1. inb4 wufwugy

2.

While I read all of the post, I'm just going to write my brief thoughts on one point, and perhaps come back later and write more, depending on if the thread has seriously degenerated or not. This is a topic that interests me greatly, and I don't have a clear view on it.


I think of Laws in the same way. I’m betting if you took a survey about why someone does not steal their groceries from a grocery store, they would say because they don’t want to go to jail. I think that is a terrible reason not to steal groceries. Way back when there was a law implemented not to steal because of XY and Z. People valued not stealing and therefore they didn’t do it. Now people never learn why not to steal, and that creates numerable other consequences.
With regards to people not stealing because they're afraid of going to jail, rather than they're making a value/moral judgement, I agree. I think music piracy is a great example of this, although I am sure that there are many who would argue with me.

However the claim that "way-back-when, people valued not stealing" is not something I agree with. Otherwise why would the law have been created in the first place, if everybody valued it? This is a fairly weak argument, I accept, and I'm trying to find my real point here, I think it goes something like this:

If I steal from somebody, I gain. So I will try do this.
If somebody steals from me, I lose. So I will try to stop this.
The same holds true for my neighbour, Jim.

Therefore I try to steal from Jim, and stop him stealing from me. He does the same.

Okay, now I'm going to go easy on the linebreaks and get down to it: We either have a situation where either Jim or myself is more effective than the other, and one person ends up with everything, the other with nothing. This doesn't sit well with me as how I'd like my ideal society to run. Alternatively, we're equally effective, and we all maintain our own possessions. In both these scenarios there's effort being put in - on both our parts - to steal and to thwart the other's stealing. That effort could better be used for painting pretty pictures or making babies, and so if Jim and I had an agreement not to steal from each other, then we would both benefit.

On an individual level, I can see that if I'm the only one stealing, then it's of benefit to me. However if I'm both stealing and being stolen from, it's not an equilibrium, but rather I (and everybody else) lose out because of the aforementioned effort being put in to maintain this 'equality'. So we make a mutually beneficial agreement that won't steal, we relax, and we get on with whatever you consider the greater activity of people to be.
However, once this agreement is in place, and there is no longer the threat that somebody will steal from me, it becomes appealing for me to start stealing again, as I would gain from it. And so we need a disincentive, which comes in the form of either a law with punishment, or my understanding the greater impact and long-term consequences of my stealing, rather than just looking at my short-term gain.

Reading over this, I notice two things: One, I haven't really come to any conclusions and two, it sounds like I may as well just be plagiarising Hobbes's social contract theory. I shall think on it some more and come back later.