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Comment by BearhatBeer | Hacker News Reader

I always chuckle a bit when I hear the term social contract. It's not legally enforcable, isn't codified, people can't choose to partake in it, and has always been intentionally vague. Almost like a trick to convince the masses that they're owed something by the "leaders."

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There are informal contracts and their enforcement occurs through extra-legal means. For example, there is a general compact not to murder in any society. So when revenge happens after murder, there's an informal moral understanding and cushion of social sympathy and forgiveness for vengeance, even if vengeance is typically illegal. In other words, if you break the agreement of peace then you should expect payment in violence.

For entities as large as the state, I think there is an informal contract for people not to engage in anarchistic or revolutionary violence until their living circumstances becomes untenable. The degree to which their circumstances are understood as unjust will interact with the response they get from society.

IMO such agreements must be informal and fuzzy, and a lot of peace is maintained through these extra-legal structures.

That's a perspective from leveraging one limited mode of thought, albeit a prevalent one in the modern Western world. I think throughout most of human history, most humans would've had the ability to deal with both the implied and imprecise or ambiguous. I view mode of thought that disregards them as rather the more limited and incorrect one, as they ultimately form the basis of the notion of codified and explicit, via mechanisms such as implicit beliefs like "we can make a cooperative explicit system and abide by it", and so forth.

A lot of the UK's legal system itself rests on convention, tradition, and precedent, and isn't written, and moreso going back in time as evidence of this.

Enforcement has historically sometimes taken the form of kings' heads on pikes, when the explicit law is that the king does what he wants and suffers no consequences. The implied contract of just rule takes precedence.

I think you've misunderstood - the social contract is a fiction, that's why it's purposely undefined in my opinion. It's just something we're told exists so we can feel like the fox watching the henhouse is a good arrangement. I prefer not to believe in very many things simply because belief's the end of the logical process.

Fair enough!

> I prefer not to believe in very many things simply because belief's the end of the logical process.

I think it's worth acknowledging that belief in some types of things makes them real - "self fulfilling", if you will. The social contract is one such thing, Santa Claus is another. As such, belief isn't limited to being just a mental reflection of truth - it can also be a statement of intent about what you want the world to be. When I say "I believe in you", I am not simply stating my assessment of your capabilities, I am trying to help you. It is an action. Likewise when I say "I believe in the rule of law", or "I believe causing pain is wrong" - I am trying to make them true.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/66591-all-right-said-susan-...

Counterpoint: the social contract (or treaty, or whatever term you want to use) protects both sides. It says that people or institutions that could otherwise crush you won't, in return for you following a set of basic rules and conventions. You seem very focused (to use the polite word) on how it's less freedom than you wish for, but it's also more freedom than you might have had otherwise. There's endless room to debate what those rules are or should be, but in general the social order thus created is better for everyone - including you. Cooperation brings benefits, and structured cooperation avoids the losses of endless bickering about the boundaries. The alternative to a social contract is "might is right" and it would be absurd for you to assume you'd be on the winning side of that.

It would help if you recognized that it's a philosophical concept, not a legal one. Maybe you've noticed that lawyers and other people often use the same words with sharply different (and often counter-intuitive) meanings. Thus, legal requirements for what constitutes a contract do not apply. Neither do legal standards about specificity, enforcement, etc. You could argue that it's a bad term, but to argue that the thing itself is deficient because it doesn't meet legal standards is a bit sophomoric.

The "social contract" is a parlor trick where those in power say "Give me more power and we'll take care of you" and once they receive the power they no longer have any incentive to follow through on their side of the bargain.

Edit: I actually meant to say "social safety net" . "Social contract" is more about normative behaviors and not being an ass hat

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