Though intellectual communities have the ability to share information and provide support for the people who are a part of them, I believe there is a stronger counterbalancing negative force of group think and an infrastructure for individual interests to poison a whole field of study. This is why the term “scientific consensus” is so dangerous. In effect, it is merely pushing for group think.
Tag: science
Stop Looking For Something That Works
Sometimes things will work really well for other people, but they won’t work so well for you. Sometimes things won’t work out for other people, but they’ll work really well for you. Professional advertisers have a phrase for this: “Individual results may vary.”
The Religion of the State
Many objects have been turned into totems, but among the most common are flags, which are emblems signifying an association with a group and a cause taken to be larger than any individual. There’s hardly a need to point out how the flag is venerated in the United States — especially these days.
Anarchy and Islam
I’ve met Muslims of every school of anarchist thought from anarcho-socialists to national-anarchists. Prominent among them are Hakim Bay’s “ontological anarchism” and Yakoub Islam’s “post-colonial anarcho-pacifism” but this is my story.
When So-Called Anarchists Look to the State as Savior
This is a crisis! Government needs to act! Look at all these scary stories about incidents of immigrants committing violence! Is that what you want?! If you oppose closed borders, you must approve of the violence going on! Sure, not all people trying to immigrate here intend to do nasty things, but some are going to, and the only way to be safe is to enforce laws stopping anyone from crossing the border, or at least requiring that people can only cross the border if they get permission from government first!
Trump Assumes Command of the American Church
As Donald Trump demonstrated in his first address to Congress, no matter how loathsome a ruler may be, he can bring an assembly of politicians to its feet and disarm some critics simply by invoking the quasi-secular faith — Americanism — and eulogizing the latest uniformed war-state employee to sacrifice his life for it. Trump has indeed shown he can fill the job expected of any president: supreme head of what Andrew Bacevich calls the Church of America the Redeemer.
Valid Laws Are Universalizable And Immutable
The laws of morality have been described as Common Law, Natural Law, or the Golden Rule. They are something most parents endeavor to teach their children. Don’t hit and don’t take other people’s stuff. This is a very concise summary of recognition of self-ownership, property rights, and non-aggression. A law degree is not needed to understand basic rules of morality.
Home Education: A “Public Benefit?”
Random comment from the ‘Net: “I think a tax break for home schooled families is a great idea. However, you forget that we live in a community, and no man is an island. Those families do benefit from living in a community where others are educated.” Whoa! This argument cuts both ways: the community arguably benefits more from brilliantly-educated home schoolers than home-schoolers benefit from badly-educated children at government schools; therefore, the home schoolers might deserve a break.
Question Authority
Ultimately, the questioning of authority is not only a good thing. It is a necessary thing. It is the backbone of freedom. Cherish the right to protest. Cherish the right to be different. Cherish the right to question authority.
It’s Either Bullies or Balance Sheets
A wise man once told me that in this life, you can obey balance sheets or bullies. In the end, those are the only two paths. He was drawing attention to an unavoidable reality in a world of scarcity. All scarce things must be allocated among competing ends. This can be done top-down by people in control, or it can be accomplished bottom-up with the signaling system that emerges from voluntary exchange. The two approaches don’t mix well.