Time flies when you’re having fun, but some things seem never to change. Wars lead to wars. Government leads to more government. Taxes lead to greater taxes. Modes of taxation lead to more and novel modes of taxation. Organized crime leads to organization, crime, and more organized crime.
Tag: evolution
The Propagation of Knowledge
People don’t pass you information because it is true, they pass you information because it benefits them to do so. People don’t study information because it is true, people study what information benefits them. This isn’t a slight at scientists. Few people would suggest that scientists ought to spend time studying information that has no benefit. Many scientists study information based off of flawed premises built within the culture. Few scientists get grants from disinterested parties. The force that links “knowledge” to accuracy or truth is incentives.
Can You Explain Why Slavery is Wrong?
We’ve encountered some reasonable refutations of this premise, with the biggest critique being around the claim that it’s “self-evident”. In that way, it looks like the other weak arguments. When I’m asked to prove that I own myself, I don’t have a quick and easy answer, I can’t produce a receipt. But I am responsible for my actions, and I chose how and when to use my body. These are qualities of ownership. And even with a gun pointed at my head, the decision to cooperate is still ultimately mine. I couldn’t forfeit control if I wanted to.
Capitalism vs. Socialism: Reply to Bruenig
Since Elizabeth Bruenig has posted her whole opening debate statement, I thought I’d reply point-by-point. She’s in blockquotes; I’m not. Before I get started, though, let me say that personally, Elizabeth seems a gracious and kind human being. Still, even if I were an avid socialist, I’d be baffled by the way she tackles the issue.
Why Intellectuals Should Leave Academia
Professors and teachers: The best way to increase the quality and engagement of students is to separate your instruction from accredited institutions. Don’t complain about low quality students; they’re not there for you and mostly don’t care about your ideas. They’re there for a piece of paper they think is a magic ticket to acceptance in the world and they suffer through your class at a cost. You’re too good to deal with students like that who don’t value your work!
If You Want to Preserve Your Freedom, You Need to be Armed
The gun grabbers would turn everyone—except for the politicians and their enforcers—into supplicant serfs, entirely at the mercy of their masters’ demands. They would deny us not only our most fundamental right to defend ourselves but also the tools necessary to overthrow the tyrants and demagogues who threaten our self-ownership with every breath they take.
The Tragicomedy of Russiagate
Let’s assume — purely for the sake of discussion since no evidence has been made public — that the Russians did it. Note, first, that the “it” looks like the product of the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. I’m not going to do what Johnstone, Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Maté, and the late Robert Parry have done so well so many times, namely, catalog all the inane acts the Putin-guided Russian intel agencies are said to have committed in order to bring down America. (Start here.) Suffice it to say that if that’s the best Putin can come up with, we have little to worry about.
Don’t Blame the Guns, Blame the Schools
Today’s public schools already share many characteristics with prisons, yet the ‘answer’ some folks are proposing to the (statistically negligible) threat of school shootings is to make schools even more like prisons. Schools are an artificial environment that (much like a prison) forces kids to join gangs or cliques in order to avoid rejection and outsider status. Those who don’t fit in are subject to ridicule, abuse, and even brutality in some cases.
Raining on the Parade
Some people have proposed that Trump’s parade be postponed until all the wars the U.S. government is waging are finished and the troops are back home. That would indeed be an indefinite postponement, and I wouldn’t want to see a parade even then. But if that’s the price for ending those imperial wars, I’ll take it.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Have you ever known someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)? I am very reluctant to label anybody in that way. First of all, I am a follower of Thomas Szasz, who cautioned strongly against using labels. Secondly, in the broader scheme of things, evolution may look like aberation from the sanctum of the “normal.”