
Ask HN: Social Justice vs. Individual Liberty - airframeng
In political philosophy there is a debate over these two core values that are at the basis of the main political ideologies. You can&#x27;t have one without violating the other, for some promoting social justice is more important and for others promoting individual liberty is more important. I&#x27;d like to know if this is something you HNers spend time thinking about when thinking in which direction you want to take your startup company, your career and your overall impact on the world we live in.
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mindcrime
_I 'd like to know if this is something you HNers spend time thinking about
when thinking in which direction you want to take your startup company, your
career and your overall impact on the world we live in._

I absolutely value individual liberty more highly. But I disagree that "you
can't have one without violating the other". In fact, I'll argue that
individual liberty is the basis that social justice is built on. I see no way
to have social justice _without_ acknowledging the primacy of individual
liberty as a principle. And that is because to deny us our individual liberty
is to deny us agency, which is the root of our very humanity. And how can we
have social justice in a world were we don't even treat people as human?

That said, our mission statement at Fogbeam makes it clear what things we want
to do, as a company, to try and make the world a better place:

[http://www.fogbeam.com/company.html](http://www.fogbeam.com/company.html)

These are the things we try to do at Fogbeam Labs:

→ Build software and provide services that enable organizations to display
greater “organizational intelligence;” sense, respond and react to their
environment in a more agile manner, and support more adaptive and effective
organizational structures.

→ Democratize access to advanced information processing software by
participating in the development of F/OSS software which can be used freely by
organizations of any size or nature.

→ Give back to the world by participating as an ethical member of the world-
side free-software / open-source software community.

→ Create an organization where people dedicated to the advancement of
technology will _want_ to work, will be rewarded for doing well, and will
receive nurture, guidance, and encouragement.

→ Promote entrepreneurship as the best tool available for raising the
standards of living for people worldwide, by sponsoring educational
initiatives and supporting charitable organizations which promote: STEM (
“Science / Technology / Engineering / Math”) education and education on
Economics, Business, and Entrepreneurship.

We favor. . .

→ Transparency and openness... over secrecy and information hiding … in our
relationships with each other, our partners, the F/OSS community, and our
local communities.

→ Critical thinking, logic and reason … over … superstition, blind adherence
to dogma, and groupthink.

→ Respect for the individual and their freedom of choice … over … herd
mentality, conformance for the sake of conformance, and fear of what we
consider different.

→ Courage and the willingness to commit to our principles … over … knee-jerk
reactions, conformance to peer pressure, and compromise of our fundamental
values.

→ The long view and building for the future, while not sacrificing the present
… over … short-sighted compromise of our vision and values in order to achieve
a tactical objective today.

→ Being Good … over … Being Evil.

On a personal level, I'm moderately politically active in terms of supporting
the principles I believe in. I donate money to political parties (mainly the
Libertarian Party) and various advocacy groups: EFF, ACLU, NRA, 2nd Amendment
Foundation, Gun Owners of America, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms
Ownership, Citizens Committee for the Right To Keep and Bear Arms, Grassroots
NC, etc.) and I ran for Lieutenant Governor of NC in 2008 as the Libertarian
nominee. I wasn't elected, for better or for worse.

