I am Jack's Smirking Revenge

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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

The Concept of Ownership

Recently I came upon a little puzzle of an idea.

When you buy something, it's yours, right?

People buy animals, materials, products, food, buildings, even land.

But at what point does this idea that "if it can be purchased it is yours" run out?

Let's see if this example highlights a hard-to-pin-down idea...

Suppose that rather than the top 1% of our world population possessing most of the wealth in our little world- instead there was only 1 person.

And one day, that very rich person bought everything on the planet.

Every object, every piece of land, every last bit of food- everything.

So far, it's not a big deal aside from being scary.

But now, that person decides to throw away everything they own. Destroy it. This is where it gets ridiculous as somehow destroying everything is nearly impossible.

The point here is that 1 person has thrown away the things the rest of the world population needs to exist- food, shelter, land, etc.

So, how do we now justify our concept of ownership?

This person bought everything that existed, with their own money, and then threw it out.

According to the standard USA definition of ownership, that was their right.

Isn't it?

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