(continued from Pt. I) A tree should be judged ideally by its fruits. If its bounty is rotten, it is of no utility. If it produces plentiful, delicious fruit, on the other hand, most people welcome it. Perhaps a better analogy might be the mighty mushroom. Some are deadly and others are treasure troves of selenium, copper, and magnesium. They have the capacity to either enhance life or snuff it out – as the state does, arguably, with liberty.
Aw jeez. I feel like Morty forever following after the much more able genius Rick, if you’ve ever watched the tv show Rick and Morty 😉. And you probably should.
That relatively small section of my being which always believed most of what you’ve laid out has just broken through and is no longer relative or small. Like a few drops of ink spread out to color the whole container of water, it’s becoming mainstream in my mind.
I can’t really call it an epiphany, because I know I always knew it, and just never wanted to know. Though perhaps that’s really the essence of epiphany. The faint background music we always ignored has now replaced everything we hear in our minds.
Maybe I can finally wear that Infowars t-shirt I got a long time ago.
Cool! I actually do wear a Rick and Morty t-shirt out and about. If I haven’t grown up by now, it’s far too late (71).
You really did blow my mind with your article. It tied together a lot of loose threads for me. It was something of a paradigm shift! Now I’m also embarrassed that I’m embarrassed about Jones and other conspiracy “theories”. Those theories seem to be actualizing at a truly alarming rate.
I’m just really unsure how all this weird stuff can be reversed or at least mitigated at this point. An awfully large number of people are going to have to open their minds somehow.
I suppose we really are the news now.
Apologies, I’m very talkative, too. My theory is that while playing Zork a million years or so ago, I switched on the “Maximum Verbosity” setting, and my brain somehow synced to it. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. 😆
Unfortunately the evil sociopaths now reside in the bureaucratic ranks of for example the EPA and will do more damage due to their power and of course privacy ( for national security you see). A law of the jungle or natural law type situation would be better. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely as seen in every aspect of the US feral gummint
Your high school teacher was a manipulative leftist idiot. All you needed to solve the problem that you mention with the river was to assign property rights to the river. So one of the 13 year old would be the owner of the river.
As the owner of the river, you could charge the people at the margin for the pleasure of clear water or for the necessity of polluting the river. You would do this out of self interest to maximize your profit. Given that a market now exists for the externality of pollution, you would then achieve an optimum amount of pollution by letting the people pollute just the right amount to make people accept it for the price that they would pay to reduce pollution otherwise.
Note: The optimum amount of pollution (or any other "bad thing" is almost never zero). Otherwise, people would never become fat, would always exercise, cross the street on the right place, eat their vegetables or whatever they believed to be the best, etc.
In conclusion, your teacher's exercise is based on the same fallacy that the government uses to justify its existence.
About the international order being based on anarchy and being "full of violence" because of that. Careful with what you wish. No one has ever managed to make a worldwide genocide. This is exactly because there has been no world government that had the monopoly of violence. Once you get this all powerful government, just wait and see what happens. Anarchy and everything involving freedom, like capitalism are not perfect systems. They are just the best among the ones that can be implemented. By far.
The first thing I'm hung up on in your explanation of how pollution would be controlled without a state is the river -- an inanimate object -- having property rights. how would that work in real-world practice?
No no.. It is not the river that has property rights. Someone owns the river, and this person has property rights. Just like people own houses, parcels, etc.
gotcha. the wording in your original comment wasn't clear. so, in this conceptualization, the owner of the river would enjoy control, at least in theory, over what pollution is allowed to be deposited in it and carried downstream?
Actually, the owner of the river can be a separate entity, the people down the river, or even the factory owner.
Although one person owning the river sounds more just than another, the solution is exactly the same in terms of how much pollution is generated (after the negotiations take place). The question is just who gets to pay who.
Anyway, there's no need for government in this case...
BTW, I went a bit far saying that Anarchy is the best system "by far" by writing in the same sentence as Capitalism. Capitalism yes, it is undoubtedly the best. And the only one consistent with individual freedom.
But anarchism I am not sure yet... I just know that at least most of these externality arguments to justify a government (like "someone must control pollution!") don't hold water.
Aw jeez. I feel like Morty forever following after the much more able genius Rick, if you’ve ever watched the tv show Rick and Morty 😉. And you probably should.
That relatively small section of my being which always believed most of what you’ve laid out has just broken through and is no longer relative or small. Like a few drops of ink spread out to color the whole container of water, it’s becoming mainstream in my mind.
I can’t really call it an epiphany, because I know I always knew it, and just never wanted to know. Though perhaps that’s really the essence of epiphany. The faint background music we always ignored has now replaced everything we hear in our minds.
Maybe I can finally wear that Infowars t-shirt I got a long time ago.
My wife loves Rick and Morty; I think it's pretty good.
Cool! I actually do wear a Rick and Morty t-shirt out and about. If I haven’t grown up by now, it’s far too late (71).
You really did blow my mind with your article. It tied together a lot of loose threads for me. It was something of a paradigm shift! Now I’m also embarrassed that I’m embarrassed about Jones and other conspiracy “theories”. Those theories seem to be actualizing at a truly alarming rate.
I’m just really unsure how all this weird stuff can be reversed or at least mitigated at this point. An awfully large number of people are going to have to open their minds somehow.
I suppose we really are the news now.
Apologies, I’m very talkative, too. My theory is that while playing Zork a million years or so ago, I switched on the “Maximum Verbosity” setting, and my brain somehow synced to it. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. 😆
There's a lot of stuff going on in certain subcultures to at least mitigate the damage when it collapses and maybe survive
Unfortunately the evil sociopaths now reside in the bureaucratic ranks of for example the EPA and will do more damage due to their power and of course privacy ( for national security you see). A law of the jungle or natural law type situation would be better. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely as seen in every aspect of the US feral gummint
fair enough
most arrangements would be superior to what we have now
Your high school teacher was a manipulative leftist idiot. All you needed to solve the problem that you mention with the river was to assign property rights to the river. So one of the 13 year old would be the owner of the river.
As the owner of the river, you could charge the people at the margin for the pleasure of clear water or for the necessity of polluting the river. You would do this out of self interest to maximize your profit. Given that a market now exists for the externality of pollution, you would then achieve an optimum amount of pollution by letting the people pollute just the right amount to make people accept it for the price that they would pay to reduce pollution otherwise.
Note: The optimum amount of pollution (or any other "bad thing" is almost never zero). Otherwise, people would never become fat, would always exercise, cross the street on the right place, eat their vegetables or whatever they believed to be the best, etc.
In conclusion, your teacher's exercise is based on the same fallacy that the government uses to justify its existence.
About the international order being based on anarchy and being "full of violence" because of that. Careful with what you wish. No one has ever managed to make a worldwide genocide. This is exactly because there has been no world government that had the monopoly of violence. Once you get this all powerful government, just wait and see what happens. Anarchy and everything involving freedom, like capitalism are not perfect systems. They are just the best among the ones that can be implemented. By far.
The first thing I'm hung up on in your explanation of how pollution would be controlled without a state is the river -- an inanimate object -- having property rights. how would that work in real-world practice?
I guess I should have written "property rights in the river"...
Here much better explained and without my grumpiness about your teacher:
https://mises.org/library/what-externality
ill take a look. thanks.
No no.. It is not the river that has property rights. Someone owns the river, and this person has property rights. Just like people own houses, parcels, etc.
gotcha. the wording in your original comment wasn't clear. so, in this conceptualization, the owner of the river would enjoy control, at least in theory, over what pollution is allowed to be deposited in it and carried downstream?
Actually, the owner of the river can be a separate entity, the people down the river, or even the factory owner.
Although one person owning the river sounds more just than another, the solution is exactly the same in terms of how much pollution is generated (after the negotiations take place). The question is just who gets to pay who.
Anyway, there's no need for government in this case...
There's a lot of ways im tempted to reflexively respond to your points but I'll think about them for a while instead
BTW, I went a bit far saying that Anarchy is the best system "by far" by writing in the same sentence as Capitalism. Capitalism yes, it is undoubtedly the best. And the only one consistent with individual freedom.
But anarchism I am not sure yet... I just know that at least most of these externality arguments to justify a government (like "someone must control pollution!") don't hold water.
------------------------------------------------------
I see your dilemma and offer condolences on your grief,
but I have a vision.
+
In my view there can only be -One- singular Law.
There cannot be two, or seven, or ten, or 36,
or any number beyond One single Law.
+
Any plural number of laws,
is a system where the n+1 law contradicts or weakens all previous laws.
+
It is - if you think carefully about it - the only logical rational
description of a legal system.
I will not go deeper in this brief response,
except to observe that The-One-Law
eliminates an entire universe of malfeasance by 'government',
- if you insist on having a government.
+ ------------------
This all came from an epiphany, The-One-Law,
that hit me like a bolt of lightning back in 2006.
I walked around for three 'dazed' days after that.
+
I had met a "Constitutional Scholar" to complain about the problem
of the absurdity of mountainous volumes of random legislation
defining us all to be criminals.
His best politician-style non-answer
left me holding a bag of disappointment that kept me awake for hours.
+ ----------------
Hours later,
all the puzzle pieces slammed together like a nuclear warhead.
The detonation in my brain left me quivering
as I realized that multiple laws are the problem.
+
What is necessary is a Constitution adequate to
frame a "government" of The-One-Law
which would not criminalize its population
and legitimize violence against innocents.
+
That eliminates legislators, lobbyists,
and eliminates the justification for
any bureaucrats not subsisting on donations to support
their non-enforceable farces
(which they could transform into public good
by simply illuminating where action is necessary
to end violations by malevolent entities.
one excellent non-government example was created by:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O'Keefe ).
+
It simplifies 'police' into being actual peace officers
who should be paid directly p2p by their community
instead of being paid centrally to be "policy men"
enforcing whatever whims their predatorial pedophile politicians
prefer to inflict upon the populace.
+
There is a lot more more,
but I guess this post will suffice
- I have no credit card to pay for substack/etc
Sanctuarian of The-One-Law
That's a lot to sort through. I'll have to think about this one law theory for s while