Today I was attending a lecture about blockchain and cryptocurrencies and the lecturer said that freedom and safety don’t go together. You can have more freedom by abandoning safety. Would you agree?

  • Sunsofold@lemmings.world
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    13 hours ago

    It’s technically true in absolutes. Absolute freedom, without giving up humanity, gives no guarantee of safety provided by anything outside of yourself. Absolute safety exists only in a providential void, where needs are seen to magically, as by a benevolent god. If you seek safety in the absolute freedom, you lose the freedom in one way or another. Walls to keep out enemies keep the builders in. Tools to provide for survival require production and maintenance, taking away your freedom to choose to do things that you enjoy. If you seek freedom in the absolute safety, you have to risk giving external forces access. Those forces always carry risk of harm, whether by malicious action or indifference. However, while it’s necessary to sacrifice one for the other in the absolute, it’s not sufficient. Nothing about the relationship says being less of one necessarily makes you more of the other. The easy example is prison. In most prisons your freedom is severely curtailed, but you certainly aren’t safe. You might even be imprisoned for the purpose of being harmed.