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A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

nytimes.com

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Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#101

Post by 9dev »

phpisthebest wrote: post #99
teraflop wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems really odd to view a law granting individuals the right to use land for personal recreation as "authoritarian" and not "individualist".

Why? The "right to roam" is a collective right granting the public a "right" over that of the individual property owners right to control access and use to their property. To conflate the "right to roam" as a "individual right" completely miss understands what an individual right is

This is possibly the core difference between the US and Europe for me; American individualism isn’t about individuals, but property, and it always has been. By granting someone a degree of land ownership so extreme they can inhibit other people from experiencing nature across it, you’re merely fetishising property, and doing every single individual a net disservice in the process.

Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#103

Post by HarryHirsch »

prepend wrote: post #85
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The last thing I want is some random camping in my backyard. Story: A regional gov agency bought a large tract of land behind my home for conservation. A fireline was cut all around the edge of the tract and lined with a 4' wire fence that ran adjacent to our properties. Homeowners were unitedly happy the land wouldn't be developed but some were upset it was now available for public daytime use. Two disgruntled nei…

> One was a new mom who was alone all day and was unsettled with folks hiking past her backyard. This seems unreasonable to think hikers are a threat to her. It’s nice of you to work to make her feel better but it seems silly for her to think that people are going to break into her house in the middle of their hike. There are many more opportunities for violence and if she wants to worry about things, there’s others.

More to the point: it's bad policy to normalize her concerns. For the sake of her child we hope that New Mom stops at one and is single. The biggest reason for child abductions is custody disputes and the biggest perpetrators of child sex abuse are older siblings.

Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#104

Post by HarryHirsch »

7952 wrote: post #98
phpisthebest wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a general rule I dislike the form of government that is European, and prefer the American Individualist system, so I dont think it would be nice if America adopts more European laws, we have adopted too many of them already IMO. We revolted for a reason, many Americans seem to have forgotten those reasons in the centuries since, Europe has always been more authoritarian than the US, and they largely replaced monar…

In somewhere like the UK the "authority" can be the large land owner/aristocrat. And individuals own relatively little land. It is the kind of thing that Americans escaped from! In that context public access is a defence of individual rights. And often rights will have existed for hundreds or even thousands of years. Public access is a defence of that. But I think the different culture of America is a really good pra…

Kinder Scout deserves honourable mention here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_trespass_of_Kinder_Scout

Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#105

Post by jltsiren »

phpisthebest wrote: post #99
teraflop wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems really odd to view a law granting individuals the right to use land for personal recreation as "authoritarian" and not "individualist".

Why? The "right to roam" is a collective right granting the public a "right" over that of the individual property owners right to control access and use to their property. To conflate the "right to roam" as a "individual right" completely miss understands what an individual right is

Land ownership, as we understand it today, is a government-granted right, not a natural right.

Ownership as a natural right is based on the idea that the fruit of your labor belong to you, and on voluntary trade. The land already existed before humans, so it can't be fruit of anyone's labor. It can't be owned in this sense. Traditional ideas of land control were based on usage, not ownership. If you used the land for something – built a house on it, farmed it etc. – that was the fruit of your labor and the land belonged to you. But if you abandoned the land and it started reverting to natural state, others could eventually claim it.

Freedom to roam laws retain some of these traditional ideas. The owner can only control access to protect their use of the land. If the land is unused, others can roam the land, as long as that does not hinder the owner's ability to use the land in the future.

Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#106

Post by jen729w »

mediascreen wrote: post #16

As someone who has grown up with "Freedom to roam"[0] laws, it seems so weird that you would need to keep track of who owns the land where you are hiking. (To be fair you can't just hunt wherever you want in Sweden either.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Sweden

We took advantage of this back in the mid 90s when we were 18-year-old backpackers from the UK.

We got to Stockholm, looked at the train map, picked somewhere random, and headed off. When it got suitably rural, we got off. (My memory now is of that scene from Trainspotting where they go to the Scottish hills to recuperate.)

We walked a couple of miles down a road and found an idyllic patch of well-kept grass. Might have been a bowls green or something. We pitched our tents at the edge, respectful of the surface. Heated up a meal, had a tea, watched the stars. It was amazing.

The next morning some guy was on a ride-on mowing the grass. He gave us a friendly nod, we packed up, we left.

Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#107

Post by saagarjha »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #77
Scaevolus wrote: post #21

A number of European countries have "freedom to roam". It would be nice if America had an equivalent, but given how lobbying works that seems impossible at this point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam

In practice it doesn't matter at all, just BLM (Bureau of Land Management) alone owns 387,500 sq mi of public land. For comparison, Scotland, is 30,090 sq mi in size . This is not counting local, state and national parks and forests. Why fix a problem that doesn't exist? Some of the largest parks are comparable in size to European countries. https://mapfight.xyz/map/yellowstone/ https://mapfight.xyz/map/death.valley/

Having to drive to a place to hike rather than just being able to go across the areas around you is annoying.

Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#108

Post by phpisthebest »

9dev wrote: post #101
phpisthebest wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? The "right to roam" is a collective right granting the public a "right" over that of the individual property owners right to control access and use to their property. To conflate the "right to roam" as a "individual right" completely miss understands what an individual right is

This is possibly the core difference between the US and Europe for me; American individualism isn’t about individuals, but property, and it always has been. By granting someone a degree of land ownership so extreme they can inhibit other people from experiencing nature across it, you’re merely fetishising property, and doing every single individual a net disservice in the process.

>you’re merely fetishising property

I am not "fetishising property", I am merely including property in with human rights. The Self-dermination or Self-ownership principle naturally requires some system of property ownership. One such system is Homesteading, while I do not fully support homesteading as a concept, I do believe in some kind of private property ownership is required for a functional society based on individual Self-dermination, absent that individuals would not have ownership of their labor or work product, and other functions of their lives.

Personally I lean more towards a Geoism model that combines exclusive possession of real property but is not "full ownership" but even under a Geoism model is critical that the "owner" or possessor of the land is given right of exclusion

Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#109

Post by GavinMcG »

luckylion wrote: post #66
abruzzi wrote: post #42

this is very common in the west. Its one of several ways to "own" more property than you paid for. If your property completely encloses 1000 acres of public land, that land is as good as yours (with the exception of building things, but many of the property owners in these cases are taking people hunting on the land, so no permanant structures would be built anyway.) Another common thing is land leases. I don't know…

If it doesn't grant them exclusive rights, and they can't e.g. put up "no trespassing" signs, wouldn't that be a crime because they are claiming ownership, and thereby claiming that the state does not have ownership? Have you ever reported one of them to see what happens?

What crime would it be? It might be dishonest and antisocial but those things usually aren’t criminal on their own.

Re: A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property

#110

Post by Zak »

theptip wrote: post #74
pas wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait. How is anyone liable if someone slips & trips while trespassing? Being held liable for setting booby traps for thieves, sure, completely understandable. But ... injury while walking ... especially on land that wasn't prepared as a path/road? WTF Is this some kind of black comedy bingo contest? > attitudes against something as obvious as littering just aren't universal either. > Instagram has become an utter can…

For example, “attractive nuisance”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance_doctrine I don’t know about liability for injury to adults trespassing but it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s a thing in some jurisdictions. I’d be fine with explicitly limiting liability in exchange for passing “right to roam” laws, the US is way to litigious.

This is an area of the law I find problematic. It seems to me there should be a way to tolerate access without assuming any liability.
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