Samael wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dick.Gray@bull.com <Dick.Gray@bull.com>
> To: extropians@maxwell.kumo.com <extropians@maxwell.kumo.com>
> Date: 11 January 1999 17:33
> Subject: Property and life
>
> >
> >
> >Samael makes a puzzling comment:
> >
> >>I just believe there are greater goods than property protection
> >>(life protection, for instance).
> >
> >Are you saying that your life is not your property?
>
> I don't think of my life as an object. It's a feature of mine a 'property'
> in the same way as 'dark hair' is. It's just a feature I've grown very fond
> of.
Yes, I've grown very fond of my head, I should be very sad to part with it. That is my right to the property known as my head. Similarly, I need my car to do my job, to earn my living which buys my food, shelter, and energy. Therefore, I am very fond of it (no matter what a pain in the but it is to take care of, that is a different issue), and I should be very sad to be deprived of it. In both cases, losing either property will have a significant impact on my life, one a bit more than the other. My posessions, including my head, afford me a greater measure of liberty in the world which I find necessary to my pursuit of happiness. Greater amount of property provides greater liberty, I have found. If we are to promote increased liberty for individuals, we should also promote increased property in the hands of individuals.
>
>
> >You can't divorce your life from the resources that make your life
> >possible. It's nonsense to write as if property weren't part and parcel of
> >your existence.
>
> There are things I use during my existence and things I 'own'. My life is
> of a different quality of any of them and could continue (at least
> temporarily) without any of them.
I might continue to live as a slave as well. It is hardly of acceptable quality.
>
> >Since property includes life itself, there can be no higher good than
> >protection of property.
>
> Since carbon compunds include life itself, there van be no higher good than
> the protection of carbon compunds.
>
> I don't think you're stringing together a coherent argument here.
Funny, I don't think that you are.
Mike Lorrey