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DancingConstellation t1_jeaqqjs wrote

Reply to comment by o_-o_-o_- in I read an article about Missouri’s House cutting funding to their libraries and it made me really sad. by poopmaester41

Libraries don’t serve a single “human right.” Rights are negative, not positive. I think you’re greatly misunderstanding my position. I’m not advocating for abolishing libraries or any of their services.

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o_-o_-o_- t1_jearahl wrote

I think you're misunderstanding what I said as well. I disagreed with you that libraries don't fulfill any human needs and therefore should not be subsidized, and argued to the needs that libraries do absolutely serve. I also disagreed with your (implied) denial of abstract and intangible things (like entertainment and enrichment) as human needs.

Edit: also "rights are negative" seems arbitrary to me. Depends entirely on where you place your reference point.

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DancingConstellation t1_jearta3 wrote

Neither of those are needs. You are confusing wants with needs.

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o_-o_-o_- t1_jeascsa wrote

That's not a refutation of the point, and I have to conclude from that that you fail to understand humans and our needs on the whole.

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DancingConstellation t1_jeasqup wrote

It absolutely is a refutation. You are confusing wants with needs (as well as not understanding what a right is).

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o_-o_-o_- t1_jeaugmr wrote

"No"

Sure it's a refutation technically, but what I meant (my bad - I should have been more specific), is that it's not a strong or logical one. I was using " refutation" in a more limited scope than you possibly were. A solid refutation would require you to elaborate on why enrichment is not a human need, after I talked a bit in my first comment about how abstract concepts like that are.To be fair, I could have added more evidence as to why I understand them to be needs.

Your definition of rights is arbitrary to me (i edited my last comment too late). Also to be fair to you, I wasn't really talking about rights. Just needs. All I was addressing were needs.

You should actually read my first comment. It doesn't seem like you did. That said (partially because of that), any discussion on this might not go anywhere, and I will possibly not respond again as a result. I've been on your side of things, and I don't think your position on needs (and possibly rights, based on the few words youve said on them) is convincing or compelling, so this is becoming increasingly pointless to me, to be honest. You're talking past me, and don't seem interested in reading my comment. I'm talking past you. Kind of pointless.

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IamSithCats t1_jeh4xhk wrote

Don't waste your time with this troll. He's just ignoring everything that disproves his argument.

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DancingConstellation t1_jeavlpw wrote

I didn’t give a definition of rights.

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o_-o_-o_- t1_jeax2nm wrote

Not structurally speaking? You'll have to elaborate if not.

You said:

>Rights are negative, not positive.

I think this is as arbitrary as defining a reference point or normalizing chosen constants to 1. Maybe even more arbitrary than that. Your focus on that structural definition implies to me that we have very different focus in the first place.

It's also outside of the point I was discussing, and I didn't claim you defined rights (edit: fair, i did use the word definition initially), just that we have different positions on what little we've discussed on them.

And so the conversation veers further and becomes further confused...

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