Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by ncallaway 3634 days ago
Why do you get to define what society is? Sure, if you take the definition that "society is the group of people who are working", then you get the conclusion that you are required to work to be in society.

I'm going to present a different definition of society:

> A society is a group of people involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society)

> the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community. (Google [https://www.google.com/search?q=definition+of+society&oq=def...)

> an organized group of persons associated together for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes. (Dictionary.com http://www.dictionary.com/browse/society?s=t)

It seems the definition that you're providing for "Society" doesn't line up with the common definition of the word. It doesn't mean "work". It can, as the parent comment states, mean "Volunteer" or "Interacting with people socially".

You don't get to exclude people from society by using convenient definitions.

1 comments

Well, you can go make your society where the only thing that matters is that people believe the same thing. And then I'll live in current society, where people put forth an effort to support that society's needs. And then we can figure out which one gets to define society based on which one survives long enough to write down the definition. (Also, wouldn't a society imply exclusion by its very definition?)
I'll point out that if you're arguing that the surviving society gets to make the definition, then the definitions I presented are backed by society (Wikipedia, Google, Dictionary.com), whereas the definition you have proposed is your own.
And don't overlook the fact that the society he is presenting is destroying the only place where any other society could be built, namely The Earth.