"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." -H. L. Mencken

I think people should be allowed to make their own choices in terms of whom to hire/associate with, with absolutely no outside intervention. That doesn't make me a bigot.

A dedicated engineer is always looking to automate themselves out of existence, so that they can move on to the next thing to automate. Ongoing repetitive work is less engineering and more akin to toiling on a line.

In light of such disagreement, and given the lack of any higher authority among free, equal, people to arbitrate it, the only reasonable way to coexist peacefully is to avoid imposing your ideas on others. This is the foundation of a liberal society.

If customers want to buy "lazily-engineered" products, from where do you derive the authority to tell them they can't?

What if you are in the minority? Do you just accept the hypercapitalist dictates of the majority? Why not?

Law is more than convention. What distinguishes legitimate from illegitimate law?

The only way for people who disagree axiomatically to get along is to impose on each other minimally.

Go on then, how do you decide what people deserve? How do you negotiate with others who disagree with you?

> examples above like public libraries

I agree! The nice part about all these mechanisms is that they’re voluntary.

If you’re suggesting that The Engineer’s actions should be constrained entirely by his own conscience and social pressure, then we agree. No laws or compulsion required.

To derive an alternate system you need alternate axioms. The axioms of our liberal society are moral equality and peaceful coexistence. Among such equals, no one person, group, or majority has the right to dictate to another. What axioms do you propose that would constrain The Engineer? How would you prevent enslaving him?

You figure out your own economic security, I’ll manage mine.

Apple is succeeding largely on merit, within the bounds of civilized, peaceful competition. Shouldn't we all just be grateful for the contributions they have made to our civilization?

Agree! let's get rid of these :)

> Censorship at the behest of world governments is rampant

Agree! States have always pursued censorship to maintain power. That doesn't contradict the point that social media companies themselves are not state actors, and are not the problem.

> States ... pick winners and losers

I'm not sure I'm 100% on board here. States may thumb the scales, but the fact of the existence of FAANG/MANGO seems much more like a market phenomenon than an interventionist project.

> social media barons meet with POTUS all the freakin' time

There is almost no clearer display of corporate self-preservation than social media vendors kowtowing to the president.

Much of what you're outlining is standard run of the mill corruption. The US Government (and others) is acting in contradiction to its stated principles. This is not a new phenomenon, and seems in the category of core human governance challenges.

This could be amended to "States have a monopoly legitimate on violence". Your comment seems to deny the existence of "legitimacy" as a concept. How do you distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate use of force?

This seems like nonsense. All the tech industry does is convince people. It doesn't force anyone to do anything. States have a monopoly on violence. No one holds a gun to anyone's head forcing them to consume . In a country of equals, everyone's opinion, including , should hold equal sway, and be resolved via democratic due process.

Just because many people hold and vote for doesn't give you any sort of reasonable justification to limit the freedom of others to advocate (including on social media) for it.

These are the effectively the same thing. Asking a business to harm its profits is like asking a person to self-harm.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45830747

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