Anal sex is usually voluntary and VERY intrusive.

@ Draugnar

I don't see your complaints as very different from these:
* I have to take the bus to get to work, so when the local government that runs the buses raises the rates, that's not voluntary, and I shouldn't have to pay. I was riding this bus before the rates went up and no one asked me if I minded.
* I have to take a taxi to get to work, so when the private corporation that owns the taxi company raises the rates, that's not voluntary, and I shouldn't have to pay. I was riding this taxi before the rates went up and no one asked me if I minded.
* I have to drive to get to work, so when the vehicle tax goes up, that's not voluntary, and I shouldn't have to pay. I was driving before the tax went up and no one asked me if I minded.
* I have to drive to get to work, so when gas prices go up, that's not voluntary, and I shouldn't have to pay. I was driving before the price went up and no one asked me if I minded.
* I have to get a heart transplant to live and I can't afford it, so I should get it free or for a price that I can afford. I've had this heart my whole life, and hearts aren't voluntary.
* I have to use the Internet to perform my job, so my employer should provide me with an Internet connection. I was doing this job before everything went online and no one asked me if I minded.
* This factory has to stay open if I'm to perform my job as an auto worker, so the government should bail out GM. I was doing this job before GM went bankrupt and no one asked me if I minded.
* I have to use MySpace to perform my job as a record company promoter, so MySpace shouldn't adopt intrusive policies. I was doing this job before all the bands went on MySpace and no one asked me if I minded.
* I have to use MySpace to stay in touch with all of my friends, so MySpace shouldn't adopt intrusive policies. We were friends before they went on MySpace and no one asked me if I minded. People need friends, like hearts, to be healthy; having friends is not voluntary.
* I have to use Facebook to stay in touch with all of my friends, so Facebook shouldn't adopt intrusive policies. We were friends before they went on Facebook and no one asked me if I minded. People need friends, like hearts, to be healthy; having friends is not voluntary.
* I have to use phpDiplomacy to play Diplomacy with all of the best players, so phpDiplomacy shouldn't sell my spare CPU cylces to Plura. I was playing phpDiplomacy before kestas struck a deal with Plura and no one asked me if I minded.

Of course, these are all different from each other in some ways, but all of them amount to
* Things used to be one way, and then they changed in a way that I don't like. I can't avoid what changed without disrupting my life, so it's not voluntary. I was involved before things changed and no one asked me if I minded.

The example with the heart is the only one where the change is a threat to your life, and it's also probably the only one that you [you being the generic person who makes any of the complaints above] had a lot of control over. Any of the others you could avoid by changing your lifestyle, to a greater or lesser degree.

And in many cases, you were asked if you minded, but you probably didn't know about it. Just like kestas had a thread about Plura before it started here even though most people didn't notice it, local governments in the West today usually hold hearing about things like red-light cameras and bus fares even though most people don't notice them. Private corporations usually don't ask everybody; they're more likely just to take a marketing survey that you probably weren't part of, or they might not even do that. The more despotic governments also don't ask.

I'm sympathetic to all of these complaints, more to the ones (like the heart transplant) that are more disruptive to your life and less to the ones (like Plura at phpDiplomacy) that are less disruptive. And I'm upset by the circumstances of all of them, more to the ones that you had less control over (like Facebook's policies) and less to the ones that you had more control over (like the health of your heart, probably). I'll want to help you if I'm sympathetic to you, and I'll want to fight your oppressors if I'm upset by what happened to you, and those are not the same thing.

Sorry, this is long and maybe not very coherent, but my point is this: There is not a clear-cut division between what is voluntary and what is involuntary. Every decision that I make has the potential to affect you, and the other way around.

@Toby

Re: Plura - It already was in place when I and the majority of the people here joined. So, no it wasn't voluntary because the end user agreement (what's that, you ask? I know I haven't seen one) doesn't say anything about it. Luckily I just turned off Java so I don't deal with it's incessant slow down throughout the day.

Re: red-light cameras and security cameras. Even if you go to and know about and complain about these intrusions, they still get passed and you had no say. They don't go before a general populace election and they sure as hell don't let non-residents have a say or even speak at the meetings. I work in one city and live in the country.

To the rest of yours, I don't know what your saying... If the bus fare goes up, I'm actually a supporter of it as I'd rather the busses stay in service and convert to more green busses (as TANK is doing) than have them go out or have to run the old dirty diesel engines that don't even get along with biodiesel.

And I don't work in a factory nor do i worry about myspace or youtube or facebook, or here even. If Kestas wanted to start charging, I'm free to either pay the fee or go somewhere else. Those sites are not public utilities and they have to pay the bills somehow. I only complain if something is surreptitiously put in place (like Plura) without the user's acceptance of an agreement stating they are willing to let that utility run in the background. We have no such agreement and it is the one thing Kestas should really remedy with the site.

Oh, and the irony is, my employer provides my cell phone and my internet connection via a Verizon Aircard. It was part of my negotiations when I took the IT Director position.

But the enforcement of any law or policy without the general populace electing it (i.e. traffic/security cameras) is an involuntary act. May towns have had to take down red light cameras and street corner security cameras because they did it without hearings and without votes in closeddoor sessions and the courts have smacked them around for it.

I'm glad the courts have reasons to get them taken down; certainly they should smack them around if they do it without public hearings. It would be nice if everything went up for a public vote, but the courts aren't about to enforce that. (I would want a unanimous public vote, but there's no way the courts are going to listen to me!)

I'm confused by some of your responses, such as the bus, factory, or MySpace. If somebody makes one of the complaints that I listed above, are you just going to say that, hey, it's not a problem for you? Then why do you expect anybody to listen to what you say about security cameras? (I admit that I gave a long list of examples, so if you just didn't think very much about these ones, then I understand!)

You seem to suggest (it's not clear to me) that Plura on webDiplomacy would be fine as long as kestas clearly informed new users about it. So it should be OK for local governments to put up security cameras that visitors don't like, at least as long as they go through it properly with hearings and publish the decisions in the council minutes. Web sites say that you're accepting their terms of service by using the site; governments say that you're accepting their laws by entering their territory. If you don't want to comply, they say, then you're free to stay out. Other than the scale, or how vital it is to your life, what's the difference?

@Draugnar - are you saying that every time legislation is passed at local or national level, a referendum of the general populace should be held first?

Do you realise how expensive (not to mention bewildering) this would be for the taxpayer, given the amount of new legislation enacted in an average year?

No, I'm saying a public hearing at a minimum should be held first. Too many times the city council or the township trustees or the county commisioners decide in a closed door meeting without hearings what they think is right for the rest of us. This invariably leads to even more expensive court battles where the leadership has their feet put over the fire and then get slapped down, having wasted taxpayer dollars in the process, when a simple public meeting and hearing what their constituents want might have shown them just what kind of morons they are.

I would agree on the "visitor" aspect, but a person who works in a city and pays city taxes to it (I do have to pay Cincinnati taxes, unfortunately) should have some say as well. The City of Cincinnati gets more funding from people who work in the city limits than from the residents, whose typical income is less than half that of a typical office worker downtown. So those who pay the taxes aren't getting a say in how they are used. Honestly, our entire electoral system is fucked up. There should be two sets of polls, one for employment related issues (like taxes, who sits on city councils, etc.) and one for residential issues (also taxes and city council, but senators and congressman as well).

As far as MySpace, WebDip, and other websites, they aren't public utilities. you either accept their ToS or not. BUT, everything should be in a ToS, not slid in under the radar like Plura has been here since I joined last November or December.

Buses, Taxis, and others. Anything privately owned (taxi service), the person is free to find another means or service. Anything publicly subsidized (most transit systems like busses or light rail) the public should be able to have a hearing before the board enacts any rate increases.

It's really quite simple. If taxpayer dollars are going to it, the taxpayers deserve a minimum of a public hearing. If it is all private (and not a utility), I just want it spelled out in the ToS for websites, and I'm free to use another competing service. Finally, the public has a right to have representation at a minimum on public utilities, even if they are private companies (like Duke Energy, Cincinnati Bell, Time Warner Cable, etc.) as they don't have an alternative. The utilities hold a monopoly in an area so they need to be kept in check to keep price gouging from occuring.

>As far as MySpace, WebDip, and other websites, they aren't public utilities. you either accept their ToS or not.

But a city that you don't live in works the same way; you either accept their laws or not. Just as you can choose not to go on MySpace, you can choose not to enter Cincinnati; of course, you might have to quit your job if your job requires you to go on MySpace or enter Cincinnati.

You're right that it's kind of arbitrary that residents of Cincinnati become citizens while people who work there don't. Maybe it would be better if people who work there did have an official say. Maybe it would be better if the people who play Diplomacy here had an official say on how the site is run, instead of (ultimately) only kestas. But even given how they're set up, you have the choice whether to subject yourself to them or not.

I do see one difference. If you live in Hamilton County, then your county government is in Cincinnati. Probably there's a federal courthouse there with an even larger jurisdiction. I'll agree that it's wrong for these larger governments to subject you to the jurisdiction of Cincinnati without your consent, but that has (I assume) nothing to do with going there every day to work. Although it still seems that it would be OK, by your logic, if they made this decision by a public vote?

Honestly, I don't have a problem with anything put in place by a majority vote or at least a public hearing. I do have a problem with taxation without representation and an employment (income) tax on workers in a city IS taxation without representation. That taxation should only be on residents' income. Otherwise the employees of companies should have a vote in matters concerning the locales use of their funds and what those rates will be.

As it stands now, the residents get to vote on the issues at large and pass the judgments that take money from the workers' pockets.

And yes, the Federal Courthouse is at 5th and Main, right next to the "Government Square" bus stops and the Chiquita Building, where one of my company's offices is currently located.

Cincinnati has its own income tax?

Or you live in Indiana or Kentucky but have to pay Ohio income tax?

Cincinnati, as many cities in Ohio, has it's own income tax.

http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/cityfinance/pages/-5322-/

Here is the city's tax code.

http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/cityfinance/downloads/cityfinance_pdf13655.pdf

See? Taxation without representation. I thought this was unconstitutional.

No, it's counterrevolutionary (^_^. It goes against one of the slogans of the American Revolution, but there's nothing about it in the U.S. Constitution (I don't know about Ohio's, but I doubt it).

I'm sure that any court would rule along the lines of my argument above: You're not a citizen of Cincinnati, and you can try to get a job somewhere else if you don't want to work there.

Interesting that the framers of the constitution didn't bother to include a clause that was one of the unifying themes of the revolution, a calling out against Britain's Sugar Tax of 1764 seeing as the colonies didn't have representation in parliament. Major oversite there.

Of course, the lack of having it in the constitution may allow them to get away with it, but it is still morally wrong.

Hey Toby, are you an attorney by chance? You clearly have a grasp of the constitution and other issues far beyond that of the casual citizen.

>Interesting that the framers of the constitution didn't bother to include a clause that was one of the unifying themes of the revolution

That shouldn't be surprising!

The Constitution was a COUNTER-revolutionary document, attempting to partially undo the changes of the revolution. Not so much as to go back under the yoke of Britain, of course, but still to be more centralized and less democratic than the ‘free and independent States’ (as the Declaration of Independence put it) under the Articles of Confederation. When people say that the government is doing something unconstitutional, it's easy to forget that, under the Articles, the Federal government was allowed to do even less! Conversely, there were only a few specific things that the U.S. Constitution originally forbade the States (and their local governments) to do.

Fortunately, the counter-counter-revolutionaries fought back enough to get the Bill of Rights thrown in as a compromise. And after the Civil War, the 14th Amendment began to restrict what States do, until now we interpret that to mean that the Bill of Rights applies to them as well. Many State constitutions also have their own bills of rights based on the Federal one. So the Constitution has ended up being a restriction on State governments after all … yet there's still nothing in there about taxation without representation, as such.

There are some related bits: Every State must have a republican form of government (that's in the original Constitution), every citizen under Federal law who resides in a given State is a citizen of that State (14th Amendment), there are several rules that prevent States from limiting their citizens' voting rights (15th, 19th, 24th, 26th), and States must give everybody ‘equal protection of the laws’ (14th again). So while it would be hard for the City of Cincinnati (which is a subsidiary of the State of Ohio) to pass taxes without representation from its residents, it's easy to ignore the people who just work there.

No, IANAL, although I've been thinking about going to law school. However, it doesn't seem to be affordable.

So, YANAL, but you play one on TV? Just Kidding... So where do you get your clearly expansive and impressive knowledge of the framework of our country? Is it just a hobby? Or do you have it for needs outside of the "I want to know it" arena?

I guess it's a hobby. You can't be an anarchist for long without running into legal arguments (for and against), and I want to know which ones hold up and how.

What I play on TV (or in the classroom) is a mathematician. Mathematics and law are both based on argument and proof, but with very different standards.

Hence your ability to explain and correct me about n/0 != infinity because n/0 is as undefined as 0/0.

You know that suddenly makes more sens when you figure that n/0 = infinity would also mean n/infinity = 0, but logically, n/infinity is infinitessimally small, but never reaches 0. Wow, it makes even more sense now. Why didn't the math teachers in junior high and high school teach this?

Draugnar, formally you can't divide n by infinity because infinity isn't a number it's just a concept. The only realm you can really say that is in the context of shorthand for a limit. In that sense n/x as x approaches infinity is equal to zero, which might be shortened to n/infinity = 0 in a casual sense. Infinitesimally small is also purely conceptual, as its conceivable notation of 0.000~with infinite zeros~001, you would never get to the 1 and in any numerical sense it is equal to zero.

Toby, I would say that most if not all of your examples are actually voluntary. If you don't approve of the increased taxi fare then don't take the taxi. It's a reciprocal exchange of money for a service and if the fare is above what you value the service, it's as voluntary as just not taking the taxi.

It's funny that most of the things that Sicarius suggest as voluntary and intrusive are hardly nefarious, though they are open to possible abuse. IP addresses are sort of like phone numbers for computers... they just facilitate connections between computers. They're not meant to be some sinister plot to keep tabs on your computer's activity, it just happens that anyone with enough tech savvy can use IP addresses to do that. CCTV is a measure used mostly by private businesses as a security measure to deter criminals from violating their property rights. They certainly aren't designed to keep tabs on honest citizens... it just so happens that security cameras also capture ordinary people on camera as well. Yes, there's a possibility of its abuse for surveillance of private citizens, but for the most part its just business owners and maybe really paranoid private citizens who are on the look-out for people who would threaten their property, not some malignant government plot. Of course, their effectiveness of CCTV as a deterrent to criminal activity is in question, but its a cost borne by the private owners decision. Red light cameras are more contentious. I actually do believe that the idea is really simply to deter traffic offences, but as a public matter, it should most definitely be discussed in a hearing. It's effectiveness is also in doubt, but in this case it is not a privately borne cost, but a public one, paid for by tax dollars. In this sense, there should very much be public representation.

When I said intrusive, I sort of meant potential for abuse. potential for abuse leads to abuse. if private information is being abused, it is intrusive

@ Chrispminis

I'd be interested if you decide that it's not all, and which one's you consider involuntary and why.

I don't see a sharp line.

@ Chrispminis re math

There are number systems, such as the hyperreal numbers, in which there are infinitely large numbers, as well as infinitely small numbers (aka infinitesimal numbers) other than zero. In that case, we still do not have 1/∞ = 0; instead 1/∞ is an infinitesimal (where by ‘∞’ I mean any infinite hyperreal number, since in fact there is not only one).

I don't suppose that Draugnar was thinking about hyperreal numbers exactly, but they are a way to make precise the idea that he had: that you can divide by infinity and get something which is infinitesimal but not zero.

@ Draugnar re math

They probably don't teach it in high school, since it really is more complicated to do rigorously. (And most high school teachers probably don't even know how to do it rigorously.) High school students don't necessarily need logical rigour in their math, but the teachers often need a deeper understanding.

Do teachers typically take Foundations in undergrad? This seems unlikely to me.