🚀 go-pugleaf

coatta@cs.ubc.ca (Terry Coatta) writes:
> > You did not have the daycare to begin with - you have lost nothing.
> > And what makes you think that your "sort of community" is the same
> > "sort of community" that other people want?
> 
> On the contrary, the introduction of a given business into my community
> alters its development.  Regardless of whether it has a daycare or
> not I have ``lost'' the community I had, and gained a different one.
> If that business lacks a daycare and that lack contributes to the
> deterioration of my community I have most definitely lost something.

Who cares about your perceived loss?  Am I to spend the rest of my life
contemplating how every possible action of mine may, at some point, make
some other person's life just a little bit worse?  No!  Even if I cared
(and I don't), I would be put into a catatonic state of inaction if I
constantly worried about this.  I will try my best not to directly
interfere with the lives of other people, but that is all I will do.

> As for your second point, I have not claimed that the sort of community
> I like is the sort of community that others like.  If you re-read my
> previous poistings you will see that what I have said is something
> akin to: ``If the community feels that X will have a negative impact
> on its developemnt then the community shouls have some ability to
> regulate X.''  So I am not pre-supposing that my personal beliefs are
> identical with that of the community.

Then I ask again: What or who is the "community"?  The majority?  Those with
"sensitive views"?  Those who are involved in the political process?  Those
with the right connections?

> The point of all this is not ``daycare is good'', but rather that
> your simple model for non-interference does not correspond very
> well to the nature of society as it exists today.

So you think we need more complexity then?  All the complex tax laws and
intricate government manipulation of the past few decades have lead to
nothing but grief, massive debt, and a bloating of government bureaucracy.

As far as corresponding to modern society goes, I previously stated that 
the protection of individual rights scales readily.  Can you give me a reason
why this wouldn't be the case?  Granted, one may have greater difficulty
ascertaining "responsibility" in modern conflicts, but this difficulty does
not justify throwing our hands in the air and allowing "community" interests,
hazily defined as they are, to rule the day.

> > And just how many people does it take before it is okay to override the
> > desires of a single individual?
> 
> That is entirely dependent on the issues at hand.  I don't believe that
> a fundamental set of absolute rights exist.  All rights are relative;
> it is not merely a question of what rights a person has, but of their
> relative priority.

The only time when rights must be "prioritized" is when the rights of 
two people come into conflict.  To minimize these conflicts, and the
"prioritization" that they necessitate, the rights themselves should be
minimized.  They should be reduced down to rights that protect people from
each other only.  With such protective rights, conflicts become extremely
rare - thus there is limited need for "intervention".

> > Or what if they decide, for some arbitrary reason, that
> > he should be killed?
> 
> Clearly to right to security of person has a very high, if not the
> highest, priority.  Advocates of capital punishment will tell you, 
> however, that even this right is not ABSOLUTE.

Because the criminal has killed another (or others) and has thus foregone 
his claim to human rights.  He has, in effect, said, "I don't play by those
rules".  Fine - he will be punished accordingly.  I have never presented
human rights as religious things that have absolute precedence (when it suits
their warm and fuzzy purpose, that is something leftists sporadically do to
justify things like "forgiving" criminals).  I have presented human rights
exclusively in the context of, "You leave me alone and I will return the
favor".  The segment I provided on, "A Rational Basis for Morality", covered
this concept in detail.

> > Justifying actions because they are being made on behalf of the
> > "community" incorporates all of the mysticism and manipulation of
> > actions that used to be made, in previous times, on behalf of God.
> 
> An interesting assertion, but false nonetheless.  What is democracy
> about if not ascertaining the desires of the ``community''?  Nowhere
> have I claimed that there should be a tyranny of the majority (which
> is the nature of the examples you have presented).

Democracy has two purposes, it operates as a "Mandate of Heaven", and as an
indicator of community taste.  The ancient Chinese "Mandate of Heaven" gave
the emperor absolute power (to rule wisely), but when things kept going wrong
(wars, famines, abuses of power...), the gods had obviously revoked the
Mandate, and the government officials were obliged to terminate the emperor.
So democracy is the means to a reasonably governed society, where government
is ultimately behooven to the people.  It *almost* fulfills this function in
Canada.

Democracy is used as an indicator of community taste when it comes in the 
form of referendums.  Referendums should be used to determine how the shared
resources of the community (tax revenues) should be expended.  Should
such-and-such highway be built?  What level of healthcare do you wish to
see?  And so forth.  Democracy *does not* fulfill this function in Canada.

Democracy should *not* be used to override the rights of individuals.  And
neither of the purposes that I presented do that.

> Certain rights,
> which will always have priority, are fundamental to the operation
> of a democracy.

Ah ha!  What are they?

> > Give me a break.  "Community deterioration" is real and demonstrable?
> 
> Certain factors seem amenable to measurement: crime rate, property values,
> availability of educational services, quality of educational service,
> nature of accomodation (i.e. apartments, townhouses, single family
> dwellings)...

And you think you can take such general measures and use them to *guide*
the specific behavior of individuals?  I think you took Asimov's "Foundation"
a little too seriously.  How would you translate a rising crime rate into
support for a demand that a company construct a daycare?  "Crime is rising,
so children are being raised improperly, so we need more daycare, so you
must build one because you have lots of space and money"?  The measures you
mention are measures of emergent characteristics, they cannot be related to
single specific causes.  You could just as easily attribute part of a
cognition to a single neuron.

> > Some standards deserve protection - ones like, "don't kill people".
> > And although we can agree that there is no absolute support for these
> > standards, I'm sure that we can also agree that they are necessary and
> > good (the value of "good" is completely arbitrary, but let's just go
> > with it).  So, if we are to maintain some standards, let's go with the
> > minimum possible set to avoid offending as many people as possible:
> > human rights.  Nothing more.
> 
> I don't buy it.  There is no ``minimal set''.  

But you just said, " Certain rights, which will always have priority, are
fundamental to the operation of a democracy"!

> There are small sets
> which regulate a small class of interactions between people, and large
> sets which attempt to regulate a wider class of interactions.

I assume basic human rights are the former, specify the latter.

> > My being born in the city of Vancouver in 1963 made me behooven to no
> > one.  Not then.  Not now.  As long as I do not harm others, there is
> > no compelling reason why I should be forced to go along with the
> > collective opinion of a group of other people.
> 
> The whole point of this discussion is that you and I do not agree on
> what the word ``harm'' means.  I perceive myself as having eminently
> rational reasons for taking the word ``harm'' to include physical,
> non-physical, short, term, medium term, long term, direct and indirect
> effects.  The only semblance of an argument you have presented against
> this is to make a vague claim that is is ``unscientific'', as though
> there were some magical distinction between what is and what isn't
> scientific.  That is an unsound supposition on your part and a fine
> example of ``science bigotry'' -- the condition wherein people involved
> in the hard sciences believe they have a monopoly on truth.  Granted
> the hard sciences offer a degree of certainty which has not been achieved
> in other areas.  But this hardly make a cogent argument for simply
> ignoring everything else...........

You do ramble.  You seem to have quite a bug in your craw about this 
"science bigotry" thing (you've mentioned it before unprompted).  Did you
have a run-in with a nasty scientist as a young child?  One who overwhelmed
you with rationality or something?

I never used the term "unscientific", nor even anything close.  That style
of arguing is quite passe.

But yes, the whole point of this discussion *is* that you and I do not agree
on what the word "harm" means.  I think it means, "Ouch, that hurt!  Stop
it."  And you think you have been harmed when you *feel* harmed - worse than
that, you think others should respond to your feelings.  Nobody cares about
your feelings.  Well, maybe your Mom.

> > You are claiming that high population density justifies interference.
> 
> Do you take some perverse joy in reading everything in the most
> simplistic possible manner.

It does heighten the drama.  It is also a useful way to analyze things.  By
taking your arguments to the full extent, we end up with an all-powerful
"community" running roughshod over individual interests.  By taking mine to
the full extent, we end up with people living lives completely unhindered by
other people.  Now granted some of these people may end up starving to death,
but most of them will be extremely content.  Nobody will be content in your
system.  By way of example, contrast Soviet Russia with Hong Kong.  It is
obvious which works better overall.

Now I would not, in fact, wish to see my system taken to the extreme.  
I have been arguing the extreme because, while I believe that pragmatic
compromises must be made, I think it is of crucial importance that we 
start from the position, "Human rights are paramount, but because of some
absolutely compelling problems, they may, with general consent, occasionally
be overridden".  In contrast, I believe your initial position would be, "The
needs of the community are paramount, and we'll attend to human rights where
they don't interfere with those needs".  This leads to disaster.

> Of course, I am not talking of population
> density alone, but about the many facets of modern society which
> bind it more tightly together than societies in the past.  Population
> density, speed and distance of information movement, the distributed
> nature of large businesses and of the government, personal mobility,
> an increasingly technological basis... all of these things and more
> contribute to a society in which the actions of the individual have 
> implications far beyond his ``own backyard''.

But because we are all much better informed, and we can communicate and
travel more easily, we can now have levels of personal freedom which would
have been impossible in earlier times.  The enhanced super-structure of
modern society actually makes us *less* dependent on each other.  (Although
we are all obviously more dependent on the super-structure.)

> > Protecting people from other people is the minimalist solution that
> > leads to the least interference.  Do you disagree with this?
> 
> Yes, because you are unwilling to accept that our definitions of
> ``interfere'' are not the same.  

I will accept that.  I have simply not accepted your all-inclusive definition
as a reasonable one.

> Furthermore, you have not yet
> presented a cogent argument to support the position that yours is
> better.  

We have not been arguing about who has the better definition of interference.
We have been arguing over whether or not what you consider interference (a
super-set of what I consider interference) provides you with reasonable
justification to make demands of others (above and beyond what I would 
demand - simple protection from them).  I have been illustrating how your
nebulous feelings of interference give you an excuse to run roughshod over
other people's lives.  Read on.

> The definition which I have put forward does not create artificial
> categories of intereference, some of which are classed as legitimate
> and others not.  It derives from the underlying assumption that there
> is a continuum of causes/effects in human interaction, with a
> corresponding continuum of certainty with which we are able to
> objectively analyze them.  In establishing guidlelines for human
> interaction (i.e. rights), this degree of certainty will, along with
> other factors, determine the relative priority of those guidelines.
> Because we do not possess an absolute authority to arbitrate on 
> what forms of interference are most harmful, there must be some role
> for the members of society to make those decisions.  Of course, 
> certain types of inteference, such as injuring an individual, are 
> so obviously at odds with the functioning of a democractic society that
> those rights will have the highest (though not necessarily absolute)
> priority.

Your basic definition of "interference" is that it has occurred when someone
has harmfully effected you in some way.  The problem is that you have
completely ignored another dimension.  Because people effect you in a vast
number of ways that do you *no harm* (being ahead of you in a line-up for
example), you must translate some "effects" into "harm".  You do this by
determining "harm" based on your feelings.  When you "feel harmed", when you
perceive your community is deteriorating for example, you translate "effect"
into "harm", and use this translation to justify some compensatory action on
your behalf.  As only you control how you feel, this allows you to justify
any actions you wish.  This is bad, bad.

You say what you "have put forward does not create artificial categories of
intereference [sic], some of which are classed as legitimate and others
not".  Yet it does.  Sometimes you feel harmed by people (interference) and
sometimes you don't (interaction?).  This boundary is highly artificial.

To make matters even worse, you have raised the spectre of a "community" -
presumably a collection of similarly minded people - that jointly determines
when "harm" has occurred.  Obviously the room for slop in the determination
of "interference" is vast amongst such a group of people.  They could
readily grasp the smallest perceptions of "harm", and use them to justify 
any number of revolting actions.

Further (here's some Existentialism back at you), just when was it decided
that "members of society" should be the final arbitrators determining when
"harm" has occurred anyway?  Can you show how such decisions made by "members
of society" are more relevant than those made by a single individual, a dog,
or a deck of cards?

So to an admittedly difficult problem of ascertaining when interference has
actually occurred, you have added that harm can be something experienced
as a feeling.  You have further exacerbated this by suggesting that a
collective jointly interpret the relevant feelings.

I have chosen a simple definition of harm, "Ouch, that hurts!"  This
eliminates both subjective feelings of harm, and the group assessment of
those feelings.  The problem of determining when interference has occurred
consists of simply determining if measurable harm has occurred, and to what
extent.

> > I am seeking to prevent interference - especially harm.  You are
> > seeking to fulfill "community" needs, where such needs are
> > ill-defined, and extractive in nature.
> 
> This is a false dichotomy.  Is a high crime rate harmful or merely
> an issue of community need?  Is the lack of an education sytem for
> my children harmful or merely a community need?  Is a decreas in
> my property values harmful or merely a community need?

Once again I must state that nobody cares about your feelings - be they of
perceived harm or something else.  If your property decreases in value
because someone has acted against it, you have truly been harmed.  If it is
dropping in value for any number of other reasons, who are you going to
blame?  You are attempting to disfuse your blame on everyone, in order to
justify extracting from, and manipulating, everyone.  It doesn't wash.

Ken Buckland                     Freedom.
kenb@ee.ubc.ca