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The often mentioned quote from B. Franklin (reproduced in the linked site) about "any society" giving up a little liberty for a little security and deserving neither is I think quite funny, because giving up liberty in exchange for security is the very definition of society.

Society is not about liberty; it's about control, surveillance, obedience, in exchange from keeping aliens at bay.

If everyone's my brother I don't need "society", because there are no aliens.

On the other hand, if every brother is a potential or covert alien, then I need a very intense system of control.

I'm not sure it's possible to have society without surveillance; they are sides of the same coin.



I think it's quite funny because like so many quotation-on-image internet memes, it's not what Franklin actually wrote.

This is the actual line:

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp?vol=6&p...

Some other misattributed variations are here:

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin#Misattribute...


Society is a bunch of people gathering togheter because they are happier that way. If everybody is your brother, you won't be any better living alone in a field.

Yeah, other people always come with some kind of surveilance and disagreement, but that's a consequence, not the goal.


> Society is a bunch of people gathering together because they are happier that way.

How is that? You're born in a given society (country) and usually you never change societies, so there's no choice involved.


You can move to some non-urbanized area, and just cut communications with anybody else. (Yes, you can not completely cut away because of taxes, but you can to a huge degree.)

Almost nobody likes that option.




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