The crucial underpinning of this ideology is that We The People have given explicit permission to a specific group of individuals to have this power in exchange for freedoms we could not otherwise attain; rarely can something in life be so pure, a balance usually must be struck when considering such a complex system. In the US, we employed a three-party checks and balances system to try to solve this problem in a more distributed manner.

Obviously there might be unsolved issues around a) preventing such a system from decaying over time and b) providing some sort of mechanism for people born into a governing society they do not agree with to travel to another society without unachievable economic hurdles. This of course too has limits.

I do differ with you in that I do not believe another entity has the right to compel anyone to do anything. The judge can take my phone, but if it's locked, I cannot be compelled to produce a password. This is established by the fifth amendment, but would probably be better formalized today in a new constitution.

> can only do it with a warrant

This isn't true, if you're talking about the USA. Within 100 miles of a border, CPB and homeland security can conduct warantless searches, without probable clause. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Martinez-Fuer...

This range includes the all but one of the largest American cities.

That's just the law, though. Functionally and practically speaking, the cops can break in and kill you without a warrant, and do so frequently. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/ They can also kill your dog, and frequently do https://aldf.org/project/dogs-shot-by-cops/

Not the OP, but I find the idea that people should help authorities convict themselves absolutely abhorrent.

You shouldn't be even compelled to help the government convict your loved ones, much less yourself. The government has enough money, powers and people at its disposal, why should they be allowed to be lazy and strongarm you into helping them against your vital interests?

Go far enough in that direction and you'll end up with show trials.

You're ok with it because the social contract is that it only happens with reason, to people who have done something to deserve it.

But now it's more like dictatorship and police controlling opinions, which, when it happens in non-western-aligned countries, we all agree that is a really bad thing.

I consider technology to be an extension of mind. I'm not ok with the police literally cracking open my skull and probing my brain, not just because of the invasive torturous nature, but because it's an invasion of the very state that forms my existence. Similarly, the bits of my mind that I offload to other places.

Yeah, I think a good question to distinguish the different philosophies here is: if we had a perfect lie detector, would you support defendants being compelled to use it, with adverse assumptions for refusing?

Only if we could restrict the questions to the facts of the case, but my phone has a lot of unrelated personal stuff on it and so does my brain.

So like, if you wrote a journal detailing a bunch of crimes and/or criminal motives, you don't think that journal should be admissable as evidence in a criminal proceeding? Nor do you think that a warrant should be capable of granting access to that journal for the purposes of a criminal investigation?

Within the narrow context that a journal is a mental device rather than "literally any document", yeah, I would prefer that be inadmissible.

They can take the journal. They can't compel me to provide a key to unencrypt the contents.

That part that's literally (and legally, AFAIK) part of your mind is the code you use to unlock your phone. You can't be compelled to hand that over. I believe the same logic would apply to gorgoiler's scenario if you had a keypad lock on the door (the cops might be allowed to physically break it, but they couldn't compel you to share the code). I'm no lawyer/expert, though.

The moral justification of the situation to be irrelevant - in an ideal world messages would be held in some plausible-deniability system where it is impossible for the judge to know if someone has complied or not.

Nobody has a right to snoop on other people's communication. Not even people wearing robs and wigs.

> If a judge ordered you to unlock your phone and hand over all your messages, you’d probably be sour but you should also be morally ok with complying.

No. It is not my moral obligation to obey the orders of other human beings. Ever.

If you want this to be a moral issue you must first prove that there is a moral basis for compliance and I've yet to hear one. Pointing a gun to my face and telling me what to do doesn't sound moral to me. You can ask. Nicely.

There doesn't really have to be a moral basis nor does there have to be consent. You can refuse, and you can choose to live outside of society. That might be very difficult, but you have the choice. For many, society doesn't provide any advantages and so they choose non-compliance and all the consequences that come with it.

"Live outside of society" has a nice ring to it, but the meaning of those words when choosing to disobey court orders converts via bailiff to residing in jail cell. That's not living "outside society" or its constraints. It's very inside of them.

If you want to actually live outside of society, perhaps the only way to do that is on a simple sailboat like Moxie did for a while:

https://archive.org/details/holdFastADocumentaryByMoxieMarli...

But even that only works temporarily because eventually something breaks or runs out, and you will be re-confronted by reality (some society somewhere) once ashore. For example your hypothetical phone unlock is what happened to Moxie. From Wikipedia:

"While entering the U.S. on a flight from the Dominican Republic in 2010, Marlinspike was detained by federal agents for nearly five hours, all his electronic devices were confiscated, and at first agents claimed he would only get them back if he provided his passwords so they could decrypt the data. Marlinspike refused to do this, and the devices were eventually returned, though he noted that he could no longer trust them, saying, "They could have modified the hardware or installed new keyboard firmware."

source: https://www.wired.com/2010/11/hacker-border-search/

There are millions of people who live totally lawless lives. Sometimes they get imprisoned, also sometimes they get killed or tortured. But living a life of crime is a choice available to everyone.

What exactly is the point you're making? The rejection was of OP's use of the word "moral" when discussing legal compulsion.

You cannot choose to live outside of society. See: Waco, Rubgy Ridge, etc. You cannot even choose to renounce the citizenship that you did not want, never asked for, and never consented to, without getting another citizenship first.

The social contract is the only contract in the world that you can be legally bound to the terms of without ever having agreed to it. In this way, the government acts very much like any other organized crime group: "follow the rules we create or else".

> You cannot choose to live outside of society.

Sure you can -- just head off to https://www.thecollector.com/bir-tawil-unclaimed-land/ and enjoy your isolation!

There are plenty of organised crime syndicates who live outside of society. They sometimes get caught by law enforcement and sometimes they get caught by rival gangs.

I didn’t say you can live outside of society peacefully in such a way that everyone will just leave you alone but a life of crime is a choice available to everyone.

This is a naive perspective. The reality is it's not available, but gets forced upon entire classes of people as the only viable option, and leads to a lifetime of economic and emotional struggle.

But it’s still a choice right? Like a life of crime may be the lesser of two evils but even that is a choice.

People for whom the system offers no advantages are far more likely to make that choice.

My original point is that the current state of the law is not some grand moral absolute, it’s just how things happen to have worked out based on a bunch of decisions made by a bunch of people.

You can choose how to react to that up to and including breaking the law. The degree to which you do that can determine your consequences.

Also sometimes the bear eats you and you’re just unlucky.

> you can choose to live outside of society. That might be very difficult

Try "impossible". No person reading HN is prepared to forgo all of what civilization provides. There are probably a very few people on the planet, who are already living in an extremely isolated tribal setting, who could go it alone, but if they're reading HN I hope they'll speak up now, I'd love to hear their opinion on this.

It’s not impossible at all there are millions of people who live lives of total lawlessness.

"lawlessness" <> "outside of society"

The clear implication of your original statement was that it is possible to not owe society anything by not taking anything from others. To do that requires a level of self-sufficiency that only a very small fraction of people possess.

No, I said:

“For many, society doesn't provide any advantages and so they choose non-compliance and all the consequences that come with it.”

So what I mean is you can choose to live outside of society, meaning not complying with laws. That is lawlessness, it’s a life of crime.

Living as a sovereign citizen outside of any legal structure in such a way that you neither depend on any legal structure nor do you infringe upon any legal structure is very difficult, and available only to a very small number of people.

But anyone can choose lawlessness at any time.

And I’m saying that people who do that are ethically compromised in general, and dishonest if they think they are “outside of society” while still benefitting from mains electricity, mass-produced goods, etc.

You sound like a right selfish cunt.

> It is not my moral obligation to obey the orders of other human beings.

If you are prepared to live without everything "other human beings" offer you, then sure -- but you're not prepared to do that. So you must reach some sort of agreement with "other human beings" even if that means obeying the occasional "order".

> If you are prepared to live without everything "other human beings" offer you, then sure -- but you're not prepared to do that. So you must reach some sort of agreement with "other human beings" even if that means obeying the occasional "order".

I don't obey their orders. If I cooperate with another entity I do so on my own terms. I am only morally accountable to myself and must reckon with any consequences of my actions that might reflect harm upon me. I have agency.

So yes, I must operate in an ordered system but at no point am I morally obligated to another actor.