Cybernethics / Cybernéthique

People in the know understand that Economics is a point of view on human behavior, and not the field of the statistical study of monetary transactions. Ever since the Armchair Economist, there has been a trend for books that demonstrate how Economic Thinking applies to the study of random social phenomena. In his book Discover Your Inner Economist, Tyler Cowen shows how it applies to your own everyday life. Unlike say Harry Browne in How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World, Cowen doesn't use Economic Thinking to address the big questions of one's life. But that's probably a sound choice in many ways. Firstly, it allows Cowen to illustrate how Economic Thinking applies to many topics without having to confront the distortion fields created by religions, ideologies and other past and present strains of the Synopsis. The reader may or may not make the effort to subsequently formalize such Economic Thinking and apply it to other topics -- Cowen provides a gentle introduction. Secondly, Cowen might or might not have many new ideas on the big questions, that have already been discussed in writing, and about which he may not have great life-transforming experiences to tell. Instead he contributes interesting and useful original material by addressing simple issues in which he has been personally involved first-hand for years: how to best enjoy culture, family, health, food, giving. If you enjoy reading, these issues may talk to you.

I had submitted a variant of my Black Magic text to the essay contest conducted by The Better-World Project. The results were just published on Build Freedom, and I only got a consolation prize. That was well deserved: the other texts were much more inspiring. I invite you to read the actual winners! Thanks again to Frederick Mann for being such a source of inspiration, through his many sites and projects. Few people in the world know the road to freedom. He does, and he leads the way.

Another important way in which americans are free and french are not: in public messages, whether in ads or in public venue regulations, the main way that people are enticed to do things, in the States, is you can do it, you can help preserve the environment, you can achieve something for yourself, etc. In France, it's you must, whether you like it or not, you cannot, because someone who knows better than you has decided it this way. Of course, this is more visible in public regulations than in private advertisements, since the latter always rely on the good will of the consumer. Still, even french ads more often than not resort to bad conscience and other forms of self-loathing. This is not something to be found in the States.

Flow with the Tao, and the Tao will flow with you.

My Creed

I do not choose to be a common man.
It is my right to be uncommon -- if I can.
I seek opportunity -- not security.
I do not wish to be a kept citizen,
humbled and dulled by having the state look after me.
I want to take the calculated risk;
to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed.
I refuse to barter incentive for a dole.
I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence;
the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia.
I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout.
I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat.
It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid;
to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations
and to face the world boldly saying, this I have done.
All this is what it means to be an American.

Dean Alfange

This poem was the basis for Douglas Rasmussen's speech in Aix. I thought I should not only share it with friends, but cast it in gold into my blog. Yes, I am an American, just born in the wrong country. Actually, America is an idea, not a country. Someday, the whole world will be America: land of the free, home of the brave. In the meantime, America experiences a relative shortage of Americans.

Dear Robot,

I dreamt of our duel last night. There was this combat venue, and whoever would kill all volunteer opponents got to be king of an acclaiming mob, always cheering the strongest -- until a better fighter would step forward, slay him, and be cheered instead. You were the king -- a big brute, unvanquished for a long time.

Dear Robot,

It's happening NOW! Of course it is. Really. Indeed, nothing ever happens at any other time but NOW (for a varying value of NOW, of course).

It's a kind of obvious duh! joke, once you get it, --- and that's a generic you because I know you are utterly unable to get it since you can't bind time --- yet it seems to me to be a joke that Mike would agree is the sort that goes on being funny forever. Especially everytime I use it to win against you.

No, I am not a devil-worshipper, a proponent of capitalist exploitation, an opponent of the glorious democracy, an enemy of the State, a traitor to the Nation, or any such thing. Indeed, the devil doesn't exist, and neither do capitalist exploitation, the glorious democracy, the State or the Nation -- they are delusions. I am not taking a stance opposite to yours, I am rejecting your premises. I am not immoral, I challenge your notion of morality. I am not your enemy -- I am your doctor. In as much as I care for the categories against which you're trying to classify me, I am here to cure you from believing in their relevance. The treatment may hurt, but if anything is being fought, it isn't you, but parasites that feed upon you. I am not going against you, I am going against some nefarious memes that use you for transportation, but that are not you: they hurt you and you don't need them.

Do you prefer X or Y?

Mu. The question is irrelevant to me, because it's not a choice I have or am ever likely to have.

OK, but what if you could make this choice?

How so?

For instance, imagine you had a magic wand that you could wave either way, to achieve either X or Y?

You mean a device possessing a great power capable of achieving either X or Y?

In his practice, Albert Ellis, inventor of the Rational-Emotional Behavioral Therapy, traced down most psychological trouble to irrational demands of 100% guarantees of success -- or at least of non-failure -- that people make out of themselves, out of other people, out of future natural events: thinking in turns of MUSTs and SHOULDs instead of CANs and MAYs. Teleological normative discourse versus purposeful descriptive discourse. Well, once again, and quite unsurprisingly, this is perfectly in concordance with my claim that belief in the State is a mental pathology.

Sometimes, I think I have got a life. And you don't hear much from me. But to make a woman happy takes more than I currently know how to give. She can feel it, though she can't (or won't) tell exactly why (to me, probably to herself neither). Then I can feel she can feel it, yet I don't know what to do. And finally we part.

My brother and I were discussing of western adaptations of haikus, and we started composing haikus in French. Afterwards, I composed this series in English, with the same theme as I had explored in French. Our constraints:

first and third lines rhyme,
syllables: 5-7-5,
a season, a chime.

Au cours d'une sortie avec mon frère, nous avons discuté de haïkus en français, et nous sommes lancé dans la composition. Les contraintes dont nous nous souvenions ou du moins croyions nous souvenir, et que nous avons adoptées: 3 vers de 5-7-5 syllabes; rime du premier et du troisième vers; une saison. J'ai vite écrit une série, puis une deuxième, que j'augmentais le lendemain d'une troisième.

Procrastination stops NOW! It doesn't stop tomorrow. It cannot stop tomorrow. It can stop but now. Oh, I will probably put up a good fight against it tomorrow too. But the time it stops is NOW! It will also be NOW! tomorrow, but this NOW! is not that NOW!, and it is always and will always be the (grantedly moving) current NOW! that ever matters.

Eric S. Raymond tells in his blog the proper answer to the stupid crazy superstitious propaganda of after-life catastrophists who prey upon people's fear to demand obedience to their oppressive schemes least something really bad will happen to you: laugh them away. Humor and ridicule are the only proper answer to such stupidity. Well, they are also the appropriate answer to the fear-mongering statists who demand that the world should be subject to their schemes least a great catastrophe will happen.

Je ne suis pas sorti à temps de ma torpeur. Je n'ai pas été chercher ma voiture. Je n'ai pas pris le train. Je ne serai pas à Paris ce week-end. Mais je pense à vous et vous souhaite un joyeux anniversaire, papa!

mood: hungry

music: Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody

Comme vous pouvez le constater au fait que je passe mes nuits à vider mes fonds de tiroirs sur mon blog, je suis dans une phase de grosse déprime. Beuh. Ne lisez pas la suite, c'est personnel.

Dans une discussion, d'aucuns tenteront de discréditer leurs accusateurs en disant que ceux-ci lancent des attaques ad hominem. Voilà bien un anti-concept de plus, un raisonnement à l'envers, dont des terroristes intellectuels se servent pour empêcher quiconque d'arriver à la seule conclusion rationnelle les concernant, à savoir leur culpabilité, telle qu'étayée par moult arguments valables. C'est une interdiction de penser, une interdiction de juger à leur encontre, eux ne s'empêchant pas, et par leur affirmation même, de dire du mal d'autrui.

mood: calm

Mon ami David Madore m'écrit une lettre fort pertinente au sujet de mon blog, avec comme à son habitude cette pénétration exceptionnelle qui est la sienne. Il met le doigt sur certains points essentiels qui ne vous ont je l'espère pas échappé, en tout cas qui méritaient d'être discutés. Voici le texte complet de sa lettre, et ma réponse incise. Merci donc à David.

At one point, spinemasher questioned my sanity. Well, actually, yes, I'm insanely passionate about the logic part of rationality. What can possibly be insane about that? Well, the insanity is in my neglect the other crucial part of rationality, properly prioritized goal-setting. For instance, with this current discussion, I wasted my time clarifying notions of logic for someone who is obviously unable to make any sense out of it -- because his priorities have shifted away any involvement of logical thinking from such discussion. All this while I could have spent my time more wisely at other activities.

The Democrats cry, "The emperor should subsidize the poor!", Republicans argue, "No, the emperor should subsidize the rich!", Libertarians respond, "The emperor wears no clothes", while Terra Librans ask, "Why do they call that naked man emperor?"

Googling my way and chasing links to find stuff related to my article on Government and Black Magic, I had already discovered this excellent article on the Nature of Government by Frederick Mann (well, actually, I had found an older version on the site of the APFN -- see my post below about the hallowcinotion that is government). Well, it's only one in a vast body of interesting documents from Terra Libra (the homepage of which I located thanks to the links from libertocracy). There seems to be a gold-mine of documents to Clear Your Mind from the statist pollution. As for the quote above, it's from an article named the Terra Libra Shift. Another site I found along the way is Revolution, ammo for freedom fighters, but I much prefer the name of the site Build Freedom -- because it makes it obvious that Liberty is a paradigm of creation and harmony, whereas talking about fight is already buying into the paradigm of destruction and conflict of the enslavers.