Despite the language and the yelling, though, this man is more intelligent than a majority of the "liberty movement" and has an education to back it up. The two-hour commitment of this resource is infinitely more valuable than the George Washington post I shared a few days ago, so if you watched Molyneux, you really must watch Cantwell.
I know I share a lot of Christopher Cantwell's material on this resource list, but when a man is right, he's right. Where other people are right and receive credit for being so, Cantwell is more right and receives almost no credit for it, because he refuses to temper his message of truth with platitudes or concessions. This podcast episode is no exception. If one is of delicate disposition or is unable to handle raw, unadulterated truth screamed at one's earholes (I'm not sure why they are reading my blog), they may want to sit this one out.
Despite the language and the yelling, though, this man is more intelligent than a majority of the "liberty movement" and has an education to back it up. The two-hour commitment of this resource is infinitely more valuable than the George Washington post I shared a few days ago, so if you watched Molyneux, you really must watch Cantwell.
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From Sophocles' Oedipus trilogy, Antigone is as powerful and as tragic as the other two works. Antigone (the titular character and daughter of Oedipus and his mom), in my opinion, sets the example for all men and women of virtue, even 2,500 years after the story was written. The poetry and power expressed in the play (more so in some translations than others) is tangible and should be enough to keep the reader's attention. If it isn't though, the cast of The Partially Examined Life have done an excellent reading of the play , along with Lucy Lawless and Paul Provenza. You can read their particular translation here.
George Ought to Help is a very short, much more kindly iteration of a point I've made on this blog and elsewhere. This is a good video to serve as a refresher to those that already understand the basics of morality, and it serves as a great starting place for those that aren't quite on board yet with anarchy.
An informative and handy explanation on thy the NSA is bad and what to do about it. It's a little bit of a read, but it's divided into easy-to-navigate sections and is as concise as possible while still conveying the enormity of the situation every single human being in the developed world now find themselves.
Anarchast Episode 212 with Antony Davies
Antony Davies discusses the relationship between the mainstream/Chicago/Keynesian/socialist economics and Austrian economics. While he seems to have a much more positive view of the Chicago school than is warranted, he does demonstrate the importance of philosophy and rationality when assessing a field of study such as economics. The important takeaway from this interview is that freedom opens the door for equality whereas introducing the coercion of the state limits freedom and generates inequality. The first widely-known anarchist video game has been released. Brian Sovryn of Sovryn Tech fame (or infamy) has created his first video game. As far as firsts go, it's an excellent first effort at game development and it sets a challenging standard for others to meet as far as calling a game an "anarchist game". Hypercronius is a very short game, which would best be considered a teaser for a much larger universe that has been promised and planned by the developer. For now, I believe a brief review is in order. Gameplay/Story: As the motto of ZomiaOfflineGames is "Story First, Story Forever", this game does not disappoint. The game plays very much like a 16-bit visual novel. True to visual novel style, there is a lot of text and some fairly rich characters, histories, and relationships that the player will encounter in the brief time they have in the universe of Hypercronius. Most notable in regards to story and history would be the 80's Sci-Fi vibe of empires and their outlaws, unique forms of space-racism, genocide, technology run amok, and a thinly-veiled scientific mysticism. What makes Hypercronius stand out among a very familiar and comfortable genre is the not-so-hidden message of peace, love, and freedom. Despite the familiar presence of conflict, hatred, and oppression, the titular character, Hypercronius, gives the player a unique view into the psyche of an anarchist in an unfree world.
There is a classic Final Fantasy-style combat system that has a solid implementation, if sparingly, used in this iteration of the Hypercronius series. A brief look through the .zip file indicates that there are plans to expand the combat system and broaden the number and type of enemies faced in the future. From what I know of the developer, though, the combat system will always be secondary to the story and adventure of the series. This is a good thing, as combat systems, no matter how good they are, tend to become monotonous by the end of the game (Here's looking at you, Arkham and Assasin's Creed) but a good story keeps you till the end. The Message: As mentioned above, the driving force of this game is that it is the first widely-known anarchist video game. The game, as brief as it is, does a very good job of laying down a hefty dose of what people call "thick libertarianism", but does so (for the most part) by way of character exposition, so as to not simply bludgeon the player over the head with the message. "Thick libertarianism", for those not versed in the nomenclature, is essentially "a form of anarchism/libertarianism that argues for more than the bare essentials of anarchism". For instance, there is a strong polyamory vs. traditional marriage thread and a less-overt anti-killing/violence thread which are not necessarily the inevitable conclusion of first principles such as the NAP (non-aggression principle). Rather than weakening the overall case made for anarchism, though, the way that the characters embrace these ideologies serves to enrich the universe that they reside in and prevents them from becoming a cardboard cutout holding an anarchist bullhorn. In my opinion, it makes them more fleshed-out as characters with what may be considered their own unique set of flaws. and vices. The cartoonish overreactions of their antagonists to these ideas is both amusing and right in line with the 80's sci-fi vibe. The Rub: Aside from a couple typos, the dialogue (the main feature of the game) is accessible and entertaining enough to carry the game in its own right, much like a good visual novel. However, audiences that are more accustomed to strategy and kick-in-the-door roleplay may begin to lose interest sometime in-between the dulcet and savory introduction to the universe (as provided by Dr. Stephanie Murphy) and where gameplay actually begins. Also, the game is sort-of NSFW. Implied 16-bit sprite-humping is amusing it, but it is something to be aware of if you're going to whip out your flash drive during lunch at work. The sexier bits seemed to be shoehorned in to the story and detracted from the overall flow of the narrative. The character dialogue would have served the same purpose as the cutscenes in most cases. In other words, I don't see anything wrong with the scenes in themselves, but maybe trimming the four interludes down to two and simply implying the other two would have kept the flow of the narrative at a healthy pace all the way through the game. The Verdict: For $7, it's hard to go wrong. The game could easily fit between "Binding of Issac" and "Don't Starve" in the indie steam games library.The message of freedom isn't for everyone, but the game is fun in it's own right and certainly deserves a shot from anyone with $7 or .02 BTC laying around. That's right, you can buy it with bitcoin. Also, it's entirely DRM-free and portable, which automatically makes it a cooler game than 99% of the marketplace. I'm sure with a little work that you can get your hands on the game for free because of it, but the developer (like all anarchists) doesn't believe in intellectual property, so he's not going to come after you with the guns of the state for doing so. However, this is one game that I will not be pirating, as Brian deserves every bitcoin for homesteading the video game industry. http://zomiaofflinegames.com/product/hypercronius/ TL;DR: 4 out of 5 stars, fun game, lots of reading, don't play at work unless your boss is really cool, yay anarchy. A brief exploration of economics and unintended consequences on the Tom Woods Show. I don't really know what more to say; it's excellent, brief, and informative.
I was going to post a follow-up to yesterday's resource suggestion, but I wanted to share this first. This is the Story of Your Enslavement, as told by Stefan Molyneux. The video is short, sweet, and simple. There are a lot of details that are not addressed, but that's what you get for wanting to cover it in 13 minutes as opposed to a lifetime of literature. Simplicity aside, this is the truth, spoken directly and non-judgementally.
I do not endorse Molyneux, as a lot of what he says and does is utterly insane. However, about two thirds of what he says and half of what he does is right on the money. This video is spot-on.
I hope to post some really good economics sources on here sometime soon, but I have to comb through what I've read and watched for some gems that are of a digestible scope. In the mean time, I present an interview about a movie that I'm excited for:
http://anarchast.com/front/2015/4/20/anarchast-ep-208-jimmy-morrison-the-bubble-film.html "My thesis is that the criteria by which individuals are deemed qualified or unqualified to become professionals involve not just technical knowledge as is generally assumed, but also attitude—in particular, attitude toward working within an assigned political and ideological framework. I contend, for example, that all tests of technical knowledge, such as the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) or the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), are at the same time tests of attitude and that the examinations used to assess professional qualification are no exception. I consider in detail how the neutral-looking technical questions on such examinations probe the candidate's attitude. Another School Sucks Podcast on my resource list. Expect to see more in the future, too, this is a very valuable resource. This discussion sounds essentially like a discussion of how to use NVC in debates. I am still skeptical as to whether NVC has any value in text-only conversations like those on facebook, but they make a decent case for giving it a shot.
They also discuss the nature of popular debates, and how they are all discussions of statist policy, even when they are billed as scientific debates. And there's a good chunk of discussion concerning some very good self-help tools at the end. |
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