which is more important to you?

freedom... i take my life into my own hands daily anyway, why should my boons be taken away beasue someone wants to minorly up the odds against me?

A balance of course, ultimate freedom is anarchy, ultimate safety is prison.

I'd say safety is more important, because without this, society would not work, for the most part society is possible because of laws for our safety which infringe upon our freedom. Why would I particularly want the freedom to go and kill someone, I'd much rather have people stopped from killing others.

but if you had to choose one...be free and possibly be destroyed, or stay safe and sound, but under someone's rule?

I would rather be free and dead than alive and imprisoned.

There's no logical deduction to argue one way or the other, neither is more beneficial. It comes down purely to one's core values. That makes this a potential flame war thread I think =)

*DarkStorm cries:* FREEDOM!

ugh... if i hear another Braveheart referance im gonna spew...

...never saw it.

so says the offender

What did I say that was from Braveheart?!

I'd rather have a law against murder with a punishment for it and to deter the act of murder to make it less likely for me to get murdered rather than be dead and free....

What if they were a benelovent ruler, and genuinly wanted to preserve your life, while the world fell down?

Freakin freedom Jordyn. Like I said, this is purely people's own opinions. I'm a die-hard freedom supporter. I can live in a state of anarchy because I respect Darwinian theory. If I'm offed, I was weaker than the person who offed me, and I deserved to be offed...

...think about it.

I have my doubts whether Darwinian theory would apply to humans with say, guns. Besides Darwinian theory is a macro theory, which means you could very likely be shot dead by a nerd with a gun.

so than it would come back down to wild west standards...who's the faster draw? My gun is bigger than your gun?

I'd go for freedom to...all rulers become tyrants...eventually I just thought this would stimulate some good debate...and naturally my favorite discussionists pounced on it immediatly

Well that would depend on the situation..... if anachy was declared now, a select few would be able to use weapons of mass destruction, the sort that were not about at the time of the wild west, in other words anarchy would not be possible right now, as the few with weapons powerful enouh to threaten people while in concreate bunkers of protection would probably rule society, followed by a rising of the people to stop them by blowing up their bunkers, a society is created and back to square one.....

Society simply won't function on a large scale without laws to keep us together as civilisation.

If total anarchy/freedom was acheived we would be reduced (or ellevated depending on your viewpoint) to the same status as animals, living in small numbers, achieveing happy-ness but with no technological advancement.

Of course whether you consider this a good thing or not is entirely up to you......

well I think it would be good thing...society has become so twisted and corrupted, that there are very few good things in it anymore...it needs to be wiped out, so hopefully people will realize what led to the decay, learn from it and build something better...but I tend to be a bit on optimistic side

Personally I think from everything society has achieved more good has risen than bad, so keep it!

Think about it though.

No mass-communication (no darkforum), no hospitals, no system for moderating doctors (your own offspring risking death due to ignorant treatment), no reliable electricity source (unless it is a post-apocalyptic situation, in which case you have mobile genrators), inbreeding, having to work night and day to get food (again unless post-apocalyptic sources of food are available).And all of the other effects of no large-scale society.

Freedom, definitely... and about anarchy... I'm going to save my pro-anarchism breath right now; I'm too tired of discussing it... here, read this to answer any questions, it's neat, well-thought out, etc.

http://www.infoshop.org/faq/index.html

"Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for."
- Socrates

I can see your point about anarchy perhaps I'm using the wrong word.

In that case I'd say total freedom would be chaos and not anarchy, because I am all for equality and the break-down of hierarchy.

The problem is we don't all have the same views (some murderers think murder is okay, although I suppose it could be understandable in certain circumstances), the perfect society for me would still have laws in the best interest though (laws against murder), it would simply be a balance between freedom and safety, it would have a large helping of tolerance.

Heh, maybe I'm an Anarchist after all.

"Laws" like that are upheld by the natural order of things in an ideal anarchist society; there is no executive body to enforce them, but people will do what is in their best interest (murdering someone is not in your best interest, because then their friend will kill you ).