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War Is Always Pointless

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posted on Jan, 11 2011 @ 08:25 PM
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I can only fully agree with you.

War is pointless....

And we only have to say no !



posted on Jan, 11 2011 @ 08:43 PM
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Originally posted by IAMIAM

Originally posted by mnemeth1
How about I just take it.


If you need it that bad that you are willing to take it, just say you need it, and you can have it.

It isn't going to do me any good with what is coming down the pipe. It will just be left behind soon anyway. So, if you want it, come and get it.

I will find another way to get on ATS when I need to.

With Love,

Your Brother



Well played...





Though it's obvious IMO that mnemeth was joking, nice response, and I believe you would do that...


You and I disagree on life's path as well as the unfortunate ending, but I find it easy to imagine us agreeing on just about everything else...


You have a great take on life IAM and I enjoy your posts...keep on keepin' man.





posted on Jan, 11 2011 @ 10:40 PM
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reply to post by facelift
 


He's avoiding the obvious confrontation the lack of property rights he is proposing would cause.

While its nice that he is charitable, the fact remains that property rights reduce violent conflicts over the use of scarce resources.

Without property rights, there is only one way to resolve property disputes - and our inner city gangs are all too familiar with that particular method of property dispute resolution.



posted on Jan, 11 2011 @ 11:30 PM
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Originally posted by mnemeth1
He's avoiding the obvious confrontation the lack of property rights he is proposing would cause.


I am not avoiding a confrontation my friend. I am eliminating it. Isn't that what peace is all about?

How do you plan to end war AND protect your property?

I suppose it would be fair for me to ask.

With Love,

Your Brother



posted on Jan, 11 2011 @ 11:53 PM
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reply to post by IAMIAM
 


peace is about voluntary trade

peace is not about taking the fruit of other peoples labor without their consent, which is what a lack of property rights imposes.

No one has the right to take the product of a another mans sweat without his consent.

If I toil for hours to make myself a fishing pole, you would have zero right to come and take it from me, and I would naturally defend that fishing pole as my own from you. - a confrontation would ensue - just as it would with 99.999999999999999% of anyone else on this planet.

If you assume that consent must be given before property can be taken, then you assume a system of private property rights must exist. - which makes you a capitalist.

If you don't assume that consent must be given - that could only mean you support the use of violence to take it from him if consent is not given.

edit on 11-1-2011 by mnemeth1 because: (no reason given)



posted on Jan, 12 2011 @ 12:11 AM
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reply to post by mnemeth1
 


If you assume that consent must be given before property can be taken, then you assume a system of private property rights must exist. - which makes you a capitalist.

If you don't assume that consent must be given - that could only mean you support the use of violence to take it from him if consent is not given



I appreciate the plethora of knowledge that flows through your mellon mnemeth, but if you assume decisions, at the highest levels, will be made through only quantifiable measurements, you are wrong...


You seem to be neglecting the subjective side of confrontation - the human factor...sometimes, people just make stupid as decisions, and the rest pay for it despite the outcome.


Sucks to be us...



posted on Jan, 12 2011 @ 12:14 AM
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reply to post by facelift
 


I don't follow you at all.

What does the human factor have to do with my fishing pole?

explain.

edit on 12-1-2011 by mnemeth1 because: (no reason given)



posted on Jan, 12 2011 @ 01:57 AM
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Ever play Risk?

The goal is to win. Win what?..... just to win.

You control your armies and have to take over the world (and the resources which make you more powerful).

War is pointless for those little plastic men, cavalry, and cannons. They will gain nothing, and could likely lose everything.

Without the individual players trying to 'win' (bragging rights, penis points, or something else entirely useless), War is a losing situation for all of those involved and affected.

Without these States (incudes monarchs, politicians, aristocrats, and any corporation utilizing these, etc) trying to 'win' something War is not only a lose-lose, but a great lose of resources win or lose.

Gang wars work under the same idea of the state. The mob is no different from government because they derive power from violence and coercion. Just imagine a risk board with New York city and its Burroughs as the contients.... Risk Gansta edition.



posted on Jan, 12 2011 @ 02:10 AM
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Looks like the Swiss military has figured out the benefits of peaceful cooperation.

Listen to this mind blowing commentary from some swiss soldiers.




posted on Jan, 12 2011 @ 02:22 AM
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Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by IAMIAM
 


peace is about voluntary trade

peace is not about taking the fruit of other peoples labor without their consent, which is what a lack of property rights imposes.

No one has the right to take the product of a another mans sweat without his consent.


If we eliminate traditional schemes; what gives an employer the right to profit exponentially off of the sweat of others without asking their opinions on the matter? Your idea is only valid if it is founded on tradition, otherwise
you are not very anarchist at all...

Anyways you do not support the notion of intellectual property on the internet and fully agree with that sort of theft...For some reason you abandon principle when it serves you -



posted on Jan, 12 2011 @ 02:28 AM
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reply to post by Janky Red
 


The exchange of labor for wages (gold) is voluntary.

Taking another mans property at gun point is not.

Your attempt to equate the two is ridiculous.

One involves a weapon, the other involves a handshake.


edit on 12-1-2011 by mnemeth1 because: (no reason given)



posted on Jan, 12 2011 @ 02:29 AM
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Originally posted by mnemeth1

Originally posted by IAMIAM
There are no ownership disputes if no one owns anything.


Ok.

I'll come over to your house tomorrow and clean out your fridge.




Hey mnemeth1, my earning power has dropped recently - would you be a dear and give IAMIAM's computer to me?

I think it is only fair.



posted on Jan, 12 2011 @ 02:53 AM
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Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by Janky Red
 


The exchange of labor for wages (gold) is voluntary.

Taking another mans property at gun point is not.

Your attempt to equate the two is ridiculous.

One involves a weapon, the other involves a handshake.


edit on 12-1-2011 by mnemeth1 because: (no reason given)


I think it is ridiculous for you to act as a judge of what is ridiculous...

Nothing is voluntary if it threatens the ability to secure food or shelter

Is it violent when a person dies due to lack of health care, spurred on by lack of money?

How about if they are shot BY AN ACTUAL GUN and they die due to lack of monetary potency?
I think you equate far more outlandish concepts with far more frequency, are you the only one allowed to
question tradition?


edit on 12-1-2011 by Janky Red because: (no reason given)



posted on Jan, 12 2011 @ 02:59 AM
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reply to post by Janky Red
 


LOL

Because voluntary markets prevent people from eating.

News flash:

You would be starving like the 8 million Ukrainians under Soviet collectivization if private property didn't protect the farmers crops.

The Chinese managed to kill tens of millions when they collectivized agriculture.



edit on 12-1-2011 by mnemeth1 because: (no reason given)



posted on Jan, 12 2011 @ 09:03 AM
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Originally posted by mnemeth1
peace is about voluntary trade


Absolutely! or more precisely, Sharing.


Originally posted by mnemeth1
peace is not about taking the fruit of other peoples labor without their consent, which is what a lack of property rights imposes.


It's not about taking at all my friend, it is about giving to the common well being of all. If you do not wish to give, no one is forcing you. However, others will be unlikely to give to you when you need. No matter how productive you are, there is something another produces that you will need.


Originally posted by mnemeth1
If I toil for hours to make myself a fishing pole, you would have zero right to come and take it from me, and I would naturally defend that fishing pole as my own from you. - a confrontation would ensue - just as it would with 99.999999999999999% of anyone else on this planet.


So you would fight and defend a fishing pole? That fishing pole has become more valuable to you than anothers life? This is the end of war?

What you are neglecting to acknowledge is that the person receiving the fishing pole has contributed something else to the good of us all. Perhaps he is a farmer and his crops are at the free market for you to go pick up what you need. Maybe he is a doctor on his day off, that healed you when you were ill. Perhaps he has made a contribution you will never see which benefited someone else who provided what you need.

Everyone contributes something. You just may not see it, and you may not find it as valuable as your contribution. Yet without that contribution, a necessary product for the good of all would not be there.


Originally posted by mnemeth1
If you assume that consent must be given before property can be taken, then you assume a system of private property rights must exist. - which makes you a capitalist.


My philosophy is simple my friend. You own what you came in the world with, nothing more, nothing less. What ever you produce, you are borrowing resources from everyone to produce. Do you own the wood that went into your fishing pole? Did you create it?


Originally posted by mnemeth1
If you don't assume that consent must be given - that could only mean you support the use of violence to take it from him if consent is not given


I do not support violence in any occassion. If you do not want to give up your fishing pole and I need it, you must need it more than I. I will go find someone else who isn't so attached to their pole.

Keep what you are attached to. But, I hope you lose your attachments eventually.

With Love,

Your Brother
edit on 12-1-2011 by IAMIAM because: (no reason given)

edit on 12-1-2011 by IAMIAM because: (no reason given)



posted on Jan, 12 2011 @ 10:49 AM
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reply to post by IAMIAM
 


If you assume consent must be given, then you assume people have a right to their own property.

While it would be wonderful if the entire world operated as a charity organization, the facts are that humans have a general tendency to do as little as possible for the most amount of economic gain.

This human tendency, which is called the disutility of labor, shows that humans will only work to produce something if the products they can buy/make with their labor are of a more urgent desire than that of leisure.

If humans are allowed to live a comfortable life without expending labor, they will do so. Which is the primary reason all of our welfare programs have never actually reduced poverty.

So what we can gather from this is that what stimulates humans into productive behavior is the profit motivator. Even non-for-profit organizations PAY their employees a wage. The organization may not generate net profits, but their employees on an individual level all work for the profit motive.

If profit from trade is removed by the abolishment of private property rights, the motivation to produce drops like a rock. The early American colonists experimented with the very type of socialist system you are proposing.

They nearly starved to death because of it.

Gary Galles explains what happens when your system of economics is actually put into practice:

mises.org...

Reflections restricted to our current bounty ignore that most colonists in both Jamestown and Plymouth starved under their initial communal-property rights. Then, when private-property rights were established, starvation gave way to increasing prosperity in both colonies.

In Jamestown, colonists were indentured servants whose first seven years' output was to go into a common pool. In Plymouth, all accumulated wealth was to be held in common, against colonists' objections, by sponsors worried they could not otherwise collect on their distant investment. In both places, the fruits of people's efforts went to others, with disastrous results.

Sixty-six of Jamestown's initial 104 colonists died within six months, most from famine. Only 60 out of 500 arrivals two years later survived that long. The consequences of this "starving time" included cannibalism. Plymouth's first colonists fared little better, with only about half surviving six months. Some, in desperation, sold their clothes and blankets to, or became servants of, Indians.

Common property's disincentives produced terrible results in both colonies. Shirking was so severe at Jamestown that Thomas Dale noted that much of the survivors' time was devoted to playing rather than working, despite the threat of starvation. Plymouth Governor William Bradford noted that "this community of property was found to breed much … discontentment and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort," even despite the use of whipping to limit shirking, with results described as "injustice" and "a kind of slavery."

In response, both Jamestown and Plymouth moved to systems where people could produce for their own benefit.

In Jamestown, each man was given three acres of land, in exchange for a lump-sum tax of two and a half barrels of corn, and communal work was limited to one month (not during planting or harvest). In addition to creating private property, this made the marginal tax rate on most of colonists' efforts zero, turning indolence into industry. Rather than starving, they became exporters of corn to the Indians.

In Plymouth, Governor Bradford observed that since


their victuals were spent … they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop … that they might not still thus languish in misery … the Governor gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular … And so assigned to every family a parcel of land.


Bradford also described the consequences:


This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use … and gave far better content.


The change from communal- to private-property rights dramatically increased the Pilgrims' productivity. The beginnings of that productivity led to the bounty celebrated at Plymouth's famous 1623 Thanksgiving. And as historian Russell Kirk reported, "never again were the Pilgrims short of food."


What Galles doesn't harp on too much, but bears repeating, is that communal property rights were imposed by the use of violent force.

We can gather as much because Bradford tells us that:


Plymouth Governor William Bradford noted that "this community of property was found to breed much … discontentment and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort," even despite the use of whipping to limit shirking, with results described as "injustice" and "a kind of slavery."


As with all systems of socialism, violence is required to impose it.




edit on 12-1-2011 by mnemeth1 because: (no reason given)

edit on 12-1-2011 by mnemeth1 because: (no reason given)



posted on Jan, 12 2011 @ 11:06 AM
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Originally posted by mnemeth1
If you assume consent must be given, then you assume people have a right to their own property.

While it would be wonderful if the entire world operated as a charity organization, the facts are that humans have a general tendency to do as little as possible for the most amount of economic gain.

This human tendency, which is called the disutility of labor, shows that humans will only work to produce something if the products they can buy/make with their labor are of a more urgent desire than that of leisure.

If humans are allowed to live a comfortable life without expending labor, they will do so. Which is the primary reason all of our welfare programs have never actually reduced poverty.

So what we can gather from this is that what stimulates humans into productive behavior is the profit motivator. Even non-for-profit organizations PAY their employees a wage. The organization may not generate net profits, but their employees on an individual level all work for the profit motive.

If profit from trade is removed by the abolishment of private property rights, the motivation to produce drops like a rock. The early American colonists experimented with the very type of socialist system you are proposing.

They nearly starved to death because of it.


I do not disagree with you here. I can sum it up for you as, there are two reasons why people will do anything, fear and personal gain.

Like I said in previous posts, there needs to be a fundamental shift in the universal consciousness for the world that can be, to be. Mankind needs to evolve past this "fear or personal gain" motivator and realise that we are here for a higher purpose and it is that higher purpose that we all labor. It isn't to please these flesh suits we all inhabit, though this is a side benefit. It is to explore and understand this wonderful existence.

I will be the first to admit that my "Utopia" will never be with man in his current state of being. However, I am setting the stage in your mind and the mind of others as to what could be. This is all I am doing. The time will come for man to make this step and it may be sooner than you realise. No man knows what tomorrow brings, but I see severe hardship the world over if man continues down his self gratifying path, believing he can claim ownership of this planet and its inhabitants. It is the most obvious and provable fact that this is completely wrong thought. Any man who believes he owns anything, only needs wait an average life span to see that he was dead wrong.

It is time to stop being dead, and rise to living for tomorrow, for our species, for exploration and love of all. Perhaps not the right time today, but tomorrow you never know.

In the mean time, I'll keep living the way I know we should. Once you have seen the world through my eyes, you can do nothing less.

With Love,

Your Brother



posted on Jan, 12 2011 @ 11:08 AM
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reply to post by IAMIAM
 


To me, a universal shift in consciousness that results in a society where people stop using violence as a means to acquire the resources of others results in anarcho-capitalism.

That is the only plausible result if you concede the fact that people inherently own the fruits of their labor.

An anarcho-capitalist society is the only possible outcome.



posted on Jan, 12 2011 @ 11:12 AM
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Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by IAMIAM
 


To me, a universal shift in consciousness that results in a society where people stop using violence as a means to acquire the resources of others results in anarcho-capitalism.

That is the only plausible result if you concede the fact that people inherently own the fruits of their labor.

An anarcho-capitalist society is the only possible outcome.


When you can explain how you make this dichotomy Anarchy/capitalism work, I might buy off on it. As long as you need to own something, you will need a government to protect what you think you own.

With Love,

Your Brother



posted on Jan, 12 2011 @ 11:15 AM
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Originally posted by IAMIAM

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by IAMIAM
 


To me, a universal shift in consciousness that results in a society where people stop using violence as a means to acquire the resources of others results in anarcho-capitalism.

That is the only plausible result if you concede the fact that people inherently own the fruits of their labor.

An anarcho-capitalist society is the only possible outcome.


When you can explain how you make this dichotomy Anarchy/capitalism work, I might buy off on it. As long as you need to own something, you will need a government to protect what you think you own.

With Love,

Your Brother


I don't need the government to protect me.

1. I can hire a security guard if necessary.

2. I can arm myself if necessary.

3. I can buy insurance if necessary to protect my property.

4. I can arbitrate disputes of property and contract in a private arbitration court.

The State DESTROYS property, it does not protect it.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that the State protects peoples property.

It STEALS it through the use of violent force and DESTROYS it in warfare.

If I had to chose between the police or a private security guard company to protect my property, I'm hiring the security guard.

edit on 12-1-2011 by mnemeth1 because: (no reason given)



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