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What are some of the disadvantages of living in a free society?


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11 hours ago, Gopi Passiflora said:

Basically, having freedom of speech, liberty, something like that. The type of society that the U.S., Canada, European countries, and etc. say they are.

This is a politics thread, so no rules against derailing with politics! :D

Neither one of the examples you gave is a truly free society. Nowhere is. Neither is there an example of a truly "unfree", totalitarian society anywhere on earth. Everywhere is a compromise between personal freedom, and the promise of safety and security for the population as a whole. Neither extreme is practical, so the question facing every society on the planet is "what level of compromise is acceptable? What freedoms are we willing to sacrifice for the Greater Good?"

That question is at the heart of every vote a democratic country has ever faced. Do you vote for the mainstream right-wing (of the economic variety, rather than they "they don't like gay people" variety) party; who promises lower taxes and therefore more financial freedom, but at the cost of giving you the "freedom" to suffer the effects of redundancy, poor health, etc? Or do you vote for the mainstream left-wing party, that promises higher taxes and more restrictions on businesses, but in return will provide a safety net of safety such as unemployment benefits, free healthcare, etc? Freedom vs Security. Of course party politics is more nuanced than that; but every issue can be broken down into that core choice, and you can very easily see a pattern emerge across non single-issue parties.

Second Life is pretty damn free, as far as "societies" go. Part of that is because the consequences of anything you do here are so insignificant compared to the real world. If I get punched in the face in the real world, that hurts. If I get punched in the face in SL, I say "lol" and TP elsewhere. Hence why you can punch someone in the face here, but not in the real world. Or on the more extreme end, you can own a rape dungeon here and shamelessly advertise it. Or own a business and charge whatever you want for whatever you want without some competition watchdog or union or local council getting in your way.

Are any of those things actually good? 

Your answer to that will tell you what the disadvantages to you to living in this mostly-free society are. To others, these things might be what makes SL great. The freedoms that allow people to explore their "non-vanilla" sexuality in a safe, controlled environment also allows the sexual harassment of men and women that don't want or consent to that kind of behaviour. The entrepreneurial freedom that has allowed the appearance of our avatars to keep pace (ish) with 15 years of technological development despite very little help from the Lab also allow some borderline-scam dog turds to be sold at a premium. However we also have the 'freedom' to deal with those situations ourselves. The mute button allows us to self-police harassment a thousand times more effective than anything the Lab could come up with. We have no 'needs', we are not forced to buy food or power from monopolistic pseudo-cartels, we can just "opt out" of terrible creators and refuse to buy at no further loss to ourselves.

So yeah, the disadvantage to freedom has always been that other people have that same freedom too. In a world like Second Life, where the consequences are so minimal and we have the tools to censor what we see without curtailing the freedoms of others, that disadvantage is pretty insignificant. Certainly more so than an equivalently-free real life society.

Aaaaand.... that's my lunch break done, have fun with this, for once it's the non-political derailers putting this thread in danger of being locked.

Edited by AyelaNewLife
I did typo
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4 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

It is free inside what Linden Lab allows. Free as long as you don't break the TOS.

I have a feeling that the OP mean freedom in another sense than ugly buildings.

I was hoping to post on topic but related to SL. Ugly buildings was all I could think of. I guess a restrictive society equals beauty?

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18 hours ago, Gopi Passiflora said:

For me, it's where to draw the line as to what speech and/or actions should be allowed and what shouldn't. There are always disagreements between people.

I don’t quite see the disadvantage—either in drawing the line, or even in those disagreements, which can foster discussion. It’s precisely that discussion that fosters progress in drawing the aforementioned line better. Works in RL, and works in here. Almost always, owners draw the line in their turf; then some accept more input, some less. Then many patrons offer their own input, even if not requested; and some will throw a massive fit if their proposed line doesn’t immediately prevail over that of everyone else—including the owner’s—, while others will accept more or less evenly that there’s gonna be a line which may not necessarily be their preferred one. It’s how it works. It’s how it’s always worked.

 

PS: Not sure I see the issue with this thread either. Other than that weird, out-of-the-blue taunt by one participant to get anyone to talk about her in order to report it (and yes, you can report mine if you’re so eager about that), and a certain inevitable derailment due to the somewhat generic laying out of the topic, it still seems fine enough to me.

Edited by Ren Toxx
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Think of everything you would rather people not be doing, and you will find every disadvantage there is to a free society.

Where do I draw my limits, well that could require hours upon hours of typing, and then every scenario would have different clauses, it just gets to be a nuisance trying to pinpoint that line in any given subject.   Here is just one though, to give you an example.  I think it should be illegal for people to throw garbage in my yard.  That is just one thing, that list goes on and on into probably the thousands.

 

When it comes to issues like free speech, I believe everyone should have it - but I respect the rights of property owners to have that person removed from their property if they don't enjoy hearing it, and I extend that respect of the rights to do so on the Internet as well, if an owner of a server does not like the way a person is conducting themselves, then they should have the right to remove them.

 

It is important to note, in my opinion, one person's freedom often comes at the expense of others.   There could never really be a free society.

Edited by WillowTenage
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17 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

In Texas there are signs on the highway, “Don’t Mess with Texas”. Much more successful than the US campaign in the 70’s, “Pitch In”.

As a former Austinite, nope. None of the anti litter campaigns have been truly successful, IMO. Every state I have lived in has had its litterbugs. 

 

When I was a child it wasn't uncommon to see old washer, dryers, refrigerators and other garbage on the sides of the highways. When the litter laws were passed people just started dumping the stuff out in the boondocks where it was not easily seen. Sure the highways got cleaned up and for a while it was free to take such things to an official "dump". Then they started charging not only to pick the appliances up but to even accept the damn things for disposal. And people went back to dumping in the boondocks because the fees for disposal were expensive.

 

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5 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

As a former Austinite, nope. None of the anti litter campaigns have been truly successful, IMO. Every state I have lived in has had its litterbugs. 

I didn’t mean “litterly” successful, just that the marketing campaign lasted a lot longer than “pitch in”. Here in FL, we have 1) prisoners doing highway cleanup, and 2) “Adopt-A-Highway”.

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11 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Here in FL, we have 1) prisoners doing highway cleanup, and 2) “Adopt-A-Highway”.

All states have both. Neither of which cleans up the boondocks. 

Adopt A Highway sponsors don't pick up washers, dryers etc. just the trash (I've done my share of picking up everyone else's garbage on the highway in the 1990s).

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3 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

All states have both. Neither of which cleans up the boondocks. 

Adopt A Highway sponsors don't pick up washers, dryers etc. just the trash (I've done my share of picking up everyone else's garbage on the highway in the 1990s).

I read that one of Stephen King’s biggest hobbies is cleaning up trash on the English Country roads.

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21 hours ago, Gopi Passiflora said:

What are some of the disadvantages of living in a free society?

For me, it's where to draw the line as to what speech and/or actions should be allowed and what shouldn't.

Is having to decide whether your words or actions are allowed, or whether to Abuse Report someone is taking a toll on you? Are you longing for a more authoritarian society for relief?

Or how should I interpret this?

I'm confused by so many of these vague forum posts lately! Are we in the Age of Aquarius yet?

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On 1/8/2019 at 4:07 PM, Gopi Passiflora said:

Note: This is Second Life related because: isn't this virtual world a "society" of sorts? (Of course, whether it's truly "free" can be debated, though.)

For me, it's where to draw the line as to what speech and/or actions should be allowed and what shouldn't. There are always disagreements between people.

Are you writing a research paper?

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