left anarchy, right anarchy, and space homesteading

The Low Golden Willow (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Thu, 2 Oct 1997 18:18:33 -0700 (PDT)

On Oct 2, 8:16pm, Guru George wrote:
} phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu (The Low Golden Willow) wrote:

} >Homeless and empty office buildings...
} Some of the things you cite are difficult problems, for sure, but none of them are
} reasons for calling property theft and theft justice.

Why not? The anarchists would claim that any system which sanctions
such inequities among human beings is unacceptable. That holding but
not using resources which other people could use is theft, and
inefficient. If you're not using the building how is someone else
moving into it theft? How is it unjust?

Mark Grant's retort that the empty office buildings are guarded by
zoning laws was a rather more effective defense of capitalism.

For more hard-nosed extropians... these issues are related to
homesteading. How _will_ property in space (favored orbits, asteroids)
be allocated? If someone sends out loyal von Neumann machines to
'homestead' all of Mars, should[1] we acknowledge the claim?

If you just said "yes", will you acknowledge NASA doing the same thing?

If you said "no", how do you justify that? And if your response has
anything to do with "reasonable use", you just wandered into 'left'
territory.

[1] Practically, if someone actually controlled all of Mars like that,
we might well have to acknowledge the claim. This hardly challenges the
claim that "property is theft" -- i.e., property goes to the biggest
muscle or gun -- though.

-xx- Damien R. Sullivan X-) <*> http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix

"If I were not a man of peace I'd coerce the three of you to quivering
jellyfish and get to the bottom of this."
-- Julian May, _The Adversary_