The Pedo Bear strike

As a rule, it's safe to conclude that whenever a disputant in any forum pulls this kind of "I know something that proves I'm right, but I'm not gonna tell you because [insert specious reason here]" crap, he's got nada, he realizes it, and he's weaseling to evade his responsibility to admit it.

That's a reasonable speculation. But if he later does reveal his evidence then he disproves it. And there could be other reasons he might say "You're wrong but I'm not going to argue with you." Like for example, if you are a troll.

Moi? A troll? Perish forfend! 

More like Sandy's in the "screwed-and-running-away-with-his-tail-between-his-legs" condition, and he's not honest enough to admit it.

Sandy's in a public forum where he's got to maintain the happy fiction that he respects most of us in the healing professions, but not yours truly, 'cause I'm supposed to be some kind of "polymath" poseur.  That's in spite of the fact that lawyers are purposefully trained to look upon doctors with absolute contempt, as members of one of their principal prey species.

I've got plenty of colleagues who, for reasons principally having to do with HCFA (now CMS) and other third-party payors, decided after ten or fifteen years in medical practice to go to law school and grow themselves some shark's teeth of their own.  They have uniformly related their instructors' inculcation of this "doctors-are-stupid-victims-suited-only-for-our-depredations" attitude in the law school lecture halls. 

Why should anybody expect anything different from any average modern American lawyer?

Anent matters of civil tort:

I'm saying, let an arbitrator's common sense decide it.

I've known a number of lawyers over the years who have actually left the practice of law in the sense that they're no longer operating as client advocates in adversarial proceedings but functioning as arbiters.  The first one I'd encountered told me about how he'd more or less stumbled into this line of work, handling "amicable" divorces on behalf of both parties in these proceedings. 

Engaged to manage the legal formalities of his clients' divorces, he found that he had no disincentive to abate discord because he wasn't going to get paid anything more if the decree nisi went through.  In many cases he functioned more as a marriage counselor helping to resolve the issues that had brought his clients' relationships to the point of dissolution. 

He told me that rather liked being a problem solver instead of a "hired gun" for one side or the other. 

Of course, I'm willing to bet that he got more billable hours out of each case when he prevented a divorce, too.

Both Heinlein (in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress) and Smith (in The Probability Broach) offered speculation on how a system of arbitration in an anarchist society might reasonably be presumed to work, and I've no doubt that arbiters who gain reputations for settlements which prove both equitable and durable (in the sense that they tend not to go on to the "coffee-and-pistols-at-dawn" stage of resolution) would find their services in demand.

But relying on "an arbitrator's common sense" alone would probably not work all that well. 

One of the reasons why contract is so important in the ordering of human affairs is that predictability is valuable.  Arbitration is not entered into by any party without some expectation that the anticipated outcomes will be consistent with the results of preceding arbitrated settlements. 

"Surprise party" arbitration in an AnCap society like the Belt as depicted would likely be exceedingly uncommon, if not because it would be scandal all over the Tanglenet, then because such an action really would earn the involved arbiter a sharpish need for the finest autodoc Mars produces.

How good d'you think those gadgets might be at handling penetrating traumatic brain injury cases?

Most arbiters with whom I'm familiar - attorneys and non-attorneys alike - take pains to keep themselves well-informed about the published results of prior settlements in their areas of specialization.  Not as easy as reading up on precedent case law, of course, because so much of the conditions of resolution achieved by private arbitration are kept sub rosa under the agreements reached by the participants. 

I should think that on Ceres, where Belters seem to take pains to resolve their knottiest problems very much in public, with the Tanglenet providing broad witness access, there would be quite a bit of precedent which an arbiter engaged to handle disputes would be expected to know and to integrate in his/her address of matters brought before him/her. 

Counselor Scuttling Weasel writes:

...I will identify, are treated under current law. Interesting but irrelevant. After the good doctor runs out of steam, I will explain in detail how these two entities could be structure to operate in a market anarchy with limited liability for their owners. They are:

* Common law joint stock company

* Massachusetts business trust (or any common law trust, for that matter)

For the sake of a lucidity Counselor Weasel doesn't want to provide, one source (see http://tinyurl.com/4xr4rv9) defines "Common law joint stock company" as follows (note emphasis in boldface):

In the common law countries like England and the US not all businesses are companies that have to register with the state and they are not all separate juridical entities. Partnerships can be formed without registering and are regarded as aggregates of persons. Only corporations that register with the state are separate juridical entities. A common law partnership is an association of two or more persons who co-own and manage a business for profit and have full responsibility for its operation. Partnership is an aggregate and partners share all profits and losses. Partnership is a non-taxpaying entity, but partners pay separate income tax. Limited partnership is the same as in civil law. Secret partnership exists too but all partners share same liability. A common law joint stock company is the same as partnership limited by shares. Limited Liability Company is recognized only in the US and is treated as partnership for tax purposes. A business trust is an association existing in the US only and is similar to the joint stock company.

Thus a "Common law joint stock company" is, in matters pertaining to the determination of liability, very much the same as a partnership. 

Regarding the "Massachusetts business trust," we need go no further than to Wiki-bloody-pedia (see http://tinyurl.com/3qakpqo) to read:

A Massachusetts business trust (MBT) is a legal trust set up for the purposes of business, but not necessarily one that is operated in The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. They may also be referred to as an unincorporated business organization or UBO. Business trusts may be established under the laws of other U.S. states.

And where there is no prevailing statute law (because there's no recognition of the existence of a "state"), the "Massachusetts business trust" has precisely ... er, what status in terms of limiting the participants' liability?

Mostly, the MBT seems to function as a tax dodge.

There are taxes on Ceres?

Having thus "put some effort in coming up with how [someone] would [not be able to] use these forms [in] a market anarchy," I'm looking forward to reading how Counselor Weasel further squirms and dodges and displays his shysterly conditioning.

It seems obvious that it takes a government to enforce limited liability.

In anarchy, anyone can sue anyone for anything, including totally cooked up grounds - just like in present day America.

In response, people will have two recourses,

• hiding their assets behind corporations whose owners are difficult to find, which will be a lot easier than in present day America
• ignoring overly plaintiff friendly arbitrators and going to war against anyone who attempts to enforce their judgments, which is impossible in present day America.

Unlimited liability will be a problem in anarchy - bult limited liability is a solution to a problem that would be much reduced in anarchy.

As a rule, it's safe to conclude that whenever a disputant in any forum pulls this kind of "I know something that proves I'm right, but I'm not gonna tell you because [insert specious reason here]" crap, he's got nada, he realizes it, and he's weaseling to evade his responsibility to admit it.

That's a reasonable speculation. But if he later does reveal his evidence then he disproves it. And there could be other reasons he might say "You're wrong but I'm not going to argue with you." Like for example, if you are a troll.

Moi? A troll? Perish forfend!  

Oops! I can see how it would look like that was directed at you. You had said, "As a rule, it's safe to assume" and I wanted to point out exceptions to that rule. Not to say that you personally are a troll.

Anent matters of civil tort:

I'm saying, let an arbitrator's common sense decide it.

.... But relying on "an arbitrator's common sense" alone would probably not work all that well.  

One of the reasons why contract is so important in the ordering of human affairs is that predictability is valuable.

And how well does the current legal system provide that?!

Arbitration is not entered into by any party without some expectation that the anticipated outcomes will be consistent with the results of preceding arbitrated settlements.

To the extent that's so, I suppose both parties could look up a sample of preceding arbitrated settlements, and see how they went. And then one of them offers the other a result which is slightly better than they can expect from arbitration, so they both save the costs of actual arbitration, and it's all settled.

Maybe the actual arbitrations would come mostly when there are special circumstances which make the outcome not completely cut-and-dried.

"Surprise party" arbitration in an AnCap society like the Belt as depicted would likely be exceedingly uncommon, if not because it would be scandal all over the Tanglenet, then because such an action really would earn the involved arbiter a sharpish need for the finest autodoc Mars produces.

If arbitrators need to fear violent litigants and most fear the most violent litigants, then that complication will cause a whole lot of trouble. I imagine it would be that way, too, unless there's some reason I don't currently see that would reduce that problem.The different parties to arbitration would naturally tend toward an arms race -- they might compete to look the craziest and the most murderous, to get the arbitrator to decide in their favor.

You have brought up an important point that I hadn't considered enough.

Most arbiters with whom I'm familiar - attorneys and non-attorneys alike - take pains to keep themselves well-informed about the published results of prior settlements in their areas of specialization.  Not as easy as reading up on precedent case law, of course, because so much of the conditions of resolution achieved by private arbitration are kept sub rosa under the agreements reached by the participants.

It's the public results they would be judged against. If you are an arbitrator and you come up with a result that clearly works better than the norm, that's a good thing.

It's when somebody feels like they got a worse deal than they should have that you're in danger of murder. So in general, you are in danger whenever some party feels they got a bad deal, whether or not the result was similar to other cases. Ouch!

It seems obvious that it takes a government to enforce limited liability.

In anarchy, anyone can sue anyone for anything, including totally cooked up grounds - just like in present day America.

Sure. Although Sandy Sandfort has suggested that a frivolous lawsuit might not find anybody willing to arbitrate it. I'm not clear about the mechanism that results in nobody in the whole population willing to arbitrate, but it isn't my idea.

In response, people will have two recourses,

• hiding their assets behind corporations whose owners are difficult to find, which will be a lot easier than in present day America

I don't understand this one. Why have corporations at all? Why are they worth having? Who would want to do business with a corporation whose owners are unknown?

I can better see giving your assets to people you trust to give them back when you want them. The assets are then legally theirs. Somebody who sues the new owners might get them. You have no claim whatever except their ethics might persuade them to give back your stuff when they don't have to.

• ignoring overly plaintiff friendly arbitrators and going to war against anyone who attempts to enforce their judgments, which is impossible in present day America.

Here's a proposed scheme to select arbitrators, similar to the existing proposal I've seen. You choose your candidate arbitrator and the other guy chooses his. If you both choose the same guy, he's the arbitrator. Otherwise, your choices talk it over and find somebody they agree to. With complications if agreement doesn't come quickly.

If you don't choose an overly plaintiff friendly arbitrator and the guy you choose doesn't agree to one, doesn't that settle it? Unless you get somebody who's overly plaintiff friendly for the first time, the time you happen to choose him.
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In anarchy, anyone can sue anyone for anything, including totally cooked up grounds - just like in present day America.

Er...in what court of law?

In an anarchy - in the absence of government - there would be no courts of law because there would be no corps of government goons to threaten people with fines and imprisonment and death in the enforcement of such courts' orders.

The "anyone" of whom you speak might bring a matter - unilaterally - before an arbiter to seek that person's considered opinion thereupon, but unless the person getting "sued" has agreed beforehand to binding arbitration (and is therefore linked to the complaining party by a contractual relationship), there's reason to doubt that a reputable arbiter would be able to offer an opinion on the issue that would have any more weight in Belter custom and rules than that of any other individual.

I'd think that those persons who gain reputations as experts in particular areas of thought and action - and I speak of real experts as opposed to the "expert witnesses" who inject so much junk science into modern American courts of law (see Peter W. Huber's Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science In The Courtroom, 1993) - would be sought as special arbiters in cases of civil tort where the issues at dispute fall into those fields in which their expertise is recognized. 

The owner of a new seastead holds that the builder he'd engaged hadn't done the job to the specifications contracted. The builder disputes this. The optimum choice for selection as an arbiter is probably going to be someone with experience of building and/or operating seasteads. 

You mention two possible measures that might be taken as recourse to avoid predatory litigation:

• hiding their assets behind corporations whose owners are difficult to find, which will be a lot easier than in present day America
• ignoring overly plaintiff friendly arbitrators and going to war against anyone who attempts to enforce their judgments, which is impossible in present day America.

Such "corporations whose owners are difficult to find" wouldn't really be "corporations" in the current sense, but simply cut-outs which are only as good as the security measures taken to keep the owners from being identified.

They could confer no more security upon the participants than would any other kind of conspiracy.  Might work, might not.  What's that bit about how "Two can keep a secret only if one is dead"?

Unlimited liability will be a problem in anarchy - bult limited liability is a solution to a problem that would be much reduced in anarchy.

The more I give it thought, the more convinced I've become that limited liability would not be possible in an AnCap society. The conditions required to make such a "legal fiction" work - the evasion of responsibility for injuries inadvertently inflicted upon other people - simply cannot exist in the absence of a government. 

People in the Belt would have to act at all times and in all ways with a great sense of consequence.  With the unimpaired authority to act must come the unabated responsibility to deal with adverse eventualities resulting from those actions.

Today we have a special kind of limited liability. Say you're a billionaire. You buy 60% of a company after studying what it does to be profitable. The company makes fine profits for 10 years and then it does something that results in a blilion dollars damage to other people. You get to keep your 10 years of profits...

Not really. Corporations generally retain a substantial portion of their profits. That goes to judgment holds and creditors. All thing being equal, you do get to keep your dividends and other distributions. However, if there is suspicious timing as to distributions or if you personal ignore the corporate structure, creditors can ask the court to "pierce the veil" so that your personal assets can be attached.

J Thomas. You surprise me. Sometime you are bouncing off the walls with "dandruff" arguments and other times you show surprising insight.

Thank you. The difference may be in you.

I don't believe so, but I will concede the possibility. 

People in some circumstances have a right not to be bothered by other people. Not just objectively-determined damage, if there is such a thing. What rights do they have? I think it gets some sort of community consensus.

I think if you look at your examples carefully, they will all assume some sort of communalism. If so, they don't fit the Belt model under discussion.

RA Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress was serialized in a magazine and I read one part of it. There was a point where the narrator explained that people on Luna could get spaced for body odor.

Case in point. I don't specifically remember the body odor example, but it doesn't matter. The people who live in Lune lived in a prison. All of the common areas were owned by the prison authority. The inmates were pretty much anarchists among themselves, but they still had to give unto Caesar.

And what if it's a whole culture that agrees that women who do X are agreeing to sex, regardless whether they scream and fight? That's OK if everybody knows the rules, right? Maybe? Never?

Special pleading again, J Thomas. Let me give you a clue how to spot special pleading, they almost always start with some variation of "what if?" Which is usually followed by some extreme and extremely unlikely scenario. The scenarios almost always includes absolutes which never exist is real like. For example, "... what if it's a whole culture that agrees..."

Now if your tortured scenario were actually true, it would not be rape, but not because the "culture" says so, but because the woman, who is a member of the highly unlikely unanimous culture, agrees too, but only by your forced definition.

When do you have a right not to be exposed to second-hand tobacco smoke? Second-hand marijuana smoke? Second-hand opiated-hash smoke? It depends on community standards.

Not in the least. What business is it of the "community" (a fictional construct) or any individual, what you permit or forbid on your own property (as long as there are no externalities onto other people's property)? Private property is a fundamental condition of market anarchy. Fuck the "community," which has no real existence, in any case.

I picked dandruff as an example because this is a perfectly valid right that people simply don't think about in our culture. It's like objecting to second-hand smoke in 1955.

Don't like dandruff or second hand smoke? Don't go where the owners of the property permit them. Quod erat demonstrandum.

More like Sandy's in the "screwed-and-running-away-with-his-tail-between-his-legs" condition, and he's not honest enough to admit it.

Kind of funny how you use the Nixon defense (you know, declare victory in Vietnam and go home) when you don't have any arrows in your quiver. 

Sandy's in a public forum where he's got to maintain the happy fiction that he respects most of us in the healing professions, but not yours truly, 'cause I'm supposed to be some kind of "polymath" poseur.  That's in spite of the fact that lawyers are purposefully trained to look upon doctors with absolute contempt, as members of one of their principal prey species.

Wow! totally irrelevant ad hominen. Curiously, though, you were right on about my assessment of you right. "Polymath poseur"; I like that! It's funny, because it's true!

Incidentally I don't "got to maintain" anything. Medicine is an honorable trade. As I said, I respect medical people, speaking on medical subjects. It is when they think they know everything that the word "poseur" applies. BTW, I left the profession a long time ago. What may or may not be "common for American lawyers," has no relevance to me. So stereotype all you want about lawyers. Hell, I might just join in with you. But that still does not mean you know diddly-squat about legal and equitable principles under discussion here with regard to the EFT universe in general or market anarchy in particular.

Counselor Scuttling Weasel writes:

...I will identify, are treated under current law. Interesting but irrelevant. After the good doctor runs out of steam, I will explain in detail how these two entities could be structure to operate in a market anarchy with limited liability for their owners. They are:

* Common law joint stock company

* Massachusetts business trust (or any common law trust, for that matter)

For the sake of a lucidity Counselor Weasel doesn't want to provide, one source (see http://tinyurl.com/4xr4rv9) defines "Common law joint stock company" as follows (note emphasis in boldface):

In the common law countries like England and the US not all businesses are companies that have to register with the state and they are not all separate juridical entities. Partnerships can be formed without registering and are regarded as aggregates of persons. Only corporations that register with the state are separate juridical entities...

Remember folks, I called it. He is off to the races with cherry-picked citations about modern joint stock companies. When he gets through doing just what I said he would do, I'll do what I said I would, i.e., show how these entities would be quite at home in the Belt's ZAP, market anarchy, voluntary dispute resolution environment. Wake me, when he declares victory and stops puffing and pontificating. 

After demonstrating that he has no more grasp of the concept of argumentum ad hominem than he has of the straw man fallacy, Counselor Scuttling Weasel goes on to report that:

...I left the profession [of law] a long time ago. What may or may not be "common for American lawyers," has no relevance to me. So stereotype all you want about lawyers. Hell, I might just join in with you. But that still does not mean you know diddly-squat about legal and equitable principles under discussion here with regard to the EFT universe in general or market anarchy in particular.

Tsk. Of course, I'd mentioned the training prevailing in American law schools over the past several decades - treating members of the medical profession with thoroughgoing contempt in matters pertaining to tort law - and Counselor Weasel (who is the graduate of such a school and has undergone that training) tries erroneously to dismiss a lucidly reasoned inference regarding his own expressions of contempt for me as a physician as argumentum ad hominem. 

Does Counselor Weasel dispute the prevalence of that law school "doctors-are-your-legitimate-prey" conditioning which has not only been reported to me personally by medical colleagues who had gotten themselves "double threat" status as lawyers but discussed in some of the medical literature?

Nah.

Had I ever once stated that because I'm a doctor I should be considered to have any special expertise in matters of law? 

Nope. I just offered reasoned speculation on the issues at hand, as might any other non-shyster who has been obliged to live in a polity where lawyers swarm in their musteline manner, feeding upon productive enterprise and anyone into whom they can sink their teeth.

I had not known that Counselor Scuttling Weasel was a lawyer until he'd mentioned it a few posts back in this thread in order to perpetrate argument from authority ("I'm a lawyer, and I know this stuff so much better than you do that you should just shut the hell up and go away!").

And that, folks, unlike the Counselor's unfounded fumbling about "ad hominem" and "strawman," really is a logical fallacy.

See http://tinyurl.com/of81

Remember folks, I called it. He is off to the races with cherry-picked citations about modern joint stock companies. When he gets through doing just what I said he would do, I'll do what I said I would, i.e., show how these entities would be quite at home in the Belt's ZAP, market anarchy, voluntary dispute resolution environment. Wake me, when he declares victory and stops puffing and pontificating.

 
Nope. No "cherry-picked citations" at all. For "Common law joint stock company," I just entered the phrase in Google and took what was literally the URL first presented. Nothing more.

Now, if that citation doesn't adequately define "Common law joint stock company" for the purpose of this discussion, what might Counselor Weasel think does a better job?

(*Crickets chirping*)

Is this what the lawyers call the "Real Soon Now!" defense?

Remember folks, I called it. He is off to the races with cherry-picked citations about modern joint stock companies. When he gets through doing just what I said he would do, I'll do what I said I would, i.e., show how these entities would be quite at home in the Belt's ZAP, market anarchy, voluntary dispute resolution environment. Wake me, when he declares victory and stops puffing and pontificating.

 
Nope. No "cherry-picked citations" at all. For "Common law joint stock company," I just entered the phrase in Google and took what was literally the URL first presented. Nothing more.

Now, if that citation doesn't adequately define "Common law joint stock company" for the purpose of this discussion, what might Counselor Weasel think does a better job?

(*Crickets chirping*)

Is this what the lawyers call the "Real Soon Now!" defense?

Does that mean you are through with your rambling? If so, I'll finish this up in the morning. It's 23:00 and I am going to bed now. Maņana, everyone.

RA Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress was serialized in a magazine and I read one part of it. There was a point where the narrator explained that people on Luna could get spaced for body odor.

Case in point. I don't specifically remember the body odor example, but it doesn't matter. The people who live in Lune lived in a prison. All of the common areas were owned by the prison authority. The inmates were pretty much anarchists among themselves, but they still had to give unto Caesar.

Well, no. There were, what? 2 million people there? And the Warden had, what, 90 guards, total? (Later he got something like 200 more?) There were a bunch of prisoners who were living in a real prison somehow, and I don't know how they guarded the prison, I don't remember Heinlein talking about any prison guards ever, and prison guards were not available to the Warden to police the 2 million free people. The ones outside the prison were not controlled by the Warden at all to speak of. At one point the Warden did try to institute a system of documentation for travel at the chokepoints between cities, and the first day the guards at the checkpoint were killed.

You say "public areas" were owned by the prison authority, but there was mostly no control. Lots of areas were controlled by "warren bosses" who apparently ruled on their own initiative. Corridors were maintained by volunteer organizations.

They did not pay taxes to the Warden. Instead he controlled the prices he would pay for grain to ship to Terra, and controlled prices for importado. Since he controlled the space port and all imports and exports, he could squeeze them that way without having to pay attention to the details of their economy.

I'd say the body odor mattered. Somebody smells bad. Irate people who travel in closed quarters with him throw him out an airlock. Community standards at work.

And what if it's a whole culture that agrees that women who do X are agreeing to sex, regardless whether they scream and fight? That's OK if everybody knows the rules, right? Maybe? Never?

Special pleading again, J Thomas. Let me give you a clue how to spot special pleading, they almost always start with some variation of "what if?" Which is usually followed by some extreme and extremely unlikely scenario. The scenarios almost always includes absolutes which never exist is real like. For example, "... what if it's a whole culture that agrees..."

Sam argued that arabs think that rape is fine in some circumstances. He claimed that on the island of Vanuatu rape is considered perfectly normal. I looked up reports from Vanuatu. The culture accepts that any woman who wanders off alone can expect to have sex with the first man who finds her. So if a woman is alone and a man rapes her, they don't hunt down the man and punish him. They don't have any particular sympathy for her. This exists in real life, assuming these reports are true.
http://members.shaw.ca/scombs/trv_food.html#Sexual%20Assault

I do not understand how you would have so much experience living in different cultures and still be so provincial about cultural differences.

What business is it of the "community" (a fictional construct) or any individual, what you ....? frack the "community," which has no real existence, in any case.

I remember you explaining that arbitrators will be careful to give good judgements, because people will look at their results and judge *them* and they could get a lot of social disapproval for bad arbitration. It looks to me like you are depending on the community and on public opinion to regulate arbitrators. Am I wrong?

Speaking of body odor and special circumstances:  While attending Military Police School, we had a male platoon member who didn't need to shave every day.  He seemed to believe he didn't have to bathe either, hitting his bunk wearing the previous day's uniform.  This caused no end of problems for the rest of us.  Enough became too much.  Platoon personnel "educated" him on personal hygiene.  Said education involved plenty of helpers, strong soaps and stiff brushes.  His previous day's uniform was scrubbed with him still in it.  After his uniform was clean and his leather boots were white , instead of black.  He was stripped, scrubbed and shaved.  A few days later his old habits returned.  Consequently, he was "re-educated"; on average, once a week.  Consequently he was reclassified as Infantry and I suspect eventually chaptered out of the Army as Unable to Adapt to Military Standards.