Also, I used to believe in libertarian Fundamental Rights. However, I came to the conclusion that 'rights' is purely rhetorical (used to move people's emotions) or descriptive (descriptions of options that people generally have).
People can benefit psychologically or materially from themselves or others having certain kinds of options (e.g. 'right to free speech'), but these not 'fundamental' in any important sense.
The way I came to this view is by thinking about 'where do the definitions of rights come from?'.
Politics is the mind-killer; but rationality is the science of /winning/, even when dealing with political issues.
I've been trying to apply LessWrong and Bayesian methods to the premises and favored issues of a particular political group. (Their most basic premise is roughly equivalent to declaring that Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma programs should be 'nice'.) But, given how quickly my previous thread trying to explore this issue was downvoted into disappearing, and many of the comments I've received on similar threads, I may have a rather large blind spot preventing me from being able /to/ properly apply LW methods in this area.
So I'll try a different approach - instead of giving it a go myself again, I'll simply ask, what do /you/ think a good LW post about liberty, freedom, and fundamental human rights would look like?