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Knowing we are Free

Started by Verbal Mike, June 28, 2008, 01:51:28 AM

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Verbal Mike

I used to tell people we live in an Anarchist Utopia. It was a kind of IRL troll in the days I used to hang out with activist-types. It was a lot of fun, because it is a very difficult claim difficult to argue against: we are all free to do as we will. You can smoke a joint in front of a police station - you just have to be prepared to deal with the consequences. You can do anything you can get away with.

It is very easy to confuse what we can't do with what we shouldn't do. It is all too easy to forget that we have the choice. The internet pirate, downloading and propogating stolen materials, he has the choice. And stopping at a red light, I had the choice to keep going and risk arrest or injury.

Freedom, in this its most basic sense, seems rather constant in human history across space and time. The only way people have managed to truly limit freedom in this sense is imprisonment of others - and this has always been applied to a small minority, even in extreme cases where entire ethnic groups were rounded up and confined.

So if we sense we are in a state of decreasing freedom, clearly the freedom we are referring to is not this freedom of choice, ever so hard to truly limit. The freedoms now being slowly taken away must be subtler ones - indeed, these freedoms must consist of our choices not being affected unduly by outside considerations. I should be able to write what I want, when I want, where I want, without this choice being affected by fear of retribution. Imposing this fear is a subtle encroachment upon my freedom.

But perhaps the easiest way to limit one's freedom is to make one forget this freedom ever existed in the first place. After all, why put a man behind iron bars when you can just train him to stay indoors? If you can convince The People that they should not do what you do not wish them to do, you save a great deal of energy you would otherwise spend actually stopping them from doing it. If you can convince them that they cannot do this, cannot go there, all the better.

It is good to remember once in a while that we are fundamentally free. We may have fears imposed on us by unjust rulers. We may have to face choices no free person should be forced to face. We may have to take great care to preserve our freedom. But we are free nonetheless, and the choice is ours. Merely knowing we are free is half the battle.
Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.

fomenter

 :mittens: i like this a lot
Quoting this part

-"So if we sense we are in a state of decreasing freedom, clearly the freedom we are referring to is not this freedom of choice, ever so hard to truly limit. The freedoms now being slowly taken away must be subtler ones - indeed, these freedoms must consist of our choices not being affected unduly by outside considerations. I should be able to write what I want, when I want, where I want, without this choice being affected by fear of retribution. Imposing this fear is a subtle encroachment upon my freedom.

Because its worth repeating
"So she says to me, do you wanna be a BAD boy? And I say YEAH baby YEAH! Surf's up space ponies! I'm makin' gravy... Without the lumps. HAAA-ha-ha-ha!"


hmroogp

Golden Applesauce

Very true, up to a point.  You certainly can paint yourself in woad and sacrifice chickens on the white house lawn.  But I bet you can't do it twice.
Q: How regularly do you hire 8th graders?
A: We have hired a number of FORMER 8th graders.

BADGE OF HONOR

What about morality?

(not trolling, I'm honestly interested in what you have to say)
The Jerk On Bike rolled his eyes and tossed the waffle back over his shoulder--before it struck the ground, a stout, disconcertingly monkey-like dog sprang into the air and snatched it, and began to masticate it--literally--for the sound it made was like a homonculus squatting on the floor muttering "masticate masticate masticate".

Verbal Mike

I can't judge whether a given moral code is right or wrong - I believe that's a subjective, personal matter. But I think mostly when someone follows a moral code, they merely use it to aggrandize their own likes and dislikes, in some cases adapting the latter to their moral code, in more cases vice-versa.
I don't bother with "right" and "wrong" anymore, there's only "like" and "dislike".
In the context of the freedom of choice, I'd say people who lead a moral life are exercizing their freedom by choosing to do the things they find tasteful and abstaining from those things they find distasteful.
Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.

BADGE OF HONOR

I was just thinking about whether or not I could physically make myself kill another person.  In that case, my own personal morality is interfering with complete freedom, but since I'm not a complete nihilist I can accept that.  I think part of being a social creature is creating/accepting rules for behavior.  The only way anyone can be completely free is to live completely alone.
The Jerk On Bike rolled his eyes and tossed the waffle back over his shoulder--before it struck the ground, a stout, disconcertingly monkey-like dog sprang into the air and snatched it, and began to masticate it--literally--for the sound it made was like a homonculus squatting on the floor muttering "masticate masticate masticate".

Anch

:mittens:

I really liked that piece; seems to be something that gets easily forgotten:
You can do anything you want, and you will face the consequences, just like everybody else.

help I'm trapped in a online-personality-machine and can't escargh

Golden Applesauce

Quote from: Rabid Badger of God on June 28, 2008, 10:08:09 PM
I was just thinking about whether or not I could physically make myself kill another person.  In that case, my own personal morality is interfering with complete freedom, but since I'm not a complete nihilist I can accept that.  I think part of being a social creature is creating/accepting rules for behavior.  The only way anyone can be completely free is to live completely alone.

And yet, if I lived completely alone, I wouldn't have the freedom to make friends or to kill people other than myself.  Complete freedom is impossible, I think, since some choices are mutually exclusive with other choices.  That, and annoying things like the laws of thermodynamics get in the way of some actions I would like to perform.
Q: How regularly do you hire 8th graders?
A: We have hired a number of FORMER 8th graders.

Verbal Mike

Yes, you are not particularly free to stand on your balcony and fly off into the night. If you are simply not capable of killing someone (btw, I'm probably incapable of it too) that doesn't make you less free, imho.
Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.

Reverend Loveshade

Verbatim: If it's all right, I'd like to use this on our website.

I have a friend who survived solitary confinement for several months (30 days is the ordinary maximum they can give you in America) by thinking about all the freedom e had, even in a tiny one-person cell.  E'd think things like I can eat all the food they give me, or some of it, or none of it.  I can throw it on the floor.  I can be quiet, I can talk to myself, I can whistle any tune, I can sing any song I want, I can scream.  E realized that, even locked up by emself, e had virtually endless choices.  Several others lost it; but almost every day, my friend experienced joy.
"Threats should not be tolerated. They're demeaning, they're violations to human rights and no one deserves them."

-- navkat, 20 June 2007, principiadiscordia.com

Verbal Mike

That's a great little anecdote, Rev.
Go ahead and yoink the piece. Mentioning I wrote it would be nice, but only if it fits your format.
Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.

Triple Zero

Quote from: Reverend Uncle BadTouch on June 29, 2008, 05:20:25 AM
Verbatim: If it's all right, I'd like to use this on our website.

I have a friend who survived solitary confinement for several months (30 days is the ordinary maximum they can give you in America) by thinking about all the freedom e had, even in a tiny one-person cell.  E'd think things like I can eat all the food they give me, or some of it, or none of it.  I can throw it on the floor.  I can be quiet, I can talk to myself, I can whistle any tune, I can sing any song I want, I can scream.  E realized that, even locked up by emself, e had virtually endless choices.  Several others lost it; but almost every day, my friend experienced joy.

is your h-key broken?

Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Golden Applesauce

No, e's being gender neutral.
Q: How regularly do you hire 8th graders?
A: We have hired a number of FORMER 8th graders.

Triple Zero

Quote from: Golden Applesauce on June 29, 2008, 03:51:36 PM
No, e's being gender neutral.

oh i couldn't tell, because, as far as i've learned, in the second obsessive form past tense, the h turns light pink and the gender-trace is signified by a superscripted blue asterisk.

let me fix that for him:

Quote from: Reverend Uncle BadTouch on June 29, 2008, 05:20:25 AMI have a friend who survived solitary confinement for several months (30 days is the ordinary maximum they can give you in America) by thinking about all the freedom he*z had, even in a tiny one-person cell.  Z;i'd think things like I can eat all the food they give me, or some of it, or none of it.  I can throw it on the floor.  I can be quiet, I can talk to myself, I can whistle any tune, I can sing any song I want, I can scream.  Z;ii realized that, even locked up by izs..lf, !!* had virtually endless choices.  Several others lost it; but almost every day, my friend experienced joy.

see, it's not that hard. thanks to the internet, we can now properly express these things, without having to resort to outdated methods such as just making up shit all by yourself (Goddiz forbid!)
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Nast

Quote from: triple zero on June 29, 2008, 05:11:12 PM
Quote from: Reverend Uncle BadTouch on June 29, 2008, 05:20:25 AMI have a friend who survived solitary confinement for several months (30 days is the ordinary maximum they can give you in America) by thinking about all the freedom he*z had, even in a tiny one-person cell.  Z;i'd think things like I can eat all the food they give me, or some of it, or none of it.  I can throw it on the floor.  I can be quiet, I can talk to myself, I can whistle any tune, I can sing any song I want, I can scream.  Z;ii realized that, even locked up by izs..lf, !!* had virtually endless choices.  Several others lost it; but almost every day, my friend experienced joy.

see, it's not that hard. thanks to the internet, we can now properly express these things, without having to resort to outdated methods such as just making up shit all by yourself (Goddiz forbid!)

Teehee   :lol:

"If I owned Goodwill, no charity worker would feel safe.  I would sit in my office behind a massive pile of cocaine, racking my pistol's slide every time the cleaning lady came near.  Auditors, I'd just shoot."