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Here we see an article in which a tech company is using AI in order to protect people from addiction. And we have the Western free-speech aficionados complainin

Here we see an article in which a tech company is using AI in order to protect people from addiction. And we have the Western free-speech aficionados complaining about surveillance while their society is practically crumbling due to the freedom inherent in it (read drug abuse, social media addiction, sex, alcohol and porn addiction). They couldn't get themselves to wear simple masks during covid because of a requirement for freedom. I am an Eastern-educated immigrant who lives in the West. Honestly, I believe freedom is important in a lot of things. However, allowing companies like Coca Cola, Heineken, Robinhood, Youtube and Facebook to operate in the name of giving everyone freedom is one of the worst decisions in the Western world. These companies have exploited human biases to an extent at which our freedom is a manipulated freedom which works according to how they want. The Western concept of freedom above everything is a joke in modern society. It is based on the premise that everyone is smart enough to take decisions for themselves. However, due to inherent human biases, this is practically impossible. What this false assumption leads to is companies like Coca Cola, Heineken (or whatever other alcohol brands are popular), Facebook essentially ruling how we spend our time, money, health and energy. The Western concept of freedom above everything else is flawed

Tade0 5y ago
> The Western concept of freedom above everything is a joke in modern society. It is based on the premise that everyone is smart enough to take decisions for themselves. That's a misconception. The actual reasoning is that: 1. Everyone is equal in rights and responsibilities. 2. Those who use their rights wisely bring more value than the cost of decisions of those who don't. For some things 2. doesn't hold, so they're regulated. Motoring in general comes to mind as an example.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  The reasoning you cite is a retcon of the original reasoning that the OP got right. Beyond that, #1 is factually incorrect, Facebook has positive rights that you don't, and #2 almost never holds starting from the realization that you're assuming that profit is inherently wise and that maximizing profit almost always requires the maximization of externatility. So using your rights wisely to your maximum advantage essentially never brings the most value.
  - Dracophoenix 5y ago
    What "positive rights" does Facebook have? How are you defining value in your last sentence?
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      Facebook has the right to mobilize several orders of magnitude more resources than the average person, in that sense they have many more positive rights. For example, the positive right to spend a billion dollars. How value is defined in the last sentence doesn't matter, any way of defining value except total profit generation works. But for the sake of the discussion we can say total happiness.
      - Dracophoenix 5y ago
        The right to mobilize resources, even at the scale Facebook manages to the achieve, is not a positive right. Neither is spending a large amount of money a positive right. Perhaps you're confused with regards to what constitutes a positive or negative right? Or you'd like to explain how you are defining a "positive right" here ? I disagree with your assertion that value not being defined doesn't matter. If it didn't, then your claim of "using your rights wisely to your maximum advantage essentially never brings the most value" would have nothing to stand on. After all, that's a value judgement. I also take issue with your claim that the max profit generation is somehow irreconcilably divorced from total happiness. Facebook provides a service the people choose to use without guns to their heads. If people are unhappy with using Facebook or are uninvested in it (like myself), they can refuse to use it. If anything, I would arrive at an opposite conclusion: Much like cars and phones, people are satisfied with FB to the point that most are happy to use it, even if it comes with tradeoffs they wouldn't have tolerated in any other context. The user connects with others in a way that works for them and that's engineered to work very well for Facebook's financials. Every party involved is operating to their own standards utilizing their own negative rights to achieve their own ends. That's just business.
  - Tade0 5y ago
    Facebook is a company, I am a person. I don't see how this comparison makes sense, since these are very different entities.
AussieWog93 5y ago
I was born and raised in the West and can't help but agree with you. "Freedom" as a universal, sacred concept is incompatible with psychologically validated, focus group tested mass marketing, let alone the individually tailored ML stuff that has started to come along in the past 10 years. If anything, Government power needs to be expanded to combat corporate/political/media special interests. Not arbitrarily, of course, but it might be prudent to expand their power in a way that acts in the public interest - such as increased funding to public broadcasters or independent media watchdogs that can actually enforce journalistic standards with fines.
w0de0 5y ago
The Western concept of “freedom” - more precisely, of rights unalienably reserved to individuals, families, and private societies, even at the expense of optimal outcomes for society at large - does not assume or require the sensible judgement of its beneficiaries. As another poster alluded, this is a misconception of freedom’s purpose: it does not exist so that society may be optimally ordered, but because it is the necessary dignity (put otherwise, religiously: endowed by our creator) of a sentient human. To subordinate the individual to the needs of society for such crass goals as slightly increased economic productivity or a smarter generation of children is to deny that there may be a purpose to our existence beyond its own mindless perpetuation. Moreover, there may be emergent boons in favoring the individual over society and the state. My ability to lead an idiosyncratic life, to make choices which may harm both me and the optimal operation of our society, allows for: subcultures flourishing unimpeded and providing joy to those who would otherwise be ostracized; clever eccentrics pursing new technology or new ways of living and thinking; the resiliency to change inherent in diversity, analogous to evolution. Finally, I think your critique is less about the freedom of the individual and more the danger of unimpeded free enterprise acting on that freedom with ever improving and ever more terrible Skinner boxes of consumerism. It seems to me the best way to address this plight is not more restrictions on the choices of individuals - eg, spying on children to homogenize their behavior - but more restrictions on businesses. If one argues from the dignity of the individual, there is more room to restrict the freedom of capitalist enterprises than that of an individual human’s choices.
- trasz 5y ago
  Western concept of freedom, on philosophical and moral grounds, makes perfect sense - for humans. It doesn’t make much sense when applied to corporations.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  The Western concept of freedom in many western tradition definitely assumes that the person exercising the freedom knows what is best for them. Actually, this is how we in the West operatively define utility, not as what you actively need but as what you think you need. Which as the OP underlined is exactly why advertising for example in the Western economic tradition brings positive utility, because we assume that people know what is useful to them. Beyond that, it's simply incorrect that our "freedom" means we aren't subordinate to the wills of society - we are, because we require resources to survive which the state has ordained are controlled by other people, which requires ourselves to subordinate to the will of others. No matter how you get around it, as long as you have property you are doomed to live a subordinate life unless you're very lucky. This is a false dichotomy written by people who didn't rid themselves of religious doctrine enough to understand that negative rights cannot exist without a violent state instead of being simply inherent. Beyond that, limiting restrictions on businesses is philosophically the same as restricting individuals, businesses are simply collections of individuals. Crucially though businesses are already functionally almost completely restricted to the profit motive, but that's an effect of the property system and of the role of the state more than anything else.
gherkinnn 5y ago
Sure. Because power centralised around a few flawed humans is so much better. /s I agree that Coca Cola, amongst others, can suck it. But reducing an individuals freedom as a means to do so is nonsensical.
noroscope 5y ago
I hate to break this to you but drug abuse, social media addiction, sex, alcohol, and porn addiction all exist and happen within China, and I imagine all over east asia as well. As someone living in China I’ve either seen this directly (social media and alcohol addiction are particularly common) or know of it second hand. In fact I would argue it’s worse in China, not just because of it being illegal but because culturally people like that are judged more harshly and more easily rejected from society. At least in the west, there is sympathy for addicts and a general trend to understand their problems and help treat them. In the US, the concept of personal freedom is rooted on two principles: 1. Rights restricted or outright lost are difficult, if not impossible to get back, without revolution. 2. Most prefer a reactive government more than a proactive government. So yes, there is a natural fear about the highest level of government implementing such restrictions, it is generally considered a method of last resort. Local municipalities or simply the family as a social unit have a better understanding and capacity to handle such matters.

Tade0 5y ago

> The Western concept of freedom above everything is a joke in modern society. It is based on the premise that everyone is smart enough to take decisions for themselves. That's a misconception. The actual reasoning is that: 1. Everyone is equal in rights and responsibilities. 2. Those who use their rights wisely bring more value than the cost of decisions of those who don't. For some things 2. doesn't hold, so they're regulated. Motoring in general comes to mind as an example.

sudosysgen 5y ago
The reasoning you cite is a retcon of the original reasoning that the OP got right. Beyond that, #1 is factually incorrect, Facebook has positive rights that you don't, and #2 almost never holds starting from the realization that you're assuming that profit is inherently wise and that maximizing profit almost always requires the maximization of externatility. So using your rights wisely to your maximum advantage essentially never brings the most value.
- Dracophoenix 5y ago
  What "positive rights" does Facebook have? How are you defining value in your last sentence?
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Facebook has the right to mobilize several orders of magnitude more resources than the average person, in that sense they have many more positive rights. For example, the positive right to spend a billion dollars. How value is defined in the last sentence doesn't matter, any way of defining value except total profit generation works. But for the sake of the discussion we can say total happiness.
    - Dracophoenix 5y ago
      The right to mobilize resources, even at the scale Facebook manages to the achieve, is not a positive right. Neither is spending a large amount of money a positive right. Perhaps you're confused with regards to what constitutes a positive or negative right? Or you'd like to explain how you are defining a "positive right" here ? I disagree with your assertion that value not being defined doesn't matter. If it didn't, then your claim of "using your rights wisely to your maximum advantage essentially never brings the most value" would have nothing to stand on. After all, that's a value judgement. I also take issue with your claim that the max profit generation is somehow irreconcilably divorced from total happiness. Facebook provides a service the people choose to use without guns to their heads. If people are unhappy with using Facebook or are uninvested in it (like myself), they can refuse to use it. If anything, I would arrive at an opposite conclusion: Much like cars and phones, people are satisfied with FB to the point that most are happy to use it, even if it comes with tradeoffs they wouldn't have tolerated in any other context. The user connects with others in a way that works for them and that's engineered to work very well for Facebook's financials. Every party involved is operating to their own standards utilizing their own negative rights to achieve their own ends. That's just business.
- Tade0 5y ago
  Facebook is a company, I am a person. I don't see how this comparison makes sense, since these are very different entities.

AussieWog93 5y ago

I was born and raised in the West and can't help but agree with you. "Freedom" as a universal, sacred concept is incompatible with psychologically validated, focus group tested mass marketing, let alone the individually tailored ML stuff that has started to come along in the past 10 years. If anything, Government power needs to be expanded to combat corporate/political/media special interests. Not arbitrarily, of course, but it might be prudent to expand their power in a way that acts in the public interest - such as increased funding to public broadcasters or independent media watchdogs that can actually enforce journalistic standards with fines.

w0de0 5y ago

The Western concept of “freedom” - more precisely, of rights unalienably reserved to individuals, families, and private societies, even at the expense of optimal outcomes for society at large - does not assume or require the sensible judgement of its beneficiaries. As another poster alluded, this is a misconception of freedom’s purpose: it does not exist so that society may be optimally ordered, but because it is the necessary dignity (put otherwise, religiously: endowed by our creator) of a sentient human. To subordinate the individual to the needs of society for such crass goals as slightly increased economic productivity or a smarter generation of children is to deny that there may be a purpose to our existence beyond its own mindless perpetuation. Moreover, there may be emergent boons in favoring the individual over society and the state. My ability to lead an idiosyncratic life, to make choices which may harm both me and the optimal operation of our society, allows for: subcultures flourishing unimpeded and providing joy to those who would otherwise be ostracized; clever eccentrics pursing new technology or new ways of living and thinking; the resiliency to change inherent in diversity, analogous to evolution. Finally, I think your critique is less about the freedom of the individual and more the danger of unimpeded free enterprise acting on that freedom with ever improving and ever more terrible Skinner boxes of consumerism. It seems to me the best way to address this plight is not more restrictions on the choices of individuals - eg, spying on children to homogenize their behavior - but more restrictions on businesses. If one argues from the dignity of the individual, there is more room to restrict the freedom of capitalist enterprises than that of an individual human’s choices.

trasz 5y ago
Western concept of freedom, on philosophical and moral grounds, makes perfect sense - for humans. It doesn’t make much sense when applied to corporations.
sudosysgen 5y ago
The Western concept of freedom in many western tradition definitely assumes that the person exercising the freedom knows what is best for them. Actually, this is how we in the West operatively define utility, not as what you actively need but as what you think you need. Which as the OP underlined is exactly why advertising for example in the Western economic tradition brings positive utility, because we assume that people know what is useful to them. Beyond that, it's simply incorrect that our "freedom" means we aren't subordinate to the wills of society - we are, because we require resources to survive which the state has ordained are controlled by other people, which requires ourselves to subordinate to the will of others. No matter how you get around it, as long as you have property you are doomed to live a subordinate life unless you're very lucky. This is a false dichotomy written by people who didn't rid themselves of religious doctrine enough to understand that negative rights cannot exist without a violent state instead of being simply inherent. Beyond that, limiting restrictions on businesses is philosophically the same as restricting individuals, businesses are simply collections of individuals. Crucially though businesses are already functionally almost completely restricted to the profit motive, but that's an effect of the property system and of the role of the state more than anything else.

gherkinnn 5y ago

Sure. Because power centralised around a few flawed humans is so much better. /s I agree that Coca Cola, amongst others, can suck it. But reducing an individuals freedom as a means to do so is nonsensical.

noroscope 5y ago

I hate to break this to you but drug abuse, social media addiction, sex, alcohol, and porn addiction all exist and happen within China, and I imagine all over east asia as well. As someone living in China I’ve either seen this directly (social media and alcohol addiction are particularly common) or know of it second hand. In fact I would argue it’s worse in China, not just because of it being illegal but because culturally people like that are judged more harshly and more easily rejected from society. At least in the west, there is sympathy for addicts and a general trend to understand their problems and help treat them. In the US, the concept of personal freedom is rooted on two principles: 1. Rights restricted or outright lost are difficult, if not impossible to get back, without revolution. 2. Most prefer a reactive government more than a proactive government. So yes, there is a natural fear about the highest level of government implementing such restrictions, it is generally considered a method of last resort. Local municipalities or simply the family as a social unit have a better understanding and capacity to handle such matters.