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While access to water is a more fundamental right... Sorry, I can't get past this. If the word "right" is so fluffy we can use it anywhere, it doesn't have any

While access to water is a more fundamental right... Sorry, I can't get past this. If the word "right" is so fluffy we can use it anywhere, it doesn't have any meaning. I firmly believe that computers are becoming integrated with our minds. That means, yes, there are going to be real rights associated with them. It's an open issue to figure out exactly when we cross that line where the rules change, but we're getting very close. But if "health care", "internet access", "water", and all these other things are tossed out as rights, it takes away the entire reason that internet access may qualify. It's just a jumble of feel-good meaninglessness. We face this same problem with the word "war". We have a war on drugs, a war in Afghanistan, a war on poverty, a war on crime. If it's all a "war", then none of it is a war. The word war has no meaning that we can grab onto. Sorry, I know it sounds pedantic or like splitting hairs, but it matters: Berners-Lee could make a good case for this, if he knew what the argument for rights were based on. Without that, however, he actually hurts the cause. That's not good.

bobbin_cygna 16y ago
> yes, there are going to be real rights associated with them. what's a real right?
- warrenwilkinson 16y ago
  My criteria is when someone mentions a right, can I meaningfully append the question 'At whose expense'? If I can, it's bogus. These are rights: Right to liberty, to own property, to your life, to the pursuit of happiness, to freedom of speech. These are not: Right to a job, to a 'fair' wage, to an education, to internet access, to clean water, to a pig every month. Real rights prevent someone from doing awful things to you, basically "No one will harm you, or interfere with you doing this" (where this might be living, owning property, speaking, etc). The bogus rights are basically promises of free stuff.
  - pbourke 16y ago
    > These are rights: Right to liberty, to own property, to your life, to the pursuit of happiness, to freedom of speech. > These are not: Right to a job, to a 'fair' wage, to an education, to internet access, to clean water, to a pig every month. This categorization is true within American society. Other societies express different rights.
    - _delirium 16y ago
      I'm not sure it's even true with respect to American society, or at least consistently true. A meritocratic-free-market mindset that supports providing education as an equal starting point is fairly common. A slogan sometimes used is "equal opportunities, not equal outcomes". It's used in various contexts, but in one context, the argument is that kids have the right to expect an education that starts them out on a level playing field, but not the right to any particular salary when they grow up. So this view would support free schools, but not support redistributive income taxes. The negative way of phrasing that same sentiment would be: "if you don't get ahead, you have no one to blame but yourself, because you could've paid more attention in school or gone and read up in the library". It's easier to make that argument if there are in fact free schools and libraries, so that we can claim that everyone had that opportunity, and therefore if they didn't use it, it was their fault.
  - nooneelse 16y ago
    Wait, just being able to ask the question? There isn't even a dependance on the answer? Wow. Then your two sets aren't even correct. None of the things you mention are rights. You can append the question to all of the things you put in the "These are rights" pile, even if you would then think the answer is "nobody". Heck, sometimes the answer will even be someone besides the "right holder". Person A's hypothetical "right to liberty" can clearly come at the expense of person B, when person B is using person A as trained but unpaid labor. I think this simple criterion is rather flawed.
    - jerf 16y ago
      "Wait, just being able to ask the question? There isn't even a dependance on the answer?" You appear to have skipped over the word "meaningfully" in warrenwilkinson's post, or perhaps he edited it in, but either way, it addresses your concern. (To your later point I'd observe that rights are generally considered symmetrical; in a society where you have "the right to liberty" your example falls through because A's right is being violated for your example, and your argument seems to fundamentally require asymmetry for it to make any sense.)
      - nooneelse 16y ago
        You are shifting all the work that the criterion was meant to do into the term "meaningfully". Without elaboration on the application of that term, this is of no help as I used a very common standard of "meaningful", "having meaning". A question has meaning, even when the answer is obvious or the answer to a "who" question is "no one". Example: "Who has been to Mars?" is a clearly meaningful sentence. The issue at play later is: does person A have a right to liberty. Warrenwilkinson's criterion for it not being a right was the ability to append "At whose expense?". I even made that a more reasonable criterion, by implying the further requirement that, in order for a hypothetical right to be considered not a right, it had to come at the expense of someone else (the elaboration used by many other people in better statements of similar criteria, and seemingly the underlying consideration really at play in the two lists warrenwilkinson gave). The objection to even this elaboration was that in the case of a society with slavery, the hypothetical "right to liberty" would obviously come at the expense of slaver owners. You introduce the interesting symmetry constraint, as charitably as I can gather, intending to use the symmetry between the slaves and owners. No help really, as the owners might as easily conclude that they don't have a right to liberty, they simply have liberty itself. If you landed on an island with slavery on-going, does the criteria proposed have any teeth? There is, I think, a sharper edged point than this merely amusing slavery objection, but I've mentioned it in other threads already.
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  Maybe I'm mistaken, but I think this is the wrong forum. I'd start the conversation with Hobbes, Locke, and Mill. I wouldn't start the conversation with "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," which is where we seem to be starting. Apologies, not trying to blow you off. I think the key to the discussion is twofold: creation criteria for rights and acceptance criteria for rights. There's a lot in both of those branches of thought. For purposes of my comment, however, I think it's just a matter of whether you generally feel I'm bringing up something serious or just pointlessly posturing. There are a lot of ways to argue what's a "real" right, and even if I screwed up the defense of my position it wouldn't matter. The point is whether you feel the generalization is mostly true or not, ie, is there more foundational material required to make the case. Some folks are perfectly happy with any plea for something desperately-needed that comes out of an emotionally upset person's mouth as being a right. I am not one of them. To each his own. Links for those interested in further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill
pbourke 16y ago
> Sorry, I can't get past this. If the word "right" is so fluffy we can use it anywhere, it doesn't have any meaning. Rights are simply those things that a society values and there are tradeoffs inherent in any articulated set of rights. You may believe that internet access or water is "fluffy" compared to some other rights, but is that not just your own cultural and/or cognitive bias at work? > But if "health care", "internet access", "water", and all these other things are tossed out as rights, it takes away the entire reason that internet access may qualify. It's just a jumble of feel-good meaninglessness. No, it's a set of choices and an expression of values. Let's be clear - these kinds of things are about the relationship of the rich portion of the world to the poor portion of the world. In particular, this type of language indicates that the rich portion should value access to {water, internet, health care} for everyone regardless of geographic or economic circumstance. Your values determine what goes in the set, and you call the members of the set rights.
- gaius 16y ago
  OK but even in the West we don't really believe that water is a fundamental human right and that's easy to prove: you get a water bill. So it's a vital service, sure, but it's not a right, a water supply is a service you pay for. Same with food, we don't really believe there is a basic right to food; if you want to eat you buy it from the supermarket.

bobbin_cygna 16y ago

> yes, there are going to be real rights associated with them. what's a real right?

warrenwilkinson 16y ago
My criteria is when someone mentions a right, can I meaningfully append the question 'At whose expense'? If I can, it's bogus. These are rights: Right to liberty, to own property, to your life, to the pursuit of happiness, to freedom of speech. These are not: Right to a job, to a 'fair' wage, to an education, to internet access, to clean water, to a pig every month. Real rights prevent someone from doing awful things to you, basically "No one will harm you, or interfere with you doing this" (where this might be living, owning property, speaking, etc). The bogus rights are basically promises of free stuff.
- pbourke 16y ago
  > These are rights: Right to liberty, to own property, to your life, to the pursuit of happiness, to freedom of speech. > These are not: Right to a job, to a 'fair' wage, to an education, to internet access, to clean water, to a pig every month. This categorization is true within American society. Other societies express different rights.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    I'm not sure it's even true with respect to American society, or at least consistently true. A meritocratic-free-market mindset that supports providing education as an equal starting point is fairly common. A slogan sometimes used is "equal opportunities, not equal outcomes". It's used in various contexts, but in one context, the argument is that kids have the right to expect an education that starts them out on a level playing field, but not the right to any particular salary when they grow up. So this view would support free schools, but not support redistributive income taxes. The negative way of phrasing that same sentiment would be: "if you don't get ahead, you have no one to blame but yourself, because you could've paid more attention in school or gone and read up in the library". It's easier to make that argument if there are in fact free schools and libraries, so that we can claim that everyone had that opportunity, and therefore if they didn't use it, it was their fault.
- nooneelse 16y ago
  Wait, just being able to ask the question? There isn't even a dependance on the answer? Wow. Then your two sets aren't even correct. None of the things you mention are rights. You can append the question to all of the things you put in the "These are rights" pile, even if you would then think the answer is "nobody". Heck, sometimes the answer will even be someone besides the "right holder". Person A's hypothetical "right to liberty" can clearly come at the expense of person B, when person B is using person A as trained but unpaid labor. I think this simple criterion is rather flawed.
  - jerf 16y ago
    "Wait, just being able to ask the question? There isn't even a dependance on the answer?" You appear to have skipped over the word "meaningfully" in warrenwilkinson's post, or perhaps he edited it in, but either way, it addresses your concern. (To your later point I'd observe that rights are generally considered symmetrical; in a society where you have "the right to liberty" your example falls through because A's right is being violated for your example, and your argument seems to fundamentally require asymmetry for it to make any sense.)
    - nooneelse 16y ago
      You are shifting all the work that the criterion was meant to do into the term "meaningfully". Without elaboration on the application of that term, this is of no help as I used a very common standard of "meaningful", "having meaning". A question has meaning, even when the answer is obvious or the answer to a "who" question is "no one". Example: "Who has been to Mars?" is a clearly meaningful sentence. The issue at play later is: does person A have a right to liberty. Warrenwilkinson's criterion for it not being a right was the ability to append "At whose expense?". I even made that a more reasonable criterion, by implying the further requirement that, in order for a hypothetical right to be considered not a right, it had to come at the expense of someone else (the elaboration used by many other people in better statements of similar criteria, and seemingly the underlying consideration really at play in the two lists warrenwilkinson gave). The objection to even this elaboration was that in the case of a society with slavery, the hypothetical "right to liberty" would obviously come at the expense of slaver owners. You introduce the interesting symmetry constraint, as charitably as I can gather, intending to use the symmetry between the slaves and owners. No help really, as the owners might as easily conclude that they don't have a right to liberty, they simply have liberty itself. If you landed on an island with slavery on-going, does the criteria proposed have any teeth? There is, I think, a sharper edged point than this merely amusing slavery objection, but I've mentioned it in other threads already.
DanielBMarkham 16y ago
Maybe I'm mistaken, but I think this is the wrong forum. I'd start the conversation with Hobbes, Locke, and Mill. I wouldn't start the conversation with "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," which is where we seem to be starting. Apologies, not trying to blow you off. I think the key to the discussion is twofold: creation criteria for rights and acceptance criteria for rights. There's a lot in both of those branches of thought. For purposes of my comment, however, I think it's just a matter of whether you generally feel I'm bringing up something serious or just pointlessly posturing. There are a lot of ways to argue what's a "real" right, and even if I screwed up the defense of my position it wouldn't matter. The point is whether you feel the generalization is mostly true or not, ie, is there more foundational material required to make the case. Some folks are perfectly happy with any plea for something desperately-needed that comes out of an emotionally upset person's mouth as being a right. I am not one of them. To each his own. Links for those interested in further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill

pbourke 16y ago

> Sorry, I can't get past this. If the word "right" is so fluffy we can use it anywhere, it doesn't have any meaning. Rights are simply those things that a society values and there are tradeoffs inherent in any articulated set of rights. You may believe that internet access or water is "fluffy" compared to some other rights, but is that not just your own cultural and/or cognitive bias at work? > But if "health care", "internet access", "water", and all these other things are tossed out as rights, it takes away the entire reason that internet access may qualify. It's just a jumble of feel-good meaninglessness. No, it's a set of choices and an expression of values. Let's be clear - these kinds of things are about the relationship of the rich portion of the world to the poor portion of the world. In particular, this type of language indicates that the rich portion should value access to {water, internet, health care} for everyone regardless of geographic or economic circumstance. Your values determine what goes in the set, and you call the members of the set rights.

gaius 16y ago
OK but even in the West we don't really believe that water is a fundamental human right and that's easy to prove: you get a water bill. So it's a vital service, sure, but it's not a right, a water supply is a service you pay for. Same with food, we don't really believe there is a basic right to food; if you want to eat you buy it from the supermarket.