I said "independent to the degree possible", not absolutely.
I do not live in a binary world. I accept things in between.
Being part of group should be voluntary, not forced
What I definitely do not want is my life to be dictated by a few imbeciles at the top who are bought by large corps to pretend to be "by the people for the people".
The solution to that is widespread active low level constant community engagement in policy and monitoring the people you hire to debate policy (politicians) and the various silo's created to enact policy (military, civil service, legal, emergancy response, etc.).
Some people think it sufficient to pay no attention and let things slide indefinitely because "ultimately we can just rise up and shoot the government".
Isn't it expected that in a system that favors individualism over collectivism that a few people will be able to amass disproportionately more wealth and power than everyone else with no incentive or societally enforced responsibility to share that wealth and power, thus creating a society were your life is dictated by a few imbeciles at the top, not who are not bought by large corps, but who own the large corps?
A city whose citizens mostly drive is less independent than a city whose citizens mostly ride bicycles. Bicycling infrastructure is orders of magnitude cheaper to maintain than the same for heavier, motorized vehicles. It's not just the roadways: you need service stations, tire shops, parking lots and garages. Gasoline engine cars need gasoline distributed to stations all over the place and emissions testing. All of these things take up lots of space because motor vehicles are big.
All that bicycles really need are a (much narrower) right of way and some cheap pavement. Maintenance can be done all at home, even in a small apartment. The apparent independence available to motor vehicle drivers is an illusion afforded by massive private and public investment.
Maybe, but the "loneliness epidemic" articles and frankly, my own experience lead me to believe that independance is overated. Community is not though.
Independent? You say independent, I say parasitic. Just like any ruling class of the Middle East, especially the UAE. They’re not independent, they’re very much dependent on the semi slave labor they manage to exploit. Anything that makes life worth living is the result of collective labor. People coming together and building or learning upon previous knowledge. Hell, even your understanding of yourself comes from the social relationships you form during your formative years. This desire to be what amounts to an outcast is a defect, an abnormality imposed by the mode of production that organizes the world right now.
Both non-disparagement and non-disclosure agreements should—just as many jurisdictions have for non-compete agreements, which do not even implicate free speech the way the others do—be sharply limited as a matter of public policy (non-disparagement even moreso than non-disclosure.) Both are routinely used to inflict public harm for private gain, and government enforcement of either is in tension with freedom of speech; while there is a legitimate case to be made that non-disclosure agreements within certain bounds have a certain degree of necessity in enabling legitimate business, this is a much harder case to make for non-disparagement agreements, at least for ones that are not temporally bounded within an active business relationship.
Depends on what type of non-disclosure. Disclosing technical guarded and not publicly known technical know-how - I am ok with those. Disclosing that boss treats people like trash should be allowed and I think lawmakers should have enough intelligence in their brains to make laws accordingly.
> Disclosing technical guarded and not publicly known technical know-how - I am ok with those.
I would love to see NDAs for trade secrets limited in a way that incentivizes companies to rely on patent protection instead, where the system is set up to ensure that knowledge eventually becomes public record and freely usable by anyone. It would be very interesting to see how eg. the tech industry would change if trade secret protection were limited to a meaningfully shorter duration than patents.
If you don't believe that people should be able to sell themselves into slavery, you should start by offering your list. If you do believe that people should be able to sell themselves into slavery, then unlimited freedom of contract is a basic freedom for you.
What you shouldn't do is pretend not to understand.
I'm not the one making a positive claim. I haven't even claimed such rights exist so why on earth would be the expectation be that I list them? You've assumed that I believe in this shared fiction.
We sell ourselves into a form of slavery every day. Some would argue that is a big driver of our current society and way of life.
Freedom of speech is far from inalienable. Non-disclosure agreements are most relevant, but every country on earth also has at least some regulations regarding hate speech, threats, incitement, purjury, or defamation — not to mention security clearances or state secrets.
And that's where the complexity arises in this argument that I don't know how to resolve. In the case of this woman vs Meta, to me it doesn't "feel" legal that one disparaging comment costs $50K. It feels that there's something wrong here that should not be allowed despite her entering the agreement. Maybe I don't believe she should have been allowed to enter the agreement.
But I understand that my point of view doesn't match legal code. Just feels fucked.
To be clear, I do agree with everything you've said here — I just disagree that freedom of speech is an inalienable right, and I don't think there's ever been a time or place where it has actually been considered one.
If it were up to me, I would require non-disparagement agreements to be standalone contracts, and cap the damages a company can claim to the amount they paid you to sign it. Once that number is met, the contract is void. That way the company only gets as much leverage as they're willing to pay for.
The majority of people will self-alienate themselves in exchange for power or even just survival
Think of a person digging their own grave under threat of immediate murder (tons of well documented examples). This is the maximum self alienation: do work to make life easier for your oppressors.
In my 41 years it seems like the majority of people are content digging their own graves
There's a basic list on that page. There are many LLMs out there that you can discuss this with if you want to waste your own time. I'm not going to waste any more time with this thread. You have an attitude that says "Debate me but you'll never convince me". If you'd like to learn something, there are many resources on the internet available to you.
Only for a very narrow definition of slavery. Arguably constructing society such that it costs so much to just exist (for example, by artificially restricting housing supply) and thus you have to work is not all that different to slavery. I would say the dollar is but company scrip with better PR.
Well now you're equivocating. We've established one that you can't deal in in a specific country. _Should_ is quite a different question. You can't establish should by establishing is.
Well that would seem to make the rights in question not particularly inalienable. In fact if we're talking about the US slavery _is_ legal in certain contexts. So it's definitely not inalienable. Only in the context of voluntary agreements between private citizens.
This has nothing to do with the founding fathers. The Ancient Greeks talked about natural law. The UN passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 193 countries have ratified at least parts of it.
Again, I beg you to at least read a paragraph or two off Wikipedia.
The specific term 'inalienable' is heavily associated with the founding of the US. The others are different things but not very different in substance, i.e. ultimately some guy claimed these are universal rights. Wikipedia is not going to make appeal to authority work any better as an argument, I'm afraid.
> Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world...
Is the US not in the UN now or something? The whole UNUDHR was an Eleanor Roosevelt project. She literally drafted the documents! At least look it up before being rude. You need to get the knowledge before applying the sass.
Well this was really just a sub-argument about whether 'inalienable' is an Americanism, which it is. The real point about 'natural' rights, or whatever term you've switched to using, is that they're simply assertions. Not supported by anything else. Doesn't really matter who is asserting them. The argument takes the same form, and is equally bunk.
"Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government, and so are universal, fundamental and inalienable..."
No I just mean in the sense that I give over the rights to my own words. I can't repeat them outside of the context that I've agreed to. They were both examples of the same kind of agreement. They'll keep those rights well after I'm dead, by the way.
You're not giving over the rights, you're selling the right to profit from them under contract.
You can argue that contract law is essentially a battle of relative political and economic power, and IP and employment contracts will always be unfair unless limits are set by statute and enforced enthusiastically.
And personally I would.
But generally you're signing away the rights to specific text, not the insights or commentary in that text, and if you freelance there's nothing to stop you making your points through some other channel, and/or some other text.
If you're a full-time employee then the usual agreement is that your words (code) are work product and owned by your employer, and you're in that situation because your political and economic power is relatively limited.
> You asserted that free speech was an inaliable right, they provided an example showing it's not.
No.
"Inalienable right", like the "right to bear arms", has never meant you get to do anything with it. Free speech doesn't extend to defamation; free expression doesn't extend to murder; freedom of the press doesn't extend to sneaking into the CIA's archives, freedom of movement doesn't apply to jails.
I'm of the opinion that arbitration clauses and non-disparagement agreements of the scope involved in this particular case are unconsionable, because they unreasonably infringe upon such inalienable rights.
(I don't agree - re-read my wording carefully - but some certainly take that position. My point: those who do still tend to take the "but there are limits!" position on, say, home-brewed nukes.)
In each case, though - constitutional right, human right, inalienable right, natural right - the fundamental concept of "sometimes two people have rights that conflict, and society has to resolve this" applies.
We're talking about whether people should be permitted to sign away their right to speech. I think you've conceded that such is permissible at least for a limited duration. Shall we quibble the permissible durations, or are you done?
Sure; we have to resolve conflicts between two sets of people with rights sometimes. The inalienable right to free speech doesn't extend to defamation and fraud; the inalienable right to freedom of movement doesn't apply to jailed murderers.
Unconscionability is a bit like obscenity; hard to perfectly define, but sometimes quite clear.
Those are not inalienable rights either, they're legal rights. Here, courtesy of Cornell law:
"An inalienable right is a fundamental entitlement inherent to every person that cannot be sold, transferred, or taken away by the government. These rights, often called natural rights are considered essential, cannot be surrendered by the individual, and are not dependent on laws."
Just Google "is x an inalienable right" next time.
You say this like a system of international law has ever existed that effectively restrains the most powerful nations in the world, democracies or otherwise.
>"two thirds of the Trilogue essentially don't give a shit about European people, their rights, their freedoms or their wellbeing"
Every bureaucracy works for themselves eventually. The EU's main task is to make superstate they can control. Since they are trying to eliminate / reduce rights of member countries one can imagine what kind of concerns they have towards individual people and their freedom.
I don't buy the superstate argument, since the EC consistently avoids or waters down attempts towards federalisation (full fiscal union, directly elected Commission, Parliament with legislative initiative, yada yada). Making a superstate would constrain the Commission, not empower it. The current ambiguity of having enough integration to override member states, but not enough to be democratically challenged and kept in check is the sweet spot for unaccountable technocratic capture.
Don't get me wrong, I'm completely against the EC, but I wish they were actually trying to create a superstate
Because the commission is proposed by the national governments through the European council.
Meaning any attempt at making the commission directly elected reduces the national governments powers.
What you see isn’t the commission watering down the proposals, what you see is the natural tug of war between the national governments and the European Parliament.
Same as sanctions. There are many places where they can not tell governments what to do, so they suffocate general population
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