From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu May 02 2002 - 18:01:37 MDT
Emlyn writes
> How do you decide that it's ok to have a law against robbery,
> but not against child abuse? I don't understand this at all.
Our basic difference here, I believe, amounts to an entire
gestalt, an entire way of looking at things. It's similar
to the conflict of visions that separates socialists and
libertarians. I'll write more about that in my reply to
Rafal.
But because of this, the explanation that I provide below
probably won't do anything for you. So I suggest that it
might help to take a piece of paper, and write down on the
left side all the societies and eras that you can think of
that had a law against robbery, and on the right side, all the
societies and eras that you can think of that had a law against
child abuse. This might shed more light on how it's possible
for a society to get along having a law against one but not
the other.
Okay, then, my explanation starts like this. In the first place,
I subscribe to the is/ought barrier, as I'm sure that you do.
Just because something is the way that it is does not necessarily
argue for it should be that way.
But if we examine successful societies, we find that laws against
robbery are universal. Now why should that be? The answer, in
short, is that economic productivity is sacrificed when a citizen
is not safe in his person or property. Thus, through evolutionary
development, only societies prohibiting robbery survived. You'll
also find that each major religious tradition has prohibitions
like "Thou shalt not steal", and for the same reason.
Suppose that England and other countries in Northern Europe had had
laws against child labor and against grueling conditions in factories
(including horrendous hours for adults as well). This is what the
condition would have been, by the way, had there been less liberty
in the country and the time. Then it would have been much less
profitable for entrepreneurs to set up factories in such an era
when capital was in very short supply. Likewise, enclosures of
the public lands---which resulted in a greatly more efficient
agriculture---would never occurred because it would have forced
so many poor people off their lands. Thus the industrial revolution
would have been greatly delayed (if it ever became possible at all)
and the lives of untold millions in the future severely affected.
Unfortunately, it takes great imagination to think about what
"might have been". I'll quote Robert Bradbury in a recent email:
> What about the "pain" of failing to evolve, failing to transcend
> the hazard function of the galaxy or failing reach one's ultimate
> potential?
Essentially, here, he's referring to the long term costs of the
slowing down of development.
The horrors of the English Industrial Revolution were a transition
effect. By compressing the "pain" (the same that Robert is talking
about above) into two generations, there was much less total pain.
Every step that brings the Singularity closer, for example, probably
also reduces the same pain.
But how could anyone in 18th century England have possibly foreseen
this? Answer: they couldn't. But the mindset of the time---which
paid vastly more attention to the liberty and freedom of people,
(or at least the movers and shakers in society)---allowed the more
preferable development to occur.
It's very similar with today's fascination with "child abuse".
You probably couldn't list very many societies and eras on the
right hand side of the sheet. For one thing, stealing (and
robbery) are conceptually quite clear. But people will debate
endlessly over what is and is not child abuse. Just today some
vegetarians had their daughter taken away from them by the
Authorities in New Jersey because she was underweight. Soon,
they may pass a law there saying that every parent must ensure
that his or her son or daughter be either breast-fed or formula
fed. (Though they really don't need such laws any more: they
can simply accuse one of child abuse, and that's that.) How
soon will it be before Concerned Citizens (i.e. the Authorities)
are able to make unannounced visits to check up on children?
A whole new bureaucracy is in the wings!
To the mindset that I don't agree with, the purpose of government
is to regulate the lives of its citizens in order to optimize
benefit. It is completely passé to regard government as merely
preventing one citizen from harming another. (Naturally, in our
"the end justifies the means", the meaning of this can be
squeezed merely by redefining citizen: call children citizen,
and then the tree in your front yard when enough
environmentalists get their way.)
This, I'm sure, didn't help much. You probably still have no
idea as to how I
> How do you decide that it's ok to have a law against robbery,
> but not against child abuse? I don't understand this at all.
I'll have some more to say in a response to Rafal coming up.
Lee
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