Topic: What's so special about the NAP? - page 5. (Read 20467 times)

Also, consider that the victims will probably be members of a protection agency, which will have it's reputation staked on resolving the issue in a responsible manner; preventing activity X or seeking arbitration.

Remember, just because the government currently provides a service backed by force doesn't mean social needs can't be met without force.

As I said, there's not much any system can do when the majority of a society is bigoted against a particular group, and most will even enshrine that bigotry into law. Of the options I am aware of, NAP handles it best: You may hate them all you like, and you may refuse to deal with them, but you may not aggress against them.


False. Any person who sees slavery, and finds it abhorrent, can begin the process of ending that particular instantiation of it, in much the same way as it is handled today. The primary difference being that rather than calling the police, he will call his police. Keep in mind that prostitution itself will not be illegal, so if a john is asked by the woman to save her, there is nothing stopping him (aside from his prior knowledge that this was a slave brothel) from acting on it.


I think you are not factoring all risks that the shady repair man is taking, but you are also forgetting that the insurance company pays the damages to the pedestrian, as well as to the car, and all the driver pays is the premiums. The insurance agency would have significant incentive to do the tracking, and there are no laws mandating tire treads, or paint layer patterns. Only databases in law enforcement agencies hands, and there's no reason that those databases would disappear, only change hands to the protection agencies, or even the insurance agencies themselves.


Even if it was this random stranger?


How do you imagine the average Iraqi feels about that guy?

I'd ask who arbitrates when defense companies differ but we've been there before.   But, I'm glad you agree, NAP is not suitable for a bigoted society in which some persecuted minority wishes to peaceably live.  Now, the question is, is there any society (let's say, "country") where that is NOT the case?

Sorry, no I hadn't missed it, it slipped my mind. So a slave need merely request assistance and, in your words, "it will be granted".  Is that *guaranteed*?  Suppose a sex-slave says "help, get me out of here" to one of her pimp's clients?  But, more simply, until such a time as some wealthy and powerful philanthropic entity decides to eliminate slavery for no benefit of its own, a NAP society will tolerate slavery; again in the sense that it will not actively eliminate it. True or false?

1. No bills to pay if you hit-n-run.  See 3.
2. Yes they are tracked down thanks to a national obligatory system of registered license plates, paint layer patterns, national and international police forces and forensic departments, etc etc etc.  Without all this taxation-funded policing, the number of hit-n-runs could only increase.
3. Well if someone does a hit-n-run, they'll certainly be well disposed to pay more for repairs.  After all they'll be saving by not paying for insurance - it's merely sufficient for the shady garage repairs to cost less than the insurance for it to be economically rational for an individual to avoid insurance, to hit-n-run, and to go to shady garages for repairs.  And the repairs WILL cost less than the insurance, on average, simply because they will not have to pay compensation to victims.

Is that your opinion?  Or is that somehow, like Moonshadow thought, a non-arbitrary definition?  Just to be clear: I disagree, so what you say can only be your opinion. I genuinely would be scared shitless if I saw some random stranger walking down the road carrying an A.A.R.  I would *very definitely* consider it a direct threat to my safety, and would *very definitely* hit him very hard over the head with an iron bar if I thought I could do so safely.  I would then disarm him, and confiscate or destroy the weapons.  How exactly is this not consistent with the NAP, given that I genuinely perceive a threat to my safety?

OK, so you seem to have a fairly firm grasp of the concept. Why do you think it won't work?


No, you did not specify the society was bigoted and prejudiced, you said that one agency was. If society is bigoted, there's not much any system can do to stop it, and most will simply enshrine it in law. REMEMBER, in a NAP-respecting society, defense agencies do not fight each other, since they recognize that war is expensive, and peaceful solutions are cheaper. Arbitration is much preferable to losing men and materiel in conflict with another defense agency.


I said at the outset that I had no economic arguments to refute it. Did you miss that? NAP, however says that involuntary servitude is aggression, and if defense is requested for the slave - whoever requests it - it will be granted. Where the bill goes is for someone to decide after the fact.


1. All drivers (or at least most) will care about not paying their entire bill when they have an accident, and buy insurance.
2. Most drivers will not hit-and-run, and those that do can be tracked down. Happens all the time, today.
3. Most garage mechanics will require cash or insurance up-front, and the shady ones are liable to be more expensive.


I skipped it, because it was not directly addressed to me, and there were several questions which were. If you'd like, I can address it now, however.


Someone walking along the road with an assault rifle is not an immediate threat. Someone pointing an assault rifle at you is. Unless MoonShadow is actively aiming the assault rifle at them, no, they would not be justified in immediately, violently defending themselves against him.

I read it. "A & B, in conflict, choose C & D to select E who decides." You still can't see the problem. Forget it.

Correct. Are defense companies somehow impervious to one another? When RedDefense moves to violence against a subscriber of BrownDefense who has aggressed a RedHead, who defends RedDefense from (the much stronger) BrownDefense who will, of course, want to demonstrate how willing they are to defend their clientele.  REMEMBER, the society is bigoted and prejudiced against redheads; the brownheads would clap and cheer at the sight of redheads and redhead-lovers being burned at the stake or driven from society.

Well, that's not really free market forces at work there, is it?  That's human compassion - the defense companies who, out of compassion, won't do business with the (wealthy) pimp, and the defense companies who, at their own expense, out of compassion and even against the wishes of their single male clients, will rescue the sex-slaves.  Try to explain with purely rational economic arguments, how purely economic forces in a purely free market will liberate slaves who have utterly no economic or pyhsical/military power.  Human compassion is not economically productive - that's why there are sweatshops, they *are* economically productive.  If you eliminate regulation of sweatshops and institute a market which heavily relies on compassion, the sweatshops will enormously multiply.  Then when you have explained that, please explain why private defense companies, or wealthy philanthropists, or popular social movements have not worked together to eliminate slavery in the admittedly many cases where government regulation and violence has indeed proved itself inadequate.

You didn't see the "[/sarcasm]", did you?  You are assuming: 1. All drivers will care about pedestrians and pay for insurance.  2. All drivers will not hit-n-run. 3. All garage mechanics will refuse to repair damaged cars unless the owner can somehow prove that any victims of the incident have been adequately compensated (and that has to be ALL garage mechanics - even a single shady dealer will make a fortune from all the people desperate to replace their damaged fenders/bumpers).
Correct me: are these your assumptions?

I notice you avoided the question of automatic assault rifles with glaring subtlety.

Remember those forms you filled out when you got hired at the factory, requiring you to declare your tax debt? All you have to do is tell them you don't have any, and they won't take out the taxes. It's surprisingly easy.

Well you are drifting off into an alternate reality where factory payrolls don't deduct taxes and I am drifting off to the pub. The NAP seems a lot less sinister today since it means you respect other people's existing rights. 

It means he does not have the taxes deducted from his salary, or avoids work where they take taxes out automatically, does not, if he can avoid it, send his children to the local school, and otherwise lives and works counter-economically.

Yup.  The normal stuff Joe Sixpack does.  Working, taxes deducted from his salary, kids going to the local school and so on.  Calling himself an "agorist" doesn't mean much.

Sorry, forgot to take into account how much of your head is granite. Let me highlight the things I meant:

Wow.  Very much a minority thing then if it excludes "normal" families.

Since you apparently didn't read the paragraph I wrote explaining that answer, let me rephrase it:

If they can't agree on who to pick to decide their case, they each individually, pick someone they trust to decide the case. Then these two people, who have no connection to the case except that they were selected by the parties involved, select a final arbiter. Compare it to each side picking an attorney and then the attorneys picking the judge.


Uh.... RedDefense. They are the defense company, remember?


No, what I am saying is that a sex slavery business will not be viewed as a legitimate one, worthy of defense. Should someone decide to liberate the slaves in there, likely, agents of the local defense agencies will assist them. And as to the slave not getting any help, she doesn't get any help in the current system unless someone finds out about it, either, does she?


Your response doesn't even connect rationally to mine. If crumple zones, as you say, do protect pedestrians, cars with them will cause less damage when they strike a pedestrian. This, in turn, will cause lower costs to insurance companies when such an accident happens. In turn, cars with those safety features will have lower insurance rates. This will result in a market incentive to drive in a car with pedestrian-saving crumple zones.



And as I said, being an agorist means, as much as possible, not doing those things.

And as I said to myrkul, how does that help if you work in a factory?  You are paying taxes; your kids go to a local school; you will be taken to state courts if there is a dispute with you.  What does calling yourself an agorist mean to you?

How did I not know about that yet? That is awesome.

Because libertarians think the right to possess "private property" is written in the stars - if you think "all property is theft" then your opinion goes against what is written in the stars and your opinion is somehow... fundamentally... universally... wrong.  If, as a NAPster, you happen to disagree with the fundamental tenets of libertarianism, then you're out of luck. In fact, if you're anyone, and you happen to disagree with the geographically prevailing opinions of what is right or wrong, you're out of luck.

See how Myrul replied to me: he says if two conflicting parties can't agree to a court of arbitration, then they resolve their conflict by agreeing to a court of arbitration.  Silly me, why didn't I think of that huh. [/sarcasm].  In case you can't believe someone could be so self-contradictory in a single sentence, here's the quote:
Myrkul, I actually wrote out a reply to this, but then erased it. See if you can figure out what my reply might have been, and then reply to it please. Then see how the discussion is going and do another iteration. If you still can't see the problem, then forget it.


Who caters to the defense of RedDefense, in a city where 90% of the people (including the big, muscular, well-armed and well-funded staff of BrownDefense, BlackDefense and BlondDefense) are prejudiced against red hair?

I understand, of course - it's difficult to think of all possibilities. So, what you're saying is, all a pretty slave needs is enough freedom, by running away perhaps, to get out of her shackles and find enough money to pay a defense contractor who will beat up her pimp and his defense contractor; until then the NAP society will accept slavery in the sense that it will do nothing to stop it?

Because suddenly, all drivers will voluntarily pay money to protect other random people, any driver colliding with a pedestrian will not do a hit-n-run, and all garage mechanics will voluntarily sign up to an ethical code of conduct and refuse to do business with, or accept money from, anyone who arrives with a suspicious pedestrian-shaped hole in their car? [/sarcasm]  [or... maybe... unslash-sarcasm... that *is* what the pro-NAPs think would happen?]

This completely ignores the fact that, for some people, there will be no fear of reprisal, and that's implicit, if not explicit, in the system I described.

Can anyone answer my question above regarding Moonshadow's post?  Briefly: Moonshadow thinks it's ok for people to walk around with automatic assault rifles.  Suppose another pro-NAP individual perceived this as an immediate threat of violence.  Would he be justified in immediately, violently, defending himself against Moonshadow? The presumption is that they happen to encounter each other under circumstances in which automatic assault rifles are neither explicitly permitted nor banned - there are no rules regarding them.

A last question for the NAPsters - I'm sure it must seem to you that I'm as stubborn and/or stupid as a bowl of thick porridge and couldn't see the light of libertarianism if it were shining from my own nose; just as you seem to me - you couldn't see the inherent problems even if you got sucked right into the black hole of libertarianism.  However, do you feel just as addicted to replying to my stupid posts, as I feel to yours?  I try... I try... I try... to stop replying, and I just can't. [cries]

Being an agorist means you create and fund replacements for government services, like judge.me

True, you have to suit deeds to words, or the words don't mean much.

I did.  It strikes me as laughable.  Lets say you are working in a factory and your wife works in a school.  What does announcing you are an agorist mean?  Not much really.

...you didn't actually read anything on agorism, did you?

I'm happy to wait that one out.  As far as I can see, your ideal is to be a model citizen and as such you will end up paying taxes to support the existing system.  At some point, you might take an interest in getting value for money for those taxes as well as planning for the day the state withers away.