Freedom and Rights

I am reminded of a couple of lines from the song "Me and Bobbi McGhee" by Bob Dylan:
"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose.
Nothin' ain't worth nothin', but it's free."

While primitive hunter gatherers may have had more freedom than anybody since, that's not exactly the same as saying they had more rights. The reason they had more freedom was that there were so few of them and so much vacant land around them, but the only rights they had were those they could defend with their spears. As the Declaration of Independence says, "they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights", but then it says, "to secure these rights, governments were instituted among men". If the rights are God given and inalienable, then why do we need a government to secure them? I think it means that God, or Nature, gives us our rights, but it is up to us to defend them from those who would deprive us of them. Man must have discovered early on that, when it comes to defending rights, two spears are better than one, and he became a social animal.

Roman citizens probably had more defendable rights than anybody previous because they had the rule of law, and a big army with which to enforce it. Medieval Europe represented a regression in that respect, with a bunch of petty warlords squabbling over who had the right to exploit the peasants. We've been climbing out of that hole ever since. While it's true that the Western World is running ahead of the Third World in that respect, it's because we are improving faster than they are. A thousand years ago, there was no Western World, and everybody lived like the Third World lives today. Well, not exactly, the Third World has since traded their spears for guns. What a big improvement that was!

It's true that robots can't do everything, at least not yet, and human labor can still compete with them for cost effectiveness in many fields, but those fields are shrinking as we speak. If present trends continue, there might come a day when human labor is no longer necessary. Assuming that humans are still in control of robots instead of the other way around, what will we do with ourselves? I suppose we will still have our hobbies, but they are becoming more automated as well. Also, somebody is going to have to decide how the resources are allocated. Will we turn that task over to our machines as well? Will the machines fight among themselves trying to secure a bigger share for their own people? Will their people pull the plugs on the robots if they are dissatisfied with their performance, and transfer their loyalty to a machine that promises them more of everything? You know, I think that Old dog may be right, economy and government are inseparable.

The reason I have not responded to Ken's comments about Nikki Minaj's butt is because I have no idea what he is talking about. I suppose I will have to look it up this weekend so I will be able to intelligently discuss what might turn out to be an interesting subject.