[extropy-chat] The Hidden Luddite was Re: peak oil debate

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> > Ah, but is it force to lie to someone and sell them poison when
> they
> > think they are purchasing food? 
> 
> Poisoning is illegal.

I didn't ask if it was legal.

> We are talking about LEGAL FORCE.

No, we're talking about force.  Assuming people don't do things if
they're legal requires 100% effective enforcement - which not even the
strictest, most draconian law enforcement agency in the world has
achieved over any large group of people.

Besides, history shows that if you try to screw over a body of people
long enough, hard enough, they will start tending to ignore any laws
you write for them.  They will, inevitably, initiate force - and if
your economy depends on exploiting their labor (as often happens in
these situations), you will fall (once whatever stockpiles you have run
out, without their production to renew said stockpiles), and everyone
involved will suffer.  It's happened again and again, and human nature
has not changed in that regard.

The government monopoly on force is supposed to prevent that, but of
course that assumes the government is one that the people can stand.
People can stand for a lot (see the crap that the USA is currently
putting up with), but there is a limit.

> > Is it force to make sure that
> > customers have access to complete (or as complete as possible)
> > information about a company before doing business with them? 
> 
> Depends on what information you are trying to give them. If your
> claims
> about a company you make in disclosures to the public meet the legal
> definition of libel, slander, or contractual violation of
> confidentiality agreements, it is you who are illegally using force.

How about if companies don't allow, by contract, any agency with access
to their food to call it poison?  (Note that some companies are trying
equivalent tactics today, using contracts to shut down any and all
negative reviews of their products.)  The only information available to
anyone else is that the company's product is good and wholesome.

> > What if
> > most companies view it in their self-interest not to give out
> > information, such that mass refusal to do business with the
> secretive
> > (the market's way of punishing this) is not a practical option? 
> 
> Depends on what information you are looking for. If you are fishing
> for
> the intellectual property of a competitor, you have no standing to
> make
> demands, and any attempt to get their information is theft.

Who decides what is and what is not intellectual property?  Certain
companies would claim that all of your memories about them - or even
the entire contents of any brain that has had any interaction with
their products whatsoever (and thus been indelibly altered by the
experience) - are their IP if they were the sole arbiter of what they
could claim as their IP.

> > And
> > if businesses then initiated force, but made sure the general
> public
> > never knew about it, hiding it in the generally-accepted secrecy...
> 
> If a customer of a business is initiated against, he has standing to
> pursue redress through the legal process for the tort committed
> against
> him. If the customer chose to not inform the rest of the public about
> his or her private commercial relationship with the company and its
> legal fallout, that is their business, not yours.

And if they don't have a choice?