Monday, January 1, 2024

Property Omnibus

 Ownership is reasonable expectation of control. If you control a thing, it is your property. 

 Property is defined by security. Once control is secured, you own it. In any disputes, your decision about the property is what rules.
 Might in fact does make right, due to what's sometimes called 100th monkey logic. If 99 monkeys agree that something other than might makes (property) right, what happens if the 100th monkey disagrees? The 100th monkey gathers might, and the rest don't.

 Crime happens. War. Theft, vandalism, murder. To secure your property you must have the might to pre-emptively violence the 100th monkey.

 Turns out this isn't hard if you're wise. Cooperation is always rational, and the things we secure are precisely the things which are cheap to secure. Extinction usually doesn't obtain; normally, you can in fact secure the things you need.

 That is, if the 100th monkey had the advantage, none of us would have lived long enough to talk or think about it. The 100th monkey would have eaten all the seed corn and would have starved himself after everyone else. Luckily, criminals are almost always incompetent mutant cripples. The competent can play by the rules, thus do. Security doesn't take especially expensive quantities of might.

 That is, anyone who doesn't want to cooperate is asking for extinction. Your job is to help them toward their goal, not to be the actor playing the victim in the drama. Don't be part of the hang time between sin and natural punishment.


 You can call the secured region [territory] if you like. Certainly, it is easier to secure territory as a pack. If you're awesome enough a pack isn't necessary, however.

 If you can't efficiently secure something, surrender it. It's time to admit it isn't yours. If you wanted it to be yours, then gather the wisdom necessary to secure it, and execute on that lore.


 Notably, there is no non-deviant value that requires warfare. I suspect this is true even at the scale of countries. The deviant is a coward and can be controlled through intimidation; if it comes under physical contest then the property-exalting cooperator has made a serious error. Punishment for complacency.


 This can validated by <a href="https://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html">Sun Tzu</a>, by the way.
4.1: "Sun Tzu said: The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat"
4.2: "To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands"
4.3: "Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat"

 Security is always affordable.

 Also:
4.2: "but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself."
If you want to defeat someone else's security, you can't. Not without spending more on war than the seized property is worth. You have to wait for them to defeat themselves. You simply manifest this defeat in your favour.


4.11: "What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease."
4.13: "He wins his battles by making no mistakes. Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated."

 If you make the enemy aware that they're already defeated, they don't fight you in the first place.



 Against deviant traitors, the thing to do is betray them immediately; make them think you're not at war. Make them think there's nothing to fight about.

 I make it impossible for them to even decide to attack me.
If I screw up, I have to kill them, and that's a huge pain in the neck. Don't let them attack you in the first place.

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