Freedom is not a goal, but a direction • Hacker News Board

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#181

Post by vageli » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

TecoAndJix wrote: post #47

marginalia_nu wrote: post #26

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?

You are free to make a choice even when the end result is restricting future freedom (sword=death, illegal action=prison/death). So you can in any moment "be totally free" in virtually any society as long as concerns for freedom in future moments are irrelevant to you

> So you can in any moment "be totally free" in virtually any society as long as concerns for freedom in future moments are irrelevant to you

Okay so I am in prison. Am I still totally free in that moment?

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#182

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

marginalia_nu wrote: post #49

mistermann wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

An action has an undesirable consequence, does this mean it is impossible to perform? The question isn't whether we are free under all circumstances, but whether we are free now.

[deleted]

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#183

Post by Sparkle-san » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

b1gb4dc0v1d wrote: post #180

b1gb4dc0v1d wrote: post #178

Gotta love all these comments about censorship but not a peep that FB/Twitter were running a huge censorship campaign against Trump last year - like covering up the fact that Biden's son was fucking underage girls on camera and was under multiple federal investigations for corruption. Also, funny the same people here talking about freedom are the very first people to declare you must be wearing a mask and be vax'd wi…

[flagged]

bruh, you're embarrassing yourself.

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#184

Post by lvass » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

marginalia_nu wrote: post #161

lvass wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom is indeed the ability to make your own choices, but you must not understand it in a strictly technical context, more like a social/legal one. It simply isn't viable to physically prevent every action society considers you not free to take, so the restriction of freedom comes in the form of later punishment, it doesn't magically stop being restriction of freedom just because technical possibility is still ther…

Ok, let's agree that the proposition we are discussing is this: * Freedom is the limitation of choice. My counter-argument is this: Limitations on choice through potential consequences are ultimately self-imposed. To have any effect, they require me to refuse to consider the possibility of the alternative. To the extent they limit my action, it is through my choice, possibly implicit, to let them limit my actions. Th…

>* Freedom is the limitation of choice

Assuming you meant the literal opposite, I can agree there's a bit of nuance but it's true in the "spirit of the law" sense. I really don't understand why you're still trying to take it so literally.

>This type of contradiction usually means a definition is incomplete

Words aren't perfect nor immutable, no definition is complete, but it's relatively easy to see what it's trying to say. It does not follow an absolute implication that punishment is not a restriction of freedom. There are less ambiguous definitions but this one is acceptable and beautifully simple.

If it were code it'd be a single-liner that works for 99.9% of users. But the "best" implementation works for 99.91%, is slow, 200 lines, no one understands and inexplicably broke for someone.

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#185

Post by Chris2048 » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

marginalia_nu wrote: post #26

vageli wrote: post #23

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?

I'm note sure "freedom" is the same thing as "possible". If it where, only physicists would concerns themselves with its definition.

I think it more often means "permissible" or "practical".

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#186

Post by marginalia_nu » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

yosito wrote: post #177

lodi wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have one moral standard to which I hold myself and others: do no harm. Right, but who determines what's "harmful"? Is it more harmful to punish a child or to not punish him? Is a cartoon of Jesus harmful? Muhammad? Are "micro-agressions" actually traumatic? Furthermore, what does it mean to "do" something? Is "meat-eating" a default state, or are you actively "doing" harm every day you continue to not be a vegan?…

> Right, but who determines what's "harmful"? Well, it's certainly not determined by some objective standard, or a god. Every culture, and even every individual has different moral views. When I say "do no harm" that's a relative statement, relative to the context and parties involved. What's morally apporiate changes depending on the moral contract between parties. I can call my drinking buddy a "fucking idiot" for…

Indeed, it seems the first struggle should be to develop the ability to do the things we think are correct before even considering that the most correct thing is.

If you sit around developing elaborate ethical systems as to how to act in every situation, but fail to live that system, then it's ultimately a pointless waste of time. It's better to a decent guy all the time than a hypothetical saint acting like a practical asshole.

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#187

Post by TecoAndJix » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:12 PM UTC

vageli wrote: post #181

TecoAndJix wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are free to make a choice even when the end result is restricting future freedom (sword=death, illegal action=prison/death). So you can in any moment "be totally free" in virtually any society as long as concerns for freedom in future moments are irrelevant to you

> So you can in any moment "be totally free" in virtually any society as long as concerns for freedom in future moments are irrelevant to you Okay so I am in prison. Am I still totally free in that moment?

Great point. Max available freedom has constraints based on your current situation. I'm not in prison but i don't have the freedom to walk on the moon

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#188

Post by marginalia_nu » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

jjulius wrote: post #176

yosito wrote: post #149

The phrase that stands out to me in this is "the riot of human diversity". It's a great phrase. Probably worthy of a book or even a manifesto. I'm a multicultural person. Dual US/EU citizen. I've spent years living in each of the US, South America, the Caribbean and Europe. Since the mid-2010s, I've been acutely aware of different societal pressures to conform, and I've been "cancelled" by various groups of aquainten…

>I have one moral standard to which I hold myself and others: do no harm. How do you define "harm"? What if one's view(s) prompt them to vote in favor of things (or support policies - take your pick) that bring harm to others?

Maybe exercise some humility instead of jumping to the conclusion that you are right and they are wrong? I'd take the opportunity to seek to understand how someone living in the same world as you, with access to the same facts, and the same mental faculties, how such a person has come to a different conclusion about what does harm.

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#189

Post by kag0 » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #167

evancoop wrote: post #67

Perhaps there is some definition of freedom in mathematical terms in which the total scope of decision-making autonomy is maximized over all citizens? The barbarian example would yield a low tally, as the leaders of a hoard are "free," but their subordinates have little decision-making capacity. In terms of the limitations of personal freedoms, the boundary might lie where the diminishment of others' freedoms exceeds…

It somewhat boils down to violence, doesn't it? 1) Your degree of freedom is strictly a relationship between you and those who are able to legitimately use violence against you. Legitimate here meaning you have no means of recourse besides violence of your own. 2) How free you are is then expressed as a graph of all possible actions you may take which are not prohibited by the threat of legitimate violence (often exp…

That's an interesting way to look at it, but I take an issue here

> How free you are is then expressed as a graph of all possible actions you may take which are not prohibited by the threat of legitimate violence

It's a good point to think in terms of possible actions you may take. But violence isn't the only thing that can prune that graph.

Say I come across an orchard surrounded by an [unclimbable] fence. I want to eat some fruit in the orchard, but cannot because of the fence. There is no violence I face that prevents my action, and no violence I can level to take the action. Yet my action is prohibited by another, and thus my freedom limited.

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#190

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

yosito wrote: post #149

The phrase that stands out to me in this is "the riot of human diversity". It's a great phrase. Probably worthy of a book or even a manifesto. I'm a multicultural person. Dual US/EU citizen. I've spent years living in each of the US, South America, the Caribbean and Europe. Since the mid-2010s, I've been acutely aware of different societal pressures to conform, and I've been "cancelled" by various groups of aquainten…

> and I've been "cancelled" by various groups of aquaintences over having opinions or failing to have opinions that the group demanded.

Lost a job? Lost housing? Lost income? Were you "cancelled" or did various groups of acquaintances simply decide they didn't enjoy your company and that feeling led to a gradual (or maybe not so gradual) falling away of contact and interaction?

I'm not for one moment suggesting that you should have different opinions. But in general people have both:

   1. opinions
   2. preferences on how and when opinions are expressed
   3. preferences for the company of people who don't violate (2)

If you and your various (past) groups of acquaintances really didn't agree on (1), then it's maybe entirely natural that over time, you'd no longer be a part of those groups. And if you disagreed about (2), then it's more than just natural, it's inevitable.

I have friends with whom I do not agree on a number of things, but they tend to be things that we don't need to talk about much, if ever. If either of us ever pushed their point in these domains, I suspect we would fairly quickly cease to be friends.

I have some other friends (and even a few family members) where we don't agree, but we do agree about how to disagree, how to debate, how to argue, what kinds of evidential levels for our opinions are required if we are going to disagree, and how we will end discussion. In these cases, (1) is not shared but (2) is, and so these are people whose company I can still actively enjoy.

I don't want to hang out much with people who see the world very differently from me, and more importantly, people whose timing and methods of expressing their opinions are quite different than what I find appropriate. If I'm not friends with these people, I haven't "cancelled" them, we've just followed an entirely natural path towards finding groups of people we can enjoy being with.