Well, I just explained above why saying "you own your body" isn't a terribly useful point from a moral epistemic perspective, so I think the point is kind of empty from within my moral epistemology.
I don't think you and I share the same definition of "ownership", then.
Speaking with this level of nuance doesn't get you several thousand retweets, like tweeting something that gets a cheap dopamine bit like "Bitcoin is the first time in history that you can have property that doesn't rely on anyone but yourself to enforce those rights!"
I see sentiment like this a lot, and I'm always surprised how easily convinced people are by this.
I would also push back against the claim that bitcoin is the first thing where a truly pure property right can be realized given its attendant properties. I think this is an oft overstated case by people trying to philosophize about bitcoin and how it revolutionizes the concept of property.
Bitcoin still completely relies on property as a social construct, in practice. Arguing that it doesn't because a seed phrase exists only in your head is making a lot of unchecked assumptions which seem to be wrong upon a closer look.
1. That the ability to extract a seed phrase from someone's brain is impossible. Either by technology, chemical manipulation of the brain, or by a threat of violence.
2. That accidental leakage of the private key doesn't, at some level, remain a persistent threat.
I think both of these cases seem apparently intractable problems that leaves bitcoin purely in the *property as a social construct* camp. People who say otherwise are taking too much for granted, and as I accuse Rothbard above, have poorly constrained definitions of what property *is*.
Sorry. I very much hate my dumb, iPhone corrected text. So reposting an edited version for posterity:
I think this is directionally-correct. But I think we can move up a layer of distraction to identify the epistemic problem with Rothbard's concept of self-ownership and property.
Fundamentally, property is a necessarily social construct. The idea that your own body is your property in a self-evident, universalist way sounds compelling. And it makes intuitive sense. However, this is only for the very reason that we are not defining what "property" is very well.
Imagine you are alone on an island. And you will be alone on that island for the rest of your life. You will never encounter another human being. In what sense, does the concept of property even have moral purchase, here?
It doesn't, because property is inherently a *social* construct. It exists as a constructed set of social rules around humans behave in a *community*. This is the *only* relevant domain for the concept of property, which is functionally -- as far as I can tell -- the right to exclude others from the use of thing. It presupposes other people in the first instance. The concept of property has no functional purchase in Rothbard's most idealized sense of it as starting from self-ownership. What does yourself as property even mean? You have the right to exclude yourself from yourself?
I don't think property as the state of possession or even exclusive possession, outside of a social context, is a terribly meaningful moral concept.
I think this is directionally-correct. But I think we can move up a layer of distraction to identify the epistemic problem with Rothbard's concept of self-ownership and property.
Fundamentally, property is a necessarily social construct. The idea that your own body is your property in a self-evident, universalist way sounds compelling. And it makes intuitive sense. However, this is only for the very reason that we are not defining what "property" is very well.
Imagine you are alone on an island. And you will be alone on that island for the rest of your life. You will never encounter another human being. In what sense, does the concept of property even have moral purchase, here?
It doesn't, because prosperity is inherently a *social* construct. It exists as a constructed set of social rules around humans behave in a *community*. This is the *only* relevant domain for the concept of property, which is functionally -- as far as I can tell -- the right to exclude others from the use of thing. It presupposes other people in the first instance. The concept of property has no functional purchase in Rothbard's most idealized sense of it as starting from self-ownership. What does yourself as property even mean? You she's the right to exclude yourself from yourself?
I don't think property as the state of possession or even exclusive possession, outside of a social context, is a terribly meaningful moral concept.
Will be a lot easier to entice a lot more people once Damus is in the App Store!
Happy New Year!
In 2023, remember to love, appreciate, forgive and stay curious. And remember that we only have each other, and we only have the present. Tomorrow is not a guarantee for any of us. And on that note, here's to absent friends. 🥂
I'm rejecting the arguments on the merits.
I call it "dorm room philosophy". Which is a term I lovingly stole from David Johnson.
Rothbard also openly sympathized with Germany in WWII -- even as he advocated for US neutrality. He believed Hitler was fighting a just, defensive war, that the Treaty of Versailles necessitated.
My pet peeve has become bitcoiners trying to school me in Rothbardian ethics several times a week, like I've never been enlightened by its captivating and self-evident truths. 🤣
Many in the bitcoin world discover Rothbard and then believe they've stumbled upon a beautiful, self-consistent moral truth that, if followed, can fix most of what's wrong with the world. In reality, it's a silly utopian fantasy that is likely to come falling down quickly if you spend much time getting into the deeper issues of moral epistemology, brought up most notably by David Hume, which Rothbard quickly dispenses with in an almost neo-Aristotelean protest against the claims that all ethics must necessarily be subjective. Rothbard's contemporary, Hoppe, tries to put a lid on this contradiction with his "argumentation ethics" as well. But it's all resting on pretty messy metaphysics and epistemology.
Rothbard believes it emanates from the fact that we have an innate ownership of ourselves (self-ownership). From this, Rothbard derives much of his ethical framework. This is used to argue that property rights are the core of all human rights. But I think it's an wholly unconvincing moral epistemology, that is essentially a category mistake at its core.
I do not subscribe to Rothbard's natural law ethics. In fact, I've spent a lot of time criticizing them. Publicly.
It's not a matter of values. It's a matter of what paradigms are stable at scale.
Anti-abuse tools was always going to be a necessity, unfortunately. Human nature is always there to remind us why we can't have nice things. :)
This was always my natural reaction to people screaming about Twitter being editorialized. My response was always "of course, it is. It's an ad supported social network, selling a product to advertisers, whose brand images are going to place editorial constraints on the platform". In other words, it's a regular business. But people said "no, no ... it's more than that. It's metaphysically morphed into a universal town square, which puts it on the level of the state, in terms of evaluating the limits on its own power". This is a philosophically bankrupt position.
The very fact Nostr exists is the ultimate repudiation of this position. The capacity of humans to build alternatives and rethink the internet and social media was always there.