Add more content I wrote, uh, some time ago.

thales/content/another-someplace.md

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+Title: Another Somplace
+Date: 2010-12-17 20:53:00
+Category: Philosophy
+Tags:
+
+I recently found a relatively new book that is free called [Withur We](http://www.withurwe.com/). I bring it up because it is, in essence, an expansion of my previous post [The Tale of Someplace](/the-tale-of-someplace.html). I haven’t read it entirely yet, but I have skimmed parts, and it appears to be a futuristic science fiction novel about a group of people who set out to create an anarcho-capitalist society. The writing seems good so far – perhaps I’ll post more impressions on it as I read through it. I just thought I would let everyone know about it since I was intrigued to find an author who fleshed out my brief and humble ideas.

thales/content/conflict-resolution-without-government.md

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+Title: Conflict Resolution without Government
+Date: 2010-10-08 18:12:00
+Category: Ask Thales
+Tags:
+
+Kallie writes:
+
+> If there is no government:
+> 1. someone breaks into my house, steals my money and kills my family.  What is the punishment for that person?
+>
+> 2. I sell my car to someone, they are able to take my car, then decide they don’t want to pay me.  How do I recover either my car or the money that was promised to me?
+>
+> 3. You (generally, not you Thales personally) and I enter into a contract.  I complete my side of the agreement (maybe work or something) and you do not complete your side.  What is my recourse?
+
+I’m glad you are taking my thoughts seriously enough to come up with  questions, thank you for sharing them.
+
+First, it will likely help if you think of any situation as happening between two sovereign states. Most people are well-accustomed to the idea of sovereign nations living without a global government, and can therefore think of ways for countries to figure out differences without paternalistic thuggery.
+
+So, what then does a state do if another state breaks in to a house, steals property and murders its constituent citizens? Well, it can declare war, try to extridite the responsible parties, try to solve things diplomatically…there are many options. There is no ‘punishment’ per se – that is a concept by which a subordinate entity is given artificial consequences by a superior one. Such a relationship doesn’t exist between sovereign entities by definition, and so punishment cannot. But, that isn’t to say there isn’t some form of recourse for the aggrieved parties.
+
+In our situation, we will have Bob, the victim, and Jack, the aggressor. Jack invades Bob’s home, murders his child, steals his property, and leaves.
+
+Bob is not a violent person, but he does employ a private security firm for just such situations as this. He contacts them, Whitewater Security, and informs them of his problem. Whitewater then contacts Jack and informs him of the grievance, and asks if he would consider arbitration. Jack, being a horrible person, declines. Whitewater then contacts other major security firms and determines that Jack, in anticipation of his dastardly deed, has hired Goldberg Security to provide him defense. Whitewater then contacts Goldberg, informing them of the issue. Neither Whitewater nor Goldberg wants to fight, as that will cost both of them significantly more than to settle things via arbitration. Goldberg and Whitewater agree to an arbitration arrangement that is satisfactory for both of them and inform their clients of the agreement. All of this is per their standard contracts with individuals, and so quite expected. Goldberg informs Jack that he will go to arbitration and abide by their decision, or they will void their contract and Jack will be at the mercy of Whitewater, who will exact whatever decision the arbiter comes to in flesh, if necessary.
+
+Jack and Bob go to arbitration. Jack looses. It is determined that Jack has forfeited the value of the stolen property, the value of the time taken to arbitrated and the value of the lost family member. Jack doesn’t have it. Jack essentially becomes the property of Bob for the rest of his natural life as he attempt to pay off the massive debt he has incurred. Bob is also no longer cheaply insurable by security firms.
+
+This scenario would play out with your question 2 and 3. Any time there is a significant disagreement between parties, they would both go to arbitration. Arbitration would be backed by private security in the case where violence is enacted against someone. In a society in which violence cannot be initiated legitimately against another party, there is no incentive for violence. Therefore, economic factors will tend to cause all parties to want to settle things peacefully. This is, of course, not perfect. There will always be people like Jack that prefer violence. But, that is the business of security firms – to defend against those who prefer violence. But, those businesses will themselves prefer arbitration for cost reasons, because they are an insurance company.
+
+The system isn’t perfect. It is simply more free. Could private arbiters be bribed? Absolutely. Just like judges. Could private security companies become mafia outfits, demanding additional ‘protection money’? Yes! But, so can police officers. When it comes down to it, any fallacy of a private system would also exist in a public system, unless you believe that the people who inhabit public systems are fundamentally better than people who don’t. Both systems rely on a series of checks and balances – the crooked cop is balanced by the principled state attorney. The bribed judge is balanced by the disinterested jury. If your society is rife with liars, cheats and thieves, you won’t be able to trust anyone and everything would fall apart. But this is no different between Anarcho-Capitalism, Socialism or a Republic. The difference between each of those is how free you are. In a principled Anarchy, I can choose my service providers, or none, depending on my fear of risk. But in a Democracy, I cannot choose any of those things. I can vote, but that isn’t the same thing. In Socialism, I still can’t choose any of my service providers, and I also have few if any property rights, so I couldn’t enter into free agreements with an exchange of goods even if I wanted to. In Fascism, I may have property rights, but the dictator can do anything, at any time, to anyone, so my rights are illusory.
+
+In the end, death is the only real decider in a disagreement. Most people want to avoid the chance of death. So most people like to talk things out until they reach a point where there is no more conflict. Currently, people enslaved to their nations avoid conflict with their nations at all costs because the nations have a monopoly on the power to deal death. Conflict will always exist when there is more than one person – would you rather have everyone live in fear of a single large entity, and hope the hammer never falls on you? Or would you rather be on equal footing with everyone? Because when it comes down to it, you have no control over how conflicts are resolved under a government. You just believe that the conflict resolution is extremely predictable, and that therefore you can avoid conflict. If the state decided to take your child, would you ultimately decide whatever the state wants is fair (avoiding conflict) or would you take up arms against the state and attempt to deal death to them? It is only one or the other. The child either belongs to you or the state. The state either decides to let you have it, or you decide to let the state have it, or one of you ceases to be. There are no other options.
+
+You may think that the state would never do that. You’re right, the state wouldn’t. But, an officer of the state might. After all, a state is run entirely by people, and people can decide to do anything. You simply believe that the people in the state would never decide something like that. This illusion is what gives you a sense of security. When it comes down to it, that is what a state is – arbitrary use of force and the illusion of predictable behavior. And yet, in spite of that, there is no crime, no dastardly deed, no nefarious action which you can name that all countries of a sufficient age have not done. And this to its own citizens.
+
+Again, which incites more conflict, a hundred people with the same gun, or a hundred unarmed people and a single invincible bouncer with a club?
+
+## Comments
+
+### Kallie says (2010-10-11 at 8:13pm)
+
+Thank you for your response. More questions:
+
+1. If either Bob or Jack cannot afford to hire a private firm, what are their options?
+1. What if Jack simply refuses to go to arbitration (why would he if he is guilty)? Let’s say he just doesn’t hire a security firm for defense and just refuses arbitration. Does Whitewater go in and force him to do the arbitration? What if he is innocent?
+1. What is the burden of proof? Is that set by the arbitrator? What if Jack does not agree to the set burden of proof?
+1. In this example, if I’m understanding it correctly, Jack loses and becomes indebted to Bob, essentially becoming his slave (or servant). What incentive does Jack have to obey the arbitration? Don’t tell me he just will find it difficult to find cheap insurance from a security firm (that’s not enough). What if Jack were just a wandering vagrant? There would be no incentive to not escape and go somewhere far away where no one is aware of the case.
+
+### Thales says (2010-10-11 at 11:12pm)
+
+> 1) If either Bob or Jack cannot afford to hire a private firm, what are their options?
+
+1. Bob or Jack could either raise funds from those willing to give them charity, or provide their own security.
+
+> 2) What if Jack simply refuses to go to arbitration (why would he if he is guilty)? Let’s say he just doesn’t hire a security firm for defense and just refuses arbitration. Does Whitewater go in and force him to do the arbitration? What if he is innocent?
+
+2a) Jack refuses to go to arbitration. Whitewater, not wishing to be an aggressor, goes to an in absentia arbiter to establish that Jack has forcibly taken/destroyed Bob’s property. Whitewater then invades Jack’s land and takes back the property. Whitewater also confiscates property to replace the property destroyed by Jack.
+
+This is generally where people are the most concerned about Anarchy as a system of order because this gets to the heart of mankind’s fear of man. The above scenario will generally cause people to envision everyone robbing each other with no order or remorse because any party can decide that they can invade some other party. But, if I were to exchange ‘arbiter’ with ‘federal judge’ and Whitewater with ‘SWAT’, it would basically be the federal government. Oh, except that if Bob was robbed and the federal government didn’t think the case was all that important, nothing might happen. Also, before you think that disorder would be endemic in the system, notice that Jack has a powerful disincentive to avoid arbitration – the invasion of his home by a well-armed private firm. The private firm also does not have a strong incentive to needlessly assault private property – it costs them money to deploy the manpower to take things, and they keep nothing. They also may or may not know whether or not they will meet with armed resistance.
+
+2b) Whitewater doesn’t have to force him to do arbitration, it only has to establish that its client was indeed assaulted. And even then it doesn’t ‘have to’ – the idea of ‘having to’ do something only makes sense when you assume a system in which someone has absolute, violent authority. After all, if I were to say that they ‘had to’, and they decided not to, who would force them? It is implied that someone with a bigger gun would. Rather, Whitewater has an incentive to establish that Bob was assaulted because it saves money by not intervening, being essentially an insurance outfit. Therefore, it would want to establish the validity of a claim before executing it. Also, if Whitewater failed to have a 3rd party establish the validity of its violent action, it would quickly become known as an outfit of thugs, and the community would rightfully ostracize it.
+
+2c) What if Jack is innocent and refuses arbitration? First, if you are innocent, it is generally in your best interests to go to arbitration. But, say Jack doesn’t wish to. He would contact his own security and inform them of the situation. The security would then either defend him or, establishing that Jack is guilty, decide not to defend him. But, let’s say that Jack is innocent, refuses arbitration, and has no private security. Then Jack is now Bob from question 1. He defends himself and his property as he can and would likely initiate legal action against Bob as the victim of a lawless attack. Assuming that Bob already had an arbiter hear the case in absentia, Jack and Bob could agree to a second arbiter to make a binding decision on the entire scenario.
+
+But barring all of this, say Jack refuses to seek secondary arbitration, refuses to get private security, is looted by Bob who has bought arbiters who gives his case the pall of validity, etc etc. Everything combines against him. He becomes a victim.
+
+It is unfortunate, but I see no system of order between mankind that can perfectly avoid such an outcome. Fortunately, he at least had enough freedom to have opportunities for defense and recourse, even if they failed him.
+
+> 3) What is the burden of proof? Is that set by the arbitrator? What if Jack does not agree to the set burden of proof?
+
+3) You’ll have to define a ‘burden of proof’ in a Anarchic system of order. Two parties disagree. The point of arbitration is for them to come to some kind of agreement. There is no ‘punishment’ for there is no patriarchal final authority exercising violence. There are only two peers at odds that must reach an agreement. In a marriage, who holds the ‘burden of proof’ in a disagreement? What does it even mean? One spouse comes to the other, claiming knowledge of cheating. Who holds the burden of proof? The accuser, or accused? If the accuser, will their lack of proof cause the conflict to evaporate? If the accused, will the lack of proof cause them to want to end the marriage?
+
+It’s fascinating how much humanity has ingrained the idea of someone needing to hold authority to decide and take action. The purpose of the arbiter is to simply facilitate the settlement of the disagreement. There is no accused, no accusor, no punishment, no reward. Often an arbiter will attempt to objectively establish truth via evidence, but that is only a method of giving either side a firm footing from which to argue. In the end, the conflicting parties must determine what outcome they are satisfied with.
+
+People do this all the time with their governments. What they don’t realize is that they generally let their governments make demands, and they acquiesce. That is because when it comes down to it, if a disagreement is allowed to fester with the government, the government will pull out a gun and wave it around and say “would you like to cooperate now?” Of course, by ‘cooperate’ they mean for you to operate, and them to profit.
+
+> 4) In this example, if I’m understanding it correctly, Jack loses and becomes indebted to Bob, essentially becoming his slave (or servant). What incentive does Jack have to obey the arbitration? Don’t tell me he just will find it difficult to find cheap insurance from a security firm (that’s not enough). What if Jack were just a wandering vagrant? There would be no incentive to not escape and go somewhere far away where no one is aware of the case.
+
+4) Jack’s incentive to obey the slave relationship is the fact that Bob owns his output. If Jack attempts to create output that is not exercised in some way satisfactory to the owner, Bob, then the owner has the right to seize his property. In other words, if Jack tries to run away he is robbing Bob, and Bob can use force to make him stay.
+
+Of course, this is an extreme case – it is far more effective for Bob and Jack to reach an agreement where Bob takes a portion of his output over time to satisfy the debt. Further, Bob will be spending his money enforcing his will on someone who doesn’t wish it, and though he is justified, it’s still waste, and so would be avoided by sane parties. But, if Jack is absolutely insane and impossible to work with, Bob could sell his rights to Jack’s output to a private prison, who could use economies of scale to work with rebellious people.
+
+Now, all of these parties have a right to Jack’s output because of his choices. They do not have a right to Jack’s body or health – crime would not allow a person to sexually abuse another, torture them, etc. Just have a right to their effort. That right would not extend to family, progeny or otherwise, as one person cannot enter into an agreement vicariously for another.
+
+If any of this seems extreme, understand that the United States currently employs this system, but it assumes ownership of the output of criminals. Generally criminals are enticed with a meager wage to work, which is better than getting nothing by sitting in prison, but the government pockets the vast difference between what it pays criminals and what it is paid for their labor. If a prisoner attempts to leave the U.S. and is caught, they are extradited back home to serve time. Of course, the difference here is that in prison you can be beaten by your temporary master in the U.S., whereas in an Anarchic system of order you do not have the right to attack your ‘slave’ – unless they aggress against you and you defend you or your property.
+
+### Kallie says (2010-10-12 at 7:45pm)
+
+So, if Jack refuses arbitration, Whitewater could invade Jack’s property to take back what is Bob’s if an arbitrator Jack guilty. What standard does the arbiter have to find Jack guilty? Is suspicion enough? Or does there have to be a certain amount of evidence? Bob could just hire an extremely lenient arbiter (Jack is refusing to participate, so Bob can do whatever he wants and hire whoever he wants). There has got to be at the very least a standard in which an arbiter finds someone guilty. You could argue that it would be in Jack’s best interest to participate, but that might not change anything. People OFTEN don’t do things that are in their best interest.
+
+Even in the current system, the police can’t just enter your home and arrest you (or search your home) without probable cause. If Jack doesn’t want to cooperate, he doesn’t have to. But his not participating won’t put him at a disadvantage, like could happen in the scenario we’ve been discussing. It seems he would have less freedom in this scenario.
+
+I could possibly see this working if there was at least a minimum amount of law for how an arbiter finds someone guilty. Now, is everyone going to agree on what is acceptable or not? No. But a common vote would get a majority agreed on standard. Wouldn’t this be better than the other scenario?
+
+### Thales says (2010-10-12 at 9:08pm)
+
+> So, if Jack refuses arbitration, Whitewater could invade Jack’s property to take back what is Bob’s if an arbitrator Jack guilty.
+
+It doesn’t matter whether or not Jack refuses arbitration, Bob is within his rights to recover his property. Arbitration is simply a way for 1) Jack and Bob to settle their differences and 2) Whitewater and Bob to settle their differences. Whitewater’s difference with Bob may be that they don’t believe that he has a valid claim on the property.
+
+> What standard does the arbiter have to find Jack guilty? Is suspicion enough? Or does there have to be a certain amount of evidence?
+
+Again, an arbiter doesn’t mete out ‘justice’. An arbiter has no definitive say, because an arbiter is not part of a violent system. The arbiter can do anything he wants and nobody is bound by it. The arbiter is merely a convenience for settling disagreements – people could also setting things without an arbiter.
+
+> Bob could just hire an extremely lenient arbiter (Jack is refusing to participate, so Bob can do whatever he wants and hire whoever he wants). There has got to be at the very least a standard in which an arbiter finds someone guilty.
+
+This is only true if the arbiter has some kind of binding power. He does not, unless the disputing parties agree to be bound by the arbiter.
+
+> You could argue that it would be in Jack’s best interest to participate, but that might not change anything. People OFTEN don’t do things that are in their best interest.
+
+I agree, with a caveat. What you perceive to be in my best interest and what I perceive to be in my best interest will likely differ. People always do what they perceive to be in their best interest. Since we don’t have an objective measure for someone’s best interest, we can’t know whether or not someone actually did something in their own best interest. All we can know is that they did something we did not believe to be in their best interest.
+
+The grounds by which I agree is that people often do things believing the consequences to be one thing, and the consequences turn out to be something different, something they would rather not have. In other words, I agree because people frequently have regrets, which evidences that had they had better knowledge, they would have perceived their own best interests differently and acted accordingly.
+
+> Even in the current system, the police can’t just enter your home and arrest you (or search your home) without probable cause. If Jack doesn’t want to cooperate, he doesn’t have to. But his not participating won’t put him at a disadvantage, like could happen in the scenario we’ve been discussing. It seems he would have less freedom in this scenario.
+
+This is false, in several ways. First, the police can just enter your home and arrest you. Here is a website you can peruse for some information on what police officers can and cannot do:
+
+[http://www.injusticeeverywhere.com/](http://www.injusticeeverywhere.com/)
+
+But, to get to the heart of the incorrect nature of your statement we don’t even need to draw out instances of police actually doing ‘illegal’ things. We need only do the following thought experiment:
+
+1. A cop decides to search your home with no probable cause.
+2a. You decide to let him. Someone has ‘illegally’ searched your home. You lose.
+2b. You, believing the search to be illegal and defend yourself with lethal force (remember, defending yourself always has one of three outcomes: you give up, he gives up, one of you dies)
+3a. The cop subdues you and searches your home. Someone has ‘illegally’ searched your home. You lose
+3b. You kill the cop.
+4. Other officers respond to a call about you killing someone. They are unaware of why you defended yourself and know only that you killed an officer. Now, they can either side with you and assume you had a good reason to defend yourself, or they can side with the officer and assume that you are dangerous. They will demand that you stand down and disarm.
+5. At this point, you can either assume that the other officers will be different and not try to take advantage of your weakness, or you can continue to defend yourself. Go back to step 1.
+
+There is no way to avoid an illegal search if a police officer decides they really want to perform one. The police officer you killed forfeited your rights the moment he decided that he wanted to break the law because no matter what was done you do not have a right to use violence. That is the exclusive right of the police.
+
+Perhaps you see things differently because you could stand down and a judge might eventually side with you and decide what the dead cop did was wrong. This does not keep you from having been illegally searched. It only gives you a warm feeling about having ‘justice’ after the fact. That feeling could very well be the cold, empty deadness of realizing that the judge doesn’t side with you and you have no recourse, plus a hefty prison sentence.
+
+And of course none of this addresses the problem that you face if your country decides you are a terrorist, therefore denied a trial, and subject to immediate execution with no recourse because of ‘state secrets’ or some other war clause. After all, war is magic pixie dust that allows a state to do whatever needs to be done in the name of all the people.
+
+> I could possibly see this working if there was at least a minimum amount of law for how an arbiter finds someone guilty. Now, is everyone going to agree on what is acceptable or not? No. But a common vote would get a majority agreed on standard. Wouldn’t this be better than the other scenario?
+
+No. A standard is either enforced, or it is not. If it is not enforced, it is totally useless. If it is enforced, those who enforce it ultimately decide what a standard says because they will interpret the standard. The enforcers, therefore, are the standard, and they will decide what behavior is acceptable and what is not. Now the standard is totally useless.
+
+Besides, again, the arbiter doesn’t find someone guilty. There is no concept of guilt, for there is no patriarch to mete out punishment. There are only conflicting parties and a resolution.

thales/content/consistency.md

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+Title: Consistency
+Date: 2010-12-03 20:50:00
+Category: Philosophy
+Tags:
+
+I was recently at a party where someone brought up the recent hubbub surrounding the Transportation Security Administration of the United States and their new scanners. A woman at the party was obviously angry about the whole thing and made an interesting statement regarding her feelings. I’ll paraphrase:
+
+> What happened to the Fourth Amendment? It’s rediculous that they can violate my freedom to scan me and search me.
+
+I asked the woman how she felt about the unlawful searches before the scanners. She indicated that she was fine with her bags being searched.
+
+Being a polite person, I left it at that. I knew that if I were to pursue it further she would become more angry and I likely wouldn’t teach her anything. It does no good to teach those who do not wish to learn.
+
+The problem with her statements is a question of consistency. She brought up the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states:
+
+> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
+
+Now, putting aside that [there are people](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGhcECnWRGM) that would argue over what an ‘unreasonable search’ is or how the sentence is built to allow or define it, let’s make a few assumptions. Let’s assume that her argument is that the scanners are bad because they are unconstitutional. I assume that because it is the only argument against them she provided, and I would assume you’d start with your best (or only) argument. Next we’ll assume that she believes that the fourth amendment defines ‘unreasonable searches and seizures’ as one that is done without a warrant per the second clause (“no Warrants shall issue…things to be seized”) rather than defining unreasonable searches and seizures as an appeal to common wisdom and a judge’s subjective ruling and that the second clause is independent.
+
+The question then becomes this: why do you oppose a naked body scanner without a warrant, but support luggage searches without a warrant? Here’s a better progression:
+
+Taking images of your naked body is wrong without a warrant
+Scanning you with a metal detector is wrong because the physics are nearly identical to a naked body scanner (put out waves, detect what effect your body has on them)
+Patting you down is wrong without a warrant, because it is a type of search
+Opening your bags is wrong without a warrant, because the 4th amendment specifically lumps ‘persons’ with ‘effects’, so they are legally equivalent
+Simply holding on to your bags is wrong, because the 4th amendment specifically lumps ‘searches’ with ‘seizures’, and that would be a type of seizure
+Detaining you to ask you questions is wrong, because the 4th amendment specifically lumps ‘effects’ with ‘persons’, and detainment is a type of seizure
+Preventing you from traveling is wrong because that would also be a type of seizure.
+So, from this logical progression, what can the TSA lawfully do to you if you oppose them on the grounds of the 4th amendment? They can’t scan you or your belongings. They can ask you any question they want, but they cannot stop you from flying if you refuse to respond, nor can they delay you. In other words, they can do nothing but talk to you. This, I believe, is a reasonable system of restraints on a government agency.
+
+Unfortunately, this woman doesn’t follow her argument to the logical conclusion. I don’t know why, as I haven’t asked her, but I think it is indicative of something common in people. Many people use arguments to validate a position, not to form one. I believe she was opposed to the scanners and pat downs for some other reason, but used the 4th amendment to validate her position rather than her real reason. This is useful for two reasons:
+
+1) You don’t have to follow the reason to its logical conclusion. In this case, being opposed to all unlawful search and seizure by the government. This allows people to hold conflicting positions, such as being against certain types of searches and seizures for certain people while allowing others.
+
+2) You don’t have to expose your real reason for something, which could be subject to criticism and debate. Instead, you can allow people to attack your supposed reasons for things, which could potentially be much harder.
+
+My challenge to you, dear reader, is to strive for consistency in your arguments. After all, the horror of George Orwell’s 1984 was based almost entirely on the idea of Double Think. What is Double Think? It is the systematic application of inconsistency.
+
+## Comments
+
+### Kallie says (2010-12-06 at 8:13pm)
+
+Let’s say that airports had no government intervention and were totally privately run. Should the private airport be allowed to require the body scanners on all their customers?
+
+### Thales says (2010-12-06 at 8:34pm)
+
+Sure. If you are a company offering a service, and you want to require me to do something as part of fulfilling that service, I have the choice of whether or not I want to submit to your requirements in exchange for your service.
+
+I believe that if airlines privately required the scanners, there would quickly arise a competitor that had good security without the scanners. Their security process would be faster, and most satisfactory to customers, and would eventually win out. I could, of course, be wrong about that, but that’s the beauty of freedom and competition – it allows us to find what people want.
+
+### Kallie says (2010-12-07 at 3:51pm)
+
+Airports require a lot of infrastructure and capital. Because of the sheer size involved, it may not be realistic to have more than one airport per city (except in large cities like L.A. or New York), which means tremendous barriers to entry. It would be a monopoly. There would be some imperfect competition (take a bus), but that exists now. I guess I don’t see any difference between an airport owner (who may or not be unscrupulous) and a government run airport.
+
+### Thales says (2010-12-07 at 4:32pm)
+
+There is a large difference between government and private run airports. Let’s look at a private airport that has a monopoly in a city. They decide all passengers must enter the plane by hopping on one foot. There is a percentage of people who would choose that they absolutely must fly, no matter what, and they would comply. There is a percentage that would drive to another city and use that airport. There is another percentage that would choose not to fly. And from all of these groups, there is a percentage that would complain about the procedures. There’s also a percentage that would agree with the new procedures. And a percentage that doesn’t care. For our discussion, we’ll assume most customers view the new policy unfavorably. Because a percentage would complain, the airport would be aware of the majority opinion and would make an informed decision – is the reduction in their fares worth whatever they gain from the policy? This is a simple, direct measurement. As a monopoly, they know exactly what it is costing them in reduced fares and they alone can determine the value of the new policy to their business. If they choose to continue the policy, that is their choice. If it is a bad choice their business will eventually fail, or they will change it. That is because people will stop keeping their business afloat, someone else will enter the market, etc. If it is a good choice, they will be rewarded by reduced risk, increased sales due to perceived reduced risk, etc.
+
+Let’s look at what happens if there is a single airport monopoly in a city and the government decides to force people to enter the plane while hopping on one foot. Again, a percentage will complain, a percentage will stop using the airplane, etc. However, if the government refuses to listen to a minority there is no consequences to them. Either the minority must convince the majority to care, and vote the government into behaving differently, or the government can get away with doing whatever it would like. It doesn’t matter how much money the airport loses as part of this policy – the government is not effected by the airport going out of business, except in a nominal loss of taxes.
+
+To put it another way, governments are influenced by political power. Businesses are influenced by financial power. When businesses make choices they immediately get feedback in the form of financial livelihood about the acceptability of their choices. Businesses that make bad choices will eventually be replaced by businesses that make better ones. On the other hand, when a government makes a choice for a business, the business can succeed or fail but the financial signals indicating the quality of the choice never get to the government. The government is not affected by the business’s success or failure. Therefore, the government will make choices for the business that are in its best interest and the business and its customers have no recourse unless they can amass political power. This becomes waste in the community.
+
+How does this happen? Let’s say a customer wishes to use a business and spend $100 on it. The business changes policies and does something the customer no longer agrees to. The customer then takes that money and applies it to another business, indicating their dissatisfaction with the original business to the tune of -$100. The best option, from the customer’s point of view, was to spend the $100 on the original business without the bad policy. We know this because customers always spend their money on what they perceive to be in their best interests. An alternative, therefore, is both less-optimal to the customer and wasteful because they must expend time in changing their original plan. The customer is now poorer on two counts: the difference in value between their first choice for the $100 and their second choice, and the time spent moving their plans to the alternative. The business now has -$100 worth of impetus to change their policy.
+
+If we insert the government here, and make it the deciding force in the policy, the situation has not changed from the above. The customer still finds an alternative for their $100, still is poorer on two counts, and the business still has -$100 worth of impetus to change their policy. But, they can’t change the policy, so they’re really just $100 poorer. This means the customer has also not been able to effect any policy change. Originally the lack of $100 for the business would accomplish that – with the government in control of the policy this is no longer the case. In order to achieve the same result as above, the customer must now spend time and energy sending a separate signal to the government. This would be in the form of a letter, a phone call, picketing, a Molotov cocktail, or some other message. Furthermore, taxes must be spent to pay for the government to enforce the policy.
+
+Therefore, even if you completely ignore any argument about freedom and focus only on the economics, having the government make policy for businesses is bad economic policy as it introduces waste and inefficiency. In essence, it introduces a decision middle-man that adds no value to the process.
+
+Besides, just because I have demanded consistency doesn’t mean I am for or against what the TSA does.

thales/content/for-mother-patria.md

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+Title: For Mother Patria
+Date: 2010-09-22 01:00:00
+Category: Ask Thales
+Tags:
+
+William writes:
+
+> Thales,
+> 
+> I recently had the opportunity to attend an awards ceremony for a friend of mine who had served in the military.
+> I felt conflicted – on the one hand, I feel that my friend’s desire to serve others and defend them is honorable.
+> On the other hand, I feel it is wrong for the government to confiscate people and property to wage war overseas.
+> I’m not sure if I should honor my friend or not. Do you have some advice for me?
+
+William, your problem is a common one these days with the ‘War on Terror’ raging all over the globe. Many of us know people who have honorable desires to protect others from aggression, but in following those desires they commit acts of aggression themselves, becoming the very terrorists they wish to fight. I have pondered on your question, and feel comfortable in rendering an opinion.
+
+I do hold with Ayn Rand that charity is not evil – a man can do what he wishes with his possessions, provided he doesn’t aggress against others. It is no more fitting to say that one’s desire to donate to others well-being is evil than it is to say that another’s desire to invest in his productive capacity is evil. Both are designed by the doer to increase their happiness, and neither harms others, so both are equally good. It is, therefore, morally neutral (from the standpoint of law – I don’t make theological points) for someone to wish to defend another person. Your desire to honor your friend for wanting to defend others, is, therefore, justified.
+
+That leads to the next question – to what extent may someone enact violence and still stay morally neutral? The answer: to the extent of the damage done to the victim. This is a fundamental principle in a just society’s method of punishment. An example will probably illustrate better.
+
+Person A decides to burn down Person B’s house. B is justified in taking any action necessary on his own property to prevent A from destroying his property. When B leaves his own property, he is no longer defending it against a threat, but becoming a threat himself. If B is unsuccessful in his defense, and A achieves his goal of burning down B’s house, B then has the right to exact a similar amount of damage to A’s property. This could take the form of destroying A’s house, destruction of A’s property to a similar value of a house, etc. B may waive that right at any time as an act of mercy, or an act of hostage, or because the cost to B is prohibitive. If, for example, B would prefer not to destroy A’s property, but would rather receive a house in restitution, he may hold his right to destroy A’s property ‘hostage’ so that A will pay reparations.
+
+These are the principles involved. A military officer who wishes to join the military to make money and capitalize on his skill at destruction is morally neutral. A military officer who wishes to join the military to defend his neighbors from outside threats pro bono is also morally neutral. The moment this officer ceases to defend against, and instead initiates aggression against, some other party he ceases to be neutral and becomes unjustified in his actions. You should not honor such a person.
+
+Furthermore, there is no time when you should honor ‘Mother Patria’. What is it you would be honoring? You cannot honor insubstantial ideals such as ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ (which isn’t worthy of honor) without living true to those principles. Saluting a flag doesn’t do anything for principles. It does you no good to honor land – you might as well honor a chair. At least the chair was transformed by man’s hand into something useful. You shouldn’t honor the government of a land – if it is coercive, it deserves no honor. If it is not coercive, it is nothing more than a system of agreed-upon principles, which we’ve already discussed. Furthermore, your government is an abstract idea, your land is concrete – the two are entirely independent. So, when you ‘love your country’ what are you doing? When I get an intelligent answer, perhaps I’ll have an opinion on whether or not it makes sense.
+
+Thus far, all I can figure is that people who ‘love your country’ are doing is following a set of extremely powerful societal norms that a promulgated by the government. The norms are designed to give themselves legitimacy. The government is a bunch of parasitic thugs who want people to continue working so that they can continue living off of them. They therefore come up with the idea of the ‘rule of law’ which is a way to get masses of people to accept the governing body without being paid off in some more direct way. The ‘rule of law’ is convincing because the government claims that either a) it is superior to anarchy, despotism, or some other imagined horrible government that would be in control without them or b) they (the officials) are the best suited to govern, and are doing an excellent job, so you should appreciate them leeching resources from you at the point of a gun. Once the ‘rule of law’ is well-established as an abstract concept imbued with power because everyone believes in it, the government takes the next step, personifying the ‘rule of law’. This is done through clever imagery – Lady Liberty, the flag, Uncle Sam, hordes of uniformed officers who have sacrificed their individuality (and so should you!) for the ‘greater good’. You can now imagine your governmental cancer as a sort of person, someone you can picture in your mind and in time, love. Because the governmental officials are elected by everyone, and everyone holds the same imagery in their minds about who the ‘government’ is, we then make the next step and claim that the government is everyone, homogenized and anthropomorphized. If you refuse to love government, you then refuse to love everyone. You are therefore a dissident, and undesirable. Loving your country, then, is the act of doing what you believe society wishes you to do to maintain the status quo, and keep those who are in power well fed. Those who ‘love their country’ most are most likely to support the most extreme acts of government: they support the troops, the police, vote in local elections and volunteer at schools. These institutions, of course are: the international violent arm of the governing officials, the domestic violent arm of the governing officials, the philosophical means of giving governing officials legitimacy and the means of transmitting philosophy to the next generation of parasite hosts.
+
+You see, “love your country” is a means of doing mental calisthenics. The purpose is for you to accept whatever government officials choose to do, and like it.
+
+If your friend has been morally consistent, honor him. If he has gone far away and killed people who have done nothing wrong, don’t honor him. If he has done what the governmental officials wish of him while believing in an elaborate self-delusion, educate him. If he has done what the government officials wish because he honors them or wishes to be like them, shun him.
+
+

thales/content/how-to-get-from-here-to-there.md

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+Title: How to get from Here to There?
+Date: 2010-11-18 18:27:00
+Category: Philosophy
+Tags: 
+
+Someone recently asked me several questions about what I would consider a “properly-formed Republic” and how I would go about moving a nation, such as the United States, to the kind of principled anarchy I would like to live in. I have thought about the question, and I while I don’t have a complete answer, I believe I’ve waited far too long to write a post, so I’m going to attempt to say something on the matter today.
+
+First, let us start with what cannot be done. If we are to create a principled society, we cannot violate those principles. Therefore, we cannot change a government by manipulating that government via voting, referendum, petition, etc. We also cannot initiate violence to create a revolution. That leaves us with only one option – refusing to acknowledge the government.
+
+We must create a critical mass of people. Government would not flinch to imprison, murder, rob or otherwise nuetralize a single person. Or ten people. Or, possibly, a hundred. But as the number grows larger and larger the cost to a government in property and percieved legitimacy increases to become unbearable. A government cannot reasonably murder, hold or rob 100,000 people, or, possibly, even 10,000 if they are properly organized. This means the first action item is education. We can do nothing more effective than persuading people, teaching them the importance of the principles of anarchy. When we get a critical mass of people who agree to the plan, the next action item could begin.
+
+Actively ignore the government. The 10,000 anarchists, we will call them the seed, buy a consolidated area of land. The geographic consolidation is important because governments think in terms of geography. Also, physical proximity makes it far easier for the anarchists to work together in defending themselves.
+
+Next, the anarchists stop paying taxes and start treating government officials, appropriately, as a noisy neighbor at best and an invader at worst. It would make sense to inform the government of their intentions, but it certainly isn’t necessary, as the key to the entire strategy is to marginalize the existing government by refusing to give them any power. Governments claim to derive power from the people. Revoke that power. Treat each governmental official as a person, nothing more.
+
+Eventually the government has two options. It can either recognize the soverignty of the anarchists, and the story is over, or it can become violent. It will become violent. That is the purpose of government – violence.
+
+The government officials will attack. The anarchists must defend themselves. If the anarchists are devoted to freedom, they will be willing to die for it. They must be, because aside from military dominance (which is unlikely), the only path of victory is shaming a government into leaving them alone. All government officials operate on the key principle of legitimacy. They believe governments have a right to violence because they are legitimate. The anarchists must teach them that they have no legitimacy. This is done by fighting, and dying, to defend themselves. This is not done by attacking.
+
+Here is an example. Bob the police officer comes to Gertrude’s home to plunder some taxes. Gertrude tells Bob that she holds him no ill will, but she no longer wants to be ruled by Bob’s government, and therefore will not pay them just for being alive. Bob says that the government rules in that part of the land and everyone must pay taxes, including her. Gertrude says she bought the property, it is hers, and she belongs to no one. As no one’s slave, she pays no one for the right to live. Bob says he will take Gertrude’s property because it’s the law. Gertrude says that if Bob can explain by what right the law gives him authority to take her property, she will willingly give it up. They argue. Bob claims that the law itself gives authority. Gertrude says that whoever makes the law must have the authority, if the law is to have the authority. Bob claims that the people make the law, and have the authority. Gertrude asks Bob if he has the authority to take anything he wants since he is one of the ‘people’. Bob indicates that while he doesn’t have the authority by himself, the people together have the authority. Gertrude starts to explain that if a group has something, the constituent members must also have something, when Bob yells that he will take things by force. Gertrude informs him that she will defend herself from robbers at all costs. Bob attempts to force his way in to the house to take things. Gertrude shoots him, but not fatally. Bob limps away. Gertrude doesn’t continue to shoot him.
+
+At this point Bob may be so brainwashed that he tells himself that Gertrude is some dirty law-breaker and its his duty to force her to submit to the law. He is willing to do anything and everything to force Gertrude to submit. He’ll get backup, and he’ll eventually win, because the resources of an established government will likely trump the resources of Gertrude and all of her friends. However, unless the government officials are willing to kill ALL of the anarchists in one fell swoop, they will simply replay the whole drama again. The goal of the anarchists again becomes education – to educate the masses of non-government that is subject to the government about what the government is really like. There are only two outcomes. Every person under a government either 1) believes that government is inherently good, and is therefore inherently an enemy of anarchists and will never change or 2) doesn’t realize what a government is and needs to be educated, and with education will realize they don’t want to be subject to a systematic bully. By defensively fighting and dying for nothing but freedom, all of the citizens that fall into 2 will begin to side with the anarchists.
+
+The question then becomes whether there are more or less in favor of government. The more people who actively fight against government, the less the government’s power, because it derives its power by leeching from its citizens.
+
+You see, ultimately the battle between governmental oppression and anarchy is an ideological one. Anarchists oppose violence, and therefore cannot win through violence. If they did, they’d simply be another government. And if all people in a nation instantaneously changed their minds such that they rejected the notion of government, there would be no government, because all people would refuse to acknowledge it.
+
+It’s all about ideas. And therefore all about education.
+
+Oh, that and suviving the government trying to elmininate you.

thales/content/kallie-and-the-down-payment.md

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+Title: Kallie and the Down Payment
+Date: 2010-09-30 19:58:00
+Category: Ask Thales
+Tags:
+
+Kallie writes:
+
+> Hello Mr. Thales,
+> 
+> Do you accept non-political questions?
+> If so, I have one. I am getting married a month (yay).
+> My fiancee currently does not work, rather he goes to school.
+> He has not saved any money for a downpayment on a house.
+> I have saved some money for a downpayment and I have a good job.
+> I want to buy a house, which we are able to aford on my salary.
+> However, several people have told me that because he isn’t working or contributing to the downpayment, I should only put the house in my name.
+> I already told him jokingly that he didn’t’ get to help pick (I’m so bad) the house and he got upset.
+> I’m afraid that if I tell him it’s not going to be in his name, he might get really offended.
+> 
+> What do you think I should do?
+
+While I appreciate your enthusiasm for my opinion, I am not your ‘mister’ – a word that, around the 16th century, was created from the word ‘master’. It’s just ‘Thales’
+
+I certainly do accept non-political questions.
+
+Marriage and finances – touchy issues that are generally quite simple. The question boils down to your concept of marriage. Do you see it as the fusion of two people into an inseparable one? If so, it doesn’t make a difference from whence the funds come, or even to what they go – there is but one individual, the union of the two of you, and so both of you equally own all things that are owned by the union. Therefore, putting just your name on the title is not only vindictive, it is an administrative inconvenience. Should something happen to you, it will be far harder for him to control the property without his name on all documentation.
+
+Alternatively, if you see marriage as a simple contract between two people for children and sex, it makes perfect sense that a thing that is derived from your property is yours, and exclusively yours. You may wish to offer him a ‘buy-in’ clause in your marriage contract such that he could later acquire an interest in the property in exchange for goods or kind. Perhaps you could give him one percent for each anniversary that he plans and executes that garners at least 90 points on a 100-point scale you draw up to guide him in the annual celebration of your nuptials. Maybe you could trade stock in the house for spaghetti dinners. Be creative, and enjoy the power you lord over him for your hard work and his relative lack of useful skills and labor.
+
+Also, I strongly recommend against marrying someone without demonstrable ability to earn money. Worthless people are a drag.
+
+

thales/content/pages/dekeken-debate.md

@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+Title: Thales Greets You
+Date: 2010-02-02 19:21
+Category: Administrative
+Tags: welcome

thales/content/principled-child-abuse.md

@@ -0,0 +1,152 @@
+Title: Principled Child Abuse
+Date: 2010-09-27 20:02:00
+Category: Ask Thales
+Tags:
+
+Ryan writes:
+
+> I appreciate the thoughtful dialogue.
+> This is so much better than the name-calling you see on other political sites.
+> Let me throw my one cent in.
+> If there is no government and my next door neighbor is raping and abusing his children (it happens more often that we think), who can stop it?
+> What authority do I have to go in and stop it?
+> Can I use force to go in and take those kids?
+> What if I only suspect it?
+> What if I have reasonable cause to suspect it, but no real evidence?
+> Can I go in?
+> The vulnerable have no way to defend themselves.
+> If there is no Government, wouldn’t there be no law? and if there is no law, how can we stop this neighbor? Sometimes force must be used.
+> A person can use force to defend himself, but what about the weak? I don’t think it’s wrong for a group to be given authority to use force to protect the vulnerable.
+> That’s the Government.
+> Now, if we give them authority to use force, what’s going to stop them from abusing that authority? I think the key is transparency.
+> The watchmen need to be watched.
+> If they abuse the power we give them, then they are forced out and someone new is brought in.
+> Am I wrong here? This is a quickly typed e-mail (sorry if it’s scatterbrained), but what are your responses?
+
+These are good questions Ryan. I’ll endeavor to answer them satisfactorily.
+
+First, the frequency of child abuse is unimportant in a principled society – the response should be the same regardless of how many times it happens.
+
+Second, in a principled society, children are recognized as people at the moment of conception. They have all of the rights, responsibilities and privileges of people. This informs the basis of my approach to these questions.
+
+Third, taking this approach we can replace all of your questions with questions about adults since they are equivalent – what does a person’s age matter in regard to their rights? This means that a person can a) defend themselves, b) hire someone to defend them or c) rely on the charity of others to defend them. A child is generally physically unable to defend themselves, lacks the economic means to hire someone, and so therefore would rely on charity. This is exactly what children today do, since they pay no taxes, except that the government is incentivized to both proactively seize people and property of offenders and seize people and property of the governed. Why? Because government, like all entities, is self-interested, and seizing stuff is a good way to get more stuff, and doing it under cover of protecting children gives them enormous moral currency in the market of public opinion. This means in any discussion of who expends more energy defending children, coercive government will win, because they have unlimited incentive to expend more energy. I cannot address effectiveness because I have no examples of a principled society to measure for comparison.
+
+This leaves us with the discussion of which is more principled – a government that can take children away from parents, or one that cannot? We will assume a situation that is the most heinous – a child is directly physically abused by its parents. The child was conceived, nurtured and birthed by the parents who then abuse it. Who has a greater claim on that child – the individuals who created it, or the government who simply exerts force against all people within it’s domain? The government claims moral high ground – the child is abused, and therefore someone must do something. But, if we allow government to forcibly remove people on the basis of morality, there is no logical limit to what the government can do because anything can be declared contrary to morality. Look at it this way: what if the government decided that parents are not allowed to feed children peaches, as that consitutes grave abuse, and as a consequence the child is to be sold to a corporate entity where they will be forced to labor in coal mines. If that sounds extreme, change the following words in that sentence:
+
+“…the government decided that parents are not allowed to feed children peaches, as that consitutes grave abuse, and as a consequence the child is to be sold to a corporate entity where they will be forced to labor in coal mines.”
+
+feed children peaches -> teach about Jesus
+
+to be sold -> to be given
+
+corporate entity -> foster home
+
+labor in coal mines -> go to a government-run school and taught atheism
+
+Is your perspective different now? Do we need to change around the words again? The point is, the government has every incentive to remove children from less-desirable homes and put them in more-desireable homes. If you allow the government to decide what constitutes abuse and initiate force against parents, you remove one of the most fundamental, primal rights of parents – the rights to raise their children as they wish. Just because the government currently doesn’t violate your parenting rights doesn’t mean you should give them the ability to do it in the future.
+
+So what then about the parents that do terrible things to their children? They do not have the right initiate violence against anyone, including children, just like everyone else. But, you don’t have the right to initiate violence against the parents either! You may approach the child, ask if they’d like you to defend them, and if they agree you may do so. You, or any other person, may offer whatever assistance to them you’d like. But, even your absolute certainty of physical harm does not empower you to interject yourself in a voluntary association. If the child has been taught to like being beaten by their father and rejects your offer of assistance, who are you to ruin their voluntary relationship?
+
+Look at it another way: Billy gets beaten by his father. He has been taught that is how life is, and he is happy with his life. You offer to take him away from his father, who he loves, and promise he won’t be beaten anymore. He thinks about it and decides that he is more afraid of the unknown and turns you down. Now, someone with a coercive government might say “yes, but I know he would be happier out of that situation, so I will get the police to take him away.” What disgusting arrogance! Would you also use the police to force people to eat ice-cream, because you know it’s so delicious? If you can persuade him, do so. Otherwise, leave him be! He has made his choice. That is liberty. We do not honor liberty only for those who choose as we would want them to. We honor liberty for all.
+
+To get back to your questions:
+
+> If there is no government and my next door neighbor is raping and abusing his children (it happens more often that we think), who can stop it?
+
+Anyone who wishes to, so long as the victim wishes you to.
+
+> What authority do I have to go in and stop it?
+
+You have no authority. The victim has rights, and you may protect those rights if the victim wishes you to.
+
+> Can I use force to go in and take those kids?
+
+If the kids wish you to.
+
+> What if I only suspect it?
+
+There is no burden of proof. If the children wish to leave, or be protected from harm, anyone who wishes to may help them to do so.
+
+> What if I have reasonable cause to suspect it, but no real evidence? Can I go in?
+
+There is no burden of proof, only the burden of securing the victims permission to help.
+
+> The vulnerable have no way to defend themselves. If there is no Government, wouldn’t there be no law?
+
+Yes, there would be no ‘law’ in the sense of an authoritarian entity that metes out punishment. A lack of law does not necessarily mean a lack of order. Just as today there are those who can use force to protect the vulnerable at no cost to the victim, such could also exist in a free society.
+
+> and if there is no law, how can we stop this neighbor? Sometimes force must be used. A person can use force to defend himself, but what about the weak?
+
+Yes, sometimes force must be used. Defensive force. Defense can only be initiated by the attacked. It cannot be initiated on their behalf against their will. That is inherently contradictory. That also means that until an individual can communicate with others, they cannot request assistance, and therefore nothing can be done. This point is, of course, debatable – one could easily make a case that a person could be protected from harm without their consent, provided the protection never infringes on their rights and their expressed will. This would allow inverbate children to be defended by those willing to do so.
+
+> I don’t think it’s wrong for a group to be given authority to use force to protect the vulnerable.
+> That’s the Government.
+> Now, if we give them authority to use force, what’s going to stop them from abusing that authority?
+> I think the key is transparency.
+> The watchmen need to be watched.
+> If they abuse the power we give them, then they are forced out and someone new is brought in.
+> Am I wrong here?
+
+Unfortunately, yes. Transparency only works if you assume that those who are watching the watchers have more power and the will to exercise that power. If you saw a government official abuse their power, right now, looking out a window, what could you do to stop it? What could you do to even punish it after the fact? Your response most likely involves ‘bringing them to justice’ – in other words, relying on the government to punish its own. This can happen, certainly, but you’re basically relying on a bully to police himself due to his adherence to principle.
+
+Furthermore, you say ‘..they abuse the power we give them…’ Do you believe that you are giving the government the power it holds over you? You are not. If you were, you could repeal that power at any time. You cannot. That fiction is one you are taught in government-mandated school. The government does not govern by consent. It does not exercise a righteous authority derived from the people. The government uses force to coerce people into doing what it wishes, then attempts to convince people not to band together and overthrow it. That is all. Legitimacy in the aggregate cannot be derived from coercion in the specific. If I cannot simply remove the power I imbue to the government, it is not my agent. If it is not my agent, it is coercion. If 99/100 people agree to government, with one dissenting, the government can only be legitimate for the 99. As soon as it assumes to be legitimate for the 100, it is no longer legitimate.
+
+I hope that answered your question.
+
+## Comments
+
+### Ryan says (2010-09-28 at 5:03am)
+
+What about the Stockholm syndrome? Abusers, kidnappers can have tremendous influence over their victims and can often brainwash them. Elizabeth Smart walked with a veil in plain sight of people, in the city she lived, and passed many people she knew from High School. All she had to do was call out, but she didn’t. Battered wives get convinced that it’s their own fault they’re being beaten and don’t report the abuse. Little children are perhaps the most easily manipulated. I think the argument here is sound from a philosophical viewpoint, but I’m not sure in actuality it is a reasonable alternative to the current system (even though the current system is admittedly flawed). How many more people would suffer due to an ideal? Of course in the current system, we have the Government overstepping their bounds (taking children away from the home when that may not be in the best interest of the children does, unfortunately, happen). But it still seems like the lesser of two evils. But then I see it as a matter of “do we do the most good to the most people at the expense of some individuals” or is that morally wrong (it may be)? What what if the wrong to some individuals is very minimal and the good done for the majority is great: is it still wrong? This is what I’m struggling with.
+While the Government can go in extreme examples (like the peaches example you gave), in our style of Government the majority basically decides the law (generally speaking), I don’t think the majority would go for something as extreme as the example you gave. Of course, there are countries where women cannot go to school and have forced genital mutilations, so the majority can influence negatively on the individual. So, I don’t know.
+
+### Thales says (2010-09-28 at 6:00am)
+
+What’s the difference between Stockholm syndrome and an extremely convincing argument? For example, let’s say you are a raving Jazz fan. I invite you over to my house, prepare a delicious meal, invite you to watch some Bull’s games with me and eventually convince you of the error of your ways. You become a Bull’s fan. Is it Stockholm syndrome?
+
+The major difference between a convincing argument and Stockhold syndrome is the use of force. If you hold me against my will, then convince me of something, that would be Stockholm syndrome, right? Well, the crime is not in convincing me of something, but in holding me against my will. That is wrong.
+
+The other thing that is commonly associated with Stockholm syndrome is a moral judgement. What if the U.S. incarcerates a freedom fighter from Afghanistan and convinces him to no longer kill U.S. occupying forces? Is that Stockholm syndrome? Most would say ‘no’, but it is exactly the same thing if the Taliban locks up a U.S. soldier and convinces him to become a radical Muslim. Such moral judgements have nothing to do with whether or not something is wrong as part of a legal structure. A principled society can view using force to hold someone against their will as wrong, but it can’t possibly hold changing someone’s mind, or even brainwashing, as wrong. Why? Because it would prevent people from having the freedom to not only think as they wish, but to change their minds if and when they wish. Besides, how do you police thought?
+
+In a principled society, what happened to Elizabeth Smart was wrong, but only in the case when force was used against her. There is nothing wrong with convincing someone to want to stay with you. Lovers do it all the time.
+
+> How many more people would suffer due to an ideal?
+
+You are assuming here that people are suffering. Even if you have been beaten in the past and convinced to like it and are now happier that you have changed your mind, who are you to determine that others aren’t happier being beaten? You are arrogantly imposing your value system on others, condemning a situation they are choosing, and trying to morally justify inserting yourself into their lives to ‘save’ them. If you are convinced that your values are better, convince them of the same! If you cannot, you have no right to continue to believe in your moral superiority.
+
+The question shouldn’t be about how many people would suffer due to an ideal. That is akin to asking “Using my moral system, which is absolutely correct for all people, let’s quantify the distance from each person’s currently lifestyle to what my moral system dictates is optimum for that person. Then, let us sum up all of those distances. Then compare that amount of abstract suffering to the amount of abstract suffering equated with the loss of freedom for everyone requisite to force others to more closely conform to my ideals.” It requires several assumptions to ask that question. 1 – that your moral system would make the other person happy. 2 – that you can accurately guess the long-term effects of destroying the liberty of others. 3 – that you can accurately determine how to convince other people to voluntarily do what you consider right.
+
+> But it still seems like the lesser of two evils.
+
+When given the option of choosing between two evils, which do you choose? I have learned not to choose either. Ask me sometime why I don’t vote…
+
+> But then I see it as a matter of ‘do we do the most good to the most people at the expense of some individuals’ or is that morally wrong (it may be)?
+
+It is absolutely morally wrong. Is it OK to kill 10 people to prolong the life of one? How about kill one to prolong one? How about kill one for two? One for 10? Twenty? At what number do you sacrifice your principles? I haven’t even said how long it would prolong their lives…but did you already make a decision? Take a look at this psychology experiment. If you believe in not doing evil, it doesn’t mean that you attempt to minimize the amount of evil in the world. It means you don’t do evil. Someone lets you choose between killing one person or killing 10. The answer? “I will not choose.” “Well,” says the villain, “then you choose to kill 10!” “No,” you calmly reply, “you choose to kill 10. I choose neither.”
+
+If you choose to empower government to minimize the amount of evil in the world, you have empowered an entity with 1) limitless license for violence and 2) a goal that can expend an infinite amount of resources and never be finished. That is, unless you believe the government can destroy the source of all evil – and also not perform evil itself.
+
+> in our style of Government the majority basically decides the law (generally speaking), I don’t think the majority would go for something as extreme as the example you gave
+
+Yes, that is accurate. Remember this quote:
+
+> “When the people find that they can vote themselves money,
+> that will herald the end of the republic.” -Benjamin Franklin
+
+Which would you rather have, a democracy where you don’t think people will go for something evil, or a principled society where you are responsible for your own defense from evil? In the United States democracy you are, in effect, giving all the weapons to other people and hoping they will decide to not only protect you, but not pillage you. People think that Anarcho-Capitalists have great faith in humanity. I plan to keep my weapons and defend me and mine. Democrats believe government, who holds all the power for violence, will altruistically protect them.
+
+Oh, and by democrats, I mean people who believe Democracy is the best form of government. You know, tyranny by the many.
+
+### Dekeken says (2010-09-28 at 2:21pm)
+
+I think the solution is simple. People are naturally social. There have been countless studies on the effects of isolation on an individual and in almost every case isolation is damaging to the individual. So how have societies been handling child abuse and other negative behavior? Through social pressure. If child abuse is made to be a taboo then the violation of that taboo will result in negative social consequences for the individual. The abuser may be forced to leave the community, membership to community organizations can be denied, and most certainly they will loose all prestige and influence in the community. If they correct their behavior than there social privileges may be reinstated, but they might just have to suffer.
+
+With a taboo in place you don’t need to use physical force, and social force will happen subconsciously. The problem with the current system is that meddling in other peoples lives is more of a taboo then abuse.
+
+### Thales says (2010-09-28 at 4:57pm)
+
+I tend to agree with you – social pressure would help to keep people from performing violence. Look at society with no formal police – such as the [people of the mesa](http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/off_the_grid_life_on_the_mesa/) – they generally set up some sort of legal system and ‘policing’ using a combination of social pressure and individually choosing not to deal with people who aggress against others.
+
+In an anarchic society there is nothing that prevents all people from choosing not to buy or sell anything from a given person because of the choices they made. Some would call this unfair. It is the consequence of liberty. It is also the means to exact enormous pressure on someone. Imagine living in a community where 1) no one will sell you anything, for any price and 2) you have no customers for anything you produce. You can survive, if you know how to grow food and purify water and already had everything you need. Otherwise, you’ll do what it takes to work with others.
+
+Of course, social pressure is not a perfect solution. Some people will stubbornly do whatever they wish to do. Good for them. If it were a perfect solution, it would inhibit freedom, and someone, somewhere, would be needing to exert force on others.

thales/content/proposal.md

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+Title: The Proposal
+Date: 2010-09-24 18:41:00
+Category: Ask Thales
+Tags:
+
+Dekeken writes:
+
+> How is life? I hope you are getting plenty of brain food. My family and I have been eating more fish, which I guess is supposed to slick up your brain.
+> 
+> Hey feel free to post this on your blog if you want, I just didn’t want to clutter up your blog with a lot of Dekeken comments.
+> 
+> So I was thinking, we are having a pretty good discussion here and I would like to see some fruits.
+> What I propose is that through our discussion we develop a theory of the perfect from of government; when I say government I mean a structure or method of social organization that maximizes freedom while at the same time maintaining peace and social continuity.
+> (Feel free to modify this definition as you see it)
+> 
+> So far the argument has been:
+> From your end, anarchy is the ideal from of government.
+> From my end, anarchy is an unreasonable solution, or one that society in general will reject. (my argument is not that the ideal from of government is the current form of U.S. government)
+> 
+> Obviously this is all contingent on you willingness to explore avenues besides anarchy.
+> So to start, if you would provide me with a clear concise definition of your understanding of anarchy we can build from that foundation.
+> 
+> Let me know what you think.
+> 
+> Dekeken
+
+For those of you not paying attention, or reading in reverse-chronological order, Dekeken is my number 1 commenter. We’ve had some very interesting discussions which I have thoroughly enjoyed. While normally my emails center around people looking for advice, I’m happy to accept Dekeken’s invitation, and I’ll be working to set up a static page where our ongoing debate can occur!
+
+

thales/content/regulate-or-well-all-be-playing-monopoly.md

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+Title: Regulate, or We'll All Be Playing Monopoly
+Date: 2011-02-04 17:00:00
+Category: Philosophy
+Tags:
+
+I recently encountered the following statement:
+
+> Imagine that you sell oil to people.
+> You sell at a price that people are glad to pay and you have fantastic customer loyalty.
+> Next, imagine that RIAA Oil Company decides to move into your market.
+> They GIVE oil away for a full year.
+> They can afford this because they are RICH.
+> You can’t compete with free.
+> You try, but after a year, you are forced to go out of business.
+> After you go out of business, RIAA Oil Company jacks up their prices.
+> In a few years they recoup their losses.
+> Prices are now much higher and consumer satisfaction sucks.
+>
+> You are unemployed.
+> Nobody cares about you because you believed in the imaginary thing called a free market.
+> But people are worried for the consumers who ultimately are the ones victimized by the RIAA Oil Company’s predatory policies.
+>
+> The free market does not exist.
+> What we CALL a free market is really a bunch of people who fight like mad to try to dominate the marketplace by forming cartels and monopolies.
+> If we don’t regulate them, they will regulate us–far more than any government can.
+>
+> The California law wasn’t enacted because liberal freakazoids had a theory that they needed to put into law (like the Tea Partiers and their theories).
+> This law was the product of historical experience.
+> Read about Standard Oil and what they did!!!!! Read about the Railroad companies at the turn of the 20th Century.
+> Those businesses were absolutely ruthless and screwd consumers got these kinds of laws passed.
+
+While I don’t expect the original author to read my response or think about it, I wanted to respond anyway because I encounter this argument often.
+
+This quote creates a scenario, assumes a response, and then demands legislation based on the presumed response. It also appeals to some historical precedent for validity.
+
+First, in his scenario RIAA Oil got rich somehow. Richness only comes by doing something people want – selling something, performing a service, investing correctly, something. So, RIAA Oil isn’t evil because it has money, it was doing something useful. But, let’s put that to the side and say that RIAA Oil has a bunch of money it was given by a large and whimsical rabbit. It decides to enter the oil business with the express purpose, not of providing oil at a reasonable price, but of putting out other businesses. Cue maniacle laughter. RIAA Oil is evil.
+
+Now, they give away oil for a full year. People are happy. RIAA is spending all of the bunny-gotten gains in fulfilling their dastardly purpose of putting you out of business. And, *gasp*, they suceed. How evil.
+
+RIAA now has cornered the oil market and is going to use its power to extract wealth from all of the poor oil-consuming fools of the world. So, they re-price their free oil at 10x the original price.
+
+Deal done, easy, right?
+
+Not really.
+
+At that price point it would be trivial for a small business to contact a crude supplier, buy it at double the going rate RIAA Oil is paying and still beat RIAA Oil in the consumer market.
+
+“But!” I can hear the original poster say, ” by now RIAA Oil has all of the suppliers in a 100-year contract they cannot break! They own all of the crude supplies!”
+
+How did they get into this situation? What reason could the crude suppliers possibly have for that kind of lock-in? Because RIAA Oil is the only retailer, and hence the only consumer of crude, and refused to purchase crude without a 100-year contract?
+
+A crude supplier in that situation would have two very large, very appealing options: retail oil themselves or encourage other businessmen to start a retailing business.
+
+I could see the case for RIAA going for vertical integration, owning the entire chain from the crude extraction to the refinement to the retail. This still doesn’t prevent other entreprenuers from a) advancing alternative energies (oil from coal, for instance) or b) finding their own oil stores to tap. If there is a serious deficit of oil reserves, a will be more likely in proportion to the price of oil. If there is an abundance of crude, b will be more likely. There’s a finely-tuned balance here between cost and relative ease of using a competing product. If oil is extremely scarce and there are no alternatives to its use, the price should be high to reflect that. If oil is abundant and there are no alternatives to its use, competition will spring up very quickly and drive prices down. If oil is extremely scarce and there are alternatives to its use, those alternatives will be explored to drive the price down. If oil is abundant and there are alternatives to its use a monopoly will be extremely short-lived.
+
+In the end, you see, unless people aren’t free, the market will find a way as people strive for a reduced price. RIAA Oil has a finite supply of money to use to influence that fact. They will, therefore, either make money if they are properly serving the market or they will loose money in the long term if they are not.
+
+I’m sorry, I’ve talked about this before.
+
+What this comes down to is an argument made by concocting an ever-increasingly arbitrary situation to prove a point.
+
+So what about Standard Oil? Isn’t it the best example of a monopolistic company that abused the consumer market?
+
+From [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil):
+
+> Standard’s actions and secret[citation needed] transport deals helped its kerosene price to drop from 58 to 26 cents from 1865 to 1870.
+> Competitors disliked the company’s business practices, but consumers liked the lower prices.
+> Standard Oil, being formed well before the discovery of the Spindletop oil field and a demand for oil other than for heat and light, was well placed to control the growth of the oil business.
+> The company was perceived to own and control all aspects of the trade.
+>
+> In 1904, Standard controlled 91% of production and 85% of final sales.
+> Most of its output was kerosene, of which 55% was exported around the world.
+> After 1900 it did not try to force competitors out of business by underpricing them.
+> [21] … Standard’s market share fell gradually to 64% by 1911.
+> It did not try to monopolize the exploration and pumping of oil (its share in 1911 was 11%)
+>
+> Standard Oil’s market position was initially established through an emphasis on efficiency and responsibility.
+> While most companies dumped gasoline in rivers (this was before the automobile was popular), Standard used it to fuel its machines.
+> While other companies’ refineries piled mountains of heavy waste, Rockefeller found ways to sell it.
+> For example, Standard created the first synthetic competitor for beeswax and bought the company that invented and produced Vaseline, the Chesebrough Manufacturing Company, which was a Standard company only from 1908 until 1911.
+>
+> The company grew by increasing sales and also through acquisitions.
+> After purchasing competing firms, Rockefeller shut down those he believed to be inefficient and kept the others.
+> In a seminal deal, in 1868, the Lake Shore Railroad, a part of the New York Central, gave Rockefeller’s firm a going rate of one cent a gallon or forty-two cents a barrel, an effective 71% discount off of its listed rates in return for a promise to ship at least 60 carloads of oil daily and to handle the loading and unloading on its own.
+> [citation needed] Smaller companies decried such deals as unfair because they were not producing enough oil to qualify for discounts.
+
+So, Standard Oil succeeded by doing the following:
+
+* Buying competitors and shutting down inefficient operations
+* Turning waste products into retail products
+* Making deals with transportation to gaurantee a high level of traffic in exchange for lower rates. ‘Buying in bulk’ in essence
+* Lowering the price of product below its competitors.
+
+Standard did not do the following:
+
+* Raise prices to leverage its monopoly status
+* Monopolize exploration and pumping to price out retail competitors
+
+Standard did do a bunch of things that were found to be illegal. Those things generally surrounded secret contracts and pricing with suppliers of things like transportation:
+
+> 1) secret and semi-secret railroad rates; (2) discriminations in the open arrangement of rates; (3) discriminations in classification and rules of shipment; (4) discriminations in the treatment of private tank cars
+
+This boils down to one major compliant: descrimination. What is descrimination? The freedom to treat someone differently from someone else, ie, to descriminate between them.
+
+Again from wikipedia:
+
+> Some economic historians have observed that Standard Oil was in the process of losing its monopoly at the time of its breakup in 1911.
+> Although Standard had 90% of American refining capacity in 1880, by 1911 that had shrunk to between 60 and 65%, due to the expansion in capacity by competitors.[32]
+
+As I said, if a company no longer serves people by being efficient, offering something unique, or otherwise justifying high price, the market will route around it. Insofar as Standard itself was inefficient and high-priced, it lost share in the market to upstarts.
+
+In the end, Standard was brought down essentially for one major reason:
+
+> One of the original “muckrakers” was Ida M. Tarbell, an American author and journalist.
+> Her father was an oil producer whose business had failed due to Rockefeller’s business dealings.
+> After extensive interviews with a sympathetic senior executive of Standard Oil, Henry H. Rogers, Tarbell’s investigations of Standard Oil fueled growing public attacks on Standard Oil and on monopolies in general.
+> Her work was published in 19 parts in McClure’s magazine from November 1902 to October 1904, then in 1904 as the book The History of the Standard Oil Company.
+
+That is, someone was personally affected by Standard and decided to use the government as a club to bash something she didn’t like. After all, if you can’t compete, legislate. Or, in this case, [judicate](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=judicate).

thales/content/the-anatomy-of-the-state.md

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+Title: The Anatomy of the State
+Date: 2010-09-29 19:08:00
+Category: Philosophy
+Tags:
+
+A quote from Rothbard:
+
+> Professor J. Allen Smith … noted that the Constitution was designed with checks and balances to limit any one governmental power and yet had then developed a Supreme Court with the monopoly of ultimate interpreting power.
+> If the Federal Government was created to check invasions of individual liberty by the separate states, who was to check the Federal power?
+> Smith maintained that implicit in the check-and-balance idea of the Constitution was the concomitant view that no one branch of government may be conceded the ultimate power of interpretation: “It was assumed by the people that the new government could not be permitted to determine the limits of its own authority, since this would make it, and not the Constitution, supreme.”[30](http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard62.html#[30])
+> 
+> The solution advanced by Calhoun (and seconded, in this century, by such writers as Smith) was, of course, the famous doctrine of the “concurrent majority.” 
+> If any substantial minority interest in the country, specifically a state government, believed that the Federal Government was exceeding its powers and encroaching on that minority, the minority would have the right to veto this exercise of power as unconstitutional.
+> Applied to state governments, this theory implied the right of “nullification” of a Federal law or ruling within a state’s jurisdiction.
+> 
+> In theory, the ensuing constitutional system would assure that the Federal Government check any state invasion of individual rights, while the states would check excessive Federal power over the individual.
+> And yet, while limitations would undoubtedly be more effective than at present, there are many difficulties and problems in the Calhoun solution.
+> If, indeed, a subordinate interest should rightfully have a veto over matters concerning it, then why stop with the states? Why not place veto power in counties, cities, wards? Furthermore, interests are not only sectional, they are also occupational, social, etc.
+> What of bakers or taxi drivers or any other occupation? Should they not be permitted a veto power over their own lives? This brings us to the important point that the nullification theory confines its checks to agencies of government itself.
+> Let us not forget that federal and state governments, and their respective branches, are still states, are still guided by their own state interests rather than by the interests of the private citizens.
+> What is to prevent the Calhoun system from working in reverse, with states tyrannizing over their citizens and only vetoing the federal government when it tries to intervene to stop that state tyranny?
+> Or for states to acquiesce in federal tyranny?
+> What is to prevent federal and state governments from forming mutually profitable alliances for the joint exploitation of the citizenry?
+> And even if the private occupational groupings were to be given some form of “functional” representation in government, what is to prevent them from using the State to gain subsidies and other special privileges for themselves or from imposing compulsory cartels on their own members?
+
+This is the great difficulty in arguing in favor of a state: you either argue that the state has all power, or that the state has none. If you believe the state has legitimate authority to harm others, you believe the state either derives that authority from itself, or from another source. If from itself, then there is no limit to the amount of harm it can do to others and no limit to the reaches of its own power. If from another entity, that entity is not subordinate to the state (being the source of the state’s powers). Therefore, if you believe the state derives its authority from the people, you believe the state is subordinate to the people. Therefore, the state cannot act against a person, because the state derives its authority from that person, and that person can revoke the authority at any time. It therefore doesn’t matter if you encourage ‘State’s rights’ or not – the state is no different from the city, county, or nation, except in scale. The question is whether or not you advocate coercive government or not.
+
+The only argument I have seen around this is to claim that the state derives its authority for violence from ‘the people’, but not from any one person. That is, that when a body of people gathers together, they mysteriously gain the authority to oppress individuals for the ‘common good’. In other words, an amorphous mass of people become a separate entity, one that is within its rights to ensure its own survival by destroying humans. Most people would agree that it is wrong for two people to get together and decide to murder and rob a third. Yet many people believe it is perfectly justified for two thousand people to get together and tax a third, and imprison him if he resists!
+
+The other argument I have not seen in practice, but I can conceive of someone making, is that the government derives its authority from the gods. Therefore, there is a limit to what it can do, but it can legitimately force its will upon the populace. When the gods appear and take an active role in such a government, I will be satisfied with this reasoning. Until then, it appears to me that someone must be speaking the gods will. If this person is an individual, they are inherently part of the government, since a person who has the authority to enact violence on others, and we define government to be the person or persons who have a monopoly on initiating violence. We are, therefore, back to the case of the government having authority in and of itself – we just use the gods as an excuse.
+
+So, do you believe the government has a right to perform violence on others? If so, from whence does that authority come? If from people, you are an anarchist, for an individual person can be free of government at any time. If from itself, you are a statist, and there is no limit to the depravity your state can justify.

thales/content/the-case-for-child-labor.md

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+Title: The Case for Child Labor
+Date: 2010-10-01 01:00:00
+Category: Philosophy
+Tags: 
+
+> In 1909 a factory inspector did an informal survey of 500 working children in 20 factories.
+> She found that 412 of them would rather work in the terrible conditions of the factories than return to school.
+> ~ Helen Todd, “Why Children Work,” McClure’s Magazine (April 1913)
+>
+> In one experiment in Milwaukee, for example, 8,000 youth…were asked if they would return full-time to school if they were paid about the same wages as they earned at work; only 16 said they would.
+> ~ David Tyack, Managers of Virtue (1982)
+
+Why are people opposed to child labor? Why does the United States, in truth, most Western countries, prohibit a section of people from being gainfully employed?
+
+If you believe it is to protect the children, you delude yourself. These quotes show that children themselves perceive more harm to themselves in school than in profitable labor. And perception of harm is a type of harm – if you absolutely hate to eat broccoli, yet it does you no measurable physical harm other than you hating the experience, does it not do you harm for me to force you to eat broccoli? Even if I think it’s good for you? In fact, if I force you to eat enough broccoli it would be a form of torture. We could call it ‘broccoli-boarding’.
+
+So, the government is doing actual harm to children by forcing them to be schooled and removing from them the possibility of doing something they would like to do, at least according to the data cited above. This is to prevent them from encountering a perceived danger – unsafe/harsh work conditions. Why is it perceived and not real? Because the law doesn’t state that children cannot work where it is unsafe or where conditions are harsh. The law states children cannot work. It doesn’t matter if the child’s job is to test the softness of pillows in their own bed. The law is to protect our child QA engineer against the possibility that they could be harmed. These arguments alone should be enough to convince rational people against the necessity of child labor laws. But there is more.
+
+The unjustly harms the poor.
+
+I love statements like that because they are laced with ethos and mean nothing. They evoke all kinds of feelings in people that have nothing to do with justice or logic.
+
+Say you are a child whose parents have died. You wish to live on your own, to make your own way. How would you do it? By working honorably? Well, you can’t. That’s illegal. Not until you’re older. So, you must live off of the charity of others, or the government dole. Now, if you are an independently wealthy child, you can do all the work that you like and not be paid, living off of your wealth until you are of age. If you are a pauper and need daily payment to eat, you are going to starve. Sorry.
+
+You see? Unjust. Poor. Boo hoo.
+
+So, what does this system buy the government?
+
+Any young individual with sufficient drive and talent to work on their own, learn on their own, and make their own way in life is prohibited from doing so. Instead, the young person must attend a government-regulated school full time. In this school, they will be stripped of freedoms. They will also be forced to parrot back information they are fed until the government-mandated administrators are satisfied or they are of age. This system has two wonderful effects for the government. First, it allows the government to break the wills of children who might have developed a strong independent streak, but who lack sufficient strength to resist being systematically beaten down for years. These children will more readily accept whatever the government tells them later in life because they have had important concepts drilled in to them such as collective thinking, relying on ‘authority’, consensus, following arbitrary rules, parroting back information, etc. The second great benefit to the government is to maintain its’ own elites. If you are wealthy enough, and well-connected enough, you can get your children out of the normal, grinding schools and put them into a special school. Still government sanctioned, but far less so, and largely unpunished when they veer outside of the sanction. These children are the children of the governing class, and destined to be the next generation of governors.
+
+You see, prevention of child labor is a plank in an important structure to maintain the current balance of power. Children are not allowed to work. Children are not allowed to be parented in extreme ways. Children must go to school. School must teach the following curriculum. The system is designed to produce uniformity, and is totally controlled by the government. Do you think the government would want that uniformity to threaten it in any way?
+
+On the flip side, assume we got rid of child labor laws and let children not go to school. “Gasp! Wouldn’t the evil factory barons let children fall into horrible grinding machines to make money?!” Sure, some would. And the children that worked there would leave. An employee is not a slave, he is a free man who brokers a mutually beneficial arrangement with someone – my work for your pay. And even if little Timmy worked in a dangerous place of his own free will, who are you to say he can’t? That’s his business. Literally.
+
+## Comments
+
+### Ryan says (2010-10-04 at 12:51am)
+
+Hmm… I don’t know. It’s like Orson Scott Card once said, “kids are dumb.” Kids are still developing, sometimes they don’t really know what’s best for them. Kids are easily manipulated. I don’t see a problem in a law that keeps evil factory barons from taking advantage of still not yet developed kids. Also, there are ways for kids to work, it’s not totally illegal. Look at child actors or paperboys.
+
+Now, the informal study by the factory worker. Wouldn’t there be some bias to that? If my boss asked me if I wanted to work where I’m at or somewhere else, I’m not going to tell him I’d rather go somewhere else, even if it was true. Plus, how old were these children? If they’re 16, then okay, they should be able to choose to get jobs? But if they’re 6? No 6 year old wants to go to school. If your kindergartner would rather sleep in, do you force him to go to school? or do you allow him to do whatever he wants? I think it totally depends on the age.
+
+### Thales says (2010-10-06 at 17:15:00)
+
+I think the same argument could be made for adults:
+
+> Adults are still developing, sometimes they don’t really know what’s best for them. Adults are easily manipulated.
+
+So, do you believe it’s correct then to keep adults from doing things that you deem as stupid, or not what is best for them? Or do you make the argument that all adults are completely developed and mentally perfect at 18 years old? If you make neither argument, why do you descriminate based on age?
+
+As for the second part of your argument, you either believe it is good to allow children to work, or you do not. There is nothing that prevents us from replacing ‘evil factory baron’ with ‘evil paperboy baron’. Which do you believe? Or, why do you believe that child actors and paperboys are some unique class of work?
+
+Why do you believe there must be bias to the factory worker study? It is good to be suspicious of all studies and draw your own conclusions. For the sake of argument, why don’t we throw out the quote about the study. Assume that all children would rather be in school rather than working in a factory. Why would it need to be illegal? If no one wanted to do it, no one would do it unless they were forced, and only the government can legally use force. So there’s no reason to make it illegal unless someone wants to do it.
+
+As for your question on age, it shows an interesting cultural bias. Here’s a question for you: do you believe a person can learn against their will? If you do, your statement makes sense – forcing children to go to school to force learning on them ‘for their good’ would work. If you don’t, and I don’t, then you must believe that there is persuasion somewhere in your scenario.
+
+Let’s assume that you cannot force a person to learn. You force your kindergarten to go to school against his will. There, a teacher can either force the child to learn, and fail based on our premise, or he must persuade the child to want to learn through a clever lesson plan with interesting drawings and stories. You probably believe he does the latter. If that is so, why start with force? Why not persuade the child yourself? You must believe persuasion is possible because you believe the teacher is capable of it. Perhaps you believe persuasion is outside of the realm of capability for you, in which case you must force your child to do everything. Perhaps persuasion is too costly for you, which is sad since parents are supposed to love their children more than just about anything. But then, you may not value freedom. So, I’m curious, where do you fall? Do you believe someone can be taught against their will? If not, why force children to school instead of persuading them?
+
+I believe the truth, when it really comes down to it, is because we all know that school is so awful that no child will want to go. We all believe that persuasion is too difficult because we know how much we despised that place. We believe that teachers are the only ones who can persuade a student to learn because you have already forced them to be there, so they might as well be entertained while being incarcerated.

thales/content/the-pledge-of-allegiance.md

@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+Title: The Pledge of Allegiance
+Date: 2010-12-06 23:05:00
+Category: Philosophy
+Tags:
+
+Recently I’ve had the opportunity to witness the ceremony called ‘The Pledge of Allegiance’ performed by some youth of the United States of America. Generally, the pledge looks like this: people in attendance stand and face the flag. They place their hand over their hearts, or, if in uniform, perform some kind of salute. The salute to perform is generally dictated by the organization that issues the uniform. Those in attendance then recite the following, in unison:
+
+> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.
+
+It’s very…[Borg-like](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyenRCJ_4Ww). Most people in the United States are taught from a young age the appropriate tone to use, the pacing, where to pause and breathe, etc. Looks like [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuMCzvL6Dac).
+
+Or, if you want to be funny, like [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRY5waZ4IbE)
+
+Anyways, what is a pledge of allegiance?
+
+Well, [using Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_allegiance), a pledge (or oath) of allegiance is:
+
+> In [feudal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism) times a person would also swear allegiance to his feudal superiors. To this day the oath sworn by freemen of the [City of London](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London) contains an oath of obedience to the [Lord Mayor of the City of London](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Mayor_of_the_City_of_London).
+
+So, let’s break apart the pledge of allegiance of the United States, which was created by [a Christian Socialist](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bellamy) about 100 years ago, codified some 80 years ago, and turned religious about 50 years ago. First, it’s about [allegiance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiance). Again, the Wikipedia is extremely helpful in understanding allegiance:
+
+> The term allegiance was traditionally often used by English legal commentators in a larger sense, divided by them into natural and local, the latter applying to the deference which even a foreigner must pay to the institutions of the country in which he happens to live.
+> However it is in its proper sense, in which it indicates national character and the subjection due to that character, that the word is more important.
+>
+> In that sense it represents the [feudal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudal) [liege homage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liege_homage), which could be due only to one lord, while simple [homage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homage) might be due to every lord under whom the person in question held land.
+
+So, allegiance is really about paying due deference to a feudal lord, or the government that replaces your feudal lord. Put another way, it is the indication of voluntary subjugation of an individual to a sovereign. In this case, allegiance is pledged both to a flag (which can mean either the actual inanimate object one is facing or the symbol of a flag, which just represents an entity in the abstract) and the Republic it stands for. Given the later portion of the pledge, that one is pledging allegiance “to the Republic for which [the flag] stands” we should probably conclude that one isn’t meant to pledge allegiance to an inanimate object in specific. The rest of the pledge goes on to describe the republic in question, and as such doesn’t have any bearing on what the pledge is, but in itself is fascinating and probably worth another post at some time.
+
+Now, at this point you may take exception to my explanation of what the pledge is. After all, it does no good to base an analysis on what words used to mean, but rather we should analyze the pledge based on what people mean by it now. Very well, we’ll approach that in a moment.
+
+Getting back to where I was – the pledge is about sacrificing one’s autonomy to a republic which is represented by a flag. Back in the old days, a pledge of allegiance was generally expected by someone who was receiving lands or title (ie, joining the ruling class, or moving up in it). In this way a ruler could ensure that he was receiving just compensation for the investment of lands and title. After all, it would do no good to give a man lands and title and peasants if he later came back and decided you weren’t his lord any more. So, he pledged to you. In other words, it was a formalization of slavery. I give you stuff, you promise to do whatever I say all the time forever. You could call it a contract if you like – I’m not opposed to the idea of people selling themselves in free contracts – but the concept of allegiance represents far more than quid-pro-quo. It is, instead, the idea of you giving yourself to something. Much more akin to marriage than to a corporate merger. After all, if you pledge allegiance and fail to work towards the benefit of the cause you pledge to, you can be found of treason. If, in a contract, you fail to hold up your end of the deal you simply lose whatever compensation was part of the contract.
+
+What happens, then, if you pledge allegiance not to a lord or an organization, but to a republic? I don’t have a clue. What happens when you pledge allegiance to a shoe? A republic is just a set of rules for organizing something. A shoes is something to protect feet. Neither has a will or a goal or anything to obey.
+
+And this gets me nicely to the point I wanted to address: throwing aside all of this historical mush, what does the pledge of allegiance mean to someone who actually says it?
+
+I’m sure it doesn’t mean you’ll obey the flag, or act in its best interests.
+
+If you have ever made such a pledge, I’d be curious to hear from you on what it meant to you.
+
+If it means you are pledge support for the idea of Freedom and Liberty, why not pledge support to that (again, whatever that means)?
+
+If it means you’ll vote (for a democratic republic) or obey the republic’s rulers, why not pledge that?
+
+If it means you’ll recognize the republic as the ‘best’ or ‘inspired’ or some other adjective, why not pledge that?
+
+Sorry, I’m digressing. Since the United States is a representative government elected by the populace, it cannot mean obedience to a particular person. Since the constitution has a mechanism for changing itself, it cannot mean obedience to a particular set of laws. That is, unless the person really wishes to pledge allegiance to all rulers and all laws that are established as part of the mechanism of the constitution as constituted at the time of the pledge. But, that seems insanely open-ended.
+
+The only solution I can come up with is that people intend to pledge allegiance to mean they are granting legitimacy to the United States government. In other words, they pledge to recognize it as authoritative in their lives. This is a variation on the idea of pledging allegiance to all rulers and laws established by the constitution, but a little more limited. I believe it captures the feeling I’ve observed in Americans who recite the pledge. If you tell them you do not recite the pledge, they generally wonder if you are unpatriotic, which comes down to not recognizing the supremacy of the United States government.
+
+And you see, now we have come full circle. Those who espouse reciting the pledge usually assume the supremacy and legitimacy of the Federal government. After all, in the pledge they recognize the United States as indivisible. This means they recognize States cannot voluntarily leave, or divide the US. This means the people of the state cannot refuse to be subject to the federal government. This means those people are not free. This means the United States Federal Government is supreme, or sovereign.
+
+Seems the historical meaning isn’t so out of date.
+
+So, the next time you have a chance to watch people stand and recite the pledge of allegiance, remember, they were once sovereign individuals like you and me. Now they are proud vassals of an abstract fuedal lord who are indivisible and subject to whatever rules and leaders the majority of them pick with freedom to do whatever most of them decide is okay and violent opposition for those who break their arbitrary rules. I mean, freedom. And justice.

thales/content/the-tale-of-someplace.md

@@ -0,0 +1,237 @@
+Title: The Tale of Someplace
+Date: 2010-11-19 19:27:00
+Category: Philosophy
+Tags:
+
+Once upon a time there was a new and pristine land with no human inhabitants called Someplace. Several people left where they were living and traveled to Someplace to being a new life, free to live as they wished. The first of those was Chilon, a wise sage who wished to be free. Chilon was soon joined by many others who wished to improve their lives through freedom and labor in the new land of Someplace.
+
+Soon, as always happens, disputations arose among the settlers of Someplace. Because the people knew each other and were few, they simply got together, often with Chilon who was widely regarded as wise and fair, and settled their disputes among themselves to everyone’s satisfaction.
+
+Eventually the settlers grew and prospered. Soon, only the original Someplaceans knew each other, but their children’s children were strangers to one another. One such native Someplacean decided he would rob another because he coveted and realized it would do him no harm because he didn’t know the victim. When the people eventually learned of this crime they gathered together the original Someplacean settlers to decide what was to be done. Chilon was there.
+
+“Something must be done – we cannot allow such evil to be a part of our community”, clammored the people.
+
+Chilon agreed.
+
+“We will take the property and return it!” the people declared.
+
+Chilon indicated that they had no claim on the property, but that the victim certainly could go and claim it. He said they could make sure the victim only took what was his and didn’t rob or punish the thief.
+
+“We must punish the thief, for we fear that without punishment he may choose to rob any one of us!”
+
+Chilon asked what punishment they suggested.
+
+“We shall imprison him, for in prison he cannot rob anyone, and we shall be safe!”
+
+Chilon wondered who would build the prison, and who would man it, for it would cost property.
+
+No one wished to donate their hard-earned property to build the prison, nor their precious time to man it. Someone then suggested that the property could be taken from everyone to build the prison, and it could also pay the wage of a warden.
+
+“Yes,” declared Chilon, “let us punish the theft of one person by robbing everyone equally!”
+
+The people had to admit it sounded pretty bad when you put it that way.
+
+“Very well,” said Chilon, “I will then donate my home as this man’s prison, and my time to watch him while he serves his sentence. Who will pay the man for his time?”
+
+The people had to admit they were very confused at his question.
+
+“If it is wrong for him to take the property of another, how is it justified for all of us to take his time? The victim has his property back. If we are to take the thief’s time as punishment, we must also pay for it, or we are no different than he is.”
+
+The people had to agree that this was so – if an individual cannot rob, then a group of individuals, even the whole community, cannot do so. After some discussion, the people realized there was no punishment they could incur on the robber without, in turn, robbing him of his time or property.
+
+Realizing the people had found some new wisdom, Chilon then stood and spoke.
+
+“The victim has his property back. The thief has wasted his time and effort in acquiring it, and now has nothing. His waste is his punishment.”
+
+The people realized this was just, and dispersed, happy.
+
+The thief, still being a dirtbag, decided that all he had to do was to continue robbing until he didn’t get caught. Then he would have something for nothing. And so, the next day, he robbed another.
+
+Once again the people gathered. Once again Chilon explained how there was no just punishment to inflict, only to restore to the victim what is his. Again the people dispersed after having returned the stolen property.
+
+The same was repeated the next day.
+
+And the next.
+
+After a week, the people angrily told Chilon that this system wasn’t working at all.
+
+“Very well,” smiled Chilon, turning to the latest victim, “why didn’t you stop the thief?”
+
+“I did not know he was coming. He snuck in while I was away from my home and took what he wanted.”
+
+“Surely you lock your home, and have the means to protect it?” asked Chilon
+
+“Why should I incur those costs to maintain my own property? It is mine, that is enough.”
+
+“This thief took it, knowing it was yours. You have a right to recover that which is yours from the thief, but you cannot force him to leave Someplace, or to act differently in the future. He will steal it again. Which is more cost-effective for you, to protect that which is yours, or to constantly search for what you have lost and recover it?”
+
+The victim had to admit protection was cheaper.
+
+Chilon then turned to the thief.
+
+“You seem to have a major character flaw. You waste time and energy trying to take that which is not yours. In the end, every time you are caught, you end up with nothing as a reward for your efforts. I believe you to be foolish, but I doubt I will convince you of this. There is one thing I can convince you of: this man traded his time working in a field to earn the property you are attempting to take. That is, he traded a portion of his life for this property. You are attempting to steal not a thing, but a portion of a man’s life. All men have a right to protect their lives, or a portion of their lives, with whatever force is necessary from aggressors. If you attempt to take a part of this man’s life, and he kills you in your attempt, he is justified. You have been warned.”
+
+The next day the thief went out to steal again. He wisely stayed away from homeowners who were now sporting weapons and watching their home carefully. Rather, he robbed from one who was away from his home.
+
+The people gathered again.
+
+“Chilon, your wisdom has failed us. We defend ourselves with weapons, and yet some of us must leave our property undefended to go about our business! The thief takes advantage of this, and still we are robbed.”
+
+Chilon smiled at the people. “Surely you can hire a servant to protect your property? Do so, and you will be safe even when you are away.”
+
+The people from that day forward began to hire servants to protect their property.
+
+The thief, still being a dirtbag, and growing more cunning day by day, arranged with one of the servants who protected property to split the proceeds if he would look the other way.
+
+Again the people gathered when the crime was found.
+
+“See Chilon, your way fails. We must set up a group who will protect us all impartially! We must have a government!”
+
+Chilon sadly shook his head. “How will you know if your government is composed of men any different from your servants? If a servant will betray his master to steal property, why would a government be different? Besides, you would still be robbing everyone to pay for someone to protect you from robbers. You would exchange the possibility of loss from a thief for the certainty of loss to government.”
+
+The people agreed with Chilon, but could come up with no better solution.
+
+“Do this: “, Chilon said, “when you hire your servant, you and he will enter an agreement. The agreement is that the servant will protect you from loss. If he fails, he will give to you property in replacement of that which he failed to protect. This will prevent your servants from making deals with thieves, for they will gain nothing, and encourage them to protect your property with diligence, for they are in fact protecting their own.”
+
+The people went away satisfied. The next day they drew up contracts with one another to follow Chilon’s advice. Soon several people of Someplace had created businesses who’s sole purpose was to protect the property of others. Competition drove prices down and efficiencies up, and soon most of the population found the service to be inexpensive and effective.
+
+The thief, however, did not rest. He realized that if he could convince a security firm to refuse to honor their agreement, he could rob all of their customers. He eventually found a security firm willing to do so, and they carried out their plan. The victim demanded the firm replace his stolen property. The firm refused. The victim lacked the specialized training and means of the security firm, and knew that a violent conflict would end badly for him. He instead gathered his neighbors. Again the people met en masse to discuss the problem.
+
+By now, the people merely came and asked Chilon what to do, as they realized he was much smarter than them anyways.
+
+“First, all of you who currently have contracts with this criminal firm must realize the danger you are in. I would advise no one patronizes their services any longer.”
+
+A few people in the back grumbled their agreement.
+
+“Second, when you enter a contract with a security firm, you must add a clause. This clause requires two things. First, it requires the security firm to hold an amount in escrow so that you can be certain they have enough assets to cover the value of what they are protecting. Second, the contract must specify an arbiter. This arbiter will have sole power over the amount in escrow and will judge in disagreements. If the security firm cheats its customer, the arbiter will decide, and the victim will be compensated.”
+
+The people, as always, listened to Chilon. The security firm that was in league with the thief found it no longer had any customers and went out of business. The operators were doomed to poverty, as no one wanted to have anything to do with such corrupt individuals. Soon, thanks to the power of escrow and arbitrage, security firms generally found fraud to be much more expensive than honest labor.
+
+The thief, however, was still set on his wicked ways. He realized the linchpin in the system was now in the arbiters.
+
+However, after paying the arbiter to decide a case in his favor, the arbiter discovered that people could no longer trust him. His client base disappeared, and suddenly, he too was starving in the streets like the corrupt security firm operators.
+
+The thief then decided that since he could not rob the people directly because of their security firms, and he could not corrupt the security firms because of escrow and arbitrage, and he could not corrupt the arbiters because their reputation and the fairness of their decisions were inherent to their business, that the final person to corrupt and manipulate were the people themselves. All he had to do was to work in league with someone to cheat the security firm of its escrow. This involved an elaborate system, as the thief had to fake a loss for the client without putting himself in danger from the security firm, and he had to do it so that the arbiter would decide in favor of the client. He pulled it off, but it wasn’t as easy and profitable as he had hoped. After all, even if the customer had great wealth to protect, and therefore had a large escrow from the security firm, the thief had to make that wealth disappear to convince the arbiter, and as soon as the wealth re-appeared the security firm would be entitled to the escrow. All of this made the thief’s head hurt, but he managed it somehow.
+
+When the security firms spoke with Chilon about the problem, he gave them some curious advice.
+
+“People want your services. But, to be worthy of your services, they must have your trust, just as you must have theirs. Trust is, essentially, everything. If you believe this person has defrauded you, make it known.”
+
+The security firm that was cheated did so, and chose not to protect the cheat. Soon other security firms also chose to decline the cheat’s business. The cheat, though wealthy, could find no one to protect him and his property. Though he could afford to hire men with guns, he could not convince any reputable firms that used escrow to protect him. He therefore had to fear his own security because they did not offer the same level of protection from corruption.
+
+The thief realized this, used his own trick of corrupting guards, and soon the wealthy cheat was no longer wealthy.
+
+Time went on. The people prospered, and grew to be many. People discovered that trust was the grease that made society work. Customers began to trust businesses, but to verify that trust through instruments such as escrow and arbitrage. Arbiters found that they had business only if they were completely open and honest and transparent about their decisions because they were scrutinized by all of their customers, and any breach was met with no mercy by the market. Security firms found that by screening their customers they could avoid fraud. And for the few times they were defrauded they were satisfied with blacklisting customers. Some security firms would specialize in protecting blacklistees, but did so by adding additional costs that were used to verify a customer’s trustworthiness. Indeed, trust became the coin of the land. To give someone trust who had not earned it was seen as equal to giving him property, for trust could be traded for property by cheating.
+
+The thief, ever cunning, noticed how society had become based on trust. As the population grew, he realized that he could exploit trust. All he had to do was to constantly change identities.
+
+The thief began a crooked security firm. Upon discovery, he fled and moved elsewhere in Someplace where he wasn’t known. Then he started a crooked arbitrage firm. And moved again. After doing this several times, the people considered calling Chilon to ask his advice. Then they realized that the solution was simple – if trust is like money, why start by giving people credit? One would not loan money to an unknown person – one should therefore not trust an unknown person or company.
+
+Chilon was pleased that he was left alone to continue drinking his tea rather than dole out free advice.
+
+Soon the thief found that even if he moved and changed the look of his face, no one would patronize his crooked businesses, for no one trusted a business that did not prove itself worthy. New businesses found that it was harder to start a business, but found it was extremely helpful to start a business where they lived such that their personal balance of trust could be used to fund their professional balance of trust. Trust, it seems, acted just like private capital for a sole proprietorship.
+
+As the population grew, other nations marveled at the order and efficiency of the Someplacians. Because everyone was responsible for their own protection, people valued trust all the more highly. Where a person might enter a dangerous business relationship in another nation believing the government would fix fraud through its policing power, the people of Someplacian had no such protection, and so were much more cautious about their business relationships, realizing they alone would pay for their laziness. As businesses discovered how savvy and careful their customers were they began to respect them more. Contracts were simplified because customers demanded to read and understand them. Besides, there was no need for a complicated contract if both parties could agree to specialized arbitrage. In other nations, contracts were overly verbose because language was the only tool that could influence governments, and governments alone decided the meaning of contracts. In Somplace, arbiters could use any means to determine the outcome of contractual dispute. Some used the stars. These arbiters had few customers. Some preferred very long contracts. These spent a great deal of time and money in discussing words. They had few customers. The most successful arbiters found a balance between satisfying businesses, who had large assets to protect, and customers, who had fewer assets and could therefore spend less time and money on arbitrage.
+
+Eventually as the other nations saw the wealth and prosperity of Someplace, they coveted it. Realizing Someplace had no formal government, one particularly agressive state, Angristan, annexed Someplace.
+
+The king of Angristan came to Someplace and spoke to the people.
+
+“You are now my subjects! I will collect a 10% tax of everything you have every year to pay for my glorious reign.”
+
+The people of Someplace laughed, and left. When the king of Angristan sent his tax collectors, he discovered that few of them returned. The ones that did told stories of the people of Someplace, how they spoke very politely, but when the tax collectors tried to take property they were killed. Some were killed by humble farmers, some were killed by elite security firms protecting their clients. Some were successful in taking the property, but had to kill the subject or seriously wound them to be successful.
+
+“Fools!” screamed the king, “it does me no good to have a populace that is dead or wounded. They produce no new taxes that way!”
+
+The kind decided to send his many armies to Someplace.
+
+As the armies traveled to Someplace, the people discussed the situation with Chilon.
+
+“Chilon, our security firms are truly mighty, but we fear that we cannot oppose the might of the king of Angristan.” the people cried.
+
+“My friends. As always, in our land of freedom, you have a choice. None of us can compel any other to do anything, or we are no better than the king. Some of your security firms may leave their escrow and flee, and refuse to protect you. Some of your neighbors may side with the king. Some of you may choose that you would rather be a slave to the king than to die at his hands. These are all choices you can make.”
+
+The people were saddened by his words. They had hoped to save the land that they loved, to save their own freedoms. Many thought that if they all worked together, they could be safe. Many expected Chilon’s wisdom to save them.
+
+When the king of Angristan’s forces landed, they found many things. They found that some security firms were true to their word and fought and died to protect their clients. They found firms that, for money, would actually attack their clients. They found many people of the land who fought with tooth and nail, but fought alone. Some fought in large, voluntary groups. Some surrendered immediately. Some sold their land and property to the forces of Angristan.
+
+In spite of all of this, what they found is that the people of Someplace were <i>inconquerable</i>. The king’s forces could kill them all and keep their stuff, but the value they had seen from so far away was almost entirely found in the people – in what they knew, in what they could do. And when the king’s men attempted to kill the people of Someplace to take what property they could, they found that the people of Someplace would actually destroy their own property to prevent the Angristanis from having it. Those people that did not die in the fighting refused to be slaves, even on pain of death. Even those that were willing to be subjects to the king could not control those who refused. Those that were willing to be subjects either quickly moved back to Angristan, knowing that they could only work with those who were like-minded and they were therefore better off in Angristan, or they were unwilling to be subjects unless watched constantly by the kings’ forces. The people therefore fell into three camps
+1. those that would resist, until death, and were therefore only worth a dead body and whatever property they owned that wasn’t destroyed.
+2. those that would resist until an arbitrary point, and were therefore worth only what they could do while constantly watched by police
+3. those that would not resist and therefore wanted to join the people of Angristan in the first place, and therefore not worth conquering.
+
+There were very few people who fell in to group 3 – any who did and had any money already lived in Angristan. There were more who fell in to group 2, but the cost of constant policing made them worse than slaves. Those in group 1 were the most difficult because they made those in groups 2 and 3 rethink their positions, they cost money and lives with their resisting and even when defeated it was an empty defeat for nothing was really won.
+
+Eventually, the king of Angristan decided it wasn’t worth it and left.
+
+The people of Someplace mourned and rebuilt. While many were sad at their losses, and thought it unfair, they realized that the only way to be compensated was to cause similar misery on the people of Angristan. And the only way to prevent it from happening in the future was to become like the people of Angristan. Willing to do neither, they decided instead to invest more money in developing defenses in the hopes it would protect them in the future. But, if not, they would still be free, and would die free.
+
+More time passed. The people became more sophisticated. Larger and larger businesses were made. The thief decided again to use his cunning to steal from the people. This time he became part of a very large business with great holdings. He reasoned that if he were to buy all of the means of producing food, he could rob the people. He began to buy farms, paying much more than their market value to secure the sale. Miraculously, his business had enough property to buy all of the farms of Someplace. He then told the people of Someplace that they would have to pay 10 times what they normally paid for food. In this way he hoped to come to own everyone and everything in Someplace.
+
+The people went to Chilon.
+
+“Chilon, what shall we do? We must all eat, but he owns all of the means of doing so!”
+
+“Why were you so foolish as to allow a single entity to own all of the means of production?”
+
+“None of us who sold our farms realized everyone was selling their farms. Each thought to get a good deal for themselves only, and so we were all sold into slavery.”
+
+“Does the thief own everything?”
+
+“No, of course not Chilon, if he owned everything what would he have paid us with?”
+
+“As you say. And what do you still own?”
+
+“We have many things, clothing, water, bicycles, books, a leemur..”
+
+“You must have food to live. Have you any food?”
+
+“Yes, some of us have some food. Some, realizing the impending crisis, are developing new ways of making food. Some who were wise and stored food are making a great deal of money on the crisis selling food. But, we fear our production will not catch up to our need before our storage is exhausted.”
+
+“The thief has food. You need food. The thief can glean no value from a large supply of food he cannot eat himself. Indeed, he cannot even harvest the food by himself from the many farms he owns. The value he possesses, like the value all of you posses, is in what he can personally use and in what he can trade. What he can personally use is fixed by the gods. What he can trade is determined by him and by you. He therefore has no more power over you now than he did before – you are simply afraid. Go about your business.”
+
+The people went their way, perplexed. They still had little food, and still needed food, and didn’t see how Chilon’s words would help them.
+
+Time passed. Those who had stockpiled made money in selling food. Those that found new ways to produce made great money, for they could sell at a price less than the thief, but higher than original prices, and profit largely. Furthermore, the people trusted them for they were not trying to manipulate the market. The thief, on the other hand, found that all but the most poor would not trade with him on what he thought were equitable terms. Where he had previously traded a sum of beans for bricks, the brick traders now wanted ten times the amount in beans. Some stood on principle, citing how the thief was trying to cheat them all, so he in turn would be cheated by them. Eventually, however, none had to stand on principle. As the thief kept his prices artificially high, his new competitors were able to sell all of their new food easily. Investors gave them capital, knowing that any new production in food would be highly profitable. The thief still sold some because demand far outstripped supply, but he found that in order to work his land he had to pay his workers more so they could afford food. Otherwise they would starve, not work. He also had to pay the water supplier more to water his lands, as the water supplier could not be in business and not make enough to feed himself. Between the anger of those he needed to trade with to run his business, the higher prices for his workers, and the artificially fierce competition, he realized that he was loosing money. He could either run the farms at a competitive efficiency and price point, or in the long run his competition would win. Even if he continued to buy the competition, the competition realized this and charged higher and higher prices. Eventually he could no longer buy them out.
+
+Time became the thief’s enemy. The more time passed, the more it cost him to keep the prices high. Many people suffered, but he could not come to own all of Someplace through a monopoly, even a monopoly on food, because he still had to trade with people, and people would not trade something for nothing.
+
+The thief eventually gave up. He had wasted money trying to corner a valuable market and discovered that monopolies only work where there is freedom if the monopoly actually has something to offer. Otherwise, people will naturally trade value for value, not value for nothing.
+
+The thief had discovered that:
+
+* he could not steal directly – people used violence to protect themselves.
+* he could not steal through business – people used trust to protect themselves
+* he could not steal through arbitrage, because it was just another business
+* he could not steal through anonymity – people did not trust the anonymous, and did not do business without trust
+* he could not steal through monopoly – people would not trade something for nothing, they expect value for value, and if a monopoly doesn’t provide value, it will be replaced by one that does. Besides, business of that sort cost trust, and people would not do business without trust.
+
+Eventually the thief left Someplace. He moved to Angristan, where he eventually became the head of the central bank there. The people of Someplace continued to grow and prosper, and eventually came to own all of Angristan. Chilon, though still wise, was consulted less and less often as the people had found that as long as they take responsibility for themselves, they can be happy and safe, even if bad things still happened to them.
+
+The End
+
+## Comments
+
+### Dekeken says (2010-11-20 at 9:29pm)
+
+That was a marvelous story!
+
+Why do you suppose the early settlers of the United states, or any of its territories, adopted a social order/mentality like the one in you story? I have a hard time imagining that the founding fathers were out to oppress people or to take their freedom.
+
+### Thales says (2010-11-22 at 3:00pm)
+
+I’m going to assume you meant to say:
+
+> Why do you suppose the early settlers of the United states, or any of its territories, didn’t adopt a social order/mentality like the one in your story?
+
+I think it was due primarily to two things.
+
+First, historically, society is just not done this way. Moving from a monarchy to a rights-based constitutional republic alone was an enormous leap. They deserve credit for what they did accomplish, which was huge. Furthermore, the United States as it exists today is extremely far removed from what the founders established. The people of the U.S. are taxed far more and oppressed far more today than they were under King George III. So, while they didn’t establish an anarchy outright, they did move significantly away from government oppression, which is good, but it’s unsurprising they didn’t go the whole way when they had so much ground to cover.
+
+Second, there are a few key turning points in the story that no civilization has overcome. When the thief first steals, the people, in righteous indignation, want to do something about it. After all, stealing is wrong, and every part of reasonable person is revolted by the idea. It takes extreme restraint to not treat the offender as a child and paternalistically punish. Imagine if the first crime had been murder, rather than theft? Chilon’s arguments, though still sound, would have been many magnitudes harder because 1) the stolen property cannot be returned and 2) the people would no longer fear for their property in the future, but for their very lives. Fear is, by and large, an irrational response to anything. Once you start living by fear, every instinct within you screams for greater and greater violence, because it is only through destruction of the feared that you can return to safety and rationality.
+
+In short, most people respond to anarchy with fear. Oppression may not come from evil people – it may just come from fear. Good people who are afraid can justify oppression. After all, if the good people oppress, they only want to oppress the evil, and oppression of evil is good. Or, so goes the argument.
+
+But, to get back to my point. The reason the founders of the U.S. didn’t set up anarchy is likely because 1) it was far too strange an idea, impossible for anyone but philosophers to imagine and 2) when something scary happens most people respond with fear, not rationality, and oppression satisfies that fear. To my knowledge, no civilization has overcome that. And once precedent is set, it is set.
+
+I’m glad you liked my story :)

thales/content/what-about-abortion.md

@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+Title: What About Abortion?
+Date: 2010-09-20 01:00:00
+Category: Philosophy
+Tags:
+
+I recently encountered [a test](http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/whosebody/) whereby one can have assessed one’s moral stand on abortion. I found the test interesting, mostly because it attempts to shoehorn people, and utterly fails to understand my view on abortion. Here is the analysis it gave of me:
+
+> Your responses during this activity indicate that you should be morally opposed to abortion, but at the same time support a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy if she so chooses.
+> This is consistent with your stated position on abortion, which is that it is never morally justified, but possibly not in the way you expected! It is certainly true that your responses are consistent with the view that abortion has moral costs associated with it.
+> However, your responses also indicate that you think a woman has the right to exercize sovereign control over her own body even if this means allowing her to act in a way that you take to be immoral.
+
+This analysis comes to the right conclusion, but for the wrong reasons. Let me spell it out.
+
+First, a woman has a right to control her body however she wishes. This includes having sex and getting pregnant with whomever she wishes.
+
+Second, a fetus has a right to control his/her body. A fetus also has a right not to have violence initiated against it. This right is inherent to all humans, and begins at the moment of conception.
+
+Can we use those two principles to make a decision on abortion?
+
+Aboslutely.
+
+A woman may have an abortion by refusing to donate access to her body to a third party (the fetus). A woman may not have an abortion by doing violence against the fetus. If a woman can find a way to obtain an abortion through withholding aid, and not by acting against, the fetus, she may do so.
+
+This is, of course, speaking from a strictly legal sense. As to whether or not a woman should take care of her unborn child, you’d have to ask the gods about that.

thales/content/what-is-a-deficit.md

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+Title: What is a Deficit?
+Date: 2010-10-10 01:00:00
+Category: Ask Thales
+Tags:
+
+Dollar Bill writes:
+
+> Dear Thales,
+> 
+> Every year for many years the United States has had a deficit. Is this because we lack resources; and if so are the lack of resources caused by restriction to resources or is our population larger than the carrying capacity of the land. Or, are all the resources sequestered among the rich and that is why our government and the majority of Americans are so far in debt. Or is it something different all together.
+
+Thank you for your question. I will attempt to answer it directly.
+
+Do we have a deficit because we lack resources? No.
+
+Are all of the resources sequestered among the rich? No.
+
+The deficit exists because the government can enact violence against other people, and the government likes to spend money. Let’s take away either one of these desires and see what happens.
+
+If the government could no longer enact violence against people, some alternative currency such as the [Liberty Dollar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar) could not be prevented from circulating. The Liberty dollar would be inherently sound because it is directly linked to some hard commodity – gold. This means that additional Liberty Dollars could not be printed at will. Because the amount of currency is fixed, there would be no inflation beyond the amount of new metal mined from the earth. The government, therefore, could only spend the amount of money it currently held, or the amount someone with money was willing to lend it. This doesn’t destroy deficits – government could spend money it doesn’t have on loan – but it would put a maximum cap on the amount of deficit spending. The cap would be the maximum credit extended to the government based on its trustworthiness. If the government defaulted the creditors would seize its assets, just like any other creditor. The government, without it’s monopoly on violence, would be subject to this seizure.
+
+If, on the other hand, the government had no disposition to spend money it would have no reason to want a deficit. The Amish have no credit cards.
+
+As things currently stand, the government wishes to spend money. A great deal of money. This is because 1) the people in government like to spend money as an exercise of power and to their own benefit and 2) the people in government can use money to remain in government. The government can force people to use its currency. The government can then debase that currency to spend money it doesn’t have. The people the government preys upon are forced to continue using the debased currency. If domestic creditors don’t like it, they can be violently made to change their minds. The same can be done for foreign creditors, in so far as the government has a large enough military to cow other nations.
+
+This brings up a fascinating question, one which no politician, to my knowledge, has ever answered. Why is the government in debt to anyone? Currently, the government wishes to spend 100$. It then goes to some entity with the 100$ and borrows it (the Japanese, the Federal Reserve, etc), promising to pay interest. It then spends the money. It then taxes the citizenry and pays the debt over time, along with interest.
+
+There is no reason for this. The government can print money.
+
+Why doesn’t the government just go to a printing press, print 100$ and then spend it? Over the next several years it could then tax its people and burn the money, returning the currency to the same state it was at before the inflation. This incurs no interest.
+
+That is the answer – the government doesn’t do this because it doesn’t incur interest. To whom does the government currently pay interest?
+
+The Federal Reserve.
+
+The Federal Reserve was created by, is run by, and pays dividends to a cabal of extremely wealthy people. Those people wish the government to pay it interest. With the system the way it is now, all people within the country have taxes taken from them at some percentage of their output. Those taxes then go to service interest, at some percentage annually, which amounts to a tax on tax by the extremely wealthy.
+
+You are a sharecropper to the monied.
+
+Thanks to fiat currency.
+
+So what is a deficit? It is a way for those with an unimaginable amount of wealth to amass more wealth by exploiting the uninformed. A deficit exists only to pay interest.

thales/content/what-separates-man-from-animals.md

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+Title: What Separates Man from Animals?
+Date: 2010-12-14 14:27:00
+Category: Ask Thales
+Tags:
+
+Cote writes:
+
+> Please settle an argument for me. What separates man from animals? My friend says it’s our superior brain. My clergyman says it is our soul. I say it is utilities.
+
+Thank you for your question. Generally when people ask this question they are selling something. Your friend probably thinks he’s very intelligent, your clergyman wants you to buy his keen spiritual advice. The answer is: who cares? What difference does it make if man is different from animals? What makes butterflies different from salamanders? I’m sure you could think of plenty of things, as could I, but the differences really aren’t germane to justifying a particular choice.
+
+For example, let’s say that there is absolutely no difference between man and animals. You still have a right to torture and eat animals, because you allow other animals the same right. You still can go to church, because you’re not going to stop some animal from going to church because it has no soul.
+
+In other words, we allow animals a free pass to do anything they want because they’re animals. Therefore, the question about differences cannot be used to allow man to do something, as we allow animals to do anything they’d like.
+
+The question must then be related to limiting the behavior of man – ie, man has a soul, and therefore shouldn’t eat animals. Of course, as soon as you talk about should and shouldn’t you’re asserting a host of other questionable factors in life like the existence of a perfect moral judge or objective measure of ethical behavior, blah blah blah. In the end, these things have nothing to do with the difference between man and animals – they are simply a means of leading you fallaciously to a logical conclusion. You believe you are different from animals, therefore you are inclined to agree with their initial premise, which is based on the difference between man and animals. You are then suddenly led to the conclusion that you should limit your behavior in some way based on your difference from animals. It’s manipulation, and it annoys me. There is no objective measure of difference that leads one to conclude any limits on mans behavior. That is because anything that man is not inherently capable of does not effect what he is allowed to do – the fact that I don’t have wings doesn’t mean I shouldn’t fly, it only means I don’t have wings.
+
+To reiterate: I don’t care what the difference is, and neither should you. If you need a reason not to boil bunnies alive realize that it’s annoying to your neighbors when they scream – forget all the nonsense about you being better than them. If a bunny had a large pot and some water, it’d boil you alive. Just be glad you’re bigger and smarter.

thales/content/who-is-the-state-protecting.md

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+Title: Who is the State Protecting?
+Date: 2010-10-06 16:42:00
+Category: Philosophy
+Tags:
+
+Rothbard writes:
+
+> What the State fears above all, of course, is any fundamental threat to its own power and its own existence. The death of a State can come about in two major ways: (a) through conquest by another State, or (b) through revolutionary overthrow by its own subjects – in short, by war or revolution. War and revolution, as the two basic threats, invariably arouse in the State rulers their maximum efforts and maximum propaganda among the people. As stated above, any way must always be used to mobilize the people to come to the State’s defense in the belief that they are defending themselves. The fallacy of the idea becomes evident when conscription is wielded against those who refuse to “defend” themselves and are, therefore, forced into joining the State’s military band: needless to add, no “defense” is permitted them against this act of “their own” State.
+> 
+> In war, State power is pushed to its ultimate, and, under the slogans of “defense” and “emergency,” it can impose a tyranny upon the public such as might be openly resisted in time of peace. War thus provides many benefits to a State, and indeed every modern war has brought to the warring peoples a permanent legacy of increased State burdens upon society. War, moreover, provides to a State tempting opportunities for conquest of land areas over which it may exercise its monopoly of force. Randolph Bourne was certainly correct when he wrote that “war is the health of the State,” but to any particular State a war may spell either health or grave injury.[35](http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard62.html#[35])
+> 
+> We may test the hypothesis that the State is largely interested in protecting itself rather than its subjects by asking: which category of crimes does the State pursue and punish most intensely – those against private citizens or those against itself? The gravest crimes in the State’s lexicon are almost invariably not invasions of private person or property, but dangers to its own contentment, for example, treason, desertion of a soldier to the enemy, failure to register for the draft, subversion and subversive conspiracy, assassination of rulers and such economic crimes against the State as counterfeiting its money or evasion of its income tax. Or compare the degree of zeal devoted to pursuing the man who assaults a policeman, with the attention that the State pays to the assault of an ordinary citizen. Yet, curiously, the State’s openly assigned priority to its own defense against the public strikes few people as inconsistent with its presumed raison d’être.[36](http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard62.html#[36])
+
+Most people, if asked, would tell me that the primary purpose of the state is to protect its citizens. To this end it creates an army, a police force, tax men and politicians. The army kills foreign threats, the police eliminate domestic threats, the tax men fund the whole operation and the politicians administer it. However, like any entity that is run by biology, government is self-interested first. One could even make the argument that it is the first and only priority. After all, government exists by parasitically extracting taxes from its citizenry. It must protect the citizenry to protect its own parasitic interests. But, we’ll just take the argument of protecting itself first.
+
+This means that given a choice between destroying you and destroying itself, the government chooses you.
+
+If you like the government, or are terrified by anarchy, you may at this point grasp at something with which you can avoid this conclusion.
+
+I know that the government is self interested first because if the amount of tax it levies on a given citizen is more than the citizen can bear, the government doesn’t just let the citizen be. It imprisons them, seizes assets, etc. If a citizen of the government defends himself from the army abroad, the army kills him, regardless of the reason for his defense. If a citizen ‘resists arrest’, his charges are multiplied and he is imprisoned. If a citizen exercises his own innate sovereignty and declares that no politician can make rules for him, he is imprisoned for subversion, label a traitor, etc and imprisoned or killed. In other words, any resistance to any branch of government elicits the use of destructive force. There is no sufficient excuse in any of these scenarios to avoid the consequences. Resistance to government is met with violence. Always.
+
+This means I can even amend my previous statement. Given a choice between destroying you and losing some source of income or power or facing resistance, the government will choose to destroy you.
+
+The choice doesn’t even have to be between you and it. It can just be between you and its own interests.
+
+Next time you hear someone make the argument that the government exists to protect its citizens, ask why it doesn’t follow something more like [Asimov’s Laws of Robotics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics):
+
+1. A government may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
+1. A government must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
+1. A government must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
+
+Such a construction of government actually embodies a government that is designed to serve its citizenry rather than be its master. However, no one actually thinks government should embody these principles. Why? Because government exists to help man deal with its greatest predator: other men. Mankind generally wants a government that acts as master, meting out punishment like some kind of authoritarian patriarch, because men are afraid of their brothers.
+
+When men learn to no longer be afraid, they will no longer feel they need a government. Then men will stop using government as a mask to attack those they fear.
+
+## Comments
+
+### Kallie says (2010-10-07 at 3:15pm)
+
+Hello Thales,
+
+If there is no government:
+
+1. someone breaks into my house, steals my money and kills my family. What is the punishment for that person?
+1. I sell my car to someone, they are able to take my car, then decide they don’t want to pay me. How do I recover either my car or the money that was promised to me?
+1. You (generally, not you Thales personally) and I enter into a contract. I complete my side of the agreement (maybe work or something) and you do not complete your side. What is my recourse?
+
+### Thales says (2010-10-08 at 5:40pm)
+
+That’s a good question, and I’ll address it in my next post.

thales/content/why-doesnt-thales-vote.md

@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+Title: Why Doesn't Thales Vote?
+Date: 2010-11-01 18:38:00
+Category: Ask Thales
+Tags: 
+
+Herman writes:
+
+Thales, you’ve mentioned before that you don’t vote. Could you explain why? There are elections coming up…
+
+Yes Herman, I will explain why. Many of my arguments will come from [a discussion between Lew Rockwell and Doug Casey](http://www.lewrockwell.com/casey/casey62.1.html). Just so you know.
+
+There are several reasons not to vote. I will try to enumerate them, in order or relevance.
+
+*1) I do not condone a system of violent coercion*
+
+All democracies that I know of use violent coercion. They all demand taxes, and if you don’t pay, they forcibly take away you and your things. I believe that is morally wrong – people should only be treated as slaves if they willingly choose to be slaves. The fact that you were born in a particular place doesn’t give anyone the right to demand taxes from you. If you vote in the system, you support the system. I will not support such an immoral system.
+
+*2) Electing an official is not the same as a representative*
+
+Many people believe the fallacy that a governmental official represents them, because they voted for the official. Here is a question: if you vote for an official, and the official does something you find reprehensible, such as voting for legalized abortion or initiating war, can you revoke your vote? No. You cannot. You can vote differently in the future. But, the official is not your representative, and you therefore do not have unilateral authority to remove their status once the official no longer serves your interests. When I hire a lawyer, or a plumber, or any other professional, the moment that professional no longer does what I wish I can fire them. I may continue to have contractual obligations, but their stint as my agent can stop at any moment I choose. Governmental officials are not representatives or agents. They do not represent you. They represent themselves. They simply use your name to perform acts of coercion.
+
+*3) I do not believe in mob rule*
+
+Democracy itself is just systematic mob rule. Whatever the majority wants, it can do. I do not believe democracy is a good way to run a society. I therefore, do not participate in democracies. I will, however, participate in Republics, provided they are properly formulated.
+
+*4) I do not choose between the lesser of two evils*
+
+The vast majority of voters will tell you they vote for whichever candidate is closest to what they want, or is ‘least bad’. When given the choice between two evils, I choose neither. If you were forced to choose between drowning a baby and murdering a puppy, which would you choose? Choose neither – they can force your body, but no one can take your freedom to choose. Evil is still evil, even if it is lesser evil. Don’t choose evil.
+
+*5) I prefer the avoidance of waste, in both time and energy*
+
+Voting requires me to spend time waiting in line, filling out forms, and seeking approval. First, I do not stoop to beg approval of a government that claims to represent me. It’s nonsensical – if you derive your authority from me, I do not need to seek your approval for anything. Second, I am putting forth effort to make government work with no recompense for my time and energy. I either work for myself and my own pleasure, or I work for some kind of exchange in goods or services. I do not work for free. I am not a slave.
+
+Some people will have some criticisms of my position. They will say I have no right to complain about anything if I do not vote. That is akin to saying I have no right to complain about someone drowning babies or murdering puppies if I refuse to choose between the two options. One always has the right to complain – or to refuse to hear the complaints of others.
+
+Some people will say that I have a duty to ensure good governance by voting for the best governor. I would reply that our government cannot be good until it no longer coerces others, let alone the other complaints I outline above. The actual person working for an unethical system cannot be good, for a good person would refuse to help an evil system.
+
+Some people will point out that if everyone refused to vote we would still be stuck with the same evil system because we must vote to change it. I would reply that if everyone refused to vote and participate in government, the government would vanish, and then we could set about organizing ourselves properly. Even if we can’t achieve the extreme – 100% acting as I do – the more people who refuse to legitimize government, the more rediculous the government’s arguments will be in its own favor. Government only exists because so many are convinced that it must.