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Life as a Service

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Life as a Service

#161

Post by rdtsc »

cgmorton wrote: post #127
rdtsc wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I break my leg, there is no increased chance that my neighbor will break his leg. So it's a personal issue. But is not a just personal issue. If you break your leg and don't have insurance, you could lose your house over medical bills. The bank will reposes and will write down losses over your mortgage. If your lot starts to look like crap the value of his house will be affected as well. If you have a wife and k…

This argues equally well for completely supporting the family indefinitely for any reason. The only difference between paying medical bills and paying for the whole lifestyle is a matter of cost, and medical bills can be really expensive. Doesn't it bother you that an even-handed application of this principle leads to absurdity?

I see it as a continuum.

But actually it maybe be true that in some cases it is more beneficial overall to the society to just support the family for a while if say the breadwinner breaks a leg. That is better than a bankruptcy, loss of house, loss of job.

> Doesn't it bother you that an even-handed application of this principle leads to absurdity?

It doesn't because this has to be applied to a certain degree. Absolutely no safety net is not good, but it is not possible of feasible to just hand out money either.

Re: Life as a Service

#162

Post by wapper »

swombat wrote: post #114
yummyfajitas wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rights should be based on the veil of ignorance principle - the weak should be protected and the strong should pay for they are one car crash away from welfare. Your moral values seems to hold that individuals have few rights, and that collectively we should operate from the principle of infinite risk aversion (i.e., the Rawlsian veil of ignorance). Great - we all agree that if these are your values, Libertarianism i…

Your moral values seems to hold that individuals have few rights, and that collectively we should operate from the principle of infinite risk aversion (i.e., the Rawlsian veil of ignorance). Great - we all agree that if these are your values, Libertarianism is not the political philosophy for you. Individuals have no rights. Rights only exist within the context of a group. Without a group, you're not talking about ri…

If that is true, then in a multicultural or multi-religion group no rights exist at all after time passes. Because in such a group the only possible rights would be lowest-common-denominator, which would decrease if new groups are added to the whole. The more different or antagonistic the new group, the more it has to decrease individual rights.

Re: Life as a Service

#163

Post by snitko »

edanm wrote: post #155
snitko wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I refer you to David D. Friedman and Murray Rothbard for explanations of how public property would be so much better off as private property and how protection can be both private and optional? I mean you can disagree after reading it, but at least you wouldn't say there's no alternative.

Sure, and thanks. I'm not very well-read in economy but am working on it. Do you have anything specific of theirs in mind?

"For a New Liberty" by Murray Rothbard and "The Machinery Of Freedom" by David D. Friedman.

Re: Life as a Service

#164

Post by confluence »

cgmorton wrote: post #122
confluence wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot second order effects. Leg gets fixed - you get back to work - goods and services are rendered, taxed, consumed and saved. Your neighbor benefits by having an individual in whom society has invested millions in to train and care for back at work instead of being dead. That's a waste of money. Humans are worth saving simply because we invest so much in them.

But then you can easily, heck trivially, argue that people should be forced to exercise or to eat a particular diet that makes them more productive. Look, more goods and services are rendered! It's a public situation! People should be forced to live within 5 miles of work, because they're not being productive during their commute. Also, HackerNews and reddit should be forcibly taken down because of their contribution…

You forget about second order effects once again - HN/reddit facilitate low latency, high scale, high signal communication between millions of people everyday - that's a net positive.

In terms of diet, we tax cigarettes, alcohol and drugs (indirectly) - food that is net negative on society should have their negative externality priced via taxes.

It's pointless banning them (e.g. enforced diets) - see prohibition - leave it legal and tax to cover costs.

Re: Life as a Service

#165

Post by rglover »

infinite8s wrote: post #130
rglover wrote: post #88

This article is brilliant. Each and every point Jacques makes is spot-on. I'm sure many will disagree with his stance, but he makes an excellent point. Irrespective of our personal preference, we are effectively locked in to and subordinate of our government and its policies. Any self-respecting human who has contemplated this should be sick to their stomach. Realize this: we're floating in space. Not one soul on thi…

Why should you have a choice? Taking this article to it's logical conclusion, no obligations nor rights should be granted to you. As another commenter above mentioned so brilliantly, individuals don't have rights. Rights only arise in groups of individuals.

We should all have a choice because we're all exactly the same. We're made of the exact same stuff that's floating out in the universe. There is no universal code that says one group of humans (or individual) should control/rule another. It's all made up by humans and it's going to kill us in the long run.

Re: Life as a Service

#166

Post by eli_gottlieb »

wapper wrote: post #162
swombat wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your moral values seems to hold that individuals have few rights, and that collectively we should operate from the principle of infinite risk aversion (i.e., the Rawlsian veil of ignorance). Great - we all agree that if these are your values, Libertarianism is not the political philosophy for you. Individuals have no rights. Rights only exist within the context of a group. Without a group, you're not talking about ri…

If that is true, then in a multicultural or multi-religion group no rights exist at all after time passes. Because in such a group the only possible rights would be lowest-common-denominator, which would decrease if new groups are added to the whole. The more different or antagonistic the new group, the more it has to decrease individual rights.

If that is true, then in a multicultural or multi-religion group no rights exist at all after time passes.

Well... kind of, yeah. In real life, most multicultural regions have codes of "rights and freedoms" designed as workable compromises between the moral philosophies of the various cultures living there. Once such a code exists, it will usually be amended rather than scrapped, and new arrivals made to conform somewhat (because it has become a shared culture), but that is, in fact, how it works.

Re: Life as a Service

#167

Post by eli_gottlieb »

Variance wrote: post #151
confluence wrote: post #84

I've made up my own law of selfish libertarianism - if you'll indulge me: > It's only a liability or an entitlement until you yourself need it - then it's a fucking right. For example being a young white male born into a middle class western family affords you the ability to state "all I need is contract law - everything else is just impinging on my rights and forcing me to take on obligations I don't appear to benef…

May I also add, in addition to the excellent rebuttals that other commenters have made to you, that you're making a false analogy between welfare and contract law by confusing positive and negative rights. Positive rights entitle people to something, while negative rights protect people from something. The ideals that most libertarian philosophies are based on maximize negative rights and minimize positive rights. Th…

The problem being that libertarianism places a heavy emphasis on absolute private property, which is a positive right. It's my right to evict you by force from occupying an empty apartment in my building unless you pay me the rent I want.

Now, you can certainly argue coherently in favor of absolute private property (though I would argue back, extensively and in detail, against the absolutism), but to do so, you need to start by admitting that it's a positive right.

Re: Life as a Service

#168

Post by eli_gottlieb »

mibbitier wrote: post #113
king_jester wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Giving people food, money etc, gives people incentives to not bother working. I find this kind of attitude totally bizarre. People do not stop having output just because they have food security. The notion that giving away food is bad because of work is a very capitalistic idea that actually serves to perpetuate hunger and starvation.

Giving people food and welfare, makes them dependent on the state. Once you're dependent, you have no incentive to progress through your own hard work. Giving handouts does far more harm than good. It keeps people down.

Once you're dependent, you have no incentive to progress through your own hard work.

You mean, except for all the good incentives like achievement, mastery, purpose, learning, and contribution to a community that actual successful professionals are motivated by, rather than the motive against starvation that you seem to believe is the only reason anyone gets up in the morning?

Re: Life as a Service

#169

Post by eli_gottlieb »

praptak wrote: post #23

The author has not really gone beyond stating that we are subject to the social contract (no shit sherlock) and that we should try harder to make this contract much better (ditto.) Go read the Wikipedia article on social contract, it has a much better value per seconds of your attention.

Yeah, well, this is what you get when you cut out all the political philosophy and liberal arts from the education system: a bunch of libertarian programmers who think they've discovered something really new.

Re: Life as a Service

#170

Post by flyinRyan »

infinite8s wrote: post #131
flyinRyan wrote: post #74

The worst part is: if you're a US citizen you're still "opted in" to paying taxes even after you don't live there and no longer use any of the services. In some cases, even if you've never lived there at all or even speak the language (hint: you can get american citizenship from being born on the soil or having a single biological parent who was).

There's an easy solution to that - renounce your citizenship. What's that? You want to keep your American citizenship? Then you must abide by the social contract underlying that grant of citizenship, which comes with certain benefits/obligations no matter where you are in the world.

Nonsense. First of all, I am giving up my citizenship. But the US and North Korea are the only countries on this planet stupid enough to think people who don't live there anymore owe them money.
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