Indiana's freedom to discriminate law

Why, what's wrong with prostitution? Wouldn't prostitution be "legal" in your world, including child prostitution? It's a way for families to make a little extra money, right? What's wrong with that? I could cite real world examples but you would probably ignore them anyway...

 

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An interesting question. But I'm not interested in participating in this discussion, simply because in this forum even completely neutral scientific questions end in bizarr personal attacks, so, in a discussion about sexual questions one would have to face all types of accusations of all imaginable sexual deviations, so, sorry, without me.

But I would watch such a discussion with interest.

 

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No, it doesn't. Neither is it ideology driven nonsense.

There is no conflict between the necessity of State regulation, and the non-necessity of some State regulations. That's an error in thinking.

Meanwhile, the fact that you say you think something is meaningless. You have no authority in these matters. You need argument, reasoning, and evidence; it would help if you quit making counterfactual claims.

Of course. Or as I put it pages back, child labor is sometimes a stable equilibrium in a free market economy - both theoretical and observed.

As has been proven in theory and observed in fact, the child labor equilibrium is sometimes stable in a free market - in which case the free market alone is and will be perpetuating it. You need an outside force, not a market factor, to move the trapped economy to a better equilibrium. You have been supplied with links, arguments, and evidence, concerning this real life situation.

Trapping an economy in a suboptimal equilibrium does general, common harm. The education of children is a common endeavor, with much common benefit. In general, there are no purely private or purely common goods.

No, they don't. Any of that: they don't usually cause harm, they don't reject the free market, they aren't predictable by the ignorant, and so forth.

That isn't a factor here.

I'm sorry, but that's ideologically blinkered nonsense. The only question is which syndicate is going to win control of it.

All these words - boycott, contract, name-calling, free market, ideology - whose meanings you seem to have discovered on wingnut propaganda sites: get a dictionary. Use it.

 

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The main claim - the existence of multiple equilibria - has been based on assumptions I have shown to be unreasonable. You have not provided counterarguments. "Scientific" papers which can be shown to be faulty already by educated laymen in this domain like me I name "nonsense". Then, "ideology driven nonsense" was what I expect for the majority of these papers, but of course not for all of them.

Of course, there are differences, and in theory they would be compatible.

But they are closely connected. Above are false, for one claim one can make some plausible cause (by showing that 1 of 1000 regulations is really useful and mingling "really useful" with necessary) and after this is used to legitimize the remaining 999 regulations. And the problem with the state is that the 999 harmful regulations are unavoidable in the actual "democratic" corporatism, because the big firms want them to prevent competition. The question is what would be more harmful - getting rid of all regulations, with some harm caused by the missing 1 reasonable regulation, or having all the 999 harmful regulations of today. The libertarian answer is to prefer to get rid of all of them.

But stable only until the society becomes sufficiently rich. So, in essence, stable only in a short time. This time may be very short, if what has caused the necessity of child labor was a natural disaster, a war, or a collapse of the state, thus, child labor will be necessary only in the period of reconstruction after the disaster. It needs much more time if the cause of the poverty remains valid (a bad natural environment, overpopulation, bad government), and if the technical possibilities to create a rich society are simply not present (past societies).

By the way, it is mainly an ideological problem, given that the age named in the article which is characteristic for child labor is 10-14. In this age, children in most of the West are forced to work (learning in obligatory schools - homeschooling is a small minority and illegal in some countries). So, it is simply the type of work which is different, not the fact that they have to work, and sometimes against their will.

Thus, the whole difference reduces to: 1.) that one needs, in a subsistence economy, a much lower educational standard for doing all the available jobs, which is what the children learn by themself during the age 6-10 when they are already in school (really work) in the West. 2.) that at the time their participation in family work becomes helpful instead of a strain, they become accepted members of the society, while they are increasingly handled like small helpless babies up to age 18 or 21 in the West.

The "evidence" for this has been considered and rejected. There is no such perpetuation by the market. There is the reasonable fact that in a family below the subsistence level it is better for the family if the children work and get income, as well as it is for street kids better to get income by work instead of criminal behaviour. And if the families become rich enough, or if there appear acceptable possibilities for street kids to live in an asylum or so, with conditions better than the street, child labor disappears.

The evidence for your "equilibrium" thesis was rejected as faulty. With arguments. You have not found faults in the arguments, not provided counterarguments. Try to find counterarguments, or propose new, different evidence for the thesis. Simply repeating the already rejected thesis is not an argument.

Then, of course, there are no purely common as well as purely private goods. So let's look at the details. Let's name the two parts P (the private part) and C (the common part) and measure them in %.
1.) To become a problem, the P part should be really small. Of course, there is no exact number where it becomes important. But say if P = 50%, there will be the same economic effect as if the state takes a sales tax of 50% of the price. In above cases, people would have to pay a doubled price to get what they want, which decreases the amount of money paid for the particular thing.

2.) What follows from this? All what the state has to do to correct this is not to tax what is spend for things which have a common good share. This solves the problem completely for all things with C < sales tax. And decreases the importance of the problem C -> C-sales tax for all common goods.

3.) There is moral renumeration as well as moral penalties. Those who invest their money in common goods receive a quite important renumeration in the form of being considered as people "doing good things", those who don't, or destroy common goods, are rejected as amoral. This completely solves the problem wherever the relevant community is small enough to that reputation works. The reputational system I have proposed would extend this - promises to do such moral things, and claims about what has been already done, could be controlled by the same mechanism (if you have lied about this -> black list).

So, what remains as problematic are big scale problems, unsolvable on a village level, and with a C part much greater than the sales tax.

No no no no is not an argument. The claim itself was a natural generalization - the actually proposed measures have these properties, and this has been shown.

A "no" is not an argument.
Explain how you would start to control, as a syndicate, the USENET. The USENET has been essentially destroyed by spam - but it remained uncontrollable even by the governments. So, one would have to care about dangers similar to spam, but a takeover by some syndicate does not even seem to be a danger.[/QUOTE]

 

You have not. You haven't discussed them, actually - you don't seem to know what they are. And you have ignored the observation of them.

And since you haven't done any of that, you don't get to name them nonsense.

The relevant market participants, not the society, and they sometimes don't, is the problem. I don't think you understand what a stable equilibrium is.

Indefinitely, as has been observed as well as theoretically demonstrated - until some outside, non-market force acts upon the economy involved and moves it far enough from its equilibrium that it goes to a new one.

That's nonsense. What would you be referring to, for example, by 30% of a child's education being the "private part"?

They don't enter in - they guide one picking desirable vs undesirable equilibria, but that would for imposing non-market forces on the economy to move it to a better free market equilibrium. The market analysis, in the first place, would be done without them.

The claim was obviously babble, without basis in evidence or argument or example or anything else, adequately handled by simple denial.

I wouldn't bother. I would just lean on the arbitrators - like the mafia leans on the judges - and hack into a bunch of computers, and organize long cons on certain subcommunities, and so forth.

 

Quote the part where the "observation" is described, and I will consider this. Then, of course, I have discussed the assumptions, found them faulty. Which, as I think we have already clarified, means that the theorem itself is nonsense. I can repeat: The assumption is that, because of the removal of children from the workforce, wages increase. That this also leads to increasing prices is completely ignored. Given that the wealth of the whole society decreases (less is produced once children don't work), the very idea that the family as a whole will gain from this is inherently faulty.

And, please, argue against this argument, by presenting reasonable counterarguments. Or accept it - and stop repeating the claims made in the article.

It seems, you don't understand that if the problem is only one of some market participants, and their number is open to change (as it is, because it is sufficient that one market participant becomes richer to make him switch into the category of those who don't let their children work), then different stable equilibria are much less probable. Not completely improbable - the society can contain mechanisms which guarantee that there will always a big group of families at subsistence level. But in this case, it would be this mechanism, which is the problem, and not that this group uses child labor to obtain means for survival.

The evidence you have been presented for this has been rejected, with arguments I have repeated here. You have nor confronted these arguments with counterarguments, nor presented independent, additional arguments. Thus, you simply repeat unjustified, rejected claims.

It would mean that the advantage the society as a whole would have received if one child would have received education would be 7/3 as much as what the child himself receives as the own advantage. This own advantage includes: Higher income, competitional advantages on the job market, higher status in society, side effects like connections obtained during the eduction, simply knowing a lot of interesting things, and so on, thus, to assign concrete numbers would be inherently difficult. Even more difficult would be to assign numbers to the interest of the "society" .

By the way, formalizing the received education in form of formal exams for finishing schools, universities and so on, and giving those with higher education advantages in competition, is a simple way for society to transform the public interest in education into a private one. And it is, indeed, hard to imagine which part of the public interest in education cannot be transformed in this way into a private interest. If the lowest class - the criminals - is stupid, this is even in the common interest, because it makes it easier to catch them.

About moral renumerations and penalties:

I disagree. If one does charitable work, this will not lead to any equilibrium. As long as one is doing it, one is doing it, if one stops, one stops. Moral renumeration and penalization works, for a given established moral, on a constant basis and shifts the equlibrium. Because every reasonable individual takes these predictable moral renumerations into account and modifies the own behaviour. The result is a shift in the behaviour.

Of course, if there is some local equilibrium near the result, this may also cause a shift toward this equilibrium.

By the way, given your obsession with equilibria: Such equilibria are usually problematic in large homogeneous societies. In small societies, they are much less problematic because to switch to another one is much easier. Thus, by allowing and supporting separatism, separation in general, local autonomy, one helps to solve such problems.

 

The case of Nepalese child labor, the one harmed by the bad law, has been referenced four times now, including by you. Or pick one - almost any modern child labor economy will do, as they are almost all market based and any known to us are likely to have been stable for a while anyway.

No, not some "market" participants, all the market participants in some sections of the economy - a trapped underclass, such as we see all over the planet and throughout history.

No, it hasn't.

And sometimes that mechanism will be a free market - that's what the theory indicates, and observation shows. A free market can be a problem that way - it can find such lousy equilibria (and child labor is not the only one: there's a whole category of them called the Tragedy of the Commons, for example) and trap entire economies in them.

7/3 of what, was the question.

Not difficult: absurd. Meaningless. Which didn't stop you.

I find that easy. For example: One cannot transform the public bearing of the risk of education, its opportunity cost, and the benefits of having surplus expertise at hand to insure against bad luck of various kinds, into private interest in that way.

That's a force outside the market, exactly as required by the free market equilibrium traps. One would of course prefer it to imposed laws. Unfortunately it's not reliable at the scale often required.

The switch is not made automatically by the action of market forces, is the issue at hand. It's generally easier to wisely govern smaller communities.

It's your obsession with denying them that is running this tangent into the ditch - I just take them for granted in the real world, and move on with the larger argument of the thread: freedom of contract has to be wisely limited and regulated (forbidding it to incorporate racial bigotry, child labor, selling of body parts, etc) or it will be used by some to harm others.

 

That's reasonable. But, different from the judges in the case of the state, there is no central instance which controls the arbiters. Everybody has to accept the arbiter, in every particular case. Thus, even if you control a large number of arbiters, you do not control those who do not trust them.

In terms of trust, the arbiters are, of course, the weakest point. There could be faked communities with fake arbiters, which behave quite adequate most of the time waiting for a big fish trusting the faked arbiter.

But let's at first note that to trust an arbiter is much less problematic than to trust a report of Y that X is reputable. A fair arbiter should only be fair, he does not have to know the clients, thus, can work for a much larger community. Say, in Germany there are 20 000 judges for 80 000 000 people, thus, 1:4000. Given that common law is much easier, and much more oriented at conflict avoidance than bureaucratic law of modern states, and a lot of legal conflicts simply disappear (drug laws), a libertarian society will probably need even less arbiters than a state judges.

Then, there is a simple well-known system how to decrease the danger of bad judges - several instances. As a consequence, I don't have to trust every arbiter, but only the last instance of a list of instances. Then, of course, the riscs of the arbitrage can be fixed in the contract itself, which can (and probably will) fix the largest possible penalties.

The other points - hacking particular computers and long con - have been already discussed, they are dangers for particular people, but not problems or boundaries for the whole system.

 

That makes them easier to influence, not harder.

I don't need to control a large number of arbiters - just the ones trusted by my targets.

It's far more problematic - at least one presumably knows something about Y and Y's relationship with X.

They are not just dangers, but almost certain and heavy costs, for most people. Which is yet another reason your reputational system, like all the others, will function among a fairly small elite only.

 

And where does it contain multiple equilibria? The modification of the behaviour of the people following a change of law leads to a new equilibrium - but one which has not existed before, as well as the previous equilibrium is no longer an equlibrium.

Except that you count, for example, the simple fact that people don't change their jobs without necessity as sufficient for an equilibrium. Of course, the new child prostitutes may remain child prostitutes, even after the law is rejected, may be simply because they have a higher income now, maybe because the old firm has no open jobs, whatever. If this is what you name equilibrium, then equlibrium means nothing worth to be mentioned, every firm going bancrypt changes the equlibrium based on pure market influence.

Ok, "stable for a while" is all what you mean with "equilibrium". Fine, in this case, it means nothing, because in this case market forces can change equilibriums and change them, all the time, and in much higher temps than usual state interventions (except, of course, state interventions which harm - to destoy and harm is always much easier and faster than to built something).

But usually the trap of the underclass is supported by cultural and state support. Even more, it is usually state and cultural force which restricts a certain unpopular group to remaining most dirty work.

Of course, you have failed to show this, your only "argument" is a "no it hasn't" in combination with ignorance of the argument. Then, "Tragedy of the Commons" is a problem, but much more of ownership by states and communities than of free markets with private ownership. One of the most important problems of the political market in a democracy is, BTW, a Tragedy of the Commons: Good laws are a common good, bad laws a private good, thus, the bad laws win. This is what we observe where the lobbies write the laws, as in all democracies.

Which has been answered. You have not liked the answer:

Because it is not at all absurd or meaningless, there was no necessity to stop. It is quite meaningful for each individual to compare very different alternatives and then to decide what is preferable, and how much money he would be ready to spend for this or that. We all do this all the time.
What is much more problematic than the indivudual interest - which one can measure with questions of type "what would you prefer - this or that?" - is the other side, the common interest. In this case in the education of the particular child. Some economists (Austrian school) reject it completely as ill-defined.

This is IMHO far too strong. The common interest requires ill-defined things like interpersonal utility comparison, but a very rough approximation of it is possible (the "all people have the same interests" approximation), which is sufficient at least for some particular questions (like is it useful to start WW III with a nuclear strike).

Unfortunately, I was unable to find an interpretation to this sentence which makes sense in the context. So I will ignore this, and formulate the point in a different way:

Given that education gives access to higher status in society, in particular to the power elite, how can you be sure that the citizens do not spend too much on education, in comparison with other things which also have high public good components?

Fine, let's note some agreement: Moral renumeration and penalization is a force which allows to correct some of the problems of the market. Which you, for some unknown reason, name "equilibrium traps", but ok, be it. I name the "common good problems", you have used "tragedy of the commons" for this. You argue that "it is not reliable at the scale often required", I have been more specific by claiming they solve the problem at the small, local level, where reputation is sufficient. The close connection is obvious, having high moral standards is always part of the reputation.

Because of this connection, I think that the reputational system I propose will also increase the power of moral renumeration and penalization. The idea is simple: Instead of a contract with some particular person, I given an open promise to the remaining part of the mankind that I will follow certain moral rules. What remains is similar - I accept an arbiter, everybody can submit claims that I have violated the rule which I have accepted to this arbiter, if I reject his decision I appear on the black list.

And if small enough they do not need government at all. Fine if we agree about this. The next step would be to recognize that to decentralize power to the smallest possible community would be much better than central power.

Of course, this is only a purely theoretical argument, in fact centralization will raise in democracies, and not because it is good, but because those with the power like this - it increases their power.

 

That's a good point. But it remains a particular danger. The arbiter riscs his reputation and looses it if he is open to pressure. The victim accepts the penalty - thus, accepts a certain loss, but not a big one, will not appear on the black list, but publishes the evidence about the case and the decision, which destroys the reputation of the arbiter, who can, after this, look for a different job, at least in cases where the decision is obviously wrong. Instead, the judge of the state does not depend on public opinion.

If the arbiter is fair, I couldn't care less about X - I know with certainty that he is yet not on the black list, and that he will appear on it if he does not accept the judgement of the arbiter I trust. So, I would guess you have in mind some different problem.

About hacked computers and long con:

The computer is in your home. If you don't use it, it is password protected. So, even if they rob the computer, they have nothing. This is what you have with standard linux installations, thus, for no costs at all, because linux is free.

There are simple additional security measures, like a key for the computer (you can implement this yourself with a key file on a stick) as well as personal identification via fingerprints and iris scans, which will make hacking even much more difficult. So, of course, there have to be improvements, and behind the fact that these trivial improvements are not yet standard is an obvious interest - that of the NSA - to be able to hack almost every comp on the world.

Long con attacks require the same what is required today, and even less given that one can use the reputational system to decrease the danger. The reputational system restricts some possibilities for attack. What remains are big attacks with a big result so that all participants have won enough for the rest of their lifes, thus, couldn't care less about their black list entries - but could not repeat the game. This makes the attack harmless for the system as a whole, and the targets will be restricted to a few very rich (or big firms, so that many people will be harmed - but also only once). The other thing, the one which would be really a "scheme", thus, repeatable, should be designed in such a way that none of the participants risks to appear on the black list.

Of course, such schemes will be developed. But, given that they almost certainly have to include arbiters as participators, it is usually quite easy to defend yourself by not trusting unknown arbiters. So, if you sit at home, you have your local trusted arbiters. And whoever comes through the neighbourhood to sell you nice things has to accept the local arbiter or can go to hell, a simple but powerful defense. Most contracts which are important for a functioning society will accept the local arbiter: job contracts and rent contracts are by their very nature local, insurances and other firsm will have to accept local arbiters if they want to make business in a certain neighbourhood. Even for tourism - the poor guy who uses what the local tourism agency offers, which accepts his preferred local arbiter too, has no problem even in other countries.

Thus, victims of such things will be special groups, groups which cannot insist on the use of their trusted arbiters to get the contracts they want. Don't worry, these groups will care for themself.

 

It is quite certain now that you do not know what the term "stable equilibrium" means. That's OK, except that you should stop referring to the research reports of the people who do know what it means as "ideological nonsense".

No, it's specifically a problem with private ownership and free market enterprise in the real world. No State or community ownership of anything is involved.

If you rewrite the description so you are talking about a "commons", rather than the body of laws, and remove the language of "bad laws win" (winning or losing a competition is specifically not involved), that has the makings of a very good point. Buried in there is one major reason you can't govern by free market principles, or set up and maintain a free market without firm governance.

On a small scale, communism works. Yes.

The arbiter's reputation is in hock to his reputational community. He loses it if he isn't open to pressure from them.

The large rubbery component of magical thinking in this entire proposal - principles are expected to compel people, that kind of thing - hits the road explicitly there: some magic prevents the loss from being a big one, the victims from being numerous and powerless and confused, the nature of the contract and the con from being obscure or complex, etc.

Does it now.

I'm a long time center-left libertarian in the US, follower of much that is published in the way of evidence about cases and decisions by modern capitalistic corporations and their media minions. Of all the attributes of this fairyland universe, that of publishing the evidence about the case and the decision casting the wrongdoers from their positions of authority and influence is perhaps the most attractive. I'll take it over the ability to fly, as my supernatural power.

And you know the arbiter will be fair, because you know something about the arbiter's relationship with X. Or you better.

You really have no idea what is silly about that, do you.

The way the danger of Bernie Madoff was decreased by the reputational system of his religious network of arbiters.

The way Walmart has to accept the local zoning boards, hire only local contractors and suppliers, pay what the local landlord requires for rent, etc. Or the way any businessman who wants to do business in certain neighborhoods has to accept the local arbiter - Bugsy, Bernie, the local priest, Lester Maddox.

You know: the way reputational systems work, in the real world of modern industrial capitalism.

 

I refer to your use of this term. Which is obvious ideological nonsense, because you use it in a way which is comfortable for you.

In any case, equilibrium is a mathematical idealization which is a reasonable approximation in many situations in thermodynamics, but usually a very questionable approximation in economics, which is usually unstable.

No. If you trust an arbiter who is known to be open to pressure you are stupid. (You may want somebody as an arbiter who is open to your pressure but not open to pressure from the other side. But this is one which the other side does not want.)

Not magic, but learning by doing. The developers of the system have to (and will) think about strategies which are sufficiently safe, and recommend these strategies to newcomers. Cheaters try to find loopholes and cheat. Some cheats will be successful, identified, and countermeasures will be invented. And recommended to others.

What makes a system stable? It is the question if there exist sufficiently safe strategies to use it successfully. These strategies will be teached to newcomers, they will learn them by negative experiences with small losses (the natural way children learn to handle money - they start with small amounts of them). This is anarchy, not a nanny state, so if you loose something, it will be lost. But it is not that complicate to learn. I think, a single book containing the most popular cheats and the basic concepts how to protect yourself against them will be sufficient.

Ok, some people will be really stupid, and loose a lot of money. So what? The system will survive this.

Nicely formulated, but, sorry, I have not really got your point. I have some vague ideas about the meaning, but they are too vague, so I prefer not to answer and to wait for a better explanation. Given that actually we do not have a system where arbitrage about contracts is made only by arbiters accepted volitionally by above sides, I do not see how some experiences with modern capitalistic corporations can tell us much about such a system.

No.

Really. Explain it to stupid people like me. Your argument have been heavy costs, my counterargument that the basic security measures are available for free already today. Ok, one may object that the sheeple don't use them today, and will not use them in future too - but not because of heavy costs, but because of their stupidity.

About the "Tragedy of the Commons":

No, it is a problem that the Commons are not privately owned, but can be used by everybody. In part, it is an objective problem, because for some things it is very difficult to organize and control private ownership.
No State or community ownership of anything is involved.

Again a text I'm not sure how to interpret it. It seems to suggest that you want to govern at any case, if it is not possible based on civilized rules, when you are ready to use "firm governance". The problem that good laws are a common good is, instead, mainly a problem of democracy - a monarch would benefit in the long run from good law - and not my invention but a standard result of public choice theory.

 

Like I said, you don't know what the term means.

No, it's not an idealization.

1) They're standard features of the mathematical analysis of economic situations. That kind of analysis is completely routine and very useful. 2) The discussion here was about the causes of instability, not its existence. The key finding was that market forces alone will sometimes stabilize, rather than destabilize, a child labor based economy. Examples were supplied. Such an economy may well change, but not from the benefits or any other features of its free market.

Like I said: you have to know your arbiter, or your deal partner and their relationship with the arbiter. All reputational systems ride on personal knowledge of the source of the reputation. That limits the size of the community in which they function. Keeping the books on a computer doesn't change that.

Nothing in way of computer operating systems and security and so forth is available for free, or ever has been. And calling people stupid because they haven't the time or resources to deal with something like Linux operating systems and their continually changing security setups may justify setting them up for robbery and abuse in your mind, but it isn't much of an argument in favor of your techie reputational utopia.

1) That doesn't make them State or community owned, which is what you mistakenly asserted to be the cause of the Tragedy. 2) That's not a "problem", but a feature of reality. The problems begin when the commons are over-exploited for private gain under systems of private ownership (in particular, private ownership of the means of production).

One of the more obvious solutions to the Tragedy of the Commons is to bring the commons involved under State or community control/ownership.

You're talking as if you think a common good is a commons.

Monarchs, btw, are not regarded as sources of good law. If people only did what thorough information gathering, sound reasoning, and Kantian ethics, had determined was beneficial to them in the long run, we wouldn't have much to talk about in this thread. And Lester Maddox would have retired a beloved and wealthy restaurant chain owner with many black friends and probably grandchildren.

 

Unsupported "no"s and defamations disposed.

About equilibrium:

Of course, as any scientist knows, simplifications and approximations are useful and helpful. And, of course, if there is a great number of families who fights for subsistence, thus, could improve its situation if the children would work, market forces will help them to find work. This is what one would hope for: If people need something, the free market will provide it. So, if children need a job, as street kids or as children of a family which would otherwise starve, the market helps them to find a job. Beyond such trivialities, no examples were supplied. And, of course, the point was made and supported in many different ways, if the families become richer - which a free market allows them - child labor becomes unnecessary for them and child labor decreases.

If the contract allows for appeal, it may be sufficient to trust the arbiter where you can appeal. I have taken a look at German statistics, 80 Mio people, 1 Mio civil cases handled per year, for around 200 000 appeal was allowed (for the remaining cases not, simply because they have been about sums < 600 Euro) and 50 000 have used appeal.

So, for most things I do I don't have to care at all about arbitrage, the amount is too small. If the sum is about 600 Euro, I will not spend a lot of time to learn who is the proposed arbiter - in the worst case I loose about 600 Euro, not nice but not fatal. For the remaining cases it is sufficient to know/trust the appeal court, which, given this number of cases as an orientation, gives another factor 1:20 to the original 1:4000 of judges per capita.

Wrong, the best software for protecting your own computer and your communications have been and are free. Starting with PGP. Truecrypt was free, Linux is free, the Torbrowser is free, torchat is free.

All you need is a little time to look into a forum which discussed such issues, to learn that these things exist and are good, then some time to install them and to learn how to use them. If one compares how difficult the use was initially and how simple it is today, one can predict that this will be made even simpler. I would guess that the package one needs anyway for using the system will contain all the necessary software for this, with sufficiently simple instructions how to use them.

Sorry, but calling people stupid if they are not ready to spend a few hours to care about their computer security seems completely justified. They are as stupid as those who leave their homes, cars and so on open in a criminal environment because handling keys is too difficult for them.

A "feature" because one can use it for anticapitalist propaganda, to justify a totalitarian state?

And, no, the commons are over-exploited for private gain in every society, because private interest does not disappear if the free market and private ownership disappears. In fact, even private ownership does not disappear, because there will always those who decide what is done with a given peace which could be owned, which will be the de facto owners.

So, all what "public ownership" can (and does) reach is that the de facto owners (the bureaucrats who have to control it) are much less secure about their ownership, thus, they expect they own it only for a short time - and, therefore, they don't care what happens with in in the long run, as a private owner would. Thus, the tragedy of the commons becomes a tragedy even for things which have no such common good problem in a free market with private ownership.

You present a minor problem of free market societies as a big one, and propose, as a solution, a society which even multiplies the problem - but gives you the power to govern, which you seem to hope for.

I don't, but they are closely connected. "Commons" is a form of ownership which makes to care about it a common good, with the corresponding common good problem. Privatization of the "common" solves this problem, the privately owned former commons no longer have a common good problem.

But there are, unfortunately, things where the corresponding common good problem cannot be solved in such a simple way. These are the common good problems which remain in a market society. As I have explained, the free society has methods to minimize these problems.

Depends. One of the best pieces of German law code - one which was exported to some countries after the collapse of communism - is the German BGB. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bürgerliches_Gesetzbuch of the times of the German Kaiser.

Democratic laws are much worse. I would not be able to cite some really good law code developed in a modern democracy. What democracies are famous for are drug laws and stupid regulations.

 

By the way, I have used here some time the "right to rape" as an analogy to the "right" not to be discriminated by a refusal to sign contracts. Of course, I thought this is pure polemical, only a purely theoretical possibility, to show the absurdity of this "right not to be discriminated" by showing what would be extremal variants of this "right".

This was an error. In a German left-wing paper taz I have found an article http://www.taz.de/!5132092/ where several arab muslims whine about being discriminated by German girls who refuse to start sexual relationships with them when they understand they are muslims. A clear case of discrimination - and really presented in this way. Poor discriminated arab boys, who have to lie (and lie - these poor guys have no other choice, imagine) to get one-night stands with German girls.

We seem to live in a time where polemical horror pictures appear predictive about our future.

 

One Hundred and One Digressions

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This really is an interesting spectacle. One hundred one off-topic posts in order to keep people talking about anything but the actual thread subject.

As bigoted animus goes, that's a pretty impressive spectacle.

If, however, we look at this as a closet case trying to rationalize his own behavior in support of homophobes in his proximal community, well, the four weeks of watch-the-birdie dedication advocating the surrender of civilized society on behalf of bigots actually sounds pretty mundane.

Reaction formation usually comes from knowledge and recognition. To call it reaction formation, however, is inappropriate on this occasion. Rather, the massive ego defense complex in play―including projection, intellectualization, and rationalization, at least―seems to be orbiting a locus best known by the term "overcompensation".

The problem is that the proximal community includes friends, family, and traditionally respected communal authorities such as teachers or clergy, law enforcement, and political leadership, and when one comes into such inherent conflict with these influences, options are limited.

Will one hate his own family? That's a hard thing to ask of anyone for any reason. Will one suffer in silence, as he has for all his days before? That many try to conform is perfectly human; that the internal conflict of self-betrayal can be incredibly destructive, even outright deadly, is the challenge.

It's actually easier to concede that external conflict, surrender to the proximal community, and abandon oneself. Or, rather, people tend to think that is a functional solution. And it does work for a while. They pass for months or years. And then it blows all to hell.

Truth is it never really goes away. My mother, for instance, is perhaps my biggest supporter in life; indeed, she was the only person in my family to actually ask if I was gay. But it turns out that while she's fine with the knowledge that I'm gay, she's uncomfortable with damn near everything else about it. So it's weird because to the one, she knows right from wrong, to the other she struggles as any human does, and yes, we must necessarily note that she's trying, even if she can't honestly admit to whatever the problem actually is. At the same time, though, there is only so much longer I can smile and not say, "Call it 'playing dress-up' one more time, I dare you!"

And, really, if this was the whole of the challenge gays faced, I would take that outcome. But it isn't. I am among the luckiest people on the planet.

Think of it this way: I just had a mindblowing appointment with my doctor. To the one everything went as well as one could hope. I advised him that I had changed by sexual orientation declaration, and he nodded, then paused, and you could see the drive light flashing as he pulled the different protocols to mind. We agreed that a full panel was essential; I was offered Truvada, responded that since I'm out of the closet I would hope to be skipping out on high risk behavior, and that answer seemed to satsify him. We returned to the subject of the STD panel; he reminded me that the paperwork is essential. And then he took a moment to specifically advise me on predatory transmitters of venereal disease as a public health issue. I'm still not over that one. It's not a question of moral offense or propriety; rather, it's extraordinarily awesome. My doctor took time to give me specific nonstandard advice based on a legitimate public health threat to my sector. Look, I have no idea what goes on between a woman and a doctor, but it is not mere coincidence that this new discussion takes place immediately after I inform my doctor that I am openly identifying as gay. That is to say, never once as a heterosexual or identifying bisexual did I receive any advice remotely comparable. It's supposed to be scary, but I am instead rather quite reassured to live in a community like this, where we dispense with the psychomoral bullshit unless it's specifically on the table. (This is a doctor who has been in the business long enough, and in places strange enough, that he has experienced the necessity of explaining to a patient that "Negro" is not a communicable disease.) Consider to the other that my invitation to the Gay Fray would specifically have rewritten medical school curricula and standards of practice in Oregon; the contrast is striking.

Not everybody lives in this sort of community. I don't have to leave the state to find bad places in terms of human respect for gays. I don't even have to cross the mountains. But neither do our rural communities wrestle with the issue as they do in places like Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, or Texas. And, really, beyond our American borders? There are great places to be gay, but the world in general is still hostile.

I can't tell any of my neighbors when or how to come out of the closet, but even in hiding they are still taking tremendous damage from their communities. In the end, the best one can hope for is a wash.

And there comes a point at which they put on such performances that the answer is obvious. The choice of issues for making this stand is itself suggestive; the dedication to the cause is indicative.

To the one, I never understood why some people want to be sociopathic. To the other, I don't have any really good answers for coming out of the closet. To the beeblebrox, aspiring sociopathy and desperate closeteering are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

 

The free market does not always allow that, is the problem.

"Commons" is not a form of ownership. The Tragedy of the Commons has nothing to do with common goods.

The reality will be there, with air and water and so forth, regardless of your propaganda.

To varying degrees, depending on how well governed they are.

You keep getting these things confused with each other.

I think it's a big problem, yes. It will - as with gold rushes and oil booms and the cutting of all the trees around Mexico City and the overfishing of essentially every single major fishery on a continental shelf - destroy the prosperity and blight the prospects of entire societies.

Regulation of markets and production to prevent Hardin's Tragedy seems to have been one of the major functions of government throughout history.

Are we talking about the massive, centralized, bureaucratic, market distorting, cartel and tariff establishing, old age pension and State medical care and unemployment insurance establishing, big government tome made law by majority vote of the Reichstag in 1896? The setup generally credited as the beginning of the modern European welfare state?

Or is the Reichstag, , like the Greek legislators, the Roman Senate legislation the BGB was based on, the American, French, etc, legal codifications it took into account, not "modern"enough to be considered in your comparison - meanwhile, the aspects of the BCG you favor are certain economic features - the isolationist tariff and cartel establishment, the anti-union provisions, the features the Emperor used to launch WWI, the Third Reich based WWII in, Japanese Imperial Majesty adopted for their war launching economy, the rise of fascism in Argentina found congenial, the People's Republic of China eagerly embraced for their centrally run economy: it's easy employment as a legal basis for the centralized control of an economy by a reputation organized cadre of elites recommending it to all the modern "libertarians".

The modern libertarians for whom the systematic oppression of (in the case of Indiana, say) Blacks, Reds, women, gays, and so forth, by these cadres of elites, is part of the freedom of contract these elites enjoy.

 

The free market allows them to do whatever they think allows them to become richer. If there are, for some objective reasons, no such possibilities, the free market does not allows this, of course, because the free market is not a magic market. And there is, of course, another method of becomes richer which the free market does not allow: to steal, rob and cheat.

No, only about a small part of it, the BGB. You are, of course, correct if you name these horrors the begin of the modern European welfare state. But, of course, if the modern welfare state would be reduced to this horror today, this would be a libertarian paradise. The part I have mentioned was, in fact, the one which was not that new, but in traditions:

These traditions where not really democratic ones - even the Greek philosophers considered democracy as a bad form of rule, and certainly not famous for creating good laws, Rome was not democratic at all, the French tradition has the name "Code Napoleon" - also not really democratic. And the american tradition at that time was more libertarian than democratic too.

Let's clarify that I do not really favour it - as a libertarian I would prefer something quite different, much more liberal. It was simply thinking what examples can be considered as good legislation at all. As a German, I naturally started to think about German laws, and what except the BGB can be considered as widely acknowledged good legislation?

So, the first example of a more or less good law came from a monarch, contradicting your "Monarchs, btw, are not regarded as sources of good law".

Then, of course, a good civil law makes the civil life better, less problematic, thus, makes the society as a whole richer, which is useful for all states. You seem to think that if some states from your personal axis of evil use it, it is bad law, or so, the same problem as usual with Hitler's use of 2+2=4. BTW, China wanted to develop a capitalist economy, without giving up political rule by the party, a slightly different aim from "centrally run economy", which is what they have had before. (That there are a lot of centrally run remains in economy too is another question, and natural once they have chosen an evolution instead of a revolution to make the transfer.)[/QUOTE]

 

Argue with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons They write "The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable earth. These resources are held in common, not owned privately." For me this question is not interesting enough to take any sides.

It can be sometimes an important problem which leads to destruction of natural ressources which are in common or nobody's ownership. But the only role the tragedy of the commons plays in government is the propagandistic one - it is used to legitimize intrusion into everything, by inventing some common interest for almost everything and then "solving" the invented "common good problem" by state control.