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3 Things Keeping Us From True Freedom

November 10, 2023

Freedom is something we all fight for. Some succeed more than others. But there is no fully Free society yet in the world. By fully Free I don't mean a total anarchy. This would not be fully Free since it would be possible for people to have power over other people. Which is not freedom already. It's a different form of control. But fully Free means that every person would have the most freedom that person can have without it becoming power. This is very far from the situation right now.

We did great so far. A big chunk of the world has freedom of the people at a forefront of its political structures. Many movements for freedom do a lot of good work. And we have a good overall trajectory. But it's not without its problems either. Some folk fighting for freedom instead are misguided to fight against freedom. And the world still has a fair share of various discriminations resulting in many groups of people being less free than others. Some already have movements that are very vocally trying to end the discriminations. Others are still not recognized as discriminations. Also the majority of the world is ran by dictatorial, tyrannical regimes. Which show some sings of hope. But there is very little done to support freedom of the people there.

We of course know about the more practical roadblocks to freedom. Things like censorship, proprietary software and surveillance. And a lot of those reading my articles are already making good progress in eliminating those problems. But I thought about the whole thing in general and tried to dig deeper. Why censorship? Why proprietary software? Why surveillance? Why countries cannot stop being dictatorships? Why there are still so much discriminations? And I think I know why.

The main 3 problems blocking our way towards Freedom are:

- Psychopathy
- Acute Stress Response
- Paternalism


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Psychopathy

Psychopathy is a lack of Empathy. Empathy is when a person can understand the circumstance of another person. When a person can relate to the other person's feelings.

Some people lack Empathy. It could be a condition they were born with, or a condition they acquired. In any case a person without empathy becomes a sort of threat. If that person will decide that its reasonable enough to attack another person, there is no mechanism to stop him. He lacks empathy! Reasoning will do nothing at all. The only way to stop a psychopath is by force.

Many psychopaths do not find it reasonable to attack other people. They arrived to something like empathy trough logic. Those are good members of society. Even though often they are a bit cold and rough. So those people more than deserve freedom.

The problem with psychopaths is that it is not easy to know when one snaps. Or if one is reasonable. And therefor dealing with one in a society that tries to be Free is complicated.

Also psychopaths are not stupid. And they know very well what empathy is and that most people have it. So they use it a lot against the other people to gain this or that from them. Often it's for lawful, often business related reasons. Most people in control of companies are psychopaths. And they follow laws precisely. But we know how it could backfire on freedom.

Companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon and many others are lawful companies that are ran by psychopaths. Or at the very least the companies themselves are psychopathic in nature. And they track people and restrict people in many ways reducing freedoms here and there. Using those same people's empathy, ties to their families on Facebook, emotional reactions they have on things, using algorithms and other tools, to keep them on platforms that restrict them.

On the other hand a lot of those psychopaths use empathy to be more successful in doing illegal things that are more directly effecting people's lives. Terrorists that take hostages. People who do school shootings, for people's reactions. All of them are a problem.

And it's not even the worst part of psychopathy. The worst part is that psychopathy is contagious. People that are empathetic surrounded by psychopaths may become psychopathic themselves. They may learn to suppress empathy. They may do that for business reasons. In order to have a chance in competition with other firms that are ran by psychopaths. Or they may need this to survive. Like people who live under oppressive regimes. Regardless of the reason or circumstance, psychopathy is contagious.

It seems easy to find an answer to the question of psychopathy. Just kill all of them. Or put all of them in jails or asylums. But that is a kind of thing we do not want to do. Think about a lot of good psychopaths that reason their way into empathy. Think about false positives. Think about all those who just happened to be born with a curse. Or those who happened to be in the wrong place in the wrong time. Just look at the situation in the middle east and you will see how absolutely not simple this problem is. Reducing freedom for the sake of freedom is at most hypocritical.

The only real thing we can do is to reason with those born with it and help them understand on a logical level, how to gain some proxy for empathy. And those who might turn to psychopathy or could still saved from it, perhaps we could save them still. We could preserve or restore their empathy. But for this we have to be empathetic ourselves. And the only way to do so is to listen to what the other person has to say. To let that other person speak. To have Free Speech.

Acute Stress Response

Free Speech sounds easy but there is a catch. I was listening to a podcast from EFF and the guest talked about how decentralization might help Free Speech. And I was very happy for them to agree with me on this very issue. And then suddenly he listed possible problems of speech with decentralization. Mainly hate speech and child pornography and how it would be a challenge to stop those while keeping every other speech free. I felt like something here doesn't work. I felt a gut punch. I was almost angry, but I caught myself in the middle of it and realized that I just had an Acute Stress Response to the ideas that were discussed.

Acute Stress Response or Fight-Or-Flight Response happens in various circumstances. Mostly it happens when people are being attacked physically. It has to do with a reaction of Norepinephrine and Adrenalin. And I was thinking of calling this chapter "Norepinephrine", but later decided to find a more self-explanatory name.

The problem is that people evolved to have this Acute Stress Response anytime that they might loose an argument. To preserve a reasonable self-esteem, every person wants to feel like he knows stuff. And when he is challenged with an idea coming from the other side of whatever he believes in, unless this idea is obviously ludicrous, most people will experience Acute Stress Response.

With the Acute Stress being experienced, the effect is rather similar as with Stress from a psychopath. The easy answer is to block that thought with whatever it takes. In children it is often manifested in them closing their ears and mumbling loudly to block all incoming sound. Adults often get angry. On the internet it often results in bans, blocks and other types of censorship.

I have personally kicked users from a chat I was moderating because of this Acute Stress problem. They said something I didn't like to read and the next thing was me pressing the delete button in rage. And I was supposed to be the guy fighting for Free Speech.

Bryan Lunduke, I remember, once praised LBRY for how amazingly Free Speech it is. But he saw one post on LBRY. And had one annoying response from LBRY. And he deleted himself from there. Same with Zaney and some other people. You can sense when people have the Acute Stress Response because they often say something like:


There is no "but" with Free Speech.

But how do we tackle this problem? How do make sure that we are not the victims of Acute Stress Response ourselves? Sound easy! Just don't freak out... Right? But that is not that simple. When even people who promote Free Speech itself sometimes freak out on speech, this is not very realistic to just ask people to not freak out. Something a bit active should be implemented to stop this from happening.

I propose gamified Acute Stress Resistance training. Which is a fancy word for arguing for fun. If we come together, knowing that there could be some stress from some ideas, and we play a game of arguing. Perhaps we could get used to the gut punch and stay calm in its presence. Some people do martial arts for that. They claim it helps being calm under stress. But martial arts training costs money and could be a little dangerous. While talking is not.

Additionally I think that there could be a game of calmness, rather than just arguing. So the winner is not the one who proved his point, but rather a one that was the calmest. A already imagined this kind of game as a TV show in few of my articles.

I think doing it for 45 minutes every few days could be enough. And so that could be included into the school curriculum. That would give kids the necessary protection from stress when dealing with weird ideas. And therefor allow that generation to grow with more Free Speech and with that, more Empathy. Furthering the Freedom.

But it's not simple isn't it... What if kids will discuss dangerous things? Ah... Even that has a catch.

Paternalism

I have one million little brothers. I remember one day when one of them was 4 years old, we were sitting in a tent. There was a road beside us. And he went somewhere and came back. My dad asked him where he was and he said that he went to pee. So we asked him where exactly he has gone. And he said that he was across the road! A 4 year old kid! In the middle of the night! When cars could be driving there!

We told him that it was dangerous. And what he answered was amazing. He said:


This kid is now 9 years old and he is learning Blender. A very complex 3D modeling and animation tool. I help him once in a while through a video call. And I don't see a lost little child who can't understand anything. I taught adults that were unable to grasp the concept of an axis and were moving thing with the mouse from their perspective and then wondering why the object is not standing perfectly. My brother has already gathered an intuition for 3D. He is way smarter than most of those adults. And guess what was different? He was given the chance to learn.

I see a lot of parents today that treat their kids as if their are a burden to suffer from. They give them a phone with YouTube on it. And that makes the child distracted enough, so not to bother the parents. Then when the child is older they buy them a computer or a console so he could be distracted further by video games or other things. In my opinion, this is how I would categorize negligence.

Those same parents then are often afraid a lot about what their kids are doing. There are multiple levels of legal structure that makes them take measures to prevent children from hurting themselves. While not being a burden to suffer from. For example, they install spy apps that give parents remote access to child's devices. Or they turn on insane censorship measures, so those kids could not access things that might lead those parents into trouble. And then they forget about those kids and do their stuff.

This over-protection could also come from love. Sometimes, like in the situation I described earlier, parents are just afraid. And so they will reduce the child's freedom in multiple ways. And if the child is not my brother and cannot outsmart the parents, it may be very problematic in the long run.

In any case, when kids grow up with insane restrictions, censorship and surveillance, they grow up feeling that there is nothing wrong with all of those things. And so they are failing to take measures to avoid these things. And so various forms of this or that paternalistic freedom tampering doesn't go away.

Many times when I bring up paternalism I start with explaining it using the bridge metaphor from wikipedia. Then often it leads to a discussion of a right to suicide. Which most people can agree with being a thing. But then I touch about how paternalism dis-proportionally effects children and most people experience Acute Stress Response.

"But children are small", "They don't understand a thing", "They are not smart enough to make decisions"... And so on and so forth. Damn it! What are the parents for, for god sake?

There is a scene from School Of Rock, a movie about a heavy metal rock guitarist pretending to be a school teacher to get some quick money to pay rent. And then realizing that the kids in that school can actually rock for real. He teaches a kid to play electric guitar. But his father doesn't care about this kid's desire. He wants him to study to apply to collage. To get a degree. Not to be a rock star. This is paternalism. A reduction of freedom. A good parent would support the decisions made by the child. Would go above an beyond to not stay in the way of the child's dreams. And if the child actually wants to do something dangerous. Nobody said that a bit of Free Speech couldn't help. If we want to live in a free world. If we want our kids to grow up as independent people who can actually make decision. Let them try. Let them learn how. Don't paternalise them because you are afraid that it may lead to something you don't like. Yes, talk to the child about the risks. Make the child understand those risks. Teach them to account for those risks. And trust them.

Few months after that tent story, my dad let this same brother to simply walk where-ever he wants to. He knew the whole town ( it was a small town ). He would safely walk from say, the synagogue to home. We would not even be there when he does the trip. He himself accounted for everything potentially dangerous that could happen along the way. I remind you, he was 4 years old.

Not so long ago ( he is 9 now ) he asked me "How many sirens there were today?". We are at war right now. Once in a while there is a siren and you need to go to a bomb shelter. When I told him the figure, he quickly compared it to the figure in the place where he lives ( which was less ) and used it as a reason for me to come over. When I asked him how, he replied with a detailed instruction. He told where to go from my house. What bus to take. Where to get out of the bus. Where to walk. What to take then. And so on and so forth. Which, as far as I know, is exactly what I had to do to get to him.

If we trust our kids and let them have the freedom that their rightfully deserve, we would get more of my brother. And when those kids grow up, we will have a Free society. But if we stay paternalistic and punish them for even a little expression of autonomy, we create more of those motherfuckers who you need to sue in order for them to stop living in your basement.

Happy Hacking!!!

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