Human Advancement

Cutting God in Half - The Art of Sideways Thinking

Sun, 5 Sep 2010 10:00:55 -0700

I became aware of Alan Fletcher's book "The Art of Looking Sideways" when it was first published in 2001, and though I've still not read it, the term stuck with me. I eventually came to associate it with a technique for thinking about "hard" problems that I'd always used in some form, but that subsequently became more refined and deliberate once I had a term for it. So while I suspect that much of what I will describe will have some similarity to Fletcher's work, this really has nothing directly to do with it aside from that wonderfully useful term.

By "hard" problems, I meant, at least in part, those question in philosophy and its ugly stepsister, politics, that have seemingly defied conclusive answers, and have certainly defied widely accepted consensus answers. But it also means any problem one is having difficulty coming up with an answer for by the usual means, whether in science, computer programming, personal finance, relationships, wherever such problems arise.
Some of the most vehement arguments I've been involved in were never about facts. The arguing on both sides makes frequent reference to and claims of fact, but the truth is that they are arguments of context. The natural tendency of the human mind is toward forming abstractions, and the end result of the process - whether successfully acheived or not - is a single "ultimate" abstraction that, it is thought, will answer all problems of a similar class. As we move toward more and more comprehensive abstractions, the context widens further and further, until it widens into the ultimate, all-subsuming context, where all context is itself abstracted out. When you drop all context, any problem will become very, very hard. This, I believe, has been the central conflict in philosophy ever since Plato first tried to used his Forms to relieve it of the burden of context.

Sideways thinking brings back into the question the most important aspect of context, the thing that anchors all other contexts. It is a question left implicit in the process of abstraction, but eventually ignored altogether. The question is "why do you want to solve this problem?" The arguments become heated because each participant has his own answer to that question, his own context, yet both sides implicitly agree that what they are seeking is a wider abstraction that transcends that question.

This is not to say that in such arguments, both sides are right. In fact both sides are wrong, but that does not imply the opposite, that either side is right because one is wrong. What it says is that they have divided the problem space along an axis that is perpendicular, or orthogonal to both positions. An answer is impossible to arrive at, because, in a very real sense, they are not arguing about the same question. Nor does thinking sideways mean bringing the context down to only the most concrete and immediate one, eliminating any abstractions from the realm of possible answers. Abstraction is a continuum from concrete to fully abstract. Bringing in the question of "why?", the context of value, does not obviate abstraction, it merely brings it down from the furthest extreme of that spectrum where the answers are "pure" abstractions.

Take the question of the existence of God, for instance. That is a very "hard" question by the criteria above, though most people think they know the answer, and that it is not hard at all. I am actually in that group, coming down on the side of "no", but that does not mean that the problem cannot be looked at sideways, and that doing so cannot produce useful results.

Think of the question as a space, an area like, say, a piece of paper. This is the "problem space". In this space, all the possible answers lay, as well as all the facts, ideas, beliefs that inform the debate. The usual approach to the problem is to metaphorically draw a vertical line down the center of the paper, label it "God's existence", and then argue about whether any given aspect of the problem, including the "right" answer is on the "yes" or "no" side of the divided space.

Just to arbitrarily label the two halves of the space, on the left is "yes", and the right is "no". God lives in the left half of the page, he is absent from the right half. So here's how to think sideways about the problem: Cut God in half. Draw a horizontal line across the page, intersecting the axis of "existence". This new axis is orthogonal to the first axis. It is sideways relative to it. On both sides of this divide, God exists, and He doesn't exist. We are, in effect, assuming the conclusion, or rather, assuming both conclusions. Since the axis no longer divides existence from non-existence, it is assumed by our choice of a perpendicular axis that both are true, for the purpose of argument.

Where do we draw this line? We have a lot of choices here. We're making up an entirely new axis, and it can be anything we want it to be. In the course of an argument over God, one side may bring up objections or positive assertions that seemingly have nothing to do with the question of existence. They are usually questions of purpose, of value, such as "God created the universe", or "God keeps us moral", or "Religious belief in God leads to oppression and violence against those with other beliefs." These are in fact not arbitrary, but are indicators of useful sideways axes.

Let's take that first statement and make it an axis, called "Created the Universe". Actually, lets change the name a little to reflect the orthogonality of this axis to the one of existence, and call it "Caused the Universe to Exist". By itself, this does not seem to help us answer the question of God's existence. Both "God exists", and "God does not exist" inhabit the newly formed half of the problem space that represents "Did cause the universe to exist", and they both occupy the half of the problem space that represents "did not cause the universe to exist". It is not meant to answer the question of His existence. We've, temporarily at least, abandoned that axis in favor of our new one.

It may, however, help us think about the problem space in a new way that may or may not lead us to answers to the question of existence. Sideways thinking is not a tool for coming to an answer to contextless "ultimate abstraction" questions, it is a way of re-framing the problem entirely to keep it in context, and it leads to multiple re-framings in multiple contexts. The ultimate answer may arise out of the aggregate of these new divisions, but it is not necessary that it do so. The out of context abstraction may in fact not be answerable, at least not in any useful way.

So what do we do with this new axis? Well, we've cut God - or at least the idea of God - in half. There's that portion of God-that-does-exist that lays on the "did cause the universe to exist" half of the page, and that portion of God-that-does-exist that lays on the "did not cause the universe to exist" half of the page. Our job then, is to discover which parts of God are which. We assume that God exists, and by our new axis, we define "God" as "that which caused the universe to exist". What parts of God fit the description? What properties are required for causing a universe to exist?

Pre-existing the universe is certainly one of those necessary properties. It is also a necessary property of any non-God thing that might cause a universe to exist. Is being a living, conscious being also a necessary property? Probably not. Though those who believe certainly believe that God is both a living, conscious being and that he created the universe, one is not strictly necessary to the other.

It is possible by this process that we will find no properties that are both necessary to causing a universe to exist and that are actually possible. In any such division along a context-based axis, the empty or null set is one possible outcome. This would not, though, disprove God's existence. It would in fact show that there is no possible thing, God or otherwise, that caused the universe to exist, leaving only the possibility that the universe is uncaused, Maybe because it always existed, or maybe because it sprang into existence literally from no thing and no cause.

It is also possible that properties that can exist, but that are not part of what anyone thinks of as properties of God will be found to be necessary to cause a universe to exist. This would still not prove that God does not exist - we are not concerned with that axis now - but it would show that, existing or not, He didn't create the universe. And of course, it is a technically possible outcome to discover that the only thing that could possibly have created a universe had to have been living, conscious, all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing, and that these properties are in fact possible to all exist.

I'm not going to solve the question of God's existence or the creation of the universe today. I just use them to illustrate a technique I find helpful. There are many other questions that can be approached the same way. "Does the universe even exist, or is it a figment of our imagination?" The "Matrix" question. Look at it sideways. The universe is that which I am conscious of. What properties must it have? Even if I am conscious of nothing but my own consciousness, that is something that exists, and thus my consciousness is the entire universe. (I don't believe that, but examining that is outside the scope of this work.)

"What is the universal human nature?" becomes "What properties of humans are universal?", what properties fall on the "is human nature" side of the new axis. Certainly all humans breathe, and eat, and excrete, but those aren't really the kinds of things we're after. The question of value that must be brought in is usually that of elements of human nature that support theories of morality, ethics, and rights, so a better axis might be to assume a universal human nature that supports those theories does in fact exist, and then examine what properties it must contain, and whether or not those are in fact universal properties of human beings. It could always be a null set, meaning there is no "human nature" in a philosophically relevant sense. In any case, this new axis provides a rich vein of thought to mine for useful answers.

"How big should government be?" is another popular subject of debate. Arguments like "who will build the roads?", "Who will defend us from invasion?", "Government violates rights" commonly come up. So instead, start with "protects our rights" or "builds roads" or "defends against invasion" as possible axes, either side of which contain both "giant all-controlling government" and "no government" and look at which properties are necessary to build roads or protect rights. Is "collects taxes involuntarily" a necessary property? That government that should exist, at least for the purposes above, is whatever entity has the necessary properties.

It's not my purpose to address these questions in detail, nor to conclusively settle millennia old arguments. This is merely to illustrate a way of thinking about such problems that, while it may not provide ultimate answers, can provide useful answers. Sometimes, especially in philosophy, we have to settle for useful rather than ultimate. I personally prefer it that way, since I see philosophy as a tool for living the best possible life. The ultimate questions and answers are less interesting to me than questions that help me find answers to how to do that. Of course, this question can itself be subject to sideways thinking. I leave how to do that as an exercise for the reader.

Response to J Neil Schulman on Copyright

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:16:25 -0700

J Neil Schulman writes

For now I would be entirely satisfied if libertarians and anarchists recognized my property rights in the things I create and respected my right to license copies, using no other enforcement mechanism than social preferencing.

"Rights" to me, and I think to a lot of people, implies things that are legitimately addressed by force.

Here's what I do recognize: the creator of a work has moral ownership of it, at the very least the link between his name and the creation should not be severed. (And every one of the alternative business models that have been proposed, some of which I think are very viable, rely on that link being maintained.)

Copies made and sold under false pretenses, such as a claim that the author authorized the copy, is fraud.

Modified work presented as the author's own work is fraud.

Unmodified work presented as the product of someone other than the original author is fraud.

Modified work, such as parody, commentary, or other fair use should maintain the link between the author and the original work, as well as to acknowledge the modifications as not the original work.

It is immoral to try to make money from another's work at the expense of sales by the original author, but this does not preclude all copying nor distribution as immoral.

It is immoral, and ultimately self-destructive, to always seek value for nothing.

None of this has clear lines, and much of how these principles apply to a given concrete situation will always remain subjective.

Enforcement of any of this is immoral, both by the above, and because enforcement in any but small numbers of edge cases, is not possible without prior restraint or a requirement to prove innocence. Social sanctions are the only way to discipline behavior toward those principles, and that relies on how people evaluate the behaviors.

Libertarians will generally tolerate casual copying, convenience copying, sampling, parodying, previewing, and transient copying....

But, they should have a very low tolerance for abusive copying, such as seeking to parasitize an author's sales, changing the work in such a way as to undermine its original intent without being blazingly clear it is a parody, or just seeking to take a lot of value without giving any in return. They should be ready and willing to use social sanctions to address this. It should be uncool to admit that you torrented 500 songs and never sent a dime to any of the artists.

Artists, on the other hand, should, though obviously cannot be forced to, do several things:

Make it easy to pay for something. Often the price of a movie or song in money pales in comparison to the indirect costs involved in buying it legitimately, such as figuring out how to actually effect payment, DRM and other "protect my computer from me" BS, and arcane pointless rules about copies for backups, car vs work vs home, multiple computers, and time-shifting. Just stop. If I buy a copy of something the copy is mine to do with whatever I please.

Stop expecting the market price of work to be maintained anywhere near the level that the media companies, with the help of their captured legislatures, have set. Those days are long gone, and will not come back. So long as artists and media companies try to hold on to them, crass pirating will continue and expand, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Social pressure works both ways, if you expect people to pay on the honor system, start charging honorable prices and cut out the dishonorable middle men.

Stop threatening casual copiers, and work on converting them to paying customers through incentives and persuasion. Accept that there will be free-riders, that nothing you could ever do will stop that, except to stop producing. Understand that people who become fans from free downloads are likely to eventually become paying customers of not just the music, but live performances, special packages, merchandising, etc., especially after they get out of high school and get jobs. (BTW, Microsoft has admitted that they are a 12-figure company *because of* pirating. It locked in millions of people to Windows products. )

Stop expecting artistic work to be a possible golden ticket to untold wealth without ever lifting a another finger. The Beatles and Michael Jackson were a fringe side-effect of a state granting of IP privilege that never existed as rights, back when there was no internet to call their bluff.

There are viable non-IP business models that can allow good artists to make a living, and mediocre artists to make some money.
Find one that does not rely on state-enforced IP. IP, for the arts at least, is a dead letter regardless of what libertarians say. It's a buggy whip, and the only market for it ten years from now will be sado-masochists. Deal with it and move on, or expect to keep getting smacked around. There is no "safe word" for economic pain.

Stop looking at fans of your work as enemies. And fans, stop looking at the producers of the art you love as milch cows or mindless automotons who are and always will be just categorical "artists". They can always become plumbers if the pay is better. But hey, maybe John Mayer will whistle a tune while he is unclogging your sink some day.

Autodidactic and Alternative Schooling Meta-Learning

Sun, 6 Jun 2010 18:12:52 -0700

In self-teaching a variety of subjects (including the one I am currently employed with), I�ve come across several common obstacles. Even the best self-learning materials fail to address all of these consistently, and it is one of the most difficult things about learning a subject on one�s own.

For just about any subject out there, a wealth of information can be found on the internet and the bookstore. Finding sufficient material is not usually a problem, even for relatively obscure subjects. For instance, I learned how to disassemble and clean a pre-WWII Czechoslovakian rifle via a YouTube video.

It is not in the actual material about the subject where the difficulty comes in. The difficulty is in the mata-information that is needed in order to systematically learn a complex subject. Learning the subject is easy, learning how to learn the subject can be daunting, and in some cases has been difficult enough to discourage or delay my taking on that subject.

This is a difficulty faced by homeschoolers as well as self-learners. It is, in my opinion, one of the most valuable services a good school provides. Perhaps the most valuable service. It is something that has to be given up when teaching is taken out of the hands of professionals and those with direct experience in a subject. Because the public school system is failing us in so many regards, it is also a business opportunity for those who can provide it.

I would like to systematize the approach to meta-learning. Though I won�t be able to do so fully here, I hope to at least start the effort, and/or to draw out information that I might not be aware of from those reading this. My hope is that materials can be developed, aimed at both self-learners and homeschoolers, that can aid in getting past these obstacles so that the learners and teachers can move on to the main business of learning and teaching the subject at hand.

This would allow the self-learner to more fully self-direct his learning. Rather than being bound to the path set by a book or an online course, he could choose from among all the available materials those that suit his needs and preferences best. Additionally, he could better coordinate his learning of multiple subjects that might depend on one another, or have overlapping fields of knowledge.

The obstacles I have come across fall into four categories. Not all of them are a problem for all self-learning efforts. Some available materials do address some of them fairly well, and few fail to address any of them. But I can�t think of any that I have encountered that cover all of them well, nor in a systematic way. Anyone entering into the study of a given subject would do well to recognize that he will have to address each of these categories, and to take the time before beginning study to understand them as they apply to his subject.

1. Prerequisites and Ordering

Pre-requisites are those things that must be mastered or at least known casually in order to productively study a given subject. Ordering is how the ideas within a given subject build upon one another. Nothing is more frustrating than getting to section 6 of a subject, and realizing that it requires knowledge of an entirely different, but more fundamental subject, or that what one thought was section 8 actually should have been done first.

In the case of ordering, this is often closely tied to learning the subject itself. A good book or well put together course will naturally address this issue. Someone picking and choosing from a variety of materials will find this to be one of the major challenges in tackling a subject. In that case, a thorough skimming of various materials might be in order prior to detailed study.

Prerequisites are more frequently left out of study materials. Since pre requisites are not part of the subject itself, it is understandable to leave them out. Since this relationship of one subject to another is not part of any subject, it is not unusual to find that the information is seemingly nowhere to be found. However, this is something that anyone with solid experience in a subject could probably answer off the top of his head with no effort at all.

2. Scope

Scope is simply the question of what is an is not within a given subject. This can be a tricky issue, and will often blindside a prospective self-learner. There is no one answer to this question, it depends on large part what purpose one has for taking on the subject. In academia, there are clear, if ultimately arbitrary, divisions between various subjects. A book on a subject will necessarily have its own scope determined by how the author and publisher view the needs of their target audience. Courses of any kind will have a limited scope as well. Someone who is completely self-directing will often find it quite difficult to decide what to include in his study, and what to leave for later study.

Part of the decision of scope will be based on things that the given subject is prerequisite for. Others will be guided by the assumed demands of a profession. Sometimes it is driven by fashion, or by a given instructor or writer�s persona preferences. Too narrow a scope may leave the learner unprepared for future study, or professional work. Too much scope might hamper the overall effort by making the subject appear larger than it needs to be, or by making the process of studying go on and on seemingly without end.

It is important to note that scope also applies to collections of subjects as well as individual subjects. Someone setting out to �learn math� could have more than a lifetime of study ahead of him if he is not selective. Somebody studying computer programming could easily find that learning merely the syntax rules of a given language leaves him woefully unprepared for any job in the real world. Matching the scope to the purpose is a very difficult thing for someone who does not yet know the subject.

3. Terminology and Unknown Unknowns

Terminology is the actual words used for ideas within a subject. Unknown unknowns are those areas of a subject that a learner is often completely unaware of prior to actual study. Both of these are, of course, part of the study of a subject itself. The problem arises when a self-learner is using a variety of materials and looking for information on his own via a web search or browsing book titles. If he does not know the terminology, such a search can be quite difficult. If he is not even aware of the idea he needs to learn, he will not be able to look for resources for learning it. This is a chicken and egg problem. If he is completely unaware of a subject, or knows no term for it, it is not likely that he will be studying it in the first place. If he knew all the ideas and terminology, he would not likely need to study it.

It is the person who knows some of the terms, and some of the ideas, but wants to learn more fully or systematically that will find difficulty in the process of looking for resources. I have often started a course of study by simply reading, cover to cover, a book such as �C++ for Dummies�, not because I think it will teach me C++, but because it will teach me enough to begin learning the subject. Organized courses are often very helpful in this as well, and even just browsing the names in the course catalog will provide insight to this (and the course descriptions can help with the scope question as well.)

5. Tools

Every field of study has tools it uses, except perhaps subjects like philosophy, or... well, I can�t think of another offhand. The way the question of tools is addressed in learning materials varies very widely. In some cases, the use of a particular tool is so closely related to the subject that a large bulk of the course or book is taken up describing it. In others, it is mentioned in an offhand way, or not at all. Often, the tools mentioned are so specific - such as a specific brand or model - and the instruction is geared toward the use of that specific tool. In this case, it can be very difficult to extrapolate the information to a more general case of the category of tool, or to uses and techniques that are integral to the subject, but not part of the use of the particular tool addressed.

This is especially prevalent in computer programming subjects. Often, the tool chosen will be very specific (usually Microsoft), and the information so detailed that it is almost impossible to engage the subject with any other tool. Often, the tool is obsolete, hard to find, or not compatible with new hardware once the study materials are even a couple of years out of date - even if the subject itself is still viable.

It is vitally important to any course of study that the learner know the tools he will need to use, and to understand how they work. Merely knowing the use of a specific tool is not enough, he must know how the function of that category of tool fits in with the subject matter in a general way. He must be able to adapt the subject matter to a variety of tools because once away from a given course, or as time goes by, he may no longer have access to the specific tool, or may find that others fill his needs better.

Meta learning

A learner beginning a course of study has a unique problem in that he is aware of what he wants to know, but does not know enough about it to direct his study to the best and most efficient use of resources. Among all the resources on various subjects that are available, fairly little is devoted to the meta-learning of the subject. This is a great opportunity to provide such resources to the exploding home- and un-schooling movements, and to create more opportunities for autodidacts to increase the scope of learning open to them in the limited time they have.

Often, the kinds of problems listed above can be bypassed with a small amount of expert knowledge. Anyone who is very familiar and experienced in a subject can often answer the questions about prerequisites and ordering, scope, and terminology and unknown unknowns in a matter of minutes, off the top of his head. Instruction on tools would usually take more effort, but if the resources were available, a self-learner could acquire that knowledge in the same way he does the actual subject. Those resources are often available, but are not always connected to the information about a specific subject. What would be valuable in that case would be expert knowledge about the tools themselves as questions of prerequisites, scope, and unknown unknowns, so that a learner could see that for a particular course of study, he will need to also study certain tools, either prior or in parallel.

This information is out there, but not collected in any systematic way. If it were, it could be the backbone of a system for self learning and alternative schooling that could truly empower those looking for alternatives to public or private formal education, and those who want to take control of their education, or that of their children, back from institutions that are failing in their mission, are too expensive, or that are not flexible enough to meet the rapidly changing needs of today�s world.

tags: autodidact, homeschooling, unschooling, education

An Agorist Manifesto in 95 Theses

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:30:51 -0800

Suitable for nailing to an appropriate door near you...

agora (1) - n. A place of congregation, an ancient Greek marketplace.
agora (2) - n. A market free of forceable regulation, taxation, and government
(The) Agora - The aggregate of all such markets of any size.

95 Theses

1. Free, unregulated, untaxed, and unmonitored trade is the natural right of all human beings
2. In a voluntary trade, both parties receive more than they give up, otherwise neither would trade.
3. Nobody gets taken advantage of through mutually voluntary trade.
4. Taxation forces people to pay for things that aren't worth the cost
5. Government regulation forces people to abstain from trades they would otherwise voluntarily make.

6. Markets collect, organize, and distribute information more rapidly, accurately, fairly, and efficiently than any central authority could ever do, even with superior resources.
7. Prices are information.
8. Force distorts market information.
9. Governments' only means of action is force.
10. Governments operate blindly because they only see information distorted by force. The more information they gather, the less clear their vision becomes.
11. Aggression is a reaction to unpleasant or unwanted information. It's motto is "kill the messenger".
12. A market is smarter than any of it's participants. A government is stupider than most of it's participants.

13. Governments require markets for their survival; markets thrive in the absence of government.
14. The more efficient a government is, the more dangerous it is.
15. Markets improve the material well-being of all people. Governments improve the material well-being of some people at the expense of other people.
16. Markets are more powerful than governments.
17. Human survival and well-being require free markets.
18. Human survival and well-being require the absence of government.
19. The best humanitarian aid that can be brought to impoverished people is to allow them access to the Agora, usually by removing their governments.

20. Productivity is the application of intelligence to labor for creating something of value to someone.
21. Labor is equivalent to value in the same way crude oil is equivalent to a vacation.
22. The non-productive have always and will always try to live off the value created by the productive.
23. The productive will by right decide how much, if any, to allow it.
24. Charity is offered and received face-to-face, or it is no longer charity.

25. Wealth is the natural and honorable reward from trading value for value.
26. Wealth is a store of productivity, not a store of value.
27. In the Agora, the rich have already given back far more than they received. That's the only way to get rich in the Agora.
28. Those who get rich outside the Agora could never give back all they have taken.

29. Money laundering is an invented crime, the concept cannot exist in the Agora.
30. Price gouging is an invented crime, the concept cannot exist in the Agora.
31. Unfair competition is either not one, or not the other, or not in the Agora.

32. Market price is an observation of history.
33. Market price is related to value in the same way news photographs are related to current events.
34. "Intrinsic value" is a lie told by parasites to try to steal from producers.
35. Companies advertising their product as "an $XX value" are lying to you.

36. Fiat currency is theft by fraud.
37. Gold and silver are usually the bases for real money because they have properties that best serve that purpose.
38. Paper is the basis for fiat currency because it has properties that best serve that purpose.

39. Communication strengthens markets and undermines governments.
40. Markets are the way communities stay organized when they are too large for face-to-face interaction.

41. All resources are human. The term "human resources" is demeaning to the nature of both humans and resources.
42. Competition is not the purpose of a market, it is one of its methods.
43. Natural selection in the Agora is more Lamarckian than Darwinian.
44. Natural selection in the Agora does not destroy resources, it reallocates them.
45. Natural selection in the Agora does not kill people, it frees them to be more productive.
46. "Dog eat dog" is a feature of governments, not of markets.
47. Monopolies can only be created and sustained by governments.

48. Freedom to fail is every bit as important as freedom to succeed.
49. The Agora guarantees neither, and resists the perpetuation of both.
50. Markets don't have goals, values, or ambitions. Markets are a tool for human beings to pursue those things.
51. "Market Failure" is an oxymoron. People sometimes fail to use markets properly.

52. Innovation is an inherently Agorist activity, even when it happens outside the Agora.
53. A primary goal of government is to restrain innovation.

54. Raw materials in the ground are not resources until they are brought to market.
55. The owners of private property tend not to destroy it. Commons are routinely destroyed or exhaustively consumed.
56. Agorist exploitation of the environment increases resources, and protects the environment. Government "protection" of the environment reduces resources, and harms the environment.
57. No species is endangered when it is owned. The best way to keep a species from extinction is to allow it to be property in the Agora.

58. "Public property" is an oxymoron, and privatization of profits is not privatization.
59. Property is authority. It's not a market without private property and private authority.
60. Where there is private property authority, there is an agora..
61. Private property let open to the public is not a commons.

62. Shortages do not exist in the free market, government obfuscation of price information is the only way to acheive a general shortage.
63. Being unable to buy something at the price you want to pay is not a shortage.
64. Markets are, in part, a process of voluntary rationing.

65. Corporations are evil only to the extent they rely on government power. Corporations with a monopoly are branches of government.
66. Markets rely on trust. Markets rely on suspicion.
67. Individuals in the Agora expect suspicion and earn trust. Governments demand trust, and earn suspicion.
68. A government truly of the people, by the people, and for the people would have no powers whatsoever.
69. If the measure of virtue for a society is how it treats the least among it, then the Agora is the most virtuous society ever known to man.

70. Governments thrive on opposition, antagonism, provocation, confrontation, and defiance. What they cannot tolerate is to be ignored.
71. The central idea behind the Agora, and one of the things it does best, is to ignore governments.
72. The effectiveness of the Agora's self-regulation is proportional to the extent to which external regulation is absent.
73. The Agora cannot be managed, controlled, regulated, or destroyed. It can only be interfered with.
74. Voting is nothing more than an expression of the voter's preferred way to interfere with the Agora.
75. The Agora is a network, and like all networks, it routes around damage.
76. Government is damage.

77. Public education is an oxymoron.
78. One of government education's primary functions is to instill fear of the Agora.
79. The Agora is all around you. It's nothing to be afraid of.
80. The Agora is peaceful. Violence and war are results of failure to embrace the Agora.
81. Guns are often required to deal with people who operate outside the Agora, because guns are the primary way people outside the Agora operate.

82. The Agora does not require permission.
83. Anyone with the power and inclination to grant the Agora permission is a threat to all honest men.
84. Anyone offering the Agora permission will be ignored.
85. Most true heroes end up in prison or murdered. This is even more true for Agorist heroes.

86. The Agora ignores creed and color.
87. When it comes to markets, black is beautiful.
88. Wherever there are human beings, there is an agora. It may be hiding, but it is there.
89. The Agora is a select community - the strict qualification for membership is to want it. Most people don't.
90. The Agora does not recognize borders or artificial boundaries. It is everywhere, and it is no where.
91. The Agora welcomes you, but does not need you.
92. You need the Agora. Even if you oppose it, you benefit from it.
93. An Agorist movement is an oxymoron. Agorism is the natural state of humanity.
94. Practicing agorism is the only way to achieve agorism. Isolated networks will eventually find each other.

95. Governments are on notice the world over: your days are numbered.

Also posted here.

Idiocracy

Tue, 2 Jun 2009 13:13:36 -0700

Timmy Geithner, who plays Obama's Secretary of the Treasury on TV, was laughed out of China yesterday. Here's a quick summation of some of Timmy's other recent public appearances:
.

It would appear that the Chinese are taking my advice seriously.

They've Tried Everything, Everything...

Fri, 15 May 2009 17:08:27 -0700

So, my local fishwrap is going out of business. It�s no big loss, as I long ago found them unequal to the task of wrapping fish properly. You�d think they would at least try to get that right.

Kate Marymont, Gannett Co. vice president for news, told the newspaper's staff Friday that the paper will continue with a Web site edition providing commentary and opinion but no news coverage.

So, really, nothing at all has changed. I can�t remember the last time I looked at one of the local newspapers - or any newspaper, for that matter - but if I had found some honest news in it, I probably would have kept buying it on occasion.

It seems that even in a desperate bid to find creative ways to remain in business, that approach was just too crazy to consider.

Seeds of Doubt

Sat, 2 May 2009 16:17:07 -0700

A pair of Jehova's Witnesses left my doorstep just now, one of them having promised to read Atlas Shrugged. It took about 20 minutes. He may never read it - I have no idea how seriously Witnesses take such promises - but if not, he may just keep wondering whether he should.

The one before that was a 17 year old kid, a few months ago. He told me, after more than an hour, that I was a good teacher. To which I responded "that's the best way to learn". I must have used up his entire time allotment at the park, since the van came by shortly after to pick him back up. Watching him climb into the van, I'm convinced that he'd be asking some tough questions, if not of his handlers, then of himself.

Either, Both, It Doesn't Matter

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 06:23:20 -0700

Billy, it doesn't matter.

Are Waxman and Markey evil or retarded?

Any sufficiently stupid idea is indistinguishable from malice.

A Note to the Uninformed

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 10:24:22 -0800

Blaming the current financial crisis on the failure of markets is like blaming an airplane crash on the failure of gravity.

The markets didn't fail, you demanded they do something impossible. This crash is the predictable and correct result of the inputs you provided. If you let an airplane turn into an ice-covered flying brick, gravity continues to do exactly what it will do - your flight plan might as well be a parabola - and people die. The NTSB never, in its investigations, asks "What went wrong with gravity?" What makes you think markets are any different?

You might think that we can find an alternative to markets, that markets are a political tool that can be chosen or rejected. They're not. They operate at all times and in all places, and always by the same laws. They are the given that your political positions are tested against.

You have failed.

Auntie Checkers

Fri, 6 Feb 2009 06:04:03 -0800

The people trying to politically destroy Obama (a just and noble cause), have made a tactical error bad enough that if you told me that Obama himself had put them up to it, I might believe you. They're claiming that his aunt is in the country illegally, and if he doesn't deport her, he will have no more credibility.

New Checkers Speech in.... 3... 2.... 1....