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Happiness! [Security]

26 (31%)

Freedom! [Liberty]

58 (69%)

Total Members Voted: 84

[SiN.Daeus]

What is more important to you? Being happy? Or having the freedom to do what you want?

For me, I prefer Happiness. Because when you are happy, restricted freedom doesnt matter.

EDIT: I've enabled the option to recast your vote. Just in case you change your mind, or mess up.

[Neonivek]

What is more important to you? Being happy? Or having the freedom to do what you want?

For me, I prefer Happiness. Because when you are happy, restricted  freedom doesnt matter.

There is a contradiction there and it creates a paradox.

If your not free, how are you free to be happy?

[Keita]

Freedom, because if I'm free to do what I want I can make myself happy.

But the consiquences are not very...bright for everyone having freedom.

[Vattic]

Given that I still had freedom of thought I don't know if I could be completely happy without a reasonable degree of freedom in life.

[Cheeetar]

I voted happy.

[SiN.Daeus]

What is more important to you? Being happy? Or having the freedom to do what you want?

For me, I prefer Happiness. Because when you are happy, restricted  freedom doesnt matter.

There is a contradiction there and it creates a paradox.

If your not free, how are you free to be happy?

You're  thinking too pedantically there. In terms of freedom, I mean like the ability to choose where you live, what you want to study/work at, who you're spouse is going to be, etc. etc. Not things like 'freedom of thought' because well, nothing (that the public knows of) can monitor/control/restrict our minds...

[Sean Mirrsen]

Thing is, freedom is mostly partial to happiness. There are serious (ethical, mostly) implications of there being "happiness" without there being "freedom". There can be freedom without happiness, but I can't see happiness without freedom unless you're being artificially made happy.

That said, I still consider happiness to be the most important part in life. If you're happy with your life, it means you have exactly the degree of freedom that will make you happy.

[Neonivek]

Well there is a difference between freedom and license.

The problem is also degrees.

If you have the freedom to be happy does that include everything in the requirement there of?

Though yes you are right people often equivocate freedom and happyness (well Freedom with good)

So the question the topic creator presents us really doesn't offer much philosophical worth so much as it is a trap to see if we will use that equivocation or use prejudice to answer our questions.

Anyhow Happyness is more important then Freedom anyhow. The question only asks us what is more important, it doesn't ask us to chose one over the other. It isn't that difficult since freedom isn't really a state of being but rather in this example it is a force.

Thus we will end up with as much or as little freedom as we need if we prioritize happyness. The balance over the weights.

Hurray for Cardinal Virtues once again!

[Sean Mirrsen]

I remember a small novella by one of them sci-fi authors (could've been Asimov, but Shakley or Saimak just as likely), where a scientist made self-replicating super-advanced "humanoids" with the intent to make everyone happy. The humanoids eventially did succeed in that, throwing down a few attempts to stop them (including remotely blowing up their planet). They were literally everywhere, helping with everything, doing everything. People who didn't like what they did (there were lots, including their creator) were brainwashed to absolutely adore them.

I guess that would be the extreme of the "happiness" option of the poll.

[Neonivek]

That would be a kind of false happyness in my mind.

That would be removing freedom and happyness.

It would be prioritizing the illusion of happyness over the real thing.

[HAMMERMILL]

Freedom.

I can't imagine any situation where I would be happy but not free.

[Retro]

I don't really understand this poll. Most people seem to be agreeing that they need freedom to be happy and without freedom would not be happy, rather than one over the other.

Nevertheless I'm voting happiness.

[Virex]

Freedom.

I can't imagine any situation where I would be happy but not free.

You're not free to kill whoever is sitting next to you at a whim, nor do you have the freedom to steal your bosses shoelaces or the freedom to blow up that ugly skyscraper that's defacing the looks of the nearby city, so by your explanation you can't be happy, right?

[Sean Mirrsen]

There's another question here: does the poll presume abundance of one and absense of the other? If the options should be read as "Happiness, but no freedom" and "Freedom, but no happiness", then one is what I described, "fake happiness", and the other is just rather bad.

If, on the other hand, it's "Happiness and some freedom" and "Freedom and some happiness", then one option is what everybody would like - being happy while enjoying a necessary degree of freedom - and the other is what we have now. We're quite literally free to do anything we can, there are just repercussions for doing some things, and we're not happy as a result. If it presumes "freedom without repercussions", then there's no way you can be unhappy. If you can do anything, you can make yourself happy.

All in all, this poll is useless, that's about as much as I can factually say here.

[Pathos]

The thread should be Freedom (Liberty) vs Security (Safety) since that's what it usually is.