We can’t have higher standards for others than we have for ourselves.
2 + 2 = 4
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. If that is granted, all else follows." — George Orwell
ABOUT
TAGS
LIKES
ARCHIVE
SUBSCRIBE
TWITTER
RECOMMENDED
Voluntaryism
Freedomain Radio
The Daily Bell
TheAntiTerrorist
The Voluntary Life
-
20120211
-
20120210
Curiosity in the face of difference. Curiosity in the face of hostility. Curiosity in the face of opposition. Invitation in the realm of correction. We pass through all these trials as philosophers, and the last trial is frustration with our fellow man and incomprehension at the distance we have traveled.
-
20120131
When you debate philosophy with people, it’s almost never about what you think it’s about. It’s not about rational proofs; it’s not about logical consistency; it’s not about empirical evidence. People will say it’s about that but it’s really not. Most people’s arguments, for whatever truth is being proposed or denied, are ex post facto justifications for maintaining the status quo in their existing relationships.
-
20120129
Nothing is more amusing than to watch the efforts of land monopolists to claim that other forms of property and increment are similar in all respects to land and the unearned increment on land.
The People’s Land/The People’s Rights by Winston Churchill, 1909
(An unfortunate plea for statist action. Noted for economic analysis of land.)
-
→
Whenever, in any country, the proprietor ceases to be the improver, political economy has nothing to say in defense of landed property. When the “sacredness” of property is talked of, it should be remembered that any such sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property.
-
→
Does Land Matter?
Many people in developed countries think that land is no longer important. The control and allocation of land is rarely mentioned in media discussions of economics. Yet people everywhere are as dependent on the natural environment for survival as ever they were. The importance of land to technologically advanced communities is demonstrated by the fact that when inner city land is sold, it fetches a vastly higher price than farmland.
Failure to make the relationship of people to land the starting point for the study of modern economics has led to a proliferation of complicated, contradictory theories and to an imprecise use of terms. The confusion between ‘land’ and ‘capital’ is particularly damaging to clear thought, because the two entities behave in utterly different ways in the process of wealth production:
1. Land is not produced by human beings at all, while capital is produced entirely by human activity (labour) operating on land.
…
Land: The Forgotten Factor by Henry George Foundation
Image: Archigram: Sea Bubbles
-
20120128
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth, more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid.
-
20120122
Phyles
The word phyle was coined by science fiction author Neal Stephenson in his masterwork, The Diamond Age. It comes from the Greek, φυλή which means “tribe” or “clan.” But it would be at least as apt if they were called philes, stemming from the Greek word philia, which means “love” – the same root in the word “philosophy”. The basic idea is that man is a social animal, and we tend to prefer to run with others who are like us – or who love what we love. Birds of a feather flock together, in either case.
More and more people are starting to sense that they don’t need a different government; rather, they don’t need a government at all. They see that the institution is just a scam for the benefit of some people: those who are in it, their friends, and those who act as parasites by using the state to live off others.
I think we’re on the cusp of seeing new forms of social organization arise. That’s what Stephenson postulated, and I think he’s right. In the not-too-distant future, we’ll see more and more people grouping themselves in phyles. They’ll stop identifying themselves as Americans, or Russians, or Chinese – unless that accident of birth is really important to them. Racism and nationalism are the hallmarks of an unevolved, or even degraded, person. I have neither time nor patience for either of them.
I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating: I have less affinity with my neighbors in Aspen than I do with friends in the Congo – even though we’re of a different race, religion, culture, and mother language. Why is that? Because those things are unimportant to me. What’s important to me is character, and the values one holds dear. So, sure, I think the advent of phyles is a very good thing.
There would be phyles of all types, including those that value strict control, regimentation, and limitations. Groups like monks and nuns are proto-phyles, as are the Mennonites. A phyle can form around anything that’s most important to any group of people– and that could include everything from business, to hobbies, to religion, to culture, to philosophy. There are endless possibilities.
Casey Research: Doug Casey on Phyles
Also:
Global Guerillas: Economies as a Software Service
Kevin Carson: Daniel Suarez: Daemon and Freedom
Daedalum Films: Human Flesh Search Engine 1/2 -
20120121
Internet Piracy – Who Are the Thieves?
Megaupload is just the latest corporation to feel the brutality of early 21st century state-run justice. The point, of course, (in our view) is not actually to provide “justice” so much as to make people fearful of using the Internet and sharing information that may someday be deemed “criminal.”
In fact, copyright laws were developed by royalty to counteract the spread of information (in books) after the invention of the Gutenberg Press. The same tactics that applied then are being applied now. War, authoritarian legislation and copyright infringement are all tools of this particular elite that we have been saddled with.
Most people cannot conceive there can be any other kind of justice than the current kind. But we have long argued that as entrenched as the dominant social theme is, it will come under increasing scrutiny as what we call the Internet Reformation proceeds. Just as the state’s other memes are coming under question – the fear-based promotions that frighten middle classes into giving wealth and power to global repositories – so the “state-justice” meme shall come under fire, sooner or later. In fact, we would argue the battle has already been joined on this issue of copyright infringement.
We’ve also enunciated a practical perspective that we believe would resolve the issue in a pertinent and appropriate way. Let those who are OFFENDED by copyright infringement enforce their copyright themselves! Let them use their OWN assets to enforce their position.
-
20120117
You think that I am impoverishing myself withdrawing from men, but in my solitude I have woven for myself a silken web or chrysalis, and, nymph-like, shall ere long burst forth a more perfect creature, fitted for a higher society.
-
→
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]“What’s missing is curiosity about the lived experience of the Other … It tells me that you were not on the receiving end of empathy in that you don’t even know when it’s missing … You have a template called: No Curiosity About The Other …
“Violence against an Other is a murder of the Other in your mind; it is an erasure of the Other in your mind. You can’t hurt someone you empathize with because you feel their pain … If you’re able to hurt someone, it is because they do not exist in your mind other than as a thing … You can’t hurt someone if they are alive as a person in your mind … Violence isolates, staggeringly, because you not only have to kill off people in your mind in order to hurt them, but you have to kill off people who might point that out – and that’s why people who are violent tend to end up in these circles of dead souls …
“I wanted to point out what’s missing – not because I don’t think you can do it, but because I think you can do it – but you haven’t noticed what’s missing. And what’s tragic, of course, is that tells me … you’re surrounded by people who can’t tell you this, otherwise you would know…
“You’re not alone in this – at all. This is the human template in the 21st century; it’s been the human template for all of human history. And the degree to which we’re able to notice this is the degree to which we’re able to make strides towards a reasonably decent and just and peaceful society.
“Empathy requires two things which are both very complex and challenging; the development of empathy requires: exposure to empathetic behaviour, in other words it requires that the child receives empathy; but then it also requires that empathy be expected of the child … If you didn’t get empathy modeled towards you, there’s just no way that you would know this … In a dysfunctional household, empathy is punished because it shows vulnerability …
“Please, please, please don’t start self-attacking for not learning the language of empathy when you weren’t taught it by your priests, you weren’t taught it by your teachers, you weren’t taught it by your parents, you weren’t taught it by your culture, you weren’t taught it by your artists, and you were punished if you were to show a shred of it…”
-
20120114
“Intellectualism is a defence against inflicted falsehoods as a child. People get that morality has been used to control them as children, and as soon as they try to treat morality as morality and make it universal to their society as a whole, they’re attacked as immoral, as uncaring, as brutish and wrong… It’s crazy. People’s brains are fried… they have been crippled, mentally.” — How many fingers, Winston?
-
→
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
-
→
What is to give light must endure burning.
-
20120113
It’s not enough to conquer; one must learn how to seduce.
— Voltaire
