Ben a while since I shared a Rothbard quote: "We have to look differently at taxation. We have to stop looking at taxes as a mighty system for achieving social goals, which merely needs to be made “fair” and rational in order to usher in Utopia. We have to start looking at taxation as a vast system of robbery and oppression, by which some people are enabled to live coercively and parasitically at the expense of others. We must realize that from the point of view of justice or of economic prosperity, the less people are taxed, the better. That is why we should rejoice at every new loophole, new credit, new manifestation of the “underground” economy. The Soviet Union can produce or work only to the extent that individuals are able to avoid the myriad of controls, taxes, and regulations. The same is true of most Third World countries, and the same is increasingly true of us. Every economic activity that escapes taxes and controls is not only a blow for freedom and property rights; it is also one more instance of a free flow of productive energy getting out from under parasitic repression. That is why we should welcome every new loophole, shelter, credit, or exemption, and work, not to shut them down but to expand them to include everyone else, including ourselves." From: 'The Myth of Tax “Reform”' https://mises.org/mises-wire/rothbard-myth-tax-reform

Then what is the correct source of laws and ethics? Reason. Through Reason, one can identify "ought's" that are non-contradictory and consistent. (And this also presupposes an acceptance of the existence of free will. Without that, one cannot be a libertarian or an advocate of freedom.) Reason is the real and correct source of the natural rights to life, liberty and property. Not observation, evidence, feelings, statistics or data. If that is so, then slapping someone and saying "See? I just slapped that person and felt good about it, and hence he doesn't have rights" would be a valid thing to say. And one cannot argue about the absence of Reason without using it in the first place, making the endeavour a falsehood. And from these rights, the principles of self-ownership, non-aggression, natural justice, presumption of innocence, homesteading, proportionality, punishment et al are derived. And these principles serve as the correct foundation of the law, which all human beings abide by. And the law is simply a set of ought's, violating which opens the violator to a sanction of violence. A true liberal, or someone who will be called a libertarian in contemporary times, will hold the view that only the defense of the natural rights to life, liberty and property is valid grounds for the use of violence. Based on this, the modern liberal policy recommendations fall apart: Homesteading and just assignment of property rights is the correct solution for the problem of public goods. There is no such thing as market failures except in cases where natural rights are violated. There is only government failure. Positive and negative externalities are subject to the defense of natural rights. There is no asymmetry of information because no-one can possibly know everything all at once. Cost-benefit analysis is not grounds for the violation of natural rights. Culture, custom and tradition is acceptable only where natural rights are not violated and subject to reform in areas where they are. Revolutions and wars which violate these rights are principles are unjust. View quoted note →

The ideas of the 1991 reformers and the self-described classical liberals of today in India are not conducive to their goals. This applies to most Indian 'free market' advocates from public choice, chicago and neoclassical schools also. Basically, people who quote a lot of Mises, Hayek, Friedman, Buchanan, Coase (and surprisingly, even Keynes) et al. Economic ideas = between decent to good Legal, ethical and political ideas = between inconsistent to downright terrible Conducive to increasing state capture and crony capitalism To their credit, they identify the necessity of checks and balances, transparency, separation of powers, rule of law and due process (Sprinkle in the words 'freedom of' and 'freedom to' here and there). But they fail to *consistently* identify the necessary and unnecessary contents of a law, what constitutes a good law and a bad law, who does the checks and balances, the nature and corrupting characteristics of power and the state, what the law should and should not consist of, the correct methodology in coming up with a law and what exactly the so-called due process consists of. Any attempt at exploring this faces a charge from them as being utopian and unrealistic because they do not like the concept of objective truths in the realm of politics, ethics and law. For them, truth exists on a spectrum, so it is always subject to falsification. Everything in this field is subjective to them. The goal of objectivity in this field is, for some reason, un-intellectual to them. They scoff at it and deplore it. Maybe because they want it to be determined by a political authority that calls itself the state, who knows. Thus, for them, it is okay for an authority to 'make' laws, as long as it abides by the necessary principles mentioned above. Both a priori reasoning and a posteriori observation of what has happened since 1991 should tell us that their reforms has enabled crony capitalism, regulatory capture, special interest politics and an ever growing state. Clearly, like the ideas from post-independence India of socialist central planning, the reform movement of state-driven capitalism, i.e., interventionism, has failed at making India a free and prosperous country. Something is clearly wrong and we can all agree on that. These intellectuals talk a great deal about why the 'west' is 'advanced' and 'civilised'. And a lot of cultural, genetic, situational, historical and religious factors are cited as reasons for India not being so. But why not point out the legal and ethical factors? When you have a society where 1. Laws, the set of words that determine where violence is appropriate and not appropriate 2. Ethics, a set of norms that tell a person what he ought and ought not to do Are all considered as pseudo-sciences where there is no truth except what the state or a majority mandates it to be, you will have a broken society. This is a major reason why the west is in decline. They have forgotten what made their societies advanced and civilised in the first place: A Tradition of Reason.

I'm not a cypherpunk and I have massive respect for Strike. But if you have the option to buy and sell non-KYC sats P2P, please do it. If you don't, please start taking steps to create those avenues for yourself as soon as possible. IRL Meetups, online groups, trust networks, whatever it takes. If you're an introvert, stop being an introvert. Take classes or something. It's not something 'we' need to do. It's something 'you' need to do. View quoted note →

Fiat Law. Aka Positive Law. When you disconnect from overarching narratives and actually start reading the words that the legislators, executors, interpreters and enforcers of a 'positivistic' law are abiding by, you start realising something: Behind every leglislation, ordinance and government order is a group of intellectuals, usually residing in the jursisdiction's capital city or somehow close to the power elite, who has never run a business or worked a job writing laws and pretending that he is helping people, when he really isn't. 'Policymaking' in a positive law system is a slippery slope towards becoming out of touch with market realities, moving ever closer into the inviting and enticing arms of power and tyranny. Once they get a taste of that power trip that comes with being able to bludgeon others and subjecting them to their will, there's little chance of going back. Because words are used as legitimizing tools for power and violence, they start to take on different meanings, falling prey to twisting, manipulation and misuse to serve the interests of the power elite. This isn't about capitalism or socialism, democracy or monarchy, liberalism vs conservatism, which I am starting to understand as battles that distract humanity from the more crucial question: Whether laws are made by fiat or discovered by reason, i.e., positive law vs natural law. Revolutions and uprisings with the goal of bringing about a natural law-based order will merely replace the existing power structures with a new one, often pursuing means that contradict the ends. Education and awareness can't fix this because pursuing the universality of it as a 'positive' goal will leave it open to corruption by the power elite, also often pursuing means that contradict the ends. Checks and balances cannot fix this because those doing the checks and balances are often the ones with the reigns, leading to them removing the checks and balances. The nature of power is to corrupt. And there is no power more corrupting than a territorial monopoly on violence. No man is capable of wielding it because it isn't in his nature to wield it wisely. A man who is capable of wielding it wisely will be one who does not seek it but rather abolish it.

Fiat money, Positive law, Government monopoly The trinity of tyranny

God was, is and never will be dead. "வானுக்குள் ஈசனைத் தேடுவதை விட, உன் ஊனுக்குள் தேடு! ஒளியாய் வருவார். அழியாத பேரின்பம் அருள்வார்." Search for God up above, in other people, in the world around you. You come to the conclusion that God is dead. That God is death. Search within. And then there is light. And then there is goodness. Revealing itself in the dark abyss. Filling it up with eternal bliss. Filling it up with perpetual life.

Sadly, too much resource usage. Battery, data, memory, everything. And it seems to get worse on this front with every update. View quoted note →

To improve your Bitchat experience: 1. Use https://bitmap (dot ) lat/ to find where the conversations are happening 2. Use the 'triple tap on bitchat to clear chat' feature to the maximum possible extent as a moderation tool 3. Press forward slash in the text bar to access additional functionality View quoted note →

Bitchat feels like an actual town square

'Geohashing' is a way to turn a location’s latitude and longitude into a short code made of letters and numbers. Each extra character makes the area it describes smaller, so longer geohashes point to more precise spots.

'Confessions of a Right-Wing Liberal' by Murray Rothbard https://mises.org/mises-daily/confessions-right-wing-liberal

De-socializing or De-statizing, i.e., reducing the size of government and its influence on an economy is tricky and complicated. Fiat gets in the way. The process would entail privatisation, disinvestment, stake sales of public assets and fully abolishing government monopolies. This would offset the losses to the exchequer incurred by the necessary reduction of taxation required by a program like this. But if money and credit are monopolised, always inflationary and centrally controlled, the whole endeavour will eventually lead to a few large corpos effectively gobbling everything up, having reaped the benefits of the cantillon effect, fractional reserve banking, privileged access to the money market and politically decided rates of interest. Savings would keep being destroyed, workers would end up becoming debt slaves, living standards for some will raise while for others it would fall, with this difference becoming always pronounced over time. Resentment would build up. Demands for safety nets would increase. Social and economic mobility would be constrained. Calls for socialization would get louder. This would naturally cause people who observe this to conclude that the free market is evil and exploitative. Justifably so. The corpos will undeniably become the enemy rather than the state. Bitcoin fixes this.

Big fan of notes not having a character limit. And of likes, upvotes, downvotes, 'ratios' and reactions not mattering to people. And of people who take the time to type a lot of words to explain themselves and giving people a lot to read before they could respond. Honestly, big fan of Nostr.

One's family is the real 'social safety net' It doesn't necessarily have to be families that emerge through marital or biological relationships. It can also be one's chosen family of friends. The stronger a person's familal bonds are, the lesser he relies on the State. It's not surprising then for intellectuals and opinion moulders who love the state apparatus to hate the notion of family.

'The Robber Barrons and the Progressive Era' by Tom Woods

'Taking Rights Seriously' by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano

Ask an AI for a Rothbardian analysis of Marx's Das Kapital It's fun