Replying to Avatar An Alien's Angst

1) First off, there is no "point of property rights." There is a reality of property rights that stems from the fact of Self-ownership: the fact that individuals own their Selves - their Self-consciousnesses - on an ontological basis.

Physical property rights are neither more basic nor more fundamental - they are derivative. They are *entirely* dependent on the intangible property rights of the Self over the body.

Without the Self, bodies are no more than shapes lacking both moral worth and value. It is only by the assumption that there exists a Self, experiencing materiality and acting through a given shape that it can have any moral relevance whatsoever.

Human bodies don't have rights. Shapes do not have rights. The material does not possess any inherent dignity or worth and more shapes cannot imbue it with any. Only Selves can do that.

So, if you're going to claim that the physical reality is more fundamental to you than the spiritual reality, then I'm in Westworld.

Consequentialism is not a legitimate position for a libertarian of any kind to take. "Consequentialist libertarians" are not libertarians at all - they are pacifists with peace as their core political end - not liberty. Materialism is not a legitimate position for libertarians of any kind to take. There is no legitimate materialist case for liberty which is precisely why you're sitting here arguing for theft of property on the grounds that things you can't see are imaginary.

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Continuing from that, physical harm is not greater than spiritual (or mental or psychic harm if you want to call it that). Physical harm only has any significance BECAUSE of the experience it constitutes for the Self and we are not talking about the pain. That is not morally significant either. Harm is delimitation. Doing harm to others is wrong because you commit theft - you steal their self-directed potentiality.

Harm can actually only be done by denying Self-ownership.

The fact that you cut a guy's legs off isn't wrong because he feels pain, its wrong because of the delimitation. It is wrong because you have stolen the potentiality of the fruits of walking from him (the fruits are the point of the action). That he will never have the pride and profit of able-bodied work, that he will likely never marry or be fallen in love with, that he will never again have the same kind of dignity and privacy of genuine freedom of mobility, etc.... - that is the problem .That is the harm. The loss not the moments of physical pain or the gore.

Its that he can't use his own legs in his interest anymore. That he has been robbed of using an interest-pursuing asset - that he owned (and still owns despite the disembodiment) - and thus the value and experiences he would have generated for himself with it.

Its exactly like stealing someone's Bitcoin.

Degree of abstraction does not make a thing less real or less fundamental.

Because at the end of the day, your private key is "just pattern recognition" and you don't really have the right to profit off the Bitcoin in your wallet according to your train of thought.

Someone spending all your Bitcoin would not have stolen anything from you.

Bitcoin is both scarce & rivalrous.

My legs are both scarce & rivalrous.

Ideas are only marginally scarce & never rivalrous.

Your ability to use an idea to improve your life is not diminished by someone else also using the idea.

If there was some natural right to control ideas then people would be able to patent things forever & would never have to give them up. They would be able to patent food recipies & charge you every time you make a pb&j sandwhich. But the length of a patent is completely arbitrary, & no one can patent food recipies because everyone realizes we'd probably all starve if that were allowed. Machine recipies are no more legitimate than food recipes.

There are some really corrupt people now trying to patent GMO versions of crops while actively trying to eliminate all natural versions of those crops, & suing neighboring farmers whose natural crops get polinated by the GMO versions. Much like pharma corps trying to eliminate access to generic treatments of covid so that they can get emergency approval to sell their patented poison jabs to the govt.

You own yourself & the fruit of your labor as you produce it. You do not own future potential, the future is not guaranteed to anyone. You own physical property in the now & your ownership means the freedom to do with your property what you wish. The moment an idea spreads from your mind to that of someone else, they are equally owners of the idea & free to apply it as they wish.

Again, if I can take pictures of your car & 3d print my own just like it, have I stolen either from you or from the manufacfurer? If you invent a wheel barrow & I see it & can make my own from my own property, do you have a right to attack me & take my wheel barrow? What lkss have you incurred? What portion of my property or the energy I used to rearrange it now belongs to you? I really don't think you have given the issue enough thought.

Kinsella has some great discussions on the subject.

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