Topic: Seriously, though, how would a libertarian society address global warming? - page 12. (Read 30176 times)

I dare you to find anywhere where I said extinct. Get back to me whenever.

You can't say you like owls, and wolves, and whales, and ants, and HIV viruses and then say its OK to make species extinct.  If someone is doing something that affects a species survival, society has a duty to stop them.

The ethics card stops at humans. If you include other species, then you can divide and conquer anybody because of the flora and fauna you might find on their property. Sounds like we have a land grab about to commence. Nice... where will it stop I wonder?

By the way, I do like owls, and wolves, and whales, and ants, and HIV viruses too. I'll probably just leave them to their business. Just stay out of my back yard. Thanks.

Actually, that was my point. The value of the environment, it's ecosystems, etc is separate from an emotional attachment to it. Learn about the value of the environment and its ecosystems, the services they provide, and then reformulate your arguments such that they don't sound like they've been written by one who is ignorant of those values and services.

Also, you might want to study ethics while you're at it.

Containment defines ownership? Well, I suppose I could buy the road that your property has access to, since you're in favor of private roads. Then I could buy the properties on both sides of your land and behind you. Then I could build a wall around your property. And I'm assuming that you haven't yet claimed the air above your property because you haven't built a bubble over your property, so if you haven't claimed that air, I'll just claim it, and then I can engage in construction in that space and build a roof over your property as well.

Guess what? I've just contained you - therefore I get to say I own you. Now what were you saying about owning a whale? Oh, I see - it's beneath you on the scale of sentience. Like I said, study ethics.

Now, as for you owning insects on your property, I won't play the ethics card there. But I will point out your ignorance with regard to the complexities of ecosystems. Recall the post I made about wolves, trophic cascades and riparian zones? Either you do, or you decided it wasn't convenient to your belief system. Better to remain naive than to be inconvenienced by knowledge.

Are you familiar with the spotted owl and the controversy surrounding it? I'm quite certain you don't understand what the purpose of saving the spotted owl is, based on your general remarks. Or do you?

Genius. You find the only potentially speculative comment regarding an emotional state, and you attack it. You don't actually consider my logic or reasoning, but attack a comment on feelings and emotions. Perfect. Why are we having this conversation?

A tire's rating and looks are two separate matters altogether, which was my entire point. An emotion is an attitude about a specific thing (an indisputable object due to it's existence), because the objects is a "certain way". I'm merely saying your personal feelings about the disposition of my property should have no legal effect on the use of my property. If you don't like how I use my property, you don't get to take it from me just because you feel that way. I could do the same to you, but for different reasons. Where does one draw the line? I say it is at the edge of my property, period.

Emotionally? As usual, you're being naive. It's analogous to you being informed that you had better put tires on your car that are rated for its weight, and you accusing the guy making that recommendation that he just likes the way the tires look.

The less you know, the more cool your ideas look. And the arguments against your ideas must just be emotional. You've said some very strange things in this forum.

Without that "convenience" you have misery, confusion, chaos and ultimately death due to war. It isn't just convenient for me. It's convenient for everybody. I certainly am not the chief architect of that belief and I certainly won't be the last.


Sure I can own a whale. What's so hard about that? In the case of enforcement, and if I'm capable, that'd be me. If I need assistance in securing my whale, I might employ somebody else to help me. Wow, is it really that difficult?


Maybe the riverbed or the borders of the river, but maybe not all of the water flowing by/thru per se. It would depend on who's downstream of me. Another edge case I suppose, but not impossible to envision.


Lemme guess, to the point it emotionally inconveniences you right? I look at it this way: unless whatever you do specifically brings harm to my property thru some physical force (as forcefully applied to me and the things embordered within my land), it's merely my opinion that your use of your property sucks, and I can choose to not like it.

Notwithstanding that emotional feeling, if my property remains uneffected physically, there shouldn't be anything legal I would be able to do about it. On the other hand if you pollute my land, trespass my land, or effectuate specific physical changes in my property, you just might have something to worry about.

Sounds like you're trying to impose a human construct (the notion of property rights) on things because it's convenient for your beliefs.

You can own a whale? Really? Why is that? Wait, let me see - it's because you believe you have that right. Who enforces that right?

That river in your backyard - by your logic, you can contain it (create a dam), and thus you own the water in the river. Is that acceptable?

To be clear, I understand the necessity of property rights, and believe in them. To a point.

Air, unless contained, no. Water, unless contained, no. Invertebrates, fish, whales, migratory animals? They're all possessable unless they aren't yet. I'm not sure if you understood my meaning. To own something you have to be able to identify it and contain it for it to become property. If you can't do those things, then it's likely unoccupied or abandoned for now, but could be obtained in the future. And no I don't qualify a wild animal as having a "home", at least not in the legal sense. That would imply they have property rights. They don't. Humans have property rights.


Yes one should be careful in one's environment. However, my use of my property is exclusive to me, and you have no greater right to tell me what I can do on my land any more than I can dictate to you what you can do on yours. That's the whole premise of property. It derives from the latin word 'proprius', or one's own. If I can't do what I want on my property because you say I can't, my property ceases to be mine and becomes yours. Of course, I could no doubt do the same to you. Do that back and forth a few times and you've got yourself a war/feud. Not interested.

Air. Water. Moisture. Invertebrates. Fish. Whales. Migratory animals. Eroded soil. Soil in the rivers. Heck, rivers (but I said that when I said water). Oceans (it's like air). Aquifers (it's water, you know). The negative space in caves (air, you know). Birds (free as a bird?). Heck, let's just say wild animals. Of course, now we need to acknowledge that they are beings, and by extension, we need to acknowledge their homes, which is the air, sea and ground.

Ecosystems.

Ah! Ecosystems are like air! They move around, they change, and what happens over here affects over there - just like air, because it mixes.

We need air. That's just plain fucking obvious. But do we need ecosystems? Ummm, they're really complex. Yeah, so unless one makes the effort to understand them, maybe one should be careful about who has what rights to change them.

That would be possible if you could bottle it to the exclusion of others. An air compressor does this. The air in your house might also qualify. To just verbally claim something as yours, doesn't suffice. There would have to be a way to distinguish your physical property as being identified as specifically yours. That's pretty hard to do with air. The same could be said for the moon, the stars, and a number of other things that are hard to reach, contain, label or identify in some manner.

Even highly trafficked roads/byways/paths are hard to identify as owned even when the road is easily identifiable and possessible as real estate. Temporary occupancy and abandonment in this way is similar to the way we breathe air. You inhale it, and while it's in your lungs, it's exclusively your property; after you exhale it, the air is abandoned, and thus available for others to use again.

However, were you to spuriously claim ownership one day to either the air or the road, I don't think that would be justifiable, since where you were freely able to breathe the day before, or travel on a specific road, now you cannot without trespass or theft. Seems to me to be a bit of a paradox.

I CLAIM ALL AIR IN THE NAME OF EXPLODICLE!

There is no point in stating it's impossible. I will state that it's highly unlikely. I'll let you refute that as long as you address other points and questions I've raised in the past few posts.

Are you saying it's impossible? I'll refute that argument if you wish to make it.

Then try and detail a path to achieving that. But even so, you're failing to address a lot of issues.

Not really. I'm not saying it's cheap. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying it's likely. I'm saying we should do it.

Did you see me make a post advocating non-slavery recently? If I had, I might be inclined to explore the idea further. Your request is akin to me suggesting you demonstrate how we can colonize the moons of Jupiter this century, which is something I would only ask of you if you had been incessantly saying we should colonize the moons of Jupiter this century.

You have incessantly been saying that we should make everything privately owned. My request of you is justified.

Show me how we get to non-slavery from slavery then weigh the pros and cons of it. Oddly enough, let's not mention justice at all.

Oh for crying out loud. Stop it with that. You honestly don't know enough about the environment, ecosystems, the oceans, human behavior, or the events that have transpired over the last 40,000 years to slap your ideology on it and call it solved. Furthermore, we live in this world, not your fabled world where we just make everything privately owned.

Read this book: Valuing the Earth. One of the contributors is Garrett Hardin, the author of The Tragedy of the Commons.

Note: Show your mettle. Write a clear path demonstrating how everything can become privately owned given the state of today's world. Then start weighing the pros and cons of your solution, assuming you've demonstrated how it can be achieved, after you've educated yourself more thoroughly in a number of subjects.

And while you're at it, consider these questions. What was the limiting factor to deep sea fishing 150 years ago? What is the limiting factor today? How does the tragedy of the commons apply? How does private ownership address these issues? How is this problem analogous to other problems?

Tragedy of the commons? Get rid of the commons. Make everything privately owned. Problem solved.