Thinking about the future – even some daydreaming – is fine and natural, but do it while you’re doing something to move forward into the future. This is the only way to keep imagination – which can tend toward darkness and anxiety or grandiosity – in check.
Category: Blogs
The official Everything-Voluntary.com blog.
Changing Your Beliefs
I used to think people could change their beliefs. I thought if people were presented with better information which showed the flaw in their belief, they would change their belief to fit the new information. I thought the process would be almost automatic.
Feel Challenge, Not Pride, from Your Heritage
If you were born in America, you were gifted with quite a heritage: explorers, craftsmen, warriors, statesmen, sailors, writers, and artists from Henry David Thoreau and Thomas Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis and Thomas Edison. Should you take pride in that heritage?
On Socialism
As most economists and political scientists agree, capitalism is “the private ownership of the means of production” and socialism is “the public/state ownership of the means of production.”
Want to Reform the Criminal Justice System? End the Drug War
“It pitted police against the communities that they serve,” says neuroscientist Carl Hart in my new video. Hart, former chair of Columbia University’s Psychology department, grew up in a tough Miami neighborhood where he watched crack cocaine wreck lives. When he started researching drugs, he assumed that research would confirm the damage drugs did.
The Deeper the Disagreement, the Higher the Stakes, the More Important the Honesty
Man, I thought the culture wars were bad when I was a kid. It’s cliche to say now that people are more divided along political lines than ever, so I’ll spare you. You know it. And that divide is particularly evident when people try to communicate with each other.
On Radical Woke Feminism
Alright I’m calling it: Dworkian feminism will marry racial wokeness and conclude that I am a racist rapist because my wife has more melanin in her skin than me.
A Modest Proposal for Compromise on “Confederate” Military Bases
Don’t rename those “Confederate” bases. Instead, shut them down. Completely. Move or destroy the weapons, move or discharge the troops, and sell the real estate (with contract clauses forbidding use of the bases’ names or namesakes in subsequent uses).
The New Censors
Do you say what you think? That’s risky! You may get fired! You’ve probably heard about a New York Times editor resigning after approving an opinion piece by Senator Tom Cotton that suggested the military to step in to end riots. Many Times reporters tweeted out the same alarmist wording, “Running this puts Black NY Times staffers in danger.” Really? How?
Rothbard’s Conceived in Liberty: The New Republic
I’ve been waiting to read the fifth volume of Murray Rothbard’s Conceived in Liberty for over 30 years. Now my former student Patrick Newman, professor at Florida Southern College, has miraculously undeleted this “lost work.” Patrick’s quasi-archaeological efforts are nothing short of amazing, but how does the actual book hold up?