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Life as a Service

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Life as a Service

#3

Post by davidkatz »

There's a serious discussion here which seems ignored. It is: "what are the pros and cons of government forced 'terms of life'". Without that discussion, it seems to me that most of the complaints in the article remain a curiosity.

Re: Life as a Service

#5

Post by nagnatron »

This hits very close and I guess you only realize it if at some point of your life you live where you'd rather not but have no way to get out.

    I need permission from my government if I want to leave
    the country. Being given a passport is apparently not a
    right. Oh and they cost quite a bit of money and are 
    valid only 5 years. That works out to a certain amount of 
    money per day just to be able to exist outside the
    borders of the country I was born in. Good thing it
    doubles as an ID card, I can save a bit there. Now I’ve
    never done anything from the list of offenses that would
    stop me from receiving a passport but I really wonder who 
    gave who the right to stop anybody from going where they
    wanted to go. It makes very little sense to me, all these 
    countries each with their own set of laws, borders,
    border guards to keep people out of one place, border
    guards to keep people in another place and so on. It
    feels as though they’re all prisons, just large enough
    that you can’t see the fences on the edge. But the fences
    are definitely there. And you can only buy your way out.
    Never mind that to go somewhere else you are also going
    to have to buy your way in.

Re: Life as a Service

#6

Post by zerostar07 »

davidkatz wrote: post #3

There's a serious discussion here which seems ignored. It is: "what are the pros and cons of government forced 'terms of life'". Without that discussion, it seems to me that most of the complaints in the article remain a curiosity.

The underlying idea is that you have silently agreed to a social contract by participating in the society. Of course, children are not likely to understand the reasons why this is a good idea for most people. One can freely choose to live like an outlaw or outside of society, with all the pros and cons that come with it.

This kind of nostalgia is similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltschmerz

Re: Life as a Service

#8

Post by Anderkent »

While some of the complaints are fair, the conclusion is absurd. The rights already clearly outweigh the obligations, which the author confirms himself by stating that "given the option I probably would/should have signed it [the contract".

It seems to me the author takes many benefits of having the "Life as a Service" subscription for granted, and thus believes they are not part of the service - that they would persist even if there was no overseeing organization. Just to provide an example, the right to own property is only enforced by the service - without it, you only have the 'right' to own whatever you can defend yourself (or convince someone to defend for you).

Thus in the 'LaaS' you have to pay taxes, or your property will be confiscated. Without 'LaaS' you have to be ready to fight for whatever you own, or your property will be confiscated. Seems like a win for me.

Re: Life as a Service

#9

Post by gws »

This article leaves me uneasy. We need to separate the process that societies use to determine laws and customs from the outcomes themselves. I'm also against many of the outcomes described in the article but the process used to get there in the countries where Jacques and I live in it's the best process we know of. OK, maybe the least worst is more appropriate but I can't really think anything else I would like to replace Democracy with.
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