From: Emlyn O'regan (oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au)
Date: Thu May 02 2002 - 18:50:55 MDT
Ok, I can see where you are coming from. I would assume that you'd have a
government which monopolised violence such that trade could continue without
threat of violence - no one is allowed to steal or attack others.
I find that interesting. Why wouldn't you allow violence? Isn't banning it
just another form of government intrusion? What about the potential market
in private violence that is being supressed by this monopoly?
When someone with a lot of money sets up structures to exploit those who
otherwise have no means of survival (no form of economic self defense), how
is that different from someone with lots of potential to commit violent acts
using that to exploit those with no ability to defend against them?
Emlyn
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lee Corbin [mailto:lcorbin@tsoft.com]
> Sent: Friday, 3 May 2002 9:32 AM
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: RE: Reproductive Cloning
>
>
> 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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