We Urgently Need To Revert To Classical Economics

[Steven Douglas]

I state the facts.

You constantly meld your own opinions with actual facts, as you attempt to pass them off as if they were ("objectively and indisputably" no less) one and the same.

Example: "liberty rights"

You meld those two words together in a strictly geocommunist context.

FACT: Exclusive possession of a parcel land denies "liberty" to others to use that parcel of land.
OPINION: All other people in proximity to that land maintain an ongoing, inalienable "right" to said liberty (geocommunist common property in all land).
ERGO (Roy's fact-opinion mind-meld): Exclusive possession denies "liberty rights" to others, which must be reconciled.
WHEN IN FACT: Exclusive possession denies liberty to others. "Liberty Rights" is strictly normative (should/ought/opinion).

In other words, your entire language is fraught with question begging.

...long-term leaseholds are NOT a form of landownership.

Of course they are - they are as much a form of landownership, as a net effect, as any real estate (land-plus-improvements) in the US that is subject to property taxes that includes land values. You only see it otherwise because you mince words while ignoring the net effect.

Party A in Country A owns an ownership title to a parcel of land and all its improvements for fifty years, on which he pays property taxes.
Party B in Country B owns a fifty year leasehold on a parcel of land, on which he owns all improvements, but for which leasehold payments on the land itself are due.

Both have a "title" (something that "entitles" them) to exclusive possession of the land on which the improvements rest.

• One title is labeled "ownership", the other labeled "leasehold".
• Neither ever intends to give up their titles - their entitlement - to exclusive occupation and/or usage of the land.
• Exclusive use and possession in both cases is conditioned upon payment to the state.
• One conditional payment is labeled a "tax", while the other conditional payment is labeled a "leasehold payment".

You're under the delusion that relabeling things, while leaving the net salient effect the same, somehow makes a difference.

Looking at the net effect only, you can "own" land in Hong Kong every bit as much as you can "own" land in the US.

[Roy L]

You constantly meld your own opinions with actual facts, as you attempt to pass them off as if they were ("objectively and indisputably" no less) one and the same.

No, I identify the facts that show why my opinions are correct.

Example: "liberty rights"

You meld those two words together in a strictly geocommunist context.

No, that's just another stupid lie from you. You can offer no facts, no logic, no arguments, so you have to make up dishonest anti-concepts like "geocommunist" to avoid knowing the facts.

FACT: Exclusive possession of a parcel land denies "liberty" to others to use that parcel of land.

Correct.

OPINION: All other people in proximity to that land maintain an ongoing, inalienable "right" to said liberty (geocommunist common property in all land).

I realize, and have identified numerous times, the fact that you do not believe in an equal human right to liberty. I do.

ERGO (Roy's fact-opinion mind-meld): Exclusive possession denies "liberty rights" to others, which must be reconciled.
WHEN IN FACT: Exclusive possession denies liberty to others.

Thank you for conceding the whole argument.

"Liberty Rights" is strictly normative (should/ought/opinion).

No, I have explained many times that normative/positive is a phony conflict, because the human capacity for normative reasoning is itself a positive fact and arises from positive facts.

In other words, your entire language is fraught with question begging.

Lie. It is you who constantly beg the question by assuming the land thief can rightly remove others' rights.

Of course they are - they are as much a form of landownership, as a net effect, as any real estate (land-plus-improvements) in the US that is subject to property taxes that includes land values. You only see it otherwise because you mince words while ignoring the net effect.

No, that is a bald lie. You are just lying.

Party A in Country A owns an ownership title to a parcel of land and all its improvements for fifty years, on which he pays property taxes.
Party B in Country B owns a fifty year leasehold on a parcel of land, on which he owns all improvements, but for which leasehold payments on the land itself are due.

Both have a "title" (something that "entitles" them) to exclusive possession of the land on which the improvements rest.

YOU KNOW that at the end of the 50 years, the owner can sell his owned property for a nice profit, while the leaseholder just relinquishes possession. You know it, but you decided you had better deliberately lie about it. All "arguments" against LVT are based on conscious, deliberate lying such as yours. You just lie and lie and lie and lie and lie. You have no choice. All apologists for landowner privilege lie. That is a natural law of the universe. There has never been an exception to that law, and there never will be.

One title is labeled "ownership", the other labeled "leasehold".

Because that is what they are.

Neither ever intends to give up their titles - their entitlement - to exclusive occupation and/or usage of the land.

That is a lie. The leaseholder pays for temporary tenure -- not a title -- knowing he will lose his right of tenure when the lease expires. You know this. You just decided you had better deliberately lie about it.

Exclusive use and possession in both cases is conditioned upon payment to the state.
One conditional payment is labeled a "tax", while the other conditional payment is labeled a "leasehold payment".

You're under the delusion that relabeling things, while leaving the net salient effect the same, somehow makes a difference.

Lie. You know that the "net salient effect" gives the owner a huge capital gain if he chooses to relinquish his tenure at the end of the 50 years, while the leaseholder gets nothing. You know it, but you consciously and deliberately decided to lie about it.

YOU ARE LYING.

Looking at the net effect only, you can "own" land in Hong Kong every bit as much as you can "own" land in the US.

No, that is a lie. You are lying. Stop lying.

[Steven Douglas]

No, I have explained many times that normative/positive is a phony conflict, because the human capacity for normative reasoning is itself a positive fact and arises from positive facts.

And you claim to have a degree in philosophy, with honors, no less?

Your explanations are pure Roy L Gobbletygook; self-contradictory gibberish. That is one of those one-way "I'm rubber you're glue" special rules you wrote for yourself. In Roy-La-Land, as something can only be a right, as a positive fact, when Roy's normative reasoning is melded with a positive fact. For all other positive facts, created by that same process no less, but in others' minds, check with Roy to ensure that there is no conflict.

Your "liberty rights", as believed in and envisioned normatively by you, can only be reconciled by the same force that establishes the landownership rights that are in conflict with them. That is how either, but not both, can be rights, as positive facts -- when they exist outside the mind, as codified and recognized by people and/or the state. It has nothing to do with morality - right or wrong, good or bad. A right can exist as a right even when most people reason it should not exist as such.

An existing right can be seen as a violation of other rights. That's what you want established; that landownership violates "natural liberty rights" as you believe in them, even to the point of declaring them as positive statements of fact. In other words, Roy thinks (for everyone), therefore it is. So let it be normatively reasoned by Roy, so let it be positive fact. That is how you can refer to the positive fact of "landownership rights", even when they do exist as positive fact, as "landowner privilege". To you that is the only "positive fact", even when the reality is otherwise. That is only because ROY'S human capacity for normative reasoning is itself a positive fact and arises from positive facts. And when Roy's normative reasoning-cum-positive facts are in direct contradiction with someone else's, see Roy, and he'll sort it out for everyone.

You've established a regime, in your mind, whereby you are the sole arbiter of positive facts as it relates to normative privileges and rights such that, ultimately, only YOUR normatives can be deemed positive facts.

You know that the "net salient effect" gives the owner a huge capital gain if he chooses to relinquish his tenure at the end of the 50 years, while the leaseholder gets nothing. You know it, but you consciously and deliberately decided to lie about it.

That's another area where a large part of your nutbag philosophy falls apart, as part of the advantages upon which land rents arise to be taxed are based on the presumption that all people will ultimately choose to take profit from any value increases in land. Even to the point where it is inconceivable to you that someone really will never, ever, decide to sell their land for a profit. And yet that is reality, a positive statement of fact, for millions of landowners.

That's a very sick, twisted, Roy-centric horror of a controlling rabbit-hole you live in. Count me out.

[Roy L]

And you claim to have a degree in philosophy, with honors, no less?

I do indeed, which is how I know what I am talking about.

Your explanations are pure Roy L Gobbletygook; self-contradictory gibberish.

Lie.

That is one of those one-way "I'm rubber you're glue" special rules you wrote for yourself.

No, it's an understanding that I possess and you do not, thus your constant refrain (and it is certainly common enough among people who have learned a little moral philosophy) that moral statements can't be grounded in positive fact. That view is a relic of former times when morality was considered to be based on God's will or abstract concepts, but it was basically rendered obsolete by Darwin. It's an empirical issue, so I can't "prove" it, but to me the most reasonable approach considers human moral capacity, the source of "ought" concepts, as simply a product of evolution. I.e., it has conferred a reproductive advantage on those who possess it, probably by suppressing and augmenting pre-existing ape social instincts to fit the new conditions of survival and reproduction that have arisen in human societies where technology and exchange (i.e., economics) are in play.

In Roy-La-Land, as something can only be a right, as a positive fact, when Roy's normative reasoning is melded with a positive fact. For all other positive facts, created by that same process no less, but in others' minds, check with Roy to ensure that there is no conflict.

Garbage. I simply decline to base my moral reasoning on theological or metaphysical hypotheses, and ground it in biological fact, instead. That is why I find claims of the state's inherent immorality incoherent. States reliably defeat stateless societies in evolutionary competition, and therefore cannot be immoral. It's easy to be a child, and chant "meeza hatesa gubmint," but adults understand that maturity and responsibility consist not in railing against the state's flaws, but in doing what is necessary to correct them, and make the state work as well as it can.

Your "liberty rights", as believed in and envisioned normatively by you, can only be reconciled by the same force that establishes the landownership rights that are in conflict with them.

No. There is ample empirical evidence that liberty rights foster societal and the associated reproductive success. Landownership's empirical record is mixed (like slavery's) because of the problem of distinguishing rightful from wrongful property; but it is not that good, especially in its pure, untaxed form. If you were willing to know any facts you could easily check the evidence for yourself, like California before and after Proposition 13.

That is how either, but not both, can be rights, as positive facts -- when they exist outside the mind, as codified and recognized by people and/or the state. It has nothing to do with morality - right or wrong, good or bad.

No. See above.

A right can exist as a right even when most people reason it should not exist as such.

Equivocation. IMO it is more informative to consider concepts of rights in three distinct instantiations, and avoid equivocating between them:

1) the legal, which for our purposes is not informative at all;

2) the societal, which the legal is typically an attempt to implement, and which simply records what evolution has produced as popular opinion in a given society under its unique set of historical circumstances, like the qualities of a given living organism; and

3) the ideal or natural, which we could deduce as being most effective in securing reproductive success given a complete understanding of human nature: physiology, psychology, economics, etc.

You are confusing the second concept with the third. I am normally only interested in the third.

An existing right can be seen as a violation of other rights.

Right! Just as an existing quality of an organism can conflict with other qualities that also confer reproductive advantages. Evolution strikes a balance between them, but the balance is always subject to revision based on changing circumstances. Consider polygamy. It has often been considered a right, but is now illegal. IMO it is difficult to say whether it strengthens or weakens society -- i.e., is moral or immoral -- under any given circumstances.

That's what you want established; that landownership violates "natural liberty rights" as you believe in them, even to the point of declaring them as positive statements of fact.

Any comprehension of history beyond the kindergarten level will establish the conflict between liberty and landowning. It is absolutely pervasive.

In other words, Roy thinks (for everyone), therefore it is.

No, that's just more stupid, dishonest garbage from you. I identify facts and their logical implications. Anyone can follow my reasoning and reach the same conclusions. That is why you always have to refuse to know the facts I identify.

So let it be normatively reasoned by Roy, so let it be positive fact.

Garbage, as proved above.

That is how you can refer to the positive fact of "landownership rights", even when they do exist as positive fact, as "landowner privilege". To you that is the only "positive fact", even when the reality is otherwise. That is only because ROY'S human capacity for normative reasoning is itself a positive fact and arises from positive facts. And when Roy's normative reasoning-cum-positive facts are in direct contradiction with someone else's, see Roy, and he'll sort it out for everyone.

Now substitute "slave owner" for "landowner" in the above, and notice that 200 years ago, your "argument" would have been just as "valid" when applied to an abolitionist. As we know it wasn't, it stands refuted, with no further argumentation needed. The abolitionists were simply willing to know facts that the slave owners refused to know, just as I am willing to know facts that you refuse to know.

You've established a regime, in your mind, whereby you are the sole arbiter of positive facts as it relates to normative privileges and rights such that, ultimately, only YOUR normatives can be deemed positive facts.

No, that's just more stupid, dishonest garbage from you. The facts I identify are accessible to anyone. In most cases, they are self-evident and indisputable. In the remaining cases, they are easily verified facts of history and economics.

That's another area where a large part of your nutbag philosophy falls apart, as part of the advantages upon which land rents arise to be taxed are based on the presumption that all people will ultimately choose to take profit from any value increases in land.

No, you are just lying again. I make no such assumption. I simply pointed out that you were lying when you claimed that the leaseholder and landowner have equivalent claims on such value increases.

Even to the point where it is inconceivable to you that someone really will never, ever, decide to sell their land for a profit. And yet that is reality, a positive statement of fact, for millions of landowners.

No, you are just trying to change the subject because I proved you lied. Of course many landowners never decide to sell -- but they do eventually die. Whether any given landowner ever decides to liquidate what he takes from the community is irrelevant, just as the bandit's decision to use, sell, or bury the loot he takes from the merchant caravans, or just pass it on to his kids, is irrelevant.

That's a very sick, twisted, Roy-centric horror of a controlling rabbit-hole you live in.

No, it's just another stupid fabrication on your part.

Count me out.

The ref counted you out about 1000 messages ago.

[Steven Douglas]

No, it's an understanding that I possess and you do not, thus your constant refrain that moral statements can't be grounded in positive fact.

I have never claimed such a thing, but this is very fun for me, Roy, because I think we are getting much closer to the source of your illness.

You obviously think that you are onto some kind of logical verbal alchemy -- a way to out-clever logic itself with loophole reasoning of your own -- a way to make the subjective objective -- a way to take subjective moral opinions and magically rend them into something akin to objective, logically positive facts. You think that this can be accomplished, in part, by association, as your moral argument becomes a kind of "free rider" once it is attached to ("grounded in") or associated with a logically positive fact. Once associated, or connected, the moral argument then takes on the logical positive's attributes, by association or some kind of verbal osmosis. You think you've further cemented moral opinion into fact your logically disjointed and erroneous supposition that the fact of a statement (the fact that it was made) can be passed off (once again, as a "free rider") as if the content of the statement (the moral argument) was fact.

A moral statement can indeed be "grounded in" (related to) positive fact. That relationship does not, however, render the contents of the statements themselves (moral arguments/shoulds/oughts) into positive facts; not by association, and not by verbal osmosis. Not ever. Not by any mechanism. Try to out-clever it all you want, it's one source of your sickness.

Moral arguments and logically positive facts are like chemically incompatible elements. They can be associated, but never mixed, as neither will ever dissolve into the other. Attaching one to the other will not make one into the other. The logically positive fact remains a logically positive fact, and the moral argument relating to that fact remains forever separate and entirely subjective. It is for that reason that two subjective beings can reach mutually exclusive conclusions, and make mutually exclusive moral arguments about the same logically positive fact. The nature of the fact remains intact, while the opinions, which are never intrinsic to that fact, can change, as variations that are subjective to each individual.

That view is a relic of former times when morality was considered to be based on God's will or abstract concepts, but it was basically rendered obsolete by Darwin. It's an empirical issue, so I can't "prove" it, but to me the most reasonable approach considers human moral capacity, the source of "ought" concepts, as simply a product of evolution.

Onto some more fun. You say that you cannot prove it, and yet you erroneously declare that Darwin somehow rendered obsolete the notion that morality was based on abstract concepts, which implies that Darwin somehow did prove it. The reason you can't prove it, Roy, is that it is not an empirical issue, and no "reasonable approach" will make it otherwise, as Darwin argued.

Darwin posited that all morality was a byproduct of evolution; the effect of natural selection as it works upon the raw material of variations in each individual. Darwin believed that nature did not "intend" to create any particular type of morality (See that? No single objective morality, contrary to Roy L's assertions), any more than nature intended to create one certain length of finch beak. Nor does nature "judge" any particular type of morality, as long as, Darwin surmised, it does not violate the principle of natural selection.

As such, Darwin never argued that "human moral capacity" was anything collective, homogenous, or objectively "true", but was, rather, a byproduct of natural selection as it forever takes on unique variations within EACH individual. According to Darwin, that means that all of your moral arguments, your individualized and wholly abstract concepts of morality, as a byproduct of natural selection, vary uniquely and distinctly from all other individuals. Thus, they are as abstract as anyone else's, and equally subjective (one relative to others).

...[evolution] has conferred a reproductive advantage on those who possess [human moral capacity], probably by suppressing and augmenting pre-existing ape social instincts to fit the new conditions of survival and reproduction that have arisen in human societies where technology and exchange (i.e., economics) are in play.

Darwin didn't argue for one objective "ideal" morality. He argued exactly the opposite; that no two human moralities would be exactly alike, with as many subjective variations on morality as there are humans! But your idea that morality is an "objectively indisputable" thing, as it is "grounded in" positive fact, explains a lot, and specifically your Roy-The-Omniscient-Secular-Centric-God delusions, with your UNIQUE MORALITY FINGERPRINT that you project onto everyone else, and honestly believe should be regarded by everyone else as objectively true!

I simply decline to base my moral reasoning on theological or metaphysical hypotheses, and ground it in biological fact, instead.

Well, that gives me a decided advantage, because I do not engage in the former, and I'm not stupid enough to think that the latter would create a secular version of the former, as I appeal to the authority of the "Secular God Within". That's the difference between us, Roy. I respect all differences, while holding to my own. And I recognize at all times that I am only trying to persuade -- not appeal to my opinions as if they were facts. Advantage ME, because others would see right through it anyway, just as they do your attempts. At best, you can only gather a choir of birds that are already of your feather.

You actually think that by "grounding" your morality in fact (relating it to a fact), that you are "discovering" some kind of "objective morality", with your delusion that causes you to believe you have actually rended your own opinions into facts - by simple association.

NEWS FLASH: Every normative/opinion is "grounded in"/associated with/connected to -- logically positive fact.

States reliably defeat stateless societies in evolutionary competition, and therefore cannot be immoral.

That's some sociopathic scary/funny shit right there, Roy! Do you even know how to reduce a state to its lowest common denominator, or is a state really just a mystical and magical thing to you? Gangs defeat the gangless in evolutionary competition, and therefore cannot be immoral -- because they fucking survived? Death and extinction are evidence of wrong, while power and survival by any means necessary makes right?

Your blind State Worship now makes a lot more sense. You just admitted that your criteria for morality is only indirectly and collectively to do with individual rights, with the prime focus on evolutionary competition -- which you want ratcheted up. No wonder you'd throw Granny under a bus. You're not just a statist. You're an amoral, sociopathic statist. The natural law of survival of the fittest now is now magnified by an artificially imposed mechanism, with the Survival Of The Amoral State as your central theme.

That is why it would be very easy to have you as a blind, obedient minion if I was a ruler who had sole despotic dominion over the Earth. Long live the King!

It's easy to be a child, and chant "meeza hatesa gubmint,"

Then stop chanting it. Meeza lubsa my gubmint. Meezas hatesa yours only. It's not "gubmint" Roy. That's your strawman. Specifically it's your amoral, sociopathic view of gubmint that is deserving of everyone's hatred. Not government in general. I don't argue for a stateless society. I very much want a state -- if only to make sure that your version of a state gets its ugly, sociopathic head chopped off every time it rears its ugly, creepy, weedy head.

IMO it is more informative to consider concepts of rights in three distinct instantiations, and avoid equivocating between them:

1) the legal, which for our purposes is not informative at all;

2) the societal, which the legal is typically an attempt to implement, and which simply records what evolution has produced as popular opinion in a given society under its unique set of historical circumstances, like the qualities of a given living organism; and

3) the ideal or natural, which we could deduce as being most effective in securing reproductive success given a complete understanding of human nature: physiology, psychology, economics, etc.

You are confusing the second concept with the third. I am normally only interested in the third.

I confuse nothing, that's your projection, and you are completely ass-backwards, as usual, because ultimately we are ONLY talking about the first, as the second and third serve as reasoning and arguments for the same.

Your entire list is both a manipulation and an equivocation. Your second definition is a bullshit meaningless collectivist abstract, and your third is your attempt to accomplish what was already refuted in the beginning of this post; namely, that your ideal is not my ideal, and there is no universal homogenous ideal that can be "deduced" (remember? natural selection does not "intend" or "design" a specific morality).

Some species survive and propagate through cannibalism (wolf spiders). Others through incest (Bonobo monkeys). Whatever is "best for the species" on the whole (your criteria for morality) may not be good for the majority of its individuals. Respect and reverence for non-collectivized individuals, and not collectives competing primarily for whatever will strengthen a hive, is my secular contribution to evolution. That's the state I want, the state meeza lubs.

It is far more clear, as well as informative, to dispense with all of your socio-babble gibberish and consider rights in the simplest terms; moral and legal, both of which are extremely useful (and to the point) and only as they relate to individuals - because that's really all we are.

1) Moral, individual (all internal reasoning)
2) State/Legal, individual and universal (externalized, codified, recognized by two or more and enforced)

It doesn't get any simpler than that. Everything else is so much extraneous means to those ends.

Right! Just as an existing quality of an organism can conflict with other qualities that also confer reproductive advantages. Evolution strikes a balance between them

Evolution can just as easily wipe out one in preference to the other. Evolution can result in mass extinctions, because there was no balance to be struck. Ironically, that can be caused by adaptations - by only those willing to strike a balance. I.E., NOT YOU. For example, I see LVT, and I want to adapt what I think are the actual "good" and "useful" parts (my normative, my evolutionary secular morality variant). That is so that I can a) employ it to its intended effect, while hopefully b) causing a mass extinction, if possible, of your version. You want to accomplish a mass extinction of a different kind, with respect to landownership - with no balance struck. As such, I hope your state, your LVT and UIE, ends up joining Henry George in the state evolutionary tar pits.

[Roy L]

I have never claimed such a thing,

Lie.

but this is very fun for me, Roy, because I think we are getting much closer to the source of your illness.

Stupid garbage.

You obviously think that you are onto some kind of logical verbal alchemy -- a way to out-clever logic itself with loophole reasoning of your own -- a way to make the subjective objective -- a way to take subjective moral opinions and magically rend them into something akin to objective, logically positive facts. You think that this can be accomplished, in part, by association, as your moral argument becomes a kind of "free rider" once it is attached to ("grounded in") or associated with a logically positive fact.

Strawman. You can't address what I said, so you make up some stupid $#!+ and pretend I said it.

Once associated, or connected, the moral argument then takes on the logical positive's attributes, by association or some kind of verbal osmosis. You think you've further cemented moral opinion into fact your logically disjointed and erroneous supposition that the fact of a statement (the fact that it was made) can be passed off (once again, as a "free rider") as if the content of the statement (the moral argument) was fact.

Strawman. You can't address what I said, so you make up some stupid $#!+ and pretend I said it.

A moral statement can indeed be "grounded in" (related to) positive fact.

"Grounded in" doesn't mean "related to." You're just lying. As usual.

That relationship does not, however, render the contents of the statements themselves (moral arguments/shoulds/oughts) into positive facts; not by association, and not by verbal osmosis. Not ever. Not by any mechanism.

Wrong again. A moral statement that expresses an objective fact of human nature is a positive fact.

Try to out-clever it all you want, it's one source of your sickness.

Your constant, despicable dishonesty is the source of my sickness.

Moral arguments and logically positive facts are like chemically incompatible elements. They can be associated, but never mixed, as neither will ever dissolve into the other. Attaching one to the other will not make one into the other. The logically positive fact remains a logically positive fact, and the moral argument relating to that fact remains forever separate and entirely subjective.

Nope. Moral statements are positive claims about how human actions in society affect reproductive success through society. They can be true or false, and it can be extremely difficult to determine which is which, but their content is a positive description. Normative statements are a subset of positive statements, not a disjoint set.

It is for that reason that two subjective beings can reach mutually exclusive conclusions, and make mutually exclusive moral arguments about the same logically positive fact.

But they cannot both be right.

The nature of the fact remains intact, while the opinions, which are never intrinsic to that fact, can change, as variations that are subjective to each individual.

Opinions cannot change facts. That is one of your problematic beliefs. Moral sentiments are typically opinions rather than facts because it is so hard to judge the facts, but their actual content is still positive, whether true or false.

You say that you cannot prove it, and yet you erroneously declare that Darwin somehow rendered obsolete the notion that morality was based on abstract concepts, which implies that Darwin somehow did prove it.

No. He demonstrated an empirical fact. The didn't prove a theorem. That is why it is called the theory of evolution and not a theorem.

The reason you can't prove it, Roy, is that it is not an empirical issue, and no "reasonable approach" will make it otherwise, as Darwin argued.

ROTFL!! You just made a prize fool of yourself again, Steven. The reason I can't prove it is because it IS an empirical issue, and not an exercise in mathematics or formal logic.

Darwin posited that all morality was a byproduct of evolution;

Oh? A "byproduct"? He stated quite clearly that the human moral faculty was a necessary adaptation given human social existence.

the effect of natural selection as it works upon the raw material of variations in each individual. Darwin believed that nature did not "intend" to create any particular type of morality (See that? No single objective morality, contrary to Roy L's assertions), any more than nature intended to create one certain length of finch beak.

Non sequitur. Nature doesn't "intend" anything. Nevertheless, the result of that blind, undirected process of evolution is a positive, objective fact: the genetic make-up of a given organism. And just as a given length of finch beak is objectively correct or incorrect in a given physical environment, so is a given moral principle objectively correct or not depending on the environment, especially the societal and cultural environment.

Nor does nature "judge" any particular type of morality, as long as, Darwin surmised, it does not violate the principle of natural selection.

OTC, nature is constantly judging all moralities on exactly that basis, and could in principle, by that means, determine which are objectively correct and incorrect. In practice, we don't arrive at any neat, final product, but in principle it is possible to describe one, and to judge how closely other ones come to it.

As such, Darwin never argued that "human moral capacity" was anything collective, homogenous, or objectively "true", but was, rather, a byproduct of natural selection as it forever takes on [I]unique variations within EACH individual.

No, he was clear that human moral capacity was fairly uniform, and had to be to confer a reproductive advantage.

According to Darwin, that means that all of your moral arguments, your individualized and wholly abstract concepts of morality, as a byproduct of natural selection, vary uniquely and distinctly from all other individuals. Thus, they are as abstract as anyone else's, and equally subjective (one relative to others).

Nonsense. The human moral capacity must reside on a fairly modest number of genes, and those will, by sheer chance, sometimes be identical in two given individuals. Moreover, there is nothing abstract or subjective in the biological capacity. The abstractions and subjective opinions are built USING that capacity.

Darwin didn't argue for one objective morality.

Nor do I. I simply observe that for a given set of conditions, there is probably one or at least a very small number of moral systems that will work best, and are therefore objectively correct under those conditions.

He argued exactly the opposite; that no two human moralities would be exactly alike, with as many subjective variations on morality as there are humans!

But they aren't all equally correct, (i.e., effective in achieving reproductive success) and that is the POINT of their being part of our evolving nature: they will be winnowed, the inferior and incorrect being supplanted by the superior and thus more correct.

But your idea that morality is an "objectively indisputable" thing,

I didn't say it was indisputable, stop lying. For example, you do not believe in an equal individual right to liberty. That's a moral point you dispute with me, right there.

But however much we may dispute it, it's a positive claim about what will work objectively, in society, not a mere subjective difference in taste, and we can't both be right about it.

as it is "grounded in" positive fact,

It is not only grounded in positive fact, but is a statement that ASSERTS a positive fact, whether it is actually true or not.

explains a lot, and specifically your Roy-The-Omniscient-Secular-Centric-God delusions, with your UNIQUE MORALITY FINGERPRINT that you project onto everyone else, and honestly believe should be regarded by everyone else as objectively true!

I have explained WHY it is objectively true: i.e., why it will make society stronger and better able to compete.

Well, that gives me a decided advantage, because I do not engage in the former,

Ah, yes, you most certainly do.

and I'm not stupid enough to think that the latter would create a secular version of the former, as I appeal to the authority of the "Secular God Within".

I make no such appeal. I identify objedctive facts and their logical implications.

That's the difference between us, Roy. I respect all differences, while holding to my own.

It's true that unlike you, I do not respect (let alone subscribe to) false, absurd and dishonest views.

And I recognize at all times that I am only trying to persuade -- not appeal to my opinions as if they were facts. Advantage ME, because others would see right through it anyway, just as they do your attempts. At best, you can only gather a choir of birds that are already of your feather.

You are at liberty to refuse to know the facts I identify.

You actually think that by "grounding" your morality in fact (relating it to a fact),

No, BASING IT ON fact.

that you are "discovering" some kind of "objective morality", with your delusion that causes you to believe you have actually rended your own opinions into facts - by simple association.

No, by objective causal entailment, not mere association. My opinions might be right or wrong, but they are opinions ABOUT propositions that are either true or false.

NEWS FLASH: Every normative/opinion is "grounded in"/associated with/connected to -- logically positive fact.

NEWS FLASH: Those do not by any means mean the same thing.

That's some sociopathic scary/funny shit right there, Roy! Do you even know how to reduce a state to its lowest common denominator, or is a state really just a mystical and magical thing to you?

I notice you snipped the context to make it look like I said ACTUAL states can't be immoral, when the context makes it clear I said the state per se can't inherently be immoral. Certainly a given individual state can be immoral, just as an individual human being can, and history is filled with the corpses of both sorts. But the doctrine of original sin notwithstanding, the state can't be immoral in its basic nature any more than man can.

Gangs defeat the gangless in evolutionary competition, and therefore cannot be immoral -- because they fucking survived?

Do they? What do you mean by "gangs"? Most gangs do a piss-poor job of surviving, and their members do even worse.

Death and extinction are evidence of wrong,

Right. Evidence but not proof, as time and chance happeneth to all.

while power and survival by any means necessary makes right?

Power is often dangerous to those who hold and wield it -- in some societies the most common manner of royal succession has been assassination, and dynasties have wiped themselves out in pursuit of the throne -- but in the long run, survival is the only feasible criterion for judgment of right.

Your blind State Worship

Lie.

now makes a lot more sense. You just admitted that your criteria for morality is only indirectly and collectively to do with individual rights, with the prime focus on evolutionary competition -- which you want ratcheted up.

Stupid lie.

No wonder you'd throw Granny under a bus.

Stupid, evil lie.

You're not just a statist. You're an amoral, sociopathic statist.

Stupid, evil, despicable lie.

The natural law of survival of the fittest now is now magnified by an artificially imposed mechanism,

Fabricated out of whole cloth by you.

with the Survival Of The Amoral State as your central theme.

Another lie. I've just explained how the state's morality can be judged.

That is why it would be very easy to have you as a blind, obedient minion if I was a ruler who had sole despotic dominion over the Earth. Long live the King!

Infantile.

Then stop chanting it. Meeza lubsa my gubmint. Meezas hatesa yours only.

No, you're constantly chanting stupid garbage about the state always being bad, and you know it.

It's not "gubmint" Roy. That's your strawman. Specifically it's your amoral, sociopathic view of gubmint that is deserving of everyone's hatred.

You constantly lie your silly head off, and you call MY view amoral and sociopathic?

Not government in general. I don't argue for a stateless society.

You don't argue, period. You just assert.

I very much want a state -- if only to make sure that your version of a state gets its ugly, sociopathic head chopped off every time it rears its ugly, creepy, weedy head.

And name-call, of course.

I confuse nothing, that's your projection, and you are completely ass-backwards, as usual, because ultimately we are ONLY talking about the first, as the second and third serve as reasoning and arguments for the same.

Wrong again. The first is irrelevant, as slavery proved, and the second is only an approximation of the third.

Your entire list is both a manipulation and an equivocation.

Lie.

Your second definition is a bullshit meaningless collectivist abstract,

No, that's just another stupid lie from you. The first is BASED ON the second, at least in democratic societies.

and your third is your attempt to accomplish what was already refuted in the beginning of this post; namely, that your ideal is not my ideal, and there is no universal homogenous ideal that can be "deduced" (remember? natural selection does not "intend" or "design" a specific morality).

Non sequitur. Nature doesn't intend people to see, either, but we can certainly deduce that people who can see are better equipped for survival than people who can't.

Some species survive and propagate through cannibalism (wolf spiders). Others through incest (Bonobo monkeys). Whatever is "best for the species" on the whole (your criteria for morality)

Bald lie. Evolution works on the basis of individuals' survival and reproduction. It just happens, as a contingent empirical fact, that individual human survival is intimately linked with societal strength and health. The same goes, to a lesser extent, for chimpanzees and gorillas. It DOESN'T go for orangutans, which are solitary.

may not be good for the majority of its individuals.

"Good"? Isn't that just you begging the question again with a normative claim?

Respect and reverence for non-collectivized individuals, and not collectives competing primarily for whatever will strengthen a hive, is my secular contribution to evolution. That's the state I want, the state meeza lubs.

No, you're just lying again, this time about what YOU have plainly written. Your actual "contribution" to moral evolution is that non-collectivized individuals, up to and including the majority in society, should be robbed, enslaved, and sacrificed for the unearned profit of landowners.

It is far more clear, as well as informative, to dispense with all of your socio-babble gibberish and consider rights in the simplest terms; moral and legal, both of which are extremely useful (and to the point) and only as they relate to individuals - because that's really all we are.

Self-contradiction. Legal rights only exist in the context of the collective, the society that encodes and secures them.

1) Moral, individual (all internal reasoning)

Based on what? Blank out.

2) State/Legal, individual and universal (externalized, codified, recognized by two or more and enforced)

It doesn't get any simpler than that. Everything else is so much extraneous means to those ends.

No, such impoverished conceptions do not permit even the most elementary understanding of rights.

Evolution can just as easily wipe out one in preference to the other. Evolution can result in mass extinctions, because there was no balance to be struck. Ironically, that can be caused by adaptations - by only those willing to strike a balance.

Irrelevant.

I.E., NOT YOU.

Stupid garbage.

For example, I see LVT, and I want to adapt what I think are the actual "good" and "useful" parts (my normative, my evolutionary secular morality variant).

Ah. That must be why you slag it so relentlessly and dishonestly.

That is so that I can a) employ it to its intended effect, while hopefully b) causing a mass extinction, if possible, of your version. You want to accomplish a mass extinction of a different kind, with respect to landownership - with no balance struck.

Lie. The balance of LVT + UIE is exquisitely just and efficient.

As such, I hope your state, your LVT and UIE, ends up joining Henry George in the state evolutionary tar pits.

Eventually, my version will prevail. It's just a question of how much evil, misery and slaughter apologists for landowner privilege will inflict on long-suffering humanity in the meantime.

[EcoWarrier]

Steven, why do you go on about this guy called Norman?

Roy is great at detecting Tom Peppers.

[Steven Douglas]

A moral statement that expresses an objective fact of human nature is a positive fact.

Please give a specific example of a moral statement that expresses objective fact, wherein the moral statement itself is a positive fact, claim or description. And since this all arose in the context of your claim of "natural liberty rights", could you keep in that context?

Moral statements are positive claims about how human actions in society affect reproductive success through society.

Oh, is that so? Who constrained moral statements to that narrow definition, do you have a source for that? Why was it constrained to "reproductive success", and why "through society"? That last part sounds like flagrant question begging to me. Unless, by "society" you simply mean any two or more persons.

And how, exactly, is "reproductive success" defined? Does that mean quality or quantity of reproduction, or is it some combination or other meaning, and who defines this success of which you speak? Be specific, because if you are referring to success as a function of quantity, any positive statement about Asia (China and India in particular) might also be considered positive claims about the superior "reproductive success" (sheer population numbers), which one could attribute to any or all of their past normatives employed in those countries.

Your criterion ("affect reproductive success") is ill-defined, so you might not have meant population growth, but rather something else entirely. How do you define "reproductive success", and specifically the word "success". How is that determined, or is that also a subset of yet another positive claim?

Here is an amoral statement for you, which is "grounded in" positive fact:

"Impoverished people tend to reproduce in greater numbers than non-impoverished people. Therefore, impoverishment is the best means for stimulating population growth."

They can be true or false, and it can be extremely difficult to determine which is which, but their content is a positive description.

They can be, but that's not what you're doing, which is why I ask for a specific example related to your version of "liberty rights".

Normative statements are a subset of positive statements, not a disjoint set.

WRONG. NEITHER. Nice try. Normative statements are neither a subset of positive statements, nor are they a disjoint set (i.e., having nothing in common). Normative statements are prescriptive (should/ought), and go beyond the merely logically positive predictive or descriptive (true/false) facts or claims they reference. It is not a disjoint set of whatever logic positives it references, and only because it has in common those references upon which the normative is predicated. So, again, nice try.

...two subjective beings can reach mutually exclusive conclusions, and make mutually exclusive moral arguments about the same logically positive fact.

But they cannot both be right.

WRONG AGAIN. Of course they can both be right (both having advantageous outcomes or successes, however those are defined for each). There's more than one way to skin an evolutionary cat, because there is no SINGLE BODY that is taking ("deciding upon") a single course of action, nor is there only one course of action that is ever taken. A mutually exclusive conclusion is just a fork in the road. And not only can "both" be right, MILLIONS of mutually exclusive propositions can all be right.

A) "We can all get to our destination by taking an airline. We will be happier because we will spend less time in transit."
B) "We can all get to our destination by taking buses. We will be happier because we will spend less money."
C) "We can all get to our destination by any mode of transportation that is individually preferred. We will each be happier because each of us will spend less of whatever we value most."

These are all mutually exclusive conclusions (We are not Yogi Berra, and cannot simply come to a fork and "take it"), and yet all of them may be right (correct). Multiple entities, multiple paths, infinite combinations, no single "right" outcome.

The Permian-Triassic mass extinction event did not give us evidence that surviving lifeforms were "right" -- only that they were more suited/placed/adapted/etc. to survive that particular catastrophe, regardless of its cause or origin.

Opinions cannot change facts. That is one of your problematic beliefs.

Projection on your part. I am the ONLY one between us who does not confuse or conflate facts with opinions.

No. [Darwin] demonstrated an empirical fact.

WRONG. Darwin observed empirical facts, and formulated a theory (drew a conclusion and posited his hypothesis) on the basis of those facts.

The reason I can't prove it is because it IS an empirical issue, and not an exercise in mathematics or formal logic.

There goes your mind-melding verbal alchemy tendency again, as you play fast and loose with a new Roy-fuzzy-logic term: the "empirical issue". You can't out-clever logic, Roy. There are certainly empirical facts, but the only "issue" here is your individual moral conclusions about those empirical facts, which you want to pass off as one and the same (by "grounding it" in them). And we are talking about logical, not mathematical (your red herring) proof.

Nature doesn't "intend" anything.

WRONG. Nature most certainly "intends" to propagate. Life will out. According to Darwin, via natural selection theory, the only thing that nature does not "intend", is to accomplish this propagation by any single branch or method. Nature will tend to try as many natural variations as successive generations will allow, with survival of a propagating branch determined by natural selection, as unsuccessful attempts result in extinct branches, even as two or more successful branches may split off, as multiple, mutually exclusive successes, which gives even more variety for future adaptability and more chances at propagation.

Unlike leftists, statists and other collectivists, Nature doesn't put all its eggs in one basket, nor does it strive for a single ideal.

Nevertheless, the result of that blind, undirected process of evolution is a positive, objective fact: the genetic make-up of a given organism.

...among trillions, none static, all branching out.

Ignoring your moot "blind" description, while the "process of evolution" can be described as an all-encompassing collective singular, in reality it is anything but a singular process, as it is infinite variations of individual processes that continuously split off and branch out (and quite irreversibly on a macro-scale in geological time, e.g., hippos and whales, their closest living relative, cannot produce offspring).

And just as a given length of finch beak is objectively correct or incorrect in a given physical environment, so is a given moral principle objectively correct or not depending on the environment, especially the societal and cultural environment.

Just couldn't help yourself, could you? Had to try to slip it in there somehow? You're question begging your view of the "objective correctness" of a given moral principle. Sorry, Bub, you have to actually argue it, asserting it is meaningless.

For a "given moral principle" to be "objectively correct or not" depends, once again, on your definition of correct, or more specifically, "success". Finch populations with beaks of a certain length branched away from their relatives, finch and non-finch, each opportunistically to their own "successes". There was NO ONE CORRECT ANSWER, because the "intent" of life/nature itself was to simply PROPAGATE. Compete, multiply, consume and be consumed.

You think of branches, divergence, diversity, variations, etc., only in terms of CONVERGENCE, to a "SINGLE IDEAL" -- a single "objective moral fact" which you believe exists, contrary to anything suggested by empirical facts.

OTC, nature is constantly judging all moralities on exactly that basis, and could in principle, by that means, determine which are objectively correct and incorrect.

BULLSHIT. COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT. Nature doesn't "judge" morality at all, nor is there anything "objectively correct or incorrect" in nature. REALITY and circumstances are the judges of morality in a temporal sphere. Nature only adapts and responds with its only intent - propagation through variation and adaptation: to reality, as it comes.

Nature provides propagation, and trial and error, with adaptations which are successful in producing surviving branches. And all of that includes "sand-bagging" by nature. The Cambrian Explosion was followed by the unimaginably catastrophic Great Dying 250 Million years ago: 96% of all marine species, 70% of all terrestrial vertebrate species -- 57% of all families and 83% of all genera -- all extinct, with the only known mass extinction event that wiped out insects. We don't have a record of all that lived then. Who is to say there wasn't advanced intelligence or "morality" involved then?

The Permian-Triassic extinction boundary was followed by nature rebounding with dinosaurs, ALL of which were wiped out 65Ma. Nature then rebounded with other life, including hominids. One event can wipe ALL OF THEM out and nature would rebound with other lifeforms, because nature does not give a flying fuck about morality, yours or mine. According to Darwin, it's just a tool for survival, and infinite in variation. What we do with it is our risk, our reward, but with no judgments from nature, no single ideal, no guarantees, and no take-backs or refunds.

In practice, we don't arrive at any neat, final product, but in principle it is possible to describe one, and to judge how closely other ones come to it.

Again, COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT, a meaningless blanket assertion. In arguing for that assertion, someone must actually define the "ideal", the criteria for "success". So while "how closely" one comes to it (that success, based on some human-defined metric) may be positively claimed or described, and the yardstick for that success may be described in logically positive terms -- it ignores the fact that OTHER, MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE BUT EQUALLY VALID yardsticks, or metrics could also have been defined, and applied.

No, he was clear that human moral capacity was fairly uniform, and had to be to confer a reproductive advantage.

Who gives a shit what he was clear on? Darwin was just a man, asking questions and forming hypotheses, not an omniscient god of nature and genetic engineering.

The human moral capacity must reside on a fairly modest number of genes, and those will, by sheer chance, sometimes be identical in two given individuals. Moreover, there is nothing abstract or subjective in the biological capacity. The abstractions and subjective opinions are built USING that capacity.

All nothing but speculative, ill-defined gibberish. "fairly modest", "sheer chance", "sometimes identical in two individuals", "nothing abstract or subjective" -- keep babbling on with great conviction about shit you know very little about.

I simply observe that for a given set of conditions, there is probably one or at least a very small number of moral systems that will work best...

"will work best"? What does that mean? Best how, and for whom? By what metric? Define "BEST". And if you wax slippery-dishonest as you take refuge in the nebulous "effective in achieving reproductive success through society", then define all of that, including a reduction and definition of each of those terms -- especially "success" and "society".

But they aren't all equally correct, (i.e., effective in achieving reproductive success) and that is the POINT of their being part of our evolving nature: they will be winnowed, the inferior and incorrect being supplanted by the superior and thus more correct.

Define "superior" and "inferior" while you're at it.

For example, you do not believe in an equal individual right to liberty. That's a moral point you dispute with me, right there.

Flagrant question begging, using only your "common property" definition of "liberty".

But however much we may dispute it, it's a positive claim about what will work objectively, in society, not a mere subjective difference in taste, and we can't both be right about it.

BULLSHIT. Multiple variations and multiple branches can, as nature proves, provide multiple "right" successes.

But the doctrine of original sin notwithstanding, the state can't be immoral in its basic nature any more than man can.

Oh, well I guess you were LYING, then, every time you denounced anyone or anything as "evil".

Do they? What do you mean by "gangs"? Most gangs do a piss-poor job of surviving, and their members do even worse.

Really? Are you an expert on the genealogies of gangs and their members? Did you take an actual count of how many ho's and bitches they knocked up, or were you just referring to life expectancy, and not PROPAGATION? Sea turtle hatchlings do a piss-poor job of surviving on the whole, but because of their sheer numbers, they seem to do alright as a propagating species.

Again, Roy, what's your metric for "success"?

Evolution works on the basis of individuals' survival and reproduction. It just happens, as a contingent empirical fact, that individual human survival is intimately linked with societal strength and health. The same goes, to a lesser extent, for chimpanzees and gorillas. It DOESN'T go for orangutans, which are solitary

Humans could be said to be more like rodents, rabbits and cockroaches than apes or monkeys in terms of propagation, adaptation and survival capacities. We reproduce far faster and far more often than any apes, and our capacity for variation in our diet is comparable to mice and rats, not apes, even as we are far more adaptable to our environments (can exist nearly anywhere on Earth). You think that's all "intimately linked with societal strength and health"? I ask "WHOSE SOCIETAL STRENGTH AND HEALTH?" Because that's a two-edged sword.

Our sheer population numbers, including our capacity for adaptation and rapid reproduction, are also intimately linked to POVERTY, HUMAN WEAKNESS (soft, furless, smelly, with no sharp fangs or claws or other natural physical defenses), and BRUTALITY as a byproduct and function of "SOCIETAL STRENGTH AND HEALTH". That's because humans, when their long term survival is threatened, tend to branch out, fight, prey upon one another, huddle together, run away, find other opportunities, and, most importantly, fuck a lot more. That, too, is intimately linked with "societal strength and health" -- another term you have ill-defined, because you aren't paying attention to "WHOSE". In your aggregate-collectivist-hive mindset, you think that when you put together words like "societal" and "strength" and "health" you've actually said something meaningful.

So, what's "better", Roy, or more "objectively reproductively successful": larger-brained, fiercely independent, self-sufficient, relatively brutal, snarling, fighting Lupines, and their complex social order, or would it be their close relatives, the smaller-brained, weaker, mostly human dependent and domesticated canines? And why? By what criteria?

Eventually, my version will prevail.

Any variation can prevail. For a time. Just as something close to your version has prevailed, in isolation, in the past, for a time.

It's just a question of how much evil, misery and slaughter apologists for landowner privilege will inflict on long-suffering humanity in the meantime.

You argue for a complex, indirect "value credit" compensation on the basis of a deprivation of putative "natural liberty rights", based on the equally putative premise that the entire Earth is "common property". You see people having no "rights of possession of land", but only "rights of liberty access" thereto. But you don't secure either. You fully embrace that deprivation, and want to compensate for them instead, with an indirect political promise based on an economic consequence.

I argue for simply for rights in land -- actual rights of possession and disposal of parcels to individuals -- not an economic reconciliation of "liberty rights to all land", as I auction those collectivized putative rights to highest bidders. Furthermore, I am the ONLY one who does not believe that ALL ECONOMIC ENTITIES ARE CREATED EQUAL. You, in fact, do. You treat them all equally, because it's all about money to you, with land only a means to an end.

[EcoWarrier]

I argue for simply for rights in land -- actual rights of possession and disposal of parcels to individuals

Geonomics gives that. Title and "ownership", buying and selling stays the same. LVT is a tax shift, taxing commonly created wealth leaving us alone with our own money and wealth.

You want to freeload.

[erowe1]

Lie.

Stupid garbage.

Strawman. You can't address what I said, so you make up some stupid $#!+ and pretend I said it.

Strawman. You can't address what I said, so you make up some stupid $#!+ and pretend I said it.

"Grounded in" doesn't mean "related to." You're just lying. As usual.

Wrong again. A moral statement that expresses an objective fact of human nature is a positive fact.

Your constant, despicable dishonesty is the source of my sickness.

Nope. Moral statements are positive claims about how human actions in society affect reproductive success through society. They can be true or false, and it can be extremely difficult to determine which is which, but their content is a positive description. Normative statements are a subset of positive statements, not a disjoint set.

But they cannot both be right.

Opinions cannot change facts. That is one of your problematic beliefs. Moral sentiments are typically opinions rather than facts because it is so hard to judge the facts, but their actual content is still positive, whether true or false.

No. He demonstrated an empirical fact. The didn't prove a theorem. That is why it is called the theory of evolution and not a theorem.

ROTFL!! You just made a prize fool of yourself again, Steven. The reason I can't prove it is because it IS an empirical issue, and not an exercise in mathematics or formal logic.

Oh? A "byproduct"? He stated quite clearly that the human moral faculty was a necessary adaptation given human social existence.

Non sequitur. Nature doesn't "intend" anything. Nevertheless, the result of that blind, undirected process of evolution is a positive, objective fact: the genetic make-up of a given organism. And just as a given length of finch beak is objectively correct or incorrect in a given physical environment, so is a given moral principle objectively correct or not depending on the environment, especially the societal and cultural environment.

OTC, nature is constantly judging all moralities on exactly that basis, and could in principle, by that means, determine which are objectively correct and incorrect. In practice, we don't arrive at any neat, final product, but in principle it is possible to describe one, and to judge how closely other ones come to it.

No, he was clear that human moral capacity was fairly uniform, and had to be to confer a reproductive advantage.

Nonsense. The human moral capacity must reside on a fairly modest number of genes, and those will, by sheer chance, sometimes be identical in two given individuals. Moreover, there is nothing abstract or subjective in the biological capacity. The abstractions and subjective opinions are built USING that capacity.

Nor do I. I simply observe that for a given set of conditions, there is probably one or at least a very small number of moral systems that will work best, and are therefore objectively correct under those conditions.

But they aren't all equally correct, (i.e., effective in achieving reproductive success) and that is the POINT of their being part of our evolving nature: they will be winnowed, the inferior and incorrect being supplanted by the superior and thus more correct.

I didn't say it was indisputable, stop lying. For example, you do not believe in an equal individual right to liberty. That's a moral point you dispute with me, right there.

But however much we may dispute it, it's a positive claim about what will work objectively, in society, not a mere subjective difference in taste, and we can't both be right about it.

It is not only grounded in positive fact, but is a statement that ASSERTS a positive fact, whether it is actually true or not.

I have explained WHY it is objectively true: i.e., why it will make society stronger and better able to compete.

Ah, yes, you most certainly do.

I make no such appeal. I identify objedctive facts and their logical implications.

It's true that unlike you, I do not respect (let alone subscribe to) false, absurd and dishonest views.

You are at liberty to refuse to know the facts I identify.

No, BASING IT ON fact.

No, by objective causal entailment, not mere association. My opinions might be right or wrong, but they are opinions ABOUT propositions that are either true or false.

NEWS FLASH: Those do not by any means mean the same thing.

I notice you snipped the context to make it look like I said ACTUAL states can't be immoral, when the context makes it clear I said the state per se can't inherently be immoral. Certainly a given individual state can be immoral, just as an individual human being can, and history is filled with the corpses of both sorts. But the doctrine of original sin notwithstanding, the state can't be immoral in its basic nature any more than man can.

Do they? What do you mean by "gangs"? Most gangs do a piss-poor job of surviving, and their members do even worse.

Right. Evidence but not proof, as time and chance happeneth to all.

Power is often dangerous to those who hold and wield it -- in some societies the most common manner of royal succession has been assassination, and dynasties have wiped themselves out in pursuit of the throne -- but in the long run, survival is the only feasible criterion for judgment of right.

Lie.

Stupid lie.

Stupid, evil lie.

Stupid, evil, despicable lie.

Fabricated out of whole cloth by you.

Another lie. I've just explained how the state's morality can be judged.

Infantile.

No, you're constantly chanting stupid garbage about the state always being bad, and you know it.

You constantly lie your silly head off, and you call MY view amoral and sociopathic?

You don't argue, period. You just assert.

And name-call, of course.

Wrong again. The first is irrelevant, as slavery proved, and the second is only an approximation of the third.

Lie.

No, that's just another stupid lie from you. The first is BASED ON the second, at least in democratic societies.

Non sequitur. Nature doesn't intend people to see, either, but we can certainly deduce that people who can see are better equipped for survival than people who can't.

Bald lie. Evolution works on the basis of individuals' survival and reproduction. It just happens, as a contingent empirical fact, that individual human survival is intimately linked with societal strength and health. The same goes, to a lesser extent, for chimpanzees and gorillas. It DOESN'T go for orangutans, which are solitary.

"Good"? Isn't that just you begging the question again with a normative claim?

No, you're just lying again, this time about what YOU have plainly written. Your actual "contribution" to moral evolution is that non-collectivized individuals, up to and including the majority in society, should be robbed, enslaved, and sacrificed for the unearned profit of landowners.

Self-contradiction. Legal rights only exist in the context of the collective, the society that encodes and secures them.

Based on what? Blank out.

No, such impoverished conceptions do not permit even the most elementary understanding of rights.

Irrelevant.

Stupid garbage.

Ah. That must be why you slag it so relentlessly and dishonestly.

Lie. The balance of LVT + UIE is exquisitely just and efficient.

Eventually, my version will prevail. It's just a question of how much evil, misery and slaughter apologists for landowner privilege will inflict on long-suffering humanity in the meantime.

I hope you have shortcut keys for some of these lines.