We've been over this a million times: bringing something into the human economy is an act of labor, even if all it involves is pointing at an asteroid and saying: "No one claimed it yet? Well then, this is mine!" In order to own anything substantial in a free society, your ownership claim must be clearly defined and publicly announced, which in of itself is a valuable service for the economy. Now an asteroid mining company can learn of this asteroid and consider buying it from you, and going forward they would be the most likely market entity to look for new asteroids themselves - they're paying you for their failure to do so. Reasonable industry standards can be established for what does and does not constitute a legitimate claim. Etc.
That is completey fucking arbitrary.
If saying "this is mine", is an act of labor, like carving a chair or building, then there should be no limit on it. If I carve a chair, and you carve a chair, then we have 2 chairs. Me carving a chair has absolutely no interference with your ability to carve a chair.
If I claim an asteroid, and then you claim the same asteroid, either magically "this is mine" stops being an act of labor once its been done once, or you can "labor-own" my asteroid, in which I will say "this is mine, time infinity, plus 1", and my labor shall spring eternal and I shall always own the asteroid.
This is fucking dumb. Someone can say I own everything in the universe that hasn't already been claimed, but it doesn't mean they have any legitimate claim of ownership to it.
This is the same dodgy, arbitrary ground intellectual property rights stand on.
Even though it doesn't behave like all other property, you're going to call it property because it would be inconvenient if you couldn't.
lame.
If what you say is really true, then I claim everything that hasn't yet been claimed, and also I would like a living will written saying no one can ever use anything that I own.
After all, if its my property I should get to say what happens to it right?
But I guess theres a convenient loophole why that shouldn't be allowed. Probably the same dumb equivocations that come with IP ownership.