Neil deGrasse Tyson was on the Joe Rogan podcast recently. Therein he defended the need for government to fund scientific advancement. His argument was that many frontiers are neither accessible nor profitable for free enterprise until government paves the way. He’s probably not wrong, but that hardly constitutes a justification for government funding sourced by coercion.
Tag: science
If You’re Going to Share Your Success, Then Please Stop Scandalzing It
I’m all for the notion of helping out and leveraging your success for the good of others, but you’re far more likely to be good at this if you’re driven by something greater than a sense of guilt towards your own success.
Trade War, War on Trade, and War for Trade
There is no such thing as a “trade war”, since trade is by definition a peaceful, mutually beneficial activity. However, there is such a thing as the war on trade – that is, the war on the entrepreneurial ethos, cheap and high-quality goods, and peaceful international relations.
3D-Printed Guns Might Actually Help
As long as government employees are armed, guns will be in the wrong hands; an angle that isn’t even seen as an issue by those most adamant about disarming the rest of us. Tell that to the homeowner killed by the responding police officer in Aurora, Colorado last week. If he had survived the encounter he might disagree.
A Sample Size of One
We live in a culture that gives ceaseless lip-service to “Science”. Everyone claims to want data, studies, and research. That’s all well and good where it makes sense, but many claims are binary claims about what is and is not possible. Those don’t need more than a single sample.
“Be True to Yourself…As Long as You Go to College”
When college opt-outs say things like “I don’t want to go to college. Instead, I’m going to try starting a business or I’m going to pursue this creative venture I love”, everyone loves to whip out income statistics about having a degree.
Two Worlds—Politics and Everything Else
Political discourse itself is enough to make even a person of moderate intelligence run away screaming. So much ignorance is on display, so much viciousness, so much ill-disguised envy and malevolence, such unscrupulous attempts to take what belongs to other people and redirect it to those who have no just right to it. The stupidity, therefore, is not only an inability to connect real causes and effects, but also moral stupidity, an inability to do what is obviously right and decent, as opposed to predatory and criminal, albeit legal.
Regret, Remorse, & Resistance
No matter what you choose to do, it’s possible to get stuck in the trap of believing you would have been much happier, healthier, and richer if you had taken the other path. We usually work very hard to avoid regret before making big decisions. “I could do this really practical thing over here, but I’ll regret it forever if I don’t try that really artistic thing over there.” The real work, however, begins after you’ve ran all those calculations.
Knowing What to Do Is Secondary
Knowing what to do isn’t necessarily a better situation to be in. It could be a symptom that you’re too comfortable with the familiar, that you’ve organized your life around routines and relationships that don’t challenge you anymore. And if that’s the case, perhaps you’re better off seeking a situation where you don’t know what to do.
Foreign Policy, Part I
While I favor Agorism, Voluntaryism, and Anarcho-Capitalism, I do have a solid knowledge base on the United States Constitutional Republic. This article will focus on normative foreign policy in this context, and later articles will deal with more philosophically palatable foreign policy questions.