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Unexpected things that are people

bengoldhaber.substack.com

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Re: Unexpected things that are people

#41

Post by joeypickles »

robot-wrangler wrote: post #7

Thought provoking. Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. The thing with temples stems ultimately from fairly practical matters if they hold such treasure, but it's a magnet for strife, and actually kind of surprising that in the case-study mentioned they resisted the opportunity to justify abuse of po…

Seems appropriate here: https://genius.com/Moondog-enough-about-human-rights-lyrics

In other words, why do we have to make something a person in order to give it rights?

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#42

Post by JackFr »

atoav wrote: post #22
robot-wrangler wrote: post #7

Thought provoking. Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. The thing with temples stems ultimately from fairly practical matters if they hold such treasure, but it's a magnet for strife, and actually kind of surprising that in the case-study mentioned they resisted the opportunity to justify abuse of po…

For me it goes like this: Ok if we are already extending personhood to corporations, who with their sheer power transcend individuals, why not also extend that fiction to other entities that would actually need active protection? Wouldn't corporations do just fine and we would live in a better world if we stripped any form of personhood from corporations? The biggest collision area stemming from corporate personhood…

> The only reason corporate personhood is a thing is because it allows corporate lawyers to pick from a bigger pool of personal rights in a perversion of the spirit of these original rights.

Not at all. It allows corporations to own property, enter contracts and appear as a plaintiff or defendant in lawsuits. Without legal personhood it could do none of these.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#43

Post by bitwize »

robot-wrangler wrote: post #7

Thought provoking. Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. The thing with temples stems ultimately from fairly practical matters if they hold such treasure, but it's a magnet for strife, and actually kind of surprising that in the case-study mentioned they resisted the opportunity to justify abuse of po…

> Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized.

Well, one protects nature, the other protects profits. They are not the same thing.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#44

Post by Rooster61 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #8

The tree that owns itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_That_Owns_Itself

Came here to post this, although sadly it isn't considered a person, and isn't actually the original tree. That said, I'd imagine if anyone tried to take down the son of the tree that owned itself, Athens residents would revolt. It's pretty famous

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#45

Post by NoboruWataya »

joeypickles wrote: post #41
robot-wrangler wrote: post #7

Thought provoking. Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. The thing with temples stems ultimately from fairly practical matters if they hold such treasure, but it's a magnet for strife, and actually kind of surprising that in the case-study mentioned they resisted the opportunity to justify abuse of po…

Seems appropriate here: https://genius.com/Moondog-enough-about-human-rights-lyrics In other words, why do we have to make something a person in order to give it rights?

We don't have to, that's just the way we chose to do it (specifically for groups of humans acting in a commercial context).

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#46

Post by rootusrootus »

robot-wrangler wrote: post #7

Thought provoking. Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. The thing with temples stems ultimately from fairly practical matters if they hold such treasure, but it's a magnet for strife, and actually kind of surprising that in the case-study mentioned they resisted the opportunity to justify abuse of po…

I wouldn’t have so much problem with corporate personhood if we hadn’t decided money was speech.

Plus, if corporations get to be people for all the good stuff, it should require taking the bad bits too. E.g. capital punishment should be on the table.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#47

Post by pnut »

JackFr wrote: post #38
robot-wrangler wrote: post #7

Thought provoking. Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. The thing with temples stems ultimately from fairly practical matters if they hold such treasure, but it's a magnet for strife, and actually kind of surprising that in the case-study mentioned they resisted the opportunity to justify abuse of po…

> Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood Most people understand that incorporated businesses need to own property, enter into contracts and act as either plaintiff or defendant in lawsuits.

And be completely unaccountable in criminal court, for the consequences of their actions.

Don't forget that one. All the rights, none of the responsibility.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#48

Post by kerkeslager »

robot-wrangler wrote: post #7

Thought provoking. Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. The thing with temples stems ultimately from fairly practical matters if they hold such treasure, but it's a magnet for strife, and actually kind of surprising that in the case-study mentioned they resisted the opportunity to justify abuse of po…

> Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized.

Straw man argument.

I'm for regulating different things differently and as what they are: a corporation should be regulated as a corporation and a river should be regulated as a river.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#49

Post by NoboruWataya »

robot-wrangler wrote: post #7

Thought provoking. Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. The thing with temples stems ultimately from fairly practical matters if they hold such treasure, but it's a magnet for strife, and actually kind of surprising that in the case-study mentioned they resisted the opportunity to justify abuse of po…

> Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized.

Only if/because they are reading too much into the concept of legal personhood. A thing being a person doesn't mean the thing is equivalent to a human or that it has every right that every human has. It generally just means that the law attributes certain rights and obligations to that thing because that is more convenient than finding the right human(s) to attribute them to in the circumstances.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#50

Post by robot-wrangler »

JackFr wrote: post #42
atoav wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it goes like this: Ok if we are already extending personhood to corporations, who with their sheer power transcend individuals, why not also extend that fiction to other entities that would actually need active protection? Wouldn't corporations do just fine and we would live in a better world if we stripped any form of personhood from corporations? The biggest collision area stemming from corporate personhood…

> The only reason corporate personhood is a thing is because it allows corporate lawyers to pick from a bigger pool of personal rights in a perversion of the spirit of these original rights. Not at all. It allows corporations to own property, enter contracts and appear as a plaintiff or defendant in lawsuits. Without legal personhood it could do none of these.

> It allows corporations to own property, enter contracts and appear as a plaintiff or defendant in lawsuits.

And yet these things do basically go all the way back to the Roman empire, and I'm sure the extent and privileges of corporate personhood have been litigated once or twice since then. If you disagree that

> corporate lawyers would like to pick from a bigger pool of personal rights in a perversion of the spirit of these original rights.

then what do you think they were working on?

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