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Comment by afiori | Hacker News Reader

I can't really bring myself to agree with this view of the world. To me it sounds like saying that parents are dangerous because they can mistreat children or that employers are dangerous because they can oppress employees.

Obviously those are true statements, but they are also horrible first approximations. Parents are supposed to be caregivers, employers are supposed to be source of opportunities, and governments are supposed to protect and safeguard the state and its people.

To me this looks like a self fulfilling prophecy, if you treat parents as primarily evil oppressors you are in part forcing them in that position, same with governments. Some parents and some governments are evil and should be treated as such, but having an a priori predisposition that they will become evil seems inefficient

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Employers will be good to you if you have bargaining power, but employees who have none are often mistreated. That is why we need a competing source of power (the government!) to regulate employers. The government, like an employer, needs to be checked by something if it isn’t going to grow abusive.

Parents are somewhat different in that they tend to actually know and love their children. But even then we don’t give parents unchecked rights over their kids.

I completely agree, what I wanted to say is that in all those cases relationship work better when the basic nature of the connection is trust, not distrust. In a sense societies puts limitation on the power of governments/employers/parents so that they can be safely trusted even more (specifically so that those deserving of trust are allowed to have it), not because they are inherently untrustworthy.

>Parents are supposed to be caregivers, employers are supposed to be source of opportunities, and governments are supposed to protect and safeguard the state and its people.

This is a bizarrely naive worldview. In democratic countries the government's role is to implement a system of governance decided on by the people. The whole idea behind having a system of "checks and balances" is to prevent the government from unilaterally deciding what constitutes "safety and protection" and what measures it deems necessary to do so. Every despotic regime in history has claimed to be "protecting and safeguarding the state and its people" while stifling the freedom of its people. Ceding rights and freedoms to the government because you perceive them as benevolent overseers with pure motives is incredibly dangerous and absurd to anyone with any knowledge of history.

I never said this, what I said is that is that societal figures of power exist with a benevolent purpose and should not be perceived as evil.

The system of checks and balances on the power of the state can be seen in two lights: 1) as a way to prevent tyrannies from arising or 2) as a way to let the good actors freely act within well defined boundaries.

I simply believe the second point of view to be much more fruitful and stable.

>I never said this, what I said is that is that societal figures of power exist with a benevolent purpose

Societal figures of power exist with a necessary purpose - there is nothing benevolent about them.

There is a significant difference in the relationship between parent-to-child and The State-to-Citizen. Children mature and achieve autonomy from parental control and can escape violence if present.

When am I ever allowed my autonomy from The State? According to its laws I am always subject to its rule regardless of my vote, intentions, ethics, personal values, or will. My only defense is the system itself and I have been given good evidence to not trust its outcomes or intentions regardless of how it is advertised.

There are many different answer depending on the situation. For once you can leave the state. You can take a boat and live off fishing in the middle of the pacific ocean.

If what you are saying is that you want to secede your person from the state then you are as free from your state as other states are free from each other influences.

> My only defense is the system itself and I have been given good evidence to not trust its outcomes or intentions regardless of how it is advertised.

This is essentially the prisoner's dilemma; my philosophical stance is that the only way to improve the world is by mutual trust, even if that means being betrayed.

Yes, it's based on binary thinking. Can governments be trusted (yes/no)? But we can't correct for this by taking the opposite stance because that's also binary thinking.

We should be able to say that some institution are useful and necessary, and also that we need to guard against corruption and abuse, looking at the possible threats and how to mitigate them.

It also helps to make distinctions between different governments and different employers.

Here is the fundamental flaw with the parent analogy:

Both the government and the citizens are adults. Don't treat me like a child. Government is not supposed to keep us safe from ourselves but protect our god given freedoms.

In the US the government is of the people, by the people, for the people.

The other argument that people in government are smarter is laughable, at best.

Government is a necessary evil, but it needs to be limited.

> Government is a necessary evil

Everything is a necessary evil, if you want to see it that way.

> Government is not supposed to keep us safe from ourselves but protect our god given freedoms.

A lot of the job of the state is to keep us safe from other individuals and other states. History proved that one of the best way to do that is to respect individual freedom in a very strong way.

Personally I am not convinced that personal freedom is an end to itself, I see it as the only stable principle that is able to fuel a civil and fair society. More freedom is good only insofar as it produces healthier societies.

I think we have quite different world views on this.

the fundamental flaw in your analogy is that there is an authority above both parents and employers - the state.

Who will watch the watchmen? Once the state legislates overreach into law, who will challenge them effectively?

This is only a flaw insofar as the child-protective services are effective in detecting abuse and the state is a monolithic entity.

My point is that trying to guarantee recursive watchmen does not work. It almost invites looking at that structure as a puzzle to be solved, as a game to played.

A power balance based on mutual trust and mutual responsibility is more susceptible to individual overreach, but also more stable in identifying them.

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