First Bass posted:

Tezzor posted:

Your definition of aggression and the initiation of force is incoherent. If I jump you and beat you up to take your wallet, then clearly I have initiated force. If I mug you at gunpoint instead? Well, unless I pull the trigger, I haven't initiated force, I've initiated the threat of force, which is not the same thing, yet probably exists under your definition of aggression. Let's get more abstract. If break into your home while you aren't there and steal your TV I haven't initiated force against you, I've initiated force against your property, and neither used nor threatened any violence against a human. It is your property not because you are currently holding or using it, or inherently because you personally have the ability to stop me and all other comers, but because nebulous laws say so, and those laws are based upon the credible threat of force to maintain your ownership of property.

Now, let's say that instead of breaking into your home I simply enter through an unlocked door and steal your stuff. Is this force? I haven't used any violence or threats of violence against a person or even an inanimate object. What if instead of entering your home to steal, I simply enter your home and hang out, perhaps leaving you fair market price for whatever electricity and snacks I consume? Is it force because I entered an imaginary set of coordinates without your permission? Why do I need your permission? That coordinate range is merely yours by threat of force! What about if instead of crossing the cursed threshold, I simply steal something of yours that is not within the delineated confines of your home, such as a hose or a lawn flamingo? What about something not on your property, like your car parked on the street or your bicycle at the supermarket?

Here's the big one: What about instead of your home, bike, lawn gnome, wallet, or whatever, we're talking about your factory. You do not physically hold that factory. It is not a part of your body. You barely spend any time in it anymore, certainly no more than any one of the 100 workers there. Without those workers it is just a big warehouse draining you of rent and utility money. (That's an interesting question, too. If you stop paying your rent, aren't the men from the bank/police who come to take it away the ones initiating force? All you did was totally passively and nonviolently stop mailing checks.) The workers decide that they want to strike and organize a sit-in. Aren't you initiating force in having them removed? What about if they decide they will simply cut you out of the process altogether, running the factory themselves and selling the products without your input or benefit? What will you do other than initiate force by calling the agents of state violence?

The reason why these all sound like insane rules to bind vampires is because they are. Sometimes the initiation of force is good and sometimes it is not. Absolutism leads to absurdity.

Cockmaster posted:

As I understand, the stated Libertarian position on such matters is that private charities would end up serving as a worthy stand-in for state services - that if the mean old tax man wasn't bleeding them dry, people would happily donate the same amount of money to charity. Because it's not as though there's a major mismatch between what tugs at people's heartstrings and what society needs.

jrodefeld posted:

It's only a government if it ceases to be voluntary. If a community chooses to contract with a security provider and every member of the community chooses to pay for collective defense, this is not anything close to a State. Of course every person could hire a private security agency to defend only their property but this would be very inefficient. It is much more likely that people will choose to come together in large groups and hire one defense agency to provide security for their neighborhood.

jrodefeld posted:

A State is defined not just by force but by monopoly. If a private security firm is doing a lousy job at protecting the property in a specific neighborhood, like for example there were multiple robberies in a month, then you could fire that security agency and hire a different agency to defend your property and keep you safe.

jrodefeld posted:

In a covenant community, all rules are being set by private property owners in a voluntary manner. Acting in a manner counter to the rules of the covenant would therefore be a property rights violation.

jrodefeld posted:

The anarchist society would become a beautiful tapestry of different experiments in social order and organization. Each community will develop differently based on their values. People will have an endless variety of choices of where to live based on their values and cultural characteristics.

RuanGacho posted:

I tried a thought experiment.


I... think it worked?

Obdicut posted:

Okay. Do you understand that there are boom and bust cycles in England before there was a Bank of England or any state bank in England? And do you understand that, after its nationalization, England had fewer boom-bust cycles than before that time?

I know that it's a thing with Libertarians to only look at the US, but if you're talking about central banking you should really be talking about the Bank of England.

jrodefeld posted:

There was a reason why, as you noted, the State and the Law is needed to uphold segregation and Apartheid systems.

CrazyTolradi posted:

We could merely undercut their price for a time, as we would have more resources and last long in a price war, wait for them to fall over and just return to the previous price once again.

Socrates16 posted:

What about SOPA? CISPA?

Socrates16 posted:

They're examples to a broader point I was making about how politicians make terrible laws about everything.

DrProsek posted:

Yo just a heads up that I want everyone to use the libertarian definition of the word "Negroid" in this thread, which as we all know means "to fart into a pie that is topped with whipped cream". This is in addition to the libertarian definition of "force", "aggression", "pug", etc

Socrates16 posted:

Would you all support government regulation of SA, then?

Socrates16 posted:

Ronald Reagan ballooned fedgov spending. Personally, I think tax rates are irrelevant on a federal level because of the government's printing press and small government folks are not focusing on the important issues by talking about it, but that's kind of a complicated issue that is a bit O/T.

Badera posted:

Hey Socrates, the guy in your avatar said this: