How to Constrain the Freedom to Choose the Best of all Possible Worlds During an Era of Uninterrupted Progress

Over the past couple days, I have dragged some of my closest friends and relatives — in some cases almost kicking and screaming (though perhaps not the very dearest ones) — and pretty much forced them to read my previous blog post… and also to discuss it with me. One result of all this mental anguish is this current blog post I am writing — but please: If you haven’t read the previous one yet, then you really must first read it  (why not do that now?).

I will simply assume you have already read it (which is quite certainly not very hard to do),

I thought I had been able to simplify away so many treacherous problems with one of my favorite quasi-progressive ideas (especially those that go beyond the status of mere typographical errors) — but it still seems as though I was mistaken and hitherto remain uninfallible.

My greatest error seems to be my unpardonable doubt that the current world is indeed the best of all possible worlds — as the incessant toil of legislators, lawmakers and the like do not apparently lead rational people to disbelief in current laws but rather to a steadfast doctrine of the present situation above and beyond anything that has ever come before (since it is now undeniably long gone since at least yesterday). My disbelief in the present state is almost universally scoffed at as underdeveloped, a sort of “heathen savage” world view… and awe and amazement over the fact that anyone would ever question the present state of progress as the undeniable best of all possible worlds.

Never for a moment do any of my interlocutors pause to wonder why legislators and lawmakers alike do not stop and retire once they have achieved perfection.

“No!” they say: “We must limit the ability of free people to live in the past.” (or something more or less equivalent and/or along those lines). For example: No one must be so free as to choose slavery… and this is unfortunately not merely paradoxical nonsense (note that every currently living American today enjoys fruits produced from the hands of slave labor, whether that be some technological product, the clothing they wear on a daily basis or the White House which was built by slaves for the esteemed American President to reside in).

Well, in order to keep a quickly lengthening story at least somewhat short, I have scrambled to find a stopgap — and this is what I have come up with: First, no one may choose a system of laws from any time other then when they have already been alive (and perhaps also living under those laws). Second, no person may ever be subjected to laws they have not at some point previously lived under (besides that sacrosanct case in which lawmakers / legislators / whatever make new [+ “improved”] laws). I hope these two added caveats might prevent and/or stop many if not even most of the loud, annoying objections from people who protest too much.