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This is mindless paternalism.

Who gets to decide what is 'predatory' and why do those people have the right to make decisions in place of able-minded adults?

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Why stop at removing restrictions on social media, why have laws at all, they're just mindless paternalism! why should we have seatbelts? why have laws against murder? Mindless paternalism is all those laws are!

Not all laws are are meant to protect people from themselves, most laws aren't.

Murder isn't illegal because we want to protect people from the results of their actions, it's illegal because we want to protect people from the actions of others. (Or, failing to do that, punish the aggressors in response) Surely you see the difference?

Basically, the argument is that people's liberty should only be restricted up to the point of defending the liberty and rights of others. If an action hurts no one other than its actor, the state has no right to restrict them. People should be free to live in line with their wishes and conscience up to the point of not violating the rights of others.

With regard to seatbelt laws, I would ask the same question, as I do think that the seatbelt laws are also paternalism and morally wrong.


That would be fine if people had symmetric information and strong education

Anything less is exploitation


But no one, including the government, is omniscient. This turns all agency into "exploitation", and the only logical conclusion is that all decisions for all people should be made by the most informed. Surely you don't argue that would be a good thing?

The mindless paternalism is the point! People like this want a Nanny State to enforce their own ideals, as they arbitrarily believe themselves to be morally superior.

That’s why these laws happen to begin with. It starts as “Think of the children”, and ends with the death of the anonymized internet.

Governments crave that, and scared, hapless citizens who refuse to learn how to raise a child want Daddy Gubament to do it for them, and so push these laws into existence.




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