Slavery without self-ownership -- HUH!?

[Jace: Johanson]

NonE was right, up until he stopped extending the metaphor to ALL the effects of ALL the proposed actions. The thief will own the effect of now possessing the car. He will also own the effect of the previous owner's attempts to recover the car or hire others to retrieve it. He will own all the effects of all the events he participated in. The reason he does not own the car, but merely possesses it, is that there is left an unacknowledged and unsatisfied cause and effect relationship regarding the previous owner. It's theft because the universality of ownership is being ignored by the thief. It's purchase when one offers an effect to the owner which the owner accepts in return of transferring the effect of ownership of the car.

The exclusionary singular point. No two factual claims regarding possession of the car are in existence under purchase (purchase in good faith and consideration). Contract certainly has to do with ownership and property, but only if there is more than one person involved in the question of ownership. The ownership is inherent in causality.

NonE's correct to bring up a distinction between ownership and posession. I would add that a lot of this discussion also falls into the realm of response-ability. A meteor (or perhaps gravity) owns its crater, but it has no response-ability. That's pure cause-effect ownership, but there's no response-ability or question whether is should be so.

Ownership is no less inherent because there are intelligences engaged in the equation, it's only a matter of sorting it out amongsted themselves. That's where contract and possession and response-ability matter.

So, socially speaking, it is a function of defense or agreement, but that's really only if there is not already a common acceptance of the causal relationship. If I do own the car, but the world is in a shortage of food and gas and the car is an extremely valuable commodity, my ownersjip is not erased because most people will try to steal it (before or after beating/killing me). My POSSESION of it may well change under such circumstances, and my response-ability will be engaged as to just what I will do to prevent or redress this, but the ownership was mine.

Should it prove that I have no hope of retrieving the car or getting redress for the cost and must simply soldier on, I also own the rest of my reality and must be response-able ragarding it. It forever remains true that it was a theft/mugging. But bitching about it in such circumstances would do little good.

So, I would summarize that I think everybody offered a fair bit of correct perspective, here. Self-authority, possession, ownership, defense or agreement/contract, responsibillity..... they're all pertinent. Just like above, everbody's really just trying to establish where such notions lay in the reality matrix, and most people intuitively strive to act without agression because they are, by definiton, a part of the reality matrix itself.

Or maybe you're all just my hallucination and I am a brain in a jar. In that case, I ought to imagine myself to be in a more idealic world.

Cheers.

[NonEntity]

(12-28-2011 04:51 PM)Jace: Johanson Wrote:  NonE's correct to bring up a distinction between ownership and posession. I would add that a lot of this discussion also falls into the realm of response-ability. A meteor (or perhaps gravity) owns its crater, but it has no response-ability. That's pure cause-effect ownership, but there's no response-ability or question whether is should be so.

I'm guessing that you are using a Dow Nunder version of the dictionary, as I've never heard of this concept of ownership. Or maybe I have but have never looked at it this way. When you ask someone to "own up" to something they've done, is this kinda the same as the meteor "owning" the crater? I can't see how a meteor could transfer it's rights to someone or something else however. "Oh, the crater? Yeah, I bought a time share interest in it for the month of July from the Primary Meteor. I think it still has November and April available, but the price is going up with the scarcity."

I guess the advantage is that you could shoot the meteor if it tried to take back possession from you and the law probably wouldn't want to get involved.

- NonE

[zonsb]

(12-28-2011 04:51 PM)Jace: Johanson Wrote:  Or maybe you're all just my hallucination and I am a brain in a jar. In that case, I ought to imagine myself to be in a more idealic world.

Cheers.

Great post. All of it.

Or maybe we and "our" Universe is a simulation -- sort of like SimCity but eons more advanced -- on a guy's/gal's computer who lives in the larger metaverse/multiverse. If yes, my question is: when will I/we achieve the technology to do that and essentially create new Universes like "ours" and variations thereof?

--

[Jace: Johanson]

Thanks, zonsb. Productive discussions are always very edifying.

For NonE's Understanding: I define words the same way I imagine a lexiconographer would: a combination of etymology and actual usage. Connotation affects denotation, which morphs into some new conotation.....

I remember learning a long tima ago that the Phoenicians were so named by the Greeks because they traded in the purple dye extracted from seashells along the shores of Canaan. The root word "Phoiníkē" ( literally "[land] of the purple[-producing shell]" ) became ascociated with the alphabet that the Phoenicians spread throughout the old world, and sort of merged with the other root word "Phone," meaning sound.

Language is like those funky liquids that seem to behave as solids at room temp, but are just really slow at showing motion. What they attempt to describe, however... is unchanging. Dictionaries are a very handy tool, but a functioning brain is far handier, and keeps up to speed a lot faster.

The meteor carries no rights, cause it is not intelligent. Rights don't matter asbent sapience. It carries energy, which is transferred. Nothing else caused the crater but the meteor's own potential energy released kinetic energy.

We carry and transfer energies, but directed not just along gravitational channels. Sentience is self-directed. Only intelligent creatures can extrapolate a possible and desired effect and seek to implement a cause to make it so.

Acknowledging both that we can affect reality into paths that do not happen without sentient direction, and as well that we are limited in how much we can do this are hallmarks of mental health. A man who can't acknowledge that the things he owns also will (reciprocally and as an effect of his commitment to owning them) have a hold over him, his time and energy; is denying a truth of reality.

Also, anyone asking the meteorite to "own up" is likely in need of charity from a kind person to gently lead them away from the crater and towards a comfortable couch. I nominate NonE in such an event. Does anyone second?

[NonEntity]

(12-29-2011 12:51 AM)Jace: Johanson Wrote:  Also, anyone asking the meteorite to "own up" is likely in need of charity from a kind person to gently lead them away from the crater and towards a comfortable couch. I nominate NonE in such an event. Does anyone second?

Ah, yes. I feel so much better now. Nice soft couch. Now maybe if you could get me a cup of coffee? ... Bitte?

I like your discussion about words and the study of bugs (entomology, or am I confusing things again... where is my COFFEE?)

Eye2 made a very good point a while back, for which I have to thank him, and that is that a dictionary is not an authoritative reference on the meaning of words, rather it is a collected repository of the CURRENT common usage of words.

And so I will simply point out that for MY porpoises the discussion of "rights" and "ownership," as they relate to each other and to freedom and social interaction, the idea of a meteor "owning" it's crater is irrelevant, off-topic, and perhaps obfuscatory in nature. (But that is not an accusation, merely an observation of possibilities.) If you can see where the "ownership" of the crater by the meteor is in some way pertinent to the issue of ownership versus possession in the context of social interaction I would love to be enlightened. Or if it was already there and I didn't have MY COFFEE and so did not pick up on it, please rephrase it such that I might better be able to recognize it's relevance.

- NonE

P.S. Maybe a soft pillow, too... while you're up!

[Dionysus]

It seems to me "self-ownership" is one of those things that, like morality in general, is invaluable to have in operation as a postulate if you're going to have a civilized society. Does it have a basis in reality, i.e. can it be empirically proven to exist? Who knows? Let the philosophers figure that out. I'm not sure it even matters. In the meantime, we can get down to the business of living our lives in peace and harmony.

[zonsb]

(12-31-2011 10:57 PM)Dionysus Wrote:  It seems to me "self-ownership" is one of those things that, like morality in general, is invaluable to have in operation as a postulate if you're going to have a civilized society. Does it have a basis in reality, i.e. can it be empirically proven to exist? Who knows? Let the philosophers figure that out. I'm not sure it even matters. In the meantime, we can get down to the business of living our lives in peace and harmony.

Living in peace and harmony. It staggers the imagination how far the human race would have advanced absent the most dangerous superstition.

One value in the idea of self-ownership is to ask politicians and bureaucrats and pundits: do people own themselves? Does each individual own himself and herself or can one person own another person against their will, as is the case with slavery?

Since slavery is a crime, No means no. No, I don't have to do what you tell me to do. If you force me under threat, duress and coercion to do as you demand that's a crime -- you will have violated me, my peace and freedom. The purpose of government is to protect individual rights, not violate them.

The government doesn't have consent of the governed. It just proclaims it does. Lacking full disclosure vitiates/nullifies consent to an implied contract.

Government proclaims they have my consent to initiate force, threat of force and fraud. I resent that. I resent their implication that I'm void of integrity and would consent to criminal acts.

[Dionysus]

I listened to the pre-recorded NSP yesterday, and Marc broached the subject of asking these politicians point-blank if they knew what the stated purpose of American government was (to protect and maintain individual rights), and asking them if the laws they pass are consistent with this "mission statement." I really like that. I'm going to seek out opportunities to be a rabble-rouser and do just that. Sometimes the tyrants come down from their ivory towers to hobnob with the great unwashed to show they "care." That's when we really need to hold their feet to the fire.

[NonEntity]

(01-01-2012 12:29 PM)Dionysus Wrote:  Sometimes the tyrants come down from their ivory towers to hobnob with the great unwashed to show they "care." That's when we really need to hold their feet to the fire.

(emphasis mine)

And by doing so you will have proclaimed, and demonstrated, to both them and yourself, that you believe their claims.

If a whack-a-loon standing on the corner of some street tells you some far fetched tale, do you try and convince him that you own yourself? Or do you recognize that he's a whack-a-loon, incapable of coherent thought and conversation, and simply go on about your business?

- NonE

[Dionysus]

^^ It's not about convincing the tyrants that they're wrong. You'll never do that. It's about showing others that the emperor has no clothes and that they're being scammed. Most won't care, but a few might.

[NonEntity]

(01-01-2012 01:14 PM)Dionysus Wrote:  ^^ It's not about convincing the tyrants that they're wrong. You'll never do that. It's about showing others that the emperor has no clothes and that they're being scammed. Most won't care, but a few might.

I still say that bowing before them as if they are credible and conversing with them as if they deserve respect is GRANTING them same. You are showing by your actions that the emperors own you, so the message you hope to impart, whatever that might be, is obliterated in the Klieg light of your subservient behavior.

Do you grant the rapist, kidnapper, or thief the dignity of a formal debate on ethical behavior?

- NonE

[Dionysus]

(01-01-2012 01:25 PM)NonEntity Wrote:  Do you grant the rapist, kidnapper, or thief the dignity of a formal debate on ethical behavior?

Of course not. All I'm really doing is saying "You're a rapist/kidnapper/thief!!" to their face, in front of everybody else. I'm just doing it in a more tactful(?) way, that's all.

[NonEntity]

(01-01-2012 01:39 PM)Dionysus Wrote:  ..."You're a rapist/kidnapper/thief!!" to their face, in front of everybody else. I'm just doing it in a more tactful(?) way, that's all.

Luv it!

- NonE-tactful

What the hell is an E-tactful, anyway?

[zonsb]

(01-01-2012 01:39 PM)Dionysus Wrote:  

(01-01-2012 01:25 PM)NonEntity Wrote:  Do you grant the rapist, kidnapper, or thief the dignity of a formal debate on ethical behavior?

Of course not. All I'm really doing is saying "You're a rapist/kidnapper/thief!!" to their face, in front of everybody else. I'm just doing it in a more tactful(?) way, that's all.

Exactly. I propose a totally radical law be passed by congress. Perhaps the most outrageous radical law ever conceived. I propose that initiatory force, thereat of force and fraud against humans and their property be outlawed regardless of whether it's common thugs or government agents initiating force, threat of force or fraud.

It's a different sort of tact. Calling something that is common sense among voluntary associations -- us common folks associating with one another -- calling it outrageously totally radical.

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