alt Hacker News> Whether or not work is done is completely orthogonal.
No, it's not, because food requires work to produce. Someone has to do that work.
If you yourself are not one of the people who works to produce the food that we all need, you have only two ways of getting it:
(1) Trade something else of value for it;
(2) Force the people who do produce it to give it to you.
Option #1 is a free market. Option #2 is tyranny. There are no other choices.
Which do you pick?
Replies
This is a false dichotomy, brother. People can, and do, pool their resources to give to those who have less. Most humans aren't so cold hearted that they are ok with others starving. So no, the options aren't just "trade for food" or "force people to give you food".
If you don't feed people, they will pick for you.
The real question is do we figure it out with intention now, or let it be randomly figured out by people with nothing to lose?
Is it tyranny that my 84 year old parents get free food (via the state pension)?