Richard Ebeling once told me, “Government makes criminals of us all.” Government sets up society so that no person can live a life without using some sort of government service, paid for through coerced taxes. I later came to realize that government needs to make moral cowards of us all, in order to keep us dependent on it for the dispensation of justice.
Tag: rules
When Does Tradition Become Tyranny?
Traditions emerge for a reason. Society is impossible without them. Traditions provide lenses, rules, norms, and expectations that help make sense of the world, harmonize competing aims and interests, provide stability, and enable long-term planning. But tradition can be tyrannical. Traditions can oppress, restrict, stagnate, and destroy individuals and society. So where’s the line? When does tradition become tyranny?
I Haven’t Stopped Playing: How Childhood Play Can Make Your Work Life Better
All my play and all my imitation of my fictional heroes ironically prepared me for the sober reality of the working world. They taught me the value of being brave. They taught me how to put up with pain with a sense of humor and resilience. They showed me how to find creative solutions, tell stories, and inspire people.
Let Your Curiosity Be a Source of Meaning
The philosopher Albert Camus once wrote that the only meaningful philosophical question was “why shouldn’t I commit suicide?” Jarring, I know. But there’s more to the question than you might think. This is not just philosophy for emo kids.
Everyone Misses This Lesson on Political Power From “Game of Thrones”
Getting a seat on the Iron Throne is a pretty raw deal, and even if you have it, you might now have it for long. So why do Game of Thrones‘s rulers spill so much blood to get there? Why not consolidate their own power elsewhere? And why does the question of who sits in leadership draw so many other people into the sinkhole of war?
Influences III
If I were a guest on a podcast or an interview broadcast, when asked about my major influences, I would stick close to the names repeated by voluntaryists — Spooner, Bastiat, Jefferson, Mencken, Mises, Hazlitt, Rothbard, Higgs, and Woods. But in this more expansive context, I can stretch out to discuss the influences who made me a voluntaryist before I knew I was one, before I knew to read the internal literature of the voluntaryist, libertarian, individualist mainstream. Three such influences are Alan Turing, Dan Carlin, and Ruth Rendell.
If You Need Violence to Enforce Your Ideas…
…your ideas are worthless. Or so goes the meme I’ve seen recently on Facebook. Actually, I’ve seen it before, in the past, and I shared it thinking it was clever. This time around, however, I had a different take.
The Rate of Service Must Slow
Many people don’t think about how much data they use, so they’ll use things even more heavily once a plan is “unlimited.” There’s only so much bandwidth to go around.
Cryptocurrencies and Governance, These Things are Happening
Over $93 billion dollars, and counting, have poured into the cryptocurrency market since Bitcoin was released in 2009. Millions of individuals have come together without central direction to build this worldwide phenomenon. Changes are happening every day that have global ramifications, all of which are happening without permission by governments, and often in spite of governments’ supposed authority to control other people.
Math Conundrum
Given the profundity of their differences, how could you devise rules that would separate two uniquely born creatures for purposes of making one a master and the other a slave? How do you decide that the person with the redder skin must forfeit land to the person with less red skin? Color itself, if not infinitely variable, has as many possibilities as there are living individuals on the Earth.