I know some places are more progressive in this regard. But from the U.S., I’d like to see every person entitled to:
- shelter
- food
- healthcare
- education and higher education
(As an aside, not sure “right” is the best term here, I think of these more as commitments that society would make because we have abundance. One advantage of the word “right” is that a person is justified in expecting it - it’s not welfare/ a benefit / a privilege)
Digital privacy. It should be illegal to track and store data on people without their consent.
Hmm. If you were to assault me, and my friend took your picture while you’re doing it, should you be allowed to forbid my friend from publicly posting that picture?
A picture of you is certainly data about you. And you’d presumably prefer that they not publish evidence that you assaulted me. However, I think it’s in the public interest that my friend should get to publish their photo even without your consent.
A single picture is circumstantial. I’m more talking about mass collections of information for some kind of data analysis.
That’s where the reasonable expectation of privacy provision usually comes into play. It is already illegal to go up to the window of someone’s home and take pictures of them, why then is it legal for companies like google to gather information about your activity, such as browsing habits, without asking or even notifying you. Microsoft is another really bad offender here, modern versions of Windows collect and transmit massive amounts of telemetry regarding everything from what hardware you’re using to what programs you run and how often, just as a basic part of the operating system.
I don’t understand why people always talk about Microsoft. ALL mainstream operating systems track everything you do. If anything, Microsoft were the last to join the party.
The reason is that windows is used on nearly 3/4 of all desktop computers (source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-7/), but that doesn’t change the question of ‘why the fuck should anoybody be allowed to do that?’ Also I would call Linux at least mainstream parallel, in that I would guess most people have at least heard of it, and it doesn’t inherently track your activity.
First of all, most people are using their mobile devices for the most time, so tracking in Android and iOS is a lot more important. Also more people have phones than desktops.
Second, Linux distros have tracking too. Ubuntu for example.
I won’t argue that tracking on mobile isn’t more important, but I will argue that it shouldn’t be allowed at all, or at least not without an informative opt in for those systems who insist on having one. And when I say informative I mean telling the user exactly what information is being gathered, why, how often, and who else can see or gets sold it.
I agree, but once again - why so much hate towards Microsoft specifically? They have less invasive tracking of all, which can easily be disabled. Unlike what you’re getting from Google and Apple.
Anyone held in prison, jail, or other confinement shall be permitted to post up to one kilobyte (1024 characters) of text every day. These posts shall be published on a public web site operated by the imprisoning authority, and in print form in the imprisoning authority’s capital city or other central location. These posts shall be tagged with the prisoner’s name, geographic location, and any identification number the imprisoning authority uses.
This serves a few purposes:
- No government or other authority may hold a prisoner secretly.
- All prisoners may plead their innocence to anyone who cares to hear.
- No prisoner is to be held in such complete isolation that they can’t communicate to the public about the conditions of their imprisonment.
- Anyone interested in auditing the state of their government’s prisons may begin by inspecting the stated locations of prisoners.
- Any prisoner who is not literate shall be afforded literacy education to enable them to participate.
This may go awry if some prisoners are not remorseful. For example, let’s say an extremist murdered some women because he believes them to be inferior. They could use this as a platform it to spout their ideals and to convince others to do it. It would also make it trivial to pass messages from imprisoned gang members outwards to the still-free members. Not exactly things we want to encourage.
It’s also never going to be an effective method for transparency once the government/facility inevitably starts censoring certain contributors for more or less legitimate safety concerns. Most inmates already have ways to communicate with the outside world anyway through their lawyers and families, so I don’t really see the point for either side of the cell door.
I think there’s some legitimate concern about essentially giving prisoners a broadcast. You’re right that they ought to have some minimum amount of guaranteed communication, but more in the sense that they can call their family or friends without having to pay fees.
Also would love to see solitary confinement outlawed.
Also another problem would be that some languages are more character-efficient than others. E.g. Chinese vs English vs Navajo.
surprised no one has brought this up, but freedom from religion. Shouldn’t have your life incessantly bombarded by people trying to pressure you into what amounts to a socially acceptable cult
There are some countries (Indonesia) which it is mandatory to have a religion, at least it must be listed in your ID. Atheists will just list any (official) religion they want on it and don’t practice. Sucks that it’s so easy to discriminate people based on that.
The right to access the internet via broadband wherever possible. Money should not prevent this.
Especially now, where it’s pretty much impossible to do any administrative paperwork without any internet access
UBI, it’s hard to believe people see the way things are going with AI and Automation and they’re not talking more about Universal Basic Income.
A 7 year limit on having old posts, videos, writings, or other records of your words and opinions used against you. This includes no more lifetime bans on anything. If you change your ways and keep your nose clean for seven years, society can no longer use your past actions against you.
This does not apply to criminal sentencing of course, though that whole mess should be reexamined much more frequently.
You could just not tweet something racist? Also how the hell do you plan on enforcing this? If I want to not be your friend because of something I know you did how are you going to force me?
I think we’ve reached a point technologically that it’s entirely within our grasp to secure the base layer of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for everyone. Air, water, food, shelter, clothing, medical care.
I hadn’t thought about air, but seems like it will become a more and more relevant right (and one everyone can claim even in a more traditional sense of a right)
Others have covered it pretty well. Food, shelter, healthcare would be the highest immediate priorities I would think. We have the means, we just don’t have the will or the culture (collectively speaking anyhow).
Once food, water, shelter, clothing, and health care are covered (or alternatively, a universal basic income that covers these needs), I’d like to see us start establishing rights for intelligent animals.
Access to open source, end to end encrypted technology. Particularly for messaging/ communication.
Seems like you might want to go broader than talking about a specific method or feature of technology. Maybe something like “right to private communication”?
Bro just download Whatsapp
WhatsApp isn’t open source as far as I’m aware. Also weird seeing a plug for a Meta app on Lemmy…
I’ll die first.
I’m not quite THAT hardcore, but if someone only has whatsapp… then apparently we’re back to calling eachother on the phone like cavemen
The right to quit, if things get corporate and greedy and the people, the people who actually form the community only get screwed over. Whether it’s a job, a club, or a social media platform.
Welcome to at-will employment. Be careful of exactly what you’re asking for.
No one is forcing you to work the job you don’t like.
Maybe not a right but more a commitment for governments towards public transportation. Not having a car makes everything so much harder. Having as much coverage as possible within reason, more buses and drivers, expanding metro lines. Right now in my city it is just “bearable”, I am at least grateful I can do things like see buses on the map and transferring to trains is easy. Was much worse before! Not like governments wouldn’t be able to make their money back, and imagine how many less car crashes and traffic clogs we could have. Not to mention the environmental benefits.
Also electric buses are cool. So quiet and can charge in them.
Edit: To elaborate on why it should be a right: it is not like in the olden days when you could walk to the store or your job. Everything is simultaneously dense and far thanks to how zoning works and cities being car-oriented. The right to mobility exists in America, but what if we took it further and made sure you really could go where you wanted without having to invest in a car?
Public transportation should be free for everyone on top of that. We need to do everything possible to discourage driving in favour of public transport for the sake of the environment and our future selves, plus the bus driver would no longer be able to turn away poor people on hot days.
I think rather it should be free if you are poor, like food stamps. The bus fare definitely stings but I’m always happy to pay it knowing it is going to maintain the system. This is even more important in this hypothetical situation if you have tons of projects towards improving public transportation going on.
Also great username. :)
The reason I think it should be free for everyone is to incentivize choosing public transit over personal vehicles and would gladly pay more taxes to make public transportation free. You have no choice but to pay the tax, so you might as well use the system you’ve already paid to improve.
And thank you 😊
and would gladly pay more taxes to make public transportation free.
So then donate that money to the government yourself and don’t force everyone else to be stuck with your crappy taxes
It’s called social spending and it is part of being a society.
Your ability to drive whenever and wherever you want is literally killing people and you don’t even care. That’s kinda gross.
Edit: To elaborate on why it should be a right: it is not like in the olden days when you could walk to the store or your job. Everything is simultaneously dense and far thanks to how zoning works and cities being car-oriented. The right to mobility exists in America, but what if we took it further and made sure you really could go where you wanted without having to invest in a car?
Walkability isn’t some relic of a bygone era that we can’t have back again; it’s just a feature of building your city correctly. Traditional development patterns still work better than any of the modernist alternatives we’ve tried, even in 2023.
In other words, the Suburban Experiment of the last 70 years wasn’t actually the progress people thought it was. Instead, it was simply a fuck-up that we need to correct. As such, although mandating access to public transit would be nice to have, it’s not actually the necessary solution here. What we actually need is simply to fix or even repeal the zoning code so that property owners are allowed to build appropriately again.
I don’t know where you got the idea walkability is an impossible goal, definitely agree with all of it. Much easier in the meantime to build up public transport though than it is to unfuck urban zoning.
Much easier in the meantime to build up public transport though than it is to unfuck urban zoning.
On the contrary, unfucking zoning can be done with the stroke of a pen. Sure, it takes time for the market to react to the change by building more housing etc., but so does planning and constructing transit projects. More to the point, building up public transit requires both legislation and allocating tax dollars, while fixing zoning requires legislation alone.
Fuck that. I don’t want the government taking my money just to waste it on this garbage.
Right to Information
Allowing the public to get access to information without it being censored or hidden.
New? How about old. Aside from the recent rights lost in the US wrt bodily autonomy/privacy (see Dobbs, etc.), what about the “Second Bill of Rights” as put forth by FDR?
No, let’s not revive the abysmal policy of that good for nothing stain on American history that was too much of a worthless sack of shit to even figure out how to do something as basic as walking
Control of my own work product.
That is, workplace democracy. Out with the oligarchs!
You can always go freelance or start a company, no one’s controlling the projects you work on then.
Assuming I could survive that way, eventually my choices would be “become an exploiter” or “establish a worker’s coop.”
The owner class are parasites.
Most people are not in a financial position to start their own business. And in a sense, starting your own business in a best case results in a benevolent dictatorship. Every person makes mistakes and has blind spots. So one person should not be in charge of decisions controlling everyone’s work.
I would encourage people to freelance or start a co-op, and I think in the long term large co-ops (like fortune 500 size) are the preferable path. But if we waited for bootstrapped co-ops to reach critical mass we’d be waiting hundreds of years. One thing I’m excited about is the Obran cooperative, because they look set to convert private businesses to co-ops at a relatively large scale.
From a government standpoint in the long term I think about businesses with more than one employee being required to use one person one vote governance. (not necessarily all direct democracy, for example it could be electing a board who appoints management) But we’re a long ways away from that and it would be smart to move in phases to not destroy the actual value in existing corporations. So maybe some policies as a starting point would be: government funds for creating co-ops and converting co-ops, bidding advantage for co-ops responding to government RFPs and a requirement for corporations of certain size to have some minimum employee representation on their board.
