Morality of claims

You have conditioned responses. We all do. Pavlov demonstrated these can be trained. Mostly, you have trained yourself along with environmental influences. A conditioned response tends to shut down thought. A conditioned response: is, what it is. Generally we wouldn't define them as either good or bad. I'd say most are good, because, hey, you're a good person, so they'd mostly have to be. Right?

A decent person respects the property of others. If you see something you want, as a civilized person, what is your response? Unless you're a thief, it would not be... "I want it. I'm taking it. It's mine." How does that last quote make you feel?

Update: Why do I ask? Because conditioned responses substitute feelings for thinking. Considering how you feel helps you to come to terms with your own conditioned responses. It also helps you realize you can think about them rather than just reacting. /update

Generally, if you want something, you consider buying it. That is a conditioned response and I will now show how it has influenced your thoughts.

How does a thing come to be owned? Buying it is the most common way. Making it from other things you own is another. As a matter of fact, making something for others to buy is so common it might be considered the end of the story. It isn't.

A thing can be bought and sold many times producing a chain of ownership, but making it is not the first link in the chain. Logically, buying the materials to make something isn't the first link in the chain either (the things you bought are part of a chain itself.) The first link in the chain is unavoidable and always the same. You should have guessed it by now...

Yes, the first link in the chain of ownership is always a CLAIM of ownership. If something is unowned, somebody must claim it for the chain of ownership to begin. How can something unavoidable be wrong? It isn't, but because we generally don't engage in claiming, letting others do it; we have conditioned ourselves to not think about it as a possibility. It generally isn't.

If you're thinking, no, you buy land and mine it or raise crops on it, you have not found the head of the chain. That chain has a specific name, chain of title. How did it start? At some point, not as a purchase and not as a grant (a grant must always have a claim as the beginning of it's chain.) The beginning of ownership must always have begun, somewhere in time, as a claim. It is unavoidable.

But you've conditioned yourself not to think to claim possession and ownership of something as something you can do. Generally that's a good thing. It keeps you out of trouble, but it can be a bad thing as well.

We are not colonizing space mainly because it costs too much. Space that is full of property with a potential value far exceeding the cost of it. In most aspects of life, when the revenue is higher than the cost it gets done. As soon as the realization sinks in with somebody that has the capital, it is going to get done. But today we wait for the light bulbs to go off. Considering the wealth that is waiting, that can be very frustrating. Some of that wealth, even if only a very small percentage, would be highly likely to go to you.

Our conditioned response is preventing us from letting the realization sink in that we can colonize space now even at the very high cost that exists today. A cost that will only come down after we get started in earnest. It is a moral imperative for the future of mankind that those claims begin as soon as we can.

Another conditioned response is thinking only nations can claim land. Not so. Historically they have, but that doesn't mean only they have the right. In truth, individuals have been making claims long before any nation even existed. What they have is the might, but so do you and others when you band together in an agreement. That agreement has the force of law as any contract does. To challenge your right, they have to make a legal argument (or take by force.)

Accept the argument that all ownership chains begin with claims and we can proceed to the next step... the legality of private claims.