Paul Rosenberg
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Current Columns and Articles |
2023-12-02
Feature Article
ROSC 15: Building Ourselves a City
Theorizing is one thing; doing is quite another. No matter how good you think your theories are, applying them to the real world is always a revelation.
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2023-11-29
Feature Article
ROSC 14: The Bitcoin House
It's been a strange but recurring theme in my life that when a cluster of bad things hit, something good follows close behind. Often, I learn later that the good thing was initiating just as the bad things struck.
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2023-11-17
Feature Article
Earned Knowledge, L10, P4
The New Europe
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2023-11-11
Feature Article
Western Civilization, Seen from 2150 AD, Part 1 & 2
In the late 20th century it began dawning on the heirs of Western civilization that the archaic forms of rulership they lived under (and which they had held as the ultimate form of human organization) were actually enormous parasites.
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2023-11-05
Feature Article
Earned Knowledge, L9, P1
A fundamental part of "how people lived" is the technology they created and used. We've been covering this in our previous lessons, but this lesson will go into it further.
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2023-11-01
Feature Article
ROSC 5: The Late, Great Chester Cruz
I found the Mueller Sanitarium for the Chronically Ill a few blocks from a place I worked back in the 1980s. It sits almost by itself, at least if you don't count parking lots, and only a block or so from a rapid transit train. It's tucked in bet
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2023-10-26
Feature Article
The Rise of the Superfluous Class, Part 1
Jay's Bar, my hangout back in the 1990s - through the heady years of the early internet, the cypherpunks, and the all-out gas that was the digital gold economy - seems to be coming back to its glory.
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2023-10-19
Feature Article
So, You've Been Made Superfluous…
In the US, something like 100 million people have "dropped out of the workforce," and the situation is often worse in Europe. The ruling systems of the West have made these people superfluous. If you're one of them, I'm sorry. It's a horrib
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2023-10-17
Feature Article
We Are Great
A number of people seem to freak out when I write a piece like this, but it's a huge mistake to define ourselves by what we're against, and darkness is not all that exists in the world.
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2023-10-12
Feature Article
"Law" as a Jedi Mind Trick
About half the time it is used, possibly more, the word "law" is nothing more than a Jedi mind trick. There is nothing noble, righteous, or even 'conservative' about it. It's a way for you to be abused via confusion and inertia.
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2023-10-07
Feature Article
Status, Evolution And Human Nature
Status forces us to think in terms of position, hierarchy, and dominance, and can't possibly do otherwise; it is built solely upon our standing relative to others.
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2023-10-05
Feature Article
We Don't Really Know What's Happening
And, believe it or not, this is rather good news. I'll explain...
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2023-10-01
Feature Article
The Problem With Activism
There are people called "activists" whom I respect and support, but I divide these people from the activism of my title, because these people act, encourage, and teach directly, not through third parties.
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2023-09-28
Feature Article
The Way of the 21st Century: Going Nowhere While Very, Very Frightened
Nothing makes humans easier to manipulate than fear. Get a group of Homo sapiens afraid of something and most of them will run wherever you want them to. Unfortunately, all the manipulators of our time know this and are maximizing their use of it.
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2023-09-26
Feature Article
The Only Thing Necessary for Evil to Triumph Is…
I'm betting that most of my readers can complete this phrase. The problem is, it isn't quite true. Edmund Burke, its supposed source, was a good man, but that doesn't make the saying true.
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2023-09-24
Feature Article
The Passing of American Exceptionalism: How We Became Like All the Other Nations
Once upon a time there really was an American exceptionalism and America was a light unto the world. That exceptionalism was a long way from perfect (looking for perfection in a mass of humans is silly), but it was legitimate.
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2023-09-21
Feature Article
The Corporate Cocoon
In my town, the corporate throngs travel almost in unison every morning and every night, making their way from the manicured suburbs to the shiny central city and then back again.
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2023-09-19
Feature Article
Druglord, Genius, or Saint? What Kind of Man, Really, Is Silk Road's Dread Pirate Roberts?
(Originally published November, 2014) As many of you must know, the US government has charged a young man named Ross Ulbricht with being "Dread Pirate Roberts" (DPR), the "drug kingpin" behind the Silk Road online bazaar.
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2023-09-16
Feature Article
In Praise of Traditional Family Values… Mostly
Humanity has a problem of clinging to extremes, as I'm quite sure you've noticed. They love the Reds and hate the Blues, or they love the Blues and hate the Reds. They believe deeply in God, or they consider belief to be insane.
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2023-09-15
Feature Article
We're Better Than We Think We Are
The problem with most humans is not that they think too highly of themselves: it's that they think too little of themselves. They exhibit what G.K. Chesterton called a "weird and horrible humility." To put it bluntly, we've been trained to pe
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2023-09-14
Feature Article
A Report from Middle America
(Originally published in 2014) I was recently involved in a day of meetings with small business owners in the American Midwest. It was both encouraging and sad at the same time.
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2023-09-12
Feature Article
The Forgotten Holocaust
The Armenian Genocide was a systematic extermination that occurred during World War One, mostly in 1915. The killers were Ottoman Turks: agents and soldiers of that government, as well as eager civilians.
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2023-09-12
Feature Article
Are You a Gorilla or a God?
Humanity stands about halfway between gorillas and gods. The great question that looms over us, is this: "Which will we incorporate into our lives? Primate things or God things?"
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2023-09-07
Feature Article
Silk Road Died, Bitcoin Crashed. So why am I so happy?
(Originally published October, 2013)
You may have heard that Silk Road - the truly free online market - was taken down today, by the FBI. In response, the price of Bitcoin crashed 24%.
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2023-09-06
Feature Article
The Blow That Ended America 100 Years Ago
(Originally published in 2013.)
"There is a lot of ruin in a nation," wrote Adam Smith. His point was that it takes a long time for nations to fall, even when they're dead on their feet. And he was certainly right.
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2023-09-06
Feature Article
If The Founders of Democracy Could See This…
The word democracy is held in awe these days. Mention it almost anywhere and you'll get instant nods of approval.
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2023-09-06
Feature Article
The Fascist's Guide to Business Success
I was downtown last Thursday and ended up with an hour to kill before my train home, so I went down the station's back stairs and around the corner to Jay's Bar. It was almost six o'clock, so the crowd was a mix of corporate suits buying expens
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2023-09-02
Feature Article
Thomas Jefferson: "We Failed"
Thomas Jefferson - one of my long-time heroes - was convinced that he and his friends blew the chance they had to establish freedom in America. I know that a hundred thousand self-praising textbooks, speeches, pundits and songs claim that Jeffers
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2023-09-06
Feature Article
The 21st Century Addictions
In any negotiation, the one with power is the one who can walk away. If you can't walk, you have no power and you won't get what you want.
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2023-08-23
Feature Article
The Jesus Challenge
There has been no more important teacher in human history than Jesus of Nazareth. Not only was Western civilization (the civilization that eliminated slavery, spawned science and unleashed production) based upon his teachings, but more than two billi
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2023-08-16
Feature Article
The Wisdom of Thomas Jefferson
I've made no secret of my admiration of Thomas Jefferson, and today I'd like to show you at least part of why. And so I'll give you a collection of my favorite Jefferson passages. There was considerably more to the man than just his writings, b
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2023-08-11
Feature Article
A Deep State Primer
I recently had some discussions with a friend on the Deep State in America. And since this topic has been making the rounds, I think a primer may be helpful. I spent time, some years ago, among these people: commuting on their roads and trains, sleep
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2023-08-09
Feature Article
More Amazon Trouble
We've had more trouble with Amazon.com, and so we'll take another step away from them. They seem to be handling our Kindle orders as usual, but have de-listed our paper titles. This has wildly distorted the prices of our books on their site. A co
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2023-08-09
Feature Article
Podcast: Post-Primate Society, Part 1
This series of seven podcasts include the text (but not the notes) of my book, Post-Primate Society: A New Look At The Human Story. I think it's a very important book, but I also think it will take some time to be accepted.
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2023-08-01
Feature Article
When Was the Last Time You Held a Baby?
Have you ever noticed that pessimistic and depressed people avoid babies?
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2023-08-01
Feature Article
Suffering Is Required
Most Jews know how to suffer. Most Christians don't, although they once did. Bitcoiners and homeschoolers know how to suffer. "Vote harder" types seldom do.
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2023-06-26
Feature Article
Why You Shouldn't Believe In A Full-Spectrum Crash
There are a large number of people waiting for a full-spectrum, apocalyptic crash of the Western system. What I maintain is that it won't happen. And I hope to convince you that I'm right.
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2023-06-19
Feature Article
The Wisdom Of The Hippies
Sadly, there are fairly few people left who understand what the Hippies were really about. Mostly people remember the Hollywood version: pot-smoking, political protesting and clumsy dancing. The actual Hippies, especially the early Hippies, were a mu
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2023-06-12
Feature Article
The Truth We Can't Accept
There is a simple fact that people are unable to ingest. You can explain it carefully, with charts, graphs and solid documentation… and they may even like the sound of it… but after the explanation, it fades away and is forgotten.
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2023-06-05
Feature Article
6,000 Years On The Wheel
The life that has been gifted to us is old… more than 6,000 years old. It began before recorded time, on the plains of Mesopotamia. There it was that the race of men was regimented; it was there that they learned to be ruled.
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2023-06-03
Feature Article
Earned Knowledge, L7, P2
Sacrifices to the gods were basic parts of the ancient religions. We've mentioned them before, but from the records left by the Romans we get a very clear picture of how they operated.
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2023-05-29
Feature Article
The West's New Faith
Christianity, as people in their 60s and 70s have observed, was pushed off the public stages of the West over the past two generations. At this point, whoever speaks well of it in such places must be prepared to absorb blows.
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2023-05-22
Feature Article
Demolishing The Warren Report
One of my entertainments, from time to time, has been the Kennedy assassination… John Kennedy's, that is. I'm not particularly a fan of mysteries, but once in a while one of them intrigues me, and this is a good one.
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2023-05-15
Feature Article
My Depression
Don't worry, it was a low-grade thing, not at all like the debilitating depression many people suffer through. So low-grade, in fact, that I didn't think of it as more than a bad mood.
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2023-05-08
Feature Article
Privacy-GPT
Consider this:
We have multiple communication systems running all the time: Mail, email, other Internet methods, messengers (car and bike), text messages, several phone networks, ham radio, CB radio and pager networks. Long distance traders and sh
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2023-04-24
Feature Article
What Julian Assange Was Really Doing
We must not forget about Julian. And so I am re-posting this article from some years ago, with just a bit of editing. It explains what Julian and his friends were really doing, which is probably not what you thought.
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2023-04-10
Feature Article
The Times They Are A-Changin'
Recently a friend sent me a snippet of a conversation he saw in an online community. It read, Public school attendance is indoctrination in obedience. That's a stark statement, but what struck me was not its bluntness, but that it has become common
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2023-04-03
Feature Article
Why Kindness Doesn't Change The World
Everything we do changes the world, of course, and I remain a strong advocate for kindness. Nonetheless, we need to face the fact that the children's book version of "be kind and change the world" hasn't worked. Wars and crime proceed as they
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2023-03-27
Feature Article
Build Yourself A City
We all know that the system lies to us daily. We know they are proceeding, boldly, with bizarre and deeply damaging policies, like teaching our children it would probably be a good idea to "transition" from being a girl into a boy or vice versa.
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2023-03-20
Feature Article
Are We Ready For A Sovereign Debt Crisis?
I've been warning Bitcoiners that we needed to be the adults of finance for quite some years, and I'm pleased to say that we've come a long way in that direction. I still see more juvenille behavior than I'd like, but progress has clearly bee
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2023-03-20
Feature Article
RIP, Harry Schultz
My friend, Harry D. Schultz, died February 22nd, at his home in Monaco.
Harry had a long and productive life. Born in Milwaukee in 1923, he was shipped off to Shanghai toward the end of World War II, where (while still in the service) he learned t
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2023-03-08
Feature Article
Site Upgrade - Freeman's Perspective
As of this morning, May 8th, our site is being updated, integrating both Bitcoin and Lightning into our subscription process. We're also offering a discount for Bitcoin subscriptions.
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2023-03-01
Feature Article
Debt And Compliance
I've advised people to get and stay out of debt for a long time, but even so, I didn't fully understand the affects of debt until the Covid time hit us. As the mayhem spread, I struggled to understand the level of compliance with what would have
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2023-03-01
Feature Article
A New Watchman Privacy Podcast
I recently did a wide-ranging podcast with Gabriel Custodiet of The Watchman Privacy Podcast.
I thought we covered a lot of interesting subjects, including some that I seldom write upon.
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2023-02-20
Feature Article
Earned Knowledge, L4, P1
Starting Over - As we said in Lesson #3, in the years surrounding 1,200 BC, every major ruling group in the Near East was wiped out. Egypt was the only exception, and just barely at that.
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2023-02-17
Feature Article
A Crucial Message On CBDCs
Again I am ringing my alarm bells. This message is for everyone, but especially for anyone involved with computer programming… at all.
This Is Serious.
Please pay attention.
Pass this along.
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2023-02-07
Feature Article
Information Is Broken
Humanity is informed as never before; nothing in the historical record compares. This, unfortunately, is not a particularly good thing.
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2023-01-30
Feature Article
Bourgeois And Proud
Even if you're not exactly sure what bourgeois means, you've almost certainly noticed that it refers to something bad or embarrassing. In a moment I'll explain its actual meaning, but first I want to turn the tables on it: I will maintain that
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2023-01-21
Feature Article
Earned Knowledge, L3, P1
As we mentioned in Lesson #2, once hard and aggressive people in other places knew that kingship worked so well in Mesopotamia, they began to copy it. And so the "kingship from Eridu" model began to spread all through the ancient Near East. But w
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2023-01-21
Feature Article
Demon of The Year: 2022
The Demon of The Year award is given to, "that person or entity who has terrified more children, raised more blood pressure and/or been more reflexively hated than any other being on our planet over the past year."
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2023-01-06
Feature Article
The FTX Heist, In Brief
As you'll see, I don't think the FTX crime, as vile as it is, is worth a great deal of our time: We are producers, and should devote our energy to production. For that reason I haven't written about it till now.
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2022-12-31
Feature Article
A New Year's Meditation
If you could go back in time a thousand years, you'd find people who were shockingly similar to those you presently love. The same is true for people who will live a thousand years from now. Some of them will be nearly identical to the people you n
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2022-12-08
Feature Article
30 Minutes To Excellence
Excellence is attainable, and by every healthy person. I received this lesson from a man I never met, named Earl Nightingale. Today I'm passing it along to you.
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2022-12-08
Feature Article
Earned Knowledge: L1, P3
So far we've mostly examined what these people left behind. But how did they live every day, and what did they think about? These are the more important questions.
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2022-11-29
Feature Article
Our Moral Obsession
Humans are moral obsessives. Anywhere you go, you'll find people speaking in moral terms: "He didn't treat me right," "She's arrogant," "That's a man you can respect," and so on. All of these are moral judgments. Even confirmed cr
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2022-11-29
Feature Article
Earned Knowledge: L1, P2
What's even more important about these people is that they brought farming all the way across Europe. People didn't grow a great deal of food prior to this group (as best we can tell), and they brought wheat, peas, lentils, barley, plums, hackber
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2022-11-21
Feature Article
Bitcoin Is Far More Than An Investment
Over the past few years, huge numbers of people have come to see Bitcoin as an investment… as a stock. That's because a significant percentage of the populace - certainly a good percentage of the investing class - knows someone, at least a fr
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2022-11-05
Feature Article
A Bitcoin OG Post
I was a radical before most of you Bitcoin users were born. That doesn't make me any better than you (hopefully I did a few things to make you better than myself), but it does give me a better perspective; time just works that way.
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2022-10-31
Feature Article
A Frank Letter to the Homeless Man Under the Bridge
I see you standing here, asking for help, about once a week. You are always polite, and I respect that. I'd like to do something for you… something that would matter long-term. Giving you a few notes or coins now and then may be fine, but I'd r
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2022-10-24
Feature Article
Moving Back To The Internet
Yes, I know that it seems the Internet has swallowed the world, but that isn't quite true. What actually happened was more or less the opposite: The world has captured the Internet.
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2022-10-20
Feature Article
Child Abuse On A Civilizational Scale
This is not something I ever wanted to write or even imagined writing. And yet, here we are. I've been receiving a stream of reports from wildly divergent sources, all saying the same things.
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2022-10-20
Feature Article
The Forbidden Thought
The dominating systems of our world require us to feel weak, afraid, and insufficient. They couldn't continue if most of us didn't feel that way. And so the friends and operators of these systems must oppose the opposite assumption: That we are n
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2022-10-03
Feature Article
Transmitting Civilization Is Now Up To Us
Western civilization - the most effective major civilization in human history - has lost its mechanisms of transmission. And that's a big problem. Civilizations are simply collections of humans who share certain ideas, and if those ideas are no
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2022-09-20
Feature Article
Follow-Up On The Social Contract
Last week we examined the "social contract" in some depth, to see if it passes as a legal concept. This week we'll examine two follow-up issues: one that I didn't mention and one that I mentioned, but didn't delve into.
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2022-09-20
Feature Article
Tickets Still Available!
There are - and this is most unusual - tickets available for the annual hackers congress at Parallelnà Polis in Prague. September 30th through October 2nd
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2022-09-12
Feature Article
Is The Social Contract Legit?
The social contract is certainly enforced as if it were a legitimate contract, but enforcement doesn't legitimized anything; that's merely one half of a contract, executed unilaterally.
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2022-09-06
Feature Article
How Democracy Empowers Central Banking
It has been dawning upon the people of the West that central banking cartels have been draining away their wealth. That's a significant movement forward, and not one I want to interrupt. And so I'll ask you to use this information sparingly (pres
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2022-08-30
Feature Article
Cultural Appropriation Is A Good And Necessary Thing
If we seriously attempted to use only those things created by people who look like us, half of mankind would be dead within six months.
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2022-08-30
Feature Article
A Saturday Night In Starbucks
These people - and there are untold millions of them - are productive and cooperative. Their problem is that they've been laying aside their virtues at the insistence of fear-peddlers.
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2022-08-16
Feature Article
The Return of The Adults
It wasn't very hard to see, as the 1970s passed into the '80s and '90s, that adults were abandoning their roles in the world. They resigned, en masse, and were replaced with youth-friendly types. Youth culture had become a great sales tool, aft
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2022-08-10
Feature Article
Social Media Is An Addiction
If you had to pick between a social media addiction and Covid, it would be better to pick Covid: it only debilitates you for a few days, then goes away. Social media debilitates you for years, perhaps decades, and perhaps for life. It is designed to
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2022-08-09
Feature Article
Jefferson's Warnings
People remember Thomas Jefferson mainly for the Declaration of Independence, which he wrote in 1776. Some remember that he served as president from 1801 to 1809, but aside from that, few know much more of his life and work. In fact, he lived until 18
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2022-07-26
Feature Article
The Feminine Principle
Form time immemorial, humanity has enjoyed the presence of what we might call feminine influences and masculine influences (which don't necessarily involve one or the other sex). These masculine and feminine principles have jointly molded humanity,
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2022-07-05
Feature Article
A List of Family Entertainment
Your responses to my request for family-friendly entertainment were overwhelming. Thank you all. At first I intended on vetting the list and commenting on the various titles, but there were far too many.
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2022-06-23
Feature Article
"Green" Means "Poor"
"sustainable agriculture," no matter how reverently it's name is intoned, actually means "lower crop yields and fewer animals per acre." All the rest is misdirection… "Boob bait for the Bubbas," as an old senator used to say.
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2022-06-23
Feature Article
Assaulted With Hard Questions
To be a parent is to be assaulted with hard questions. And what's especially hard is that these are fundamental questions, and most of us lack solid answers to them.
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2022-06-16
Feature Article
I Need A List of Family Entertainment
I'd like your help on something: I'm looking for television shows or movies that are suitable for children. In other words, I don't want war, death, trauma, or bloody heroes. Rather, I want images of loving families, habits of success, and grow
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2022-06-14
Feature Article
A Defense of Young Men
Young men get a bad rap, not only in modern narratives, but in assumptions that portray them as the aberrant sex, rather than the normative one. Neither sex is normative, of course; humans come in two basic varieties, and both are equally necessary.
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2022-06-13
Feature Article
The Necessity of Family Rituals
There is a gaping void in the modern West: A profound lack of moral education. This void was created when church attendance was ripped out of the culture and replaced with nothing at all. This is a dangerous void: a civilization cannot continue witho
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2022-06-06
Feature Article
What Would You Die For?
It is by answering such a question that we define ourselves as more than "intelligent meat machines." Answering the question in any positive way defines us as deep beings… as transcendent beings.
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2022-05-31
Feature Article
Why The Prime Directive is Evil
...there were a few things about TNG that rubbed me the wrong way, and the biggest of those was the Prime Directive. (It played a small role in the original series, but a large one in TNG.) I couldn't define why it bothered me back in 1990, but the
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2022-05-30
Feature Article
How To Love
Once upon a time, most Westerners learned how to love by sitting in church and listening to stories from, and exposition upon, the Bible. Regardless of sometimes mixed messages, this had its effects, and people did learn how to love.
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2022-05-25
Feature Article
A Defense of 1950s Housewives
I believe that women are inherently as valuable as men and that impositions put upon them because of their sex are crimes. But I don't believe this because of politics, I believe it because of experience.
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2022-05-23
Feature Article
For Important Decisions, Turn Off The Story
When making a hard decision, make sure that there's not a story playing in the background and affecting your choice. Notice the story that's running and turn it off. Make the decision clearly. I'm convinced that this can save you piles of troub
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2022-05-17
Feature Article
How Conservatives Are Neutralized
Conservatives tend to be decent human beings and good neighbors. There are exceptions, of course, but those cluster around people who use conservatism as a cover for their sins. I'll ignore those people for the rest of this post.
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2022-05-16
Feature Article
The News Is Designed To Break Your Will
More or less every adult knows there are serious problems with "the news," by which I refer to the alphabet soup of news organizations plus fact-checked social media. Most of them, however, are smallish things; legitimately bad, but not the centr
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2022-05-09
Feature Article
The Beauty And Simplicity of Moral Clarity
So, a constantly healthy body and an exceptional mind were tremendous gifts - for which I am deeply grateful - but they were second to the blessing of clarity.
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2022-05-02
Feature Article
Forgiving Ourselves
I think we've all heard people say that in order to repair a relationship, it's necessary to forgive the other person first… to accept that they, like you, have their flaws, and that you will no longer hold them to account for what they did.
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2022-04-26
Feature Article
Woke Is Our Problem To Fix
Woke is most certainly a problem, especially because it has overtaken the institutions of the West. Fundamentally, however, Woke is a problem residing in individual humans. And because those humans are our children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and
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2022-04-25
Feature Article
Children Must Be Made To Work
Children are ignorant, but not stupid; small, but not insignificant. And while the role they are able to play in the world is necessarily limited, it need not and should not be zero.
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2022-04-12
Feature Article
A Third of A Century Into Global Warming
It was in 1988 that I first heard of global warming. Seeing that we had recently emerged from a decade-long cold spell, it came as something of a surprise. But I didn't think much of it one way or another, as I had, by that time, learned to ignore
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2022-04-06
Feature Article
Return Engagements: Book Three (Part Two)
At 4:21 AM I was dressed in two pairs of socks, work boots, an old-style war surplus coat, gloves and a hat. I also found a fairly large duffel bag and filled it with my money satchel, two small, dirty blankets, and my little friend, who, upon furthe
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2022-04-05
Feature Article
Manners: Why?
Manners begin with an acknowledgement that we live in a tough world, and sometimes a tragic world. We teach and display manners to help each other through it. There have been many mis-uses of manners, and we'll deal with those in a moment, but this
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2022-04-02
Feature Article
A Twitter Mob Is A Religious Experience
I'll be brief, but I want to explain how social media mobs provide people with a religious experience. Without this bit of understanding, I don't think we can make proper sense of the new phenomenon.
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2022-03-28
Feature Article
At The Edge of The Abyss, Again
Here we stand at the edge of an abyss, gazing down at world war. Again. And almost no one grasps the reality of it: it's all images flying across screens and propagandists seizing emotions. Thinking, world wide, has constricted to the application o
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2022-03-21
Feature Article
Fuel For Healthy Souls
We all need certain inputs if we're to be deeply healthy… if we're to have healthy souls. But for children this is even more important. If they get the right fuel for their souls, they'll build not just better hearts and minds, but better exp
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2022-03-17
Feature Article
Social Media Hijacks The Subconscious Mind
Anything that affects the subconscious minds of billions of people, on a daily basis, is a very serious thing, and that is precisely what has happened over the past decade, as social media captured a large percentage of human cognition
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2022-03-14
Feature Article
The Habit of Excellence
All healthy humans are capable of enjoying excellence. More than that, they can enjoy sustained and repeated excellence. And it does feel good to excel… to know that you worked hard and accomplished something. It proves to us that we can improve, t
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2022-03-08
Feature Article
I Stand With The Russian People (And The Ukranian People)… And Against Mania
As I write this, the West has fallen into another spiral: where millions of people plug in to a harmonized set of sources, and where the whole complex feeds back upon itself, generating devil figures and blind, collective disgust.
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2022-03-07
Feature Article
The Theology of Jesus
When the subject of Christian theology comes up, nearly everyone, nearly all the time, goes directly to theologies about Jesus. What is flatly bypassed is the theology that Jesus held personally, before anyone formulated a theology about him.
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2022-03-07
Feature Article
Covid Science
We all know what Covid science is: It's the science of the Presidential podium. It's the science of the impressively televised. It's the science of social enforcement, the science of status, and the science of the censor.
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2022-02-28
Feature Article
Breaking The Cycle of Dominance
...we all know that the dominance hierarchies of the world are sources of pain and frustration, even of destruction, yet we don't look for alternatives. Clearly there is something wrong here.
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2022-02-25
Feature Article
Names And Things, Understanding And Remembering
Humans, if they are to function as intelligent beings, must trust their abilities to comprehend and judge. And their ability to do that rests upon their cognition â€" their reasoning â€" operating in ways that don't overburden and misdirect them. W
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2022-02-18
Feature Article
Pre-Wired For Justice = Pre-Wired For Tyranny
I'm borrowing just a bit from our March newsletter, but I think this point should be made now.
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2022-02-14
Feature Article
Habits Are A Superpower
Habits can help us immensely or hurt us immensely, and if we don't pay attention to them, they will be formed in us by accidental processes. And over time they make such a tremendous difference in our happiness and effectiveness that they really ar
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2022-02-08
Feature Article
Rooting In Reality
One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is to root them in reality. That's an odd statement, I know, and I'll explain it momentarily, but after many years spent trying to figure out what makes a positive difference in a life… and esp
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2022-01-31
Feature Article
Teaching Children How To Love
To my surprise and disappointment, I recently realized that I've never seen anything written on teaching children how to love. Showing by example, yes. Telling them they should, yes. But the direct, nuts and bolts of how to love, no.
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2022-01-26
Feature Article
Teaching Children About Vulnerabilities
Humans have weaknesses and vulnerabilities. That's unfortunate, of course, but by itself it's not deeply problematic. What's problematic is failing to identify and address them.
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2022-01-21
Feature Article
A Crucial Note To Everyone In IT
Central Bank Digital Currencies are the most direct threat to human liberty - and to the human mind - that has ever come along. Consider, please, that they directly correspond to the "mark of the beast" in the Bible.
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2022-01-17
Feature Article
Science: What it Is, What It Isn't
Science, since it was monopolized by institutions and especially over the past two years, has become something quite other than what it was found to be during the early Enlightenment. That is, what is called science by the mouthpieces of the status q
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2022-01-17
Feature Article
Science: What it Is, What It Isn't
Science, since it was monopolized by institutions and especially over the past two years, has become something quite other than what it was found to be during the early Enlightenment. That is, what is called science by the mouthpieces of the status q
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2022-01-14
Feature Article
Why The West Has No Backbone
The West lost its backbone for a very simple reason: It lost its meta-narrative: its overarching story for what we believe and do.
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2022-01-10
Feature Article
Dealing With Violence
I advocate keeping children as far as possible from violence… even from the concept of violence… and for as long as possible; it's simply not good for them. Unfortunately, our world, while it certainly has beautiful parts, also contains violenc
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2022-01-03
Feature Article
How To Build Confidence And Courage
Confidence and courage are not magic. They are built, just as other aspects of human character are built. If we want them (and I think we should) we'll have to develop them the old-fashioned way: with work.
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2022-01-01
Feature Article
A New Year's Meditation (2022)
If you could go back in time a thousand years, you'd find people who were shockingly similar to those you presently love. The same is true for people who will live a thousand years from now.
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2021-12-29
Feature Article
Podcast: The Futility And Disaster of The Magic Fix
Humanity is afflicted with a desire for a magic fix to its problems. And that desire, if it's allowed to fester, soon enough becomes a demand for a magic fix for their problems… and particularly to problems they fixate upon.
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2021-12-27
Feature Article
Fixed Traits And Fate
Winning Is A Fun Thing, But It Isn't A Big Thing
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2021-12-23
Feature Article
Children Must Be Told: This Is Not Normal
The moral education of children revolves mainly around timeless concepts. But in certain situations (like now), they must be taught contemporary lessons. Recently I've found it necessary to tell 8-10 year-olds that the things they see around them a
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2021-12-20
Feature Article
Teaching Jesus
What I recommend, then, is to teach what Jesus actually taught, rather than what other people said about him
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2021-12-20
Feature Article
7 Simple Things You Can Do, To Cut Through The Fear
The well-meaning women and men of the West have been slapped with fear, almost daily, and for almost two years running. They know things have gone too far, but they don't know how to get back to where they were.
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2021-12-20
Feature Article
Now Available: How To Think Clearly
The series on critical thinking that we ran from 2020 to 2021 is now available in book form. It's called How To Think Clearly and comes with a complete lesson plan as well as teaching notes.
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2021-12-13
Feature Article
The Lovely And The Unlovely
If we wish to have a strong, healthy, happy race of men, we should lay a good foundation in the education of early childhood. We should avoid all means of brutal, slavish training which cripple man's individuality, freedom, and happiness. We should
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2021-12-10
Feature Article
Justice & Protection in Limon
Nearly twenty years ago I was asked to help create an independent justice system for a province of Costa Rica that hoped to become autonomous. And so I put together a plan, working at least a little with the modern pioneers in this field, Bruce Benso
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2021-11-28
Feature Article
A Fearstorm Is Upon Us
I just sat down at my computer and saw that a new fearstorm is upon us. I saw signs of it earlier in the week, and now it has arrived. And so, briefly, I'd like everyone to understand how these things operate.
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2021-11-28
Feature Article
The Illusion of Democracy
The events of the past two years have come in so fast and hot that I think most people haven't yet digested them
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2021-11-18
Feature Article
The Omega Ambulance Service, Part 4
"The Feds have a giant outrage machine, but an army of loudmouths isn't a direct threat. A frightened cop carrying a mountain of debt is a threat."
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2021-11-08
Feature Article
The Omega Ambulance Service, Part 2
As I mentioned last time, my second meeting was with the kids of the older men… their sons, actually. And I found them an odd mix of styles.
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2021-11-03
Feature Article
The Art of Telling Bedtime Stories, Part 3
In my youth, we had a weekly television show called Family Classics. It showed films suitable for the whole family, even editing out scenes that might not be. And I've found this model to be useful for bedtime stories.
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2021-10-31
Feature Article
The Kinship of Producers
There is a kinship between productive human beings; one that spreads all across this planet. It may be invisible to power and hierarchy, but we productive people recognize it.
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2021-10-31
Feature Article
Podcast: The Unmentionable Freedom
Back when Western civilization still had a foothold in the public square, people paid attention to the freedom of belief, the freedom to choose a career, and the freedom to speak one's mind.
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2021-10-31
Feature Article
The Art of Telling Bedtime Stories, Part 2
When telling bedtime stories, it's crucial to tune in to the desires of the child, in addition to the lessons you feel he or she needs. That is, you want to give the child what they want too. Story time needs to be fun, if it's to be effective.
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2021-10-31
Feature Article
You Are A Demi-God
Yes, you. All reasonably healthy humans are demi-gods.
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2021-10-13
Feature Article
If You Don't Stand Up For The Unvaxxed Now, You Wouldn't Have Stood Up For The Jews Then
I'm not telling you whether I've had the jab or not, because it doesn't matter. What I am telling you is that a woman in Denver is about to die because the medical establishment won't let her have a surgery, simply and only because she hasn
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2021-10-13
Feature Article
Rules Versus Righteousness
Today my point is that rules by themselves - rules by their essence - are the opponents of righteousness. I know this strikes most people as impossible, but I'm convinced that it's correct and important.
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2021-10-11
Feature Article
Kittener And The Cat
It's hard to argue with success, and this story gets rapt attention, and productive attention, from children in the five year-old range.
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2021-10-09
Feature Article
Podcast: The Neutering of Our Passions And The Reclaiming of Our Passions
Passion, in our time, is badly misunderstood. And so I suppose I should start by saying that I'm not talking about the human sex drive, though the truth is that as you choke passion proper, sexual passion tends to be choked along with it. We expres
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2021-10-11
Feature Article
The Watchman Privacy Podcast
This is an interview on privacy I did recently with Gabriel of the Watchman Privacy Podcast. I thought it turned out very well.
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2021-09-20
Feature Article
Dreaming of Ruby Tuesday, Part 2
One day, soon after her first dream, she was talking to her dad at bedtime, and got sad.
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2021-09-20
Feature Article
Dreaming of Ruby Tuesday, Part 1
Aria was girl of eight years, and she had a dog that she loved, named Ruby. For some reason her dad called the dog Ruby Tuesday, but that wasn't her real name, which was just Ruby.
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2021-08-30
Feature Article
The Valley, Part 5
The next day, the boy went back to his usual problems and activities, but soon he noticed that things had changed. PeopleContinued from Part 4 were looking at him oddly: some with respect, and some, quite surprisingly, with hate in their eyes. He sto
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2021-08-25
Feature Article
The Weaponization of Medicine
All science is, really, is a process of testing ideas; it is not an organization, it is not based upon authority (it's inherently anti-authority), and it is very certainly not allied with power. All that matters in science are verifiable results.
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2021-08-23
Feature Article
The Valley, Part 4
It wasn't long before the boy snuck out to the place where his magic box was buried. He went in the middle of a dark, cold, rainy night, so that no one would see what he was doing.
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2021-08-16
Feature Article
The Valley, Part 3
Over time, the boy grew and became busy with a great many problems and activities, as boys tend to do. He had forgotten about his magic box, until one evening, when he walked past the house of a boy he had known all his life.
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2021-08-12
Feature Article
Why I No Longer Invest In Stocks And Bonds
I've touched upon this subject in my subscription newsletter, but I had no plans to write anything more until I got a note from a friend, mentioning a particular investment analyst and his views on investing over the next few years.
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2021-08-03
Feature Article
The Mania of 2021
There are times that not only try men's souls, but warp them.
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2021-08-02
Feature Article
The Valley, Part 1
This is another of those pieces that "wanted to be written," rather than me planning it… but this one some years ago. I've been meaning to make it a stand-alone children's book, but I'll also include it in this collection of lessons in mo
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2021-07-26
Feature Article
Lesson 3: Was There Really A Creator?
In Lesson 2 we examined the problem with the word "God." This time we'll look at the reasons for believing in a creator… simple and compelling reasons. This story is probably a bit complex for very young children, but for the older children i
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2021-07-18
Feature Article
Lesson 2: Who Is God?
Very few words in the English language, and probably none, have more interpretations than God. This is a large impediment to not only theology, but to human communication in general. After all, nearly all of us, even atheists, use "God" as an ult
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2021-07-12
Feature Article
Lesson 1: Creation
It would be hard to start a series like this (eventually it will be a book) with anything less than the creation. Passing it by would leave a gap that we'd be dancing around for the remainder of the study.
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2021-07-07
Feature Article
A Primer On Moral Education
is moral education. Like critical thinking, this important field of study has been removed from Western education over the past century, and its restoration is, in my opinion, sorely needed. I aim to fill the gap.
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2021-06-08
Feature Article
What Are The Judeo-Christian Principles?
It has become common to speak of Judeo-Christian principles, but that also begs the question of precisely what those principles are. And so, not long ago, I searched for a clear set of them and came up dry.
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2021-05-31
Feature Article
Conclusion: Two Underlying Fundamentals
To close this study, I want to explain two things that lie beneath everything we've covered thus far. These, really, are the foundation upon which everything else stands. And so I think that our coverage would be incomplete without describing them.
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2021-05-24
Feature Article
Other Pieces
By now we've gone through 17 major fallacies of logic or groups of fallacies, a significant number of lesser fallacies and additional word-borne attacks. But I still have a few topics remaining… topics that I feel are crucial to clear thinking. A
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2021-05-22
Feature Article
Academia And The Tragedy of The Smart Kids
There are a lot of very bright people ensconced in academia, and that's a tragic thing, for them and for us all. Academia, you see, abuses and limits their talents.
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2021-05-11
Feature Article
My Adventures At Climate Change Central
I haven't written about this in seven years, and so I think it's time to re-post about two significant experiences I had. With long-range weather forecasts being used to terrify people, I think these stories have some value.
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2021-05-05
Feature Article
Fallacies In Brief, Part 1
Today we'll start covering fallacies in brief. I think we've covered all the crucial ones at this point, but fallacies tend to come and go over time, and so even those which aren't often used now may come back in a decade or two.
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2021-04-26
Feature Article
Fallacy #17: False Equivalence
The fallacy of false equivalence (also referred to as a fallacy of inconsistency) is an equivalence drawn between two subjects, using flawed or false reasoning. The user of this fallacy makes two things sound alike â€" usually like they're both the
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2021-04-25
Feature Article
The Antidote To Tyranny
What I'll give you in this post is a solution to the present tyranny. This solution involves no violence, costs nothing, and is available to all of us. It's even simple. But it does have one drawback: It requires you to make decisions and to act
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2021-04-13
Feature Article
The West That Was, Part 5
When law was sovereign
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2021-04-08
Feature Article
Other Attacks, Part 4
Now we can turn to more overt tricks. It's odd that I remember encountering these during my youth and very little during mature adulthood. (Save for the last of them.) And I think that's because abusers have far better success when using them on
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2021-01-29
Feature Article
As The Oligarchy Creates A New Group of Revolutionaries
As I write this, the Wall Street complex is creating a new group of radicals… a potent new group of radicals. By now, you probably know the outline of the story
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2021-01-25
Feature Article
The West That Was, Part 4
But more important than the words of the most eloquent Americans were the words and deeds of working people.
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2021-01-12
Feature Article
The West That Was, Part 3
If we wish to grasp American life in the 19th century, it's probably best to start by understanding that when America was young, it had no myth. Once we really understand that, the rest falls into place fairly easily.
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2021-01-12
Feature Article
Cryptocurrency & Cybersecurity Webinar - January 12, 2021 at 5:00PM ET/Zoom Webinar
The key points will be: What is cryptocurrency & why cybersecurity is critically important; How to make secure investments with your crypto & what to look out for from hackers; wnership & investment opportunities available now with cryptocurrency.
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2021-01-04
Feature Article
Fallacy #11: Gaslighting
Gaslighting may or may not be a proper fallacy of logic, depending upon how you look at it, but it is clearly a tool used to win arguments. And among the fallacies we've covered, this is clearly the worst psychological trick. It is, in fact, a very
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2020-12-28
Feature Article
The West That Was, Part 2
America, 1910 - 1910 was well before my own time, of course, but I knew at least ten people who lived through it as adults, and discussed the era at some length with one of them, my great uncle Dave. And so this is an era I feel I can still reach out
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2020-12-14
Feature Article
The West That Was, Part 1
America, 1960 -- A great tragedy of our era is that young people have no feeling of what Western civilization was like. In the government owned and operated schools where they sat for years, they were presented with a litany of the West's failures,
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2020-12-07
Feature Article
Reclaiming Our Western Civilization
The dismantling of Western civilization ran from the middle of the Enlightenment to about 1967. Since then, it has been aggressively uprooted and burnt. (See FMP #90 and here for details.) Western civilization still continues in the hearts and minds
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2020-11-16
Feature Article
Fallacy #4: Appeal To Authority
The appeal to authority fallacy (also called argument from authority) is a very simple one, but it can be tricky to deal with. This fallacy says that we should not believe things just because people with authority say they're right.
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2020-11-09
Feature Article
The War Against Will
The modern world will allow you to join any of a thousand collectives, but it will punish you for standing on your own, as a self-willed entity. People who commit this crime understand that they are outlaws in the present world. And if at first they
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2020-10-28
Feature Article
The PW24 Asset Protection Conference In Las Vegas
...there's an actual, real-life conference you can attend, featuring even more of the original team. It will be held in Las Vegas, from November 14th to November 18th.
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2020-10-26
Feature Article
Why Ross Ulbricht Must Be Pardoned
I haven't written about Ross Ulbricht for a few years, and so I'd like to remind as many people as possible of this horrible miscarriage of justice.
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2020-10-24
Feature Article
Fallacy #1: Either-Or
Before we begin covering fallacies, we should be clear on what the word means. A fallacy is a deceptive statement. It is something that is false, but is made to appear true. In other words, it is a trick of words and emotions, used to make people bel
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2020-10-19
Feature Article
Why Americans Shouldn't Respect Offices or Laws
It has become a common belief among Americans that they should "respect the office" of an official, even if they don't respect the person holding that office. The same, of course, goes for "the law." And while I understand that people sayin
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2020-10-19
Feature Article
Introduction To Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is an essential human skill, but it is little-taught. Once upon a time critical thinking courses were held to be essential, but they have since vanished from schoolrooms, either rolled into optional Logic courses (which are deathly
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2020-10-12
Feature Article
We Must Stop Trying To Be Unassailable
Guilt, as I've noted before, is the great vulnerability of the Western world. I'll pass up an explanation of why for today, but the validity of this statement is made ever so clear by the fact that political types rise to power by championing one
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2020-10-05
Feature Article
What Geniuses Believe
It struck me some time ago that the people we think of as "geniuses" tend to arrive, over time, at surprisingly similar sets of conclusions. It further strikes me that a simple list of such thoughts might be of value.
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2020-09-28
Feature Article
2020: The Year The System Showed Its Real Face
The Blues or the Greens or the Red are the problem; it could not, must not, be that the system itself is the problem.
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2020-09-10
Feature Article
The Conversation We're Not Having
Given the danger, fear and barbarism that are presently engulfing the West, I find it necessary to point out that we've lost something very important: We're no longer having serious public conversations.
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2020-08-25
Feature Article
Why Idealism Leads to Death
With violent idealists roaming streets, burning things, enjoying the fact that they can scare people and so on, I think a brief explanation of how idealism leads to death (and frequently to mass death) is in order.
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2020-08-17
Feature Article
Why Homeschooling Is Easier Than You Think
I homeschooled several children all the way into college, back when people thought you were seriously crazy for doing it. So, I have some background for what I'm writing today. And I want to get this out now, because millions of parents are present
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2020-08-11
Feature Article
"You Guys Are Gonna Win"
I got back from my bathroom-and-bar escape, determined to move the conversation in a less unpleasant direction. And I had noted that Alex wasn't wearing a mask, even though the bar - at the governor's demand - had a sign up. "You're not w
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2020-08-06
Feature Article
The New Age of Intelligence
Being involved in online privacy on a daily basis at cryptohippie.com, we saw where things were headed and decided that we had to warn people. Still, I had hopes that the progress of evil would be somehow derailed, at least partially. Sadly, that has
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2020-07-22
Feature Article
To Be Young and Headed to the Stars
I would pay dearly for young people to feel what it was like to be a scientifically minded child in the 1960s. It was a special and beautiful moment. Each week there was a new step toward the stars. And this was not science fiction, this was real.
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2020-07-22
Feature Article
The Barbarians Have Taken The Institutions
Let's be honest about something: We in the West have been overrun by a tidal wave of racial hatred, and it erupted from institutions "of higher learning." Whatever exceptions may exist, this central fact is clear. We are free to close our eyes,
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2020-07-13
Feature Article
How Science Lost Its Respectability
Science, in the pure sense, is simply a process. But since this process is so incredibly productive, lots of people and groups have grafted the name onto themselves.
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2020-07-06
Feature Article
The Ultimate Crime
The biggest crimes stand in the open; what prevents people from seeing them is simply their size and the fact that they are crimes. We can't believe that such large evils are possible.
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2020-06-30
Feature Article
Podcast: Why Dropping Out And Running Away Are Virtuous
The idea that running away is a virtue bothers a lot of people, but when you find that the greatest men and women of history have done precisely this, it's time to re-evaluate, no matter how it makes you feel.
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2020-06-18
Feature Article
The Lost Art of Political And Religious Tracts… And Two Questions
Once upon a time, tracts were a crucial way to spread new ideas, and a surprisingly effective one. Tract writing was an art mainly practiced by radicals, non-conformists and other outsiders, and the tracts usually manifested an overflow of passionate
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2020-06-15
Feature Article
How Cryptography Has Revolutionized Revolution
I am no fan of violent revolution, yet I have to admit that John Kennedy had a point when he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
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2020-06-08
Feature Article
4 Good Things Coming Out of This Mess
I thought 2019 was about as low as the culture of the West could go. Between drag queens in kindergartens, an angry autistic girl hailed as a saint and screaming at the UN, and semi-sane Wokesters openly promoting racial hatred (this time against whi
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2020-06-03
Feature Article
The Big Entrepreneurial Fix
Millions of eager and productive people have been kept out of businesses that were natural to them, because of government regulations and second-order effects like unattainable insurance policies.
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2020-06-01
Feature Article
The Crypto Apostles
Almost no one in the broader world knows about the crypto apostles. (My term, not one they apply to themselves.) Even rather few in the larger crypto community know much about them. So I'm not talking about famous names, but…
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2020-05-11
Feature Article
Nothing Changes As Long As You Obey
I hear the same complaints about politicians that you do. And while I understand them, the fact is that complaining accomplishes almost nothing. And there is a very simple reason why complaining has no real effect: Because the complainers keep right
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2020-05-05
Feature Article
The Dignity of Work
There is real beauty in doing a job well, even a simple job. It is our great loss that this form of beauty is never mentioned in public these days â€" double-sad, because at one time, such beauty was acknowledged.
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2020-04-20
Feature Article
The Immortal Hymn of Mankind
If you could go back in time a thousand years, you'd find people who were eerily similar to your present companions. The same is true for people who will live a thousand years from now. Some of them will be nearly identical to the people you now lo
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2020-03-26
Feature Article
Free Money Doesn't Fix Broken Processes
So, you're printing up six trillion dollars, giving 7/8ths to banks and corporations and 1/8th back to us… which we'll be taxed on… plus, all that money creates a monster deficit that our children be expected to pay back anyway?
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2020-03-24
Feature Article
14 Words
Imagine a pretty spring day. You're standing on your front porch or some other pleasant vantage point and looking out at a sunlit landscape: trees, grass, and singing birds. Then your five-year-old child or grandchild walks up to you and tugs on yo
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2020-03-22
Feature Article
The Blind Destruction of The Economy
"If all you have is a hammer," says the old proverb, "everything looks like a nail." And I'm hard pressed to think of a better way to describe the destruction of the US economy (and many others) over the past few weeks.
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2020-03-18
Feature Article
Control Is An Addiction
Lord Acton wrote that power tends to corrupt, but I'm going to say flat out that it does corrupt. I'll go further and say that it's an addiction (probably every bit as bad as cocaine), and that the lust for control is one of its primary drivers
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2020-03-17
Feature Article
Fear Is A Mind Hack
Humans are not naturally stupid. They are not naturally bad. Fear, however, distorts them, weakens them, and makes them far less effective than they'd naturally be. Fear, in its many guises, is the great enemy of mankind, and it's time that we ad
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2020-03-13
Feature Article
Why Can't We Party Like It's 1905?
When writing historical things, I try to include perspective from people who actually lived through the events. And for money issues in the US, I'm able to do that back to about 1905.
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2020-03-12
Feature Article
Financial Pain Is Coming
Consider, please, the insanity of this: In the richest and most prosperous times of all human history - by far - millions of working people have literally no money saved, and/or are deeply in debt. And with paychecks about to stop for many people
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2020-03-12
Feature Article
"You're Already Rich"
I got an email from my old friend Dick not too long ago - maybe the smartest guy I ever met, and I've known a lot of smart guys. He was coming through town and we decided to meet at our old hangout, Jay's Bar.
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2020-03-03
Feature Article
The Gospel of Ignorance
The good news about ignorance? Yes, and emphatically yes...The good news about ignorance is that it sets us free from mental chains.
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2020-02-24
Feature Article
Bitcoin Is Premium Collateral And Perhaps The Salvation of Hedge Funds
Bitcoin works exceptionally well as collateral; far better than anything else I can think of. And I have a feeling that's about to matter.
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2020-02-18
Feature Article
Wellness Consciousness
I don't often write about health, but today I have something to add to the conversation. What I'd like you to understand is that being free of sickness is not some distant dream. It is, in fact, something that real human beings are presently enjo
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2020-01-14
Feature Article
The Serfdom State of Mind
The Serfdom State of Mind focuses on the desire for safety and security… of remaining clear of blame… to the detriment of self-reliance and living as a free and independent moral agent.
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2019-12-31
Feature Article
Social Media Is A Polarization Machine
Sure, we've all seen this in practice and people have developed catchy terms for it, like echo chamber, but the polarization effect of social media has been demonstrated scientifically.
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2019-12-31
Feature Article
Social Media Is A Polarization Machine
Sure, we've all seen this in practice and people have developed catchy terms for it, like echo chamber, but the polarization effect of social media has been demonstrated scientifically.
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2019-12-26
Feature Article
The Mos Maioram And The Barbarians
I won't go through a history lesson, but Rome, which had no written constitution, began to degrade as the mos maioram, the ancient ways, were abandoned piece by piece. That's what was involved in the breakdown of the republic, and it increased un
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2019-12-17
Feature Article
Consumption Doesn't Make Us Happy
What keeps people eternally seeking more consumption is not the feeling they'll get from the good beer and sleeping with the hot girl/guy, but the hope of claiming the prize…
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2019-12-03
Feature Article
Be The Outsider
Please believe me that the coolest things happen outside, and not within the hierarchies of the status quo. Trudging along in the middle of the crowd is a recipe for a boring life.
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2019-11-19
Feature Article
The World Is Wrong
Here is something that was thrown in my face at a relatively early age, as I began to think seriously and independently: So, the world is wrong and you're right!?
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2019-11-12
Feature Article
The Replacement Religions Of The West
Western civilization formed in the wake of Rome, based mainly upon Christian ideals. And because of those ideals, Europe became vastly different from Rome.
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2019-10-29
Feature Article
Farber's Second Essay
The second and final Farber essay, composed while both character and author were involved in dangerous cypherpunk projects, some twenty years ago.
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2019-10-22
Feature Article
How The Google Model Leads To Socialism
There has been a lot of concern about a resurgence of socialism lately, and understandably so. But there is one aspect of it, and perhaps an important one, that I haven't seen elsewhere. Here it is.
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2019-10-08
Feature Article
The Economy of Bandages, Splints and Duct Tape
I've written an unusual amount about the financial systems of the world over the past month. Honestly, I've felt that I'd be derelict not to.
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2019-09-24
Feature Article
Men Are Idolaters
"Men," wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., "are idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before; they always did, they always will; and if you don't make it of wood, you must make it of words."
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2019-09-17
Feature Article
Fear, Shame And Intimidation Are Chemical Weapons
Imagine that some combination of circumstances end with you walking into a so-so bar, then accidentally causing some gigantic brute to spill his drink. Imagine also that this brute just learned that his girlfriend moved out, taking his bank account w
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2019-09-15
Feature Article
The Kingdom of God PART 3: The New Model
But if this was the good news - if what Jesus did was to open up a way to live as they do in the higher realms - then we'd expect to see some teachings on this subject.
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2019-09-10
Feature Article
The Fallacy of The Diversified Portfolio
Given the current state of affairs in the investment markets - particularly that fundamentals have long ceased mattering and tweets move the markets instead - I think a frank discussion is called for.
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2019-09-08
Feature Article
The Kingdom of God PART 2: The Good News
The very first thing Jesus says in our earliest gospel is that he has wonderful news, that "the kingdom of God" has arrived. Jesus chose these words with intent. Nowadays people hear them and think "Yeah, yeah, Bible stuff." Even when they he
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2019-09-03
Feature Article
Without Apology
It's up to us to improve the world. If obediently waiting for someone or something else could work, the dominating structures of the world would have improved long, long ago. But they haven't, leaving the job to us.
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2019-08-29
Feature Article
Epstein: Too Much For People To Take?
It's profoundly dangerous to teach people things they're not ready to learn. That's why people who see pedophilia in high places keep their mouths shut. If they speak up, they're likely to be chopped up by the friends of the pedophiles, and t
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2019-08-29
Feature Article
A Full Confession, Part Two
Martin continued talking for a while, but mainly about his childhood and early career. Then, he moved back to the problem that America posed to elite rulers.
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2019-08-25
Feature Article
Anyone Who Goes To Work For A Central Bank Coin Is A Traitor
There's a time and place for just about everything, and this is a time to be blunt: Anyone who takes a job for a central bank or any similar entity, building a cryptocurrency, quasi-cryptocurrency or kind-of-blockchain-thing, is a traitor.
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2019-08-20
Feature Article
A Full Confession, Part One
You can't write about this till I'm gone," he said, "but that won't be long."
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2019-08-13
Feature Article
Structured For Magnificence
This episode of the Parallel Society podcast explains something that's tremendously simple and is great news for us, but is at the same time deeply radical, going against the structure of the world we live in. And that's a simple phrase: We are s
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2019-07-30
Feature Article
The Making of Production Versus Plunder
Production Versus Plunder, Paul's highly regarded history book, came together in a fascinating and almost amazing way. He's never told the story before, but in this podcast, he does.
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2019-07-23
Feature Article
The Religion of Jesus PART 4: So, What Did He Believe?
So, now we come now to the question of what Jesus himself believed. What was his religion? Or, more properly stated, what were the convictions that Jesus put into action?
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2019-07-09
Feature Article
The Religion of Jesus PART 3: Are People Ready for This?
The separation between the religion of Jesus and the religion about Jesus is not only huge, but has continued over many centuries. And that means that there are reasons for this separation.
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2019-07-02
Feature Article
Sapolski's Baboons
Sapolski's findings show that the kind of progress we dream about is unquestionably possible. That puts the burden back on us, of course… and that scares a lot of people… but let there be no more question, we CAN step into a better age.
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2019-06-25
Feature Article
The Religion of Jesus PART 2: The Big Issue
I've already said "it would be hard to over-state this," or words to that effect, several times in these discourses. Now I'm going to say it again, because its importance in this case is truly immense. In fact, what I'm about to write is su
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2019-06-18
Feature Article
"It's Only For Special People"
One objection to the cryptosphere… to free cyberspace… is that it's only for super-smart people, and not for average people. And that's flatly false
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2019-06-11
Feature Article
The Religion of Jesus PART 1: Introduction
I've recently completed a book I never particularly expected to write. It covers subjects we've touched upon in some of the columns, but my guess was that the book would wait for quite some time. It's called Discourses on Judaism, Jesus & Chris
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2019-06-04
Feature Article
We Can Succeed & We Will Succeed
It seems that right on the heels of a beautiful new vision, old fears come charging back to our minds, defending their positions. And so this episode explains why and how we will succeed. There's really no doubt about the general outcome. The only
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2019-05-28
Feature Article
Social Attacks On Bitcoin
It's no secret that Bitcoin has enemies. There are those who'd like to kill it outright and there are those who'd like to subvert it. And, of course, Bitcoin has its fair share of the usual human problems.
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2019-05-21
Feature Article
The Cryptography Revelation
Cryptography has changed the world over the past few decades. Without it there would be no Internet commerce, no VPNs, or Tor, or Bitcoin, or Wikileaks, or the Snowden revelations, or BitTorrent. But however impressive the results, it's the power o
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2019-05-14
Feature Article
Status Revisited
The proximate cause of this return to status is a set of studies I've been doing on Jesus. One of the things I've become clear on while doing this work has been Jesus' strategy for getting his teachings to the people of Israel. And a major comp
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