[thegrimmest]

> This is garbage hypercapitalist/libertarian ideology.

Go on then, how do you decide what people deserve? How do you negotiate with others who disagree with you?

> examples above like public libraries

I agree! The nice part about all these mechanisms is that they’re voluntary.

If you’re suggesting that The Engineer’s actions should be constrained entirely by his own conscience and social pressure, then we agree. No laws or compulsion required.

[dangus]

We decide via a hopefully elected government.

These examples aren’t generally voluntary once implemented. I can’t get a refund from my public library or parks department if I decide not to use it.

The social pressure placed on The Engineer is the manifestation of law. That’s all law is: a set of agreed-upon social contracts, enforced by various means.

Obviously, many dictators and governments get away with badly mistreating their subjects, and that’s unfortunate, shouldn’t happen, and shouldn’t be praised as a good system.

I think you may be splitting hairs a little bit here and trying really hard to manufacture…something.

[thegrimmest]

Slavery was (is) also an agreed upon social contract, enforced by various means. What makes it wrong? You clearly have morally prescriptive beliefs. Why are you so sure that your moral prescriptions are the right ones? And that being in the majority gives you the right to impose your beliefs on others?

What if you are in the minority? Do you just accept the hypercapitalist dictates of the majority? Why not?

Law is more than convention. What distinguishes legitimate from illegitimate law?

The only way for people who disagree axiomatically to get along is to impose on each other minimally.

[idiotsecant]

Slavery(!?) was an agreed upon social contract? Like what in the actual are you talking about

[idiotsecant]

You sure seem to know a lot about what people 'deserve' so I'm not sure I can hope to crack the rind of that particular coconut but I will leave you with this: Humans, by virtue of being living, thinking beings deserve lives of fulfillment, dignity, and security. The fact that we have, up until present, been unable (or perhaps unwilling) to achieve this does not mean it's not possible or desirable, only that we have failed in that goal.

Everything else, all the 'isims' and ideologies are abstractions.

[flavionm]

> Humans, by virtue of being living, thinking beings deserve lives of fulfillment, dignity, and security.

You wanting people to have that doesn't mean that people deserve to have that. Fundamentally, no one deserves anything. We, as a species, lived for a hundred thousand years with absolutely nothing except what we could carve off the world by ourselves or with the help of small groups that chose to work with us. Everything else since then is a bonus (or sometimes a malus, but on average a bonus).

Also, as much as it sounds nice to declare such things as goals, deserved or not, it is indeed impossible, and probably not desirable, since, for starters, you can't even define what those things would be like. Those aren't actionable, they're at most occasional consequences of a system that is working to alleviate scarcity of resources.

Unfortunately, we're nowhere near that replicator.