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Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

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Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#251

Post by hairofadog »

dahfizz wrote: post #221
hairofadog wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To nitpick your framing a little bit, while it may illegal to sell raw milk, I doubt it's illegal to buy it, which is a distinction that has to do with scale (one could sell raw milk at scale, but not consume it at scale). I haven't researched raw milk and I have no idea how dangerous or safe it may be, but the motivation is to prevent sale of [dangerous thing] to people who may not be aware of the dangers of [danger…

> but I don't think anyone would say it's a no-brainer that a law prohibiting the sale of that health drink exists on the right, strictly-exists-to-curtail-individual-freedom side of of your spectrum. If I understand your double negative correctly, then I am nobody. A law like that does strictly restrict freedom - it makes it illegal to do something which does does not itself restrict other's freedoms. It trades free…

Well, a couple of things:

You're changing the framing from "strictly exists to curtail individual freedom" to "strictly reduces freedom", which are two different things. The first means the intent of the law is to reduce freedom for the sake of reducing freedom, and the second means it's a strictly enforced law. Those aren't the same, but from what I can understand of your argument it seems like you're saying the reason for rules preventing sale of toxic chemicals is strictly to curtail individual freedom? Do I have that right?

Second, if I understand you correctly, not only would you be ok with a company selling a mixture of toxic chemicals labeled as a health drink, but you think it's a no-brainer that they should be allowed to do so? Lead-based paint, asbestos insulation, salmonella-laced produce; the company is free to make them, and the consumer is free to choose to buy them, so what's the problem? Do I have it right?

I can't get my head around that, if that is what you're saying, so I guess the no-brainer is me.

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#252

Post by Chris2048 »

anticodon wrote: post #20
samuelizdat wrote: post #4

Freedom is the degree to which you are able to navigate the power process. The power process is the ability to identify and change something within a system. For example, if there is a vending machine with coke and you want pepsi. Is there a process that you can use to make that happen? If there is, then you have freedom. This of course extends to bigger things than soda. "Sovereign is he who makes the exception"

> For example, if there is a vending machine with coke and you want pepsi. Sometimes, I think that western people are so constrained by some limits in their heads. Like "freedom" is a freedom to choose Pepsi or Cola. I want neither. Or I want tea. Or the drink that is traditional for my culture. But most of the time I communicate with americans, for example, I becoming convinced that freedom for them is more like: "E…

> Like "freedom" is a freedom to choose Pepsi or Cola. I want neither. Or I want tea. Or the drink that is traditional for my culture.

This is a needless point - there is nothing in OP that would extend to whatever choice you have. You aren't supposed to fixate on the particulars of an example or metaphor, but abstract from it the point being made - which is the suitable abstract "change in a system" - any system, any change.

It feels like you taken this particular choice of example to dunk on Americans in particular.

> that they should live by his own weird rules

What "weird" rules? Parades and signs in particular, or the promotion of LGBT?

If the latter, why is this weird? It's hardly the same as your strawman-examples of promoting junk food and sugary beverages.

> Everyone should have McDonalds, even on Mt. Everest. Everyone must drink Coca Cola

says who?

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#253

Post by dang »

ttfkam wrote: post #246
dang wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment broke several of the site guidelines, so it was correctly flagged by users. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I'm not sure where you got "a site that touts $foo, $bar, $baz" etc. None of those things are "touted" by HN. People make up such generalizations, of course, but they seem mostly to be a product of the passions of the perceiver. Those with opposite passions arrive at just the oppos…

The prohibition against ideology or political statements is profoundly problematic when Snowden's blog post is itself arguably ideological and political. That would make any on-topic comments on it fall afoul of the rules, would it not?

There's no such prohibition. The rules ask you not to fulminate, call names, or do flamewar or political battle. If you want to explore political topics in the intended spirit of the site—intellectual curiosity—that's different. People do that all the time here.

That may sound like a hard line to draw, but in practice it's not as hard as it sounds, because accounts tend to fall into a bimodal distribution: ones that want to smite enemies, and ones that want to explore curiously. This site is for the latter, not the former. It's not possible to have both, for the same reason you can't have a tank battle in a city park: the one destroys the other.

If you want more explanation about how we draw this line on HN, there's a lot of it at these past links:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#254

Post by NikolaNovak »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #72
NikolaNovak wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can read and disagree (that's what makes reading philosophy hard; you want to argue, discuss, counter the narrative, take it into another direction, deny the assumption, put forward another hypothesis or explanation... but the book just sits there, static and smug, plowing ahead with whatever very specific point and perspective auther has already made up their mind on :)

It's the authors we disagree with we should read the most enthusiastically, because they may just provide an insight into what it is to have different opinions, and we may just be forced to admit they have a point. When we read authors too close to home that say things we already think are true and share our views, we'll let almost any nonsense argument slip by. That's a waste of time if I ever saw one.

Discussing things with people I disagree is awesome!

Reading philosophy books is difficult (for me), because my instinct is to have a conversation, ask questions, explore notions and branches, spend more time on some things than others. It's the railroad aspect of philosophy books (whether I "agree" or "disagree", which is rarely binary), that makes them feel stifling :-/

Even the classics like Plato - or perhaps most particularly classics like Plato - they tend to lose me after the first dozen "As everybody can plainly see...." "We can all agree that..." "It is an understood fact that...".

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#255

Post by pron »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #111
pron wrote: post #79

> Under the influence of politically correct extremism, individual thought and expression are too often curbed Uh-huh. I can only assume this refers to the so-called "cancel-culture" which probably doesn't exist (I am not claiming that there aren't "cancellation" incidents, but for this to exist as a "culture" or a trend, it needs to be shown that fewer people today can express and publicly disseminate fewer opinions…

That assumes that second person necessarily takes away something from the first person by the nature of her existence. In reality, this is not the case. Two persons can cooperate and kill a mammoth together, so both now have more spare time - a measure of freedom. A tribe can capture more territory - a measure of freedom.

> That assumes that second person necessarily takes away something from the first person by the nature of her existence.

No, it does not. It just asks whether the second person has the freedom to do something that will restrict the first's freedom. Either way, the two are no longer fully free. My point is that the very nature of freedom requires allocating and restricting it in certain ways. There is no such thing as not restricting anyone's freedom.

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#257

Post by photochemsyn »

nybble41 wrote: post #249
photochemsyn wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the model is Germany, where Tesla employees would have comparable representation (voting board members) to Tesla shareholders. It seems like a pretty good model, I bet even Elon Musk would support it as he's made his disdain for Tesla shareholders clear. Also, doesn't it just make sense that the employees of a corporation, the ones doing the work, might have at least as good of, if not a much better idea of, the…

This wasn't really the point of the thread, but I'm willing to discuss it. The employees may be "the ones doing the work" but capital investment is key to allowing them to do that work productively. The shareholders provide that capital, which (formally or informally—they're not obligated to provide it in the first place if they don't like the terms) means that they get to decide how it's used. The board is their age…

Well then we just need to restructure corporate law to ensure that half (okay a third) of the shares are reserved for employees and one of the results of employment is to become a shareholder.

As shareholders are organized into funds, employees can organize into worker organizations and as with shareholder unions, they then get a voting board member, who could be elected by the workers to represent them on the board.

This results in a power balance between capital and labor (both of which are required for a successful business). Yes, this means higher wages and rights for labor relative to the current situation in the USA, and less dividends for shareholders, but that seems fair doesn't it?

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#258

Post by nybble41 »

photochemsyn wrote: post #257
nybble41 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wasn't really the point of the thread, but I'm willing to discuss it. The employees may be "the ones doing the work" but capital investment is key to allowing them to do that work productively. The shareholders provide that capital, which (formally or informally—they're not obligated to provide it in the first place if they don't like the terms) means that they get to decide how it's used. The board is their age…

Well then we just need to restructure corporate law to ensure that half (okay a third) of the shares are reserved for employees and one of the results of employment is to become a shareholder. As shareholders are organized into funds, employees can organize into worker organizations and as with shareholder unions, they then get a voting board member, who could be elected by the workers to represent them on the board.…

> … half (okay a third) of the shares are reserved for employees and one of the results of employment is to become a shareholder.

So to become an employee you need to "buy in" to the company? Or is this your sign-on bonus? Can an employee divest themselves of their shares, or are they only a token shareholder with no ability to trade? Do new hires dilute their shares or does the company need to decide the maximum number of employees in advance?

This is an interesting structure but I don't think most employees would care for it very much, since it forces them to be invested in their employer rather than holding a safer diversified portfolio. I would certainly be opposed to requiring this structure as a matter of corporate law—I don't want to be a shareholder in my employer. I have that option already and I choose not to take it. If the company should happen to fail I don't want to lose my job and my life savings simultaneously.

> This results in a power balance between capital and labor (both of which are required for a successful business).

It would certainly change the power balance, by undermining the power of the shareholders to direct their own investments, which hardly seems "fair". I do not see this as an improvement, either as an investor or as an employee. The reason for the former is obvious, but even as an employee I want the shareholders to be free to handle their own domain, which is ensuring that my employer remains a profitable business capable of remaining in business and keeping those steady paychecks coming. People like to complain about undue focus on quarterly gains, but in practice my direct, financial interest in the company, and that of my coworkers, is very short-term; most obligations between us are settled within a few weeks, the longest (like accrued/borrowed paid time off) last a year or less. I can leave at any time and I don't have to worry about finding a willing replacement first. The shareholders, on the other hand, are invested in the long-term success of the company. Even if they don't personally hold the shares for long, they need someone else who believes that the company will be successful to buy their shares. So as an employee who prefers the certainty of a paycheck over the vagaries of investment returns, and would rather not to be looking for new employers on a frequent basis, I am happy to let the shareholders take responsibility for the company's long-term success and reap the corresponding rewards when they make the correct decisions. I do not want to interfere with their decisions, or to empower my coworkers without a shareholder's stake in the company's future to do so.

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#259

Post by sangnoir »

zepto wrote: post #238
sangnoir wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> American people It's public knowledge that there always was been an asterisk on "people" from the very beginning, and who it encompasses is always shifting. A lot of dismay comes from people learning that the government (any arm) of the day doesn't include them in this group[1]. 1. "He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting."

This has been true of all governments of all kinds thoughout all of time. Once again, it’s something America can only be criticized for because the goal is for it to be something different . It’s fair to criticize America for not living up to its ideals. It’s intellectually dishonest to imply that the ideals don’t exist.

I'm having trouble understanding, the tone sounds like it's a rebuttal to my comment, but the words appear to agree with me, maybe?

My entire point was that a lot of disappointment stems from America failing to live up to its ideals[1], and the people who thought they were (or deserve to be) in the in-group, are dismayed to find out they are in the out-group.

1. I'll hasten to add that those ideals are often retconned. "We the people" didn't mean all people (by today's standards). See Dred Scott.

Re: Freedom is not a goal, but a direction

#260

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

pron wrote: post #255
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes that second person necessarily takes away something from the first person by the nature of her existence. In reality, this is not the case. Two persons can cooperate and kill a mammoth together, so both now have more spare time - a measure of freedom. A tribe can capture more territory - a measure of freedom.

> That assumes that second person necessarily takes away something from the first person by the nature of her existence. No, it does not. It just asks whether the second person has the freedom to do something that will restrict the first's freedom. Either way, the two are no longer fully free. My point is that the very nature of freedom requires allocating and restricting it in certain ways. There is no such thing as…

Well, looks like we are arguing about different things, because precise definition of "freedom" does not exist.
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