Comments on: Thief of Hearts

By: Psychopolitik 2.0 » Two bits

Psychopolitik 2.0 » Two bits — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 20:21:24 +0000

[...] looks like an interesting movie. Meanwhile, this is a discussion I REALLY didn’t expect to see come up… [...]

By: b-psycho

b-psycho — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 20:10:52 +0000

Meh, furthest I would’ve thought about it is “well NO SHIT you can’t justifiably repo an internal organ!”…

Even agreeing to such a contract amounts to putting a hit on yourself. I’d rather just die without it than be murdered over a bill.

By: P.M.Lawrence

P.M.Lawrence — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 11:05:10 +0000

On the information before me, it doesn’t sound as though the liver in question was the subject of even a contract on implied terms that allowed for repossession like that.

By: Roderick

Roderick — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 07:25:29 +0000

And yet the amount of government interference with their property that people accept as legitimate, while still continuing to think of themselves as owning it, suggests that their surface conception of property is not only too strict but also too lax. Which suggests that they haven’t really thought very clearly about it at all.

By: Anon73

Anon73 — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 20:18:44 +0000

The court would just say it was implied that you were agreeing to give up the loaned item if you fall behind on payment for it. At least, as far as I know many people in the current mortgage crisis have been evicted for not repaying; the premise of the movie is just taking this to a more extreme conclusion.

Here’s a fascinating read for the topic:

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

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 18:39:18 +0000

The trailer I saw seemed to suggest that the repo men are actually VIOLATING contracts, even if you consider body parts alienable. Jude law says something to the effect of, “they’ll give you a liver, but what they don’t tell you is…” Since a contract is not made of words on paper, but AGREEMENT, repossessing the organs would clearly be a violation of the contract, whatever the fine print says. Now, the premise could easily be changed, and then we’d be in a different boat.

By: Anon73

Anon73 — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 02:23:27 +0000

Concepts are a bit like taffy – you can stretch them a lot, but eventually it breaks. I’ve seen you try to argue that Theism and Atheism are compatible – so forgive me for being a bit skeptical of attempts to show property is compatible with its absence. Historically the essence has always been about exclusive control, not proportionality, about monopoly and not the alternative. I disagree with it, but that is how the concept was formed and that is what people’s conception (deep conception?) of it is to the present day.

By: Roderick

Roderick — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 01:28:27 +0000

But just about every important concept is complex once you start spelling out its logical grammar; I take that to be one of the morals of the Socratic dialogues. So what you call “hoops” I’d just call philosophic business as usual — so to me your objection sounds like objecting to something because it’s made of atoms. It’s not as though there’s any alternative that’s hoopless. This is just how concepts work.

most people’s conception of property agrees with the premise of this movie

Do you mean their surface conception or their deep conception? (I’ll disagree either way, but the reasons will be different.)

By: Anon73

Anon73 — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 00:52:50 +0000

I think Tremblay is right – stuff like this logically flows from the idea of property as being possessive or exclusive control. The fact that you have to jump through all these hoops about Shylock and Portia and proportionality to prove otherwise shows this I think.

But even if you’re correct, the fact is most people’s conception of property agrees with the premise of this movie, and I’m not really sure what could be done to change it.