Re: [GNU-linux-libre] choosealicense.com fork with better wording, perhaps ?

[Riley Baird]

On 26/09/14 05:17, Garreau, Alexandre wrote:
> Le 25/09/2014 à 00h06, Riley Baird a écrit :
>>> To take again your example: someone can probably (it’s an euphemism)
>>> increase your freedom in *so more many ways you can’t even wonder*
>>> alive than dead. Dead it’s just a pile of flesh, as you could obtain
>>> killing a simple animal, or even (bio)hacking with pluripotent
>>> inducted cells. Alive it’s quite surely an instance of the most
>>> fantastic and powerful autoimproving system produced by the universe.
>>
>> What about people that are not autoimproving or powerful? Is it ethical
>> to kill them?
> 
> Well, when I was saying “powerful”, it’s in the same meaning of “<x>
> language/concept/software is powerful”, so “with a lot of potential”,
> and I was speaking at the scale of the universe, so that even a monkey
> in something damn powerful in relation with an infinity of void with
> some rocks.

Ah, okay, I misunderstood your definition. If someone is autoimproving
and powerful, they are likely to be able to increase my freedom. This is
not true in all cases, and if we are being realistic, some people could
take away my freedom, for example if they overthrew the government to
replace it with a dictatorship.

But even if we consider that all humans are better alive than dead to me
(and hence there is no such thing as freedom to use their flesh in
cooking), then surely they would be better able to directly serve my
freedom if I put them into slavery? Again, I'm not advocating this, but
this is an example of how one person can have freedom at the expense of
another person's freedom.

> If he expressed opinion it would be free speech, if it expressed
> scientific ideas (much closer) it would be free science (like when
> Galileo said Earth was rotating around Sun), now it’s not a scientific
> idea but an *implementation*. He didn’t published a paper on RSA, he
> implemented it, it’s different. Though why people initially tried to
> censor him was for the diffusion of the scientific idea more than
> implementation. But yet this isn’t free speech, it’s not like saying
> “government is doing this and you don’t know!”, it’s more like saying
> “hey, look how everything in astronomy look simpler if you take Sun as
> center!”.

Free science is free speech. When Galileo said that the Earth rotates
around the Sun, he was censored because this idea contradicted the
beliefs of the Church.

Science often has political implications - consider climate change, for
example. If publishing the results of climate research were forbidden,
it would be censorship for a political purpose, even if the research did
not state an opinion, only experimental results. Facts are much better
than opinions in guiding public policy. To have a rational opinion on
anything, you need facts.

>>>>>> Objectivity does not suppose an objective subject - in fact, it does
>>>>>> not suppose a subject at all. If there were no conscious beings, an
>>>>>> objective reality could still exist.
>>>>>
>>>>> *** That's debatable, but humans have been doing it since they have the
>>>>> capacity to do so, and still didn't reach any conclusion.
>>>>
>>>> Hopefully we'll take less than 20000 years. :) Can you imagine a
>>>> universe with no conscious beings? If you believe in the Big Bang
>>>> Theory, then such a time must have existed.
>>>
>>> In the hypothesis objective reality wouldn’t exist without Subject
>>> (idealism) the Big Bang Theory would be a conception of the Subject, it
>>> would still be, but would just be dependent of it.
>>
>> Would the subject themselves exist objectively, or would they also need
>> to be perceived?
> 
> In our case we are conscious of ourselves, so this question is useless.

Do you objectively know that you are conscious of yourself?

>>> Yet you can’t prove what you see is real, because to prove anything you
>>> need material, and you can’t have material if you assume it is not
>>> real. Thus the fact objective reality exist can’t be a proven truth but
>>> only a postulate, an useful (even better: essential) assumption.
>>
>> I agree that you can't prove that what you see is real. However, I
>> disagree that you need material to prove anything. You can prove the
>> existence of your consciousness - "I think therefore I am".
> 
> It’s not a proof, it’s an observation. That doesn’t need proof since you
> observe it. Everything that is innate in your brain is true according
> your mind rules (for instance: basic maths), and so you don’t need to
> prove that, because it’s not a fact but a conception of things. Then
> this doesn’t mean it’s true according “exterior observable 
> ‘reality’”
> rules, just as lot of advanced physics theories contradicts our innate
> notion of space.

Basic maths might not be correct - it relies on premises. For example,
Peano arithmetic defines natural number arithmetic through several
axioms. We can say, that basic maths is true *given* these premises,
provided that these premises do not contradict each other.

The knowledge that consciousness exists is more than just an
observation, it is an observation that you cannot rationally argue
against. If you try to do so, then you must have a capacity for
rationality, for which a consciousness is required. If you can show that
an observation is irrefutably true, then you have proven it.

>> Even if some things are subjective, we cannot say that *everything* is
>> subjective, as it leads to a contradiction:
>>
>> Assume that everything is subjective. Is everything subjective? If so,
>> then we have just made an objective statement, which contradicts our
>> original assumption. If not, then something must be objective, which
>> again contradicts our original assumption.
> 
> “Everything” is subjective, if you say that and don’t say it’s
> objective, why would “something must be objective”?

Because, if the statement "everything is subjective" is subjective
itself, then one subject is able to find that statement to be false, and
thus cause something to become objective.

>>>>> And no, if I'm producing a guide on choosing a free software license,
>>>>> I don't want to hear about what proprietary software vendors have to
>>>>> say about it.
>>>>
>>>> Understandable. And, if you're right, really, you shouldn't have to.
>>>> However, note that this is a moral issue, and all morality, to some
>>>> degree, involves an arbitrary choice of what to value.
>>>
>>> No its not up to moral but to ethic. Moral —coming from latin
>>> /mores/: habits— is the value of “Good” relative to a specific
>>> culture. While ethic —coming from greek “ethike”— “science of 
>>> what is
>>> good” is the value of “Good” in absolute, not relative to any culture
>>> but objectively developed after the study of human.
>>
>> You cannot base an objective morality upon the study of human. Why draw
>> the line at human? Why not include certain animals? Why not limit it to
>> individual races, as Social Darwinists do?
> 
> Well, traditionally we say “human”, but you’re right, it concerns
> “individuals of society” generally speaking, thus not only human but
> potentially anything else (and lot of zoology studies proven that
> darwinist evolution went in the direction of social solidarity, even
> beyond specie frontiers, like showed Kropoktine in /Mutual Aid: A Factor
> of Evolution/).

But still, you are making the arbitrary choice to value "individuals of
society". What about rocks?

Also, just because something happens in nature, it doesn't make it right.

>>> Freedom being essentially defined after will, it matches
>>> happiness.
>>
>> While I, too, support taking freedom to be the highest objective, I'll
>> just point out that this is not always true. Consider people who are
>> manipulated through guilt into doing something that they would not want
>> to do otherwise. They are still following their will, but it is not
>> bringing them happiness.
> 
> Thus they’re following their short-term current direct will, not their
> freedom. You’re not free if a piece of your will is manipulated to
> mismatch the rest of it. Freedom *includes* ability to make will not
> following self-contradicting principles (like the will of
> self-distruct), because it goes against will.
> 
> With “freedom is the ability to —without hurting others’ freedom— do
> what you want” I usually separate freedom in three type of freedom:
> technical one, the ability, coming from science, the social one, the
> right, coming from consciousness of collectivity and its consequences,
> and the mental one, the will, the self-control, the ability to make
> will, envy and plans match, to not being manipulated and being
> motivated, having the will of researching what is better for will (thus
> going against self will of going against self will, if I explain myself
> well enough).
> 
> So your example doesn’t contradict what I said because it doesn’t show
> you can be free and unhappy, since in it if you are unhappy it’s because
> you aren’t free in the complete conception of freedom.

Sometimes, when we realise that we are wrong about something, it is
right that we should change our beliefs, and in many cases, our will.
However, humans are not computers, we can often simultaneously believe
two contradictory statements without realising that we are doing it.
When we realise that a contradiction exists, we can fix it. It is better
to be slightly wrong with a contradiction than very wrong without a
contradiction, because at least one is getting closer to the truth. So,
we are freer when we are permitted to have contradictory beliefs.

All communication is a form of manipulation (including this debate). I
think that we need to consider the means of manipulation. In this
debate, I am manipulating you through rationality; in my example, a
person was being manipulated through guilt. Perhaps we can say that
people need a capacity for rationality to be free. That way, when they
are exposed to the marketplace of ideas, most people will choose
something that is rational, or at least makes them happy.

However, there will still be those that make a choice that makes them
unhappy due to emotional manipulation. In *most* cases, they will be
able to get out of this, so long as they have access to the marketplace
of ideas.

It isn't a perfect system. But I think that allowing people to freely
make decisions, and to freely attempt to use words to attempt to
manipulate each other is much better for freedom than using force to
protect people from verbal manipulation. So, at least under this model
of freedom, you can be free and unhappy.

>>> Equality (to distinguish from “similar” or “identical”) being 
>>> defined
>>> as being not superior nor inferior negates hierarchy, thus authority
>>> thus matches Freedom.
>>
>> The problem with equality is that it needs to be enforced, which
>> requires someone in a position of authority to enforce it, who by
>> definition is now unequal to everyone else.
> 
> Nope, it doesn’t. First because as you noticed it it lends to a
> contradiction, then because equality and freedom are linked (without
> equality you have hierarchy thus power, as I said), and finally you
> don’t need authority to enforce them, quite the opposite: freedom and
> power/authority are opposed, yet similar in one point: the more you have
> of one, the more you want, and the more you are likely to obtain. The
> more you are free the more you want to be free and the more you are
> likely to be. The more you’re powerful the more you want to be and the
> more you will likely be. The only difference is that power tends to
> uniformity, self-destruction and death, while freedom tend to diversity,
> reproduction and life. So as say anarchists, power can only lends to
> power, and the only thing that lends to freedom is freedom itself. That
> plenty explain rise and fall of authoritarian communism in URSS (and why
> a lot of anarchists predicted it), for instance.
> 
> If you’re truly free, you’re free from the imposition of hierarchical
> oppressive behavioral schemes (like racism, sexism, proprietarian-ism),
> and you have the ability to know what’s good for freedom (acklowledging
> individual and collective freedom match). If you don’t and reproduce the
> errors/misconceptions/constructions that lends to hierarchy and power,
> it’s because you’re already not completely free.

I feel that it is too idealistic to say that if we give everyone
freedom, they will suddenly lose their will to power. Some people would
be convinced, but all you need is a determined minority to continue to
want power, and you are faced with two choices: use power to stop them,
or let them gain power. The best equality-preserving solution that I can
think of for this is to establish a rotational police force, in which
everyone is given the opportunity to be a police officer. What do you
think of this?

In any case, I don't think that upon giving people freedom they would
stop imposing hierarchical oppressive behavioral schemes on others.
Sexism and racism aren't things that you can fix with laws (or the lack
of them), cultural change seems to be the most effective method of
combating them.

>> If we are arguing from a communist perspective, "from each according to
>> his ability" is incompatible with freedom. If I do not wish to work
>> according to my ability, then I am not free to do so. (I might be wrong
>> with my understanding of anarcho-communism here - if so, please correct me.)
> 
> The complete sentence is “from each accordingly to h[er] ability, to any
> according to h[er] needs”. Then you have to consider since you’re free
> and rational you don’t produce more than is needed, you know each one
> can produce a lot more they consume (yet two century ago Kropoktine
> calculated that with their technology, even in Paris, you would just
> need 5 hours of work a day while one or two month a year from half of
> population to answer the needs and want of the complete population, even
> at the time the *medium* factor of production/consumption was a
> thousand, today it’s way more), you don’t make more babies than it’s
> sane to just to maintain patriarchy, state and capital and you don’t
> push people to wanting too much in relation to their health/abilities
> (no more need for fast food to meet your low workers right of few
> health/time, no more need of packing/wrapping to quantify market
> products, no more need for fashion to prove you’re richer/better, no
> more need for exportation to submit slave countries, no more need for
> centralized inefficient organization…)
> 
> Even if (true) communism required all people to work against their
> individual ideal wish, it would be to be the most free, and it would
> still be more free than when people producing aren’t those in control of
> their means of production (and at least you aren’t required to work more
> than you’re able to).
> 
> But it isn’t: because with science and technique you can automate
> everything that would be repetitive in any way (thus more boring, but
> also more easily factorizable: to automate, the more boring, the more
> easy, and thus fun, because of high result/effort factor) and make it
> almost infinitely more efficient than doing it stupidly and
> boringly. The only thing that remains is creative work (like Science or
> Art), which has value only when done by passion, following will and not
> going against it (as story proved it many times, the best today with
> free software).
> 
> If you consider only social freedom and rights, ignoring technical
> freedom/science and mental freedom/psychology, you go trough the same
> wall as “anarcho-”primitivist, “anarcho-”capitalists, or rms when he
> compares with Mao people saying we need to make semantic and accessible
> every free software for the sake of free-software movement. You need the
> three to get the whole, neglecting any of them reduce the others. It’s
> more a product than an addition: each one is dependent of
> others. Without science you’re slave of your random-behaving environment
> (including natural catastrophes, butf also invasion of aggressive and
> unconscious people strangers to your society like conquistadors in
> America), without rights you’re slave of the (anti)social system,
> without mental freedom you’re slave of your
> misconceptions/errors/envies.

I'll agree that a lot of work that people do is unnecessary. However, I
don't think that it is possible to remove all human labour yet.
Otherwise, businesses would simply automate the process of production,
thus reducing the number of wages they have to pay and giving themselves
a competitive advantage.

However, I still believe that it would be possible to have a society
where nobody is forced into working - if nobody collects garbage, then
the streets will become messy, and eventually someone will be so upset
by the situation that they will do it for free. Similar arguments would
apply to agriculture, because if food is not produced, society will
starve. That being said, under basic income capitalism, people also
wouldn't have to work, and that seems like a much more practical idea.

(btw, about creative work requiring human effort - computers are
starting to do that too. :D The GPL-licensed "Soundhelix" generates
algorithmic random music that sounds good within a few milliseconds.)

>>> Every value of Good, at the end, matches Freedom.
>>
>> But some don't, like many religious ones. They consider obedience to
>> authority to be a virtue.
> 
> They match their conception of freedom, which (quite obviously) is wrong
> according empirical observation.
> 
> And even outside religions (well, we could still debate about if also
> Capital and Nation doesn’t consist in religions in themself…), a lot of
> people still believe getting more freedom require a bit of power to
> enforce it (as you said it before). The finality of this is still
> freedom, even if they’re arguing for authority.

Many people think that they want freedom, but they just have a bad
conception of what freedom is. But some people actively dislike freedom.

>From http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20803 :

"I'm not sure if it is good to have freedom or not," he said. "I'm
really confused now. If you are too free, you are like the way Hong Kong
is now. It's very chaotic. Taiwan is also chaotic."

He added: "I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be
controlled. If we are not being controlled, we'll just do what we want."

>>>> Gaza is such a horrible situation. I wish that Israel and Palestine
>>>> would just agree to make peace (although, to be fair, they are trying).
>>>
>>> It’ts not like if it were a completely asymmetrical conflict :-°
>>> Actually it’d better help people that Israelis and Palestinians agree
>>> rather than Israel and Palestine would. It depend of your ability
>>> to trust an impersonal entity made of hierarchy, papers, power,
>>> property and money (after all, everything of that is the same).
>>
>> Very often, states do not reflect the will of their people. […] as
>> long as the Israeli state and the Palestinian state agree to make
>> peace, the number of people dying would greatly decrease.
> 
> For how long? It’s not the first time, and probably not the last if we
> continue this way.

Agreed, but that doesn't mean that we should stop trying.

>> The people would still need to make peace themselves before it would
>> completely stop, but that isn't the most important part of the way to
>> peace.
> 
> Israel is a giant neocolonialist machine, Palestine a recuperation of
> free Palestinian communities ideas and interests: if by (small) chance
> they stopped to, it would be certainly for something other than freedom
> of their people (and until I see why, that just seems more weird and so
> more creepy, toward the future).

You're right; they most likely wouldn't be concerned about freedom.
Maybe, if the international community put trade sanctions on both
Palestine and Israel, only to be revoked on the condition that the two
countries make peace, then they would have a self-interested reason to
do so?