Topic: Intellectual Property - In All Fairness! - page 79. (Read 105875 times)

Well, I liked the quote anyway. It may not have addressed your comment directly, but it sure made a good point, albeit a sarcastic one perhaps. I'm not sure we've really ever had a "liberland", and so for you to say we couldn't survive long if one were to exist, would be assuming things not in evidence.

We may never get one, but I'll still try anyway. I might even be willing to meet some of you half way on some things. Unfortunately, there are too many people that like the thrill of power, and the urge to continually exercise it is an exciting but addicting drug with serious withdrawals symptoms, and so it would be unlikely to last very long. Like I've said in the past, you give an inch and they take a country mile.

Laws should exist solely to protect rights.

And that has fuck all to do with what I just said, re: everyone needing an unattainable level of knowledge and information to survive for more than an exceedingly short period in liberland.

Fred, here are two quotes from you.  Are they compatible?



"The end justifies the means" is an ethical choice - see Ethics.  There are several ethical choices available, but they will result in very different and probably incompatible societies.

In fact, to reply to your "... majority rules, personal liberty be damned", I do not consider that the law should exist so as to restrict the personal liberties of anyone.  I think the law should exist so as all people can equally enjoy a minimum set of personal liberties.  In other words, the raison d'etre for law is NOT to curtail liberty, but to CREATE it.

Regrettably, as I have said several times in this thread, I do think present-day lawmakers abuse their powers.

Thank you for the clear response.  Now (again, assuming we live in liberty-land): We have established that I am at liberty to defend myself from any perceived threat, AND you are at liberty to arm yourself with a (arbitrarily?) powerful weapon.  I perceive some weapons as a threat, whether loaded, pointed, handled or not.  Therefore, my liberty is incompatible with yours.  Therefore, you and I cannot be members of the same society.  In case I'm not explaining myself clearly: if there should happen to be some random conflict between us, violence would almost certainly ensue; and here I presume that the point of having a social ideology is so members of a society can co-exist peacefully.  Likewise any two people who have incompatible definitions of "threat" or "weapon" cannot be members of the same society.  If you disagree, please explain how can we co-exist, GIVEN that we enjoy the rights specified above AND that we are free to perceive things according as we see fit.

The "freakishly absurd" question is not rhetorical.  I think nukes in private hands is freakishly absurd and you don't; but you do think raindrop-triggered nukes are.  Hawker, for example, would probably say that allowing sales of semtex or other high explosives to private individuals is freakishly absurd.  How can we decide who to defend ourselves against if we happen to live in the same city?  Or do you seriously believe that the crackpot umbrella-maker should be allowed to carry out his proof-of-faith in his umbrellas in the middle of a crowded city?  I know it's absurd, but before you so dismiss it, bear in mind that people will sometimes take great personal risks in order to further their agenda - look at Lifelock CEO Todd Davis; look at suicide bombers; look at religious extremists; look at political extremists; look at organised criminals; look at anti-abortion extremists; look at homophobia; look at...... need I go on?

Edit: fixed links.

Let me ask the same question again for the third time as it goes the core of your idea.  Its almost as if you can't answer 

We have the capacity to organise.  We have to choose between regulation of fertiliser sales which will save lives and not regulating fertiliser sales which will result in a many deaths.  So we debate whether or not to do it.

On one side of the debate, for regulation, we have an advocate who says "Its nice to avoid being killed.  If you don't regulate fertiliser sales, thousands will die and you and your own family may be among them."

On the other side we have an advocate who says "If you regulate fertiliser sales, I lose my.... "

Lose what?  I don't get what you want to offer that is worth dying for?

Actually, you haven't.  What is the basis of your right to stop us?  Where does it come from?

I don't think "keep your hands off others and their property unless you have their permission" is such an unsound idea.

I just get a hankering for quotes sometimes, so bear with me. Notwithstanding, I still think they're apropos to the discussion at hand.

"Reason obeys itself; Ignorance submits to what is dictated to it" --Thomas Paine.

I reply with

and


I only skimmed some of them, but they seemed to be a waste of "You answer this!" "I already did, so no, you answer that!"
and it just seemed like a waste of time, so I didn't read enough to see what their ideas were. I kinda just stuck myself at the end of the conversation. Sorry about that.
If I were to guess that they are going for total lack of government regulation, and everything being controlled only by free-market capitalism? I don't in so much as I still believe there may be a lot of weird things that I may not have thought of that would make that idea totally crash and burn (money being replaced by addictive gene-modifying drugs, for instance  ). But I do think it's a fun thought experiment, and should some island be built, will be an interesting live experiment to watch. As I've mentioned, everything I have said here as examples I had pretty much pulled out of my ass while thinking about it right then. I love things like that, where I try to think through problems, and get stumbled up by others, and this libertyville is definitely an idea like that.
Honestly, though, my main concern with the SeaSteading idea is that it will become like Tor - a safe haven for digital piracy, drugs, and CP - and when other governments have had enough, they'll just blow it out of the water.

You're welcome. It's nothing personal. It's more a frustration with circular arguments presented by two particular individuals here. Your comments have been more balanced and well thought out.


Lots of arguments here are worthless - I'm not referring to yours. Honestly, the last ten (I didn't count them - just a wild guess) pages here are just absurd. Do you actually buy into the soundness of b2c and Fred's ideas?

Sorry, in short, we had a lot of colonists, by heir own choice, take huge risks to try something new. Many of them died of disease, starvation, and winter. In the end, they learned how to live here, humanity learned about a new continent, and established a new country. Progress.

That was all I meant, nothing more. And this was aimed specifically at the two styles of country discussion, where even if libertyville completely fails, their actions and experiments will no doubt enrich democracyville with at least things they'll know NOT to do, and at best things they couldn't have tried to do.


Thanks for being so clear about your preconceived notions of the people you are hoping to debate with. I don't know if anyone else actually proposed applying this to a currently existing block of "heavily populated civilized society" before I came here. I certainly would advise against doing that. I do think the SeaSteading idea, and what's being somewhat tried in parts Somalia, as interesting though, and likely only practical ways of testing this type of society.

More fallacies by these clowns. What works in frontiers isn't necessarily applicable to heavily populated civilized society.

But in this case it would often not be of choice, but from guys like Fred that want anyone to hold nukes.  But it's extraordinary that you think many people dying, and humanity losing all their knowledge, that somehow people will learn.  How can you learn from someone's mistakes if they're dead?  How can you remember all the things they knew?  Progress is generally defined by your ethical viewpoint - for example you might be utilitarian, in which case you consider it as progress when people become somehow happier overall, or it might be consequentialist, in which case you consider an increasing overall morality as an indicator of progress.  But this, where the path to progress involves many people dying... well, that's a new ethics to me.  Like I say, civilisation sure is taking a beating today.

What happened in America circa 1400-1500?  That was when the Americas was 'discovered' by Europe, right?  I don't know of any large group of people choosing paths of action that led to their deaths.  Please elaborate.

Never does he (bitcoin2cash) see the fallacy of his arguments. Never, never does he realize that his anecdotal stories are from life in this world, not his fabled world. Let's take a look:

b2c: I don't know anything about cars, but I seem to have fairly good luck with such and such brand.
OtherDude: Oh yeah?
b2c: yeah, I did my research and selected an ACME car.
OtherDude: that's good to know.
b2c: yep.
OtherDude: Must be tough, having to select between 10 different brands, where regulations have pretty much filtered out any really really badly made cars, huh?
b2c: Ummm, that doesn't have anything to do with it.
OtherDude: It has everything to do with it. Your stories do not apply to your fabled world.

If it is by their own choice, then yes.
See:
America, circa 1400-1500's

If there is no specific prohibition to possessing a weapon during mediation, you could arm yourself and would not have to relinquish that right. I'm not going to answer the "freakishly absurd" definition question, it's rhetorical. Any ideology should address all problems both real and perceived.

I've got a good quote for that one AyeYo:

"It is only needful to open, almost at random, a book on philosophy, politics, or history, to see how strongly this idea—the child of classical studies and the mother of socialism—is rooted in our country; that mankind is merely inert matter, receiving life, organization, morality, and wealth from power; or, rather, and still worse—that mankind  itself tends towards degradation, and is only arrested in its tendency by the mysterious hand of the legislator. Classical conventionalism shows us everywhere, behind  massive society, a hidden power, under the names of Law, or Legislator (or, by a mode of expression which refers to some person or persons of undisputed weight and authority, but not named), which moves, animates, enriches, and regenerates mankind..."

"...Happily, according to these writers, there are some men, termed governors and legislators, upon whom Heaven has bestowed opposite tendencies, not for their own sake only, but for the sake of the rest of the world. Whilst mankind tends to evil, they incline to good; whilst mankind is advancing towards darkness, they are aspiring to enlightenment; whilst mankind is drawn towards vice, they are attracted by virtue. And, this granted, they demand the assistance of force, by means of which they are to substitute their own tendencies for those of the human race."  --Frederic Bastiat.

Sounds awfully familiar, and this made mention only 150 years ago. I don't think much has changed since. You "high-and-mighties" have had your chance, time to back down and give liberty back to their rightful owners.

Yeah.  Something like that.  So is many people dying some kind of progress then?

I don't change my own brake fluid nor do I know anything about brakes yet I find quality workmanship just like everyone else, using the wisdom of crowds. If you don't read reviews or do research before you do business with someone, you deserve half of what you get.