This One's for George--Galt's Gulch sorta

[moralist]

I think that his technical point that no one deserves to be defrauded is correct...

Fraud can only take place with the sanction of the victim

especially in the context of Greg's ideas on morality, which are based on nothing but logical fallacies.

I get exactly what I deserve as the consequences of living by my values.

You get exactly what you deserve as the consequences of living by your values.

Everyone gets exactly what they deserve as the consequences of living by their values.

Greg

[Francisco Ferrer]

If I had actually bought a diamond, filed an insurance claim or made a purchase through a stock broker, I would realize that since I had suffered no fraud, no one else could either. We call this the logic of composition.

You pointed to $80 billion in insurance fraud. Put it in context.

(fraud = 0.0006% of commercial insurance in force)

Commercial insurance in force

$20 trillion life

$30 trillion accident & health

$75 trillion property & casualty

$125 trillion

Next, you point to Bernie Madoff: $36 billion invested, $18 billion paid out + $8 billion recovered = $10 billion loss

(loss = 0.00001% of total investor funds under management)

Investor Funds

$28 trillion pension assets

$15 trillion mutual funds

$15 trillion commercial bank assets

$10 trillion net home equity

$10 trillion retail stock investors

$5 trillion 401k and IRAs

$83 trillion

There are 3.2 million people engaged in law enforcement, firefighting, regulation, etc (1% of U.S. population)

Our dwellings are rendered safe from fire by homeowners and tenants, employing nothing more coercive than an individual desire to survive. All instrumentalities of community protection and public welfare existed first as private voluntary organizations before dilettantes and wardhealers proposed that a bureaucracy should monopolize and run them badly. [Laissez Faire Law, p.35]

I hereby certify that the law cannot catch or deter a clever evildoer. That's not the purpose of law, which exists first as a means of restraining mob violence, ignorant prejudice, and statist tyranny... The law is mostly voluntary, folks. I acknowledged this openly and emphatically in my essay 'Government Is A Quack Faith-Healer.' If there is to be law and order, you yourselves will be the police of it. [COGIGG, pp. 66, 132]

Since fraud is such a tiny, tiny part of the big picture, is there any point in even enforcing laws against fraud?

A lies to B and sells B $100,000 in worthless securities. B is now out $100,000. B complains to the police. The police calmly explain to B that

1. "Stock brokers do not prosper by robbing idiots."

2. Fraud is just a small part of our huge economy.

B sees the logic in all this is happy to have been the recipient of such a powerful moral lesson.

The End

[Francisco Ferrer]

If a stupid person deserves to be defrauded in Chile, then why wouldn't it follow that a stupid person deserves to be defrauded in the United States? What would be the point of having government protect people from liars and charlatans? Surely we don't want to save people from the consequences of the own actions? Just as people in America deserve Obama, so they also deserve credit card fraud, insurance fraud, pension fraud, real estate fraud, and concert ticket fraud. Let's call it winnowing the herd.

Frank:

You remind me of the major league relief pitcher who is a one pitch pitcher...and can't hear or see any other way to get the ball to the plate.

The point everyone is trying to make to you is that NO FUCKING LAW EVER PREVENTS THE CRIME...

Yet you stridently wish to go on your reductio ad absurdom pitch...

Can you you not see their argument?

I would love to see you restate the person's argument before you launch that one pitch you rely on.

It would definitely lower your ERA [earned run average].

A...

1.

A sells B a "certified diamond ring." Ring turns out to be a chunk of glass.

Is B morally entitled to the return of his money?

Answer: No.

Reason? No law prevents crime.

2.

A slugs B in the face and breaks his jaw.

Is B morally entitled to require B to pay hospital expenses?

Answer: No.

Reason? No law prevents crime.

[Wolf DeVoon]

Satire doesn't get you anywhere. Reputation is everything.

“A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was.”― Joseph Hall

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”― Warren Buffet

[Francisco Ferrer]

Reputation is everything.

Therefore, a person who has been defrauded is not entitled to his money back because the seller has already suffered enough.

[Wolf DeVoon]

Reputation is everything.

Therefore, a person who has been defrauded is not entitled to his money back because the seller has already suffered enough.

You're just being silly and stubborn. The courts of law you're so eager to defend are supported emphatically by honest businessmen.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I don't understand all of a sudden. Or maybe I didn't understand correctly what I read (so I'm willing to retract if I didn't).

Are there people arguing that there should be no laws against financial crimes because the victims are to blame, not the predators?

I don't get it.

Sure, it takes two to tango so a gullible person needs to take some of the responsibility (like kicking himself in his own ass), but a predator offering something for sale that doesn't exist, using forgeries and manipulation techniques to make it appear like it does, taking payment, and not delivering is just plain wrong on so many levels that it has to be illegal.

Blaming the victim is so silly, why are people wasting their time even debating this?

Michael

[Jonathan]

I think that his technical point that no one deserves to be defrauded is correct...

Fraud can only take place with the sanction of the victim

False.

especially in the context of Greg's ideas on morality, which are based on nothing but logical fallacies.

I get exactly what I deserve as the consequences of living by my values.

You get exactly what you deserve as the consequences of living by your values.

Everyone gets exactly what they deserve as the consequences of living by their values.

Greg

False. Illogical. Irrational.

J

[moralist]

Are there people arguing that there should be no laws against financial crimes because the victims are to blame, not the predators?

I don't believe that anyone else here besides Frank has taken that gigantic leap into the abyss.

Greg

[moralist]

I get exactly what I deserve as the consequences of living by my values.

You get exactly what you deserve as the consequences of living by your values.

Everyone gets exactly what they deserve as the consequences of living by their values.

Greg

False. Illogical. Irrational.

J

Ok, Jonathan...

Your view is that you don't get what you deserve as the consequences of living by your values.

Your response makes the difference between our two views crystal clear.

You deny the moral causality of your own actions... while I affirm it for mine.

Greg

[moralist]

(duplicate)

[Wolf DeVoon]

I don't understand all of a sudden. Or maybe I didn't understand correctly what I read (so I'm willing to retract if I didn't).

Are there people arguing that there should be no laws against financial crimes because the victims are to blame, not the predators?

I don't get it.

Sure, it takes two to tango so a gullible person needs to take some of the responsibility (like kicking himself in his own ass), but a predator offering something for sale that doesn't exist, using forgeries and manipulation techniques to make it appear like it does, taking payment, and not delivering is just plain wrong on so many levels that it has to be illegal.

Blaming the victim is so silly, why are people wasting their time even debating this?

Michael

It arose as a question of what went wrong in Galt's Gulch Chile. The "victims" should have done more due diligence.

Evil requires...you know.

[william.scherk]

I've been reading the info and opinions at the links provided throughout this thread. Here are some of the highlights and my take on them:

"There will be no zoning for the 1.25-acre lots or other arrangements of less than 10 acres. Lots over 10 acres are beyond my ken. GGC is an environmentally protected area and it would take the political movement of heaven and earth to allow a community based on small lots to be officially approved."

"Officially approved" by whom? Zoning permits not having been obtained from whom? Prior to advising everyone to embark on a "libertarian exodus" toward freedom and away from the "tyranny" of North America, how did it not occur to her to investigate the potential tyrannies of the Promised Land?

I spent an hour or so trying to find out a few basics. First up, what is the address, actual map location? This is not offered at the website (which I won't link to it is so pathetic, empty and awful), and it isn't publicly apparent anywhere else, but with some further digging I found the location on Wikimapia. It is on the road north of Curacavi. Here's a link to the image below from Google Maps Streetview.

It looks like the major, persistent flub of the promoters was in not clarifying the actual legal process involved in land acquisition and development.

Chile is not some outpost beyond modern civilization, and neither is the region. It has environmental-impact laws, land-use-planning bureaucracy, and a well-developed legal system replete with further bureaucracy. Its taxes on property are quite low, but are assessed by, yes, another bureaucracy. It has national ID cards. It requires you to obtain a Tax Number (among other bureaucratic land-registry business) to buy property. It has zoning laws and regulations, building permits, work orders, certificates of legal completion of planned and permitted buildings. And on and on.

It seems to me, after digging around and finding one great single site with excellent advice**, that every purchaser was a lamb to slaughter who did not do an hour or two of independent investigation.

The summary of my boring trudge is that the first thing you want to do if you are going to buy land in Chile is to perform a title search** (yes, just like the hideous bureaucracy of North America). The proper person to do such a thing in Chile is a lawyer, and you need to hire an expert one to do that search, because this tells you almost everything you need to know about a property.

So, obviously, no one was buying a piece of land in Chile, not a single person besides the actual legal owners who are registered at the freaking local land registry.

Nobody bought land, so what were they buying? Hopes and promises, iffy documents, blabbity blah.

I am almost on the side of Greg here, that the victims of GCC were willing conspirators or at least a bit stunned into compliance or persuasion. How could anyone put money down without figuring out the freaking system? What is my money buying? Where is the legal document that assures me you are not lying and fiddling and scamming?

Shortly after purchasing, I received an unsigned email through the webform of a site I maintain. It informed me that GGC was a fraud. One reason: GGC lacked water rights. In Chile, purchasing surface land and water rights are two separate processes. GGC is desert terrain, rather like California, and water rights are absolutely necessary for a community to be established.

No one was "savvy" enough to discover the water and zoning issues prior to investing or purchasing?

No one seemed savvy enough to dig even an inch deep. There never was enough initial money to properly plan for and permit the dream, no clear ability to develop necessary finances except by a variation on a pyramid scheme ("The Founders" secret group? your first clue).

Here's four valuable paragraphs from the excellent Chilean legal services site SpencerGlobal.com:

Conducting a title search is the first step when considering a property for purchase in Chile. A full title search in Chile goes far beyond just tracking the ownership history of a property on paper. There are many more issues that need to be checked amongst the numerous public records available in the Chilean legal system, and there are many other title issues that come from just common sense experience of the problems in particular regions and communities in Chile.

Beyond just knowing what documents to request and their significance for a title search in Chile, knowing the local problems and history is essential. For example, what are considered problems in urban areas are not even recorded in rural areas, and vice versa. What is true in the North of Chile and the South of Chile is not an issue in the Central Regions of Chile. Let us start by emphasizing, that a complete title search should be done by an attorney; not a real estate agent or someone else.

You should recieve full copies of all official documents related to the title search, along with written explanation of there signifigance, and your attorney should be able to answer any questions you have about the documents. It is unfortunatly a common practice of some attorneys in Chile to simply say they conducted a title search, and then tell you the property is fine without presenting any more details. If needed, ask your attorney to translate the documents to English or your native language. When done, you should have it clear in your mind what you are buying and what the risks are to buying any particular property, before you commit any significant amounts of money to a purchase.

Just some of the problems you or your attorney in Chile must consider on a region by region bases are the delicate status of the water rights, colonization laws, the effects of past agricultural policies of the Government, poorly conducted surveys, zoning and building permits, among many others. What to look for is mostly determined by the history of local development patterns of the region.

Edited September 26, 2014 by william.scherk

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It arose as a question of what went wrong in Galt's Gulch Chile. The "victims" should have done more due diligence.

Evil requires...you know.

Wolf,

I realize that, but there's a tiny leap over the Grand Canyon to getting from suckers who do no (or little) due diligence to there should be no laws against crime because victims are too lazy or stupid to avoid getting stung.

The epistemological error I see is a common one in O-Land--deducing fundamental reality from a principle rather than looking at reality and deriving principles from what is observed, then deducing things.

Michael

[Wolf DeVoon]

Maybe I'm a dope. The evidence I see most plainly is that the law does not deter crime and seldom affords an adequate remedy.

Equally plain is the fact the most people conduct themselves to gain/keep the good opinion of friends, neighbors, employers, clients.

Criminals are a very small minority (except in Iceland, Sweden, UK) http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Total-crimes-per-1000

[caroljane]

I've been reading the info and opinions at the links provided throughout this thread. Here are some of the highlights and my take on them:

"There will be no zoning for the 1.25-acre lots or other arrangements of less than 10 acres. Lots over 10 acres are beyond my ken. GGC is an environmentally protected area and it would take the political movement of heaven and earth to allow a community based on small lots to be officially approved."

"Officially approved" by whom? Zoning permits not having been obtained from whom? Prior to advising everyone to embark on a "libertarian exodus" toward freedom and away from the "tyranny" of North America, how did it not occur to her to investigate the potential tyrannies of the Promised Land?

I spent an hour or so trying to find out a few basics. First up, what is the address, actual map location? This is not offered at the website (which I won't link to it is so pathetic, empty and awful), and it isn't publicly apparent anywhere else, but with some further digging I found the location on Wikimapia. It is on the road north of Curacavi. Here's a link to the image below from Google Maps Streetview.

It looks like the major, persistent flub of the promoters was in not clarifying the actual legal process involved in land acquisition and development.

Chile is not some outpost beyond modern civilization, and neither is the region. It has environmental-impact laws, land-use-planning bureaucracy, and a well-developed legal system replete with further bureaucracy. Its taxes on property are quite low, but are assessed by, yes, another bureaucracy. It has national ID cards. It requires you to obtain a Tax Number (among other bureaucratic land-registry business) to buy property. It has zoning laws and regulations, building permits, work orders, certificates of legal completion of planned and permitted buildings. And on and on.

It seems to me, after digging around and finding one great single site with excellent advice**, that every purchaser was a lamb to slaughter who did not do an hour or two of independent investigation.

The summary of my boring trudge is that the first thing you want to do if you are going to buy land in Chile is to perform a title search** (yes, just like the hideous bureaucracy of North America). The proper person to do such a thing in Chile is a lawyer, and you need to hire an expert one to do that search, because this tells you almost everything you need to know about a property.

So, obviously, no one was buying a piece of land in Chile, not a single person besides the actual legal owners who are registered at the freaking local land registry.

Nobody bought land, so what were they buying? Hopes and promises, iffy documents, blabbity blah.

I am almost on the side of Greg here, that the victims of GCC were willing conspirators or at least a bit stunned into compliance or persuasion. How could anyone put money down without figuring out the freaking system? What is my money buying? Where is the legal document that assures me you are not lying and fiddling and scamming?

Shortly after purchasing, I received an unsigned email through the webform of a site I maintain. It informed me that GGC was a fraud. One reason: GGC lacked water rights. In Chile, purchasing surface land and water rights are two separate processes. GGC is desert terrain, rather like California, and water rights are absolutely necessary for a community to be established.

No one was "savvy" enough to discover the water and zoning issues prior to investing or purchasing?

No one seemed savvy enough to dig even an inch deep. There never was enough initial money to properly plan for and permit the dream, no clear ability to develop necessary finances except by a variation on a pyramid scheme ("The Founders" secret group? your first clue).

Here's four valuable paragraphs from the excellent Chilean legal services site SpencerGlobal.com:

Conducting a title search is the first step when considering a property for purchase in Chile. A full title search in Chile goes far beyond just tracking the ownership history of a property on paper. There are many more issues that need to be checked amongst the numerous public records available in the Chilean legal system, and there are many other title issues that come from just common sense experience of the problems in particular regions and communities in Chile.

Beyond just knowing what documents to request and their significance for a title search in Chile, knowing the local problems and history is essential. For example, what are considered problems in urban areas are not even recorded in rural areas, and vice versa. What is true in the North of Chile and the South of Chile is not an issue in the Central Regions of Chile. Let us start by emphasizing, that a complete title search should be done by an attorney; not a real estate agent or someone else.

You should recieve full copies of all official documents related to the title search, along with written explanation of there signifigance, and your attorney should be able to answer any questions you have about the documents. It is unfortunatly a common practice of some attorneys in Chile to simply say they conducted a title search, and then tell you the property is fine without presenting any more details. If needed, ask your attorney to translate the documents to English or your native language. When done, you should have it clear in your mind what you are buying and what the risks are to buying any particular property, before you commit any significant amounts of money to a purchase.

Just some of the problems you or your attorney in Chile must consider on a region by region bases are the delicate status of the water rights, colonization laws, the effects of past agricultural policies of the Government, poorly conducted surveys, zoning and building permits, among many others. What to look for is mostly determined by the history of local development patterns of the region.

such an excellently informative post, worth posting twice. Thanks for slogging in the boredom so we don,t have to . In return I at least will gimbel in the wabe for you,sometime or other.

I too find it difficult to feel much anguish for a group of dupes who literally never checked any premises here. Sure, I am jealous that they have that kind of cash to throw over the rainbow in the first place... But surely they earned their money by being smart!

Just general knowledge would tell anybody that buying land in any foreign country is a huge gamble . My son actually owns a little land in Nicaragua, jointly with his wife and her cousin who is married to a Nicaraguan, because in this particular area non Nicaraguan citizens are not allowed to buy property. however, he knows a few non Nicaraguan citizens who were persuaded to "buy" property and got rooked. They were not libertarians or anarchists though, just "savvy investors".

[moralist]

Fraud can only take place with the sanction of the victim.

False.

(This alone deserves a response...)

Jonathan, you are the perfect sucker the cheats look for because you believe the lie that it's not your fault if you get cheated. You're already half way there.

(I'll let them know you're looking for some land in Chile... )

Greg

[Jonathan]

Jonathan, you are the perfect sucker the cheats look for because you believe the lie that it's not your fault if you get cheated.

I don't believe that it is not my fault if I get cheated. I believe that it may be my fault, it may be partially my fault, or it may not be my fault. It depends on the circumstances, the context.

Btw, if I'm the perfect sucker for cheats, why is that I've never been cheated?

You're already half way there.

(I'll let them know you're looking for some land in Chile... )

Yeah, good one.

Did you get passing grades in school? If so, then you were cheated out of an education. They didn't teach you how to think logically. They should have held you back until you grasped it.

J

[Jonathan]

I get exactly what I deserve as the consequences of living by my values.

You get exactly what you deserve as the consequences of living by your values.

Everyone gets exactly what they deserve as the consequences of living by their values.

Greg

False. Illogical. Irrational.

J

Ok, Jonathan...

Your view is that you don't get what you deserve as the consequences of living by your values.

No, that's not my view.

Try to work it out logically.

J

[Derek McGowan]

Lets say that there was no fraud at GGC. Lets say that everything was on the level and that the investors got exactly what they wanted and people were living there now and more were pouring in. Since it has been pointed out in this thread that Chile, including that area, has governmental restrictions, and permits, and taxes, etc how would it be any different than a wealthy enclave anywhere else in the world. What I mean it that to be defined as Galts Gulch, to me, means that the people who go to live there don't come out (at least until something drastic changes in the rest of the world) but if the residents are coming and going then it is simply second home or a vacation spot or a place of retirement. It's like science--something can only become valid if it is able to be proven wrong/false and yet it withstands such scrutiny. So what would be failure for a place like this--to prove its Galt's Gulch status? I'm thinking that it would be a failure if people come and go. Which also means that it wouldn't be a success (even if there were no fraud) just because it was open for business and people lived there. That would only make it a new subdivision...

ps I loved the theme song : )

[Jonathan]

I think that his technical point that no one deserves to be defrauded is correct...

Fraud can only take place with the sanction of the victim

especially in the context of Greg's ideas on morality, which are based on nothing but logical fallacies.

I get exactly what I deserve as the consequences of living by my values.

You get exactly what you deserve as the consequences of living by your values.

Everyone gets exactly what they deserve as the consequences of living by their values.

Greg

So when you're forced to pay taxes, and to therefore pay for governmental programs that you ideologically oppose, you're getting what you deserve as the consequences of living by your values?

You therefore value being forced to pay taxes and to pay for what you don't believe it? Those are your values? Why don't you change your values instead of allowing yourself to be victimized like that?

J

[Jonathan]

Thanks for slogging in the boredom so we don,t have to.

Yeah, thanks, Billy!

I too find it difficult to feel much anguish for a group of dupes who literally never checked any premises here.

Ditto. I don't feel anything much beyond, "Wow, are those people stupid." But I don't think that they deserved to be screwed over just because they're stupid, just as I don't think that Cheryl Araujo, or anyone else, deserves to be raped.

They were not libertarians or anarchists though, just "savvy investors".

Savvy is as savvy does.

J

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Maybe I'm a dope. The evidence I see most plainly is that the law does not deter crime and seldom affords an adequate remedy.

Equally plain is the fact the most people conduct themselves to gain/keep the good opinion of friends, neighbors, employers, clients.

Criminals are a very small minority (except in Iceland, Sweden, UK) http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Total-crimes-per-1000

Wolf,

You are not a dope.

I don't know how to discuss this without going back to the beginning, meaning, in my mind, the law is made for humans by humans, thus it emerged from human nature. And that is such a long discussion, I have been putting it off.

Here are a couple of premise-level thoughts.

There is a universal trait found in all societies: rules that come with punishment for infringement and benefits for obedience.

To my way of thinking, this comes (partially) from a part of the human mind that tracks fairness. There are many fMRI scans that show specific parts of the brain light up consistently over fairness.

If there is a society where people do not have rules that punish cheaters, it needs a strongman dictator to keep the peace. And even then, he has to give the appearance of fairness for matters of everyday living, with his sporadic (usually violent) exceptions, if he wants people to live at a standard above abject poverty. People do not produce much if they think cheaters will win without even running a risk.

This can be pegged directly to the human need for fairness (or better, perceived fairness).

As to social status, this is another thing the brain tracks. Both fairness and status have been found to have strong markers on fMRI scans, which means one does not annul the other. Both are present. So just because people behave one way due to status, that does not mean concern with fairness is also not present.

btw - As I insinuated above, when I use these terms, I mean perceived status and perceived fairness, not necessarily actual.

As a marketer, I see where these things are manipulated time and time again with perceivable results. Notice that buying is voluntary. So the mind seeks these things naturally (fairness and status--and there are more). It is not coerced.

Belonging to a society is voluntary, too, when people get enough comfort. If they are dirt poor, they don't have much choice of anything other than trying to survive. Agreeing with social rules is mostly passive voluntarism, though. But if people get pissed off enough and a leader appears who they believe can change the situation, they go to war.

There is another part, too. Primates learn mostly by imitation, which is why the surrounding culture is so important. People make their choices on top of what they have become from growing up and living in a society. They do not replace that with choices. They are both formed people and choosers. One implication of this is we all start as kids with adults telling us what to do, so we naturally seek leaders after we grow up. We learned that having a leader is the way things are.

I want to go deep into this stuff, but I don't have time right now.

Let me just repeat what I said at the start. You are not a dope.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

CONSIDERING WHAT THIS THREAD IS ABOUT I WISH TO ANNOUNCE THAT FOR TWO DAYS YOU CAN BUY MY PROPERTY IN CHILE--1.25 ACRES--FOR ONLY HALF OF WHAT I PAID WITH FIRST CLASS DUE DILIGENCE ALREADY THOROUGHLY AND MASTERFULLY DONE*

GRANT FAEDE

CHILLING IN CHILE (AND YOU CAN TAKE MY PLACE)

125,000 CANADIAN (FOR JULES OR WILLIAM OR DUANCE OR JERRY) OR 1,OOO,OOO AMERICAN (HEY, CANUCKS--BUY FROM ME AND FLIP TO AN AMERICAN!)

(no PayPal)

*BY ME

[Wolf DeVoon]

Difficult to compete with a master of shock and bourbon