From the definition it can be deduced that **freedom can almost be equated with [minimalism](minimalism.md)** and those looking for genuine freedom start following minimalism very soon. At first it may not exactly be clear why, but in fact freedom and minimalism are inevitably connected: minimalism means [needing](dependency.md) a little; needing something enslaves us by FORCING us to satisfy the need and freeing ourselves of the need gives us the extra choice: to do something or not to do it, as it is now no longer obligatory. Therefore minimalism implies more choice and so, by definition, more freedom. Minimalism is not about having little, but needing little; a minimalist won't have a car or luxury house not because he couldn't achieve to have one, but because it's pointless to do so, just as it's pointless to buy something that will never be of any use or value. In the same fashion minimalist technology offers more choice: more people can understand it, repair it, improve it; minimalist software is less demanding and so there is more choice of where it can be installed and used, it is smaller so there is more choice in how to share it (unlike big software it may be shared via floppy disk, low bandwidth connection or even on paper), and so on. It is only natural that people who seriously look for attaining mental/spiritual freedom have often resorted to [asceticism](asceticism.md), at least for a period of time (e.g. [Buddha](buddha.md)) -- this is very commonly not done with the intent of actually giving up all materialistic pleasures forevermore, but rather to let go of the [dependency](dependency.md) on the them, to know and see that one really can live without them if needed so that one becomes less afraid of losing them, which is often what internally enslaves us. It's a way for attaining minimalism. Without even realizing it we are nowadays addicted to many things (games, social media, overeating, shiny gadgets, ...) like an alcoholic is to booze; it is not necessarily bad to drink alcohol, but it is bad to be addicted to it -- to free himself the alcoholic needs to abstain from alcohol for a long period of time. Our chains are often within ourselves: for example we often don't have the freedom to say what we want to say because that might e.g. ruin our career, preventing us from enjoying our expensive addictions -- once we don't worry about this, we gain the freedom to say what we want. Once you rid yourself of fear of jail, you gain the freedom to do potentially illegal things, and so on. Additionally going through the experience of letting go of pleasures very often opens up your eyes and mind, new thoughts emerge and one reevaluates what's really important in life.
**Freedom implies elimination of responsibility.** Beginners often erroneously think that freedom must come with responsibility, but investing about a minute of thinking reveals the opposite is in fact true. Responsibility implies punishment for bad decisions, even if the punishment is only internal (feeling bad about what one has done etc.) and a threat of punishment for some decision effectively removes the option, i.e. ad absurdum responsibility is like having a man pointing gun at you, saying "don't you dare do A, or else" -- you are not physically prevented from doing A, but the threat effectively makes you not be able to choose A, reducing freedom. The logic of "freedom with responsibility" therefore argues that for example people under oppressive totalitarian regimes have [freedom of speech](free_speech.md) because their mouth is not physically sewed shut to prevent them from speaking, they can really say anything they want, they just have to accept they will be executed along with their whole family if they say something bad.
NOTE: One may ask how will [LRS](lrs.md) deal with the above? If we argue for true freedom, do we argue for feeling no responsibility even for things like murder etc.? The answer is basically this: to make people not do bad things don't remove their freedom to do bad things, keep their freedom to do anything while making them want to choose to do good things.
Freedom is something promised by most (if not all) ideologies/movements/etc.; this is because without further specification the term is so wide it says very little -- the very basic thing to know is, of course, that **there is no such thing as general freedom**; one kind of freedom restricts other kinds of freedom -- for example so called freedom of market says that a rich capitalist is free to do whatever he wants, which leads to him enslaving people, killing the freedom of those people.
What kind of freedom is [LRS](lrs.md) interested in? Basically the freedom for living beings to do what makes them happy -- of course this can't be achieved 100% (if one desires to enslave others, their freedom would disappear), however we can get very close (make a [society](less_retarded_society.md) in which people don't wish to enslave others). For this goal we choose to support such freedoms as [free speech](free_speech.md), [free software](free_software.md), [free culture](free_culture.md), free love etc.
