Larry Page: I’d Rather Leave My Billions to Elon Musk Than to Charity

Re:Larry Page: I’d Rather Leave My Billions to Elon Musk Tha... by mindcrime on Friday March 21, 2014 @12:32AM (#7440679)

The problem here is that you are choosing your definitions for "real-world liberty" and "genuine consent", etc. I guess if your point was only to make a point about the parent post doing the same thing, then, erm.. good job? But as an argument in it's own right, I don't find this very compelling.

Anyway, technologue has a point in suggesting that the "social contract" is worthy of skepticism. And I, for one, will join him/her in rejecting the notion of nebulous implicit contracts of this type. When considering this, I'm reminded of what Thomas Paine said about the absurdity of the dead being able to bind the living.

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Re:Larry Page: I’d Rather Leave My Billions to Elon Musk Tha... by squidfood on Friday March 21, 2014 @12:13PM (#7443104)

Well sure, "social contract" is an imperfect metaphor, but it's not devoid of meaning, nor divorced from the idea of contracts.

It's the living that bind the living.

Specifically, previous but still-living generations. No one comes of age in a vacuum. If you inherit the benefits (or situations) of the previous generations, you don't just inherit the good stuff, you inherit the debts of the previous generation as well.

Looking way, way back, one can say that the first settlers in a given region might have formed a consensual contract, and the "social" contract is what each continuous generation inherits.

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