Hacker News Reader

Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

"My neighbour’s freedom to play music at 4am limits my freedom to have a good night’s rest. Does this increase or decrease freedom?"

Freedom != Liberty

This concept is easily over 200 years old. I appreciate the author's interest in the subject. It might be good to start much nearer to where others left off.

View on HN

I feel the distinction between freedom and liberty is one of those things that's rather academic. While perhaps some would argue there's a difference and that this difference might be useful to make for some discussions, most people use it as a synonym in every-day use.

Either way, the article wasn't intended as a complete in-depth examination of the concepts of freedom and liberty (and the possible distinction between them), but rather offer some commentary on the state of the public debate surrounding these things as I see it.

> Either way, the article wasn't intended as a complete in-depth examination of the concepts of freedom and liberty (and the possible distinction between them), but rather offer some commentary on the state of the public debate surrounding these things as I see it.

Respectfully, habibi, your argument can be easily broken down because you conflate the two concepts in your piece, so you should expect push back on that aspect of it.

What the GNU philosophy advocates is that these freedoms are necessary to make sure YOU are free from corporations, governments, etc. What you keep conflating freedom with in the piece is with the liberty to do as you please. In the GNU argument, the liberty to do as you please with code is contingent on you being free from oppressive structures that are made by those who write it. A good example is why the press is able to do as they please being contingent on a government guaranteeing a "freedom of the press", i.e. freedom from their interference.

From the "Freedom or Power?" GNU argument:

"We believe you should decide what to do with the software you use; however, that is not what today's law says. Current copyright law places us in the position of power over users of our code, whether we like it or not. The ethical response to this situation is to proclaim freedom for each user, just as the Bill of Rights was supposed to exercise government power by guaranteeing each citizen's freedoms."

Hopefully, I was able to show you the connection between the two now.

EDIT: Grammar

> most people use it as a synonym in every-day use.

I'd say it's beyond just every-day use; the second sentence of the Liberty wikipedia page is verbatim "It is a synonym for the word freedom."

I don't follow your point - the quoted sentence makes sense to me. Also, can you elaborate on how their writing is not valuable because others have said things like this before?

I find many of these alleged philosophical gotchas evapourate with a simple rephrasing of the question. Consider this:

"My neighbour's freedom to force their music upon me interferes with my need for sleep."

Or even,

"My neighbour's freedom to pollute my private property interferes with my private enjoyment of it."

Somehow it seems like an easier question to answer, now.

You didn't rephrase the question, you formed different questions with easier answers. I don't see how this causes the broader philosophical issue to "evaporate".

How are the questions fundamentally different?

It's just different ways of describing the conflict between the need to sleep and the neighbour's loud music.

Because the term freedom usually means freedom from something (government, corporations, etc.). However, the original article seems to confuse this with what is traditionally called liberty (the freedom to do as you please).

Your restated question doesn't pick up on this, you are just stating how someones liberty to do as they please interferes with your ability to do as you please on your property in a simpler format. No one is being freed from the other.

I can still adapt to that redefinition of freedom:

"My neighbour's freedom from interference when forcing their music upon me interferes with my need for sleep."

"My neighbour's freedom from interference when polluting my private property interferes with my private enjoyment of it."

Easy-peasy.

It really doesn't because your rephrasing elides the real question: "Does your neighbor have the liberty to play loud music around their neighbors" and the answer to that question in some states is "no, after a certain time."

Freedom from something requires them to have power over you. Your neighbor really doesn't in the same way the government does, an invading foreign power, or, the way GNU argues it, the way corporations do with their software licensing and copyright.

Yeah, I was thinking the same. Also coincidentally... here in Orlando, you can call the cops on people who are too noisy, no fancy equipment necessary if the cop can hear it they will knock on their door and issue a warning, a fee will be issued if they have to come back.

We live in an increasingly-authoritarian society where most people are unable to describe or reason with simple concepts put forth dozens of decades ago.

These two things are not accidentally correlated.

I think it's deeper than that. It's not just that people can't reason with those concepts. It's that people don't want to restrain their own behavior.

Say I want to play my music loud at 4 AM. I'm probably not going to reason about other peoples' rights limiting mine, or whatever - not because I can't, but because I don't want to. I just want to crank up my music and rock out, I can't be bothered with philosophy right now.

But I fear that, if people will not restrain their own behavior, the only alternatives left are authoritarianism and chaos. And most people, after a taste of chaos, seem to prefer authoritarianism.

Isn't it proportional to the population size and density? In a small human group anonymity isn't really a factor, therefore most want to restrain themselves in order to avoid annoying known people, moreover when someone fails at it more often than not a third party knowing both the annoyed and the culprit tries (peacefuly) to restore peace.

When we need authoritarianism, something is too big.

Good point. Anonymity is good for some things, bad for others. Likewise, though, talk to anybody from a small town and they'll complain about the "tyranny" of everybody knowing who you are, who your family is, and where you live.

So, there's a sweet spot somewhere between perfect freedom/privacy and perfect accountability/justice. It shouldn't take authoritarianism to sort out but we need to fight hard for the right balance of norms and laws to adapt to changing technology. Should my neighbor be allowed to fly a drone at the level of my daughter's bedroom window? Is it acceptable to record my every move and identify my face in a private shopping mall?

> here in Orlando, you can call the cops on people who are too noisy...a fee will be issued if they have to come back.

I presume this is only during "quiet hours" at night? Or can you get your neighbor fined for woodworking at noon?

Here in Vancouver it’s at night and at discretion of the officer. In an apartment it’ll usually land you a fine band y the strata

https://www.ocfl.net/Environment/Noise.aspx#.XzQPNDUpCiM

It doesn't seem to have time limits, but it does have actual numbers for the noise level.

I do woodworking in my garage and haven't had the cops called on me. I hear my neighbors doing it fairly frequently, too. We even have an HOA here, though it's pretty tame.

This was the lesson from freshman US History class in high school. As I remember it, you are free to do what you want only so far as it doesn’t prevent someone else from exercising their freedom. (e.g. to sleep at 4am).

Yours is more concise.

Isn’t this just a version of the golden rule (do unto others...)?

Freedom is a two-edged sword that must be wielded with care and tempered by experience and knowledge.

Can you tell me what you have in mind about where others left off, because I'd be interested in reading about freedom.

DanielBMarkham maybe have something better in mind, but the wikipedia article on liberty has a pretty decent introduction and overview between different philosophers. The formal definitions of positive liberty and negative liberty seems to be a good point to start if one want to skip to the end.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com