Thousands of TWEETS, Posts, Articles, Pages, chapters, Notes, Diagrams, drafts, sketches and Quotes from 2009 to present
On Realism
[W]hat is the relationship between: a) the limits of our sense-perception, and the combination of: b) scientific investigation’s ability to represent that which we cannot sense and perceive directly as measurements that can be reduced to analogy to experience, and; c) the ability of the tools of language to describe by analogy to experience, when…
The Source Of Private Property Is Violence
[T]he source of property is the organized application of violence to create it. Even on Rothbard’s Crusoe island, the violence that creates the property of the island FOR Crusoe is provided by the barrier of the sea. (That the see is analogous to the ghetto, which is the model of rebellion rothbard was using whether…
Putting Violence Back Into Polite Political Discourse – Once Sentence At A Time
[P]rivate property is unnatural to man, even if it is necessary for mankind do produce a division of knowledge and labor. Private property was a technical innovation that allowed males to take control of reproduction that they had lost with the invention of gossip, cooperation and spears, and to do so without resorting to in-group…
Internecine Warfare as Evidence of Intellectual Failure
(EXTRA LIBERTARIAN IDEOLOGY VS INTRA-LIBERTARIAN IDEOLOGY AND INTERNECINE WARFARE AS EVIDENCE OF INTELLECTUAL FAILURE) (Re-Posted from elsewhere) [T]om DiLorenzo’s generation along with Rothbard, was trying to illustrate contrasts – to create a revisionist history to support libertarian ideology. Ideology changes VALUES, and motivates passions so that people ACT. All I see from this nonsense is…
The Incentives of Scientists And Philosophers: A Virtuous Competition For Status
[E]conomic reasoning would argue that people follow incentives. The incentives of scientists are to prosecute an idea regardless of its merit. Science does not progress because scientists are self aware, or because they employ rational criticism and judgement. (Although I think this criticism applies to the 90% at the bottom more so than the 10%…
Notes On The Libertarian Reformation (Revised and Edited)
[D]raft of the principles of the libertarian reformation. 1) Our generation’s challenge is not socialism, it’s the state religion of anti-scientific, anti-rational Postmodernism. (The religion of progressivism.) The dogma, literature, and ideological bias of the libertarian movement is a generation behind. Emphasis on past heroes is not constructive or valuable. It is indicative of the…
‘Rights’ and Fuzzy Language: You Demand Rights. You Can’t ‘Have’ Them Without an Exchange.
(Contrary to Searle’s nonsense. More in line with Bentham’s nonsense. Minor improvement to Hoppe. ) [Y]ou DEMAND contractual RIGHTS in EXCHANGE for entering into a CONTRACT with others for some specific terms – and in the libertarian bias we demand absolute private property rights, and the right of first possession by transformation and homesteading. Other…
The Causal Problem Of Government Is The Same Causal Problem Of Ethics: The Incorrect Assumption Of The Value Of Monopoly
[W]hy on earth, would you assume, that ethical principles must assume we agree upon ends? Seriously? Why is it that the study of ethics assumes that there are optimum ends for all? That’s, really, ABSURD on it’s face, isn’t it? I mean. That’s ridiculous. Why not that ethics agree upon means, but not ends? Is…
Genies Can’t Be Put Back Into Bottles
[C]lassical Liberalism cannot be restored with women in the voting pool. Property rights can’t be restored with women voting. It’s not possible. Marriage cannot be restored with high participation rates of women in the work force. Birth rates can’t be restored with women in high participation in the work place. Intergenerational saving can’t be restored…
Reason And Fact Are Insufficient For Persuasion: Because Myth, Mysticism, And Falsehood Are More Comfortable Truths.
(Profound) [W]e can learn from history that allegorical mythology was converted to factual description by taking advantage of the desire for certainty, and inventing the scriptural religions – despite the obervable and logical contradiction of mystical statements with reality of experience. We can observe the continuing human desire for marxism, communism, socialism and redistributive social…
Read Engels Again: But There Are Better Primary Sources and The Natural State Is Plastic
Eh.. [G]ist is right. Primary sources are better. Our knowledge is better today. But we are shaking off centuries of bias about our natural state, only to discover that humans organize according to production units counterbalanced by the competition between male and female reproductive competition. Not much more to it than that. We have a…
What Was Your First Epiphany?
GREAT QUESTION. HERE ARE A FEW OF LIFE’S REVELATIONS At the age of 6 when in one day I thought reading was an impossibly complicated idea, and then three days later, after just tortuously tryig to read books, because I was embarassed that a girl in my class could, that almost like a light switch,…
Can Computers Write Creative Programs That Solve Problems?
ANSWERING YOUR QUESTION IN THE CONTEXT THAT YOU MEAN IT. In the context that I think you mean, creativity refers to the application of one pattern of relations to a different circumstance thereby solving a previouslly unsolved problem, and a problem whose solution is not already present in the domain of solutions expressed by the…
The Purpose Of Philosophy: in the Analytic, Naturalistic Philosophy of Action
[T]he purpose of enlightenment program was isolate thought, morality and politics from the superstition of Magian religion. It was to launder superstition in favor of empirical reasoning in The analytic program’s objective was to incorporate the physical sciences into philosophy, but to hold onto the metaphysical program. The naturalistic, praxeological (action) and economic programs are…
More on Hoppe (et all) vs Popper (from elsewhere)
[H]oppe would argue (and has) that the following statements are not possible to contradict – that they are falsifiable, but that is impossible in any circumstances for them be false. 1) increases in the minimum wage increase unemployment. 2) increases in the supply of money cause increases in prices. 3) democracy is simply a slow…
Libertarianism and Justificationism
[A]ny political system wich seeks to implement involuntary transfers must be based upon justification. Any political system which seeks to implement voluntary transfers need not be based upon justification. But this is an INSUFFICIENT ANSWER to the problem. This sounds quite simple. However, the first problem is not voluntary versus involuntary transfer, but the distribution…
Why Is Gold Considered So Precious And Why Does It Have Such High Prices, And What Satisfaction Do People Derive From This Â??preciousâ?? Metal?
These answers are pretty humorous. But the correct answer is quite simple: **Everybody wants gold because everybody else wants gold, and its hard to get.** I mean, really, that’s the reason it’s so precious. The real question then, is how did everyone come to want gold so much? Originally it was ornamental – desirable as…
Dear Libertarians. Join the 21’st Century. Don’t Fight The Last War: It’s Postmodernism, Not Socialism.
ITS POSTMODERNISM, NOT SOCIALISM [A]ll generals try to fight the last war. And it seems like all our libertarian intellectuals try to fight central control: socialism. Which is … fighting the last war. A war that we won, by the way, at least against the statist intellectuals. The strategic, political and economic war was won…
Islamic Fundamentalism is a Totalitarian Political Movement, Not a Religion.
(Following up on Salman Rushdie’s argument that Islam is a weaponized and militarized religion) Serious Stuff – The New Republic [T]he author reiterates the point that Islamic fundamentalism is a totalitarian political movement. I’ve been saying this for years. And it’s true. It may be structured as a religion, the way marxism was a religion…
False: Krugman Gets It Wrong On Purpose Again. 🙂
FALSE Conservatives and Sewars – The NYT 1) It doesn’t follow that a one time expense, followed by fees for use is the same as redistribution that creates dependencies. the first requires action, the second does not. THe free-rider problem is different from the progressive-fees problem. Free riding is a negative signal that says free…