Depending on how many times you choose curiosity in any given track – computers, hardware, building, gardening, painting, etc – you can either become an expert or become someone who relies on experts. There’s no shame in either, but think about how you’re reacting to problems. Your curiosity or passivity now will shape your future.
Tag: discipline
Discipline, Homeschooling Intolerance, Politics and Development (23m) – Editor’s Break 091
Editor’s Break 091 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: what it means to discipline a child and whether he’d be okay with other people disciplining his children; what to do about your anger or prejudice toward a loved one who has decided to keep their children home from school; how politics, the use of violence in society, can affect societal and economic development; and more.
A Critique and a Defense of Mythologizing the Past
Was Abraham Lincoln really a moral leader who saved the United States and ended slavery? Did George Washington really save the Continental Army and win the American revolution? Was Thomas Jefferson really a forward-thinking liberalizer?
Anti-Israelism and Anti-Semitism: The Invidious Conflation
As I’ve explained, this bill incorporates a conception — a “definition” plus potential examples — of anti-Semitism that conflates criticism of Israel’s founding and continuing abuse of the Palestinians with anti-Semitism for the purpose inoculating Israel from such criticism. Anti-Zionist Jews and others have objected to this conflation for over 70 years.
The Danger of Discipline without Direction
The value of finishing a task is relative to what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. If finishing a task makes you a better human being and you genuinely believe that it’s the right choice for you, then you should finish what you started even it’s uncomfortable. If sticking with a task robs you of your time, your money, your health, your joy, or anything else that really matters to you, then it’s self-defeating to keep going merely for the sake of proving to others that you’re a disciplined person.
The Voluntaryist Premise
Once a person adopts the label of voluntaryist (or the like) for their political identity, they assume, with good reason, the following premise: human suffering is terrible and should be prevented; aggression and coercion necessarily create human suffering. This premise leads the voluntaryist to hold a number of hypotheses with varying degrees of accuracy in some form or fashion within their minds at all times. Here are several of those hypotheses.
Liberty, Vice, Virtue, and Self-Discipline
It is not the fault of your tools that you break them, and it is not the fault of your gifts that you waste them. The role of liberty is not to make you good, but to allow you to be good: you can be free and bad, but you cannot be unfree and good.
Individualism, Liberalism, and Verbal Accuracy
If you value liberty and morality, please do not misuse the word “individualism” by suggesting that it has anything to do with anti-social behavior, and do not misuse the word “liberalism” by suggesting that it has anything to do with libertinism or welfare statism.
Self-Discipline is Lame
My transition from pleasure seeker and work avoidance into a hardworking businessman did not go through an era of self-discipline. What changed was the systems I was in, and the values that I held. Any concept of excellence that I strive for today is rooted deeply in the escape from my parenting and schooling and a development and understanding of the values I hold today.
Irrational and Negligent
What’s wrong with your intellectual opponents? One of the most popular answers is that they’re “stupid and evil.” Most of the thinkers I respect go out of their way to disavow this facile answer. Indeed, most of the thinkers I respect go out of their way to praise their opponents’ intelligence and virtue. They don’t merely opine, “We can disagree without being disagreeable.” They put those who disagree with them on a pedestal. My respect notwithstanding, this seems odd. If your opponents are so great, why are they still your opponents?