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> In that case you wouldn't be entitled to any of society's collective work either. Electricity? Sorry you didn't invent it. I buy electricity. I don't tell th

by seneca 4y ago

> In that case you wouldn't be entitled to any of society's collective work either. Electricity? Sorry you didn't invent it. I buy electricity. I don't tell the people creating that I am entitled to it because we're both members of the same society. > Fire? Not your intellectual property either, no heat for you. Have you reimbursed anyone for your use of a language you didn't create lately? After all, it's immoral to benefit from someone else's work. I'm not clear what point you're trying to make here. It's not immoral to benefit from someone else's work. Infact, mutual benefit is sort of the entire point of society. What's immoral is to take someone's work against their will simply because you feel entitled to it. > Libertarians have this strange lack of awareness of the fact that the world we live in is built on millennia of other people's work, without which they'd be foraging naked in the mud with sticks. Authoritarians have a complete lack of awareness of history, especially the history of societies that begin treating their productive members as kulaks to be robbed. > Leave then. You're no longer a child, it's in your power to simply start walking. What's stopping you? Perhaps the "collectivist" society is actually quite comfortable? Perhaps life outside of one isn't all it's cracked up to be. The US is still relatively individualistic. I quite like it still, for all its faults, and contribute quite a lot to it. Rather than leave, I intend to stay and continue to disagree with the collectivists hoping to change it, and advocate for individualism. Not wanting to live in a collectivist society doesn't mean not wanting to live in a society at all.

Jochim 4y ago
> I buy electricity. I don't tell the people creating that I am entitled to it because we're both members of the same society. Society, through taxation, has put in place the systems that make large scale electricity generation feasible. Without it you'd be unable to buy electricity at all. In fact you'd more likely be bartering the shiny pebbles you'd found while washing in a nearby river. > I'm not clear what point you're trying to make here. It's not immoral to benefit from someone else's work. In fact, mutual benefit is sort of the entire point of society. What's immoral is to take someone's work against their will simply because you feel entitled to it. Mutual benefit is exactly what's occurring. Without society you wouldn't be able to carry out that work at all. You willingly engage in the work that society makes possible with the understanding that society will receive a percentage for it's part in enabling it. What's immoral is feeling entitled to benefit from collective knowledge and effort for nothing. Why shouldn't society expect something in return for providing collective knowledge and infrastructure? I look forward to the independent rediscovery of computation. > Authoritarians have a complete lack of awareness of history, especially the history of societies that begin treating their productive members as kulaks to be robbed. It's precisely an awareness of history that reveals the danger of your position. Societies that fail to balance disparity collapse violently. The failures of "collectivist" societies lay clearly in the power imbalance between a small group of individuals and the collective whole. The irony of your "productive members" largely being slavers or aristocrats of lands won through violence should not be missed. On the other hand, child prostitution and capitalism entered the USSR hand in hand. To return to a more modern example, disregarding any other potential benefit, taxation keeps me safe from desperate people. I happen to enjoy going about my business safely. In fact I greatly prefer it to fighting off the hungry. As far as being authoritarian, perhaps we're using varying definitions. I'm happy for people to live their lives as they please to the degree that they don't impose on the freedoms of others. To me, a major factor in that is the management of wealth disparity and the provision of a basic standard of living. Personally, our current system feels coercive in the sense that it puts the majority of people in a situation where they are effectively forced to accept poor treatment and pay. The reticence of most people towards cleaning work illustrates this. The reality of the job is decoupled from how much it pays. This is a result of a huge number of people lacking the freedom to demand better conditions or pay.

by seneca 4y ago

Jochim 4y ago

> I buy electricity. I don't tell the people creating that I am entitled to it because we're both members of the same society. Society, through taxation, has put in place the systems that make large scale electricity generation feasible. Without it you'd be unable to buy electricity at all. In fact you'd more likely be bartering the shiny pebbles you'd found while washing in a nearby river. > I'm not clear what point you're trying to make here. It's not immoral to benefit from someone else's work. In fact, mutual benefit is sort of the entire point of society. What's immoral is to take someone's work against their will simply because you feel entitled to it. Mutual benefit is exactly what's occurring. Without society you wouldn't be able to carry out that work at all. You willingly engage in the work that society makes possible with the understanding that society will receive a percentage for it's part in enabling it. What's immoral is feeling entitled to benefit from collective knowledge and effort for nothing. Why shouldn't society expect something in return for providing collective knowledge and infrastructure? I look forward to the independent rediscovery of computation. > Authoritarians have a complete lack of awareness of history, especially the history of societies that begin treating their productive members as kulaks to be robbed. It's precisely an awareness of history that reveals the danger of your position. Societies that fail to balance disparity collapse violently. The failures of "collectivist" societies lay clearly in the power imbalance between a small group of individuals and the collective whole. The irony of your "productive members" largely being slavers or aristocrats of lands won through violence should not be missed. On the other hand, child prostitution and capitalism entered the USSR hand in hand. To return to a more modern example, disregarding any other potential benefit, taxation keeps me safe from desperate people. I happen to enjoy going about my business safely. In fact I greatly prefer it to fighting off the hungry. As far as being authoritarian, perhaps we're using varying definitions. I'm happy for people to live their lives as they please to the degree that they don't impose on the freedoms of others. To me, a major factor in that is the management of wealth disparity and the provision of a basic standard of living. Personally, our current system feels coercive in the sense that it puts the majority of people in a situation where they are effectively forced to accept poor treatment and pay. The reticence of most people towards cleaning work illustrates this. The reality of the job is decoupled from how much it pays. This is a result of a huge number of people lacking the freedom to demand better conditions or pay.