It is your absolute human right to say (or write) whatever you want to say. It may not be wise, and in a free society you will be held accountable for any harm you cause by doing so. You have the responsibility to NOT say something untrue which can cause trouble, but no one has the right to silence you.
Tag: society
On Selfishness II
I recently listened to the Soho Forum debate on the virtues of selfishness between libertarian Gene Epstein and Randian objectivist Yaron Brook. It was my impression that Epstein believes the word “selfishness” is too morally tainted in both historical and contemporary usage to be useful to free market enthusiasts, while Brook believes the word can and must be redeemed as a counter to the morally bankrupt idea of “selflessness”. I believe that both debaters were correct.
For the Love of Reason
Far be it from me to divide humankind in two, but were I so inclined, I’d divide it into those who love reason and those who are indifferent if not outright hostile to it. Members of the first group adore the reasoning process and their own reasoning faculties. The others find the process burdensome and discomforting, something that threatens long-held beliefs and intuitions.
The Biggest War-Mongering Murder Machines
Those who whine about how they just want an “ethno-nation” of their own, with their fellow super-duper-white people, are never being honest about their motives or their intentions.
On Pushing Boundaries
Boundaries are useful toward the goal of protecting what’s considered valuable. What people, places, things, ideas, and customs a person values is likely the result of both their nature as human beings and their nurture as being raised in a particular socio-cultural and economic environment. Often the boundaries we encounter as we explore our world are not set as we would like them, and so we push against them.
The Voluntaryist Premise
Once a person adopts the label of voluntaryist (or the like) for their political identity, they assume, with good reason, the following premise: human suffering is terrible and should be prevented; aggression and coercion necessarily create human suffering. This premise leads the voluntaryist to hold a number of hypotheses with varying degrees of accuracy in some form or fashion within their minds at all times. Here are several of those hypotheses.
What Taxation Means
There is certainly no shortage of libertarian types who will gladly tell why they believe that the practice of taxation amounts to robbery or extortion. Likewise for those who will tell you why they believe that the practice of taxation is good and necessary. Personally, I side with the former belief that the practice of taxation is illicit and criminal. But let’s look at it another way, shall we?
Social Credit Ratings Won’t Work
Social credit rating systems like those portrayed in Black Mirror and The Orville are not built on objective, verifiable facts. Quite the contrary; they are built on subjective, unverifiable opinions.
Be All, End All
There is no entity that can do defense, imperialism, law enforcement, infrastructure, pharmaceutical, diplomacy, security, education, politics, travel, migration, housing, care for the aged, care for the disabled, economics, finance, agriculture, stewardship, and so forth, and so on.
Economic Systems Transform Culture, Not Vice-Versa
I think capitalism is purely an accident, usually it doesn’t start. There have been several point in history where centralized control collapsed but markets still operated. In that period of time, no one was able to grab the reigns of power but peaceful transactions were highly profitable. Later, philosophers came in and acted like they were leading the parade. In short, I think the enlightenment explanation is wrong.