Who’s Afraid of Russian Propaganda?

If we believe the people who claim to be so concerned about Russian Facebook activity, we really ought to be concerned about something much deeper: the apparent fragility of American society. For if the Russians can strike a propaganda blow comparable, as some have ludicrously said, to Pearl Harbor and 9/11, isn’t that also true for any number of domestic websites across the political spectrum?

“We Must Do Something!”

Every time something horrible happens, whether as a result of malice or bad luck, there will be a number of people clamoring for “government” to propose some new legislative solution. Rarely does it do any good, and often it makes things worse. But most people would rather “demand” some pointless measure, than face the fact that there is a lot about the world that is simply unpredictable and uncontrollable.

Scott Adams on Guns

It is in every decent person’s self-interest to encourage gun ownership for everyone. Even if I go crazy and try to kill an innocent person, and they shoot me in self-defense, I completely support their right to do so. Maybe knowing they are armed would help keep me sane, or scare me into not attacking them even if I go nuts.

Taking the “Digital” out of “Digital Gold”

The idea of digital gold is to take all the amazing attributes of gold and add the one thing it’s missing: portability. That’s what the “digital” part means. The magic of bitcoin is that it found a way to maintain all the very best properties of money found in gold and add to them the greatest portability of any money in existence with instant, near free global transactions.