I spend little time studying and talking about conspiracy theories. Why? Three main reasons. First, who cares? For your knowledge about a given conspiracy to have any use, it isn’t enough for the theory to be true; you’ll need to convince the very people who are already in on it. So, what are you going to do with this information?
Tag: conspiracy
Oppression: Symptoms and Causes
It doesn’t take any great perceptiveness or astute powers of observation to notice that a lot is wrong with the world today. But if those loudly reporting the “wrongness” aren’t also aware of the root causes, and what can be done to actually change things, then mostly the message just becomes frustrating and depressing to listen to. And if people continually express righteous anger and indignation at the injustice they see, only to then propose pointless, worthless solutions—or no solutions at all—that doesn’t really help.
Why Self-Directed Education?
Written by James Davis. Six years after deciding that our family was going the route of self-directed education, it’s almost hard to remember what we used to think. When I think about my wife and I earnestly discussing whether we’d choose a conventional public school (the diversity!) or a conventional private school (the opportunities!), it’s…
Satanic Ritual Abuse?
Although it hasn’t yet reached the mainstream, there appears to be a growing resurgence of the panic and fear mongering of the 1980s regarding the thoroughly debunked claims of “satanic ritual abuse” and widespread kidnapping for such purposes. If you are seeing this trend too, please help to counter such fantastical claims with logic and truth.
You’re Afraid of Power, Not Trump
You aren’t scared of Trump the person. Trump has been on this earth for 70 years and other than a general distaste for him, no one ever feared for their life because Trump walked the earth. He could do what he wanted because he didn’t affect your life. He had no control over you. What you fear is the power he now wields.
The Trouble With Politics
Politics is of its very nature is biased in favor of intervention and planning. Even in its “minarchist” or “night-watchman” version, politics is based at root on the idea that some decisions must be made coercively and imposed on unwilling minorities – or even majorities, as the case may be. This is contrary to the principle we observe in private life every day: the consent of both parties is necessary for a transaction to take place.
Smart Phones, Spooner #17, Mental Models
Send him mail. “Finding the Challenges” is an original column appearing every other Wednesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Verbal Vol. Verbal is a software engineer, college professor, corporate information officer, life long student, farmer, libertarian, literarian, student of computer science and self-ordering phenomena. Archived columns can be found here. FTC-only RSS feed available here. Yes, I…
Conspiracy or Natural Phenomenon?
Nobody asked but … If the military-industrial-government complex were capable of ruling the world, what are the chances that they would refrain from doing so? There is no conspiracy, per se, but there is the malignant growth of the power mad. Domination is the dark side of interaction. It takes no conspiracy for a stench…
On Megalomania
I don’t need a conspiracy theory like the “New World Order” to know that there exists individuals who want power at the expense of our liberties. A simple test suffices, care of Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander of Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth epic fantasy series: Who is more dangerous, a 200 lb. mugger, or a 100 lb.…
On Government Transparency
A headline at InformationWeek reads, “Google Says Governments Fight Transparency.” Of course they do. Don’t all criminal organization try to hide their scheming from the rest of society? I would if I were a criminal. As I wrote in “Conspiracy Theorem,” the state “actively and purposefully keeps most of society in the dark on some…