Episode 370 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following aphorisms written by Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski: “A fool believes in designing markets. A person of reason believes in marketing designs.”; “A consistent freedom lover is an anarchist in the making.”; “A fool deplores the fact that without the state, the poor would be at the mercy of individual charity. A person of reason delights in the fact that without the state, the poor wouldn’t be at the mercy of institutional violence.”; “Happiness: fulfillment without boredom.”; “A nationalist is someone who praises domestic illusions out of fear of confronting foreign realities.”; “A seeming ontological nihilist believes that nothing really exists. A real ontological nihilist believes that nothing only seems to exist.”
Tag: class
White Supremacist Cops, Powell’s Books, Dark Sky Advocates, & HIV Cure (29m) – Episode 369
Episode 369 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: a new report stating that white supremacists and militias have infiltrated police forces across the United States; Powell’s Books in Portland pulling their inventory from Amazon in a bid to rebuild local community; astronomers and other dark sky advocates upset at Elon Musk’s Starlink plans to launch satellite constellations bringing internet to disadvantaged communities around the world; scientists discover a rare person whose immune system obliterates the HIV virus; and more.
Illusion of Control & Framing (18m) – Episode 021
Episode 021 looks at cognitive biases Illusion of Control and Framing.
Ian M. Returns, Minneapolis Experience, & Voluntaryist Silver Linings (55m) – Episode 368
Episode 368 welcomes back Ian Mayes to have a chat with Skyler on the following topics: working in the neighborhood where George Floyd was killed; his experience with the Minneapolis protests and riots; Kyle Rittenhouse; lockdown created tinderbox across the country and world; Minneapolis “defund the police” campaign; lack of real anti-authoritarian sentiment; political coalition building and guilt by association; civil wars and anarchists; Portland neighborhood “wake up” protests (Reason interview); voluntaryist welfare actions, ie. silver linings; restorative justice systems (Kibbe interview); and more.
Tacit Acceptance of Tyranny
Hard work being effective is a sign of a middle class and a capitalist society. Hard work isn’t the currency of the elite or privileged, it is the currency of the poor and underprivileged. Elites have no need to work hard, their currency is status, favoritism, and government. Hard work being effective is the sign of people being relatively free.
Local Tyrants Are Incredibly Diverse
The way to put checks on human interaction and incentivize respectful behavior is more liberty and a culture that promotes individualism.
With Remote Learning, Schools Are Watching and Reporting Parents at Alarming Rates
As remote learning creates more distance between school districts and students, school and state officials are clinging to control however they can. From sending Child Protective Services (CPS) agents to investigate charges of neglect in homes where children missed Zoom classes last spring, to proposing “child wellbeing checks” in homes this fall, government schools and related agencies are panicking over parents having increased influence over their children’s care and education during the pandemic.
“Prussian” Indoctrination – The Other Side
In doing a little searching for “The Prussian model” of schooling, I ran across an essay that claims to expose “The Invented History of ‘The Factory Model of Education’”. It’s important to get the other side, so I read it and I’ll give you my thoughts here.
The Long, Hot Summer of 1967: A Forgotten Season of Riots and Urban Unrest Across America
The Book of Ecclesiastes says that there is nothing new under the sun. And while many have spoken of the “unprecedented” nature of the rioting in the early summer of 2020, it is actually quite precedented. The Long, Hot Summer of 1967 was the peak of urban unrest and rioting in the United States in…
Silence is Stupid, Argument is Foolish
Public debates aside, I now only engage in intellectual arguments with thinkers who play by the rules. What rules? For starters: remain calm, take nothing personally, use probabilities, face hypotheticals head-on, and spurn Social Desirability Bias like the plague. If I hear someone talking about ideas who ignores these rules, I take evasive action. If cornered, I change the subject. Why? Because I now realize that arguing with unreasonable people is foolish.