Immigrants make you richer.

[mistermack]

Yep, you have no idea what you are talking about. The border between SA and WA is a DESERT! Nothing is going to grow there, so your dumb idea for "market gardens" is, not surprisingly, dumb. And the coast is a giant fucking cliff, you dumb cunt. You can't build a harbour on a straight cliff. Seriously, you are an embarrassment to yourself, let alone this site. Please shut the fuck up.

Not true at all. Stuff grows very well with irrigation. Haven't you heard of that? Or hydroponics. It's not magic, it's what people do.
And the coast isn't a cliff. There are lots of cliffs, but also beaches.
Here's the one which is right on the border, there's about fifteen miles of sand :



Nice isn't it? It's called Wilson's bluff, and it's right on the border.
In any case, cliffs are a bonus. Plenty of limestone rock for building a harbour and breakwater.

[Seth]

Why is it ok for descendants to benefit from past force/fraud, but no ok to expect them to share some of those benefits?

Why is it okay for latecomers to make claims against present owners based on something that happened a long time ago, between people now dead? I explained this already. You don't get to come along and claim that my ancestors abused your ancestors and demand that I compensate you for that wrong because I did not commit that wrong, my ancestors may have, and you have no standing to demand anything on behalf of your dead ancestors, only they do. The fact that they are your ancestors is utterly irrelevant because land belongs to the living, not the dead. If your ancestors lost a war and lost their land as a result, that might be a past evil but you don't get to perpetuate the evil by visiting punishment on the grandsons of the victors. That's stupid, irrational and unreasonable. If we submit to the ancestral guilt trip extortion scheme such squabbles will quite literally never end because throughout human history one tribe has fought another for resources and land and they always will, so ultimately somebody living in the Great Rift Valley could claim ownership of everything on that idiotic theory.

This still doesn't address the logical conundrum: Why is it ok for descendants to BENEFIT from past force/fraud, but somehow unreasonable for them to not pay for those benefits? Those descendants are getting something for free.

Because they can't owe a debt someone who is dead. And their descendants aren't entitled to compensation because it was not they to whom the debt was owed. It's not about who gets what for "free," that's a socialist dogma that doesn't apply. It's about who owes a debt to whom.

If I encroach on your property line in building my house and you don't object and take action to recover that property then you lose title to the property by "sitting on your rights." That's true even today, it's called "adverse possession." Absent a contract specifying continuation of the debt agreed to by ALL parties who are or may become bound by the contract, if you loan me money and I fail to pay you back but you also fail to take action to collect that debt before either you or I die, then the debt disappears when one, the other, or both of us die. This policy prevents precisely the kind of intergenerational disputes that you are lauding. The past is the past, and if you don't defend your rights in the present, you're not going to get them vindicated by others after you're dead. If you're worried about it, then put it in the loan contract, where it becomes binding upon my estate, but not my heirs, because they are not signatories to the document. Once my estate is distributed, you have no claim upon any of it because title passed to my heirs at that moment.

Libertarians deal with the present, they don't pander to layabouts who want something for nothing just because grandpa lost the farm.

This is exactly what I mean about your inability to logically defend your ideas. What it always comes down to is "I've got mine, Jack. Stuff you". And as I explained above, the "layabouts" are actually those that have got benefits from past force/fraud without having to pay for them. THEY are the morally repugnant ones.

Well, you put it crudely, but Libertarianism doesn't recognize some social obligation to "share the wealth" if the owner of the property does not wish to do so voluntarily. What's mine is indeed mine and nobody has the right to take it from me without my consent. Property rights are a foundational principle of Libertarianism. I know Socialists don't like that because it means that they can't take what they want from others using the idiotic rationalization that the other guy "owes" them something just for existing, but that's rather the whole point of the discussion.

You have yet to explain rationally why "I've got mine, Jack. Stuff you" is morally repugnant. I'd say that "What's yours is mine" is truly repugnant, and that's what Socialism is all about.

As for layabouts, what gives the descendants of some person who lost his property to another in the past moral rights to that property for which they have done nothing to earn over the occupant and present owner of that property? Land is for the living. The ghosts of the dead don't hold title, nor does someone vaguely related to them who is alive today.

[Seth]

No, I mean stop trolling. It's pretty simple, Seth, even for someone like you.

You first. Fuck off.

I'm not a troll, Seth.

Yes you are, but a poor example of the trade.

Here's what you need to do. Apologise for trolling us in the past and state that you are here for honest discussion, not trolling, from this point onwards. If you do that, some will actually give you respect immediately.

Fuck off.

[JimC]

One issue in the whole "Oz has oodles of available land" debate has not been mentioned. The non-urbanised land areas in Oz are either productive agricultural land, or are vital remaining habitats for a host of endangered flora and fauna. Our existing expansion of urban sprawl is already compromising both of those land uses to a significant degree; many of us want to limit any further deterioration.

[pErvinalia]

Yep, you have no idea what you are talking about. The border between SA and WA is a DESERT! Nothing is going to grow there, so your dumb idea for "market gardens" is, not surprisingly, dumb. And the coast is a giant fucking cliff, you dumb cunt. You can't build a harbour on a straight cliff. Seriously, you are an embarrassment to yourself, let alone this site. Please shut the fuck up.

Not true at all. Stuff grows very well with irrigation. Haven't you heard of that? Or hydroponics. It's not magic, it's what people do.
And the coast isn't a cliff. There are lots of cliffs, but also beaches.
Here's the one which is right on the border, there's about fifteen miles of sand :



Nice isn't it? It's called Wilson's bluff, and it's right on the border.
In any case, cliffs are a bonus. Plenty of limestone rock for building a harbour and breakwater.

Once again, irrigating sterile dirt is not going to magically produce fertility. How can you not understand this?? Australian soil is TOTALLY different from younger lands like UK and NZ. People are not going to be interested to live in an isolated desert environment in any significant numbers. I can't believe you even need this explained. Just stop fucking digging, FFS.

[pErvinalia]

@Seth, the real moral problem is descendatns getting something for free. I agree that there needs to be practical limitations on compensation, but it's not an even playing field. Let's say my great great great grandfather stole your ggg grandfather's wealth. Would you accept this as a fair situation and you were just going to let it go? I doubt very much most people would let it go, let alone someone with your selfish proclivities. Why should I have greater ease at accessing life's necessities than you, particularly because I did absolutely nothing to earn that access to greater ease?

[mistermack]

Once again, irrigating sterile dirt is not going to magically produce fertility. How can you not understand this?? Australian soil is TOTALLY different from younger lands like UK and NZ.

So the vast areas of Australia growing crops with irrigation are just a figment of my imagination then?

I'll have to throw that wine away, apparently. Nothing in the bottle.

[pErvinalia]

It's a shame you aren't willing to actually learn anything. As has been made abundantly clear to you in this thread and others before it, Australia has a thin band of fertility alone the east, south east, and south west coast. That's where everyone lives and the vast majority of our food is produced. The rest, like the area between Adelaide and most of the way to Perth is fucking infertile desert. Stop digging.

[mistermack]

One issue in the whole "Oz has oodles of available land" debate has not been mentioned. The non-urbanised land areas in Oz are either productive agricultural land, or are vital remaining habitats for a host of endangered flora and fauna. Our existing expansion of urban sprawl is already compromising both of those land uses to a significant degree; many of us want to limit any further deterioration.

Best to put a brake on immigration then. In any case, a lot of the threat to species is more to do with introduced species, and farming practices, than urban sprawl, although that might have some localised effect.

Best to build in the desert then. I don't think urban sprawl would make much of a dent in that.

[JimC]

One issue in the whole "Oz has oodles of available land" debate has not been mentioned. The non-urbanised land areas in Oz are either productive agricultural land, or are vital remaining habitats for a host of endangered flora and fauna. Our existing expansion of urban sprawl is already compromising both of those land uses to a significant degree; many of us want to limit any further deterioration.

Best to put a brake on immigration then. In any case, a lot of the threat to species is more to do with introduced species, and farming practices, than urban sprawl, although that might have some localised effect.

Best to build in the desert then. I don't think urban sprawl would make much of a dent in that.

Australia's arid regions are home to a variety of specialised fauna and fauna, some rare or endangered. On the surface, it may look like scrubby wasteland whose bulldozing would harm nothing, but in fact is home to a surprisingly rich biota. It is true that introduced species have taken a toll; all the more reason not to put further strain on what remains.

Now of course, there is still some room for further development, but the acreage that should be ethically available to development is much less than a cursory look at a map would indicate, and that is without considering the pressure on already strained water resources, and the nutrient-poor nature of much of Australia's soil.

[laklak]

Imperial Valley, California. Just sayin.

[mistermack]

Imperial Valley, California. Just sayin.

Although this region is in the Colorado Desert section of the Sonoran Desert, with high temperatures and low average rainfall of 3 inches (76 mm) per year, the economy is heavily based on agriculture due to irrigation, which is supplied wholly from the Colorado River via the All-American Canal. Thousands of acres of prime farmland have transformed the desert into one of the most productive farming regions in California with an annual crop production of over $1 billion. Agriculture is the largest industry in the Imperial Valley and accounts for 48% of all employment. An environmental cost is that, south of the canal, the Colorado River no longer flows above ground at all for much of the year into Mexico.

[laklak]

Yeah, but they're just Mexicans. We need them fucking strawberries, man.

[Blind groper]

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=13724

In one sense, every part of planet Earth is arable. As the reference above shows, we are even growing lettuces in Antarctica.

Definitely, Australia has a lot of arable land. Enough for many, many millions of extra people. It may take slightly more sophisticated farming methods, but it can be done.

On Jim's points.
Certainly Australia has lots of land for wild life. But this also applies to everywhere else on planet Earth. Land not currently in agricultural, or other human use, can be argued to be needed to support wild life. Where do you draw the line?

On Seth's points.
I do not often agree with Seth, but this time I do. We cannot dwell on injustices that took place in the past. Or else we would have no time to do anything in the present. Move on guys.

[Hermit]

Imperial Valley, California. Just sayin.

Wonderful. Irrigation provided by the Colorado River. Australia's three major rivers struggle to provide irrigation for areas that are already established. They won't be able to adequately supply a greater area than they currently (oops) do. As for desalination plants, the size of such required would cost many billions of dollars. The cost would not even remotely cover any gains it might create until the rest of the world dries up.

Additionally, as rEv has mentioned a number of times now, even an adequate water supply won't suffice to produce stuff. The soil - where it is present at all - contains very little nutrition The bare dirt that actually covers most of this continent contains even less. We'd have to import millions of tons of superphosphates, nitrates and such to grow things every fucking year. Again, this is not feasible until prices rise globally. We already import a huge proportion of our foods from overseas, simple because it can be produced more cheaply there, and don't try to blame our wage rates for this. The labour component of production costs in Australia is of a minuscule percentage of the total.

I'm still amused by Mistermack's waffle, unencumbered by any knowledge of Australia as it is. His proposals are akin to schemes for building space elevators: Very imaginative, but at this stage economically impossible if not technically undoable.