I was just watching some edgy songs (at the time) from the 1980s and I realized that something very disturbing has happened to counter culture. Fighting “the man” used to be venerated in certain circles. Media outlets praised it. Most interesting music revolves around it. Humor was largely based on it. Teenage slang was antiestablishment. Every bully parent were people pushing the norms on a kid that wanted to be different. Today, Antiestablishment media is not allowed.
Tag: culture
How Does School Wound? Let Us Count The Ways (36m) – Episode 457
Episode 457 has Skyler reading and adding commentary on a blog post by psychology research professor Dr. Peter Gray, who shares and analyzes research by Dr. Kirsten Olson on the many wounds caused by schooling.
Hey Joe, Where You Goin’ With That Pen in Your Hand?
On his first partial day as president, Joe Biden issued 17 “executive orders, memorandums and proclamations” — two more than America’s first five presidents issued over their 36 years in office.
The Trump/Biden Handoff: Back to Business as Usual, as Usual
Few will find it surprising that the incoming Biden administration looks, in both form and function, a lot like the Obama administration of 2009-2017. After all, Joe Biden served as Barack Obama’s vice-president for those eight years. His staff and cabinet appointments comprise a veritable Who’s Who of Obama holdovers and members of Biden’s own political circle, built over decades in the Senate and White House.
A Sea of Counter Conformity
We live in a sea of conformity and signaling. We are drowning in it, and, to some degree, this is okay. We are a social species, and we need to accept that the social nature of the species expresses itself in this way. I am on the far side of the spectrum that feels moderately comfortable being unacceptable, but I am an aberration. Even in myself, I feel the same social impulses everyone feels.
The Road to a Dim Dystopia
What has happened with tech companies over the last several years have really challenged certain perceptions I have held on government, private businesses, and markets.
Welfare for the Wealthier? What Else is New?
The main function of the state is to redistribute wealth from the productive class to the political class. That’s inherently an upward redistribution, and the “middle class” is half-fish, half-fowl: Partly productive class, partly a hodgepodge of political constituencies well-positioned to grab a share of the grift as bribes for their continuing support.
Aphorisms in Honor of Liberty, Part Eight (28m) – Episode 418
Episode 418 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following aphorisms written by Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski: “A good economist believes that his role is to improve the public’s understanding of the market. A bad economist believes that his role is to improve the market’s understanding of the public.”; “A democratic state is a device whereby everyone gets a chance to assert his nuisance value on a social scale.”; “A foolish environmentalist wants to save nature from the greed of the market by exposing it to the tragedy of the commons. A smart environmentalist wants to save nature from the tragedy of the commons by exposing it to the greed of the market.”; “Happiness without liberty is no more possible than wisdom without knowledge.”; “Believing that the state can promote culture is like believing that putting a gun to someone’s head is a gentleman’s offer.”; “A utopian believes in changing human nature. A realist believes in unleashing its potential.”
Cultural Superiority Isn’t Racism: Why Western Values Underpin the World’s Best Countries
Elements of the left and their allies in the media are constantly driving this point home: White people are bad and so is the culture that they have created. Everything we value as a society is bad and, more than that, little more than an ex post facto justification for the subjugation of non-whites. Western…
How to Stop Bullying
Bullying is a strategy that results from certain psychological incentives and coercive institutions. There is a reason it is highly prevalent in coercive atmospheres (school, prison), but very rare in freely associated atmospheres (business).