You do realise this is totally a-historical? Rights were and are granted by the state, . Human rights are a civilised luxury, nothing fundamental about it.

I don't realize that because the state also denies rights, or otherwise granted themselves selectively: to nobles, the wealthy, members of certain races, members of certain sexes, and so on. The examples are myriad and not worth repeating.

I also grant rights, as can anyone else, and we don't need any legislation to do so. Should someone infringe on your rights I'll be right there defending you.

For taxation to be theft, there must be a right to pre-tax income. Legally, this is clearly not the case.

A moral right to pre-tax can only be said to exist if earned income results in a fair and equitable payment for labour rendered. This too is false. Market circumstances are not concerned with the moral worth of labour or who needs the job the most or who is most deserving of fulfilling the assignment. So a moral right to pre-tax income is incoherent.

Since no rights are infringed, there's no theft.

My point is it doesn’t matter if the confiscation is legal or not; it is still theft. If someone confiscates my resources without my permission and for their own use, whether state or man on the street, it’s theft. I don’t excuse someone for theft because he makes the laws or claims a right to my income.

I can’t see why it would matter if the income is fair and equitable. What matters is that someone is confiscating what another has earned.

What do you mean with social power?

Social power is often contrasted with state power. It’s wherever the locus of power is in society or the community and not in the government. It might be an outdated term but I couldn't think of a better one.

And yet that "concern for all persons" does not extend to their health or whether children have food and shelter.

Evidently your concern extends only to yourself and the principle of the right to be left alone.

Evidently you’re mistaken, because you didn’t ask if I was concerned with the poor and whether children have food and water.

Do you afford these rights?

Even if the idea is individualism?

Like if I had some kind of weapon that allowed me to capture and control the minds of large masses of people and cause them to establish some kind of tyranny, would the prevention of that tyranny be grounds to sacrifice me as an individual?

Yes, because you are enslaving and denying the rights of individuals.

Aren't all affairs private affairs from a strict individualist perspective?

I've never heard of that angle but there might be some out there who hold that perspective.

What are these rights that you afford them? Do you afford them the right to healthcare? Food and shelter for the indigent minors?

No, do you?

The state is a paternalistic institution, so your analogy is quite apt. Unfortunately, I'm one of those whiny little bitches. I see taxes as forced labor and theft, the profits of which go to war, imprisonment, and ineffectual bureaucracy, as much as it does to roads and bridges. The state's modus operandi hasn't changed much since its conception in conquest and exploitation. All that has changed is the growing dependency on its existence, an increase in the religious fervor used to defend it, and all in inverse proportion to the decline of social power.

You probably already know this, but the corporation is a state favor to investors. The corporation is a creature of Big Government and does not exist in nature. Big Government specifically holds investors harmless so they don't have to take personal responsibility of their own actions.

We can ignore, for now, the question of how investors (or anyone else for that matter) came into possession of "their" capital in the first place. Chase it back and you will find theft. You will find someone who was left alone to put their hands on someone else's private affairs.

That's true. The corporation is the child of mercantilism. The state often granted single corporations monopoly on entire industries, which often led to colonialism. So much for laissez-faire and free markets.

Well I can only hope your love for family trumps your love for Trump and laissez-faire (fuck the working class) capitalism. Other than that, if I recall correctly, you claim to be a godless expatriate so no loyalties there.

I don't mind the concept of laissez-faire because it implies the state keeping their hands off of private affairs. But when corporations seek favor from state power my defense ends.

That's not true.

The point is that all persons are individuals and I afford each of them certain rights. If her rights are violated I get concerned, not only for her but for me and others as well.

The hierarchy is usually something like family > religious or political affiliation > neighborhood > nation, abstract notions aside.

Sounds about right. Personally I find little affiliation with many of those groups but I am nonetheless concerned with how each member is treated by them.

That may very well be what happens to a man who is voluntarily isolated from the pub table: He starts to view this as a social activity. Regardless, he is drawn back into communication with others and a reliance upon them for honing and exposure. Real world would be better, but aren't we eschewing that?

Yes, I think you’re right. Communication with others is not only desirable, but necessary, or else we end up someone like Genie.

Well said and enjoyable to read.

Unfortunately for me I'm stuck at my desk, but I shall be out foraging for morels and oyster mushrooms in about 3 hours time, so long as the weather holds up. Like you I come here to hone my ideas and to read other points of view. But I would not recommend seeing this as a social activity, because we are each literally alone. I would argue this is anti-social behavior. Had we all been around a pub table I doubt these sorts of conversations would occur.

Then you’re not really talking about individuals but some abstract idea or collection of units, like ‘human beings’. In that case you have a lesser concern for units that are not human. I suppose that’s why oppressors dehumanize the oppressed.

"individual" is an abstraction, yes, but it fits on all human beings. Individualism is concern with human affairs, sure, but it does not prohibit concern for other beings.

If I were the primary unit of concern, for example, why would I necessarily have concern for all units?

Because all units are individuals.

I like what you wrote. It reminded me that the schism is chalked full of irony.

All collectives are composed of individuals. If you add it all up it becomes clear that collectivism is exclusive, individualism inclusive. If you believe the individual is the primary unit of concern, you necessarily have a concern for all persons, refusing to sacrifice a single one of them for some collective. If you believe the collective is primary, you will sacrifice or discipline any individual who threatens its unity, excluding them from the will of the party.

I think it’s evident individuals do and should cooperate. I just don’t think any person should be sacrificed for an idea, whether it’s the “greater good”, the nation, the party, humanity itself.

It’s true. Individualism is a problem for any collectivist project. Mao saw this well enough and wrote about it in his “Combat Liberalism. Mao’s solution was to “strengthen education”, “conduct affairs, make assignments and enforce discipline in a proper way”. I supposed it worked because the CCP will be celebrating its centenary this year.

And since we’re bringing up Hitler, anti-individualism was regnant in nazi and fascist ideology and for the same reasons: it was a threat to their statist projects and ideology.

The MLK quote is somewhat of a misquote, but the thrust is the basically same. And I’m not so sure he was against individualism because he was a fan of Emerson and Thoreau.

I appreciate your nuanced view. And who knows? Maybe all this stuff will turn out well in the end. If so I will undoubtedly hang my head in shame for opposing it. But I think it will get worse before it gets better.

Use my words as your tea-leaves all you wish, but I’ll add trauma and pain to my list of swings and misses.

I get that it might seem like CRT is repackaged racism, but many of the race-conscious policies that are being pushed for are being pushed to combat inequality, not increase it, and if we need to have, for example, quotas, to achieve maximum equality of opportunity, I'm fine with that; some inequality in the short term might lead to a more equitable outcome in the long. And I think that proponents of CRT don't think only white people have the power, but rather that they have a disproportionate share of it due to pervasive racism embedded in our institutions and such.

Aren’t race-conscious policies and quotas a form of exclusionary, institutional racism? It seems to me if we want to rid the system of embedded racism we should first start by refusing to institute it.

For instance, at the moment, white farmers are suing the federal government of the US because they are excluded from debt relief programs due to the fact of their skin color, and by no other measure. I think this is wrong for the same reason it is wrong to exclude any other race. How can it be said that this combats inequality?

Thanks, but I think you’re overestimating the power of words, praxis. The old child proverb “sticks and stones” still holds true, in my mind. So I see the attempts at insult and belittling as little more than group think and ideological back-patting, the basest form of propaganda.

Back in the day if we wanted to know why someone did something we asked him. But yourself and others like to invent little tall tales to fill the holes. So far I’m insane, a charlatan, a Russian bot, a nazi, a man living in his mother’s basement. Perhaps one of these days someone will get it right, but so far it’s all swings and all misses from people who fancy themselves philosophers. That they’re all fellow travellers is no surprise. I just want to know: is this a method of some sorts? a coping mechanism? catharsis?

I’m with you, but I fear CRT is the direct descendant of the old racism rather than its opposition. The idea that wider American society constitutes “white supremacy”, as if no other hand but a white one could influence it, change it, or benefit from it, is not only manifestly false debilitating to those who believe it. And the notion of viewing the world through a “racial lens”, which is common to all racists, is frightening given that such a pseudoscientific framework has led to injustice and atrocity, as it must.

CRT is dangerous because it holds a special status as being academic, which gives it an air of credibility. After a few decades since its conception it now finds itself in the highest echelons of politics and business and entertainment.

So-called cancel culture is pretty much a milquetoast struggle session, so the comparison between the woke and the red guard is apt.

The main problem is those who acquiesce, grovel, and alter the world according to the woke vision, mostly for fear of losing some profits or reputation. This behavior has exacerbated the problem, and if it were to end, the whole scheme would collapse.

That’s not necessary, pal. If I wanted high-fives and consensus I’d probably be on some dark corner of the internet by now.

I feel zero pain from the digs—they’re as soft and brittle as imagine their chins are—and I just dig them right back anyways. C’est la vie. Besides, testing your ideas against the grindstone of criticism and free speech is a great way to pass the time during lulls in work. Unlike these vectors of propaganda that’s all I’m here for.

As for the remarks about my sanity I fear you’re projecting. So I’ll be sure to tread lightly around you just in case.

I’d love to see this common sense in action, but I have asked for proof of Trump’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in this thread for years now with nothing to show for it, so I don’t expect much.

Maybe I’m jaded. We were promised the next Hitler, nuclear war, economic collapse, race wars, fascism, the Kremlin, and a litany of other bogeymen, none of which materialized. So I doubt such accusations as a matter of course. I can only imagine how the world would be today had those tasked with informing us warned us about real threats. Now we find ourselves under the yoke of every leader and bureaucrat but Donald Trump. Sad.

Me too. Not yet to NOS's satisfaction though.

I’m rooting for you.

Begrudgingly, they did. But I also think the principle of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt need not apply only to those concerned with law, but also to those who believe in justice, human rights and common sense. You either believe in it or you don’t.

No one would know. (Hence the location.)
Greenland has been autonomous for half a century or so (from unreliable memory).

True, except in matters of immigration. The Kingdom of Denmark gets to pick and choose who gets a permit to reside in Greenland. No so autonomous, I suppose.

True, but it is a tried and true principle. I can’t think of any reason we’d assume the opposite, but here we are.

That’s more a presumption of guilt than innocence, and there are reasons we avoid such tyranny in free society.

It looks like the case against Trump’s supposed hush-money payments was dropped.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/us/politics/trump-michael-cohen-fec.html

The dreams of Trump’s perp-walk slowly dwindle.

I fact-checked the link you sent and read the story. It was determined to be fake news. Want to know how I found out?

By all means.

The “third camp” should reject statism, collectivism, totalitarianism, and embrace freedom. Only then could they resist using human beings as the brick and mortar of their projects. Unfortunately this means their vision must come about voluntarily.

In your lifetime? Doubtful. You'll be meddle-free.

Moving to Greenland and occupying land there is a problem because I’d have to contend with the Danish state’s monopolization of it all. I wager that had the Danes left the Inuit alone there wouldn’t be this problem. But they meddled and claimed the land as their own.

I want to talk about the “consciousness” people talk about when they discuss “The hard problem of consciousness.”

It’s an ambiguous term, says Chalmers. This is before he sprinkled in a little experience, feelings, and quality to make it worse. But it becomes more and more apparent that the “consciousness” he speaks of is the organism itself. So when he says “It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience”, he is descending into tautology.

He is an intellectual disease vector. Fortunately many here have been inoculated.

The inoculation of fake fallacies and quibbling.

It's really hard, I think! What if you become a disease vector?

All the more reason to go bother someone else.

Not bad. But I fear it will be prime real estate once you’ve had your way with the rest of the world.

Not an AN anymore but I keep hearing this. This would imply that having children is never wrong. It would also imply that genetically modifying someone to be blind and deaf is not wrong since you're not forcing anything on anyone, therefore morality doesn't factor in (assuming you don't think a sperm or egg is a person). It would also imply that if a certain couple, upon hearing that their child would have dozens of severe genetic illnesses due to hidden genes that they have, would not be doing anything immoral by having said child.

Do you agree with each of the above 3? If not then why?

I think positions that attempt to say that having children is not a moral issue, and can never be wrong are ridiculous.

I think there is a difference between moral behavior towards flesh-and-blood beings and moral behavior between abstract beings. Claiming moral behavior towards flesh-and-blood beings is one thing, measurable and visible, while moral behavior towards abstract beings is another, little more than a feat of imagination.

There is nothing abstract about genetic modifications, sperms and eggs, couples choosing between the life and extirpation of their child. These decisions have demonstrable effects and involve real behavior. So I'm not saying having children is not a moral issue; I'm saying not having children on the basis of protecting an abstract being from being forced into suffering is not a moral issue. It's an imaginary one. When a sense of morality extends no further than the skull, can be accomplished in the comfort of one's home and without any interaction with real beings, I would argue it isn't morality at all.

What happens if someone is not happy with the arrangement- everything from work, homelessness, and suicide options?

Also, what makes forcing the participants into the world moral vs. immoral? Is just the fact that people are sometimes positive at certain moments justifiable really? So are slaves, etc. The only difference is the range of options is larger, that I agree. It's still a bounded set of conditions and rules nonetheless.

I would tell him happiness isn't all its cracked up to be.

If Wonka forcibly removes them from their home and imprisons him in his place it would be immoral. If he creates them, or if they grow from the stuff of his world, he is forcing nothing and morality doesn't factor into it at all.

Point taken. How much joy, laughter, etc. does it take to ameliorate that Wonka has forced people into this world with the conditions explained in the OP (work, homelessness, etc.)?

It wouldn't take much if he sacrifices a great deal of his time to provide, protect, and raise us to thrive in his world. I would be quite grateful, personally.

Wonka is cruel because unlike the real world he never added things that cause joy, pleasure, laughter, play, and so on.

I'm just thinking that to meet your needs we'd have to clear an area for you, which you could farm or hunt and gather or whatever, so you could live unbothered by others and without bothering them. There's a decreasing number of spaces of dwindling size and resources, unfortunately. Perhaps colonising another planet would suit you.

This sounds to me like meddling. Surely it cannot be that difficult to leave someone alone.