41–50 of 266 posts
Want to know how to fight back against authoritarianism? Look to the folks who've been fighting against racism for (literally) hundreds of years.
Racism in the US is just fascism that hasn't hit white people yet.
Freedom is the default for existence. The only way to not have freedom is for others to remove it from you by force or threat of it. The threat of it is what causes us to self limit our own freedoms. (sometimes for a greater good, sometimes not)
"Freedom" is a symbol. Like all symbols and all symbolism it means nothing to Bob and everything to Bill. It means one things to Sarah and another to Sally. One person's freedom is another's tyranny and vice versa. It's all a treacherous language game.
If it were all a treacherous language game, then playing would be futile. There would be nothing to talk about.
To the contrary, Snowden is talking about Freedom from the context of a society that was a humanitarian, economic, and cultural disaster - Mao's China. Those failures were far from a language game.
I can understand how it could be considered that in a very non-free society, but no. Freedom exists only as an equilibrium between your freedom and that of others, between paralyzing order and utter chaos.
I was thinking, I can currently go from NA to Europe today if I wanted to. But that level of technology and orchestration would not be possible in a lawless and barbaric society (at least I don't think so). This possibility offers me a lot of freedom (traveling around the world) and in exchange, I had to follow rules and work. I gave some freedom and got more in exchange. The same thing applies for many other things…
I'm not saying decentralizing more is gonna give you more freedom, more like a different take. I think your point is still valid, there has to be an equilibrium and I just don't know where it lays.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can still do that in any society. Even though it's illegal, you can run a red light or cheat on your taxes. The notion that you somehow can't is just mauvaise foi. Of course you can. You're choosing not to. Seems like you are describing freedom from consequences, not the ability to make choices, because that's available now and to the barbarian. I'm not sure which society has no consequences.
>You can still do that in any society. Even though it's illegal, you can run a red light or cheat on your taxes By that logic, there is no such thing as restriction of freedom, as it assumes even someone's ability to jail you does not restrict your freedom in any way. People in jail are free as a corollary. How is this not absurd? It only makes sense if you hate freedom and want to argue against it to people low on r…
Freedom is the default for existence. The only way to not have freedom is for others to remove it from you by force or threat of it. The threat of it is what causes us to self limit our own freedoms. (sometimes for a greater good, sometimes not)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if you are arrested after making one of these illegal choices, are you still free?
If you plunge a sword into your chest, you also can't make choices later on. Does that mean it's impossible to choose to plunge a sword into your chest?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you plunge a sword into your chest, you also can't make choices later on. Does that mean it's impossible to choose to plunge a sword into your chest?
What did you smoke, my friend? I really like your search engine, don't destroy it's image for me. Freedom is not strictly equal to technical possibility, it's not even the same word.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you plunge a sword into your chest, you also can't make choices later on. Does that mean it's impossible to choose to plunge a sword into your chest?
Did you not like the question so you avoided it by asking one of your own instead, or is something I'm not familiar with going on?
The question isn't whether we are free under all circumstances, but whether we are free now.