What Is The Third Position?
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This is just another kind of communism.
Trying to pretend to be some kind of light version of communism doesn't change the fact that none of this is possible without removing individual rights. Imagine trying to manage some kind of fucking bureaucracy where you have to figure out how to create rules and guidelines for determining whether or not a company is "treating its employees fairly"… that sounds like big minimum wages and forced benefits.
The answer to all of our problems is individual freedom, and not treating a corporation as a person.
"Rights" are fake and homosexual. You can act, or not act, and there may be consequences for either choice. In our modern society, 'rights' are simply permission slips from your masters to engage in certain acts, until you do that act in a way they dislike. See Rare Breed Triggers, for a random but timely example.
Overpopulation is the enemy of individual freedom. At its extreme, no other person within 50 miles of you means there are effectively zero constraints on your behaviors by other humans. As they get closer and increase in numbers, your 'freedoms' necessarily decrease. There's some variation due to cultural and political beliefs, and who runs your society, but other people in proximity means consideration for the results of your behaviors.
As for it being communism, would you have a problem with treating your wife and children fairly? How about your mom and dad? What if you lived in a small but cohesive society where everyone was essentially like members of your family?
This is where the cracks begin to appear. Firstly, it would necessarily be a very small 'society', perhaps larger, but like an extended tribe. Secondly, the problems of ineptitude, laziness, selfishness, and retardation are difficult to solve, and would require some fairly 'bold' policies to cure. Even if those problems were solved, technology has ruined our ability to live apart from other people groups, so ideal or even tolerable societies are no longer possible. Human life is now an arms race, with living conditions dictated by the powerful.
So no, the third position is an ideal that may be possible after the pole flip, CME, and other population and technology reducing phenomena, but not in our current state.
You had me in your explanation of population density directly correlating to real freedoms, but I feel like the rest is non sequitur. Also, if the population bit is true, which I think is 100% the case, then why would we need such a "third position" after a major depopulation event?
Are you saying you think 'rights' are more than just a popular meme?
The specifics of the depopulation event would determine how the survivors live, and what kind of rules and policies they'd adopt. Our lack of ability to self-regulate is one of our biggest challenges, and I'm not sure a 'third position' after depopulation would change that a great deal.
Everything can be reduced to some abstraction level where it is apparently meaningless, but in the context of a group of people living together (in close enough proximity as to encounter each other during the ordinary course of their monthly activities), the group will need to agree on some things that we can do without question and some things that we can't do without question. The existence of a "right" is predicated on the existence of some form of limitation (law, regulation, etc.).
Think of rights as a limited blacklist rule system. Things that are rights are acceptable, except for certain things within a narrow blacklist (speech is free in the US, but screaming "fire" in a theater and threatening to murder people are both blacklisted as not acceptable).
Things not enumerated as rights can be thought of as a combination of blacklist and whitelist rule systems. For example, it is generally illegal to kill somebody, but you may be allowed to in self-defense. One could claim (in my opinion, rightfully so) that we have a right to self-defense, but because this is not enumerated as a right in the constitution, it is a debated topic.
it's clear, based on all of this, that "rights" is, at the very least, a useful abstraction when defining rules. As long as at least some rules are needed to maintain order in a collection of people living in close proximity, then it should follow that the "rights" are useful in helping to define those rules and the limitations placed on making such rules. In fact, unless you were advocating for anarchism, one could argue that the existence of "rights" is the only possible way to live in a system that has rules and still be guaranteed to not be harassed by the state for doing some basic things (like speaking your mind). Without the rule of law, rights don't matter, which is why states like California and New York coincidentally both limit your rights that are protected under the constitution and also do not enforce basic laws (like arresting shoplifters, etc.). These places both exhibit traits of a failing states, such as lacking adherence to the rule of law. These are examples of broken and corrupted government; nothing is perfect and maintenance of government, in order to prevent it turning out like these examples, is surely not an exception to that.