Various Writings of Jeremiah Dyke

Charity and The IRS

2011-12-10T12:20:00.001-08:00

The most common red flag for IRS auditing (behind home office deductions) is charitable giving. The IRS keeps stats on the average charity to income ratios. Anyone who gives excessively in relation to their income (what we would deem a true giver) is at greater risk of being audited. Consumers know this and must waste time and energy proving that they did in fact give to charity in such a quantity. Many hedge against this risk by contributing less as a function of their income. Thus, the IRS not only decreases charity by taxation they decrease charity by the threat of auditing. Go IRS!

Ideas: Coffee Producers Should Place Scent Adds In Magazines

2011-12-09T06:20:00.000-08:00

Most fragrant producers learned long ago that adding a sample within the glue of a magazine add helped produce sales, but why haven't coffee producers tried it?

Block Claiming That It's Governments Fault We Can't Predict The Weather

2011-11-20T12:03:00.000-08:00

Though, what i think Block means here is that without governmental interference science would be closer to truths, I'm not sure he words this correctly. The way in which it's worded one would think that without government the sky is the limit in prediction markets. I invite you to contrast the reasoning to the knowledge problem outlined by Hayek. Weather, and other nonlinear dynamic conditions pose great problems for prediction, especially is one operates from the view that a good prediction is gauged by an outcome that is close to mark. But, as we know, in nonlinear systems small errors grow exponentially as you increase your time horizon.

It may be true that weather, as other systems, are deterministic but this does not imply that they may be determined. Making statements such as, "if one were to have access to all information of location and movement, etc, than the future, like the past, would be like the present...predictable" may be helpful for thought experiments, but this does nothing for the predictor. Unfortunately, though fortunately is probably a better word, there is always uncertainty (noise) within an measurement. In spite of this we can factor in chaos for our models.

Of course, Block would have to stipulate what he means by "weather prediction". Certainly if we limit the time frame to the next five minutes an ignoramus could predict the weather. But if Block were to mean better than now, he may be either right or wrong (see below). Longterm atmospheric modeling cannot make longterm predictions unless these predictions are extremely general. For example, we will receive snow in 2050. We know that any time series will contain randomness.

Absolute Property Rights (Unedited & Unfinished)

2011-11-20T12:02:00.001-08:00

The purpose of this paper is to explore absolute property rights within the realm of ownership and action. Many individuals speak about libertarian property rights as being absolute, but it has been my experience that when taken to the extreme many advocates turn against their original stance and argue for some form of relative property rights. Let me pose a scenario so that the reader knows what I mean. If I ask a libertarian should we be allowed to murder someone who trespasses on their property, I will likely be met with the answer no. The reason for this will depend on the sophistication of the individual, but their arguments normally amount to something of the nature of,

"Your rights end where another's rights begin"

"The punishment does not fit the crime, i.e. it is not proportional"

"Said actions are themselves a crime because..."

"The criminal loses his rights to the extent that he deprives another of his rights"

"Murder is only justified when..."

Although I sympathize with each of the objections listed above and would agree that trespassing, alone, does not merit the taking of another's life. We must, at least, note that said restrictions are limitations built in to our property rights. We would have to say, at the very least, that someones rights to property are relative, not absolute. If someone disagrees with this than they must prove that such underpinnings are not limitations at all. They must show that in cases like murder as punishment for trespassing is not within the limits of someones property decision.

Shaffer Argues that,

"All property rights are absolute: some person or persons must exercise ultimate control over things to be owned. The only question relates to the identity of such parties, an inquiry that was as relevant on the early American frontier as it was in the Soviet Union. If we were to identify all of the persons entitled to exercise some degree of control over a given parcel or item of property, and if the interests of all those persons could be purchased by one person, that buyer would, by definition, be entitled to do anything regarding that property, including destroying it, because there would be no other party entitled to exercise control over it.... Every property is, by definition, subject to the absolute and unrestricted control of someone. This is what is implicit in a “claim of ownership.” Of course, this absolute authority need not be in just one person. An owner might convey his or her ownership interest to a husband and wife, or business partners who, as new owners, would then exercise joint control over some item of property. But the point is that some person— or persons—must have the final word regarding what is to be done with any given property interest. This is why the ultimate test of ownership comes down to the question: who can decide, without having to get the permission of another, to destroy this property?"

In the scenario we outlined above, who owns the right to fire the bullet?

Let us pause for a second and readjust our scenario. Let us remove the individual who is shot and ask if the property owner may shoot his gun in his direction of choosing. If no, why?

One particular reason may reside in some form of community ordinance that doesn't allow guns or loud noise within the community. In such an event, the property owner relinquished his rights to fire his gun once he choose to reside in the community. In such a scenario the right to fire guns was not sold (rented) to the individual purchaser of the property. The property owner legitimately knew upon choosing to reside in this particular community what limitations were placed upon their property. There is no conflict regarding this situation.

Another reason for not allowing someone to fire their gun may include the owners home insurance policy on gun ownership and discharge. It may be possible that an individuals home insurance does not allow the homeowner own guns for whatever reason they note (It may be that their statistical evidence points to home owners who own guns are more likely to be sued or more likely to use lethal force instead of resolving minor disputes, thus causing property damage). Although such a policy is hard to imagine, the scenario is mean to serve as a description only.A more likely example would be a insurance company who does not allow candles or the storage of flammable objects. Either way, in such a scenario the property owner agrees to relinquish their rights to own and discharge guns by agreeing to employee their insurance agency.

Banks whom the property was financed though may have their own stipulations about guns. In such a case, the property owner is agreeing to forfeit some of their rights by financing through this particular institution.

All of the above situations are legitimate reasons for restricting someones rights to their property. However, what if none of these cases apply to our property owner. How is it that one might argue for restricting someones rights to shoot a trespasser?

Just like the examples above, it may be that the property owners private protection agency limits the use of capital punishment to strict requirements; for example, to use capital punishment you must be able to prove that you were in immediate danger. The need for such a clause may be to limit external conflicts between competing private protection agencies. In such a situation, if the property owner violates the clause set forth by their protection agency, the protection agency may refuse future services and the property owner may be left alone when dealing with the third party protection agency (or private court) of the now dead trespasser. Again, in such a scenario the property owner is expected restrict their rights to property in exchange for the protection offered by private protection firms.

However, if there is no third party contract for the rights to shoot a trespasser where would such restrictions reside?

Some would argue that the shooting of a trespasser is a violation of the trespassers rights and that all rights to property end where anthers begin. Yet, this is confusing. Why would someones rights to property end where another's begin in the case of trespassing? Clearly, there is a property violation here. A trespasser, by definition, has no right to the property which they reside and yet we are to believe that they still own their right to body while trespassing? Either one of two reasons must be true here. First, a persons right to their body is higher in the property hierarchy then rights to other property or second, two individuals may have duel ownership of the same piece of property. I would argue both are wrong.

It may be true that rights to property is meaningless without rights to body, but this does not imply that the rights you have within your body are more important than my rights to my property. The trespasser forfeits their right to body when the engage in trespass (or there is some form of ownership duality which we will discuss below). This, alone, may not suffice for capital punishment but it does serve the purpose of waging all property the same.

Quote from Hoppe...

Two individuals may have separate claims over the same property in question. That is, two or more individuals may share a property interest in the same piece of property but they may not share duel ownership of the same claim (This line of reasoning may be objectionable, but it is not within the scope of this paper to elaborate. ). If this is true, than it must be settled who, the trespasser or the original owner has the right to control the property under question. Anyone who sides with the trespasser in that they may not be shot must either believe that the trespasser is now the actual owner of the property to which they trespass (meaning they may not be shot) or that both are equal owners of the same property--what we describe as illogical.

So where does this leave us? Is that it? Can any property owner simply kill any would-be trespasser at will? There is one ore aspect of ownership that must be addressed before we answer this. Shaffer claims,

"...the essence of ownership is found not in certificates of title, sales receipts, or recorded documents; but in the socially recognized authority to exercise control over an item of property i.e. to direct what will or will not be done with it. "

That is to say, our answer to the original question will heavily depend on the culture of the environment to which the action occurs. It may be that for a local community of private property, gun-right, extremists capital punishment for the violation of trespassing is tolerated. It may be that in other communities such actions are met with boycott and outcry. Nevertheless, it holds, that such repercussions are possible for any action. Certain religious communities may choose to boycott local homosexuals. Such repercussions may limit homosexual acts, but this does not itself make homosexuality illegal or impossible.

If the individual fires a gun and misses their target leading the bullet to stray onto someone else's property, the owner may be responsible for property damage or, at a minimum, responsible for littering. Either way, a direct result of the individual firing their gun and missing the target is some form of property violation.

Notes On Order

2011-11-14T11:38:00.000-08:00

"This is meant to stress that the probability of our experiencing orderliness is a function of the store of configurations worked out in our minds. A lognormal distribution[2] may seem orderly to a mathematician but to no one else.http://mises.org/daily/5680/Order-vs-Organization

A scientist may be thought of as having access to a great store of patterns into which he delves to find one that will fit the facts he seeks to integrate into a theory.

In terms of our orchard example, the progress of science depends upon the ability of the mind to move away from the simplest type A arrangements to the conception of more intricate shapes. One of these shapes will bear a great likeness to the B arrangement which actually occurs. This is an achievement of science. On the other hand, tidying-up activities consist in moving objects from B configurations, which just occur, toward type A arrangements which are recognized as orderly and therefore desirable.

Our pleasure is then bound up with the assent we grant to existing proportions. But an arrangement may be "rational" in quite another sense: if the proportions between factors are suitable to produce the result at which the arrangement is aimed. We thus find two distinct meanings of "rationality": subjective enjoyment of proportions, and objective adequacy of proportions to the purpose of the arrangement.

While he is on a holiday, a well-meaning daughter decides to tidy up and aligns the volumes according to format and alphabetical order. Having wrought, she feels that "it looks better now"; and so it does, but a working arrangement has been destroyed in the name of seemliness. No doubt, the previous arrangement was imperfect and could have been reformed to serve the author's purpose even better. But such an improvement would have been based on a considered judgment of the operator thinking out his process, or by someone else capable of seeing the problem from the operative angle — an "operator-judgment." The reform effected by the daughter was not "operator-based," if I may so express it.

A mind concerned with this purpose, well aware of the process, dwells upon the operational arrangement and finds that it might be made more effective by certain alterations. We shall call a judgment passed from this angle an O-judgment to denote that the arrangement is appreciated from the operational standpoint. O-judgments are the principle of all technical progress made by mankind. Quite different in kind is the judgment passed upon the same arrangement of factors by a mind that regards it without any intensive interest in or awareness of the process. Such a judgment is then passed as it were from an external, extra-processive standpoint. We shall call it an S-judgment (S for sightseer).

Be it noted that the greatest scientists who have mastered prodigious complexities are apt to come out with the most naive views on social problems, for example. Their minds are taking a holiday, reverting to the effortless and invalid judgment of seemliness.

Voluntary Slavery & the Non-Aggression Principle (unedited)

2011-11-13T08:56:00.000-08:00

Voluntary Slavery & the Non-Aggression Principle

The purpose of this article is the question may a voluntary slave be forced to remain in slavery if their initial desire to be enslaved were to change? Before we delve into this paper let us first justify the importance of the topic and then offer reader a scenario. To the libertarian, the essence of all social order rests on the concept of property rights to which ownership of oneself is essential. Yet, what are the limits of bodily ownership? Does ownership end with the epidermis of your skin, or the tip of your hair shaft? What do you own, when you claim you own your body? What portions of your body, if any, may you abandon or trade? If you may trade off some portion of your body, may you trade all of it? It is the author’s opinion that many of the questions are embedded within the question of voluntary slavery. Yet, why would anyone wish to voluntarily enslave themselves? Let us call upon Blocks’ scenario.

“You are a rich man who has long desired to have me as a slave, to order about as you will, even to kill me for disobedience or on the basis of any other whim which may occur to you. My child has now fallen ill with a dread disease. Fortunately, there is a cure. Unfortunately, it will cost one million dollars, and I, a poor man, do not have such funds at my disposal. Fortunately, you are willing to pay me this amount if I sign myself over to you as a slave, which I am very willing to do since my child’s life is vastly more important to me than my own liberty, or even my own life.” Walter Block TOWARD A LIBERTARIAN THEORY OF INALIENABILITY: A CRITIQUE OF ROTHBARD, BARNETT, SMITH, KINSELLA, GORDON, AND EPSTEIN http://mises.org/journals/jls/17_2/17_2_3.pdf

Therefore, although other libertarians have condemned this topic as being miniscule within the broader scope of libertarian issues this author believes the question is still of importance.

Few libertarians would object, per se, to an adult committing themselves to the obedience of another adult for the infinitude of their lifetime given that most libertarians uphold the rights of individuals to make their own judgments. Although libertarians may not agree with such decisions, it is not within their privileges to prevent it. The conflict only surfaces when an individual decides that they no longer wish to be enslaved by another individual after formerly agreeing to it. Does the slave owner have any recourse? Objections to voluntary slavery take a couple different forms: promises are not binding; the “will” is not alienable and thus not contractible, it cannot be upheld without violating the non-aggression principle. Of the three reasons listed above we will only tackle the latter “it cannot be upheld without violating the non-aggression principle”. It is the authors opinion that if the last may be upheld the former two are deemed irrelevant.

Within any market for voluntary slavery it would be considered common knowledge that at some point in time the said voluntary slave may change his mind and decide to go back on any such original agreement. Thus, no would-be slave-owning company or individual would commit resources to acquiring such a slave without first asking what recourse do they have if/when the slave changes their mind. Clearly in a free society built on non aggression principle, no reputable court system would uphold any recourse that violated this principle. Yet, what does it mean to uphold the non-aggression principle in light of voluntary slavery, or better, what would it mean to violate it? For this I call upon a quote from a personal dialog with Stephan Kinsella

“Let’s be clear: to justify voluntary slavery means you have to justify the use of force by a would-be "master" against a would-be "slave", if the slave tries to run away or changes his mind or disobeys an order. The libertarian thinks use of violence against another person's body is unjustified aggression, unless it is (a) consented to, or (b) in response to aggression.”

Although I don’t particularly like this line of reasoning since it tends to implicitly hold rights to bodily-property above other tangible property as well as that the fact that I’m not convinced aggression, threat, intent, and proportionality should strictly be left to courts to establish. I will thus attempt to build my argument to fit within (b), that is, “the use of violence against another person's body is unjustified aggression, unless it is in response to aggression”.

Others would argue that the breaking of a promise is not, itself, aggressive. Thus, if a slave changes his mind about being a slave he has only engaged in changing his mind not, itself, an act of aggression. It may be true that directly changing ones mind is not aggressive, but I’m not sure we can say that it is cannot be within the chain of causality of an aggressive act. Let’s say you promise to hold a grenade without a pin, later only to change your mind and release it. Breaking promises may not be aggression, but surely you can’t deny the potential for aggression within this scenario.

Let me now attempt to pose some (of many) possible scenarios that could ensure an individual remains a voluntary slave without actually aggressing against the individual. Let us imagine a fenced in camp where individuals who agree to be volunteer slaves work. From here we may ask, if the slave doesn’t perform the duties asked of them must they still be fed. Who should enforce the feeding of this slave? If the slave attempts to leave, who must be forced to open the door? What if the door is sealed and cannot possibly be opened without tearing the walls down? What if the camp is not actually owned by the slave owner, but is instead rented? There is no need to carry on with the infinite amount scenarios that could be listed. Let us call these scenarios contingencies. These contingencies are built-in recourse for the slave owner. The volunteer slave is fully aware of these contingencies before the volunteer enslaves themselves. Clearly there is nothing aggressive about the existence of such camps or such contingencies. Maybe you could argue that they are immoral, but this is a matter of taste.

Once this, likely, scenario is built, it is the job of those in opposition to voluntary slavery to prove that some rights violation has been committed. To do this one must be willing to argue for the enforcement of positive obligations. Kinsella has argued this. If you push someone in the water you are under a positive obligation to save them or be charged with murder. But, I ask Kinsella this, where in our scenario listed above is the “push”? Where is the initial act of aggression that would require any positive obligation?

With this in mind, let me pose another possible remedy for the voluntary slavery argument. As mentioned above, the issue of voluntary slavery only becomes apparent when the slave no longer wishes to be a slave. Yet, how does this slave make such a decision apparent to the slave owner? They may stop following orders; they may attempt to run away, they may declare they no longer wish to be a slave. Yet, all of these scenarios could be accounted for in slave owners contingencies. Let us contemplate a slave contract with built in clauses that create a collection of double speak to which the slave agrees when voluntarily entering into a slave contract. Let us call this clause the, “yes means no clause”. When I declare I no longer wish to be a slave, I am only reaffirming my desire to be a slave. When I try to escape, I’m merely testing the potential for others to enter my compound. When I cease to follow orders, I’m actually asking to be motivated via a whip. We can understand why a slave owner would embed a complex version of the “yes means no clause” since it amounts to the equivalent of a loaded question. If the slave stops working, they wish to be motivated to work, otherwise they continue to work. Either way, the slave is working.

If such a concept is too nonsensical let us then imagine the infinite amount of other contingencies for the slave owner. Maybe the slave owner employees only guards who speak Russian, while the slaves speak English. Maybe the slave owner requires that all his slaves have their tongues removed via an initial voluntary operation so that they may not declare anything. Maybe the slave owner requires their slaves voluntarily chain themselves to a 200 pound ball so that they may not run away, etc, etc.

In all, within any 100% ownership society, any individual who owns no physical property to stand-on (like the volunteer slave) must, by definition, have another owner’s permission to even subsist. These individuals must exchange or persuade another land owner to allow them to trespass upon their land. Finally, like the bar owner who only allows individuals to sit at the bar if they are ordering drinks such land owners may require whatever they deem of these individuals.

In all, this paper was an attempt to bypass the arguments raised against volunteer slavery. It is the author’s opinion that if you may donate or sell a portion of your body, then you can donate or sell all of it, but this was not the purpose of the paper.

Praxeological Self-help: Goal Setting

2011-11-11T16:01:00.000-08:00

Praxeological Self-help: Goal Setting

Praxeology, i.e. the study of human action offers as much self-help as any best seller on the market. Praxeology forces man to examine himself and his actions. If forces him to study his means as well as his ends and more importantly to distinguish his means from his ends. Individuals too often are unwilling to engage in the self-criticism of their means. They either become offended by criticizing passages and ignore them, or immediately outsource such criticism to someone else in their lives, never actually internalizing the message toward self improvement.

But what truly can be gained by distinguishing means from ends? The answer to this question has both an obvious and a not-so-obvious element. Mises says

"To express wishes and hopes and to announce planned action may be

forms of action in so far as they aim in themselves at the realization of a

certain purpose. But they must not be confused with the actions to which

they refer. They are not identical with the actions they announce, recommend,

or reject."--Human Action Scholars Edition p36.

Maybe an example would serve. If a man says that his goal is to one day have one million dollars, what has he actually relayed? His goals? His wishes? His desires or self-ambitions? Maybe. We truly don't know what another's goals, wishes, desires or self-ambitions are. But what we do know is that this individual preferred relaying this message to you over preferring not to. We know, by definition, that preferences are revealed by actions and this man prefers telling us that "his goal is to one day have one million dollars". We truly know nothing more. It could be that this man just likes talking about nonsensical things; or things that he never actually plans to pursue. Maybe he enjoys idle chatter. Maybe he enjoys the responses he receives. Maybe such pipe-dreams are therapeutic mechanisms, like that of the overweight person who in-defiantly waits for next Monday. We don't know!

We only know what a man truly prefers by his actions, and the only action our subject has engaged in is the action of telling us his goal is to one day have one million dollars. How often do we see this? Take a moment to reflect how many individuals in our lives (including ourselves) who have demonstrated their preference for talking about what actions they prefer as opposed to those who have demonstrated their wishes via their actions.

Thus, foremost, the study of human action forces us to place our actions under microscope. We can no longer judge our desires and goals separate from the realm of our actions. There may be many internal reasons which motivate a man to act, but it is precisely his actions, as such, that, in collequal speech, make him a man; and it is his actions, as such, that must be studied.

"The field of our science is human action, not the psychological events which result in an action. The theme of psychology is the internal events that result or can result in a definite action. The theme of praxeology is action as such."--Human Action Scholars Edition page 36.

Action is about choice. Each action involves both a taking and a giving. The giving is simply what we call the opportunity cost of the taking, the foregone decision that accompanies each choice. Even with the last breath of a mans body he must choose; even if such a choice is to reflect upon the bad times of ones life as opposed to the good. In life we must choose and with each choice we act. With this in mind, let us return to our scenario involving the man who claims that his goal is to one day have one million dollars. To analyze the value of this statement we must ask what was the individuals opportunity cost of making it? What has he actually foregone in order to make this statement? As we expected, not much. Much of our talk is cheap. In the language of economists we might say that such talk of future action (like our opinions) are cheap signals. They are cheap because they don't involve the renunciation of anything valuable. We may may decelerations willingly without no regard to their outcome.

One day I'm going to loose weight, one day I'm going to write a book, one day...

Let us contrast this idle speech to the man who wakes early an exercises, who foregos the fires for the salad, who sets aside 30 minutes to write.

Too often an individual believes they are working toward a goal only later to realize that they are just as far from their goal as when they started. In our attempt to curve spending we rush to the bookstore to buy a personal finance book. In our attempt to loose weight we open a gym membership. In an attempt to increase our knowledge, we browse amazon. But none of actions are actions toward our original goal and this realization is precisely what Mises means when he says

"What counts is a man’s total behavior, and not his talk about planned but not realized acts."Human Action Scholars Edition page

Where does this leave us? What are the right actions? What are the actions that we should take toward are ends? It is this question I believe to be the first step toward the realization of our goals and it is this question which I have little to offer the reader. The reader must ask themselves what is actionable? What is immediately within their reach? What means within your lives can you immediately manipulate toward your stated goals.Where in your day do you have idle time? Where in your diet can you cut calories? Where in your budget can you cut spending? Make it a habit of asking yourself, are you engaging in the action of 'talking about action', or are you actually acting?

19 “proposed” Tough Questions For Libertarians:

2011-11-08T18:19:00.001-08:00

19 “proposed” Tough Questions For Libertarians: A Follow Up To Stefan Molyneux Video

Stephan Molyneux, from freedomainradio, offers a great video in response to some of John Steward’s questions to Juge Napolitano during their exchange weeks past. I thought The Judge did a great job engaging Steward but, like Stephan, I believe these questions deserve a little more attention.

1. Is government the antithesis of liberty?

Not really. As Molyneux mentions in his talk, libertarians are against the use of initial force and governments' are simply a means of initial force. For as much as libertarians argue against governments, let us not forget that a government is not itself an evil. In fact, a government is not even an entity; it is simply a minority of the population with the most guns. Some have become so amassed in government-hate speech that they forgot who they truly hate--those who wish to control our liberties!

2. One of the things that enhances freedoms are roads. Infrastructure enhances freedom. A social safety net enhances freedom.

Let us rephrase this. If someone steals your money, your freedom is enhanced, granting that they use said money to pay for roads, infrastructure or big guns? Wrong! The fallacy here is of course that if the government doesn't build it, it won’t be built. Why is this the case? Clearly there is a desire to transport goods, services, and people via roads, ships, trains, bridges, etc and thus clearly there is an incentive for individuals to provide such services. There is nothing special about these sectors that would justify the invasion of our wallets. Markets, without government decree, would provide such services and individuals would, or would not, pay for them. The key point is that individuals should be limited to paying for roads and infrastructure that directly benefit them.

3. What should we do with the losers that are picked by the free market?

Who is this "we"? How did "we" become a topic for debate? This is what irritates me about modern day liberals and conservatives. How is voting with other people’s money chartable? How can you force charity without engaging in hypocrisy? The question is not "what should we do" it is "what should I do". You want to engage in business mentoring, financial charity, persuading others to give, or whatever other "good" cause that tickles your fancy, then feel free to do it, just stop patting yourself on the back for voting with other people’s money.

Do we live in a society or don't we? Are we a collective? Everybody's success is predicated on the hard work of all of us; nobody gets there on their own. Why should it be that the people who lose are hung out to dry? For a group that doesn't believe in evolution, it's awfully Darwinian.

Molyneux is right-on in pointing out the stupidity of comparing evolution and free markets. It is simply engaging in pseudo-intellectual scientific babble. Anyone that cheers this either knows nothing of evolution, nothing of free markets or both. Free markets are the ultimate form of representative democracy. You vote with your dollars on the products you wish to be provided with and opt out of those products you deem unworthy. This of course in no way paints a picture of voting equality (some have more money than others), but said inequality is much more a function of evolution than free markets. In a free market you cannot collect others dollar-votes unless you provide them with something they value more than their dollar. And by definition, if someone engages in a trade they, demonstrated by their actions, value what they receive above what they exchange. Evolution doesn’t “pick” winners and losers, whatever that means. Evolution is simply “decent with modification”.

In a representative democracy, we are the government. We have work to do, and we have a business to run, and we have children to raise. We elect you as our representatives to look after our interests within a democratic system.

What is this silly "we are the government nonsense"? I would encourage anyone who believes this to read No Treason by Lysander Spooner.

"In the very nature of things, the act of voting could bind nobody but the actual voters...As we can have no legal knowledge as to who votes from choice, and who from the necessity thus forced upon him, we can have no legal knowledge, as to any particular individual, that he voted from choice; or, consequently, that by voting, he consented, or pledged himself, to support the government. Legally speaking, therefore, the act of voting utterly fails to pledge ANY ONE to support the government. It utterly fails to prove that the government rests upon the voluntary support of anybody. On general principles of law and reason, it cannot be said that the government has any voluntary supporters at all, until it can be distinctly shown who its voluntary supporters are." --No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority by Lysander Spooner

Is government inherently evil?

Governments do not exist! Societies do not exist! People exist! We must purge ourselves from this sloppy thinking if we wish to approach the real issue. Anyone engaging in initial force against someone, or their property, is engaging in evil. There is nothing inherent about it. Individuals make choices. Some individuals, either under the banner of "government" or "thief", either under the cause of "greater good" or "self indulgence", must make choices as to either acquire another's property by exchange or initial force. If you choose the latter, you are evil!

Sometimes to protect the greater liberty you have to do things like form an army, or gather a group together to build a wall or levy.

Yes, because "sometimes you must go to war to ensure peace". Silly! There are no bounds to justifying force under this reasoning. You need only convince yourself that every evil act you engage in is for some cosmic greater "good", greater "liberty", greater "ethic", greater "god", etc.

As soon as you've built an army, you've now said that the government isn't always inherently evil because we need it to help us sometimes, so now.. it's that old joke: Would you sleep with me for a million dollars? How about a dollar? -Who do you think I am?- We already decided who you are, now we're just negotiating.

If said army or police force is built by voluntary cooperation and exchange then no evil has been committed. We aren't negotiating how evil theft is on a small scale vs. a large scale, just like you wouldn't negotiate how evil a small amount of rape or murder is in comparison to a large amount.

You say: government which governs least governments best. But [what of] the Articles of Confederation. We tried that for eight years, it didn't work, and went to the Constitution.

Only if you define "didn't work" as a limitation on initial force. I will happily exchange our current system of aggression any day for the Articles of Confederation.

You give money to the IRS because you think they're gonna hire a bunch of people, that if your house catches on fire, will come there with water.

Yes, because no one would have any desire nor inclination to put out fires without public run fire departments. Hell, we might not even know to stop, drop, and roll without government programs right? Individuals would simply remain stupefied in shock while on fire. Silly! Privately run fire departments would have much more of an incentive and desire to save your family and your family’s home than any public fire department. In fact, it would be within their interest to make sure homes who contract with their agency have built in protections such as: sprinkler systems, fire extinguishers, etc. Private fire departments may even offer guarantees to their customers to be at their home within a specified amount of time or all damage incurred will be paid by their company. Out of competition, fire departments may offer a family whose house was destroyed by a fire up to 60 days of free rent while they sort out the specifics with their insurance company. Individuals could purchase the bare minimum fire protection for strict emergencies or could purchase more expensive fire proof guarantees. Mortgage lenders would likely require homeowners to have basic fire insurance and even those without fire insurance may still receive emergency service for a high fee. Nevertheless, you pay the IRS agent because if you do not, they will seize your possessions and place you in jail.

Why is it that libertarians trust a corporation, in certain matters, more than they trust representatives that are accountable to voters? The idea that I would give up my liberty to an insurance company, as opposed to my representative, seems insane.

Sidestepping if corporations are actually legal entities under the opinions of libertarians, the answer to the question is simply competition. Companies whose services or products don't deliver what they promise (what we call trust) will be punished in the market place. They may even receive lawsuits for their incompetence or fraud. When was the last time someone sued the congressmen? What recourse does the consumer have against the broken promises offered to them by congress? What's insane is Steward's view that greed, self-interest, self-preservation or simply love of ones self is limited to market places only. As Milton Friedman once asked Phil Donahue:

"Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest ? ... Just tell me where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us?."

Why is it that with competition, we have such difficulty with our health care system? ..and there are choices within the educational system.

It baffles me how some look to our health care system as a beacon for free markets. We limit the supply of doctors, limit the supply of medical schools, limit the supply of hospitals. Require excess education to inject a needle, administer a drug, hang an IV or offer a medical opinion. Why? To keep wages high). We place massive restrictions on any health care professionals emigrating to the U.S. from elsewhere, force insurance companies to insure, force pharmaceutical companies to pass through bounds of expensive red-tape and all around just regulate, regulate, regulate! Our health care system is a shameful display of bureaucracy but has somehow become a poster-boy for free markets.

Would you go back to 1890?

What a stupid question.

If we didn't have government, we'd all be in hovercrafts, and nobody would have cancer, and broccoli would be ice-cream?

Well, if we didn't have free markets we wouldn't have crafts that fly or choices to purchase broccoli or ice cream at our local grocery store, and more would die from cancer. But, to indulge in this stupidity, it's true that without regulation we would be closer to curing cancer, closer to offering affordable personal aircraft and we surely can offer broccoli flavored ice cream!

Unregulated markets have been tried. The 80’s and the 90’s were the robber baron age. These regulations didn't come out of an interest in restricting liberty. What they did is come out of an interest in helping those that had been victimized by a system that they couldn't fight back against.

How can free markets be tried if government expanded throughout the 80's and the 90's? Regan out socialized communism, nobody read Bush Sr’s. lips about new taxes and Clinton, well...Clinton may have been more free market than Bush Jr., but that doesn't say a lot.

Why do you think workers that worked in the mines unionized?

Because they wanted better working conditions. No libertarian is against voluntary unionization. We are against striking workers beating up scabs, blocking gates, trespassing on property they don't own under the assumption that they own their jobs.

Without the government there are no labor unions, because they would be smashed by Pinkerton agencies or people hired, or even sometimes the government.

Without government, unions would be left to engage in voluntary interaction. They would be forced to peacefully negotiate for higher wages and better working conditions. Yet, better pay and working conditions are not simply a function of labor unions. Companies must bid up wages and better working conditions to attract more productive workers; this alone has put more air conditioners in office buildings and warehouses than any union.

Would the free market have desegregated restaurants in the South, or would the free market have done away with miscegenation, if it had been allowed to? Would Martin Luther King have been less effective than the free market? Those laws sprung up out of a majority sense of, in that time, that blacks should not. The free market there would not have supported integrated lunch counters.

Was miscegenation produced by free markets? Was slavery produced by free markets? Sidestepping this, who are you or anyone else to decide who may enter someone’s home or restaurant? What gives you the right to force integration? If someone’s wishes to engage in racist, religious, or cultural bigotry, then it is their right. But let us not forget that the market has built in mechanisms against this. If some business wishes to engage in said bigotry then they must be willing to forfeit profit and turn down more productive workers. They must be willing to pay for their racism! And clearly, in the world of competition, other businesses would be willing to steal such profits and productive workers from these people.

Government is necessary but must be held accountable for its decisions.

This is equivalent to saying "force" is necessary but must be held accountable for its decisions. Force is not necessary, governments are not necessary!

Multiple Ownership of The Decision Making Process

2011-11-06T17:01:00.000-08:00

"All property rights are absolute: some person or persons must exercise ultimate control over things to be owned. The only question relates to the identity of such parties, an inquiry that was as relevant on the early American frontier as it was in the Soviet Union. If we were to identify all of the persons entitled to exercise some degree of control over a given parcel or item of property, and if the interests of all those persons could be purchased by one person, that buyer would, by definition, be entitled to do anything regarding that property, including destroying it, because there would be no other party entitled to exercise control over it.... Every property is, by definition, subject to the absolute and unrestricted control of someone. This is what is implicit in a “claim of ownership.” Of course, this absolute authority need not be in just one person. An owner might convey his or her ownership interest to a husband and wife, or business partners who, as new owners, would then exercise joint control over some item of property. But the point is that some person— or persons—must have the final word regarding what is to be done with any given property interest. This is why the ultimate test of ownership comes down to the question: who can decide, without having to get the permission of another, to destroy this property?"--Butler Shaffer

I find this passage interesting. It can thus be said that multiple ownership of a piece of property is problematic but multiple ownership in the decision making process of the same piece of property can be fully operational.

The Barter Gum Ball Machine

2011-11-01T00:32:00.000-07:00

Imagine the barter gum ball machine. You stick in a gum ball and receive a mint!

Purposeful non-action

2011-11-01T00:13:00.001-07:00

Purposeful non-action: Human Action is irrefutable. It is axiomatically true. To disprove it, one must act and thus by definition prove that humans act.... Now, what if your proof that humans do not act is simply to engage in nothing but impulse or thus to engage in completely unconscious behavior. Would't you still, inevitable prove that humans act by "choosing" to engage in unconscious behavior? Didn't you just engage in purposeful non-action?

What is explicit?

2011-10-16T07:27:00.001-07:00

Words can not be anything but implicit since they can only be defined by words. Thus, what is explicit? Hoppe makes the argument that “It would be aggression if a person…[forced themselves on]…another persons body without having this person’s explicit consent”

What constitutes as explicit consent?

I would argue that action is the only thing explicit. People who act must choose and, by definition, a person’s action must have been the choice with the greatest benefit (least cost). Preferences are demonstrated through action and action is therefore explicit. Now question becomes, if action is defined as purposeful (mises) and impulses are not action, then are impulses explicit?

What Is Not Fraud

2011-10-08T14:38:00.000-07:00

Robert Ardrey, in his book “The Social Contract: A Personal Inquiry into the Evolutionary Sources of Order and Disorder” makes the claim that lying is not simply a function of the complexity of language but that fraud exists everywhere in nature. Here are some examples, paraphrased, he offers from his book

1) Some of the most outrageous liars in the natural world are found among species of orchid. An Australian orchid names Cryptosylia [offers]…a perfect imitation of the smell of the female of a species of fly. The scent, acts as an aphrodisiac on the male. He is drawn to the flower. There he encounters as part of the orchid’s structure a perfect imitation of the female’s abdomen…in his efforts to copulate with the orchid he is dusted with pollen.

2) There are deep-sea fish prowling dark depths with lanterns on their snouts. Smaller fish are attracted to the light and promptly eaten.

3) The Ceylon snake resembling a viper with a brightly colored tail-tip which can be wriggled like a worm; lizards have been observed biting the tail and immediately being struck by the fangs at the other end of the living trap.

4) The Madagascar snake has a weird structure on its head resembling a finger that slowly moves as it approaches its victim

Not all wonders of natural fraud are on the property of villains.

5)The tropical fish Chactodon has spots resembling eyes on either side of its tail. It swims slowly backwards…but when a predator strikes at it, the fish is off at high speed.

Yet, are these natural scenarios really worthy of the term fraud? Can the term fraud even be extended beyond ones own species? As Butler Shafer points out, rights, property, boundaries are normally defined via the relationship of like species and thus, likewise, in this case, fraud should only be considered within the framework of like species. Yet, sidestepping this definition, let us grant Ardrey the possibility that fraud is not limited to like species. Let us consider the cases mentioned above.

1) That the male fly believes it is copulating with a willing female fly but is instead simply being dusted with Cryptosylia pollen is not fraud. It is simply mistaken intention. At which point did the male fly reserve a right, a claim, to a female fly simply by means of scent? At which point was force or theft of property initiated in this false copulation? Are we even certain that such counterfeit is not mutually beneficial?

2) That smaller fish are attracted to light and a larger fish posses such light is of no concern. Unless the author is claiming that property has been violated by the eating of another species there is no fraud in possessing light just as there is no fraud in a larger species possessing superior strength or speed. There are no rules, such as those used in a bass fishing tournament, that limit devices used for hunting. The same could be said of scenarios 3, 4, and 5.

Unfinished Musings On Property As both Temporal and Spatial

2011-10-01T19:40:00.000-07:00

Property is both temporal and spatial. You cannot have a conflict of property unless two or more individuals claim ownership of both the same position at the same time? Without this, there can be no conflict. Let us imagine a conflict without temporal order. Can you imagine a situation where you claim ownership of a chair at

Let's examine two people claim ownership of a chair of two different spatial positions. It is surly possible that an individuals may own two separate chairs that reside in two different spatial positions. It's not however possible for there to be a property violation unless both parties claim the same spatial position. This is hard to both imagine and explain without rambling.

It may be argued that an individual sitting in one chair but claiming ownership to both is not a conflict within the same spatial position. Yet, it is. The owner of both chairs is claiming ownership of both a single spatial positions that two chairs happen to reside within. The area of ownership is simply larger.

It may be argued that the owner of the chairs is not claiming ownership of the actual ground which the chair resides but instead the actual chair. The problem then becomes, is the second individual claiming ownership of ground which the chair resides? If so, then the conflict is redefined as one over land, not chairs. In this case, either the true owner must either give preference or remain impartial. If he remains impartial, then it would default to first come first serve. Why?

It may be argued that someone can continuously own something over an interval of time and therefore it is hard to distinguish an actual unit of time for two people to have a conflict, i.e. two individuals have a conflict over an interval of time. This is true, but it doesn't negate our premise. The interval of time in which a conflict occurs is the unit of temporal order.

It may be argued that I may own something without actually residing within the position of ownership. Again, this is true but not a problem. It may be true that i can own two chairs and not sit in either of them and there is still a conflict of ownership when you sit in them. I need not claim use the way in which you claim use. I may enjoy the chair untouched and a decoration while you wish to sit in it. Therefore, there can still be a spatial conflict even if I am not wishing to use the chair the way you wish to use it. Thus, since i own the chair over a continuos amount of time, any segment of that interval you claim ownership (even use) is thus a conflict.

What would duel ownership outside a spatial and temporal order look like? It is intelligible. If i sold you a product, you and I cannot both claim ownership to same product even if it resides in the same position at two different times. I would claim to the product before the transaction and the money after the transaction, you, vice versa. These two variations in time don't allow for a conflict. We will bypass a potential fraud for now

If we both have claims of two spatial positions then there again can be no legitimate conflict then our issue would look something like. Let us not forget that there may always be issues with knowledge, but there can be no inconsistency in our premise.

A thought experiment/possiblility

Given the claim that property conflict cannot occur unless two or more individuals claim equal ownership of both a position and time we cannot proceed to infer that every duel claim of position and time will result in a conflict. To claim ownership of something implies that you are willing to defend your claim, even if said defense is nothing more than verbally expressing your complaint. Without both parties proceeding to defend their actions, no conflict may occur. If I own a chair that someone sits on when I'm not around cannot be a property violation until i claim there is one and take action to prevent or control it. The problem with this line of reasoning is apparent. If someone steals from me, even if I don't know who the thief is, is clearly a property violation. However, if someone steals something that I didn't know, or had forgotten I knew, I owned, there is not property violation. This happens often. I have many pens in my home to which I know not where they came from. I too know of pens I've purchased that are not within my home. I'm not sure a property conflict is suitable here but I can see the confusion. Again, if someone is murdered., they can't proceed to prevent or control their murder after the fact that they are murdered. Yet, murder is clearly a property violation. But who is it a violation to? Most would say the murdered but I'm not too sure. Maybe it is a violation to other...creditors, insurance payers, family, etc?

There seems to be a paradox here, granting that my thoughts are not muddled.
Per Hoppe, two individuals cannot claim duel ownership of some thing at the same moment in time (Even under something a unusual as conjoined twins to which W. Block and I will demonstrate in a forthcoming paper). Yet a property conflict cannot exist unless two individuals claim ownership of the same thing at the same time.
Thus, ownership of the same position at the same point in time cannot exist (Hoppe), yet, conflict cannot exist except when two or more individuals do claim ownership of some position within the same point in time.

If one individual claims

Individual 1 Individual 2

Spatial 1 Time 1 Spatial 2 Time 2

Spatial 2 Time 2 Spatial 1 Time 1

S1T1S1T1

S1T1S1T2

S1T1S2T2

S1T1S2T1

S2T1S1T1

S2T2S1T1

S1T2S1T1

The reason why Hoppe's claim must be true is simply within the definition. There is no scenario which can il-legitimize it because we can define any scenario at any moment in time as having only one owner. If a partnership were to form and two individuals had a dispute over what to do with a certain property. Even in a partnership where the details are not defined, ownership is simply divided in the profits and divided when the property is sold. The actual property itself is subject to whoever molds it at a certain point in time, if two individuals pull horse in opposite directions, then it can be said that ownership is divided into the parts each has their hand on. To prove that Hoppe's theory incorrect you must be able to show that at any point in time, theft could not occur.

Who am I?...Advice For The Me Of 23

2011-09-25T17:35:00.001-07:00

Who am I? No One. In my early 20’s I fell in love with academics, or at least the surface of academics; the conversations, the coffee shop philosophy, the competitive rush of an argument, the minutia. I loved books. I bought them to read, I bought them to be seen, I bought them for others to see me read. I loved heroes of thought. I wanted to be them, to write like them. I wanted their quirks, their idiosyncrasies, their eccentric gifts. I wanted others to view me like I viewed them. I fell in love with ideas. I frequented debate forums to promote them, to argue them, to parrot them. I blogged. My paragraphs were purple, overflowing with “thus” fluff. I became a creativity addict. Caffeine was no longer a stimulant but a requirement. Nicotine was no longer a stimulant, but a requirement. My mg’s increased but my output remained. Conversation became comical. Others invest so little thought into the things that spew from their mouth. Everything…everyone… became cliché. I realized we were playing a stupid game that neither of us were good at. We were engaged in intellectual dress up and “stupid” cannot be veiled by expensive ink or larger vocabulary. My mind was too linear, my arguments too curvy, my analogies bad. I argued with Latin…As I read more, I knew less. Academics became less fun. I began telling myself I was lazy because I didn’t read the five 400 page books I checked out at the local library. I read more than you, but never enough. My bar was always high. I became more reserved in my opinions in order to hide my ignorance. I began adding disclaimers to all my arguments so as not to be held accountable to anything I said. I began transitioning from “I’m surrounded by idiots”, to “I and all rest are idiots”, to “I’m an idiot”. I made excuses for why I didn’t read more, write more, learn more, retain more, think more…academics became a chore. I began obsessively googling myself to no avail. I began obsessing about my age, feeling the pressure to lower it so to escape the feeling of academic disappointment. In desperation I wrote some good articles and some bad books. I retired from the forums, argued less with other. I stopped believing. I stopped caring.

Who am I? No one. Who are those you think you want to be? Someone? Who are you?

Levels of Theism/Atheism

2011-05-31T13:00:00.001-07:00

Levels of Theism/Atheism

I once had the inclination--rightly, at the time, I considered it courageous-- to watch a debate between two atheists and two theologians in front of an Islamic crowd separated into sections of men and women. At the time I found myself cringing at the points being made by the two atheists and cheering away at the one-liners and sound bite logic of the two theologians. One particular point that I cheered was addressing a point made by the atheist speaker as to how he is expected to believe in a god, when theists cannot even choose which god. The theologian returned the point, demanding for him to show me multiple atheists that believe in the same atheism. Though I applauded the point at that time, latter I thought of how silly I was to applaud such inconsistency in logic. To be united under the banner of atheism IS to be united under one belief (or nonbelief in this scenario) as there is no grey area, you either believe or you do not. The conflict is of course what is implied by such a stance. Theism begs the question of what god do you believe in? Atheism, however, is not riddled with the same questions; no one asks what god do you not believe in.

Given this, there are things implied in atheism. And as Dawkins has pointed out, there may even be levels of your theism ranging (according to him) in seven levels from hardcore, i know there is a god, theism to hardcore, i know there is no god, atheism. I'm not sure of my opinion on Dawkins' levels of theism, yet i do tend to separate the question of theism into three branches.

1) The Argument For A God

2) The Argument For A Particular God

3) The Argument For Worship of A Particular God

Argument number 1 is the question of whether the universe, life, etc could have arisen by natural causes or whether some form of intervention was needed. The argument need not be for something divine like a good god. Intervention could have come from something out of a fable or Hollywood screenplay. The point of the question is whether or not intervention was needed to have a universe or life within a universe. This is the question that i place the least amount of faith in my capacity to answer. I tend to subscribe to naturalistic causes, but would be kidding myself to act surprised to the contrary. My answer is simply that i am unsure, and i am happy with such an answer. Our minds run on 'cause-and-effect' software and therefore i am capable of assigning all types of potential scenarios, nevertheless, it is not my duty to reveal the initial cause. On the contrary it is the causer, i.e. the interventionists', role to make itself known to me (that is, if they wish to be acknowledged for their work). If the interventionist decided to play the role of the anonymous charitable giver, than he or she should not fret when the wheels of or mind begin assigning the wrong causes. There are two particular objections that i will address here: the objection that the interventionist did make itself known in the past and the objection that "we" are the proof of its intervention. To the first question i would simply reargue, as other have, that any deity who claims authority by making their presence known to semi-stupified desert people and tribal leaders throughout the past ages is either sloppy or incompetent. I can not be held responsible for my skepticism if evidence is to be so sloppily delivered. Is it too much to ask such a god-type to visit us today, to hold a public announcement or speak with the community to somehow demonstrate its superiorness? Alas, if the causer wishes to be known, then burden of proof falls upon the cause to make itself known. I certainly cannot prove that something does not, not-exist. But that supposed "something" can certainly prove to me that it does exist. I'm not asking for parlor tricks from our conjurer, but to stop hiding among outdated textbooks written by confused and superstitious cavemen.

To the second objection that we are, in fact, proof i.e. the DNA within our genome is proof enough that there is a designer/interventionist i would simply state that I am unimpressed. Such argument falls victim to the fact that it is only one of many possible scenarios, each of unequal probability. That i am complex and alive is not sufficient proof for anything. There is much complex life in this world (dare i say universe), there is complex non-life, there is noncomplex life, there is noncomplex non-life. All of this is subject to a lowest common denominator of proof. I am one, of many,possible outcomes. That i am typing this essay on a mac computer located in a specific longitude & latitude and period of time is just as much the outcome of complexity as the undiscovered science of the beginnings of life, time and space. The why and how is incalculable for anyone not willing to reach into their bag of religious magic. I, for one, cannot settle for such a mental path of least resistance and thank god (whatever that means) that the scientific community cannot either. Science is a process of rolling up ones sleeves and working, not of settling for comfy, undemanding, conclusions. I am in no rush to fill our void of knowledge.

Argument For A Particular God: Will finish in time

Argument For Worship of A Particular God: This is the easiest of all levels of theism/atheism for myself. I absolutely, positively, unconditionally, unequivocally, beyond a shadow of a doubt, do NOT believe in a god worth worshiping. In fact, the very definition of a god seeking, much less demanding, to be worshiped is sufficient reason to not worship it. There is nothing lacking within this definition. It's subjectivity is perfectly rational and concrete; it cannot be wrong because it's not subject to anything other than my own judgment. I refuse to worship anything powerful enough to be called a god but callous and arrogant enough to want to be worshiped.

Posing a Question

2011-05-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

It is without a doubt that the majority of Americans and govermental warriors suffer from what can only be described as Enemy Deprivation Syndrome, but I pose this challange. Name one government, country, religion, nationality or ethnic group who has not at one point in time been "our enemy"?

Owning the Rights to Pi

2011-04-27T17:40:00.001-07:00

Owning the Rights to Pi

Pi Day, March 14^th, is a cute way we math instructors celebrate the great irrational giant pi. Most instructors celebrate by simply wearing a pi button or greeting their coworkers in “Happy Pi Day”. Other, more creative math enthusiasts engage in neat arts and crafts. One particularly creative individual, Michael Blake, decided to make a cute song based on pi.

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/14/134492882/how-to-transform-the-number-pi-into-a-song

His approach? He decided the song would be in C, then assigned each note a number: C=1, D=2 and so on up through 9. Using those assignments, he played the sequence of pi: 3.14159 through 31 decimal places. He assigned numbers to chords, too, but could only play the chords every other note and still make it sound vaguely musical.

Finally, he used pi as the basis for the tempo — it's 157 beats per minute, which is half of 314. He played this part on several instruments, as you can see in the video above, and layered them to make a song. The result isn't exactly catchy, but it's certainly melodic.

The song quickly became a viral youtube hit but until it was pulled from the site for copyright infringement; it seems that you can own pi?

Sadly, Lars Erickson, in embodying the arrogance that is intellectual property, decided that the concept of pi-music was his idea based on a pi-melody he wrote 20 years prior stating

“"I am not interested in suppressing the melody of Pi, or copyrighting the number, Pi. I simply filed a copyright on the melody when I devoted a considerable amount of time writing the Pi Symphony. I have spoken to Michael Blake and his actions of removing comments referring to Pi Symphony was what spurred me to action. Heck, I am sure we can work this out, but right now, 1:59 is right around the corner, so how about a momentary cease fire."”

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110315/16203013514/copyrighting-pi-composer-pretends-only-he-can-write-song-based-pi.shtml

When bad knowledge spreads on the internet

2011-04-26T21:43:00.001-07:00

When bad knowledge spreads. Follow my analogy here, let's say you pose the question "what is the volume of the oceans" in a forum, chatroom, or elsewhere on the web and it receives one response, but let us say that one response is wrong. Within an hour the post is buried in piles of other posts and simply forgotten in virtual cyberspace. Later you pull up the discussion to see what the answer is and you notice that there is only one response. You instantly place weight on this answer because you believe it to be right--otherwise someone would have offered a correction. The only way around this is to offer a verified option that allows another individual to verify the response. Now, at least, you have two opinions claiming the answer is correct. Questions without such verification need to be accepted with general skepticism

Science and Social Science & Math

2011-04-24T09:01:00.000-07:00

I like math, i like economics; but i don't like math in my economics
Hard science models allows for an estimated uncertainty based on the limitations of the measurements. Measuring the width of a board with a centimeter ruler yields a estimated uncertainty of about plus or minus 1mm. All is well with our measurement because we can estimate the percentage of uncertainty. But, measuring some type of social variable too claims an estimated uncertainty. The problem is not with the model as much as it is with the estimated uncertainty. We know what is uncertain in the How are we to know what is uncertain in the centimeter example because we know what is certain. We know the length of a centimeter simply because we know that a centimeter is 1/100 of a meter and we know that a meter is defined a the distance light travels in a vacuum during the time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second, and we know that the second is defined as the frequency of radiation emitted by cesium atoms when the pass between two particular states (more specifically as the time required for 9,192,631,770 periods of radiation). Yet, in a social science we survey groups, establish central tendency information and establish estimated uncertainty as if we knew the initial certainty. How do we know if the regression contains a rich array of covariates? We don't. We know little.

Random Blah...

2011-04-22T17:04:00.000-07:00

Evolution is not forsight. It cannot produce based on future events

A fossile must have been buried properly in sediment, turned to rock and avoid destructions and errosion for centuries. Gaps should be the rule!

Is nature a breeder?

A god that needs to intervene and micromanage every moment is likely incompetent

The idea of truth came to play because language has a deceptive function

Hulsman states the cause of pure interest is time preference. Profit is do less to personal error and more to others error

The saver is self-employeed at being frugal, there is a specialization of labor in frugality. He is paid by other spenders who must borrow his money

For the majority of our existence we hunted and gathered when it became more efficient to farm we farmed for food. Now, the only time the majority of us till land is to plant gardens and to smell fresh cut grass

All matter is energy but there is an unequal distribution of energy

I'm not sure if this would be considered an elaborate duh but we live in a universe, say, roughly 156 billion light years wide, of which it's highly possible that the only forms of intelligent life reside on a sphere of minute comparable size. Thus, intelligent life is itself distributed massively unequal, yet, we still must indulge the questions of inequality?

r we having fun, is this intellectual?
The mood has done changed, were high brow
throw in your towl my good god
my god is violence...a coward

The simple fact that we can't tell whose rich and poor give testament to markets

1920 double digit unemployment
1921The recession is over

Some thought about making it a law that the income tax could never go above 10%, but it was simply laughed at that it would ever go that high

The average teacher pays in 62,000 towards their pension, that will likely payout 1.4 million

Smith was very bad @ price theory as well as capital theory

preference are ordinal rankings

Rothbard calls reflective knowledge what we actually know about human action

valuation is not constant, there is no fixed relationship

how do you know that you can't know anything about the world by thinking about it

you need inequality for peace

debt is a way of channeling savings

Since its risky to exchange between two people banks facilitate this via CD's

UFC fighter need bodyguards
Iceland offers historical study of anarchy, but what was the ethnic and religious diversity in iceland

what denomination would the market decide on?

what if you charged interest on the time it took your change to be handed back to you in a store?

a possible reason for quickness of alertness for rebound dreams is to overcome sleep inertia

Books on Property Rights: Property in a humane economy. No land is an island

as your god meant, theres a killen to be made in killing

"paper weigths of old hate cling tight to new testiments of viral tonic bru. We are christs' brood. For christs sake!...and there's still a killen to made from killen

Thoughts on Axioms

2011-04-16T19:36:00.000-07:00

What are the extents of the axiomatic method is a question riddled with complications. How do we even come to know the value of axioms except through axioms? Mises mentions in his Epistmological Problems of Economics that the scientific method, the god of induction, is already rooted in presupposed assumptions. Yet, Mises states elsewhere that a priori statements maybe mere tautological statements, statements that add little to our understanding, but their value is in the fact that they are not revealed to us. Thus, only through experience can we reveal what is argued as the ultimate given. Or, in my own words, the ultimate given is not given...but revealed via our experience and reason. Geometry, with all its proofs is rooted within a few basic, self evident, axioms and postulates. That, “the shortest distance between two points is a straight line”, that “a point is a dimensionless being”, That “two straight lines may only cross once”. These axioms too are annoying to deal with formally. What possible experience could demonstrate a one dimensional line? Our minds cannot even contemplate a length without a width. Any width whatsoever would thus violate our supposed self evident axioms. It is only through reason that we can contemplate the existence of a one dimensional line. Furthermore, the sum of points that connect two points makes up a line, but the summations of infinite dimensionless points yield a one dimensional line? What nonsense is this? The summations of infinite zeros would yield nothing more than zero.

Correlation Between Self-Esteem and Car Acidents

2011-04-12T23:12:00.000-07:00

I we accept that people of high self esteem believe they are truly noticed by others more than most then we should see more car accidents between both vehicles-to-vehicles as with vehicles and pedestrians of those with high self-esteeme than of those with low self-esteeme. Now, this is only true if the belief is false. If, indeed, those with the most self esteem are actually seen more than others than they wouldn't be in as many accidents.

Simply put, those with false self esteem would falsely believe that other cars see them when they don't

New Poetry

2011-04-12T23:04:00.001-07:00

Silly hand, to grasp is not to write.
Even the odd oaf may grasp...
Put doen the pen little opposable thumb, tis not the time

Law Without Law: Market Solutions To Punishment Without State Force

2011-04-05T04:05:00.001-07:00

Law Without Law: Market Solutions To Punishment Without State Force (unedited, work in progress)

There has been much ink spilt over the topic of how law and security would be provided without government intrusion. Yet, there has been far less detail of actual market forces at work.

Argument regarding free market punishment usually digress to a point where someone makes the claim “what if someone simply refuses to abide to their punishment? Won’t there be a need to use force and isn’t said force simply a varied form of the state force?” The key portion missing in this argument is how market forces would respond. Let us paint a scenario of a group of friends who outcast one of their members because they violate some social norm adhered to by the group. The violation may be something as simple as dating an ex girlfriend or boyfriend or relaying secrets to others. In such a system, the violations are nothing more then unwritten laws that posses consequences.

The same is true for all interactions between individuals. There are certain social norms within any system of individuals. A single individual may in fact belong to multiple systems and therefore subscribe to these implicit rules. An individual may be both a father, manager, libertarian, christian, poker player, first basemen and friend. Every role carries with it certain social norms that on must abide by if he is to reframe from being outcasted. You may think of the roles as hats that are worn under certain circumstances. Speaking your feelings on love or family may be considered nonsensical when playing cards with your poker buddies, but ok at family reunions. Likewise, language mat be restricted while at church or within the company of in-laws, but considered normal speech while with your friends. Likewise, just as certain actions are deemed normal in specific situations and company, the opposite is also true for actions in other situations or company. Speaking about your deepest love for yoga and Enya may lead to your poker buddies to stop inviting your to play, or, may lead to being humiliated and ridiculed. Such is the system of social norms; violate the code and pay the consequences. We subscribe to this not because we must, but because choose to.

Such detail is nothing more than an example of market solutions at work.

Let us now speak about other more popular transgresses. How would the market punish violations such as theft, murder, rape or physical assault?

Such a response to this question is not available. Any violation is conditional and dependent on things not revealed to the arm chair theorist. However, given this, i do believe we can offer a snapshot of how a market might respond, yet, before we engage in this we must accept that there are variations to each of the violations mentioned above. Theft for example would carry different consequences depending on the type of theft and who the theft was committed against and even how it was committed. Thus, if someone were to commit a theft a local store, the punishment may be something of the likes of the individual may never shop at the store or any of its affiliates again. It is unlikely that such a small trangression would lead all suppliers from selling to the individual, rather, specific local sellers who share information with each other to minimize theft. The same would probably be true if you were caught scamming a casino. Casinos and its affiliate would probably either bar you from its premise, as well as, other casinos would do the same, but you would probably still be allowed in the city of Las Vegas.

The point to keep in mind is that any shunning or denying interaction/transaction carries with a price. and for most, the price is simply not worth the endeavor.

Let us survey another example. An individual caught stealing from a company they work for would probably find it harder to find employment in the labor market then an otherwise similar individual. In a situation like this it is, within networking companies interest to report such internal theft. However, such an individual would most likely not be denied purchasing the companies products. As you can see, there are degrees to which any company are willing to pursue justice. The same can be said for something like sin. Only a small cluster of religious groups would completely shun an individual who commits a sin, however, depending on the sin, the cluster of groups may increase. It’s possible that anti abortionists may strategically hurt doctors who engage in abortion with restrictions on trade. Here you have a clear case of individuals uniting to punish what they deem in appropriate actions. Notice however that there is no force applied, there is simply the denial of trade or interaction. This is the key difference between the market and the state.

In extreme conditions, we can imagine a large group of society denying interaction to an individual who has committed abysmal crimes. In such scenarios we can imagine a form of capital punishment without force. If an individual commits monstrous acts and refuses to compensate their victims we may see towns, cities or states rallying against and individual. With such a massive movement we can’t imagine an individual refusing restitution for long. In fact, we may see an individual starve to death in their home if denied transportation and exchange of goods.

On motivation & productivity

2011-03-11T14:34:00.000-08:00

On motivation & productivity

I am asked about motivation a lot. Sometimes from point of reference of helping someone find more motivation, sometimes from reference of helping someone direct their motivation or setting goals and sometimes from a condescending, inferior, position of why they don’t need to be motivated or why they don’t complete the tasks they set out to complete. All in the same, for some reason i tend to be a magnet for these questions. This piece is to offer some advice, though in no way does this advice come from someone who is happy with their accomplishments--i have much to do before i can speak from a position of accomplishment.

On substances: Substances feed creativity and increase productivity, but if not consumed in the right way they will simply be used to maintain your status quo. Try to use a substance to take you further than you otherwise could journey without it. Using caffeine to wake up will simply lead to the accomplishment of waking up. Now, if this allows you to wake up earlier than it is worth the endeavor, but if it allows you simply wake up and go to work, etc, than your relying on a substance to reach bar that is set too low. Nicotine is an awesome substance of focus when writing, reading and working, but you should need increased focus after your normal focus has been saturated. You shouldn’t need nicotine simply to develop enough focus to start working. Again, the bar is too low.

Avoiding unproductive conversation

Individuals are never too tired to talk about themselves. There need only be a slight chance of receiving gratification from our problems or accomplishments in order to keep us talking. You can play this game of gratification-send-and-receive with just about anyone at anytime, but is the game itself productive? Surely we all need a daily dose of “look at me”, but how much productivity are we willing to give up in return? My suggestion is to ration this need for self indulgence and actually start producing

When cornered in conversation:

You will find yourself conversing with people that you otherwise wouldn’t converse with if you had the choice. This may be coworkers, family, friends, etc. If you find yourself cornered, than find a way to control the conversation. I have certain go-to topics for people i must chat with. I use these topics to at least make the conversation somewhat productive.

Aggregates of Time

There are so many portions of your day where you can find 60 seconds to escape. For this reason, I’m never without a book, paper and pen. Aggregate these short blocks of productivity over a year and you’ll see the advantages.

Sleep:

I nap and sleep at times i’m the most distracted or the most unproductive. If you enjoy sleeping 8-12 hours a day than you must begin to think of these extra hours as a hobby. In essence, you have a hobby of oversleeping that you routinely engage in for 2-4 hours everyday. Your good at it!

Will add more at a latter point in time...

Ratio of reading to writing:

I don’t know. Here’s what I try to shoot for, “Read until you have something to write...Write until you have nothing to write...when you have nothing to write, read...read until you have something to write...”

To-Do Lists:

They are a perfect tool for a productive day; the problem is of course that they are only used day-to-day, not day-to-week or day-to-month. A six week goal needs to be thought of as a 42 day goal and chopped up in this fashion. I would argue that you truly don’t have a six week goal until it becomes a 42 day goal (though there are exceptions). Speaking about things you want to do 52 weeks from now is idle, unless it is broken in down into smaller chunks. Actually, those who speak about their long-term goals in idle fashion are in reality engaging in a different goal then the one they speak about; they are engaging in the goal of talking about goals.

Inspiration:

Find it, save it, share it, and exploit it! Motivation works great for when you want to exercise, or diet, or engage in some other routine to which you probably don’t truly love engaging in. You shouldn’t need motivation to do your passion. You may need motivation to be better at you passion, but not simply to engage in it. If you need motivation to simply engage in what you believe to be you passion, then your passion probably isn’t your passion

Competition:

You can feel great about yourself by simply lowering your bar of competition, but at some point you must realize that these people aren’t your competition. So who is?

Clustering:

History is written by those who connect the dots, not those who invent the dots. Read widely and expose yourself and your ideas to as many opinions and other ideas as possible. You never know where you might find your catalyst.

Property, Territory, Borders and Wolves

2011-02-26T05:11:00.000-08:00

Abstract:
The purpose of this article is thus to detail property and territorial disputes within the wolf species as well as document the system of order that it yields. Wolves possess a complex system of territory and ownership that exists both within the pack and within pack-to-pack relations. Even within the often categorized pack-hierarchy, subordinate wolves possess levels of territorial ownership that are normally only maintained by their higher ranking pack members.

Introduction:
This author cannot imagine a more poetic way of describing wolves than that put forth by George Schaller, they are, "endlessly absorbing carnivores". Wolves, like their domesticated counterparts, have played a unique role in human history. Of all the land mammals they are the most widely distributed and adaptable. They are tireless, fearless hunters, traveling upwards of 20-30 miles a day, attacking animals multiple times their own size in packs as numerous as forty. In spite of this, and the ruthless conditions wolves must undergo both within and without of the pack, there is a great joy and companionship among them. Wolf spectators have observed wolves in the wild transporting food from their kills to their crippled pack members. Others have observed pack members slowing the pace of their hunts for the sake of the injured. Onlookers have even observed wolves curling up next to their dead pack members in mourning. All of these characteristics make the wolf a favorite among animal enthusiasts. However, for this author and other students of property, the most interesting aspect of the wolf species is the hidden order of territorial rights and respect for boundaries. It is to this aspect that the majority of this essay will be dedicated. Although the ideas presented below have been quoted from a wide range of texts, the majority of the material presented here is credited to David Mech and Luigi Boitanis' great work Wolves: Behavior, Ecology and Coservation. This marvelous text has made the research involved relatively easy, nearly displacing all other material in its quality and quantity. The purpose of this article is thus to detail property and territorial disputes within the wolf species as well as document the system of order that it yields. Wolves possess a complex system of territory and ownership that exists both within the pack and within pack-to-pack relations. Even within the often categorized pack-hierarchy, subordinate wolves possess levels of territorial ownership that are normally only maintained by their higher ranking pack members.

Why Study Territories and Boundaries?
"Those who insist that privately-owned property is nothing more than a fiction created by humans, or the creature of political and legal institutions, would do well to examine the behavior of other life forms. Such an anthropocentric vision expresses a fundamental ignorance of the nature of all living things to occupy and consume resources. Territory is the most fundamental fact of existence. Even plants, trees, and corals stake out and defend individual territorial boundaries. Other species have no known governments or laws and yet maintain a very high degree of respect for the territorial claims established by other members of their species." --Butler Shaffer Boundaries of Order

Borders and territory (what we deem property) are not specific to human interactions, humans, like all animals have specific notions of property, more specifically, what notions are in violation to said property. Border disputes are the essence of all conflict. In fact, it may be argued that conflict may only exist along borders. That is, any conflict may be deconstructed in terms of borders and any level of interaction or conflict may be simplified to a dispute between two or more border claims. Thus, even conflicts as basic as person-to-person aggression can be simplified to disputes among bodily borders (that is, where does the body begin and end). These are the reasons why property must be studied in order to maintain a free society. Furthermore, it is because of these reasons that the topic of a world without boundaries, without claims to property, is absurd. The individual who makes such assertions is, at minimum, acknowledging the human-borders of those to which he is asserting to convince (see argumentation ethics Hans Hoppe). As poetic as it sounds, life is a border. It lives within the bounds of spatial and temporal order, within the borders of the body which can only be preserved by violating the borders of other organic life. To speak about communal ownership is to neglect ownership and to neglect the individual is to neglect life itself. It is for this reason that we are all propertarians in some shape or form.

What is a Border?

Before we speak territorial disputes it must first be noted that when we speak of borders, we are speaking of intra-specie relations and not relations between non-like species. That is, borders are normally only defined vis a vis like species. A wolf defines its territory vis a vis other wolves, not various other competitors. Though true that other competitors, like the bear, may violate a wolf’s boundary, the bear must only be thought of as a factor, an obstacle, to any claim of ownership. For our purposes we may think of the bear as simply an unpredictable, uncontrollable, object, within an otherwise controllable territory. The bear cannot be expected to respect the property of the wolf anymore than the wolf can be expected to respect the property of a squirrel. Again, quoting Shaffer, "a claim of ownership derives its validity from a recognition by others, of the inherent worthiness of an individual to act to sustain himself or herself through negentropic action in the world."

The reason for such a typical restriction on ownership stems from the fact that it is only in relation to like-species that ownership has a purpose. Like-species hold the ability to reproduce and consume in relation, and opposition, to each other, and thus why like-species are each others predominant form of competition for natures limited resources. Furthermore, only like-species have the ability communicate (on some level) their demands and desires to each other—even if such communication is deemed elementary. Each species thus develops a more detailed form of communication in relation to each other as opposed to outsiders. Though it is true that animals may communicate to other non-like animals with similar signs to which they communicate with each other1 (visual, sound, echolocation, body language, and smell), these signs are not always interpreted as they should/could be interpreted within each species due to the evolved system interpreting-equipment predisposed within any system of intra-specie communication. Therefore, even though both intraspecies and interspecies communication mechanisms between animals are viewed as elementary to the observing human, there is a significant difference between them vis a vis each other. Wolves, even if desired, have but limited means of communicating their demands to bears and other species. Likewise, even if a mutually beneficial set of actions were available between the bear and the wolf, such a set of actions would normally only be revealed by random luck.

Wolf Territory

Depending on geographical location, time of year, prey population density, rival competition and other factors, wolves may claim a territory ranging anywhere from 25 to 1000 square miles (the average being between 50 - 100 square miles (Busch). Faced with the inescapable law of scarcity, wolves maintain their existence--their ability to consume and reproduce within the comforts of safety--by staking a claim to land and resources and defending it from all newcomers. Yet, what does it actually mean to say a wolf makes a claim to a territory?

For humans, property is typically defined by what you are willing to defend. To legitimately claim un-owned property, one must “mix their labor with it”. That is, transform it from its nature given state to some state worth defending (there is much to unpack within such a definition as “mix their labor with it”, and many words have attempted to unpack it, for the purposes of this essay, we will simply use the homesteading, in all its vagueness, as a compass). Therefore, “what you are willing to defend” seems like an appropriate definition for territory within the wolf population.

To make-obvious territorial ownership, wolves perform a sequence of both direct means and indirect strategies. The majority of all strategies are indirect, including markings, scratching and howling, however, under specific conditions wolves have been recorded as attacking their neighbors in order to remove a potential threat. Given the energy and bodily costs of conflict, indirect strategies are typically the norm for carnivores seeking to make their boundaries known. Núñez notes that, “For a carnivore, placing marks in its surroundings is important for several important reasons. In this way it can affirm its possession of food or mate resources, delimitate its territory, or indicate its social position or a certain physiological or emotional state.”(Núñez). In the economic and biological game of signaling, we may accept occasional direct attacks as simply a means for solidifying the reality indirect threats, in other words, you may only bark so long before you must bite (otherwise your bark will eventually become disregarded)

Marking Territory

As mentioned above, wolves make their territorial claims obvious to other wolves via a complex system of indirect strategies including urination markings, scratching and howling, as well as a system of occasional direct pack-to-pack attacks

The use of urination markings is divided between various forms of raised leg urinations, squatting urinations and defecation. Raised leg urinations are typically performed by the packs alpha male (and sometimes the alpha female) in an attempt to “maximizes their packs’ advertising power by marking scent posts like logs, sticks, rocks, ice chunks and snow banks" (Mech). In one study of 583 urine leg raises, 99.3% of them were directed at a particular object such as those mentioned above. Furthermore, there are normally twice as many markings around the edges of wolf pack territories as compared to the centers. It is thought that scent marks help to maintain peace between neighbors by outlining each wolves claim to property—equivalent to a crude form of a no trespassing sign.

In the words of Mech, through such a system of markings and defecation, usually about once every 300 yards lasting upward of 2 weeks, the wolves’ territory “becomes dotted with olfactory hot spots". Such hotspots allow wolves to know when they are entering or leaving their lands. In contrast, lone wolfs rarely perform raised leg urinations since they have no boundaries to claim. Such a system becomes a survival tactic for lone wolves as they move in and out of other wolves territory avoiding being tracked.
Yet, as mentioned above, territory markings are only a portion of the wolves’ indirect strategies for maintaining their borders. Markings allow for about two weeks of border signaling before they must be revisited. To compensate for this, wolves also engage in a strategic form of howling. Howling may be heard upwards of 6-10 miles by other packs and serve as both a form of inner-pack communication and determent. In an attempt to sound more numerous and formidable wolves typically will not howl in discord with one another. Mech has noted that due to the discord of a packs’ howl, humans usually miscalculate the number of wolves they believe to be howling by as much as two times. Through such indirect strategies wolves typically operate within a system of boundaries and ownership, but are such boundaries respected?

Pack to Pack Relations

Wolves typically do not permit trespassers within the bounds of their territories and it is not uncommon for packs to fight other packs larger than their own in an attempt to defend their claim to ownership. Yet, in spite of this, wolf territories are often quite stable (Mech). Wolves cannot afford to continuously wage war with their neighbors since each physical dispute leaves the pack vulnerable to injuries (and death) and making them less capable of hunting and defending themselves. Thus, even though the majority of wolves are killed by other wolves, pack-to-pack warfare is normally scarce and limited to chance encounters along the borders2. Thus, for wolves, pack-to-pack wars are not a resourceful use of time and energy. It is because of this noted waste of resources, and the fact that the majority of all disputes take place along the borders, that wolves typically harbor a 1-2 mile buffer zone between pack territories. Within this buffer zone, packs rarely encounter each other (though when there is encounter, there is typically injury and death). This is normally true for areas of well defined territory or even where a claim to territory is small and buffer zones are non existent. In fact, peace is typically still maintained between packs in situations where the two opposing territories overlap (such as wolf relations in north western Canada). All of this should serve as a testament to the respect wolves place on boundaries of territory.

Ownership Among The Pack

Wolves are typically categorized as hierarchal. Their pack, usually 4-7 wolves, is composed of an alpha male and alpha female, as well as subordinate members. The alpha pair are typically the primary breeders, though there has been observations of multiple breeders. The extended family unit, the pack, is the main social system of the wolf. It's structure has been noted for both it's loyalty and cruelty. In addition to the pair of breeding alphas, there is also a pair of betas (second in line for alpha), the remainder of the subordinates, and the omega wolf--usually the subject to much harassment. As noted by Mech, social ranking is usually enforced by a set of body positions and movements, intimidation and harassment. "status quarrels are never a private matter, each member keeps their eye on the quarrel and is constantly looking for an opening to increase their rank" (Mech). For the alpha, dominance is typically shown by posture, growling, biting, showing teeth; they are usually first to hunt, to lead, to mark their territory and to fight. For subordinates, such submission is shown by the folding of ears, peeling back of their lip, licking superior wolves muzzle and under extreme conditions urinating on themselves. Though social rankings move up and down the lupine social ladder as they get older, injured, ill, or form alliances, subordinate wolves may actually solicit responses from more dominate members to reaffirm their status.

In spite of this hierarchal system of dominance and submission there seems to exist a system of borders and ownership even between subordinates and their higher ranking members. This exception was documented first hand by David Mech in his work "The Wolf". The study was performed in St. Paul Zoo in which a pack of wolves were withheld food for 72 hours. At which point in time a small amount of food was placed into the cage. Immediately a submissive wolf grabbed it, carted it off to the corner of a cage and proceed to defend it from all dominant members of the pack. Eventually, the dominant members of the pack reframed from attempting to take the food from the subordinate wolf showing that even subordinate wolves may prevent higher ranking wolves from taking food they already possess. Such exceptions of social status is described by Mech as "...an ownership zone within about one foot of a wolf's mouth in which anything within that zone is beyond disputed".Thus, even subordinate wolves can become dominant over other wolves with respect to the piece of meat. Such an 'ownership zone' demonstrates what economists call an endowment effect, in which a possessor will defend their property above and beyond the amount of energy they would normally expend to gain it. Such dealings could be interpreted as a crude system of property rights among wolves.

Conclusion

Though it may be true that other species have no baring on human property rights or interactions among human borders, i believe that the detail of such property and boundary disputes among other species is interesting in its own right if only to demonstrate that respect for property is not specific to humans, and from the study of property of other species we may draw parallels to our own dealings

-------------------------

1 Ravens and wolves form a pact, the wolves rip open skin and thus they alert each other to food (Busch)

2 Most wolf-to-wolf deaths involve lone wolves trespassing along a packs territory.

Hexagonal structures and anarchy

2011-02-18T10:01:00.000-08:00

Given any normal geometric plane, the optimal way of dividing it would be hexagonal shapes. As seen within the honeycomb: a hexagonal structure uses the least material to create a lattice of cells within a given volume. Thus, as has been purported by many scientists, territories should assume hexagonal shapes at high densities and in a uniform environment.
First, let us note that the majority of boundaries carved by states are somewhat geometrically sloppy. They normally form non polygon structures. Though, territories within each country are divided to more closely resemble polygonal type structures.
And here I state my thesis; the more polygonal the structure of property division, the more resemblance of specie cooperation, whereas the less polygonal the boundary, should delineate more social strife. Thus, if we look to areas of no state, we should see more polygonal type of shapes within property boundaries, and these shapes should approach hexagonal structures as neighbor relations increase. If true, than such polygonal structures should confirm are notion that relations are more peaceful without a government hierarchy.

Notes On Wolves and Territory Markings (a work in progress)

2011-02-13T08:46:00.000-08:00

The Wolf Almanac--Robert Busch

Wolfs evolved from miacids plus 52million years ago

Orginationion is unknown

750,000 years ago the wolf is thought to have migrated to north America

10,000 years ago dates the oldest site of wold human remains

Some believe the red wolf is a mixture of coyote,wolf breeding

sight They are unable to distinguish pack mates at 100 to 150 feet

98% of rabies is found in skunks bats foxes and raccoons

One study shoed that of 165 wolves only ten lived to age of nine.

The extended family unit, the pack, is the main social system of the wolf. The care giving is second only to primates.

A pack usually consists of a pair of breeding wolves (alfa). There is also the omega wolf, subject to much harassment. The pack is usually 4-7 wolves. The largest pack was 36. Large packs may provide improved hunting when game is scarce and choose larger prey. Yet nearly 15% of wolves are lone wolfs. Lone wolfs also have a higher mortality rate than pack wolves.

social rank is enforced by a set of body positions and movements, intimidation and harassment.

Dominance is shown by posture, growling, biting, showing teeth and enjoys sexual privileges. They are usually first to fight

Subordinante wolves may actually solicit responses from more dominate members to reaffirm their status. They fold ears back, peel back their lip, pee on themselves, lick superior wolves muzzle

Social rankings move up and down the lupine social ladder as they get older, injured, ill, or form alliances. If alfa dies, the next in charge beta takes over

There is a great joy and companionship among them, sometimes sleeping, curling up next to their dead

crippled wolves are many times brought food by their pack, slowing their hunts for the injured

Most agression is between female pack members, more so in captivity, or when packs enter each others territory. Such aggression depends on food scarcity and genetic ties

Many wolves will not howl at the same pitch but discord in order to sound larger and more formidable

There are four different types of scent marks, scratching, defecation, raised-lef and squat position urination

In one study of 583 urine leg raises, 99.3% of them were directed at a particular object

It is thought that scent marks help to maintain contract between neighbors. Furthermore, leg raised urinations are usually more common along the perimeters of territories. In wolf-world this is a no trespassing sign.

Lone wolfs rarely perform raised leg urination since they have no boundaries to claim, and they are usually submissive adults driven from their pack. It may also be a survival tactic to avoid being tracked

They may also raise their leg on the site of a kill to mark it. Or, on food already consumed or discarded.

Roads/paths are created by scats of defecation every 250 yards

Domestic dogs have brains 31% smaller than wolfs

Wolves have in many cases appropriated fox dens for their own use

Ravens and wolves form a pact, the wolves rip open skin and thus they alert each other to food

Small-medium sized vocal dogs are attacked more often than others.

normal pace of 5 mph and 15-30 mph for upward of 10-12 miles

wolves travel about 20 miles each day in search for food

A territory for a wolf is defined as what it is willing to defend. They tend to expand in the winter an be larger where food is scarce. The typically territory for a wolf pack is 100 square miles and ranges from 25 square miles to 1000 square miles depending on location.

"The Wolf" by David Mech

according to Mech there is dominance priviileges and leadership, yet there are exceptions. For example, in some cases subordinate wolves may prevent higher ranking wolves from taking food they already possess. "there seems to be an 'ownership zone' within about one foot of a wolf's mouth in which anything within that zone is beyond disputed [owned]"

A study was performed in St. Paul Zoo that demonstrated what economists call the endowment effect. A pack of wolves were withheld food for 72 hours at which point in time a small amount of food was placed into the cage. Immediately a submissive wolf grabbed it and proceed to defend it from dominant members of the pack.

Thus, even subordinate wolves can become dominant over other wolves with respect to the piece of meat

status quarrels are never a private matter, each member keeps their eye on the quarrel and is constantly looking for an opening to increase their rank

studies by the Superior National Forest show that pack howl more when they have something to protect, like food or the sounds of other packs

The Wolves of Minnesota

Instead of the larger packs being needed to kill larger prey, it ma be that larger prey allows for larger packs via the amount of extra food

A wolfs chorus howl is usually mistaken by humans as being more than there actually is, wolves may make the same mistake. Packs may times howl to avoid each other

coming in contact with each other allows wolves to detect weaknesses

Whenever there is signs of neighboring packs they increase their RLU rate.

There is a 1-2 mile wide buffer zone where less prey is killed and marks are left more often. Strife between packs is the cause of most deaths in the wild

Without visual contact wolves mostly leave each other alone. It has been documented that even wounded prey who enter into foreign territory will not be chased, even when no other wolves are in sight. A pack usually covers their territory at east every three weeks

scent marks will show mated pairs

Variation in stimulus, seasonal context, and response to urine marks by captive Iberian wolves (Canis lupus signatus)

For a carnivore, placing marks in its surroundings is

important for several important reasons. In this way it can

affirm its possession of food or mate resources, delimitate

its territory, or indicate its social position or a certain

physiological or emotional state.

From The Way of the Wolf: Mech

The alpha male (and sometimes the alpha female) maximizes advertising power by "marking scent posts like logs, sticks, rocks, ice chunks nd snowbanks". There are twice as many markings around the edges of wolf pack territories as in the centers. Usually about every 300 yards which may last up to 2 weeks

Also, uses marking to mark empty food catches, that is already devoured food and even on food they do not wish to eat

Through such markings and defecation the wolfs territory becomes dotted with olfactory hot spots". Such that any stranger knows when they are entering another packs lands or when a pack is leaving their lands.

Many territorial disputes take place months prior or after breeding season.

packs cannot afford to fight their neighbors constantly and thus rely on scent marking and howling as warnings

Furthermore, there tends to be a buffer zone between territory which serves as staging ground for much conflict. Ownership may shift continually

http://wiatri.net/website/AtriDemo/viewer.htm

http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/er/mammals/wolf/wolf_map.htm

Personal Notes:

Borders and territory are not specific to human interactions, humans, like all animals have specific notions of property, more specifically, what notions are in violation to said property. Border disputes are the essence of all conflict. In fact, it may be argued that conflict may only exist along borders. That is, any conflict may be deconstructed to terms of borders. More specifically, any level of interaction or conflict may be simplified to a dispute between two or more border claims. Conflicts as basic as person-to-person aggression can be simplified to the concept of bodily borders. It is this reason why property must be studied. It is absurd to think of a world without boundaries, without claims to property. The individual who makes such assertions is, at minimum, acknowledging the human-borders of those he is asserting to convince (see argumentation ethics Hans Hoppe). Life is a border. It lives within the bounds of spatial and temporal order, within the borders of a body and may only be maintained by violating the borders of external organic life. To speak about communal ownership is to neglect individual ownership and to neglect the individual is to neglect life itself. It is for this reason that we are all propertarians in some shape of form. Butler Shaffer makes the argument as clear as anyone

"Those who insist that privately-owned property is nothing more than a fiction created by humans, or the creature of political and legal institutions, would do well to examine the behavior of other life forms. Such an anthropocentric vision expresses a fundamentalignorance of the nature of all living things to occupy and consume resources. Territory is the most fundamental fact of existence. Even plants, trees, and corals stake out and defend individual territorial boundaries. Other species have no known governments or laws and yet maintain a very high degree of respect for the territorial claims established by other members of their species." --Butler Shaffer Boundaries of Order

The purpose of this article is to detail property and territorial disputes and order within the wolf species. Wolves possess a complex system of territory and ownership that exists both within the pack and within pack-to-pack relations. Even within the often categorized pack hierarchy subordinate wolves possess levels of territorial ownership. It must of course be noted that nothing within the elements of nature possesses the level of border respect within that of the human population, even when parasitic entities such as governments are factored in to the equation. Yet, we must note that borders are usually only defined vis a vis species to specie relations. A wolf defines its territory vis a vis other wolves, not various other competitors. It is true that other competitors, like the bear, may violate a wolves boundaries and thus must be factored in any claim of ownership. But, the bear is simply an obstical to ownership. The bear cannot be expected to respect the property of the wolf anymore than the wolf can be expected to respect the property of a squirrel. Shaffer makes the argument that "a claim of ownership derives its validity from a recognition by others, of the inherent worthiness of an individual to act to sustain himself or herself through negentropic action in the world." Normally, only like-species have the ability communicate their demands and desires to each other simply because a each species develops a more detailed form of communication with other like species. Though it is true that animals communicate to other non-like animals with similar signs to which they communicate with each other (visual, sound, echolocation, body language, and smell), these signs are not always interpreted as they were meant because each species set interpreting-equipment is predisposed to interpret based on a system of intra-specie communication. Therefore, even though both intraspecies and interspecies communication mechanisms between animals are viewed as elementary to the observing human, there is a significant difference between them vis a vis each other. Wolves, even if desired, have but limited means of communicating their demands to bears and other species. Likewise, even if a mutually beneficial set of actions were available between the bear and the wolf pack, such a set of actions would only be revealed by random luck and continued through the conditioning of younglings.

Wolf Territory & Pack to Pack Relations

Depending on geographical location, time of year, prey population density and rival competition, a wolf pack may claim territory from anywhere between 25 square miles to 1000 square miles, though the average is usually about 100 square miles (Busch). Furthermore, wolves typically travel at an average pace of 5 mph, covering 15-20 miles per day.

Ownership can only be defined by what your willing to defend. You can not claim to own anything unless you are willing to in some shape of form, defend it. Territory may be better represented by what you will defend from your own species, though there is no real need to separate the two.

Packs rarely encounter each other, even in areas where territory is small and buffer zones are small. This is a testament to the respect which packs give each other. Furthermore, territory doesn't normally overlap and when it does, peace is normally still maintained. In some areas of the Northwest, there is no known boundaries. Territory may also vary depending on if their prey migrates. Wolves must normally kill every 2-3 days, but their success rate per attempt is only around 5-10%.

Normally it is alpha males who mark territory via raised leg urinations, yet,

The Wolf Pack

Ownership Among The Pack

Granted, other wolves are opportunists, and would hesitate to take advantage of a situation that places them in a better position than their prior position. This may be true from both within and without a pack. Yet, within a pack more property are respected than without of the pack and even less respected outside the species. From this backdrop it may be claimed that all rights to property (be it territory, food, or life itself) revolves around a system of force. Unfortunately this system of force is an inescapably fact for any species who has not evolved beyond the system of zero sum interactions, that is, one individuals gain must by definition be another's loss. This is not true for humans who engage in barter. An exchange must, by definition, be beneficial, or it would not be undertaken.

Thus it may be argued that

Within the community of wolves, there exists a detailed account of property borders (PB). These PB are in some ways more advanced than our own system of property borders, even more so in areas where are property rights are neglected for the sake of some presupposed higher function such as society, country, or the common good

Wolves, like countries claim ownership to an ever changing longitude and latitude.

There seems to be an odd resemblance between individuals who have buffer zones via each other (what we label government roads, etc). But in most cases there are no buffer zones, property runs side by side and is distinguished by fences. Wolves too have buffer zones of about 1-2 miles. Within these areas little to no prey is hunted

From Hoppe Lecture:

According to karl bruler there are four different functions of language, two of which are found on the animal level the other are unique to humans. Use of symbols of sounds that express something like pain. An expressive function. Otherwise language also has a signal function

Notes From Readings 02/06/11

2011-02-06T10:06:00.001-08:00

Police protection is not a single homogeneous, fixed quantity to supply.
The government only knows that it has a limited budget. Its allocation of funds are then subject to the full play of politics, boondoggling and bureaucratic inefficiency. With no indication at all as to whether the police department is serving the consumers in a way responsive to their desires or whether it is efficient.
Police departments are now faced with the absolute injunction "enforce all laws", but in practice a limited budget forces them to allocate their personnel and equipment to the most urgent crimes.
Like mercenaries, any individual may be a potential client in the future and all the more reason to be nice to them
We cannot blueprint a market that exists onlu as a hypothesisi, but it is reasonable to believe that police forces will be supplied by landowners and insurance companies since they would be paying benefits to victims of crime.
may provide goodwill police services as doctors and hospitals do now. but police is not free, it is supplied by tax payers who are in many times the poor
only the market can decide how many firms and what size and quality. But there is no reason to suppose apriori that police is a natural monopoly
If two private firms nuke it out, they would destroy each other and any potential clients
Judges today are not really seleted by their wisdon or probity for serving the consumer but are political hacks
Voluntary allows rapid rules to be decided by the parties themselves instead of some complex, overall leagal framework for every citizen
Arbitrator decisions may still be enforced by the law, but this was not always true, especially in merchant courts, admiralty law (covering sea law, shipping and salvages) and common law (Anglo-Saxon law). It was only after the government took over such practices
These types of voluntary courts relied solely on ostracism and boycott to enforce their decisions.
The gov is no more qualified to develop and apply law than it is to provide any other service
The idea of following precedent was developed, not as a blind service to the past but becasue jedges of the past had made their decisions according to common law principles...it was because their decisions were good ones
Roman law was something to be described or to be discovered, not something to be enacted
To the question of who will appoint the judges, Leoni states, the people. People will decide to go to those with the greatest wisdom.
Ireland persisted for roughly 1000 years in anarchy until the English conquest of the seventeenth century. the were actually highly complex and advanced
In contrast to primitave tribes elsewhere, no one was stuck or bound to a given tuath. Individual members were free to and often did secede from a tuath and join a competing tuath. Historically, about 80-100 tuatha coexisted an any time throughout Ireland. There were self appointed kings but they were at the mersy of their members. He could not legislate and even needed to seek arbitration when ever under a lawsuit. Arbitration was voluntary
In the free market businesses ear their keep from the mass market not the few rich
American check and balances are largely a fraud. It is the free market the provides checks and balances

Notes From Readings 2/5/11

2011-02-05T14:27:00.000-08:00

700 New products are introduced per day (250,000 per year)
In 2005 there were 187 brands of breakfast cereal

In todays dollars the breakdown of increased wages looks like this

Before 1000 BC, lived on $100 per year. From 1000BC to the Bronze Age $150.00, did not increase to over $200 per person till 1750. Today it is near $6,600 per person. Or, it took 97,000 years to go from $100 to $200 and 250 years to increase to $6,600.

Primates evolved a sense of justice by reciprocity

In our early times we evolved perceiving objects of size from ants to mountains. We are not equipped for contemplating things like bacteria, atoms or galaxies

Given the evolution of our zero-sum system we tend to perceive inequalities in wealth as ill-gotten. Someone must have lost

Sherman Anti-Trust allows government to charge businesses for prices above below or the same as competition: price gouging, cutthroat competition or collusion

Charles Hall solved the problem of aluminum. Alcoa reduced the prices or aluminum form $545 lb to $8lb then finally to $.20 per pound. In 1937 Alcoa was sued for 140 counts of excessive prices

QWERTY may be inefficient but it is perato optimal

Tversky analysized every shot taken by the 76ers for one whole season and found that there is no such thing as a hot hand. he found that making the second shot after making the first shot was nil

Damage to the prefrontal cortex usually leads to impulsiveness and inability to plan for the future (would it be wise to seek out such damage and market toward them)

Altruism is a form of information that carries a signal of trust to others

Racism stems from the fact that our ancestors barely saw more than 100 people in their lifetime

Emotions are proxies for getting us to act in ways that lead us to reproduce

There are 10,000 different distinct religions; Christianity alone has 33,000 different denominations

Where population density is high, murder is low

Moral behaviors evolved before attribution to moral value; meaning, people were acting moral (what we define as moral) before we defined what is moral

Endowment Effect, will risk more to defend what is ours.

We are exposed to 40,000 commercials per year

Lust is enhanced dopamine, the nuro-hormone produced by the hypothalamus. Love is the emotion of attachment reinforced by oxytouin, also secreted into the blood by the pituitary.

2011-02-05T07:41:00.000-08:00

I like the new arrangements to help manage the state of affairs regarding Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa. I can summarize it as follows, pour money into bankrupt nations, like Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, in hopes that they will police the beaches and not take bribes from the pirates. Its odd how 25 countries currently police the sea to combat pirating, and yet, the market for pirating is booming (up to $238 million, or $5.4 million per ship as compared to the ransoms of $150,000 per ship in 2005). Maritime law rules of engagement (and the politics involved) are so strict that nearly “90% of all captured pirates are released quickly without sanction”. The EU is quoted as being committed to a “comprehensive approach” to combating pirates which includes “bringing pirates to justice and helping them find other livelihoods”. Can anyone else say schmuck!

Why Was Thaler Capitalized but not Dollar?

2011-02-02T22:40:00.000-08:00

"The dollar began as an ounce of silver coined by the Bohemian Count named Schlick (shhlick) who resided in Jaochimstal (Yo-hac-em-stall). His coined reputation as "Joachims Thalers"...latter "Thalers" and finally Dollar. The dollar was defined as 1/20 of an ounce of gold before 1933. It was not fixed @ $20 per ounce of gold...it was defined as 1/20th an ounce of gold. "

You would think that a minters name would remain capitalized in order to keep its esteem. You might also think that by eliminated the need to capitalize you have in fact demonized the currency so that it may be manipulated easier without the publics objection.

Notes From Readings 02/02/11

2011-02-02T02:11:00.000-08:00

--Red writing is my thoughts and questions

From Ethics of Money Production

From 1050 to 1601 Inflation in the form of debasement amounted to .3, as of the last 200 years it amounted to 16 times(under fractional reserve banking). From 1970-2003 the inflation rate was 125 times

The prices paid for its non monetary use are the empirical basis for its use in indirect exchange. It would be risky to buy a commodity for indirect exchange without knowing past prices.

The price of a money has a non monetary component plus the monetary component, the later outweighs the former and why its used as a money versus a consumable.

In no period of history has paper money spontaneously emerged. No western writer before the 18th century seems to even have considered the possibility of paper money

In the 12th century paper money was produced via compulsion in...

Mintors may offer insurance on their coins to exchange used for new

Hoarding is simply holding

Bank credit does not create resources, they channel them.

Labor unions simply adopted to monetary stimulus by increases their wage demands. Thus, sticky prices is not reason enough for monetary manipulation.

For those who fear large stocks of gold being found and lowering the purchasing power (PPM), you may diversify in bimetallic

The famous gold and silver inflations of the 16th and 17th century increased European's money supply by some 50-500%. Yet, at 150 years of extraction from the new world, thats about .3--3.3% per annum.

Inflore: Latin for inflate or blow up.

Around 1500 the total money stock of Europe was 35,000 tons of gold and 37,000 tons of silver (Spain, the major importer of gold and silver from the New World, imported 181 tons of gold and 1,686 tons of silver)

The natural costs that go in hand with producing more gold or silver (digging it up , hauling it, etc.) are in fact the supreme reason why these metals are better monies than paper. They can't be manipulated at will.

Inflation can be thought of as an extension of the nominal quantity of money beyond what the market would produce.

Inflation, perse, is but a redistribution of wealth

Before the age of banking, debasement was the primary method of inflation.

Bank of Amsterdam was a warehouse 1609--1781

At first banks combated inflation, than stopped combating it, than facilitated it, than encouraged and promoted it

The kings at least blushed when caught debasing the money, our leaders don't

Gov can not create money. They can adapt it and oblige everyone to accept it via legal tender laws. No one would accept or use a government money unless it was first based on a real market based money.

Chapter 1 FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN ACTION 1

Human action, on the other hand, can be meaningfully interpreted by other men, for it is

governed by a certain purpose that the actor has in view. The purpose of a man’s act is his end; the desire to achieve this end is the man’s motive for instituting the action.

Only individuals have ends and can act to attain them. There are no such things as ends
of or actions by “groups,” “collectives,” or “States,” which do not take place as actions by various specific individuals.

He must also expect that certain modes of behavior will enable him to attain his ends. A man may have a desire for sunshine, but if he realizes that he can do nothing to achieve it, he does not act on this desire. With reference to any given act, the environment external to the individual may be divided into two parts: those elements which he believes he cannot control and must leave unchanged, and those which he can alter (or rather, thinks he can alter) to arrive at his ends. The former may be termed the general conditions of the action; the latter, the means used.

If the desired ends could all be attained instantaneously in the present, then man’s ends would all be attained and there would be no reason for him to act; and we have seen that action is necessary to the nature of man.

For any given action, we can distinguish among three periods of time involved: the period before the action, the time absorbed by the action, and the period after the action has been completed.

Furthermore, all actions must take place through time. Therefore time is a means that man must

use to arrive at his ends. It is a means that is omnipresent in all human action.

In the first place, all means are scarce, i.e., limited with respect to the ends that they could possibly serve. General conditions and means may change or interchange given changes in means or conditions. Oxygen, under any normal condition may be a general condition, not subject to a means. However, when deep sea diving such oxygen is certainly a mean.

Thus, the larger the supply of means available, the more ends can be satisfied and the lower the rank of the ends that must remain unsatisfied. Alas, some end must always remain unsatisfied. Couple this with a near infinite number of ends and we may say that the many futures have been destroyed.

Another lesson to be derived is that action does not necessarily mean that the individual is “active” as opposed to “passive,” in the colloquial sense.

Another fundamental implication derived from the existence of human action is the uncertainty of the future. This must be true because the contrary would completely negate the possibility of action. If man knew future events completely, he would never act, since no act of his could change the situation. This holds true except under the fictions example where someone knows the future with certainty under the current chain of causality with the next

This does not mean, of course, that people do not try their best to estimate future developments. Indeed, any actor, when employing means, estimates that he will thus arrive at his desired goal.

Psychologists have been puzzled by the fact that man does not remember anything from the time of his existence as an embryo and as a suckling. Freud tried to explain this absence of recollection as brought about by suppression of undesired reminiscences. The truth is that there is nothing to be remembered of unconscious states. Animal automatism and unconscious response to physiological stimulations are neither for embryos and sucklings nor for adults material for remembrance. Only conscious states can be remembered (page 35).

From Idea: A History of Thoughts...Peter Watson

Big game hunting was what induced protohuman males to cooperate with each other. Whereas these males would normally view each other as competition for mates, such cooperation may have been the basis to the development of language and the reciprocity of sharing.

Females, knowing the value of such male-to-male cooperation, molded their signs of monthly ovulation in order to not make corporation between males smoother.

It was only in the Arctic that big-game hunting becomes the dominant source of food

The Neanderthals' brain size was actually 10% larger than ours

Dumbar believes that speech developed from chimpanzees grooming each other. language allowed chimps to groom more than one chimp at a time

Plan domestication 14000 years ago. Animal domestication, 6,500 years ago.

Temperatures vary less today (3 degrees) than 12,000 years ago (7 degrees)

Most domesticated animals are smaller than their wild counterparts. This is a sign of reverse evolution since domesticators choose the smallest animals to serve them as easier to domesticate.

evidence shows that domestication was invented only once and spread from the Iran/Iraq area throughout

Hunting and gathering is more efficient giving that the average family could feed themselves on less than 5 hours a day of work. But is it safer than agriculture?

"A final consequence of bipedalism was that females could only give birth to relatively small-brained offspring--because females needed relatively narrow pelvises to be able to walk efficiently. From this it would follow that infants would be dependent on their mothers for a considerable period of time, which stimulated the division of labor between males and females"

Agriculture encouraged population growth

Archaeologists believe that the pottery found doesn't represent original pottery because it is too perfect in shape and form. But this would entail they had no ultimate goal in mind when producing pottery. You would also never find a square spear, since it would serve no purpose.

Ideas like domestication and technology spread, but do they change and morph like rumors?

Vocabulary and Language Specialization

The average individual commands a working vocabulary of about 1,000 words. The English language approximates 143,000 words. First a question, than an consideration that I would like your opinion on.

Is this 1,000 word vocabulary expanding? Is it optimal for daily interactions? Would be more productive if it expanded or would the increase in productivity be marginal when compared to the investment needed?

While holding a thick dictionary in my hand it occurred to me that a degree (not a trade) is nothing more than a specialization in a specific cluster of vocabulary words. Economists specialize in a cluster of vocabulary-jargon and then trade for other vocabulary-jargon.

The Third Chimpanzee b y Jared Diamond

No other large animal is native to all the continents or breeds in all habitats

Suppose it turned out that 99.9% of Chimp DNA was identical to human genes, would it change the way we approach or treat them?

Humans belong to the same order as apes (Primates) and the same superfamily (Hominoidea) but belong to different families called Hominidae and Pongidae

Of the 1271 amino acids, only five are different between chimps and humans

until the invention of writing old people acted as repositories for information and why they were revered.

The questions of evolutionary optimization or the max/min of any advantageous trait can be addressed by game theory. It you, not your big brain or third arm that must survive. The question can be put in the realm of mechanics in that you can't simply put a V-12 engine in any car without losing some optimality of other parts.

The biggest expense of bodily energy is the replacement of your cells. Even if you lay in bed all day you still must consume 1600 calories to maintain your body.

Most animals rarely survive past reproductive age

Hallmarks of humanity include are chemical addictions, genocide and mass exterminations, which are [supposedly] different from other animals

Gorilla's copulate less than male humans which explains their lack of testes size. There is little competition between competing semen doners. Likewise, chimps copulate much more than humans and apes and which explains their large testes.

Other female mammals have vivd signs of ovulation whereas human females conceal such signs. most females cannot detect ovulation without. Newly weds trying for babies have only a 28% chance of conception even thought their rate of copulation is high. Why is this so?

Conception seems to be an occasional byproduct of copulation, not its purpose

As a device for achieving conception, human copulation is a major waste of energy. Most mammals detect ovulation and only seek to have sex within that window of time. Human females conceal their ovulation, and without proper detection devices, wouldn't even know themselves. Thus making copulation more frequent and thus less successful--from a biological point of view

For a child, a word may also be a proposition. "Juice" may mean given me juice vs. assigning a definition to a external word.

The average human has a working vocabulary of 1000 words out of some 142,000 words.

(what would be like if we used all 142,000 words)

Animal domestication, ants obtain honeydew from diverse insects ranging from aphids, mealybugs and scale insects to caterpillars, treehoppers and spittle insects. In return for the honeydew, the ants protect their domesticated insects from predators and parasites. Some of these insects have evolved into the equivalent of domestic cattle, having no offensive measures of their own, excreting honeydew from their specialized anus which hold the honeydew in a droplet until extracted by the ants. Like cow herding, ants milk their insects. Some even carry them into their cave in the cold weather.

Likely the difference in intelligence/complexity between a non human primate and various other species is just as vast as the difference in intelligence/complexity between non human primates and ourselves

The most widespread wild land mammal other than humans was the lion. 10,000 years ago it occupied most of Africa, Eurasia, North America and Northern South America.

until recently, most people spent their lives within a few miles of their birthplaces. To even know about the outside world need to be translated via vast land and languages. New Guinea alone had over 1000 languages within a small amount of divided land with nearly no contact with each other. wasn't until 1938 that some 50,000 people were discovered. To travel outside of ones land would be thought of as suicide. Till this day westerners are killed for traveling through tribal lands without first asking permission.

It seems, Diamond points out, that chimps and apes are just as akin to murder and genocide as humans. It is well documented the Jane Goodalls' chimps the Kasakela band of chimps carried out genocide on their neighboring Kahama.

Atacking in numbers, it is only due to their lack of weapons that their attacks rendered chimps nearly alive rather than dead.

likewise, 38% of all gorilla deaths are from infanticide (killing each others babies)

Research Hans Kruuk's account of the ballet between two hyena clans

Killing both men and women tend to be embodied by chimps and wolves whereas killing only the men tend to be embodied by lions and gorillas.

The argument that push button technology allows us to engage in out animal instincts without seeing the face of our victims (thoughts)

The word barbarian is derived from the greek word barbaroi which simply means non-greek foreigners (in this regard Persians and Egyptians were barbarians, even thought they were just as advanced).

In New Guinea an individual tribesman may cross into neighbor territory without harm under a banner of truce but never multiple tribal territories. It would be suicide. Just vast friendship was negligible

We have strong inhibitions of killing "us" but not so when killing "them".

Even Hitler claimed selfdefense when starting WWII and went through the trouble of faking a Polish attack on a German post.

It's now thought that New World Indians actually hunted the large mammals to extinction in North America.

Human Natures Paul Ehrlich

Humans have some 100,000 genes, 1 trillion nerve cells and 100--1000 trillion connections (synapses) between them. Given this, statements about understanding your genes to understand your personality or others is nonsensical.

We are not slaves to our genes

cultural evolution can be faster than genetic evolution

language may be genetic but the types of languages are cultural

All organisms exchange materials and energy

From Evolution: the Triumph of an Idea

A god that need to intervene constantly every moment is likely incompetent or at least less capable than one who designed correctly or dynamically from the start

Huxley had no degree

Nature herself is a breeder

A fossil must be have been buried properly in sediment, turned to rock and avoid destruction and erosion...gaps in the fossil record should be the rule.

Evolution has no foresight. It cannot produce based on future events.

2011-01-29T07:07:00.000-08:00

Lets establish some things about the graph:

1) From are elaborate collective set of actions, no actor can be without cause in any event. True independence of causality is only apparent in absence of the actor. Once the actor is a part of space-time he is a factor, be it small, of every cause.

a) Thus, no actor rests at the origin of any cause. At best we may say the actor approaches zero within the limit (Limit as c → 0)

2) As Posner states “most accidental injuries are intentional in the sense that the injurer knew that he could have reduced the probability of the accident by taking additional precautions”. From this we draw the conclusion that no actor can be without intent in any event. True independence of intent is only apparent in absence of the actor. Once the actor is a part of space-time he is a factor, be it small, of every intent.

a) Thus, no actor rests at the origin of any cause. At best we may say the actor approaches zero within the limit (Limit as i → 0‎)

3) Likewise, since no actor may have zero cause or intent, by definition, no actor may have infinite cause or intent. At best we may say an actor approaches infinity of cause and intent (Limit as c, i → ∞)

The Tasmanians' and Aborigines Notes

2011-01-25T16:35:00.000-08:00

Jared Diamond tells a gripping story about the Tasmanians

Tasmania is an island of the coast of Australia that was discovered in the late 1600's to have some 5,000 isolated hunter gathers. The Tasmanians not only lacked most of the common technology of present day Europeans, they even lacked the majority of simplistic technology held by the Australian mainlanders including fire, sewing, fishing nets and boomerangs. This lack of technological advancement, including the development of boats that could reach the mainland, meant the Tasmanians were one of the most isolated societies to ever exist--completely lacking outside contact.

Shortly after contact, Europeans began the process of what can only be called the extermination of the Tasmanian people. By the1830's the tasmanian population (of 5,000) was reduced to some 72 men and 3 women. At one point in time a price of 5 pounds per adult, 2 pounds per child, were offered for their capture. It was the work of missionaries (paid in full) that finally removed the Tasmanian annoyance. The remaining population was rounded up at gun point, taken to Flinders Island to christianize them. Here their children were taken from their parents in order to learn about sweet baby jesus. Daily activities included singing hymns, praising the white mans god, reading the bible and repenting for...well...whatever.

In the end there were but four remaining tasmanians (shown above) which brought great interest by scientistic crowds across the world. Scientists raced to study what they believed to be the missing link between apes and humans. After the tasmanian male died, his body was dug up, chopped up, and sold to various scientists. Even his skin would be made into a tobacco pouch. The women, scared of such mutilation, asked to buried in the sea, but, they would be dug up and hung in a white mans museum.

The mainland aborigines, though not to the extent of the Tasmanians, were also killed in massive quantity, with populations declining from 300,000 to 60,000 from 1788 until 1921

The Drake Equation

2011-01-23T09:36:00.000-08:00

I like J. Diamonds assessment of intelligent life outside our universe and i think i paints a grim picture for NASA and government funding for such endeavors.

For example, we spend millions of dollars beaming radio signals into space hoping that intelligent life will receive, interpret and someday respond. Equations such as The Drake Equation tell us

The Drake equation states that:

where:
N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;
and
R* = the average rate of star formation per year inour galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

Such estimates make life on other planets appealing and probable--even intelligent life. Yet, this is not the point. The question is not whether there is intelligent life, but is there radio type technology to interpret these radio signals that we are beaming to them? Diamond stresses no...

Radio technology is a means of intelligence and mechanical dexterity. Yet, there are few animals that meet both requirements. There is simply no room/need in evolution for both (the dolphin has the former but not the latter, the spider has the latter but not the former).

Take into account that "only one of the billions of species that have existed on Earth showed any proclivities toward radios and this species failed to do so for 69,999/70,000th of our seven million year history". Such concepts were unheard of as recent as 1800

The law of Non-Contradiction is misleading and abused in everyday conversation.

2011-01-23T04:47:00.000-08:00

Law of Non-Contradiction: (a) Not (p and not p) or (b) (for all x) not (x is P and x is not P). It is not possible that something be both true and not true at the same time and in the same context. I think the notion of time is more inherent in the Law as we normally understand it , but that the notion of context is equally important.

Example: A table can not be both made entirely of wood and not made entirely of wood.

Here are some examples of misleading/abuse

1) I say an apple is red, you say purple. The law of non-contradiction is of no help here but it is often evoked in an attempt to prove that one of us must be right and the other wrong.
2) Or when dealing with preferences, preferring a to b and b to c does not infer by law that one prefers a to c. Since preference changes over time, its possible to have changed your utility rankings during the time frame of the evaluation process

There are other situations where contradictions translate perfectly rational information

3) Thus use of oxymoron’s (here's a list http://www.oxymorons.info/) in everyday language is a violation of the law of non-contradiction but seems to do well in translating information

Afghanistan’s Role in Poppy Production.

2011-01-21T19:19:00.000-08:00

A recent National Geographic article gives a sweeping summary of Afghanistan’s role in opium poppy production.

In 2000 the Taliban outlawed poppy cultivation under the reasoning that it was a sin against Islam. Anyone caught growing such opium plants were to have their house's burnt and/or possibly killed. According to the study such harsh measures worked; opium production dropped by 91%. Of course, economics would tell us that even under such harsh measures the no one can wage a war on supply--such results would be likely be temporary at best. It would have been interesting to see how the Afghan farmers responded to such brutality but, alas, in 2001 Afghanistan was invaded and the Taliban overthrown. Likely, as supply decreased, prices would have spiked, increasing the possibility of profits (enticing farmers to reenter the market). Eventually this was the case as production excelled past the 2000 levels. Today Afghanistan controls 80% of the worlds optimum production.But its worth speculating what a effect the policy would have had if it remained in place. We know that after the ban production began shifting south, to the hard to reach mountainous terrain of Afghanistan. However, much of optimum grown was bagged and stored while farmers adjusted their trafficking patterns. In this regard, opium is actually a premier crop; it can be grown in the winter leaving the spring and summer to harvest other crops. It’s also likely that poppy cultivation would have been outsourced to Myanmar or other parts of the world.

Migraiting Patterns

2011-01-20T06:58:00.000-08:00

Here is a map of Surnames Distribution by popultion

Here is the distributions of Dykes's lol

Plant and animal domestication are not hallmarks of mankind.

2011-01-19T07:47:00.000-08:00

Plant and animal domestication are not hallmarks of mankind. Ants too engage in agriculture and animal domestication. According to Jared Diamond “New World Ants cultivate specialized species of yeasts or fungi, each gardener-ant species gathers its own particular type of compost (some grow it on caterpillar feces or insect corpses or dead plant material, while some actually cut leaves, stems and flowers). The ants continually remove other fungus spores or threads like that of pulling weeds from their garden. Furthermore, as the queen leaves her colony she carries with her a starting culture of fungus much like human pioneers who take along seeds to plant”

"Animal domestication, ants obtain honeydew from diverse insects ranging from aphids, mealybugs and scale insects to caterpillars, treehoppers and spittle insects. In return for the honeydew, the ants protect their domesticated insects from predators and parasites. Some of these insects have evolved into the equivalent of domestic cattle, having no offensive measures of their own, excreting honeydew from their specialized anus which hold the honeydew in a droplet until extracted by the ants. Like cow herding, ants milk their insects. Some even carry them into their cave in the cold weather. "

More Random Journaling

2011-01-18T14:53:00.000-08:00

Siphonophores

2011-01-15T14:10:00.000-08:00

I've become obsessed with Siphonophores.

(All content copyright Casey Dunn, 2009)

"Siphonophores challenge us to think about what we mean when we call something an individual, a concept that we usually think of as being quite straightforward. Is a single zooid or an entire colony the siphonophore “individual”? The answer is that you have to specify what features you are interested in before you can expect a meaningful answer. Do you mean ecologically? The entire colony functions as a single organism whether it is predator or prey. So the colony is an ecological individual. The same can be said for behavior. How about evolutionarily? There are two different components to this question. If we ask how evolution acts on siphonophores now, they are individuals. All the parts of the colony are genetically identical and the colony lives or dies as a whole (except for the eudoxids described later). So siphonophores are evolutionary individuals with respect to how natural selection shapes them today. The other way to look at evolutionary individuals is by descent. We can do this by taking a look at two animals and asking which structures descend from the same feature of a common ancestor. Just as this leads us to recognize that bat wings are modified arms, it shows that siphonophore zooids are polyps and medusae, structures that can be free living animals in other species. So this argument leads to the conclusion that the zooids of siphonophores are individuals. This is not contradictory to our previous conclusions, we are just looking at a different feature of individuality.

It should be noted that an Amoeba, which is a solitary cell, would have much the same trouble contemplating the individuality of a human. Humans function as ecological, behavioral, and evolutionary individuals. But they are made up of many cells. So is the entire human an individual, or are each of the cells individuals? We are in the same conundrum as the Ameoba because individuality has arisen multiple times in evolution, often subsuming units that are (or were, depending on how you look at it) themselves individuals. Multicellular individuality has arisen at least a couple dozen times, each time altering the individuality of the cells that make up the multicellular organism. Colonial individuality has also arisen multiple times, with siphonophores being one of the most extreme cases. And the colonial individuality in many ways subsumes the individuality of the zooids that make up the colony. There may be other insightful common threads that will only come to light when we look further at the biology and origins of individuality in other contexts"

Vocabulary and Language Specialization...and...

2011-01-15T09:07:00.000-08:00

Vocabulary and Language Specialization

The average individual commands a working vocabulary of about 1,000 words. The English language approximates 143,000 words. First some questions, than a consideration.

Is this 1,000 word vocabulary expanding? Is it optimal for daily interactions? Would be more productive if it expanded or would the increase in productivity be marginal when compared to the investment needed?

While holding a thick dictionary in my hand it occurred to me that a educational degree (not a trade) is nothing more than a specialization in a specific cluster of vocabulary words. Thus, we specialize in a cluster of vocabulary-jargon and then trade for other vocabulary-jargon.

From WSJ

The WSJ weekend edition has an interesting article detailing the differences between chinese mothering and western mothering. Some portion of me respects the ability of chinese mothers and fathers to accept that the child owes a great deal of indebtedness to their parents whereas many western parents tend to believe the opposite, that is, that they owe their child. Such an ability to recognize the parasitic nature of children gives credence to their style of parenting. Child's personal interest tend to be sidelined. Though such parenting (in terms of success rate) may be far superior to normal standards, but, given two equal educated and invested parents, a hands free approach as to learning would do more to stimulate creativity. Such route memory games is a joke in that it automatically gives credence to what the state is teaching them is of any significance.

Fiction Idea

A short story about overkill. Imagine a cyborg population that has eliminated all threats to their existence and now turns toward minimal threats i.e. outlier threats. Let the cyborgs estimate that some micro organism will potentially be a threat to them after 1 million years of evolution and now they are determined to rid the planet of such microbes

Causation

2011-01-14T15:43:00.001-08:00

Causation

Assigning cause to effect is common practice among statisticians and historians. In fact, by merely shifting through the data and choosing what is and what is not important is a form of assigning causation. Yet, how far can we go down the chain of causality? Surely a discharged gun and a bullet womb is enough for a detective to assign causality for death, but, what about when we attempt to assign causality as to why such an individual would commit such aggressive acts toward another? This is where reality becomes fantasy. Bypassing, the fact that a historian or a statistician must inject their own bias as to which facts/data to use, they must also play a game of detective-god in order to place weights of cause on each fact or piece of data. Let me give a trivial example, but one that should paint a solid picture. Skynet, the cyborg artificial intelligence company wishes John Connor, future resistance leader dead. To accomplish this they send back a cyborg in time to eliminate the Connors. Why? Why go through so much trouble as eliminating the source? Why not trace back the chain of causality to some point where an individual stomps his toe, which cause a long chain of causality which later leads to John Connor's birth. Why not prevent the individual from stomping his toe at that moment in time?

There are many reasons for why such an activity may seem fruitless and implausible, aside from the fact that the creators of such a story need to have more action than what is suggested above.

Another reason is that interfering in such a chain of events may change many other things that may lead to a rapidly different future--one without a Skynet. But this is simply smaller subset of a larger problem, that of knowledge of past and future. Even a complicated system of interactive machines would not be able to trace cause and effect across genetic and environmental factors--at least not over the course of weeks, months or years.

Baby Einstein Talk

2011-01-12T20:13:00.000-08:00

Not sure where, if anywhere, i'm going to send this. I'm looking for some feedback and ideas of where else to take the article.

If ever at your apex of boredom, browse the various baby shower gift registries by way of websites like amazon. Sure enough, somewhere within the pacifiers and diaper requests you will find a petition for some from of a “make my child a genius” toy. Companies like Baby Einstein, Brainy Baby, LeapStart, Learn Baby and others have consumers sapped into believing that their child can deviate from their average IQ simply by way of listening to Johann Sebastian Bach during their sleep. Parents who otherwise spend their entire lives consumed with tabloids and reality TV are somehow convinced they need only fill their child’s room with vast amounts of toys which count to 10 (in two languages) in order to set their child's inner, creative, genius mind a-soar. I cringe every time i see a "your baby can read" commercial. Who cares if your child can read by two, if they never read again past 22!

At best, such educational media is probably ineffective, yet, at worse, it may even be harmful. Educational media “gives parents a false sense of reassurance that their children are learning, says Michael Brody--chairman of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry's committee on TV and media--yet, “There has been no good scientific evidence of the value of smart baby products.” Thus, it’s not that such educational videos and toys are harmful, it’s that parents are choosing to substitute these videos for interaction.

Can we imagine if other primates attempted to teach their young by way of ‘Baby Smart-Monkey’ videos? Such younglings would surely be in a lacking state, but this is exactly what some parents are doing. These do-gooders are laboring under the misapprehension that learning is learning, or simply, that as long as numbers and letters are radiating from toys and T.V., they are parenting. Such a reality is ridiculous! Is it even worth mentioning that your child needs you. It needs interaction, to play, to mimic, to be engaged.

According to Stanley Greenspan, MD, author of Building Healthy Minds and a clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School in Washington, D.C, newborns to preschoolers need the following kinds of interaction with a caregiver to enhance their intellectual and emotional growth:

Taking part in activities that exercise multiple senses at once. An example would be a newborn baby following mommy's face and finding her voice.
Engaging in activities that build intimacy and trust. Infants experience this when they play with their mommies and daddies.
Establishing two-way communication. This could happen in the following scenarios: The baby smiles, and daddy smiles back; the baby vocalizes a sound, and mommy vocalizes something back; the baby reaches for something on mommy's head, mommy smiles, takes it back, and puts it back on her head, and then baby reaches again.
Acting as a joint problem solver or scientist with a caregiver. For instance, a toddler could take a parent or day care worker by the hand, asking to help search for a new toy. The little one sees a toy up on the shelf, asks to bring it down, and the caregiver picks him up to help him get the object.
Creating imaginary worlds, especially at 18 months to 2 years old. This is a chance for kids to develop their creativity. In order to do this, they need to be able to play "pretend," such as going on trips or out to dinner with a parent. Toys such as dolls, trucks, houses, action figures, and houses do well in promoting make-believe environments.
Participating in activities that help promote logical and reality-based thinking. A child, for example, asks to go outside. The caregiver asks why, and the child responds with something like, "Because I want to play."

Yet, sidestepping the issue of the child needs. What possesses parents to believe that Einstein toys will make their child an Einstein? An exaggeration you say? Than I ask you to find me a parent whose flustered with their childs learning progress. I dare say there isn’t one. All toddlers are geniuses I suppose!

If reading is far removed from you and your spouse's life, you may almost bet that your child will probably find reading taxing! If you want your child to love reading, than start reading! Prove it! read children books to your child, read your books aloud to your child. Spending an hour watching some doltish program while your child with your child and explain why your laughing!

In fact, if you want to see a true baby Einstein, read Einstein's writings on ethics and politics. There you will uncover a babies intellect!

Even more comical, many parents won’t be outdone by competing parents. They go beyond buying boxes of toys that count to 10 and insist on consuming vast’s amount of their child's time per day waxing the ABC’s and 123’s. The insanity!

Our entire structure of educational production is warped into a competing memory game. Students of public school history spend hours parroting the names of states and capitals. Students of public school math must pretend that calculating devices don't exist. Science class is it's a race to see whose trivia can steal Ben Stein's money

100,000 Years From Today

2011-01-12T02:45:00.000-08:00

Let us assume that your god allows 100,000 years to pass from today before he finally makes his return. Contemplate what man would look like after said many years. Forget about technology and it role in cosmetics, and let us assume that we wont blow up the world, let us simply assume that we live. Given that we are fast forwarding beyond Star Trek type of years (which usually takes place some 5000 years in the future) what would you imagine humanity to look like?

Certainly you wouldn’t imagine us to change too much given that 100,000 years is but a blink to the 3000 million years of life, but, then again, you wouldn’t imagine us to change at all if we were made in a gods image (at least not transitionally).

Contemplate these questions on the micro level of change. Will there be any more races or will we have breed into a single race? Will we speak the same world language? Will be taller given the restraints on breeding? Will our ratio of size between males and females increase as we move into a world of more intense polygamy (much like the ratios of animals that practice polygamy? Will be have breed stupid individuals like that of Idiocracy? Let us pretend that the average height was now 8 feet instead of 5.6 feet and the giants were 11 feet. Likewise, let us pretend that midgets became the trend and the average height was now 4 feet, with short people resembling toddlers. Certainly not all trends mentioned are of equal likelihood, but at least we could assume that they are within the realm of probability...given 100,000 years

From here

Predicting what we will be like in the future is fascinating and has been the domain of science fiction writes for centuries. Everyone, it seems, has an opinion. It's just that some are more scientifically based than others.

Predicting the future

Many of the predictions for the future appearance of humans are based on past trends or on the fanciful idea that body parts used more frequently will get larger, or those that are used less will shrink. Will technology replace our need for strong limbs? Will too much television cause humans to evolve square eyes? Will we have the abnormally large brains commonly seen in science fiction movies?

Most of these predictions are not based on the principles of biology and evolution. While we do not know what events will happen in the future that may affect the way we evolve, it is possible to set some constraints on what could happen. Some of the suggested changes are highlighted below.

Teeth

Although we have smaller jaws than in the past, and less room for all 32 adult teeth, it is probable that no significant change will occur in the number of teeth. However, if we change the way we eat (perhaps food in the future will be softer and require less chewing) then we may see some reduction in our jaws and more crowded teeth.

Large brains

Our brains are unlikely to get proportionally larger as any significant change in size would affect the ability for a baby’s head to pass through the pelvis during birth. The pelvis is a compromise between an upright posture, bipedalism and the size of the birth canal. Changing this would alter a woman’s ability to walk efficiently.

Smaller brains

Although the past trend within our species has generally been toward smaller brains, this was probably due to a decrease in body size. We may not use all of our brain today, but for a smaller brain to become common in our species there would have to be an advantage in such a characteristic. There is a direct relationship between our brain size and body size and this relationship is unlikely to change.

Body size

The trend over the last 300 years has been toward larger bodies, but this cannot continue indefinitely. Size cannot increase beyond a certain limit as the mechanical demands on the tissues of very large bodies are different to bodies of medium sizes. By significantly changing the size of the body, there would need to be a change in the shape of the body.

Thumb size

Recent reports show that there's a whole generation of teenagers with overdeveloped thumbs due to playing too many video games. Muscles are able to adapt through excessive physical use, but this is not genetic. An individual may develop such a characteristic but will not pass this on to any offspring.

A grand averaging?

Many geneticists claim that something new is happening in human evolution - something along the lines of a 'grand' averaging' of our species. Basically, we are becoming more alike.

Human evolution relies on the differences in our genes and in our ability to pass on these genetic differences (ie our breeding capabilities). Over time, the population should change as these differences become more apparent. If the genetic changes are great enough, a new species will arise. However, the three components required for evolution to occur - variation, natural selection and geographic isolation - have more or less disappeared from the equation.

Humans can be considered a single genetic 'continent' - meaning that the world's population is mixing and is no longer just breeding within cultural or ethnic groups. It is suggested that, given enough time, the human race will start to look more and more alike, becoming the 'average' of all the current different physical appearances.

Fran Dorey , Exhibition Project Coordinator

Last Updated: 30 November 2009

And what of chimps and other primates this far into the future? Could breeding and mimicking behavior lead to chimp abilities as advanced as a toddler or equivalent to someone with a mental handicap that walks upright slightly more. Maybe global warming, if the trend, will cause chimps to have need less hair.

No Atheists in Foxholes Argument

2011-01-11T15:34:00.001-08:00

No Atheists in Foxholes Argument

There is still plenty of laughing stock for the “no atheists in foxholes” argument masqueraded by our religious half-wits, though I'm ambitious enough to believe such ridiculousness is on the decline; even small minds see a couple of trees in the forest. The fact that any individual who finds intellectual buttress from such convoluted thinking is mind numbing.

What Does it Mean?

Normally, when the religious make use of the phrase “there are no atheists in foxholes” they are attempting to demonstrate the fickleness of such a position as denying the existence of a god. In essence, they are attempting to show that atheist’s don’t truly believe in that which they propose, they are merely playing intellectual. After all, anyone can deny god when conditions are optimal right?

What Does It Prove?

Acknowledging the theists position that some atheists become faint at heart under certain extreme conditions as being stuck in a foxhole while at war, what exactly does this prove? Certainly it doesn’t give strength or credence to either of the opposing positions. Nor does it further the arena of debate. Actually, as we will see below, it’s a rational response to an irrational state of mind. Though in no way does this author believe in a god, he very much looks forward to begging for the existence of one if ever under found in an irrational state of mind--as would my religious counterparts when faced with such conditions. The problem is of course that their belief is an all powerful and encompassing solution to whatever state of affairs they find themselves in and thus why the foxhole argument seems so devastating.

Sidestepping the issue of begging a god to perform a moral duty when he supposed to be a moral god, such minds as the believer are lucky enough to always have a potential panacea in their back pocket. These god-believing individuals would be hard pressed to find themselves in a position they can’t, potentially, beg themselves out of. Yet, given the right conditions, they too would profess any amount of belief to any amount of absurdities as the mind is capable of. Such devotion to beliefs is itself slaved to primal instincts. It’s easy to take a bullet for your loved ones under optimal conditions but strip these individuals of such optimal rationality and watch their animalistic decisions surface. Place a family of four, a pet, and a religious book, in a raft at sea for some substantial amount of time and watch such animalism take over. God will play no role in the decision making process after an allotted amount of time. Worse yet, let a warning sign on the side of their boat read, “if ever you find yourself stranded, profess to be a nonbeliever and you will speedily be rescued”. Such a warning sign may be declared absurd initially, but let irrationality take course and watch this boat of former bible thumpers profess their non-belief in unison.

Again, What Does This Mean?

Surely it doesn’t indicate that the family was, in fact, a pack of atheists, or even that their faith was weak. It surely does’t it give credence to either position in the god-debate. It simply proves nothing except that irrational states of mind lead to irrational behavior. Under otherwise normal conditions the family would still believe

So Where Does This Leave Us?

Though nonbelievers may subscribe to the notion that uttering prayers to an invisible god is always irrational, it is not irrational relative to the typical behavior of these individuals. For example, I often burst out in laughter when watching shows like Ghost Hunters. To myself, grown men standing in the dark calling out to walls is quite absurd behavior, yet, this is from my frame of reference, not theirs. To them they are engaging in normal behavior.

The difference is of course that the nonbeliever see no argumentative use in referencing that “there are no theists in rafts with warning labels that tell them denouncing god will save you” whereas, theists still believe that the “no atheists in foxholes” argument is the final backbreaker.

Explicit Contracting With Implicitly Defined Words

2010-12-30T10:10:00.001-08:00

How can we have explicit contracting when words themselves are implicitly defined? Words are the bases for stipulating transfers of ownership yet the can only be defined by words which can only be defined by words and so forth. Even if there were one supreme dictionary that served as the final arbitrator for defining specific words, it would be limited to defining words with other words and so forth ad infinitum. Therefore, regardless of the desire to be explicit as possible in the transfer of ownership there must, at some level, be a form of arbitrariness subject to loose interpretation. The question then becomes, how much? How much implicit contracting should be allowed within the transfer process before the contract is void of authority. For example, is a handshake authority enough to transfer ownership? The answer is possibly. Yet, we may even be less explicit with transferring ownership if there is no dispute over the exchange. For example, if a child puts a stick down and another child

The Fallacy of "If you don't like it you may leave"

2010-11-02T17:58:00.000-07:00

It is a common strategy for sloppy thinkers to call upon the "if you don't like it you may leave argument whenever faced with the question of justifying aggression between one party and another. Yet, it should be clear to the reader that such a tactic is misguiding at the least. Fore, if the individual who is the aggressor may phrase the question if you don't like my aggressing against your than you may leave, than the victim has no recourse but to choose between either staying, and being aggressed against, or leaving and not being aggressed against. Yet, the simple fact that there is a choice does not alleviate the crime, or even answer the initial question of who gives a party the right to make such a claim. After all, the victim is asking the question, who gives an aggressor the right to aggress against me, whereas, the aggressor is presupposing they have such a right by asking the question. To say if you don't like something I’m doing than you may leave presupposes that you have the right to make such a claim. Yet, the right of one party to aggress against another is the question of concern.

Thus again, when asked the question what gives anyone the right to aggress against me or my property, the defender would need to retreat back to a position of power. Thus, it is only because one party is stronger than another party that they may choose if, when and how they may aggress against the weak. All and well i suppose, but then again if someone of greater power enter the scenario they will begin arbitrarily defining their terms of aggression and whoever doesn't like it may again leave.

Yet, what does it mean to truly leave? What are you leaving? Life and property are not homogeneous mobile homes. You don't truly get to pack up your property and leave. You may of course liquidate your property and relocate this still involves forced exchange of one property for another. Yet, what if you like your property and you don't want to exchange it for other property. What gives other property owners the right to make such claims upon your property?

To say that you must pay arbitrary set property taxes is but a restriction upon your property rights. After all, how can you claim to own anything if other non-owners may simply make decisions about your property. Are we than to believe that everything is relatively owned? That there is no true ownership, only societal ownership? What if we apply this argument to other property. Does society own your labor, you pets, your children. May they make any restriction they deem proper upon you and your property as long as 51% of deem it to be ok? And what of the other 49%, are they all to leave if they don't like it? And what if 51% of the world believes that the other 49% should do something they don't wish to do, should they again leave? But where will the go? The Moon?

Again, all this reductio ad absurdum is not needed if you simply accept that there is nothing in any act of aggression that is inherently wrong. We are all simply willing are power over the others and the only true sense of morality is what’s determined by 51% of the population. If 51% says its ok, than, by default, it is moral and ok.

But what if we were to consider the individual to be the ultimate decision maker over his property? Of course we would need to begin by deducing what is property and how it comes about being owned, but if we may sidestep this philosophical question for a moment and simply accept that the individual begins with ownership over the body. Then we can informally show that they also own the will of their labor and thus may own, or bargain to own, the whole or part of the fruits of their labor. More simply, all products, cars, land, homes are simply the output of labor. Thus, you may think of your possessions as stored labor. You own them because you either exchanged for them, contracted for them or inherited them, nevertheless, you own them because at one point in time you exchanged your labor to acquire them (or someone else exchanged their labor and bequeathed it to you).

Furthermore, how else can we think of action accept in terms of self interest? It is quite illogical to think if any action outside an impulse that is not selfish in nature. How could there be? There is no such think as altruism or selfishness. Any action you engage in is because you believe it is in your best interest. To love your wife is simply to love the way your wife makes you feel. To go to church or to go to a ball game is simply a function of your conscience and your desire. If you choose church it is not because you are less selfish, it is simply that you value the lack of guilt you didn't receive higher than the pleasure you would have received if you went to the game. We are all selfish simply by the fact that we are a "self" and it is illogical to claim otherwise.
Thus, to claim that we must act for society is again illogical. Fore, what is society but a collection of individuals. Thus, you may translate the above sentence into, the individual must act for a cluster of individuals (including himself) in order to not be selfish. Yet, why is it selfish of one individual to act for himself but not selfish for a cluster of individuals to act for their selves? Besides, in order to have a giver there must be a receiver. If we had a world full of givers, who would receive anything? Again, a la Ayn Rand, there is virtue in selfishness simply by the fact that all actions are selfish.
Besides, who is society? Those of a specific longitude and latitude? After all, the task as to which action best supports society depends upon who society is. If society is your household, than action a may be of their best interest. If society is your street than action b may be in their best interest. If society is your town, state, country or humanity as a hole than actions c,d, e and f may best serve them. Yet, even if society could be determined, how would society even articulate what is in its best interests? Surely killing is not in societies interest (unless 51% says it is) and the majority of us don't kill, but is this really doing what’s best for society? Most primates are social creatures also, and the alfa male does not typically kill other pack members at random. They do this because they serve a purpose for him. Likewise, we don't typically kill each other because it benefits society but because it benefits our self. No one would trade, mate

or socialize with us if we were killers and likely other would kill us simply out of fear that we might kill them. There are gains to be made from not killing each other that are over and above the short terms gains that we may receive from killing.
Again, how would society tell the individual what they want when society is simply a collection of individuals with various wants?

Math by Hand, Math by Calculator

2010-10-03T16:35:00.000-07:00

Math by Hand, Math by Calculator

The purpose of this article is to point out the procedural cobwebs within our mathematics classrooms, both within our institutions of higher learning and within our public schools.

It’s always the same. Whenever and wherever math teachers gather, the conversation is of student deficiencies and who’s to blame. Professors’ blame adjuncts, adjuncts blame high school teachers, who blame middle school teachers, who blame elementary school teachers, who blame parents and nearly everyone blames calculators. Why? Why are these supposed deficiencies of millennium old mathematics of concern to anyone? Is there really a dearth of unsolved circumferences and areas? Is there really a shortage of algebraic equations that go unsolved?

Certainly one could argue there is a labor shortage of individuals who are proficient in secondary mathematics (algebra, geometry, consumer math, statistics, etc.) but we can hardly argue there is a shortage of answers. From the comforts of my TI 89 calculator, I may input sets of data, acquire all needed measures of central tendency and standard deviations, run a regression analysis, formulate an equation, run various derivative and integrals, plot my data, upload it to my laptop and e-mail anyone I would like while drinking an overpriced white chocolate mocha from my local coffee shop. I could spend a few hours teaching any competent teenager to mimic my button inputs, and send them off with their final exam thus saving them a semester worth of work.

Certainly this wouldn’t be within my interests as a professor and most likely wouldn’t be within the interests of the student, but we have to agree that a small investment in technology and training could provide all required solutions that are asked of them. In fact, these secondary mathematics problems are so easily solvable with technology, and said technology is so prolific, that we may safely say that there is no demand for these skills by hand—aside from the actual signal to employers they reveal by passing my coursework.

Yet, this simply begs the question, what is so special about the process of deriving solutions? Surely we would all be better spellers with the elimination of spell check and may possibly be better writers with the elimination of the backspace key and eraser, but exactly how would this benefit production and consumption?

Clearly we cannot churn out engineers and scientists by increasing the production of Texas Instrument calculators but then again, no engineering firm on the planet would trust their scientists or engineers without these calculating devices. A stubborn mathematician who refuses to employ calculating technology would be hard pressed to find work in the fast paced world of consulting. Simply, he is a relic; delegated to the classroom to grade papers.

So why are we still educating math like we did in the pre-calculator revolution of the 1980’s? I’m not sure I can provide a legitimate answer to this question, and there is still much to debate within this topic, but I think an extract from a favorite economist of mine (Steven Landsburg) about quality today versus quality of the recent past may offer some insight:

“As far as quality of the goods we buy [today versus the past], try picking up an electronics catalogue from oh, say, 2001 and ask yourself whether there’s anything there you’d consider owning…or, if you prefer, take a product like health care. Would you rather purchase today’s health care at today’s prices, or the health care of say, 1970 at 1970 prices?”

Nevertheless, as forward as I am on this topic, I would not dare call myself a professional mathematician, as it would be an injustice to the mathematicians I studied under as well as those I work alongside. Simply, I just imagine a society who embraces answers instead of worshiping processes.

Threat as an empty concept

2010-09-28T10:03:00.001-07:00

The purpose of this short essay is simply to redundantly question threats to the point of obscurity.

Threat seems like an empty concept

The proposition of defining threat is so completely arbitrary that it may as well be immaterial. Usually you can trace an argument as follows. A clown costume may cause a feeling of fear (as could a Ku Klux Klan robe), yet, since there is no immediate danger associated with the costume there is no true threat. Thus, the costume or robe may be worn by the individual as long as they reserve the right to wear such clothing by the property owner from which they reside.

For most libertarian circles, all is well in the previous example. Now, if you replace the costume with a gun, things (supposedly) become different. It is assumed that a gun carries with it a larger probability of harm and thus is more threatening than a costume.

Yet again this level of threat is completely subjective. Let us take for example the fact that a gun must, by definition, point at something. The mere fact that it points at the individual is as much a function of the individuals’ position as the guns position. Given a direct line of site at any point within a three-dimensional sphere there are only but so many ways the gun’s line of sight may direct. For a thought experiment, let us imagine a room of a many individuals, one of who is particularly over weight. If we imagine a gun within the room also, of the finite ways upon which to point the gun, the overweight individuals is proportionally more likely to have the gun pointed at them, yet are they more threatened by the gun? Would they have more recourse to restitution given this increased threat-probability?

The typical libertarian response to situations of arbitrary threats is to place the decision into the hands of an arbitration company. I believe this is wise response given the fact that such arbitration companies would specialize in equity as well as justice. Yet, like all businesses, arbitration companies cannot simply be initially outsourced such decisions; consumers must choose to proceed with arbitration.

Initially, the property owner, if they indeed own their property absolutely, is the ultimate authority to rule on actions within the realm of their property boundaries. Of course it is within the interests of the property owner to use arbitration companies and thus relinquish their absolute authority over their personal property. From the reference point of this article we may simply assume that an individual feels threatened, but their perpetrator owns the property from which they threaten them. The question then becomes who empowers the arbitration company to overrule of the absolute owner of property but the absolute owner? If the property owner and perpetrator of threats hasn’t empowered the arbitration company to make such decision then they may not simply assume such power.

Even if the individual who feels threatened calls their arbitration company to sue or imprison the property owner for the discomfort they caused, they have no power to do so unless the property owner had previously relinquished such power (for example, the home insurance company required the home owner to deal with an arbitration company in all cases of restitution/threats).

In fact, what is it about these little bundles of threat-probabilities that give an arbitration company the right to rule in favor of one party? If we unpack the threat of a gun pointing at someone, for example, what would we find in terms of probabilities? I’m sure we would find quite a heavy function from which we could run regressions with.

Threat = f( D, Wi, V, M, Me, A, O, Me, S, Sw)

D = distance between gunman and victim

Wi = Wind

V = volume of the target

M = Make of gun and bullet

Me= Probability of Mechanical failure

A = ability of shooter

O = objects obstructing line of sight

Me = mental health of gun holder

S = Chemical Substances within the gun holder

SW= Self-worth of the potential victim

Yet, none of what’s listed above (and the infinite amount of variables that are left out) gives any legitimacy to the pretense of an action.

A threatening voice, or threats made by voice are also irrelevant. When dealing with sound we have a few scenarios

1. Intensity (the distance between waves and proximity to the ear)

2. Pitch/timbre (those characteristics of sound which allow the ear to distinguish sounds which have the same pitch and loudness in communication and perception)

3. Lack of Sound

Obviously a lack of sound can’t be a cause of aggression since there is no positive obligation to initiate sound.

So what of the issue where someone uses silence as a weapon of mental abuse? The silent treatment, often employed by wives, carries with it a slew of injury. Think of the situation where a parent refuses to speak to a child thus rendering the child incompetent in speech. Are we to claim the use of positive rights?

Intensity of sound is a harder concept since it is both a function of distance between the two parties as well as the intensity of sound wave frequency. Yet again, the speaking distance between two parties can only be decided by the property owner. For example, the issue where someone uses the pitch of sound to physically hurt another individual, as in the case of screaming in someone’s ear, etc. Even still, this is not a scenario of word interpretation as much as it is a scenario of volume. Thus an individual may speak sweet flattery in ones ear but still cause as much physical (or even less) harm as someone who speaks threats. It is volume not interpretation that is of issue, but again volume is ultimately decided by the property owner--unless the property owner willfully relinquishes that power or the sound waves begin polluting another individual’s property (note: since absolute ownership cannot be partitioned, the individual whom is on your property is subject to the owners authority unless the owner has contracted away that authority).

Finally, how is one to speak of pitch/timbre as a cause of threat when they are subject to interpretation? Think of an attempt to translate a joke from one language to another. It is nearly impossible to translate without losing portions of the humor. Thus, the initiator of sound chooses from various pitches among languages with formal and informal slang, and anticipate that the receiver of such sound fully understands and acts appropriately. Think of the words for, fore or four within a sentence and ask how easily such context could be confused. For such reasons it is beyond me why someone would wish to subscribe to the notion that a word, be it spoken or written, can serve to be responsible as a medium for causation of aggressive acts or threat in need of restitution.

Chapter Fifteen: Real Life Smurfs (Books In Progress)

2010-07-31T20:32:00.001-07:00

Chapter Fifteen: Real Life Smurfs

Let us suppose there existed an individual of miniature size, let us call this individual the Smurf. Essentially, the Smurf is by all accounts a human, born by parental member of a species of bipedal primates in the family of Hominidae of which we taxonomically call Homo sapiens. Every product of human biology is apparent, yet relative in size to that of 1/15th of a man--or thus above a couple inches. Even complex rationalism and language is apparent with only a reduction is vocal decibel.

Who is our creature is irrelevant to our inquiry; let him possess the aspiration is of any 18 year old man. What we care to investigate is to what extent his rights to property are protected and respected (both private and external) and to what extent can he homestead? We will tackle these questions in two parts, self ownership and external ownership of which we will discuss external ownership first.

To own something externally is to either first homestead i.e. original appropriation of property not currently owned or to exchange for it . For example, if someone embarks onto a piece of land or article of land, including "nature animals", ferae naturae, that is previously inhabited/unowned, this said individual may in fact occupy and claim ownership of the land by mixing their labor with it. This is a broad and overly used term but serves the current point. The next way to acquire ownership is through exchange by means of either previous ownership or your own labor labor. If they have neither of these prerequisites, meaning they have nothing to offer for exchange, they must either rely on sympathy or there is no exchange. Thus let our Smurf be absent of the first prerequisite (pre-owned property) and enter the market place with the second (labor). Instantly, one would complain that there is little a Smurf can offer in the field of labor, a typical response and one of merit, yet before I yield that the Smurf has less to offer in terms of labor exchange, let me name a few professions that may be interested in his labor

 Scientific Research

 Carnival & Freak Shows

 T.V. Programs (Maybe Reality T.V. )

 Motivational Speaker (If I can do it, anyone can”

 And probably unconditional charity

Yet, let me yield the point that our Smurf will not have the ability to offer much in the field of labor, meaning his marginal rate of productivity is well below that of the average individual. Yet, so what? Why would a Smurf 1/15th the size of a normal individual need to consume an equivalent of someone 15 times their size? Wouldn’t it be probable that our Smurf would live in a house 1/15th the average, consume a daily caloric intake 1/15th the average, etc, etc. Why should we believe that his rate of productivity would not posses the ability to sustain a “relative” average life ? Thus, given the average household of 1500 square feet and an average daily caloric intake of 2000, are little Smurf need only 100ft^2 home and 133 calories to be living at an average means. Furthermore, if the threshold for subsistence is 800 calories a day, than our Smurf need only 53 calories to stay alive. Thus, let us carry our discussion toward a different realm, respect of property.

There are many small creatures 1/15th the size of us that we show no respect for in the realm of property rights. We may be generous, but we need not be and many are not. We can take the tree they live in or food they scavenged. It is thus within our realm of ability to do all of these things, but is it within our right? Thus, what is different from dealing with a small human versus a small animal? Or a large animal? Do we show the 500lb buffalo any more respect toward their property than the tiny mouse? If we do it is out of generosity, not respect . We may like one animal over another but this is in no way a universal rule of interaction. So what is different between animals and humans? Simply, it is communication. We engage with other humans in respectful interaction because it is mutually beneficial, it is mutually beneficial because we can delineate the terms of exchange prior to exchange. We know others value estimates because they tell us; not only do we know what they value but we know how much they value it relative to other property. This is not true for other animals. We may know that a dog prefers steak over dry dog food, but how much steak versus how much dog food? There are no terms because there is no delineation. The dog, like everyone, would rather have more to less. They would rather have the steak and the dog food, as we would like to have the steak and the hamburger. But if we are in possession of just one of the two items we are happy, maybe not as happy, but satisfied. If another animal, be of any size, enters the picture with an item the previous animal wants, it may either waste resources fighting, chasing or running from the animal or it may just eat its own food items and leave the other animal and its food to itself . If communication were available, the two animals may strike a deal resulting in increased happiness between both animals but since there is no communication, there is no trade. Thus all actions remain zero sum. Yet, how does this apply to our Smurf?

Yes it is true that any normal sized individual could take freely from Smurf by sheer size (though you would think that anyone handicapped with that much size differential would arm themselves fairly well) but is it also not true that NBA and NFL players could use their sheer size and speed to take from the majority of the populace they deal with? Do we blame this strictly on compulsory external protection (state cops and military)? Think about the requirements for such a supposition. The modern state did not surface until near the beginning of the fifteenth century associated with the gradual institutional development within Europe. This would mean that prior to the welfare state; social individuals were engaged in relative exchange and communiqué without state financed protection. How would humans, like other primates, have formed complex social networks if there was not a mutual level of trust? Why would two humans ever have began (and continued) initial interaction? Thus, characteristically, individuals of large size, strength or speed have more to gain by trading with smaller, weaker, slower individuals because they reap grater rewards from trade without expending resources to chase down, over power, or kill the smaller individual—the only cost is the terms of trade. The same would apply to our Smurf. Our Smurf may, at first, barter from a safe place of distance and once trust is built allow that distance to shrink.

If other individuals enjoy the exchanges made with our Smurf, say they like his freshly picked blueberries and don’t wish to spend time looking for them and collecting them their self, they will continue coming back. If they abandon that trust and kill the Smurf to take his daily blueberries, they have now eliminated all future exchange. They will need to find a new trading partner or find the blueberries their self. If they kidnap the Smurf, they must invest resources into hiding and restraining him as well as find ways to motivate him to work. The Smurf (if I was him) should have prepared for such a case and have designated a backup plan

Thus, because of communication the Smurf is just as appt to

It depends on the demand for the land, all appropriation of property is through exchange because to mix land with labor is exchange. Therefore, when someone says something to the likes of

“An old and much respected theory holds that for a man to come into possession of a previously unowned value it is necessary for him to "mix his labor with the land" in order to make it his own. But this theory runs into difficulties when one attempts to explain what is meant by "mixing labor with land." Just how much labor is required, and of what sort? If a man digs a large hole in his land and then fills it up again, can he be said to have mixed his labor with the land? Or is it necessary to effect a somewhat permanent change in the land? If so, how permanent?...Or is it necessary to effect some improvement in the economic value of the land? If so, how much and how soon?...Would a man lose title to his land if he had to wait ten months for a railroad line to be built before he could improve the land?...And what of the naturalist who wanted to keep his land exactly as it was in its wild state in order to study its ecology?...[M]ixing one's labor with the land is too ill-defined a concept and too arbitrary a requirement to serve as a criterion of ownership”.

They are simply asking the wrong question. For example, you would never argue that labor is too ill-defined for exchange of a good owned by someone. The labor is defined clearly by the terms of exchange. Yet, to ask how much labor should you exchange for something no one owns is silly. There are no terms, you take the property based on whatever amount of labor you deem necessary. You may climb a tree for a banana or cut down the tree for the banana, you may ignore the tree or you may destroy the tree. Why are we speaking about “how much” land and labor to mix when “how much” presupposes there is a barter of terms of exchange. So unless the man is bartering with his other personality or with a ghost, he need not barter very long with the tree before he does what he wills. Now, if others too want the land they must exchange for it. How much? Well, ask the owner. If the owner (call him Adam) owns the whole world and Steve (made from Adams other rib) owns nothing, then what are the terms of exchange? Probably pretty low! It doesn’t take graduate degrees in economics to know that when supply is high, prices are low. Unless you want to make the claim that demand is higher. Yet demand is infinitely high for a piece of land, not this piece of land. Steve may move onward.

Yet, even if Adam owned everything in the world, how in the world would he even know what he owned? How would they even meet in such a large portion of land mass? And even if he does claim ownership to everything, he does not own Steve. Steve is the rightful owner of his body, he can only ask Steve to leave his property and where can he ask him to leave but where he stands, and if everywhere he walks he is still trespassing then Steve must forever walk so that he does not violate Adams wishes of trespass. Even a trespasser cannot be violated if it is not implicitly assumed that there is an owner of a land, and when it is told who the owner is the other individual has the right to leave. Thus Steve appears from nowhere, and is told to leave; he begins walking and so thus is trying to leave. He must be given the proper chance to depart even if it is a fruitless task i.e. anywhere he walks, he is still trespassing. Yet who is to say that eventually he may not disappear—after all he did appear? This is the extent which we must go to hunt down liberty!

http://podiobooks.com/title/the-market-for-liberty

Chapter Thirteen: Voluntary & Involuntary Slavery (Books in Progress)

2010-07-31T20:31:00.001-07:00

Chapter Thirteen: Voluntary & Involuntary Slavery

This chapter will focus on those who wish to enter into a voluntary slavery contract as well as those who are forced into an involuntary slavery

The libertarian supports the individual’s right to enter into a voluntary contract of slavery, a natural deduction from the nature of self-ownership. If a third party were to place a restriction upon such a voluntary contract, it would itself be committing a form of slavery by limiting the free actions of another individual. This third party must therefore conclude that either he, or some other he, has the right to make decisions for the welfare of another individual. Thus, by denying the individual the freedom to engage in exchanging for his body and labor is a form of monopoly over that body and labor. The position is thus a negation in terms and should not be considered.

Immediately the wheels of the skeptic begin turning. Limiting another’s liberty is not itself a negation of liberty, unless the libertarian philosophy is one of pacifism. If I limit you from stealing my watch, your liberty has been limited, but I have committed no wrong and certainly cannot be suggested to be committing a form of slavery. The skeptic is right to make such a distinction. The position assumes that the exchange is mutually beneficial in which no parties liberty has been intruded upon. The theft of a watch is not a mutually beneficial exchange and one party has been coerced against. Such dispute in language is not within the scope of this book.

This condoning of voluntary slavery is not to be confused with the condemning of such slavery. The libertarian fully supports the individual’s right to condemn such behavior as either morally repugnant or ethically wrong. The libertarian supports any value judgment from any ethical reference point; the problem comes when someone wishes to inject such a value-judgment with force. Therefore, let us analyze such a position from an analogy often quoted by Walter Block

Imagine the fate of a child rests upon a surgical procedure so intense that it demands a price tag of 1000 times the yearly salary of the child’s parents. Such a price tag is beyond the reach of the parents’ access to charity, home equity, loadable funds and labor. The scenario is indeed hopeless for the child. In dire condition, the father seeks to offer his own bondage as a last ditch attempt to save his child. To his surprise such an individual is interested in such a proposition and has his employees draw up such a contract which the father signs immediately. Immediately the child is flown to the nearest hospital, the surgery is performed and the terminally ill child is saved. The following day the father reports to his new home to perform the contracted slavery.

The average reader cringes at such a scenario. What type of individual would take a father away from his family? Why doesn’t he just give the family the money or lend it to them? Why doesn’t the doctor of such a hospital lower their wages to save the child? Why doesn’t someone intervene? And so the free marketer retreats, scampering for the state to solidify his brand of ethics. Such a system is too vile and repugnant be left to the market of exchange.

The libertarian himself cringes at such suggestions because the libertarian understands the system of scarcity. He understands that all value is subjective. Certainly, such a scheme is not beyond the reach of greed/self-interest, yet, self-interest is of course the reason why the father seeks such a market remedy. He selfishly wants his kid to live forever as I do mine. It may be possible to regulate (code for force) such a scenario in benefit of the father and the child. We could regulate it so that the doctor’s wages are lowered or the wealth is redistributed from the hands of the rich slave master to the father/child. All these abilities are available if you are willing to point a gun and force such ethical claims. Yet, the reader must remember that such devices of wealth and medicine derive from the roots of self-interest. It is only because of self-interest that such devices are available to reallocate, and we must, at the very least, accept that such devices will not remain around if they may be stolen on a whim; they will themselves be reallocated to safer investments.

Therefore, if we sidestep the initial anger associated with such a plight we may question what such a slave contract entails. Certainly, hideous demands could be placed upon the willing slave and such demands may entice the father to change his mind and break his contract. This leaves us to question the contract itself. Rothbard was correct in pointing out that a contract carries no weight in and of itself. Therefore, Rothbard was correct in pointing out that a contract need not itself remain unbroken, only that if broken restitution be paid. For example the father may be pushed to such limits in slavery that he refuses to continue. He may break his contract and leave. Yet, the actual act of discontinuing the contract is not problematic as long as restitution is indeed paid. In this situation, the restitution is at least as much as the amount borrowed for the surgery of his child minus the amount of time he spent in bondage. Additional fees may apply depending on the contract. Fees such as any forgone benefits of the previous contract minus the benefits of the opportunity cost of the foregone investment, services fees, or a specific market interest applied to the funds loaned out .

As a rule, the lender may always demand the owner sell or exchange items to be paid his restitution for the money lent. If, for example, the money was lent out to save the house from being foreclosed on (in other words if the father agreed to slavery for a specific amount of time to keep from losing his house) and he broke his contract, the lender could demand that the house be sold or exchanged for repayment. The problem is not that simple when dealing with the child. The money lender cannot demand that the surgery be undone, though nothing prevents him from making such requests (remember we are dealing with a vile individual). Of course we must remember that the contract is not with the child but the father. The father agreed to bondage at which point he changed his mind. Thus, the father and only the father is responsible for the restitution.

Since the amount loaned was upward to 1000 times his yearly income the father may simply not be able to pay off the loan within his lifetime. The father may simply petition for charity or attempt to work out discount. The slave owner will sue the father for his money at which point in time an arbitration company will determine the details of how repayment. Likely, the slave owner will settle rather than stretching out litigation. The father will probably work a specific amount of hours a week to pay off the discounted loan.

The slave owner is despicable. He is also an idiot for engaging in such risky business practices, yet we must remember that it is the father who is the thief. It is the father that rendered no services for money lent. Regardless of the stresses he was under, no one is in the wrong but him. Thus, whatever penalty settled upon between the arbitrators will only be an attempt to compensate all parties.

One final point, what if the surgery goes wrong and the child doesn’t survive? Now we have a situation where a doctor was paid for services not rendered. The doctor will be sued for compensation. In this situation the father must wait for the arbitration company to settle the doctors restitution before he can pay off the slave owner. The father may choose to servitude during the time to avoid any penalty or interest. Once settled the father may purchase his freedom.

We have surveyed voluntary servitude and though we may find the practice detestable, we cannot confuse it with being criminal. Next we will study involuntary servitude within a free market.

Involuntary servitude is what most refer to when they use the term slavery. Some may refer to anyone proletarian as slaves, some philosophers may refer to anyone with beliefs in god as mental slaves. Each may have their place in context but for the context here when we refer to slavery we are referring to involuntary servitude much like that of pre Civil War African Americans, Or 20th century Poland via Nazi occupation. Libertarians oppose involuntary slavery as much as any humanitarian, only their definition as to what constitutes a slave is more defined then most political philosophers who engage in sloppy thinking.

We will begin by expelling the myths as to what constitutes a slaver and finally will put forward a contentious theory of absolute property rights.

The common proletariat, labor philosopher will speak of our current capitalist society as slaves to capital. I need not kick the dead dog of extreme leftist ideologies of socialism and communism for too long. Most

At a point where I need to be able to answer the question, can the lender demand the child be enslaved, or can they demand that. Life is itself property but only in context.

Let the reader attempt to contemplate one act not dedicated to the individuals self interest

Chapter Nine: Conjoined Twins (Books in Progress)

2010-07-31T20:30:00.001-07:00

Chapter Nine: Conjoined Twins

The point of this chapter is to survey the question of property rights of conjoined twins. Foremost, we must conclude that, aside from an inability that leaves you under the willing care of another, there is no negation of liberty that comes from a birth defect. In the current situation we have two distinct minds with authority over one body. Although there are several different types of conjoined twins and property rights may vary with each situation, the distinguishing characteristic is the liberty to make decisions. The following chapter will attempt to provide a backdrop for approaching questions such as, what if one twin has control over certain aspects of the body, does his control have limits based on the demands of the other twin? Could one twin commit a crime while the other is innocent? Could one twin end their life if it meant the end of both of their lives? Could one twin enter into a contract without the consent of the other twin? The reader will agree that conjoined twin property rights are extremely complicated and such complication, as well as its rarity, is why such cases stay outside our courtrooms.

Foremost, we must conclude that if one twin has no control over the body’s movements than he or she can only use persuasion to limit the actions of the other twin and persuasion is limited to how another is influenced. Therefore, if one twin wishes to eat ice-cream with no regards to their body mass index and the other conjoined twin wishes to eat a health snack, the one without control over the body’s movements is at a loss—with their only tool being that of persuasion. If for some reason the second twin were to have no means of making his or her opinions known then their desires are not in need of scrutiny. It would be a moot point to believe that an outside party can in anyway predict the desires of the mute twin then that of his or her conjoined twin. In this case, the mute twin would simply be at the mercy of their dominant twin.

For many, such conclusions are too much to accept. After all it is within the realm of science to discriminate when another being is in pain. The problem with such a device is not that of science it is that if interpreting the science. As with many cases of individuals in a state of vegetation whom offer certain signs of life, like blinking, smiling, twitching of fingers, etc, whenever they are exposed to stimuli that ‘sign of life’ must be interpreted by someone and the someone is not without their predisposed biases.

Take for example a scenario where an excommunicated Jehovah Witness is laid bedside within a vegetative state. Let’s say an individual’s brother, who happens to be a Baptist minister comes to see him one day in order to read his King James Version of the bible in a hope that he can rescue his soul in order that it will make it to heaven. Let’s say that throughout the bible reading the vegetative man performs a series of random signs like blinking, smiling, twitching of fingers, etc. His brother takes the signs as consent with his message. At the end of the meeting the brother asks the vegetative man to accept Jesus Christ into his heart to be forgiven of his sins. The brother leaves the hospital extremely happy that his brother will be with him in heaven. Let’s say that on the following day the vegetative man’s Catholic sister brings with her the King James Version of the bible, yet with her own interpretation of how and if this man can go to heaven. Let’s say that during the bible reading and praying the vegetative man performs random signs like blinking, smiling, twitching of fingers, etc that the sister accepts as an act of agreement with her message. She too leaves the hospital thinking that she has performed her heavenly duty and that her vegetative brother has seen the light of truth.

Now it should be obvious to the reader that something is wrong with this scenario. Either the vegetative brother changes his mind at will or the movements are not representative of understanding the way in which the brother and sister interpreted. Maybe they are a response to stimuli but not a transmission of opinion/preference. Therefore, we see that the aforementioned problem with our conjoined twin and interpreting the sings from such science, it cannot escape the interpreters own bias. The sign brain waves in response to determined pain cannot simply be wrote off as a preference. A depressed individual who retreats to cutting their arm is in reality educing a smaller pain to extinguish a larger pain. The point is not to quibble over rare cases, only to point out that such science is not a guarantee of assessing ones preference. The vegetative twin has no way of expressing his or her desires and thus such desires must be interpreted by external source. The individual who disagrees with the decision making process of the dominant twin is simply using their own predisposed bias. They are claiming that a doctor with the use of his science can better guess the preferences of the vegetative twin (which may or may not be true)

Proceeding back to our situation where one twin has a means of communication but not a means of control over such preferences. In this scenario you have an entity who is physically under the direct control and mercy of another entity, a very common theme within the general public. For example, many parents become guardians of their parents or grandparents when they reach a level of inability. Furthermore, some individuals via some mishap of birth, accident or ailment become disabled and must depend on another individual for welfare. In situations like these the disabled individual operates under the charity of another individual; they, like small children are parasitic—their life depends upon the charity of another individual. Individuals who provide this service are extremely kind in nature since, under libertarian law, they are under no obligation to do so. Furthermore, any extension of obligation should be met with skepticism. Charity is not charity if it involves force. Thus, our conjoined twin is under no obligation to heed the advice of his twin. Indeed, the dominant twin may disregard their advice all together and they would have committed no crime.

The reason for this stems from the premise of self-ownership which implies the right to associate and not associate with whom one pleases. Any objection to such rules of association is to disavow self-ownership (outsourcing ownership to some third party). This is not libertarian. Since the dominant twin has not contracted to provide such charity to his twin, he commits no wrong by simply following his personal will. The dominant twin may simply ignore the requests of his conjoined twin without violation. We may call this decision making process the tug-of-rope policy making.

Surely such a conclusion is not black and white, it must be dependent upon the situation. Therefore, let us apply some applications and see how such a theory would apply. Let us propose that the dominant twin commits a theft and is caught, how should the arbitration company reach a conclusion when no matter what the conclusion an innocent party must be punished. First, let us expel the myth that one twin is an accomplice of the other twin and therefore guilty of at least aid and bedding. The libertarian doesn’t subscribe to Good Samaritanism as anything more than a value judgment of what someone ought to do, not under obligation to do. Therefore, someone may watch a crime take place, even cheer on the criminal and not be subjected to legal recourse. In the situation above, the dominant twin is the one who commits the action and is thus the criminal.

Therefore, how does the arbitration company deal with this scenario? Their goal is simply to make restitution whole, that is to restore the property to the original owner or compensate for such theft. After the value is determined for the theft factoring in interest, costs of foregone benefits from usage and adding, if any, physiological damage the arbitration company will calculate its restitution. The twins will then be forced to repay such restitution either by out of pocket expense or labor. Most likely a situation will arise such that the conjoined twins must pay a portion of their wages.

Does this mean that one party suffers for a crime that he or she did not commit? Not necessarily. A child of a parent who commits similar crimes would also suffer from the redirection of family assets. This is not a great analogy but it demonstrate my thought processes. Nevertheless, let us look how some possible rendering by the arbitration company for the various types of conjoined twins

Parapagus. Joined side-by-side at the torso, having separate heads and arms.

For this twin case, each member has separate uses of his or her hands or arms. They are joined at the side so that they must partner while walking. In a situation like so, the arbitration company may a percentage of the one twins income to be depleted while the others income is the same. Thus, if our individual makes minimum wage carrying boxes whereas usually they split the wages 50/50, the restitution company may obligate the criminal twin to pay a percentage of their 50% in wages, leaving the other twins wages alone.

Can there be two wills? I don’t think there can be, but I’m not really sure. Say for example your grandmother dies and left you and your sister her ring, who owns it? You cannot say that both parties equally own 100% of the ring since both parties may wish to will the ring in different ways. If your sisters will matched your own will at any point in time you choose, the story may be different but under the definition of ownership you must be able to wield your will upon it…this clearly is not the case here. Ownership cannot be divided, only partitioned. Therefore, both parties could have a 50/50 split of ownership or any other split of ownership but such 50/50 division must be settled on…a job for such a private entity. So how could we say that a conjoined twin has a 50/50 division of ownership within the body? Not so. Ownership is more then simply desire to will it is also command to will. You cannot simply desire that your grandmothers ring be cleaned, you must have the ability to clean it yourself or to favor someone else into cleaning it for you. You cannot demand the job to be completed because of your stake in ownership since ownership presupposes both will and ability to carry out that will. To require someone else perform your will for you would fall under the category of positive obligation…a realm not supported by libertarians.

Therefore, the 50/50 division for the conjoined twin is indeed tricky. Lets divide the conjoined twin into Bill and Bo. If Bo has no control over the majority of the body then his will is limited to such control. Fore, Bo cannot obligate Bill into specific actions like eating healthy, though he may attempt to do so by pursuasion.

What is to keep Bill from just killing Bo? After all, suicide is condoned under libertarian law as is self mutilation. Thereofre, if there are two owners over one portion of the

Where does this will reside…the mind under conscience? If the body is simply a homesteaded tool then we begin to ask who homesteaded the body of the conjoined twin? Of course to homestead is to will control over something first. If one arm in controlled by Bill and the other arm is controlled by Bo then we can say that each homesteading each arm. One cannot claim control over the other since they did not

What if the ownership were to suddenly switch? What if you onwed the left arm one morning and the right arm the next morning? An exchange has thus occurred be it some bizarre exchange. Let us imagine that a normal individual lost control over his arm, can someone else claim to homestead it? Not necessarily. You don’t need a working arm to claim ownership of it, you need only have first claim to it and be able to demonstrate such control and the demonstration is subject to arbitration ruling. Yet, if someone were to enter a vegetative state where they are at a loss to control any portion of their body they must then rely on others for life. Since I cannot force you to give me charity (a contradiction in terms), my will must be submit to someone else’s will. The problem with depictions such as these at that the individuals imagination begin concocting the most veil situations under which one may find yourself (thoughts of slavery and sexual frenzies appeal to the mind). Some authors are quick to point out such situations in an attempt to throwout the whole theory. Rothbard spoke of this when he said…

Yet, this author does not flee from the possibility of such scenarios as justifiable; these same sitations exist under current governance even though current governance outlaws it and condones it. Maybe we could accept that if leagalized such perverted schemes would increase, but we also must confess that under such leagalization the consumers would also be more diligent. If someone were suspected of such perversions they may not be allowed near your property and you may be adviced by your arbitration company to avoid such situations.

We do have the problem of how much can someone control a portion of the body. For example, what if both wills may control both hands?

And if the mate and have a baby?

We may think of the body of the conjoined twin as your grandmothers ring left to both you and your sister. The ownership is divided and subjected t However, the person who controls the body must still respect the rights of the other individuals’

property (in this case a head). Therefore, we must conclude that ultimate ownership of action is the twin who controls the body. To carry this to a logical extreme, the dominant twin owns all action, including the right to punish or terminate the body.