What is the deal with authoritarians and learned helplessness?

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Government, is in a sense, a propertarian concept. It is a group of people with collective ownership over some territory, historically by right of conquest and defense, agreeing to set up a system where in their morality is enforced in that area and to pool resources for efficiencies sake. Opposing the concept of government means to forcefully deprive people of their right to form government if they so choose.

I suppose this all does come down to how one defines the right to property. If the libertarians have a more true answer than by ability to defend it, I would be glad to hear it. Even my preference that property be use-based is merely a moral veneer, a social construct, underpinned by the collective expression of might to protect property that is the state.

Libertarianism boils down to a unique concept of property assignment rules that serve the purpose of avoiding interpersonal conflict.
I attached a good paper by Stephan Kinsella which goes into depth on this.
Alternatively, but with the same conclusion, the anarcho-objectivist LiquidZulu gives a concise explanation of why anarcho-capitalism is the solution to law.

If your question is more related to "why" are rights, or "where do rights come from", there exist libertarian and rational approaches that deal with that question, let me know if you need those.

If there is no state, there is no legal. A contract is a contract is a contract.
This may work with Ferengi, they are cowardly and small by stature.

In fact in a free society, what is crime? Who agrees on it? You? Your clan? Your town? Your city?

This is an ideology that doesn't work with scale. Imagine lolberts trying to build a nuclear reactor.

It is autism as a political ideology where the idealists of it can't ever envision anyone else disagreeing. Perhaps it would work if we could clone and transfer memories. Horatio isn't drivong, he is traveling.

Your entire case rests upon an appeal to authority, you are essentially claiming that law/good can only come from the right people(TM)
Saying that there are no laws without a state is like saying there are no morals without a state
Sounds very fascist to me
You are not allowed to speak ill of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il. If you do, it is only just to kill you for it.

Plus, you are reaching by insinuating "privately managed communities" == "state"

Plus, what is wrong with being "autistic", what is your point, what do you mean when you say that?

 

[Male Idiot]

So who sets legality without an autocratic source?

The two people signing a contract? When they fight, does who is right is declared in a public square where everyone loudly reads out the contracts for every single action?

Would it end in everyone having to attend 12 hours a day just to read contracts between every disputing commune member?

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

The two people signing a contract? When they fight, does who is right is declared in a public square where everyone loudly reads out the contracts for every single action?

Would it end in everyone having to attend 12 hours a day just to read contracts between every disputing commune member?

Lawyers already comb through thousands of pages just of the tax code alone

So who sets legality without an autocratic source?

The libertarian solution is libertarian property rights and the derived non-aggression principle. That is what I normally call the "ground rules" of society, because they are the rules that must necessarily be obeyed for any civilized human society to function. The video I linked in the post above and also the attached text are also recommended to you.

Beyond that, your question of who "sets" legality presupposes positive law. I'm pretty sure I have written on positive law in this thread already.

Broadly speaking, there are two types of legal systems, namely those based on "judge-found" law and those where the legal principles are declared by legislation. Under a legislative system, such as the autocratic source you think of, judges are not attempting to do justice, rather they make reference to the legislative fiat on matters. Appealing to a judge that a given law is unjust is not going to work.
Guided by libertarian ethics, what happens in cases of conflict that require mediation to resolve, in a decentralized case-law system, the judges are at least setting out to do justice. This is in contrast to legislation where the so-called "laws" are not rational, but are arbitrary commandments that are issued top-down by the legislature. The libertarian ground rules are objective and not based on arbitrary/subjective whim, and thus compatible with justice and freedom.
The job of the rational jurist is to explicate/discover objective standards of law and the role of the judge is to apply this objective body of law in a given case, i.e. attempt to do justice rather than apply or create (posit) arbitrary rules based on whim.
cf. M. Rothbard, “Introduction: Natural Law,” in The Ethics of Liberty; S. Kinsella, Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society.

 

[Male Idiot]

I think that is just how US law works, by establishing ruling judgements that are referred to, but in Europe it is usually just set by the state.

I get the position you are saying, but that doesn't factor in 3 important factors.
-First is of course, truthfullness. You would need a truth serum for both sides.
-Second is simply logistics, and time. Arguing for days whenever speeding was justified over a ticket would be simply too much red tape.
-Third is that justice doesn't exist. It is a word not found in my language. Like rights, it is a social construct.

We use the word -truth- for it. True means that it is correct, and that it is justiceful. The two concepts are bound together.

Depending on your morals, these two sentences can be both truth:
-Tyrone was caught stealing a car, but he was found not guilty, because he really needed the money to pay for his drug debt, his life was on the line. He was a good boy.
-Tyrone was caught stealing a car, which is above the worth of a chicken, thus his head was lopped off by the executioner's blade. Stealing is a sin forbidden by holy writ.

The former is truly believed by his baby momma, the latter is truly believed by a priest from the middle ages.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

I think that is just how US law works, by establishing ruling judgements that are referred to, but in Europe it is usually just set by the state.

I get the position you are saying, but that doesn't factor in 3 important factors.
-First is of course, truthfullness. You would need a truth serum for both sides.
-Second is simply logistics, and time. Arguing for days whenever speeding was justified over a ticket would be simply too much red tape.
-Third is that justice doesn't exist. It is a word not found in my language. Like rights, it is a social construct.

We use the word -truth- for it. True means that it is correct, and that it is justiceful. The two concepts are bound together.

Depending on your morals, these two sentences can be both truth:
-Tyrone was caught stealing a car, but he was found not guilty, because he really needed the money to pay for his drug debt, his life was on the line. He was a good boy.
-Tyrone was caught stealing a car, which is above the worth of a chicken, thus his head was lopped off by the executioner's blade. Stealing is a sin forbidden by holy writ.

The former is truly believed by his baby momma, the latter is truly believed by a priest from the middle ages.

Have you read any of the sources I provided?
Because it looks like you didn't, because the topic of what justice is is brought up

 

[Male Idiot]

While I enjoy a bit of theory crafting, I don't want to get into a 24 hour reading club for it. Too much work to do, too silly a notion to waste money on. But it was fun while it lasted.

 

[EleventySeven]

If your question is more related to "why" are rights, or "where do rights come from", there exist libertarian and rational approaches that deal with that question, let me know if you need those.

I'm not really asking any question so much as I am commenting. Besides, it's obvious enough that rights only come from the ability to protect them. They come out of force. All other morality building on that is either a) a religious belief, b) a preference which is typically in one's self interests or interests of those they care about, or c) a mixture of the two (see modern 'human rights').

The disagreement is that I don't think the state's monopoly on force is at all morally different from privatized force. The NAP is just another preference presented as morality, doomed to fail because it pretends that the right of force only extends as far as defense. It's a step up from the contemporary preference-systems that essentially worship the state's monopoly on force and decrie even self-defense. But it's still in denial of reality and can only serve to eventually recreate a system desperately trying to obscure its foundation in force whenever some entity gains a monopoly on violence in one way or another. Slow or fast. Mega-corporation or 'liberal rules based order'. Now, none of this to pretend that I would want to live in a society without a preference-system covering. I and most people I care about would suffer greatly under such a society. But it's not helpful to forget where the 'rights' and preferences a society enjoys come from.

That and an NAP-centered society wouldn't be able to pool the resources to do things I want a state to do like provide services without the profit incentive or fund/conduct extremely unprofitable scientific research. The only corporation in US history to manage that on any scale was Bell Labs, and it needed a monopoly on the entire telecommunications sector to afford an output less than most major research universities, especially at the time.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

pool the resources to do things I want a state to do

So your stance boils down to "the society I want is the right one because it's the one I want?" Don't forget that the state, by definition, steals.
Obviously it's fine to steal from people, right? Because if they weren't able to stop you from stealing, they didn't have the right to the stuff in the first place.
Like, rape doesn't exist, because if you get raped, you didn't prevent the rape, therefore the rapist had the right to rape.

This "if enforcement -> then rights" concept is contradictory.
Did the right to enforce come from prior reinforcement?

 

[EleventySeven]

So your stance boils down to "the society I want is the right one because it's the one I want?" Don't forget that the state, by definition, steals.
Obviously it's fine to steal from people, right? Because if they weren't able to stop you from stealing, they didn't have the right to the stuff in the first place.
Like, rape doesn't exist, because if you get raped, you didn't prevent the rape, therefore the rapist had the right to rape.

This "if enforcement -> then rights" concept is contradictory.
Did the right to enforce come from prior reinforcement?

Yes, that's how every society is decided. People come up with various ways to justify what it is they want, and many people believe these justifications. I don't think it's fine to steal from people, because I would not want to live in a society where theft is not punished. But it's not morally wrong in some absolute sense, merely incompatible with the desires of myself and most people. I don't think you realize that those things are immoral, because societies enforce rules against them with force. That's what immoral ultimately means: stopped with force that is not itself judged. Even religious morality derives from this. "Do what God or the gods say because they are strong/in control and thus impose their will as morality."

Acts are only theft, rape, murder, etc. if they are unjustified. If no force exists to consider an act wrong and then enforce that judgement, those acts aren't committed. So yes, if I am stolen from and the thief manages to enforce the morality of his actions without ever receiving judgement, I have not been stolen from since ownership is a right and defined by force. This is bad for most people and, as far as I am concerned, contrary to the will of the gods, and thus I want to pool resources with others to prevent this. A simple, logical, self-interested reasoning for why to have a state. It allows the enforcement of collectively agreed upon morality. It is also why the state does not, by definition, steal. Until a state is judged by someone or something else enforcing its morality onto it, it is not stealing. People may think it is, many would agree. But their idea that this is stealing is meaningless, nonexistent, until enforced.

As for the "right to enforce", this is self-justifying. Having the right to enforce your morality is equivalent to having the ability to enforce your morality. Where do rights come from in your worldview if not from force? Are they somehow inherent in reality and, if so, why are they there and how did we come to know them? A lot of questions in the effort of exactly defining these rights need to be answered if we assume they exist ex nihilo.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

@EleventySeven
Why should we believe "might makes right" is a true ethical principle?

Of course you can argue "well, people can choose to not believe in that, and enforce some other principle through force", but the question is, what is the basis for your conclusion and in what way is it valid? If I come to 1+1=5 and you come to 1+1=2, then the disagreement is resolved by examining how the conclusion is validated.

 

[EleventySeven]

@EleventySeven
Why should we believe "might makes right" is a true ethical principle?

Of course you can argue "well, people can choose to not believe in that, and enforce some other principle through force", but the question is, what is the basis for your conclusion and in what way is it valid? If I come to 1+1=5 and you come to 1+1=2, then the disagreement is resolved by examining how the conclusion is validated.

Because it is self-proving and, unlike 1+1 = 5, will work out in practice. That's the difference to essentially any ethical principle. The act of enforcing might makes right proves might makes right. If you fail to do so, someone else proves it by using force to stop you. In that way, it's not an ethical principle since ethics describes what should be rather than what is. Might makes right is merely a truthful statement about reality and not a moral approval of its conclusions one way or the other. And it is observably true in all instances. All things are won and/or maintained by threat or use of force. Force is neither good nor bad morally speaking.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Because it is self-proving and, unlike 1+1 = 5, will work out in practice. That's the difference to essentially any ethical principle. The act of enforcing might makes right proves might makes right. If you fail to do so, someone else proves it by using force to stop you. In that way, it's not an ethical principle since ethics describes what should be rather than what is. Might makes right is merely a truthful statement about reality and not a moral approval of its conclusions one way or the other. And it is observably true in all instances. All things are won and/or maintained by threat or use of force. Force is neither good nor bad morally speaking.

What do you mean by "right"?
From what I can tell, by "right" you simultaneously mean "what people are physically able to control" and "what people are justly allowed to control"

It may be true that "might" is what enables the brute to fulfill whatever whim he wants if he is strong enough, but it does not prove that this act was moral and rationally justifiable, or even that the act as such was desirable
The question of rights is not what someone is physically capable of doing if they have the physical power to do so
This is the central point you haven't addressed, namely what justification there is for this principle

 

[EleventySeven]

What do you mean by "right"?
From what I can tell, by "right" you simultaneously mean "what people are physically able to control" and "what people are justly allowed to control"

It may be true that "might" is what enables the brute to fulfill whatever whim he wants if he is strong enough, but it does not prove that this act was moral and rationally justifiable, or even that the act as such was desirable
The question of rights is not what someone is physically capable of doing if they have the physical power to do so
This is the central point you haven't addressed, namely what justification there is for this principle

That is my point. There is no difference between the two except a difference we pretend exists because of our preferences. "Morally justifiable" is an invention of willful minds, human or otherwise and useful though it is. It does not exist on some fundamental level except as a descriptor of ability. All justification is done to other beings, subject to their particular moral preferences. And all such moral preferences are inherently backed up by and rest upon the ability to enforce them with might.

There is no justification, just as there is no justification for why the planets orbit the sun or why ice melts. It needs no justification and doesn't benefit from it, it just is.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

There is no difference between the two except a difference we pretend exists because of our preferences.

Once again you are equating a normative ethical concept (morally justifiable) with a descriptive fact about power (being physically able to control).
The two senses refer to fundamentally different domains.
Saying that something is "just" involves ethical reasoning and principles that go far beyond merely having the ability to enforce your will.

There is no justification, just as there is no justification for why the planets orbit the sun or why ice melts. It needs no justification and doesn't benefit from it, it just is.

Then you are equating natural laws of inert will-free matter and the constructs of human beings, motivated creatures with free will and agency.
Just because some things in nature "just are" does not mean that ethical norms governing human behavior require no justification or critical evaluation. You need more than observable power dynamics.

And all such moral preferences are inherently backed up by and rest upon the ability to enforce them with might.

And again this is circular reasoning and an is-ought confusion.
Why is the only justifiable basis for ethics force? Because might is used to enforce norms. Why is might used to enforce norms? Because force is the only justifiable basis for ethics. Why is the only justifiable basis for ethics force? See the problem here? You are using might as both the means and the measure for moral justification.
The fact that a ruler can enforce a law does not mean that the law in question is ethically sound. Ethical reasoning requires things that aren't reducible to the ability to enforce a decision.

And you are committing, again, an overall category error.
Ethics and morals are about how things should be. But you are using the terms to refer to empiric fact, i.e. how things are.
Ethical claims and judgments are evaluative statements. They are used to tell whether how things are is right or wrong.


EDIT:
Almost forgot; there are reasons why the planet are the way it is.
Things are shaped by gravity, the universe expansion, thermodynamics.
These are the reasons that shape reality and how a planet relates to other things.
So far your reasoning is operating on a synthetic/analytic dichotomy, completely violating epistemology.
Like, the same kind of faulty reasoning that would assert that there is a dichotomy of theory and practice, contingent and analytic.

 

[EleventySeven]

And you are committing, again, an overall category error.
Ethics and morals are about how things should be. But you are using the terms to refer to empiric fact, i.e. how things are.
Ethical claims and judgments are evaluative statements. They are used to tell whether how things are is right or wrong.

You seem far too caught up in the idea that ethics and morality are real things. They aren't real things. They do not describe reality. There is no such thing as an is-ought confusion because the entire concept of "ought" and "rights" are purely mental constructs used as a proxy or preferential cover to might. Might is not justifiable, it cannot be justified, might exists beyond morality. Unlike morality, it is physically real, it exists whether or not minds do to think of it.

As such, any set of morality can be used to justify something. Any set of non-contradictory axioms can be plucked essentially out of the air and are equally real. That isn't to say that they are equally desirable or useful, but they are equally real and equally true. So long as this set of desires, set of shoulds, set of ethics is backed up by force, it exists in practice. As such, the substance of ethics and morality is might. Might makes right because for a right to meaningfully be, it must be backed by might.

At the end of the day, all ethics and morality exist purely to serve a purpose. They cannot justify themselves or else you end up in proper circular logic. But force allows one to make their morality meaningfully real in a way that "justification" cannot do. "Why is this morality true? Because it exists and prevents others from being enforced." is the extent to which any self-contained system of morality can be justified. All other justification appeals to the moral framework those with might enforce upon any situation.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

You seem far too caught up in the idea that ethics and morality are real things. They aren't real things. They do not describe reality. There is no such thing as an is-ought confusion because the entire concept of "ought" and "rights" are purely mental constructs used as a proxy or preferential cover to might. Might is not justifiable, it cannot be justified, might exists beyond morality. Unlike morality, it is physically real, it exists whether or not minds do to think of it.

As such, any set of morality can be used to justify something. Any set of non-contradictory axioms can be plucked essentially out of the air and are equally real. That isn't to say that they are equally desirable or useful, but they are equally real and equally true. So long as this set of desires, set of shoulds, set of ethics is backed up by force, it exists in practice. As such, the substance of ethics and morality is might. Might makes right because for a right to meaningfully be, it must be backed by might.

At the end of the day, all ethics and morality exist purely to serve a purpose. They cannot justify themselves or else you end up in proper circular logic. But force allows one to make their morality meaningfully real in a way that "justification" cannot do. "Why is this morality true? Because it exists and prevents others from being enforced." is the extent to which any self-contained system of morality can be justified. All other justification appeals to the moral framework those with might enforce upon any situation.

You are laboring under the misapprehension that all ethics are subjectivist or rationalist.
You need to understand that the problem of induction has been solved. Ethical principles have been inductively inferred from reality and human nature.
You are mistaking being the only survivor as being correct.

 

[EleventySeven]

You are laboring under the misapprehension that all ethics are subjectivist or rationalist.
You need to understand that the problem of induction has been solved. Ethical principles have been inductively inferred from reality and human nature.
You are mistaking being the only survivor as being correct.

All ethics are pragmatic in the sense that do not exist in reality, yes. Their truth is defined only by how accurately the describe reality which is only achievable via might.

How has the problem of induction been solved, and how is that applicable to this situation?

Being the only survivor is correctness if we define that as truthfulness. Truth is a descriptor of statements about reality, about what is. It is true that gravity attracts all objects, it is true that light travels at a certain speed in a vacuum. When a morality is enforced, it gains some amount of truthfulness by becoming attached to the really existing might. In the same manner that constructs that exist for all intents and purposes in physics are essentially real, morality that is enforced exists for all intents and purposes and can be defined as true, although not necessarily permanently so. Taken to its most extreme example, the tri-omni God has the might to impose a singularly existing morality and thus, this morality would be true.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

How has the problem of induction been solved, and how is that applicable to this situation?

The problem of induction being solved means you can describe morality as it objectively exists. As it arises from the nature of man.

 

[EleventySeven]

The problem of induction being solved means you can describe morality as it objectively exists. As it arises from the nature of man.

This video doesn't actually ever 'solve' the problem of induction so much as it just supposes enough axioms that the problem doesn't exist and accidentally seems to be refuting the entire concept of objective truth, much less objective morality. But that's not important since the problem of induction doesn't even apply here. You haven't even tried to explain how this extremely niche understanding of an unrelated problem proves that morality objectively exists and also that you can describe it. At best, you have to assume some axioms, "first order knowledge" as the video called it, that include an assumption that morality exists. Then and only then can you begin to describe it as anything more than pragmatic.

And in the future, you should probably avoid just sending videos or articles to explain a concept you want to use when you're in a conversation. If you can't describe it yourself, don't base your argument off of it. I'm talking to you, not the guy who made that video.

 

[Sneed's Feed n Seed]

Still wondering how non-disprovable praxaeology explains CWC, furries, faggots, trannies, pooners, or OP's mom. Or OP.