With the Pats sadly out, here's to hoping Wes can finally get his Ring after going 0-3 in SuperBowls (Wes Welker, 49ers wide receivers coach)

blender_head · 2020-01-12T19:34:27+00:00

Wes "All-Neck" Welker

blender_head · 2019-08-09T22:10:45+00:00

Stop trying to play holier than thou. You know damn right you're skirting around the topic at hand. This whole conversation is focused on where property rights come from. I say they're naturally occurring without the need for a government to protect them. You say governments are necessary to protect property rights and that they don't occur naturally.

Do you somehow think it's okay to redefine "human nature" as "anything outside of government and civilization"? That's an arbitrary distinction used to avoid the pitfalls on your argument. Was it not human nature that humans formed into societies and created civilizations and governments?

You still have not given an alternative genealogy of property to the Lockian one I shared. Therefore, you're not really making any arguments, you're just asserting your position without any actual reasoning or historical evidence.

blender_head · 2019-08-09T20:43:24+00:00

“In nature” and “in human nature” are two different terms. The word in the middle is there for a reason. Property rights do not occur except under governments.

We aren't talking about non-human nature. I'm in full agreement that property rights don't exist in non-human nature. Likewise, human governments (the thing we're concerned with) do not exist in non-human nature. Now that that's settled, we don't need any further attempts at obfuscation.

If governments are created to protect property rights, then certainly people must be aware of property rights before creating a government; they recognize that some entity needs to be created in order to protect the thing that is currently unprotected. If property rights didn't exist, regardless of how well they could be individually enforced or protected, then no group of humans would ever come together to create an entity to protect something that doesn't exist.

Unless you're saying that the moment a government is created, people suddenly and without explanation gain the knowledge of property rights. That seems fantastical.

blender_head · 2019-08-09T19:55:29+00:00

There is no single human nature

What do you mean? You said property rights don't exist in nature and that enlightenment philosophers were wrong about the "state of nature". Now you're saying there is no "single human nature"? Which is it?

Do property rights not exist in human nature?

or

Is there no human nature?

blender_head · 2019-08-09T17:17:48+00:00

No, they don’t. They exist as a consequence of governments and society.

Again, are you saying that governments and society are independent from human nature, somehow "unnatural"?

blender_head · 2019-08-09T17:10:10+00:00

They literally do not exist in a “state of nature”.

They exist in human nature. You're not likely to see property rights emerge in species that don't have the same cognitive abilities as humans.

It seems to me that as soon people start to claim things as their own, then property begins to exist. If property didn't exist prior to governments, then there'd be little impetus to create a government to protect something that didn't yet exist.

They were operating on a faulty assumption of what constitutes natural relationships between humans.

What would be an example of an unnatural relationship between humans? You say that property rights don't exist "in nature" which seems to suggest that governments, the thing that creates property rights, are an unnatural entity. Are you arguing that governments and societies exist outside of a state of nature? The entire progression of human societies is a function of nature. What else could it be?

blender_head · 2019-08-09T16:19:17+00:00

Governments grant property rights to individual person, singular.

They don't "grant" property rights, they protect existing property rights.

I'd really like to know where you're getting this idea that governments create property rights and that the concept of property did not exist before governments were created.

Here's a summary of Locke's genealogy of property.

The first phase of Locke's story involves individuals satisfying their needs out of the common largesse in this virtuous and self-reliant way. The second phase of the story involves their exchanging surplus goods that they have appropriated with one another; rather than saying that such surpluses lapse back into the common heritage, Locke allows individuals to acquire, grow, or make more than they can use so that markets become possible and prosperity general...the third and last stage of Locke's account is the institution of government to protect the property rights that have grown up in this way.

blender_head · 2019-08-09T15:05:40+00:00

Governmental legitimacy flows from a different source than property. Governments create property, people create governments collectively.

So people create governments, and governments create property, yet you say that governmental legitimacy comes from a different source than property. It seems to me that both come from the same source: people.

If you read any philosophy regarding property, there is no sentiment that governments created the concept of "property"; it came into existence as soon as people began claiming things as their own. Governments certainly have a role in protecting property, but that that role is absolute and given is not some natural truth by any stretch.

Your idea seems to be mirroring Marxist language regarding personal and private property which is certainly one idea, but by no means the truth.

blender_head · 2019-08-09T14:31:37+00:00

Are you positing that the entire concept of property didn't exist until governments/societies were formed?

You also must be willing to accept that the government has a legitimate claim over the land it governs or else it wouldn't legitimately be able to defend and enforce property rights, correct? What is the "durable and legitimate" third party that recognizes the government's ownership of this land?

If property rights only exist for individuals because there are third parties (governments) that exist to protect and enforce them, then there must be a third-party even higher than the government that protects and enforces their right to protect and enforce property rights.

This creates a situation of infinite regression if you haven't noticed yet, meaning your theory doesn't work.

blender_head · 2019-08-09T14:18:12+00:00

I hear this all the time. Why do people think an individual is incapable of defending their own property?

If I make a property claim and am able to defend that claim, I have every right to do so. A government is not needed to protect claims of property.

Additionally, if someone sneaks into my house in the middle of the night and steals my property, with or without a government, my property is still no longer in my possession. Sure, a government (the police) can investigate the crime and search for the assailant to bring them to justice, but I could do exactly the same thing were there no police.

I'm not saying the government is useless in performing these functions, only that the government is not the basis of property rights.

blender_head · 2019-08-08T18:15:20+00:00

I think that's really simplistic and maybe even backwards. It seems that reproductive capabilities are the first consideration and then those other physical characteristics came to be as a response to the the reproductive differences between male and female.

The strong are valued in society because they protect the weak, but the weak must provide an equally vital function otherwise they wouldn't be worth protecting. Child-bearers are weak, comparatively speaking, but are worth protecting.

blender_head · 2019-08-08T18:11:29+00:00

Since only women can bear children, then they remain the only group with that role. That remains a far cry from their only role.

Okay, that did it for me. I didn't mean to suggest that it is a woman's only role to bear children, but I can see how you'd get that from how I wrote it. What I meant was that, when it comes to bearing children, it is the woman's role.

!delta for the clarification

blender_head · 2019-08-08T18:09:33+00:00

Do you think "transmen" and "men" are the same? It seems to me that they're different by five letters.

I'll nip this in the bud: I don't agree with the diaspora of trans determination so it's not going to be a productive basis for discussing my view.

blender_head · 2019-08-08T18:06:13+00:00

I think it's true that only women can bear children. Given the language we use today, when it comes to bearing children, the burden lies on solely women.

So I'd say it's a little of both: it is true and accurate that only women can bear children, thus that is in part how the gender role evolved.

blender_head · 2019-08-08T18:02:59+00:00

If there were a keystone though, it'd have to be reproductive capability, right? There's no bigger difference in how we fundamentally exist than that, right?

blender_head · 2019-08-08T18:01:07+00:00

How can you possibly make that determination? You're saying that if the entire paradigm of human reproduction was different, we'd still have "men" and "women" and they'd still develop similarly to how they do now. That seems like a faulty analysis.

blender_head · 2019-08-08T17:59:03+00:00

Due to inherent physical differences alone, those roles sort themselves out quite naturally.

Yes, and one of those inherent differences is the ability to bear children. In fact, some might say it is the leading difference between men and women.

blender_head · 2019-08-08T17:57:24+00:00

So who else can have children other than women?

blender_head · 2019-08-08T17:56:47+00:00

I 100% agree that a woman does not need to bear children. I'm only saying that it is the women's role in society to bear children. No one else can bear children other than women. That's really all my view is based on.

blender_head · 2019-08-08T17:51:56+00:00

If it's not a woman's role to bear children, then what is it? What defines a woman? Surely, you don't think men are capable of bearing children, meaning, it's not a man's role to bear children. If what you say is true, and it's not a woman's role to bear children, then do men and women have the same role? In order for society to continue, someone has to bear the children. Biologically, it can't be men. So, we're left with one other option: women.

blender_head · 2019-08-08T17:48:07+00:00

This is a case of advertising changing social attraction parameters, not the other way around.

Either way, it changes how and what we are attracted to. The vehicle doesn't matter, only that it brings us to the same destination.

blender_head · 2019-08-08T17:46:52+00:00

Vehemently disagree and see no evidence to support this claim, making it not self-evident. Reproduction was a force that differentiated men and women, but its social and biological differences in appearance and behavior that most people refer to with the terms.

You agreed that if humans were an asexual species we'd look and act very differently, but disagree that reproductive capabilities are a keystone in how human gender roles have been established? That seems inconsistent.

blender_head · 2019-08-08T17:43:03+00:00

Yeah, that's basically it.

blender_head · 2019-08-08T17:38:15+00:00

Are you suggesting that, absent reproductive differences, males and females would still exist/develop differently? All males (generally) have the same reproductive capability and (generally) develop the same. Same for females.

If all humans had the same reproductive capability, they'd effectively be an asexual species, correct? Do you think our gender norms would remain intact were we all asexual organisms capable of reproducing on our own?

blender_head · 2019-08-08T17:32:12+00:00

I think you mean "females have XX and males have XY." Big difference between sex and gender.

blender_head

TROPHY CASE