[SideburnsOfDoom]

> some kind of "freedom from want" ...but only when it comes to want of healthcare

Heathcare is a good example, but it's hardly the only want. It's worth raising when comparing countries, because it's a notable difference: different flavours of state run or state mandated healthcare is common in the developed world, USA being notable exception, and universal coverage gives people more ... "independence" if you like a different word to freedom.

I think you're assuming an entirely false dichotomy between "security" and "freedom". Along these lines https://www.adammcfarland.com/2017/10/18/would-universal-hea... https://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/why-medicare-for-a... Not to mention the entire notion of "precariat" - e.g. zero-hours contracts are means of control, yet they arise from lack of job security. So lack of security leads to lack of freedom, and presence of security (of healthcare, of income, of whatever) leads to freer choices in these cases.

The original question was "Why would you give up on freedom" not "define freedom!" and I'm not going to focus on a debate on parsing the definition of "freedom", or drawn back into the assumption that there is a single definition, which I rejected above. As far as I am concerned, that is a nonsense-making, derailing tactic.

But losing or gaining healthcare will be a consideration when I decide where to live. Regardless of a "coherent definition of freedom", that is a big Quality of life factor that I will look at. As I mentioned here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26660947

[unishark]

I haven't posed a definition, just questioned yours. For example, as for healthcare not being the only "want", that is indeed my point. Yes one might twist a definition to make freedom about the ability to freely spend the wealth of other people in a country, without working for it (hence no one in a undeveloped country or primitive lifestyle is ever free, apparently). But the rest of the safety net is obviously more important to that agenda than the difference between voluntarily buying health insurance versus being forced to pay for it. Lack of more basic needs will kill most people much faster. But what is unusual about the need for healthcare is of course the fact that it is unpredictable. Just as with guns and crime (which again, you haven't given an alternative explanation for how it fits in). This is an equation based on fear of danger, i.e. a desire for security. There's nothing wrong with that.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> Yes one might twist a definition to make freedom about the ability to freely spend the wealth of other people in a country

I honestly don't know where this "freely spend the wealth of other people" thing came from. If it's about heathcare, then it's a particular extreme political framing, to which I strongly disagree, but that seems to be missing the point.

> rest of the safety net is obviously more important to that agenda than the difference between voluntarily buying health insurance versus being forced to pay for it.

If you're saying that healthcare access isn't an important issue in the developed world today - in the midst of a pandemic and given the disparities - then again, hard disagree; to the extent that IDK, maybe something is very wrong with your thinking. Maybe it isn't important for you and you can't extend your view past that?

> no one in a undeveloped country or primitive lifestyle is ever free, apparently

My first issue with that is the binary framing, "free or not", no shades or grey or qualifiers, no degrees or kinds.

Then, I have the ability to contemplate changing jobs, changing locations, taking holidays in faraway places, so if you're asking "is this more free than a person in undeveloped country who doesn't have those choices?" It's self-evidently: yes of course.

Access to healthcare is not that different really. Nor is access to education. Or if (true story) you're relatively well off, in a third-world country, and you're going to live with private security, electrified fences, alarm systems etc. You're getting security, but you're less free to come and go. You feel it, constantly. You'd be freer if the crime rate was lower, and the crime rate would be lower if there was less abject poverty. Join the dots.

[unishark]

As for the tradeoff between security and freedom with the guy in the third-world country, absolutely. This is key. To make this point you implicitly agree that the ultimate metric is freedom, however. Crime is just a proxy variables that may or may not relate via second-order effects like the choice to hide behind fences. Sure, if all things were equal a desire for the same level of security as a safer country may lead you to live a life with less freedom. But it also may not. It has been pointed out multiple times here that you don't need to live in a electric-fenced compound in the inner city, you can just move to a safe suburb across town. And all things are not equal. Japan can have lower crime yet be different in enough other variables that, at the end of the day, you still have less freedoms. Hence the parent poster's argument must be addressed with a direct definition of freedom.