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Orbdev Files US Federal Suit Over Asteroid Claim
chongo writes "Orbital
Development has
filed
legal action against the United States by filing a Complaint for Declaratory Judgment in Federal Court.
After NASA's NEAR
probe landed
on the
asteroid
433 Eros,
Gregory W. Nemitz,
who
claims
to have owned the asteroid since the 3rd of March 2000,
sent NASA an $20 invoice for the
first 100 years of parking and storage fees.
NASA told him to "pound
sand".
OrbDev's
Eros
Project seeks to promote their ludicrous ideas about property rights in
space."
If that asteroid were in Texas, the guy wouldn't be able to collect rent unless he'd lived there at least a year.
(Yes, I made that up.)
"If I gave you everything in the world, where would you put all of it?" -God
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
After successfully suing NASA and leading SCO to total domination of the software market, Mr Nemitz has declared himself to be a free agent in search of a new job title.
Offers so far include: Chairman of the Lets Rebuild Iraq Foundation for Oil Shipments and PR representative for the Taliban.
Nemitz was quoted by Newsweek as saying, "All your base are belong to us".
I am a leaf on the wind
Right? Or maybe something like Stranger in a Strange Land, where they sue for ownership of Mars but really want to be denied and set the precedent.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
What is the fine this sort of a thing?
Pointing to a bright light in the sky and saying "mine" doesn't make it so.
Did OrbDev fly up there to mark the boundaries of their claim? Somehow, I think not.
Good luck in enforcing that.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Gregory W. Nemitz
Address: 8301-252 Mission Gorge Road, Santee, Calif. 92071 USA
Tel: 775-450-6144
Fax: 413-460-6480
Email: gnemitz@orbdev.com
Of course, this is all public information, and obviously I'm not encouraging anyone to contact or harrass Mr. Nemitz.
Then just go here.
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
If he wins his case, this will open up a can o' worms due to all those guys who bought 1-acre Moon tracts on ebay and elsewhere.
And I charge $100 bucks a week for rent. Me thinks he owes me quite a bit of back rent.
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
Let me start out by saying that I don't think this guy has it right...he sounds like a real looney! But the fact remains that we *must* start thinking about how to establish property rights as we settle outerspace, otherwise we won't be able to have a sustainable society. The right to own property is the foremost right of every person and should be defended above all these other "rights" like the right to welfare and non-descrimination. This may seem funny or trivial to you, but if you would think about these kind of issues for a few minutes (maybe read a book about objectivism) you would take this a lot more seriously.
The linux hacker
Only $20 for a full century? I guess he knows he can't get much, what with it being so far from the popular sites and all...
-"It seems like you're trying to exploit a security hole. Would you like help?"
This is space we are talking about, so if you land on it, or can show that you can land on it, then the property is yours.
So, by this proposal, the only one able to claim ownership would be the United States Government.
But, the second half of my proposal would allow a large company to "lay claim" to a resource in space, if they could prove (ie put forth plans and such) that they can get to the asteroid to do whatever they need to do with it.
This would allow companies to make money, and not have the "fastest person to arrive" syndrome, but allow them discover a body, and the first one to claim it gets it, other than whoever was close and found out that an expensive space vehicle was wheeling toward it from a farther out distance.
This fellas claim is truly eroneous, because if it were not, then we could "claim" a sun in a distant galaxy, and then charge people rent for looking at it and thus using its light...
I dont know, i cant beleive nut jobs like these fellas exist, but they do bring up an intresting point if you think about the implications of what happens if we ever do go into space, and who exactly does own what (if say we could actually mine these things).
anyway
Buzz OUT.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
This would have to rank as the largest scale monopoly game ever made!
Now if he builds some hotels on his asteroid he could really rake it in.
In a countersuit to be filed tomorrow, NASA plans to subpoena Orbdev officials under a claim that Orbdev owes NASA $38 million in parking fees for hitching their asteroid to NASA's probe.
An unnamed NASA official claims, "It's [Orbdev's] gravity keeping the thing there. God knows our probe has other places it could be going if it didn't have to drag along this dead weight."
Eros could not be reached for comment.
Kevin Fox
I looked at the eros project and straight away relised it's greek for love (erotic love), also the greek god of love. Weird, no?
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
I'll just have to invoice this guy for breathing my air, or maybe just revoke his breathing license. Will the stupidity never end?
Dear OrbDev,
Department policy forbids payment of parking tickets that have not first been duly affixed to the windshield of the vehicle. Please let us know when you have done so.
Love,
NASA
SCO must have been sharing their crack pipe with this guy.
1) Assert ownership of valuable public asset.
2) Sue monstrous entity that can crush you like a bug.
3) ???
4) Profit!
'coz I own the Sun and you're receiving the energy from my property.
On the serious note, what I can't understand at all about this (and other similar) claims to ownership of planets, asteroids and whatever else they want to grab is the basis of the title. How do these people claim to become owners?
The moon is not fully subjugated. I demand a second assault wave preceded by a massive nuclear bombardment.
I believe that NASA now "owns" the property since they landed on it. They should now counter sue Orbital Development for tring to charge rent on a peice of property that they don't own.
... but unfortunately isn't so. If the judge decides NASA has to pay this could cause serious trouble for future space exploration, for as far as I know most of the lunar and martian surface is already sold. If everybody from now on can claim money if something touches "his" property, this could possibly cause second thoughts. better to say "please place a ticket on our vehicle (harrharr) - and we will remove it as soon as possible".
On the other hand side wasn't there a treaty signed sometimes in the 60's that forbade the claim for extraterrestrial property?
".Sig Stealer" was here
It's so blatantly obvious that this wacko is only interested in his $20 to establish a precident. He set that so "reasonably low" in the hopes that NASA would just make it go away and pay him (unlikely) the $20 and establish a precident he can use in the future for equally insane claims.
I love how he contrasts, "$20 is a great deal since a $225 million piece of equipment is 'parked' there."
Great, so do that give everyone the right to charge other people $1 a day to breathe because after all, you take over 14400 breathes per day on average! SOOOO CHEAP!
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
Damn that is some good fucking shiznit!
I recall all those "buy one acre of Mars/The Moon/Whatever Planet" booths in the mall a couple of years ago. Were they in fact real, or what? I remember hearing the story that some guy went to the UN and claimed ownership of all planetary objects. How far can this go? Can I claim to own the Milky Way? Thanks to anybody who answers this question that has boggled me for the better part of a decade :(
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
Better watch out! Mr.Nemitz is going to call dibs on Uranus next!
Every one knows that they have to put a ticket on the windshield first!
C'mon, mod me up - It's funny!
(yet).
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
So? She plays it too.
This case is just too silly. SCO comes closer to sound logic than this guy.
Then again, I'm sure we will be seeing some even sillier posts about how we need to set up some kind of property rights for when we start living on and mining asteroids.
1) Asteroid Property Rights
2) Extract oxygen and water from silicates
3) Buy mining equipemnt
4) ???
5) Profit!
how to establish property rights as we settle outerspace
Ha! What makes you think we're "settling outerspace"? We ain't doing shit there, and nobody else is either. Sure, some probes are going out. Rumor has it some manned missions are going out, too. But there's absolutely no "settling" going on.
Like what I said? You might like my music
I now own the sun. Everyone now has to pay me for the energy that they get directly or indirectly from the sun.
Fight Spammers!
Let's come a little bit closer to "super-routine" (read: daily) space flights before we even think about giving people the (recognized) right to claim property in outer space.
To think about it now would be like a caveman contemplating if he should choose an AMD or Intel processor. We're so far off, it would be somewhat of a waste of time to argue about it now.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
The analisys given of property rights is downright rediculous. Yes, a hunter in pursuit of a wild animal has a claim to that animal, but that does not mean the hunter owns the animal.
The hunter does not own the animal until it is under his control.
If another hunter were to jump out from behind a tree and shoot his fox, the second hunter would have a better claim to the fox, and thus be the real owner.
Applying this analysis to property in outer space, he can claim everything he wants until the cows come in, but when someone else can actually bring the "thing" under their control, it will become their property.
There are a lot of people who would argue with you that the concept of property rights is the biggest problem with western society.
I personally don't like the idea of property rights in space as we all know who will get the lion's share of them to everybody else's disadvantage.
To claim land you must surround it with a fence that is strong enough to stop a cow.
I have owned Mars since July 4, 1984. I will now be suing NASA for 100 Billion dollars for trespassing.
After that I will build a massive city on Mars and will charge bloated amounts of money for people to visit me.
1.0wnX0r Mars
2.Build stuff on it
3.???Get Laid???
4.Profit!
And they're all Slashdotted! How is that even possible?
I'd like to RTFAs, I really would.
Everything seemed to be going so nice
'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
LOL!
people can't just point at something, and say, "Mine! Want to buy?" It's like the people who have sold the brooklyn bridge to tourists.
I don't want to fuck her. I want to not think about fucking her. Not even looking at massive amounts of internet porn is getting her off my mind.
Aren't quotation marks usually used to indicate that something is a quote?
"Pound sand" doesn't seem to be one.
Once we can effectively enter outer space, and get energy and materials from there, what use are property rights? I'm serious. We can generate more than enough wealth to keep everyone happy, and I don't buy that nonsense that if people aren't paid they won't work (explain OSS to me then). It would be a very different society than we have now, but certainly a better one.
On the other hand, if we don't somehow artifically separate people into 'rich', 'middle class' and 'poor', the wealthy won't be able to use their superior command of society's resources to steer things in whatever direction they see fit. Frankly I think that's a good thing, but naturally wealthy people disagree. Viewed in this light, I can see why a complex system of property rights for outer space would be advantagous.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I'm not saying property rights are bad, but opening up space to the highest bidder is grossly nearsighted. Maybe I should lay claim to the Sun and charge all you bastards for stealing my energy.
All these claims about owning a piece of the Moon, this asteroid, and so on is because of a loophole in a UN charter forbidding governments from owning land in space (but nothing about individuals)...
Shouldn't he should be filing this in a court on asteroid 433 Eros, no? After all, one doesn't file a claim for a debt owed in, let's say China, in a a US court.
Hey Gregory W. Nemitz, I'm claiming I own it now. You owe me $20.00 and I'll beat your ass to get it!
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
It has come to my attention that certain members of the computing industry are using my intellectual property, commonly known as "mathematics."
While I do not intend to file suit immediately, I would like anyone to consider carefully whether they are using anything which may get them into trouble -- including, but not limited to, addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, and/or any derivative works thereof.
If you would like to avoid any potential legal action, please contact me and we can begin licensing talks.
http://history.nasa.gov/1967treaty.html
From Article II:
"Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means."
-----
show me salvation, and i'll hate it.
... we have to settle out there. Those of us who are actually out there can then work out the details, while the earth lubbers pound sand.
A precedent has already been set in the way Antarctica is managed:-
-1st in gets rights to their chunk - e.g. Australia
-Others get access for "scientific research" e.g. U.S. has a base at the south pole but doesn't "own it"
Everyone declares the zone a conservation area.
Someone builds a road to the pole to allow access
"Scientific investigation" discovers oil
World leaders decide that conservation less important than the black stuff (look no one fires back at you in Antartica)
Profit!!!!
Now, I'm getting curious - how do one 'establish a claim' on a piece of rock that's orbiting the sun? If it's just a cause of calling dids and grabbing what you can, I think I'ld like to claim ownership of Europa (no, not the continent, the ice covered rock thats up there). Not only can I charge NASA for parking there, but if they do find life, I can sue those organisms for not paying rent as well...
Seriously thought, someone should brief these fellows on the international agreements that relates to 'Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies'. Pay particular attention to the second paragraph in article I, qouted in full;
Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be free for exploration and use by all States without discrimination of any kind, on a basis of equality and in accordance with international law, and there shall be free access to all areas of celestial bodies.
In short, if NASA or anyone else can land somewhere, they are free to do so. End of story.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
...and he threatened to crash his asteroid into my house. Not exactly how I hoped it would go.
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
I'm sorry, but you have to at least get a guy onto the beach and have him plant a flag and say, "I claim this land in the name of Spain" or something before you get to have property rights. I mean, that's how we dealt with this type of thing in the past when there wasn't anyone white living in a place. I'm pretty sure there aren't any people on the asteroid so I think this still works... and you can avoid the whole racist imperialist whatnot. Things change if the indigenous people have roughly equal technology.
[signature]
The right to own property is the foremost right of every person and should be defended above all these other "rights"...
Thank you Ayn Rand.
Now let's get real. Property is not inherent. Moreover, the subject of what can and cannot be property is a limited one; slavery is a form of property that was once legally recognized but is no longer in most parts of the world.
What is inherent is life and liberty. Working from these one can derive certain forms of legitimate property, i.e., a presumed legal right to exclusive possession of things one creates, lest he or she be deprived of the labor (life and liberty interest) invested in its creation.
Now tell me, sir, when and how did you make the asteroid you now claim to own?
Peace and love, y'all
"If you do not occupy or otherwise improve your claimed property, you shall be considered derelect and in abandoment of said property and all entitlements therein" ...or similar wording on the US lawbooks for over 100 years now. Or is this a case of what is old is new again?
I guess this would be Jack9's theory of land ownership.
Put up a satellite or agents into space. Mine or set up sabotage, or otherwise similarly "poison the well" the area/asteroid. Even the rumor that you may have done this and the theoretical chance that you have (through having put people/technology into space with that specific purpose), should be enough to deter claiming the land or at least visiting until humanity or some future owner has decided they have such an iron grasp on space technologies as to risk sending someone to scour it and verify it is safe.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Bzzzzzt.
You'd better leave America (along with Western civilization, and virtually all religion) behind if you think owning property comes before "welfare" - which, in non-reactionary terminology, means efforts by men, through their governments, to help other men - and before "non-discrimination" - which means recognition of equal humanity and everything that flows from it: equal rights, due process, life and liberty, and all those other things Ayn Rand couldn't imagine living without.
Sigh. It takes a fairly well-developed industrial society to produce people with such effective blinders that they mistake their surroundings for the state of nature.
Lemme quote ya yer holy prophetess: I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.
Say goodbye to the human race, then. Recognition of human inequality - intellectual, yes, but more importantly economic and social - is a bedrock principle of human morality, as is the value of efforts to rectify inequality. Abandonment of virtue is tantamount to abnegation of one's own humanity; and "self-reliance" (a meaningless idea, given the sociopolitical state in which humans inevitably find themselves) at another's expense is no virtue.
Welfare isn't a right....
You settle outerspace the same way the Europeans "settled" the rest of the world... a guy sails on a ship to the beach and plants a flag and says, "I claim this land in the name of Spain." What's so hard to figure out? Real Politik, people, you get to own "new" land if you can hold it.
Once a governmental entity holds land then it can enforce the property rights of it's citizens by going to war locally to enforce remote claims. IE: War on Earth to assert property claims in space... War in Europe to assert property claims in the Americas.
I swear you scifi people never paid attention to your history classes.
[signature]
Since no nation can defend his right to own that piece of land he'll have to fight for it himself. Anyone in the military want $20 to go kill him to liberate that asteroid?
ok, how about it becomes yours if your the first to go there? - otherwise i hereby claim every star/galaxy/quasar in the sky
Bullshit.
I say we we declare the universe a commons so we dont extend this destructive cycle of property/deprivation and war thats plagued mankind for so long.
Whenever you assign a property right where it didnt exist before , you take away that right from others. Ask the indians, they'll tell you.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Did someone have to walk all the way to the Mississippi and put a flag there to claim it? Or did someone say, "I claim this land and all land to the 90th meridian, between the 35th and 40th parallels, to be Frungyland." (named after the esteemed sport, of course).
I clearly placed a disclaimer on the sun so that any user can see it. "You assume all risks for use of my sun and you can't sue me. And, if you want to sue me, you have to file the lawsuit on the sun."
Fight Spammers!
Bleh!
From Article 1
From Article 11In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
You have to have military force to enforce any land rights. Who'd like to join my Ronald McRaygun commemorative Army?
Umm the right to own property is not universal, it is far from the formost right a person should have.
Many cultures exist without property, and there is no reason that people need it to live, other rights are more significant. I personally like speech, association, and equality over property, but "rights" are mainly a cultural thing.
Besides, property rights are granted by the nation that has soverignty over the land. This soverignty is determined by having either an undisputed claim to the land, or by having some kind of represintative there.
so either:
1) the US gov has a claim (by NEAR) (has not granted land to the guy)
2) the guy created his own nation. ( he cannot inforce his claim of soverignty, and is not recognized as a nation)
3) no one has a claim on it. (I'm betting on this one)
And for your question, it is worked out. When some nation/organization puts an outpost on that rock, then they own it.
Serving Suggestion: Defrost
I've read books about objectivism. I'm afraid I tend not to agree with it. Not that Ayn Rand ever really admited that anyone but her even understood it.
That alone tends to send up my red flags and move the needle of the bullshit meter at least a lot closer to the red zone.
Now please don't get me wrong. I'm anything but an anticapitalist and not against property rights, per se, but my ideas of such are rather more Thoreauian (who, counter to popular opinion, was a practicing capitalist and clearly would have thought a federal welfare system was a daft idea).
I think one must realize that property in the sense that you own the chair you whittled yourself is something rather different than real property. An insect may recognize the former, but not that latter, although they recognize the looser concept of territory or "personal space."
Real "property" rights are simply an extension into the capitalist realm of fuedal/tribalistic territorialism of the kind that Rand despised. I've always found this a bit ironic. Had capitalism not evolved out of such fuedal societies it isn't entirely clear that it ever would have developed a concept of real property at all. It isn't inate to the philosophy, and one might even argue that it's somewhat counter to it.
People didn't buy land. They took it. By force, and defended it by force. Then they could claim the right to "sell" that which they had stolen from the public domain. All real property comes from such a background.
So, you want to claim ownership to an asteroid? Well buddy, you better get your ass out there and build a castle. Then when someone else comes along you tell them to shove off or pay the toll.
If they're sitting there and you can't march the knights out of the castle to defend "your" land, well, guess what, you never owned it in the first place. Where there is no prexisting local legal jurisdiction it's back to might makes right.
Or in the more colorful vernacular, Shit or get off the pot.
If you yourself think we're going to develop property "rights" to space through some local process you're just as daft. We're going to fight and kill for them, just as we always have. And when we "discover" the "people" who already "own" a bit of space we might well expect them to take exception to that and fight back.
Quite frankly I'm already rooting for them, because we've got no fucking right.
KFG
The above clearly establishes that claiming private ownership of any extraterrestrial property while remaining a citizen of a terrestrial nation is a violation of international law.
Someone prep one of those new Chinese rockets, someone's in need of an expulsion from Earth!
Somehow I think recognizing intellectual inequality (depending on your meaning of intellectual) and at the same time as seeing economic and social inequality as something we should work towards stamping out is contradictory or at least self-defeating.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
I was just going to ask about that. Claiming the land immediately around the flag as one's own is pretty obvious, but how did they draw the lines?
Actually, I think there was this nice little event when the first guy to sail around the tip of South America (Magellan, I think) saw the Pacific Ocean as the first European. He claimed it to Spain (or Portugal?). He had no idea how damn big it was or where the other shore would be, but that wasn't really a problem in MAKING the claim. Holding on to it was another matter, of course...
NASA wins, if they "squat" there long enough.
Can the probe be considered to have conquered the property? Does NASA own the moon or Mars? Will China be violating any treaty, or declaring war, by invading (landing) on either?
I recall, years ago, the international treaty on Antartica which stated that no country was able to lay claim to that land. I think it had an expiration date on it, was it renewed? I always wanted to go raft to an island there, plant my flag, and claim it as mine. I never signed that treaty! Invade me, if you dare! Ahhhrrrr!
I'd think that for any reasonable claim to space property, you'll need to land a PERSON on it. Only the moon, then, is owned by NASA.
ok the you own all this was tried by the pope with respect to spain and portugal in the new world. the thing is no one else respected that so, if you wanted the mississippi, you had to deal with the french who did walk (or sail) all the way there and establish forts to keep off the others (read english).
If you want a good story about soverignty take a look at the early history of the royal canadian mounted police. It might not seem like a logical place to start, but that is why they were created.
seems the previous poster already answered my one query
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/asteroid-03k.html
Orbital Development reports that it has received an official response from the United States Department of State in regard to that company's "Eros Project" which was initiated to establish official respect for property rights in Space.
Orbital Development, in the course of its Eros Project, has claimed and owns Asteroid 433 Eros since 03 March, 2000. On 12 February, 2001 the United States landed the NEAR-Shoemaker spacecraft on the privately owned planetoid, prompting OrbDev to send an invoice to NASA for parking & storage fees totaling $20.00 for one hundred years storage. After a lengthy exchange of letters with NASA's chief lawyer, its General Counsel, NASA refused to pay OrbDev's invoice.
On 13 Feb 03, OrbDev sent an official and legal Notice to the United States Department of State stating that NASA had exceeded it authority in this matter and the Department of State should clarify the United States' Executive Branch position on the critical issue of individual property rights in Space.
In a letter dated 15 Aug 03, Ralph L. Braibanti, the Director of Space and Advanced Technology in the Department of State's Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, wrote, "We have reviewed the "Notice" dated February 13, 2003, that you sent to the U.S. Department of State. In the view of the Department, private ownership of an asteroid is precluded by Article II of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. Accordingly, we have concluded that your claim is without legal basis."
Valentine ends up the sole inheritor of his mother's space-drive engine and the surface of the martian world (due to squatters rights IIRC - IANAL).
A large part of the book is about the governments attempts to take possession of these assets... hence the original poster was correct in his analysis.
Not to say that "The man who sold the moon" is not also applicable in this context, only that it does not preclude SIASL.
Can you "grock" it??
Q.
Insert Signature Here
Typically iron found in Space is contaminated with platinium, normally by about .005 or one-half of one percent. Assuming that 433 Eros is only 5% iron, there are 22.5 billion tons of platinium on the asteroid. The current price for platinium is about $750 per troy ounce. There are 29,167 troy ounces per short ton for a total 656,250,000,000,000 troy ounces. At today's price, that is $492,187,500,000,000,000 (~1/2 quintillion dollars).
Thanks for calculating it for us... now pay up. :)
No nation ever existed without some sense of national destiny or purpose. Manifest Destiny -- a phrase used by Orbdev in the 2003 to explain continental expansion of the Heaven's by Mr. Nemitz -- revitalized a sense of "mission" or national destiny for Himself. And while Orbdev put into motion a quest for its Manifest Destiny, NASA faced quite different circumstances as a newly suboenaed tennant of Orbdev's sovereign domain. Actual link explaning Manifest Destiny.. :)
http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/dialogues/pre lude/manifest/manifestdestiny.html
"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy - Benjamin Franklin"
While "real" capital is necessary for capitalism to function - that is you need clear property ownership rights - I doubt anyone who has never been in space could lay such a claim. If the property cannot be visited, traded, or borrowed against then it isn't really property or capital at all is it?
(FYI: this is why many 3rd world countries who try capitalism don't do that well, or at least part of the reason. In the western world it is so ingrained that we don't even think about it, but I can buy a house and be reasonably sure that I own the property and will continue to do so. I can take out a small business loan against it. I can sell it and make money. Imagine living somewhere where you can't necessarily get a clean title to anything. Imagine it takes years, thousands of dollars, and visiting hundreds of government offices to setup a legitimate business due to all the red tape. We are fortunate enough to have clear property rights established. Our capital is legitimately moveable and that's what makes it work.)
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
The obvious route to take would be to legislate (as international law, not US law) that you can only lay claim to Extra Terrestrial Real Estate (ETRE from now on) if you can land on it.
This would indeed solve the immediate story - keep the loonies out of courts and from having any legal basis for such claims.
It would, however, create some bigger problems.
Here's a few probs with "Landers-Keepers":
1. Instead of starting stellar colonization as a single political entity (eg humanity/earth), we'll just start another colony race (eg china vs US for example, like Britain vs. France vs. lesser colonizers a century ago) and deepen division between world powers instead of using this exact endeavor to bridge across and achieve something together.
2. What's to prevent someone with a home-made rocket (eg starchaser, or the X-prize-winner-to-be) from actually landing there and forming his own country? would that be in the best interests of you? me? the US? Humanity?
And this brings us to the big kahoona.
3. Whose interests do we aim to serve by this sort of legislation?
The US? I daresay Europe and Asia will disagree.
The UN? The UN is just short of owned by 1 billion oil-supplying muslims. That wouldn't be so bad at all, if the muslim world hadn't been a poverty-stricken, politically-faltering, violence-promoting human-life-has-no-value culture at the core of which lies Jihad upon which quite a large chunk of the world's next generation of muslims are raised.
Even richer arab countries like Saudi Arabia are extremely polarized between westernization-seekers and this ugly side of the Islam.
I daresay that the US will disagree to serve these radicals and their agendas.
Humanity _does_ include 1 billion arabs and you can't exclude them. But when you count humanity as a whole, you suddenly realize that there is no common agenda to serve by ETRE legislation. You are eventually going to displease a large portion of this planet.
Finally, I'll point out that legislation on this is entire nonsense in itself, as legislation is useless without some form of enforcement. Face it, if the moon belongs to NASA and some rogue party lands on it, there is NOBODY that can remove him and throw him in jail.
The best solution would probbably be:
a. Keep working hard to eventually reach ETRE.
Ignore mosquito bites like the article above. At this stage, a space race actually serves humanity quite well, as it drives tech development faster.
b. Keep this legally vague for as long as possible (until someone can actually sheriff ETRE). If this doesn't clarify for a while yet, the arab world might by then reach the point where (Golda Meir quote) "They love their children more than they hate someone else's".
Wait for an entity that all humanity can trust to appear and pose a common-to-all agenda. Then and only then legislate something along the lines of
"ETRE initially belongs to said entity" and then be distributed and regulated much like US soil real estate.
Cheers.
-
is invite Gregory W. Nemitz down to Cape Canaveral to view the next launch of a space shuttle.
They can set him up with a lawn chair, a cooler of beer and an umbrella to keep the sun off as he sits under the shuttle with an excellent view of the main engines.
If there are no property rights in space, no productive use will ever be made of it. You'll just have a handful of incredibly expensive government missions now and then that accomplish little.
As legal inhabitant of the planet Quak-Quak, in the system of Ungu-Chacha, I reject the claim to celestial body Bu-Ne-Shaf ('eros') based on the following:
- we were here long before you puny humans, (spitting sound)
- we can actually build something on Bu-Ne-Shaf, instead of just parking junk on it
- we govern 80% of the known galaxy, so why not this?
and last but not least:
- we have bigger lasers than you !
So before you go on taking Bu-Ne-Shaf or any other celestial body as your property, I urge you to first check on the Alpha-Centauri planning office, where our rights to this and all properties are clearly written down.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
SCO should take over Orbdev, and fight the case. If they win, the entire firm SCO, and all their employees, shareholders and lawyers will be provided a free trip to the asteroid, and can enforce their other IP rights over there. They can call IBM, Linus, RMS etc. after building a Court on the asteroid. -
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I think this is why space is so big. So the idiots don't get out and annoy everyone else. If a civilization is still arguing over silly stuff like this, it won't have time to advance.
Incredible. The universe is idiot-proof.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
The guy claims that treaty does not apply, because he is not trying to annex the asteroid as part of a nation. He claims it as personal property, like a house or a wristwatch.
I think they have a better case than SCO with respect to Unix. Atleast these chaps seem to have discovered the asteroid.
-
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Hmmm...
Looks like Eros has the disctinction of being the only celestial body known to man that is both shaped like, and owned by an enormous prick!
Bowie J. Poag
Thank you Ayn Rand.
Thanks, whig, you just made my night. I'd say Ayn Rand was the devil if she deserved such a high title. Her writing is trash; her ideas are trash; and to include her in the world of academia and serious discussion is a crime against humanity: Ayn Rand is... shite, 'writing' under the guise of 'equality' and self preservation. She'd be Hitler, except that he did like others like him.
porp
The problem with the internet is it's too easy for some nutcase to put up a slick website, complete with bar charts and look sane.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Wonder how hard it is to mine and separate platinum from the iron .... This could solve the EU space program's lack of financing, now all they need is a bidder for the platinum ;-)
I'm sure NASA can deal with this themselves. They don't need some well meaning geeks helping them hassle the guy.
But that doesn't matter. The guy's just a harmless crank. If he was charging a lot of money, it might be different, but he's jus being a pest.
Dear NASA,
Please be advised that your vehicle has hereby been impounded.
It is being held on the same asteroid in our newly-formed impound area.
Attempting to remove your vehicle from the impound lot without authorization will result in criminal penalties and the possibility of severe tire damage.
Love,
OrbDev
-- My Weblog.
"Lord Vader -- the rebels are here."
"Do they want tea?"
"They have a flag."
"DAMN!"
when i was 6 years old i claimed the whole universe, the milkyway and this starsystem and my mother said it was mine for the taking. now if thats right his rock is parked in my space and by my recordes show that he owes me back rent for a few 1000000000 years past. if he does not pay i must get him to remove his rock from my space so some other loony can park there rock there. and if he moves his rock i can get him for treaspassing :D
and now that i am 22 how is my claim differ from his ? some times i still sell bits of space to those stupid fools that do not know better,
I find it as reasonable as software patents, so why shouldn't he try to cash in on it?
and, perhaps, $20mil for each additional?
i can't help but thinking he might try and rip NASA off with this deal.
Anywhere.
paintball
We have received your invoice for $20 and have settled it with the relevant authorities on Eros. If you contact them I am sure they will remit our payment to you.
Regards
NASA
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
But sending NASA an invoice that they pay might....
Luckily the clerk wasn't asleep and NASA didn't actually pay.
paintball
I think all claims of Mr. Nemitz will become pointless when the Chinese probes land on Eros and start digging.
1 near new planet
little use, good view,
close to schools/shops
good condition, quick sale
$1,000,000,000,000 ONO
They're derived from fear. Take what I say is mine and I'll kick your butt.
Of course, as civilization has progressed, it's become a little more complicated than that.
But hey, property rights work, so I ain't complaining. Especially since I'd hate to have someone else using my computer when I want to karma whore on Slashdot.
paintball
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
NASA would obviously sue for TOWING fees. Orbdev isn't going to be able to get their asteroid out of the impound yard until they pay either.
paintball
"Now tell me, sir, when and how did you make the asteroid you now claim to own?"
Well since he's claiming it's his right based on the US Constitution I can only guess he's going by Locke's theory on Life, Liberty, and Property. Then the question is, exactly how did he mix the rock with his labor.
...wether he can claim ownership or not, but about wether NASA has access or not. It rather neatly bypassed the issue of wether or not a private induvidual can own stuff in space. It simply state that all (nation)states has the right to explore any celestial body with no discrimination and with free access.
I would suggest reading the rest of the treaty as well, as it's plenty interesting. I got a couple of other snippets you might actually like:
Article I, third paragraph: "There shall be freedom of scientific investigation in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, and States shall facilitate and encourage international co-operation in such investigation."
Article II, entire article: "Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means."
Now, while INAL, the language here is very clear. Space is open for anyone to explore, and no nationstate can make a claim on any celestial bodies (so you can't go around saying the moon belongs to the USA). No mention is made to the effect that private persons can or can not stake a claim on anything up there. But, if they can stake a claim and have it accepted as legal, they cannot ask for money to let a scientific probe land there - Article I, second paragraph, demands free access to all areas of celestial bodies for the purpose of exploration.
Interstingly enought, the treaty also allows one (ntion)state to inspect the 'stations, installations, equipment and space vehicles' of another (nation)state on the moon or any other celestial bodies, ref article XII:
"All stations, installations, equipment and space vehicles on the moon and other celestial bodies shall be open to representatives of other States Parties to the Treaty on a basis of reciprocity. Such representatives shall give reasonable advance notice of a projected visit, in order that appropriate consultations may be held and that maximum precautions may betaken to assure safety and to avoid interference with normal operations in the facility to be visited."
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Now let's get real. Property is not inherent. Moreover, the subject of what can and cannot be property is a limited one; slavery is a form of property that was once legally recognized but is no longer in most parts of the world.
Well, your slavery comment is a complete non sequitur. Ayn Rand was a champion of the individual, and the will to pursue one's own dreams. Slavery would be a sin to her.
As for property being an inherent right, what you don't seem to understand is that without property, one is not able to sustain life. For example, man's most immediate need is always shelter. Unless you own your shelter (home), there is no guarantee that you'll have shelter tomorrow. And if you depend on the government for shelter, then you aren't free. Property that isn't yours can always be taken away. Your liberty, your very life, is in the hands of those who own the property you depend on for survival, whether that be shelter, land, or even the means to get to and from work to earn money to buy food and clothes.
Face it, without property you have no liberty. Without property, you are a slave.
Ever heard of the tragedy of the commmons? Property rights have their inherent flaws, but common ownership of everything doesn't work well either (unless we can genetically engineer greed out of society in some way).
He's got balls the size of 433 Eros.
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Many underdevelopped countries (3rd word countries is so passe) have clear property rights. The problems lie elsewhere.
Yeah, there are some countries where property rights could not be warranted, but they are mostly countries in which that did not matter much since other slightly more worrying issues like widespread famine or ethnic cleansing was keeping people's minds occupied.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
As CEO of a company I think I have a better grasp on this than most Slashdot readers, you see most of you are the 90's version of the hippy, your outlook on life is everything should be free, no boundaries, that is why you embrace freeware and not Microsoft. Not to say that I don't have quite a few gripes about MS myself but fundamentally your outlook on life is flawed.
Everything in life cost money, and every piece or property with any sort of value is "owned". Eventually, space will become more accessible to the average person/corporation and once it does you can bet that the same system that exists on earth will be transplanted to any extra-terrestial body. Come on, stop spouting your utopia crap and lets get real. Space is only free since we can only really access it through our telescopes and we can't even do that very well. When the astronauts finally made it to the moon, what was one of the first things they did? They laid sovereign claim to Terra Luna by erecting an American flag.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but this is the way the world/universe works.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
Masturbate before you go over to their house. Just get it out of your system. She won't stop being hot, but it should help.
Did someone have to walk all the way to the Mississippi and put a flag there to claim it?
... the area which I and my mates can control by blowing the head off of any other gun-toting person claiming differently. We who blow the heads off of people who claim differently swear allegence to the King of where-ever we came from so he'll send us more guns... he'll send us more guns because we send him money... until we can make our own guns and don't feel like sending him anymore money. So there.
... historically speaking.
I'm pretty sure the practical measure was:
I figure that's how real space colonization and real property claims in space will go down. Then once a level of autonomy is reached at the colonies they will either pressure change in the arrangements and get it or they will revolt. Pretty standard stuff
The practical question is... just how autonomous can a space colony be? There aren't any aboriginals you know... all sorts of technological problems there... probably take five hundred to a thousand years to work them all out.
[signature]
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
NASA should pay up, and then claim against him for any damage that occurs to their probe - which in the hostile environment of space will be quite a bit.
:-)
Unless he's written a contract to the contrary, I suggest he could be held liable for the damage. I doubt he has posted any signs disclaiming responsibility
I am 16 and my boyfriend broke up with me after 6 months just because I gained 15 pounds. What an asshole! He said I "promised" to lose weight when we started going out. I did try to lose weight but my genes are against me (both of my parents are over weight).
I feel compelled to respond on this as I feel it could be the most important issue of the 21st century - especially if the X Prize boys get their mojo on.
Property rights essentially appeared at the same time as the Agricultural Revolution about twelve to fifteen thousand years ago. For the first time, you really couldn't move down the valley a bit if someone you didn't like lived near you. You had a field, and that was the only way your (suddenly) large family could live through the winter. If you let him take or use what you'd literally broken yourself to create - you would die. Harsh stuff, and the reason the core of every successful legal system in the world enshrines property rights over all others. Even the U.S. constitution has property rights so mixed in, so tightly bound, that it mentions them again and again - they were as natural and obvious to the founding fathers as breathing.
So we move on to an age where agriculture is no longer quite as central to our lives. Suddenly we are coming up against the limits of property rights. "Intellectual Property" seems to be an obvious idea to an industrial economy - a simple extension of the concept that's allowed the human population to take over the world. As the discussions on /. have shown, this is no longer quite so obvious, so compelling.
Already you can see where I'm leading. If we take the idea of ownership as we normally see it and then apply it to the stars we come into some severe problems.
No consortium of insurance companies in the world, not even the whole of the Lloyds of London market could insure against a mis-directed asteroid impacting with the Pacific. So how could any mining corporation ever hope to start liberating resources from our solar system? Remember that the Lloyds market is the clearing-house for all insurance and re-insurance in the world, and even they struggled to swallow the risk from the Space Shuttle. Even then it took the intervention of the U.S. Government as insurer-of-last-resort to placate the market-makers.
So don't take responsibility: Let anyone get on with doing what they want? No claim means no liability? Right?
What happens when two mining companies lay claim to the same stretch of asteroids? If they are in the same orbit, and therefore easier to get at, both companies are going to want to protect their investment. Do we want to return to the days when warring villages were continuously slaughtering each other? When simply travelling outside the palisade meant risking death?
Here's another example. What if settlers arrive, and then someone else causes problems - e.g. their solar arrays are rendered useless by the cloud of particulates raised by a "nearby" extraction operation. They could go to court for help. It is a clear tort. After all, they can file electronically and it's only a twenty-four hour round trip to the central courthouse computers. There's just a small problem: They are dying for lack of air right now.
Here's the solution: There isn't one. Not with our current expectations and society.
As with all problems where human beings are involved, this is going to have to evolve. The societal structures that have worked so well for us down here are going to have to change. That isn't to say that there won't be governments, charities and corporations.
More likely, we'll have to have a long and drawn out struggle between the varying imperatives: "It's mine!" "You can't do that to me!" "If you try to stop me I'll defend my rights!" "You must leave that alone!"
Hopefully not too many will die. Some will.
Who knows what will emerge? The governing-corporation? The feudal charity? Maybe the gift economy shown so beautifully in the Open Source Movement will be the governing paradigm? All I know is that our system isn't going to stay the same - because it cannot work when celestial mechanics becomes a part of your insurance quote.
Pimping my Karma Whore since 1847.
This claim seems less ridiculous than "One-Click Shopping", so maybe NASA should pay?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
To Gregory W. Nemitz
Re: Amnesty for unauthorized use of service
I, Helios Apollo, owner of a main sequence, spectral class G2 star of radius 696,000 km, situated approximately 1.5e8 kilometers from the planet Earth and known in the English language as "the Sun", have been advised that you may have been using the service known as "Sunshine", a stream of photons emitted by the above-mentioned star, for the purposes of visual navigation. Since, according to my records, you are not a licensed user of the service, I am asking that you account for your usage of the service beginning from 0h00 UTC January 1, 2000 according to either of the following billing plans and remit any amounts that may be payable.
The Photon Count Plan. Count all photons emitted from the surface of the Sun of wavelength greater than 395 nanometers and less than 695 nanometers that directly impinge upon your person and all of your belongings including real estate, then multiply by the factor 4.0 times ten to the minus twenty-five to yield the amount in cents of U.S. currency.
The Earth Residency Plan. Only 36 cents per day of use. Use shall be deemed to occur in a 24 hour period if at least one photon would have been used under the Photon Count Plan.
To be exempted from accounting for use of the service, please submit a copy of Certificate of Vampire Status.
Unless you own your shelter (home), there is no guarantee that you'll have shelter tomorrow.
... that's how things get when you have something that is scarce and usefull...
But not everyone has shelter, so your solution is not working either. Could someone else live in your house? Yes. Would you die if that happened? No. What that other guy fullfill one of his "most immediate needs" this way? Yes. Will you/(I) allow that to happen? No.
So in the end, we like it because we have shelter, and things to care. But it's not inherent in any way. I'd say the only inherent things is that the human race must share earth to accomodate everyone. After all, it has been given to us all, not to some of us. As new generations are born, they have the same inherent rights to claim ownership a their share of stuff. But we'll negate that right. What if some past generations claimed all the land (say the Romans)? Well, we'd not agree on their "right" to own what they claim, and make war.
In brief, your property excludes everyone else's rights to use that piece of earth (be it land, a good). But stuff is limited on earth, it's scarce. So in fact, your right takes away someone else right (that may be a fair inherent right). In the end, you end up some people agreeing on how this fare share works, and that works in favour of the people that have more power. Untill they are overthrown and some other policy is implemented. Property rights will always be needed and abused
unfinished: (adj.)
Poppycock.
Don't be parochial, I could claim the same and I am not USian neither live in the US thus I don't abide to those laws.
I would rightly be struck down by the international treaties in the matter that in broad terms forbid these kind of stunts.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Nemitz, Gregory
3672-A Bancroft St
San Diego, CA 92104
Life has been around a hell of a lot longer than "property rights".
.. I wonder what kind of legal mess we had if some of these owned asteroids crashed on earth?
In any case, I hereby claim the sun to be mine.
As for property being an inherent right, what you don't seem to understand is that without property, one is not able to sustain life.
You're mixing two issues though, property as material objects that are of some benefit to us and that therefore we claim and defend as our own (it's provable by ennumeration that such property exists), and property as a right that some people claim is inherent. The latter claim is of course entirely hand-waving and not provable by any technique that doesn't involve hot air.
Of course the latter is just a subset of the argument concerning the existence of any rights whatsoever. Handwaving aside, their existence is not demonstrable of course.
It could only happen in America!
For problems, seek only the simplest solution, complexity brings with it more problems.
We just waiting you to collect it.
You find the full amount on the asteroid
Greetings
NASA
Unfortunately for Orbital Development, asteroids are not under the juridiction of US Federal courts. They will neeed to refile their claim with local authorities on asteroid 433
I'd say Ayn Rand was the devil if she deserved such a high title. Her writing is trash; her ideas are trash; and to include her in the world of academia and serious discussion is a crime against humanity
She is only considered serious in the US.
In the rest of the world she, and her "objectivism" is not considered at all. Noone has ever heard about it...
Dear sir,
According to your own accounting as documented on http://www.erosproject.com, you are the owner of "Asteroid 433, Eros". Our record indicate you are operating on said property therefore you will need to pay appropriate property tax in the amount of 24,000,000,000,000 payable to "Internal Revenue Service".
There is a penalty associated with operating a business on said property without a valid zoning change. It is currently zoned as a "intraplanetary research zone", therefore only research areas may be designated. Commerical use is strictly prohibited. If you do not comply to this determination within the next year, you will need to pay the Interplanetary Space Agency, based on the current property value, the amount of 125,000,000,000 USD, payable to "External Municipal in Sector 33.5,204.2"
Thank you for your cooperation,
the IRS.
> Now tell me, sir, when and how did you make the asteroid you now claim to own?
Now tell me, sir, when and how did you make the land on which your house is built, which I presume you claim to own?
Okay, so I'm reading through this and I'm basically just laughing at this guy going, "What, is he serious? What's he going to do, go and have the thing towed?" I think I would demand that the parking garage be renovated...
Plus, let's just think about this, but this goes along with our typical cultural problem of trying to get a buck. First Stallone getting sued by a Boxer that was his inspiration for being inspirational and now this. This really does have to stop.
I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.
civilization is still arguing over silly stuff like this
:-)
These are americans arguing over this, nothing to do with civilization at all
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
From what I grok, while at the conference at the Executive Palace, Jubal tricks the Federation into granting national honors to Mike. Jubal then argues that Mike is an ambassador, and since Mars is inhabited, the Larkin Decision doesn't apply.
As for the claim that Nimitz owns Eros, IANAL but I believe he needs proof that he has been there in order to claim ownership based on the Larkin Decision.
Thou art God.
...on January 27, 1967, when they nationalized 99.9* percent of everything. The UN Outer Space Treaty purports to make the entirety of outer space off limits to property, held in trust for "mankind". Supposedly, Earth is the single oasis of individual ownership in the vast communist deeps. Yes, I said communist, and I meant it! What else do you call banning all private ownership - of nearly everthing in existence? Besides pure bloody minded hubris.
This treaty is the dragon that the Eros Project is trying to slay. They are attempting to creeate case law backing the natural right to claim, take, and use unowned frontier land - even in space.
If you support private space ventures such as X-Prize, you should also support OrbDev.
Everyone knows that Eros is my little weekend getaway. Didn't you see the "No Trespassers" sign at the cave entrance? Sheesh.
Zog the Embellisher,
Vent 61547,
Underwater Ocean City,
Europa,
nr Jupiter.
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
As J.J. Rousseau said: "The first one to put a fence around a ground and to find somebody stupid enough to believe him, did invent private property"
Although, he may have a claim against Orbdev for selling him something they did not own {ever been to Paris and had someone try to sell you the Eiffel tower? Or been to London and had someone try to sell you Tower Bridge? Or } Well, you get the idea. And it's Orbdev that are going to be needing the lawyers, because fraud is criminal, not civil.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
i just noticed something that makes no sense what-so-ever, he claims ownership since march, 2000 - but nasa landed on it febuary, 2000...
Property is inherent in the dollar and money since it has been conceived as an idea and brought to fruition. If you read the Bureau of Engraving and Printing you see the words Confidence. Trust. Value.
Websters defines money as something generally accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or a means of payment: as a : officially coined or stamped metal currency.
The only question left is the right to be free from theft, and or taxation.
Some might not see the difference.
Perhaps he could bid for that satellite on eBay, turn it into an orbiting parking attendant.
Either that or a good kick up the asteroid.
Wow $20 for 100 years....
Do they do a park and ride service?
I think the UN (being the only forum where our governments are likely to this sort of matter) will take this sort of view since it will avoid most arguments (after a treaty has been drawn up). Asteroids may be a different matter and will probably be regarded as floating rubbish and as long as it doesn't adversely affect the solar environment I can see a first-come-first-serve policy being implemented. Just saying "I'm in view of the asteroid therefore I call it" will be ignored.
Sir,
I regret that I must inform you that I am quite disatisfied with the level of service being provided by you and your organisation. The up-time is at best less than 75% in any given day (dropping to less than 40% for months at a time) and basic quality of service fluctuates wildly over the course of each year.
As such I request the immediate discontinuation of my subscription to your services. I recognise there are arrears owing, and will be glad to pay off any outstanding dues once the requested "turning off" operation has been satisfactorilly completed.
However do be aware that I have no real option but to hold you financially accountable for any and all expenses incurred by myself in counterring the more negative effects of this continued unwanted service. If necessary I shall inform you, via lawyer, once these costs have become greater than the outstanding arrears.
Sincerely,
X.
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
Pointing doesn't give you property, but nor do physical markers, government laws, planetary authorizations, galactic leases or anything else.
Your property is what you can hold on to, and anything else is just hot air and handwaving.
Hot air and handwaving aren't necessarily worthless, because after all they reduce the pain and suffering in what we loosely call civilization, but to believe that rights have any fundamental substance is simply a delusion. The fact that those delusions are often imposed by force just proves the point.
It all boils down to what you can defend, and nothing more.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
They did. Lawyers, C&D letters and trials are modern mercenaries, arms and battles. Think about it: today's power is in the hand of who makes the law or has the biggers lawyers army.
Think about what 'ownership of land' is really.
My first thought was 'well if he hasn't planted a flag there then how could he own it?'.
But that argument really doesn't stand the test of time. There are plenty of people that own land and property that they have never set foot on. Nothing strange about that.
So the moon is a tad farther away, and this asteroid a bit farther then that.
Distance isn't the problem.
The law isn't either.
It is enforceability and protection of said property.
A business owner who owns property on the other side of the country has many different tools protecting his ownership of the property. He has local, state and federal laws that specifically give him ownership, he can buy security service, he can hire people to protect his property, these are the ways that he takes ownership.
As long as his defenses are better then your offenses, as long as he wins the case of ownership and you loose then he owns the property.
And it isn't neccesarily laws that protect property ownership.
Take Saddam as an example. Saddam owned palaces all over Iraq. A year ago the owner of those palaces was not in question. You could try to lay claim to those palaces, but when Saddam was done with you, well lets just say you would apologize for your stupidity.
But now the US owns those palaces. We didn't go to court and prove anything.
We took them.
By force.
With big guns.
And in Iraq we are basicaly saying 'We don't need no stinking laws, if you think you own this property, then we challenge you to take it.'.
This has a bearing on this crackpot who sent Nasa a $20 parking ticket.
So dude has a peace of paper saying that he owns said asteroid. Isn't that nice.
Nasa dissagrees.
If dude can find a judge that will enforce his parking ticket against Nasa, then dude wins, ergo dude 'owns' the asteroid.
If dude cannot succesfully collect payment from Nasa then dude is left with one more option.
Eviction.
If dude can get the finances together, and the means, and the smarts to knock Nasa's probe off the asteroid then dude would truly own the asteroid.
But if dude cannot evict Nasa, and cannot enforce payment, then dude certainly doesn't own the asteroid.
This may all seem like the petty politics of a crackpot.
But China wants to put a man on the moon in the next 10 years.
The only thing stopping China from planting a Chinese flag and claiming the moon is a piece of paper that China may or may not have signed.
And I guess that's why the Indians didn't like the fucking Americans...
Wanker...
...we had a special place for those who owned asteroids and were anal probed by little green men. It was called the "Psycho Ward".
FLR
bah!*@%!
Orbdev is also owned by the canopy group ?!?
I claim Mars and all of Jupiter's moons.
Seriously though, property rights in space need to be addressed. Perhaps it should be like homesteading. In order to "claim" the land you have had to make use of it for 10 years.
For now I am considering my own lawsuit against Orbital Development. I am going to sue because Eros isn't handicap accessible.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
One time, me and a friend got into the "who owns the moon" argument. Which ended in us agreeing "whoever can enforce their claim".
Look back to the setteling of the americas and the caribbean. There were alot of warships involved after the flag planting.
The initial claiments often we'rnt the final settelers.
Ultimately ownership comes down to who has the bigger army.
If the head of the Mafia declared that he owned all of Chicago, and requested that everyone leave or be terrorized, the police would be dispatched. If the Mafia were sufficiently armed to hold off the police, then the military would be dispatched. In the USA it is a foregone conclusion that the military would win. Thus it is not disputed that US laws govern the territory called the USA. In the USA, citizens are allowed to own private property - in a democracy the citizens band together to fund said army for the common good (in theory).
The Poles probably had perfectly good property laws in the late 1930s - but it didn't due much to deter German trespassing. They didn't send in lawyers, they sent in tanks. Lawyers are only used by people who can't afford enough tanks to do the job (thankfully society has evolved to a point where this is usually the case).
Right now, if somebody could live independantly in space and laid claim to the Eros asteroid, nobody could do anything about it. Sure, somebody could file a claim in the UN, but nothing would stop you from just picking up the NASA probe and using it as scrap metal. No nation on Earth has a significant capability for prosecuting wars in space - yet.
I'm not saying this is how it should be - but this is how it always has been. The guy with the army makes the rules. Courts only have power because of the police. The UN only has power as long as its component nations are willing to supply troops. If you have a weak army, you had better make friends with somebody who has a strong army, and be prepared to pay for that friendship. If not, you won't be sovereign for long...
The purest, most refined, and utter bullshit
If a star is named after me and its found to have planets, do I get to own them too?
Whoa hooo. My own solar system.
Then the question is, exactly how did he mix the rock with his labor.
He, um... looked at it. Or something. It takes heaps of effort to see that far, y'know?
What's the frequency, Kenneth?
Latin. quod erat demonstrandum (which was to be demonstrated)
Since we all know when the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution says "people" it means "states", when the UN says "all states" it means "all people"...
Email: slashdot3@FreeMars.org (Address will be abandoned when it gets spam.)
I'd be willing to bet cash money that this guy also has a "Who is John Galt?" tattoo.
Insert pun here.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion, It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, The hands acqui
Go ahead and moderate as off-topic/troll/flamebait. I can't believe it hadn't been said yet.
NASA - just don't pay the $20. Have this guy tow it at owners expense.
...cause dude they cant handel it /.ed
Our sun is already claimed...
So... Sol's owner should be hearing from
Japan regarding the solar flare damage his/her
star did to their satellites.
I believe I'll have a valid claim for
damage to my tinfoil hat.
Now tell me, sir, when and how did you make the land on which your house is built, which I presume you claim to own?
Despite your presumable attempt at sarcasm, you've brought up an excellent question. Whereas property rights for objects that you've made seem reasonable, it's more difficult to argue for ownership of lang. In fact, throughout US history, if you left the land fallow and didn't improve it, someone could squat on the land, improve it by farming it or building on it, and thus gain ownership. I'm not sure how well the courts support such laws today, but to the best of my knowledge, they haven't been repealed.
Property rights and freedom go hand in hand. If you are "against" pritate ownership of property, you are against freedom. Do you not realize that in order to "eliminate" private property, you must do so by force? Or would you actually try to argue that force -- the basic premise of all theft, fraud, rape, and murder -- is a "lesser evil" than private ownership of property?
Moreover, when government owns all property, it is really those who control government who own the property. These are individuals just like you and me, acting in self-interest like you and me. The only difference is that they hold the "right" to invoke force as a means to an end, and we don't.
Has anyone seen how much lithium this asteroid contains? I'm thinking Mr. Nimitz has a very, very keen interest in mining that for his personal use.
Also, if you do look at the cited documents on the lunatic's website, they're misaligned scans of court documents. But this isn't simple incompetence, it's encryption! "These document scans are formated to hinder text capture. No portion may be saved or copied for any purpose whatsoever."
I cannot believe what you are saying. Private ownership of property and freedom go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. If you are against property rights, you are against freedom. Do you not realize that in order to "eliminate" property rights, you must do so by force? Do you not realize that property is one of the most basic human values?
Incidentally, if you actually understood Ayn Rand, you would realize that slavery is absolutely unacceptable in the purely capitalist society, because slavery requires an initiation of force.
Andrew Wiggin will play role of both plaintiff and defense attorney
-- My Sig is a P228.
Do you not realize that in order to "eliminate" private property, you must do so by force?
So must the one who tries to keep and defend it.
I hearby claim all items, lands, property, and celestial bodies located beyond the Oort Cloud of the solar system of Sol, including, but not limited to galaxies, stars, planets, asteroids, planetesimals, black holes, and other items, known or not, tangible or not, in the known Universe, in pertetuity.
Now, about your license fees for the looking at my stars and grouping them in constelations....
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Indeed! I sometimes find it hard to grasp the concept of "owning" a part of the Earth. The conflict around Israel springs to mind, aswell as other various land rights disputes around the world, not to mention most wars that have ever been fought.
But countless wars, or at least deaths have been prevented by property rights/laws. Suppose that property rights were abolished tomorrow; how would you protect your house and patch of dirt from people trying to take it from you? Would you kill to protect your shelter? I would.
NASA faked the Eros landing, too.
No parking, no ticket.
Realistically, I think outer space colonialization will go down much like earth colonialization.... It's a chicken and egg problem: to have property "rights" in a civilized manner, you have to have a government to enforce those rights, otherwise it's just the guy with the biggest stick wins. Unfortunately, to realistically have a government you have to have people there to defend that governments claims to something and enforce the law. But if you have people there, someone will be claming the land... most likely all of it. (Remember in the early days Virginia didn't have a western boundary... it was basically as far as the eye coudl see). So basically people will fight it out, with "possession as 9/10 of the law") until the situation stabilizes (ie there's a government with enough muscle to keep things in check). Not very pretty from a civilized society perspective, but I really don't see how it will go down differently as long as individuals are pushing the frontier faster than the governments are.
Did anyone else read that headline as "Orbdev files Us federal suit over Asteroid CLAM"?!?
Not confused enough? http://translate.google.com/translate?u=www.slashdot.jp&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=ja&tl=en
You settle outerspace the same way the Europeans "settled" the rest of the world... a guy sails on a ship to the beach and plants a flag and says, "I claim this land in the name of Spain."
It may be a precedent, but it's not a system that worked particularly well.
"Do you have a flag? If you don't have a flag it's not yours."
This reminds me of that Eddie Izzard routine where the Europeans are seizing land from the Indians. After telling them repeatedly that they're not a nation and it's not their land unless they have a flag, the Indians go off and make themselves a flag. When they come back the English say... "Good - do you have a gun?" The Indians are... "Ooooh - you need a GUN and a flag." Sorry but this chap can wave around whatever bits of paper (and make as many flags) as he likes, but unless he has a 'gun' with which to threaten the government, it isn't going to work.
Of course, Terran property rights ultimately come down to who has the most guns too, but people forget that (unless they're Iraqi.)
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
It would be interesting if things worked out so that space warfare was suicidal -- if you tried to attack another ship, they would always be able to wreck yours before losing control. In such a situation co-operation between all comers might be a necessity... I don't think such a state of affairs is so far-fetched, but it would be a precarious balance.
If the Eros Project doesn't like it they can have NEAR towed.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
And those lot of people are total idiots. You either have personal property rights, or you have the government exercising control of all the property.
The moment a government has the power to control the land you need for shelter, food and industry, that's the day that government can control every fundamental aspect of your life. They can tell you where to live, where to farm, where to work.
99.9% of the fools who argue against property rights are basically envious of some rich guy on the hill and either want him living in a trailer park out of spite, or they have some idiotic idea that with the government owning all the land, they'd be living in that house on the hill for free.
Sometimes I wish I could just send them all to a public housing project for six months.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
The owner of property may defend that property by force. But this is NOT an initiation of force! The initiator of force is the individual or group (government) who tries to steal that property, not the rightful owner who tries to defend it!
I can't imagine why most people don't realize this, but the fundamental premise of liberty is that force may be invoked ONLY in defense of force.
I wonder what it means WRT the situation in Iraq now :) Who's owning the land ? USA people (wierd, but is your theory) ? Iraquis (doubt it) ? UN (does UN only exist ?) ?
Going even further, the entire world belongs to north America right now. Weird.
I've bought 1/8th of the delta quadrant last year, and would like to sell it piecewise. Unfortunatly, no bidders on Ebay offered the minimum required price. Bill Gates was not interested either, because the computers in the delta quadrant are not Micro$oft compatible. I'll have to take my business elsewhere; perhaps to NGC 31231?
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
The guy says that he is an individual and therefore 'national appropriation' does not cover him. At the same time he is going before the US Attorney General. Doing so assumes, that the US already has some sort of claim of land, or rights over it, since it would otherwise be outside the jurisdiction of USA courts. The USA can not make a claim because of the UN '1967 Outer Space Treaty'. The only party that he could get permission from is the UN. This guy wants it all ways, when in reality he has nothing.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The only thing stopping China from planting a Chinese flag and claiming the moon is a piece of paper that China may or may not have signed.
Meanwhile, Back In The Real World (TM), China will do what the hell they like if they can get away with it. Like some other countries (cough), they'll play with the rules when it benefits them and disregard them if they're inconvenient.
The only reason a piece of paper means shit is because enough people are prepared to back it up with force in whatever form (lawyers backed by money and armies). That's all legal agreements between countries are- a house of cards that it's in their interests to keep standing, until it isn't. The richer and more powerful your country, the more your laws are 'worth' (you can usually figure out some way of getting another country to obey your laws in such cases).
Is this making sense? Let me give you a patronising analogy- the real world is an old-fashioned computer without memory protection where every process is trying to attack every other process and grab its timeslice. Wake up and get real.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Will Mr. Nemitz tow it away if they do not pay?
is nine tenths of the law.
The quickest thing I know of is to get with other girls. Or excercise, or anything intense that you normally don't do to keep your mind occupied till your'e over her.
Man...Too busy eating to type in a coherant answer...let's just say that the right to own property really cuts down on hoarding.
Blar.
...private property would be good for space. The treaties that declare that celestial objects are the common property of humanity and cannot be owned by nations or people is, IMHO, stupid. It significantly undercuts a major incentive to develop commercially reasonable space-based technologies.
Here are some of my thoughts on the issue, fow whatever they are worth (probably about as much as that guy's claim on the asteroid):
1. On the most basic level, I point out that the Tragedy of the Commons (Garrett Hardin) arises because of a lack of private ownership. Perhaps there are other ways of solving that problem, but none has worked as well as private property for as long and as stable a period. Furthermore, private property does not forbid conservation -- it simply makes it a competing use.
2. On the disincentive issue, why would anyone go into space if you can't make money at it? Pure research is one reason, but it hasn't proved to be very effective in keeping the public's interest or getting space explored and used for the benefit of humanity.
If celestial objects are not able to be private property, then a myriad of plans (such as putting solar panels on the moon and beaming energy to earth) are economically unfeasible -- the moon could not be used as a source of materials to build the solar panels and other associated materials (which I understand was part of the plan). Likewise, the plant itself would be squatting illegally (either that or someone with a grievance could drop a rock on it without suffering punishment, since the builder would have no valid claim on the plant in the first place). Admittedly, orbital tourism might be possible still, but forget having a Marriott on the moon. Do we really want it to be a violation of international law to use an ice ball in space for propulsive material for exploration missions to the outer solar system or to use martian ice as fuel to return a mission from Mars?
3. A system for claiming property needs to be put in place. A Solar System "Recorder of Deeds" office if you will. There should be some sort of a homestead requirement, whereby any claimed property has to have an active presence maintained and the claim must be renewed from time to time by either present use or revisiting. Conservation claims sould be made but would have to be renewed from time to time by payment of a not insignificant fee. This would encourage review of whether conservation is really the highest and best use of a parcel.
Slashdot has an interesting blend of politics and ideas floating around it. Support the moon-based solar plant. Support the X-prize. Shit on private property rights in space. Sometimes, I just don't understand the general consensus around here. It doesn't surprise me, but I still don't understand it.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
Locke studied this kind of issue:
when can the commons be appropriated by a private individual?
(1) Individuals can appropriate common goods for their private use.
Reason: because of necessity. If a person is to survive, then by necessity he must take some of the commons for his own use (food, shelter etc).
(2) One justly appropriates common goods by virtue of laboring on them.
Reason: a person owns his own body and his own labor. When he applies this to a previously unowned thing (e.g. works a plot of land to create a harvest), his personal property interests are mixed with that thing and he can claim it as his own.
(3) There are limitations ot the right to acquire unkowned property: (a) you cannot acquire property that you have not worked with your labor, (b) you can only acquire so much as you can use without spoilage and (c) you must leave "as much and as good" as you take (e.g. the acquisition should not impoversh the commons). An example of C is that if there are many oases on a desert route, you can take one and improve it for your private use. However if there is only one, this must remain in the commons.
Locke goes on to point out that these limitations are somewhat ameliorated by the introduction of money. Because you can purchase the labor of others, thta labor becomes your labor, and you can use it to claim more from the commons than you can personally mix your labor with. Likewise, he asserts since you can covert resources into cash and cash is in essence unspoilable, you can acquire more of a resource than you can make personal use of. Finally, because people can purchase the use of things from you, it becomes possible to acquire the entire stock of a resource without making it impossible for other people to survive.
Locke then goes on to argue that people, by accepting the use of money, have accepted the consequences which include vastly unequal wealth and power. Once he gets to this point, he becomes more controversial. Locke was no socialist: he was an advocate of the pursuit of unlimited wealth and personal power, taken from the commons if necessary, even to the point of believing some human beings could own others. Yet even he would not say you could claim something without lifting a finger to do something with it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'd rather see a lack of commercial exploration than some more damn fences, this time in space. I'm tired of everything being handed to a few economic elites.
This guy sounds like the dictionary definition of a (pure) capitalist. Everything in the universe should be converted to private property. Fortunately for most of us, this guy can't even get off earth--yet.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
We may have to worry about property rights in space eventually, but for unclaimed property to be claimed, it must be occupied. You can't claim territory that you can't get to.
Also, he claimed the territory while NASA had a spacecraft en-route. NASA was the first to establish effective occupation of Eros, so technically, they own it, and should sue him for something.
I declare ownership on strings.
[alk]
So US federal courts claim jurisdiction over the entire solar system with the exception of Guantanamo Bay?
Now I'm confused
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
I managed to barely get to the site, and thought this was interesting:
The Eros Project is primarily sponsored by Beefjerky.com. You can support this critial legal work in progress by trying some delicious "Final Frontier Jerky" from Beefjerky.com. This is the beef jerky that is selected by Astronauts and has flown to Space three times.
No, I'm not making this up. I'm pretty sure these guys are just trying to bring attention to the issue- unless there's some evil conspiracy on the part of "Big Jerky"...
Great point, but the antecedents to property, that is "territory", "nest", and "chosen mate" have been around nearly as long as life (at least animal life).
"When you think of Space, Remember Beefjerky.com"
I think this pretty much explains his mental state.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
The conflict in Israel is caused the violation of Palestinian property rights on the part of Israeli settlers.
The reality is that might is what makes properties rights. What gives an individual the ability to say he owns a peice of land, is that if someone goes on that land, he can call the government and get the trespasser to leave. The person has the might of the government behind him to enforce his idea of what is his property.
What enables a government to say that they have such and such borders depends on the might of the government. If a country, like Iraq, invates a smaller country, like Kuwait, then it is the might that enforces the Kuwaiti borders that define them. In the case fo the Gulf War, this means that U.S. might enforced Kuwaiti property rights. In the context of Operation Iraqi Liberation, it is our might that defined that Saddam's government did not have property rights to the land and that we now do. Only time will tell what we do with these rights.
People are wrong when they say you can't just point at something and say "mine." Everyone and anyone is entitled to do this, but if someone else challenges your claim and you don't have the ability to enforce it, then you don't intrinsically have any right over them. In this case, NASA says they will not pay and there is little that can be done about it. Unless he can turn another branch (such as the judicial system) against NASA, they won't ever pay, nor do they have to.
-no broken link
Doesn't the Moon treaty basically say that the riches of outerspace belongs to all in the human race? Aka, why its not been economically viable to set-up operations on the moon because which ever country would would ahve to share the resources with the rest of the world...
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Is this guy Darl's McBride's twin?
I'm the urban spaceman babe, but here comes the twist... I don't exist
I have some owership questions:
Does a rock own itself?
Does a chair own itself?
Do I own my socks, or do the socks own themselves?
Should it be illegal for I as individual to own socks?
Should only the government be allowed control of the global sock population?
Should all socks have RFID tags in them for tracking and matching purposes?
Should robots and AI's be considered free individuals or property?
If I own the hardware that an AI is running on should I be able to charge rent?
If I bought all the parts for a robot except for the brain, and then put in a "life like" brain that I had to buy, should I lose all rights to the property that I own because it is a free individual?
Are you free individual or does God own you?
The laws are still out there. If you own property you need to know the lot boundaries. If a neighbor builds a fence that crosses the boundary onto your land, builds a shed on the seized land, and you do not force him off the land becomes his after the time specified in the law.
Seriously, you all need to read more Golden Age Sci-Fi....
"Mr. Harrison on line 1, sir...."
Well, apparently, you only have to fool the majority of people for a little while.
I claim the sun, I will now charge every human on the planet $.01 per week for heat and light. Farmers will be charged a 1% charge on all income derived from growing with natural light. Solar powerplants will be charged 10% per watt of electricity manufactured from my solar object. Please forward all due balances to ImAFreakingIdiot@FlammingButthead.org
--
Bob
How do you think that any piece of property came to be "owned" in the first place? Ultimately, it was all claimed by the initiation or threat of force.
Companies will start claiming that they own all of Linux and Unix and will expect everyone to pay up or get sued. :P
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
Something that is property must be protected: ownership comes with inforcement
Lose the weight (go to the gym. lots of sweaty guys with big muscles).
If you are a girl, my apologies. your boyfriend is an asshole. Maybe we could go do something some time? Also, tell him you gained weight because you're pregnant. that usually freaks guys out
Property rights and freedom go hand in hand. If you are "against" pritate ownership of property, you are against freedom.
If that's the case, the American colonists, our founders, were very greatly against freedom because they showed absolutely no respect for the property rights of the Native Americans who beat them here by several thousand years. To restore our respect for freedom and our right to legitimately preach to others about freedom, we have no choice but return the land we stole from them by force.
Moreover, when government owns all property, it is really those who control government who own the property. These are individuals just like you and me, acting in self-interest like you and me. The only difference is that they hold the "right" to invoke force as a means to an end, and we don't.
And, conversely, when private parties own all property, it is those private entities who control things. You might believe those private entities are the citizens, themselves, but the greatest money (and therefore, the greatest private power) is in the hands of corporations. A greater emphasis on privatization means greater power for corporations over property and individual citizens.
The constitution describes the US government as "We, the people." If we take that seriously and control government for the greater good of its citizens then government power is citizen power and government ownership of property is citizen ownership of property. The most equitable arrangement is a balance of private and government ownership of property with good oversight by the citizenry. An extra-strong emphasis on oversight of corporate power would be prudent.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
The advent of nuclear weapons changed the landscape a bit.
Under the old system, you'd be right, and the USA would be a de-facto benevolent dictatorship with respect to the rest of the world (albeit a dictatorship of several million voters). However, nuclear deterrance changes things a bit. Whoever has the biggest army generally gets to set the rules, but a few of the runner-ups get to say "I don't like the rules, I'm going to stop playing the game and kill everyone on the planet while I'm at it". Pretty scary when you think about it!
While the USA is the undisputed world superpower, I doubt it could fight a sustained conentional war against the ENTIRE world. If it got most of Europe on its side it would have a reasonable shot at it, but the Chinese and Russians still are formidable due to sheer numbers. The chinese could probably all get into canoes and start crossing the pacific with swords on their back and the USA would have a hard time stopping the attack (cluster bombing the entire ocean isn't a good strategy).
As far as Iraq is concerned - the USA obviously controls the country. It has basically set up a protectorate and attempted to set up local leadership. It has not opened up true democracy since it is believed the general populace would vote the "wrong" way. (This isn't without precedence - if the world stopped at the borders of Germany in WWII and asked the Germans to vote for who should rule their government, they'd probably still pick Hitler - he was VERY popular. Germany and Japan were externally administered until the population accepted defeat and was able to accept a system of government in which they weren't determined to rule the world.)
I don't like the might-makes-right system of government. However, the reality is that this is how the world has always been run. The people who tend to run coutries often get to the top by stepping on others - leaders marked by self-sacrifice are few and far between (though they are often long-remembered). Ironically enough, these kinds of leaders - who are probably least likely to start wars - seem to emerge out of wars.
An anthropologist comes up to an Indian, and asks him what did the Indians call America before the whites came, and the Indian replies, "Ours."
- Vine Deloria, Native Activist
H0ek
Think you're smart? Prove you've got brains!
I hope he's prepared for to pay up should his asteroid ever crash into the earth. In the mean time, he should just send the police over there to evict the probe since NASA won't pay.
The most important personal property right is the right to "own" one's self. If personal property rights are superceded by "collective" ownership rights, what happens to you?
And if there is no right to personal property, what about the computer you're using to post here? What about the food you bought at the grocery, if you don't have the right to personally own it? Can someone just come along and take them from you, leaving you no recourse?
People who want to abolish personal property rights don't really think it through to it's logical conclusion.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Your rights onli... uhm, in space: Orbdev Files US Federal Suit Over Asteroid Claim
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
This is great. You can claim some piece of rock somewhere in space just because you know it is there (ie you can see it), and charge a fee for landing on it. Space and time being one, I am claiming the three seconds between January 1, 2004, 00:00:00 and 00:00:03. My little rock in time. Hey, I know it is (or will be) there. Anyone wanting to see the new year is going to have to pay me - hmmm... 6 billion times... - lets make it 10 cents - in parking and storage fees.
Are you seriously attempting to claim that free trade, or voluntary association, is non-existant, like some crazy delusion or figment of our imagination?
I am a girl. I saw that guy randomly ask for help so I did too. But I don't know what I was expecting anyone to say. My ex thinks it is ok for guys to be fat (he is bigger than me) but girls have to be skinny. That is why he is such an asshole.
"And I guess that's why the Indians didn't like the fucking Americans...
Wanker... "
Like anyone cares about a bunch of post-cavemen doing nothing with their lives, worshipping crows and shit...pffhhttt
insolent parasite...
*Some* wealth is genuinely created, but most people get rich by shuffling existing wealth around, funneling it away from other people. IOW, in order to get rich in a capitalistic society, it is necessary to make other people poorer. This is done in a number of ways: Paying people less than their labor is worth; making them buy things that they don't need; making them pay unfair prices for things that they do need; usury; etc. And, of course, there's good old-fashioned crime.
It isn't "jealousy," it's vengefulness.
I say everyone owns it!
Typical European Bullshit
"We own it cause we say so "
After I establish my moonbase, my minions will look up, see the Earth, and claim it as our own.
Now get off my planet! I have a deal with the Vogons. Begin drinking.
--Anonymous Dolphin
"in order to get rich in a capitalistic society, it is necessary to make other people poorer"
zero-sum game??!?! WTF are you smoking?!?!?!
it IS jealosy..pure.uncut.snivelling
Am I the only one who saw "pound sand" in quotes and was disappointed not to see it in the letter it linked to? I think that's about the only response this deserves anyway.
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
Seeing as how he or his representatives haven't set foot on the property in over three years, doesn't this technically make the property public domain?
1) What is your height?
2) What is your weight?
3) If you are 16, why the hell aren't you in school? It is 10:50AM on a Thursday.
4) If you are a 16 year old girl, why the hell are you reading slashdot?
If somebody really wanted to lay claim to an asteroid, they would, in my opinion, be required to:
1) visit it,
2) maintain a presence,
3) declare ownership,
4) and defend the claim.
With priority from top to bottom.
A claim (3) lacking any other conditions, leaves ownership open.
NASA has done (1,2) and by treaty, abandonned (3). The location makes condition (4) implied until such a time when more than one party can visit and restate a claim.
NASA is the the only entity having a quasi-legal claim so far, and by proxy the US tax payer. In order to purchase a property you still need to do all of the steps, since purchsae of a title to a property merely means the origonal claimant has abandoned (1,2,3,4) exclusively in favor of the purchaser who is still obligated to fullfill (1,2,3,4).
Fast machines, powerfull AI, impulsive invention,... All I lack is a good espresso machine!
HAHA! These threads are just sooooo funny that I'm cracking a rib from busting out laughing! HAHA !!!
ROTFLMAO!
And those lot of people are total idiots. You either have personal property rights, or you have the government exercising control of all the property.
Remember, our current system of law defines corporations as "persons", and they have vastly more resources at their disposal than any individual persons. Also, you seem to be misinterpreting what the government is. The government is "we, the people." So lets flip your argument over and see what the other side of the coin looks like:
You either have government (people's) property rights, or you have private interests (corporations) exercising control of all the property.
This constant ranting about private property rights doesn't genuinely portray who the government is and who the private interests are. The government is us and the private interests are corporations, not people.
The moment a government has the power to control the land you need for shelter, food and industry, that's the day that government can control every fundamental aspect of your life. They can tell you where to live, where to farm, where to work.
Bullshit! The constitution of the US very strictly defines the limits of government power. That's the whole reason for its existence. It allows the people to pool their resources for the common good while protecting the individual from tyranny. You've lost sight of who is on your side and who is aligned against your well being.
99.9% of the fools who argue against property rights are basically envious of some rich guy on the hill and either want him living in a trailer park out of spite, or they have some idiotic idea that with the government owning all the land, they'd be living in that house on the hill for free.
That's pure hot air. The rich-guy-on-the-hill metaphor completely obscures the reality of who benefits the most from out-of-balance private property rights. Huge, heartless corporations are the "rich guy on the hill" you speak of, and they could care less about my health, happiness, or welfare. All corporations care about are profits. All other priorities are rescindent.
Sometimes I wish I could just send them all to a public housing project for six months.
And sometimes I wish I could send people like you to a place where private interests are free to operate without government (people's) oversight...someplace like Afghanistan where warlords operate their private fiefdoms similarly to the old feudal system. That's what pure private property rights gets you.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
Beg pardon? There are places I can live on Earth that don't require shelter, but you'd be hard pressed to tell me the same applies to water. Try again.
> Unless you own your shelter (home), there is no guarantee that you'll have shelter tomorrow. And if you depend on the government for shelter, then you aren't free.
Um, if I "own" my shelter, then I rely on some authority to defend my property rights. Oddly, the name I choose for the entity that defends my property rights to my shelter sounds very much like "government". Therefore, these two statements: and ...seem to indicate that whether I have property rights or not, I'm not free. Therefore, the discussion of property rights and their effect on freedom seems to be moot. To take a further reference, you state:...seeming to imply that property that is yours can't be taken away. However, it can be, both by the government you rely on to enforce your property rights, and by any entity capable of overpowering that government. So, this would imply that, whether or not you "own your land, still...
Virg
I never claimed the founders' political history was a perfect model of liberty. Indeed, slavery could have never existed without the initiation of force.
Now, you can repeat the phrase "we the people" until the end of time, but that won't change the fact that government exists only when certain individuals hold power (the "right" to initiate force as a means to an end) over other individuals. Government is force. You (the people) may get to choose who obtains that "right" to initiate force, but that doesn't change the fact that force will be used as a means to an end.
Realize that "the people", or "society", is not an actual living, thinking being, with values, beliefs, needs and wants. Society is a collection of unique, thinking individuals, each of whom hold unique values, beliefs, needs and wants. Likewise, government is nothing but a collection of unique individuals. The one true, logical difference is that individuals in government hold the "right" to initiate force as a means to an end, while the rest do not.
I don't completly agree with Ayn Rand, but I think you are missing her point.
Ayn Rand based her system of rights on property rights explicity because she belived that without property rights, all other rights were meaningless. Of what use is freedom of speech if the government owns all the food? You own yourself, the governmnet does not own you, nor does anyone else. The government.. ie. force.. should only be used to prevent other people taking your property by force (theft) or guile (breach of contract).
Personally, I think Ayn Rand would be appaled by this fellow with the Asteroid. I doubt she would have been much impressed by someone pointing to a rock in the sky and saying 'Mine! Mine!'. Now, if someone manages to build a ship and land on an asteroid, I think that's a different story...
Jyth
...to asteroid Eros, I say let them.
I want to see the looks on their faces when the US government sends them a bill for +4 Billion years of unpaid property taxes.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
No. Read what I wrote. I am saying that originally, all property was taken by force. This is self-evident from the fact that there was a time when no one owned anything. Once it has been taken, of course you are free to trade it with others, but it is all based ultimately on the initiation or threat of force, i.e. laying one's hands on something and warning others to keep away.
Private ownership of property and freedom go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other.
Why not? Do you argue that the Native Americans were not free before the Europeans came because they did not claim ownership of the land around them and its natural resources?
Property is only relevant when people attach emotional investment to it and when others want to take it away from you because they think that they can own it instead. In other words, property rights depend on greed and selfishness to exist. They are dependent on those emotions and, to some extent, vice versa. In a sense the concept reinforces those feelings by stoking in humanity its natural urges to compete and dominate over its other urges to cooperate and share. Today the Native Americans would be free if the colonists had not asserted property rights by force over what the tribes were once freely living with.
Do you not realize that in order to "eliminate" property rights, you must do so by force?
Not in the case of space. You just have to not recognize them in the first place. If someone wants to mine Eros, that's fine. However, property rights are founded upon the idea that you should exclusively be in control of who can use your property. Enforcement of of property rights demands the use of force just as much as the taking away existing property rights requires it. If the owner of Eros wants exclusive use of the asteroid, he must use force to defend it. However, if it's mined on a first-come, first-served basis, there are no property rights to it, and force it not used. Force is only required when people refuse to cooperate.
Incidentally, if you actually understood Ayn Rand, you would realize that slavery is absolutely unacceptable in the purely capitalist society, because slavery requires an initiation of force.
Old, Confederacy-style slavery requires force, but Ayn Rand's philosophy has absolutely no problem with men of power assigning any price they want to essential goods needed for day-to-day life such as electricity. Such a captain of industry could easily attach unfair demands on use of a utility needed for survival and economics success and achieve a sort virtual slavery over others. It would require use of force on behalf of the masses to gain control of his property to do otherwise than comply with his request. Ayn Rand's philosophy requires a different approach to the problem of owning people, but does not outright forbid it since the poor always have the choice of paying a heavy cost for their own freedom.
In other words, Ayn Rand's philosophy allows for the independence of the masses to be made into a miserable and horrid experience for the increased benefit of the elite. In an extreme extrapolation of her philosophy, it would be perfectly fine for one man to own all the world's power generation and refuse it to everyone who will not perform degrading favors for him. What would be important is that the man with the power is free to make use of his property as he sees fit, and everyone else if free to choose between two miserable lives -- one of bountiful servitude or one of primative independence. Freedom at a heavy cost is not freedom at all.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I pay $300/month for my car. If I could get it out to the asteroid, I'd gladly pay $20/100 years.
Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!
What if an alien civilization out there has done the same thing, and some alien has claimed the Earth. Do we get squatters rights?
Agreed. The logical conclusion is slavery.
I think the problem is that people automatically assume that government always works on the behalf of the people. (And that's no surprise: living under big government, we are taught from an early age to run to government at the slightest hint of a problem.) What these people don't realize is that government is nothing but collection of unique individuals, each motivated by self-interest like every other human being that has ever existed.
The truth is that government is no more interested in the individual's opinion than any other business. The difference between government and private business is, of course, that government holds the "right" to initiate force as a means to an end, while private business does not.
Welfare isn't a right....
Man, could you be more wrong? If welfare isn't a right, why is it inscribed in the very opening sentence of the constitution?
WE, the PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
> Do you not realize that in order to "eliminate" property rights, you must do so by force?
Do you not realize that in order to "enforce" property rights, you must do so by force? From where do you think property rights come, if not from governmental enforcement? If I walk into your house and lay down on your couch, what do you do to remove me, if not call the police to initiate the necessary force against me to make me leave? If it's ten degrees outside and I'm likely to die if I don't come in, then it could easily be said that your initiation of force to protect your property rights is lethal force against me. Why doesn't Ms. Rand seem to care about this initiation of force? This is the reason why you can't accuse those who don't agree with Ayn Rand of misunderstanding Ayn Rand. I understand her points but I think she bases them on circular logic and faulty cause and effect, so I disagree with her conclusions. Disavowing slavery as initiation of force and not disavowing private ownership for the same reasons isn't logical. It simply proves that the "initation of force" idea is too simplistic.
Virg
If they want to claim ownership of the moon and asteroids, etc, they have to start paying taxes on their vast real estate holdings. Since the moon and asteroids are almost certainly prime real estate, then the apraisel should be significantly high enough to drive them out of busniess and hence their assets of the moon, mars, and the asteroids will be seized and auctioned off to pay off there tremendous debt. Since the taxes will be so high, and the pictures of them carting off the tax negligent orbdev ppl will be enough to prevent anyoen from purchasing them. Plus the 100 trillion starting price will be a bit of a downer. Since they can't be sold and since the governemnt cannot itslef maintain ownership due to international treaty, the property will most likely revert back to its previous owner which in this case is no one.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
In a book i've been reading recently, The Four Agreements, the idea came up that there are many agreements that have been agreed to, to give society form/shape. Maybe not the best form/shape. What this guy is doing is setting up an agreement, and trying to get others to buy into it -- thereby extending the planet's current dream out into space.
I find this disturbing. I also find it interesting -- at some point, we as society made an agreement that "that tree belongs to that person" -- the tree was never consulted. Native American spirituality would probably have something to say here.
If you seriously intend to deny that it is possible to take wealth from others, you might want to take another hit on the pipe first.
If you're interested, here is a good intro to the philosophy of voluntary association. You are certainly not the only one who doesn't "get it" right off the bat. I didn't either.
Has anyone else noticed that there is really heavy advertising for beefjerky.com on his page? Is this just a huge marketing scheme for beefjerky.com??? Think about it... it gets slashdotted, and many, many people visit the page, and a small percentage of them click on the beef jerky ads. Makes me wonder.
And also, how does NASA's chosen landing site just happen to be "parking space #23" in "OrbDev's Commercial Facility for Spacecraft Parking and Storage"??? Did he even bother to map the damn asteroid before making claims? Who even sets aside even 23 parking spots- just who does he expect to land there? It's not like Eros is a tourist trap or something; by the time something happens there, he's likely to be long-dead by the time 3 of those "parking spaces" are used at the same time.
BTW, does anybody know the legal precedant for property rights when a citizen onf one nation holds property outside the bounds of any soverign power?
I wish I could write clever and witty sigs.
Wish I had mod points so your response would get the credit it deserves, and so the arrogant moron you're responding to would get modded down.
Read my keyboard review.
In case you missed it, there are actually companies selling plots on the Moon and Mars. They do at least come with "maps" of the plots, which I believe some of the companies produce from pictures from one of NASA's probes.
Some related articles and stores:
The flaw in this argument is that it is not really an argument for property rights; it is an argument against unequal property rights.
1) 5 foot 5 2) 175 pounds 3) Because I just got dumped you idiot! I am not going to school tomorrow either. 4) Because I like video games and computers and might go to colledge to take computer classes. Is that good enough for you? Sheesh.
Like all other visiting officials, NEAR and NASA can simply refuse to pay parking tickets under diplomatic immunity. It happens on Earth, why not the rest of the cosmos?
Man I wish Douglas Adams were with us to chime in here.
Anybody want a peanut?
It may be a precedent, but it's not a system that worked particularly well.
On the contrary, it worked great for the white people.
"We are so very sorry for landing on your asteroid. We will gladly pay all rental fees & damages. A check will be delivered to you at said asteroid with the utmost urgency. We appreciate your patience.
Love,
NASA"
"Real" property rights are not the extension of feudalism. It's that there are no "real" property rights today. Which is why they look feudalistic since that's the default state of the force-backed anticivilization we all live in.
To the extent that a proper government is in place, to the extent that government has acted in concert with the concept of private property, the people owning the property flourish. You can read the excellent tomes on the topic by purchasing them at Laissez-faire Books.
If a new space treaty (a local process) where to guarantee that anyone who wanted to launch could, that the act of landing on a body, finding a resource *AND* developing that resource guaranteed inalienable title to that resource along with profits from said development, there would be a stampede into outer space.
Luna City would be a reality within 10 years. And when the UN started over-taxing commerce between the Earth and the Moon you would have your first act Lunar Secession.
The conflict in Israel is caused by the non-Israeli countries that refuse to let Palestinians settle outside of Palestine, and supply the Palestinians with arms and explosives.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I see two possibilities here.
One, this is a world class recreational troll, and who here hasn't fallen off the topical wagon now and then? I think he has done a great job.
Two, this guy is just a flaming idiot. My week has sucked and I needed the laugh anyway. I should send him a thank you card. Then bill him for looking at my artwork.
Either way, he should be treasured. I wonder how he would react to a flaming dog poo attack on his asteroidal property?
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
There is nothing wrong with "greed" and "selfishness" (I prefer to call it the "profit incentive") as long as one abides by the rules of voluntary association. It is, after all, a natural thing for human beings to strive for personal achievement. Let go of your jealousy and concentrate on increasing your own happiness through voluntary association, not force. I did, and I'm a better person because of it. I'm not wealthy by any measure, but I'm perfectly content with what I have.
As for the "monopoly" argument, remember that in a purely capitalist society, no one individual or group holds the power to prevent other individuals or groups from acquiring wealth, or engaging in trade with others. All it takes is the motivation to achieve. Realize that it is much easier to obtain monopoly under a complex, ambiguous, exploitable system of law -- like the one we've got today in the US -- than it would be under a purely capitalist society.
The initiator of force is the one who tries to remove something from the common ownership.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
badly. at 5'5" you should weigh 90lbs MAX.
when he's sitting on it.
Nobody ever claimed to own anything until they were sitting on it or they purchased it from those who were sitting on it.
That's how it works. If you wanted to own land in the New World, you got yourself a ship and shipped your ass over there to stake your claim and sit on it. Or you got yourself a wagon and rolled across the country to settle on unclaimed land.
As soon as this wackjob builds himself a ship, lands on the asteroid and lives there, then he can claim it's his.
Until then, any sensibile judge should just dismiss his case and fine him for wasting everyone's time.
"I saw it first so it's mine!"
What a two year old. I can just imagine someone sitting on their ass in Spain claiming that California was theirs while making no effort to go there or send anyone there on their behalf.
This has nothing to do with government vs private entity. He has nothing but armchair dillusions either way. When he lands on the asteroid, then he can stake a claim just as NASA could do if they weren't government.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Agreed, which is why we should abolish both private property and the government. Read up on some Proudhon, Bakunin, or Kropotkin. All available at the Anarchy Archives
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Indians who assimilated into colonial society essentially dropped out of sight of history. Of those who remained, some groups were treated badly at times, others were not. No generalization is possible.
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Care to back that up with some statistics??
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
The cost for acquiring these "properties" should be stupidly high...
:)
Like the land-claim grabs during the expansion West in US history, I think the rule should be simple...
Stick a flag in it, and claim it.
If these corporations/paranoid schizophrenics want to "claim" Mars, an asteroid, plots on the moon, etc. -- let them place a radio marker on 'em...
Just imagine-- Carmack could eventually own Mars!
If you're such a big believer in property rights, does that mean you think we should give America back to the Indians?
(That was rhetorical, and you're supposed to answer "no.")
So let's analyze what exactly do you believe in, then, when you say "Property rights and freedom go hand in hand." From what I can see, you're saying that if I have big enough guns to kick everyone off of some land, then I can own it, and I can now enjoy freedom on my land, while everybody else is screwed.
I don't think that you're wrong. In fact the very words I put into your mouth above pretty much describe The Way It Works In The Real World. But don't wave the banner of "freedom" when our private ownership of American soil was won by force (which you kindly point out is the basic premise for all sorts of bad stuff.)
Your sun is in my personal gravity well. I expect you to pay rent.
That's a false dichotomy. We could (and should) abolish both private property and the goverment.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
BTW: I have a friend a NASA that told me they turned the wheel all the way over to left, engaged the parking break and left the unit in GEAR!! Let's see them tow that!!
Just curious, is it the doing nothing with their lives, or the worship of crows, that makes them unsympathetic?
Around eighteen months ago, I made a couple of joke claims when we had a slow day at work. I actually received a call from a lawyer less than a day later to argue over the legality of my claim.
Here's the tricky part though... he wasn't trying to find out if I was some wacko or whatever, he wanted me to know that HE owned the sun. No joke.
I'm just glad this crazy asshole is making a fool of himself for me, that way I'll have a good idea just how much of an asshole I can make myself. Nothing like going down in history for claiming the Sun and Olympus Mons.
-----
jonathan barket
Simply and obviously not true. The Constitution, from which you quote, says "We the People of the United States, in Order to form ... do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." The people to some extent created the government, and to some extent control what the government does. To claim that the government is the people, in the United States or anywhere else, is laughable.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I thought it was because nobody ever bought the Palestinians and the Israelis a Coke, and taught them to sing in perfect harmony...
you lamer, the us gonvernment has no jurisdiction there. therefore he is not required to pay any taxes to them for that property.RTFA. jeez
Actually, both the govenment are corporations are a small group of people (government officials and management)exercising power on behalf of the larger group (citizens and shareholders).
"And sometimes I wish I could send people like you to a place where private interests are free to operate without government (people's) oversight...someplace like Afghanistan where warlords operate their private fiefdoms similarly to the old feudal system. That's what pure private property rights gets you."
See, you have it backwards. What the prior poster is arguing against is a tragedy of the commons. Rule of law (government) NEEDS to exist to enforce the private property, or you have anarchy. Which is what you have in afghanistan, not private property. The problems there stem from the fact that the government has not been able to effectively enforce said private property rights. Lawslessness prevails. Government has to exist, i don't think the property rights people are arguing that, but they don't what the govenment owning everything, because that gives the government even more power than it needs to do its defined job. (which, in the vein of the previous poster, is to guarantee individual rights.) Yet another arguement in the social balance controversy.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
Gregory W. Nemitz
I know that some feel that 8 links in 1 paragraph is excessive, but that's crap! It isn't enough! Shame on the poster, shame.
.signature: No such file or directory
But if there are property rights in space, it'll end up like Alien, and little monsters will come popping out of our stomachs at the breakfast table.
Your call.
However, more to the point, his concept of ownership is just silly. It is basically "If I look at it, like it and say it's mine, it's mine". Well very well, then under that I declare the entire visible galaxy (minus what he's claimed) to belong to me, including all the empty speace in between.
You can see how this works like not at all. A judge will have little trouble with it either since it not only is against a treaty, it's also just against good common sense.
could someone in Nevada please go to the courthouse and get a copy of the complaint? It could really help those of us willing to take action to know what Mr. Nemitz specific claims are.... and the images on his website are not sufficient considering that the briefs are available to the public. Joe
Read about "Admiralty Court" and "Law of the Sea"
Indeed, she's almost as bad as Hobbes.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
First, government does not "create" property, nor does it create the moral right to own property. Property is a concept that has been inherent in human society since the beginning of time. Even animals understand, to a certain degree, the concept and importance of property. Government can only enforce the concept of property which already exists.
Second, you don't seem to understand the difference between "initiation of force" and "force in self-defense". They are opposites. The first is immoral; the second is not. Rand's philosphy forbids the first, and approves the second.
I'll laugh my ass off when this guy looses in court and is made to pay the defendents lawyer fees.
All over 20 bucks and a moronic idea that he "owns" property in space. But, I suppose, that's the price of stupidity.
Frankly, if he, or any governmental power that resognises that he has ownership over an area of land, can't keep people off his land, he really doesn't own it. If tomorrow I started up the "You're a Dumbass for Buying Land in Outer Space" orginization which sold land in outerspace to people (namely, I sell everything to myself for 1 dollar), then really I should be able to take him to court and sue him if he collects any money from his asteroid which by all rights belongs to me.
Or wait... no... that would just be stupid.
Where did he register his claim. Whats to stop someone coming up and saying they claimed it prior to him.
Yeah like me I claimed it on March 13th, 1990, But I named it Mike.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
So is Beef Jerky the new Tang? This certainly would put a new spin on the old saying "He gets more Tang than an astronaut."
So, since no generalization is possible, we should just ignore the fact that we took from people who didn't even understand what we were taking from them? How convenient.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
get a picture of her for us and we can help you decide if you are a sinner or not for having these unholy thoughts
EXCEPT, the United States never signed or ratified the Moon Treaty. In fact, no major nation did. It was only signed by all the little ones that don't have space programs.
I believe it was Marco Polo who was the first european to see the pacific ocean. Only from the other side.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Now, you can repeat the phrase "we the people" until the end of time,...
...and I will, to my last breath.
The difference is that those individuals serve at the will of the people. They are accountable to us. If they turn against the people we can make them pay for it, through the institution and mechanisms of government. Private (corporate) power, however, is unaccountable to the people. They can and will do as they please regardless of what the people think. That is why government is necessary, so that the people's rights may be held sacrosanct and above the rights of private (corporate) interests. Your narrow-minded view that "[g]overnment is force" denies that the real power is in the hands of the people and that the people have the means to control their government's behavior.
The one true, logical difference is that individuals in government hold the "right" to initiate force as a means to an end, while the rest do not.
They only hold the power we give them. If they abuse that power we can take it back from them. No such oversight exists for private power except the regulatory powers of the people through government. You seem to think that we would do better with no government at all. That's anarchy, bro, that would quickly turn into thug-ocracy. My rights would trump yours if I could bash your brains in. Government gives us the power to live in peace and argue over any differences that arise instead of the free-for-all nightmare utopia that you envision.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
Conflating welfare (the state of doing well, especially in regard to happiness, prosperity, etc.) with welfare (a system of theft by government) is dishonest. Your version (efforts by men, through their governments, to help other men) is just as dishonest by leaving out essential qualifiers such as "at gunpoint" and "under threat of imprisonment."
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I claim property rights to one-half of the currently unclaimed Known (and Unknown) Universe (or Universes). I am now publishing this claim to a widely available and public registry of information - the Slashdot forums.
Thank you, and have a nice day.
What? You want a sig?
I hereby stake a claim to the other half of the unowned property in the known and unknown Universe or Universes, in this public and widely recognized forum.
Thank you and have a nice day.
-Your Rulers
Reality is indistinguishable from any sufficiently advanced fantasy.
Ayn Rand explicitly defended the U.S. practice of homesteading as the way to establish property rights on ownerless real estste.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
To claim that the government is the people, in the United States or anywhere else, is laughable.
You're arguing the difference between theory and practice. The only reason the current US government doesn't reflect the will of her people is because her citizens don't respect or exercise the power their forebears fought and died for. While we've been sleeping, corporations jumped in and took the power we abdicated and used it to skew our current system in the grotesque monster it has become. The constitution very clearly gives us all power over our own lives. It's up to us to take it and use it wisely for our own good. The alternative is allowing moneyed interests to manipulate our lives for their own profit.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
There is no false dichotomy. It is impossible to have a group of humans in association without some form of government present.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Ooops, I'm sorry, for a second I thought I was SCO, charging for linux... Bob
MacOSX, because making *NIX better is a lot better than waiting for Micro$loth to fix Windows
He wears a shirt that says "-YHBT. YHL. HAND-".
:P
Seems familiar?
And you know how backed up that court is. They've still got a backlog from all the damage claims from when the fifth planet got obliterated. We'll never see the end of this.
We assert that because you have previously supplied sunshine under the GPL, our use of it and devices benefiting from it cannot now be deemed unathorized. Please see the Sunshine GPL Below:
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For example, if you distribute copies of such a device, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the raw photons. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the sunshine, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the sunshine.
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-The constitution of the US very strictly defines the limits of government power. That's the whole reason for its existence. It allows the people to pool their resources for the common good while protecting the individual from tyranny. You've lost sight of who is on your side and who is aligned against your well being.-
What has this got do to with the fact that a government which controls the property you need to live, work and eat controls your life?
If the US federal government controlled all property in the country, how long do you think we would remain a constitutional republic?
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
- and they could care less about my health, happiness, or welfare. All corporations care about are profits. All other priorities are rescindent.-
And, of course, we all know the best way for a corporation to maximize its profits and to grow its business is to totally disregard the health, happiness and welfare of its customers.
BTW, your Marx is showing.
Let me give you a news flash. Corporate abuses always occur through the arm of government. A corporation cannot force you to sell your land. Only a government can do that. Look up eminent domain abuses. The government is always involved.
It is an out of control, intrusive government that is the problem, not your favorite corporate whipping horse.
In the words of a very smart man: Government is the problem, not the solution. It's something the framers understood when they wrote the Constitution. Governments are a necessary evil, and will ALWAYS gravitate toward tyranny unless checked on ALL fronts, including regulation of business.
You want to know why Corporate America is so heavily involved in Government? It's because government is so heavily involved in regulating and controlling business.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Does he have proof that NASA landed on his asteroid? I'm assuming that since he owns the property, he can take a photo of the satellite and prove that it's his asteroid that the satellite is on. Otherwise, how do we know that the satellite is even there?
Actually, both the govenment are corporations are a small group of people (government officials and management)exercising power on behalf of the larger group (citizens and shareholders).
Remember, only public corporations have shareholders, and, even then, their only interest is monetary profit. The quest for profit is not a force that will drive society toward any kind of freedom or happiness, just toward monetary riches (and only for a select few).
Rule of law (government) NEEDS to exist to enforce the private property, or you have anarchy. Which is what you have in afghanistan, not private property.
Oh, but I beg to differ. Anarchy means a complete lack of rule. If you think there is a lack of ruling power in Afghanistan, just go over there and try to make some sort of change, even a simple change like organizing a soccer club or something. There'll be a Toyota pickup truck full of guys with AK-47s on your ass demanding, on behalf of their private-property-claiming warlord, that you explain yourself to him in person. That's feudalism, my private-property-loving friend, not anarchy.
The problems there stem from the fact that the government has not been able to effectively enforce said private property rights.
Nope. The problems there stem from the fact that the government has not been able (or willing) to enforce the rule of law over the rule of private-property-claiming warlords. The warlords say, "This piece of Afghanistan belongs to me. I will rule it as I see fit. No one can tell me otherwise. Defy my at your own risk." That is a triumph of private property rights over the rule of the people (government).
Government has to exist, i don't think the property rights people are arguing that, but they don't what the govenment owning everything...
You act like it's an either/or thing. Either all property is owned by private interests or by government (the people). What about a thoughtful blending of the two concepts? Neither private interests nor the government should have a monopoly on property.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
How do you figure? Government is merely institutionalized coersion. If people use cooperation instead of force, there is no goverment. This happens on small scales all the time.
-And sometimes I wish I could send people like you to a place where private interests are free to operate without government (people's) oversight...someplace like Afghanistan where warlords operate their private fiefdoms similarly to the old feudal system. That's what pure private property rights gets you.-
Um, a trip to Hong Kong would be very nice, thank you. Your example, of course has nothing to do with private property rights. A warlord is a government entity, thank you. A government entity, BTW, who denies private property rights to the people under his rule.
Thank you for proving my point.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
We can generate more than enough wealth to keep everyone happy Are you kidding? We can do that now, but it seems like some people think they deserve to be happier than others.
However, as far as the legality of land claims goes, you can claim anything you want, but if you want some government or other official organization to enforce your claim for you or to pay you money in return for the value you've got, it's probably really gratifying to get somebody to actually respond with a "pound sand" letter, rather than either ignoring you or harassing you. Taking NASA to court was a stupid move, because if a court accepts it rather than just laughing at him, they'll undoubtedly squash the plaintiff and force him to pay NASA's legal costs for filing a frivolous case. My college acquaintance who declared himself King of West Antarctica (after doign the research to find a sliver that nobody'd claimed before the treaties not to do that) didn't even get a "pound sand" letter back from the UN when he informed them.
Now, if it reaches the point that this joker actually gets himself a rocket to the asteroid before anybody else and wants to declare himself to be the local government and _evict_ NASA's probe or break it up for parts, NASA probably won't sue him in his own asteroid's court, but if he gets back to Earth they might sue him for it. By contrast, while the King of West Antarctica could theoretically visit his domain and do something there, I doubt he ever did.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
What has this got do to with the fact that a government which controls the property you need to live, work and eat controls your life?
Um, what are you talking about? Are you talking about laws? Do you think we would be better off without laws?
If the US federal government controlled all property in the country, how long do you think we would remain a constitutional republic?
Again, what are you talking about? I don't think there are many people who would argue for the government controlling "all property." You're an extremist. I never even hinted at such a thing. Come back when you're ready to argue rationally.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
What is inherent is life and liberty.
Disclaimer: What is inherent is subject to change without notice or reasonable cause.
In the rest of the world she, and her "objectivism" is not considered at all. Noone has ever heard about it...
And people wonder why the US is the best contry in the world... (flame away. yeah it my opinion, so what?)
It would really help Rand's reputation if people compare her ideas to those of Tom Jefferson, I believe they would find many similarities. It's a shame people have to knock her ideas just becuase she was a hard ass.
Thank you. Very well said. I couldn't believe someone actually wrote that ignorant drivel that started this thread.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
We hearby assert that the Sun is powered using proprietary SCO code used without our permission.
Until the sun is openned up and proves otherwise, it owes us a licensing fee.
Love,
SCO
What NASA ought to say to Mr. Nimitz: "Leave us alone, or we'll train our satellites on your head and read some more of your thoughts and/or reprogram your brain. Now GO AWAY!"
Obviously, the worship of crows. Good christians can be forgiven for being lazy, useless bums, but those damn pagans don't even believe in God!
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
If he is filing a claim in US Federal Court then he is asserting that the US has jurisdiction over the asteroid. If the US has jurisdiction over the asteroid then it must be part of the US. If it is part of the US then I believe the governement would have MANY means of claiming eminent domain, defined at that link:
Main Entry: eminent domain
Pronunciation: 'e-m&-n&nt- Function: noun
: the right of the government to take property from a private owner for public use by virtue of the superior dominion of its sovereignty over all lands within its jurisdiction
Come play Moral Decay!
Actually, it (most often) IS an initiation of force against another human. The agressor (thief, whatever) isn't necessarily initiating force against the defender. He just wants the property. If you let him have it, there is no altercation. The conflict comes about b/c you object to his assumption of "your" property, and try to prevent it. It is almost always the defender that starts the war. The agressor doesn't want war, he wants land, property, you to leave, etc. If you give him what he wants w/o resistance, there is no conflict.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
Hey your "sun" has caused me severe burns on multiple occasions. please fit the aforementioned star with the propper UV filters to make it safe, or be prepared for a class action suit from all the caucasians out there.
And, of course, we all know the best way for a corporation to maximize its profits and to grow its business is to totally disregard the health, happiness and welfare of its customers.
Is that a joke? You're not really serious are you? Well, just in case you are...Yes, that's exactly how it works. Haven't you been paying attention? That's how a great many corporations operate, and they profit handsomely in the process. You'd have to be a blind stooge not to be able to see that happening in modern corporate behavior.
Let me give you a news flash. Corporate abuses always occur through the arm of government.
...because corporations can't exist without the blessing of government. Damn, you're simple-minded.
A corporation cannot force you to sell your land. Only a government can do that. Look up eminent domain abuses. The government is always involved.
Duh! Eminent domain is, by definition, a government action. That's like saying, "Look up bad judicial rulings. The government is always involved." Yes, the government is always involved in government actions. But I took you up on your offer to look up eminent domain abuse. Well, look what I found Private interests manipulating the people's government to take land away from individual home-owners and give it to them for their private profit. How about that.
Governments are a necessary evil, and will ALWAYS gravitate toward tyranny unless checked on ALL fronts, including regulation of business.
I have no argument with that. But you are ignoring the other side of that coin...Corporations will also gravitate toward tyranny and twist the people's government into an entity that furthers their profit at the expense of the people as a whole (except for the lucky few at the top of the corporations). Private entities (corporations) must also be held in check. Open your mind to all sides of the argument.
You want to know why Corporate America is so heavily involved in Government? It's because government is so heavily involved in regulating and controlling business.
Circular argument, dude. A does B because B does A because A does B because B does A, etc., etc., etc. Unconvincing.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
I should clarify, that one of the few instances the agressor does initiate force is in cases such as the Naitive Americans, where the settlers forced them to leave, b/c they wanted to live there. I was thinking more in terms of the article, where the objection would be to you mining MY asteroid, thus violating my property rights.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
In a similar vein, as individuals we owe our property to the defense of the state. As individuals we would be hard-pressed to defend our land from the Government, but as a mass of citizenry, we defend our personal property "rights" by exercising our votes, and in the end, by revolution if necessary.
Someone once poitned out to me, you don't actually own your land in the US, because you have to pay property taxes on it, and they can throw you in jail if you don't.
The reality is, the only way you own anything is by your ability to defend it. In a well-established civilization, we defend it by contstructing a Government system which tends towards the defense of "personal property." Over time, of course, control over property can be wrested from the people.
For example, Neal Boortz has been making a big issue lately over the use of Eminent Domain laws to wrest property from individuals so that corporations can develop the land, ostensibly in the "public interest" because a Wal-Mart will produce more tax revenue than a few houses.
Why do people in the Americas have property as we know it today? Go back 500 years. You have native American tribes that claim land and defend it against other tribes. Then you have the British, Spanish, French move in and either purchase the land from the tribes, or take it from them by force and then defend it from other invaders. (Mind you, I'm not saying what they did was right.) Then you have the future Americans get together and say 'piss off' to the British, and they defend the land against the British. Now we're at the point where the government owns anything within the perimeter they defend. The government and individuals then sell that land as they sees fit.
So a claim has never been about what you say. When there is no government, as is the case in space, it's all about what you buy from someone else or what you can take by force. In the end, it all comes down to force. So until this guy flies out there to Eros and starts fending off invaders, NASA or anyone else can park whatever it wants on Eros.
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
When tweetle beetles battle in a bottle on a poodle and the poodle's eating noodles...
Are you channeling Brian Eno???
Your example, of course has nothing to do with private property rights. A warlord is a government entity, thank you. A government entity, BTW, who denies private property rights to the people under his rule.
There's some kind of distortion filter on your mind...I think it's called "ideology." The term "government" can be used to describe many different forms of rule, but you are fooling yourself if you don't think warlords are defending what they consider to be their private property. Just because they deny private property rights to others doesn't mean they aren't enforcing their own private property rights. They just have a very inequitable view about who should own property. If you want to see the same concept translated into capitalism (which seems to be the only language you understand) take the example of the mining company town. The corporation owned the mine, the town, the store, the transportation, and the housing. The workers were paid in "script" which could only be redeemed at the company store. The miners generally started out in debt to the company for their mining equipment and never broke even so they were also de facto property of the corporation. They couldn't leave unless they paid off their debt to the company and even if they could do that, they still had to buy transportation out of town from the same company. This is what private property rights will revert to if not kept in check.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
Dear sir,
Don't like us sitting on your wittle space rock?
Come and get us!
Nah hah!
Love,
NASA
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
versus conventional property rights, NASA has the better claim since they are actually "using" the asteroid whereas Orbdev hasn't done anything but claim it.
Orbdev is based on the feudal property notion that simply riding around a piece of land for a day gives you some legitimate claim to it.
This is NOT a correct or workable concept of property.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
A google search only gives me only a few reasonable candidate for the event that marked this period of civilization:
The Boston Braves beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 4-0 at Ebbets Field.
Or maybe it was Willie Powell pitching a no-hitter for the Chicago American Giants.
Seems civilized to me...
Nice, nice.. So the problem not in Israelis forcing Palestinians out, but in somebody not wanting Palestinians in?
BTW Palestinians do not want go somewhere, they want to live in Palestine.
I own my house, well the bank owns its fair share right now, but really. I'm bright enough to realize I'm really only RENTING this chunk of land because I really don't think my descendents will own the same chunk of land 1,000 years from now.
"Ownership" is really a human illusion, how can we possibly "own" something that existed well before we came along and will be here long after we expire (as a individual and as a race).
Sure we get all warm and fuzzy after working 10-30 years to finally be mortgage free, but in the end we are still going to die and at that point it matters little which chunk of dirt you "owned", your kids might get it but I notice that in most cases they are already on the way to "owning" their own chunks of dirt. Besides that, the house you spent years paying for is ready to be torn down and rebuilt since wooden houses have a finite lifespan (ours when new was listed as 65 years).
The reality is you are still really renting your property, heck I don't even get mineral rights on my land and the railway can come along any time they want and build tracks through my yard and only have to pay me fair market value.
> First, government does not "create" property, nor does it create the moral right to own property.
That's not relevant. Government enforces property rights, or fails to enforce them. My original statement was, "Do you not realize that in order to "enforce" property rights, you must do so by force?" and your comment does not address this, as there's no mention in my comment that the government creates property rights, only that enforcement of property rights involves force when two parties disagree about a given right to property.
> Second, you don't seem to understand the difference between "initiation of force" and "force in self-defense". They are opposites. The first is immoral; the second is not. Rand's philosphy forbids the first, and approves the second.
Again, you start with the "you don't understand..." stuff. Perhaps I disagree with your definition of "defense"? Force in defense of property rights is not the same as force in self defense. To separate them, think of a case where a property right clearly but indirectly infringes on another person's life, liberty or freedom. If you own a house, and I buy all the land around your house, then I can tell you you're not allowed to enter my property, and by your description of morality I've not only not committed any offense, but I have the right to "defend" my property rights by forbidding you to leave your property by passing through mine. By Rand's measure, I have committed no initiation of force, so I must be acting morally, and I do so with her (and your) approval. In another extreme example, I have enough food for two, and you have none. You must steal it from me if you are to survive, but again, Dear Ayn doesn't concern herself with this, because again, I'm not initiating force against you. You're immoral for trying to survive, and I have the right to defend my surplus from your initiation of force.
Starts to fall apart at the edges, eh? This is the major flaw that undoes Ayn Rand. She does not discriminate between moral defense and immoral defense, and the problem is that the real world is full of immoral defenses. It takes very little searching to discover examples of one party owning what another party requires for survival, and that first party not providing it even if it does not threaten their own survival. Her ideas also cannot compensate for any ideal of property right that doesn't fit the "Western" model, like communal rights, or floating rights (the Native American nations had some very different ideas about how land rights work, and they don't ken with Rand's ideas at all). In short, I find her ideas to be woefully inadequate for real world application.
Virg
Opinion: The nature of ownership is control.
.)
(note: this does not refer to ownership rights, just ownership)
For examples. In a total anarchy, control IS ownership. If you have it it is yours. In this situation ownership is ten tenths of the law (cause the law is might is right)
The Native Americans for the most part owned their lands collectively. A tribe could own land. Individuals did not (asside from the patch their house was on) because only a tribe was capable of controling large tracts of land. Native Americans did individually own other things, furs etc. And they were traded by negotiations individually.
Asteriods are not (currently) ownable by people, because we can't control them in any real sense.
to your questions then. can the rock control itself (in any form?) no.
chair ditto.
socks they can't control themselvs. no. can you control them? yes. you can hold them, move them at will, preserve them, destroy them, use them. you own your socks.
Should it . . . depends on what you want to achieve, what kind of a nation you want to have.
should I breathe? if I want to live, and the air is reasonable clean, yes. if I want to live, and the air is poisned/scorching hot, no. at least not right now, and I shoud try to find good air real fast. if I want to die? pass out? no breathing (helps) prevent those thing and so I should not breathe.
should it be illegal for an individual to own socks? I do not want to be told how and in what manner I use or treat my socks. If I own them, I determine those things. I also have no problem with other people having those same rights over their socks. So I say No, it should not be illegal for an individual to own socks. (note this question is more about ownership rights than ownership itself . .
government control? I think that was answered above.
RFID tags: depends. if someone else is capable of tracking my socks and I can't prevent this, then to some extent I have lost control of and hence ownership of, my socks. On the other hand if I can chose who can and can't track my socks, and I am able to do it as well, this enhances my control, and hence strenthens my ownership. (again note: ownership only, not ownership rights)
robots and AI. Should again. Complicated by the fact that AI is loosely defined and for the most part does not exist. I think that I will leave this one alone. Too many unknowns.
does God own you or not? assuming he exists ( I believe he does) He has allowed you an incredible amount of control over yourself, and so has at least temporarily given you to yourself. You Own yourself (for the most part at least)
She is only considered serious in the US.
In the rest of the world she, and her "objectivism" is not considered at all. Noone has ever heard about it...
Yeah, and these are the same academics that take Marx seriously.
As for her ideas being trash...? Her main idea is that people deserve to do what they want with their lives and that they own what they create. Seems to me like the same ideas that this country was founded upon...but you can go ahead and call that trash if you want.
--Greg
and sue them for using up our properties radiation without permision.
I'm a lawyer (well I'm taking a business law class in college) so I think this really boils down to the difference btwn "probes" and "shells". Should it be determined by the courts that NASA is mainly in the business of firing shells at planets; ie: all Mars missions, then the offended party has a case, however, if it be determined by the courts that NASA is actually in the business of sending out "probes" then we have a real case on our hands. Should it be determined that NASA was not in the business of claiming the astroid, but rather trying to destroy the astertoid as prior conduct implies then the actionable party will prevail.
That doesn't match up to what OrbDev says and does: namely that while pointing and saying "it's mine" establishes the claim**, it's a pretty weak claim until one actually "mixes ones labor with it" and "improves it" (i.e. in this case, by going to the bother of publicising the claim, and defending it in court). This being the "one tenth of the law", in the absence of the "nine-tenths" that is posession. So this is less silly than it at first looks.
(**Claims have to relate to a specific thing, not a category, so you can't claim "all dark matter" or some such.)
Hello, my name is God.
I created the asteroid that Mr. Nemitz claims to own.
It was part of my "Universe" project and I created it on the second day. I have records to prove its construction. They are encolsed in a volume of worked called "The Bible".
Can anybody reccomend a good lawyer?
BTW, I must say I am a really big fan of Slashdot. It beats anything I've ever made, except for the Orion Nebula maybe, that was a classic. But come to think of it, I've made all the little electrons that make up Slashdot.
Hmm, maybe I should get another lawyer?
God
Second, you don't seem to understand the difference between "initiation of force" and "force in self-defense". They are opposites. The first is immoral; the second is not. Rand's philosphy forbids the first, and approves the second.
that car you drive around...
i claim it as my property. give it back or i'll be forced to defend myself.
(yeah, i know you think it's yours, but i dont recognise your claim to it so it doesnt count)
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
I know slashdot isn't a dating service, but where do you live? you sound pretty fine to me.
your use of the word "nearly" implies you accept that life existed prior to those concepts. That doesnt change the fact that life existed outside the concept of property and therefore life was clearly sustained without property.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
Basically, like their site explains, the improvement is in terms of legal standing. Putting effort into defending the claim demonstrates active ownership as opposed to passive abandonment. Similar to how this works with defending trade marks, etc. The claim thus becomes more plausibly-valid, even in the absence of posession.
This expenditure and the resulting increase in speculative value constitutes "improvement".
I'm all for property rights in outer space, provided that the person claiming said property can travel to it, survey it, and stake out their claim.
...but "weak" isn't "none at all".
Also, their lawsuit is to recover payment for an actual physical use: as a parking lot for the research probe NASA abandoned there. Redefining even an unmodified field from "just a bit of grass" into "a parking lot" certainly improves its value.
That aside, even a failed lawsuit wouldn't be a total loss - if the court conceded the treaty was bunk (or inapplicable, since a strict reading of it only prohibits governments from claiming land), but judged the claim bogus for other reasons, such as lack of physical posession.
No, it's caused because two groups of people who are capable of getting along on a personal level are being manipulated by their leaders. Until each groups leader recognizes the right of the other party to a sovereign state, the problems will not go away.
Meaning you steal what I've obtained through voluntary trade? How is this not an initiation of force?
i dont recognise your claim to it
And there lies the problem: You failed to observe my rightful ownership of property.
Theoretically possible, but not likely to work. Property, and the difference between rightful and wrongful acquisition of property, is a concept that has been inherent in human beings since the beginning of time. Even animals understand and act on this most fundamental concept. It is impossible to "erase" from the human brain the necessity to own and control posessions.
Moreover, such a system would be incredibly inefficient and ambiguous with regard to distribution of scarce resources. What happens when I claim that you've had more of your fair share of community-owned food, and you assert that you've not? The resolution would require an initiation of force. Property rights solve that problem before it ever occurs.
Don't muddy the waters. If you engage in voluntary interaction, there is no initiation of force. If you engage in involuntary interaction, there is an initiation of force. It's a simple and unambiguous concept.
Wrong. Corporations have no more or less power than the individual: they may interact and trade with other groups and individuals SO LONG AS they interact on a voluntary basis. The moment they cross that line, they become criminals. How exactly did you conclude that corporations are unaccountable to "the people"?
It's too late. These crimes were committed centuries ago. The aggressors are no longer alive, and the victims are no longer alive. How exactly do you propose we prosecute the criminals, or grant restitution to the victims? They don't exist. I am white, but I sure as hell didn't play a part in stealing this land from the native Americans.
From what I can see, you're saying that if I have big enough guns to kick everyone off of some land
Wrong. Why do people insist on muddying the waters? This is a clear-cut initiation of force, and I have already stated that I am against using force as a means to an end.
But don't wave the banner of "freedom" when our private ownership of American soil was won by force
Again, I didn't play a part in those crimes, and therefore I cannot be held responsible for those crimes. I didn't even exist when those crimes were committed. Were you expecting me to say "yup, I'm a hypocrite" and throw away my entire philosophy? That's silly.
Given that this star's properly lines can be drawn out as far as the photosphere, I feel it's not unreasonable to claim trespass on every living thing within this solar system.
Please submit payment in the form of quatloos.
In the darkness of future past, The magician longs to see. One chants between two worlds, "Fire, walk with me!"
If property and ownership of property is all just an illusion, then government is an illusion as well. After all, government is founded on the premise that somebody, or some group, assumes ownership of the country thus holds the right to make rules regarding the use of that country.
Corporations have no more or less power than the individual: they may interact and trade with other groups and individuals SO LONG AS they interact on a voluntary basis.
The RIAA (a corporation) may issue subpoenas for your internet access records. Is there any individual citizen who has the power to subpoena anything from anybody? No. Citizens must request a judge to issue the subpoena on their behalf. That makes corporations "super-citizens." They can draft their own subpoenas and throw them at anyone they wish with the full backing of the legal system and without oversight.
How exactly did you conclude that corporations are unaccountable to "the people"?
Can you access corporate business records to see what they're up to? Is there any transparency toward the management's activities? Does the public get to choose the management or vote on its policies? (And don't give me that board-of-directors crap -- they're a layer removed from the actual workings of the corporation.) If you can't know these things, then how can you hold them accountable? In the marketplace? People buy products based on price not the policies or behavior of the management which they usually have no way of knowing, anyway.
Compare that to government, where we have sunshine laws and the Freedom of Information Act. Most meetings have to be open to the public. Most records are accessible to the public. The current administration doesn't understand that, however, and tries to run the government like a business (which is failing). If we know what's going on then we can go to the polls on election day and make choices based on that information. In those ways, government is accountable, corporations are not.
Any other questions from Civics 101? Why do you fight battles for your oppressors? Do you have Stockholm Syndrome?
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
It's too late. These crimes were committed centuries ago. The aggressors are no longer alive, and the victims are no longer alive.
When, exactly, is it too late? When it happened centuries ago? What is the "statute of limitations" on property rights? Is Palestine "too late" or do they have a legitimate claim for that land that they lost in 1948? What exactly do you do with a situation like Jerusalem, where people lay claims on the land going back for millenia?
I'm bringing up this point to try to illustrate that your philosophy is too far removed from reality. It seems to me your views of liberty and property rights are well-suited to someone who's already got property and liberty, as a result of your forefather's actions. How convenient for you to now espouse your abhorrence for the use of violence. This is the same crap that came out of The Enlightenment -- all these marvelous philosophies and utopian visions being created, meanwhile over the next century the West proceeded to pillage America and Africa and Asia.
My point is this: Throwing up this "defense of liberty" bullshit, and saying how you're opposed to violence, is the easiest cop-out to make. It's not a philosophy, it's a bedtime story you tell young idealists after they've learned about the horrors of modern life. "Oh, yes, it's morally wrong to take things from people. We must strive never to do that." Yet our country was built on slave labor. Your philosophy is the equivalent of tossing coins in a wishing well. *NOBODY* in the world, except perhaps the poor, victimized Indians who now have shit to show for it, actually lives by these rules. I suppose I should say nobody applies those rules equally to people within their community and to outsiders. You can see this division, even in America today, when you look at the criminal justice system. Rich people tend to get away with it, poor people get the shaft.
Now that I've said all that, let me make clear that I don't know what the answer is. One thing is obviuos, though, is that you can't so easliy get away with doing what we did to the Indians anymore. If Israel had been formed in 1848 instead of 1948, they probably could have gone ahead and just eradicated all the Palestinians, and the world would have shrugged. Genocides have happened throughout history, but they are very out of favor these days. And I don't quite understand why that is. Perhaps (hopefully) your philosophy is starting to gain a hold in people's minds. But I think it's more a consequence of a full planet. In the old days, if invaders came, the normal thing to do was to pack up your hut and hit the road. Now, with people everywhere and modern States, it's not so simple. Look at the thousands of people in refugee camps throughout the world, with no hope of assimilating into the population the way refugees would have a millenia ago.
I think the refugee situation in the world says a lot too. Essentially the message is "yeah, it's too bad you were about to get ethnically cleansed/politically oppressed, and we grudgingly made this camp for you, but you're not welcome here. As soon as we tell you it's safe, you're going back to Kerplakistan, because we sure as hell don't want your kind here." Where's the defense of liberty and property rights? Or is that each individual's duty? (Survival of the fittest?) If it is up to the person, then I submit that your philosophy sounds well and good, but you better have a bigger stick than the guy who wants to covet your livestock. Which brings us back to where I started: Your philosophy is a good one, especially for people who already have all the liberty and property they want. People such as us, who are in that position today because our forefathers did not adhere to your philosophy for a second. Our blood relations may not have specifically played a role, they were probably peasants. (Mine certainly were.) But they were peasants of the side that, by use of force, established our Empire. No, we are not culpable for the i
Rights are percieved objects, just as are
desks and waterfalls and helicopters.
I'm afraid that that analogy doesn't work, because desks and waterfalls and helicopters don't exist only for those who wish to see them. Even an extreme nihilistic existentialist in total denial will see them, or at least will feel them if he is blind and walks into them.
Rights do not fall into this category. I do not perceive rights to ideas like patents for example, and it's not that I do perceive them but do not agree that they should exist. I actually do not perceive, see, feel, or detect them in any form at all, so for me they do not exist, even if the government tells me that they do exist at the point of a gun. I can talk about rights as a concept despite not perceiving them, but that's no different to my being able to talk about a hypothetical 5000-headed monster sitting on the Eiffel Tower; the ability to talk about it doesn't mean that it exists. And finally, I do not perceive rights as objects nor even as attributes of objects. Of course, somebody could come after me because of my failure to perceive rights, but that is simply coercion of one person's worldview onto another, not an existential cause-and-effect of me walking into a right that I cannot perceive.
And that is the fundamental point, because while possession of property can be defended by force if needed, force can never bring the RIGHT to property into existence, so the defence will need to be remade every time that it is questioned. And therefore, property is no more than what can be defended as yours, either directly or indirectly. Rights don't come into it because they don't actually exist.
> Enforcement of property rights is force used in self-defense, not initiation of force. Again, the difference according to Rand is the difference between moral interaction (voluntary association) and immoral interaction (involuntary association). There is no ambiguity here.
Around again. The ambiguity becomes the problem when the ambiguity is who owns the property. In the wonderful place where no property disputes arise, this is indeed unambiguous, but I'd love for you to tell me where that place is, because it sure isn't the place where I live. For example, I bought my house and my property from a company that bought it from some farmer who got it (and so on). The U.S. government supports my property rights as they apply to this piece of land. If I go back far enough, though, it's safe to assume that the land upon which my house sits was not under the control of the U.S. Government. Now, the Native Americans who lived on it have a claim, and so do the French and British governments, but the U.S. government doesn't enforce those rights, and none of those states is in a position to overrule them. So, a legitimate Randian claim can be laid by at least four entities, and "use of force for self defense" doesn't discern whose defense matters most. Therefore, your comment still does not address my comment, which defines that "defense" is determined by force, and so "enforce" and "eliminate" are subjective. How does your philosophy stand up to this sort of disagreement, at least in the real world?
> You seem to be implying that force in defense of property is somehow different than force in defense of one's own body. Quite the contrary, your own body is the first and most important property you will ever own.
I'm not implying it, I'm stating it straight out. In the case of defense of one's body, it's indisputably yours (ruling out slavery, which your model does). In the case of land or other real property, there are many times where there is dispute as to whose property it is.
> This would have to be considered entrapment. The property may have been acquired through voluntary means, but the act of entrapping is a clear initiation of force.
And if the entrapment was unintentional, for example upon my inheritance of the land? I can think of a number of situations that would cause this event that don't involve active entrapment.
> Yes, stealing is clearly an initiation of force. However, I can't imagine this scenario occuring in all but the most unlikely of situations, like being stranded on a deserted island. But you are correct.
Then you're not being very imaginitive. Substitute virtually any necessary good for "food" in the example (like needing an appendectomy when the only doctor in range won't do it) and you'll see that it's not only likely but quite common.
> Rand would assert that unless the "communal" or "floating" rights were engaged involuntarily (through force), there is no problem.
What if (as is what really happened in the Midwest) the problem springs from a misunderstanding? For example, when a homesteader wanted a piece of land to farm, he'd pay the local natives a fee to have them move, thereby buying the property. The problem is that the natives' ideas of property rights were more communal, and so they took the fee as a "please go somewhere else for a while" payment. When they'd return to the area, they'd simply take up residence on the same land again, because to them property rights only extended to actual occupation, so as long as they stayed far enough from the homesteader's house they could by their rules go back to living on the land nearby. Meanwhile, the farmsteader thinks his payment meant that he owned all that land (likely to farm it) and now the natives were living in the middle of his fields. This is where the term "Indian giver" largely came from. Now, you've got two groups (the natives and the colonists) who are in direct dispute over land right
Meaning you steal what I've obtained through voluntary trade? How is this not an initiation of force?
because when i was 6, i believed all cars belonged to me. My claim precedes the claim of the person you bought it from.
And there lies the problem: You failed to observe my rightful ownership of property.
outside of a government providing definitions for it, who determines whose ownership is rightful?
Who had rightful ownership of Jerusalem during the crusades?
Have you signed over your home and land to the Native Americans it was forcibly taken from?
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
Aha! I agree with you, but the problem is caused by government, not free trade or liberty in general. In a purely free market, the use of force as a means to an end would not be tolerated. But as you pointed out, that happens on a regular basis. The root of the problem is not the corporations who are only playing the hand they've been dealt. The problem is the overly complex, ambiguous, exploitable, corrput system of law -- and guess who makes the laws? It wasn't the corporations. It wasn't the citizens. Those groups my influence the law, but in the end, government holds the key. When a private citizen or corporation bribes government to enact injust laws, government is entirely at fault for accepting the bribe.
how can you hold them accountable? In the marketplace?
Yes, absolutely. But that isn't possible unless every individual and corporation abides by the same rules of voluntary association, and holds the same rights as the next. As you pointed out, that's not the case.
In those ways, government is accountable, corporations are not.
Remember Enron? The US government's history of untruthful accounting makes Enron look like Little Red Riding Hood. I suggest you rearrange your priorities, or at least open your eyes to the scandals that happen every day with your tax dollars. It's a whole lot easier to manipulate your numbers when you hold the "right" to initiate force.
When the victims and aggressors are dead. That is the only logical conclusion, if we are to respect the concept of individual soverignty.
your views of liberty and property rights are well-suited to someone who's already got property and liberty, as a result of your forefather's actions
How so? My views require that both the "have's" and the "have nots" hold equal, identical rights. Economic "equality" is not my goal. The only way that economic equality could be achieved is through force, and even then it requires that those in control of government be superior in power (they hold "right" to initiate force, while everyone else does not).
Economic inequality is not a problem, but a natural reality. Without the existence of economic inequality, there would be no wealth at all, because there would be no business to generate wealth through voluntary trade. Government cannot create wealth (except for themselves), becuase wealth can only be created through voluntary trade . A "trade" by force requires that one participant in the interaction sustain a loss. Government can only confiscate wealth.
The problem is not economic inequality, but inequality of power. Inequality of power always leads to economic inequality anyway, and then you're right back where you started!
saying how you're opposed to violence, is the easiest cop-out to make
The only way I can really answer that is to state that I have put more effort into developing and refining my political philosophy than most people I know. If I'm a cop out, than almost everyone I know is too.
In a purely free market, the use of force as a means to an end would not be tolerated.
You people who talk about purity really scare me. Purity can rarely be achieved and, even then, only through extreme measures. It's a very totalitarian concept. But, be that as it may, do you remember the strike breakers from your history books? (I'm assuming that hasn't been purged from the history books for the sake of purtiy.) When labor (the source of all capital) would organize for more equitable distribution of corporate profits, the company being struck would hire some goons (Pinkertons is a famous example) to go to the picket line and bash thier brains in. That sounds like corporate use of force to me. If you want an example of how corporations can co-opt government to apply force on their behalf, here's a good one: In 1921, coal miners attempted to organize labor in West Virginia's southern coalfields. The mining company goons weren't enough to put them down so they called in the US Army. The Battle of Blair Mountain is one you probably won't find in your history books (it's been purified) but it marks an infamous occasion -- it's the only time that the US military has dropped aerial bombs on US citizens. The use of force is not exclusive to governments alone.
The root of the problem is not the corporations who are only playing the hand they've been dealt.
You're kidding, right? Only playing the hand they're dealt?!! What corporation ever sat around waiting to play the hand they're dealt? Corporations actively seek to rig the deck in their favor. Greed will always drive them to do this. Corporations will never play by any rules unless the citizens constantly stand guard over them -- hence the need for a regulatory regime.
The problem is the overly complex, ambiguous, exploitable, corrput system of law...
I can't argue with your description of the laws, but those problems mostly arise from hoards of individual corporations bending their representives' ears (usually with campaign cash, an arena where most citizens can't compete) to carve out very specific loopholes for some activity that's profitable to them.
You're fundamentally misunderstanding what a democratic government is. A government doesn't want anything. It doesn't do anything on it's own. It's a representation of the society that it arises from. A corrupt government arises from a corrupt society. A just government arises from a just society. It's entirely up to us. Government is not inherently good or bad. It's simply a way for a society to organize to achieve things that hoards of individual actors, each persuing their own agenda, could not achieve.
- how can you hold them accountable? In the marketplace?
- Yes, absolutely. But that isn't possible unless every individual and corporation abides by the same rules of voluntary association, and holds the same rights as the next. As you pointed out, that's not the case.
Rules and rights imply the existance of regulation. It sounds like you're making a case for a kind of citizen's regulation of corporations -- a government, perhaps? Or do you believe that corporations will simply abide by a set of rules out of the goodness of their cold, corporate hearts? Or, maybe, you think there is some "invisible hand" that will keep them on the straight-and-narrow. Faith in the free market won't make it happen, bro. There's a reason that hand is invisible. Adam Smith made it up, because it's the only way he could make capitalism work as an ideology. It's equivalent to the scientist in that cartoon writing the equation on the board with the term, "then a miracle happens" in it. Stop praying to the invisible hand. It doesn't exist.
Remember Enron? The US governme
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
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I am a dwarf, but I prefer the term "little person." Please see our web site for a short introduction: http://www.lpaonline.org/.
The islamic culture, as practiced in the MidEast where most of said billion-oil-supplying-arabs are (as opposed to how it is practiced in western countries) supports violence on every imaginable level.
Husband -> Wife, Father -> Son, Mother -> Son, and, of course, in such a "honor" (read: testosterone; primitive) society, arabs->the-whole-damn-world. Violence is imbued in the islamic social culture as much as it is in religious culture. You can stick your head in the sand till tomorrow, it's a given fact.
This is not to say other cultures don't have any fanatics, we have around 100,000 of them here in Israel and they're not all that much better. It's just to say Islam breeds much more, and of the type that's willing to go the whole 9 yards.
I'm not being racial agains arabs here. I'm pointing out a problem the world has to deal with (bringing to-level one sixth of its populace by helping them climb out of the middle ages. I personally prefer the moderate European approach than the in-your-face US one). I could be doing the same to fanatics in Israel, the States, etc. if it was of any relevance.
Another point that's worth pointing out is that poor or war-ridden places tend to be left behind by people with marketable skills in favor of peaceful western countries who are willing to give visas for these skills. Look at what happened in the USSR - all skilled people left to the west and seriously de-skilled (statistically) the remaining populace, making the country left behind poorer and less educated.
Same is happening to the Arab world, and even to Israel. What you see in the west represents the better-schooled people who want the best for their kids. The billion that's still behind - just watch the news on Iraq.
Cheers.