I decided to move some discussion from this post up to the top level here. Specifically, Watoosh wrote: "Well, if violence is defined as initiation of force (which, of course, presupposes certain property rights), then I think Rockwell is correct..." Well, if we define cats as elephants, then many people keep elephants in their house. More seriously, firstly, violence is not usually defined that way. It's defined as, you know, violence, so that, say, someone may respond violently or non-violently to someone who aggresses against them. Otherwise, it would make no sense to say, for instance, "He punched me, but I did not stoop to violence in response." And, secondly, the libertarian usage of "initiation of force" is very offbeat. If I wander onto someone's meadow, most people would not say I had "initiated force" -- I mean, sure, I used "force" against the earth to push off walking, but that's not force directed against...
I don't think Quipu is decipherable because from what I've heard, it's just a memorization tool that Incan priests/beauracrats used to memorize large amounts of information. As such, Quipu doesn't really store any information and is merely a tool that used to help store information. The closest analogy I can think of is picture cards that some people used to help them memorize speeches. The cards themselves don't contain the speech, only cues that help the speaker remember the speech.
ReplyDelete