Hugo

Non sequitur. Analogy: ants don't create honey, therefore anything which doesn't create honey is an ant.

My MP is an idiot. Is yours an idiot too? You just said the immigrant doesn't get the money! Which is it?

Show it to me. I have been all over Immigration Canada's website and documents in my own personal immigration experience and I have never heard of it. My immigration lawyer never mentioned it either. Well, that's a completely different concept, isn't it?

I have only answered no. The metaphysical does not create anything. Not that I want to get into this in any depth, but I think it logical that if God created the physical universe then it is not part of that physical universe. Nothing can create itself. As to what God is, I don't know, and most probably nobody ever will. To paraphrase a line from the Mothman Prophecies, for us to comprehend God is like cockroaches trying to understand the activities of humans. I think he means that the self is metaphysical, even though I have offered an argument to show that it is not, and he has offered no proof that it is. This argument is therefore invalid, at least until you establish the premises.

I'm an immigrant and I never got a one-time payment of anything. In fact, the whole immigration process cost me over $2,000, none of which is refundable. And looking at the Immigration-Quebec website I see absolutely no mention of payments, only of fees. When I applied for my immigration, the forms I used just had slightly different payment amounts and payment schedule in Quebec. Do you have some kind of source?

I think you are being needlessly argumentative and obfuscatory. I don't believe you are seriously making the case that livers create society, but if you are I would suggest that it is you who needs to provide an argument as to why. The argument that brains create society seems more plausible until you consider that a brain has no means for sensory input, no manipulative organs and no possible means of communication with the outside world at all, in fact, it cannot even sustain its own existence. The brain can only create the metaphysical when it is connected to a body that can do these things, at which point it is no longer correct to say that it is just a brain. It has become a part of a larger organism and, unlike individual humans within a group who are operating autonomously but in agreement, is operating in a state of complete dependence and synergy. Not even hive insects approach this state of co-operation and interdependence. In any case this is completely irrelevant to the original point. The original question is whether the metaphysical can create anything. Now we are on to debating which particular physical things create something, which is not the same discussion at all.

Not while remaining human. In chemistry, a molecule is the smallest unit that still retains all the properties of the substance in question. In human society, the human individual is the smallest unit which retains all the properties of humanity. Go below that - to organs or cells - and the items no longer possess the properties of being human. In the case of society and government, it is correct to say that humans create these things, but not to say that brains, livers or red blood cells create these things.

Do you mean implied contracts? I don't see how that changes anything. The contract still requires that it be an agreement between two readily identifiable parties with clear terms and mutual consent, for instance, the implied contract that if I order a meal in a restaurant I will pay for it is quite clear in terms, in parties involved and in mutual consent. The "social contract" is none of these things.

Yes, but the self can only exist in a physical body (let's not get into talking about disembodied spirits here!), and indeed, some might say that the self is just the manifestation of physical electrical activity in the physical synapses of the physical brain.

I'm sorry, I should have been clearer. Metaphysical things don't physically exist, as their name suggests. Metaphysical things cannot create anything, either metaphysical or physical, so it would be correct to say not that agreements don't exist or that people don't agree, but that their agreement doesn't create anything. Well, and Thelonius too. Do you have a personal gripe with him as well, now? No, it can't. You and I are individuals, we physically exist, we are made of atoms, take up exclusive space in the physical universe and cannot occupy multiple spaces at once. We exist (at least in this form) for a specific period of time and will change with the passage of that time. None of these things are true of the metaphysical.

This has never been proven. The Law of Relativity states that that which has energy must have mass: relativistic mass is equivalent to energy. Therefore, a photon must have mass. The idea that photons are massless comes from the more modern measurement of mass as separate from energy and measured at rest, and this is impossible to prove since photons never are at rest, however, the experiment of Roderick Lakes looking for anomalous forces on a Cavendish balance found, through satellite measurements of planetary magnetic fields, that photons probably have nonzero mass when at rest. I got all that from here, and it gives me quite the brainache. But anyway...

Disagree. Society doesn't exist, it is a metaphysical concept. You cannot point to it or identify it. That which does not exist cannot create something else. What you mean is that individuals invent societies by living in social groups, and that thoughts of society lead the same individuals to invent governments, and the thoughts of government by the individuals in government lead them to invent laws. In all cases, the acting agent is the individual. Therefore it is wrong to say that society or government creates or manifests anything.

What are their names? Where are their signatures? If you can't identify either, you don't have a contract. No, not truly private, since by existing in a statist system they necessarily have to make sops to the state. But I'm sure you can see that both Law Merchant and Equifax provide an example of how "truly private", noncoercive law might work. Society can't manifest anything because it does not exist. It's metaphysical. Individuals manifest government, and the individuals in that government manifest laws. Let's go back a step or dozen and explain. It was posited that if ownership of water was entirely private, disputes over water rights would arise since one person's exploitation of "his" water can affect another's water. Since we are discussing the necessity of state intervention in water ownership and distribution, my question was to ask whether or not others in this forum thought that such disputes could be resolved privately, or if they required government intervention. I don't believe it's a strawman, and you either can't or won't demonstrate how it is a strawman, so perhaps you could get off your high horse and actually answer me? You only answer questions premised on your own arguments? Then why are you here? Go start a blog! Contract: 1. An agreement between two or more parties, especially one that is written and enforceable by law. 2. The writing or document containing such an agreement. 1 : an agreement between two or more parties that creates in each party a duty to do or not do something and a right to performance of the other's duty or a remedy for the breach of the other's duty I can't help but feel that your definition will be something not used by the rest of the English-speaking world, and that your argument will, once again, rest upon faulty vocabulary rather than logic. So, why bother? Your only other recourse is the argument you're already trying to pass off as legitimate: the contract that is not a contract. Ha! Ha! I was wondering how long it would take you to acknowledge that you got schooled. Let me know when you finish your Bizarro Dictionary, I'd like to see it. Is that so? How convenient that you are God, and as such need no proof whatsoever of your accusations.

No, you have it backwards. There's no such thing as "public" except as private individuals define it. Humanity is reducible to individuals, go any futher down than that and you are not talking about autonomous agents anymore. The "public" is made up of individuals, therefore, to say that private only exists as public defines it is ridiculous, since how can a derivative be the source of its own source? I've given you the accepted historical definition of the Law Merchant. Since that is the definition, that which deviates from it is not representative of it. You defined government as regulation and regulation as government. What characteristics are there to rebut? But according to the definitions I gave you, governmental laws can have no competition. Therefore, for their particular law, there is not and can never be a competing law in the same area. The same is not true of private law. Private law may exist only outside the government's field of interest. If that much is true, then even the self-restraint we apply to ourselves, the laws we invent for ourselves, are governmental. Therefore, government is pretty much everything. Therefore, how do you distinguish Parliament from these myriad governments? Or is it all much of a muchness to you? Read further before you start slapping yourself on the back too hard. Your implied question has already been answered. Did you not understand the examples or not agree with them? In either case, why? Try to explain yourself better. Again, why? This is no argument. You might as well state that the moon is made of cheese. It's not enough to state something, you need to demonstrate it with logic or evidence! Oh dear me, no! That, Hugo, was your specious strawman response to the original point. No, actually it was a question I posed. You never, ever answered it, but since you are determined to disagree with absolutely everything I say I'm assuming you are disagreeing with it, too. Again, what characteristics? All I've seen is A=B and B=A. That tells us absolutely nothing about what either A or B is, except that whatever they are, they are equivalent. What's wrong with that? Does it particular matter if one voluntarily accepts rules one makes oneself or if one voluntarily accepts rules laid out by another? The only key difference with regulations that I see is between those that are agreed to and those that are imposed by force! There is no such thing. Social contract theory is invalid because a contract is an agreement between consenting and specific parties with very specific terms. The "social contract" is an agreement between people who not only don't consent but often aren't even born, and the terms are not so much vague as completely unspecified. Spurious and invalid. The occasional failure of an individual to think of his long-term goals do not mean that such goals do not exist or that others never think of them. Here is your definition, given on March 6th at 7:09PM: And on March 7th at 11:19 AM: You do qualify "regulation" but in a wholly subjective matter, since there is no objective standard for "greater authority, precision and enforceability", no line at which a regulation becomes governmental. This is why your definitions are so weak that your arguments fall apart. You can't even get your concepts straight. "Developed under" means "the same as?" Interesting argument. Since anarchism was intellectually developed under the state, anarchism must be statism, right? Or it must be derived from statism? Right? So, once again, "surrendered control" means "controls"? This is a revelation of private law, not the opposite as you are claiming. You're trying to confuse the origins of the Law Merchant with the way it operated. And apparently, "could be" means "always is." Otherwise, we'd be dealing with private law that sometimes or often resolved disputes without resorting to state courts, and that's precisely what you are arguing against. Oh, and I am still waiting for your critique of Xeer law. That was my other example. Dead silence from you on that front, so far...

None of this is actually a reply to anything I've asked you. How are you going to accurately measure socio-economic costs and what do you propose to do about them? I will quote the passage, again: -- My emphasis. Now here was your passage: Is that clear now? The example the author deals with is quite clearly stated as not being representative of the Law Merchant. It should be self-evident that you don't need government involvement to refuse to do business with somebody. I refuse to do business with people dozens of times every day without any government ordinance saying that I have to. Here is what I originally said on March 4th at 4:39 PM: What I said in my last post on March 8th at 9:44 AM: You think this is "substantial evolution"? These sentences mean exactly the same thing! I already gave them, but what the hey: Government: an organization exercising a monopoly over law in a geographical area. Regulation: a set of rules. Note the key difference between rules and law: failing to observe rules only nets a negative outcome in very limited circumstances. For instance, I'm not incurring any negative outcome by failing to observe the USB2 specification right now. On the other hand, failure to observe law will net a negative outcome in almost every circumstance. For instance, if I shoot you I will almost certainly go to jail no matter what my personal circumstances and goals. This is because laws are basically rules that are applied to the whole of society, which is only possible because government monopolises law. For example, there may be competing standards and regulations, at the same time, in the same industry and the same place (e.g. RAMBUS and DDR-RAM), but there is no competing standard to government law within a geographical area. Therefore, it's fair to say that government is a vastly overblown, monopolistic and unnecessarily violent manifestation of a standards body. That is why I say it is patently ridiculous to assert that only government is capable of resolving disputes, which was the original point! The difference in our definitions is that you say all regulation is government, whereas I say that government is just this quite specific form of regulation. That is in and of itself another word game. The "observed characteristics" you see are that each thing is characteristic of the other thing. Government is characteristic of regulation, regulation is characteristic of government. The sphere is characteristic of the ball, the ball of the sphere. You see? No. Self-regulation amounts to serving your own desires, but in a uniquely human manner that is capable of valuing future outcomes as well as present ones. A human and an animal both desire to eat. An animal would steal all the food it could find, but a human would self-regulate and trade for food because he recognises that stealing food, while in his short-term interest, is against his long-term interests. That's because, as I've demonstrated, your definition of "regulation" is so loose and ill-defined as to be useless.

The socio-economic costs cannot be gauged with any kind of accuracy, so it's pretty ridiculous to advocate punishing somebody for crimes you don't know about but only suspect may have happened. Innocent until proven guilty - or perhaps, like a good socialist, you advocate "innocent until accused"? In any case, those who suffered damages as a result of Enron's misdeeds are perfectly free to file suit against them. So I really don't see a problem. And don't bother with "crimes against society", there's no such thing. Crimes are committed against identifiable individuals or they aren't committed at all. My point stands because you won't argue against it. Your interpretation was completely at odds to what the author wrote because you did not read the source in full. Since your only response is the word "lies" there's not much point in us arguing any further on this particular note. One word is not an argument, a refutation or a rebuttal. If you can come up with one we can discuss this further. Then you understood wrong. Here is the very first time I mentioned Equifax: That is perfectly correct. Equifax can induce credit providers, employers, landlords and more to shun you without ever involving the government. That is a very unpleasant situation to be in, when your credit rating is preventing you from making any major purchases or even finding a decent job or a place to live. More to the point, Equifax does not press charges in court against bad debtors anyway. The creditors do. So what is your point? Your assumptions are completely wrong, your argument is derelict and you can't even remember the original point of the discussion, so give it up. What I said stands: Equifax has inherited the role of Law Merchant and operates in a similar way. So then why are we arguing, if it is purely subjective? Would you like to argue with me about what food tastes best? Yes - it is a circular description. It describes two things only as they relate to each other and not to anything else in the world. It would be analogous to saying that a ball is a sphere and a sphere is a ball - even if correct, it gives you absolutely no useful information about what either is. Using that definition, it's impossible to make a cogent argument about how a ball or sphere would interact with other things in the world. Obliged by their own desires. A trader who desires to make money by selling USB2 computer peripherals is obliged to follow those specifications. If he doesn't desire to sell USB2 peripherals he is under no obligation to do so. Hence voluntaryism and self-regulation, which is at odds with your idea that all regulation is government, unless we use your useless definition of government which cannot distinguish between Parliament, a marriage counsellor, and now even one's own mind. I've already offered my demonstration of how I was not lying in imputing that you had misinterpreted the text on the Law Merchant and you offered absolutely no counter-argument. If you are going to make accusations of lying I require that you actually back them up with some kind of evidence that I actually have been lying. So far you haven't, so stop pouting. You look ridiculous.

Why not? Their main goal in life was to get rich through selling energy. That hope is now dashed. The main goal of the executives was to prosper through running a company, now, they will never work in that position again. The goal of their accountants was to prosper through providing accounting services, now, they will find it very hard to do that anymore. To ask for any more sounds like a petty desire for vengeance against people who haven't even done anything to you. They've already lost everything they really wanted out of life. What is the meaning of this irrelevant distraction? I thought I could assume that you knew the meanings of all words unless I was specifically informed otherwise. No, you haven't. As we've established, you've read very little, and you grossly misinterpreted that, so let's have no more bluster about what you've "read", please. You've already seen them. Stop stalling. You're resorting to selectively editing out the key points in my post in order to prove yourself right? How desperate are you? Look at what Sweal said, everyone: Wow. Since you admit your own incompetence in such an unequivocal way, we need hardly continue this debate! Or perhaps you could just start addressing what I said, rather than what you wish I had said. It's quite simple to understand, really: I said "In role [Equifax] is the heir of the Law Merchant" which means that, although they have taken on new methods, they still use many of the same key principles of operation that the Law Merchant did. Now, since you're so clever at lexicography, perhaps you can think about what "heir" means. Does it mean to be exactly the same as that which you inherited from, or does it merely mean that one has inherited certain qualities or artifacts? Who defines legitimate and authoritative? Who has the right to enforce? This is a circular argument. Government is that which enforces and regulates, that which enforces and regulates is government, according to you. Perhaps just clarifying your argument will show you the dereliction of your logic. In your attempts to define government and regulation, you end up defining absolutely nothing. This is what you get when you make definitions more important than logic! A rule that people are obliged to follow if they want a desired outcome? For instance, the requirement that you conform to USB2 standards to sell a USB2 peripheral, or the requirement that you not shoot people if you want to stay out of jail. Anyone who wants to be, although that tends to be companies and individuals doing business in the fields that IEEE-SA generates standards for. If you go to their website, you can even sign up online! Again, your failure to put up any kind of counter-argument shows that your point is either indefensible or you don't consider it worth defending. Your posts are here on this forum for all to see, what's the point lying about it now?

The agreement of the parties concerned. Perhaps you are familiar with terms such as "honour" and "reputation"? These are absolutely fundamental issues for a true free market. He who is without honour and who has a bad reputation will not get far. Those who wish to prosper must have honour and reputation, therefore, one will wish to bind oneself to agreements, out of long-term self-interest. Look at Enron. Within hours of revelations of dishonest accounting becoming public, their stock was in freefall. By the time the government got around to investigating, Enron was history as a company. Why? Because they proved they were dishonourable and disreputable. No. The Law Merchant functioned by simply ostracizing those who did not comply with the Merchant's decisions. Credit providers today function in a similar way - although they may use courts to pursue defaulting debtors, they will also refuse to do business with a dishonest borrower. Hence credit ratings, and why if you default on your car payments you will find it hard to get a mortgage. The penalty of your default is not just action taken against you by the car company, but also the refusal of other companies to do business with you based upon your bad reputation. This refusal alone makes a very powerful argument, especially in the modern economy where every man is dependent upon a thousand others just for his continued existence. If it was that effective in the medieval period, when people were far more self-sufficient than today, imagine how effective it would be now! I've put my argument forward, and you have no counter-argument, which means either that your opinion is indefensible or that you don't consider it worth defending. Your argument hinges upon a word game: "regulation" must mean "government". The problem is that many things in this world are self-regulating, for example, most people don't binge on food or alcohol, and most companies try to provide reliable products without government insistence that they do so. For example, there's no law stating that car companies must warranty a powertrain for 5 years, but most do (and some for even more). The difference between regulation and guideline is slim but enough to destroy this line of argument. A regulation is a requirement, a guideline is a suggestion. For instance, for a company to produce a USB2 computer peripheral it must comply with the IEEE-SA regulations on USB2 specification. If not, then it isn't USB2, and it won't have any success in the marketplace for USB2 peripherals. On the other hand, it is a guideline that a computer motherboard should be 12" by 10" in size. It isn't a regulation because not all of them are, but it is a guideline set out by Intel in its ATX specifications. You tell me. No, it isn't. It's an international body that sets standards by way of peer participation. How on earth is that evasion? You asked me questions, I provide a link where you can find the answers, and you call that evasion? Is this another word from the Terrible Sweal's Patented Bizarro Dictionary? No, it isn't. Watch, I'll demonstrate. First you quoted the actions of the abbey as being indicative of the functioning of the Law Merchant, stating that "an insane gibbon could see that... it utterly rebuts Hugo's claim of non-governmentalness [sic]." Then I quoted a passage from the same text saying that the actions of the abbey were in fact distinct and separate from those of the Law Merchant, which completely refutes your point. In response, you started blustering about how it was somehow a failure on my part that the first Google link you saw took you to a text that you didn't read properly and therefore wholly misunderstood.

How could binding arbitration fail to reach an agreement? The agreement is made before the arbitration is even convened. I might also remind you that dictating terms (such as the Versailles Treaty) is not really a resolution to a dispute at all since the root causes of the dispute are left untouched. That being the case, it could be said that the only way for disputes to be resolved is through non-governmental action! By that same standard, parties in a court of law resolve their disputes. What matter the judge if no matter the mediator? Not if it's voluntary. Is IEEE-SA governmental? I already gave you a link and suggested a starting-point for you to find this information. I don't think it would help you to repeat myself. That's a terrible attempt at a dodge. What Mr. Sweal is attempting to disguise here is the fact that he followed only the first link he found, didn't read it in any depth and made a very incorrect interpretation precisely because he didn't read it fully. FYI, I didn't read the whole thing either, but 5 minutes spent with the text was enough to show me how glaringly wrong your interpretation was. How long did you read it for?

Yes, it is. The parties enter into arbitration because they want their dispute resolved (and hopefully on terms favourable to them). If they did not want the dispute resolved they would not bother with arbitration, since the dispute can be perpetuated without any outside involvement. You've just described a telephone. Actually you can enter into either non-binding arbitration (where the arbitrator merely dispenses advice) or binding arbitration, where you agree before even entering into the arbitration process to abide by the decision of the arbitrator. You only describe the first kind.

So you think the only worthwhile resolution of a dispute is one that is dictated to one or both parties, rather than one to which they can both agree? Or that a dispute can only be resolved by the decree of a third party rather than by compromise between the primary parties? Is this or is this not what you said on March 4th at 3:32 PM? Mediation resolves disputes. It may not dictate the resolution but you cannot argue that the purpose of mediation is not to resolve a dispute! According to what you said on March 4th at 3:32 PM, that means that mediation is either government or derived from government, therefore, your accusation that I am "fabricating things" when I say that is entirely false. Oh, you richly deserved that snipe. I had already told you that the Law Merchant was a medieval institution, so when you began referring to it in the present tense you demonstrated that you were not, in all likelihood, paying much attention (since I don't believe you have a serious mental disorder). Therefore, I made a rather crude suggestion that you start paying attention and perhaps seek to understand what is being discussed. Why not consider the third listing? You obviously didn't "f'ing Google it" very much! Law Merchant: A body of principles and regulations applied to commercial transactions and deriving from the established customs of merchants and traders rather than the jurisprudence of a particular nation or state. ...the body of rules applied to commercial transactions; derived from the practices of traders rather than from jurisprudence ...The Law Merchant refers to a legal system used by merchants in 13th century England. Rather than being the result of the edict of a final authority, it was evolved based on common usage. The Wikipedia entry is especially detailed and enlightening. I suggest you read it! If you read more of that, you will find the following passage: --emphasis by original authorSo basically, what you have done is to take an example which the author specifically states was not representative of the Law Merchant, claim it was representative of the Law Merchant, and presume to make an historical analysis of the Law Merchant based upon this completely faulty assumption of what it was. Well, strictly speaking it is the people who read and trust Equifax's reports who make a person's life "hell", by which I mean they do nothing, thus making a person's life hell. But you are correct in that Equifax is nothing more than a provider of information, and an example of how noncoercion can be used as an effective punishment for wrongdoing.

It can make it extremely difficult for you to get a house, a car, a loan, a credit card or even a job. The only thing Equifax does is advise other companies and individuals on who has a good credit rating, and who does not. The only thing government could do would be to force people to do business with people they'd rather not. Do you think businesses should have a right to refuse to serve people they don't trust? Because they "resolve disputes", as you put it. Nothing, you're mediating. According to you, that's government! See here. And this has never, ever happened with government? The difference is that corruption in one company gives you Enron, whereas corruption in government gives you Saddam Hussein.

My problem with Social Security is that it is founded on a hodgepodge of lies and deceit, and that it is a coercive, unjust and frankly, unnecessary institution. It was never intended to be necessary since the original retirement age was fixed at 65 because at the time, the average American didn't even live to 60 and as I said, Hong Kong had no state retirement programme until three years ago and they seemed to get along just fine. Evidently their elderly weren't destitute enough to stop them living longer than American retirees supported by Social Security. Investments are a claim upon a person to be made in the future. If I put $5000 in a mutual fund, that means I expect at least $5000 back from the holder of the fund in the future. If they are unable to pay (say the investments are unwise), then the claim can't be fulfilled since the person doesn't have the means. Social Security's "investment" is the Federal Government's claim against itself. How can one pay oneself or owe oneself money? This excuse for logic is why the system is in its current mess.

Let's not. There's a perfectly serviceable term already in use that describes Equifax: it's a credit reporting agency. No, I think my definition is accurate and I use it daily. The problem I have with Sweal's definition is that I don't think when he says "government intervention" he means marriage counsellors, therefore, I have difficulty taking it seriously when apparently he doesn't take it seriously himself. I'm of the belief that vocabulary should serve logic and not vice versa. Did governments 500 years ago not meet the definition I gave, August? I rather think they did. I think they did right back to the earliest governments of human history.

How can that be when private mediators do not exert monopoly? Are marriage counsellors monopolists? Are they agents of the state? No, they are not. If you see two people fighting and you step in to break it up, does that make you an agent or licensee of the government? Equifax's incorporation is for its own existence to comply with the law of the land. In role it is the heir of the Law Merchant, which existed outside of any government law, which is a point I notice you did not address at all - stuff and nonsense, indeed! To summarise your argument here, I should say that you are arguing that the only possible way for disputes to be mediated is by the government, a contention so ridiculous that you can only support it with a definition of government so useless and loose that it cannot distinguish between Parliament, a marriage counsellor, and a man who breaks up a bar brawl.