5 ms·

To those who advocate that the majority's right to live trumps the right to an individual's privacy, who decides ? At present it is due the pandemic, next it w

by sifar 7y ago

To those who advocate that the majority's right to live trumps the right to an individual's privacy, who decides ? At present it is due the pandemic, next it will target some set of people because they are undesirable - because you know, that would supposedly make us safe. We know how that ended the last time. Whether it is contact tracing or wearing an arm band, underneath it is the same thing. When an individual is compelled, for the perceived safety of the majority, it leads to slavery. It also destroys the majority. And technology accelerates this process. Having seen rights being eroded, trampled, mocked, I have realized that we do not have any effective rights. They are a privilege bestowed by those in power.

hartator 7y ago
I think individual rights should always trump the majority will. Individual rights are natural, unremovable, and should not be up to debate. It’s the reason why the US is a republic and we have a bill of rights > all laws or orders.
- luckylion 7y ago
  So no wiretaps, ever? I'm not so sure...
  - hartator 7y ago
    It’s up to a judge to decide. It has to limited in scope, responsable, and with serious individual suspicion. A lot like current quarantine rulings - mass quarantines are unconstitutional in the US - but we all forget.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - luckylion 7y ago
      > It’s up to a judge to decide. Yeah, but he enacts the will of the majority ;) I totally get & agree with the sentiment, but not in the absolutist form. It's always going to be fuzzy, the question is mostly how we weigh the needs of the many and the needs of the few (or the individual). I do believe that the average response to that is strongly reflected in each nation's laws & culture, with the US emphasizing the individual's needs a lot more.
    - cortesoft 7y ago
      You say they are unconstitutional... where are the court rulings saying this?
- TechBro8615 7y ago
  This. The US constitution does not grant rights to citizens. It enumerates the rights that were endowed to us by our creator and cannot be taken away from us. This is an important distinction that is frequently overlooked.
- cortesoft 7y ago
  It is never that simple... individuals' rights are always going to be coming into conflict. It doesn't mean anything to say individual rights always trump the groups will. We are always having to adjudicate the boundaries of rights... that is why we have a court system. Where those boundaries are IS up to date, and has changed over time... this is unavoidable, because there is no 'natural' place to put those boundaries.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- matheusmoreira 7y ago
  > Individual rights are natural Questionable. Who says you have those rights? The government. They can take them away at any time. Just look at the USA PATRIOT Act.
grawprog 7y ago
But total monitoring and control over the entire global population has always been the goal for people who have so much money and power it's become meaningless. This virus is just an excuse to accelerate the release of technology and laws that have slowly been trickling out over the last few decades, the last little push as it were. It's mostly up to people now, whether they decide to listen and be compelled to give up nearly every freedom and right they have in the name of 'safety', or they push back against it.
- _mcdougle 7y ago
  This won't be the last little push, just the next little push. There'll be another one
dirtyid 7y ago
Individual liberty has to occasionally give way to collective good in modern society where the our way of life means most individuals cannot survive without some sort of centralized authority to maintain the systems that sustain modern life. This was true during middle age plagues where rulers had to centralize authority to maintain quarantines. It's true during wars and disaster. The issue is having a governance model that allows these exploitative but also circumstantially pro-social instruments to be retired during periods of serenity. The problem isn't specific to Trump. This is a wake up call to complacent voters who forget the importance of good governance.
- Press2forEN 7y ago
  The problem is that we're not dealing with "occasional" sacrifices to "some sort" of central authority. Since 9/11 we've been asked to surrender our rights by the truck load, and each new disaster seems to require ever more submission to an ever more powerful central state. The pendulum has swung too far the other way.
- Tainnor 7y ago
  I think that there is no reason why contract tracing apps can't be designed with privacy in mind (in fact, several privacy experts agree on that) and that there is some danger of governments ignoring that (even though, at least in Europe, they should be bound by the GDPR and sometimes more stringent national laws). But there are a lot of knee-jerk "but muh liberties" reactions in this thread and I think this is very dangerous, as it fails to see that sometimes individual rights must be weighed against each other.
  - dirtyid 7y ago
    The "but muh liberties" reactions are understandable in context increasing broken civic institutions compounded by various cultural factors. There's so much regression in various indicators aggregated over time that reforming governance seems impossible compared to preventing exploitation in the first place. But social upheavals like covid19 is the best opportunity for these reforms outside of war. In the mean time, I have no problem prioritizing contact tracing apps at all cost. But I have the benefit of a slightly more competent government, though I understand the general pessimism for those with understandably less faith. My personal issue is the companies with ubiquitous presence to implement these changes (Apple & Google) has to negotiate US political environment. One on hand, having a near global solution seems preferable to fractured regional systems specially if we expect to resume global travel in the future. On the other hand, this is more global surveillance information at the hands of US government which... I'm sure they're eager to collect.
ColanR 7y ago
> Having seen rights being eroded, trampled, mocked, I have realized that we do not have any effective rights. They are a privilege bestowed by those in power. I think this is a perspective encouraged by those in power. I think that a slightly different, but truer analysis is that our rights are always there, but often violated.
- Mediterraneo10 7y ago
  > Our rights are always there, but often violated. That sounds like 18th-century thinking. In that era, "natural rights" seemed a reasonable notion because people could agree on the existence of a higher authority (even if it was a pretty aloof Deist-type God) that bestowed those rights inalienably on each and every person. But that idea has become increasingly discredited, and in the 19th century other schools arose with their positions that "rights" are merely an invention of human societies for the purposes of those societies.
  - ColanR 7y ago
    A 'right' bestowed by society is no longer a right, but a privilege conditionally granted. However, without a shared higher moral authority, I can claim whatever rights I want and you can't tell me otherwise. All you can do is forcibly remove my ability to freely exercise them, and all I can do is forcibly defend my ability to enjoy them. Hence the existence of the USA's second amendment.
- sifar 7y ago
  That might have been true before the technological advance. Now, I feel that the exceptions have become the norm and with each passing event, are creeping in every aspect of our lives. Turning it around - Our rights are always violated, we sometimes get to exercise them. The very notion that you have something means that it can be taken away, unless like you said, you have the means to defend it. Contrast that with something you are, not have. That can only change, not taken away.

by sifar 7y ago

hartator 7y ago

I think individual rights should always trump the majority will. Individual rights are natural, unremovable, and should not be up to debate. It’s the reason why the US is a republic and we have a bill of rights > all laws or orders.

luckylion 7y ago
So no wiretaps, ever? I'm not so sure...
- hartator 7y ago
  It’s up to a judge to decide. It has to limited in scope, responsable, and with serious individual suspicion. A lot like current quarantine rulings - mass quarantines are unconstitutional in the US - but we all forget.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > It’s up to a judge to decide. Yeah, but he enacts the will of the majority ;) I totally get & agree with the sentiment, but not in the absolutist form. It's always going to be fuzzy, the question is mostly how we weigh the needs of the many and the needs of the few (or the individual). I do believe that the average response to that is strongly reflected in each nation's laws & culture, with the US emphasizing the individual's needs a lot more.
  - cortesoft 7y ago
    You say they are unconstitutional... where are the court rulings saying this?
TechBro8615 7y ago
This. The US constitution does not grant rights to citizens. It enumerates the rights that were endowed to us by our creator and cannot be taken away from us. This is an important distinction that is frequently overlooked.
cortesoft 7y ago
It is never that simple... individuals' rights are always going to be coming into conflict. It doesn't mean anything to say individual rights always trump the groups will. We are always having to adjudicate the boundaries of rights... that is why we have a court system. Where those boundaries are IS up to date, and has changed over time... this is unavoidable, because there is no 'natural' place to put those boundaries.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
matheusmoreira 7y ago
> Individual rights are natural Questionable. Who says you have those rights? The government. They can take them away at any time. Just look at the USA PATRIOT Act.

grawprog 7y ago

But total monitoring and control over the entire global population has always been the goal for people who have so much money and power it's become meaningless. This virus is just an excuse to accelerate the release of technology and laws that have slowly been trickling out over the last few decades, the last little push as it were. It's mostly up to people now, whether they decide to listen and be compelled to give up nearly every freedom and right they have in the name of 'safety', or they push back against it.

_mcdougle 7y ago
This won't be the last little push, just the next little push. There'll be another one

dirtyid 7y ago

Individual liberty has to occasionally give way to collective good in modern society where the our way of life means most individuals cannot survive without some sort of centralized authority to maintain the systems that sustain modern life. This was true during middle age plagues where rulers had to centralize authority to maintain quarantines. It's true during wars and disaster. The issue is having a governance model that allows these exploitative but also circumstantially pro-social instruments to be retired during periods of serenity. The problem isn't specific to Trump. This is a wake up call to complacent voters who forget the importance of good governance.

Press2forEN 7y ago
The problem is that we're not dealing with "occasional" sacrifices to "some sort" of central authority. Since 9/11 we've been asked to surrender our rights by the truck load, and each new disaster seems to require ever more submission to an ever more powerful central state. The pendulum has swung too far the other way.
Tainnor 7y ago
I think that there is no reason why contract tracing apps can't be designed with privacy in mind (in fact, several privacy experts agree on that) and that there is some danger of governments ignoring that (even though, at least in Europe, they should be bound by the GDPR and sometimes more stringent national laws). But there are a lot of knee-jerk "but muh liberties" reactions in this thread and I think this is very dangerous, as it fails to see that sometimes individual rights must be weighed against each other.
- dirtyid 7y ago
  The "but muh liberties" reactions are understandable in context increasing broken civic institutions compounded by various cultural factors. There's so much regression in various indicators aggregated over time that reforming governance seems impossible compared to preventing exploitation in the first place. But social upheavals like covid19 is the best opportunity for these reforms outside of war. In the mean time, I have no problem prioritizing contact tracing apps at all cost. But I have the benefit of a slightly more competent government, though I understand the general pessimism for those with understandably less faith. My personal issue is the companies with ubiquitous presence to implement these changes (Apple & Google) has to negotiate US political environment. One on hand, having a near global solution seems preferable to fractured regional systems specially if we expect to resume global travel in the future. On the other hand, this is more global surveillance information at the hands of US government which... I'm sure they're eager to collect.

ColanR 7y ago

> Having seen rights being eroded, trampled, mocked, I have realized that we do not have any effective rights. They are a privilege bestowed by those in power. I think this is a perspective encouraged by those in power. I think that a slightly different, but truer analysis is that our rights are always there, but often violated.

Mediterraneo10 7y ago
> Our rights are always there, but often violated. That sounds like 18th-century thinking. In that era, "natural rights" seemed a reasonable notion because people could agree on the existence of a higher authority (even if it was a pretty aloof Deist-type God) that bestowed those rights inalienably on each and every person. But that idea has become increasingly discredited, and in the 19th century other schools arose with their positions that "rights" are merely an invention of human societies for the purposes of those societies.
- ColanR 7y ago
  A 'right' bestowed by society is no longer a right, but a privilege conditionally granted. However, without a shared higher moral authority, I can claim whatever rights I want and you can't tell me otherwise. All you can do is forcibly remove my ability to freely exercise them, and all I can do is forcibly defend my ability to enjoy them. Hence the existence of the USA's second amendment.
sifar 7y ago
That might have been true before the technological advance. Now, I feel that the exceptions have become the norm and with each passing event, are creeping in every aspect of our lives. Turning it around - Our rights are always violated, we sometimes get to exercise them. The very notion that you have something means that it can be taken away, unless like you said, you have the means to defend it. Contrast that with something you are, not have. That can only change, not taken away.