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What's the point of this comparison? To prove how futile it is to resist government power? It seems like we're saying "We will make you do whatever the hell we

What's the point of this comparison? To prove how futile it is to resist government power? It seems like we're saying "We will make you do whatever the hell we want. You will do it, and we'll bring up how we made you do this next time we force you to start doing something else. And everyone will laugh at how stupid you sound."

omnicognate 5y ago
You consider seat belt laws a violation of your personal freedom?
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Yes. But I'd wear a seatbelt regardless of the law.
- nsxwolf 5y ago
  Yes. But I wear them. I'm also vaccinated, but I'm against mandates.
- kubanczyk 5y ago
  I wear seat belt and it would be my choice anyway. I wouldn't use the word "violated" but yes, seat belt law decreased the total amount of freedom. If you don't agree to that it means we don't use the same definition of the word "freedom" or the word "law". Because of that law I am either less free on the seat of my car, or (if I ignore that and I am caught and fined) I am less free about how to to spend my own X dollars (the fine).
  - undecisive 5y ago
    I would be interested to see a speed-limit map from parallel universe where there were no seatbelt laws. I suspect that freedom would rebalance itself. Also - and this applies to vaccines too - this definition of "freedom" is an academic one. There should be a competing measure of valuable freedom, defined as how much your freedom helps you to take advantage of the benefits of the world. We then need to work out why so many people are so fiercely wedded to their Zero-value Freedoms...
    - Noumenon72 5y ago
      So similar to how vaccine laws may free you from lockdowns, seatbelt laws may free you from having to drive 25 mph everywhere. It's really people's reactions to death that constrains your freedom, and we try to pick how.
    - kubanczyk 5y ago
      I'm fiercely welded and wedded to the definitions of words which I use to communicate with others. Changing definitions is like pulling the carpet from under everyone. Since you write about freedom being rebalanced, it means you recognize it can be increased in one aspect or decreased in another aspect. (However increase never happened in neither of the two parallel universes, only this or that decrease; so the term "rebalancing" doesn't really fit.) I'm not arguing in favor or against seat belts or constraining any other freedom. I can't help observing it happens.
      - undecisive 5y ago
        I realise I used the word "rebalanced" without necessary context here. The context I'm presuming is that governments have to step in when deaths increase, to mandate certain responsibilities that individuals or corporations might otherwise seek to avoid. So in an increasingly vehicle-centric world, the number of deaths puts a weight on one side of the scales, and we have a number of branches on the other side of the scales. On one branch, we could change the speed limits; on another branch, we could introduce car safety devices; in other branches we could limit the number of cars on the road or increase car death punishments or embed random nails in all the roads to turn them into obstacle courses. Any of these could reduce the number of deaths and rebalance the freedom side. I'm not saying that freedom necessarily has a balance within itself, but is always balanced against responsibilities. A country without any responsibilities could exist, but probably not for very long. We could set a cap on responsibilities and allow almost-infinite freedoms, but as technology improves and society complexifies, I believe that would have the same end result. So all that is to say I guess I am in favour of constraining freedoms, proportionate to the new freedoms that naturally come into being. If personal light aircraft become cheap and readily available, such that more in-air collisions occur, I would expect and support the government in restricting the freedoms of where light aircraft can fly and the training required to operate them. If small blocks of uranium started falling from the sky, I would expect and support the government in restricting the freedoms of what people could do with these chunks of uranium far more drastically. Sometimes - rarely - responsibilities rise on their own. In the current pandemic, it is appropriate for the government to promote and in some cases mandate small impediments to our freedoms. Hopefully these will be short-term, and it is up to us to ensure that the government doesn't use these dark days as an excuse to curtail people's freedoms indefinitely. Because with all this said, I'm totally against unnecessary forms of tracking, biometric surveillance and other use of new technology to remove freedoms we historically have, especially when the government uses deceptive moral arguments to justify them or paves the way for future immoral regimes. I definitely don't see face masks or seat belts falling anywhere near that category though.
  - omnicognate 5y ago
    To be clear, I don't think anybody's wrong to consider such laws a violation of their freedom. I don't, but it's a personal judgement, not something where there's an obvious, objective right/wrong. I think by rejecting the word "violated" you've materially changed the question, from a one about politics to one about semantics. There are many possible definitions of freedom and high among them is "the ability to do whatever you want". In this sense such laws obviously reduce freedom - as you state, it's a simple matter of definition. But that's an uninteresting matter of word definitions. The question about "violating" your freedom is about your judgement as to whether it is a good or a bad thing for the law to restrict you in this way. You haven't said anything about that.
    - notpachet 5y ago
      I think the "personal freedom vs collective responsibility" debate is largely indicative of our own short-sightedness as a species. In a society without laws, your personal freedom lasts only until your neighbour shivs you in the night. Laws are a collective negotiation of the extent to which we want to minimize short-term, high-visibility liberty in order to gain long-term, low-visibility liberty.
  - malermeister 5y ago
    I think you're too focused on freedom _to_, while completely ignoring freedom _from_. Seat belt laws optimize for freedom from traffic deaths, which is more meaningful than freedom to not wear a seat belt. In other words, they increase the total amount of freedom.
undecisive 5y ago
I think the point is that Humans are stupid. Very few people nowadays think that seatbelts are a bad idea, or that smoking should be encouraged, or that lead in your makeup is the best way to make your skin look like porcelain. And often we only really realise that with 30-40 years of hindsight - sometimes more - once the smoke has cleared, once the big companies have stopped their misinformation or lobbying (though I wouldn't be surprised to find out there was still some low-level lobbying for relaxing car safety laws). > To prove how futile it is to resist government power I guess the real question is, what is government there for - if not to enact laws that keep people safe and prevent profiteering companies from hoodwinking the common folk to help their own bottom lines? Because as this pandemic has shown, given anything even slightly inconvenient, people will quite happily hoodwink themselves. Personal liberty is king, social responsibility is treason. (I'd welcome any examples of small inconveniences to help our fellows that did NOT illicit massive backlashes. I can't think of any ever - no matter how obvious the benefit or small the inconvenience.)
- Joker_vD 5y ago
  > Very few people nowadays think that seatbelts are a bad idea Just look around this very thread, you may be surprised. The main problem, I believe, is that most of the people really don't like the idea of being ordered to be even minorly inconvenienced even for their own supposed benefit, much less for benefit of the others. I've known several smokers, and they all complained how the laws keep getting stricter on where you can legally smoke, and that the tobacco prices keep going up, and that people keep asking them to not smoke near them, etc. And every time I asked "why don't you just give it up then?", oh boy, the replies I got and their tone... let me just say I've never asked that question again to the same person because I feel that'd actually turn me into their enemies.
  - mrguyorama 5y ago
    I feel like it's a pretty sad person who gets steaming mad about being told about something that's good for them. Very childish
    - 5y ago
howinteresting 5y ago
Pretty much, with the small epicycle that the actual mandates are driven by a ton of evidence.
otterley 5y ago
You do understand that the price of living in a society is that not everybody just gets to do whatever they want, right?

omnicognate 5y ago

You consider seat belt laws a violation of your personal freedom?

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Yes. But I'd wear a seatbelt regardless of the law.
nsxwolf 5y ago
Yes. But I wear them. I'm also vaccinated, but I'm against mandates.
kubanczyk 5y ago
I wear seat belt and it would be my choice anyway. I wouldn't use the word "violated" but yes, seat belt law decreased the total amount of freedom. If you don't agree to that it means we don't use the same definition of the word "freedom" or the word "law". Because of that law I am either less free on the seat of my car, or (if I ignore that and I am caught and fined) I am less free about how to to spend my own X dollars (the fine).
- undecisive 5y ago
  I would be interested to see a speed-limit map from parallel universe where there were no seatbelt laws. I suspect that freedom would rebalance itself. Also - and this applies to vaccines too - this definition of "freedom" is an academic one. There should be a competing measure of valuable freedom, defined as how much your freedom helps you to take advantage of the benefits of the world. We then need to work out why so many people are so fiercely wedded to their Zero-value Freedoms...
  - Noumenon72 5y ago
    So similar to how vaccine laws may free you from lockdowns, seatbelt laws may free you from having to drive 25 mph everywhere. It's really people's reactions to death that constrains your freedom, and we try to pick how.
  - kubanczyk 5y ago
    I'm fiercely welded and wedded to the definitions of words which I use to communicate with others. Changing definitions is like pulling the carpet from under everyone. Since you write about freedom being rebalanced, it means you recognize it can be increased in one aspect or decreased in another aspect. (However increase never happened in neither of the two parallel universes, only this or that decrease; so the term "rebalancing" doesn't really fit.) I'm not arguing in favor or against seat belts or constraining any other freedom. I can't help observing it happens.
    - undecisive 5y ago
      I realise I used the word "rebalanced" without necessary context here. The context I'm presuming is that governments have to step in when deaths increase, to mandate certain responsibilities that individuals or corporations might otherwise seek to avoid. So in an increasingly vehicle-centric world, the number of deaths puts a weight on one side of the scales, and we have a number of branches on the other side of the scales. On one branch, we could change the speed limits; on another branch, we could introduce car safety devices; in other branches we could limit the number of cars on the road or increase car death punishments or embed random nails in all the roads to turn them into obstacle courses. Any of these could reduce the number of deaths and rebalance the freedom side. I'm not saying that freedom necessarily has a balance within itself, but is always balanced against responsibilities. A country without any responsibilities could exist, but probably not for very long. We could set a cap on responsibilities and allow almost-infinite freedoms, but as technology improves and society complexifies, I believe that would have the same end result. So all that is to say I guess I am in favour of constraining freedoms, proportionate to the new freedoms that naturally come into being. If personal light aircraft become cheap and readily available, such that more in-air collisions occur, I would expect and support the government in restricting the freedoms of where light aircraft can fly and the training required to operate them. If small blocks of uranium started falling from the sky, I would expect and support the government in restricting the freedoms of what people could do with these chunks of uranium far more drastically. Sometimes - rarely - responsibilities rise on their own. In the current pandemic, it is appropriate for the government to promote and in some cases mandate small impediments to our freedoms. Hopefully these will be short-term, and it is up to us to ensure that the government doesn't use these dark days as an excuse to curtail people's freedoms indefinitely. Because with all this said, I'm totally against unnecessary forms of tracking, biometric surveillance and other use of new technology to remove freedoms we historically have, especially when the government uses deceptive moral arguments to justify them or paves the way for future immoral regimes. I definitely don't see face masks or seat belts falling anywhere near that category though.
- omnicognate 5y ago
  To be clear, I don't think anybody's wrong to consider such laws a violation of their freedom. I don't, but it's a personal judgement, not something where there's an obvious, objective right/wrong. I think by rejecting the word "violated" you've materially changed the question, from a one about politics to one about semantics. There are many possible definitions of freedom and high among them is "the ability to do whatever you want". In this sense such laws obviously reduce freedom - as you state, it's a simple matter of definition. But that's an uninteresting matter of word definitions. The question about "violating" your freedom is about your judgement as to whether it is a good or a bad thing for the law to restrict you in this way. You haven't said anything about that.
  - notpachet 5y ago
    I think the "personal freedom vs collective responsibility" debate is largely indicative of our own short-sightedness as a species. In a society without laws, your personal freedom lasts only until your neighbour shivs you in the night. Laws are a collective negotiation of the extent to which we want to minimize short-term, high-visibility liberty in order to gain long-term, low-visibility liberty.
- malermeister 5y ago
  I think you're too focused on freedom _to_, while completely ignoring freedom _from_. Seat belt laws optimize for freedom from traffic deaths, which is more meaningful than freedom to not wear a seat belt. In other words, they increase the total amount of freedom.

undecisive 5y ago

I think the point is that Humans are stupid. Very few people nowadays think that seatbelts are a bad idea, or that smoking should be encouraged, or that lead in your makeup is the best way to make your skin look like porcelain. And often we only really realise that with 30-40 years of hindsight - sometimes more - once the smoke has cleared, once the big companies have stopped their misinformation or lobbying (though I wouldn't be surprised to find out there was still some low-level lobbying for relaxing car safety laws). > To prove how futile it is to resist government power I guess the real question is, what is government there for - if not to enact laws that keep people safe and prevent profiteering companies from hoodwinking the common folk to help their own bottom lines? Because as this pandemic has shown, given anything even slightly inconvenient, people will quite happily hoodwink themselves. Personal liberty is king, social responsibility is treason. (I'd welcome any examples of small inconveniences to help our fellows that did NOT illicit massive backlashes. I can't think of any ever - no matter how obvious the benefit or small the inconvenience.)

Joker_vD 5y ago
> Very few people nowadays think that seatbelts are a bad idea Just look around this very thread, you may be surprised. The main problem, I believe, is that most of the people really don't like the idea of being ordered to be even minorly inconvenienced even for their own supposed benefit, much less for benefit of the others. I've known several smokers, and they all complained how the laws keep getting stricter on where you can legally smoke, and that the tobacco prices keep going up, and that people keep asking them to not smoke near them, etc. And every time I asked "why don't you just give it up then?", oh boy, the replies I got and their tone... let me just say I've never asked that question again to the same person because I feel that'd actually turn me into their enemies.
- mrguyorama 5y ago
  I feel like it's a pretty sad person who gets steaming mad about being told about something that's good for them. Very childish
  - 5y ago

howinteresting 5y ago

Pretty much, with the small epicycle that the actual mandates are driven by a ton of evidence.

otterley 5y ago

You do understand that the price of living in a society is that not everybody just gets to do whatever they want, right?