My theory for safety regulations

Economics Political Theory
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After discussing it in another thread I came to the following theory.

I think every person is entiteled to a certain minimal safety. For instance if tomorrow 1 million nuclear plants will be built near my neighborhood, there is a virtually 100% chance that one out of those plans will melt down in the next decade. Thus it is clear to me that a risk to property by itself can be considered aggression. Of course not every risk can be considered such, but only a significant risk beyond the accepted risk. An example of an accepted risk can be one tenth of a percent chance for your property to be harmed.

Following this theory, if you build a chemical factory which is considered to a pose a risk of 1/15 of a percent to property in the radius of 10 kilometers, then it should be legal for you to build this factory. However it would be illegal to build a second such factory because that would increase the risk to be more than the minimum 1/10 of percent. Yet if the risk is minimized using special safety precautions then the court may legitimize the building of the second factory (given that it undergoes periodic regulations to see that the safety measures are still in place).

In practice I think such regulations will be very rare and will only pertain to nuclear reactors and very dangerous chemical factories, dams and other such structures. But I believe that if we don’t deal with this issue we leave people with absolutely no recourse in case they are being threatened by a real and credible threat by various potentially dangerous structures located far away.

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Provided by/at the expense of whom?

Not physically possible.

…meaning, a completely arbitrary point. Great. So…

I’m entiteled [sic] to a certain minimal safety. Risk beyond an arbitrary point that I set, is aggression. Anything that can kill me within 31 seconds of exposure (under any conditions…including high velocity) must maintain a distance from my person of 1000 meters at all times. Anything else is too risky. And I’m entiteled [sic] to a certain minimal safety.

If I wish to walk to the corner store, all automobiles must vacate the radius of my walking path immediately. Eugene has spoken!

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This list is growing fast.

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Pollution definition is also arbitrary, at least to the same extent. So are property lines and homesteading rules. So this is not an argument against my theory.

Your other depictions are just a straw man attack. I claimed in the original post that not every kind of risk should be acted upon, only that which is larger than some accepted risk, which will probably be quite large.

By the way if you think that with your arrogant attitude more people will become libertarians, you are greatly mistaken.

5

Do I need a new monocle? I’m seeing assertions, but no supporting arguments!

Right. A completely arbitrary one. Please show how my hypothetical from the last post doesn’t jive with the system you’ve set up here.

Well I guess I’m not mistaken then.

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The private road in your last example was there before you came to live next to it, so just like with pollution the cars and the road owner don’t owe you anything. They were there first. However if someone builds a road next to your home, then perhaps you can sue them. It makes sense too. The road doesn’t only produce noise but also risk. Both of them affect you.

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I think you will agree with me that you can sue a person for endangering you with his driving, or accidently almost killing you with his gun. You can sue people for risking your life and property.

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I think every person is entiteled to a certain minimal safety.

As JJ posted, provided by at the expense of whom, and does this mean safety is a right?

For instance if tomorrow 1 million nuclear plants will be built near my neighborhood, there is a virtually 100% chance that one out of those plans will melt down in the next decade.

Arbitrary and nowhere near possible in any galaxy. 1 million nuclear power plants? Do you realize how big one power plant is?

Thus it is clear to me that a risk to property by itself can be considered aggression. Of course not every risk can be considered such, but only a significant risk beyond the accepted risk. An example of an accepted risk can be one tenth of a percent chance for your property to be harmed.

You may consider something aggression where someone else may not, thus it’s not an objective fact, just a value preference. What’s an accepted risk to that of a risk one will not accept? All risks are risks, one may individually calculate “I would rather do this than that, because there’s less chance of potential damage in some way (psychological, mental, emotional, whatever)” but one cannot collectively factor risks on individual levels where one should be entitled to safety.

Your third paragraph is essentially laying out that of a law or policy, not so much of a theory as your are trying to objectify what you see as going beyond your “risk zone.”

You are making a hypothetical that such-and-such is a risk, and you are entitled to safety, but what’s the likely hood of the risk even being so?

I think you will agree with me that you can sue a person for endangering you with his driving, or accidently almost killing you with his gun. You can sue people for risking your life and property.

You can sue someone for not intentionally being a bit more dangerous than someone else?

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Of course risk is subjective, and I am fully aware of the problems in subjective rules, but nevertheless I don’t see how else can you solve the problem of significant risk.

What if a nuclear reactor, several chemical factories and a dam are built next to my home? What if my neighbor starts to store nuclear weapons in his basement? Are you saying that I have no recourse under these circumstances? Don’t you think that these actions by themselves are unjustified? That the people who do these things without considering that other people might get hurt should be legally responsible?

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I direct you to Hoppe’s Private Production of Defense. I believe the role of insurance companies will help you into understanding this as far as factoring risks goes.

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But you are saying that it is just and legitimate to pose risks to your neighbors. I disagree with you. If someone builds a road next to my house and cars drive there at 150km/h, then it poses great risk to my kids who play in the garden or walk to their school. With roads you can say that it is possible to eliminate the problem by homesteading a larger area, but its not possible with nuclear plants that pose danger even when they are far away from you. You can’t homestead an entire country and deem it to be “nuclear plant safe”

Should dams be regulated in free society just because they threaten more people?
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but its not possible with nuclear plants that pose danger even when they are far away from you. You can’t homestead an entire country and deem it to be “nuclear plant safe”

It’s not possible 1 million power plants will be built around your house either.

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By the way how a nuclear plant is different than a terrorist firing rockets on a yearly basis? Only once in maybe 20 years a rocket will actually hit someone, but should we wait until that happens?

You would argue that in the latter case there is also the intent to hurt, but why should it matter? In both cases the threat is real and the outcome is about the same.

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By the way how a nuclear plant is different than a terrorist firing rockets on a yearly basis? Only once in maybe 20 years a rocket will actually hit someone, but should we wait until that happens?

Are you serious?

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Please answer if you have something constructive to say.

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I am quoting Walter Block:

“In contrast, were a nuclear power station to blow up, its negative power could not be so confined either, and yet this is legitimate under libertarian law. What is the difference? The difference is that the one is a weapon, the other is not. Were we to ban all appliances whose power, under the worst possible scenario, could not be confined to the appropriate people and their holdings, we would have to prohibit all aircraft, and laboratories experimenting with deadly viruses, etc. This applies, even, to roofless baseball stadiums (an escaping home-run ball can break a window). The difference between all these others and the ‘artiste’s’ atom bomb is that the latter is a weapon, the others not.”

I actually disagree with this. If someone builds an airport 10 kilometers away from my home and thousands of aircrafts start to fly over my head, it creates a significant risk for my safety. Am I not entitled to a compensation? I think I justly do.

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No it wasn’t.

They owe me just as much as a nuclear power plant owner.

No they weren’t.

And there it is. Suing someone because they built a road on their own property. At least you admit that’s one of the logical conclusions of your ridiculous notion.

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Please answer if you have something constructive to say.

You seriously posted…

By the way how a nuclear plant is different than a terrorist firing rockets on a yearly basis? Only once in maybe 20 years a rocket will actually hit someone, but should we wait until that happens?

You compared [what I’ll assume is a civilian and technologically advanced] nuclear power plant to that of someone firing rockets on a yearly basis, and that maybe once about every 20 years a rocket will actually hit someone, and imply the same amount of entitled safety for both.

A criminal firing weapons with the intent to do harm is completely different than people running a nuclear power plant with the intent to help people.

What you posted reminds me of Keynes talking about burying jars of money in a mine covered in the town’s rubble, and paying people to dig it back out, it’s on that level right now.

I actually disagree with this. If someone builds an airport 10 kilometers away from my home and thousands of aircrafts start to fly over my head, it creates a significant risk for my safety. Am I not entitled to a compensation? I think I justly do.

Guess what? Oceana Air Base in Virginia Beach will fly their jets into the night (they stop at 10 pm I believe), and if you live in Virginia Beach anywhere even near the base you can hear the jets, and when they fly anywhere close you can’t even talk to the person infront of you. Thus, thousands of people living in homes, going to work and school, etc. listen to the “sounds of freedom” flying day and night, and they do not get compensated. Oddly enough, a lot of people claim to enjoy the “sounds of freedom” and when I talk negative towards the air base say things like “I knew the air base was there when I moved in the neighborhood, if you don’t like it get out!”

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT0OqHr3wHQ

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“If you don’t like America, you can get out.” I thought this was just neocon talk.