Social experimentation

[JonnyBGood]

Stated below are my reasons for deciding absurdism is the only enjoyable philosophy.

Everything else is either too boring or too shit.

"Do you, personally, support the idea that any individual or group of individuals should be free to form any society they wish?"

I think most of us, initially at least, would answer yes to this question. However I find it impossible to actually define what I mean. Many people would say that it's a fine question to answer "yes" to in the abstract but in actualisation it's fantastically difficult to express yourself precisely over this issue. In my opinion this is the essential question of civilisation, are we free to make of it what we want?

Difficulties inevitably spring up though. Firstly you have the problem of property. I see this as containing two main areas, can anyone have a right to land and if the answer to this is no do you have the right to remove them from the land. I've recently started thinking about this in the most basic possible terms in order to avoid over-complicating everything to the point where we might as well be asking how many grains of sand constitute a pile (four by the way). My concept of rights, similarly to most people's, has many holes in it. I have tried to to eliminate these by stating the two most basic rights I can think of. Everyone has the right to be free from harm by other individuals and everyone has the right to pursue happiness.

The first one implies that you cannot kill, injure or steal from other people. One essential function of society is to prevent people from doing these things to others. The second one implies that you are free to become more than you currently are. This means that you have the right to pursue knowledge and the right to own property (the physical and the mental, the spiritual can be included under the mental). To try and understand what I am talking about imagine an infinitely long piece of rope with a middle point. Upwards is the achievement of happiness. Downwards is inflicting harm. My concept of rights means nobody can push you down and you are free to move upwards.

This has been a digression (albeit a necessary one so you understand what I am arguing for) from the main point though. Can you own property is therefore answered in the positive, rendering the second question irrelevant it seems. But it's not that simple is it? At some point in time it's quite valid to point out that before people nobody owned land (I mean on earth not in the totality of the universe). Therefore there was obviously a point (or a gradual progression) between the time that a piece of land wasn't owned and the time it was owned. We now encounter the question of whether or not it was right for our initial ancestors to assert their right to own a piece of land. If you answer no I'd advise you to **** back off under that algae-covered rock you crawled out from underneath. Even the idea of tribes hunting on a huge savannah implies collective ownership of land (similar in concept, if not in scale, or depth of technicalities to your parents owning their house jointly).

So I'm okay (not sure about you) with people owning land, and taking it when there was nothing or practically nothing (if you land on mars and declare it yours and then do nothing with it I'm not going to consider your property rights any more valid than if I asserted my right to own the pacific ocean). Obviously then the question of what "doing something with it" consists of. Primarily it's living there, clearly the fact you're there shows you're doing something with it. As well as this I'd include using it to produce something, this includes such diverse areas as growing bananas or refining motor-oil or building cars.

Historically this means that all unprovoked invasions were morally wrong. It is wrong to kill someone and take their land. We seem to have taken a fair while to get to this rather obvious conclusion. However I was never really sure whether it was the right one or not so **** you. We now return to the second part of the initial question, whether or not it's then right to remove people from that land. My answer would be yes assuming they were either the transgressors or supported the transgressors (I don't mean yelling "damn indians" on the streets of london in 1750, I mean providing the transgressors with something that enabled them to remove people from their land. No matter how long you yell on the street nothing is necessarily going to happen.) If they happened to be born 200 years down the line expecting them to acknowledge what can effectively be called original sin is a bit ****ing stupid.

So if you own the land you're free to conduct a social experiment on it presuming it doesn't lie in conflict with the stated rights which everyone is entitled to. However what's the point then? If these are the laws and the only laws then what is the point of a new government? The only things we seem to require are a police force and law courts(which I've decided will be supported by taxes at a rate set by the combined votes of everyone, one person votes for 1%, one votes for 2% it's set at 1.5%). If people choose not to create a force capable of enforcing the laws and prefer to be vigilantes so be it. We still have a second difficulty though. Who are the police officers and who are the judges? They will be chosen based on their a) volunteering b) passing a test concerning the basic system of rights and c) demonstrating suitable expertise (no point having a quadriplegic police officer). The test will be decided by everyone agreeing on it.

We seem to have reached an impasse. The conclusion I'm staring at would indicate that there any social experimentation is wrong. A tyranny where the tyrant has the right to execute any citizen would be ridiculous. If the tyrant kills the citizen and he/she accepts then it's suicide, if he/she doesn't accept it's murder. Perhaps the word wrong is unsuited. Maybe "meaningless" would be a better choice?

So in conclusion there is one right way for society to work and an infinite number of incorrect ways. Social experimentation is morally wrong due to the fact that any deviation from the one right way is morally wrong. The system has already given you freedom, asking for more is meaningless. Whatever you desire you're already free to pursue.

[IncubusGod]

Erm...

How long did it take you to write that? Interesting points but Im not sure about your conclusion. Instead of critique-ing it (which would need a long long post) I'll just say that boy have you thought that one out.

[Dante Hicks]

You seem to have avoided the bit about justifying land ownership as far as I can see.

Yes, people have had notions of collective "ownership" (I think control is probably a more accurate term but it doesn't matter) for ages. We could probably, if we had enough anthropological data find the right original "owners" of all land in the world.

If we look at the UK, most property ownership currently in place seems to go back to (in one form or another) to William the Conqueror (who declared himself owner of Britain or something). But he obviously "stole" (if that's meaningful) from the various "owners" before (we'll ignore that they may have stole it from the Celts or the Romans or whatever). So why should we respect the current land deeds? Obviously we're talking a ****ing long time ago, so should we care?

Either we should care (in which case, fine, all land ownership crumbles instantly and we can spend the next ten million years in litigation over dodgy parentage claims) or we shouldn't in which case land ownership is merely a matter of pragmatism and loses all moral protections. It then becomes a matter of who can hold onto things for long enough to beat some undefined statute of limitations.

As for "harm", what sort of harm are we talking about? As I've said, if I share Green Day's CD on P2P networks arguably I am "harming" Green Day (via reducing the value of their assets, or something similar). But if I write an article calling their CD a pile of shit, the "harm" might be the same (i.e. less people buy their CD). Am I "pushing" Green Day down if I slag them off?

If I open up a mega-mart on my street corner and knock Mr Patel's newsagents out of business I have undoubtedly "harmed" him (financially at least). Does this matter?

edit : As for "there is one way for society to work" that's obviously nonsense.

[queball]

Originally Posted by IncubusGod

Erm...

How long did it take you to write that? Interesting points but Im not sure about your conclusion. Instead of critique-ing it (which would need a long long post) I'll just say that boy have you thought that one out.

What? He seems to have written down a title, a conclusion, and various banalities, and concatenated them in a seemingly random manner with little to no argument that I can see.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Your conclusion is wrong and somewhat teological. The essential problem of modernity is people asserting "that there's one right way for society to work". Perhaps this is what you mean by any social experimentation is wrong. I would agree with you there Basically its conceptually flawed to throw around phrases such as the right or wrong way to do things. Furthermore unless you have astounding powers of prediction how could anyone know how to achieve a particular result by setting up a type of society, so all social manufacture is social experimentation. That is not to say that we should be irrational, however there should be more effort made to combine rational means with moral ends.

I mean the right and wrong way as defined my stated system of rights. The world might end up great if we all dressed up as bunny rabbits but I wouldn't be interested in that even if you proved it to me. The point I was making was that any social experimentation is wrong. My idea is for the absolute bare minimum society to the point where if you take away anything it's no longer a society. My objection is to anything else being included as part of the system. And yeah I was having trouble with the words "right" and "wrong" due to their obvious implications. They seemed to be the most apt words I had available though.

We must also note perhaps more clearly that NO ONE sets up society. Society follows certain laws. That's not to say that society is pre-determined in any way. "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living." - Marx

I don't think you can necessarily state that nobody ever will set up a society. There doesn't appear to be anything bar historical precedent against it.

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

You seem to have avoided the bit about justifying land ownership as far as I can see.

Yes, people have had notions of collective "ownership" (I think control is probably a more accurate term but it doesn't matter) for ages. We could probably, if we had enough anthropological data find the right original "owners" of all land in the world.

Well they'd be dead so i don't quite see your point. Having some of the same genetic material is a fairly stupid limit.

If we look at the UK, most property ownership currently in place seems to go back to (in one form or another) to William the Conqueror (who declared himself owner of Britain or something). But he obviously "stole" (if that's meaningful) from the various "owners" before (we'll ignore that they may have stole it from the Celts or the Romans or whatever). So why should we respect the current land deeds? Obviously we're talking a ****ing long time ago, so should we care?

Because it's morally wrong to steal land unless the individuals who you're taking it off stole it themselves.

Either we should care (in which case, fine, all land ownership crumbles instantly and we can spend the next ten million years in litigation over dodgy parentage claims) or we shouldn't in which case land ownership is merely a matter of pragmatism and loses all moral protections. It then becomes a matter of who can hold onto things for long enough to beat some undefined statute of limitations.

I defined it. If you stole the land or provided something necessary for stealing it you're in the wrong. if you didn't you aren't. Effectively I'm saying that owning land is a good idea and while stealing it off someone else was pretty shit of some dead people three hundred years ago two wrongs won't make a right!

As for "harm", what sort of harm are we talking about? As I've said, if I share Green Day's CD on P2P networks arguably I am "harming" Green Day (via reducing the value of their assets, or something similar). But if I write an article calling their CD a pile of shit, the "harm" might be the same (i.e. less people buy their CD). Am I "pushing" Green Day down if I slag them off?

No.

If I open up a mega-mart on my street corner and knock Mr Patel's newsagents out of business I have undoubtedly "harmed" him (financially at least). Does this matter?

No.

The essential idea for society is consent. If you want to do something stupid then go ahead. Just don't expect me to care about your society. If people don't want to make life work then fine, let the world go up in flames.


I don't think either of you got the absurdism bit, or the fact I rejected my own conclusion in favour of absurdism. The point is that society in itself is ridiculous and unless people acknowledge this nothing's really going to change.

[JonnyBGood]

Did nobody actually read the first two lines of my post?

[queball]

"Society" freedom and individual freedom are inconsistent, so the world is absurd? You might need to outline your argument into an more easily dismissable form.

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

The only things we seem to require are a police force and law courts(which I've decided will be supported by taxes at a rate set by the combined votes of everyone, one person votes for 1%, one votes for 2% it's set at 1.5%).

I vote for infinity percent!

[queball]

PS. You might want to look at "should it be legal to sell yourself into slavery?" and related dilemmas.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Because it's morally wrong to steal land unless the individuals who you're taking it off stole it themselves.

So if I steal your land and then give it to Nodrog you can't morally get it from him?

edit : changed car to land.

[JonnyBGood]

Still don't get it? This was all the effort I was willing (or intelligence I was able) to put into thinking about this problem and I couldn't come up with a good answer. Serious answers are pointless. I've given up. As well as that this thread was supposed to be a question. I just started writing because I wanted to see what I could come up with.

PS I have queball. I could have been researching that for years and writing it for days and it still wouldn't have made much more sense. Nor do I believe infinity is a valid percentage.


PPS I don't think everyone in those societies was exactly on it T&F

[Nodrog]

A 'society' or culture is not the basic unit of humanity - that would be the role of the individual person. It makes no sense to talk about what right 'societies' have to exist - societies are not people, and as such it's a category error to apply to them the concept of rights. "Society" designates a high level concept, and all statements involving it ultimately reduce to statements about groups of individuals. When you ask "do people have the right to form society X", you are essentially asking "does one group of people have the right to force another group of people inhabiting the same terroritory to abide by the rules which they set down?". If you are operating on the general libertarian principle that the initation of force is wrong, then the answer is obviously "that depends on whether these rules involve the initation of force".

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

We must also note perhaps more clearly that NO ONE sets up society. Society follows certain laws. That's not to say that society is pre-determined in any way. "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living." - Marx

Nonsense. Traditionally societies have evolved via invisible hand mechanisms, but that doesnt mean that it would be impossible for a society to be deliberately designed. Chile under the Chicago economists, Sealand, and the future libertopian empire in New Hampshire, would all be examples of pre-planned societies. You could even argue that certain internet forums are other examples, although this depends on your definition of 'society'.

[JonnyBGood]

This has been a desperate cry for help which has been ignored. I seek questions.

[Tactitus]

Join a commune.

[JonnyBGood]

I sit and I think and the questions I think of lead to questions I didn't think of and the answers I find lead to more questions I can barely understand and the questions I didn't think of and the questions I can't think of lead to questions I don't want to think of and I don't want the answer to.

Is this all there is?

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Is this all there is?

No, there's more, but get on with these ones first.

[JonnyBGood]

I think the biggest mistake I've ever made was assuming that if I choose the point to give my life it'd somehow make it worth living. As for the stealing land off me and giving it to nod I'd just take something of equal market value off you. Possibly your life. Frankly I'm just annoyed I can't think of a really good answer to that in the time it took me to read it. If you can't do it instantly it's not worth doing at all.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

As for the stealing land off me and giving it to nod I'd just take something of equal market value off you.

Does this apply to just land issues or does it apply to other property/possesions too?

And I presume if I (as the thief) am untracable / broke / dead, then Nod would keep your land and it would just be tough for you?

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Does this apply to just land issues or does it apply to other property/possesions too?

And I presume if I (as the thief) am untracable / broke / dead, then Nod would keep your land and it would just be tough for you?

Just land. We already have punishments and laws concerning theft. I thought about the whole thing for a few minutes last night and I decided that yeah it is just pragmatism plain and simple. If it's practical to give back the land I'd support that, if it's not I wouldn't.

[Sunday8pm]

OOOOO oooooo OOOOO tangent but really funny though that crossed my mind.

When said paper is handed in and the people that work at the uni with this stuff go to check it against the internet for plagarism, wouldn't it be funny if they came across this thread and then failed you for plagarizing from the internet?

rite?

[JonnyBGood]

I dropped out sunday. Somehow I doubt the right to own property will occur with huge frequency in mathematical science.

[Sunday8pm]

So why did you write this essay again?

[JonnyBGood]

Boredom. Proof that absurdism is both easier and more fun. To gather some interesting views.

queball was right. It was a poor essay anyways. I deliberately didn't include any facts or use even vaguely strict logical reasoning.

[Sunday8pm]

Oh so like why my gf writes in thebian then and reads up on her wicca?

[JonnyBGood]

Is that some form of negro speak?

[Sunday8pm]

I'm just saying it's a hobby that isn't socially embraced.

[JonnyBGood]

Neither is being the smartest man alive. Yet it's hardly a bad thing to have on your CV.

[Sunday8pm]

Are the people who will ask about that on your CV going to know the difference or not?

I mean what if they disagree with you, they might think you've bullshitted.

[JonnyBGood]

If you're the smartest man in the world you will have chosen to apply to a firm where you have a very high choice of being accepted. Plus you'd obviously be able to out-smart them.

[Sunday8pm]

I'm aruguing against the fact that having opinions on stuff without being qualified on your CV is a bit of problem.

[JonnyBGood]

Okay. I'm not sure why but I'm down with that.

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

I repeat, many people have 'tried' to set up societies but have failed to escape from the gravity of capital or oppression.

Only by fiat definition - no matter what forces are involved in the founding of a society, you are going to label them 'capital and oppression'. Give me an example of a society in which these 'forces' play no part..

Please don't call anything an invisible hand mechanism ever again. They are called 'blind natural laws.' They are the same thing but one phrase is much better than the otherone.

Blind natural laws seems like a silly term. What is an example of a 'non-blind' natural law? If there is none, are you honestly claiming that your 'forces' are remotely similar to the laws of gravitation or thermodynamics, or any other law that has traditionally been called 'natural'?

Also don't pull that definition of society nonsense, clearly JBG is talking about a complex ethical, economic social framework, not just free association of individuals within another system.

The social framework is reducible to the actions of the individuals within it. While it is convienant to discuss society in conceptual terms, any statements made about it which cannot be reduced to statements about individuals must be considered a priori invalid - it is impossible to talk about what societies have a 'right' to do without talking about what individuals within said societies have a 'right' to do to other individuals.

[Sunday8pm]

Visible natural laws would be the opposite I assume.

So only if you are truly blind and hence have other heightened senses can you detect these blind natural laws.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Sunday8pm

So why did you write this essay again?

Why does any one write any post in a discussion thread?

Because it's interesting?

[Sunday8pm]

I was asking about the essay, usually when people post something in the form of an essay asking for an evaluation of it, it's because it is written for a purpose outside of the forum.

Nice way to hit the out of context stylings though.

p.s. your post was even unneccessary seeing as Jonny understood what I meant, yay yay pedantism.
p.p.s. being picky for post count or just general hounding?

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Sunday8pm

p.p.s. being picky for post count or just general hounding?

It's a relevant topic to me. I've often posted long posts (here and elsewhere) and been confronted by that kind of reaction. It just seems a weird question is all. I write essays in my spare time for no "formal" reason as such.

[queball]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

I dropped out sunday. Somehow I doubt the right to own property will occur with huge frequency in mathematical science.

All discourse will be subsumed by mathematics, pawn.
I suppose there are three kinds of answers to the paradox as I formulated it earlier. (1) Rights only apply to individuals (2) Rights are complex and not absolute (3) No such thing as rights.

"Do you, personally, support the idea that any individual or group of individuals should be free to form any society they wish?"
(1) No. That sounds like a licence to violate rights. There's no such thing as society. States and societies should not be considered in moral calculations at all. (2) A diversity of social systems would be nice, but we need to be pragmatic with checks and balances etc. Post-WWII issues of sovereignty are relevant. (3) No, I don't support that kind of idea at all. Why decide prejudice now? If someone wants to set up a new radical society our reactions will be determined by our culture, our economics, our ideas of virtue... the question is relevant for science fiction at best.

btw: http://anti-state.com/forum/index.ph...threadid=10604

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by queball

btw: http://anti-state.com/forum/index.ph...threadid=10604

I can't access that from work because : "The Websense category "Militancy and Extremist" is filtered."

I'm being oppressed by the man.

Plus, terms like "the state" and "society" are useful short-hand in discussions. The problem only occurs when people take these abstractions and start giving them superior/alternative moral value. So "society is more important than the individual" is essentially meaningless because society is short-hand for a bunch of individuals. To reduce every discussion down to using only words like "individual" would probably make progress very difficult though.

[queball]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

I can't access that from work because : "The Websense category "Militancy and Extremist" is filtered."

I'm being oppressed by the man.

Tee Hee. It was just a junk link, don't worry.

Plus, terms like "the state" and "society" are useful short-hand in discussions. The problem only occurs when people take these abstractions and start giving them superior/alternative moral value. So "society is more important than the individual" is essentially meaningless because society is short-hand for a bunch of individuals. To reduce every discussion down to using only words like "individual" would probably make progress very difficult though.

But you can be talking about individuals over long periods of time, or about institutions whose connection to individuals is fuzzy (say nationality or government). It's not like you're really talking about cells or quarks. Societies are just bigger. Waaay outside the normal scope of looking at rights-violations. And it might be cool to think about what we can do for our descendants. The Handicapped Child problem might also apply.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by queball

But you can be talking about individuals over long periods of time, or about institutions whose connection to individuals is fuzzy (say nationality or government).

It depends on what context we're discussing government. I don't see why governments deserve special status in moral calculations for instance. For other stuff, sure. Nationality is different as it's more of an idea than anything physical. We certainly shouldn'y be assigning things like rights to it, anymore than we would do "punk rock" or "gothdom" or something.

It's not like you're really talking about cells or quarks. Societies are just bigger.

Well, individuals have cognition so that's why the seem to be the ultimate unit of political analysis. We can't really say anything meaningful (yet) about consciousness or behaviour by just looking at quarks or cells (although the evo-psych crowd try by looking at genes I guess).

And it might be cool to think about what we can do for our descendants. The Handicapped Child problem might also apply.

I think there is another level of action beyond the merely ethical-legal layer. It should be illegal to violate others rights but it is possible to be a bastard without violating anyones rights (e.g. via inaction). As I've mentioned in that other thread on altruism (or whatever it was) there could be a case where I refuse a trivial favour (e.g. the use of a telephone after you've been in an accident). For this type of behaviour perhaps the law (and ultiamtely coercion) may be inappropriate.

So we could have "social pressures" (which I've also mentioned before) for that. So, maybe an example is during the 9/11 disaster, some branch of Starbucks refused to give water away for free to disaster workers. I don't think anyone would advocate legal punishment for this sort of behaviour* but the bad PR is enough (and SB gave a million dollars to some fund for firefighters or something) to make sure it doesn't happen again.

It's on that sort of level we should be trying to promote good behaviour to our descendents. Or something.

Am reading the handicapped stuff now (hadn't encountered it), but it doesn't seem to be saying anything which isn't particularly obvious. Obviously it's possible to intuitively oppose an action which ultimately might bring great rewards (e.g. betting your life savings on the horses) because as a general rule that sort of behaviour is destructive.

* = Although clearly if someone had just punched the manager in the face and taken the water I doubt a jury would convict.

[queball]

It's about what you support, so preference and that. Even if you think it's absurd that humanity doesn't carefully delineate spheres of moral agency you can still evaluate whether you'd prefer people to be able to set up their societies or not. Be pessimistic. Assume people won't pay any attention to Dante Rights. You can always look at the bigger picture and universalization some other time.

Saying that everything is relative to individuals is just clumsy in some cases. If I find Marx's lost punk-rawk sheet music in a briefcase buried my garden and burn it, you could say that moral calculations should only consider this the same as me digging a hole, and that if someone then kicks me in the nuts that is disproportionate coercion which we should not Support. It just seems strange not to mention the relevance of my previous actions, as if the aim is to be as myopic as possible.

You might say right and wrong aren't whatever people say they are, a thing isn't right just because people think it is. But people's values are relevant to ethics, because it's a science of human action. A soldier, a policeman, the guy kicking me in the nuts, it's just not relevant to say they're violating rights. It's not historical, it's not scientific. They might be motivated by nationality and values and beauty. But assuming neither the messiah nor his utopian society take D-Rights as absolute, you can only use your analysis on consequences, not intentions.

That isn't some extremist relativism, it's just looking at what is internal and external pragmatically. You can say a person or society has good and bad values, and you can say an action has good and bad intent relative to those actions. And you can say some values and intentions are really really objectively bad if you like. But going from a kind of Aristotlean view of rights to law in a simple way means insisting that every bad intention is really really objectively relevantly bad, when external factors seem much more relevant.

To link this to the Nuremberg thing: a retroactive (or objective as opposed to relative) judgement requires a very strong assertion of human nature. You need to be able to say that people can and should realistically be able to appreciate these rights fully. Ought implies can, so ought => can & ought. I prefer to assume we'll stay with the current exuberance of ethics. It's just more realistic. Not that I think I have any deep insight to ethics anyway.

The handicapped child is the existence-and-morals thing and why defining morality in terms of humans is tricky/undefined when talking about birth.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by queball

Assume people won't pay any attention to Dante Rights.

This doesn't really matter if they do or not. Obviously I prefer if they do. But my individual judgement remains constant. Think of it like some sort of computer program constantly interpreting set scenarios on a given criteria. To the program it doesn't matter if the situation it is analysing is following a "good" or "bad" (or even consistent) set of actions. It's just an analysis really.

I don't really even understand the question "Would you prefer it if people could set up their own society?". What? It's like asking whether I think people should be able to eat cheese. Don't **** with me (or anyone else) and I won't **** with you. It really is as simple as that. Where land comes into it there's shared issues (which JBG mentions) and then we'll need to sit down and talk. But broadly, outside of reasons of efficiency (or rights of way and stuff) it doesn't matter terribly. One of the awful things about the nation state is that it cannot tolerate any divergance. It'd be cool if I could buy part of Wales and legally take heroin and stuff. But they wouldn't allow that, and if I tried it they'd come and beat me up.

Saying that everything is relative to individuals is just clumsy in some cases. If I find Marx's lost punk-rawk sheet music in a briefcase buried my garden and burn it, you could say that moral calculations should only consider this the same as me digging a hole, and that if someone then kicks me in the nuts that is disproportionate coercion which we should not Support. It just seems strange not to mention the relevance of my previous actions, as if the aim is to be as myopic as possible.

Well, there's always context to any actions, which is why we have judges and juries and stuff. All we can analyse is whether someone's behaviour is reasonable. If I know you've been searching for a photo of your long-lost (dead) mother and I find one and burn it while laughing at you then the jury will probably understand you smacking me in the face. Again, individuals can judge this sort of thing and I agree they're not black and white.

There are issues like "internationalised assets" where individual property rights break down. But I don't see that fundamentally challenging the overall ethos.

But going from a kind of Aristotlean view of rights to law in a simple way means insisting that every bad intention is really really objectively relevantly bad, when external factors seem much more relevant.

I'm not really sure I understand what you mean by "relevantly bad". And what external factors?

To link this to the Nuremberg thing: a retroactive (or objective as opposed to relative) judgement requires a very strong assertion of human nature. You need to be able to say that people can and should realistically be able to appreciate these rights fully.

Yeah, and I think a strong assertion is justified. Not on stupid things but on a general sense. Social structures can distort things so people become dehumanised, but I think that it's still there. Wasn't one of the reasons that the NAZIs switched to gas was because shooting large numbers of people inflicted an enormous psychological burden on soldiers (even hyper-indoctrinated ones)?

[queball]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

I don't really even understand the question "Would you prefer it if people could set up their own society?". What? It's like asking whether I think people should be able to eat cheese. Don't **** with me (or anyone else) and I won't **** with you. It really is as simple as that.

I saw it as a twist on the question of sovereignty. If I **** with someone else, will you **** with me. Or is there some leeway.

Well, there's always context to any actions, which is why we have judges and juries and stuff. All we can analyse is whether someone's behaviour is reasonable. If I know you've been searching for a photo of your long-lost (dead) mother and I find one and burn it while laughing at you then the jury will probably understand you smacking me in the face. Again, individuals can judge this sort of thing and I agree they're not black and white.

And if one group of people spends their days burning photos of another group's mothers it gets more complicated. Society allows different people to have different standards of reasonability. "Do you want people to be able to have different standards of what is right?" An Objectivist would say no, that doesn't make sense. But a historian might say yes, nationality and shared history and geography is why we have society / the state. Not just inertia.

There are issues like "internationalised assets" where individual property rights break down. But I don't see that fundamentally challenging the overall ethos.

It's just weird to say that if I burn the rainforests and pour chemicals in the drinking water to make everyone sterile, all I've done is harm some individuals. Whatever rights there are, my morality recognises harms that don't affect particular humans. Genocide might be a relevant one. A lot of things aren't tied down to people in a useful way. Like T&F says, a society is more than a group of people.

I'm not really sure I understand what you mean by "relevantly bad". And what external factors?

Programs are tools. Tools can be right for the job or irrelevant. You say cognition is the criteria that makes rights apply. I don't agree. I'd say some degree of awareness and possibility has to come into play for the morality to be relevant and so applicable. When I say external factor I mostly mean economics and other values, like human life is worth more now because there is more technology that uses the intellect or something like that.

You run your program and get a G or a B for any action, but I don't find think those B's are relevant when the program is being run on animals outside the program's domain, which my engineers inform me is very small, to the point that it intersects with my program (which generally just outputs Dingbats characters).

Yeah, and I think a strong assertion is justified. Not on stupid things but on a general sense. Social structures can distort things so people become dehumanised, but I think that it's still there. Wasn't one of the reasons that the NAZIs switched to gas was because shooting large numbers of people inflicted an enormous psychological burden on soldiers (even hyper-indoctrinated ones)?

Yeah, so Nuremberg was good. But I don't think it's reasonable to use something much stronger or more particular than the UN Declaration say. (And if we get into space and human extinction is no longer a concern maybe that can be thrown out)

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

1. Exactly my point, since we cannot separate society from capital and from compulsive power structures we can extract laws of interaction with these things, thus no new society is available.

You arent saying anything meaningful, just mouthing of bland floating abstractions. Give me examples of your 'forces of capital and oppression' , and some examples of social forces that don't fall into this category, so I can distinguish between them and grasp what the term actually means.

2. Those laws are called blind natural laws. They are not like physics and in fact it was you Nodrog who brought them up under the guise of 'the invisible hand' which you seem to regard as some sort of physical force, not me.
.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&i...=Google+Search

Apparently your nonsense term isnt very popular with those outside your social circle.

[JonnyBGood]

On an entirely different note I mean to mention earlier there's a problem concerning children. Now most people on here would acknowledge that 18 might be slightly too high as the age of consent or whatever, but even lowering it down to 12 or 11 would still leave a large demographic which isn't really part of society.

The right of a five year old to bear arms or become a member of the police force would be fairly ridiculous to the point of being extremely dangerous. Should these children be "controlled" (needs a better word) by their parents? It seems to go against the whole concept of individual rights. Would children have to pass some kind of test to become citizens? This would perhaps not be the best idea seeing as many people can pass tests without understanding them (in this case the reduction of the state down to it's basic requirements is not exactly helpful).

I think this problem can best be summed (as I have to go) in the infrequently voiced question "do we have a right to have children?"

[Nodrog]

Should these children be "controlled" (needs a better word) by their parents? It seems to go against the whole concept of individual rights.

I'm not sure why. Rights are generally derived from a being's capacity for rationality, which is why animals arent considered to have them in a meaningful sense. Its not really contradictory to say that humans with sub-rational capabilities, such as infants and the mentally ill, would not be entitled to claim the same extended set of rights as a healthy adult. Theres no real moral difference between saying that children shouldnt be allowed to vote, and saying that schizophrenics shouldnt be allowed access to machine guns - in both cases certain rights are being limited due to the absence of relevant rational capabilities.

A test wouldnt be a terribly bad idea if implemented correctly, but said implementation would be difficult. You'd probably want to have a set age at which children were considered part of society regardless of whether they passed the test (say 15 or so), in order to prevent the state treating 25 year olds as 'non-persons' because they hadnt been able to answer certain questions.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

On an entirely different note I mean to mention earlier there's a problem concerning children. Now most people on here would acknowledge that 18 might be slightly too high as the age of consent or whatever, but even lowering it down to 12 or 11 would still leave a large demographic which isn't really part of society.

They certainly are a part of society; they're individuals-in-training.

The right of a five year old to bear arms or become a member of the police force would be fairly ridiculous to the point of being extremely dangerous. Should these children be "controlled" (needs a better word) by their parents? It seems to go against the whole concept of individual rights.

Rights come with a responsibility. Primarily, the responsibility not to infringe on the rights of others as well as the capacity to exercise that responsibility (which is why the whole "animal rights" issue is a non-starter for me).

I expand the rights of my children commensurate with their abilities to exercise their responsibilities.

Would children have to pass some kind of test to become citizens? This would perhaps not be the best idea seeing as many people can pass tests without understanding them (in this case the reduction of the state down to it's basic requirements is not exactly helpful).

An objective test would be fine with me, but the problem with tests is who gets to decide what's on the test? A test can end up being even more arbitrary than an age limit.

I think this problem can best be summed (as I have to go) in the infrequently voiced question "do we have a right to have children?"

Unless/until your children are somehow infringing on my rights, breed away!

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by queball

I saw it as a twist on the question of sovereignty. If I **** with someone else, will you **** with me. Or is there some leeway.

Well, morally I think I am obligated to act if I see you infringing someone elses rights. But whether I will or not is a different question. If I walk outside my house and I see you beating up a small child, and I'm carrying a gun or I've got a gang of ninjas with me then yeah, I'll definitely intervene. If you're talking about some stuff going on Africa then it's a lot further away, and more dangerous, and confusing. But the moral obligation remains the same. (btw : I'm using the term "moral obligation" as different from a legal one obviously)

"Do you want people to be able to have different standards of what is right?"

What do you mean by "right"? There are plenty of things (the vast majority of cultural issues say) where different standards are both inevitable, healthy and non-troublesome. So the fact that the Christians think its "right" to rest on Sunday while other religions have a different day is fine. It doesn't matter basically. The fact the punk rock scene has different "morals" to other scenes also doesn't matter. But when it comes to what we're terming rights then no such divergance is justified as things stem from human biology. If we came across a lost trible in Africa who had a completley different form of cognition (say they had some sort of weird shared collective consciousness going on or osmething) then our conception of rights would be applicable. "Universal rights" is a misnomer, it's "universal as far as human biology remains constant". So slavery was wrong 5000 years ago because it was still homo sapiens. 500,000 years ago, perhaps not.

[Boogster]

Sorry - I'm going to pick on some poor, unsuspecting chap.

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

What do you mean by "right"? There are plenty of things (the vast majority of cultural issues say) where different standards are both inevitable, healthy and non-troublesome. So the fact that the Christians think its "right" to rest on Sunday while other religions have a different day is fine. It doesn't matter basically. The fact the punk rock scene has different "morals" to other scenes also doesn't matter. But when it comes to what we're terming rights then no such divergance is justified as things stem from human biology.

I understand your reasoning, but I see a flaw.

What if, for example, God did exist and the Christian belief was true. Would it not then be 'right' to rest on Sunday?

Maybe we should think spiritually, as well as materially?

[JonnyBGood]

I think the point is that you assume as little as possible in accordance with occam's razor. Certainly I imagine most people would prefer some definite proof before we cancel a day out of our lives.