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My point is that "good, desirable or natural" are not real. They are not concrete things that we can derive from observations about the world. They are akin to
by thegrimmest 5y ago
My point is that "good, desirable or natural" are not real. They are not concrete things that we can derive from observations about the world. They are akin to religions beliefs. Reasonable people can hold opposing views, and there is no oracle to divine the one truth. Given this situation, the only reasonable way forward seems to be tolerance of the full diversity of belief, and refrain from imposing one's own beliefs onto others.
- sascha_sl 5y agoThis is why I wanted to avoid this discussion. Because philosophically, I really don't disagree with this statement, but the discussion has pivoted past the important part, where we talk about whether total economic freedom is itself ideology (or "an imposition of belief"). It doesn't exist in a vaccum. It is a way to maximize one particular aspect of freedom, but at the expense of other aspects. You will always have to make this trade off somewhere, paradox of tolerance and all, and I don't think this is the one we should make.
- thegrimmest 5y agoI'm curious how you would categorize total economic freedom in any sense an "imposition of belief". It is simply absence of any imposition into the economic realm. What other aspects are being sacrificed in order to maximise this aspect? I'm not sure the paradox of tolerance is a statement of fact.
- Apocryphon 5y agoWhat if total economic freedom resulted in the reduction of other freedoms
- thegrimmest 5y agoWhich other freedoms are you referring to? How would they be reduced by total economic freedom? I don't see how economic freedom would lead directly to violence.
- Apocryphon 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
- thegrimmest 5y agoI agree that the maintenance of the common physical environment we live in should be regulated, but that's not what we're talking about here is it? We're talking about regulating interaction between people, which is inherently paternalistic.
- Apocryphon 5y agoWe’re talking about the concept of total economic freedom in general, which would inevitably lead to negative externalities of any kind, including to the physical environment, not merely interactions between people.
- thegrimmest 5y agoI'm not strictly in favour of total economic freedom and wasn't the one to bring it up. Namely I am in favour of regulating the physical commons - rights of way, air, water, etc. that we all must physically interact with. I'm against the paternalistic regulation of how free people should peacefully interact with each other, with the view to steer outcomes to some random idea of good.
- Apocryphon 5y agoWhat ensures the parties involved are free? Many of these issues being discussed deal with consequences experienced by one party that were never disclosed by the other. Information asymmetry makes such contracts un-free and thus the legal framework should permit nullification and redress.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
- sascha_sl 5y agoBut that economic system is built on barely 2 century old philosophy you take for granted. It is not "human nature". If you could argue for any political system to be "human nature" it would be feudalism or anarchism-without-adjectives. What is being sacrificed? Equal starting conditions to start with. Wealth in capitalism tends to concentrate. Social mobility exists, but it is severely limited. Exploitation through holding capital is mandatory. I'm feeling this right now, I am in the top 25% income bracket overall and much better if accounting for age, yet I will never be able to do such trivial things regular workers could do just a few decades ago such as build a house, thanks to the freedom afforded to the absolute top end to turn housing into a speculative commodity. If I lived in the US, a considerably "freer" society than mine, my entire wealth would be consumed by healthcare, a result of the freedom of hospitals and insurers to charge arbitrarily high fees for maximum extraction.
- thegrimmest 5y agoI'm not arguing that it's "human nature". I'm arguing there's no such thing. I'm arguing that we are fundamentally decision-making agents. > Equal starting conditions to start with Equal conditions are not a prerequisite for liberty. They are in fact impossible to define and impossible to impose. You can be destitute and free, and you can be pampered and enslaved. The Darwinian nature of a free economic system isn't imposed, it's an emergent property of any system where scarce resources are competed for by living beings. As in any Darwinian system, the optimal behavior for the successful is to maximally exploit their success, to pull-up the ladder, so to speak. Everything else you've said just betrays your religion: "Workers should be able to build houses". "Healthcare should be regulated so people can afford it". I don't think it's unreasonable to disagree here. In my religion, I'd prefer to die in agony rather than pry greedily into the pocket of an unwilling stranger. Why is your religion better than mine?
- dTal 5y agoEthical nihilism is no basis for public policy. Your argument successfully justifies legal murder, for instance. Who are we to say that it's wrong?
- thegrimmest 5y agoIf someone consents to be murdered, who are we indeed to stop them? My argument doesn't justify non-consensual murder at all however.
- dTal 5y agoIt certainly does justify it. And literally everything else. It's an argument against laws of any kind. After all, "good, desirable or natural" are not real. We have no framework to rank desirability of outcome, according to you. The only reasonable way forward is tolerance of the full diversity of belief, right? Including the belief that murder is okay.
- thegrimmest 5y agoWell, if one person doesn't want to be murdered and another wants to murder someone, and these people are equal, then we have a conflict. We should tolerate the full diversity of belief, but we should not tolerate infringement on anyone's liberty.