Bullying behavior emerges from the incentives of cultures and systems. By punishing bullies and making strict rules, you will often just make it so another brand of assholish behavior emerges.
Tag: money
Holy Pole Quilt, or Else!
A guy who lives across the street from my parents assumed I would be on his side. A new convenience store/truck stop in the area apparently doesn’t fly Holy Pole Quilt. This offends the man.
Involuntarily Celibate: Clever Rhetorical Trick
I heard this phrase recently as a way of describing oneself. It was on the context of a man who had a grievance against women for not sleeping with him. Considering the ins and outs of this phrase was a near total mind fuck. That doesn’t happen very often these days, so I absolutely must tell you all about it!
The Trouble with Abundance
Humans aren’t evolved to have or handle abundance. Our nature has a very hard time dealing with abundance. Our abilities, desires, motivations, tools, and everything about us were forged in an evolutionary history of extreme scarcity. What we are evolved for is the journey of survival in the face of scarcity, not the destination of contentment in the face of abundance.
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.
The Difference between You and Them
From one point of view, the government is almost indescribably complex. Its functionaries and contractors are occupied in a gigantic set of diverse activities. The objectives it claims to be carrying out are nearly as numerous as the stars in the heavens. Yet, at day’s end, all of this complexity can be reduced to a very simple relationship between you and those who compose the state: you have money, and they intend to take as much of it as possible and dispose of it as they see fit.
Don’t Let Loved Ones Become Cops
They may have been a good person before they became a cop, but they can’t be good once they are a cop. A cop in the family is nothing to be proud of– almost anything else (including a crackhead or a $5 hooker) is better.
Government Explained
Is it OK for me to go into your house and take your stuff? What if I first write on a piece of paper that it’s OK for me to go into your house and take your stuff? Does that make it OK? What if I get a lot of people to agree with me that the permission slip I wrote for myself makes it OK?
The Human Capital Purist Case Against Tax-Funded College
In the Soho Forum debate on “All government support of higher education should be abolished”, I heavily based my argument on the signaling model of education. But if I were a human capital purist, I still would have defended the abolitionist position – albeit less triumphantly. Here’s how.
Technology Kills the State, Over and Over
If we identify a state as not only the particular time and place in which they operate, but also by the tools they use, then what is revealed over and over again are the many ways in which technology has killed the state.