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> This part is often left out, providing fuel for nonsensical anarchist and libertarian arguments. It is my perspective that, since you do not choose the socie

> This part is often left out, providing fuel for nonsensical anarchist and libertarian arguments. It is my perspective that, since you do not choose the society you are born into (including the rights it grants you and the obligations it imposes on you) that the only justifiable system of power is one that you can influence and change. However, you can reject this framing early on. You can make an argument that, since you do not choose the society you are born into, there is no justifiable moral argument in having other's decisions about rights and obligations imposed upon you. This leaves plenty of room for anarchist and libertarian arguments, even if the outcomes would be worse in every other way, and even if this way of life could only exist for short periods before those who have chosen to organize systems of power eradicate it. For those who have landed on this argument, there is no moral or just universe which gives someone else power over them.

lern_too_spel 2y ago
> You can make an argument that, since you do not choose the society you are born into, there is no justifiable moral argument in having other's decisions about rights and obligations imposed upon you. You do not choose to be born, so that argument is nonsensical on its face and leads to absurd antinatalist conclusions. Instead, each person should work to their own benefit. You can benefit more by living in a society than by living on your own as long as you set up society in such a way that you benefit from it instead of suffer from it. That means accounting for externalities, preventing abuse of power, raising the next generation to also be civically minded, the whole nine yards.
- eightysixfour 2y ago
  > You do not choose to be born, so that argument is nonsensical on its face and leads to absurd antinatalist conclusions. I don't agree with this - you can accept existence as a fact (the universe, your birth, the scale doesn't matter) and that giving birth to another person is morally good or, at worst, morally neutral, without any impact whatsoever on the argument. Or, put simply, these two things can be true simultaneously: * I am alive, and this is good. * The history of humanity and my society places constraints on me, which I do not agree with, and gives me rights, which I do not value, and this is bad. However, we may come to an impasse, as I don't find "taken to its logical conclusion" arguments, or the paradoxes they can impose, to be particularly persuasive. > You can benefit more by living in a society than by living on your own I agree with this, however there is a mountain of assumptions under this statement which could be argued infinitely. Even if we accept it as true... > as long as you set up society in such a way that you benefit from it instead of suffer from it. That means accounting for externalities, preventing abuse of power, raising the next generation to also be civically minded, the whole nine yards. ... it is a rational/reasonable argument that what you just described is impossible, and we end up back somewhere near the beginning. Simplified (a lot): * I am alive, and this is good. * I live in a society, which is good. * Society is unjust and unfair, which is bad. * It cannot be made just and fair, which is bad. * Thus I should be able to leave without relinquishing my existence.
  - lern_too_spel 2y ago
    > giving birth to another person is morally good or, at worst, morally neutral The libertarian argument is that you made a person without their consent, and now they have the burden of deciding whether they want to continue to live, and this is unjust. > However, we may come to an impasse, as I don't find "taken to its logical conclusion" arguments, or the paradoxes they can impose, to be particularly persuasive. My own arguments may be taken to their logical conclusion without encountering a reduction to absurdity. > Even if we accept it as true... We don't have to accept this as a postulate. We can observe empirically that specialization and trade with others benefits the participants. Then not everyone has to be a doctor, a shelter builder, a farmer, etc. (none of which they can even do competently without a teacher). > Society is unjust and unfair, which is bad This step is doing a lot of work. If you believe it is unjust that you were brought into this world without consent, sure, but that idea of justice is absurd. The idea of justice divorced from the idea of benefit ultimately leads to the absurdum. Fairness is not an end goal in itself but one of many means to achieve mutual benefit, which satisfies the primary goal of personal benefit.
    - eightysixfour 2y ago
      > The libertarian argument is that you made a person without their consent, and now they have the burden of deciding whether they want to continue to live, and this is unjust. I understand that is a libertarian argument and it is one that I fully disagree with. However, I do not think you have to make this argument for the others to hold true, which is the point I was trying to make. > We can observe empirically that specialization and trade with others benefits the participants. Then not everyone has to be a doctor, a shelter builder, a farmer, etc. (none of which they can even do competently without a teacher). What is the empirical evidence that a specialist is more fulfilled in life than a frontier settler who needed to be all of the things you mentioned? One of the assumptions I avoided arguing in the "mountain of assumptions" is that we could measure the human condition in such a way as to say something is better than another, or that something that is better for one is better for all. > This step is doing a lot of work. If you believe it is unjust that you were brought into this world without consent, sure, but that idea of justice is absurd. My point in the first argument is that you can separate the idea that being born is just or unjust from the argument that being born into a social system is just or unjust. I think someone reasonably believe three of those combinations: Birth : Society Just / Just Unjust / Unjust Just / Unjust It is fair that this separation is only possible due to a bit of a game I'm playing by centralizing the relative "justness" from the perspective of the individual. I think if you take a purely individualistic approach to this, you can separate things by what are changeable and what are not, as well the reality of nature vs. social construct. Someone was born, that cannot be changed. They are constrained by the natural laws of the universe, that cannot be changed. However, the social constructs that they live within can be changed. The outcome may be different if we shifted the perspective to, say, the parent, where you could argue that their decision to conceive was unjust. Or to the system as a whole. I think this is a valid approach given that we are discussing such an individualistic philosophy. > The idea of justice divorced from the idea of benefit ultimately leads to the absurdum. Fairness is not an end goal in itself but one of many means to achieve mutual benefit, which satisfies the primary goal of personal benefit. Hmm, I'm having a hard time working through this argument. Could you expand on it?

lern_too_spel 2y ago

> You can make an argument that, since you do not choose the society you are born into, there is no justifiable moral argument in having other's decisions about rights and obligations imposed upon you. You do not choose to be born, so that argument is nonsensical on its face and leads to absurd antinatalist conclusions. Instead, each person should work to their own benefit. You can benefit more by living in a society than by living on your own as long as you set up society in such a way that you benefit from it instead of suffer from it. That means accounting for externalities, preventing abuse of power, raising the next generation to also be civically minded, the whole nine yards.

eightysixfour 2y ago
> You do not choose to be born, so that argument is nonsensical on its face and leads to absurd antinatalist conclusions. I don't agree with this - you can accept existence as a fact (the universe, your birth, the scale doesn't matter) and that giving birth to another person is morally good or, at worst, morally neutral, without any impact whatsoever on the argument. Or, put simply, these two things can be true simultaneously: * I am alive, and this is good. * The history of humanity and my society places constraints on me, which I do not agree with, and gives me rights, which I do not value, and this is bad. However, we may come to an impasse, as I don't find "taken to its logical conclusion" arguments, or the paradoxes they can impose, to be particularly persuasive. > You can benefit more by living in a society than by living on your own I agree with this, however there is a mountain of assumptions under this statement which could be argued infinitely. Even if we accept it as true... > as long as you set up society in such a way that you benefit from it instead of suffer from it. That means accounting for externalities, preventing abuse of power, raising the next generation to also be civically minded, the whole nine yards. ... it is a rational/reasonable argument that what you just described is impossible, and we end up back somewhere near the beginning. Simplified (a lot): * I am alive, and this is good. * I live in a society, which is good. * Society is unjust and unfair, which is bad. * It cannot be made just and fair, which is bad. * Thus I should be able to leave without relinquishing my existence.
- lern_too_spel 2y ago
  > giving birth to another person is morally good or, at worst, morally neutral The libertarian argument is that you made a person without their consent, and now they have the burden of deciding whether they want to continue to live, and this is unjust. > However, we may come to an impasse, as I don't find "taken to its logical conclusion" arguments, or the paradoxes they can impose, to be particularly persuasive. My own arguments may be taken to their logical conclusion without encountering a reduction to absurdity. > Even if we accept it as true... We don't have to accept this as a postulate. We can observe empirically that specialization and trade with others benefits the participants. Then not everyone has to be a doctor, a shelter builder, a farmer, etc. (none of which they can even do competently without a teacher). > Society is unjust and unfair, which is bad This step is doing a lot of work. If you believe it is unjust that you were brought into this world without consent, sure, but that idea of justice is absurd. The idea of justice divorced from the idea of benefit ultimately leads to the absurdum. Fairness is not an end goal in itself but one of many means to achieve mutual benefit, which satisfies the primary goal of personal benefit.
  - eightysixfour 2y ago
    > The libertarian argument is that you made a person without their consent, and now they have the burden of deciding whether they want to continue to live, and this is unjust. I understand that is a libertarian argument and it is one that I fully disagree with. However, I do not think you have to make this argument for the others to hold true, which is the point I was trying to make. > We can observe empirically that specialization and trade with others benefits the participants. Then not everyone has to be a doctor, a shelter builder, a farmer, etc. (none of which they can even do competently without a teacher). What is the empirical evidence that a specialist is more fulfilled in life than a frontier settler who needed to be all of the things you mentioned? One of the assumptions I avoided arguing in the "mountain of assumptions" is that we could measure the human condition in such a way as to say something is better than another, or that something that is better for one is better for all. > This step is doing a lot of work. If you believe it is unjust that you were brought into this world without consent, sure, but that idea of justice is absurd. My point in the first argument is that you can separate the idea that being born is just or unjust from the argument that being born into a social system is just or unjust. I think someone reasonably believe three of those combinations: Birth : Society Just / Just Unjust / Unjust Just / Unjust It is fair that this separation is only possible due to a bit of a game I'm playing by centralizing the relative "justness" from the perspective of the individual. I think if you take a purely individualistic approach to this, you can separate things by what are changeable and what are not, as well the reality of nature vs. social construct. Someone was born, that cannot be changed. They are constrained by the natural laws of the universe, that cannot be changed. However, the social constructs that they live within can be changed. The outcome may be different if we shifted the perspective to, say, the parent, where you could argue that their decision to conceive was unjust. Or to the system as a whole. I think this is a valid approach given that we are discussing such an individualistic philosophy. > The idea of justice divorced from the idea of benefit ultimately leads to the absurdum. Fairness is not an end goal in itself but one of many means to achieve mutual benefit, which satisfies the primary goal of personal benefit. Hmm, I'm having a hard time working through this argument. Could you expand on it?