our current state of affairs.

Most people believe and accept centralized violence by a given state because, given the alternatives they got to know through history, the situation isn't that bad.

I mean, of course if they thought they could shift to a society free from violence, most would take the deal. And they generally do migrate to more stable societies where there is rule of law.

But this whole "thinking outside the box thing" is very dangerous, and they will only start considering crazy talks about revolution when things get really bad.

What does mean reject the current state of affairs? Stop paying the IRS? Start firing at the Obama-drones flying over your property?

Well, that could work, but most likely it wouldn't.

I'm not saying that the current mode of state organization will persist forever, or that there will be no society where most services currently operated by government would be bought and sold in the traditional marketplace, and where violence and aggression are very marginal occurrences.

What I'm saying is that if it happens someday, it won't be due to the mass enlightenment induced by the ideological uprising of internet forum ideologues.

This is the common theme among many people here, and it's kinda silly. I mean, I get you are all in your late teens and early twenties, so you are more likely to embark in such fantasies, but somewhere around 25 reality should start to kick in.

You are missing one piece: our economic predictions of the future are VASTLY different from the mainstream and we believe we are right.

Yeah, but don't bet all your chips yet, and don't wait standing.

Large scale economic forecasts are too damn tricky.

Given that economists generally make almost random forecasts for the next year's GDP, I wouldn't give much credit for their exercises in long term futurology either.

Reality is very unpredictable.

There has been somewhat of an unsteady trend towards more personal freedom since the time of the pharaohs, but that's not enough to rule out the possibility that tomorrow some bio-weapon get "accidentally" released and 90% of mankind turns into flesh eating walkers or something, and the rest gets scattered in bands fighting for survival with all means necessary...

Re: Why I don't believe in the non-aggression principle.

ToxicAssets — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 16:33:49 GMT

Well, I don't think bullying is a bad thing.

I remember when I got to high school I was sent to the Navy academy in my home country.

And there you had a whole class of 200 high school seniors who were ranked above you and that you had to respect their orders within the military hierarchy (and call "sir" and stuff) and run all kinds of random errands form them.

And there were quite a few communication exchanges that were basically you being yelled at by at least half a dozen thuggish 19 year-olds, often on steroids (I was 14 years old and I didn't take any steroids).

And that was the easy part. They were actually allowed to administer physical punishment, so long as there were no unlawful body contact (like punching and stuff), or making you swalowing toxic stuff or do anything really dangerous or too degrading, everything was ok. And they would jump at any opportunity to make up creative forms of abuse. Stuff like doing 30 push-ups with your fists closed so that you hurt your knucles on irregular concrete surfaces was typical. And every now and then you would hear the rumour that somebody got waterboarded during the night. I don't know since I've never been.

I mean, they talk about "bullying being damaging" today, they don't have any idea of what kind of hell kids can endure.

And you wanna know what, I think all that was great. I had an awesome time. The funniest year was the first year, when you got under the pressure and you survive. And once you get past a somewhat long period of testing, you earn (some) respect from the seniors and you make friends out of most of them (while a few others keep being assholes for the whole year).

I mean, when you get to be senior and you can torture the new cadets, the whole thing is funny for a month or two and than it becomes boring and you get tired of that shit and you move on to other things. Some of my friends were kinda sadistic so they kept torturing the kids until graduation, but I thought it was kind of a waste of time after a while.

But the point is that, even though I understand not everyone has the same personality type and are able to deal with pressure the same way, yada yada yada, the thing is that you only true growth does not come without pain.

And this whole thing about creating a phony world without pain for kids is just making them a bunch of losers.

They think respect is a free gift to be given to anyone who doesn't deserve it. Real respect among real men needs to be earned through hardship. (Like that "iron price" thing from Game Thrones, when the viking dude gets back to his dad and his dad is all disapointed he was such a wuss, that scene was cool...)

Re: Why I don't believe in the non-aggression principle.

Vítor — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 16:02:04 GMT

Ahah, I know what you mean. There are actually studies that say that public schools are not boys friendly and favors girls (in Portugal at least).

My experience is that in the a medium time every power was equaled (9 to 14 years). Even 9th graders didn't do much to 5th graders because they had older brothers and friends. It goes to a point where a child can deduce that it's not worth it to engage in violence because you don't know the outcome or you have better things to do.

A saw a news report about how a NY private school solved the problem of the bullying and they had it right. They just explain to kids why bullying is bad and why it happens (everyone ignores the violence and don't condemn socially the aggressor).

I think the same thing should be taught to adults (lol). Why the state-bullying is bad and why it happens :)

Re: Why I don't believe in the non-aggression principle.

ToxicAssets — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 15:19:06 GMT

I think there is some confusion here, not sure what, because I got my self confuse too :)

For the sake for the argument, violence will never be stop just because it's not social accept, we are all potential murders.
Also, I think the original post got pretty much refuted on the second response.

Regarding the all variations of significance of words (violence) that's just waste of time. The good thing is that everyone can identify if something is violence or not in a real situation.
To stop someone drunk for doing something impulsive may or not bet violence and everyone will have an opinion. Which opinion I care the most - the two people involved. I do not dare a socialist approach to this problem (let just form a committee and settle this issue) because that would end up with telling everyone else - you are wrond with no legitamicy at all.
The other absurd case, when someone is killed at leaves a note saying that requested it (an analyses after it happened) I would say that this is violence, because I think it's violent to end a life (I assume a murder with a knife) but if it's just a calm death by oxygen deprivation (causes euphoria and it's painless) I would think it's not. An hurray for our human brain for being capable of percetion :)

Trying to define economic/political ideas in a strict logic process I thing it's as much crazy as using math for economics, you are just changing your formal language. We can understand reasoning and are able to detect when a good principle can not be applied. I don't think we can hope for more.

What is considered violence evolves.

Think of the current trend in process: the pussyfication of the middle class youth. I live in France but things look quite the same in the US as far as I know.

We got to a point where things like "school bullying" are considered violence.

When I was a kid, if someone was called a fat-ass or a faggot in school, nobody cared.

And if he went on and told adults that he was being called names, they would probably tell him that he should shut up and learn to defend himself from abuse.

Normally you would pick a fight with a kid, sometimes you win, others you loose, but the next day it would be all ok as long it remained between the kids and nobody went home crying for mom.

Even the shortest, uggliest, or weakest kid in the class or neighborhood would eventually be respected by his peers if he showed he was not a pussy.

Nowadays this kind of victim behavior is nurtured everywhere, and as a result you got a society of wimps and cowards who would lick somebody's balls to avoid entering in a fight.

Most kids nowadays look like chumps, they are fat and lazy and whining. There are even kids today who their parents and schools allow to dress like a fucking tranny, under the banner of diversity. Fuck that shit, kids need social pressure from other kids, otherwise they grow up to be complete fruit cakes.

And you risk getting in jail if you hit your 9 year old son because his talking "whatever" like one of these annoying valley girls.

That's what you get when you breed people in total abscence of (controlled) violence.

They say you can get retarded from taking too many beatings. That's probably true, but I'm sure that too few beatings aren't gonna be better.

Of course I'm talking mainly of male psychology and the role of violence in its development. Girls are somewhat different, but not that much.

Re: Why I don't believe in the non-aggression principle.

Charles Anthony — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 14:48:24 GMT

ToxicAssets:

Charles Anthony:
Dismantling the NAP as you imply is not a problem. The determination of What is aggression? is left up to real live arbitration just as it is in our current state of affairs.

Our libertarian identity stems from the fact that we want a market for such arbitration services.
Exactly. And if you carry on your reasoning just a bit further you will realize that such is precisely the case in the real world right now, everywhere. It has always been the case, and it will ever be.

The use of aggression and violence IS already subject to the laws of economics.

I agree and I understand your analysis completely!

ToxicAssets:
You cannot rule something out of existence by mere wishfulthinking. Just as much as you cannot creat wealth by decree. This kind of thinking is exactly what Thomas Sowell attacked in a Conflict of Visions and it really shows where the old left and the libertarians come together.

I disagree!

I believe that more and more people will educate themselves to both the waste and injustice of state-monopolized justice. Right now, the thinking of most people is believes religiously in centralized violence. They do not know how to think outside the box.

We libertarians produce alternative models that can potentionally convince people to reject our current state of affairs.

ToxicAssets:
As long as violence can be put to effective use by some operators, it will be the case. The best you can do is to prepare yourself for the real world, instead of complaining and bitching abouth things being so evil.

That is what we are doing.

You are missing one piece: our economic predictions of the future are VASTLY different from the mainstream and we believe we are right.

We commonly believe the state will collapse somehow. Thus, our models of competition in the markets for violence are worthy of study.

Re: Why I don't believe in the non-aggression principle.

Vítor — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 14:19:56 GMT

I think there is some confusion here, not sure what, because I got my self confuse too :)

For the sake for the argument, violence will never be stop just because it's not social accept, we are all potential murders.
Also, I think the original post got pretty much refuted on the second response.

Regarding the all variations of significance of words (violence) that's just waste of time. The good thing is that everyone can identify if something is violence or not in a real situation.
To stop someone drunk for doing something impulsive may or not bet violence and everyone will have an opinion. Which opinion I care the most - the two people involved. I do not dare a socialist approach to this problem (let just form a committee and settle this issue) because that would end up with telling everyone else - you are wrond with no legitamicy at all.
The other absurd case, when someone is killed at leaves a note saying that requested it (an analyses after it happened) I would say that this is violence, because I think it's violent to end a life (I assume a murder with a knife) but if it's just a calm death by oxygen deprivation (causes euphoria and it's painless) I would think it's not. An hurray for our human brain for being capable of percetion :)

Trying to define economic/political ideas in a strict logic process I thing it's as much crazy as using math for economics, you are just changing your formal language. We can understand reasoning and are able to detect when a good principle can not be applied. I don't think we can hope for more.

Re: Why I don't believe in the non-aggression principle.

ToxicAssets — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 10:16:48 GMT

The same can be said for any statement because every single word can be dismantled with the same one liner too.

I could not agree more. That's why I remain skeptic of slogans and maxims and the ideologues who abuse them.

Dismantling the NAP as you imply is not a problem. The determination of What is aggression? is left up to real live arbitration just as it is in our current state of affairs.

Our libertarian identity stems from the fact that we want a market for such arbitration services.

Exactly. And if you carry on your reasoning just a bit further you will realize that such is precisely the case in the real world right now, everywhere. It has always been the case, and it will ever be.

The use of aggression and violence IS already subject to the laws of economics.

There is scarcity, there are costs and benefits, there are tradeoffs and diminishing returns, and there are deals and trades being established and dissolved everywhere, from anarchical sub-Saharan Africa and Middle East to peaceful and stable Scandinavia, and all the things in between. They are not of the same nature of course, each region breeding its own market pattern of a successful schemes and tactics.

The market for violence and aggression, is perhaps the most ancient market in the world, as it predates humans and their ancestors. Strategic and economic uses of violence are observed in most other species, inside the species themselves and in their relations with each other.

And for most of our history, raw tribal violence has been the main exchange currency in transactions, with periodic episodes of organized political power monopolies controlling the wholesale offer and therefore the ultimate market price of violence.

These periods were called empires and civilizations. This happened whenever a very skilled class of political gangsters shared control of a vast territory, keeping the order as long as they were able to keep rival empires away and brutalize any insurgent movements soon enough.

These effective monopolies of political violence made the fixed costs of big league violence too expensive for other thuggish entrepreneurs to compete with them, and as a side effect the general use of raw violence to settle common affairs tended to diminish, at least while the elite class managed to rule.

Day to day affairs are thus settled by a variety of common rules which are preserved and evolved by tradition, creating the phenomenon of the rule of law.

But when technological innovations from the bottom and or exterior circumstances made the empire model of ruling eventually ineffective, these civilizations were absorbed or destroyed by opportunistic rival empires or collapsed again into anarchy and cheap forms political gangsterisms or both.

As a (very simplified) historical example of all that, think of the Roman elite projecting its power with a network of roads and governing outposts designed to quickly deploy its disciplinary legions throughout the empire problematic hinterlands, a model that proved very effective to control all Europe west from the Rhinelands, south of the Danube and most of Asia Minor and Northern Africa for hundreds of years.

As long as these elite kept control of things, civilization flourished, but when it collapsed due to its internal fights and demographic pressure from eastern barbarians migrations, the social fabric dismantled and most Europe plunged into a thousand years of gothic tribal backwardness as the Roman Church struggled to keep any achievement of old alive.

The western civilization concept of "free market" is just the perception of market phenomena where the price of overt violence is too high, and where there is a well established rule of law. Due to such circumstances, overt raw violence is seldom if ever applied. Most of the time it is indeed cheaper to get a divorce than to murder your wife/husband, or to get a job than to resort to stealing, but that has not always been the norm, nor it needs to be. But as long as deals are generally settled peacefully, less people die and useful things get destroyed, and more people get to work creating material prosperity. People are also less affraid and less protective of their wealth and lives, and that allow them to take more entreprenurial risks that on average pay off.

Those are the external beneficial effects of peace. Even the greatest moron in the world understand them. You don't need to write a pretentious book on ethics for people to get it.

But you cannot specify the market price for violence. That's the whole thing about market prices, they are not specified by anyone's desire, but by the overall complex economic computations going on in the economy.

You cannot say "let violence be dear", like that, by fiat. That's the flaw in libertarian logic. It's basically the same flaw that affected the braindead liberal left-wing pacifists from the sixties.

You cannot rule something out of existence by mere wishfulthinking. Just as much as you cannot creat wealth by decree. This kind of thinking is exactly what Thomas Sowell attacked in a Conflict of Visions and it really shows where the old left and the libertarians come together.

Reality differs from imaginationland insofar as it is fundamentally constrained by harsh and unfortunate facts, like scarcity.

Facts that, sometimes, leave violence as the only means to achieve certain ends.

As long as violence can be put to effective use by some operators, it will be the case. The best you can do is to prepare yourself for the real world, instead of complaining and bitching abouth things being so evil.

Re: Why I don't believe in the non-aggression principle.

Charles Anthony — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 03:35:21 GMT

ToxicAssets:
The NAP can be dismantled with a one-liner.

What is aggression?

Almost all forms of aggression cannot be specified beforehand as such.

The same can be said for any statement because every single word can be dismantled with the same one liner too.

Dismantling the NAP as you imply is not a problem. The determination of What is aggression? is left up to real live arbitration just as it is in our current state of affairs.

Our libertarian identity stems from the fact that we want a market for such arbitration services.

Re: Why I don't believe in the non-aggression principle.

shackleford — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 16:10:40 GMT

ToxicAssets:

The NAP can be dismantled with a one-liner.

What is aggression?

Almost all forms of aggression cannot be specified beforehand as such.

We conclude ex-post facto that certain forms of human interaction are aggressive and thus, perhaps, unethical.

So an "ethics principle" that shuns all forms of aggression is useless because it conveys zero a priori knowledge on what is to be considered aggression, and cannot be used to form judgements.

Aggression forms evolve with technology. From government side aggression, think of drone espionage and vaccines. From the private sector side, think of eletronic theft and derivatives scams.

You cannot forecast if a certain relationship is aggressive up until that relationship has occurred a bunch of times and the outcomes are somewhat understood, and it is now being used as a tool of intimidation and control.

There will always be economically interesting potentially aggressive options to the potential aggressor.

And you cannot rule out all "potentially aggressive" relationships, that is, relationships that can evolve into qualified aggression, because that would include all forms of relationships. Even a guy trying to pick up a girl has a remote probability to evolve into date rape.

The NAP is intelectually bankrupt nonsense.

Are you familiar with the concepts of theft, vandalism, and bodily harm?

Re: Why I don't believe in the non-aggression principle.

ToxicAssets — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 11:12:35 GMT

The NAP can be dismantled with a one-liner.

What is aggression?

Almost all forms of aggression cannot be specified beforehand as such.

We conclude ex-post facto that certain forms of human interaction are aggressive and thus, perhaps, unethical.

So an "ethics principle" that shuns all forms of aggression is useless because it conveys zero a priori knowledge on what is to be considered aggression, and cannot be used to form judgements.

Aggression forms evolve with technology. From government side aggression, think of drone espionage and vaccines. From the private sector side, think of eletronic theft and derivatives scams.

You cannot forecast if a certain relationship is aggressive up until that relationship has occurred a bunch of times and the outcomes are somewhat understood, and it is now being used as a tool of intimidation and control.

There will always be economically interesting potentially aggressive options to the potential aggressor.

And you cannot rule out all "potentially aggressive" relationships, that is, relationships that can evolve into qualified aggression, because that would include all forms of relationships. Even a guy trying to pick up a girl has a remote probability to evolve into date rape.

The NAP is intelectually bankrupt nonsense.

Re: Why I don't believe in the non-aggression principle.

Buzz Killington — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 08:24:30 GMT

Positive Agorist:
In a talk titled Libertarianism and Humility, Milton Friedman gave the following example. Suppose there is a man about to jump off a bridge in order to commit suicide. Of course, you try your hardest to persuade him not to, but suppose you couldn’t. Are you justified in using coercion to stop him?

If I couldn't convince him otherwise, his death would probably be a good thing.

Re: Why I don't believe in the non-aggression principle.

Charles Anthony — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 06:39:45 GMT

Positive Agorist:
In a talk titled Libertarianism and Humility, Milton Friedman gave the following example. Suppose there is a man about to jump off a bridge in order to commit suicide. Of course, you try your hardest to persuade him not to, but suppose you couldn’t. Are you justified in using coercion to stop him?

Just ask the owner of the bridge. The bridge is just a piece of property and the rule of law will be decided by the property owner.

You took this out of context yourself!

In the Anarchy, your private defense agency and the bridge-owner's property insurance will have the answer long before the suicide-guy even thinks of jumping over the bridge.

Re: Why I don't believe in the non-aggression principle.

gotlucky — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:47:39 GMT

FlyingAxe:

Right, well, the assumption is that being the first one to make a claim makes something your property (and that a particular form of a claim prevails over other forms). But what makes that true?

I'm not assuming this. In fact, I ended with:

gotlucky:

Sometimes claims are unreasonable. The relevant people can decide what are reasonable and unreasonable claims. If you follow the golden rule, just know that shit can bite you in the ass if you try and screw others out of their stuff. You might say, "I'm poor so I can take your stuff from you". Well, there is always someone poorer who can do the same thing to you. That and the guy you take stuff from might not be so happy. And of course, societies based on violating the golden rule seem to be shitty places to live in, unless of course you are the king. But not everyone can be king.

FlyingAxe:

Also (this is another, independent point), maybe I should say: I made the claim first. But my friend really needs that land; he needs it to survive. I need it for luxury (to enjoy the scenery). Therefore, he is justified over me in using it. I would like him to do the same to me. So, the ethic of reciprocity is: "You respect my claims if I have greater need than you, and I will respect yours."

It is your choice if you want to pardon a friend or a stranger who takes your property from you without your permission. Regarding "You respect my claims if I have greater need than you, and I will respect yours", that is not the ethic of reciprocity. You either claim something as your property or you don't. You might joinly own it with others. Two people might have an agreement where they freely share their property with each other or just give the rights entirely to the other. You can try and build it into the golden rule, but ultimately you can refine the golden rule right back down to, "Respect me and what's mine, and I'll respect you and what's yours." That is the purest form. Adding in stipulations needlessly confuses the issue, especially when you consider that people can and do break agreements.

Besides, your rule does not actually define property. Neither person actually owns the thing in question, as ownership entails the right of exclusion. If you don't have the right to exclude someone from your property, then you don't really own it. If they have the right to exclude you, then it is they who really owns it.