21–22 of 22 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What happens when there's no immediate "physically hurting them", but instead long-term damage that is not immediately obvious? I ask because dumping waste could potentially be "not hurting others" in an immediate sense, but still e.g. contaminating the dump area.
There isn't a single position, but one is can contaminate the land forever if it doesn't affect your neighbors.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a feeling that my waste dumping company would have a better chance at owning that private police, and the people making the laws. And the media. There would be many ways to distract and exploit the people. Creating uncertainty and a conspiratory political culture would capture most by offering a simplified, stabilized world and a sense of community. Exploiting distrustful people is the biggest industry there e…
The media and public sentiment shouldn't have anything to do with it. The key to all this is if you have rights to where you are dumping/storing waste. If you own the land and aren't damaging others, then you get to do it. If you dump on someone else's property, they might shoot you. Then entire selling point of libertarianism is that the opinions of others are irrelevant because there it minimal government power.
The need for sophistication is obvious. Protecting your land is an easy case, but wouldn't you want to protect your future interest too and have a say in what I'm allowed to do on my own land, if that is something that could permanently damage the ecosystem in the long run. Or if I start selling unsafe, addicting products, the libertarian approach would be to let everyone decide for themselves, and subsequently fend for themselves. But isolated people are more suspectible to manipulation, and children too, everyone can be. The libertarian approach would be to leave people behind in the name of self-governance.
The question isn't even should self-governance be our goal, the question is whether it can exist at all. It's kind of an oxymoron, because nobody can protect their rights just by themselves. Building a trust infrastructure is perhaps more important.