> 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? The evid

> 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? The evidence is that a specialist can live to do the things they like about frontier living. The lone frontier settler is doomed to die early. If you're dead, nothing matters. This is the same problem with the libertarian obsession with "freedom." Yes, you can be free to shoot your machine guns and explode your bombs and pollute the air, and your neighbor can be free to shoot their machine guns and explode their bombs and pollute the air, but now neither of you will be able to do these things as long as if you came to an agreement to restrict where and when these are allowed. > 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. Each individual can measure this themselves by understanding how long they'll live to do the things they want to do. It is not necessary that something that is better for one is better for all, but individuals will make social pacts that ensure their own benefit, and there is nothing you can do to stop it by making definitions of "justice" divorced from the reality of each person seeking their benefit, only to participate in it in a logical way. > Hmm, I'm having a hard time working through this argument Perhaps the last sentence of my previous paragraph is clearer. Striving for "justice" is unworkable, and definitions of justice that prevent others from making rules for you are especially so. Each person is working for their own benefit, and the only reasonable thing to do is to work with society under that assumption to make sure you benefit too. This means making governments that prevent others from crushing you under their boot, that help others in society gain abilities that you can benefit from, etc.; not dismantling governments that do that.