Paying With Freedom
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"Your honor..." - said the lawyer, standing in a court, which was being broadcast on a screen in the living-room of Mr. Hambleton's house - "...there is no denying that my client is guilty in the murders of all of those people that were mentioned in the case so far. The evidence provided by the police are undeniable. The jury would also agree that the fact that my client did commit all those murders are beyond reasonable doubt. And my client doesn't try to conceal this fact either. Right?" - the lawyer looked at the cage standing in the corner of the court room. There was sitting a man. He had chains all over him. Two policemen were guarding the cage itself. The man looked up, exchanged a stare of understanding with the lawyer and said - "I did commit those murders, sir."
The jury were confused. They whispered among themselves. They didn't understand what was going on. But the air in the court was filled with tension. So was the living-room of Mr. Hambleton where he, Sheiny, Chloe and Mendel stood unable to understand the direction of the lawyers thoughts. The lawyer paused for just a little bit to arouse this very tension. He looked at the judge observing the right micro-signals in his expression that would direct him forward in his attempt.
Suddenly the lawyer spoke - "But there was one thing overlooked in this entire hearing. Something that was not mentioned from any one of the sides because it seemed even to me to have nothing to do with the case at all. It is known that my client did a lot of charity. He spent a lot of money to various charities..."
"Objection!" - voiced a lawyer from the side of the police. "Objection denied!" - said the judge indifferently. This made the two lawyers look at each other with piercing looks. While the lawyer from the side of the police tried to understand what kind of black-magic his colleague is trying to use against the judge.
The lawyer continued - "Our system of law is based on justice. Criminals get punished. But who are criminals? Those acting unjust."
"Those having too much power!" - screamed Sheiny at the screen.
"It would be unjust, for example, taking something from the store without paying for it. A law obeying citizen would pay an equal price to the store owner for an item they took from it. This is justice." - said the lawyer. "Get to the point!" - said the judge.
"It was overlooked, but now I see it clearly. If we look at the dates of the murders. And the dates of my client's various charities. We can see that those closely correlate. We know from the reports of the psychologist that looked at my client's case that my client is not at liberty to choose or not to choose to kill. He must kill. It's just something his brain has to do no matter what. But this abnormality goes against his otherwise kind character. Your honor. As far as I can understand the charities that my client did on the same days as the murders are compensations to the society for what my client took from it. And drawing similarities with the analogy of a store: These charities render my client completely just."
The jury started taking among themselves. The judge looked at the lawyer as if a school-teacher looking at a particularly snarky student. The judge opened his mouth to talk. And exactly at that moment inside of his mouth appeared a rotating circular thingy that tells the user that the video is loading. Mr. Hambleton, Sheiny, Chloe and Mendel looked at this rather boring image for quite a few seconds before Sheiny said - "Seems like the internet is cut off.".
All of them were quite interested to hear the verdict of the judge. But Mr. Hambleton being a complete imbecile forgot to pay the bills. And so they didn't have internet anymore. All they could do is to speculate on the verdict of the judge. And since non of them thought to connect any of their phones to keep watching the video, they decided to talk about it for some time. But first I want to tell you something unrelated to the story at hand.
_________
Moria's Race project is confidently marching forward with a steady pace. Didn't cripple the project even the larger amount of highly technical shots that I decided to make for it. Something that would most definitely cripple a production of something like I'm Not Even Human.
There was a shot, for example, where Moria drives her car out of the water. It required a full water simulation. But the water visible in the shot spends quite a distance. Meaning I would either simulate the whole ocean just to get small interactions near the camera, or I would get smart about it. Good I had brains and made a shot a lot smarter. Bad you probably weren't there to see me do it. If I remember correctly for the last some time, there were nobody who watched my live streams except of @Codes4Fun:c .
Which bring me to...
... COME TO THE LIVESTREAM !!! ...
Click on my dumb face to get to the livestream
___________
"He will go to prison." - said Mr. Hambleton. Mendel nodded and said - "Yes! I agree. The judge is not that dumb.". Chloe said - "Well, it'd be interesting if the guy won.". Sheiny stood there silent for some time. She thought about it.
"I don't think that the judge is not that dumb, to be honest." - she said finally.
"Why?" - asked Mendel.
"Because he was given an objection from the other lawyer, when that one understood that charities have nothing to do with murders. But he silenced him anyway. Perhaps the judge is that dumb."
"Yeah, but he is not dumb enough to let him go based on that stupid trick. This is way beyond any common sense."
"Are you sure?" - said Sheiny and thought about how to connect her thoughts into a cohesive stream of words that could describe her point of view - "Ham, do you remember when you tried to convince kids at school to use NewPipe instead of YouTube?".
Mr. Hambleton reacted with cringe on his face as he said - "That was embarrassing."
"What was the main argument kids gave for using the official app?"
Mr. Hambleton thought for a moment - "I don't know... Ah... Hm... Something to do with it being not piracy... Or... Hm.. Something like, this other app could have viruses...".
Sheiny shook her head and extended her hand forward to shut Mr. Hambleton up. She said - "It was something like: Since YouTube provides a service, it's fine that they want our private data. Because this is how they want to be paid with.". Mr. Hambleton, being a more versed Free Software activist made a thoughtful "Hmm" sound, while Mendel, being less versed with these matters, lowered his eyebrows with confusion. He asked - "But where is the connection between the two?".
"Oh..." - started Sheiny - "It's simple. Both the killer and YouTube makes a kind of atrocity. Different ones. With different levels of severity. YouTube, for example, collects personal information, undermines peoples privacy. The killer kills people. But both give back something of value to justify their atrocities. For YouTube it's the service. And for the killer it's the charities. The point that I'm trying to make, that these services do not change the fact that the atrocities still happened. But..."
"So the killer being bad is bad?" - asked Chloe cutting Sheiny off.
"Of course he is bad." - said Mendel.
"I hoped the killer would actually be justified like this. Because, we do something illegal. And I hoped... You know... Well... I hoped charities would be a way out of it" - said Chloe realizing that she probably said something stupid without knowing what it was.
"Illegal doesn't mean bad!" - said Mr. Hambleton.
"Yeah, yeah... You'll be the one to say that." - said Mendel with a disgust on his face.
"I don't think good and bad is a right metric" - said Sheiny - "Also I don't think that the metric of justice is a good metric also. It lets dumb arguments like the one we just heard be possible. And I'm trying to say that, according to the YouTube analogy, people are actually stupid enough to buy what that lawyer was arguing for."
Mendel looked at Sheiny with half-confusion - "But justice is the cornerstone of law, isn't it?".
Sheiny took her phone out and looked up the declaration of independence of the united states. She started reading - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men... and so on an so forth. These are words from the declaration of the independence. The law was not build on justice. It was build to support Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Therefor killing, or taking away life is illegal. Slavery, or taking away liberty is illegal..."
"Slavery was legal during the times it was written" - said Mr. Hambleton.
"It was since people found loopholes in the text of law. And it was since people at that time rarely saw slaves as equal to all other humans. Since they didn't even see them as humans." - said Sheiny - "Look how people knew somebody was a slave... It was based on the color of the skin. A difference in appearance. They looked different enough to the people that racism and slavery was justified as we today justify owning pets."
"So black people are not human?" - said Chloe foolishly.
"No!" - exclaimed Sheiny - "That's not what I was trying to say. I wasn't even talking about slavery. I was describing the reason for law to exist. Later, after it was written, a different set of people realized that black people were in fact people too. And adjusted the constitution to include them. But the original merit on which they justified this adjustment was based on the initial wordings I just read to you. If Jefferson didn't write the declaration the way he did, Lincoln would not have as much of a compelling argument to stop slavery."
"How do you know so much?" - asked Mendel.
Sheiny pointed at a shelf - "See these? Those are called books. Ask Mr. Hambleton, he would lend you a few."
"But then it would be that Mendel didn't pay for them." - said Chloe, irritating Sheiny even more - "Didn't you hear what the lawyer said? It's justified to take something only if you pay for it."
Sheiny a got a bit angry - "That is the thing that I'm debunking right now. He claims that the law is based on justice. I claim, using the declaration, that it's based on freedom. Or as Mr. Jefferson says liberty."
Chloe made a face that communicated slight confusion but a lot of interest. This kind of face when a person is listening closer to what the other wants to say. She did it as if saying - "Go on."
Sheiny breathed in and said - "Why I claim that YouTube committed an atrocity by undermining people's privacy?"
"I don't know." - said Chloe.
"Because you don't want to be found out?" - said Mendel.
"Because privacy is an inherent part of freedom, of liberty." - said Mr. Hambleton.
"Exactly!" - said Sheiny - "Freedom is a right to control certain things. Like to control myself. And things that are mine. Including my personal information."
"Wait, wait wait..." - Mendel got confused - "Isn't privacy like, when people don't know nothing about you?"
"This is anonymity." - said Mr. Hambleton.
"What's the difference?" - asked Mendel.
"Well, if you are anonymous nothing about you is known. But with privacy..." - Mr. Hambleton was cut off by Mendel - "So privacy is like anonymity light?".
"No!" - Mr. Hambleton got confused by Mendel's stupidity.
"Privacy is a right to control information about yourself." - said Sheiny- "You may tell something to somebody you choose. You may tell everything about yourself to everyone. Or you may tell nothing. Privacy is the freedom to do that. If people had enforced anonymity that would not be privacy since they would not be able to tell things about themselves to other people if they wanted to.".
"Oh... okay... okay... Let me see if I get it right..." - said Mendel putting his hands forward in a smart manner - "Anonymity is an end, privacy is a mean to get it.".
"Yes!" - said Mr. Hambleton.
"Well, more like..." - disagreed Sheiny - "If anonymity is an end, privacy is a mean to get it."
"Aha!" - said Mendel - "Well okay."
"So if I take your privacy I take part of your freedom. Which the law was originally meant to protect. Right?" - asked Sheiny.
"Right!" - everybody else answered.
"Chloe come here." - said Sheiny pointing to the floor right next to herself. Chloe obeyed. Sheiny pushed her and Chloe fell on a couch.
"I just took Chloe's freedom." - said Sheiny.
"You pushed me!" - said confused Chloe.
"Yes I did!" - Sheiny confirmed - "I pushed you. And you may have wanted me to push you or not. I didn't know and I didn't ask. So to push you was something not very right. Sorry, by the way. If we would agree that it's okay for me to push you. That would be consent. And that would be okay. But I did it without your consent. Therefor I took your freedom, therefor it's not okay."
"But..." - murmured Chloe thinking heavily - "... but... If you can't push me, I took your freedom to push me. Didn't I? Like using law or whatever..."
"You are talking about Power, not freedom."
"Power like in strength?"
"No, power like in being able to control somebody else."
Mr. Hambleton shook his head - "There is a... two types of control. Freedom and Power. One is about one self. The other is about the other."
"One is about the self other and the other is about the other another?" - joked Mendel.
"When I pushed her" - said Sheiny - "I had power over her. It was not freedom. There is no such thing as freedom to push her. It makes no sense in English".
"Sounds completely reasonable: Freedom to push her." - said Mendel.
"Aaaaaaah!" - exclaimed Sheiny throwing herself down to the sofa besides Chloe. She breathed hard. Made a bitter face and thought for a little bit.
"Perhaps you understand the words a bit differently." - proposed Mr. Hambleton.
"Well, how can we even speak then if we have different meanings for words?" - asked Sheiny angrily - "I want you to agree on a particular definition of the word freedom so I could make my argument. And you keep giving the word a different definition. Therefor making it hard for me to speak!"
Mendel sat down besides Sheiny in an attempt to calm her down. He put his hand in a smart manner and calmly asked - "Alright, how do you want to define the word freedom?".
Sheiny looked at him, half angry, half happily, and then defined the word freedom in the following way - "Control over one self and things belonging to one self. And that's it."
Mendel though about it - "Okay, with this definition Freedom to push her makes no sense. Okay. So then Power is any control that exceeds freedom?"
"Something like that..." - said Sheiny tiredly.
Mr. Hambleton came closer and started talking to Mendel - "Mendel, when you use YouTube, they collect data about you and then they are to decide who they give it to or who they don't give it to. It's like giving somebody your stuff. And they now decide who they give it to or who they don't give it to. Sometimes you don't want certain people to know about you certain things. And therefor it's bad not to have the control."
Mendel smiled - "Poker!" - he said - "It's like Poker!"
"What?" - asked Mr. Hambleton. And while it was happening Sheiny looked at Mendel and Mr. Hambleton. She lighted up with new enthusiasm for the topic at hand. "Of course..." - she said - "Poker! In the game of Poker you have to conceal your cards from the opponents. And skilled players should master they face very well so not to give out even the slightest hints to the opposing players."
"Oh yes!" - said Mr. Hambleton - "People who are good at Poker are good at business. Since those people can conceal their whatever problems they have from the other businessman."
"Imagine they didn't have that ability." - said Sheiny - "I heard Microsoft is developing something to sell to businessmen like, real time analytics of their colleagues of like minute data about them using facial expression when they are looking at various things. This is why they require an HD webcam in the new Windows."
Meanwhile they were talking Chloe disappeared. She sneaked out of the sofa and went somewhere.
"Oh that's dicky!" - said Mendel - "I do hate Microsoft!"
Mr. Hambleton smiled to himself - "Hm..." - he said - "We were talking about whether the judge was going to let the guy go. If this is the same kind of judge that justifies spying on people as a kind of compensation for a service. Now I see what you mean, Sheiny, this guy might actually go free in today's world. I hope that the law will return to be based on the declaration's means of giving people freedom. But it seems like we diverged from the path so much that now it's about something completely irrational. So many freedom things are banned because of safety. So many freedoms are taken away because of justice, or something resembling justice to a few people who want to see everything their own. It's kind of sad."
Sheiny, Mendel and Mr. Hambleton sat there on the sofa suddenly sad. Realizing that they live in an insane society based on values that make no real sense. All three of them got bitterly sad faces and all three of them sighed heavily in the same time.
"I got it!" - said Chloe from behind. Everybody looked around. She stood there with her phone in her hand looking at it. Then she pointed with her finger to the screen on the other side of the room. There the rotating circular thingy kept rotating in the mouth of the judge. Suddenly though the circle disappeared and the video continued. The judge didn't say anything. He just took a deep breath with his mouth and sat there thinking for a little bit. Chloe said - "Wifi hot-spot from the phone." - with a self satisfied face. Everybody else facepalmed themselves for how obvious this solution was. And how non of them actually thought about it. Suddenly the judge started talking.
He said - "We and all of the people in our society appreciate your clients gifts in forms of the charities. But they are gifts. And no more than that. The constitution was build on the premises of human liberty and the fundamental human rights, among which there is a right to live. Taking live from a human being is an inherent violation to this right and it does not come with a price tag. Therefor I would conclude this hearing with a verdict. One life-time imprisonment for every life taken by your client. Thank you very much." - the judge struck his hammer indifferently and the video ended.
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