Discussion of Anarcho-Capitalism.

[DeterminedJuliet]

NatsuTerran, I understand that you feel passionately about this, but there's no reason to get aggressive/personal. Nearly everyone else who has posted here (myself included) have disagreed with ThinkAnarchy on many points, but everyone has kept it pretty civilized. I'm not a mod, so you can take what I say with that in mind, but most of us like keeping things civil here.

EDIT: Ermm, it looks like some of the posts have changed since the last time I looked and a lot of the inflammatory things have been removed. But yeah. Um. I'll still leave my two cents here. 

[Recusant]

Tank, Whitney, or another mod feel free to warn me or give me a temporary ban, but I can't deal with idiots who think they are intelligent.

Noted. You are hereby given an official warning. In the future, please refrain from using abusive language when addressing a fellow member of this site. You apparently edited your post, but did not delete the epithet ("idiot") in question. You may think that shows honesty, but to me it shows that even after consideration, you chose to violate the civility rule. I have no choice but to give you a warning.

[ThinkAnarchy]

Thanks for the response, TA. I think there are aspects of our society and legal system that you are taking for granted as being present in your anarcho-capitalist society that would not be present unless you specifically provided for them in law. Also, there are some things you are presenting as almost understood or givens when, in fact, they won't be unless you specifically provide for them in law.

Sorry for the long delay in a response. I needed to take a break from this thread, it was starting to get boring. Also thanks to those of you who are able to accurately pinpoint my assertions, or at least logically lay them out so I can refute it, rather than assuming an "anarchist" thinks the U.S. is the best country in the world, and than accuse him of twisting your words when he quotes your post in it's entirety.

It sounds like this society would need a mammoth body of civil law, especially contract law. Otherwise, the private courts would have nothing to base their decisions on. You'd also have to have some body of law setting out what constituted a private police force, what constituted a private court, and what powers they would have.

You don't need a big body of law when it comes to contracts. If both individuals signed the contract, they must abide by what the contract says. If they break the contract, they are in violation. Quite simple.

Their basis would simply be that of initiation. If I steal you're car because you refuse to pay me $25,000 you owe me, the court would likely uphold my theft as being just. You were the one who initiated the problem by refusing to pay me what you owe.

The only problem that would arise, and I'm unsure how it would be handled, is when can an individual sign a contract? A six year old child should not be required to abide by a contract he signed, but I'm not sure how age of majority would be determined.

You're going to need more than contract law. "Just" making vigilantism legal will require a set of laws to set out things like the following:
--what acts would allow for vigilantism. Huge, thorny legal issues there, e.g., questions like what constitutes rape/murder, is payback still okay if it's a payback violent act for an act that was itself payback. "Rape" is only "rape" in the U.S. legal system because there's a statutory definition of "rape." You've stated there wouldn't really be such a thing as criminal law in your society, but in order to sue for things like wrongful death or allow for vigilantism, you're going to need to define terms like "manslaughter," "murder," and "rape" somewhere. Without it being set out that "manslaughter" = [specific legal definition], there is nothing for a "court" to base a decision on.
--who has standing to commit an act of vigilantism (immediate family members only?, extended family?, anyone?)
--how long do you have to take your revenge (if you wait several years is that still legal, does it depend on the violent act you're avenging)

If you think these types of things will just be "understood," I think you're being extremely unrealistic.

You don't need laws to determine these things. Courts would have their own legal definitions for all these crimes. If the population was not happy with their definition of rape, murder, or vigilantism, they would refuse to use that court. There would be competing legal definitions for some of these things and the free market would help decide what constitutes rape and murder for the grey areas.

-What entity would be responsible for drawing up that law in the first place, making changes to it, and maintaining it?

The courts would simply make their decisions based on the evidence and the societies views much like common law today. The body of law would be built up naturally with how the courts ruled. Since they are beholden to the people for clients, their would be much more control over the court system.

This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of our legal system.

You are correct, although it isn't due to ignorance of the law, simply my inability to word things correctly sometimes.

While there is some small room for subjectivity in interpretation of laws, our courts' decisions are not based on "society's views."

Again you are correct, and I have no clue what I was thinking when I typed that.

They are based on specific laws passed at the local, state, and federal level. In the U.S., interpretation of specific laws is not just built up haphazardly, an understanding of how a law is to be interpreted is hammered out as a legal case works its way up the system of courts, sometimes up to the Supreme Court. This works because we have a set hierarchy of courts.

I would say this is a terrible system though. We have statutory laws that seem good on paper, like criminalizing child porn, but then, due to the broadness of these laws, children themselves get charged with crimes. Some of these cases have been thrown out while other children have had to register as sex offenders. Stories like the one below happen because of the statutory laws.
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-04-07/justice/sexting.busts_1_phillip-alpert-offender-list-offender-registry?_s=PM:CRIME

A higher court's ruling and understanding of a law prevails over a lower court's ruling. In the society you've described, there will be no set hierarchy of courts (as having a set hierarchy of courts would require a government). Instead, you'll have a jumbled group of private "courts," none having more authority than the other.

There likely would be no set hierarchy of courts, but that is not to say they may not evolve naturally from the private system. I think it would be unlikely and maybe impossible, but I haven't looked into court systems too deeply. If both parties were to agree the ruling of the initial court is final, there would be no need for another to hear the case.

As I stated in my previous post, the only way for one of those private "courts" to be able to have any authority over another would be if the two parties with a case before the initial "court," agreed that if one of the parties disagreed w/ court A's decision, it could be "appealed" to court B. And just because John and Susan chose to have Nick's court be their initial court and Al's court be their "appeal" court, that would not prevent Pete and Brenda from having Al's court be their initial court and Nick's court be their "appeal" court. There would be no natural hierarchy of courts in the society you have described. Law would not "build up naturally," as you could have two different courts give completely contradictory rulings, and because there is no hierarchy of courts, neither decision would "stand" over the other.

Courts would likely rule in contradictory and unjust way's sometimes. This happens today in the lower levels. People don't have the freedom to choose one court over the other how ever. Based on Jurisdiction, they may have a few choices depending on where the act took place and the residence of the defendant, but all those courts are still owned by the same organization. The free market would decide which rulings are just. People would want courts were justice will be achieved and the defendant would want a court where he will receive a fair trial. Currently, if you get a judge on a bad day, you could be screwed with little to no recourse.

In the society you describe, if someone, say, murders your relative, you would seem to have the recourse of a) killing them (since you stated vigilantism would be legal) or b) paying a private court to hear your civil suit against the person.
-What would compel the person you were suing to appear before this private court? In other words, would anyone you chose to sue (even on faked or trumped up grounds) be required to appear before the private court you were paying to hear the case just because you'd sued them?

The court the victim brought the case too, would likely serve the accused much as they do today. If the accused failed to appear, the court would most likely be able to issue a Default Judgement, after hearing the side of the dispute that appeared. I'm also a supporter of loser pay's, in order to help prevent frivolous lawsuits. I imagine the private courts would do the same. We already see what happens when those who file frivolous law suits are not required to pay the other persons costs, it simply leads to more B.S. suits.

Things like this—allowing for "courts" to issue default judgments in cases where the accused does not show up—is a huge power to turn over to private courts. This is exactly the kind of power you would need to provide for and limit with law. Otherwise, nothing would prevent someone from constantly suing and being awarded default judgments. Again, if you think that somehow "common sense" would just naturally prevail and that private courts would not take advantage of their powers, I think that is unrealistic.

I really don't see why.
Here is a good video on a voluntarist society and how private arbitration could work. It's only 13 minutes, so it won't take to much out your day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE9dZATrFak&f

Obviously if the accused were unable to show up for a certain date, the courts should work with them to reschedule, but somebody refusing to appear, should not harm the victim. There would also likely be more options for how trials were carried out. You would also have more sites like this one, making it much easier for people to appear and provide their defense.
https://e-court.us.com/indexFIRST.php

Say that a person would be compelled to appear before any private court in which he'd had been sued.
-What if the person chose not to appear? Would a private police force be authorized to use force to take that person into custody and hold him until the trial? On what legal basis would the police force be allowed to do that?
I wouldn't say so, since it would be unjustified to kidnap a still innocent person. Others might disagree with me however. If the person were "forced" to appear in court and was guilty, their would be no foul. If the individual was innocent, however, he would seem to have a claim against the agency that grabbed him.

They would most likely serve the accused, and if he refused to appear, he simply would not be their to argue his case. If he felt he wasn't going to get a fair trial at the court the individual chose, they might have to agree on one, or possibly agree to let a mediator pick the neutral court. Or perhaps, if they have hired a protection agency, the two agencies would agree on a location.

If you plan to have a society in which private "courts" would be allowed to use force to compel an appearance, then that's a huge amount of power to turn over to a private company. If you plan to have a society in which private "courts" would not be allowed to use force to compel an appearance, then you're going to have to spell that out with a law. Once again, if you think that what's allowable is somehow just going to be understood, I would say that's highly improbable.

I don't think so. We don't need laws to know kidnapping is wrong. It could be argued that it would be justified to kidnap a murderer, but if they kidnapped an innocent person, the protection agency would be liable for that aggression. This is why I doubt private courts and protection agencies would resort to that.

-If you chose to go the vigilante route and killed the person, could that person's family then sue you?
I would imagine it would depend why you killed that person. If you thought he raped you're daughter, but it is later discovered he did not, than the killer should be liable for killing an innocent person. If the rape did occur, I can't imagine anyone would really care the rapist is now dead.  

If you want it to depend on "why" one person killed the other, then that's another thing that would need to be spelled out in law. If you want a person to be "liable" for vigilante killings that later turn out to be unjustified, then that's yet another thing that would need to be spelled out in law. To repeat, it's unrealistic to think that this would somehow just be "understood."

We don't need laws to know that killing is wrong. We also don't need laws that killing in self defense is justified. As for vigilantly killings, it would depend on the views of society. One court may view vigilantism as acceptable while another may not.

Lets say I belong to court A and you belong to court B. If both court A and court B view vigilantism as wrong, then there would be no dispute as to a court hearing a case on those grounds. If both courts viewed the issue differently, this would obviously cause some problems which I will have to research further. I remember reading before how could work fairly, but I don't remember where.

As others have stated, the society you describe sounds like one in which only those with money would have access to justice and safety. I don't see any protections for the poor or anything that would check the ability of well-financed private companies from running roughshod over the poor and powerless. Our justice system is imperfect, but it offers at least minimal protections and basic rights that are spelled out in law. A poor defendant is guaranteed some form of legal counsel and a means to appeal a judgment if there are grounds. I don't see even those basic protections in the society you've described.

The poor would be protected through contracts just as the rich would be. When the poor would be taken advantage of outside of contracts, as with violent crimes, it's in the societies best interest as a whole to seek justice. Just as people today don't accept serial killers when the simply target prostitutes, my society would not tolerate preying on the weak. I don't feel threatened by serial killers that don't target me or the ones I love, but it is still in my best interest for the perpetrator to be caught and justice to be served.

[ThinkAnarchy]

Tank, Whitney, or another mod feel free to warn me or give me a temporary ban, but I can't deal with idiots who think they are intelligent.

Noted. You are hereby given an official warning. In the future, please refrain from using abusive language when addressing a fellow member of this site. You apparently edited your post, but did not delete the epithet ("idiot") in question. You may think that shows honesty, but to me it shows that even after consideration, you chose to violate the civility rule. I have no choice but to give you a warning.

I have to say, the red font really spices this thread up. I will try not to allow people to bait me in the future, but I can't make any promises.

[NatsuTerran]

NatsuTerran, I understand that you feel passionately about this, but there's no reason to get aggressive/personal. Nearly everyone else who has posted here (myself included) have disagreed with ThinkAnarchy on many points, but everyone has kept it pretty civilized. I'm not a mod, so you can take what I say with that in mind, but most of us like keeping things civil here.

EDIT: Ermm, it looks like some of the posts have changed since the last time I looked and a lot of the inflammatory things have been removed. But yeah. Um. I'll still leave my two cents here. 

I know, I'm usually pretty civil, especially in person. I want to apologize to TA first. I get really fired up on my position sometimes. It's mainly because I have a severe case of OCD which forces me to 1. Become absorbed in fact-hunts whenever people make spiritual/political claims, 2. Thoroughly think out my beliefs and even take them to extremes when they feel threatened, and 3. Become abusive towards others when they don't have knowledge that I have been through a dozen times.

This isn't just you TA, but other people in my life. I am currently in a med shift and the OCD fully returned. It may sound like I'm passing blame for my actions, but I'm really just explaining. Blaming does nothing, but hopefully by explaining myself you realize that it was not "me" flat out, but simply my circumstances. Sorry for being so offensive. And also, I apologize for giving you the warning. It was me who elicited the response. As a determinist, it was perfectly predictable and probabilistic that you would rise to my aggressiveness. I don't think you deserve the warning and hope the mods remove it, but if not I'm sorry.

I think I will stay away from threads like these, at least until my illness is more under control

[ThinkAnarchy]

NatsuTerran, I understand that you feel passionately about this, but there's no reason to get aggressive/personal. Nearly everyone else who has posted here (myself included) have disagreed with ThinkAnarchy on many points, but everyone has kept it pretty civilized. I'm not a mod, so you can take what I say with that in mind, but most of us like keeping things civil here.

EDIT: Ermm, it looks like some of the posts have changed since the last time I looked and a lot of the inflammatory things have been removed. But yeah. Um. I'll still leave my two cents here.  

I know, I'm usually pretty civil, especially in person. I want to apologize to TA first. I get really fired up on my position sometimes. It's mainly because I have a severe case of OCD which forces me to 1. Become absorbed in fact-hunts whenever people make spiritual/political claims, 2. Thoroughly think out my beliefs and even take them to extremes when they feel threatened, and 3. Become abusive towards others when they don't have knowledge that I have been through a dozen times.

This isn't just you TA, but other people in my life. I am currently in a med shift and the OCD fully returned. It may sound like I'm passing blame for my actions, but I'm really just explaining. Blaming does nothing, but hopefully by explaining myself you realize that it was not "me" flat out, but simply my circumstances. Sorry for being so offensive. And also, I apologize for giving you the warning. It was me who elicited the response. As a determinist, it was perfectly predictable and probabilistic that you would rise to my aggressiveness. I don't think you deserve the warning and hope the mods remove it, but if not I'm sorry.

I think I will stay away from threads like these, at least until my illness is more under control

No worries, and don't worry about the warning. I knew the consequences of my actions and judged the repercussions acceptable. I also don't hold grudges, but when someone initiates conversations in a hostile tone, I can't help but be hostile as well. Admittedly, some of my posts my have been condescending and/or antagonistic as well, if so I apologize too.

I thoroughly think out my beliefs as well. I believe most atheists do, at least most here on this forum and the ones in the intellectual sphere. Anarchy is not something I adopted overnight or accepted without a plethora of reading and research.

But, it's all good; don't worry about it.

Edit: I should mention I do in fact hold grudges, but not for minor things like this.

[ThinkAnarchy]

I would like to add one thing Anne D.

I bring up the porn laws quite a bit because I think it's unacceptable that they are used to target children sometimes. Aside from that however, the make the sex offender databases virtually useless. The point of the databases is to give parents an idea of who in their community are highly likely to attack their children. Again, this is great, but by forcing children to register as sex offenders because they received an unsolicited picture of another minor, is counter intuitive to the databases purpose. it simply increases the size of the databases with individuals who pose no logical risk to women or children.  

It goes even further than that though. Some states require you be submitted to the database for flashing and public urination. It could be a federal law, but I think it's up to the states. These crimes to not suggest the perp is a danger to women or children, yet their names may go in the database. Furthermore, from the research I've done in the past, many of these databases update the pictures of the perpetrators without giving the date the crime was committed.  You can have a picture of a 40 year old man who had sex with a 15 year old, but the crime took place when he was 19. That is hardly equivalent to a 40 year old having sex with a 15 year old.

These databases and laws, the way they are currently run, seem to do more harm than good.

Edit: It appears they now show the date of conviction on the sites, at least at familywatchdog.us. This is a very good thing, but just looking at the map, there are about 100 sex offenders in my old neighborhood. I know that can't be right. As a parent, it still would seem to provide very little service to me.

The one individual I clicked on was convicted of "computer aided solicitation of a minor" and "indecent behavior." That doesn't give a lot of information. Did the girl lie about her age? What was the girl or boys age? Soliciting a 6 year old for sex is far worse than soliciting a 17 year old. As a parent I still don't have enough information to determine if he would be an actual threat to my children.

[Anne D.]

TA, thanks for the response posts; the link to the video, which I did watch; and the other links. I think we'll probably just have to agree to disagree at this point. You seem to see a lot of things that I see as huge causes of potential conflict as just naturally working themselves out. I just don't have that much faith in human nature when people are placed in a legal vacuum.

Quote from me:
It sounds like this society would need a mammoth body of civil law, especially contract law. Otherwise, the private courts would have nothing to base their decisions on. You'd also have to have some body of law setting out what constituted a private police force, what constituted a private court, and what powers they would have.

Quote from ThinkAnarchy:
You don't need a big body of law when it comes to contracts. If both individuals signed the contract, they must abide by what the contract says. If they break the contract, they are in violation. Quite simple.

Their basis would simply be that of initiation. If I steal you're car because you refuse to pay me $25,000 you owe me, the court would likely uphold my theft as being just. You were the one who initiated the problem by refusing to pay me what you owe.

The only problem that would arise, and I'm unsure how it would be handled, is when can an individual sign a contract? A six year old child should not be required to abide by a contract he signed, but I'm not sure how age of majority would be determined.

Quote from me:
You're going to need more than contract law. "Just" making vigilantism legal will require a set of laws to set out things like the following:
--what acts would allow for vigilantism. Huge, thorny legal issues there, e.g., questions like what constitutes rape/murder, is payback still okay if it's a payback violent act for an act that was itself payback. "Rape" is only "rape" in the U.S. legal system because there's a statutory definition of "rape." You've stated there wouldn't really be such a thing as criminal law in your society, but in order to sue for things like wrongful death or allow for vigilantism, you're going to need to define terms like "manslaughter," "murder," and "rape" somewhere. Without it being set out that "manslaughter" = [specific legal definition], there is nothing for a "court" to base a decision on.
--who has standing to commit an act of vigilantism (immediate family members only?, extended family?, anyone?)
--how long do you have to take your revenge (if you wait several years is that still legal, does it depend on the violent act you're avenging)

If you think these types of things will just be "understood," I think you're being extremely unrealistic.

Quote from ThinkAnarchy (bolding mine):
You don't need laws to determine these things. Courts would have their own legal definitions for all these crimes. If the population was not happy with their definition of rape, murder, or vigilantism, they would refuse to use that court. There would be competing legal definitions for some of these things and the free market would help decide what constitutes rape and murder for the grey areas.

Yes, you could leave it up to the private courts to come up with their own definitions of "rape" and "theft," but these definitions wouldn't be "legal" definitions, as "legal" is defined as "of or established by law." And regarding "refusing to use" a court, as I've stated before, it's not at all clear how you're going to get someone who refuses to appear before a court to appear. I think there are lots of potential problems that are being glossed over with the "the free market will work it out naturally" argument.

I think we just see things very differently. I see a huge, unworkable mess with a lawless society. I don't think disagreements will just naturally work themselves out over time; I think they'll lead to the dissolution of the society. At the start of the video to which you posted a link, the narrator said that one had to start with four broad principles. My first reaction was, Why? It's all well and good to hope that everyone will subscribe to and abide by the four principles, but chances are that someone's not going to. You have faith in the free market somehow keeping that person in line; I don't. The solution to people not acting in good faith that was described in the video centered around elaborate private record keeping. Again, I think we just have different visions of how that would work out. I see catastrophe and complete social breakdown.

Quote from ThinkAnarchy:
I would say this is a terrible system though. We have statutory laws that seem good on paper, like criminalizing child porn, but then, due to the broadness of these laws, children themselves get charged with crimes. Some of these cases have been thrown out while other children have had to register as sex offenders. Stories like the one below happen because of the statutory laws.
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-04-07/justice/sexting.busts_1_phillip-alpert-offender-list-offender-registry?_s=PM:CRIME

I agree with you wholeheartedly that the legal and justice systems in our country are imperfect and do not always produce just results. And, yes, like you, I have huge issues with certain offenses meriting automatic inclusion on a sex offender registry. What I don't understand is how you get from point A, "our justice system is imperfect," to point B, "we should scrap that system entirely and replace it with . . . nothing." Baby with the bathwater and all.

I do not expect perfection from my government or from any government. Governments are created and run by humans. Our particular government in the U.S. has produced a relatively free society in which most have a decent standard of living, as have the other western democracies. In my view, the system you would replace this government with would produce a society in which people would be "free" in name only, with only the wealthy enjoying real freedom, and in which there would be huge disparities in standards of living, with a small percentage of wealthy and a large percentage of poor people and not many people in between.

Feel free to respond or not respond to this. As I said, I think we may just be at the "agree to disagree" point. I appreciate the time you've taken to respond to my previous posts.

[Whitney]

popping my head in to check around as a mod...

Noticing that it is ironic that the claim is that objective values are better than subjective values yet still acknowledging that some societies have better objective values than others.  I would think that would mean that we ought to use our own freedom to evaluate values in order to determine if what society is telling us is right or not...it's the societies that suppress individual values that are still left culturally back in the dark ages. 

Or if that isn't what you meant to say....maybe you could reword it in a less rant-like way keeping in mind that when multiple people can't follow what you are saying it's usually not the audience's fault.

[NatsuTerran]

When I said objective values, I meant objective well-being. Things that every human being, when stripped of values, would appreciate. For example, the right to staying alive is an objective value. No rational person would question this, and the evidence is from a biological/evolutionary perspective that organisms have an interest in staying alive. If there were those that did not have such an interest, it would be due to cultural biasing that was implanted in the individual. Being born into a culture that treats you like shit, and brainwashes you to be treated poorly, is objectively bad. Once you are born in that culture, you have become brainwashed to appreciate it.

My overarching point is that all morality should be based on objective well-being because it can be applied to everyone. Subjective values are implanted into you at random by millions of external factors not of your choosing. I didn't choose to be atheist, I had atheist parents who taught me to think critically, and I encountered natural disgust in terms of encounters with other religious people thus bittering my attitude towards them. I didn't choose to play video games yesterday, it is perfectly predictable that *any* human being with the exact same life circumstances as me would exhibit the same behavior. Why? Well I like video games, why is that? Because I was raised an only child (no siblings to interact with, so I had to keep myself company), inherited genes that lend themselves towards being less sociable (I've had this change slightly as I get more exposure, but there's a sliding scale as to how good it can get), and I was given video games at the age of 4 and they were my primary means of staying occupied.

Absolutely ANYONE with that exact same life experience would be destined to exhibit this same behavior. It's rudimentary psychology. A lot of people get hung up on "well that guy did something else and he's just like you." This is not taking into account every possible factor. Real life is absurdly messy and impossible to account for all things. This is the basic premise of Chaos Theory. Everything, in essence, is perfectly predictable. However, because our minds cannot hold zillions upon zillions of facts of a person's history, genetic code, habits, etc. We cannot possibly predict exactly how every person will behave at any given time. But there are clues that are very deterministic. For example, it's almost obligatory during every conversation about "free will" that one person will jump out of their seat and start doing jumping jacks or something that no one could have seen coming. But don't you see how this itself is predictable? They don't exhibit this behavior when they are at their desk during work, thinking hard about what they are doing. They exhibit this behavior to affirm their sense of self control when it is being challenged. People's behavior is utterly predictable and we don't even need to account for that much stuff.

Back to objective well-being versus subjective values. I think it goes without saying that we need security and a clean, caring environment so that we can grow to be self-sufficient people, *before* we need any number of random freedoms that don't change a thing. Keep in mind that this is a cultural thing. Imagine two countries, one is very pacifistic, and the other is just like any other country today. The second country plays a combat sport much like Boxing, MMA, etc. The first country does not have combat sport culture. Is a martial art objectively harmful? Yes it is. Is it a total threat to society at large? Not by a long shot, but it is and can be harmful to the people who partake in it to varying degrees. So I want you to imagine a sliding scale for objective well-being. It starts at 0 and can drop to negative 100 (-100). It cannot be positive, (I would consider happiness to go up to positive 100). Now well-being and security is a must. How can you have freedom in any sense if you are inhibited or dead? Priorities need to be in line. This is where a lot of people get immature because their favorite "whatever" is questionable.

So let's look at our martial art in question. Now pain is pain. Assume that the art in question makes people unconscious and bloodied up on occasion, just like now. How do we rate this on our objective "pain/wellbeing" scale? I think the way to do it is to contrast the "worst possible suffering imaginable" which would be -100, with complete neutrality, which would be 0. I think it's pretty obvious, taking all the different kinds of suffering into account, that getting beat up every other week is pretty darn low on the list. The probability of catastrophe, say a broken arm or getting killed, are exceedingly low. So I'm going to kind of arbitrarily set the "misery index" at -12. It's not that bad at all considering the rarity of extreme pain.

Now, the next step is to confound the objective well-being net loss with the subjective gains that come from such a sport. Remember how we had two different countries? Well that country that does not have a value on combat sports is *only* going to see objective losses in the well-being department, but they will not see any sort of values being lost or infringed upon by disallowing it. The other country that values the sport would be outraged to hear that the sport needs banning. Starting to see how this is subjective now?

The objective well-being index applies to every human on the planet, unless for some reason a person was born to not experience pain or something. But I tend to ignore the anomalies because science is more about the overall big picture. Subjective values are just that, subjective. Even within the country that appreciates the combat sport, they would rank the freedom to participate in it in varying degrees. How are we to determine what the true value of the sport really is???

You can kind of see where I'm going with this now. I picked an example that is ridiculously difficult to defend. Most people like to pick the easy examples like "should people be allowed to murder." Anyways, we have the objective net loss of negative 12 on the well-being scale, now we need a subjective happiness scale. There are two sides to the yin yang. Life and the pursuit of happiness is only possible if our well-being and security needs are met. But a life worth living is based around subjective values. Politics is a balancing act of these two sides of the same coin. I value objective well-being more, just like I would rather be a housecat than a cat thrown in the rainforest. Sure, the forest cat is conceptually free, but in reality it is just a bunch of suffering. The housecat may have a multitude of freedoms infringed on, but they are irrelevant if they keep the cat safe. Safety comes first. You can't seek to better your life if you are inhibited by things. Hence: Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In that precise order.

Back to our example, we now need a sliding scale for subjective happiness. Let's start it at 0, which is just simply existing with nothing going on, and end it at 100, a completely fulfilled life. Now how are we to go about putting a definite quality on the martial art? If we are to ask different people we would get different answers. Someone who makes their living off the sport and would have their entire life turned upside down if it were banned would rate the art as being 100. A casual spectator might rate it as 40-60, etc, etc. And also, the other society would all rate it as 0, completely unnecessary to live a happy life. This illustration is precisely why politics will go on forever. People are unable to distance themselves, for whatever reason, from their subjective perceptions of a life worth living. One person may have very low thresholds for excitement, and just the fact of existing is enough for them to get the most out of life. Another person may have a ludicrously high threshold for excitement, and they would need to engage in all sorts of risky and unnecessary behaviors just to enjoy themselves. These are subjective interests and they cannot be "right" or "wrong." I happen to be much closer on the tame side if you couldn't guess.

So what is the best way to determine what rights people should have? I think it is through societal consensus, or ballparking. Just ask everyone in that society how valuable the right is. Of course, you will get some inflated answers if you do it as so. This is kind of why we tend to vote in the modern world, so only one person counts for one. Otherwise everyone would be piling on the 100's and boxing would seem like a basic necessity to live, much like food and air. By coming to a consensus we can weigh the pro's and con's for the *average* society member. A lot of people don't like this idea, and I didn't either until I got passionate about science. But what is true for one is not true for all. In order to keep things reasonable and under control, we have to look at the general rule, the big picture. Thinking like an individual gets you nowhere because your thoughts are deposited to you by that same general society. They implant the thoughts into you in the first place. You'd be a different individual with even a slightly different society or genetic code.

So anyways, say we ballpark the vote for competitive sports, and it turns out that the value index is something like around 40-60. Keep in mind that even people who care not one bit about the sport generally tend to vote in agreement with it as a right. This is because they don't want to feel outcasted by their surrounding society, or it's just seen as too imposing for most people. The society that has no one engaging in the activity in the first place will likely feel less remorse.

So basically I took one sample, boxing, and asked the question, should it be a right? The society ballparked the happiness in the mid 50's, let's say, and the objective pain is comparatively miniscule. Not only that, but it is not something imposed on every person in society, but only those that want to do it. Factoring all this together, you have an efficient, albeit a little messy on the subjective side, measurement as for what should and should not be considered "rights." Play around with it a little. Plug "murder" into the equation and it will be universally banned. One thing I need to touch up on, because I know every right winger is pumping their fists, is how I mostly ignored that boxing is a choice. Well, as I will explain in my next paragraph, nothing is really a free choice. You may choose to do something that you think is fun, but why do you think it's fun? It is fun for a million different reasons due to your upbringing, genetics, social factors, etc. These things are ultimately out of our control, and thus so are our "wants," and thus so are our choices. While it is true that for this individual in particular, that they may feel the "urge" to do a certain behavior, we must ask the most quintessential question: Is this freedom NECESSARY? That is, while this individual may feel like their life is ruined by not having a right/freedom, just how bad is it from an objective standpoint? I can cite a thousand examples of just my own life in which I thought it would be the end of the world if I lost a certain something. What am I doing two weeks after losing it? Picking up and loving a new hobby, that's what. Obviously, in some cases this isn't possible for some individuals. People may have developed a physical dependency on something, such as drugs. But what I'm ultimately trying to say is, a great many things in our life may feel quintessential, but after losing them for a while, life goes on. If life, security, and well-being itself is being threatened by whatever it is we are giving up, then it stands to reason that we should get our priorities in line. I may be losing people at this point, but it makes more sense in my head. It's just my principle of the golden rule. If I was born(through upbringing/culture/etc.) into making objective mistakes with serious consequences, even though I enjoyed what I was doing subjectively, I would WANT other people to step in and guide me to a better life. I think anyone should agree with this, with the only exception being a misunderstanding of my "pre-birth" philosophy of choosing. I realize a lot of people simply hate to think of themselves as being "wired" to be certain someones, or that they feel they have control over their actions. The wishes to think so is much like religion, there is plenty of evidence to show that people naturally gravitate towards that line of thinking. We have a tendency to think of ourselves as the primary authors of our thoughts, as Harris says, but the evidence shows quite well that this just simply isn't the case.

But when thinking about any issue, you must make two societies or more. And picture yourself as an overseer that has not a trace of subjective value tied to you. The reason to do this is to cut through the bias. Many things might be rated much higher than they are or should be in reality. In short, people lie when they are immature. And it's indisputable that many people will be immature about losing something they enjoy. Another fun thing to take into account is to assume you aren't born yet, but have all the empirical facts of the cosmos at your disposal. You will be born in either one of the sample countries or the other. Now, knowing all that you know, and not having any subjective bias whatsoever, which country would you like to be born into? Would you like to be born in the middle east, where women have infringed rights? Probably not, because you might be a woman! Would you like to be born in a country where gay people are hated? Probably not, you might turn out to be gay. Taking things even further, it's important to realize, as with my video game example, that you should not consider things that are merely biological. All cognitive events must have a physical basis (Levy, D. Tools of Critical Thinking). There is no evidence for psychological events occurring without a biological basis. Because of this, it's important to think of not only the biological things that may befall you (and thus reject a society that does not respect this) but also consider the probabilities of interests you might develop in certain societies. For example, you're statistically more likely to be a criminal if you are born in an economically disproportionate society. It's strange for many people to think like this for some reason, but for me it's common sense and has neuroscience evidence and statistics to boot. But yes, think of yourself developing into certain characters that could *lead* to objective harm. It would be objectively harmful to be born in a society that produces plenty of criminal intents, because you could be jailed or killed after doing so. There is no free will to resist being a criminal when the circumstances are ripe. You would also appreciate not being born into a society that will teach you to sacrifice yourself for religious reasons. While you may love and enjoy dying for your God after the fact that you are born and brainwashed, when thinking about this from the "pre-birth" perspective, it's obvious that this likely not a positive society to want to be born in given the other options.

I find that not everyone can think critically like this, and the discussion is usually over at that point. It's like "how do you demonstrate the effectiveness, utility, and accuracy of science if the person has no respect whatsoever for science, logic, or critical thinking? How do you convince someone to think big picture when their brain is physically wired to avoid doing that? There's some evidence that people with smaller anterior cingulate cortexes are just destined to only see the small picture of things, holding a magnifying glass to all the problems of society and glossing over the big picture.

[Whitney]

When I said objective values, I meant objective well-being. Things that every human being, when stripped of values, would appreciate. For example, the right to staying alive is an objective value. No rational person would question this, and the evidence is from a biological/evolutionary perspective that organisms have an interest in staying alive. If there were those that did not have such an interest, it would be due to cultural biasing that was implanted in the individual. Being born into a culture that treats you like shit, and brainwashes you to be treated poorly, is objectively bad. Once you are born in that culture, you have become brainwashed to appreciate it.

I'm just going to stop you right here....obviously those cultures are not objectively bad, otherwise they wouldn't exist as everyone would know that they are bad and would quit supporting them.  They are subjectively bad in the mind of those who are ill treated and by those who are able to have empathy for the out group.  I don't really want to have to define the difference between objective an subjective but I think you aren't using them correctly.

I'll also caution you to stop implying or directly stating that those who don't agree with you must be stupid....it seems to be a common theme in the posts I've read of yours and isn't acceptable at HAF.

[Amicale]

Also, if I may politely request this: I really enjoy reading posts in these threads. But if there would be any way for folks in general to break their posts up a little, or maybe limit a post to a few really key thoughts... that would be awesome. I know it's an issue of mine and nobody else's problem, but being faced with a solid wall of text to read can be really daunting. I also know sometimes, I tend to drag on way too long too, so I'll also work on limiting myself. Hope that request is fair enough to make.

[NatsuTerran]

When I said objective values, I meant objective well-being. Things that every human being, when stripped of values, would appreciate. For example, the right to staying alive is an objective value. No rational person would question this, and the evidence is from a biological/evolutionary perspective that organisms have an interest in staying alive. If there were those that did not have such an interest, it would be due to cultural biasing that was implanted in the individual. Being born into a culture that treats you like shit, and brainwashes you to be treated poorly, is objectively bad. Once you are born in that culture, you have become brainwashed to appreciate it.

I'm just going to stop you right here....obviously those cultures are not objectively bad, otherwise they wouldn't exist as everyone would know that they are bad and would quit supporting them.  They are subjectively bad in the mind of those who are ill treated and by those who are able to have empathy for the out group.  I don't really want to have to define the difference between objective an subjective but I think you aren't using them correctly.

I'll also caution you to stop implying or directly stating that those who don't agree with you must be stupid....it seems to be a common theme in the posts I've read of yours and isn't acceptable at HAF.

I never said another culture itself is objectively bad. I've been saying:

1. well-being is an objective universal that applies to the conscious experience that we all have.
2. Some cultures definitively have more objective harm to their people than others.
3. None of these subjective values that *lead* to this are *necessary* for humans to live good, decent lives.

I don't know how to make it any clearer than that. I'm sorry that you feel I'm making a value judgement on other cultures. What I'm saying is more or less identical to what Sam Harris argues in the talk "Who says science has nothing to say about morality." So you could watch that if you still don't get it.

Again, I'm not trying to appear morally superior in any way. I never said other cultures should be destroyed or anything; I never even said that they were objectively bad so I don't know where you're getting this. All I said is that culture/action A causes B amount of objective distress. Sorry if I used negative terminology like "brainwashed," but I wasn't intending to be negative or feeling morally superior. In the same way I am "brainwashed" for my own subjective values, we all are. I don't see how you think I'm misusing the terms objective and subjective. It's an objective fact if an organism is suffering. It's subjective if you like _______ and it isn't necessary. All I'm saying is that well-being should be the basis for our morality, not glorifying cults that go against human rights. Nor should we go out and destroy them all, I personally just wish to myself for a better society in which people are more logical in their morals, but I do not hold a grudge or anything because I still know morals are relative.

I really don't know how to explain this any more that you can get it; you still seem to misconstrue a lot of my thoughts. The Sam Harris video is more or less me talking though. I was amazed when I watched it because this guy was basically on the same thought-plane as I was from start to finish.

Edit: I think I see the point in question about my post after reading it again. When I said being born into a culture that treats the people poorly, and that it is objectively "bad," what I mean is that this is an example of an infringement on objective well-being: That which can be applied to any human. Morality in my mind should be based around objective facts before we look at subjective values. Sometimes, subjective values will be permitted to override any objective pain (like the boxing example) because the objective pain is small, and the subjective value is overwhelming in comparison. I was simply trying to 1. Illustrate how all things in politics comes down to two sides of the same coin: "objective well-being vs subjective values." and 2. objective well-being is more pragmatic to focus on first, it should be the first priority because what is subjective value without a proper amount of well-being? Also, rules should be based on the commonality of people, what can be applied to everyone. Subjective interests cloud this, but should be weighed against well-being. They are still important, as they are what make life worth living, but when there is a clash of values here, I feel like it's ridiculous to glorify subjective values over objective well-being.

Security is more necessary than freedom. Person A may not like it, but at least they are alive. Person B doesn't mind, and of course they enjoy being alive. Freedom over security is self-defeating because you cannot seek a better life without basic security needs met. Freedom in and of itself is a *construct* that does not exist in objective reality. Some have argued in this very thread how an-cap makes a country seem "free" in name only, but it actually turns people into slaves. I couldn't agree more. The amount of free time a person has to waste from their lives to support a free market is absurd. It's the whole glass ceiling: People up top say "look at us! We made it!" But you simply can't get where they are due to circumstances. It's an illusion of freedom much like free will. You can make a case that *anything* is free, because freedom doesn't exist. For example, you can say that traffic laws, lights, stop signs, speed limits, etc etc are an infringement on your freedoms to drive how and where you want. But you could also say that you are more free with these in place because you are free to not need to worry about other dangerous drivers. If it was a hodgepodge of chaos on the road, we would need to drive slowly and be extremely vigilant of all things going on, perhaps need to purchase vehicles more prone to withstand crashes, it would be a paranoid mess. Freedom is violated in many facets of life no matter what or how you do things. It's the type of freedom that gets debated. I'd prefer the freedom from having to live my life to just go to work every day, make my money like a worker ant, return home and get like 2 hours of relaxing before I have to repeat the whole process, all to put bread on the table. This is an illusion of freedom. This is not a life worth living. Without free time, life is meaningless. Someone else might disagree, and claim that working is life itself. I think education is what life is all about. These are all subjective interests. As with the traffic example, you can make the case that any given thing is liberating or infringing on freedoms, just on what angle you choose to look at it.

So what are we to do? Focus on objective well-being as our basis. We obviously can't arbitrarily choose subjective values to be heralded. I feel like a life where people are forced to work far more than they have free time is not a life worth living. Having the public sector step in and regulate things is liberating to me for not needing to do a load of research into things I have no expertise or interest in. I have the freedom to more time thanks to this. I don't believe individuals should be responsible for being self-sufficient in every aspect of their life. We are a species of specialists, we each do our one thing that we can and are best at. It sickens me to even dwell on a "frontier" lifestyle where people have a variety of skills and need to do everything themselves. While you may feel greater self-efficacy from this, I certainly don't. Furthermore, it is simply impractical to expect most people to be a jack of all trades kind of person. It just goes against our nature, our brains can only do so much at a time. We all must rely on each other in a myriad of ways to get through life.

So basically, we can't focus on freedom as a rallying cry. It's subjective and means something different to everyone. I was just giving my take on freedom and how I would be less free in a multitude of ways in a "more free society." The construct as a whole does not exist, it's all inside our heads. What's left is objective well-being, which is the basis for most morals already.

[Whitney]

I really don't know how to explain this any more that you can get it

Is that really necessary to add?

Perhaps you should keep your posts shorts, as a previous poster suggested, what you just posted made more sense than your long posts.

So you are arguing that well-being of everyone in society ought to be the basis for morality...that's great and all, and I agree that it ought to be that way.  But I don't think it's objective because you have to subjectively decide where to draw the line on who/what is distressed....the whole issue of if morality should be extended to the rest of the natural world comes to mind.

[NatsuTerran]

I really don't know how to explain this any more that you can get it

Is that really necessary to add?

Perhaps you should keep your posts shorts, as a previous poster suggested, what you just posted made more sense than your long posts.

So you are arguing that well-being of everyone in society ought to be the basis for morality...that's great and all, and I agree that it ought to be that way.  But I don't think it's objective because you have to subjectively decide where to draw the line on who/what is distressed....the whole issue of if morality should be extended to the rest of the natural world comes to mind.

Well there are obviously going to be holes to pick at. You're right in that it isn't as set in stone as I'd like it to be. For example, in my boxing example I picked (-12) as being the amount of pain that it generates. It's likely open to interpretation. But the gist of it is that pain is pain, but values are messy. Well-being is a universal thing, values aren't. And of course, it gets very tricky when the objective well-being scale shows a negative 50, and the subjective value scale shows something around 50-60. What I'm arguing is that objectivity should be our main rule of thumb, not to outright exclude feelings and emotions and live like robots. I arrive at these conclusions through reasoning them out by using science as a basis. This is the kind of "objective morality" that Dawkins and Harris talk about. You are correct in that it isn't truly objective because it requires *some* sort of reasoned justification. But I think it is the closest we can get to objective if you think of it along a continuum. And I think glorifying the natural state of nature and changing nothing is quite simply going to cause more harm than attempting to correct things where we can and by what is practical.

As for the second point, about why am I not extending this to the rest of the natural world. It's a common philosophical rebuttal. There really isn't an answer to that other than "humans are biologically predisposed to care more about humans, and then mammals, and last insects." It sounds subjective, but it's a fact as well. Humans are obviously going to be naturally biased in favor of their species. Collectivism draws the line somewhere. For example, in ww2 the Japanese were collectivist in a way that drew the line between ingroup and outgroup along Japanese and non-Japanese. They were quite imperialistic at this point and saw other Asian groups as lower than human status. This is subjective collectivism, because it fails to realize that humans are humans and that we could have been born as anyone. Japanese today are completely different. They tend to view humanity as the ingroup and non-humanity as the outgroup. You could argue that this is just as subjective as before, but life is literally impossible to just take that mentality to such an extreme that you glorify all life equally. It's going to seem inconsistent obviously.

But imagine a universe with no life at all. Clearly, there is no right or wrong at all in existence. Once you assume consciousness, that is when morality emerges. I suppose you could argue that our morality should cut the ingroup line at humans because humans have the most developed sense of morality as compared to most other animals. But in all honesty, there really is no objectively justifying drawing the line at humanity and not the natural world. I'm not much bothered by it though. People are still mostly moral towards other species when they can help it. I shoved a large spider out the door with a shoe just this evening because it was right there already. We also tend to avoid causing largescale suffering to the food animals we eat. At least, their mass production deaths aren't any more harmful than if they were to die in nature.

Edit: So sorry for my long posts. No one has to read them. I think I've explained myself quite well however. This isn't a black or white, right or wrong thing. Morality is a fuzzy, grey area. But I still think objective morality exists along a continuum with the "worst possible suffering for everyone" lying on one end and the best case scenario on the other. It is Sam Harris' idea so credit goes to him, although I had the same thoughts in my head. Basically, I think we should push our way up that spectrum instead of just glorifying where we stand in nature and throwing your arms in the air with callous towards things that can and should be controlled. Like the naturalistic fallacy goes: We can and should differentiate between was "is" and what "ought." We can either do something or do nothing, but we can't do everything. While collectivism will seem inconsistent because a line needs to be drawn, purebred 100% individualism in which no one does anything is an absolute nightmare to me. We have consciousness and we should attempt to make it as best as possible. We cannot reach the perfect end of the moral sliding scale: the best possible case for everyone. But we certainly can try to get closer to it. Perfection isn't necessary, but shrugging shoulders and being content with callousness is pretty sickening to me.