Preferences are frequently discounted as selfish impulses, but they are probably the second most important class of property that one owns. The first, in my opinion, is your time and space, the outward manifestation of your self.
Year: 2017
Country Living, Pelatarchy, Privatization, & Policing (22m) – Editor’s Break 042
Editor’s Break 042 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: submitting questions or comments for the podcast at the top of Everything-Voluntary.com, country living vs. city living, a new word coined by Skyler: pelatarchy, hyperbolic criticisms of privatizing government services, trusting people with power vs. trusting people with freedom, and why policing is an insult to justice.
Policing is an Insult to Justice
Since laws are backed by threat of violence, their enforcement is a criminal act. One cannot serve justice in the process of creating an injustice. It’s an impossibility.
A Matter of Scale
At what scale do you suddenly think that human interaction and peaceful coexistence requires, or is even helped by, giving some people permission to forcibly rule everyone else?
Only the Rich
The government gives an excludable good away for free: roads, parks, education, medicine, whatever. Then some economist advocates privatization of one of these freebies. Technocrats may offer some technical objections to privatization. Normal people, however, will respond with a disgusted rhetorical question: “So only the rich should have roads / parks / education / medicine / whatever?”
Pelatarchy: When the Customer Reigns Supreme
Ultimately, customers decide what and when contents get exchanged in the context of voluntary human relations. This means that customers are the decision-makers of last resort, and supreme ruler over their engagements.
Town and Country
What is the great attraction of the city? We have gone from a world in which most of us were living on the land to a world where it is nearly impossible to experience the unartificial. Why have we accumulated in these urban enclaves?
10 Ways to Use the Post-Holiday Lull for Personal Growth
Welcome to the post-holiday lull, one of the few anomalous weeks in the year when even the United States slows down for a bit. The entire continents of South America and Europe are on holiday. Everyone in the office is still out on vacation, or they’re working remotely. And you have the week off.
Obligations, Ideologies, Misogyny, & Regifting (33m) – Editor’s Break 041
Editor’s Break 041 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: the coercive nature of customs and the obligations they create, when friends change ideologies and accuse you of being the one who’s changed, an accepted form of misogyny in marriage, individualism, the economics of regifting, what to do when a friend or family member becomes a cop, and more.
Polite Pirates
A: “Greetings. How are you this fine evening?” B: “Well, I was good. Who are you, and why are you pointing a gun at me?” A: “I’m your friendly neighborhood car-jacker, and I will be robbing you tonight.” B: “Is this a joke?” A: “Oh, I assure you this is no joke. I’m a respectable…