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Comment by Pigo | Hacker News Reader

I fundamentally don't agree with an ever expanding list of "human rights", because it requires an every expanding government to fulfill them.

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Advanced technology infrastructure can't be sustained without extensive network of enforced relationships between humans. It's either government oversight or private monopoly, there's no third option.

That’s not very nuanced.

A big Finnish government is different than, say, a big Russian government.

To me it seems like saying: I fundamentally disagree with dining out because it requires restaurant, and restaurant is always bad.

Restaurants didn't kill 100 million people over the previous century.

^This. Over the course of the 20th century, the vast majority of killings occurred at the hands of governments. Furthermore, it was typically governments killing their own people, not the people of other countries.

Say what will about big greedy corporations, they're boy scouts when compared to the carnage brought about by governments in the last century.

Whenever there was profit in the killing, corporations willfully helped. The distinction is meaningless.

You're probably correct. Corporations almost never reach an enormous scale without government to provide the regulatory moats necessary to inhibit competition and disruption. And that doesn't even take the issue of subsidies into account. Smaller government would likely lead to more small enterprises and fewer enormous ones.

Again this is not so clearly cut. With small govt, corporations take over its responsibilities, both social and repressive. There is plenty of historical precedent for that and AFAIK it is not considered a good thing.

I honestly think there’s a higher chance of Comcast killing 100 million people over the next century than “broadband for everyone”

And governments can change over time. I agree that there should always be room for nuance. But people should think carefully about what declaring something a human right really entails, and what kind of authority that gives the government regarding it. Most of our legislature talk about technology like they still login to the web with AOL.

Maybe in time we'll decide this one should be, but Sanders seems ready to expand that list a great deal.

Government exists solely to provide wellbeing to the citizens of a sovereignty. If a sovereignty has zero citizens, a government has zero utility.

People forcing governments to take care of them is really the only rational thing for governed people to do.

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