Jackson LaRose:At least we both seem to understand how baseless both of our claims are. If you say so. Anyone can go over the thread and decide for themselves if that's correct.
Jackson LaRose:At least we both seem to understand how baseless both of our claims are.
If you say so. Anyone can go over the thread and decide for themselves if that's correct.
This thread has done an excellent job at exposing just how intellectually bankrupt philosphical skepticism is. Jackson LaRose, you do realize that you are using logic to try and disprove logic (i.e. arguing in a circle) and that claims such as "there are no universally true statements" are, in fact, attempts made at postulating universally true statements? Sort of like the old joke, "There are no absolutes", which is actually an absolute.
Wait, LaRose actually claimed there were no truths? Hah, I will have to read the rest of this thread for the sake of the comedy.
Oh, the irony of a troll calling his targets trolls...
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
I wish JackCuyler would define trollishness as he did ad hominem. Ad hominem I get. It is "to the person" as opposed to "to the idea."
But trollish seems to be bound up with the concept of for or against. The exact same argument could be trollish in one forum and anti-trollish in another forum. And I reject any idea that trollishness is related to civility because the anti-troll is as often as strident as the supposed troll.
As one who has a tendency towards contrariness I have often been called a troll and felt the frustration of there being no precise definition of this term other than as an unkind invective against the 'other.'
Wikipedia has a good article on internet trolls. Basically the idea behind trolling is to engage in dishonest and/or provocative behavior with the goal of receiving a certain - typically emotional - response. The troll finds the desired response to be entertaining. I think this is because the troll is either a psychopath or else has a strong (perhaps insatiable) desire to feel in control of others.
Many times I think people call others "trolls" as a bullying or intimidation tactic. A lot of "debating", both online and offline, really just amounts to bullying IMHO.
Thanks Self-Searcher, that is a good article. Although clearly written it is entirely based on nuance.
If the troll (noun) trolls (verb) for a reaction then we are all trolls because everybody is hoping for a reply to their posts, nobody posts and then thinks "my work here is done." The nuance that the troll is seeking an emotional responce is still not acurarte because the responce must be negative and not negative in the sense that it raises resentment against a third party, such as an OWS demagogue inciting resentment against the 1%. Specifically the troll must raise resentment against himself or his own ideology.
There-in lies the biggest nuance in that it is the anti-troll that determines trollishness by his own feelings of resentment. The Troll may stick entirely to an idea-based argument, but the accusation of trollishness must, by its very definition, judge the motives of another and so is an ad hominem argument which seeks to discredit the idea by it's association with an un-virtuous malevolently motivated individual.
To OP:
First for your question: Taking into account your argument and the assumption that the abundance of choice can exist w/o freedom and vice versa, it seems like freedom is something totally different from abundance of choice. Rothbard's use of the word "power" to distinguish it from freedom is what makes me hypothesize that Rothbard means that freedom of choice means "pre-suppositional choice" and power or abundance of choice means "suppositional choice".
What does this mean? Imagine walking; before you take a step there is a freedom or lack of determination as to where you 'll put your foot. But after you take a step, there's indeed, a choice to take another step, but as far as the category "walking in this direction" goes, there's no more freedom. So one type of freedom is freedom without limits or w/o supposing some other action (pre-suppositional) while the other freedom is analogical freedom which assumes some limit. And this last thing is what is called abundance of choice.
Now I assume that coercion is bad then, because it takes away unequivocal freedom which, for Rothbard perhaps, was the greatest good for man.
As for my opinion on the morality of coercion (that is, the morality of having your highest end thwarted), if the purpose fits it, then coercion is good and vice versa. As such then, coercion is a neutral thing.
Now there are only 2 types of coercion (1) non-human and (2) human. Now as other's have said, non-human coercion is unavoidable (hurricanes) and since it is absurd to be against the unavoidable, it is absurd to be per se against non-human (or non-purposeful) coercion. But for humans there are two types of coercion too (1) libertarian (2) non-libertarian. In the former the government or PDA stops a criminal. Now one could argue that the criminal forfeits his self-ownership and right to be uncoerced but that response implicitly denies the humanity of the criminal which is impossible. So libertarian cannot be per se against coercion. Likewise non-libertarian coercion like that employed by a king over his sujbects, is also not bad unless his purpose is not suited to coercive tactics (a law commanding fasting to all men) or if coercion is simply intrinsically wrong at the time (forcing people to convert to Catholicism).
fakename: Now there are only 2 types of coercion (1) non-human and (2) human. Now as other's have said, non-human coercion is unavoidable (hurricanes) and since it is absurd to be against the unavoidable, it is absurd to be per se against non-human (or non-purposeful) coercion. But for humans there are two types of coercion too (1) libertarian (2) non-libertarian. In the former the government or PDA stops a criminal. Now one could argue that the criminal forfeits his self-ownership and right to be uncoerced but that response implicitly denies the humanity of the criminal which is impossible. So libertarian cannot be per se against coercion. Likewise non-libertarian coercion like that employed by a king over his sujbects, is also not bad unless his purpose is not suited to coercive tactics (a law commanding fasting to all men) or if coercion is simply intrinsically wrong at the time (forcing people to convert to Catholicism).
Am I correct in inferring that you are equating coersion with violence or the threat of violence, regardless of context? If not, I'm having trouble understanding how a hurricane could be coersive. It certainly can't using the traditional definition of coersion, which is violence (or the threat of violence) with a purpose.
EDIT: Fixed a typo.
faber est suae quisque fortunae
"the traditional definition of coersion, which is violence (or the threat of violence) with a purpose."
The purpose is built into the word; co- meaning together or joining or working together is the ultimate purpose of all coercion. The State may coerce you to join them in their endeavors by paying taxes or joining the military and this they do with the tacit threat of violence.
But the second half of the word, arcēre - to enclose, does not require violence.
Coercion restricts freedom of choice or encloses one into a situation of having no choice, or more accurately only one choice. But to restrict abundance of choice is also a form of coercion. To restrict the abundance to a single choice is in effect the removal of the freedom of choice. Voluntary exchange will have some level of coercion if the abundance is removed. When the free-choice becomes a "no-brainer" that is to say "an offer you can't refuse" and not in the sense the mob would use it, but as a marketing type would use it, there is no freedom of choice and any exchange that followed would be voluntary only as a formality.
The State coerces with violence but Standard Oil was equally as coercive, yet non-violent, when all the competing refineries chose to sell-out to him. They only had one realistic choice, to sell or be crushed, in a purely metaphorical sense.
That doesn't explain how a hurricane, which has no purpose, can be coersive. Also, dictionary.com says , "Uset of force or intimidation to gain compliance." Every other dictionary site I've checked has a similar definition. We must remember that English words often have very different definitions than their non-English roots.
I don't think it matters that much what the traditional or agreed upon definition of a word is, since in the scope of an argument the only way to be precise is to define your terms.
To coerce is to force (but coercion alone is ethically neutral), and aggression is the initiation of coercion (which the NAP defines are innately unethical in every circumstance). The libertarian ethic makes an implicit distinction between responsive coercion (my term), such as the force a police officer might use to stop a suspect from murdering, and the initiation of coercion, such as the suspect bringing down the knife on a victim for the killing stroke, etc.
Yes of course a thinker may appropriate an existing word and create his own unconventional meanings. I think of Hannah Arendt and labor, work and action for which she developed precise and distinct meanings.
You may do the same with coercion. But "To coerce is to force." only moves the question to the meaning of force. Can force (which stems from the root for strength) be physical, intellectual, psychological or moral in nature? Can not force be applied in a defensive as well as an offensive (aggressive) way?
Your examples seem to point only to physical force, which you may of course make a condition of your meaning of the word coercion. But the application of non-physical force (e.g. economic duress) to compel one's action is a reality and it would seem incumbent upon you to find a place for it in your linguistic scheme.
Zerubbabel: Yes of course a thinker may appropriate an existing word and create his own unconventional meanings. I think of Hannah Arendt and labor, work and action for which she developed precise and distinct meanings. You may do the same with coercion. But "To coerce is to force." only moves the question to the meaning of force. Can force (which stems from the root for strength) be physical, intellectual, psychological or moral in nature? Can not force be applied in a defensive as well as an offensive (aggressive) way? Your examples seem to point only to physical force, which you may of course make a condition of your meaning of the word coercion. But the application of non-physical force (e.g. economic duress) to compel one's action is a reality and it would seem incumbent upon you to find a place for it in your linguistic scheme.
I can give you a very good integration of non-physical force into my schema.
Any non-physical force I call indirect force. I didn't speak of it because it is a corollary of the definition I gave, logically extractable from it. An example of indirect aggressive-coercion would be any instance where one achieves a value from another that that other would not have given them had they known the truth of the situation. This means that lies or fraud are indirect aggressions / coercions.
I gave an example, economic duress, with a situation in mind: Rockefeller meets with his competing refineries one at a time and offers to buy them out or he will drive them out of business through a pricing contest. Having concluded another voluntary exchange of exclusivity with the railroads he solely posses low shipping rates. He also had control of great capital and could sustain losses far longer than any small or medium refiner. There was no deception. Everything was plainly laid out, 'Sell or be crushed and this is how I'm going to crush you.' The majority of refiners evaluated their positions and concluded that selling out was the better option. Many went on to acquire employment positions within Standard Oil and also profited greatly through stock valuations. Others clung to their individualistic goals and were crushed.