Re: Dan Brown gets panned

In message
<ddfr-D399BF.09552102102009@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, David
Friedman <ddfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
In article <5ZazB8ETkfxKFwsA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Robert Sneddon <fred@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In message
<ddfr-F900D7.19462201102009@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, David
Friedman <ddfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
In article <jy$FbtMB6WwKFw0b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Robert Sneddon <fred@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

So why did you throw away all your knowledge and experience about radio
and how it works and pull that stupid analogy about land out of your ass
to make a spurious point about radio spectrum allocation?

Why did you ignore my response to your thoughtless assumption that
property rights in spectrum would have to be, like property rights in
land, defined geographically?

Spectrum rights can't be defined like land rights because land isn't
like the radio spectrum. Land boundaries don't drift back and forth with
time, sunspot activity etc. the way spectrum rights do. Land boundaries
can be defended by physical means, spectrum boundaries can be
over-ridden from a distance away where the party being infringed cannot
do anything substantive to stop it without widespread or global
agreement and Men With Guns and a willingness to enforce it.

Land boundaries can be violated at a distance too--that's one of the
things missiles are for.

At that point contract law goes out the window and it's war.

If you want to use that kind of analogy, imagine your neighbour tests
artillery shells on his adjoining property, firing them into the air.
Some days the wind drifts the shells to land on your property, blowing
gaping holes in your land. He's not starting a war with you, he's not
doing it deliberately, it's just natural that some days the wind will
cause this to happen. That's what happens with radio signals, and that's
why Keith's original analogy, comparing land rights to radio spectrum
allocations is comprehensively stupid but land and property rights are
something libertarians have a particular bee in their bonnet about and
hence any discussion of resource rights tends to get analogy-hijacked in
this manner when they are involved.

Sometimes they even drift back and
forth--consider property rights in the Sudan along the Nile, as
described by John McPhee in _A Roomful of Hovings_, pp. 162-163, and
sketched in my _Law's Order_.

This is a very rare situation. It also occurred in the Mississippi as
the river changed its path over the years (and it was used as a plot
point in one of Joel Rosenberg's Masada stories). Mostly land stays
where it is over geological time scales and property law is written on
that basis. Any local exceptions such as the Nile and Mississippi will
be covered by local law and custom. Radio propagation and interference
is a worldwide phenomenon.


http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Laws_Order_draft/laws_order_ch_10.htm

And, of course, they are violated at a (short) distance, and only
imprecisely defined, because things I do on my property can affect your
property--the subject of the common law of nuisance.

Radio co-channel interference is going to happen, not because of
conscious human decisions but because of physical events mostly outwith
human control (sunspots, for example). It can't be negotiated with or
blocked. The solution that works is for large-scale organisations with
enforcement capabilities to allocate spectrum rights and enforce their
usage.

As for "short distances", European radio amateurs were plagued in the
1980s by something called Woodpecker.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Woodpecker

It was a Russian over-the-horizon radar system broadcasting as much as
ten megawatts of RF energy West into Europe from the Ukraine. It
frequency-shifted, in part to cope with variable ionospheric conditions
and also to avoid possible jamming and spoofing. It broke all sorts of
international rules about frequency allocations and radiated power
levels and splattered RF mush over a couple of continents making a lot
of frequencies temporarily unusable.

[Clip]
At last, it doesn't work very well if one doesn't put any thought into
how to define property rights for that particular sort of property.

Oddly enough some smart people figured this out as early as the 1920s,
building a legislative framework that allowed governments to negotiate
with each other over frequencies and radiated power for public
broadcasts. It required the nation-states involved to stomp on any
unapproved large-scale transmission operations in their territory to
prevent the whole thing collapsing and turning into a destructive
free-for-all, a tragedy of the commons.

Keith and I are licenced radio amateurs, as are a few other posters on
this group (although many are inactive). While operating it is incumbent
on us to monitor our transmitting equipment, making sure it stays within
the permitted frequency bands in the appropriate manner (there are
specialist modes of amateur radio operation such as radio teletype, TV,
Morse code etc. that have their own sub-allocations within the amateur
bands). We must also ensure we do not transmit more than the legally
permitted amount of RF power and we do not cause interference to other
radio users or indeed other people nearby; having our transmissions come
out of someone's TV set speaker (or their fillings) is not permitted. At
any time agents of the state may come to where we are transmitting and
compel us to cease operations; usually they would only do that if
something had gone badly wrong. The fact we have paid a licence fee to
use the amateur radio bands does not mean we have any sorts of ownership
or property rights over those frequencies. However because of the ITU
rules commercial and State organisations are not permitted to abrogate
the amateur radio frequencies for their own uses, within geographical
limits. The Soviet Union overrode those rules with the Duga-3 radar and
nobody could get them to stop.
--
To reply, my gmail address is nojay1 Robert Sneddon
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Dan Brown gets panned
    ... and how it works and pull that stupid analogy about land out of your ass ... to make a spurious point about radio spectrum allocation? ... property rights in spectrum would have to be, ...
    (rec.arts.sf.fandom)
  • Re: Is Alexander Tyler right?
    ... It's too dangerous arguing with a mob. ... What about property rights? ... Private ownership of land is not compatible with socialism, communism, ... Public ownership or effective control of land in the public ...
    (rec.gambling.poker)
  • Re: Is Alexander Tyler right?
    ... It's too dangerous arguing with a mob. ... What about property rights? ... Private ownership of land is not compatible with socialism, communism, ... Public ownership or effective control of land in the public ...
    (rec.gambling.poker)
  • Re: High strength fibers for high pressure tubes.
    ... >>> business what owners do with their property, ... >> my water or my land with any of the byproducts of their operations? ... "so long as they respect the property rights of others." ... my land without my permission until I show evidence that he caused harm? ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: Dan Brown gets panned
    ... and how it works and pull that stupid analogy about land out of your ass ... to make a spurious point about radio spectrum allocation? ... Spectrum rights can't be defined like land rights because land isn't ...
    (rec.arts.sf.fandom)