What is Reddit's opinion of Principia Mathematica - Volume One?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

What is 2? What is +?

First we have to go to <u>Principia Mathematica</u>. Then after at least 400 pages we get 1 + 1 = 2, and then can get, eventually, to the case of 2 + 2.

Well if you're going to start at the beginning, you might as well start at the beginning, I suggest you pick up this little number

A three-volume set (one, two, three) appears to be available on Amazon.com for $25 per volume.

> Why do we have the right to property?

[The Simple Answer]

We just do. Don't over-think it.

It isn't like half the cultures in the world are 'fine with stealing', therefore calling into question why we aren't fine with it; everyone is against stealing!

We don't need a theoretical discussion about why.

[The Medium-Difficulty Answer]

Philosophers, building on the work of others over centuries, have settled on a 'right to property' as one of the basic rights; we know it because they concluded it.

[The Truest and Most Complex Answer]

...would require a PhD in philosophy to explain.

Some people try short cuts -- claiming the existence of 'natural rights' is popular among some -- but there is always some way to pick them apart.

The claims that 'people have a right to property' or 'causing suffering is bad' or even '1+1=2' seem self-evident to us, but if you keep digging deeper-and-deeper it gets harder-and-harder to hold it up against all scrutiny.

Did you think I was exaggerating with the example: '1+1=2'? I wasn't. In 1910, two men -- both were mathematicians and both were philosophers -- published Principia Mathematica, an attempt to explain -- with no assumptions -- that 1+1=2. If you are interested, you could get it from Amazon; it is 680 pages, but that is only the first of three volumes.

Personally, I'm fine just taking it as a given.