Let’s imagine this new year as a blank slate. It’s like an empty house: what would we like to put in it? This is a kind of minimalism. We can start afresh, tossing out everything and only placing in this empty house what we find most important, and nothing more.
Tag: action
The Guarantor of Freedom & Just/Unjust Government (15m) – Editor’s Break 127
Editor’s Break 127 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: two articles, one he wrote in April of 2008 on the right to own firearms, and one he wrote in June of 2008 on delineating between justified and unjustified government action.
Appeasing Robin Hanson’s Critics
Appeasement is greatly underrated. As I’ve explained before: Didn’t the Munich Agreement prove for all time that appeasement doesn’t work? Hardly. Despite its well-hyped failures, appeasement is an incredibly effective social strategy for dealing with the unreasonable and the unjust… also known as 90% of mankind. Whenever someone makes bizarre demands upon me, my default is not…
The Way of Politicians
Evil bastards who understand psychology are particularly dangerous, because there are so many ways to bypass people’s ability to reason, by manipulating and playing off of their feelings, emotions, and just psychological habits.
Rhetorical Hocus Pocus
You and I owe society and nation nothing, and neither of these abstractions owes, or can owe, us anything. When national political leaders purport to place obligations on us, they are attempting to sucker us into doing what they want us to do by claiming that we have a legitimate obligation to do it.
The Changes in Culture
I think we recognize “renegades” because they are the ones who often seem to trigger the changes in society. However, I think this is only the visible representation of something deeper.
On Pushing Boundaries III
As I’ve already written, politics swims downstream from culture. Change the culture, change politics. What does culture swim downstream from? Only that which has any effect at changing it: renegade behavior.
Go Go GoFund.gov!
Unlike most Americans, Kolfage did something above and beyond voting and complaining to assuage his dissatisfaction: He started a campaign to raise $1 billion in voluntary funding for the wall, using “crowdfunding” site GoFundMe. As of December 23, the campaign had raised more than $16 million.
On Progressivism
Progressivism as a philosophy is about improving the human condition. In my opinion, the only way to improve the human condition is to improve the conditions wherein a person may act.
Politics Doesn’t Improve Your Life
Life is needlessly complicated when you believe you need to control other people, since they’ll believe they should control you, too. You’ll probably both take the shortcut of electing someone to do the controlling for you, but the results are the same, if not worse.