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On October 23 2012 13:20 Souma wrote:
I don't understand how "elitist" is supposed to be an insult, if anything it just supports the notion that liberals are smarter. This culture of anti-intellectualism is silly.
Elitist doesn't mean you are smarter. It simply means you consider yourself superior. And your post really reinforces this notion, to be frank.
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On October 23 2012 13:20 jdseemoreglass wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 13:17 Romantic wrote:On October 23 2012 13:11 jdseemoreglass wrote:
Let's start with the most basic premise and extrapolate outwards. I have an arm connected to my body. I consider this arm property of mine. Is this a notion I have naturally, or is it predicated on a government declaring it so? I think it is strange you consider your body your property. I would say my body is me because I don't have some mind-body dualism thing going on. Yeah, ok, but anyone can have any notion they want. I can have the notion your arm is my arm and I am going to chop it off and reattach it to my head. Obviously ideas do not stem from the government. Problem here is theft is usually clearly defined as being unlawful taking; taxes are lawful. You can say taxes are taking in what you think is an unjustifiable fashion, but you shouldn't use the word theft when theft has an established definition contrary to the way you are using the word. It is not at all strange to consider a body to be property. The whole history of human slavery is evidence of this fact. To own a slave is to declare that you own a body, and therefore that the person does not own their own self. The notion of "self-ownership" is therefore very important and crucial, particularly in regards to preventing human right's abuse. I would argue that self-ownership be considered a basic human right, which negates slavery, the taking of organs, the harming of another's body, such as killing, beating, etc. All of these can be justified according to the basic concept of self-ownership.
Slavery came after property and usually after the formation of a social structure, as evidenced by the fact that slaves are usually "other". Other cannot exist without a social structure.
It's perfectly plausible to imagine a society without ownership, people write books about it. Read The Dispossessed.
Edit: The justification doesn't need to be self-ownership; it can merely be respect. People don't need to be property of their minds to justify respect.
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On October 23 2012 13:20 Souma wrote:
I don't understand how "elitist" is supposed to be an insult, if anything it just supports the notion that liberals are smarter. This culture of anti-intellectualism is silly.
Those college educated communists sure showed the world how great the elite intellectuals are, didn't they? Saved the peasants from all their troubles, lol.
They do not know what they think they know.
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On October 23 2012 13:17 sam!zdat wrote:
But how you divide up possibilites into theft and not-theft is not a factual question, it is an ethical question. It's a fact that people consider it a theft, but it's not a fact that it is a theft. This doesn't mean it's not a theft, of course. It just means its an ethical claim to which I assent.
edit: my position is that sentences do much more than state propositions, so if you use them in the same way we are just using different terminology
I never committed myself to the view that sentences only state propositions, and definitely don't believe that this is so. For instance, interrogative sentences express sets of propositions, or so mainstream semantics would have you believe.
But since stating a proposition is a sufficient condition for being a fact on my use, it doesn't matter what else 'theft' discourse does. Presumably 'theft' discourse is also heavily involved in guiding actions and expressing attitudes, especially those related to blame and approbation. But that doesn't mean that the discourse doesn't also divide the world up into disjoint possibilities, and it's hard to understand certain features of its use unless you accept that it does.
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On October 23 2012 13:21 sam!zdat wrote:
Well then JD you will really like Marx's basic assumption that labour power belongs to the labourer who performs it :D
edit: british spelling just because
? Marx believed that private property didn't initially exist and that it was the Big Bad Evil that caused all socioeconomic woes. He thought we should get rid of it. I feel like JD wouldn't really agree with him...
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On October 23 2012 13:20 jdseemoreglass wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 13:17 Romantic wrote:On October 23 2012 13:11 jdseemoreglass wrote:
Let's start with the most basic premise and extrapolate outwards. I have an arm connected to my body. I consider this arm property of mine. Is this a notion I have naturally, or is it predicated on a government declaring it so? I think it is strange you consider your body your property. I would say my body is me because I don't have some mind-body dualism thing going on. Yeah, ok, but anyone can have any notion they want. I can have the notion your arm is my arm and I am going to chop it off and reattach it to my head. Obviously ideas do not stem from the government. Problem here is theft is usually clearly defined as being unlawful taking; taxes are lawful. You can say taxes are taking in what you think is an unjustifiable fashion, but you shouldn't use the word theft when theft has an established definition contrary to the way you are using the word. It is not at all strange to consider a body to be property. The whole history of human slavery is evidence of this fact. To own a slave is to declare that you own a body, and therefore that the person does not own their own self. The notion of "self-ownership" is therefore very important and crucial, particularly in regards to preventing human right's abuse. I would argue that self-ownership be considered a basic human right, which negates slavery, the taking of organs, the harming of another's body, such as killing, beating, etc. All of these can be justified according to the basic concept of self-ownership.
Social and legal structures can condone one person "owning" another person such that the owner can hurt or threaten or whatever the slave to doing what the owner wants. That doesn't mean it is proper to describe Person A as being Person A's owner. Person A is Person A. Person B can get the law to invent a concept of ownership that defends his whipping and beating of Person A to make him pick cotton, sure.
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On October 23 2012 13:26 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 13:21 sam!zdat wrote:
Well then JD you will really like Marx's basic assumption that labour power belongs to the labourer who performs it :D
edit: british spelling just because ? Marx believed that private property didn't initially exist and that it was the Big Bad Evil that caused all socioeconomic woes. He thought we should get rid of it. I feel like JD wouldn't really agree with him...
private property and labor power are different in Marxian theory... the Big Bad Evil is more wage labor than private property, anyway.
On October 23 2012 13:25 frogrubdown wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 13:17 sam!zdat wrote:
But how you divide up possibilites into theft and not-theft is not a factual question, it is an ethical question. It's a fact that people consider it a theft, but it's not a fact that it is a theft. This doesn't mean it's not a theft, of course. It just means its an ethical claim to which I assent.
edit: my position is that sentences do much more than state propositions, so if you use them in the same way we are just using different terminology I never committed myself to the view that sentences only state propositions, and definitely don't believe that this is so. For instance, interrogative sentences express sets of propositions, or so mainstream semantics would have you believe.
yeah, I wouldn't think you would think this, but there was a parenthetical that confused me
But since stating a proposition is a sufficient condition for being a fact on my use, it doesn't matter what else 'theft' discourse does. Presumably 'theft' discourse is heavily involved in guiding actions and expressing attitudes, especially those related to blame and approbation. But that doesn't mean that the discourse doesn't also divide the world up into disjoint possibilities, and it's hard to understand certain features of its use unless you accept that it does.
Yes, but deciding which definition of theft to use to divide up possibilities is an ethical question.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On October 23 2012 13:22 jdseemoreglass wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 13:20 Souma wrote:
I don't understand how "elitist" is supposed to be an insult, if anything it just supports the notion that liberals are smarter. This culture of anti-intellectualism is silly. Elitist doesn't mean you are smarter. It simply means you consider yourself superior. And your post really reinforces this notion, to be frank.
You, sir, have obviously not heard the ramblings of Rick Santorum and his constituents. It's anti-intellectualism at its best, and honestly if people are going to hate on college-educated "elitists," I will reinforce the notion ten-fold.
On October 23 2012 13:23 Romantic wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 13:20 Souma wrote:
I don't understand how "elitist" is supposed to be an insult, if anything it just supports the notion that liberals are smarter. This culture of anti-intellectualism is silly. Those college educated communists sure showed the world how great the elite intellectuals are, didn't they? Saved the peasants from all their troubles, lol. They do not know what they think they know.
Yeah because every intellectual is a communist...
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On October 23 2012 13:09 Romantic wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 12:54 Budmandude wrote:President Obama tonight after his "airbrush" line: "Governor Romney, you were very clear that you would not provide government assistance to the US auto companies even if they went through Bankruptcy." He then said that people would look it up. Well, I did and here's what I found. Mitt Romney in his op-ed "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" from the New York Times in 2008 "The American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing. A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs. The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk. " Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html Will Obama be fact checked to death and his campaign declared a Big Bad Lying Machine? Going to have to go with no on this one. I think I spend too much time on the internet reading and interacting with supporters of the Democratic Party (label you put here unimportant) because.... Sometimes I feel my opinions are more anti-left than they are pro-right because I find the left so damn silly. Looking at it objectively I should be quite outraged at Republicans and their silliness, but I am not. They just don't piss me off like Democrats do. One of the reasons I dislike them so much, I think, is they are sure they know what needs to be changed and they are so much damn smarter. Just elect the right person to political office and some magic government programs will fix the world. Really, I think the socialism thing just completely killed the left for me for a long time. How can I take them seriously after that? Conclusion: I can't really explain why I don't like the left so much
I think you summarized why I can't stand the right so much.
The duplicity and BS of Romney is astounding. During the primary's Romney BOASTED how he was against the bailout.
Fucking shameless.
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On October 23 2012 13:28 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 13:26 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 23 2012 13:21 sam!zdat wrote:
Well then JD you will really like Marx's basic assumption that labour power belongs to the labourer who performs it :D
edit: british spelling just because ? Marx believed that private property didn't initially exist and that it was the Big Bad Evil that caused all socioeconomic woes. He thought we should get rid of it. I feel like JD wouldn't really agree with him... private property and labor power are different in Marxian theory... the Big Bad Evil is more wage labor than private property, anyway. Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 13:25 frogrubdown wrote:On October 23 2012 13:17 sam!zdat wrote:
But how you divide up possibilites into theft and not-theft is not a factual question, it is an ethical question. It's a fact that people consider it a theft, but it's not a fact that it is a theft. This doesn't mean it's not a theft, of course. It just means its an ethical claim to which I assent.
edit: my position is that sentences do much more than state propositions, so if you use them in the same way we are just using different terminology I never committed myself to the view that sentences only state propositions, and definitely don't believe that this is so. For instance, interrogative sentences express sets of propositions, or so mainstream semantics would have you believe. yeah, I wouldn't think you would think this, but there was a parenthetical that confused me Show nested quote +
But since stating a proposition is a sufficient condition for being a fact on my use, it doesn't matter what else 'theft' discourse does. Presumably 'theft' discourse is heavily involved in guiding actions and expressing attitudes, especially those related to blame and approbation. But that doesn't mean that the discourse doesn't also divide the world up into disjoint possibilities, and it's hard to understand certain features of its use unless you accept that it does.
Yes, but deciding which definition of theft to use to divide up possibilities is an ethical question.
Sure, but I'm not worried about that because:
A) I take the normative to be a subset of the descriptive (if 'descriptive' is used in a possibility-carving sense).
B) Even if it weren't, then there would still be the matter of the definition of 'theft' as it is actually used, independent of how it should be used. We have to propose for the sake of explaining the workings of the discourse that 'theft's actual use is consistent enough to effectively divide up possibilities, even if we should be using it differently.
This obviously isn't the right place to talk about (A) though, and I don't think we are substantively disagreeing about (B).
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"Labor power belongs to the laborer who performs it."
Classic Marx. Imagining that all work is manual, completely ignoring how much work is done by the mind. When I design a product that is desirable, I am creating more wealth for society than the laborer who happens to make the mechanical motions of assembling it. Organization, design, invention, allocation, risk assessment.... All incredibly important and powerful aspects of any economy which gets ignored by the simplistic labor theory of value. The greatest value to society has always come from the thinking individuals, not from mindless laborers. And that's why they deserve to get paid less.
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On October 23 2012 13:33 jdseemoreglass wrote:
"Labor power belongs to the laborer who performs it."
Classic Marx. Imagining that all work is manual, completely ignoring how much work is done by the mind. When I design a product that is desirable, I am creating more wealth for society than the laborer who happens to make the mechanical motions of assembling it. Organization, design, invention, allocation, risk assessment.... All incredibly important and powerful aspects of any economy which gets ignored by the simplistic labor theory of value. The greatest value to society has always come from the thinking individuals, not from mindless laborers. And that's why they deserve to get paid less.
That sounds pretty elitist to me. 
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On October 23 2012 13:33 jdseemoreglass wrote:
"Labor power belongs to the laborer who performs it."
Classic Marx. Imagining that all work is manual, completely ignoring how much work is done by the mind. When I design a product that is desirable, I am creating more wealth for society than the laborer who happens to make the mechanical motions of assembling it. Organization, design, invention, allocation, risk assessment.... All incredibly important and powerful aspects of any economy which gets ignored by the simplistic labor theory of value. The greatest value to society has always come from the thinking individuals, not from mindless laborers. And that's why they deserve to get paid less.
Now this is something I can technically agree with, though If I remember correctly, inventors/researchers and the like often make pennies compared to the executives who market the products.
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On October 23 2012 12:58 Souma wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 12:55 xDaunt wrote:On October 23 2012 12:45 Souma wrote:
I'm starting to wonder if Swazi is dvorakftw or something. Nah, they seem to be different other than the frequency of posting. Honestly, we need more conservative posters around here. I'm thinking that I am going on a bit of a TL politics vacation after the election anyway. Having more conservative posters would be great. The only conservative posters in this thread that I can really tolerate are you, Jonny, BluePanther and the great libertarian jd. The others either don't post enough or are dvorak level.
I'm a fiscal conservative libertarian. I enjoy reading this thread, but I don't get involved in the discussion because I know I would get sucked into it like a temporal vortex, and I don't really know what I would be accomplishing other than mental masturbation. It's not like anyone here has changed your mind about anything have they?
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On October 23 2012 13:20 Souma wrote:
I don't understand how "elitist" is supposed to be an insult, if anything it just supports the notion that liberals are smarter. This culture of anti-intellectualism is silly.
Liberals like to think they are smarter than everyone in order to try and prove their point. Notice the key word: think.
Where did you get the idea that anyone is for a culture of anti-intellectualism? I am all for a society that progressively gets smarter.
I just hate the attitude that liberals think they are all knowing and that everyone else is just wrong.
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Mental labor is unequivocally considered to be "labor" under Marx's theory.
edit: never run into anybody who would argue otherwise, though maybe somebody has
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On October 23 2012 13:33 jdseemoreglass wrote:
"Labor power belongs to the laborer who performs it."
Classic Marx. Imagining that all work is manual, completely ignoring how much work is done by the mind. When I design a product that is desirable, I am creating more wealth for society than the laborer who happens to make the mechanical motions of assembling it. Organization, design, invention, allocation, risk assessment.... All incredibly important and powerful aspects of any economy which gets ignored by the simplistic labor theory of value. The greatest value to society has always come from the thinking individuals, not from mindless laborers. And that's why they deserve to get paid less.
This is actually classic republicanism I'd argue.
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On October 23 2012 12:55 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 12:45 Souma wrote:
I'm starting to wonder if Swazi is dvorakftw or something. Nah, they seem to be different other than the frequency of posting. Honestly, we need more conservative posters around here. I'm thinking that I am going on a bit of a TL politics vacation after the election anyway.
You sure you won't be in rehab instead when Obambers wins a 2nd term?
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On October 23 2012 13:37 sam!zdat wrote:
Mental labor is unequivocally considered to be "labor" under Marx's theory.
edit: never run into anybody who would argue otherwise, though maybe somebody has
And yet Marxists always assume that the managers, executives, and "speculators" could simply be done away with and the proletariat would be better off for it. I'm not saying this is what you are advocating, but you have to admit this is the popular contention among Marxists.
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On October 23 2012 13:32 frogrubdown wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 13:28 sam!zdat wrote:On October 23 2012 13:26 Stratos_speAr wrote:On October 23 2012 13:21 sam!zdat wrote:
Well then JD you will really like Marx's basic assumption that labour power belongs to the labourer who performs it :D
edit: british spelling just because ? Marx believed that private property didn't initially exist and that it was the Big Bad Evil that caused all socioeconomic woes. He thought we should get rid of it. I feel like JD wouldn't really agree with him... private property and labor power are different in Marxian theory... the Big Bad Evil is more wage labor than private property, anyway. On October 23 2012 13:25 frogrubdown wrote:On October 23 2012 13:17 sam!zdat wrote:
But how you divide up possibilites into theft and not-theft is not a factual question, it is an ethical question. It's a fact that people consider it a theft, but it's not a fact that it is a theft. This doesn't mean it's not a theft, of course. It just means its an ethical claim to which I assent.
edit: my position is that sentences do much more than state propositions, so if you use them in the same way we are just using different terminology I never committed myself to the view that sentences only state propositions, and definitely don't believe that this is so. For instance, interrogative sentences express sets of propositions, or so mainstream semantics would have you believe. yeah, I wouldn't think you would think this, but there was a parenthetical that confused me
But since stating a proposition is a sufficient condition for being a fact on my use, it doesn't matter what else 'theft' discourse does. Presumably 'theft' discourse is heavily involved in guiding actions and expressing attitudes, especially those related to blame and approbation. But that doesn't mean that the discourse doesn't also divide the world up into disjoint possibilities, and it's hard to understand certain features of its use unless you accept that it does.
Yes, but deciding which definition of theft to use to divide up possibilities is an ethical question. Sure, but I'm not worried about that because: A) I take the normative to a subset of the descriptive (if 'descriptive' is used in a possibility-carving sense). B) Even if it weren't, then there would still be the matter of the definition of 'theft' as it is actually used, independent of how it should be used. We have to propose for the sake of explaining the workings of the discourse that 'theft's actual use is consistent enough to effectively divide up possibilities, even if we should be using it differently. This obviously isn't the right place to talk about (A) though, and I don't think we are substantively disagreeing about (B).
I'm not quite sure I parse (A) - is there a missing "be"? And I would certainly object if you were claiming this.
Yes, (B) is a factual question. I'm talking about the question of how it SHOULD be used. (B) is what I referred to as the factual question of whether or not a given action meets the definition of theft within a discursive community. We are arguing about (A), and we disagree (if I understand you correctly).
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EPT
