Essay - Natural and social property

[ZenitYerkes]

Possession means basically to make use of an object and benefit from what you make of it: carry it with you, dig holes or cut down trees, access the Internet,... That's possession, and it's a tangible fact.

But when man lives in society, some are really pissed off when they think of sharing it with anyone else: thus property is created. Property is basically the right that regulates the possession fact; whose is what, even when not using it; and it's a social convention, something we all agreed on (for example, something is not explicitly yours if you worked on it, but things like the intellectual property law make it legally yours).

However, property is a social illusion and a product of human mind. Whose is all this stuff actually?

This is where the concept of natural property is created. See, taking the rule that anything possesses itself* (we make constant use of our body, thus we make it ours), what if we took as an only entity the whole planet itself?

That's right, everything is owned by the planet, even ourselves. That's natural property. What we actually do is to "borrow" parts of it, but it eventually is returned to the planet. Just like the food we take is returned as feces which are part of organic compounds that bring nutrients to plants; or the technological trash we throw away such as PCs or TVs are slowly assimilated (but so slowly it takes up to 5000 years to completely make it disappear).

Thus, nothing is actually ours. Everything is just borrowed, and someday it will be returned back to its source.

However, and since we *will* fight for the ownership of borrowed things to use them, we'll still need to keep our social property.

*Ancient Greek verb "to be" meant actually "to have oneself".

[josie20]

Hmmm...the planet owns everything. That's a very interesting way of looking at things.

[Human No More]

Without ANY property, nobody would do anything.

[ZenitYerkes]

Originally Posted by josie20

Hmmm...the planet owns everything. That's a very interesting way of looking at things.

Just think of this: where does the matter of the trees, the furniture or even your body come from?

Originally Posted by Human No More

Without ANY property, nobody would do anything.

What do you mean with that exactly?

[josie20]

Originally Posted by ZenitYerkes

Just think of this: where does the matter of the trees, the furniture or even your body come from?

God

[Isard]

The planets just borrowed matter. Its going to turn to dust too.

Nothing will ever be permanent in the universe.

[Fkeu 'Awpo]

..Aihwa just made this thread depressing.

You really need a tldr at the end of your threads. I just don't understand what your point is, Zenit. All you've done is state one simple fact*, but stretched it into a couple paragraphs to make it sound like it's something clever you've just figured out.

*And that fact is

Everything is just borrowed, and someday it will be returned back to its source.

----

Originally Posted by ZenitYerkes

Just think of this: where does the matter of the trees, the furniture or even your body come from?

Interesting.. Is this a "Beginning of the Universe" thread, too?

Originally Posted by josie20

God

that's a good one.png

[Sonoran Na'vi]

Originally Posted by ZenitYerkes

What do you mean with that exactly?

I think he means without any property, or more importantly, property rights that are enforced, our economy would not be able to function. It would seriously curtail growth, innovation, and invention.

[ZenitYerkes]

Originally Posted by Fkeu 'Awpo

..Aihwa just made this thread depressing.

You really need a tldr at the end of your threads. I just don't understand what your point is, Zenit. All you've done is state one simple fact*, but stretched it into a couple paragraphs to make it sound like it's something clever you've just figured out.

The kind of essays you won't give a damn about are which have just the fact inside. It's like saying: "The sky is blue" So what?

Essays bring justification and examples to understand the facts; hence why it begins mentioning possession and ownership.

Originally Posted by Aihwa

The planets just borrowed matter. Its going to turn to dust too.

However they are two different cycles. We don't interact directly with our whole Universe neither return anything to it: what we've got here is two different levels of interaction: planet-Universe and individual-planet.

While the planets interact with the rest of systems such as the Solar one, or are part of bigger ones, like a galaxy; most of the things we possess and use in a daily basis come from the matter of planet Earth.

And this is not going to be a Beginning of the Universe thread, since this has nothing to do with it -unless you want to discuss where the matter of Earth came from, but it's not the case here.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by ZenitYerkes

Just think of this: where does the matter of the trees, the furniture or even your body come from?



What do you mean with that exactly?

Nobody would have any motivation to gain anything... Arguably, people wouldn't even use resources for survival.

Everything is only borrowed though in the end...