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Life as a Service

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Life as a Service

#91

Post by donall »

tmh88j wrote: post #62
olalonde wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The modern version would probably be "freemen on the land": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemen_on_the_land "Freemen on the land" are people who believe that all statute law is contractual, and that such law is applicable only if an individual consents to be governed by it. They believe that they can therefore declare themselves independent of government jurisdiction, holding that the only "true" law is common law,…

My friend's girlfriend is a public defender and has dealt with many of them. If anyone here has not heard of them or knows very little, I would suggest doing some investigating. I don't have respect for them (mainly because the overwhelming majority don't have a clue of the legal system and obligations they have as a citizen yet argue obscure laws), but it will provide some entertainment and a very strange but intere…

This is certainly interesting stuff. Can you recommend an article that deconstructs their motivations and/or comments on whether or not what they're doing is actually legal?

Re: Life as a Service

#92

Post by eckyptang »

flyinRyan wrote: post #69
eckyptang wrote: post #36

Some thoughts on this: You have no obligation to conform to these laws at all. You are not born into a contract. A contract is a piece of paper which you can use to wipe your bum with if you wish. You can in theory do what the hell you like. People regularly do. You can kill people, not pay tax, walk over the border of any country and urinate anywhere you like. The only downside is that someone who does subscribe to…

But if you think about it, doesn't this seem crazy? I mean, obviously I shouldn't kill people, but if I don't do the things the implicit contract expects me to, some crazy person will come up and put me in a cage. For example, if I happen to grow a plant that will grow on its own without my help, and happen to store a lot of these plants for the winter, I could get locked up by someone for being a drug dealer.

It's all crazy. Absolutely batshit crazy. People hide behind it all the time and defend it as well.

In your example, it is why people buy the plants from someone else. It is purely risk mitigation. It allows them to break the implicit contract without risking severe punishment. The drug dealers are willing to take a larger risk as there is a high probability of financial gain or a higher risk of getting killed by their importer/pusher.

Re: Life as a Service

#93

Post by eckyptang »

digitalWestie wrote: post #63
eckyptang wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no social contract either. It evaporates in a moment's notice when you break the speed limit or download an mp3.

what do you mean by there being no social contract? When you break the law the state punishes you because you have broken 'social contract'.

It's all about trading the social contract against risk of punishment. It's so absolutely unenforceable that more people break the social contract than adhere to it.

Re: Life as a Service

#94

Post by confluence »

scottlilly wrote: post #81
mibbitier wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I've never understood, is why a seemingly large number of Americans don't seem to see the similarity between public fire protection, and a public health service. Aren't these two things pretty essential for civilisation?

They don't see the similarity because they are, in fact, different. If my house catches on fire, and someone doesn't put it out, there is a reasonable chance it will spread to other houses. So it's a societal issue - at least at the local scale. As a societal issue, it makes sense for each member to be forced to pay for it. If I break my leg, there is no increased chance that my neighbor will break his leg. So it's a…

You forgot second order effects. Leg gets fixed - you get back to work - goods and services are rendered, taxed, consumed and saved.

Your neighbor benefits by having an individual in whom society has invested millions in to train and care for back at work instead of being dead. That's a waste of money.

Humans are worth saving simply because we invest so much in them.

Re: Life as a Service

#95

Post by gordonguthrie »

jofo25 wrote: post #75

> And if a substantial number of them would opt-out that would be a much clearer sign than any elections ever could give that that society was on the wrong track. I think this is a pretty interesting comment. It sparked the idea of a 'tax-free' zone in each country in my head. Like a area of each country with no government infrastructure or intervention. The proportion of population living in these zones would really…

The US has run this experiment with the frontier. What happened? The communities beyond the frontier organised themselves and asked to be accepted as States of the Union.

You can freely move to Liberia now and do this. Buy magically nobody does.

Re: Life as a Service

#96

Post by yummyfajitas »

confluence wrote: post #84

I've made up my own law of selfish libertarianism - if you'll indulge me: > It's only a liability or an entitlement until you yourself need it - then it's a fucking right. For example being a young white male born into a middle class western family affords you the ability to state "all I need is contract law - everything else is just impinging on my rights and forcing me to take on obligations I don't appear to benef…

Rights should be based on the veil of ignorance principle - the weak should be protected and the strong should pay for they are one car crash away from welfare.

Your moral values seems to hold that individuals have few rights, and that collectively we should operate from the principle of infinite risk aversion (i.e., the Rawlsian veil of ignorance). Great - we all agree that if these are your values, Libertarianism is not the political philosophy for you.

It's amusing that while mocking Rand, you make the exact same fallacy she makes in Atlas Shrugged: "anyone who disagrees with me must be evil and selfish, with no moral values."

If you don't like it - leave. Somalia is lovely this time of year I hear.

I'm constantly confused when those who oppose libertarianism bring up Somalia. What is the relevance?

Re: Life as a Service

#97

Post by snitko »

confluence wrote: post #84

I've made up my own law of selfish libertarianism - if you'll indulge me: > It's only a liability or an entitlement until you yourself need it - then it's a fucking right. For example being a young white male born into a middle class western family affords you the ability to state "all I need is contract law - everything else is just impinging on my rights and forcing me to take on obligations I don't appear to benef…

There's a meme among libertarians about people suggesting they go visit Somalia. Really, don't bring it up unless you're prepared to discuss it in detail.

Re: Life as a Service

#98

Post by snitko »

edanm wrote: post #73

A few of these points are interesting, because things don't have to be that way (e.g. various government-granted monopolies). But most of these points are uninteresting, in the sense that I cannot easily imagine alternatives. Public goods are a simple example - there's an economic reason it is not possible to let people opt-out of public goods: you can't not protect some people, so it is in their interest to opt-out…

May I refer you to David D. Friedman and Murray Rothbard for explanations of how public property would be so much better off as private property and how protection can be both private and optional? I mean you can disagree after reading it, but at least you wouldn't say there's no alternative.

Re: Life as a Service

#99

Post by rdtsc »

scottlilly wrote: post #81
mibbitier wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I've never understood, is why a seemingly large number of Americans don't seem to see the similarity between public fire protection, and a public health service. Aren't these two things pretty essential for civilisation?

They don't see the similarity because they are, in fact, different. If my house catches on fire, and someone doesn't put it out, there is a reasonable chance it will spread to other houses. So it's a societal issue - at least at the local scale. As a societal issue, it makes sense for each member to be forced to pay for it. If I break my leg, there is no increased chance that my neighbor will break his leg. So it's a…

> If I break my leg, there is no increased chance that my neighbor will break his leg. So it's a personal issue.

But is not a just personal issue. If you break your leg and don't have insurance, you could lose your house over medical bills. The bank will reposes and will write down losses over your mortgage. If your lot starts to look like crap the value of his house will be affected as well. If you have a wife and kids, your kids might end up having to go to school in a crappy part of town. So it might affect their education.

Just by breaking your leg could affect a lot more people than you first suspect. Of course if you had government provided insurance you would not have the risk of spreading this as much.

This idea that we are so independent and individualistic works perhaps in some kind of a romanticized world where you live in a compound in the woods that is self sufficient and you don't have to to worry or care about the outside world either bothering your or owing them anything.

Re: Life as a Service

#100

Post by acuozzo »

eckyptang wrote: post #89
tallanvor wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing keeping you from killing people is fear? I think moral values (no matter where they are derived from) keep people from committing more crimes.

Considering morality is founded on a fear of someone doing to you what you did to them, then yes. This is a fairly basic interpretation of the golden rule but it stands up to the majority of counterpoints.

> Considering morality is founded on a fear of someone doing to you what you did to them, then yes.

Well, at least we know you're at stage #1 of Kohlberg's stages of moral development.

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