Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

The forces that prevent you from keeping someone else in slavery is coercion. So is the rule that says you're not allowed to walk out into the street and just have your way with someone without their consent. With such loose language, any type of society settlement in which people are born into a system that has rules that apply to them involves a type of coercion.

Since all people need to be cared for until a certain age, all people who survive past the first few days of their lives are born into coercion under a strict meaning of the word. Some would escape by living as hermits in desert land or remote islands that nobody cared to enforce law on. Hell - if you're going to be a pedant why restrict it to human coercion? The weather itself is a form of coercian. As are the laws of physics themselves.

Although in a strict sense you're right, I think you're wasting time. However, I have a morbid curiosity for some things and would be genuinely interested to learn what axe you're grinding.



I'm not grinding any axe. mseebach said that he didn't see how property rights were a form of coercion. You have explained precisely why they are. You are agreeing with me against him. I am not right in a 'strict sense', but in an absolutely correct sense. What could be a better example of coercion than enforcing a law?


> What could be a better example of coercion than enforcing a law?

Well - gravity.

I mistook your motive. I've read the thread a few more times and see you've been quite specific in your responses.


"Coerce" is defined in the OED as "persuade (an unwilling person) to do something by using force or threats", so I don't think gravity really falls under that definition, except perhaps metaphorically.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: