The Current Stack
One of three.
In ancapistan, if you have no property, you have no rights
Ancaps often declare, "All rights are property rights." I was thinking about this the other day, in the context of running into libertarians online who insisted that libertarianism supports "the freedom of movement," and realized that this principle actually entails that people without property have no rights at all, let alone any right to "freedom of movement." Of course, immediately, any ancap readers still left here are going to say, "Wait a second! Everyone owns his own body! And so everyone at least has the right to not have his body interfered with." Well, that is true... except that in ancapistan, one has no right to any place to put that body, except if one owns property, or has the permission of at least one property owner to place that body on her land. So, if one is landless and penniless, one had sure better hope that there are kindly disposed property owners aligned in a corridor from wherever one happens to be to wherever the...
...it never ends, does it?
ReplyDeleteYou said it.
ReplyDeleteI'm in a similar situation. It got so bad I developed the horrible habit of reading several books at the same time (I know this is not the perfect way of describing it; maybe saying I read many books in parallel is better? Anyway, I think you understand: I start a book, then another before finishing, then another... eventually, I finish them all).
ReplyDeleteDon't you have a reader, Gene? I have a Sony Reader, and it's very practical for voracious readers. For people like you, who I presume reads many books that are be in the public domain, it's even better, because those you can get for free.
I saw that bottom one in a used bookstore the other day and almost got it, but figured I'd never get around to it. Looked very interesting.
ReplyDeletePedro, I have several books going at once always.
ReplyDeleteThe thing about readers is, I like to write all over the books. I also have eidetic memory of where quotes are by physical location in the book: I'm not sure that would work with a reader.
Daniel, the world needs more round tuits!
ReplyDeleteI don't often read that many books at one time, but I do usually have 2 or 3 that I am reading in a given time frame. It has more to do with my attention span. Sometimes after reading one book for too long I find myself beginning to just gloss over the sentences without fully taking them into my head. However, I find that when I switch gears and pick up a different book that my brain is able to focus again.
ReplyDeleteI too have a somewhat eidetic memory. I found this out when I used to have to read technical publications for troubleshooting. They (the Navy) attempted to switch over to a completely CD-ROM based system and I was completely lost (good thing I held onto the hardcopies). It isn't that I remember the location of specific words or phrases in a book (I am horrible at remembering quotes), I actually remember concepts and subjects (or the groups thereof) in specific areas of a book.
Basically, if you give me a book in electronic form, it will take quite a while to find what I am looking for. Whereas, if you give me a hardcopy version, my hands will flip to the desired page within a few seconds.
My kindle/iPad toting friends think that I am full of crap when I tell them this and say that it is so much easier to find what you're looking for because you can search keywords/phrases. They don't get that I don't remember words/phrases, but that I remember concepts and subjects, and I remember them with regard to where they physically lie in a book. Even stranger, I often don't even consciously know where the section is that I am looking for, but my hands do.
You're probably right. I do have a similar skill in remembering where to find quotes, though mine is not as strong as for me to call it "eidetic memory". I tend to remember whether a quote was in the left page or in the right page, and more or less in what part of the page. You're right. It doesn't work well with a reader. I've found that the reader is great for reading a book start to finish, but no good for reference.
ReplyDelete