Hm, new idea by AnCap professor: charter cities

[Autolykos]

@Anemone

Prove it.

Not until you try proving to me - in a logically deductive sense, of course - that government is necessary.

@Anemone

It’s the only way that statement can be understood. The hell is wrong with you.

In my opinion, nothing is wrong with me. “The sun will come up tomorrow” is a claim of necessity about the future. If you simply think the sun will come up tomorrow, then you’d say “I think the sun will come up tomorrow”. Keep in mind that I’m not talking in the context of loose everyday language here - I’m talking in the context of logical debate.

@Anemone

Lol, the sun will come up tomorrow. And I’ll still be right when it does. Not because I know the future, because obviously no one does (which is why it’s obviously an implied inductive statement).

You’re contradicting yourself there. You’re implying certainty about the future, and then turning right around and saying there’s no certainty about the future. It can’t be both certain and uncertain.

@Anemone

By that I don’t mean give an inch on your principles. But rather discuss your vision of an ideal society and its actualization. That would be a fun exchange of ideas. You don’t want an exchange, you offer only an attack.

As I’ve already stated, I’m not interested in your idea of a “fun exchange of ideas”. I’m interested in refuting your statism. You understand this, I think, and that’s why you’re trying to dance around it. You don’t want your position to be weakened. Well, too bad, so sad.

@Anemone

I don’t assert that. Again, for like the third or fourth time now, I suggest that a political right of separation and individual choice of jurisdiction means that any citizen can escape a jurisdiction that began to move into aggression, thus kneecapping all attempts at ramping up government power, and ensuring that only responsive coercion is used. A society without jurisdictional citizen-capture does not have a monopoly on citizens, though it by nature must have a jurisdictional monopoly on law (two bodies of law cannot rule the same jurisdiction–even though you question that, it’s obvious with about three seconds of thought).

Earlier you wrote, “You don’t believe a state can be limited to only moral forms of coercion.” Since you haven’t provided me your own definition of “state”, I’ll insert mine there: “You don’t believe a territorial monopoly on the legitimate use of coercion can be limited to only moral forms of coercion.” That’s right. By definition, it isn’t limited to what I would call “moral forms of coercion”, as I consider the coercion it must use to maintain its monopoly to be immoral. But anyway, what you said earlier sure sounds to me like you believe the converse, i.e. you believe that a territorial monopoly on the legitimate use of coercion can be limited to only moral forms of coercion. Notwithstanding your alternative definition of “state” (which you have yet to offer), this means to me one of two things: either you think the coercion that it must use to maintain its monopoly is moral, in which case we’re simply at a moral impasse; or you don’t think a territorial monopoly on the legitimate use of coercion must use coercion to maintain its monopoly.

Now then, regarding your notion of “political right of separation and individual choice of jurisdiction”, that means people can escape a jurisdiction without having to move, right?

@Anemone

Yes, I do. Which is why, in my proposal, you can choose immediately to leave a jurisdiction and take all of your property with you, and why there’s a confederal government, not a federal one (while acknowleding that I’ve used ‘federal’ in the past; another one of those refinements). [Emphasis added.]

You can’t really take land and other immovable property with you.

@Anemone

For anti-citizen capture to be effective you must be able to secede totally.

What in the world do you mean by “anti-citizen capture”? You keep introducing new terms without explaining what they mean.

@Anemone

In fact, calling it a right to secession is a much better term than what I’ve been using, the so-called “political separation” so I’ll use that from now. Wow, I actually got something out of discussing something with you, I am in shock.

… Okay. I feel no different.

@Anemone

Let’s do a quick thought experiment. If I was able to guarantee that a state would not become an aggressor–let’s just hold that constant–would you agree that a state limited to responsive coercion would be a good thing? Let’s see if you have any intellectual honesty whatsoever, or where the exact crux of your opposition is. Because, I don’t believe you’ll be able to say it is. And that means you simply hate any idea of the state, perhaps any authority, and it’s not really about principle for you. But I’ll give you a chance to surprise me.

How magnanimous of you.

I’m not going to hold that guarantee constant, because a territorial monopoly on the legitimate use of coercion must use coercion to maintain that monopoly - coercion that I consider to be aggressive.

By the way, it’s this kind of thing which keeps leading me to believe that you view our discourse as some kind of negotiation.