[esperent]

> I don’t think something being a contract is reliant on there being a compelling alternative though

Legally, a contract must be entered into voluntarily by both parties. If either party is coerced into joining, then it is no longer considered to be a contract. I assume that philosophers use the same meaning of the word contract.

[dullcrisp]

But you’d have to draw a distinction between “I have to sell my company to Microsoft because they’re the only ones with the expertise to run it,” and “Microsoft sent someone to hold a gun to my head until I signed this paper even though I actually have other options.”

In this case it seems more like the former since no one is really actively combing the woods for hermits and forcibly integrating them into society. I guess it’s not unimaginable for something like that to happen, but I don’t think you could say that that’s reason that most of us are part of society. I do guess you could argue that point, but the argument would have to be that society is actively taking away viable alternatives to force people who otherwise would not have to have to join it, not that such alternatives never existed in the first place.

[lazide]

I dare you to name a forest that someone won’t try to kick you out of pretty quickly.

The US has forest rangers, among others, as do most countries. Even in remote Siberia and Alaska, it likely won’t be long before someone defending a mining claim or similar gets you removed or tries to shoot at you, though you might get long enough in some spots to live half a life at least.

Every society I’m currently aware of has something similar going on, and they absolutely are trying to remove opportunities to stay outside of their bounds.

[mistrial9]

predatory behaviors are normalized in societies that grew to be large landowning and stable, agree