Comment by lazaroclapp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lazaroclapp | Hacker News Reader

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But there are things we do ban other people from doing (e.g. murder or owning slaves, to pick uncontroversial examples). There are some principles that are personal, but also some that are agreed on collectively, as a society or civilization.

Of course, then nobody "leaves us alone" on these things, but we agree by majority on first principles and then argue from those to collectively decide what is allowed and what isn't (i.e. allowed from the people and allowed from the government). Free speech and privacy are examples of such principles. So you can definitely have a social contract where mass surveillance is unacceptable, but rules on not hunting endangered species or owning certain type of weapons can exist[1]. I don't think May should be prevented from arguing for surveillance, but by the same token, people also have a right to oppose her on it.

Yes, this opens us to the possibility of losing the debate on encryption, at particular times and historical periods. Whereas having the iron clad rule that all can do as they please does not. But the later rule, applied in extremis, makes civilization impossible. Because again, we do want to ban people from doing certain things, that is what civilization means. The point that we need to argue is that banning people from having privacy causes more harm to what makes us human than a few horrific crimes do.

The anarchist posture is... complex. But the (absolute) libertarian posture is hypocritical. It wants a very particular set of rules to apply and be enforced by the state (e.g. private property), whereas decrying rules and state enforcement in general.

[1] And U.S. gun-owning folks agree on having rules against owning some kinds of weapons, I would think. At the very least I have never heard one argue for their god given right to own an ICBM on 2nd amendment grounds... is just that we disagree on the type of weapons that should be controlled.

> I have never heard one argue for their god given right to own an ICBM on 2nd amendment grounds...

You'd be surprised. There's an absolutist argument that goes like this: back when 2A was founded, it was common for private people to own artillery and warships, which were the pinnacle of that era's military technology. Therefore, the authors of 2A did not envision any limitations. Therefore, this should still be the case.

Granted, this is very much a fringe view even in the gun owner community. But there are enough people holding it, that you can actually see it argued on American gun forums etc occasionally.

It also springs up in fiction sometimes. In Vinge's "The Ungoverned" short story, there are privately owned tactical nukes. Which are actually used. Granted, that is considered an extreme case even for the described anarcho-capitalist frontier society, enough so to warrant an immediate all-out attack by other people on anyone discovered possessing them. And Vinge is actually ancap himself - and, so far as I recall, he actually said something along the lines of that story describing a society he wouldn't consider undesirable.

Both murder and slavery involve other people directly, so they are obviously out of scope for this

That's a valid point, I think, but I am not sure the line is as clear as you make it out to be. What is your definition of 'directly' here? I can think of ways in which e.g. hunting endangered species, owning weapons or eating meat affect others. Note that, of those: I revile one, I am undecided on one and I personally do another, but in all three cases I can think of ways they affect me when others do each of those things. Sure, they affect me in a way that is perhaps different than being the target of murder or slavery would, I'll definitely agree with you on that. But it is a leap from there to saying that those are matters society should not be involved in.

Consider nuclear proliferation: in theory it does not affect people 'directly', until it does (note that any logic about increased potential risk applies to gun ownership too, at a different scale). Now consider pollution: affects people directly, but in a diffuse degree. Vaccinations? (I was born in a country where a specific set of those are mandatory, I approve of that [1]). There is a limit to how much a man is an island.

I am a firm believer in having a right to privacy; a strong, fundamental, constitutional right. I would consider forms of deflection or civil disobedience in a society that aligned itself too strongly against that right. But that doesn't mean is not ultimately a matter of societal values of societal construction.

[1] Obviously they are mandatory to those with a healthy immune system who can be vaccinated, and a number of other caveats, but still, the state makes it its business whether or not you vaccinate your kids, and we are better off for it...

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