Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

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mistermack
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by mistermack » Fri Jan 30, 2015 1:00 pm

I'd like to see Seth give one single example, of any creature having a ''right'' to life, or liberty, or property, without that right being granted by the mutual consent of his society.

That's the only way anything exists in nature that could be called a right.
By mutual consent of others. Which, no matter how small, is the ''government'' of a group.

So if you want rights, you need government. By definition.
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by Seth » Fri Jan 30, 2015 3:42 pm

mistermack wrote:
Seth wrote:
mistermack wrote:
Seth wrote:

individual rights exist entirely independent of and apart from government
Where do you get that shite?
I get that fact from nature, logic and reason.

People existed before government. Government is a creature of the people. Because government is comprised of people, no government can be greater than the sum of its people, and all power exercised by government originates in and derives from the people and their consent to be governed. Government cannot have any power or authority that does not exist in every individual independent of government.

Certain rights are derived from nature, based on fundamental biological facts, such as the right to life, the right to liberty and the right to property.

I'd go on at length, but you're not intelligent enough to understand the complex concepts involved, so I won't bother.
Wrong. Shows how little you know. There were governments long before we evolved into people.
You only need to look at monkey or ape society for that to be obvious.
And how exactly does primate behavior constitute "government?" Please explain.

You seem to love talking about things you don't understand.
You seem to think you understand things others are talking about. You don't.
There is no right to life or liberty or property in nature. Where do you get that shit from?
Just saying it doesn't make it true. In fact, the opposite is clearly the case.

I know you're a troll, but surely you can do better than that?
What part of "derived from nature" is unclear to you. Oh, wait, never mind, it's all completely opaque to you. Never mind.
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by Seth » Fri Jan 30, 2015 3:48 pm

Hermit wrote:
Seth wrote:Certain rights are derived from nature, based on fundamental biological facts, such as the right to life, the right to liberty and the right to property.
Would you care to enlighten the occupants of an anthill or a beehive about their self evident and unalienable rights, please? They appear not to have heard of them at all, let alone the notion that they are based on fundamental biological facts.


(Waits for another tsunami of words flooding the forum.)
Just because ants cannot express in terms that you or I can understand their philosophy of social structure doesn't mean they don't have one.

Quite clearly they do. For example, the warrior ants recognize their duty to protect the queen. Are these actions "instinctual?" Yes, very probably they are, although we don't know enough about ants to know if they have some sort of hive intelligence working that makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts. The point is that the natural behavior of warrior ants to protect the queen, and that of the worker ants to work at their various tasks, demonstrates a clear social organization. That it's unlike human social organization is not really relevant.

So, trying to compare human social organization to ant social organization, much less expecting a philosophical discourse with an ant colony is merely stupid evasive rhetoric that fails to qualify YOU as sentient.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S

"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by Seth » Fri Jan 30, 2015 3:56 pm

mistermack wrote:I'd like to see Seth give one single example, of any creature having a ''right'' to life, or liberty, or property, without that right being granted by the mutual consent of his society.

That's the only way anything exists in nature that could be called a right.
By mutual consent of others. Which, no matter how small, is the ''government'' of a group.

So if you want rights, you need government. By definition.
Really? So, if you and I are alone on a desert island, without any food, and you decide that I look tasty enough to eat and you try to do so, I don't have a "right" to prevent you from doing so because there is no "government" to grant me my right to continue to live, and therefore I must submit to your carnivorous desires without exercising my right to self defense?

My fundamental rights exist because I have the desire and the capacity to claim and defend them. At its core, a right is a freedom of action that may be infringed upon by others which the individual asserting it holds to be superior to the freedom of action on the part of others to interfere with it.

Thus, my right to life exists as an inherent and natural extension of my existence as a living creature capable of and desiring to defend that right against intrusion or infringement by others. Inherent in my right to life is my right to self-preservation and therefore self-defense. Inherent in my right to self preservation is my right to seek out, acquire and make exclusive use of those resources necessary for my survival...in other words the right to acquire and use individual property.

I need no government to grant me these rights, I need only the ability to defend them against intrusion by others to make them rights, which I can assert and defend against any claim to the contrary.
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"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by mistermack » Fri Jan 30, 2015 4:11 pm

Seth wrote: And how exactly does primate behavior constitute "government?" Please explain.
Someone telling you what to do is a basic form of governments. Someone having authority over you is government. Someone who can take your ''property'' is government. And someone who can call on others to help enforce their will over you is definitely government.

All of that happens as a normal part of life in primate society.
Do a bit of reading. Don't just bullshit all your life.
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by mistermack » Fri Jan 30, 2015 4:17 pm

Seth wrote: Really? So, if you and I are alone on a desert island, without any food, and you decide that I look tasty enough to eat and you try to do so, I don't have a "right" to prevent you from doing so because there is no "government" to grant me my right to continue to live, and therefore I must submit to your carnivorous desires without exercising my right to self defense?
What the fuck has that got to do with rights? Do you need to look up your rights, to do what's common sense? A buffalo doesn't kill a lion that's trying to eat it because it has a right to do it.
Rights have nothing to do with it. The lion wants to eat the buffalo, because it's hungry and it wants to.
The buffalo fights because it's scared and mad.
You haven't explained where this ''rights'' shite comes into it.
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by Seth » Fri Jan 30, 2015 4:26 pm

mistermack wrote:
Seth wrote: And how exactly does primate behavior constitute "government?" Please explain.
Someone telling you what to do is a basic form of governments. Someone having authority over you is government. Someone who can take your ''property'' is government. And someone who can call on others to help enforce their will over you is definitely government.

All of that happens as a normal part of life in primate society.
Do a bit of reading. Don't just bullshit all your life.
"Someone telling you what to do" is "government?" You can tell me what to do all you like, but if you don't have authority or the power to compel me to do so, it's not government, it's just you being a dick.

And when you say "someone having authority over you" is vague to the point of uselessness. There are two possible definitions of "authority" involved in your claim: "Authority" improperly defined as the present ability to enforce a decision with which you disagree; and "authority" defined as some sort of social structure in which the individual being commanded recognizes and acknowledges the right of the individual giving the orders to do so and to require obedience by means other than brute force "law of the jungle" present ability.

So first you have to define what you mean by "government." Only then can we proceed with the discussion.
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"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by Seth » Fri Jan 30, 2015 4:30 pm

mistermack wrote:
Seth wrote: Really? So, if you and I are alone on a desert island, without any food, and you decide that I look tasty enough to eat and you try to do so, I don't have a "right" to prevent you from doing so because there is no "government" to grant me my right to continue to live, and therefore I must submit to your carnivorous desires without exercising my right to self defense?
What the fuck has that got to do with rights?


Absolutely everything.
Do you need to look up your rights, to do what's common sense?
No, I don't. And therein lies the point.
A buffalo doesn't kill a lion that's trying to eat it because it has a right to do it.
Sure it does. It has the right because it claims the right and has the ability to enforce that claim against infringement by the lion.
Rights have nothing to do with it. The lion wants to eat the buffalo, because it's hungry and it wants to.
Yup. This is because the lion is exercising its right to seek out and obtain the exclusive use and enjoyment of a resource necessary for vindicating its most fundamental right, the right to life.
The buffalo fights because it's scared and mad.
No, the buffalo fights to preserve the most fundamental aspect of life: life. It is defending its right to life.
You haven't explained where this ''rights'' shite comes into it.
Sure I did. I defined it quite precisely in fact. Go look it up.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S

"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by mistermack » Fri Jan 30, 2015 4:42 pm

Seth wrote: "Someone telling you what to do" is "government?" You can tell me what to do all you like, but if you don't have authority or the power to compel me to do so, it's not government, it's just you being a dick.
Again, shows how little you know. Primates who live in large groups have a definite social order, and enforce it with a good deal of violence if you step out of line.
They even have the ''right'' to take the food out of your mouth, if you are lower in the ranking. And that's exactly what they do do.
And you don't get your position in the ranking by fighting, you inherit it from your mother.
So small individuals dominate much bigger and stronger ones. And if you object, the whole troop will give you a kicking.
Seth wrote: No, the buffalo fights to preserve the most fundamental aspect of life: life. It is defending its right to life.
:biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin:

Oh right. It's not defending it's life, it's defending it's RIGHT to life?

I'm sure a buffalo knows the difference. :lol:

Even if you don't. :hehe:
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by Seth » Fri Jan 30, 2015 5:29 pm

mistermack wrote:
Seth wrote: "Someone telling you what to do" is "government?" You can tell me what to do all you like, but if you don't have authority or the power to compel me to do so, it's not government, it's just you being a dick.
Again, shows how little you know. Primates who live in large groups have a definite social order, and enforce it with a good deal of violence if you step out of line.


Right. That's pure law of the jungle at work. It occurs because some primates are stronger than others and can therefore impose their will on the weaker ones. But is that "government"? Not in my estimation, at least as it applies to the present argument.


They even have the ''right'' to take the food out of your mouth, if you are lower in the ranking. And that's exactly what they do do.
And you don't get your position in the ranking by fighting, you inherit it from your mother.
So small individuals dominate much bigger and stronger ones. And if you object, the whole troop will give you a kicking.
Yes, they have that right because they have the freedom of action to do so and the ability to defend that action against intrusion (in this case resistance) by others. But this right is not created by the society, it's inherent to each individual within the society. In the beginning it was pure law of the jungle were the strong took from the weak and the weak died. Over time the complexity of the social structure became more complex so that caste or social status determines one's place in the hierarchy, but it's not fundamentally different from pure survival of the fittest. All that's happened is that the enforcement of the leadership has been devolved to a military or enforcement class. It's still essentially law of the jungle where the fittest survive and the weak don't.

"Government" I believe necessarily implies a social system not based on pure ability to impose force to compel obedience, but rather based on the willing participation of members of the social group, even when participation may be opposed to the individual's immediate personal best interests.

But in either case, "government" is a product of the assertion of individual rights. Individual rights are not the product of government. The individual comes first, and once the first step beyond simple survival of the fittest takes place one might reasonably say that "governance" has begun, but it begins with the individual asserting its fundamental natural rights like the right to life, liberty and property and then subjugating those rights in order to gain some greater benefit as a part of participating in the social order.

It's a cart/horse thing, and you've got the cart before the horse.
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"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by Hermit » Fri Jan 30, 2015 5:51 pm

Seth wrote:
Hermit wrote:
Seth wrote:Certain rights are derived from nature, based on fundamental biological facts, such as the right to life, the right to liberty and the right to property.
Would you care to enlighten the occupants of an anthill or a beehive about their self evident and unalienable rights, please? They appear not to have heard of them at all, let alone the notion that they are based on fundamental biological facts.


(Waits for another tsunami of words flooding the forum.)
Just because ants cannot express in terms that you or I can understand their philosophy of social structure doesn't mean they don't have one.

Quite clearly they do. For example, the warrior ants recognize their duty to protect the queen. Are these actions "instinctual?" Yes, very probably they are, although we don't know enough about ants to know if they have some sort of hive intelligence working that makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts. The point is that the natural behavior of warrior ants to protect the queen, and that of the worker ants to work at their various tasks, demonstrates a clear social organization. That it's unlike human social organization is not really relevant.

So, trying to compare human social organization to ant social organization, much less expecting a philosophical discourse with an ant colony is merely stupid evasive rhetoric that fails to qualify YOU as sentient.
I was neither comparing nor contrasting human and non human social organisation. I was merely picking two examples where animals manifestly exist within definite social structures and wonder how you detect "Certain rights [that] are derived from nature, based on fundamental biological facts, such as the right to life, the right to liberty and the right to property" therein.
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by mistermack » Fri Jan 30, 2015 5:58 pm

Seth wrote: But in either case, "government" is a product of the assertion of individual rights. Individual rights are not the product of government. The individual comes first, and once the first step beyond simple survival of the fittest takes place one might reasonably say that "governance" has begun, but it begins with the individual asserting its fundamental natural rights like the right to life, liberty and property and then subjugating those rights in order to gain some greater benefit as a part of participating in the social order.

It's a cart/horse thing, and you've got the cart before the horse.
Right. So you only define government as what matches your own ideals.
Saudi Arabia has a government. As you would soon find out, if you lived there.
Sadam Hussein ran a government, but apparently not, according to your criteria.
You obviously don't know the normal meaning of the word. We're arguing at cross purposes.
I thought you understood English.
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by Seth » Sat Jan 31, 2015 12:31 am

Hermit wrote:
Seth wrote:
Hermit wrote:
Seth wrote:Certain rights are derived from nature, based on fundamental biological facts, such as the right to life, the right to liberty and the right to property.
Would you care to enlighten the occupants of an anthill or a beehive about their self evident and unalienable rights, please? They appear not to have heard of them at all, let alone the notion that they are based on fundamental biological facts.


(Waits for another tsunami of words flooding the forum.)
Just because ants cannot express in terms that you or I can understand their philosophy of social structure doesn't mean they don't have one.

Quite clearly they do. For example, the warrior ants recognize their duty to protect the queen. Are these actions "instinctual?" Yes, very probably they are, although we don't know enough about ants to know if they have some sort of hive intelligence working that makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts. The point is that the natural behavior of warrior ants to protect the queen, and that of the worker ants to work at their various tasks, demonstrates a clear social organization. That it's unlike human social organization is not really relevant.

So, trying to compare human social organization to ant social organization, much less expecting a philosophical discourse with an ant colony is merely stupid evasive rhetoric that fails to qualify YOU as sentient.
I was neither comparing nor contrasting human and non human social organisation. I was merely picking two examples where animals manifestly exist within definite social structures and wonder how you detect "Certain rights [that] are derived from nature, based on fundamental biological facts, such as the right to life, the right to liberty and the right to property" therein.
Manifesting a social structure is hardly the same thing as "government."

As to how I derive rights from nature, I have this to say:
...I call these derivations the Organic Rights, which are derived from organic laws of nature and natural behavior. In this context, the term "rights" means "a freedom of action that may be defended against infringement by others." The man alone, in the absence of any other creature, has no need of rights because there is nothing that conflicts with his sovereign and unlimited ability to do absolutely anything that he is capable of doing. But when man, or indeed any creature comes into conflict with another over the resources needed for survival, an adjudication of the freedoms of action of one that conflict with the freedoms of action of another becomes inherent. In it's most simplistic form, this adjudication is the Law of the Jungle, the survival of the fittest, and the winner is the creature that has the ability to prevail over a challenger for the resources of life. All else, right down to modern-day jurisprudence, is merely a more complex form of this most primitive adjudication in the struggle for the basics of life.

If a "right" is a freedom of action that may be defended against infringement by others, then the conflict of rights is what occurs when two organisms vie for the same resource, and the adjudication of which organism will win the use of the resource is the natural basis for all social systems that follow, from the very simple Law of the Jungle to the most complex of human or animal societies. Social organization requires rules of behavior and conduct to exist, and such rules may be simple or exceedingly complex, and they may be instinctive and genetically programmed or philosophical constructs, but they all derive from the same fundamental organic need for organization in order to advance and enhance the survival of the species. This is as true of human beings as it is of ants or wolves. And so within each social organization there exists an inherent structure of rights that are a function of the individual that come into conflict with other individuals in the society.

Civilization, to one degree or another, is the balancing and adjudicating of these conflicting rights in ways that advance the survival of the species, in the most primitive form, and which provide for the survival, happiness and autonomy of the individual consistent with the needs of society in the more complex forms.

And so to derive the Organic Rights from nature and apply them to human culture and society, we must begin at the beginning.

Every organism needs life, autonomy, the resources to survive, and the ability to reproduce in order to exist both as an individual and as a species. The Organic Rights are expressions of these fundamental organic needs as applied to human society, and it is my claim that human society cannot survive unless it respects those fundamental organic needs of all human beings any more than a species itself cannot survive if it does not fulfill the underlying organic needs. Thus, I express those fundamental organic needs as the Organic Rights, because without societal recognition and protection of those rights, individuals cannot survive and society cannot exist.

Every organism on earth seeks to preserve it's own life. This instinct is seen everywhere in the natural world as a function of evolution. Every individual organism seeks autonomous life in that it will defend itself and its life when attacked by another organism. Therefore, the First Organic Law is that all living creatures pursue autonomous survival and will engage in self-defense to prolong life. From the First Organic Law I derive the following Organic Rights:

The First Organic Right is the right to life, for without the right to life, there is no purpose for any philosophical construct, and death is the result.
The Second Organic Right, the right to individual liberty, emerges because all living creatures strive for organic autonomy and individual liberty to some degree.
The Third Organic Right is the right to self-defense, because all living creatures naturally defend their lives when attacked, to one degree or another. This is, as Richard Dawkins puts it, an expression of "selfish genes" attempting to replicate.

Next, we observe in nature that all living creatures will seek to find and obtain that which is necessary for their survival. Fundamentally this is energy, which comes in many forms. In addition, higher creatures will seek out shelter against the elements as well, as a part of the necessities of survival. From this natural behavior I derive the Second Organic Law; All creatures seek to obtain and secure to their own exclusive use the resources necessary for survival.

From this Second Organic Law I derive the Fourth Organic Right; the right to seek out, obtain and reserve to one's exclusive use the resources necessary for survival, which is more simply stated as the right to the exclusive ownership and use of private property.

The Third Organic Law is that all creatures seek to reproduce and pass on their genetic material as a function of evolution.

From this I derive the Fifth Organic Right, which is the right to reproduce, more complexly stated as the right to form a relationship with a mate, engage in reproductive behavior, create a family and raise one's children to adulthood.

Thus, I derive these natural rights directly from natural behavior, without resort to deity or a Creator, but rather simply by reference to our nature as living beings. Those rights are inherent, and superior, and unalienable, and not derived from any social construct of mankind because they are necessary components of our very existence and being, without which no man, and no living creature, can survive and flourish.

This places at least these five Organic Rights above any inferior human social construct, and therefore places them beyond the power of others to disparage or deny as a matter of general social policy. Society may not morally deprive an individual of his Organic Rights absent some behavior on the part of the individual that makes it necessary to do so because of a legitimate threat to others, or the society.
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"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by Seth » Sat Jan 31, 2015 12:37 am

mistermack wrote:
Seth wrote: But in either case, "government" is a product of the assertion of individual rights. Individual rights are not the product of government. The individual comes first, and once the first step beyond simple survival of the fittest takes place one might reasonably say that "governance" has begun, but it begins with the individual asserting its fundamental natural rights like the right to life, liberty and property and then subjugating those rights in order to gain some greater benefit as a part of participating in the social order.

It's a cart/horse thing, and you've got the cart before the horse.
Right. So you only define government as what matches your own ideals.
Saudi Arabia has a government. As you would soon find out, if you lived there.
Sadam Hussein ran a government, but apparently not, according to your criteria.
You obviously don't know the normal meaning of the word. We're arguing at cross purposes.
I thought you understood English.
Neither government appeared spontaneously and fully-formed out of the quantum foam, they evolved over time from less complex forms extending clear back to before Hammurabi to basic tribalism and beyond.

The question at bar here is which comes first, the chicken or the egg, or in this case the individual or the government. I think it is perfectly obvious that the individual came first because governance doesn't even begin to appear until there are two individuals present who require some sort of adjudication of rights with respect to the competition for the basic necessities of life.

To maintain that government exists before individuals exist makes no sense at all and grants "government" some sort of independent physical existence in the universe that is not dependent upon the prior existence of organic life forms.

That sounds nonsensical to me. Can you explain your reasoning?
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S

"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by mistermack » Sat Jan 31, 2015 2:14 am

Seth wrote: Neither government appeared spontaneously and fully-formed out of the quantum foam, they evolved over time from less complex forms extending clear back to before Hammurabi to basic tribalism and beyond.

The question at bar here is which comes first, the chicken or the egg, or in this case the individual or the government. I think it is perfectly obvious that the individual came first because governance doesn't even begin to appear until there are two individuals present who require some sort of adjudication of rights with respect to the competition for the basic necessities of life.

To maintain that government exists before individuals exist makes no sense at all and grants "government" some sort of independent physical existence in the universe that is not dependent upon the prior existence of organic life forms.

That sounds nonsensical to me. Can you explain your reasoning?
Off you go, demolishing the straw man that you made. I never said that. Nor anything that meant that. I said that there were governments before man evolved. Not before ''individuals existed''.

Our ape ancestors had a form of government, in the social structures that they lived under. They ''owned'' and defended a territory, that belonged to the society. And you were expected to play your part in defending it. And to defer to individuals who out-ranked you in the social standings.
And to grovel and groom higher ranking members, or give up any item of food that they demanded.
Just like modern apes do. Plus all the sex privileges that high ranking apes enjoy.
It's a series of unwritten laws that they all know and understand, and obey for the most part.
Although there is plenty of cheating going on.

As far as rights go, I totally refute your idea of rights. It's just your imagination.
A right is only something real, if others recognise it, and agree to abide by it.

Your ''right to life'' means nothing, if you are sentenced to death. You might think you have a right to life, others don't. And you lose. You thought you had a right to life, but others disagreed.

You think you have a right to your property, but if others take you to court for a debt, your property can be taken off you.

It's only a right so long as those who have the power let it be so. And that applies to all rights.
There are no ''natural'' rights.
While there is a market for shit, there will be assholes to supply it.

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