ML vs. Lisp - Programming Languages

Ingo Menger schrieb:[color=blue]
>
> In that case we'd have the problem of finding out what society is,
> exactly, and how comes it is in the position to allow or deny
> anything. Especially, if a society is logically possible and
> justifiable, that chooses to deny for example, free speech, work for
> ones own subsistence, etc. We might find, that this is not the case,
> which would reaffirm the cause that these rights are not merely gifts
> from the ohh so benevolent Great Society.[/color]

Well, a lot of societies are possible. Including some that deny human
rights to all of its members (western medieval society for one example,
where individual rights such as the human rights were far less relevant
than collective rights).

Whether a society is justifiable is a question of what justifications
you accept. Those medieval people had lots of justifications (as have
the Sauds or the Nepalesian king or the South-American Juntas, or any
tyrant of history); it's just that we find these justifications
unacceptable for various reasons.
I.e. you have to go back to first principles somewhere. What do you
think is desirable? Westerners tend to list quite different things than
people in other cultures - though you have to check whom you're talking
with: I'm pretty sure that the desiderata that you hear from a Hindu
Brahman will be quite different from those of a Pariah.
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> the right to live, then you must also accept the right to earn and
>>> keep the material means for subsistence.[/color]
>> I do not think this does follow. See "property as an allocation
>> mechnism". If allocation and subsistence can be achieved otherwise --
>> and alternative allocation mechanisms exist --[/color]
>
> The very act of "allocating something" is actually nothing more than
> to execute a property right.[/color]

That's a question of definition.

If you mean "individual property", in the sense of a right to exclusive
access that cannot be taken away, just given away voluntarily (e.g. in
exchange for other goods): This kind of right doesn't necessarily exist.
In fact this kind of right wasn't very important in the Middle Ages;
access to commons was far more important.

If you mean "power to allocate", well, then allocation is, by
definition, an act of exercizing property rights.

Regards,
Jo

"Ingo Menger" <quetzalcotl@consultant.com> writes:
[color=blue]
> On Mar 7, 11:45 am, Markus E Leypold
> <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:[color=green]
>> "Ingo Menger" <quetzalc...@consultant.com> writes:[color=darkred]
>> > On Mar 6, 10:26 am, Markus E Leypold
>> > <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:[/color]
>>[color=darkred]
>> >> Your attidute towards property is where we disagree (and I
>> >> won't go into a longer discussion of that): You seem to think property
>> >> was there first, a give natural law/right and then came society. I
>> >> think, society and its laws are pretty malleable and the various(!)
>> >> concepts of properties are just sets of rules (give by humans beings)
>> >> that control the allocation of resources, but they are just this: A
>> >> useful mechanism, not more.[/color]
>>[color=darkred]
>> > So you admit, that you have not some natural or intrinsic right to
>> > defend your opinion, or even a right to have an opinion, unless
>> > "society" grants it to you?[/color]
>>
>> Basically yes. The problem in building a system of rational ethics is
>> bootstrapping the axioms without making the word "you have the right"
>> completely meaningless.[/color]
>
> This, indeed, is tricky. But, if you agree, that, in order to find a
> system of rational ethics, one first must have the right to speak,
> then you're on the right track. Otherwise, you perform a vocal self-
> contradiction.[/color]

1. I did never deny the right to speak -- why do you think so?

2. Important to bootstrap a system of rational ethics (or any attempt
to change society) are possibilities / opportunities to speak, not
just "to have the right".

3. Formulating a right to speak and building in safe guards that this
rights are respected would make a system of rational ethics self
stabilizing in practice. But certainly you can try to reason about
ethical systems that don't contain the right to speak.
[color=blue][color=green]
>> Though I would have prefered the formulation: Society is, what
>> guarantees me the ability to exercise that right, society protexts
>> that right.[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
> In that case we'd have the problem of finding out what society is,
> exactly, and how comes it is in the position to allow or deny
> anything. Especially, if a society is logically possible and
> justifiable, that chooses to deny for example, free speech, work for
> ones own subsistence, etc. We might find, that this is not the case,
> which would reaffirm the cause that these rights are not merely gifts
> from the ohh so benevolent Great Society.[/color]

Fine -- what is your alternative? Leiving in the woods and being
strong, thus physically defending your rights against everyone else?
I'm a bit surprised about your negative reading of the term
society. To me, homo sapiens is a social creature and actually that is
what distinguished homo sapiens from pure animals, the amount and
deepness of social interaction. Thinking homo sapiens without society
-- that is inhuman.
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>> > It is, on the contrary, obvious that your point "no rights unless
>> > society grants it" is self defeating. If you accept self-ownership and[/color]
>>
>> Interesting point ypu make here: The question is, what "you have the
>> right" or "the exististence of a right" actually might mean in a
>> society that doesn't recognize those rights (yet).[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
> The same that "truth" means in a society that doesn't recognize
> certain truths (yet), for example, that the earth revolves around the
> sun.[/color]

Well, as I'm a postmodernist, this IS an interesting comparison: What
is truth? In a world were everything is interpretation and "in reality"
nothing exists as we percieve it (see Quantum mechanics).

You just subtitutes one problem against another. Recurring tu "truth"
or "reality" doesn't help in this case. Reality as a common
inter-subjective consensus is a moving target (though not necessarily
arbitrarily malleable by the individual: Just to make that point
before we follow that particular red herring).
[color=blue][color=green]
>> E.g. I wonder
>> wether you can say, people in the middle ages or earlier had "the
>> right to live" since that seems universally not have been absolute:
>> The death penalty for minor trifles was rather wide spread.[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
> The fact that rights can be violated is no more an argument against
> their existence than the fact that somebody may say "The earth does
> not rotate around the sun." is an argument against that it in fact
> does.[/color]

Well. "exist" and "had" are highly problematic word here. may I refer
you to Bishop Berkeley and the tree falling in the wood where nobody
hears it: Does it make noise? The same idea, even more so, applies to
"having" an immaterial right or to this right "existing" in any sense.
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>> > the right to live, then you must also accept the right to earn and
>> > keep the material means for subsistence.[/color]
>>
>> I do not think this does follow. See "property as an allocation
>> mechnism". If allocation and subsistence can be achieved otherwise --
>> and alternative allocation mechanisms exist --[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
> The very act of "allocating something" is actually nothing more than
> to execute a property right. It's in our world of scarcity not the[/color]

That is where the "propertist" make their mistake: Property is a very
special allocation scheme, a point I tried to make in my post about
food rationing in this very thread. There are other allocation schemes
that might e.g. give you only the right to do certain things with
something, but not everything.
[color=blue]
> question, whether property rights should be executed, but only *who*
> executes them. Who comes to dispose about that, what somebody earns,
> that is the question.[/color]

No, that is not the question. Not before we haven't accepted the
classical property concept as an axiom. And wether this (classical
property concept) is the only imaginable allocation mechanism is the
topic of this thread.
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>> > If you do not accept self- ownership and the right to live, then how
>> > come you dare to use your "property" and be it only your tongue, to
>> > discuss about ethics?[/color][/color]
>[color=green]
>> So I dare.[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
> And, while doing so, you confirm that you dispose about your body as
> you will. Fine.[/color]

??

I'm a bit confused: Because I move my body as I can (not as I would
like to ...) I'm obligate to accept (classical) property as a
ressource allocation mechanism, accept a specific monetary system,
accept capitalism? Whereas I have not real problem with all those in
the context of this rather theoretical discussion, your reasoning
seems to be bit flawed. And BTW: A body is not a thing.
[color=blue][color=green]
>> (How do you dare to use the word dare in this discussion?[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
> Sorry, as non-native english speaker I may have missed some negative
> connotation of the word "dare" - I mean it like "doing something
> without permission or without being justified".[/color]

I'm non-native too. Sounded like "what cheek you have" to me. Never
mind, obviously it was not meant like this.
[color=blue]
> Of course, you don't need permisssion to speak, not even from society,[/color]

But I have. And to continue speaking one needs to have the society
tolerate you speech, the fact that you speak. If speaaking freely
would be the natural state of things, neither the Roman empire nor the
middle ages would have happened, would they? The fact that democracy
is relatively new indicates very well that speaking freely is not
natural at all, specifically, sanctioning people who speak "wrongly"
is still the norm: Be it in the family or at the work place.
[color=blue]
> that's what I try to explain here, and what you deny. So, by your own
> standards, did I, or anybody else that belongs to "society" permit it?[/color]

Obviously. You tolerate it, you find it Ok that I speak. Please not
that I did never use the explicit "permit" in my original reasoning,
so my impression is, you're twisting my argument somewhat. And BTW
we're now discussing a straw man: Another topic, even if somehow
related.
[color=blue]
>[color=green]
>> I'm not at all trying to bullshit anyone here, just honestly trying to
>> reason it out. I'd accept that you insist I'm mistaken, but "dare"?
>> Well.)[/color]
>
> I really didn't mean to insult you.[/color]

OK, I understand. Sorry.

[color=blue][color=green]
>> Seriously I'm not feeling well continuing that discussion since (a)
>> I've no solution to the general problem of bootstrapping a rational
>> ethics[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
> Ok, and it's not the topic here, also, therefore, you're right, we
> should stop it.[/color]

Oops too late :-).

Regards -- Markus

Joachim Durchholz <jo@durchholz.org> writes:
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>>> the right to live, then you must also accept the right to earn and
>>>> keep the material means for subsistence.
>>> I do not think this does follow. See "property as an allocation
>>> mechnism". If allocation and subsistence can be achieved otherwise --
>>> and alternative allocation mechanisms exist --[/color]
>> The very act of "allocating something" is actually nothing more than
>> to execute a property right.[/color]
>
> That's a question of definition.
>
> If you mean "individual property", in the sense of a right to
> exclusive access that cannot be taken away, just given away
> voluntarily (e.g. in exchange for other goods): This kind of right
> doesn't necessarily exist. In fact this kind of right wasn't very
> important in the Middle Ages; access to commons was far more important.[/color]

Yep. I'd like to support that. The means of substistence to
e.g. monastries was (later?) often not that they owned forests, rivers
etc but rather that they had the right to fish or the right to cut
wood to a certain extend and so on.
[color=blue]
> If you mean "power to allocate", well, then allocation is, by
> definition, an act of exercizing property rights.[/color]

No. Allocation is the act of exercizing right to
use. Fullstop. Property is the right to exercise all imaginable rights
on the things you own.

I notice that the "propertists" in this discussion seem to deny that
something like a software license even exists or can be put to any use
....


Regards -- Markus

On Mar 8, 3:05 pm, Joachim Durchholz <j...@durchholz.org> wrote:[color=blue]
> Ingo Menger schrieb:
>
>
>[color=green]
> > In that case we'd have the problem of finding out what society is,
> > exactly, and how comes it is in the position to allow or deny
> > anything. Especially, if a society is logically possible and
> > justifiable, that chooses to deny for example, free speech, work for
> > ones own subsistence, etc. We might find, that this is not the case,
> > which would reaffirm the cause that these rights are not merely gifts
> > from the ohh so benevolent Great Society.[/color]
>
> Well, a lot of societies are possible. Including some that deny human
> rights to all of its members (western medieval society for one example,
> where individual rights such as the human rights were far less relevant
> than collective rights).[/color]

Correct.
[color=blue]
> Whether a society is justifiable is a question of what justifications
> you accept.[/color]

Correct also. That would be a matter of discussion, right?
And in this discussion, I would note, that the ability to discuss
things must be considered "a first principle" at least, otherwise
people could not even clarify the question what ethical system is
justified.
So, if we need an ethical system in order to prevent that all
conflicts are "solved" by brute force, we are by logical necessity
forced (!) to admit, that the use of the own brain, and tongue and so
on, in short the ownership of the own body (or, as others call it, the
right to live) must be a basic principle of that ethics.

[color=blue]
> I.e. you have to go back to first principles somewhere. What do you
> think is desirable? Westerners tend to list quite different things than
> people in other cultures - though you have to check whom you're talking
> with: I'm pretty sure that the desiderata that you hear from a Hindu
> Brahman will be quite different from those of a Pariah.[/color]

I don't say it's easy. But I take my chance to counter the relativist
notion, that rights are somehow what society grants us. And if it
decides so, then what was right today will be wrong tomorrow and vice
versa.
[color=blue][color=green]
> > The very act of "allocating something" is actually nothing more than
> > to execute a property right.[/color]
>
> That's a question of definition.
> [...]
> If you mean "power to allocate", well, then allocation is, by
> definition, an act of exercizing property rights.[/color]

While we were speaking of ethics I assumed of course, that someone who
allocates something has also the power to do so due to (property)
rights and is justified in doing so.
In the case of the commons, this can most probably be considered to be
a "free good" as long as there were no conflicts about usage. With
growing population and more cattle, conflicts indeed arouse, and the
former commons became a more and more scarce ressource. Today, they
are gone, and for a reason.
Our "commons" today is the ocean with the fish in it, and the same
development occurs. Hopefully, property rights will emerge here soon,
otherwise, fish populations will be eradicated and even wars about the
last fish may break out.

"Ingo Menger" <quetzalcotl@consultant.com> writes:
[color=blue][color=green]
>> I.e. you have to go back to first principles somewhere. What do you
>> think is desirable? Westerners tend to list quite different things than
>> people in other cultures - though you have to check whom you're talking
>> with: I'm pretty sure that the desiderata that you hear from a Hindu
>> Brahman will be quite different from those of a Pariah.[/color]
>
> I don't say it's easy. But I take my chance to counter the relativist
> notion, that rights are somehow what society grants us. And if it
> decides so, then what was right today will be wrong tomorrow and vice
> versa.[/color]

So back to the topic of this subthread: You assert that "property" (in
my opinion a concept, not a right, but mever mind) is a natural or
inviolable human right like e.g. the right to live?

(If you don't answer that with "yes" now, I'll accuse you of trying to
create a smoke screen ...)
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>> > The very act of "allocating something" is actually nothing more than
>> > to execute a property right.[/color]
>>
>> That's a question of definition.
>> [...]
>> If you mean "power to allocate", well, then allocation is, by
>> definition, an act of exercizing property rights.[/color]
>
> While we were speaking of ethics I assumed of course, that someone who
> allocates something has also the power to do so due to (property)
> rights and is justified in doing so.
> In the case of the commons, this can most probably be considered to be
> a "free good" as long as there were no conflicts about usage. With
> growing population and more cattle, conflicts indeed arouse, and the
> former commons became a more and more scarce ressource. Today, they
> are gone, and for a reason.
> Our "commons" today is the ocean with the fish in it, and the same
> development occurs. Hopefully, property rights will emerge here soon,
> otherwise, fish populations will be eradicated and even wars about the
> last fish may break out.[/color]

So the best way to handle the danger of (air) pollution would be to
make air a property of someone? Or might it be that you're the victim
of the golden hammer syndrome, i.e. since you got a hammer, every
problem must be a nail, or -- since property worked once for a time,
the best strategy is to arrange any processes for decisions humankind
has to make around some concept of property?

Regards -- Markus

Ingo Menger schrieb:[color=blue]
> On Mar 8, 3:05 pm, Joachim Durchholz <j...@durchholz.org> wrote:
>[color=green]
>> Whether a society is justifiable is a question of what justifications
>> you accept.[/color]
>
> Correct also. That would be a matter of discussion, right?
> And in this discussion, I would note, that the ability to discuss
> things must be considered "a first principle" at least, otherwise
> people could not even clarify the question what ethical system is
> justified.[/color]

Oh no. I'm not discussing the issue as a member of a restrictive
society, but as a member of a society that guarantees freedom of speech
and other human rights (well, at least to the extent that I dare write
this *ggg*).
[color=blue]
> So, if we need an ethical system in order to prevent that all
> conflicts are "solved" by brute force, we are by logical necessity
> forced (!) to admit, that the use of the own brain, and tongue and so
> on, in short the ownership of the own body (or, as others call it, the
> right to live) must be a basic principle of that ethics.[/color]

First, all social systems are based on bodily force. Even in the most
liberal society, if you don't accept the fine, you'll be arrested, and
if you resist arrest, you're bodily forced into arrest. If you use arms
to resist, you may even get shot.

Of course, in western culture, physical force is ultima ratio. Other
societies handle this differently, some of them being remarkably stable
(again, medieval societies had a good deal of violence built into them,
without losing much stability).

So, no, I'm not forced to admit anything. It's more a matter of the
goals a society strives for, and the justification it is willing to
accept, rather than logical consequence.

Of course, if the goal is a society that respects human rights and
grants the right to pursue happiness, then you cannot base it on brute
force (except as ultima ratio). It's the kind of society I have been
living in, and the kind of society I want to continue to live in.
If, on the other hand, the goal is a society that follows the principles
of a specific confession (be it socialism, Christian faith, Muslim
faith, capitalism, or fascism), to the exclusion of personal happiness
and individual human rights, then brute force can be an effective means
of establishing and perpetuating such a society. It would also be a
society I would not want to live in (and I guess most people wouldn't
want to, too).
[color=blue]
> I don't say it's easy. But I take my chance to counter the relativist
> notion, that rights are somehow what society grants us. And if it
> decides so, then what was right today will be wrong tomorrow and vice
> versa.[/color]

But historically, this has happened, and more than once.
[color=blue]
> In the case of the commons, this can most probably be considered to be
> a "free good" as long as there were no conflicts about usage.[/color]

Oh no, there was a *lot* of conflict about the use of commons. They were
not "free goods" in any sense - they were protected not by property law
(not much of that existed anyway), but by tradition, and woe to those
who dared send their swines into the forest ahead of the proper time!

The full construction was like this:
The land was property of the king, who granted parts of it as fiefdoms
to his followers (and these most definitely did not own the land).
The inhabitants of the land didn't own it, but they had rights to its
use - such as the right to feed their swines in the oak forest, or have
their cattle graze on the meadows. They were also supposed to organize
things so that the land wasn't overused, and established traditions to
do that (I imagine that many of these traditions were established long
before the medieval fief system was introduced).
Nobody in the village had a personal property in the commons. In fact he
couldn't sell these rights - he had the rights to the commons because he
was part of the village. If somebody married into a different village,
he lost all the rights in the old village and gained those in the new
village. (Those who were evicted from their village lost their rights to
any commons.)

No property in the commons. Still, a quite effective system of
regulating the use of the commons.
[color=blue]
> With
> growing population and more cattle, conflicts indeed arouse, and the
> former commons became a more and more scarce ressource. Today, they
> are gone, and for a reason.[/color]

Sure, though growing population is just a small part of it.
Other factors were nobility that was overtaxing land and population to
raise money for wars and personal luxury; a growing consensus that there
should be personal property even in land (something unheard of outside
of the Roman Empire, at least in Europe); possibly others that I don't
recall.
[color=blue]
> Our "commons" today is the ocean with the fish in it, and the same
> development occurs. Hopefully, property rights will emerge here soon,
> otherwise, fish populations will be eradicated and even wars about the
> last fish may break out.[/color]

Military action already has happened. More in the form of warships
firing warning shots at fishing boats than real wars, though.

Regards,
Jo

"MarkHaniford@gmail.com" <MarkHaniford@gmail.com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> On Mar 5, 1:52 pm, Markus E Leypold wrote:[color=green]
> > - You know about Dan Lyons track record?[/color]
>
> Oh, let me guess. Dan Lyons tricked poor Dick Stallman or Stallman
> didn't even say it. If Markus could just wish it away....hahaa.[/color]

so, we'll take that as a "no"?

----
Garry Hodgson, Senior Software Geek, AT&T CSO

do for others with no desire of return.
we should all plant some trees
we will never sit under.

"thant" <adm@standarddeviance.com> wrote in message
news:1173151164.669912.161860@c51g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
[color=blue]
> Anyway, the point is that copyrights might kinda sorta be defendable,
> and technology might eventually bring us to the point where they are
> moot. But what about patents? Patents are a good thing to the degree
> they are about preventing the theft of ideas, but they are a bad thing
> to the degree that they are about precluding the use of ideas even if
> someone else thought of them entirely independently. Unfortunately,
> that's exactly what patents are about. The original justification for
> patents was that making a trade secret public would allow others to
> use the idea to come up with a new idea (which was in turn patentable)
> and thus foster technological progress. But even a hardcore property-
> rights and free-market defenders like myself would describe this
> situation as exploitive in that ideas are (in a natural law sense) not
> the subject of property-rights stipulations. Your use of an idea
> (unlike farmland, or a car, or whatever) doesn't preclude someone
> else's use of that very same idea.[/color]

Well, OK...but aren't you forgetting the "for a limited time" part? I can't
say as I blame you, as lots of people forget it.

That is, the notion of patents (and copyrights, for that matter) is a social
contract: In exchange for exclusive rights to a work for a limited time, you
agree to make it available to everyone after that time has expired.

This notion is useful only if the "limited time" is long enough to allow the
originator to profit, but not so long as to preclude anyone else from doing
so. So it should be a time that is significant, but also significantly less
than the amount of time over which the intellectual property is expected to
be useful to its originator.

Personally, I think that the right duration for software patents should be
in the vicinity of 18 months. And the notion of a copyright persisting for
the lifetime of the author plus 75 years is just absurd. If these problems
were fixed, a lot of other related problems would become much less
important.

Garry Hodgson <garry@sage.att.com> writes:
[color=blue]
> "MarkHaniford@gmail.com" <MarkHaniford@gmail.com> wrote:
>[color=green]
>> On Mar 5, 1:52 pm, Markus E Leypold wrote:[color=darkred]
>> > - You know about Dan Lyons track record?[/color]
>>
>> Oh, let me guess. Dan Lyons tricked poor Dick Stallman or Stallman
>> didn't even say it. If Markus could just wish it away....hahaa.[/color]
>
> so, we'll take that as a "no"?[/color]

My question was directed to Chris Smith, who hasn't replied
(yet?). Concerning "Mark Haniford", it's neither "yes" nor "no": I
doubt that his foaming can be construed as anything but meaningless
foaming. Or better: The form is the message here and it's not to the
point, the verbatim content of what he says seems to matter hardly. He
might have heard about Dan Lyons, he might have not. He might even
_be_ Dan Lyons for all I know.

Though, that he suggests "Dan Lyons tricked poor Dick Stallman or
Stallman didn't even say it", does seem to indicate that it would
rather be a "yes" here :-).

Regards -- Markus