That Time O’ The Month

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All –

It’s the thing I like to do least (besides dealing with Clovers) but it’s gotta be done. Mid-month fundraising/hat-passing. Just to jump start things a little. We’re off to a slow start for the month, so I figured it’d be a good time to call that to your attention.

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7 COMMENTS

  1. Are you a delicate teacup? Do you abhor volatility? Do you hate screaming mercurial children, and hot and cold running women. Despise Impetuous, noisy neighbors. and ungainly thriving markets and industrialisms.

    Or do you welcome the unexpected, and even thrive on it?

    If you are a free anarchist, you should be able to tolerate a wide variety of people and situations. If you get testy and shut down in the face of volatility, you likely require the existing prison, or at best, are willing to adapt to a narrow range of similar prisons you were previously “born into” through “no fault” of your own.

    Antifragility and Dose-Response in Nature ( Nassim Taleb’s Antifragile ), Note #1
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMS8ydyeb4E

    A General Definition of Fragility (Nassim Nicholas Taleb), Note #2
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgS2feyXmWw

    Law of Large Numbers and Fat Tails, Technical Note #3
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80ekenKK_jE

  2. Here in New Bergeronia, our ideal is to make things fair. To accomplish this, we need to rob all the rich people. Then we need to give all the healthy people a disease. And then disfigure all the attractive people. And perform lobotomies on all the smart people. And cripple all the strong people. Eventually we can have equality. Then the Abrahamic Fairytale will finally come true, and we will have heaven on Earth.

    Our idea of progress is dragging other people down, especially those sail fawning smart car driving file shareres. Why not constantly obsess and compare our situation to others, that way we achieve maximum miserability.

    Or we can celebrate others’ achievements and good fortune, while also trying to better ourselves through honest, voluntary means. And then we are far more likely to improve our lives and the lives of the people around you.

    Envy and coveting are not the path to happiness or prosperity, even if you pretend that your bitterness and resentment are about wanting “fairness” and equality.” The only thing “society” owes you is freedom. And that’s the same thing you owe everyone else: NOT initiating force or fraud against them, on your own or by way of hired thugs, such as those in “government”.

    Everyone is so stuck in the “there ought to be a law” mentality that they often make the ridiculous assumption that if I don’t want someone to be violently attacked, it means I must approve of and condone everything that person thinks, says or does.
    http://www.theonion.com/article/scientists-slowly-reintroducing-small-group-normal-52632

    Tolerance MEANS allowing the existence of things you DON’T approve of or like. But statists, even paleo-minarchist statists are so accustomed to advocating that state violence be used to create the world they want, that they can’t even comprehend the idea of allowing people the freedom to think and act differently.

    So they assume that if you want something to be “legal”–i.e., if you DON’T want state violence used to prohibit something–it must be because you APPROVE of that “something.” And that’s just crappy logic.

    Case in point: if some restaurant owner wants to put up a sign saying that his restaurant won’t serve black people, I would think he is an obnoxious, racist dumbass. I would say nasty things about him. I wouldn’t go to his restaurant. However, if someone tried to FORCE him to associate with or trade with people he didn’t want to deal with–even if I think his reasons are stupid, bigoted, whatever–I would DEFEND him from the aggressors. That’s actual tolerance, and it is a completely foreign concept to the political right AND the political left, both of whom want to have their preferences FORCED on everyone else.

    Another thing, is to open your eyes to taxes, whether monetary, or behaviorial, and the alleged social obligation we owe to those around us in reality, or cyberspace. Things like “Property taxes” rank right up there with “income taxes” in terms of immorality and destructiveness.

    Where “income taxes” are simply slavery using different words, “property taxes” are just a Mafia turf racket using different words. For the former, if you earn a living on the gang’s turf, they extort you. For the latter, if you own property in their territory, they extort you. The fact that most people still imagine both to be legitimate and acceptable shows just how powerful authoritarian indoctrination is. Meanwhile, even a brief objective examination of the concepts should make anyone see the lunacy of it. “Wait, so every time I produce anything or trade with anyone, I have to give a cut to the local crime lord??” “Wait, so I have to keep paying every year, for the privilege of keeping the property I already finished paying for??”

    And not only do most people not make such obvious observations, but if they hear someone else pointing out such things, the well-trained Stockholm Syndrome slaves usually make arguments condoning their own victimization. Thus is the power of the mind control that comes from repeated exposure to BS political mythology and propaganda.

    I wish I could somehow be less pissed off and more intellectual. Der tag kommt, or at least I hope it someday soon will.

    Injustice and the unwillingness to think makes me so angry, and for the most part, that’s good.

    However, such emotions can often make people think and reason less clearly. So here are ideas to consider, so that your righteous indignation doesn’t end up adding to the suffering and injustice in the world:

    1) If you belong to a minority group, please don’t blame “the white man” for what is happening. I want you, and everyone else, to be free. While a lot of the evil assholes who are trying to rule the world have skin colors and genitals similar to my own, I would appreciate not being blamed for things I didn’t do, don’t support, and spend most of my waking hours trying to end.

    2) If you are poor, please don’t blame “the rich.” Yes, some people who have a lot of money are evil thieving bastards who use the violence of “government” to enrich themselves and enslave others. But others who are “rich” got that way through voluntary means, and some are trying to end oppression and subjugation.

    3) If you or someone you know has been the victim of crime, please don’t blame gun owners. I own guns. Had I been there when the crime was happening, I would have done my best to stop it.

    4) If you see people being intolerant or violent while pretending they are doing “god’s will,” please don’t blame all religious people.

    5) If you live in a place that has been invaded and abused by U.S. mercenaries, please don’t blame “America.” I was born here, but I don’t “support the troops” (of any empire). My goal is to end all ruling classes, including the one sending armed thugs to terrorize you and your neighbors.

    In short, don’t be a collectivist and condemn general categories of people, but instead, condemn only those INDIVIDUALS who initiate violence against others. The only “us versus them” that matters is not about race, religion, nationality, or income level; it is about AGGRESSORS, and their victims. Allowing ourselves to be divided and pitted against each other for any other reason empowers only crooks and tyrants.

    I just realized an inconvenient truth.

    What is our plan to supply all of our neighbors with food this week? What do you propose to ensure that they all have running water and electricity? What solutions are you offering that will keep them all safe from theft and assault? What centralized master plan will make our neighborhoods work?

    Time to panic. Of course not. There are two general ways you could respond to such questions: 1) You could suggest some centralized control-freak agenda by which all resources and activity are managed and controlled. 2) You could acknowledge that not only do you not NEED to make sure any of that happens, but if you (or anyone else) DID try to micro-manage and control all those things, it would be a gigantic disaster.

    What works best instead is for your neighbors to run their own lives, figure out their own priorities, decide for themselves who to trade with and otherwise interact with. The sum total of ALL of them doing that can create an amazingly efficient, productive and orderly “system,” without any plan (or planners) at all. That is called freedom, and even when it only partially exists, it has the best track record in the world, by far, of making society peaceful and prosperous. Meanwhile, centrally controlled master plans have been responsible for several hundred million people being murdered, and billions more being oppressed.

    So why are so many people still so eager to jump on board new “master plan” ideas (like the Venus Project or whatever)? In short, because they are scared. They want predictability and assurances. Like little children, they want someone to tell them that everything will turn out fine; they want to think that someone is in charge who will make everything work.

    “Don’t worry, we have a plan. You just defer to us, let us make the decisions, let us manage things, and everything will be okay.” Anyone who says that is either profoundly ignorant about economics and human nature, or is trying to rule the world. Either way, avoid them like the plague.

    In the long run, it will be our individual ideas that matter; “movements” don’t ever matter. Changing the costume on the head of the endless human centipede, accomplishes next to nothing. Old slavery was “abolished” due to a movement. But so what, New Slavery is becoming worse that the old type every day, now. What good was the movement in the end.

    The abolitionist movement, for example, existed only because of the IDEA that slavery is inherently immoral. If every member of that “movement” had been arrested or killed, but the IDEA remained, slavery still would have eventually collapsed. Movements and organizations and campaigns–even revolutions–are nothing but SYMPTOMS of a change in the mentality and philosophy of people. Whether particular “movements” succeed or fail, what matters in the long run is how people see the world.

    That’s why it’s funny when people say, “When are you going to actually DO something, instead of just saying words?” Such people are often eager to charge off and have a protest, or a revolution, or in some other way lash out in anger at the injustice they see. That’s understandable; even commendable. But this world has had many violent revolutions, and most resulted in a situation worse than what existed before (including the American Revolution). Unless minds change, militant zeal doesn’t fix anything. And in most cases, “just saying words” is what changes people’s minds.

    It can be uncomfortable and painful to change how YOU see the world, and it can be difficult and frustrating trying to change how OTHER people see the world. But in the end, that is the source of ALL real change. If people don’t achieve mental freedom, they will never achieve physical freedom. So in one sense, while he won’t get any medals for bravery, the dorky kid sitting in his mom’s basement on a computer anonymously bitching on the internet–if he is bitching about the right things, and advocating actual freedom as the solution–may be doing more for humanity than the dude who bravely charges off to engage in mortal combat against the evils of the world.

    Or maybe I should join them, since I can’t beat them.

    I’m going to rob everybody with guns.

    Obviously I’m gonna keep plenty of the money for myself and give a bunch to my friends, but don’t worry; I’m also going to use the money to provide people with whatever services I decide they need. I mean sure, the shit I’m providing is probably shit that they could already just buy for themselves, without me robbing them, but I’ve decided that people aren’t wise enough to pick their own service providers. I am, though, I know what’s best for them, so I’m gonna be the middleman between them and their essential services whether they like it or not.

    They’ll think I’m the backbone of their society and that they need me. I’m also going to use the money I plunder to get a whole lot of guys with guns working for me so I can show the whole world who’s boss and make even more money. I kinda still want more money than that though……hmm…I know, I’ll write a shitload of rules for everybody to break. Some of the rules can be good ones, like that they shouldn’t hurt each other (unless they work for me).

    When they break my rules, I’ll either demand more money from them, or I’ll kidnap them and hold them for ransom. Plus I bet can get my buddy to pay me a cut of the loot he gets from holding them in his cage. Not to mention I can get even more fucking dough by letting certain people, the really really rich ones, the ability to influence or decide the rules I write. Hallelujah, praise Ronald.
    http://imgur.com/PX7atvx

    Wait, shit, what if people fight back against me? I know, I’ll just hijack most of their time as kids so I can train them to love me and cling to me from the time they’re toddlers. They gotta see me as their rightful authority. I’ll also just flat out GIVE some of them free money so they think I’m a charity. Whatever I do though, I’m gonna HAVE to make sure they never realize that the shit I give them, at least the good shit that they actually want, is shit they would still be getting without me. The victims need to think I’m necessary and I represent them. Scaring them should help. Ooh, I can also let them vote on who works for me, that could make them think I AM them. This is gonna be the greatest heist of all time!

    Maybe instead, if you want something to happen, do it yourself, or pay someone else to do it. There, that should deal with 99% of the questions that start with, “But without government, how will we… or the old what do we do about all the terrible people who do X…?”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55tXhnlZoOg

    • Hi Tor,

      That was excellent, one of your best!

      I read a story years ago that crystalized, for me, the true nature of property taxes. Early on Debeers needed a lot of labor to work the diamond mines. Of course, they didn’t want to simply offer wages that would attract enough voluntary participation so they colluded with the SA government to institute a property tax designed to force black nomadic farmers into the mines. This tax was assessed on the livestock of these nomadic farmers. When they could not come up with the cash (half a goat not being legal tender), they were arrested and forced to “work off the debt”.

      As for indoctrination, Orwell understood this problem but his presentation is really a caricature of what actually happens, and can thus be dismissed as Hyperbole. Real “newspeak” is much more subtle than Orwell describes. It’s not so much that “we” are conditioned to believe that words mean their opposites, but that we are conditioned to believe that words and concepts have different meanings and applications to different groups of people. Clearly taxation is morally indistinguishable from theft. Furthermore, the ongoing nature of taxation requires forced servitude (slavery). These statements should not be controversial, but they are. In fact, many people will get apoplectic with rage when confronted with the challenge of making a logical and ethical distinction between private theft and “public” taxation. Inevitably, their “argument” is shown to be nothing more than “because it’s different”. So, “we” have been trained to believe that those in power are subject to a different reality than the rest of us. As a consequence, “they” exist outside of both the moral and statutory law. Of course, stating this fact honestly would be disastrous. So, “democracy” and the “rule of law” were invented to obscure reality. Democracy provides the necessary, but illusory, consent of the governed. While the “rule of law ” lends legitimacy to the fraudulent claim that the rulers and the ruled exist in a shared reality. The obvious problem that one group is entitled to judge itself must be obscured by the creation of divisions within the ruling party. Political theorists have yet to explain why these different divisions of the same institution would work toward limiting the power of said institution.

      Bastiat once quipped: “plans differ, planners are all alike”. As members of the ruling class, planners are likewise fundamentally disconnected from reality. They imagine a glorious world but sadly recognize that the greatest impediment to the achievement of their goal is the inadequacy of the people who reside in the current, real world. These planners are literally incapable of accepting that there is anything wrong with their grand vision. Thus force is the logical and necessary means of implementation. A few years ago I listened to an interview with the loathsome Kelly Brownell on NPR’s Fresh Air. In it, he admitted that he is incapable of helping people lose weight. Despite years of well intentioned effort, people just stubbornly refused to follow his “plan”. Now, a normal and well adjusted person, faced with evidence of years of failure, might possess the humility and self knowledge to begin to question his own beliefs in that area of failure. Not to a “planner” like Brownell; his failure is only explainable due to the shortcomings of the obese. So, he “regrettably” concludes that the only way to help these people is through force.

      Power not only corrupts, it distorts reality.

      Jeremy

  3. Eric,

    How (why) is 大姨媽 is menses? The characters are big aunt mother (Great Aunt), always found it curious that the aunt character includes that for woman and barbarian.

    I’d also like to make a suggestion (even though I enjoy them immensely) to refer to problem Tesla vehicles as Muskmelons or one could transpose the M&L to Musklemons.

    Bob

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