Many policies with nontrivial points in their favour — as e.g. thorough environmental protection, public-dominant transportation, communal acoustic improvement — are swiftly rejected sith They Restrict Freedom, and People Value Freedom. (This objection is especially common in the US, but there’s nothing intrinsically US-specific about this.) I don’t intend to justify or criticise any particular such proposals. I target that swift general rejection, for it is, in many cases, based on a fallacious pattern.
Upon suggesting lesser freedom, some people assume the path towards particular low-freedom societies. They point to those dreadful examples of reduced freedom — (contemporary) China, North Korea, etc — and from there argue that any sufficient reductions of freedom lead to a miserable, enslaving society.
Some such objectors explicitly appealed to a spectrum of freedom, with total anarchy on one end and something like Nineteen Eighty-Four on the other end. Therein lies the confusion. Freedom and the lack thereof is not a line, but a cone. (This analogy isn’t quite right. The correct analogy involves annoying combinatorics and isn’t helpful enough to make up for it.)
At the tip of the cone is total anarchy. At the base disk is a range of many types of restrictive societies, arising from many sets of things to restrict. Such objectors think of a single path from the tip to one point on the base. We who promote a restrictive policy intended a point in the cone entirely off that path.
That is, some reject restrictive-but-beneficial policies sith they notice that other salient restrictive policies have been reliably bad. They are told to consider reduced freedom, and jump to a particular bad form of reduced freedom.
Restriction directed by a “good” (citizen-aligned) government can be better than freedom. If you still think freedom is intrinsically valuable: what if you were allowed to do all that which you would want to do, but no more? Under such law, you would be clearly non-free, yet satisfied — perhaps more than in the current world — no? If you object sith that neglects the preferences of others, consider the same society but in which all citizens would want similar things to you.
Many of our current problems (as e.g. environmental destruction, inefficient transportation, ineffective science) arise as multipolar traps. The individual is incentivised to pursue that which harms everyone. Everyone following those incentives simultaneously makes life worse off for us all. A non-evil restrictive policy could restrict those tempting, harmful actions. Thence people don’t induce tempting destruction, and accept this state, for they can no longer do otherwise.
Nonfreedom looks bad sith it’s a convenient strategy for citizen-enslaving, ruler-benefitting governments. But it’s also essential to the best strategies for a citizen-focused, honestly-run government. Reversed evil is not goodness. When you know the full details of the case (the real effects of a policy), do not judge it by a crude proxy variable (its reduction or preservation of freedom).
The cone of freedom (or, freedom might only be instrumentally valuable)
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Many policies with nontrivial points in their favour — as e.g. thorough environmental protection, public-dominant transportation, communal acoustic improvement — are swiftly rejected sith They Restrict Freedom, and People Value Freedom. (This objection is especially common in the US, but there’s nothing intrinsically US-specific about this.) I don’t intend to justify or criticise any particular such proposals. I target that swift general rejection, for it is, in many cases, based on a fallacious pattern.
In some cases, people are really rejecting the policy sith they tricked themselves into consistently supporting the opinions of one side, regardless of those opinions’ basis in truth, and so I don’t expect to fix those errors by reason. Those in other cases should consider the following.
Upon suggesting lesser freedom, some people assume the path towards particular low-freedom societies. They point to those dreadful examples of reduced freedom — (contemporary) China, North Korea, etc — and from there argue that any sufficient reductions of freedom lead to a miserable, enslaving society.
Some such objectors explicitly appealed to a spectrum of freedom, with total anarchy on one end and something like Nineteen Eighty-Four on the other end. Therein lies the confusion. Freedom and the lack thereof is not a line, but a cone. (This analogy isn’t quite right. The correct analogy involves annoying combinatorics and isn’t helpful enough to make up for it.)
At the tip of the cone is total anarchy. At the base disk is a range of many types of restrictive societies, arising from many sets of things to restrict. Such objectors think of a single path from the tip to one point on the base. We who promote a restrictive policy intended a point in the cone entirely off that path.
That is, some reject restrictive-but-beneficial policies sith they notice that other salient restrictive policies have been reliably bad. They are told to consider reduced freedom, and jump to a particular bad form of reduced freedom.
Restriction directed by a “good” (citizen-aligned) government can be better than freedom. If you still think freedom is intrinsically valuable: what if you were allowed to do all that which you would want to do, but no more? Under such law, you would be clearly non-free, yet satisfied — perhaps more than in the current world — no? If you object sith that neglects the preferences of others, consider the same society but in which all citizens would want similar things to you.
Many of our current problems (as e.g. environmental destruction, inefficient transportation, ineffective science) arise as multipolar traps. The individual is incentivised to pursue that which harms everyone. Everyone following those incentives simultaneously makes life worse off for us all. A non-evil restrictive policy could restrict those tempting, harmful actions. Thence people don’t induce tempting destruction, and accept this state, for they can no longer do otherwise.
Nonfreedom looks bad sith it’s a convenient strategy for citizen-enslaving, ruler-benefitting governments. But it’s also essential to the best strategies for a citizen-focused, honestly-run government. Reversed evil is not goodness. When you know the full details of the case (the real effects of a policy), do not judge it by a crude proxy variable (its reduction or preservation of freedom).