[988747]

You make a mistake in equating "barbaric society" with freedom. Barbarians weren't free, maybe except their chief and elders. Common tribe members were all subordinated - the tribe would even put some mark on their body (tattoo, circumcision) to remind them that they are tribe's property. Democratic society is much more free than a barbaric one.

[marginalia_nu]

What do you mean when you say free?

[988747]

Ability to make your own choices. The way I understand barbaric societies is that whatever your elders come up with you are obliged to follow their lead, if you object you will be banished or killed.

[marginalia_nu]

You can still do that in any society. Even though it's illegal, you can run a red light or cheat on your taxes. The notion that you somehow can't is just mauvaise foi. Of course you can. You're choosing not to.

Seems like you are describing freedom from consequences, not the ability to make choices, because that's available now and to the barbarian. I'm not sure which society has no consequences.

[lvass]

>You can still do that in any society. Even though it's illegal, you can run a red light or cheat on your taxes

By that logic, there is no such thing as restriction of freedom, as it assumes even someone's ability to jail you does not restrict your freedom in any way. People in jail are free as a corollary. How is this not absurd? It only makes sense if you hate freedom and want to argue against it to people low on rhetoric.

[marginalia_nu]

I'm arguing against the particular definition of freedom given, not against freedom itself.

[lvass]

Freedom is indeed the ability to make your own choices, but you must not understand it in a strictly technical context, more like a social/legal one. It simply isn't viable to physically prevent every action society considers you not free to take, so the restriction of freedom comes in the form of later punishment, it doesn't magically stop being restriction of freedom just because technical possibility is still there.

[ttfkam]

Apparently you haven't read anything by Jean-Paul Sartre.

[NikolaNovak]

One can read and disagree (that's what makes reading philosophy hard; you want to argue, discuss, counter the narrative, take it into another direction, deny the assumption, put forward another hypothesis or explanation... but the book just sits there, static and smug, plowing ahead with whatever very specific point and perspective auther has already made up their mind on :)

[vageli]

And if you are arrested after making one of these illegal choices, are you still free?

[marginalia_nu]

If you plunge a sword into your chest, you also can't make choices later on. Does that mean it's impossible to choose to plunge a sword into your chest?

[TecoAndJix]

You are free to make a choice even when the end result is restricting future freedom (sword=death, illegal action=prison/death). So you can in any moment "be totally free" in virtually any society as long as concerns for freedom in future moments are irrelevant to you

[lvass]

What did you smoke, my friend? I really like your search engine, don't destroy it's image for me. Freedom is not strictly equal to technical possibility, it's not even the same word.

[mistermann]

Did you not like the question so you avoided it by asking one of your own instead, or is something I'm not familiar with going on?

[Chris2048]

I'm note sure "freedom" is the same thing as "possible". If it where, only physicists would concerns themselves with its definition.

I think it more often means "permissible" or "practical".

[freeflight]

> you are obliged to follow their lead, if you object you will be banished or killed

Not really that different to today, except that it's a circle of elders and their lead is codified in laws.

But breaking these laws will still get you "banished" aka deported if you are not a citizen, and if you are citizen you will face consequences for your noncompliance, which in some places can still reach all the way up to the death sentence.

So in a way it's still all just barbaric societies, but with extra steps.

[nybble41]

> So in a way it's still all just barbaric societies, but with extra steps.

You've got it. Proper civilization and a free society are still a long way off. Laws and democracy limit the variance (good and bad) but don't automatically create a better outcome. We still need people to make the right decisions. And these systems of law and democracy which serve mainly to promote stability introduce their own problems by encouraging people to confuse "legal" or "popular" with "right", and "illegal" or "unpopular" with "wrong".

[thegrimmest]

I've proposed a definition here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29267283

Would appreciate your thoughts