The Necessity of Government

[GPC100s]

Who helps those who are completely poor?

Charity. Studies show that people who have the ability to "like" charities on facebook are less likely to donate. Therefore, if we were to take away the excuse "that's what my tax dollars are for" then we would see an increase in charity. Plus, people will have more money because they aren't being taxed (this includes the poor because they still buy some stuff which is taxed) so again, more money in people's pockets coupled with an increase in the willingness to donate means more charity... I also think we can expect less poor people to exist because getting a job would be easier without minimum wage laws; although you may disagree... Will it be enough to cover everyone? Idk. I don't know how to crunch the numbers.

[brimstoneSalad]

The person could change every time. I don't think that collecting and counting votes equates to a government though. It's a service, not a rule.

You would be wrong there.

Somebody has to decide who collects the votes. You can't vote on who collects the votes, because somebody has to collect the votes for that vote too, and you can't vote on who collects those votes, because somebody has to collect those votes.

Do you see the problem of infinite regression?

It's like the question "who created god?"

At some point, you have to have an authority if you want to enact regulation.

The community enacts them by voting them in.

That doesn't work.

In a true anarchist society, I think that the people in a community would look over all of the details in a situation of a rule being broken. They would vote on what to do.

Again, that doesn't work.

The only think close to that is a tribal society with around 50 people, so everybody knows everybody else- but then those societies are naturally ruled by social pressures and the strongest personalities, even if they are nominally democratic (which sometimes they are).

A system with economic equality and mutual cooperation would show people that they need to work together in order to live peacefully, so this probably wouldn't happen as often as it does.

Sorry, that's just silly. You can't assume this. There are no examples of this ever occurring in the history of humanity, this has never been tested, and there is no such complete theory of human psychology as to predict this kind of outcome.

You're just guessing here.

Karl Marx was just guessing when he wrote the Communist Manifesto. Some great ideas there too, but it wasn't tested.

How did that turn out when it was finally put into practice without testing it first?

Why do you not hold anarcho-capitalism to a similar standard?

You don't need authority to suppress capitalism (a natural result of free economics), if you aren't suppressing capitalism.
So, it doesn't have that problem.

The problem it does have it protection of shared resources. Anarcho-capitalists apparently think we should all breathe from air tanks

Who helps those who are completely poor?

Either rich people, through charity, or they die off.

It relies on personal ethics, not systematic ethics. The problem is, one person can fill the air with Sarin gas on a whim and kill everybody who can't afford air tanks, and suffer no punishment for that beyond social shunning- nobody can legally use force to stop them.

Both systems are equally unsustainable, but anarchism without capitalism can't even be implemented to begin with because there is no means of suppressing capitalism (a natural consequence of economics) without authority.

[brimstoneSalad]

Who helps those who are completely poor?

Charity. Studies show that people who have the ability to "like" charities on facebook are less likely to donate. Therefore, if we were to take away the excuse "that's what my tax dollars are for" then we would see an increase in charity. Plus, people will have more money because they aren't being taxed (this includes the poor because they still buy some stuff which is taxed) so again, more money in people's pockets coupled with an increase in the willingness to donate means more charity... I also think we can expect less poor people to exist because getting a job would be easier without minimum wage laws;

All of this may be true. We would need to do more studies on the matter to know for sure.

Will it be enough to cover everyone? Idk. I don't know how to crunch the numbers.

There just aren't enough numbers to crunch. You'd have to do tests.

Take down trade and immigration barriers, and poor people may also become more visible, which is another thing which can increase donation- although over time it can also desensitize people.


But poor people would all die anyway, as soon as some lunatic gets the bright idea to gas them all because nobody would be able to legally stop them with force, and the poor people can't afford air tanks.

So, in this kind of society, there wouldn't be any poor people left alive to worry about.
Rich people would die shortly after, due to the lack of laborers to maintain their air tank factories.

In the end, humanity would go extinct.

[GPC100s]

Anarcho-capitalists apparently think we should all breathe from air tanks

I didn't say "should" when referring to the air tanks, I was saying that your premise of the need of the air to be collectively owned (or whatever you were arguing for) for survival was a false premise.

But I'm guessing that you're going to either continue that vein of bias, emotional selective hearing malarky, or you'll jump into it again later. That's why I stopped responding to you.

[brimstoneSalad]

I was saying that your premise of the need of the air to be collectively owned (or whatever you were arguing for) for survival was a false premise.

It isn't a false premise, though. It's a practical fact. It is impractical for people to breathe from air tanks in an extreme.

Air purification and pressurization takes much more resources than just not polluting- so much so, that it is a practical impossibility, because we do not have enough resources to do it. For poor people, it's completely impossible because they could not even afford them.

Bill Gates can afford to breathe exclusively from air tanks- the rest of us can not.

Do you know how much air tanks cost? How much it takes to liquify and separate the components of air based on boiling points?

The fact that you even suggested that is such an absurd claim that it seemed like you weren't taking the discussion seriously, and you were just insulting me.

It's like saying people should be free to shoot bullets everywhere because everybody else can wear layers of body armor or ride around in tanks for protection.

It's absurd.

And wearing body armor and riding in tanks (and hiding in bunkers) is actually MORE practical than people breathing from air tanks all of the time.

But I'm guessing that you're going to either continue that vein of bias, emotional selective hearing malarky, or you'll jump into it again later. That's why I stopped responding to you.

I thought you stopped replying because that was the whole of your argument.

You had already defeated your own position the moment you brought it up.

Like I said, it's more reasonable to argue that people should be free to shoot bullets everywhere because others are free to wear body armor and ride in tanks, because those measures of defense are more practical than "air tanks".

[GPC100s]

Practicality and need are two different things, brimstoneSalad. 'Twas no joke. Even so, you shouldn't insult someone of whom you wish to convince (by insult I'm referring to your mention of my argument as absurd and obviously false without refutation). If you truly thought I was making a mockery of our discussion, stop discussing, lest you end up looking stupid when it turns out I wasn't.

[brimstoneSalad]

Practicality and need are two different things, brimstoneSalad.

No, they aren't different things, because we need something to be practical, otherwise it's functionally impossible.

We need clean, shared air, because we can't rely on air tanks- we don't have the resources as a species to make that happen. The vast majority of people would die, then the rest of us would die.
In the same way we need to not be shot by bullets constantly, because it's practically very difficult to survive in those circumstances.

It's "possible" to be shot in the head and live. Does that mean that you don't need to not be shot in the head? But it's just more convenient and so you shouldn't assert your right to not be shot in the head over somebody's right to shoot bullets everywhere?


When something becomes impractical at some extreme measure, it becomes a need in common usage. If you deny this, then you must accept that we don't really have any "needs" at all- and thus we should allow people to set off nuclear bombs everywhere if they feel like it, because with an adequately designed bunker we could hypothetically in some extreme situation survive it.

'Twas no joke. Even so, you shouldn't insult someone of whom you wish to convince (by insult I'm referring to your mention of my argument as absurd and obviously false without refutation). If you truly thought I was making a mockery of our discussion, stop discussing, lest you end up looking stupid when it turns out I wasn't.

Sorry if I assumed you were making a mockery of the discussion. I would not have imagined that anybody would seriously argue what you argued.

But my point was, if you're willing to go to those extremes of indifference to practicality, you can excuse anything at all.

I can't any more argue against "They can breathe from airtanks" as a support for the right of individuals to create extreme air pollution than the assertion that "they can live in bunkers" for the right of individuals to set off nuclear explosions or "they can ride around in tanks" for the right of individuals to shoot bullets whenever and wherever they want.

I don't think I can refute any of those things to your satisfaction based on that standard.

All of those things are possible for very very rich people (although they'd later die when they ran out of resources and there was no work force to support them), but it doesn't justify those restrictions on "rights" as unnecessary. They are practical necessities, and without practicality, any system is a non-starter.

When you reduce the meaning of "need" in such an extreme way, it loses all bearing on reality.

I'm very much open to and interested in libertarian arguments when they have some bearing on practical reality. Some arguments are even very compelling.

When they result in the requirement that people ride around in tanks and breathe from air tanks, I am not open to them. I'm not even going to consider my "option" to breathe from air tanks and hide in a tank, because I can't afford that, and it's not a real option for me.
It's cheaper, safer, and more practical for me to pick up a gun and fight against such a system to put in pace a new system that will protect my clean air.

First and foremost I need to breathe, and then I need for things in my personal space to not pierce my skin or otherwise damage my body without my consent. Give me a system that guarantees me those two things, and I'll listen to anything else you have to say.

[GPC100s]

Give me a system that guarantees me those two things, and I'll listen to anything else you have to say.

There are no guarantees in life.

I don't know what you mean by "functionally impossible" because it IS possible for all human life on earth to breath via air tanks. Less resources means less people can be sustained, but some can be. You mention that there will be no laborers to make the air tanks for the rich, but that's like saying "who will pick the crops if I'm the last man on Earth?! Oh woe is me, I guess I'll just starve..." No, YOU pick the crops, YOU make the air tanks. It may not be as efficient compared to life as we know it now, but it's not "impossible". Hence, commonly shared breathing space is not a necessity, however impractical it may be.

I stress this because it's your reasoning that leads people to say "I NEED food, water, shelter, transportation, safety, entertainment ect. or else I'll suffer! So I take it. If you stop me, you're hurting me!" aka socialism... Not a road I find palatable.

[brimstoneSalad]

There are no guarantees in life.

That's what government does. It guarantees my right to not be murdered, and if somebody violates that right, it takes measures against it.

If I sell you a car and guarantee it, that doesn't mean your car won't break, it means that as a dealer, I will take measures to rectify that in some way.

If my air is polluted, I want to be able to take certain measures against that- like commission this private police force to stop the polluters, in the libertarian system, and retain the right to do that.

I don't know what you mean by "functionally impossible" because it IS possible for all human life on earth to breath via air tanks. Less resources means less people can be sustained, but some can be.

So it's OK that, in this new world order, 99.999999% of people die because of pollution, as long as the people remaining who didn't die have the option to use all of their resources left over to create air tanks and just barely survive?

I don't agree that it's OK to let the vast majority of the Earth's population die because they're too poor to afford air tanks.
And I don't agree that the remaining handful of rich people could keep themselves alive for more than a few years after that, no matter how many resources they had left over.

You mention that there will be no laborers to make the air tanks for the rich, but that's like saying "who will pick the crops if I'm the last man on Earth?! Oh woe is me, I guess I'll just starve..." No, YOU pick the crops, YOU make the air tanks.

Picking crops is easy. Making air tanks is not easy.

I assume you've picked vegetables before. Have you ever made an air tank? Do you know how? Do you know how much energy resource it requires?

Also, there will be no crops- they will all be dead due to pollution. You will have to build a greenhouse, probably underground, which is also run on air tanks, and artificial light, in order to grow crops that won't kill you. I hope you can wait a few years to eat.

It may not be as efficient compared to life as we know it now, but it's not "impossible".

How do you know it's possible with our level of technology and infrastructure to sustain any people at all on such a system?

What if you need to work 25 hours a day to make enough air to last 24 hours?

Have you done the math? Are you an expert in this industry?
Because I don't think it is possible at all, and that's not even taking into account needs for sleep and food in those conditions.

I don't think it's possible. Everybody on Earth would eventually die. At a certain point efficiency becomes so low that you enter a Red Queen's race, where you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in the same place- and then it drops more, and no matter how hard you work, you are doomed to fail. All you can do is delay your inevitable death ever so slightly (maybe a couple days).

After the libertarian apocalypse, in a few hundred years, the environment would be cleaned up through natural processes, and life would return. Maybe in a few more million years, another species would develop technology, until they reached the point of coming up with Libertarianism, and then they'd kill themselves off again.

Maybe that's why we haven't found evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Maybe every time intelligence evolves, somebody gets the bright idea that it should be OK to let people pollute as much as they want, and they kill themselves off.

That's a much more reasonable theory.

And on those grounds, it should seem reasonable to oppose Libertarianism with everything we have in order to preserve our species.

Hence, commonly shared breathing space is not a necessity, however impractical it may be.

You haven't demonstrated this. And based on my knowledge and experience, I'm inclined to believe very strongly that it is not possible, and that humanity would quickly go extinct.

But let's pretend it is possible.

So you're asking me to support a system in which I, along with the vast majority of humans, must willingly sacrifice our lives so that rich people may live more freely, and have the liberty to pollute us to death?

I can't support that system. I don't want to die at the moment.

If these hypothetical evil rich people won't respect my "need" to breathe air and not die, then I (along with millions or even billions of others) won't support their "need" to not be shot with bullets and die.

Your prescription is for a civil war of people who want to breathe against people who want to pollute without restriction.
Is your police force going to violently suppress this uprising? Are there going to be enough of them? Or will the police turn around and support the people?

Because when the masses of people who want to breathe overrun the factories, killing the police who stand in their way, and put the heads of the executives on pikes, they'll then hunt down all of the libertarians who supported them and implemented the system in the first place, and put their heads on pikes too.

I stress this because it's your reasoning that leads people to say "I NEED food, water, shelter, transportation, safety, entertainment ect. or else I'll suffer! So I take it. If you stop me, you're hurting me!" aka socialism... Not a road I find palatable.

You find socialism 'unpalatable', and yet you're perfectly comfortable with over six billion people dying because a few people decided they wanted to pollute the air without recourse?

There are middle grounds, you know...

[thebestofenergy]

I don't know what you mean by "functionally impossible" because it IS possible for all human life on earth to breath via air tanks.

Functionally impossible: impossible that such a thing has the requirements to happen in our present reality, that it's impractical, unrealistic.
It's functionally impossible that all people on earth breed via air tanks, the same way that it's functionally impossible that all people have their own spaceship to explore the universe.
Of course it could be possible, it doesn't break any laws of physics, but it's functionally impossible (in this case, for example, it's absurd because of the astronomical costs of it).
Saying that all human life on earth could afford air tanks, and therefore breathe via air tanks, is a factual error.