14 ms·

Freedom is not simple

86 points by pcr910303 6y ago

sradman 6y ago
> ...my big gripe with hardline “big-L” Libertarianism is that it seems to pretend these trade-offs don’t exist and that “freedom” is some sort of thing you can just assign a number to. This statement would not pass the Ideological Turing Test [1]. Freedom is doing what one wants as long as it does not impinge on the ability of others to do the same; "live and let live". The grey areas and trade-offs live in interpreting Golden Rule [2] violations. Violations implemented to further The Greater Good [3] also complicate matters. Each political preference, be it progressive, conservative, or libertarian, tends to apply the Precautionary Principle [4] to what they view as ruinous behavior (oppression/exploitation, individual decadence, and government overreach respectively). Each group is blind to their own application of the Precautionary Principle that different outgroups view as a Golden Rule violation. [1] https://www.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/the_ideological.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/the_ideological.htm... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle
nickthemagicman 6y ago
I think big L libertarians are aware of the idea that freedom is full of trade-offs. The issue is that someone has to make these decisions and libertarians don't think the government is the group to do it. The most important institutions in human society — language, law, money, and markets — all developed spontaneously, without central direction. Civil society — the complex network of associations and connections among people — is another example of spontaneous order; the associations within civil society are formed for a purpose, but civil society itself is not an organization and does not have a purpose of its own. Government is the big hammer and when you start using government casually instead of letting people decide at their own direction that's when you start running into massive problems. Because the government could give you what you want one day but then with that same power take away everything the next.
- arp242 6y ago
  > I think big L libertarians are aware of the idea that freedom is full of trade-offs. Perhaps; but I don't often see it recognized in Libertarian discourse and writings. This is possibly a failing on my part on reading the right kind of libertarian things. It's hard to write something generic about an entire ideology since it's always comprised of different views and priorities; and no matter what you write it'll do an injustice to some views. I've added the word "often" to emphasize this a bit.
  - unishark 6y ago
    My understanding of libertarianism is as basically generalizing on the idea of freedom from slavery as the most fundamental right. "Liberty" is then the narrowly-defined freedom from having force used against you. And you are only justified in using force against others to stop them from using force against you. As to whether loud noise or sulfur dioxide count as sufficient force against you seems arguable.
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
      That's not very accurate. Libertarians believe in collective reason over centralized authority. Here's a good run down. https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/key-concepts-libertarianism https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/key-concepts-li...
      - arp242 6y ago
        This is all very fine, but what it misses are the power imbalances we have. This is not inherently a bad thing, but if I don't have the freedom to disagree with my landlord out of fear of being evicted then I'm not living a very "free" life. "Collective reason" sounds great, but in practice it doesn't really work. I feel it's very naïve.
        amscanne 6y ago
        You are absolutely free to disagree with your landlord by moving out and finding another place to live. Ideally there are no government constraints on either party (e.g. housing assignments, rental limitations and controls, etc.). I don’t really understand the rest of the point being made here. You wouldn’t have such a choice with a central authority giving you a housing assignment.
FeepingCreature 6y ago
> There are also many cases where increased freedom doesn’t limit other people’s freedom; for example my freedom to have consensual sexual relationships with whomever I choose doesn’t limit anyone else’s freedom. A bit earlier in the article: > Things like freedom or speech or religion can infringe on other people’s freedoms. If I say that all Jews should be kicked in the face whenever you see one this limits Jewish people’s freedom live a life without fear of being kicked in the face. No, no. You already made the typical mistake. If I kick a jew in the face, I infringe on their freedom to live a life without actually getting kicked in the face. But if I say jews should be kicked in the face, I infringe on their freedom to live a life without fear of getting kicked in the face - a freedom, you may note, that libertarians don't actually believe in, because anyone with a smidgen of security mindset can see that it's completely exploitable. For instance: you say your freedom to have consensual sexual relationships with whomever you want doesn't infringe my freedom, but what about my freedom to be free of fear about the gay agenda? What about my fear about the breakdown of society? My fear of the decline of traditional marriage? Fear, as opposed to outcomes, does not need to be rational or grounded in reality. Once you acknowledge a right to be free from fear, you are able to justify any tradeoff. I say - no! There is no right to be free of fear. Everybody has the right to be safe, but nobody has the right to feel safe. Adjusting your feeling to reality is everyone's own responsibility. We must not allow people to abdicate the responsibility for their own feelings and create a guilt of others not to cause upset. A free society cannot and must not take responsibility for fears - only for outcomes. Always for outcomes! No jew should ever be kicked in the face, we are completely agreed. But society's obligation to protect Jewish rights ends at their cranium. What happens inside people's heads is nobody's business but their own - for good or for ill. (Which is of course not to be understood as arguing against mental health services. One must be mentally healthy to be mentally responsible - if and exactly if.)
- deleted 6y ago
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- claudiawerner 6y ago
  >Everybody has the right to be safe, but nobody has the right to feel safe. When stated this way, at least so directly, it's not surprising to me that more people aren't right-libertarians. Of course, when you have hard and fast principles, and trade only in 'thick' concepts, then you can get exploitable concepts (as you rightly point out), but we have institutions for dealing with that - the legislature and the judiciary, and there need not be a law that applies (practically speaking) in every circumstance. In society, we don't have to always be on a slippery slope. Here's a good paper on the vacuity of the pure harm principle, as you seem to espouse, in lawmaking: https://digital.sandiego.edu/lwps_public/art17/ https://digital.sandiego.edu/lwps_public/art17/ >Fear, as opposed to outcomes, does not need to be rational or grounded in reality. Once you acknowledge a right to be free from fear, you are able to justify any tradeoff. I say - no! The core question is whose reality? That of the victim or the perpetrator? However, if you'd like to talk about reality, it's not at all difficult to imagine psychological harms or even PTSD triggered by something as 'unreal' as fear, which has very real outcomes. Every industrialized country in the world has some legislation against, for example, sending threatening letters, despite the fact that their only outcome is 'fear'. This is usually known as a law against assault. The dichotomy between 'mental harms' and 'physical harms' with regard to the law (and 1A jurisprudence) is on extremely shaky metaphysical grounds[0]: >An immunization I choose to have may (momentarily) hurt me physically, but it does not constitute a harm if I have chosen to be immunized. And defamatory statements that damage my reputation may harm me even if they cause me no physical or even psychological injury (as in the case in which I don't find out about them). [0] http://susanbrison.com/files/B.16.-speech_harm_and_the_mindbody_problem_in_first_amendment_jurisprudence.pdf http://susanbrison.com/files/B.16.-speech_harm_and_the_mindb...
krzepah 6y ago
Hi man, the article seems nice, i couldn't read it all yet but I spotted a mistake "This is often now (should be not ?) the case"
- arp242 6y ago
  Oops, thanks. Amazing how I miss these silly typos even after proof-reading it carefully a week apart :-/
crocko 6y ago
Yes freedom is very simple. All freedoms are drawn from respecting property rights. You have a right to your intellectual property and do with it as you wish. If people don't wish to use software because of the license (and potentially the cost of obtaining a license) they are free not to use it. It really is that simple.
drchiu 6y ago
I remember some of the most mind bending topics in med school were courses surrounding consent and ethics. The superficial perspectives never seem to do these topics justice once one actually performs deep analysis into them. It seems that societally, we must decide where we draw the lines on things (ie. what is acceptable and reasonable vs what is not). The professor seemed to enjoy working us into a conundrum and then throwing that as the analysis.
rmbryan 6y ago
This is a poorly written article because it's disorganized and does not advance any line of thought, but I agree with the author's premise that he does not understand the complex topic of freedom.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
  I thought it advanced the line of thought that freedom is nuanced and not binary.
  - crocko 6y ago
    It really isn't though. Unfortunately people have been conned into thinking it isn't. 1. You respect property rights 2. You are allowed to speak your mind 3. You have a right to defend yourself Everything else is nonsense.
    - arp242 6y ago
      Why shouldn't I have the freedom to go where I please? What gives, say, the owner a piece of land the right to deny my freedom to walk there? I'm not against property rights, but nowhere is it treated like an absolute. Even cultures with strong property rights recognizes such as the United States recognizes this trade-off (which is explicitly done so in the US constitution).
    - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
      So do copyright laws enhance freedom or detract from it?
      - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        If you assume the GP's position then that just boils down to whether or not intellectual property is property.
        MaxBarraclough 6y ago
OliverJones 6y ago
There's the Hunter S. Thompson kind of freedom: to sit on his back porch in his underwear and shoot field mice with his .45 pistol. That's not a very interesting freedom for those of us who would threaten neighborhood safety by discharging firearms on our back porches. Then, there's the freedom that's intertwined with responsibility. We can, without regulation, do things for ourselves and our communities. Free and Open Source Software is a good example of the work-product of that kind of freedom. Sexual freedom between "consenting adults" is in fact an example of freedom intertwined with responsibility. My point: considering "freedom" as a standalone concept leads to all kinds of category confusion.
- arp242 6y ago
  > Sexual freedom between "consenting adults" is in fact an example of freedom intertwined with responsibility. How is that the case?
  - KSteffensen 6y ago
    Sex between consenting adults of opposite genders might lead to lifelong responsibility.
  - mensetmanusman 6y ago
    Sex can have long term consequences, STDs like HIV, Babies, Emotional attachments, effect on divorce rates and connected harm to children, etc.
  - OliverJones 6y ago
    "Consent" is an exercise of mutual responsibility.
DanielBMarkham 6y ago
"My neighbour’s freedom to play music at 4am limits my freedom to have a good night’s rest. Does this increase or decrease freedom?" Freedom != Liberty This concept is easily over 200 years old. I appreciate the author's interest in the subject. It might be good to start much nearer to where others left off.
- giancarlostoro 6y ago
  Yeah, I was thinking the same. Also coincidentally... here in Orlando, you can call the cops on people who are too noisy, no fancy equipment necessary if the cop can hear it they will knock on their door and issue a warning, a fee will be issued if they have to come back.
  - DanielBMarkham 6y ago
    We live in an increasingly-authoritarian society where most people are unable to describe or reason with simple concepts put forth dozens of decades ago. These two things are not accidentally correlated.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      I think it's deeper than that. It's not just that people can't reason with those concepts. It's that people don't want to restrain their own behavior. Say I want to play my music loud at 4 AM. I'm probably not going to reason about other peoples' rights limiting mine, or whatever - not because I can't, but because I don't want to. I just want to crank up my music and rock out, I can't be bothered with philosophy right now. But I fear that, if people will not restrain their own behavior, the only alternatives left are authoritarianism and chaos. And most people, after a taste of chaos, seem to prefer authoritarianism.
      - natmaka 6y ago
        Isn't it proportional to the population size and density? In a small human group anonymity isn't really a factor, therefore most want to restrain themselves in order to avoid annoying known people, moreover when someone fails at it more often than not a third party knowing both the annoyed and the culprit tries (peacefuly) to restore peace. When we need authoritarianism, something is too big.
vjvj 6y ago
I like the way the author has articulated this. It can be built on by applying the economics concept of "externalities" - i.e. side effects (positive or negative) from a particular action such as the exercising of a right or freedom. To get us closer to a perfect world, we need to start measuring the value of externalities (arguably not always easy to get right but possible to estimate) and to whom this gain or loss in value occurs so that they can be compensated by the externality creator(s). I agree with the author that most people do not consider the negative externalities of a particular freedom being exercised. We should require our legislators to more clearly articulate and value externalities from a given policy and identify groups it creates negative externalities for, and how they should be compensated (or why they do not deserve to be compensated).
- bluetomcat 6y ago
  > We should require our legislators to more clearly articulate and value externalities from a given policy and identify groups it creates negative externalities for, and how they should be compensated (or why they do not deserve to be compensated). That would be identity politics 2.0 and the end of nation states. Not only lawmakers targeting different groups of society to pass legislation, but also identifying (highly subjectively) other groups to be compensated for 2nd and 3rd-order effects introduced by that legislation.
  - bitwize 6y ago
    It's the application of Coase's theorem at the level of the legislature. Nothing "identity" about it; if others are unduly negatively affected by a measure then they deserve compensation.
  - veridies 6y ago
    I realize the practical difficulties here, but the actual concept (identifying who's going to be impacted, and offering targeted solutions) sounds like a pretty good idea in theory. Calling it 'identity politics 2.0' is an easy way to dismiss it, but it doesn't respond to the actual argument.
tony 6y ago
To anyone who finds this interesting: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights/ The Form of Rights: The Hohfeldian Analytical System [1] The Function of Rights: The Will Theory and the Interest Theory [2] Interesting read, "Hohfeld's cube": https://www.uakron.edu/dotAsset/65177fc7-9161-44a4-9a8e-163197ca9863.pdf https://www.uakron.edu/dotAsset/65177fc7-9161-44a4-9a8e-1631... [1] http://www.kentlaw.edu/perritt/courses/property/Hohfeld.htm http://www.kentlaw.edu/perritt/courses/property/Hohfeld.htm [2] http://core.ecu.edu/phil/mccartyr/1175docs/TheoriesofRights.pdf http://core.ecu.edu/phil/mccartyr/1175docs/TheoriesofRights....
raxxorrax 6y ago
I don't think it fits the paradox of tolerance, which I believe the author didn't even like that much later in life. But the main principle of that is that you have to compromise your position to face your adversaries at some point or you will loose all tolerance. I don't think this should be used as a template. I am against the death penalty for instance, which the concept could very well be applied to. I think Popper wouldn't like how the argument is used today. That said, a premise of the article is that freedom should be maximized for everyone. The reason many people are skeptical when the topic of freedom being relative is brought up may indeed be influenced by developments in tech. Because sadly, we had a long stretch of paternalism and restricting choice "for the benefit of all" (mostly corporate lock in). In that case, you are not maximizing freedom, even if there can be other kinds of arguments for said approach.
webreac 6y ago
A long text very well written in which he nuances the notion of freedom and in which he attacks the free software foundation claiming that the FSF does not understand these nuances: "Indeed, the entire Free Software movement seems like a typical failure of appreciating these kind of trade-offs when it comes to freedom." I find this extremely pretentious and very poorly argumented. I wish I could mod down this article. This looks like the beginning of an FSF smear campaign.
- deleted 6y ago
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- arp242 6y ago
  The main reason I wrote this was to counter some libertarian ideas/zeitgeist. The original draft (from, ehm, maybe 2 years ago) was titled "The libertarian fallacy", but I felt this didn't do service since libertarianism is quite broad (indeed, I have quite a few libertarian leanings myself). The second reason is indeed that I do plan to write some other things to point out some of the FSFs failings as I see them, both in their philosophy and some more pragmatical things, and the appreciation of the complexity of "freedom" is one of them. I agree that as it stands it's not well argumented, but this will be an article on its own (soon™, although a kind of proto-draft is available as some comments I made at [1]). I have this kind of complex dependency tree in my head on what to write in what order. I hate how you phrase this as a "smear campaign" though. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but I do expect people to recognise I'm arguing in good faith, and "smear campaign" implies that I don't. [1]: https://lobste.rs/s/gywiju/freedom_isn_t_free#c_73fmon https://lobste.rs/s/gywiju/freedom_isn_t_free#c_73fmon
  - icebraining 6y ago
    I think you if target a specific organization or movement, you should put more effort into portraying their position fairly if you want to be taken in good faith. The Free Software movement doesn't just say "GPL increases freedom", it has a whole Philosophy section which is easily available at the GNU website, describing why they think the Four Freedoms are essential and override the others.
tecnocriollo 6y ago
Libertarianism doesn't advocate for do whatever you want. They advocates the principle of non aggression where your freedom last until you interfere with another person freedom. Classical libertarianism advocates that freedoms comes with responsibility and is not free. The socialists likes freedom without costs using the state as a medium for liberating you from dutys. Libertarians advocates for the rule of law and respect for every individual.
AndrewKemendo 6y ago
Song as old as time: Positive and Negative Rights debate [1] [1]https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative...
esnard 6y ago
I'm currently reading a manga named Attack on Titan, in which freedom (and its implications) takes a very important part, and I couldn't emphasize how good the writing is. The anime is also available on Netflix in most countries, if you prefer that format.
tboyd47 6y ago
Analyzing social movements, taken on face value, with pure logic alone isn't good enough. You have to learn their history as well; otherwise you're only comparing empty slogans against each other. Libertarianism and the free software movement are two social movements that have very little in common except the word "freedom." Libertarian philosophers like Hayek, and even those who would describe themselves as anarchists like Rothbard, do not advocate a lawless society. They accept the bottom-up process of building up common and constitutional law through court precedent and reject the top-down imposition of laws by fiat. To your specific points, American society has already worked out which "freedoms" impinge on others' freedoms over the course of 200+ years of constitutional law, building on many more centuries of British common law. The idea that a single person can sit at a desk and calculate "trade-offs" between civil rights enshrined by law and enjoyed by large groups of people over many hundreds of years would be absurd to a libertarian, though commonplace today. Who is allowed to make such a decision, and why? The free software movement emerged as a defense of pre-existing collaboration networks between academics from the threat an attempted corporate takeover in a very specialized area of computing at a specific point in time, i.e. OS development in the 1980s. I find that few developers understand the forces the original software freedom movement was fighting against, although such forces are stronger than ever. This is only because the software freedom movement so thoroughly wiped out its opposition within its own limited domain that those looking from the outside can't understand the point of it anymore. Perhaps that's what true victory looks like in the historical record; when the opposition is not only defeated but silent, the victors look like a bunch of loud extremists going on and on about something irrelevant.
- icebraining 6y ago
  I have to say I find it hard to follow your argument. How can the forces be stronger than ever if the opposition was defeated and wiped out? According to lore, Stallman started the movement due to a closed-source appliance (a printer) he used and which he wanted to improve. Closed devices continued to be and are still the norm, so I don't see how the opposition was defeated, let alone wiped out.
  - tboyd47 6y ago
maedla 6y ago
We need democracy in the workplace :)
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Fun topic, philosophers have been debating this for millennia. It is really important to discuss what you think freedom means before delving into an argument. E.g. Your freedom to drink big gulp sugar drinks every day and sit around and become morbidly obese does decrease other people’s freedom when they are paying for your healthcare costs. (If you believe this is true, it follows and is also true that massively increasing your risk of STDs also decreases society’s freedom due to increased cost associated with an unhealthy populace.)
motohagiography 6y ago
What tends to be missing from the ontology of these ideas is that a positive right without an inextricable and commensurate or contrapositive responsibility is just an arbitrary privilege, with the implication of some paternalistic guarantor who hands them out. This is why I treat activism as a tactic with skepticism, because people rarely organize and agitate to obtain more responsibility. I would argue a right without an associated responsibility just means privilege. Freedom is separate. When people demand rights, they beg the question of first from whom, and second of what responsibility they must necessarily be taking on. When they demand freedom, they are rolling back the scope or domain of external authorities. Software freedom means using software without requiring permission. Freedom becomes an artifact of a private sphere of experience. This private sphere can be individual, it can be based on association, distance, or any number of other dimensions, but the existence of a private domain is the necessary condition for freedom. Rights on the other hand, are a public phenomenon, in that they are artifacts of an externally governed domain. In this model, freedom is something outside the scope of governed rights, over which there is neither a guarantee or oversight. Freedom has a scope, and it can only exist within a perimeter that secures it from the external rights and privileges granted by authorities. All freedom is a limit on the sovereignty and dominion of external authorities, which is what makes it so provocative. It's also why "the rights of man," and "human rights," were so controversial initially, because they require a universal authority to enforce them. The question of whether my exercising freedom may infringe on someones rights or their privileges becomes clearer when we measure it against whether it interferes with their responsibilities. When rights collide, the law is the tool we use to reconcile them. When freedoms collide, typically we either resort to negotiating rights, or defer to the principle of freedom and move on. When freedom collides with rights, we tend to negotiate an exception or set a precedent. But when freedom collides with privilege, neither can bear co-existence with the other. This models why some people think others' freedom is privilege (because it is not a function of prescribed rights or responsibilities), and that rights and privileges for others breach their freedom (by expanding the domain of authority with imposed or without commensurate responsibilities). Hence playing loud music at 4am in a neighbourhood is a rights violation, and not an exercise of freedom, because it does not occur in a private domain, which is the necessary condition of freedom.
efitz 6y ago
Half the comments here are about FSF rather than about the article. Why is FSF such a sacred cow that mere observation that they have made a trade-off in freedoms, is somehow objectionable? I didn’t take anything that was in the original unedited article as an attack on FSF.

86 points by pcr910303 6y ago

> ...my big gripe with hardline “big-L” Libertarianism is that it seems to pretend these trade-offs don’t exist and that “freedom” is some sort of thing you can just assign a number to. This statement would not pass the Ideological Turing Test [1]. Freedom is doing what one wants as long as it does not impinge on the ability of others to do the same; "live and let live". The grey areas and trade-offs live in interpreting Golden Rule [2] violations. Violations implemented to further The Greater Good [3] also complicate matters. Each political preference, be it progressive, conservative, or libertarian, tends to apply the Precautionary Principle [4] to what they view as ruinous behavior (oppression/exploitation, individual decadence, and government overreach respectively). Each group is blind to their own application of the Precautionary Principle that different outgroups view as a Golden Rule violation. [1] https://www.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/the_ideological.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/the_ideological.htm... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

nickthemagicman 6y ago

I think big L libertarians are aware of the idea that freedom is full of trade-offs. The issue is that someone has to make these decisions and libertarians don't think the government is the group to do it. The most important institutions in human society — language, law, money, and markets — all developed spontaneously, without central direction. Civil society — the complex network of associations and connections among people — is another example of spontaneous order; the associations within civil society are formed for a purpose, but civil society itself is not an organization and does not have a purpose of its own. Government is the big hammer and when you start using government casually instead of letting people decide at their own direction that's when you start running into massive problems. Because the government could give you what you want one day but then with that same power take away everything the next.

arp242 6y ago
> I think big L libertarians are aware of the idea that freedom is full of trade-offs. Perhaps; but I don't often see it recognized in Libertarian discourse and writings. This is possibly a failing on my part on reading the right kind of libertarian things. It's hard to write something generic about an entire ideology since it's always comprised of different views and priorities; and no matter what you write it'll do an injustice to some views. I've added the word "often" to emphasize this a bit.
- unishark 6y ago
  My understanding of libertarianism is as basically generalizing on the idea of freedom from slavery as the most fundamental right. "Liberty" is then the narrowly-defined freedom from having force used against you. And you are only justified in using force against others to stop them from using force against you. As to whether loud noise or sulfur dioxide count as sufficient force against you seems arguable.
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    That's not very accurate. Libertarians believe in collective reason over centralized authority. Here's a good run down. https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/key-concepts-libertarianism https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/key-concepts-li...
    - arp242 6y ago
      This is all very fine, but what it misses are the power imbalances we have. This is not inherently a bad thing, but if I don't have the freedom to disagree with my landlord out of fear of being evicted then I'm not living a very "free" life. "Collective reason" sounds great, but in practice it doesn't really work. I feel it's very naïve.
      - amscanne 6y ago
        You are absolutely free to disagree with your landlord by moving out and finding another place to live. Ideally there are no government constraints on either party (e.g. housing assignments, rental limitations and controls, etc.). I don’t really understand the rest of the point being made here. You wouldn’t have such a choice with a central authority giving you a housing assignment.

FeepingCreature 6y ago

> There are also many cases where increased freedom doesn’t limit other people’s freedom; for example my freedom to have consensual sexual relationships with whomever I choose doesn’t limit anyone else’s freedom. A bit earlier in the article: > Things like freedom or speech or religion can infringe on other people’s freedoms. If I say that all Jews should be kicked in the face whenever you see one this limits Jewish people’s freedom live a life without fear of being kicked in the face. No, no. You already made the typical mistake. If I kick a jew in the face, I infringe on their freedom to live a life without actually getting kicked in the face. But if I say jews should be kicked in the face, I infringe on their freedom to live a life without fear of getting kicked in the face - a freedom, you may note, that libertarians don't actually believe in, because anyone with a smidgen of security mindset can see that it's completely exploitable. For instance: you say your freedom to have consensual sexual relationships with whomever you want doesn't infringe my freedom, but what about my freedom to be free of fear about the gay agenda? What about my fear about the breakdown of society? My fear of the decline of traditional marriage? Fear, as opposed to outcomes, does not need to be rational or grounded in reality. Once you acknowledge a right to be free from fear, you are able to justify any tradeoff. I say - no! There is no right to be free of fear. Everybody has the right to be safe, but nobody has the right to feel safe. Adjusting your feeling to reality is everyone's own responsibility. We must not allow people to abdicate the responsibility for their own feelings and create a guilt of others not to cause upset. A free society cannot and must not take responsibility for fears - only for outcomes. Always for outcomes! No jew should ever be kicked in the face, we are completely agreed. But society's obligation to protect Jewish rights ends at their cranium. What happens inside people's heads is nobody's business but their own - for good or for ill. (Which is of course not to be understood as arguing against mental health services. One must be mentally healthy to be mentally responsible - if and exactly if.)

deleted 6y ago
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claudiawerner 6y ago
>Everybody has the right to be safe, but nobody has the right to feel safe. When stated this way, at least so directly, it's not surprising to me that more people aren't right-libertarians. Of course, when you have hard and fast principles, and trade only in 'thick' concepts, then you can get exploitable concepts (as you rightly point out), but we have institutions for dealing with that - the legislature and the judiciary, and there need not be a law that applies (practically speaking) in every circumstance. In society, we don't have to always be on a slippery slope. Here's a good paper on the vacuity of the pure harm principle, as you seem to espouse, in lawmaking: https://digital.sandiego.edu/lwps_public/art17/ https://digital.sandiego.edu/lwps_public/art17/ >Fear, as opposed to outcomes, does not need to be rational or grounded in reality. Once you acknowledge a right to be free from fear, you are able to justify any tradeoff. I say - no! The core question is whose reality? That of the victim or the perpetrator? However, if you'd like to talk about reality, it's not at all difficult to imagine psychological harms or even PTSD triggered by something as 'unreal' as fear, which has very real outcomes. Every industrialized country in the world has some legislation against, for example, sending threatening letters, despite the fact that their only outcome is 'fear'. This is usually known as a law against assault. The dichotomy between 'mental harms' and 'physical harms' with regard to the law (and 1A jurisprudence) is on extremely shaky metaphysical grounds[0]: >An immunization I choose to have may (momentarily) hurt me physically, but it does not constitute a harm if I have chosen to be immunized. And defamatory statements that damage my reputation may harm me even if they cause me no physical or even psychological injury (as in the case in which I don't find out about them). [0] http://susanbrison.com/files/B.16.-speech_harm_and_the_mindbody_problem_in_first_amendment_jurisprudence.pdf http://susanbrison.com/files/B.16.-speech_harm_and_the_mindb...

krzepah 6y ago

Hi man, the article seems nice, i couldn't read it all yet but I spotted a mistake "This is often now (should be not ?) the case"

arp242 6y ago
Oops, thanks. Amazing how I miss these silly typos even after proof-reading it carefully a week apart :-/

crocko 6y ago

Yes freedom is very simple. All freedoms are drawn from respecting property rights. You have a right to your intellectual property and do with it as you wish. If people don't wish to use software because of the license (and potentially the cost of obtaining a license) they are free not to use it. It really is that simple.

drchiu 6y ago

I remember some of the most mind bending topics in med school were courses surrounding consent and ethics. The superficial perspectives never seem to do these topics justice once one actually performs deep analysis into them. It seems that societally, we must decide where we draw the lines on things (ie. what is acceptable and reasonable vs what is not). The professor seemed to enjoy working us into a conundrum and then throwing that as the analysis.

rmbryan 6y ago

This is a poorly written article because it's disorganized and does not advance any line of thought, but I agree with the author's premise that he does not understand the complex topic of freedom.

2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
I thought it advanced the line of thought that freedom is nuanced and not binary.
- crocko 6y ago
  It really isn't though. Unfortunately people have been conned into thinking it isn't. 1. You respect property rights 2. You are allowed to speak your mind 3. You have a right to defend yourself Everything else is nonsense.
  - arp242 6y ago
    Why shouldn't I have the freedom to go where I please? What gives, say, the owner a piece of land the right to deny my freedom to walk there? I'm not against property rights, but nowhere is it treated like an absolute. Even cultures with strong property rights recognizes such as the United States recognizes this trade-off (which is explicitly done so in the US constitution).
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    So do copyright laws enhance freedom or detract from it?
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      If you assume the GP's position then that just boils down to whether or not intellectual property is property.
      - MaxBarraclough 6y ago

OliverJones 6y ago

There's the Hunter S. Thompson kind of freedom: to sit on his back porch in his underwear and shoot field mice with his .45 pistol. That's not a very interesting freedom for those of us who would threaten neighborhood safety by discharging firearms on our back porches. Then, there's the freedom that's intertwined with responsibility. We can, without regulation, do things for ourselves and our communities. Free and Open Source Software is a good example of the work-product of that kind of freedom. Sexual freedom between "consenting adults" is in fact an example of freedom intertwined with responsibility. My point: considering "freedom" as a standalone concept leads to all kinds of category confusion.

arp242 6y ago
> Sexual freedom between "consenting adults" is in fact an example of freedom intertwined with responsibility. How is that the case?
- KSteffensen 6y ago
  Sex between consenting adults of opposite genders might lead to lifelong responsibility.
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  Sex can have long term consequences, STDs like HIV, Babies, Emotional attachments, effect on divorce rates and connected harm to children, etc.
- OliverJones 6y ago
  "Consent" is an exercise of mutual responsibility.

DanielBMarkham 6y ago

"My neighbour’s freedom to play music at 4am limits my freedom to have a good night’s rest. Does this increase or decrease freedom?" Freedom != Liberty This concept is easily over 200 years old. I appreciate the author's interest in the subject. It might be good to start much nearer to where others left off.

giancarlostoro 6y ago
Yeah, I was thinking the same. Also coincidentally... here in Orlando, you can call the cops on people who are too noisy, no fancy equipment necessary if the cop can hear it they will knock on their door and issue a warning, a fee will be issued if they have to come back.
- DanielBMarkham 6y ago
  We live in an increasingly-authoritarian society where most people are unable to describe or reason with simple concepts put forth dozens of decades ago. These two things are not accidentally correlated.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    I think it's deeper than that. It's not just that people can't reason with those concepts. It's that people don't want to restrain their own behavior. Say I want to play my music loud at 4 AM. I'm probably not going to reason about other peoples' rights limiting mine, or whatever - not because I can't, but because I don't want to. I just want to crank up my music and rock out, I can't be bothered with philosophy right now. But I fear that, if people will not restrain their own behavior, the only alternatives left are authoritarianism and chaos. And most people, after a taste of chaos, seem to prefer authoritarianism.
    - natmaka 6y ago
      Isn't it proportional to the population size and density? In a small human group anonymity isn't really a factor, therefore most want to restrain themselves in order to avoid annoying known people, moreover when someone fails at it more often than not a third party knowing both the annoyed and the culprit tries (peacefuly) to restore peace. When we need authoritarianism, something is too big.

vjvj 6y ago

I like the way the author has articulated this. It can be built on by applying the economics concept of "externalities" - i.e. side effects (positive or negative) from a particular action such as the exercising of a right or freedom. To get us closer to a perfect world, we need to start measuring the value of externalities (arguably not always easy to get right but possible to estimate) and to whom this gain or loss in value occurs so that they can be compensated by the externality creator(s). I agree with the author that most people do not consider the negative externalities of a particular freedom being exercised. We should require our legislators to more clearly articulate and value externalities from a given policy and identify groups it creates negative externalities for, and how they should be compensated (or why they do not deserve to be compensated).

bluetomcat 6y ago
> We should require our legislators to more clearly articulate and value externalities from a given policy and identify groups it creates negative externalities for, and how they should be compensated (or why they do not deserve to be compensated). That would be identity politics 2.0 and the end of nation states. Not only lawmakers targeting different groups of society to pass legislation, but also identifying (highly subjectively) other groups to be compensated for 2nd and 3rd-order effects introduced by that legislation.
- bitwize 6y ago
  It's the application of Coase's theorem at the level of the legislature. Nothing "identity" about it; if others are unduly negatively affected by a measure then they deserve compensation.
- veridies 6y ago
  I realize the practical difficulties here, but the actual concept (identifying who's going to be impacted, and offering targeted solutions) sounds like a pretty good idea in theory. Calling it 'identity politics 2.0' is an easy way to dismiss it, but it doesn't respond to the actual argument.

tony 6y ago

To anyone who finds this interesting: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights/ The Form of Rights: The Hohfeldian Analytical System [1] The Function of Rights: The Will Theory and the Interest Theory [2] Interesting read, "Hohfeld's cube": https://www.uakron.edu/dotAsset/65177fc7-9161-44a4-9a8e-163197ca9863.pdf https://www.uakron.edu/dotAsset/65177fc7-9161-44a4-9a8e-1631... [1] http://www.kentlaw.edu/perritt/courses/property/Hohfeld.htm http://www.kentlaw.edu/perritt/courses/property/Hohfeld.htm [2] http://core.ecu.edu/phil/mccartyr/1175docs/TheoriesofRights.pdf http://core.ecu.edu/phil/mccartyr/1175docs/TheoriesofRights....

raxxorrax 6y ago

I don't think it fits the paradox of tolerance, which I believe the author didn't even like that much later in life. But the main principle of that is that you have to compromise your position to face your adversaries at some point or you will loose all tolerance. I don't think this should be used as a template. I am against the death penalty for instance, which the concept could very well be applied to. I think Popper wouldn't like how the argument is used today. That said, a premise of the article is that freedom should be maximized for everyone. The reason many people are skeptical when the topic of freedom being relative is brought up may indeed be influenced by developments in tech. Because sadly, we had a long stretch of paternalism and restricting choice "for the benefit of all" (mostly corporate lock in). In that case, you are not maximizing freedom, even if there can be other kinds of arguments for said approach.

webreac 6y ago

A long text very well written in which he nuances the notion of freedom and in which he attacks the free software foundation claiming that the FSF does not understand these nuances: "Indeed, the entire Free Software movement seems like a typical failure of appreciating these kind of trade-offs when it comes to freedom." I find this extremely pretentious and very poorly argumented. I wish I could mod down this article. This looks like the beginning of an FSF smear campaign.

deleted 6y ago
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arp242 6y ago
The main reason I wrote this was to counter some libertarian ideas/zeitgeist. The original draft (from, ehm, maybe 2 years ago) was titled "The libertarian fallacy", but I felt this didn't do service since libertarianism is quite broad (indeed, I have quite a few libertarian leanings myself). The second reason is indeed that I do plan to write some other things to point out some of the FSFs failings as I see them, both in their philosophy and some more pragmatical things, and the appreciation of the complexity of "freedom" is one of them. I agree that as it stands it's not well argumented, but this will be an article on its own (soon™, although a kind of proto-draft is available as some comments I made at [1]). I have this kind of complex dependency tree in my head on what to write in what order. I hate how you phrase this as a "smear campaign" though. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but I do expect people to recognise I'm arguing in good faith, and "smear campaign" implies that I don't. [1]: https://lobste.rs/s/gywiju/freedom_isn_t_free#c_73fmon https://lobste.rs/s/gywiju/freedom_isn_t_free#c_73fmon
- icebraining 6y ago
  I think you if target a specific organization or movement, you should put more effort into portraying their position fairly if you want to be taken in good faith. The Free Software movement doesn't just say "GPL increases freedom", it has a whole Philosophy section which is easily available at the GNU website, describing why they think the Four Freedoms are essential and override the others.

tecnocriollo 6y ago

Libertarianism doesn't advocate for do whatever you want. They advocates the principle of non aggression where your freedom last until you interfere with another person freedom. Classical libertarianism advocates that freedoms comes with responsibility and is not free. The socialists likes freedom without costs using the state as a medium for liberating you from dutys. Libertarians advocates for the rule of law and respect for every individual.

AndrewKemendo 6y ago

Song as old as time: Positive and Negative Rights debate [1] [1]https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative...

esnard 6y ago

I'm currently reading a manga named Attack on Titan, in which freedom (and its implications) takes a very important part, and I couldn't emphasize how good the writing is. The anime is also available on Netflix in most countries, if you prefer that format.

tboyd47 6y ago

Analyzing social movements, taken on face value, with pure logic alone isn't good enough. You have to learn their history as well; otherwise you're only comparing empty slogans against each other. Libertarianism and the free software movement are two social movements that have very little in common except the word "freedom." Libertarian philosophers like Hayek, and even those who would describe themselves as anarchists like Rothbard, do not advocate a lawless society. They accept the bottom-up process of building up common and constitutional law through court precedent and reject the top-down imposition of laws by fiat. To your specific points, American society has already worked out which "freedoms" impinge on others' freedoms over the course of 200+ years of constitutional law, building on many more centuries of British common law. The idea that a single person can sit at a desk and calculate "trade-offs" between civil rights enshrined by law and enjoyed by large groups of people over many hundreds of years would be absurd to a libertarian, though commonplace today. Who is allowed to make such a decision, and why? The free software movement emerged as a defense of pre-existing collaboration networks between academics from the threat an attempted corporate takeover in a very specialized area of computing at a specific point in time, i.e. OS development in the 1980s. I find that few developers understand the forces the original software freedom movement was fighting against, although such forces are stronger than ever. This is only because the software freedom movement so thoroughly wiped out its opposition within its own limited domain that those looking from the outside can't understand the point of it anymore. Perhaps that's what true victory looks like in the historical record; when the opposition is not only defeated but silent, the victors look like a bunch of loud extremists going on and on about something irrelevant.

icebraining 6y ago
I have to say I find it hard to follow your argument. How can the forces be stronger than ever if the opposition was defeated and wiped out? According to lore, Stallman started the movement due to a closed-source appliance (a printer) he used and which he wanted to improve. Closed devices continued to be and are still the norm, so I don't see how the opposition was defeated, let alone wiped out.
- tboyd47 6y ago

maedla 6y ago

We need democracy in the workplace :)

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Fun topic, philosophers have been debating this for millennia. It is really important to discuss what you think freedom means before delving into an argument. E.g. Your freedom to drink big gulp sugar drinks every day and sit around and become morbidly obese does decrease other people’s freedom when they are paying for your healthcare costs. (If you believe this is true, it follows and is also true that massively increasing your risk of STDs also decreases society’s freedom due to increased cost associated with an unhealthy populace.)

motohagiography 6y ago

What tends to be missing from the ontology of these ideas is that a positive right without an inextricable and commensurate or contrapositive responsibility is just an arbitrary privilege, with the implication of some paternalistic guarantor who hands them out. This is why I treat activism as a tactic with skepticism, because people rarely organize and agitate to obtain more responsibility. I would argue a right without an associated responsibility just means privilege. Freedom is separate. When people demand rights, they beg the question of first from whom, and second of what responsibility they must necessarily be taking on. When they demand freedom, they are rolling back the scope or domain of external authorities. Software freedom means using software without requiring permission. Freedom becomes an artifact of a private sphere of experience. This private sphere can be individual, it can be based on association, distance, or any number of other dimensions, but the existence of a private domain is the necessary condition for freedom. Rights on the other hand, are a public phenomenon, in that they are artifacts of an externally governed domain. In this model, freedom is something outside the scope of governed rights, over which there is neither a guarantee or oversight. Freedom has a scope, and it can only exist within a perimeter that secures it from the external rights and privileges granted by authorities. All freedom is a limit on the sovereignty and dominion of external authorities, which is what makes it so provocative. It's also why "the rights of man," and "human rights," were so controversial initially, because they require a universal authority to enforce them. The question of whether my exercising freedom may infringe on someones rights or their privileges becomes clearer when we measure it against whether it interferes with their responsibilities. When rights collide, the law is the tool we use to reconcile them. When freedoms collide, typically we either resort to negotiating rights, or defer to the principle of freedom and move on. When freedom collides with rights, we tend to negotiate an exception or set a precedent. But when freedom collides with privilege, neither can bear co-existence with the other. This models why some people think others' freedom is privilege (because it is not a function of prescribed rights or responsibilities), and that rights and privileges for others breach their freedom (by expanding the domain of authority with imposed or without commensurate responsibilities). Hence playing loud music at 4am in a neighbourhood is a rights violation, and not an exercise of freedom, because it does not occur in a private domain, which is the necessary condition of freedom.

efitz 6y ago

Half the comments here are about FSF rather than about the article. Why is FSF such a sacred cow that mere observation that they have made a trade-off in freedoms, is somehow objectionable? I didn’t take anything that was in the original unedited article as an attack on FSF.