The most dangerous beliefs are those considered “settled” or “consensus”. Those are the ideas that close minds, kill curiosity, and end exploration. Those are also the ideas that have people supporting the harassment, caging, and killing of dissenters.
Category: Blogs
The official Everything-Voluntary.com blog.
Failing in a Crisis – And All The Time
Government-supremacists are desperately trying to interpret government’s actions during the pandemic in such a way to make them seem smart– or at least honest. And they are failing. Hard.
“Essential”: What’s in a Word?
Are you an “essential worker” who needs to be on the job? Do you run a “non-essential business” that’s required to close and isn’t eligible for a government bailout? When you leave your home is it for “essential travel” or are you engaging in “non-essential activity?”
Protesting the Protestors Who are Protesting Tyranny
It seems that the protests against the coronavirus shut-downs are really upsetting government-supremacists around the world; turning them into protestor-haters.
From Telework to Flexible Wages?
The simplest explanation is that the current recession is terrible. Quite right; maybe it’s twice as terrible as the Great Recession. But last time around, I heard zero first-hand reports of nominal wage cuts, and near-zero such stories in the news. I can understand a doubling of incidents, but not this.
Making One More Coronavirus Prediction
I’m going out on a limb to make another coronavirus prediction. You can decide for yourself, with hindsight, how my previous predictions have held up — and hindsight will get clearer as more time passes.
You’ll Have To Be a Little Crazy To Return to Normalcy
Normalcy is never a safe bet at any time. Even when there’s not a WHO-designated pandemic, there’s always the risk that the next hands we shake will carry the virus or bacteria that will kill us. There’s always the risk that we’ll get infected, injured, insulted, exposed, defrauded, or abandoned whenever we interact with our fellow human beings.
The Ongoing History of Civilizational Change
When pre-civilizations become too small for their liveliness, they give way to civilizations. When civilizations become too pleased with their greatness, they give way to anti-civilizations.
Whither the Precautionary Principle?
Over the last half century or so, regulators and activists have regularly invoked the precautionary principle versus industrial and commercial concerns: Will this new car wash ruin the nesting grounds of the Great Purple-Crested Bandersnatch? Could construction of that pipeline conceivably pollute a river? Might the noise from a proposed refinery disturb the sleep of some nearby Mrs. Nimby? Then came COVID-19.
Harvard Magazine Calls for a “Presumptive Ban” on Homeschooling: Here Are 5 Things It Got Wrong
As a Harvard alum, longtime donor, education researcher, and homeschooling mother of four children in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I was shocked to read the article, “The Risks of Homeschooling,” by Erin O’Donnell in Harvard Magazine’s new May-June 2020 issue. Aside from its biting, one-sided portrayal of homeschooling families that mischaracterizes the vast majority of today’s homeschoolers, it is filled with misinformation and incorrect data. Here are five key points that challenge the article’s primary claim that the alleged “risks for children—and society—in homeschooling” necessitate a “presumptive ban on the practice”.