This may be an unpopular opinion, but I really don’t believe in the user bearing the ultimate responsibility for themselves. Not in today’s world.
I’m willing to bet 90% of you did not read the TOS of the last service you signed up for. Of course, there are some that read everything, but most probably don’t.
In the normie world that number is closer to 99.99%.
Being 100% responsible for your own actions would mean you’d have to read all the TOS and decide for yourself whether you should continue.
But we know nobody does this.
There are certain things we cannot verify for ourselves and where LAWS actually make sense. We live in a society that is held entirely by laws, not by good will or whatever imaginary thing people believe. Without laws we would not be here. We would not have a court system (no matter how dysfunctional), no enforcement of property rights without violence. Society would be hellish. Tribal warfare.
To say Worldcoin should be left up to “free markets” is total bullshit. Yes, I agree, it would be NICE if people did the right thing for themselves. But we’d be lying to ourselves if we didn’t acknowledge that NOBODY read their TOS when they scanned their eyeballs. And even if they did, they would probably not understand the implications of this action.
Hence, we turn to laws. We already have consumer protection laws that actually work and do protect us from certain things. Lead in the water, horrific death from negligence. Fire retardants, safety codes, seatbelts, all the things we take advantage of without actively thinking about took some terrible events to make into law. Look up how and why seat belts become law in US if you don’t believe me.
Besides, even if every one of us were perfectly capable of making a fully autonomous decision, there will always be groups of people who aren’t - elderly, young, disabled, divergent, whatever the proper terms are today…
Worldcoin is taking advantage of the developing world first for a reason. The lure of money is tempting when its tough getting by as it is.
Besides, your free markets aren’t all that free anyway. When the system upon which “Free markets” are based on is itself corrupted, the market isn’t really free. Just look at the Robinhood fiasco. So much for free markets there.
We could argue about the last points for hours, because people will say, yeah but you had a choice! Well, yes and no.
Point being - “free markets” are not an excuse to ignore the realities of the world and the necessary constraints society puts in place for all of us to function. Let’s not delude ourselves into thinking free markets are the answer to everything. They are not.
Replies (35)
Just say you prefer a centrally planned economy over a free market economy.
There is no shame in having an opinion.
I'm starting to think that only a small percentage of the population has the will or capacity to be free. Maybe we should just accept that the majority is ok with being slaves as long as their slavery is comfortable.
💯💯💯
The core principle of a functioning society is not "individual sovereignty", it is "love your neighbor as yourself", of which personal responsibility is only a part. If our goal is to serve those around us, we will watch out for them in ways they are not able to themselves.
Accretion of neglect results in death by a thousand cuts: a legal and societal framework in which you can survive only by good fortune. Where complexity has arisen through neglect, our job is to re-introduce simplicity in any way we can so that, as much as possible, people can resume making their own decisions.
Never said anything about centrally planned. Did you read my note?
pretty much agree with you on this.
and no, I didn't read the ZapStream TOS today. I just clicked the X...
Well put.
Unpopular or not, it's realistic.
Fair enough, but also the TOS should require your lawyer sitting next to you for every word and a law degree to understand half of it. If companies also took responsibility for the services they provide to their customer and not try and limit all liability, we wouldn’t have near the problems we do.
Nobody reads the TOS because we know we A) don’t understand most of it, B) can’t change it; so why care?
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I agree but here we are. TOS was just an example to demonstrate why people can’t be fully responsible for themselves in a society ran on a million moving parts. We delegate things for a reason.
“Hence, we turn to laws”
Sounds like something every tyrant from history would say.
Use any justification necessary to censor something you disagree with.
I disagree with many things in the modern world. But making them illegal doesn’t fix the problem.
It creates black markets. It creates distrust and fear.
Free markets give the best outcome for everyone but comes with personal responsibility.
Free speech comes with responsibility.
Freedom to bear arms comes with responsibility.
Etc
you are right, i agree it shouldnt be legal to have your citizens data scanned and stored by anyone without very strict rules (no out of country storing for example)
but that would assume politicians have their citizens best interests at heart and are competent
its a hard subject to enforce on something that can be put in motion faster than laws can be made
and, scanned retinas are forever stored...
also, lead was a great example as it was a health concern that killed tons of people
but would you buy a car that wouldnt start if you didnt use the belt?
taxi drivers where i live use a seatbelt tip to shut their car up from beeping...
people bend the rules at their own responsibility
i still agree with your base idea, no personal info (or biometric) should be taken by private companies (even more so if they are foreign)
although i agree with all types of freedom, you likely enjoy laws you dont realize
laws to make the bedrock of civilization
if theft/murder wasnt punished by law, good luck getting a society rolling...
same for scamming, which i think worldcoin fits into
how could such "projects" be ruled, thats the $1M question
There is a reason the western world is founded on Christianity teachings.
The 10 commandments come from God not man. Thy shall not kill. Thy shall not steal. Thy shall not lie. Etc.
Because these a hood laws to follow to keep the peace. You don’t need a government to enforce these rules. You just need teach your kids Christian values.
These are *good laws.
Wanna be bad do we?
i am all for religious morals, but without real world punishment it wont work
i was raised catholic, sunday school from 6yo to 18yo
it just thought me something i understood along the way
treats other like you want to be treated, dont step on other people
do you think all christians obide by that? i know they dont, the worst people i know personally are very religious
im not anymore, if there is a god, i will meet him with my head held high knowing i did well by others
i dont pray, dont go to church or spread the word, i just do the best by the people i meet
I would argue “individual sovereignty” doesn’t automatically exclude nor is the opposite of “love thy neighbor as thyself.”
I tend to believe the more I take care of my sovereignty it will allow others the freedom to do the same as well as encourage me to be more aware of members of my community because the incentives are better aligned when more individuals experience sovereignity.
We all have failed to uphold the commandments. I agree whoever has committed a sin such as murder and rape deserve to be disciplined for their crime.
But you don’t need a state enforce it. A community can get together and choose the punishment.
Elmos
Appreciate your nuance.
This is the superpower of #nostr in my view compared to other social outlets. Nuance seems to be better conveyed here and discussed and even sometimes accepted.
ohh, so people could use biblical punishments?
like, "let him who is without sin cast the first stone"
it will be a stoning fest, without a single stone thrown
sarcasm asside, public opinion is too easy to manipulate
the west in general is in decline because family values and decency were traded for obsenity and greed
TV manipulation and lowering education standards dont help either
rough times ahead and it doesnt look like decent values will be reinstated anytime soon, reason i moved out of the city to a rural place
You are right. 1 sin plus 1 sin doesn’t make a right.
This is why I don’t think statism is right either.
Central planned decision making makes sense for local communities with shared values.
But nationally for this multi-cultural world we now live where everyone has different vision of they wish the world to be. It caused certain groups to be silenced over others.
Local free market places like the hood old days is the way to do it imo.
local rules set by locals is definitely better than goverment rulled by a bunch that never left their little cocoon other than in election years
politicians dont have people's best interest at heart
Stephan Kinsella is really good on this, page 45 "The Limits of Contract"
https://cdn.mises.org/Against%20Intellectual%20Property_2.pdfWhoops nevermind, this isn't what I remembered. Still highly recommend, but was looking for his thoughts on ToS only being "evidence" of a meeting of the minds.
Free markets need protection just as much as free individuals. Freedom doesn’t mean anarchy, it means we make an effort to protect their safety and autonomy.
Their should absolutely be laws for consumer protection; if we don’t defend the individual or the market they will become abused.
The primary abuser of both is the state and we need to have way better protection from it, but that’s not to say we shouldn’t also create protections from other market participants.
Probably misremembering this, might not have been Kinsella. Anyway, you can put whatever absurd shit you want in a contract or ToS, doesn't mean it is legitimate or legal. Even if you sign a waiver of liability, for instance, if a lawyer can show "reckless disregard for safety", then an operator is still liable. Facebook could have a line in their ToS about you becoming their chattel slave, but it would be rejected. Think there's also a misconception baked in here that AnCaps or libertarians don't believe in any laws, which is not correct.
Thinking about this still. I believe you may be assuming that the concept of a state-created law and the concept of a group that has an approval-bestowing role must always come together.
The benefit of mixing them is that there is less work for the consumer. But that doesn’t mean that a solution where we have the latter without the former wouldn’t work out well for everyone. And the cost of course is a significant reduction in freedom.
To make that more concrete: I agree, the goal of having everyone read every line in a ToS will never happen because humans are.. too limited. But if people can find groups that do it for them that they deem to be aligned with them, and they see the group’s stamp of approval on the ToS, they can make a more than completely uninformed decision on whether to sign.
We already do this now, it’s called specialization. It’s everywhere. Without specialization (enabled by law) we wouldn’t be here today.
To enable this further we’d just need more of a free market in our choice of societies (and the laws they uphold) then.
So free market can be at the root of it all still. Without every individual taking on 100% responsibility for their choices, but delegating a huuuge part of that to their “web of trust”.
This yet another reason I’m so exited about nostr → it will help in bringing that web to foreground and that’s where the choice and responsibility part can happen. That’s how we can watch out for our neighbors, as
@hodlbod put it so well.
Nostr helping “to love our neighbors” would be something great to expand on in a TGFN episode :)
That's a very well put thought, when things get complicated, we need to find a compromize to simplify them.
We are good at it and we evolved well but human is too fallace and we are always looking for the easy way.
I think that, open-source AI could help us be more objective, being able to better understand what the single person is looking for and where the right terms can be found in todays humanly impossible to read/understand TOS.
Great idea
💯 but why does specialization require a law making group that is ready to enforce them?
Totally understand. I often say how ridiculous it is that people can’t even take responsibility for something as simple as ordering the wrong thing at a restaurant. “It must be the servers fault, they heard me wrong” or “the cooks weren’t paying attention” (which does happen) but it’s just insane.
