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What if our fundamentals are exactly backwards?
New to The Motte, looking for constructive, critical discussion.
Here's an example of what I mean by a "fundamental":
Every economic system that has seemed credible to most people since the dawn of civilization has revolved around the legal establishment and safeguarding of property through the concept of ownership.
But what is ownership? I have my own ideas, but I asked ChatGPT and was surprised that it pretty much hit the nail on the head: the definitional characteristic of ownership is the legal right to deprive others.
This has been such a consistently universal view that very few people question it. Even fewer have thought through a cogent alternative. Most people go slack-jawed at the suggestion that an alternative is possible.
Here's something from years back, before I'd zeroed in on the perverse nature of ownership:
Anyone want to brainstorm a viable alternative to "ownership"?
/images/17459352527399495.webp
Only if you've stopped stealing from other people.
If ownership is deprivation of others, then that deprivation is theft. After all, to deprive is to deny someone the possession or use of something. If this is supposed to be an immoral characteristic ('paranoid,' 'not sharing,' 'psychopathy), then the moral state is for it to not be deprived. The immoral deprivation of personal or even public goods is understood to be theft.
However, you are posting here. On the internet. A medium that requires a computer of some sort that could be not-deprived to someone else. Moreover, you repeatedly responded to others. This entails further use of time depriving the device to others. It also implies a surplus of time, and thus material resources you are depriving others of, that enable the hobby rather than sharing like a non-paranoid should. These resources are deprived from benefiting other possible beneficiaries and potential users by virtue (or sin) of your use. Your use and expected ability to use is demonstrating a de facto, even if not de jure, ownership.
It's generally understood that it is fair to judge people by their own standards, even if it's not fair to do so by your own. So be it. A priest who declares any who disagrees with their message is damned to hell will be a damned priest by their own hypocrisies. A revolutionary who declares it an act of cowardliness to not participate in a protest is a coward for not participating. You are someone who deprives others by exercising ownership and mutually exclusive use of limited resources.
Why should anyone brainstorm alternative ownership with a thief in the middle of a robbery?
LOL, Strawman City here, looks like -- and in Strawman City, everything you say is true by definition. Great! The only problem is that nothing that happens in Strawman City affects anyone but you, cuz you're the only one there. Sorry, just too many baseless assumptions and leaps of illogic for me to engage much. No, physical possession is not theft. No, physical possession does not entail deprivation. No, "paranoid", "not sharing", and "psychopathy" have zip-all to do with morality. No, I'm not engaging in a hobby. Before trying to construct a polemical trap, make sure you've got facts to work with. But speaking of ironies and hypocrisies, what about the fact that you know squat about me but pretend to know?
I'd generally agree that these aren't moral concepts. Given that they are neither moral nor immoral, and that this system of "psychopathy with a makeover" that makes sense to "paranoid" people "who don't understand the concept of sharing" keeps leading to stable societies with people leading prosperous lives, when instability and poverty has been the norm for most lives anywhere, I have to conclude that "psychopathy" and "paranoia" and "not sharing" are really cool things that I want more of, for the purpose of my own benefit from living in a stable and prosperous society and from the good feelings I get from believing that I support a system that benefit more people in general. Why would I want to come up with an alternative?
So you're implying that these stable societies (stable for whom, exactly -- the precariat? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precariat) aren't comprised of a majority of people who experience incessant instability and poverty? Or do you simply not consider people stuck in poverty to be people?
More than what? The USA benefits more people on average than which countries? Compared to which periods in history?
Trick questions, actually, because there's a fundamental flaw in your argument no matter how you'd answer them: better-than-worse does not substitute for as-good-as-better. Those are two mutually exclusive orientations. Yours is the former. No matter how much better than others an example might be, it says nothing about how good it realistically could be. When brought up as a barrier to improvement, better-than-worse is perverse. Confucius points this out in terms of intelligence: If you're always the smartest person in the room, you keep choosing the wrong room.
And that doesn't even touch on a much more important aspect which most people are functionally oblivious to. I'll pose it with a question: given all you know about this world, compared to what you'd really like the world to be, is this one the world you want?
Most people have become so tacitly cynical, it simply doesn't occur to them that what they want even matters anymore.
I probably implied it in that comment, and in this comment, I'm explicitly stating it, yes, that a minority of people in societies that have private property live in poverty.
For a current-time example, I'd say the USA compares favorably against North Korea, though perhaps South Korea vs North Korea would be a better example, as USA is only one specific and rather idiosyncratic example of a society that has private property rights, and South Korea is probably more similar to North Korea than USA is.
Well, the problem here is that you also say nothing about how good it realistically could be. So, how good could it realistically be? I'm all ears. As of yet, you've described the current system with words like "psychopathic" done by "paranoid" people, which I agree with you are completely morally neutral. As such, I have no desire to overthrow this non-immoral system which keeps giving us very good results, unless there's some other system in store for something even better to replace it. So what are those other ideas?
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Yes, that is clearly the case. I’m not sure how you could think otherwise, the vast majority of people on planet Earth are not living in poverty. That’s even more so the case for developed countries. Do you have evidence to the contrary?
Sure, "poverty". Let's talk living wage. Do you know how many adults in the US earn less than a living wage? Over 60%. But you're OK with that, if you even knew it. Only 40% of adults make more than bare minimum of what it takes to stay alive. That is a human poverty line, not the inhuman line of about half that much (which is actually the extreme poverty line.)
Anyone can be an Olympian if you lower the bar to 2", man. Get real.
That is simply untrue. 11% of Americans live under the poverty line, and even making less than the poverty line is a far cry from “The minimum of what it takes to stay alive.” About 2,000 people died of malnutrition (not even starvation, just malnutrition) in the US in 2022. That’s .0006% of the population who may have lacked the bare minimum of what it takes to stay alive. A far cry from 60%. You know the median American makes $40,000 a year, right?
Iirc the vast majority of malnutrition deaths in the US occur among the elderly, and it's less that they are deprived of access to food, and more that they have physical difficulty with eating.
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Wait, what? Then how are you defining the word "deprivation"? Surely, if I am using an object, I am not allowing others to use the object at the same time, i.e. I am depriving them of the ability to use the object.
You need to think it through more carefully. I have a nice little USB-powered fan that I use in the afternoons here in central Mexico. Am I depriving you of that fan? Do you right here and now consider yourself deprived? If you have something I don't want, have you deprived me by making clear you won't let me near it?
There are 3 very different things at play here: 1) actual deprivation; 2) potential deprivation; and 3) the actual right to deprive potentially everyone else in the world of your property. Conflate them at your peril, lol.
I've been talking exclusively about #3, and only #3.
Actual deprivation requires things: 1) a deprivable; 2) a desire to possess on the part of a non-owner; 3) the owners exercise of their deprivation right.
Not all a person owns is a deprivable. A desirable you own can only be deprivable if you have the wherewithal to actually deprive others of it. Otherwise, ownership is legal right that you're incapable of exercising, so it's practically impotent. Companies trying to enforce copyrights against fair use know exactly what I'm talking about.
Merely having the legal right to deprive doesn't actually deprive anyone. An owner has that right, but might offer their property for free public use. Lots of restaurants have created menu items specifically to offer to people who have no means to pay.
Rights are, by nature and definition, purely retroactive. They have no prevention potential. Unless you actively prevent or resist interlopers, your ownership/right to deprive does diddly to keep your property safe. The only meaningful effect your right has on anyone is on people who respect your right -- which, guess what, means they're not the ones you need to prevent/protect against. Rights are 100% justificatory. Their only practical use is to justify actions that an owners takes in protection of property. The actions taken are the only preventative. (Where's a cop when you need one, lol?)
Hopefully that helps.
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Thank you for your illustrative response. It provides the audience more to know you by.
This response is a useful demonstration of how you respond when the moral implications of your claimed standards reflect poorly on yourself. Rather than clarify or refine an argument, you invoke the fallacy of fallacies to try and dismiss implicit criticism as irrelevant. Rather than engage any particular part, you dismiss all elements of pushback. This is a useful way to tease out someone's inclination for using arguments as soldiers, as opposed to genuine positions worth holding and defending despite implicit disrepute.
It is also enlightening to consider not only your use of highly pejorative language, but then your denial that there are any moral connotations with your choice of words. This is not only an excellent example of a particularly blatant motte-and-bailey. It is also enlightening for the speed you withdrew from the bailey, and on what strength of argument you gave to its defense.
It is very useful to know when someone is both the sort of person to deny their words have commonly understood connotations, but also opens with them while inviting others to come up with new definitions of old concepts.
You have also provided additional insights into your mindset and character. Assuming you are honest and that posting here is not a hobby, then posting here is indicative of some kind of cause or other less-trivial, more serious purpose. This supports a bias towards motivated reasoning and engagement. Your counter-argument by counter-attack to an ad-hominem, rather than over your position, suggests a motive focused on the inter-personal engagement than on advancing an ideological premise. This is consistent with your response to other people, suggesting a combative personality. Combined with the [serious purpose] position, this provides insight into potential motives, and your conduct in pursuit of [serious purposes].
Of course, if you are lying, the above could all be wrong. But lying, or even an inclination to loose and fast exaggerations, is another useful thing to know about a new poster.
He’s trying to sharpen his arguments for his book, I think.
Close. I'm trying to sharpen my thinking, period -- book or not, discussions or not. The only quest I'm on and the only agenda I have is to understand -- especially the issues that have accosted my sons and are going to accost my grandchildren. They're inheriting a world that was fucked up both before and during our watch. Understanding what's really going on is prerequisite to doing something about it. And I'm doing everything I can.
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PS. Just in case, it occurred to me that you might wonder, if it's the case that, "if all someone is interested in doing is dismissing my ideas or me as the ideator, then their 'evidence' and reasons and justifications don't amount to much for me," why I'd take the kind of time with your comment that I did. Simple. I don't admire what you were trying to accomplish with it, but I really admire the way you tried to do it. I've never seen that kind cleverness and creativity invested in an ad hom before. Honestly, it's quite the piece of work. You've got talent. So, it fascinated me. Taking that kind of time and care with it is just my way of showing my admiration. Sincerely. 😊
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lol, and now it's all about me? Why is it all about me? Because it's all about ego in the minds of people who get derailed by my "moral implications", "pejorative language", etc., and jettison the subject to focus on personal issues which, your comment being a good example, are projected onto me without the slightest intention of validating them with me.
Everything you said from, "This response is a useful demonstration of how you respond..." to "... while inviting others to come up with new definitions of old concepts," is inaccurate and misrepresentative -- as well as constituting a strawman you're not using to poke holes in what I said but derail focus from the topic onto my person and character. Blatant ad hom.
In contrast to your approach here -- characterize a person you've never met in vague, hypothetical terms instead of addressing the specifics you only allude to -- I'm happy to take criticism on specifics. And I will, of course, criticize the criticism where it falls short and misses the mark. But there has been very little of that here in the comments. Most of them have boiled down to reciting status quo dogmas (which I've explained for what they are), straw-manning (which I've addressed specifically), and illogical, fallacious claims about what I supposedly said but never said (which I've addressed specifically).
I'll give you mega points for slick presentation, though.
It's on you to present examples of what you're alleging so that we can talk about them. I don't see any evidence that you're interested in that so far, which is why I think you've chosen a broad, unspecific brush to paint/characterize me in an unfavorable light. But I invite you to get real.
I'd like to ask, specifically: do you think all "pejorative language" is illicit? Did you pay any attention to what my "pejorative language" was directed at? If so, did I direct it towards people or towards vile ideas, baseless and antagonistic claims, and general bullshittery? Please quote where I put someone down or impugned them personally. Or is it, in your mind, that if a person calls your idea stupid or silly or bullshit, they have called you stupid or silly or bullshit? Just wondering if that any of this has even occurred to you, because I've met oodles and oodles of people who simply cannot distinguish the two. They never like me very much. I take it as a compliment.
Would you allow me to infer your mindset and character from your comment? I could. I don't want to. I'd rather just ask, like I've been doing here.
False. Mere seriousness does not imply bias or motivated reasoning in the sense you seem to mean. Just so that you know, I am anti-ideological. I'm not motivated by an ideology. I'm motivated by wanting to understand what's really going on and love for what I'll find out, because I'm convinced after 70 years of life that nothing which isn't lovable actually exists.
This is really quite good. You've done some good thinking as far as assembling an argument. Sadly, you've premised your psychoanalysis on ignorance, imagination, and surmise without having done the least little thing to ascertain facts.
Bottom line -- aside from facticity, accuracy, representativeness and the rest, there are two very basic and easily seen movements that people make when presented with a topic: either they move towards engagement or they move away from it towards dismissal. It's got nothing to do with whether we agree or disagree. In one way, it really doesn't matter what a person says, ultimately, if their sole intention is to successfully dismiss a topic. Ad hom and pretended psychoanalysis are just two of the more repugnant ways to justify dismissing what a person has said and/or dismissing them. Personally, if all someone is interested in doing is dismissing my ideas or me as the ideator, then their "evidence" and reasons and justifications don't amount to much for me. I know what I've done, I know how I got here, I know what I've got, I know how I've tested it and how it's fared. You literally know none of that except what I might have mentioned here (or elsewhere, if you went looking). So, little-to-none is as much merit as your opinions here warrant, being totally or practically factually baseless. But I'm not dismissing you (just in case you were poised to leap there.) I'm totally down to engage on specifics. Let's discuss.
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I mean... I don't agree with the OP but isn't your comment just this meme?
The difference between the meme and hoisting someone by their own petard is that a petard must be provided by the owner and initial user.
The nature of the meme is that the counter-argument strawman figure is claiming 'gotcha' moments, despite not actually addressing any position presented. The person on the iphone criticizing Apple's pay of employees is arguing from a position that Apple could be paying the employees more with what has been provided, not that Apple should be boycotted for not paying people more. The car seatbelt person is not a hypocrite for saying there should be seatbelts, because they have not made a standard that such an expression would be hypocritical by. Society-peasant's panel isn't even about a choice of action, which is the punchline against the strawman's degeneration. The strawman is not actually using anyone else's standards, not least because they provided no standard of 'right' by which they violated. The strawman has to invent a standard they did not claim in order to condemn them.
Arguments made from a position of morality can be challenged on their own terms because they provided a standard that the arguer can be judged by. They present an argument of right or wrong that applicable examples can be compared to. The use of moral connotation language indicates what the arguer views as correct / incorrect behaviors. Pejorative language is a framing device- no one calls a reasonable decision 'paranoid' because paranoia is by its nature unjustified/unwarranted/irrational. When personal actions are subject to condemnation under a paradigm, the paradigm-provider can be judged under the same.
The OP chose to offer a definition to judge others by. They used emotive and condemnatory language to indicate their own judgement. Having established the standard and a moralist framing, they can be judged by it in turn.
I apologize, I should have been more clear. The "we should improve society somewhat" meme only refers to this panel, not entire the comic in which it originated.
I still find it problematic that a person can't criticize any fundamental pillars of a society while "benefiting" from them. Like, how can we expect the OP to not "take advantage" of personal property ownership by your standard and still be able to function in a capitalistic society? Are we supposed to disregard any criticism they have because they themselves are forced to participate in the society as it is currently structured?
Who says they have to operate by my standard?
The point of using someone's own standard against them is precisely because it isn't your own standard. You are co-opting provider's credibility and stake in the standard as a less questionable source of legitimacy. You are also forcing the person to defend, or to not defend as they chose here, the implications of their own definition.
If they inevitably fail by their own standard, that can mean anything from that they are unfit to pass judgement, to that it's a bad standard. Some bad standards are bad precisely because they are non-falsifiable.
If someone raises a non-falsifiable standard, then the claimed judgement of the standard loses all meaning. That's not a problematic basis of disregarding a criticism- falsifiability is a prerequisite for a complaint to have any onus.
What do you think social structuring has to do with the fact that only one person can use a computer at a time?
My original issue with this was that I interpreted this question as rhetorical, but if it's not, let me know:
My point was that it can be perfectly fine for someone to believe the current capitalistic system is psychopathic, categorize it as such, and still having to participate in this system because that is the system that exists right now. Sure, by participating, they are in a sense being hypocritical, but it doesn't mean we should invalidate their position because of this. It's a "don't blame the player blame the game" sort of situation where individual players can still brainstorm how to make the game better, while playing the game because they don't control how the world works.
BUT, and this is a big but. I pattern-matched your original comment to something like "You benefit from personal ownership, which you believe to be immoral, and therefore your critique of personal ownership is invalid." However, it's possible my analysis was off the mark and you were instead making a different argument entirely, such as challenging their internal consistency or the falsifiability of their standard. If that's the case then I will apologize once more and bow out of this discussion.
I will accept the sentiment with a 'no apologies are needed, misunderstandings happen' and happily part ways.
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If somebody says "anybody who does X is a psychopath" while doing X, then I think we have the right to treat him as if he said "I am a psychopath". Not if he said "anybody is doing X, including me, but I think it would be morally superior to do Y, and since I want to be morally superior, I invite you to do Y with me" that would shield him from the same line of criticism, but that's not what happened. If you call everybody around a psychopath, then that's the line of argument you opened, and should expect the same kind of argument in return.
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With respect to his complaints, OP is not forced to participate in society as it currently exists. There are successful communes based on communitarian and egalitarian principles functioning in America right now that he could seek to join, or he could look into starting his own with like-minded people.
Ignoring the total incoherence of his arguments, if he has been studying this for fifteen years as he says, it seems plausible to me that he has had the opportunity to go somewhere that would allow him to test and experience his theories in a real-world environment.
The problem is that communes, and his ideas more broadly, are most generously interpreted as not scaleable, even with the best will in the world.
I do think it is somewhat likely that the OP currently lives in a communal-type environment, just based on what he’s said before, so I am willing to give him some credit for living his beliefs.
I agree broadly but if the following is the standard to judge hypocrisy, then clearly just living in a communal-type environment doesn't absolve the OP of his sins, so to speak.
He's not just saying 'I think society should be improved' he's making moral judgements about owning things like "A preemptive right to universally deprive is obviously psychopathic". But if he thinks it's psychopathic he is either using that term in a way nobody else on earth does or being extremely hyperbolic for the purposes of rhetoric. But whenever anyone asks him about it he goes (paraphrased) "lol, lmao, roflmao, I mean psychopathic". Ok, well then he's a psychopath stealing from everyone right?
Sorry, my friend, psychopathy has nothing to do with morality, except to moralizers. I'm not making "judgments" either, unless you construe researched findings as "judgments" -- but that would be on you, not me. I'm speaking strictly psychologically, simply, and generically: pathology of the psyche. The fact that a strong (and futile) attempt has been made to isolate "psychopathy" to an extreme end of the scale (it's a spectrum, not an is/isn't) so that the rest of us can feel cozy that "we're not like them" means nothing in the long run. A preemptive right to universally deprive is psychopathic because the framing and the motivations are delusional. Happy to discuss.
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The people who boldly suggest all of society radically change its behaviour have a burden of at least knowing they personally can live by the rules they are prescribing.
To be fair, they haven't advocated for an alternative yet. They recognise that ownership is the best known solution for society currently, but are trying to think of even better solutions
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