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It's the difference between political freedom and metaphorical freedom (knowledge & rights). Political freedom I define as not being subject to violence unles

It's the difference between political freedom and metaphorical freedom (knowledge & rights). Political freedom I define as not being subject to violence unless you're attacking someone or stealing (material objects) from someone. Metaphorical (software) freedom is being in control of your computer, that means: you run free software (you know what you're running) and you can use and distribute it freely. There is nothing inherently violent in closed source programs.

Retra 7y ago
Violence is usually too far removed from the relevant abstractions. It's not difficult to see violence behind everything, because rules don't mean much if they aren't enforced, and it's all too easy to conflate violence with a threat of violence, or a threat of force with a threat of violence, etc. But that's not a very useful perspective; a well-functioning society filters violence so that it is only applied when things go seriously awry, and most of us should only ever threatened by minor inconveniences. To focus on violence is to be reductive; it is like trying to talk about programming in terms of electromagnetic laws -- yes, computers ultimately run on electricity, and social powers are ultimately enforced through violence, but the abstractions we've built atop those facts are actually very relevant and useful. Political freedom is not simply about establishing when violence is appropriate. It's broader than that -- it's about the functional ways we can convert violence into something softer without abdicating our ability to govern ourselves effectively. More to the point, closed source software doesn't need to be 'inherently violent' for it to cause problems. Nothing is inherently violent, and political freedoms are not defined by violence any more than computer programming is defined by electricity use.
pessimizer 7y ago
Property rights are the primary domain of politics. If you personally define a certain formulation of property rights as a natural state, your opinions on how freedom should be defined are going to spring from that formulation.

Retra 7y ago

Violence is usually too far removed from the relevant abstractions. It's not difficult to see violence behind everything, because rules don't mean much if they aren't enforced, and it's all too easy to conflate violence with a threat of violence, or a threat of force with a threat of violence, etc. But that's not a very useful perspective; a well-functioning society filters violence so that it is only applied when things go seriously awry, and most of us should only ever threatened by minor inconveniences. To focus on violence is to be reductive; it is like trying to talk about programming in terms of electromagnetic laws -- yes, computers ultimately run on electricity, and social powers are ultimately enforced through violence, but the abstractions we've built atop those facts are actually very relevant and useful. Political freedom is not simply about establishing when violence is appropriate. It's broader than that -- it's about the functional ways we can convert violence into something softer without abdicating our ability to govern ourselves effectively. More to the point, closed source software doesn't need to be 'inherently violent' for it to cause problems. Nothing is inherently violent, and political freedoms are not defined by violence any more than computer programming is defined by electricity use.

pessimizer 7y ago

Property rights are the primary domain of politics. If you personally define a certain formulation of property rights as a natural state, your opinions on how freedom should be defined are going to spring from that formulation.