Re: High strength fibers for high pressure tubes.
- From: Mitchell Jones <mjones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 05 May 2005 14:31:30 EDT
In article <Xns964A4663E8418WQAHBGMXSZHVspammote@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
bz <bz+sp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Mitchell Jones <mjones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
> news:mjones-C630BB.22461301052005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
>
> > In article <Xns96492B163688EWQAHBGMXSZHVspammote@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> > bz <bz+sp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >> Mitchell Jones <mjones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
> >> news:mjones-04F04C.00284001052005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
> >>
> >> > In article <Xns96472ACA7C4FWQAHBGMXSZHVspammote@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> >> > bz <bz+sp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> Mitchell Jones <mjones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
> >> >> news:mjones-223160.01354929042005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
> >> >>
> >> >> > In article <Xns9646861EC47E2WQAHBGMXSZHVspammote@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> >> >> > bz <bz+sp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> >> >
> >> >> >> Mitchell Jones <mjones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
> >> >> >> news:mjones-72AA33.12394628042005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> > In article
> >> >> >> > <Xns964641AC76568WQAHBGMXSZHVspammote@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> >> >> >> > bz <bz+sp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> >> >> >
> ....
> >> That is only a small part of the 'cleaning up the environment.' And I
> >> am not advocating filling in mines just because they are not currently
> >> profitable. Only when the hole is of no use [other than storage of the
> >> tailing that have been accumulating during the mining and refining
> >> operations].
> >
> > ***{This very concept of "cleaning up the environment" implies that
> > force is to be used, because nobody, including the government, owns "the
> > environment."
> > The reality is that parts of it are owned by some, and
> > other parts by others; hence by its very nature any generalzed effort to
> > "clean it up" is going to require violating the property rights of those
> > owners who do not agree with the part of the cleanup plan that applies
> > to their property. The reality is that it's none of society's business
> > what owners do with their property, so long as they respect the property
> > rights of others.
>
> What about their invading my property when they contaminate MY air or my
> water or my land with any of the byproducts of their operations?
***{The statement to which you responded was qualified. Note the last
phrase, "so long as they respect the property rights of others." What
that means is that if your objections are real and significant, rather
than a figment of your imagination, you will be able to collect evidence
that you can use to prove that your property rights are being violated.
In that case, your proper course will be to file charges and get a
judgment against them. --MJ}***
> > For example, it's not my neighbor's business whether there is junk in my
> > yard, unless there were deed restrictions prohibiting me from storing it
> > there, which I accepted when I purchased my property. And it's not my
> > neighbor's business whether there is a box of dynamite on my front
> > porch, unless it is close enough to pose a significant threat to his
> > property, including his person.
>
> I decide to rent part of my property for the storage of high level nuclear
> waste. None of my neighbors business.
***{Again, the statement to which you responded was qualified. Note the
last phrase, "unless it is close enough to pose a significant threat to
his property, including his person." Again, obviously, if there is a
real threat to your neighbor, what you do becomes his business, and his
proper course it to file charges and seek a judgment against you.
--MJ}***
> A criticality accident floods his property (and him) with high levels of
> neutron flux. Of course, he won't be around to collect damages and neither
> will I as we both just got a fatal dose of radiation. And the low level
> explosion that distributed the waste over half the city... just bad luck
> for those downwind?
***{Shit happens, under any political system. For example, an engineer I
used to know (he's dead now) once told me about a refinery in the
northeastern U.S. that is in a heavily populated area subject to
frequent temperature inversions. According to him, if that refinery were
to catch fire under those conditions, a million people could die. If
that happens, the people suing the company afterwards will *not* be
people who lived in the area, but instead will be relatives who lived
elsewhere. While such happenings are tragic, those who think having
legislatures pass laws will solve such problems, are mistaken. The fact
of the matter is that a legislature is more likely to pass a law
exempting the owners of such a refinery from liability, than they are to
do something about problems of that sort. The best cure is a system in
which the threatened parties have a right to sue and can get a hearing
before a neutral arbiter. That way, if they have a solid case, they will
win. And the threat posed by such a state of affairs will strongly
motivate owners to locate dangerous facilities far from population
centers and make sure the danger is widely known, so that anyone who
moves near the facility after it has been built will voluntarily assume
the risks, and, thus, cannot sue the owners successfully even if the
risks come to fruition. --MJ}***
> > If the neighbor believes that it is too
> > close and cannot persuade me to make changes that will put his mind at
> > ease, then a neutral arbiter should consider the facts of the case,
> > decide whether the threat is in fact real, and prescribe a remedy. To
> > ensure neutrality, such an arbiter should be selected by means of a
> > neutral winnowing process--e.g., by making a list of the persons willing
> > to decide the case, and the plaintiff and defendant taking turns
> > striking a third of the names off the list, rounded to the nearest whole
> > number, until only one name remains.
>
> I don't know the poeple on the list. How do I know if they are neutral and
> not my neighbor's friends or in his pay?
***{You do research. If you can't find out anything about some of the
people who offer to arbitrate, you strike them off of the list. If you
find out that they are crooks, you strike them off of the list. Result:
the list becomes winnowed down to an individual who seems acceptable
both to you and to your opponent, and he adjudicates the case.
Of course, no system is perfect, including this one. But at least you
have a good shot at neutral arbitration: you don't have to face some
political hack (a so-called "judge") who will ignore the facts of the
case and hand down a verdict based on the orders of a legislature (a
"law"), or based on a bribe, or based on ideology, or whatever. And you
don't have to face a "jury" of idiots carefully selected, instructed,
and controlled by the "judge," so that they will do what he would have
done.
--Mitchell Jones}***
> > Why not let a government court
> > decide? Because government courts are not neutral. They are elected or
> > appointed by a process that requires them to consider the opinions of
> > uninvolved third parties--to wit: legislatures and bureaucrats--rather
> > than base their decisions of the facts of the case at hand.
>
> I agree that govenment officials are not neutral parties. They have their
> own agendas.
>
> XYZ Chemicals Corporation, in north Baton Rouge, just invaded my property
> with a plume of fumes from their operations. I need not even prove the
> plume is harmful to me.
***{If you want to collect damages, you need to show harm, and the
greater the harm, the greater the damages. --MJ}***
It was on my property. I was forced, I had no
> choice as long as I wanted to breath, forced to breath chemicals.
***{Maybe. It depends on the situation. Was the factory there first? Did
you, for example, purchase your land from the owner of the factory,
subject to a proviso that noxious fumes would drift across your property
from time to time? If so, you assumed the risks, and a lawsuit would be
nothing more than harassment. You would wind up paying, not he. --MJ}***
> What is my remedy?
***{If you were there first and owned your property free and clear, with
no deed restrictions permitting such a facility to be erected nearby,
then your rights, via the principle of encumbrance, trump the rights of
the owner. If he puts a factory there, he will have to make very sure it
poses no threat to you, or he can expect to lose a lawsuit. But if he
does that, it will run his costs up, so unless there is some strong
advantage to being in that area--e.g., because an ore deposit is
there--there is a good chance he will opt to locate somewhere else.
--MJ}***
> The plume is odorless. The fumes are cumulative and toxic. I don't know I
> have been exposed. What is my remedy?
***{You will have to sue when you find out. If you die first, then your
relatives will have to sue. Shit happens, and it happens in every
system, not merely in systems where people have to prove by means of
reasoned arguments that a wrong has been done or is about to be done. At
least under a system where such matters are settled by neutral
arbitration, the numberless wrongs done by politicized courts would be
eliminated. --MJ}***
> > Bottom line: those who want to impose "cleanup" requirements on others
> > ought to be required to demonstrate, on a case-by-case basis, that the
> > conditions to which they object are violating, or pose a serious danger
> > of violating, their rights. If they refuse to do so, they are criminals.
>
> You don't accord the property owner rights to be security in his own
> property.
***{Of course I do, and I have no idea what I said that made you think
otherwise. Obviously, a property owner can install a fence, or a hedge
of firethorn, let vicious dogs roam on his property, install alarms, or
make use of any other procedure that safeguards his property, so long as
it respects the property rights of others. --MJ}***
> You would give my neighbor the right to cross my property any
> time I don't catch him.
***{Why do you say that? I would do no such thing. He wouldn't have the
right to trespass, obviously, though of course to take action against
him you would have to catch him at it. But that applies to all crime:
you have to catch a murderer, or else he gets away with his crime; you
have to catch a burglar, else he gets away; etc. --MJ}***
> Not only that, I must then prove that he caused me
> damages. That doesn't sound like I have many rights at all.
***{Trespassing is a threat: a reasonable person will fear that the
trespasser intends to steal or kill. And it can be demonstrated that the
perception of a threat has significant, adverse effects on the human
body. Result: neutral arbiters will consider that damage is done by the
act of trespassing, even if no crime has been committed; and if the
owner kills or injures a trespasser, he is likely to get off scott free.
Result: under a system of neutral arbitration, precedents will be set
that, in their effects on behavior, will be very much like law. People
will learn what the precedents are, in a system based on neutral
arbitration, just as they learn what the laws are, under a system based
on law. The difference between the two systems is not that one is
anarchistic and the other is tranquil, but rather than under a system of
neutral arbitration, the rules are reasonable, and under the system of
law, they are tyrannical. --Mitchell Jones}***
> If I have property rights, the violator has to prove that I gave them
> permission to cross my property, otherwise I have NO property rights at
> all.
***{Invite an enemy over for dinner, and then kill him. He can't prove
he was invited, so you get off scott free! :-) Clearly, things have to
be more complicated than that. A neutral arbiter, looking at a
potentially criminal act, would have to base his decision on evidence,
and decisions about people killed while trespassing would set
precedents, just like other types of cases. One result would likely be
that, if you are invited by an enemy to come onto his property, you had
better make sure others have proof that he invited you, and that he
knows they have proof. --MJ}***
> ....
> >> Now 'waste' is a resource out of place. Much 'waste' could, if it were
> >> in the right location, be used as a raw material in the manufacture of
> >> some other product.
> >
> > ***{Yup, but that's for the owners to decide, and becomes the business
> > of others only when their property rights are violated, or when there is
> > a demonstrable likelihood that they will be violated in the future.
> > --MJ}***
>
> My property rights are violated when the car in front of me is spewing a
> blue cloud into the air.
***{No, it depends on the facts. If the blue cloud is cyanide, you are
probably right. But if it is within the range of normal engine exhaust
and is relatively non-toxic, or if its detrimental effects were either
explicitly or implicitly accepted by you when you put yourself in that
situation, then you haven't a leg to stand on. If, for example, you are
driving in the Indy 500 and the car ahead of you puts out a cloud of
blue smoke, that is merely the lesser of a number of risks you assumed
by being where you are. --MJ}***
> I am forced to breath the vapors.
***{Not if you might reasonably have expected such vapors at that
location, and voluntarily placed yourself there in spite of that
knowledge. --MJ}***
> That is NOT a risk I choose to accept by getting into my car.
***{It is if you transport yourself into an area where such vapors can
be reasonably expected. If you do that, you assume the risks
voluntarily. You are not the king of the world. You have no right to
decide what others can do on their own property. If you enter a
restaurant where smoking is allowed, you assume whatever trivial
risks--likely none--may be associated with the smoke you will breathe
while there. --MJ}***
> >> My 'cleaning up the environment' includes proper use or disposal of all
> >> waste.
> >
> > ***{That's fine, and you get to decide for your property, just as others
> > get to decide for theirs--assuming, of course, that you *really* "don't
> > want to force anyone." --MJ}***
>
> I don't want to force anyone and I don't want to be forced.
***{Until you admit that other people have the right to do things you do
not like, on their own property, such statements from you will ring
hollow. Do you admit that a restaurant owner has the right to allow
smoking in his restaurant, and that if you go there you assume the risk
of breathing that smoke voluntarily, and hence have no grounds for
complaint? Do you agree that if you drive on a private toll road, where
the owner is known to tolerate lots of vehicles trailing plumes of
white, black, blue, and brown smoke, you assume the risks of breathing
that smoke? Do you agree that if you buy coffee from a restaurant known
to serve coffee very hot, and spill in on your lap and burn yourself,
you assumed the risks voluntarily? --MJ}***
> I don't want to be forced to drink water that is contaminated with runoff
> from spraying the fields upriver from me, nor the runoff from that hog
> farm.
***{And if someone ties you up, sticks a funnel in your mouth, and pours
hog-farm runoff down your throat, you will have good grounds for
complaint. :-) --MJ}***
> I have a property right to clean water.
***{Nope. Nobody I ever heard of had a property right to clean water.
Not unless you get it piped in from a utility, at any rate. The water
rights that sometimes come with property are rights to dirty water, for
the most part, and depend on the specific package of rights you acquired
when you purchased your property. For example, if there is a spring-fed
creek on your property, do you own the spring? If so, then you have a
right to keep others from coming onto your property and polluting your
spring, and the creek which it feeds. As a practical matter, however, I
would advise you not to drink from either your spring or your creek:
birds, bears, foxes, fish, bugs, and lots of other critters are going to
shit or die in your water, so you had better treat it before you drink
it. And if you own a creek fed from sources on the property of others,
then your rights are further reduced. For in that case, in addition to
the critter-based filth that is going to get into your water from your
own property, other filth is going to flow in from other people's
property. That's just the way the world is. --MJ}***
> The water was clean before the hog farmer and the wheat field
> owner invaded MY property.
***{Nope. Water in a state of nature is filthy stuff. When you acquire
surface water rights, you had better treat the water before you drink
it, whether there is a hog farmer or a wheat field nearby or not. As to
whether the hog farmer has the right to pour in so much waste that he
kills all the fish and turns the creek into an open sewer, it all
depends on who holds the rights to the water, and how they are held. If,
for example, the hog farmer originally owned everything for 20 miles
around, and sold it off piecemeal with the proviso that he could do with
the creek as he wished, then you are out of luck, because you acquired
your property, directly or indirectly, from him, and your right to a
creek that you could fish in, or even to a creek that did not stink, was
explicitly deleted. --MJ}***
> What? You say the water belongs to the water company, not to
> me? The water company has the right to clean water, not me?
> I paid for the water. It is mine and I have the same rights to clean
> water that the water company has.
***{No offense, but that just sounds silly. If the water company owns
the water, then you don't own it. If you own it, the water company does
not. Nobody has a "right to clean water," unless they are party to a
contract in which someone else agrees, for a fee, to clean up some water
and let them have it. Most rights, including water rights, are based on
contractual agreements tracing back to the first person reliably known
to have possessed the resource. People don't get such rights
automatically, and thus the only way to determine who does or does not
hold them, is to examine the evidence--to wit: the chain of ownership.
--MJ}***
> ....
> >
> > ***{Unless you plan on lifting the oil to some other celestial body,
> > such as the Moon, the fixed and irreducible energy costs will always be
> > less than the fuel value of the oil.
>
> We disagree on the 'always'.
***{The calculation is simple. I posted it, and you made no claim either
that it was in error or that there were important considerations that
were ignored. Hence your statement that you disagree is without any
credibility whatsoever. --MJ}***
> > All the other costs are neither
> > fixed nor irreducible. That's not to say, of course, that oil will
> > always be a major fuel source. Nuclear fission, for example, would by
> > now have been vastly less expensive than oil, if the industry had not
> > been taxed and regulated to death from the beginning.
>
> Nuclear is clearly LESS dangerous than coal, IF handled properly. Cheaper?
> Be sure to include the costs of waste disposal and decomissioning and the
> cost of accidents.
***{At present, the procedures for waste disposal and decommissioning
are prescribed by government; hence so are the costs. Under capitalism,
those procedures would be determined by the owners of the property, so
long as they did not violate the property rights of others. The likely
solution would be to sell any of the radwaste that anyone would pay for,
and either return the rest to the mine from which it was originally
extracted for eventual burial, or else pay a concrete supplier to grind
it up and mix it into his concrete, etc. Result: under capitalism, those
costs would be trivial. --MJ}***
> Short term operating costs are not the total cost of fossle fuel nor
> nuclear. We need to look at long term costs.
***{I have no idea what you are talking about. Property owners are
concerned with the total costs, to them, of disposal of the waste, and
will choose the most cost effective pathway to that end. Long term
costs, obviously, are part of total costs. --MJ}***
> > But a cessation of
> > usage of fuel oil for that sort of reason will not mean a point was
> > reached where the fixed and irreducible energy cost of extraction
> > exceeded the amount of energy available in the oil. Quite the contrary:
> > the use of nuclear powered ore processors may at some point allow the
> > profitable extraction of oil from deposits that are presently too
> > diffuse to be profitable--including the very sorts of deposits you have
> > been talking about so incessantly, in fact. :-) --MJ}***
>
> But that would invade the property rights of those who's ground water
> would be contaminated by the process.
***{No, in a property based system, it would be necessary to buy up
those rights, before extracting the oil. One of my major irritations
with the present system, in fact, is that ground-water contamination is
so often simply ignored by the authorities, even in cases where the
water rights were in private hands long before the oil rights. There are
lots of stripper wells in West Texas, to name only one example, where
oil interests have had their way in the courts in preference to the
owner's of water rights, and because of that judicial bias so much salt
has been introduced that all the local water wells have been ruined.
--MJ}***
> >> All of those recovery methods have associated costs. Those who figure
> >> the costs need to factor in all of the costs of producing that
> >> superheated steam and getting it into the matrix, etc. The costs are
> >> NOT just the dollar costs at the wellhead.
> >
> > ***{I never said or implied that they were. My point is (a) that the
> > energy cost of lifting a barrel of oil from its point of origin to any
> > point of use on the Earth is vastly less than the energy contained in
> > the barrel of oil, and (b) other costs are technology dependent, and
> > thus will always be subject to reduction, as technology improves. Why
> > does that matter? Because it implies that those who are claiming that
> > "Peak Oil" is here or imminent, have no basis for that claim.
>
> There WILL come a day when the peak is past.
***{Of course, but there is no reason to expect that point to arrive
while any of us are still alive--or even our great grandchildren, for
that matter. --MJ}***
> > There is
> > not a shred of a reason, other than political interference, for
> > believing that engineers will not continue to improve extraction
> > technology fast enough to increase total world oil reserves, for as long
> > as the world cares to use oil as an energy source.
>
> No technology can improve without limits.
***{It's been a long slog, for living in trees to living in skyscrapers,
and that's pretty strong evidence that you are wrong. --MJ}***
> > It is easily proven
> > that we have deposits equivalent to more than 100,000 years of usage at
> > current rates of consumption,
>
> Deposits of carbon containing strata is not deposits of reduced carbon in
> useable forms.
***{Why are you forcing me to repeat myself? I was referring to deposits
of usable hydrocarbon fuel equivalent to more than 100,000 years of
usage at current rates of consumption. I've said that repeatedly, when
you have forgotten it before. Please try to hold my meaning in your head
a little longer this time. If you can't retain the context of the
discussion, how can we make progress? --MJ}***
> > and there is no reason--other than
> > political interference--to think that the rate at which those deposits
> > are converted to reserves will fall below consumption in the foreseeable
> > future. Remember: technological improvement is the means by which
> > deposits are converted into reserves. We know that deposits are ample
> > for more than 100,000 years of usage, and we know that the ingenuity of
> > engineers is unlimited.
>
> We disagree on both points.
>
> Lets see them produce a perpetual motion device that produces free energy.
> Can't be done? Right! There are limits.
***{Ingenuity is skill at getting around limits. Getting around a
limitation involves finding a way to reach a goal that doesn't involve
violating the laws of nature. For example, suppose you want to get oil
out of deposit where it is entrained in shale. You can't just drill down
to the shale and pump out the oil, because it is entrained: it won't
flow. So what do you do? Do you just say: "Can't be done--there are
limits," and walk away? Well, maybe you do. But lots of minds will
linger on a problem like that, and, one day, one of them will find the
answer.
What kind of mind will that be? It will be a mind who understands the
relevant laws of nature, and finds an allowed path to the goal--which
means: the problem will be solved by an engineer.
And what is the basis for thinking that the ingenuity of engineers is
unlimited? Simply that it has been a long slog, from living in trees to
living in skyscrapers, and engineers, with and without degrees, brought
us every step of the way. At some point, don't you think we ought to
notice what they have done for us, and admit that, if we will merely get
out of the way, they will take us to the stars?
--Mitchell Jones}***
> > Hence the only question is whether the
> > politicians will let them get at the oil. --MJ}***
>
> Not politician. The owners of the properties effected.
***{The owners? Hell, they are the main ones who hire the engineers!
Engineers are primarily creatures of the private property system. They
show the owners of mineral deposits how to get them out of the ground.
They show the owners of automobile manufacturing companies how to build
cars. They show architects how to build skyscrapers. They show power
companies how to build hydroelectric dams. And on and on and on. It
isn't the owners who are standing in the way of the engineers. They are
standing behind them urging them on! --MJ}***
> ....
> ....
> >> > Hence as a
> >> > practical matter the only way any Earth-based life form will avoid
> >> > extinction will be if man moves into space and takes them with him.
> >> > That means man is not a threat to other species, as environmentalists
> >> > believe, but, instead, represents their only hope of avoiding
> >> > extinction. --MJ}***
> >>
> >> Their only hope and their worst enemy unless the hope is fulfilled.
> >
> > ***{Man uses force against animals, 'tis true. But that's OK: it is
> > perfectly moral to use force against creatures who have voluntarily
> > accepted its use, and hence its risks, by using it themselves. --MJ}***
>
> And animals have voluntarily accepted the use of force?
***{Any creature who violates the property rights of others cannot
complain if his own property rights are violated. That is as true of a
man who burglarizes my house as it is of a squirrel who gnaws his way
into my attic. --MJ}***
> Informed consent?
***{Informed schminformed. The thought process that led to the decision
to violate someone's rights is irrelevant. I don't care why the squirrel
gnawed his way into my attic, and I will not read him his rights before
I blow him away. --MJ}***
> Or do you classify humans that use force as animals?
***{I classify them as creatures who gave up their right to complain if
others use force against them. --MJ}***
> ....
> >> Nuclear energy is clearly the best choice for many things.
> >> Solar energy is clearly the best choice for most things.
> >> Using both in space is clearly the best choice.
> >
> > ***{I don't agree that solar energy is the best choice for most things,
> > even in high Earth orbit, but it's not an important point if you concede
> > that the choice should be made by the owners of the property, rather
> > than by "environmentalists" or by the government. --MJ}***
>
> Oh, I will not only concede that point, I too will insist upon it.
>
> ....
> >> > ***{If nobody is being forced, then most people are going to continue
> >> > living on Earth, continue mining on Earth, and continue manufacturing
> >> > on Earth. Some of those who opt to live in space may earn their
> >> > living by mining near-Earth asteroids, of course, but most will
> >> > pursue other lifestyles. Again, can you live with free choice in such
> >> > matters? --MJ}***
> >>
> >> Free choice is the only kind I favor.
> >> Truely free choice. Really free, based on knowledge and logic.
> >
> > ***{Too many qualifiers. It's not your business to decide how others
> > decide, or whether they decided the "right" way. What matters is that
> > the owners of the property decide its use.
>
> My neighbor just invaded my property with cigarett smoke. I do NOT allow
> cigarett smoke on my property. I have a right to decide how my property is
> used and by whom.
***{Yup. So tell him to stub out his cigarette or leave your house. If,
however, he is sitting on his front porch and the smoke is blowing onto
your property, then you are out of luck, because any sane arbiter before
whom such a complaint was lodged would laugh it out of court. --MJ}***
> > Period. If they do less
> > research or employ less logic than you think they should, they assume
> > the risks voluntarily, and in a free society it is their call, so long
> > as they do not impinge on the property rights of others. --MJ}***
>
> OK, as long as they stay completely off my property.
>
> >> Choices not forced by fear or hate or poverty.
> >> How many of your choices in life have been free choices?
> >
> > ***{Politically, freedom is the state of the man who can reasonably
> > expect that his property rights will not be violated.
>
> Under your system, I do not have property rights.
***{You will find no statement to that effect in anything I have
written, here or elsewhere. The only question is, what have you been
smoking? --MJ}***
> > Politically, a
> > choice is free if the owner was uncoerced when he decided how to employ
> > the property. Period. It doesn't matter whether he was toilet trained
> > improperly and wet the bed as a child. It doesn't matter whether his
> > choice was influenced by bad advice from his mother. It doesn't matter
> > whether she beat him as a child, and, as a result, has undue influence
> > over him in the present. All that matters is that he made the decision
> > without being subject to force or the threat of force, at the time the
> > decision was made. If he felt like he was forced because of the way he
> > was treated as a child, it doesn't matter. Unless his mother was
> > standing in front of him with a cocked revolver pointed at his head, or
> > something similar, he made the choice, and he assumed the risks
> > associated with that choice. --MJ}***
>
> Ahh, but I live near the railroad tracks.
***{If they were there first and you chose to move there, and choose to
remain, then you accepted both the noise level and the view. Result: you
have no grounds for complaint about either, so long as they fall within
the realm of what one might reasonably expect when living near a
railroad. --MJ}***
> I am FORCED by my location to accept certain risks (train derailment,
> leaks, explosions, etc.), to accept diesel fumes
> from the trains, to accept noise and vibrations from passing trains. They
> invade my property. They hold a gun to my head.
***{I repeat: you chose to move there, and you choose to remain. --MJ}***
> Lets assume that the tracks were not there when I bought my property and
> that they have never received permission to invade my property.
>
> What is my remedy?
***{Your remedy, which you did not exercise, was to either purchase
enough land so that such a use would not have been close enough to
bother you, or else purchase a lot in a subdivision where deed
restrictions prohibited such use. Since you did neither, you have no
grounds to complain about any activity that can be defended as serving a
reasonable purpose, unless it is demonstrably a threat to you. If, for
example, the railroad stores nitro in a shed on their property, 30 feet
from your house, you have grounds to complain, due to the threat. Or if
they build a track close enough so that you face derailment risk, or
cannot sleep at night, you have a case. Assuming, of course, as you say,
that you were there first. All such details would have to be weighed by
an arbiter, in order to come up with an appropriate solution to such a
conflict. --MJ}***
> ...
> >> I would not coerce them. [to go into space]
> >>
> >> I would not want them coerced by fear or hate or poverty into remaining
> >> on earth either.
> >
> > ***{Meaning what? That you would accept their choices only if you agreed
> > with the thinking by which the choices were made?
> >
> > You could say, for example, that a guy was "coerced by fear" into
> > remaining on Earth, because he saw Arnold Schwartzenegger sliding down a
> > hill on Mars with his eyeballs bulging out in *Total Recall.* But would
> > you say that?
>
> If he was coerced by propaganda, his choices were not free.
***{You are talking about psychology, not coercion. Politically, his
choice was free, regardless of whether he was dumb enough, or neurotic
enough, to be influenced by propaganda. That's why when a lynch mob
hangs an innocent man, they commit a crime. In reason, they cannot
escape the responsibility for what they did by claiming that they were
"coerced by propaganda." All are guilty, not merely the man whose
rhetoric whipped up the mob. --MJ}***
> > You could say a guy was "coerced by hate" into remaining on Earth,
> > because he despises the intellectuality of engineers, scientists, and
> > the like, and knows he will have to associate with lots of them if he
> > moves into space. But would you say that?
>
> If he was coerced by propaganda, his choices were not free.
***{That answer has nothing to do with the question. --MJ}***
> > As for being "coerced by poverty," I can't even hazard a guess at what
> > you mean by that, since free enterprise in space would need grunt labor
> > so badly that they would doubtlessly pay the fares into space of those
> > they hired, and train them on the job. (How else could you train someone
> > to work in zero gravity, other than on the job? You sure won't be able
> > to learn such skills at a university on Earth.)
>
> If he was too poor to migrate, then his choices were not free.
***{I said, "free enterprise in space would need grunt labor so badly
that they would doubtlessly pay the fares into space of those they
hired," and you said, "If he was too poor to migrate, then his choices
were not free."
Were you drunk when you wrote this stuff?
--Mitchell Jones}***
> If migration is at the cost of endentured servitude, then his choices are
> not free.
***{I wrote a book called *The Dogs of Capitalism,* which among other
things explains why slavery, including indentured servitude, is a
violation of property rights. That argument is too lengthy to repeat
here. If you are interested, you can obtain the book at Amazon.com.
--MJ}***
> >> They. You. Me. We all are being coerced by circumstances, right now.
> >
> > ***{Only if "circumstances" = "governments." --MJ}***
>
> Many of the circumstances are NOT the government.
***{When I speak of "coercion" or "use of force," I am referring to
violations of property rights. Since "circumstances" cannot violate
property rights, we cannot be coerced by circumstances. Coercion comes
from other beings, mostly from other people, and the vastly greater part
of coercion by other people occurs through the medium of government.
--MJ}***
> ....
> >> I want to see that which curently forces us to fear, hate and kill each
> >> other removed. I want to see poverty defeated
> >
> > ***{Then remove the socialist governments which do not permit property
> > rights, and the fascist governments which reserve the right to violate
> > property rights "in the public interest," and your job is done. --MJ}***
>
> Property rights, the freedom to swing my arm, end when my arm or any other
> result of my actions cross my property line.
>
> >
> >> without the use of force on
> >> any side.
> >
> > ***{Oops, sorry: you just left reality behind. While there are ways that
> > the world might gradually become free, the authorities would continue to
> > use force to oppress us while that gradual process was underway.
>
> But, by your reasoning, if we don't use force to prevent oppression, we get
> oppressed. If we DO use force, then we consent to their using force on us.
***{Nope. If you violate my rights--e.g., by punching me in the
nose--you give up grounds for complaint if I punch you in the nose--but
when I defend myself, that does not mean I can't complain about your
punching me. I did not consent to your punch by going peacefully about
my business. If I implied anything by doing that, it was that you should
go peacefully about yours. --MJ}***
> > Alternatively, if you would be satisfied with decent people being able
> > to get away from their oppressors, then come up with a technology that
> > will enable individual humans to transport themselves into space, or to
> > live underground, or to live beneath the sea, and then post your plans
> > on the internet.
>
> I am trying to do my part toward that goal.
***{Seriously? Well then good for you! So am I, as it happens. --MJ}***
> > By doing so, you would restore the frontier, and make
> > it possible once again for independent minded people to live "out of
> > sight and out of mind of those unwilling to live and let live."
> >
> ....
> >> > Bottom line: the only moral use of force is against persons who have
> >> > voluntarily accepted the use of force, and hence its risks, by
> >> > initiating its use against others.
> >>
> >> The use of force includes the manipulation of others through the use of
> >> hate, ignorance, fear, and poverty.
> >
> > ***{Any attempt to unilaterally settle a dispute over property is a
> > criminal act. The proper course is always to bring the disupte before a
> > neutral arbiter, and let him decide.
>
> Where do I find a neutral arbiter? I tried. All are biased.
***{When I use the term "neutral arbiter," I am referring to an arbiter
selected by a neutral winnowing process. There is no implication that a
neutral winnowing process is infallible, only that it is better than
the alternative, which is letting one's case be settled in government
courts, where justice is almost certain to not be done for either party.
--MJ}***
> > Thus if someone whips up a lynch
> > mob using inflammatory rhetoric, he commits a criminal act. But it is
> > not the fact that his presentation appealed to hate, ignorance, fear, or
> > poverty, which made it criminal. His presentation was a criminal act
> > because he was attempting, in a credible way, to unilaterally settle a
> > disupte over property. Persuasion of and by itself, even if it relies on
> > demagogic manipulations, is not a criminal act. --MJ}***
>
> I disagree on your final point. I see demagogic manipulation of a
> population as a crime, one of the worst of crimes.
***{Many people rely on what they call "hot buttons" to persuade others
to buy whatever they are selling. But if what is being sold is
encyclopedias, there is no crime. It is only when what is being sold is
some sort of mob action in violation of rights--e.g., a lynching, the
banning of DDT, etc.--that criminality is involved. --MJ}***
> --
> bz
>
> please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
> infinite set.
>
> bz+nanae@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.
- Follow-Ups:
- References:
- Re: High strength fibers for high pressure tubes.
- From: Mitchell Jones
- Re: High strength fibers for high pressure tubes.
- From: bz
- Re: High strength fibers for high pressure tubes.
- From: Mitchell Jones
- Re: High strength fibers for high pressure tubes.
- From: bz
- Re: High strength fibers for high pressure tubes.
- Prev by Date: Re: electron elliptical orbital - what's the proof?
- Next by Date: Diffraction - Huygen - Obliquity factor
- Previous by thread: Re: High strength fibers for high pressure tubes.
- Next by thread: Re: High strength fibers for high pressure tubes.
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
