I agree with you. That said, as humans, we're not yet evolved past defending territory we've chosen to live on. I think we still need "might" as an option for response, until we as a creator evolve further.

I don't know if it's possible to get rid of the final might destination on the continuum of responses to issues, but I think we can agree that the "extra steps" part between "an annoyance" and "possible danger to individuals and society" is extremely lacking and narrow.

I strongly, strongly dislike what the police have become, and evolved from, in the united States. Someone does need to investigate crime and murder though, and not just a few amateur podcasters. With some careful thought, and likely messy experimentation, we can handle laws being just, fair and useful. How? That seems to be the tricky part.

Some very smart and imaginative anarchist philosophers have been working on exactly that for a very long time, from Mikhail Bakunin 200 years ago to more modern writers like Noam Chomsky or David Graeber. I think their work is worthwhile.

I have made no apology for capitalism. If this is what you got from what I wrote, then you have trouble with reading comprehension.

I did not make a comparison between Mesopotamian property law and present property law. My point was that private ownership of property is a function of human society literally as old as recorded history, as well as the idea of legal privileges around property ownership.

Because the cartoon is based on the premise that these ideas come from capitalism, the entire argument is faulty.

I'll quote from my original post:

I am not arguing that these things are right and good. I am arguing that linking them specifically to capitalism represents a desperately uneducated understanding of human society and history.

This is such a weird take... how far removed from reality are you to actually believe that authoritarian feudalism is a form of capitalism?

Wealth accumulation is not capitalism. Capitalism enables wealth accumulation, but the opposite isn't true in the slightest.

All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.

arguing that capitalism is somehow a new concept, and colonialism isn't.

I am not sure how you reached this conclusion. Yes, capitalism is new in comparison to Mesopotamian culture, and therefore the idea of property ownership. No, it's not new in comparison to European colonialism.

I think you could argue that capitalism even entered the human world before even currency was a thing.

I have never heard or read any theories that try to make an argument like this. I would be very interested if you had some that you could point me to, but offhand this seems like it would require major stretching of the definition of capitalism in order to make recorded events fit into it. I think it would mostly be an exercise in confirmation bias.

Accumulation of wealth is not inherently capitalism, nor is simply profiting from another's labor. This definition is so broad that it would make anyone in history who ever acquired anything that they did not previously own into a capitalist.

There's a reason you're unwilling to entertain other arguments, because you're moving the goalposts and are afraid they will fall off the field.

Which other arguments am I unwilling to entertain, and which goalposts am I moving?

My argument is, as from the beginning, that the concept of private ownership of property and legal rights attached to such is not born of capitalism but is in fact as old as recorded history. Because the conclusions in the cartoon depend on this initial faulty idea, the whole thing is nonsense.

I think you could argue that capitalism even entered the human world before even currency was a thing.

I'd love to see your citations and reasoning on this, assuming it doesn't fall into "capitalism is when anyone owns anything or sells anything"

Because this

In most civilizations wealth tends to accumulate at the top of the societal pyramid, which is capitalism. The pharaohs and sumerian kings alike are capitalists

Is ridiculous.

The reality is that most people are self-interested and not at all ulturistic about things. They'll begrudgingly clean their own toilet for their own sanitary sake but that line of thinking doesn't do so well with public places.

Go into a public bathroom at a truck station or anywhere else that doesn't have a paid worker to clean up the mess and you'll see just how much people cooperate to keep it clean. Spoilers: they dont, because almost nobody wants to clean up after themselves let alone others germ filled shit stains, clogged toilets, dirty water splashed+litter everywhere on the ground, and used needles.

Maybe theres some magical unicorn ulturistic people that would haul ass to clean up the place out of kindness of their heart/for the good of community. Good for them, the next dozen people would trash it up again and undo all their hard work out of pure apathy.

Some people are great and upstanding members of society that go out of their way to improve things, most are stupid, lazy, self-interested animals who couldn't care less about their actions inconveniencing others and making environments worse than when they enter.

Lots of jobs important to keeping places running and clean are shitty, hard work and usually in nasty environments. Getting a gold star on their upstanding citizen sheet isn't enough incentive.

Now I can totally see a UBI system where people who do voulenteer for these kinds of things get paid more/ gets exclusive societal perks over someone who doesn't. But now were back to where we started, people getting paid more to do work that very few wants to do or has the skills to do.

Agreed, but if you use that point not to make a change yourself you are still part of the problem, not the solution. Systemic change happens because enough individuals have made the change themselves. These are two sides of the same coin. We can not expect a change to happen that we ourselves don't support.