Dear
Dr. Block,
I
appreciate your thoughtfulness and candor in all that you do. But I
would also really appreciate some explanation and clarification about some
of the more controversial ideas for which you've become known and
infamous.
First
of all (on utilitarianism):
Are
you really going to defend the idea that it's not wrong to "use
people as mere means"?
Doesn't
perceiving a person as a tool, an object, or a means to an end,
predispose a person to treating
people as if they were such, and doesn't that entail ignoring their
real biological needs? And doesn't it predispose a person towards
objectifying
people,
and even treating them as slaves? Furthermore, isn't that
utilitarianism; that is, using
people
based on what you deem to be their best use?
And
isn't utilitarianism intrinsically and diametrically opposed to
libertarianism? It's not that utility and liberty can't be optimized;
they can. But according to all of the individualist and free-market
principles I've
ever
heard of, a free and liberty-loving person is supposed to choose to
perform the set of activities which he
believes
will provide the most utility (regardless of whether he prioritizes
others' needs, or his own, in making that assessment; the point is
it's up to him).
Don't
you think that, by saying it's not wrong to use people as mere means,
you're saying it's fine to treat a person's wrist as if it were just
another inanimate object – indistinguishable from any other
inanimate object, say for example a link in a metal chain of a
handcuff – and then, to attach
it to
another
inanimate
object (say, for simplicity's sake, another
metal chain of a handcuff), and put them to whatever you
(and/or society) determine to be his best use?
This
is to say, don't you literally support involuntary
slavery,
in addition to claiming that “voluntary slavery” is possible?
Secondly,
on that matter (“voluntary slavery)”:
How
can you defend "voluntary slavery contracts" as if they
were ordinary economic activity?
Has it occurred to you that the
vast
disparity
between the amount of benefit received by the slave and the master,
make it preposterous to claim that some voluntary exchange has
occurred; and, at that, a voluntary exchange which confers mutual
benefit?
The
complete and total surrender
of the freedom from direct physical violence, aggression, and harm -
which is involved in the act of “willingly
submitting to a voluntary slave contract” - ought to indicate to
you, that not only are the slave and master not benefiting equally,
but also that the slave is not benefiting at
all.
Nobody
submits to slavery willingly. I really hope that you consider
intimidation and manipulation as forms of coercion, because if you
don't, then I don't see why you would find it unacceptable to
intimidate, manipulate, and perhaps even threaten or extort, people
into “agreeing” to become a slave. Do you know the difference
between consenting
and assenting?
If
you doubt whether mutual benefit is necessary, then surely the fact
that no
exchange is occurring, should
suggest to you that there can be no voluntary exchange without
exchange itself. Is the slave really “getting something” out of
letting the master beat him in exchange for food? That is, in
exchange for the bare minimum which he needs to survive – i.e.,
just barely enough to get up, and work, and get beaten the shit out
of - another day?
Additionally,
how can the slave/master relationship be considered remotely
mutually beneficial, unless it is considered a standard and necessary
part of the relationship that medical damages from enduring torture
be 100% compensated (if not more)? Would you be entirely without
objection, to what “voluntary slave masters” do, if they see
themselves as having no obligation to refrain from beating their
slaves, except within an inch of their life? What if a slave is being
tortured to death, and knows he's dying, and knows a few more whips
or kicks will kill him, and the master doesn't know how much damage
he's doing? What if the slave fights back, solely to save his life,
and the master decides he's justified in killing his slave?
Where
is the volunteerism in “voluntary slave contracts”? Where is the
economic exchange? Where is the mutuality? Where is the benefit,
even, when beating people demoralizes us, and conditions us to reject
the Non-Aggression Principle? Knowing about the epidemic of sex
trafficking, human trafficking, child prostitution (etc.), why would you spend more time defending “voluntary slave
contracts” than suggesting viable careers to people which do
not
involve accepting direct physical corporal torture?
Third
(on homesteading):
Your
rejection of the Lockean proviso seems to imply an endorsement of a
first-come-first-serve property rights system, wherein the poor and
young can be relegated to barren land.
Don't
you realize that a first-come-first-serve system condemns children to
perpetual servitude of those older than them, whom by the mere fact
of their age have been exposed to more opportunity to acquire
education, skills, money, and resources? Doesn't it coerce and
deprive the young into dependence, to continue to register,
recognize, protect, and defend property claims, based on who claimed
it first?
Frankly,
your position on this smacks of the Divine Right of Kings and
religious dominionism.
Fourth
(on “murder parks”):
To
be honest, I kind of liked this idea when I first heard of it. It
could relieve stress! If you're a psycho with no respect for the
Non-Aggression Principle, that is. But I suppose you think that it is
possible to “voluntarily murder” someone without aggressing
against them, or something.
Also,
from a purely medical and scientific perspective, the human lifespan
has
no defined upper limit
in terms of age. We die when we are too badly injured, or too many of
our organs fail, or we are eaten by animals, etc..
It is said that every person who has ever lived, has died, but that
is only true if you leave out the people who are still alive. They
have lived, yet they have not died. How odd! And preventable death –
the cause of most
deaths
- is called preventable for a reason. So why can't we prevent most
deaths?
Increased
research and development on lifespan-lengthening technologies (in the
fields of gerontology and senescence studies), such as research
regarding the lengthening of the tips of our chromosomes (called
telomeres), could even lead to rapid
increases in the human lifespan.
Many
people are afraid of living much much longer. Not to worry, however;
medical scientists have recently developed the 3-D printing of
organs, automated robot surgeons, virtual-reality surgery, spinach
leaves grafted onto the heart, a
lamb in a bag... We have no reason not to expect that access to, and
development of, medical technologies, will make our golden years
healthy
and comfortable
as well as long-lasting.
Especially
if we abolish the enforcement of intellectual property rights to
medical device patents and pharmaceutical patents. And also, if we –
as you have suggested – develop technology that will allow fetuses
to be transplanted into surrogate mothers' wombs after the embryo
fertilizes and begins to grow.
Suppose that people wanted to relax, recreate, and get their tension out. But suppose that all ways to do that were illegal. Would you suggest exercise, or would you suggest that some of them go and kill each other for fun? If you would suggest both, which would you suggest first and why? I hope that it is obvious to you which choice is superior.
I
just have a hard time understanding why you suggest murder,
death, suicide, euthanasia, slavery, selling your baby, and letting
strangers fuck you
as your go-tos, instead of, I don't know... explaining why the
government shouldn't interfere with people's freedoms to pursue
careers that they already
enthusiastically want to do
(whatever those careers are)?
You
guys who consider "voluntary slave contracts", torture
contracts, and "baby markets" as if they were ordinary
economic activities, is making other libertarians like me look bad.
I
mean seriously, what the living fuck does any
of this
have to do with morality, economics, sociology, or anything worth
studying? You say an interesting thing or two every once in a while,
but for the most part, listening to you is humiliating, and reading
you makes me want to pluck my eyes out and almost makes me wish I had
never learned how to read. I went to college for fuck's sake. I've
been in the libertarian movement for 12 years. I've given money to
the Libertarian Party. Your support of literal slavery, “voluntary”
or involuntary, is driving me into the hands of the socialists. And
they have earned it.
How
are we ever going to have either
significant
numbers of Libertarian partisans in office, or
a
stateless society, if the most viable third party in the country
can't explain why its members will be more effective in the fight
against child trafficking and child prostitution, than the top two
candidates for the nation's highest office (one an admitted
pussy-grabber and accused rapist, and the other a man who gropes
children live on C-SPAN)?
Do
you understand what you're doing when you are insufficiently clear in
your language, while defending the idea that nothing calling itself a
government should ever limit our “freedom” to sell our children
for government-manufactured currency, nor
our “freedom” to put our children to work for us, nor
the freedom to engage in prostitution? Are you hoping that the
pro-child-labor libertarians and the pro-normalizing-prostitution
libertarians aren't going to find each other and join forces?
Have
you given one
second of thought to
the fact that there are teenagers all over the world, whose parents
expect them to work, and whom are surrounded by a culture that
believes prostitution is acceptable on the grounds that “it's one
thing that even unskilled
people
can do, so everybody
should work”? The result of this is that children are pressured to
sell their bodies to people who want to rape and torture them.
I
suppose that your opposition to the public funding of education would
be the only thing stopping you from endorsing the idea that school
guidance counselors ought to be free to suggest prostitution as a
viable long-term career choice to teenagers.
As
academically as possible, go fuck yourself. I lied about wanting
clarification; please don't answer any of these questions, my only
intent in writing this letter was to get you to
renounce nearly everything you've become famous for proposing.
I
will be sharing this letter with all of my libertarian friends, and
urging them to stop paying attention to you. Please retire before you
are only able to do so in shame.
I mean seriously, aren't you essentially saying that if teenagers want to earn some money, they should get out there, show some initiative, and let adults beat the shit out of them for money, rape them for money, impregnate them for money, sell their baby for money, and let adults bribe them into silence about it?
Money is not the most important thing in the world, fuckface. Where the Hell did you come from? Who the fuck do you think you are?
Please
issue some retractions, and quit humiliating the both of us, as soon
as possible.
Love,
Joe Kopsick.
