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Ability to make your own choices. The way I understand barbaric societies is that whatever your elders come up with you are obliged to follow their lead, if you

by 988747 5y ago

Ability to make your own choices. The way I understand barbaric societies is that whatever your elders come up with you are obliged to follow their lead, if you object you will be banished or killed.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
marginalia_nu 5y ago
You can still do that in any society. Even though it's illegal, you can run a red light or cheat on your taxes. The notion that you somehow can't is just mauvaise foi. Of course you can. You're choosing not to. Seems like you are describing freedom from consequences, not the ability to make choices, because that's available now and to the barbarian. I'm not sure which society has no consequences.
- vageli 5y ago
  And if you are arrested after making one of these illegal choices, are you still free?
  - marginalia_nu 5y ago
    If you plunge a sword into your chest, you also can't make choices later on. Does that mean it's impossible to choose to plunge a sword into your chest?
    - mistermann 5y ago
      Did you not like the question so you avoided it by asking one of your own instead, or is something I'm not familiar with going on?
      - marginalia_nu 5y ago
        An action has an undesirable consequence, does this mean it is impossible to perform? The question isn't whether we are free under all circumstances, but whether we are free now.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        mistermann 5y ago
        I agree that lack of freedom always exists simultaneously at some level, but at the specific level posed in the question are you free?
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - lvass 5y ago
      What did you smoke, my friend? I really like your search engine, don't destroy it's image for me. Freedom is not strictly equal to technical possibility, it's not even the same word.
      - marginalia_nu 5y ago
        Aww come on, I don't want you to agree with me, I want us to have an interesting discussion about what freedom is and ultimately why we want it. It's worth while, trust me.
    - TecoAndJix 5y ago
      You are free to make a choice even when the end result is restricting future freedom (sword=death, illegal action=prison/death). So you can in any moment "be totally free" in virtually any society as long as concerns for freedom in future moments are irrelevant to you
      - marginalia_nu 5y ago
        Yes, this is indeed my point.
      - vageli 5y ago
        > So you can in any moment "be totally free" in virtually any society as long as concerns for freedom in future moments are irrelevant to you Okay so I am in prison. Am I still totally free in that moment?
        TecoAndJix 5y ago
        Great point. Max available freedom has constraints based on your current situation. I'm not in prison but i don't have the freedom to walk on the moon
    - Chris2048 5y ago
      I'm note sure "freedom" is the same thing as "possible". If it where, only physicists would concerns themselves with its definition. I think it more often means "permissible" or "practical".
- lvass 5y ago
  >You can still do that in any society. Even though it's illegal, you can run a red light or cheat on your taxes By that logic, there is no such thing as restriction of freedom, as it assumes even someone's ability to jail you does not restrict your freedom in any way. People in jail are free as a corollary. How is this not absurd? It only makes sense if you hate freedom and want to argue against it to people low on rhetoric.
  - marginalia_nu 5y ago
    I'm arguing against the particular definition of freedom given, not against freedom itself.
    - lvass 5y ago
      Freedom is indeed the ability to make your own choices, but you must not understand it in a strictly technical context, more like a social/legal one. It simply isn't viable to physically prevent every action society considers you not free to take, so the restriction of freedom comes in the form of later punishment, it doesn't magically stop being restriction of freedom just because technical possibility is still there.
      - darkerside 5y ago
        I'm pretty sure everyone understands what you are saying, but I don't think you've demonstrated that you understand what you are arguing against. Just an observation.
      - marginalia_nu 5y ago
        Ok, let's agree that the proposition we are discussing is this: * Freedom is the limitation of choice. My counter-argument is this: Limitations on choice through potential consequences are ultimately self-imposed. To have any effect, they require me to refuse to consider the possibility of the alternative. To the extent they limit my action, it is through my choice, possibly implicit, to let them limit my actions. The option of making the choice never goes away no matter how grievous the potential consequence. Since this is in a discussion around a post by Snowden, we can take him as an example. He did something that, according to this theory of freedom, is impossible. He wasn't free to do it, his choice was limited by potential punishment. Yet he did, the possibility of making the supposedly impossible choice was still there. Consider a hypothetical man who has lived isolated indoors all life playing video games, never gone to school, never watched TV, nobody told him about any consequences. One day at the age of 25 he finally discovers a door to the outside and goes through and thinks "oh man, this is like GTA!" and goes around punching the elderly, stealing things, breaking all manner of laws as he has been taught is how you get points. Eventually the strange man is caught and sent to prison, but until that point, was he more free than we are? He was subject to the same laws and social consequences as we are, but they weren't able to limit his choices because of his ignorance. Clearly it can't be the laws themselves that limit choices if this is the case. It appears to me there is something strange about the given definition of freedom. It lends itself to producing paradoxes, where people who aren't free are capable of being simultaneously free, and the same sources of limitation successfully limit some people but not others based on what attitude they have toward them. This type of contradiction usually means a definition is incomplete.
freeflight 5y ago
> you are obliged to follow their lead, if you object you will be banished or killed Not really that different to today, except that it's a circle of elders and their lead is codified in laws. But breaking these laws will still get you "banished" aka deported if you are not a citizen, and if you are citizen you will face consequences for your noncompliance, which in some places can still reach all the way up to the death sentence. So in a way it's still all just barbaric societies, but with extra steps.
- nybble41 5y ago
  > So in a way it's still all just barbaric societies, but with extra steps. You've got it. Proper civilization and a free society are still a long way off. Laws and democracy limit the variance (good and bad) but don't automatically create a better outcome. We still need people to make the right decisions. And these systems of law and democracy which serve mainly to promote stability introduce their own problems by encouraging people to confuse "legal" or "popular" with "right", and "illegal" or "unpopular" with "wrong".

by 988747 5y ago

Ability to make your own choices. The way I understand barbaric societies is that whatever your elders come up with you are obliged to follow their lead, if you object you will be banished or killed.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

marginalia_nu 5y ago

You can still do that in any society. Even though it's illegal, you can run a red light or cheat on your taxes. The notion that you somehow can't is just mauvaise foi. Of course you can. You're choosing not to. Seems like you are describing freedom from consequences, not the ability to make choices, because that's available now and to the barbarian. I'm not sure which society has no consequences.

vageli 5y ago
And if you are arrested after making one of these illegal choices, are you still free?
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  If you plunge a sword into your chest, you also can't make choices later on. Does that mean it's impossible to choose to plunge a sword into your chest?
  - mistermann 5y ago
    Did you not like the question so you avoided it by asking one of your own instead, or is something I'm not familiar with going on?
    - marginalia_nu 5y ago
      An action has an undesirable consequence, does this mean it is impossible to perform? The question isn't whether we are free under all circumstances, but whether we are free now.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - mistermann 5y ago
        I agree that lack of freedom always exists simultaneously at some level, but at the specific level posed in the question are you free?
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - lvass 5y ago
    What did you smoke, my friend? I really like your search engine, don't destroy it's image for me. Freedom is not strictly equal to technical possibility, it's not even the same word.
    - marginalia_nu 5y ago
      Aww come on, I don't want you to agree with me, I want us to have an interesting discussion about what freedom is and ultimately why we want it. It's worth while, trust me.
  - TecoAndJix 5y ago
    You are free to make a choice even when the end result is restricting future freedom (sword=death, illegal action=prison/death). So you can in any moment "be totally free" in virtually any society as long as concerns for freedom in future moments are irrelevant to you
    - marginalia_nu 5y ago
      Yes, this is indeed my point.
    - vageli 5y ago
      > So you can in any moment "be totally free" in virtually any society as long as concerns for freedom in future moments are irrelevant to you Okay so I am in prison. Am I still totally free in that moment?
      - TecoAndJix 5y ago
        Great point. Max available freedom has constraints based on your current situation. I'm not in prison but i don't have the freedom to walk on the moon
  - Chris2048 5y ago
    I'm note sure "freedom" is the same thing as "possible". If it where, only physicists would concerns themselves with its definition. I think it more often means "permissible" or "practical".
lvass 5y ago
>You can still do that in any society. Even though it's illegal, you can run a red light or cheat on your taxes By that logic, there is no such thing as restriction of freedom, as it assumes even someone's ability to jail you does not restrict your freedom in any way. People in jail are free as a corollary. How is this not absurd? It only makes sense if you hate freedom and want to argue against it to people low on rhetoric.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  I'm arguing against the particular definition of freedom given, not against freedom itself.
  - lvass 5y ago
    Freedom is indeed the ability to make your own choices, but you must not understand it in a strictly technical context, more like a social/legal one. It simply isn't viable to physically prevent every action society considers you not free to take, so the restriction of freedom comes in the form of later punishment, it doesn't magically stop being restriction of freedom just because technical possibility is still there.
    - darkerside 5y ago
      I'm pretty sure everyone understands what you are saying, but I don't think you've demonstrated that you understand what you are arguing against. Just an observation.
    - marginalia_nu 5y ago
      Ok, let's agree that the proposition we are discussing is this: * Freedom is the limitation of choice. My counter-argument is this: Limitations on choice through potential consequences are ultimately self-imposed. To have any effect, they require me to refuse to consider the possibility of the alternative. To the extent they limit my action, it is through my choice, possibly implicit, to let them limit my actions. The option of making the choice never goes away no matter how grievous the potential consequence. Since this is in a discussion around a post by Snowden, we can take him as an example. He did something that, according to this theory of freedom, is impossible. He wasn't free to do it, his choice was limited by potential punishment. Yet he did, the possibility of making the supposedly impossible choice was still there. Consider a hypothetical man who has lived isolated indoors all life playing video games, never gone to school, never watched TV, nobody told him about any consequences. One day at the age of 25 he finally discovers a door to the outside and goes through and thinks "oh man, this is like GTA!" and goes around punching the elderly, stealing things, breaking all manner of laws as he has been taught is how you get points. Eventually the strange man is caught and sent to prison, but until that point, was he more free than we are? He was subject to the same laws and social consequences as we are, but they weren't able to limit his choices because of his ignorance. Clearly it can't be the laws themselves that limit choices if this is the case. It appears to me there is something strange about the given definition of freedom. It lends itself to producing paradoxes, where people who aren't free are capable of being simultaneously free, and the same sources of limitation successfully limit some people but not others based on what attitude they have toward them. This type of contradiction usually means a definition is incomplete.

freeflight 5y ago

> you are obliged to follow their lead, if you object you will be banished or killed Not really that different to today, except that it's a circle of elders and their lead is codified in laws. But breaking these laws will still get you "banished" aka deported if you are not a citizen, and if you are citizen you will face consequences for your noncompliance, which in some places can still reach all the way up to the death sentence. So in a way it's still all just barbaric societies, but with extra steps.

nybble41 5y ago
> So in a way it's still all just barbaric societies, but with extra steps. You've got it. Proper civilization and a free society are still a long way off. Laws and democracy limit the variance (good and bad) but don't automatically create a better outcome. We still need people to make the right decisions. And these systems of law and democracy which serve mainly to promote stability introduce their own problems by encouraging people to confuse "legal" or "popular" with "right", and "illegal" or "unpopular" with "wrong".