BP and Seasteading

To play devil's advocate, I have an unanswered question about oil spills in general. Since the BP oil spill occured in "public" (read: unowned) waters, why would it not be considered mixing their labor with the water that is prerequisite for seasteading? If the oil spilled into private water, that would be a open-and-shut case, where BP would have to either pay reparations or clean it up. However, how can we hold BP accountable for obvious pollution without binding ourselves to social contract theory? How does one distinguish between pollution and seasteading?

I'm going to answer this with my now cliche departure from homesteading theories; The orthodox view goes that if you mix your labor with something, you come to own it. My view is that if you use previously unappropriated resources a certain way, you have a right to continue using them as such. So you don't farming doesn't allow you to "own" land, it allows you to continue farming uninterrupted. You cannot prevent people from doing things such as broadcasting radio waves across your property that don't make a lick of difference to your farming.

So, when Robert Nozick pours his can of Tomatoe Sauce into the ocean, he does not own the ocean. But to the extent he does not interfere with anyone else's ocean-doings, no one can interfere with his continued pouring of sauce.

If BP could homestead the ocean, they would still need to prevent the oil spoiling the coastal properties of others.

I think "homesteading the sea" is a better term than "seasteading". Anyhow, think of the saying, "What a tangled web we weave, when we first start to deceive" (or however it goes). Property boundaries are not logical with a state in control.

Why wouldn't all of the fishermen out on the gulf the same day that the well started spewing oil not also be homesteading the sea? Why not the same for the people inhabiting the shore? We could say that BP has easement rights to pollute, up until the slick hits previously pristine, owned waters. Imagine that the slick was somehow contained to a certain radius. The act of polluting the radius is not sufficient for ownership; however, anyone who hoped to come within the range of pollution would have to accept conditions and BP's easement right to spew oil.

In these types of scenarios you always ask, "Who came first?" Since state laws preempted a rational system of property rights, people are forced to come to agreement however they see fit.

So, when Robert Nozick pours his can of Tomatoe Sauce into the ocean, he does not own the ocean. But to the extent he does not interfere with anyone else's ocean-doings, no one can interfere with his continued pouring of sauce.

Not this again, lol. What was that thread? I never got back to you on something.

E. R. Olovetto:

Not this again, lol. What was that thread? I never got back to you on something.

Something about how im confusing claims with ownership with something.... It got a little hazy because I said some stuff like "you can use someone's car if you return it atomically the same as when you found it, and you can know for sure that they won't be using the car". I later retracted this, realizing that people also homestead the right to peace of mind... all this ad hoc stuff. I think i have a good idea somewhere in there though...

E. R. Olovetto:

Why wouldn't all of the fishermen out on the gulf the same day that the well started spewing oil not also be homesteading the sea? Why not the same for the people inhabiting the shore? We could say that BP has easement rights to pollute, up until the slick hits previously pristine, owned waters. Imagine that the slick was somehow contained to a certain radius. The act of polluting the radius is not sufficient for ownership; however, anyone who hoped to come within the range of pollution would have to accept conditions and BP's easement right to spew oil.
In these types of scenarios you always ask, "Who came first?"

Except I already homesteaded the Gulf years ago by peeing into it while swimming. See y'all in court. 

Z.

Z:

 

Except I already homesteaded the Gulf years ago by peeing into it while swimming. See y'all in court. 

 

But since you abandoned it, you have no case.

He returns to urinate there every year.

DD5:

But since you abandoned it, you have no case.

We'll see. Judges don't usually require daily peeing over a piece of property to keep the ownership claim "current".

Z.

Except I already homesteaded the Gulf years ago by peeing into it while swimming. See y'all in court. 

Z.

Yeah, this is how the term "laughed out of court" came about.

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Something about how im confusing claims with ownership with something.... It got a little hazy because I said some stuff like "you can use someone's car if you return it atomically the same as when you found it, and you can know for sure that they won't be using the car". I later retracted this, realizing that people also homestead the right to peace of mind... all this ad hoc stuff. I think i have a good idea somewhere in there though...

I found the thread. You can't just say, "I am going to forestall you because you are human and might do something bad." I guess if there was some tangible threat forestalling could be a response to aggression. It takes a rather contrived hypo, like Hugo Chavez claims he is going to take the mountaintop near Caracas and start shooting missles, therefore we're going to blockade the perimeter.

Sort of in the same vein, I was thinking about this the other day. Imagine the same "state doesn't exist all of a sudden" scenario related to roads. I don't own the highway I drive to work on every day just because I drive over it (just like pissing in the ocean isn't embordering and homesteading), but I do have an easement right to traverse it. How could one then come to homestead this road? Fixing potholes or replacing signs would work. What fixed up a road, but I then made it legal for people to drive smashed out of their minds? It seems to me like this would interfere with those who have easement rights because, whether the state was effective at the task or not, the road was supposed to be policed for drunk drivers.

I was thinking about this the other day. Imagine the same "state doesn't exist all of a sudden" scenario related to roads. I don't own the highway I drive to work on every day just because I drive over it (just like pissing in the ocean isn't embordering and homesteading), but I do have an easement right to traverse it. How could one then come to homestead this road? Fixing potholes or replacing signs would work. What fixed up a road, but I then made it legal for people to drive smashed out of their minds? It seems to me like this would interfere with those who have easement rights because, whether the state was effective at the task or not, the road was supposed to be policed for drunk drivers.

Actually the Coase Theorem is interesting on this. It claims that the initial distribution (or nonexistence) of property rights has no impact on the actual outcome of resource utilization (although the participants care a great deal what the initial distributions are)

E. R. Olovetto:

I don't own the highway I drive to work on every day just because I drive over it (just like pissing in the ocean isn't embordering and homesteading), but I do have an easement right to traverse it.

I don't own the property I chop some wood on every day just because I chop wood on it (just like pissing in the ocean isn't embordering and homesteading), but I do have an easement right to chop wood on it. (?)

I don't own the property I piss on every day just because I piss on it (just like pissing in the ocean isn't embordering and homesteading), but I do have an easement right to piss on it. (?)

Z.

Sieben, I was just talking about the legality of the scenario, not the economics of it. I'm kind of tired and this isn't about roads, so I don't feel like getting into all that.

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Z, you might be able to get an easement to piss over your balcony into a lake or own the spot a few yards out where you wade into the waves to piss. This is what you said though:

Except I already homesteaded the Gulf years ago by peeing into it while swimming. See y'all in court.

"[T}he gulf", seems to mean the whole gulf. If that isn't what you are saying (and that assertion is ludicrous), I don't see why you are bothering me with this nonsense.

Your Klingon-Sharia Law is a joke, of the non funny kind.

"As noted, you have to have many abilities or acts to homestead a thing--you have to think, create, innovate, judge, move, emborder, transform. Yeah, but you don't own these things you do; you own the thing you homestead because by your actions you emborder it and therefore set up an objective indicator that you have now possessed it; as the first possessor, you have the best claim to it. This nowhere assumes you own your labor; this assumption is not needed. Labor-ownership is both unnecessary and insufficient. It's unnecessary because you don't need to "own" your labor to show that some thing you labored on is owned by you--you are the first user of the thing regardless of whether you own your labor. And it's insufficient because there is no reason to assume that you are not just throwing your labor away, if you do own it--if you spit in the ocean you lose your spit, you don't homestead the ocean." - Kinsella

Shazam, you got it right. BP has now won the right (should have) to shit oil into the gulf as much as it likes. All the billion dollars fine stuff is statist “deep pockets” theory.

Actually the Coase Theorem is interesting on this. It claims that the initial distribution (or nonexistence) of property rights has no impact on the actual outcome of resource utilization (although the participants care a great deal what the initial distributions are)

Transaction costs are positive, and externalities are not always tradeable.

Transaction costs are positive

Transaction costs only stop the Coase theorem from applying a priori. In real life, transaction costs might be a monkey wrench, but not always. For example, if it costs $100 for two to communicate, it will cause problems if the argument is over less than $100, but be completely negligible if millions are at stake. Most public goods are many orders of magnitude more expensive/lucrative than giving someone a call on your cell phone telephone.

externalities are not always tradeable.

They don't have to be. Thats why its an externality. The interested parties come to an agreement whereby the master party pays all others not to interfere in the provision of whatever good.

Conza88:

Your Klingon-Sharia Law is a joke, of the non funny kind.

You disrespect a KSL judge in a KSL court like that: you lose the case. 

Conza88 quoting Kinsella:

As noted, you have to have many abilities or acts to homestead a thing--you have to think, create, innovate, judge, move, emborder, transform.

So dumb people (who cannot "think") are not "allowed" to homestead (own) property? I say pissing is both sufficient and necessary. Simpler and more consistent.

Conza88 quoting Kinsella:

And it's insufficient because there is no reason to assume that you are not just throwing your labor away

As if ethics was not enough, now we have also embraced labor into the realm of objective valuation? After you observe me piss and do push-ups (and not much else) on my property for a month, you and Kinsella march in and start "to think, create, innovate, judge, move, emborder, transform" thus homesteading my property "for real"? I guess, pissing and push-ups were simply not productive enough of activities for you. Silly me.

 

 

See I don't like Kinsella because rather than formulate from principle, he just takes whatever theory is the clearest cut in an attempt to be objective...

Conza88:

This nowhere assumes you own your labor; this assumption is not needed.

This assumption would have been problemmatic... why? Certainly it matters? Kinsella makes the assumption that the person to first use unappropriated resources has the best claim to it. On its face, this is perfectly reasonable, but it is just an assumption like owning your labor. Moreover, the homesteading theory is compatible with the first use theory...

Conza88:

It's unnecessary because you don't need to "own" your labor to show that some thing you labored on is owned by you

Only under kinsella's first use theory...

Conza88:

And it's insufficient because there is no reason to assume that you are not just throwing your labor away,

So he's basically afraid to make the homesteading case because he's worried he might have to determine if someone is throwing their labor away, which would be subjective. But he has to decide this ANYWAY because in the "first use" theory you have to find out if someone is "using" resources, which is just code for laboring intelligently.

Conza88:

if you spit in the ocean you lose your spit, you don't homestead the ocean.

And this is ye old classical lockean homesteading principle, not the reasonable one spelled out above. We don't think you homestead the ocean. But insofar as your spitting causes no problems for anyone else using the ocean, you homestead the right to continue doing so.

Kinsella's logic opens up the pathway to tell all sorts of peaceful people they don't have a right to X on the basis that they are just mucking about. Sorry, you don't get any rights you just "lost your spit".

E. R. Olovetto:

"[T}he gulf", seems to mean the whole gulf. If that isn't what you are saying (and that assertion is ludicrous), I don't see why you are bothering me with this nonsense.

I "embordered" the whole gulf by pissing at strategically chosen points: four corners (Texas, Mexico and two in Florida) + a few spots in the middle that maximized the distribution of my urine across the gulf by the prevailing currents.