Re: Justice and Punishment

Alejandro Dubrovsky (s335984@student.uq.edu.au)
Fri, 3 Apr 1998 04:55:52 +1000 (GMT+1000)


On Wed, 1 Apr 1998, John K Clark wrote:

>
> On Thu, 2 Apr 1998 Alejandro Dubrovsky <s335984@student.uq.edu.au> Wrote:
>
> >What would stop someone like Bill Gates from doing what he will
> >with 10000000 Indians?
>
>
> The fact that 10000000 Indians have more money willing to be spent on matters
> concerning the life and death of 10000000 Indians than Bill Gates does.

depending on how much bill wants to see those 10000000 people dead.
Again, on the whim of a dictator...
>
>
> >Not to mention that most people's wieldable money (spare money?) is
> >much less than 2% of a rich person's spare money.
>
>
> It's not you against the world, no viable PPA would have only one member, and
> if you need money to prevent you from being hanged tomorrow morning then your
> spare money is 100% of your total net worth.
>
Which would mean that you would just die of some other cause in the
extremely short term. What i meant by spare money is money that can be
used for things other than necessities, necessities being anything you
need to survive (just food, probably shelter in non-tropical areas, and
expenses spent in getting the income/means to get the previous two). This
spare money, for most people in the worlds, is an extremely small
percentage of their total income, and is smaller the smaller the income
is. So you get this exponential, instead of linear relationship between
total income and spare money, which means that those 10000000 indians have
some sum approaching zero (its tricky for them to survive without any
other expenses), and bill's (or pick your favourite billionaire)
approaching huge. Net effect: bill 0 Indians -10000000
If you are poor, you couldn't count on your PPA being supported by some
billionaire since any billionaire would know that he would just be
supporting the rest. In fact, i don't see any PPA supporting the poor
people since they have nothing to gain from this, apart from forced labor
and slavery.
The analogies that naturally emanate between the description in the above
two paragraphs and nation states were not premeditated.

>
> >Also, what's the difference between a large PPA and a standard
> >nation state, in which you pay taxes to be protected?
>
>
> Unlike a government a PPA will not force you to join or pay them one dime
> because it does not claim rights an individual does not have. If I need money
> I don't claim the right to take it from you regardless of your wishes.
> Government does.

And what is stopping the PPA from claiming that right?
>
>
> >What will protect you from your own PPA?
>
>
> Possibly nothing, one PPA might become far more powerful than any other,
> turn psychotic and take over everything. It could happen, but it's much less
> likely than the US Army doing it and setting up a military dictatorship,
> and they certainly have the power to do so if they wanted.

They are just paid a "tithe" of 300 billion dollars a year by the US
population. Rest of the world's armies do simmilar things, unless their
tithe is too low, in which cases they decide to take more direct
approaches.

> At the first signs
> of totalitarian behavior in a PPA, people could simply stop doing business
> with it and switch to a competitor, this would cut off its lifeblood, money.
> Remember, doing business with a PPA is voluntary and that gives enormous
> power to people, a power that citizens forced to finance the army and police
> regardless of their opinion of it do not have.
Again, the fact that the "laws" and "rights" are backed up by PPAs, they
do not apply to PPAs. Doing business with a PPA is voluntary as long as
that PPA lets it be a voluntary thing.

> Also, just like now, PPA's in
> a world without government would attract people who enjoy exercising control
> over other people, but unlike the police and army of today, it would also
> attract people who enjoy making money. Those kind of people are much safer to
> have in positions of power.
>
i would say that is exactly the kind of people that are in a position of
power right now. How many dictators are poor after their time in
government?
chau
Alejandro Dubrovsky