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But almost no one is actually free to move to another country.

bzbarsky 9y ago
If you replace "country" with "city" or "province", then pretty much everyone is in fact free to leave, legally. Yet we still consider it bad when such governments censor things.
- lawn 9y ago
  In practice though you need a job and a new house. You might be legally free to leave but in reality you're not able to.
  - bzbarsky 9y ago
    Right; my point was that "there are severe practical consequences for leaving" is exactly the situation with something like github.
    - nybble41 9y ago
      The difference is that you are not entitled to receive service from GitHub. You are entitled to keep your own private property and to continue to interact voluntarily your current friends, family, and neighbors (and anyone else willing to deal with you). However, both of these liberties will be infringed by most governments if you attempt to remove yourself from their jurisdiction.
      - bzbarsky 9y ago
        > you are not entitled to receive service from GitHub Are you "entitled" to a job in your field? Plenty of employers now require you to work on GitHub. > both of these liberties will be infringed by most governments if you attempt to remove yourself from their jurisdiction What? If I attempt to move out of a city, the city government is not going to arrest me, in most countries. (There are some exceptions like China, but even there it's not the town government that does the arresing if someone tries to move.) Seriously, not interacting with GitHub is a larger imposition for many people than not living in some particular city.
        nybble41 9y ago
        > Are you "entitled" to a job in your field? No. > If I attempt to move out of a city, the city government is not going to arrest me, in most countries. I was obviously referring to national governments—the original subject of this thread—and disavowing citizenship. Individual cities (usually) don't have the same power, if only because of their smaller size. However, just try opting out of city services (and taxes) while retaining all your private property, particularly land located within the city's borders. The city's influence may be less, but the principle remains the same.
        bzbarsky 9y ago
        > No. Universal declaration of human rights article 23 may disagree, fwiw. Assuming you accept that declaration at all, of course. But the point is that there is, shall we say, a wide spectrum of views on this topic. > I was obviously referring to national governments That wasn't obvious at all, since you were commenting in a subthread that was specifically about how city governments are subject to many of the same restrictions even though leaving cities is "easy" (certainly comparable to leaving github). > However, just try opting out of city services (and taxes) while retaining all your private property The context here, just to remind you, is whether "just don't interact with entity X" is a reasonable response to complaints about entity X doing certain things like censorship. It's a well-established principle at least in the US that a city government cannot infringe your free speech rights. It's likewise a well-established principle that a corporation effectively can. This is largely due to accidents of history and somewhat due to differences in enforcement mechanisms (in that a city government could try to get you jailed with more success than a corporation). But the "if you don't like it, just don't deal with them" response doesn't address any of that, and is in fact particularly weak because for many people it is _easier_ to not deal with a particular city government (i.e. move to a different city) than to not deal with GitHub.

If you replace "country" with "city" or "province", then pretty much everyone is in fact free to leave, legally. Yet we still consider it bad when such governments censor things.

lawn 9y ago
In practice though you need a job and a new house. You might be legally free to leave but in reality you're not able to.
- bzbarsky 9y ago
  Right; my point was that "there are severe practical consequences for leaving" is exactly the situation with something like github.
  - nybble41 9y ago
    The difference is that you are not entitled to receive service from GitHub. You are entitled to keep your own private property and to continue to interact voluntarily your current friends, family, and neighbors (and anyone else willing to deal with you). However, both of these liberties will be infringed by most governments if you attempt to remove yourself from their jurisdiction.
    - bzbarsky 9y ago
      > you are not entitled to receive service from GitHub Are you "entitled" to a job in your field? Plenty of employers now require you to work on GitHub. > both of these liberties will be infringed by most governments if you attempt to remove yourself from their jurisdiction What? If I attempt to move out of a city, the city government is not going to arrest me, in most countries. (There are some exceptions like China, but even there it's not the town government that does the arresing if someone tries to move.) Seriously, not interacting with GitHub is a larger imposition for many people than not living in some particular city.
      - nybble41 9y ago
        > Are you "entitled" to a job in your field? No. > If I attempt to move out of a city, the city government is not going to arrest me, in most countries. I was obviously referring to national governments—the original subject of this thread—and disavowing citizenship. Individual cities (usually) don't have the same power, if only because of their smaller size. However, just try opting out of city services (and taxes) while retaining all your private property, particularly land located within the city's borders. The city's influence may be less, but the principle remains the same.
        bzbarsky 9y ago
        > No. Universal declaration of human rights article 23 may disagree, fwiw. Assuming you accept that declaration at all, of course. But the point is that there is, shall we say, a wide spectrum of views on this topic. > I was obviously referring to national governments That wasn't obvious at all, since you were commenting in a subthread that was specifically about how city governments are subject to many of the same restrictions even though leaving cities is "easy" (certainly comparable to leaving github). > However, just try opting out of city services (and taxes) while retaining all your private property The context here, just to remind you, is whether "just don't interact with entity X" is a reasonable response to complaints about entity X doing certain things like censorship. It's a well-established principle at least in the US that a city government cannot infringe your free speech rights. It's likewise a well-established principle that a corporation effectively can. This is largely due to accidents of history and somewhat due to differences in enforcement mechanisms (in that a city government could try to get you jailed with more success than a corporation). But the "if you don't like it, just don't deal with them" response doesn't address any of that, and is in fact particularly weak because for many people it is _easier_ to not deal with a particular city government (i.e. move to a different city) than to not deal with GitHub.