StopTech @ StopTech @lemmy.today

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This is just the list of attendees though. The article talks about responses to survey questions as well which could give insight into how these elites really think.

You are proposing that anyone should be able to simply associate with who they want and then, with those people, form harmonious societies/countries/states. Am I misunderstanding this?

No that is correct.

Can I, as a middle school kid, just… go to another society before I’m able to explore who I am?

This is my own opinion, but children (the specific age we're talking about depends on the subject and the culture) aren't generally competent enough to make important choices like moving to another country and therefore it's usually in the child's best interest to have their parents determine things for them like where they live. It also seems part of the natural order that the parents/guardians of a child get to determine how they are raised, including what moral values they are taught. While I may not agree with someone teaching their child to be Muslim, who am I to deprive them of the right to raise their children according to their values?

Some societies might decide to give children rights to autonomy, and I'm inclined to think that a society should be allowed to try that, although it will end in disaster sooner or later and other countries might in my opinion have a moral obligation to step in eventually.

But you are proposing a more “just” starting point (inside each society) which, within a generation, may be almost indistinguishable from our current situation. How does the previous generation having consented make it a more legitimate government for the following generation?

No I'm not proposing a starting point. I'm proposing that at any time someone should be able to decide they don't like the country they're in and either move to another country that will accept them or take some land and secede to form a new country or join to an existing one that will accept them. So every competent person once they reach adulthood (however that is defined by the country of residence) will have the opportunity to leave their country, or do so later in life. This means at any point in time the country is comprised of people (and their children and mentally incompetent dependents) who consent to be under that system. That's what makes the government legitimate at all times and not just for the first generation.

Unfortunately, we are stuck trying to collectively figure it out something that we hope works for as many people as possible

But why are we stuck in this situation? Why couldn't we have people separate into groups that agree on things like they naturally want to? Why are we forced to make some compromise between the group A that wants X to be illegal and group B that wants X to be legal? And then either group A is forced to violate their consciences supporting and paying taxes for what they consider evil or group B is punished for what they think is fine or even a moral duty? That just makes groups A and B constantly fight each other and form cliques and the country is divided and inefficient. Why? I think the reason is obvious. Because those who rule the country do not want to give up their power, most of which they would do by allowing secession. But things don't need to be this way. With enough public recognition of the right to individual secession it would have to be allowed. And once one country allows it many will want to move there and other countries would be pressured to uphold the right.

I still don’t think it’s good to set the precedent of “If I don’t like what the government is doing I don’t have to pay my taxes.”

But how do can you deny the argument that taxation is theft to those who never consented to their government? It's just taking people's money under threat of force and using it however the illegitimate government wishes. Even if the money was only used for the most upright causes with maximal efficiency it would still be theft because it lacks consent. Charities can't take my money unless I made an agreement with them, and in the same way governments can't unless I made an agreement without coercion.

But if the audio challenge is not for training and they know the right answer why are you able to pass it by typing something completely different but with some syllables in common? It seems to me either they only have a vague idea of what the right answer is or they are open to the AI being wrong and in future it will be adjusted by input they think is reliable because it's sort of similar.

If you input text that doesn't match the audio and they use this for training AIs, surely that will harm the training, no?

You can stick with Posteo and use email aliases for sites that don't like it

I'm not proposing a solution to all conflict. There would still be tensions between countries just like there are today, and some of them will try to do bad things like they already do. Children would also be under the authority of their parents/guardians just like they already are, which leads to problems if the parents/guardians are bad. I can't control how countries or parents will behave, I can only offer suggestions on how those situations might be handled. It is of course subjective whether a government has lost its legitimacy by harming other countries, harming its own people, or enabling evil within its borders. Country A may see country B as evil and illegitimate because it aborts babies and decide to wage war. Other countries might see this as unjustified aggression and help defend B. But this isn't really any different to what happens already. Only currently the wars are waged by unaccountable governments who often have very different views from the population and the wars aren't usually about ideology but power. Wars for power should be less frequent if an individual right to secession is widely accepted because any people or lands that are captured must have a right to break away or the government will look illegitimate.

I'm not saying the system I propose will lead to the best outcome. I'm saying it's more just and I think it will lead to better outcomes than current systems. But the emphasis is on being more just. Trying to get the best outcome is impossible because people don't agree on what that is, and the utilitarian pursuit of better outcomes could enable all kinds of atrocities as an alleged means to that end. Giving people more freedom can lead to bad outcomes because they might use that freedom to self-harm, but it's far more just than restricting everyone's freedom and in any case it probably will lead to better outcomes too because the power to restrict freedoms tends to be abused.

what if not everyone consented to be in that system?

I'm saying people can form any kind of society they want. It can be communist, fascist, open borders, closed borders, just don't expect to be treated nicely by neighboring countries if you're harming them or they think you're doing heinous things within your own borders. And I think not allowing people to leave your country should be seen as a heinous restriction on freedom. Is it possible that some people will want a system of government that doesn't let people leave? I suppose a retarded or malevolent majority could want that, but the minority who don't want that should be allowed to leave and the fact that they aren't would make the government illegitimate to my mind.

Definitely. It would make life better in so many ways if everyone did this.

I heard Facebook was funding this in the US. Not sure if they're responsible for it elsewhere too. It's basically Five Eyes countries doing this, so you can bet it's to do with their surveillance efforts. How do we stop it? First step is not to comply. Do not complete any age verification. If you are absolutely forced to, at least lodge complaints about it. If you are still required to, try to avoid giving any data, e.g. use a pre-recorded video of someone else or a videogame character to pass the age check. Second step is to use and support alternative platforms that avoid such measures.

I think you're right that using bad tech for good things will normalize it so there is less opposition for it being used elsewhere like policing and war. "Progress" so-called is indeed the enemy but I doubt voting is any solution as it gives legitimacy to that unjust and highly manipulated system.

In future please make it clear from the post title how this is relevant to this community. In this case it's because Whitmer is talking to the CEO of Oracle about a data center project that the locals don't want.

Of course I don't think anybody has the right to abuse others, but that's true whether the majority favor it or not. Sometimes the majority favors it, so majority rule is not a solution in that case.

Anyway my problem is not with rules being decided by the majority - although I think a supermajority would be better. (Thanks for graciously asking what I am actually proposing, which I will now explain). My problem is that different people have different ideas on how things should be and so far they have been forced to come to some impossible compromise (which usually ends up forcing good people to violate their consciences) because they are not allowed to do what is natural and associate with those they prefer and form harmonious societies. The availability of this option is necessary for any government to have the consent of its people, which is in turn necessary for a government to be legitimate. This also goes a long way to solving the problem of unjust laws, as every law that applies to a person would do so because they consented to be under those laws by entering that country.

It's not something that somebody who has broken the law can use to avoid consequences because once the law was broken on the land to which it applies then nothing can undo that. Nor can somebody make their own country as a shield for immoral activity unless those activities can somehow be committed entirely within that person's own land. There are still very immoral things that people can do in the privacy of their own homes, but most immoral activities involve harming other people, which usually requires leaving home or tricking people to cross the border and enter that person's home, which would need to be clearly marked as a separate country in order for its laws to have legitimacy upon visitors. The remaining immoral activities would either be of a self-harming nature, damaging to their own environment, preventing competent adults from leaving the country or neglecting duties over children or non-competent adults. The first two are less concerning, naturally self-punishing and will incur hostility from neighboring countries once the effects spill over into them. The third makes the country illegitimate because it means the population are being held against their will and the fourth if particularly egregious makes the country morally bankrupt, so in either case the population and foreign countries are justified in overthrowing that government and punishing those who behaved unconscionably.

So in this way people with very different views have the freedom to go their own ways and pursue their own little utopias as long as they aren't forcing themselves on others or doing very heinous things to their own people. This should lead to stronger communities, happier day-to-day lives and - most importantly - it is a just system because it is based on consent. Even if our current system led to great outcomes, it would still be unjust because it is forced upon us and that alone is enough reason to abandon it and seek a just alternative.

I guess people with this interpretation think pedophiles and mass murderers are great then

Wherever you go there will be child abusers. So therefore we shouldn't lament it or try to improve things?

99% was just an exaggerated figure for a hypothetical that could be raised against my view. The point is that minorities don't cease to have a right to autonomy just because they're in the minority. The 99% could also have a strong vested interest to abuse the 1%.

Hospitals are now used for organ harvesting, eugenical screening and killing babies. Schools are now used for indoctrination and learned helplessness. Hospitals and schools existed and were more functional before they were government-funded.

It helps to understand what you're arguing against before arguing against it. Then you wouldn't have wasted time on your comment.

For a government to operate on consent of the governed they must have a fairly easy way to break off from that government. For example, they could allow anyone who purchases land on the border to secede and form their own country over the land that they own. And collectively there should be ways for towns or the whole country to vote and throw off their governments and institute new ones, like the Declaration of Independence says.

Proving my point, John

Of course they're not exactly the same but they're all working toward the same end goal of subjugating the masses instead of doing their bidding. The Republicans pretend to support traditional values and the Democrats pretend to support welfare but they both actually promote surveillance, war, big companies, environmental damage, subversion of nature, anti-human technologies, wealth extraction from the public, global government and so on.

What happens if you don't consent is you get locked up. Which means you don't live in a free country founded on consent of the governed.

Yes, we have no legitimate recourse. We never did. For example, the US constitution wasn't legitimately ratified and even if it was, that was 250 years ago. Did we agree to be under it? And even if 99% did agree to be under it, what is the recourse of the 1%? Their only recourse is find another country. But every country is like this and none of them have the consent of the governed. It's an oligopoly of power-hungry countries. True recourse would be the ability to form your own country. Secession, not only by states but by any group or even an individual. Without that we just get a choice between which prison we prefer.