What's so special about the NAP? - page 20.

Hawker

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Quote from: myrkul on June 23, 2012, 05:32:48 PM

Quote from: Hawker on June 23, 2012, 05:01:33 PM

1. That's childish. Every dispute that goes to a court hearing involves 2 people who both believe they are right and that the other side has attacked them. The same will be true in your utopia. So defence firms will be retained to fight against one another. The alternative is that you think little old ladies who are dispossessed have to do the fighting themselves.

With respect, you're a moron. I have repeatedly told you that we are not discussing courts. We are discussing arbitration, where each side has contractually agreed to abide by the decision of the arbiter.

Quote from: Hawker on June 23, 2012, 05:01:33 PM

2. In your scenario, the defence firms that gang up to destroy one firm that they consider to be a rogue are attacking that rogue. They are taking the law into their own hands killing people. The one they attack will have allies as well since there are 2 sides to every story. One side will win and that side will have the business/protection fees of the losing side. That creates a very strong market incentive to carry on fighting until one is left.

If I attack you, and you and your buddies fight back, are you defending, or attacking? It's the same thing, writ large.

1. Arbitration requires enforcement. What do you do when someone refuses to accept the outcome? Or even refuses to accept arbitration at all? To be useful, it has be have enforcement. Ultimately, that means a threat of violence. If your defence companies are not going to do the enforcement, who will?

2. Arguing over whether or not defence companies that gang up and destroy a smaller defence company are defending or attacking is semantics. They are applying violence. Their competitor will be destroyed and they will take over its territory/client base. Every dispute that results in violence will eliminate a defence company. You end up with 1. That one firm will be able to set whatever rate it wants and anyone who fails to pay will suffer.

The weird thing is that you are advocating this as better than what we have now. Courts that enforce decisions are always better than arbitration that cannot be enforced. A right to vote on your tax rate is always better than having someone win the right to take whatever money they want off you.

Why not offer something that is better than what we have now?

myrkul

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Quote from: Hawker on June 23, 2012, 05:01:33 PM

1. That's childish. Every dispute that goes to a court hearing involves 2 people who both believe they are right and that the other side has attacked them. The same will be true in your utopia. So defence firms will be retained to fight against one another. The alternative is that you think little old ladies who are dispossessed have to do the fighting themselves.

With respect, you're a moron. I have repeatedly told you that we are not discussing courts. We are discussing arbitration, where each side has contractually agreed to abide by the decision of the arbiter.

Quote from: Hawker on June 23, 2012, 05:01:33 PM

2. In your scenario, the defence firms that gang up to destroy one firm that they consider to be a rogue are attacking that rogue. They are taking the law into their own hands killing people. The one they attack will have allies as well since there are 2 sides to every story. One side will win and that side will have the business/protection fees of the losing side. That creates a very strong market incentive to carry on fighting until one is left.

If I attack you, and you and your buddies fight back, are you defending, or attacking? It's the same thing, writ large.

Hawker

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Quote from: myrkul on June 23, 2012, 02:40:24 PM

Quote from: Hawker on June 23, 2012, 09:31:01 AM

Two problems with that:
1. You have people paying for defence agencies but they don't actually get defended. If there is a free market, those agencies will go bust.
2. You have defence agencies that won't attack other defence agencies getting together against a rule breaker and it get "wiped off the map." That surely requires them to attack?

1. Defended against whom? If you initiate force, you are, by definition, not defending anything. You're attacking.
2. If I attack you, and you or your friends fight back, are you attacking, or are you defending? It's the same thing, writ large.

1. That's childish. Every dispute that goes to a court hearing involves 2 people who both believe they are right and that the other side has attacked them. The same will be true in your utopia. So defence firms will be retained to fight against one another. The alternative is that you think little old ladies who are dispossessed have to do the fighting themselves.
2. In your scenario, the defence firms that gang up to destroy one firm that they consider to be a rogue are attacking that rogue. They are taking the law into their own hands killing people. The one they attack will have allies as well since there are 2 sides to every story. One side will win and that side will have the business/protection fees of the losing side. That creates a very strong market incentive to carry on fighting until one is left.

myrkul

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Quote from: Hawker on June 23, 2012, 09:31:01 AM

Two problems with that:
1. You have people paying for defence agencies but they don't actually get defended. If there is a free market, those agencies will go bust.
2. You have defence agencies that won't attack other defence agencies getting together against a rule breaker and it get "wiped off the map." That surely requires them to attack?

1. Defended against whom? If you initiate force, you are, by definition, not defending anything. You're attacking.
2. If I attack you, and you or your friends fight back, are you attacking, or are you defending? It's the same thing, writ large.

Hawker

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Quote from: myrkul on June 23, 2012, 03:33:43 AM

Quote from: Hawker on June 23, 2012, 03:17:19 AM

Incorrect. Defence agencies will operate for profit. They can only get customers if they deliver and that will take violence. Each dispute that comes to violence will result in 1 winner and 1 defence agency that can't say it protects its customes so its goes bust.

I've said it before, and I will continue to say it until it sticks. Defense agencies do not attack other defense agencies. The first one that does gets wiped off the map by all the others. Defense agencies are for defense. If you have a dispute, you go to arbitration.

Two problems with that:
1. You have people paying for defence agencies but they don't actually get defended. If there is a free market, those agencies will go bust.
2. You have defence agencies that won't attack other defence agencies getting together against a rule breaker and it get "wiped off the map." That surely requires them to attack?

myrkul

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Quote from: Hawker on June 23, 2012, 03:17:19 AM

Incorrect. Defence agencies will operate for profit. They can only get customers if they deliver and that will take violence. Each dispute that comes to violence will result in 1 winner and 1 defence agency that can't say it protects its customes so its goes bust.

I've said it before, and I will continue to say it until it sticks. Defense agencies do not attack other defense agencies. The first one that does gets wiped off the map by all the others. Defense agencies are for defense. If you have a dispute, you go to arbitration.

Hawker

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Quote from: asdf on June 22, 2012, 08:17:44 PM

Quote from: Hawker on June 22, 2012, 08:05:20 AM

You've agreed with the logic. Even if you change your mind, the logic remains the same. In a market economy there is no place for a defence agency that does not protect you so they are bound not to ever arbitrate. Over a short period, the most powerful defence agency will move to being the only one as no other agency can defeat it.

The important thing here is that this final defence agency is not elected. Nor is it chosen by virtue of being an ethical organisation. It has superior fire-power so its your new government.

You forget that defense agencies, while not elected, are voluntarily paid for. People vote with their wallets in a free market. If a defense agency starts attacking other defense agencies, they will lose members and go broke. People will instead fund their competitors and everyone will stop doing business with them (suppliers, contractors, investors etc). How can they win when the entire mechanics of the market works against them?

Your conflating defense agencies with governments, who have the ability to fund themselves with force, hence are not accountable to the market. A defense agency is NOT a government, it's a profit seeking business. Big difference. War is very expensive and destructive for business.

Incorrect. Defence agencies will operate for profit. They can only get customers if they deliver and that will take violence. Each dispute that comes to violence will result in 1 winner and 1 defence agency that can't say it protects its customes so its goes bust.

The market will work and you will end up with 1.

"Customers" have to pay. No defence company means you can be killed. So people like Blackwater will be your "defence agency"

With tax, you get to vote on the people who enact it. With these gunmen, you basically pay up or die adn they choose how much you pay.

Nice idea isn't it?

asdf

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Quote from: Hawker on June 22, 2012, 08:05:20 AM

You've agreed with the logic. Even if you change your mind, the logic remains the same. In a market economy there is no place for a defence agency that does not protect you so they are bound not to ever arbitrate. Over a short period, the most powerful defence agency will move to being the only one as no other agency can defeat it.

The important thing here is that this final defence agency is not elected. Nor is it chosen by virtue of being an ethical organisation. It has superior fire-power so its your new government.

You forget that defense agencies, while not elected, are voluntarily paid for. People vote with their wallets in a free market. If a defense agency starts attacking other defense agencies, they will lose members and go broke. People will instead fund their competitors and everyone will stop doing business with them (suppliers, contractors, investors etc). How can they win when the entire mechanics of the market works against them?

Your conflating defense agencies with governments, who have the ability to fund themselves with force, hence are not accountable to the market. A defense agency is NOT a government, it's a profit seeking business. Big difference. War is very expensive and destructive for business.

FirstAscent

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Quote from: punningclan on June 22, 2012, 02:44:25 AM

Quote from: FirstAscent on June 21, 2012, 03:01:02 AM

Quote from: myrkul on June 21, 2012, 02:52:27 AM

The moral structure of the NAP is in the wording of the NAP: No person has the right to initiate force or fraud on another person.

Why do you need the NAP to state that? As I said several times before, the NAP is meaningless.

I'll ask you again, for about the tenth time over the past year: what if I hire a gang of thugs (oops - I mean security firm) who aren't into the NAP, but instead, the NNNAP. NNNAP stands for Not Necessarily Non Aggression Principle. This might be the wording of the NNNAP: No person has the right to stand within 20 feet of me when I am wearing black, regardless of where I am.

Can I just pick any law and say it's meaningless?

In NAP-Land, yes, you can make up your own laws. All the NAPsters here mistakenly assume NAP is the law of the land. They assume.

Quote

There's hardly a lack of precedent for one law or another being tested and over-ridden right through the entire circuit of courts and judges, and there are so many laws to choose from, can I please say just one of them is meaningless? In the European court there really are laws that prevent people from say hanging their washing out on one day versus another! Can you believe it? In my opinion those are very much an indication that a legal system needs to be pared down a tad, don't you think?

These are old laws that were on the books from over a hundred years ago, typically. What of it? Go ahead and say it's meaningless.

It's what you can do in NAP-Land that is the subject here.

Hawker

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Quote from: myrkul on June 22, 2012, 02:15:45 AM

Quote from: Hawker on June 22, 2012, 01:28:54 AM

We've established in another thread there would only be 1 defence agency.

Do you have a mouse in your pocket? 'cause I don't know who the hell "we" is, otherwise.

You making a claim does not equal establishing something.

You've agreed with the logic. Even if you change your mind, the logic remains the same. In a market economy there is no place for a defence agency that does not protect you so they are bound not to ever arbitrate. Over a short period, the most powerful defence agency will move to being the only one as no other agency can defeat it.

The important thing here is that this final defence agency is not elected. Nor is it chosen by virtue of being an ethical organisation. It has superior fire-power so its your new government.

punningclan

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Quote from: FirstAscent on June 21, 2012, 03:01:02 AM

Quote from: myrkul on June 21, 2012, 02:52:27 AM

The moral structure of the NAP is in the wording of the NAP: No person has the right to initiate force or fraud on another person.

Why do you need the NAP to state that? As I said several times before, the NAP is meaningless.

I'll ask you again, for about the tenth time over the past year: what if I hire a gang of thugs (oops - I mean security firm) who aren't into the NAP, but instead, the NNNAP. NNNAP stands for Not Necessarily Non Aggression Principle. This might be the wording of the NNNAP: No person has the right to stand within 20 feet of me when I am wearing black, regardless of where I am.

Can I just pick any law and say it's meaningless?

There's hardly a lack of precedent for one law or another being tested and over-ridden right through the entire circuit of courts and judges, and there are so many laws to choose from, can I please say just one of them is meaningless? In the European court there really are laws that prevent people from say hanging their washing out on one day versus another! Can you believe it? In my opinion those are very much an indication that a legal system needs to be pared down a tad, don't you think?

benjamindees

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The non-aggression principle is a logical quine. That's what's so special about it.

There are four options:

1) You agree with it and abide by it;
2) You agree with it and don't abide by it, in which case you have explicitly consented to it being forced upon you;
3) You don't agree with it but do abide by it, which is basically the same as #1;
4) You don't agree with it and don't abide by it, in which case eventually it will be forced upon you, and you will have implicitly consented to it.

So, regardless of which option you choose, the result is that either you abide by the NAP, or you consent to force being used to defend against you.

myrkul

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Quote from: Hawker on June 22, 2012, 01:28:54 AM

We've established in another thread there would only be 1 defence agency.

Do you have a mouse in your pocket? 'cause I don't know who the hell "we" is, otherwise.

You making a claim does not equal establishing something.

Hawker

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Quote from: myrkul on June 21, 2012, 08:03:41 PM

Quote from: punningclan on June 21, 2012, 07:47:31 PM

Aren't there NAP police?

Not as such, no. But anyone who cares to can enforce the non-aggression principle, simply by stepping up and defending someone they see being aggressed against. Defense agencies would fall under that as well, since they actually get paid to defend those who are being aggressed against.

We've established in another thread there would only be 1 defence agency. Please stop using the plural as it implies choice. In your NAP scenario, that choice would be a very short term thing and you end up with one "defence agency" that makes laws, enforces the laws and adjudicates on itself. I know you prefer to call this a "defence agency" but the rest of us would call it a government.

FirstAscent

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Quote from: myrkul on June 21, 2012, 08:03:41 PM

Quote from: punningclan on June 21, 2012, 07:47:31 PM

Aren't there NAP police?

Not as such, no. But anyone who cares to can force the non-aggression principle, simply by stepping up and defending someone they see being aggressed against. Defense agencies would fall under that as well, since they actually get paid to defend those who are being aggressed against.

What a joke. Nobody says NAP is the law of the land except those who want to say NAP is the law of the land. Others can and will say that something other than NAP is the law of the land.

Myrkul just doesn't get it. NAP is meaningless.

myrkul

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Quote from: punningclan on June 21, 2012, 07:47:31 PM

Aren't there NAP police?

Not as such, no. But anyone who cares to can enforce the non-aggression principle, simply by stepping up and defending someone they see being aggressed against. Defense agencies would fall under that as well, since they actually get paid to defend those who are being aggressed against.

punningclan

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Quote from: Hawker on June 21, 2012, 08:53:08 AM

Quote from: punningclan on June 21, 2012, 07:35:21 AM

Quote from: FirstAscent on June 17, 2012, 06:44:04 PM

Quote from: myrkul on June 17, 2012, 06:39:20 PM

Quote from: FirstAscent on June 17, 2012, 06:32:21 PM

Quote from: myrkul on June 17, 2012, 06:24:43 PM

Quote from: FirstAscent on June 17, 2012, 05:01:06 PM

The NAP either is enforced, in which case it's useful, but not just the NAP, or it's not enforced, in which case it is truly the NAP, but useless.

I'm not sure how you think the NAP is not enforceable. It's not pacifism, it's just not initiation of force. If you initiate force upon someone, they're perfectly justified in returning that force right back at you.

So? How does that accomplish anything? It basically says: "Hey, I can fight and injure you and steal from you, or I can choose not to, and you can return the favor, or not."

Wow. That's profound.

And yet... It's taken this long for people to come to that realization. Funny, huh?

As I said, it accomplishes nothing. If it accomplishes nothing, then it has no significance, and is the absence of any type of thing at all. At least you realize that.

Do a million laws accomplish anything other than an overly expensive legal system with overpaid lawyers benefiting from everyone's misfortune? In the end the judgement goes just one way or the other in general. Does it somehow incite some magic social glue to have an incoherent set of legislation that only a few can understand?

If Myrkul's explanation of the NAP is correct, a guy who has his own militia can take possession of an empty house. For example, your house when you are at work. When you come home, instead of calling of the police, you invite him to "arbitration." If he refuses, you tell all your friends that he is not a nice guy.

Not a great system. I prefer the million laws starting with the ones against breaking and entering.

Aren't there NAP police?

FirstAscent

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Quote from: myrkul on June 21, 2012, 04:01:46 PM

AnCap doesn't preclude a land registry.

Or two or three.

myrkul

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Quote from: fergalish on June 21, 2012, 03:24:16 PM

I'd love nothing better than to have the time to read this, but I don't. I downloaded it, but do you think you could summarise the critical points?

I've already hit on the major points, you honestly need to hear the whole argument. As for the time concern, that was why I suggested the audiobook.

Quote from: myrkul on June 21, 2012, 02:07:04 PM

Suppose he thinks its his house? Wouldn't it simply be better to ignore the NAP so at least there's no confusion - possession would equal ownership? Or alternatively introduce a complex legal system with a land registry where the true owner is listed. What exactly does NAP solve in this situation?

AnCap doesn't preclude a land registry. The NAP solves, in this case, who is in the "wrong". If he thinks it is his house, and the original possessor also thinks it is his house, we need only look at who was the aggressor. This will most likely turn out to be the person who moved in.

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Quote from: myrkul on June 21, 2012, 02:07:04 PM

You seem to want a rational basis for the NAP as a moral code. I suggest you read or listen to Universally Preferable Behavior, by Stefan Molyneux. You can find it, and his other books, for free here: www.freedomainradio.com/FreeBooks.aspx

I'd love nothing better than to have the time to read this, but I don't. I downloaded it, but do you think you could summarise the critical points?

Quote from: myrkul on June 21, 2012, 02:07:04 PM

Ahh... but he has harmed you. That was your house he broke into and took possession of. You are justified in evicting him by force, since he attempted to evict you by force.

Suppose he thinks its his house? Wouldn't it simply be better to ignore the NAP so at least there's no confusion - possession would equal ownership? Or alternatively introduce a complex legal system with a land registry where the true owner is listed. What exactly does NAP solve in this situation?

Topic: What's so special about the NAP? - page 20. (Read 20467 times)