There is just a constant sound of sirens in the distance at this point. Most everyone on facebook from Philly is praising the rioters with comments like "let it burn", granted not a damn one of them own property or a business...

> not a damn one of them own property or a business...

@freemo Heh, if you social contract concentrates on protecting property, then it's not very surprizing that people who don't own any don't feel firmly attached to it.

Not that I condone looting/arson of course, this part of your toot just seemed amusing to me.

@timorl well yea thats exactly my point.. Obviously most people are selfish and only care about themselves. so if they dont own any property they really arent going to care how many lives are ruined by its destruction.

Thats exactly the point I was highlighting there, so we largely agree.

@freemo Oh no, that wasn't my point at all. I mean, I agree that this is related to selfishness, and someone completely selfless wouldn't do any of that. But my point was rather that countries/cultures in which social contracts concentrate less on protecting property and more on e.g. economic solidarity have people more hesitant to break the rules.

I encountered this concept fist in a discussion of homeless people shitting in streets. Since the social contract does not give homeless people literally anything (this was true at least for some of them in the context of the discussion) why would they feel the need to abide by even its simplest requirements? I think this situation is similar, although the contribution from this effect is relatively smaller.

@timorl Well sure, on the extream end of that if all property was owned by everyone, such as in a commune, then it is less likely that people are going to rebel and destroy property.

But while your point may have been coming from a different perspective I wouldnt say its all that different.. The underlying aspect of that is still that people dont care if property is destroyed as long as it isnt theirs. If the property is shared (economic solidarity, whats yours is mine) then that is less likely to happen.

But thats all still just selfishness in my mind "if you arent going to give me what you have then Id ont care what happens to what you have"

@freemo I understand that perspective, but I feel it still ignores the core of what I mean (or maybe just disagrees with it on a very fundamental level). If you think of a social contract as a, well, contract, then people shouldn't be forced to accept it if the terms are ridiculously unfafourable to them. You wouldn't really call someone selfish for refusing to accept a contract with very bad terms. It's not quite the same with social contracts of course, but the perspective is not completely invalid either.

As a pretty extreme example consider feudalism. It concentrates on protecting the property rights of the monarch (for simplicity lets say in the Russian sense of owning everything in the country). The peasants get little out of this contract -- at best they get some protection from outside threats and the possibility to live relatively peacefully. I would say in this case they can break the contract (by revolting) without being labelled unusually selfish.

I'm not saying this is the main thing fueling the current US riots (and definitely not saying the current US social contract is as bad as the extreme feudalism example!), only it's an interesting perspective as to what form they are taking.

@freemo Oh, and despite the extreme examples I don't mean extremes here. I'm trying to point out that the balance in the US is much more geared towards "property first" while in most of Europe it's much more geared toward "solidarity first". Neither are on the extreme end of the spectrum, and Europe doesn't have significantly more communal property than the US (I think?), but the social contracts are still visibly different.