Plenty of people have explored the problems with socialism far better than I could. Problems like the free rider problem. But I do want to add one example from my own past that shows that I, at least, am not a good enough person to have in a system where outcomes are not closely tiedContinue reading “A personal story of political intuition”
Tag Archives: politics
The source of a culture’s lifeblood
The power of the creative divine belongs to those who have a vision of the future and are willing to bear or assign the responsibility for it. Either to carry it or to remove those who stand in its way. The power of the vision and the assignment of responsibility allows human to rise aboveContinue reading “The source of a culture’s lifeblood”
Heroes and villains
Do people need enemies? Do they instinctively seek them out? The thing that is preventing the future we envision from coming to pass. How we conceive of those enemies seems to matter a lot. Certain ideologies, such as Christianity, actively encourage us not to view actual other people as our enemies, but rather, impersonal forcesContinue reading “Heroes and villains”
Random Tangent on History
(excerpted from an older entry) It’s an interesting fact that our political parties seem to have organized themselves broadly based on personality. I have a theory for why this may have happened. Partly it may just be an inevitable consequence of having enough people, and, since personality variation is a huge natural element of humanContinue reading “Random Tangent on History”
The limits of political power for securing happiness
Political power as a strategy is far less useful for producing personal well-being and success then it is for protecting personal well-being and success. This is partly a structural feature, simply because actual human production of capital, human capital or otherwise, takes place at the individual and not the collective level. It may be aggregatedContinue reading “The limits of political power for securing happiness”
Fears for the future election
I’ve heard so many smart people discuss so many issues. But here is one question I would love to see addressed. How do you sleep at night? Knowing everything that going on, maybe knowing too much, how? Seeing the madness and tribalism slowly overtaking our safe corners, working it’s way into the people I workContinue reading “Fears for the future election”
Politically educational Google searches
I was skeptical after reading in Douglas Murray’s book about the political educational prejudices of Google image search. He claimed that searches for black couple gave you black couples, searches for gay couples gave you gave couples, searches for white couples gave you almost entirely mixed race or non-white couples, and searches for straight couplesContinue reading “Politically educational Google searches”
Wolves in the Wastes
Today I was reflecting on the strange cycle of distortion that a polarized populace and media have created, and how much it defines our view of the world around us. Having spent plenty of time living with the distortions and bias of the conservative media, it’s actually made it easier to see the same distortionsContinue reading “Wolves in the Wastes”
Leaving space for others to stand and oppose us
If you make white supremacy the only place white people (or cops) feelsl safe and understood, the only beneficiary will be white supremacists. Forcing people into ideological extremes with our rhetoric only erodes the great bulk of ordinary people caught in the middle and feeds the fires of the extremists at both ends. When enoughContinue reading “Leaving space for others to stand and oppose us”
The importance of resisting all political extremes
I feel the same obligation to fight extreme leftist woke culture as I do to fight extreme right Trumpist culture. They’re similar extremes of differing strategies. I see value in both conservative and liberal approaches, and I think what they really are is approaches or attitudes or instinctive value structures more than they are aContinue reading “The importance of resisting all political extremes”
Why words like “mansplaining” only make things worse
I have to question the value and effects of terms such as “mansplaining”, that reduce the moral and cognitive value of someone’s words, actions, and motivations to merely a function of their class belonging. Such terms were developed as a type of intellectual weapon, in principle to address a perceived power imbalance. Unfortunately, they doContinue reading “Why words like “mansplaining” only make things worse”
Strategies for unity
Unity and peace among people won’t be found by focusing on our differences but by embracing our commonalities. Representation is an incoherent concept for fixing human society and eliminating injustice because there is no limit to how you can divide people by their differences. If we can’t find the commonality within one another and setContinue reading “Strategies for unity “
Muck
In the current culture of muckraking and accusation and everyone constantly flinging dirt at everyone, there are two types of people who can escape and thrive. Those who absolutely refuse to get involved and stay out of the puddle, and those in the middle who are so inured to the mud that they don’t evenContinue reading “Muck”
Incitement to violence and Christianity
Kill the white devils! Viva la revolution! The key difference between King and many other revolutionaries who have preached similar ethics about the need to directly overturn systems of order for the sake of justice is that King was deeply committed to the doctrine of Christian love as the guiding and restraining principle that tamedContinue reading “Incitement to violence and Christianity”
Glorifying non-conformity
From a reply to a social media post about Christianity being for the outsiders and about accepting the outsiders, that that’s who Jesus liked, not the insiders. To which I said that, yes, it kind of was, but not because of their outsider-ness or insider-ness. That that wasn’t in itself the quality that made themContinue reading “Glorifying non-conformity”
Where things are going
It’s very hard not to see our country as being in a slow process of gradual collapse. We have an enormous amount of inherited cultural capital. We have so much infrastructure and so much law, so many systems and institutions that have enormous power and value and utility. We have traditions and attitudes and conventionsContinue reading “Where things are going”
Politicization, polarization, and extremity
I have a philosophy degree; we’re used to exploring different ideas and hearing different viewpoints, in fact we demand it. We demand testing and argumentation. We demand refinement and consistency. So I’ve been listening to the views of many opposing sides. I’ve been immersing myself into the arguments of the ideological right and the ideologicalContinue reading “Politicization, polarization, and extremity”
Rights and duties
Rights and obligations come into existence simultaneously. The principal function of rights is to protect and preserve our ability to discharge our duties. Duties are like goals in a game. Once they have laid upon us, then we have a right to pursue them. And if anyone interferes in our legitimate pursuit of our goals,Continue reading “Rights and duties”
A note on the “Chinese Virus”
Most major viruses come from China or India. That’s because they’re the largest groups of humans on the planet. If you’re the largest civilization on Earth, it’s kind of like being the biggest city. You might as well call a disease the “urban virus”, or just “the human virus”, since the conditions for the developmentContinue reading “A note on the “Chinese Virus””
On misogyny and child marriage
That was a great article bringing attention to the work of that doctor. It sounds like she did a lot of great at work helping women. And this is purely a comment about what’s most helpful in diagnosing and fixing problems. I’m not sure it’s enough to label child marriage as misogyny. The cause ofContinue reading “On misogyny and child marriage”
Making Nobody Happy 