From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sun May 25 2003 - 23:49:06 MDT
On Saturday 24 May 2003 06:15 pm, Damien Sullivan wrote:
> On Sat, May 24, 2003 at 10:24:22AM -0700, Ramez Naam wrote:
> > Sure, as a member of a modern society there are freedoms I give
> > up, but the freedoms I gain more than compensate.
>
> There's negative liberty -- freedom from constraints imposed by
> other people -- and positive liberty -- what you can actually do.
> To maximize negative liberty avoid other people or be a tyrant.
> No, just avoid people -- tyrants have constraints if they want to
> stay a tyrant. But there are a lot of things you can do in a
> Western society you can't do off in the wilderness.
>
And interesting but somewhat strange formulation. Freedom does not
require lack of constraints. Reality itself imposes constraints on
what one is free to do including the reality of living among others.
There are rights consistent with freedom. These rights are negative
rights, rights to non-interference from others unless you interfere
with them. But lack of constraints is a real world impossibility.
That one can accomplish more in a relatively complex/advanced culture
than in isolation is true but not particulary a sign of more freedom
per se.
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun May 25 2003 - 23:51:41 MDT