Why AGI threat is real
A response to an article by philosopher Michael Huemer on AI risk, and why he believes the most dire concerns are unwarranted. I hope to show why he's mistaken.…
Everyone's wrong about the burden of proof
A person has a burden of proof when–and only when–they want to persuade another.…
A libertarian fish farm miracle
In Ancapistan - a libertarian society with private law and no state - coordination problems are solved organically by private ownership and torts.…
My experience of a psilocybin ceremony lead by the Essence Institute
On November the 4th 2021 I attended a psilocybin retreat lead by the Essence Institute, in the Netherlands. It was incredible.…
You've been mislead about the environmental cost of cryptoart NFTs
The calculations of cryptoart.wtf ignore the central role of the Ethereum network subsidy in incentivizing mining. This mistake invalidates the site's findings.…
The Perverted Analogy Fallacy
An analogy doesn't imply that two things are similar in every way, or even most ways; they’re similar in a limited way that’s relevant to the topic of the discussion.…
Is Your Worldview Vulnerable to 'Hate Facts'?
I think it’s unwise to attach normative judgements to empirical claims about the world that might turn out to be true.…
Mutually Assured Snooping
When an act of snooping is itself subject to watching eyes, and indelibly etched into the public record, is it still worth it?…
Free will is a squircle
A decision is mine, it’s the product of my will, to the extent that the prior state of my brain causes it.…
School is preparation for the real world, where you have to do things you don’t want
I'm convinced that if we want to prepare our children for the real world, we can do a lot better than sending them to school.…
Body ownership is private property
A person considers a thing his property if he believes he’s justified in using force to exclude others from its unauthorised use.…
The Problem of Political Authority - Review
If I had the power to persuade non-libertarians to read one book right now I’d choose for it to be The Problem of Political Authority by Michael Huemer.…
PSYOP versus the mutual benefit of trade
It is false that voluntary exchange always benefits both parties in the ex ante sense. At least some voluntary exchanges are precipitated by factors not under conscious control, and thus not sensitive to expectation of benefit in the usually understood sense.…
Guns, homicide, and the inadequacy of prohibitionist “common sense”
Easy access to a firearm may be the dispositive factor that leads the marginal killer to commit a crime , increasing the homicide rate. But firearms are also used defensively, and in these ways guns decrease the homicide rate.…
We Can Do Better Than a Right to Healthcare
I hope to show here that it's not a right to healthcare that you really want, but something much more valuable.…
Virtual Rothbardianism
I identify as an anarcho-capitalist and a moral nihilist. Here I'll sketch how these pieces fit together for me.…
NAPI. Non-Aggression Principle Insufficiency
Followers of Rothbard invoke the non-aggression principle (NAP) as the standard against which the permissibility of any action is to be judged. But the NAP is insufficient for this use. I call this idea non-aggression principle insufficiency. NAPI for short.…
The Weak Argument Against Taxation
There should be a strong presumption against threatening people with violence — Unless those people are threatening others, or violating their property rights (e.g. Robbers, murderers, rapists).…
De-escalating The Zwarte Piet Conflict
We have two groups with opposing views about the appropriateness of this tradition. The stakes of the conflict are raised by the poisonous involvement of the state.…
Against the presumption of open borders. Border policy agnosticism.
Libertarians cannot assume that a state-controlled open border policy is automatically a more libertarian option than the state restrictively policing the border.…