Comment by llmthrow0827
20 hours ago
Personal liberties are overrated, and a functioning society is underrated. OnlyFans, sports betting, and junk food appeal to some people with low impulse control and high time preference in the short term, but have massive negative consequences on everyone in the long run.
Personal liberties being overrated is a wild take. I feel like this is one of those things that is easy to say when it isn't something you are interested in being infringed upon. I would be curious if you would feel the same way if people were trying to ban something you want to do.
The idea that prioritizing the good of society, rather than one's personal desires, is considered a "wild take" is just a reflection of the culture of narcissism you live in.
We probably could both be more nuanced with our statements.
What I hear when you say “the good of society” is that this means we would allow the majority to choose what is “for the good of society” and then enforce that on others.
You might not mean that. You are probably thinking of obvious “good” like not dying and not going bankrupt. But that is just what you are thinking of.
There are a lot of people who think other things are what is meant by “the good of society”. Lots of people think keeping trans people from having gender affirming surgery is “for the good of society”. Lots of people think requiring teaching the 10 commandments in school is “for the good of society”.
There are views like this on all sides. Some people think owning guns are for the good of society while some people thinking banning them is for the good of society. Some people think allowing people to eat meat harms society. Some people think gay marriage harms society.
So, do we allow all personal freedoms to be voted on by the populace? Or do we make the burden higher to infringe on individual freedoms?
Now, I do think we can place some limits when the damage far outweighs the cost of denying the freedom, but it has to really be worth it, because yes, individual freedom is very, very important.
Again, it is kind of crazy to take polar opposite views on this.
We mostly all grow up starting off with very few personal liberties and gaining them as we get older. We routinely take them away from people of they show they cannot be trusted with those liberties.
At present that process is fairly blunt, but it could be more nuanced. And that doesn't have to mean micro judging every interaction like China's social credit system. It could mean to allow freedoms wherever possible, but curtail those freedoms, where it has a negative impact on the rest of us.
And I think the best way of doing this is to put responsibility on the person or group causing the negative impact. So the gambler who embezzles money due to the addiction is just as responsible as the company who enables their addiction. Why cant we send both to jail? Or if there is not enough cause to deprive them of liberty, divert them from jail under probation. For a company that could mean enforcing open books and monitored communications, to make sure they are on the straight and narrow..
What we need to do though is to value both society and personal liberty.
1 reply →
The market producing what people desire is a functioning society. All the concern about so called addiction is simply a displaced puritanism disguised as humanism.
This ignores the fact that as a society there are certain desires that are agreed upon as harmful, such as CSAM. Everything must have its limits.
You use the words "so called addiction" as if addiction is not an extremely well-documented pyschological (and in some cases physical) phenomenon. Gambling preys on the fact that the variable reward rate method of reinforcement is the one that produces the most dopamine in our brains. Unless someone is acutely aware of how they are being manipulated it is very easy to become addicted to something that is financially dependent on your addiction.
So, adults who gamble a lot never steal from their parents, siblings and friends in order to keep on gambling?
A father who gambles a lot would never threaten his parents or his wife's parents to stop allowing those parents to visit their grandchildren unless those parents give the father money for gambling? (I.e., the father is making the threat not because he judges the grandparents to be a bad influence on the child, but rather to extract money from the grandparents that the grandparents would not otherwise choose to give because they know it will just go to gambling.)
In your opinion, it is displaced puritanism to want to do something about the fact that in our society such things happen frequently?