Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Criptfeind]

Is a working, close familial relationship based on power?

For the sake of argument I will say no (because I know this conversation will not last long if I say yes.) But how do you plan on increasing that to a reasonably sized society? Doing so practically as well.


Hum. Bucket. I must say. The idea of one persons rights mattering more then x peoples (where x>1) confuse me. Especially since you seem to contradict yourself when you say

You can choose to give love, or you can choose to give hurt

What I gather from that is that you can shoot someone to take their stuff. But you can not make them like you for it. Also known as Two people are more important then one because in most cases the two don't give a fuck about the one.

See?

No.

Plants

Don't worry guys. I am from the future and can talk to plants and animals. Plants love being eaten and so do most animals. Everyday they pray that a kind human will come along and cook them up. It is totally morally okay to eat them.

[Vector]

How does any close collection of friends form?

[Phmcw]

I find funny that while I think I'm an hardcore objectivist and Libertarian in value, I find that the opposite of rand ideas is the solution most likely to reach these goal, which is why I don't understand why today's Libertarian seems to be hardcore right wing.

[Criptfeind]

That is not a scaling up. Also, any implies all, to which I say there is none.

[Vector]

That is not a scaling up. Also, any implies all, to which I say there is none.

That is, indeed, a scaling up.  And yes, close communities of friends do indeed exist.

A city where everyone's ideal is to "do what they owe" will function perfectly.  The question is one of surrounding culture.

Assuming a society, an aggregate of individuals--that is, people functioning separately, thinking only of themselves, no matter how power is applied to force them to act for the sake of others--is doomed to failure a priori.

This society of which may have never existed, but it seems to be the only path to the good life.

[Criptfeind]

That is, indeed, a scaling up.  And yes, close communities of friends do indeed exist.

See. The idea when I say scale it up to a reasonably sized society and to scale it up to a reasonably sized society. A group of friends is in no way reasonably sized. It is not scaled up from a family. And I am not saying that they do not exist, but rather that there is no one way they are held together.

A city where everyone's ideal is to "do what they owe" will function perfectly.  The question is one of surrounding culture.

This right here is the crux of what I was trying get to here. How do you expect such a society to exist without any form of force?

Brainwashing, indoctrination, pharmaceuticals, eugenics. All of these might be used to give rise to a society like that, but none of them can be considered anything other then force. Such a culture is both unstable and to a degree unnatural.

Assuming a society, an aggregate of individuals--that is, people functioning separately, thinking only of themselves, no matter how power is applied to force them to act for the sake of others--is doomed to failure a priori.

Tautological Latin aside, I question why this is. Of course a society like that would have a hard time forming, but once formed I don't see the issue with it. The basic assumption here seems to be that their would be constant rebellion against the force that is making them help other. But by your own words they are only thinking of themselves, so such a rebellion would only happen when the consequences of such a action would be less then the consequences of not taking the action. IE: If one was required to pay 5% of ones income to help the poor one would still pay that and not rebel if the cost of rebelling was more then 5% of ones income.

[Vector]

Because action performed out of fear, or out of weighing pros and cons for yourself, is not right action.

[Criptfeind]

Why?

[Vector]

Why?

Because the minute a better deal comes along, that suddenly becomes the right action.  It doesn't matter what it is.  If you were going to do the right thing because it was right, it doesn't matter that something else became more advantageous.  You were working independently of game theory, in essence.

[Criptfeind]

Correct me if I am wrong, but your idea is that a society that is held by rules and not ideals is bad because without the rules it will fail?

Also known as:

Because the minute a different ideal comes along, that suddenly becomes the right action.  It doesn't matter what it is.  If you were going to do the right thing because it was right, it does matter that something else became more right.  You were working perfectly within the whims of society.

[Leafsnail]

A city where everyone's ideal is to "do what they owe" will function perfectly.  The question is one of surrounding culture.

Wouldn't that kind of society require you to magically make everyone's values the same, though?  I mean, what if some people thought that "What they owe" is less than what other people think they owe?

[Vector]

No, I'm saying that a community develops a culture which evolves over time, and the form of government should be developed based on the needs of the attendant culture--and that one which acts based on force, rather than right, cannot speak to that culture, but only to power held in the hands of different people.

Wouldn't that kind of society require you to magically make everyone's values the same, though?  I mean, what if some people thought that "What they owe" is less than what other people think they owe?

Then presumably those people would talk about it and figure out what is right.

It sure is frustrating when you can't make other people do the right thing via good faith conversation, but unsurprisingly, you can't use force to make people do the right thing, either.

[Leafsnail]

Then presumably those people would talk about it and figure out what is right.

It sure is frustrating when you can't make other people do the right thing via good faith conversation, but unsurprisingly, you can't use force to make people do the right thing, either.

But surely there isn't necessarily a thing which is absolutely "right" for people to be converted to anyway.  You'd need some way to resolve it consistently and to some degree fairly when people's ideas conflict.

Like, for instance, imagine we were in a city run by this principle and we were working out how to pay for this year's essential public services (for simplification's sake, we'll say that we all agree we need these services and that we know the exact price required for them, although both of these factors could make the situation worse).  What if I felt that I owed $100 (or whatever other unit - time, goods, whatever) to the upkeep of the town whilst others felt that I owed $200 (and don't want to pay the extra $100 that they think I owe)?  How would you decide who is "right", and what would happen if we weren't able to come to an agreement?  Would we have no essential public services for the next year?  As far as I can tell, the only possible ways to resolve this kind of situation would be to 1) have a society where everyone agrees all the time, which I'd say is impossible without using force at some stage or 2) to come up with a consistent system for paying taxes that everyone has to follow, which would pretty bring us back to where we started.

[Vector]

Okay, let me put it this way.

Either you already lack a political body, in which case you're basically running a government in order to keep a bunch of people who have no desire or reason to associate with each other together (why would you do this?), or you have a political body in which people say "all right, this isn't about me" and work together for the greater good.

In some deep sense, that person who says "I don't want to pay $200" is already not part of the community, because they are making it about what is due to them, rather than what is owed to the situation.

[ChairmanPoo]

In some deep sense, that person who says "I don't want to pay $200" is already not part of the community, because they are making it about what is due to them, rather than what is owed to the situation.

But that person is still sitting on a piece of the community's real estate, so unless you're willing to kick him out and install someone more compliant -in which case you might as well avoid going through all these motions and acclaim yourself a feudal overlord- you have a problem.