I agree that ownership is, and long has been, usurped from the orignial owner by a more powerful new owner. This just demonstrates that all societies greatly value assets and want to own or control them. Most of man's early wars between large tribes (quasi-nations) were over the control of salt deposits (well before the Greek era). No the value of a asset would not disappear if no one owned it. A salt deposit was valuable in and of its self. Worth killing others for control of how it was to be exploited (I.e. for ownership of it.) OWNERSHIP (or asset control) is FUNDAMENTAL TO ALL SOCIETIES, even the most primative tribal groups as I illustrated in prior post.
No it's not. Ownership is what it always has been. And it is usurped in exactly the same way, for exactly the same reasons, as it always has been: More powerful people take a piece of property because it's perceived value in the future is considered indispensable to those who own it now. ~String
Again: OWNERSHIP (or asset control) is FUNDAMENTAL TO ALL SOCIETIES, even the most primative tribal groups as I illustrated in a prior post. Many trying to profit give away free samples, as do most owners of internet sites. That doesn't mean that ownership is being destroyed by the internet. - For example, I have read that when YouTube has its IPO it will be worth more than General Motors, etc. The Internet, contrary to your claim, is the fastest growing creator of ownership wealth.
As people become more wealthy, ownership becomes less important. Once you have the basics of life, richer people have just got more expensive versions of what you also have. You can only eat one meal at a time, live in one house, sleep in one bed, drink one glass of wine etc A billionaire's needs are much the same as yours. He drinks Chateau du Couvent Imperile 1943, footpressed by scared nuns, and you drink last years passable Californian red. The desire to show wealth makes nouveau rich footballers and oil arabs alike, buy crass gold bath taps and other laughable items. Once you have got far more money than you need, the only rational thing to do with it is to give it away. The multi Billionaire and major philanthropist Warren Buffet lives very simply I believe.
And what would ownership of youtube mean if you put an EMP next to the computer? Or if a storm destroyed all satellite connections? Or if your country blocked access to it? Ownership is only meaningful if its recognised. Otherwise its entirely meaningless. Ask the native American tribes who owned their sacred graveyards what it means. Or the aboriginals who don't want people crapping on Uluru. Hell ask the US troops occupying Afghanistan what ownership means to them when they throw drones down on weddings and huts. Or even ask the author whose ebook is going viral for free on torrent engines. There was a time when being "landed gentry" was meaningful, right before the French Revolution. The guillotine is proof that ownership is as meaningless or as meaningful as any other symbol, as nobility.
On (1): No one is claiming that assets can not lose value - You are getting despirate in effort to defend your silly claims. On(2): Ownership is always "recognized" - The current owner will defend it to the best of his ability and the usurper will too, if he succeeds in taking control of the asset.
Excuse me again for intruding, but the destruction of a property is not evidence of dissolution of the concept or application of property rights. [Now for the semi-unsupported bit.] All societies are, regrettably, even more focused on personal property and entitlement than previously. It is a vicious viral meme.
I'm afraid I don't see it as a "silly" claim. If ownership is "always" recognised what is a Sam's club doing on a native American sacred site? Has that "asset" lost its "value"? When people download movies and books for free on share sites is it because of how little they value them?
Not all things of value have owners, especially it their value is only to primative people. For example, the air has value, yet you are seldom required to pay any owner for braeathing it. For ownership to be universally recognized and sought by all, the item much be useful and rare or at least with supply less than the maximium demand possible. Water is becoming an owned item - it was such only in deserts 1000 years ago.
Exactly. But who determines ownership? For example, who will own the water? Its only valid as long as the people are willing to go along with it. You've been a civil rights activist, its hardly news to you that all rights are symbolic.
Ownership is always recognized by the weaker original owner and later by the stronger owner who took ownership from the weaker. You are confusing who is the current owner with the concept of ownership - No one is claiming that who is the owner can not change, by purchase or by force but no society can survive without the concept that some items of value to them have controlling owners. As I pointed out some post back, when a primative tribe had a sucessful hunt some one decided who got which pieces of meat and who went hungry if there was not enough for all.; I.e. that meat had an owner (or set of owners). Again: OWNERSHIP (or asset control) is FUNDAMENTAL TO ALL SOCIETIES, even the most primative tribal groups as I illustrated in a prior post. To think otherwise is to have no contact with reality.
It can be by common agreement. Most modern societies have rules about ownership and police to inforce them. When push comes to shove, critical to survival situations, then the more powerful become the owers. It has always been that way and always will be. For example, if there is not adequate wheat in 2011 to meet global demand the rich will get what is available and the poor will do without. I.e. the poor will have no choice but "to go along with it."
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! As part of SNL's apology to the audience, during his opening monologue the following week, host Joe Pesci held up the photo, explaining that he had taped it back together, which gained applause. Pesci also said that if it had been his show, "I would have gave her such a smack." On the Christopher Walken/Arrested Development episode that followed the Joe Pesci episode, former cast member Jan Hooks cameoed as O'Connor and tried to apologize for her actions, which also spoofed Irish stereotypes such as beer festivals and leprechauns. This was not O'Connor's first 'set-to' with Saturday Night Live; earlier she had refused to appear on a show hosted by "misogynistic" comedian Andrew Dice Clay. Rather, she had agreed to appear on a later episode hosted by Kyle MacLachlan. Two weeks after the incident she was booed off the stage at a Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Madonna also roundly attacked O' Connor in the press for the incident, telling the Irish Times: "I think there is a better way to present her ideas rather than ripping up an image that means a lot to other people." She added, "If she is against the Roman Catholic Church and she has a problem with them, I think she should talk about it."(wiki)
Indeedy, fair lady. In light darkness of said ignorance and the prevalence of war, I fear for our freedoms. :m:
Isn't the whole "religious people being outraged and finding it utterly unacceptable that their 'holy' symbols be desecrated" thing also a form of intolerance? The fact that one can burn a picture of George W. Bush in front of the White House whilst calling him a war criminal and it being 'tolerated' and guaranteed to you as a basic freedom or right, yet displaying one's disgust for a religious ideology in a similar way is what... showing ignorance and intolerance and therefore making it 'wrong' or unacceptable? I think it's clear which side you see things from. It's this sort of irrational and unjustified immunity to symbolic displays of displeasure we give to religion that is the major concern.
