Ask Lemmy

Digital privacy. It should be illegal to track and store data on people without their consent.

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.

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

The right to die. At least in the US, the way we treat end of life is absolutely backwards and often the opposite of patient care. If someone wants to die despite therapy and health intervention, who are we to deny them?

• The right to solidarity, i.e. all should be allowed to partake in solidary action during a strike.
• The right of initiative and right to recall.
• The right to free software, or freedom from proprietary software.
• The right to a third place, i.e. ready access to physical spaces that allow for socializing with strangers.
• Freedom from eviction (mainly wrt rent strikes and squatting.)
• The right to democratic education.
• The right to cross borders.
• The right to be forgotten.
• The right to purpose, or freedom from meaningless labor. This includes the right to an employee fund.

And there are of course other things. I just think that under the world's current paradigm, these, at least individually, seem relatively attainable without a literal revolution.

The right to access the internet via broadband wherever possible. Money should not prevent this.

Data ownership.

Everything you do, every action you take, is commodified down to the very steps you take. Even if you refuse to participate, there will be a "you" shaped hole due to the amount of related data.

Overall we are all generating huge amounts of data, content and financial information. We need new laws to direct the ownership and related income of the data each person generates.

In regard to the US: if we are a capitalist nation, than being an American citizen is an investment. I want to see returns on that investment.

I truthfully think privacy is dead and we need to look forward at what we can control. We can control this, and companies should not be allowed to make billions off your mere existence.

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.

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.

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 living wage for every human. This society have the money to cover all, but still we accept to let other humans die on poverty because "they don't contribute to the capitalism". Fucking disgusting everyday.

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).

Access to open source, end to end encrypted technology. Particularly for messaging/ communication.

Irrevocable right of bodily expression

Irrevocable right to abortion

Irrevocable right to euthanasia

No tax exemptions for any type of religion.

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?

I think you're using the word right correctly, ultimately you're pointing out things that you think people should have inherently and that shouldn't be based on merits or taken from someone based on crimes. I generally agree with your list, though to add on I think that the right to transportation is fundamental to enabling most opportunities in a society and that the United States could greatly improve upon their public transit system.

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.

I think one problem with this is, most of you are all talking about positive rights. Rights are things government can't take away not things the government gives you. Rights are inherent. Think of it as more the government can't deny you food, not, the government will supply you food. The one post about abortion would be that the government can't deny you medical autonomy, that would cover it, as well as dying if desired. Then the debate just has to decide when a life is a life and requires protection (not having that debate here)

Right to Information

Allowing the public to get access to information without it being censored or hidden.

I believe in "to each according to need," (or to put it into the language of a "right," the right to fulfillment of your needs.) but I don't trust "countries" to do that. There's a long history of governments saying they're doing that while perpetuating the worst atrocities.