Comment by LadyCailin
2 months ago
Every “freedom” has two sides. Positive and negative freedom. You don’t have the freedom to dump nasty chemicals into bodies of water (lack of positive freedom), but I have the freedom to not have carcinogens in my drinking water (negative freedom). Some examples are clear cut, in the sense that we as a society surely all agree on where the line should be between positive and negative, but all examples need to be discussed on an individual basis, because they’re all different in terms of where we draw the line. But you can’t use the slippery slope argument here, because the slope works in the other direction too for any given example, the more positive freedom you have, the less negative freedom you have.
This is a refreshingly balanced take, which seems to frequently get lost in discussions.
The more I think about policy, the more it resembles a multi-objective optimisation problem.
Libertarianism is bunk because of this. It's not about freedom, it's about your freedom and no one else's.
Libertarians say they are anti regulation, but I ask them if I can murder them to steal their property.
Apparently they are all in favor of that regulation.
Similar to anti gun control people. Ok, I'm your neighbor, can I arm myself with chemical and biological weapons? Or a conventional bomb that will definitely destroy the entire block?
Hm, funny, they are in favor of some gun control.
Neither on of those examples are guns. Also a libertarian wouldn't just accept you murdering them, they would obviously attempt to defend themselves. Your arguments are kind of weak.
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Surely though limiting the government's positive freedom of ubiquitous surveillance, like this example of printers, is something that I'm sure would be resoundingly popular in a democratic society. This seems as clear cut as limiting the freedom to dump toxic chemicals into water supplies.
It is exceedingly popular in the general case hence why every slime-ball seeking to surveil people so that their pet issue can be enforced with an iron fist reframes it as freedom to dump toxic waste, drive 200mph in a school zone or print counterfeit dollars, etc.
An adaptation of printers most people never notice and which has been used to help catch criminals? I don't think you'll get the support you're expecting from the general public.
How is it anything like having your water supply poisoned. The printer thing doesn't noticeably affect anyone negatively unless they commit substantial crimes. Indeed it likely reduces costs of tracing the origins of printed material when that's important in a criminal investigation.
> The printer thing doesn't noticeably affect anyone negatively unless they commit substantial crimes
I'm not sure we have as universal agreement on what constitutes "crime" as you imply. Several whistleblowers have been convicted on the basis of printer watermarks - some of us certainly will fall on the side of preferring the existence of said whistleblowers in the federal government.
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