This post on no third solution was amusing. Someone wrote a non-Libertarian FAQ, exposing all the flaws in (L)libertarianism, from a pro-State troll perspective. David Z wrote his own analysis from a free market perspective.
Some of the worst pro-State trolls are (L)libertarians, because they don't all the way and say "Who needs a government anyway?" The weak Libertarian criticism of big government makes the free market argument seem ridiculous. For example, many Libertarians defend large corporations as a natural free market occurrence, ignoring the effect of State regulations, "tort reform", a central bank credit monopoly, and limited liability incorporation.
I've decided that when I move to my own domain, I'll make a FAQ section. Blogger doesn't support that well, because Blogger doesn't support static pages. I'll publish all FAQ items or big updates as regular blog posts.
I liked this article by Mark Cuban (via David Z's shared items). In order to track down the Madoff scandal, investigators should be talking to his software engineer.
Keeping phony books and making them consistent is hard. He had to have a software engineer or Excel wizard helping him cook the books. Off-the-shelf accounting software does not have a "manage Ponzi scheme" option.
Cue the ****ing Microsoft Excel paperclip.
"I see you are running a Ponzi Scam. Can I help you?
What type of fraudulent return would you like to indicate to your investors? 6%? 12% 24%? Other?
What type of volatility do you want your investors to have? 10%? 20%? 30%? 0%? WARNING: ZERO VOLATILITY AND HIGH RETURNS IS A FRAUD TIPOFF.
Enter the following:
- amount deposited by victims
- amount withdrawn
- amount stolen by you
Uh! Oh! Your Ponzi Scam has $1B in withdrawal requests but only $500M in assets. Time to book a flight out of the country!
Thank you for using Microsoft Ponzi Office Assistant."
I really should get a YouTube account and upload some of my comedy sketch ideas.
Mark Cuban's point is that investigators should be talking to software engineers or whoever cooked the books for him. Someone like Bernard Madoff would probably hire someone else to do the "grunt work" of keeping crooked books for him.
There's a big flaw in Mark Cuban's reasoning. From the point of view of an attorney/MBA/politician, a software engineer is skilled labor on par with flipping burgers.
That is surprising. Why didn't Bernard Madoff arrange to be "on vacation" in a suitable foreign country when his scam collapsed?
I liked this post by Mark Cuban where he was trying to buy the Chicago Cubs. There was one bit that said it all. (Paraphrasing) "I couldn't buy the Cubs because I couldn't get favorable lending terms from a bank." Essentially, financial industry insiders get veto power over who buys the Cubs.
Mark Cuban could only get a short-term loan for a few years. The problem is that we are in a deflationary recession/depression. There is no guarantee that in a 3 year loan, there will be sufficient inflation to justify the terms. The bankers said "You can just roll over the loan in 3 years like everyone else." If there isn't another inflationary boom when the loan comes due, then Mark Cuban could be SOL and lose his entire investment.
Further, Mark Cuban pointed out that, during a severe recession/depression, many assets are on sale. Other investments will yield a much better ROI than the high price the Cubs are charging.
If anybody wants to lend me $1B to buy a professional sports franchise, I'd do it!
I liked this post on the Picket Line. Cindy Sheehan's son was killed in Iraq, and she became a popular anti-war activist. She started advocating for tax resistance in protest of the Iraq war. She dropped her tax resistance activism and ran for Congress against Nanci Pelosi and lost.
Cindy Sheehan should have stuck with tax resistance, and hopefully been converted to agorism. Of course, if she started intelligently talking about agorism, she would get no mainstream media coverage.
This illustrates the fallacy of "Work within the system to achieve reform!" Even if elected to the House of Representatives, she still would be just one vote.
I liked this post on ProBlogger. It's about setting goals for your blog. He points out the difference between a narrow niche and something like lolcats or "stuff white men like" that can grow very rapidly. For my content, I'm not going to "explode virally" like certain other stuff. However, slow and consistent growth is doable.
My personal blogging goal is 5%-10% monthly traffic growth, with a doubling time of 3-6 months. I don't get discouraged by a month-over-month decrease, which has happened several times. The overall long-term trend is favorable. There's too much random noise in the daily and weekly traffic statistics.
It takes awhile for people to become accustomed to free market thinking.
Some of the searches in Google Analytics seem foolish. If you want to search my blog for certain words or phrases, use "site:fskrealityguide.blogspot.com". Since Google indexes my blog so nicely, I haven't bothered with post tags/labels. A Google search is more likely to be helpful.
I sometimes Google my own blog, wondering "When did I write about X?"
When I move to my own domain, I'll add a FAQ section.
This post on Check Your Premises was amusing. It was a collection of pro-State troll quotes from anarcho-capitalists. I consider anarcho-capitalism to be one of the pro-government versions of anarchy.
I see some pro-State trolls calling themselves agorists now. Does that mean I have to change my label? I consider "agorism" or "market anarchism" or "real free markets" to be the one true philosophy of anarchism.
Allegedly, the quotes were collected from mises.org. I got bored hanging out there.
On my own domain, I'm going to add my own forum. I'll probably start with PHPBB (Open Source) and later roll-my-own forum engine, or maybe start with roll-my-own from the beginning.
I liked this post on nostate.com, about someone being jailed for tax resistance/evasion. The judge, prosecutor, and IRS agents are the real criminals.
According to that article, the prison term was only 6 months. That's not too bad. I'd accept those odds, knowing I'm doubling my productivity! Of course, if I attempted blatant-in-public agorism, I'd probably be facing a much stiffer sentence.
Also, that tax resister followed the usual stupid strategy of resisting taxes on income that was already reported to the State.
I liked this post on ProBlogger about the "hype cycle" for new technologies.
In his graph, "Peak of Inflated Expectations" is due to State manipulation of the market. Real interest rates are negative. Whenever there is a promising area for investment, it gets over-flooded with capital, providing a spike followed by a recession/bust.
The biggest "killer technology" out there now is agorism. Computers and the Internet were a prerequisite for agorism, because they enabled people to communicate in a decentralized fashion.
I liked this post on RadGeek (also discussed elsewhere). Ecuador defaulted on its foreign debt.
"Economic development" loans were made to insiders in Ecuador. The loans usually come with strings that most of the money must be spent on projects built by certain US corporations. The insiders in Ecuador gladly accept the loan, because some of the money winds up in their own pockets. Several years later, repayment is due, and it's time for another recession. There is pressure for Ecuador's politicians to raise taxes or inflate its money to pay off its debt.
With fiat money, *NO* debt contract with a bank is a valid contract. Banks merely print new money and loan it out. Loaning to governments is usually nearly riskless, because the government can back the interest payments with its taxation power. After all, insiders aren't paying with their own money! Greater debt allows for greater looting in the present.
"The average person is responsible for the debts of his self-appointed political leaders!" is false.
Usually, such debt defaults are disallowed. The defaulting country usual has its government overthrown by an invasion. Perhaps insiders knew the default was coming, and made a fortune short selling Ecuador's debt?
This story on Rad Geek (also cited elsewhere) was very disturbing. A BART cop shot a suspected criminal point-blank in the back, when he had already been restrained by other police. The footage was captured on cellphones. Normally, the police confiscate cellphones from bystanders during such an incident, but some bystanders escaped on a train.
This is the evil of monopolistic State police. By sovereign immunity, they are nearly immune from liability. If a non-policeman shot a policeman at point-blank range when the cop was defenseless, the mainstream media would (correctly) shout "**MURDER**!!" When a policeman murders someone, there always are excuses for what the policeman did.
Even when a policeman does get caught doing something wrong, the blame is always placed on the individual policeman. A corrupt system is never blamed.
Police are over-eager to shoot/taser people. People should use nonlethal methods before using a gun (always seriously injures) or taser (sometimes seriously injures). As part of their training/brainwashing, police are trained to believe "Nearly everyone is your enemy!"
It's amusing how something innocuous like "Cameras in cellphones are cool!" can also be used to expose abuse by State employees. Many states have reacted by making it a crime to videotape a policeman, no matter what he is doing.
Really, police should be videotaped *ALL* the time while on the job. The footage could be used to exonerate honest policeman *AND* capture corrupt policemen.
This article on msn.com was an interesting piece of pro-State trolling. When dating a man, women should evaluate the man based solely on the shoes his wearing. Obviously, shoe manufacturers have an interest in promoting stories like that.
I'm getting much better at "Evaluate someone based on body language, or based on a few sentences of conversation."
This post on the Bell Tower was silly. He's confusing arbitrage with fraud.
Suppose A says "I'm willing to buy book X for $200." B then finds a copy of book X for $20, and then sells it to A for $200. Has B committed fraud? No. A posted an valid offer "Buy book X for $200." B filled his order.
In a true free market, if there's a demand for locating books, someone will start a rare used book business. For most goods, the bid price should always be less than the offer price. Someone who keeps an inventory of rare books or spends effort matching buyers and sellers is entitled to their fair profit. If they are earning huge surplus profits, they will face competition in a true free market.
The authory quasibill is confusing arbitrage with fraud. Suppose B found another book (or fabricated one) and sold it to A as a genuine copy of X. Now, B is guilty of fraud. The above example is a valid working free market.
"Buy something, then re-sell it for more" is a valid source of profit.
Similarly, suppose I anticipate a chance of a famine. I buy grain and store it. Later, the famine I predict occurs. I sell my grain for a huge profit. Have I done anything immoral? No, I have not. If you claim it's immoral for me to profit from such planning, you're also asserting that it's immoral for people to anticipate and prepare for famines.
This post on Azrael's Free Thoughts about natural selection was interesting. The welfare State is a huge distortion of the reproductive market.
Without the welfare State, it isn't in your rational self-interest to have more children than you can afford to raise. You may have lots of children, but few grandchildren.
With the welfare State, a couple with no resources can have as many children as they desire, knowing the welfare State will take care of them. Paradoxically, it's the middle class that's hurt the most by the welfare State (as usual). If you're super-wealthy, personal finances are irrelevant. If you're poor, you're dependent on the State anyway. Only in the middle class are you forced to sacrifice your personal wealth for your children.
The State also distorts the dating market. Knowing that the State will take care of you on welfare, or force a deadbeat dad to pay, there is no incentive for a woman to choose a partner wisely. If a woman get pregnant via a deadbeat, it's irrelevant, because the State will pay the cost of the child or the cost of forcing the father to pay.
It's possible to enforce child support customs via contract. A woman should make the man sign a contract saying "If I get pregnant, you are required to pay X cost towards supporting the child." Once such a practice becomes commonplace, any woman who doesn't take such precaution is obviously a fool. I disagree with "The man has an unlimited obligation to the woman, just because she got pregnant." In a true free market, the obligation should be negotiated in advance.
I liked this post on no third solution about his critique to the non-libertarian FAQ. I don't normally waste time refuting the obvious gibberish of idiots. David Z has more patience for such things than me.
If you say "Property is theft!", that's an inherent contradiction. The word "theft" implies a concept of property. Proudhon is frequently misquoted out of context, regarding "Property is theft!" He actually what I say, which is "In the present, most/all private property is stolen property!" That isn't the same as saying that private property is intrinsically evil. Most current property rights derive their claim to some type of conquest. The Great Depression was a form of economic conquest, where farmers were forced off their land. The Great Depression was a crisis intentionally engineered by the insiders who controlled the Federal Reserve.
I also liked the bit on "If you don't like the USA, then leave!" The problem is that there's no unoccupied place to move to and form a free society. Via corrupt international treaties, insiders have parceled the world into various "human farms". You can leave for another farm, but you don't have the right to say "I'm not cattle!" Besides, this is my home and I'm not leaving!
If people who disagree with the State policies leave or are murdered/kidnapped, that ensures the perpetuation of the evil State.
I have very little patience anymore refuting the obviously stupid ideas of idiots.
This article on no third solution had an interesting bit. People are saying "Let's make our own local scrip/paper currency to avoid dependence on State money." David Z points out they are stupid, but not for the right reasons.
First, what's wrong with physical gold or silver? Why do all these "alternate monetary system" vendors have an aversion to simple gold and silver.
With local scrip money, nothing prevents the issuer from printing more and more money, causing hyperinflation. That is the same problem as with State-issued paper money.
Finally, the State demands that all economic activity is subject to taxation. If you use scrip money for on-the-books work, tribute to the State must be paid in State-issued paper money. Unless you go fully off-the-books, then you still need a supply of State-issued paper to pay tribute/taxes.
I liked this post, via Kevin Carson's Shared Items. Allegedly, the NSA had a massive spying program, targeting journalists. Many top employees at mainstream media corporations have a 2nd job working for a State spy agencies.
A mainstream media outlet is effectively a branch of the State.
Mike Gogulski brags that "Strike the Root" named him #3 freedom fighter of the year in a poll, behind Peter Schiff and the guy who threw a shoe at President Bush. I already know that democracy is silly.
If you renounce your citizenship, but still pay tribute to the State via income taxes, property taxes, and the inflation tax, then have you really accomplished anything? My goal is to achieve freedom where I am right now.
I liked this post on Check Your Premises, quoting Noam Chomsky.
In the long term, I think the centralized political power ought to be eliminated and dissolved and turned down ultimately to the local level, finally, with federalism and associations and so on. On the other hand, right now, I’d like to strengthen the federal government.
Noam Chomsky is one of those pro-State anarchists.
Noam Chomsky is permitted to be one of the "mainstream" advocates for anarchy. His arguments are stupid. This discredits anarchism in general, via the Strawman Fallacy. "Noam Chomsky is an idiot advocating for anarchy. I guess we need a government."
I liked Francois Tremblay's point:
The sole function of government in the capital-democratic system is to generate, steal, concentrate, sustain and manipulate power. Anyone positing the government as doing anything else is contradicting reality.
The mechanism by which government operates is the same as a mafia extortion racket. The details are highly obfuscated. The responsibility for the racket is distributed among various people. The most immoral actors are the police, who use violence to steal and impose the will of insiders. Judges, lawyers, bureaucrats, politicians, the mainstream media, and State-licensed thinkers/professors all play a role in the scam.
I wrote a program that automatically downloads stock and option data from Yahoo Finance. I don't use it much anymore, because I abandoned my option trading system and lost interest in the stock market once I realized it's one big fraud. My option trading system yielded a 100% loss over 2 years, which is bad enough for me to say "Nice try, time to scrap it." (Now is probably the best time to buy, but I'm unemployed and already fully invested in the stock market. That illustrates the fallacy of "A declining stock market is a buying opportunity!", because the average person is usually facing unemployment/underemployment during recessions/depressions.)
I made an enhancement to my program where it downloads the stocks my father is interested in and makes a csv file. I assumed my father would just read the csv file on my hard drive. Now, it's my job to print it out for him every week. My efforts to "do something nice" turned into "FSK has a new weekly errand." It only takes a few minutes per week, so I haven't bothered with "Fully automate the process via C#/.NET."
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Ruby on Rails Sucks!":
Been comparing Django and Rails trying to decide. Rails really does feel better overall but I picked Django because Python is faster and has a more mature community. I love the admin system and all of the additional 3rd party modules that can be easily plugged into your Django project: http://djangoplugables.com/. Rails is not very modular. Python has been in use long before Django. Ruby was nothing before Rails. I get the sense the Rails community is a lot of script kids. However, Ruby performance is supposed to be vastly improved with 1.9 - 2.0. Maybe I'll revisit in a year or two.
I haven't looked into Python/Django. PHP is good enough for me.
My impression of Rails is "Hype over substance!" Rails seems attractive to people with only a superficial understanding of software. Maybe Rails will be a lot better 2 years from now, but the concerns I had with Rails were mentioned 2 years ago.
Once an online "Open Source" community becomes dominated by idiots, the productive people say "I'll invest time in something other than Rails!" Therefore, I express doubt that Rails will improve substantially.
That's one flaw in working as a software engineer. There's a temptation to learn every single language. My current attitude as "Learn as needed."
One reason for Python's popularity may be that it's promoted by Google. Based on my perusing of job boards, I see very few "Python required!" jobs. When I see "Rails required!", my response is "Idiots! I'm not wasting time on them!" There's a decent number of PHP jobs.
I keep hearing this same quote over and over again from Obama's inauguration.
Someday brown can stick around, the yellow man can remain mellow?
They've got the quote wrong. It's supposed to be "If it's brown, flush it down. If it's yellow, let it mellow." That was a water-conversation strategy taught in college.
barry b. has left a new comment on your post "Common FSK Topics":
FSK,
The drop in December was due to the christmas season. I had the same affect. Folks were busy worrying with family and corporate consumption. In regards to your articles.. have you paid attention to the situation in iceland with the collapse of their economy. I'm gonna do a little more research on the subject but thought it was worth looking at.
I already answered the bit on Iceland in a separate post.
My overall best month traffic-wise was October 2008. I'm still down 20% from that month in January. The trend for January is favorable so far.
I had some posts that temporarily ranked highly in Google, such as The Amero Subeterfuge, which no longer sends me much search traffic.
I haven't written any "widely cited elsewhere" or "SEO success" posts recently. It's hard to predict what will be popular ahead of time. It seems that "1 post per day, improve your writing over time, and get organic growth" is the best strategy.
Hobnobus has left a new comment on your post "Common FSK Topics":
Great post! This is the type of thing you could put as an introduction page to this blog, perhaps once you make your server move. One suggestion I have is to put links to as many of your posts as possible in this post. Several of your points in the ordered list did not have links to relevant posts. Readers new and old would really like to be able to go directly to the more specific posts without having to search for them.
I'm planning to make a FAQ section when I move to my own domain. Blogger doesn't facilitate that nicely. WordPress has better support for "static pages". I'm going to update all my old and popular posts. As I write the FAQ entries, I'll also put them in my regular blog queue.
I thought about putting in hyperlinks for everything, but that seemed like too much work. I'll use that post as a basis for a FAQ section when I get my own domain.
I'm getting excited about getting my own full domain and hosting. It'd be nice if I could do this as a full-time job. Right now, $2/day is more than enough to pay for hosting.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Federal Reserve has Never Been Audited":
Why does Congress allow the printing of notes, being paid about .028 cents per note by the Federal Reserve, and then borrow the notes from the Federal Reserve at face value?
That is the arrangement that politicians made with the Federal Reserve and financial industry insiders.
For coins, the Federal government is reimbursed for the face amount and not the printing cost. Coins have a different legal status than Federal Reserve Notes.
Isn't Congress charged by our Constitution to coin and value all money? I mean, the last time I read our Constitution this was a job responsibility of there's. And, where does Congress get off being lazy on the job?
Some people say that the Federal Reserve is unconstitutional, but a corrupt Supreme Court has ruled otherwise. Some individual states have tried issuing their own gold and silver money, but the Supreme Court ruled those systems unconstitutional, because they usurped the Federal government's money-printing power.
They cannot give one good reason why our Federal Reserve is privately owned.
The pro-State troll answer is "Money should not be subject to control by politicians." In practice, this means "Financial industry insiders control the monetary system." The pro-State troll answer is that politicians are too stupid to manage the monetary system directly themselves.
I guess this private ownership is as close to a fascist government as I want to come. Could this have something to do with the 7 trillion debt we have? And where does the Bureau of Land Management fit into this equation? Is all this "government" land in hock to foreign governments?
Via property taxes, all land is owned by the State. No US citizen has full allodial title to land, because property taxes (rent) must be paid.
All these questions have been asked of neumerous Congress people and government officials. These are good questions and deserve an answer for the American people. Only two Presidents have tried to do something about the Federal Reserve, Abraham Lincoln and J.F. Kennedy. We all know what happened to them.
Congress and the President and their advisors/lobbyists are interested in lining their pockets at the expense of everyone else. They represent nobody but themselves.
You're merely rehashing points I consider to be obvious. However, a new reader to my blog may be new to these ideas. I really should set up a FAQ section.
If you don't like it, you should start your own competing government! Agorism is the best "Resist the State!" strategy I've seen.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Common FSK Topics":
I'd like to see you write about why you think the state exists. What fundamentally causes a state, and why does 99% of the population praise it's function (ya, they argue over what it should do, but almost everyone believes that it is necessary).
(Some of my thoughts...)
We will never have an anarchist society unless people start believing that we do not need to coerce people into behaving. I believe agorism is the best way to bring about the downfall of the existing state, but if people don't believe that coercion is immoral, then I don't think agorism can get enough steam to actually topple the state.
When you start talking about coercion as being immoral, you add tons of other problems that people have to deal with. The idea of coercion as being a good thing runs through every foundation of society: the family, the state, and religion. Getting someone to say "ya, taxes are immoral, I'm an anarchist" is one thing, but getting them to believe that forcing someone to do anything is immoral is quite another. I think there are two fronts to the war, the philosophical(coercion is immoral) and the utilitarian (how anarchism would work/agorism). I see you focused more on the utilitarian side, and would like to at least hear some stuff on philosophy side, and how you think we can win on that end.
Perhaps you should talk about coercion being immoral, if you assert that. And I'm not talking about just a gun pointed at someone, but all the interactions we have with people on a non voluntary basis. I would include such things as being passive aggressive to my wife to get her to do something, or yelling at my kids to get them to clean their room as coercion, and immoral/abusive. Most people (especially those who assert the state is moral), will also assert that coercion, unless actually physically violent, is moral. Spanking my child is deemed moral, or giving my wife the cold shoulder is moral, or yelling at my employees at work is moral. If we believe these tactics are moral, there is a zero chance of any anarchist/agorist strategy working. People fall into abuser/abused relationship so naturally, and think that's a good thing, so the idea of chucking the state makes no sense. You might as well tell them god doesn't exist (if they are religious), or that yelling at their kid is wrong.
So I have some of my own thoughts, I'd like to hear some of your commentary on that subject. :)
I answered this separately in "What is the State"?
Let me know if there's something specific you want me to write about!
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict":
anon
You must be a zionist. this conflict is nothing to do with religion. It is abour Europaen Jews going to the middle east and confiscating landfrom the people who already lived there.
It seems that is referring to a previous Anonymous comment, rather than accusing me of being a Zionist.
That's the problem with Anonymous comments. I have no idea who's writing what. For this reason, I prefer a consistent made-up name, so I know who's writing what.
DixieFlatline has left a new comment on your post "FeedBurner Dropped Reader Mail #75!":
17,000 words. Still way to long to read IMO.
Let's see if this gets better. I have to "work through" the drafts I've already started.
If necessary, I'll move to 2 "Reader Mail" posts per week. I'm seriously considering that.
My blogging energy and motivation has increased recently! I feel that I'm recovering nicely from my most recent panic attack, which usually is an indication that I'm at-risk for a relapse. Hopefully, I can avoid that this time.
Also, putting Google AdSense has increased my blogging motivation. I'm now thinking "Only 100x more regular readers and I can do this as a job!" When you consider that the "doubling time" for my blog's readership is 3-6 months and that I haven't tapped out my potential target audience, I'm doing fine.
Mike Gogulski has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #75":
Sunni is a em she, and Anarchoblogs is run by Charles "Rad Geek" Johnson.
Oh well. Most free market writers are male. I hadn't read Sunni's blog that carefully. I thought DixieFlatline was female.
"Rad Geek" seemed reasonable the few times I dealt with him. Still, I'm surprised that my blog wasn't listed after I filled out the form.
Zargon has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #75":
I don't mind the length of your reader mail posts, but there are clearly two sections: interesting bits from around the web, and then actual reader mail/comments. You could split the posts approximately in half at that divide, and post both halves at the same time.
Or perhaps that would be confusing to people who are used to 1 post/day.
The simplest solution is to just start having two "Reader Mail" posts per week, instead of one per week. It's only been one or two posts since I started following "1 Reader Mail post per week!" If necessary, I'll move to two per week.
It's very ****ing annoying that FeedBurner is dropping my Reader Mail posts. I'm pretty sure I didn't have that problem before I started using FeedBurner. I'm ready to say "**** FeedBurner!", but I'll probably wait until I move to my own domain.
I thought "FeedBurner will be cool! I can find out how many RSS subscribers I have!" With self-hosting, I can directly access the Apache server logs. FeedBurner's statistics are nothing special and buggy. I can roll-my-own FeedBurner engine from the Apache server logs.
I also thought "I have a lot of RSS subscribers! AdSense via RSS will be 25%-50% of my total AdSense revenue!" In practice, AdSense via RSS has been less than 4% of my total. I read that Google's AdSense via RSS targeting is lousy. My RSS subscribers are probably less likely to click on an advertisement than a typical random Google search visitor.
--------------That's an interesting evil fnord. The freedom of children is severely artificially restricted by the State. The most evil restriction is mandatory public schooling. Then, when you're 18/21, you say "Woohoo!!! I'm free!!" The reality is that you're merely freer, but not fully free. If you keep people in small cages until they're 18, and then move them to a larger cage, then they won't notice they're in a cage.
I'm pretty convinced at this point that the extra special oppression that is reserved for teenagers (such as the insane application of child porn laws, absolute and unchecked authority of school teachers/administrators, prohibition of alcohol/tobacco, truancy laws, fugitive child laws, ect) is all part of the scheme of making productive slaves out of them later on.
When they turn 18/21 they get freed of those ridiculous and very visible double standards and think to themselves how free they are now, when it's simply that the chain has been lengthened a little bit. They've been freed of no small amount of obvious and burdensome oppression, and thus are less likely to see and care about the more subtle and damaging oppression that's everywhere and affects everyone.
It's like the Chinese practice of binding women's feet. However, instead of binding people physically (which is obvious), you bind people emotionally. The people who start "cracking" their emotional binding show the symptoms of a mental illness, which the psychiatry/death industry then "treats". The children who are resistant to the emotional binding process are now being labeled with a mental illness and forcibly drugged while children.
I wonder if humans are evolving ever-greater resistance to pro-State brainwashing over time? It seems like a natural evolutionary reaction to a parasite. It seems that the people abused by the psychiatry/death industry are those with a higher level of natural intelligence. I can't say conclusively, because all the other mental health patients I've seen were hopelessly drugged up.
David Gross has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #75":
I don't think that Sunni was complaining that because you and she disagreed that this disagreement made other parts of your blog less-convincing.
I think she was complaining that you regularly mischaracterize her arguments while arguing against them and that because of this, she wonders if you do this in other parts of your blog as well and so she feels she has to take your other assertions with a grain of salt.
You should evaluate each of my ideas independently. If you believe I got one idea wrong, that does not discredit the other things I write about.
In this case, Sunni and you were saying "FSK does not understand counter-economics. There is a counter-economy." My accusation is that you are confusing isolated pockets of tax resistance with a full agorist counter-economy. The only counter-economic job were you can earn a huge salary is via prostitution, gambling, or drugs/marijuana. I don't know of anyone who earns $100k+/year in another type of counter-economic business.
Most off-the-books jobs are things like waiting tables or working as a dishwasher. I earn a decent salary in my wage slave jobs, although I'm currently unemployed. It would be silly for me to take an off-the-books job that only paid $10/hr. It would be silly for me to work in the counter-economy if I could only make $10-$20/hr.
My goal is counter-economic labor/businesses *AND* earning a decent salary.
I have noticed that you don't tend to read other people's arguments very carefully. You tend to quickly draw a conclusion that they're wrong about something without necessarily taking the time to find out if what you think they're wrong about is really what they're arguing. You've done this to me a few times and it both is annoying and makes me have the same reaction that Sunni had: skepticism towards the rest of your arguments and your site.
My primary criticism of your site is that you're overly focused on "war tax resistance" instead of "All taxation is theft!" When you focus on war tax resistance, there's an implication that you approve of all the other evil things the State does. For example, state licensing requirements for doctors is as much an act of war as murdering Iraqis. *ALL* State actions are theft/looting/murder/kidnapping/assualt.
Further, your strategy of resisting taxes on income that has already been reported to the IRS is stupid. You may have some other counter-economic income or counter-economic businesses, but you don't mention them on your website.
You should be skeptical of every individual thing I write about. I usually clarify things when people ask politely. You're free to say "**** you, FSK! I'm not reading anymore!"
Further, I was responding to an attack on your blog and Sunni's blog. It's not like I pick apart stupid arguments on random websites like David Z is wasting his time with.
If I read you savagely refuting some "pro-state troll" argument you've read about or heard about somewhere, I don't really know if the argument you're shooting down is the real argument that the "troll" was making or just a straw-man argument that you assumed they were making after reading them carelessly.
I respond to most intelligent arguments carefully.
What do you mean you can't tell if I'm being unreasonable or giving a careful logical response? Can't you read both the original comment and my response and tell for yourself? I usually provide a link to the comment and post I'm citing.
It isn't immoral for me to say "You're wrong!" or "You're pro-State trolling!" if you really are wrong or pro-State trolling.
I think if you would ease up on the hair-trigger response and take the time to try to find what is valuable and reasonable in arguments that may look unpromising at-first-glance you may find that some of these are worth engaging with and with your cooperation may grow into bridges of agreement over which fruitful ideas may travel.
This comment certainly didn't contribute anything useful. I still read your blog, because you have interesting bits occasionally. Some of your ideas (not all of them) are stupid. Your stupid ideas are:
- You focus on "war tax resistance" instead of "All forms of taxation are theft!"
- You're resisting taxes on income that was already automatically reported to the IRS, instead of generating free market wealth/income. You might already be doing this, but be reluctant to publicly mention it.
Also, you seem to be the one reacting emotionally and not me. That's an indication that you're the one who's having trouble with his pro-State brainwashing.
The people who are most eager to say "FSK should not be so quick to criticize pro-State trolls!" are the ones who have defective reasoning themselves.
As I mentioned before (especially during the "Should FSK use AdSense controversy"), I should not let a minority of readers affect my content. Only a couple percent of my regular readers choose to leave comments. A couple of people who feel very strongly about an issue could cause me to distort what I write about. That works with a mainstream media outlet, but not with me. Most mainstream media outlets are *VERY* reluctant to alienate their audience, because advertisers would pull their ads.
I make intelligence-weighted decisions and not majority-vote decisions. Democracy is stupid. I don't run my blog like a democracy. If you don't like it, you're free to leave. If all you write about on your blog is "That FSK is such a loser!", then eventually I'll get bored and stop reading.
My regular readership is increasing. Of course, that is not proof that another approach would be better or worse. I'm getting consistent regular growth, which is evidence that my strategy isn't totally stupid. If you think you can present my ideas better than me, go ahead!
Usually, when people start saying "**** you FSK, I'm leaving!", that tends to coincide with times of rapid readership growth. That isn't completely scientific.
If I'm always afraid that I'm going to offend people when I write, then I can never discuss controversial topics. I'm not going to worry about offending people, although I try to be reasonable. I assume my readers are intelligent enough to evaluate each idea independently.
The controversy in this case was "What is counter-economics and agorism?" I'm using a different/better definition than you and Sunni. My interpretation of agorism is a lot more than simple isolated pockets of tax resistance.
By E-Mail, someone wrote:
I just found your blog (and it is a very nice blog), and I was wondering if you had gone over the minimum requirements/attributes of a free market. In one of your recent posts you said something like police forces in the employ of parties in conflict would seldom engage in violence against each other. Is this descriptive (an emergent property of such a system) or proscriptive (a fundamental property of such a system)?
The requirements of a free market are:
- Nobody has a monopoly of anything, including violence, justice, and police protection. Nobody has the ability to use violence to force you to pay taxes/tribute.
- Multiple competing police forces and court systems.
- People would probably use sound money (gold or silver), but other forms of money are permitted. Given the free choice, rational people would use gold or silver.
- Time deposit banking and warehouse receipt banking would be dominant. Fractional reserve banking is not viable in a free market, because of the inherent fraud.
- Prices would be stable, with slow deflation over time as efficiency increases.
- Without limited liability incorporation and State subsidies, there's a natural limit to how large a business can get.
I don't understand what you mean by the distinction between "descriptive" and "proscriptive".
Free market justice is "compensation-based justice" instead of "revenge based justice". Of course, a serious criminal at risk for being a repeat offender would not be allowed to go around unsupervised, because nobody would be willing to sell him police protection and insurance. If you're a known repeat criminal, I won't offer to sell you insurance, because I'd be responsible if you commit a crime.
When you buy police protection, you're buying *BOTH* insurance against your property being damaged, and insurance against the possibility you might commit a crime (or fraudulently be accused).
Multiple competing police forces would not normally let a dispute escalate to all-out war. Here's why. Suppose you have a mature free market with 100+ competing police forces. Suppose customer A of police force X has a dispute with customer B of police force Y.
The police forces are unable to come to a mutual agreement regarding who is responsible. A claims that B owes him damages of 10,000 ounces of gold, and B claims that A owes him damages of 10,000 ounces of gold. Police force X says "A's claim is valid". Police for Y says "B's claim is valid".
At this point, there are two choices. Police force X can pay out A 10,000 ounces of gold, and police force Y can pay out B 10,000 ounces of gold (assuming they have sufficient cash). Or, they can let the dispute escalate. If X and Y choose to let their dispute escalate, then *ALL THEIR CUSTOMERS WILL DROP THEM* and go to competing police forces. X and Y will prefer to settle their dispute peacefully, rather than letting the dispute escalate violently and ruining their business.
In the present, if people in Israel don't like the security offered by their government, they can't say "**** this! We're buying police protection elsewhere!" The State's absolute monopoly encourages the escalation of small disputes. Most wars benefit insiders in one way or another, encouraging them to escalate small disputes. Insiders benefit from war because they don't pay the cost. The average person pays the cost via taxes.
If police don't have taxation power, then they'll just lose their customers if they start behaving stupidly. In the present, if monopolistic State police murder someone, the average person has no recourse. They can't say "**** this! We're buying police protection elsewhere!"
You also can't argue "Why won't a police force get a monopoly and go around harassing people?" In the present, there already is an abusive police monopoly; we call them the government. Once people understand "Taxation is theft!" and "Nobody should have a monopoly!", then it would be impossible for someone to re-establish a violence monopoly. The current corrupt system persists because most people have been pro-State brainwashed to believe it is legitimate and necessary.
Further, without limited liability incorporation and State subsidies, there's a natural limit to how large a business can get. If there was someone competent enough to oversee 100 workers, he'd be better off starting his own competing business instead of working for me. Without the State restricting access to capital, a competent worker would be better off raising capital and starting his own business, instead of working for someone else.
This also doesn't mean "Can't a rich person go around assaulting people and just pay the fine?" No, because punitive damages are also a factor for blatant crimes. He might get away with it once, claiming an accident, but if he tried it too much he'd get caught.
That's like asking "Why doesn't Bill Gates assassinate Steve Jobs?" That seems obviously silly. Similarly, competing police businesses won't normally compete violently.
In the present, areas falsely labeled as "anarchistic" have all-out violence. What happens in those areas is that multiple groups are competing *TO BE THE NEW GOVERNMENT*. The stakes are high, because the winner gets to loot and pillage a large area, having a violence monopoly that the cattle perceive as legitimate. Those areas are not a valid counter-example to real free markets, because none of the participants have been convinced "Who needs a monopolistic State anyway?"
Based on the definition of a free market that you gave, a free market could have significant violence between police agencies under very unusual circumstances, but will very often not. Thus the low violence is descriptive of a free market not prescriptive ('proscriptive' is the wrong word, sorry). The distinction being that prescriptive things are part of the definition of the system (think prescribed medications), while descriptive things are attributes that could be shared under a number of systems. For instance, the various police agencies of the USA refrain from open hostilities, but under a much different system than free market police would.
In a true free market there aren't any preconceived rules. It's mostly a thought experiment for now, because there's almost no real-world examples.
In the present, the police from New York don't invade New Jersey. Most policemen would see such an action as silly. Even if you could get a lot of policemen from New York to go along with it, they wouldn't accomplish anything. Other states would send reinforcements once it was obvious that the police from New York were nuts. People in New York would stop paying taxes once it became obvious that the police are misbehaving.
Similarly, a US invasion of Canada or Mexico would be seen as silly by most people in the USA. It would be hard to get popular support for such a war, although the mainstream media propaganda engine would try, if necessary.
One real-world example of a functioning anarchy is the Internet. If a "rogue ISP" starts sending out lots of spam or bad packets, then the rest of the Internet will stop carrying their traffic. There's no ultimate authority, but there are a handful of administrators that maintain blacklists. The "ostracize people who violate rules" works very well. As another example, consider a BitTorrent "ratio site", where people with insufficient upload ratios are banned. If the site administrators started behaving unreasonably, a group of users would form a competing site. This limits the amount of potential abuse.
In a true free market, "ostracize people who break the rules" works very well. Free sharing of information is a prerequisite. In the present, if I say publicly "X cheated FSK! Don't ever deal with X!", I'll be sued for libel. In a free market, I'm free to say "X cheated me!" and X is free to say "FSK is a liar!" and people can judge for themselves.
I apologize if my writing is a bit obtuse. I'm an academic at heart (but not by profession), so I tend to pick up the writing and speaking habits of academics.
I specifically *AVOID* the academic writing style. The academic writing style is "Use fancy words that make me seem smarter than I really am." If you're targeting the average person, you should use plain language whenever possible.
That's a bad habit that I'm consciously trying to break. I try to write directly and in plain language.
That's also the reason some people get offended. In an academic venue, it's considered rude to say "You're an idiot!" Peer review discourages such behavior. On pro-State troll talk shows, the host typically says "You're an idiot!" to people, to emphasize his manliness instead of being objective.
I noticed a really dirty trick on a TV call-in show. The caller asks a question. The host talks a bit. Then, the caller is cut off and the host gives their final answer. The caller is not given the opportunity to say "Hey! You didn't really answer my question!" If you control the editing, you can make anybody seem to be an idiot, and you can make the host seem smarter than they are.
I try to be objective here. I'm trying to take every comment seriously, even stupid ones. To avoid wasting all my time answering stupid comments, I say so when someone seems like they're trolling.
For example, I don't know why people still argue "Property is theft!" I've already dismissed that argument as obviously stupid. If you argue "Property is theft!", don't be surprised if I respond "Stop pro-State trolling!" or "HAHAHAHA!!! You're one of those stupid pro-State anarchists!"
Most pro-State troll arguments necessarily have highly obfuscated details, because they're wrong. Read other sites arguing in favor of "social contract means taxation is acceptable" to see an example of stupid reasoning.
David Z has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #75":
You could itemize your reader mail posts with an anchored list. But from experience with text anchors, it's kind of a pain in the ass.
Do you mean the #post_label type links and "a name=" html tags? Yuck! That would be a PITA.
For now, let's see if "more frequent, and shorter, Reader Mail posts" works. If necessary, I'll move to 2/week. I'll try 1/week first. The most recent ones don't count, because I've been "using up" queued drafts.
Maybe I should write my own "Reader Mail" WordPress plugin/extension? Most of my good blogging ideas now start with "FSK gets his own domain and hosting first."
I should start experimenting with WAMP on my local PC.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Pascal's Wager Fallacy":
FSK Pascal's Wager is described by Pascal as a form of arbitrage. Arbitrage has three components:
No investment (doesn't involve a cost)
No risk (doesn't invole a loss)
Chance of Positive Return (e.g. Eternal Life Bliss Etc. as an infinite reward)
The problem is that Pascal's assumptions are wrong.
Strict Christianity:
-Does not invole a cost (all you must do is believe in Jesus not to die - the John 3:16 "gospel in one verse". That is precieved low or no cost for most people.)
Do I consider it possibly true that the Bible as usually quoted is the absolute truth? Maybe, but it's unlikely. I consider it to be much more likely that "A lot of the facts were made up or embellished, as part of a massive brainwashing campaign."
Christianity says "Believe, without evidence, that this is true!" That is silly. Just because everyone around me believes "Christianity is the ONE TRUE RELIGION!" or "Taxation is not theft!", that doesn't make it true.
"Believe without evidence" is an important part of pro-State brainwashing. Believing false things as if they're absolutely true *ALWAYS* has a cost. I don't even believe with absolute certainty that 2+2=4, via the Incompleteness Theorem.
Besides, Christianity is a pretty lame religion if all you have to do is believe. It's acceptable to steal billions of dollars and murder thousands of people, as long as you believe "Jesus is the ONE TRUE GOD AND MY SAVIOR?" Are you saying that you can be a true Christian and it imposes no restrictions on what you may and may not do?
-Does not involve a loss (same arguement as above if strictly interpreted.)
There is a loss, because you're giving up quality of the only life you get.
Worshipping the God of Christianity (or the God of Absolute Unopposable Evil) is giving up part of the only life you get. Pro-State brainwashing severely cripples your ability to be effective.
Of course, if the people around me will beat me up for not being Christian, then I can see the value in faking belief!
-Has a chance of positive return. (E.g. eternal life.)
However, what if you believe "Christianity is the ONE TRUE RELIGION!" has infinitesimal truth value? Then, the calculation doesn't work.
Anybody who claims they know what happens after you die is, by definition, a liar.
Now whether or not this was a carefully constructed story which brainwashed a large amount of humanity very rapidly, or whether it has some other substance to it; is irrelevant. That is the outcome of the bet. What matters is not the outcome in this case since the cost and risk is nonexistent; but the payoff which is infinite to believers.
I understand your arguement which says there is a cost or a loss, but that is not Pascal's view, that is yours.
Pascal's argument is wrong because his assumptions are wrong. That's like my discussion of the Black-Scholes Formula. The Math of the Black-Scholes formula is correct. It doesn't model the real-world, because the axioms are wrong.
Similarly, given Pascal's assumptions, his argument is correct. His argument is wrong, because his assumptions don't model the real world.
Besides, what kind of ***hole God cares if I believe in him? What kind of God is so insecure that he's dependent on mortal believers for power? Real Gods say "Fine! You don't believe in objective reality! I don't care if your life sucks as a result!"
Similarly, if an ***hole job interviewer rejects me because he's a parasite, my attitude is "Fine! You don't want good software! That's your business' problem and not mine!"
Read Taleb - you may be comitting more of a folly by paying attention to reason which has less of a payoff ratio.
What do you mean that reason has no payoff?
You're misquoting Taleb (the "Black Swan" guy?) He says that fancy financial models are have wrong assumptions, and therefore are wrong. He's making the same argument I am.
According to Taleb, suppose a bank executive has a 95% chance of making a $10B profit, and a 5% chance of losing $10T. From the bank executive's point of view, this is a great system. In the 5% of the time he is wrong, he may declare bankruptcy and default or qualify for a State bailout.
What do you mean by "reason has no payoff"? What alternative strategy are you proposing? Here's your strategy for dealing with life:
Pz;sih fxdifdxig fx uo;xd;go uxfcg;htduo; txd;hdtx;xodf ;x hdou;rhx rrdx ;oudru;o r dx;ohx;dro dr; oxudrx;ou h;rd hx;x dhd;x dopdruoprourou;hnj x rdy7er rd; ;ordxyp5r;yur rdy; rd; hrdx;uhdrxu;rdh; nseso suo!
That is sound advice. (I need to write a better random gibberish generator, instead of banging at my keyboard. That's another good PHP project!)
By definition, I never understood the "Using logic is evil/stupid!" argument. The primary problem is that, if you follow logic, AND DON'T GO ALL THE WAY, you get caught in contradictions. My current philosophy is the only one I've heard that is not contradictory.
You're also sounding like my psychiatrists/murderers. "You're not giving anti-psychotic drugs a fair chance!" or "The drugs aren't working because you don't believe they work!"
Overall, I feel that my quality of life is increasing since I started following reason more closely. The only "negative" of following reason too diligently is that members of the parasite class, who are usually pulling the strings, *HATE* me when I can see through their scam. I haven't fully put my logical thinking ability into practical tangible benefits for myself, but I'm getting there.
A philosophy that does not lead to practical benefits for its followers is useless. When I was a sleeping zombie (pre red pill), I wound up involuntarily hospitalized. The "FSK is not in tune with the truth!" philosophy was very bad for me. The shock of discovering the truth the hard way is *VERY* traumatic.
Will I put my philosophy into practice and achieve tangible results for myself? I'm going to try, and there are indications of progress.
By personal belief is that the Concept is to brilliant and empirically successful for any human to create. So like everyone else I bring a bias - but if it makes me a "happy slave to God" in the very worst case then what do I lose?
Your comment was entirely gibberish and pro-State trolling.
There seem to be a "Logical thinking sucks!" crowd out there. I haven't heard of any plausible alternative. You should hang out with the "Property is theft!" Anonymous poster. You can start the "FSK is a loser!" blog!
Once nice thing about the Religion of Science is that there are tangible benefits for the True Believers. Inventions like refrigerators, automobiles, computers, telephones, etc. are all possible from True Believers in the Religion of Science and Logic. If you worship the God of Science and Logic instead of the God of Absolute Unopposable Evil, then the quality of your life will improve!
The problem is that the God of Absolute Unopposable Evil thinks that power is determined by a majority vote. The God of Science and Logic knows that mortals don't get to choose how reality actually works. The people who worship the God of Absolute Unopposable Evil have tricked the people who partially believe the God of Science and Logic.
Do people understand why I have no patience for idiots? If I didn't crack down on fools, nearly *EVERY SINGLE COMMENT* would be like this.
I'm not misquoting the original comment. Somebody really wrote that. How can somebody be that stupid and still know how to turn on a computer and type?
It appears that I'm the #1 Google search result for "Ruby on Rails sucks" now. For awhile, I was #3-#5. I didn't notice that post had many/any incoming links.
It's disappointing to lose my accumulated PageRank and Search Engine Result Placement (SERP) when I move to my own site, but it's a necessary cost. I'll leave this Blogger blog up and put a message indicating I've moved.
fritz has left a new comment on your post "Housing Crisis Humor":
This makes lots of sense. What I don't understand is why most people do not understand the whats happening. They could give 3 grand to each American ( from the bail out money) or 7 grand to each tax payer. This would be much more affective than taking care of the insiders.
This is the pro-State troll version of Social Credit. To compensate for the Compound Interest Paradox, the State credits each individual with money.
Theoretically, the State could print $1M for each American and write them a check. Would that create any new wealth? No, it wouldn't. Suppose I had $10k in the bank and the State gave each American a check for $1M. I'd be annoyed, because my savings were effectively stolen. Suppose I had a $500k mortgage and the State gave each American a check for $1M. I'd be happy, because I can easily repay my mortgage with devalued money.
The problem is that the system is set up for the benefit of insiders and not the average person. The *ENTIRE* purpose of government is for insiders to loot and pillage.
The boom and bust cycles combined with the governments desire to bail out insiders. This is complete proof as to the nature of the government. And their true alliance.
If you don't like it, start your own government!
Check this out,,I think you will like it http://www.freedom-school.com/nord-davis/pardon-me-5.pdf Its good stuff about taxes
I thought that was lame. I already addressed this in The Fallacy of Tax Protestor Fallacies.
That author was pro-State trolling. He's focusing on the *LEGAL* arguments against the income tax, and not the *MORAL* argument. "Taxation is theft!" is sufficient argument against the income tax. The legal argument is an evil fnord and an intellectual trap.
People get caught up in the legal arguments against the income tax. They forget that the most important argument is the moral argument.
If you tried to make any of his arguments in court, the judge would probably rule your argument is frivolous and hold you in contempt. Even if you argue "Taxation is theft!" in a court, the judge probably wouldn't allow you to make the argument. Monopolistic State courts do not recognize defenses that appeal to natural law or common law.
There is an obvious contradiction. "I am a free individual!" and "I must pay tribute whenever I work!" are logically inconsistent.
Roonie has left a new comment on your post "What are Fnords?":
I have no idea what high-ranking members of the Illuminati want (or even if those are the people really pulling the strings).
Or perhaps, there is an element of the Illuminati that want people to break free.
I prefer the "aliens exist" hypothesis, which is that advanced aliens are subtly guiding humanity in the correct direction.
I haven't met any super-rich people, so how can I know? (I have worked for some people in the $100M+ net worth range. Their attitude was "I'm rich and I'm a super-genius!" They really were in the right place at the right time and had the right connections, more than being supremely clever. I've spent time hanging out with people who actually were super-geniuses (by FSK standards).)
FSK, you seem to be making the assumption that *all* anonymously rich people are evil, instead of merely *most* of them.
Let's consider another example. All the psychiatrists I've met had sincerely good intentions. They're still a bunch of murderers.
For example, Warren Buffet seems to have good intentions and the productive worker personality type, based on what I've seen of him. Warren Buffet still is a shill for the establishment.
If any super-rich person knew the truth as well as I do, he'd be using all his resources to directly broadcast the truth. This has not occurred, so I conclude that there is no super-rich person who is fully aware of the scam *AND* has good intentions.
It depends. One possibility is that the ruling class is a group of 100-200 people, rather than someone with absolute power. They believe their own lies, and it gives the illusion that they're actively working towards the destruction of their gravy train.
I mean, if the "Supreme Leader of Humanity" were unopposed, he should have been able to complete his agenda long, long ago. Right? So what if there are people working to thwart him/her? That would explain the internet and the good fnords as well as a few other things.
Is the Internet a tactical mistake by the ruling class? Did someone figure out that the Internet would allow people to share information and become free? Did aliens help the Internet get released to the general public.
There are a lot of "beneficial coincidences" surrounding the creating of the Internet and personal computer.
- IBM had proprietary control of the PC hardware standard. A business reverse-engineered the IBM BIOS chip and started making IBM-compatible PCs. Under current copyright law, such behavior is forbidden. Most of the "explosion" in the PC industry was due to the standard being released from IBM's control.
- A lot of the software underlying the Internet was not patented. At the time, people believed it would be foolish to patent software.
- The software industry and electronics industry is nearly completely unregulated, allowing for exponential growth while the rest of the economy stagnates.
(I am making the assumption that anyone who would want to have supreme control over everything is inherently evil. "Good guys" are ok with decentralization of power, because they know they can count on trust and respect from the peopleto bind the society together.)
By that standard, the handful of people who control the mainstream media corporations count as evil. These people (or their secret backers) are the ones pulling the strings. By hiring the "right" people, they can maintain absolute control and nearly perfect censorship.
This issue keeps coming up. Is there an evil person or handful of people pulling the strings? Is the current corrupt system merely the result of a series of bad decisions? Either way, the system is completely broken and should be discarded.
Of course "There's an nearly omniscient/omnipotent evil person pulling the strings!" seems false. If it were true, I would have been assassinated by now, along with the other top free market thinkers on the Internet. Interestingly, "top free market thinkers according to FSK" is not what other people might say!
Are the good fnords generated by clever humans? Are aliens secretly guiding the good fnords? How could anyone be sure?
I'm pointing out that it's *VERY* weird. I see powerful evil fnords and powerful good fnords.
robert30062 has left a new comment on your post "Iceland's Economic Crisis":
Great post FSK. You must be feeling better because you seem sharp right now. That's good.
Really? I thought that post was "Duh! Boring! Obvious!" I only wrote it because barry b asked for a summary. I just copied the details from Wikipedia's outline and then added the obvious commentary.
I do feel that I'm getting better. In the past, "FSK starts feeling more alert!" usually leads to "FSK is involuntarily re-hospitalized again!" The problem was that I hadn't fully cracked my pro-State brainwashing. As I started recovering my awareness and realizing how badly ****ed up things are, I relapse. Now, when I see other people pro-State troll, my reaction is "That again?"
I feel increased blogging motivation right now. I'm also feeling motivated to start writing software again. I'm probably going to write a PHP Sudoku engine first. Then, I'll work on my RSS reader and forum engine.
One point I always try to make when talking about how the current international monetary system is run by basically the same people, i.e Rockefellers, Rothschilds, etc. is an example of perpective. When people say, "Oh that is just crazy conspiracy theory! THE WHOLE WORLD can't be in on it!",
Actually, the whole world *LITERALLY* is in on it! If I tell someone "Taxation is theft!" and they respond "You're a fruitcake FSK!", they're ACTIVELY PARTICIPATING IN THE CONSPIRACY, WITHOUT THEIR OWN CONSCIOUS KNOWLEDGE!" This is the importance of "Brainwash the cattle so thoroughly so that they police themselves!"
Did someone do this on purpose, or is it the result of bad coincidences and is a horrible tragedy? Are the members of the elite ruling class aware of the nature of the scam, and intentionally perpetuating it? Or, are they so stupid that they believe their own lies?
I just make an analogy based on something my brother told me a few years ago. He is an airline pilot and told me that the entire western hemisphere is today even smaller to him than the few miles of woods behind our backyard growing up as kids. Because distance is relative to the capacity of speed to travel and for the rich and powerful insiders of the global economy, who can be around the world on their jets in a few hours, one can see how small in fact the world might seem to them.
It certainly is much easier for a handful of people to control the world now than it was 100 years ago. Further, the mainstream media allows the same propaganda to be uniformly broadcast everywhere. The "publicly acknowledged economic and political leaders" of all big countries meet regularly. The "secret leaders" probably also meet and coordinate regularly.
On another note, I don't know if you read any Noam Chomsky or Chris Floyd but you might want to check their web sites out. You wrote a small article about the current Israeli invasion of Gaza and while your broader insight of the political insiders was correct, there are specific facts and atrocities commited the IDF that are forbidden in the mainstream media.
Noam Chomsky is one of those pro-State anarchists. Noam Chomsky is a mainstream critic of the State, but he provides a weak criticism, making the State seem legitimate. Noam Chomsky is not a "makret anarchist" or "agorist". Is Noam Chomsky is one of those idiots who believes "Property is theft!"? I haven't read him carefully.
I googled for Chris Floyd. I found this page. Looking at the way he organizes his writing (my "conspiracy smell" technique) and reading a bit, I rapidly concluded "This guy doesn't have anything interesting to say."
Let me know if you find any good Noam Chomsky or Chris Floyd bits and I'll look at them.
The Israeli/Palestinian conflict illustrates the flaw with "revenge-based justice". That just leads to escalation. "Compensation-based justice" is more appropriate.
My point regarding the Israeli/Paliestinian conflict is that the average person on *BOTH* sides is hostage to their leaders. The average person can't say "**** this! I'm buying police protection elsewhere!" Just because Israel's army commits an atrocity, does not make the average person in Israel responsible (except to the extent they pay taxes). Similarly, am I responsible for US military atrocities, except that I pay taxes to support them?
fritz has left a new comment on your post "Iceland's Economic Crisis":
I wonder what kind of pressure the iceland government had on it..That made them sell out..Its a small island,If I were in government and sold out the people.I wouldn't have to many places to hide..
If you control the government and sell out the people, you're usually safe. Your mainstream media propaganda engine will keep the masses complacent.
If Iceland's politicians didn't play ball with the bankers, they would be declared a "rogue state" and be overthrown. Either they would be directly invaded, or a revolt would be financed.
And one other thing.The fed doesn't have to print money to make it.It can just log in and create digital currency. Its much faster,,and takes less ink..
When I write "The Federal Reserve prints new money to bail out banks!", I mean both literal Federal Reserve Notes and electronic credits. In the present, most money is created electronically. However, as inflation occurs, more physical Federal Reserve Notes must be printed to facilitate trade.
I'm aware that most money is electronic credit and not paper credit.
That's another argument against fiat money. Suppose there's an accounting error, and the State mysteriously credits someone's account with $1B. The cost of the error is paid by everyone else as inflation. Allegedly, certain insiders have access to "special bank accounts" that otherwise generate no records.
barry b. has left a new comment on your post "Iceland's Economic Crisis":
FSK,
Thanks for looking into this deal. I've been too busy lately to read as much as I'd like. So I'm just gonna read your blog post on this subject to satisfy my curiousity.
I just copied the details from Wikipedia and added the obvious conclusion.
It seems that we keep coming back to gold. Perhaps we could convince our politicians to get rid of legal tender laws... do you think that would help? LOL if only it was that easy huh. People always talk about slavery as though it's a thing of the past ya know.
Wage/debt slavery is much more subtle than chattel slavery. It's still slavery. It's like Freedomain says "Free range chickens give better tasting meat!" Similarly, free range humans create more wealth that the State may then leech.
There is evidence that insiders are aware of the scam. Otherwise, why would the law so explicitly declare it illegal to use gold and silver as money? Why is it illegal to operate a gold and silver warehouse receipt bank? Someone must have figured out "If we make it easy for people to use gold and silver as money, our economic monopoly will be ruined!"
citizen stefish has left a new comment on your post "Iceland's Economic Crisis":
speaking of that, the best book i know of on israel/palestine is noam chomsky's "the fateful triangle". it's 500+ pages, and there's an updated edition, but i read the original one (1983?). it's a good analysis of his media theories, mainly of self-censorship being more powerful than state control. it was free at the university library in college, so i read it.
I only read bits and pieces of Noam Chomsky before being disgusted. He's one of those "pro-State anarchists". If you have good excerpts, I'll read them.
Like most pro-State trolls, Noam Chomsky has a mixture of good ideas and stupid ideas. "Property is theft!" and anarcho-communism or anarcho-socialism are stupid. The bit on mainstream media self-censorship is true.
I read that in the 1950s and 1960s, the CIA/FBI made sure that they had agents planted in leadership roles in most mainstream media corporations. Once monolithic self-censorship is established, it's easy to maintain. Anybody who has non-approved ideas stands out, and either learns to play along or get his career wrecked.
Suppose you want to be a journalist. You study for several years in college, and then you work your way up through various internships and such. At this point, if you haven't adopted a policy of self-censorship, you get weeded out. You've invested so much in your career that you can't afford to throw it away writing an honest story.
That's what I like about the Internet. It breaks the mainstream media information monopoly. I discovered the truth first, and then decided to go around promoting it. Therefore, my loyalty is to the truth first, and to any blogging or media career second. Will that be enough to build a viable business? I'm going to try. For now, I'm stuck with seeking a wage slave job. (I need to make sure that, when I get my own domain, my employer doesn't claim my website is their IP.)
My favorite story of mainstream media censorship dates back to Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War. In the North, some newspapers wrote articles critical of the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln arrested those editors for treason.
DixieFlatline was complaining "I like to download FSK's posts, print them out, and read them offline. Blogger doesn't support that nicely." I did a brief bit of Googling, and there's a WordPress plugin that allows you to offer a "download as pdf" option. If necessary, I can patch/enhance it, since I'm a software engineer.
Most of my good blogging ideas now start with "Get my own domain, and then ...".
Here's another interesting bit that isn't worth a separate post. Former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain was involved in a scandal. He spent $1M+ redecorating his office while his company was losing a fortune. Knowing the parasitic personality type, I'm sure he put a lot of time into it. (Based on the fragment of the interview I saw, he has the parasitic personality type.)
Merrill Lynch sold out to Bank of America, with the deal set to close January 1, 2009. Normally, banks pay bonuses at the end of January. John Thain moved up the bonus schedule to the end of December and paid billions of dollars in bonuses to his buddies, at a time when Merrill Lynch had accepted billions of dollars in bailout money.
John Thain is a "hot CEO". He switches jobs every few years, getting a huge raise. If he makes bad decisions, his successors are left to clean up the wreckage. He even got a good deal for Merrill Lynch shareholders, selling out to Bank of America instead of going completely bankrupt. (Allegedly, the Federal Reserve and other insiders pressured Bank of America's management to buy out Merrill Lynch. It later turned out to be a bad decision.)
By E-Mail, someone wrote:
Check out this story on ESPN about abusive behavior by State enforcers. IRS agents are using the tax law to intimidate a potential witness in the Barry Bonds perjury trial.The attorney said some 20 FBI and IRS agents showed up at the Redwood City, Calif., home of Madeline Gestas armed with a search warrant and seized miscellaneous documents. Gestgas, 60, has been the subject of a tax probe, but Geragos described the raid as part of an ongoing effort by the federal government to intimidate Anderson and coerce him to cooperate in the government's case against Bonds.
There are several issues here.
First, if you engage in any type of unlicensed economic activity, it is very likely that you aren't paying taxes on that labor. Even a fully on-the-books business probably would not withstand a strict IRS audit. The tax law is so complicated that practically everyone is guilty of breaking it! This allows the bad guys to harass anyone at will. For example, suppose I become an advocate for blatant-in-public agorism. In retaliation, the IRS could do a strict audit of me. The bad guys can harass any individual or business merely by insisting on strict enforcement of every single law.
Second, Barry Bonds did not commit a crime, in the "natural/common law" sense of crime. Possession of steroids and using steroids is not a crime. You could argue that Barry Bonds broke his contract with Major League Baseball by taking steroids, but that's a civil issue and not a criminal issue. If Major League Baseball can't enforce its contract with players, or had a poorly written contract, that's a private civil issue.
FBI investigators questioned Barry Bonds over "Did you use steroids?" The perjury trial is accusing Barry Bonds of lying. Why is "Lying to the FBI" a crime? In order to have a valid contract, both sides must contribute something tangible. Barry Bonds agreed to not lie when speaking to the FBI, but it return he received nothing. He was under threat of State violence, being forced to testify. Therefore, the State does not have a valid fraud claim, even if Barry Bonds did lie.
If someone has the ability to use violence against you, then it's morally acceptable to lie. While involuntarily hospitalized, my psychiatrist asked me "Are you going to take your drugs after release?" I answered "Yes!" That isn't technically a lie, because I was the psychiatrist's prisoner. If I answered "No!", then I would not have been released. Similarly, when the "death squad" paid me a visit, I lied and said I had already found another therapist and psychiatrist. Is that immoral? They might have involuntarily hospitalized me or insisted on inspecting me otherwise. Was it wrong for me to lie? When someone has the ability to use violence against you, lying is a natural defense. I try to avoid lying, but it's difficult when dealing with murderers and terrorists.
Third, Major League Baseball is externalizing its costs to the State. Suppose I don't care about baseball. What right do police have to steal from me, via taxes, and use the proceeds to prosecute Barry Bonds? It's Major League Baseball's fault if they couldn't enforce their own drug policy, or didn't have a good policy. If Major League Baseball loses credibility due to the scandal, that's their problem and not the State's problem. Major League Baseball, like most large corporations, is a branch of the government.
fritz has left a new comment on your post "Iceland's Economic Crisis":
Fsk,,I would like to see you write about Sui Juris...It is so interesting, and a big can of worms once you open it. It's about being your self,not representing yourself court. And founded on the constitution and natural rights relating to common law. And most laws these days are statute laws we abide by because we have signed contracts unknowingly and given up our natural rights.
I would love to see what you come up with while researching this topic....
I don't agree with "having a birth certificate and Social Security Card makes me State property". I also disagree with "You need to break off 100% contact with the State to be free." For example, some people say that if you accept mail with a zip code, you're subjecting yourself to Federal jurisdiction. Some people say there are hidden secret clauses in bank account rules where you agree to subject yourself to IRS jurisdiction. Such conspiracy theories seem like pro-State trolling to me.
The important point is to stop acting like a slave.
When I attempt practical agorism, there is the risk that I could find myself the victim of a State raid. If necessary, I should represent myself rather than hiring a State-licensed attorney, whose loyalty to the State exceeds his professional obligation to represent me.
I already wrote about this in "Is Pro Se Defense a Good Idea?", but I'll make an updated and enhanced version. I put it in my draft queue for next week.
I don't mind making updated versions of older posts. I'm a better writer and thinker now, compared to when I first wrote those articles. Also, new regular readers may have missed good old posts.
When I move to my own domain, I'm going to rewrite all my popular old posts and make a "FAQ" section.
Some people have said "FSK's responses to reader comments are the most interesting bits of his blog!" Let me know if there's something you want to see. I'll answer any reasonable request.
It's always amusing to see "Website of the year!" awards, determined by a poll of readers. Invariably, it becomes "Best website, as defined by people who regularly read this website!" Plus, it's probably possible to game and manipulate the results.
I looked up the options trading firm I used to work at. According to their "Yahoo Finance" profile page, one of their "top competitors" was Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. ROFLMAO!
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "What is the State?":
Some comments make me think "Why am I wasting time responding to this loser?"
I don't see how free market could be compatible with anarchism.
You're off to a fine pro-State trolling start. An anarchistic society is *BY DEFINITION* a really free market. The correct answer is "I don't see how free markets are compatible with government."
Personal property rights themselves seem to cause an existence of hierarchy.
In the present, all property is owned by the State. That naturally leads to hierarchy.
In a true free market, there's no value in monopolizing land. As you attempt to acquire a land monopoly, land prices will skyrocket. It would be stupid to own more land than you can manage yourself. You'd be better off selling it and investing the proceeds elsewhere.
This is a special case of "In a free market, there's no value in monopolizing X. As you get close to a monopoly, prices of X skyrocket."
If you deny people the right to own land, you're also saying that people don't own their labor. Why should I build a house, if my neighbor may merely claim that it belongs to him and not me? What prevents me from saving up my salary and using the profits to purchase land?
You're confusing "State-licensed privilege" with "property". GM's State-licensed monopoly/oligopoly to manufacture cars is *NOT* genuine property. In a true free market, nothing would stop someone from starting a car manufacturing business in their garage. In the present, you don't see "car manufacturing startups" because the industry is heavily regulated.
Private property and so-called "human rights" are just a way for the ruling class to be protected from the proletariat.
One valid concern is "In the present, all property is owned by the State. How can we sort out who owns what as the State collapses?" I'd rule the current legitimate occupants as owners. That is not the same as "Property is evil!"
When members of the elite say "Respect property rights!" they really mean "Let us keep what we already stole!" Also, insiders consider State-licensed business monopolies and intellectual property as property.
As for crime, the majority of crimes are caused by class struggle rooting in capitalist oppression. They simply wouldn't exist in an egalitarian state.I already did this recently (and some bits above). Pay attention!
> People say "Without government, who
> would build the roads!"
That's that kind of bullshit representative democracy brainwashes people into thinking. Instead of acting they have to depend on an authority figure to provide services for them. Indeed, building a road on public property without government approval would be a crime by itself.
Maybe you could write a post on media bias and self-censorship (i.e. the propaganda model) in western societies?
> In a true free market, there would
> be no value in the parasitic
> personality and it would disappear.
Yes there would, it's an intrinsic property of a money-based economy and private property rights. Only in an egalitarian, Marxist society social classes could disappear.
This is one problem of pro-State trolls. You're using "egalitarian Marxist society" without understanding what those words mean. That indicates that you're reciting brainwashing you received, rather than genuinely thinking.
As long as money and private property exist, there would be people gaming the system to accumulate wealth without contributing anything positive to society, as the upper classes do now. Owning the means of production is one method.
In a free market system, there is no "gaming". In a true free market, you only profit by legitimate arbitrage. For example, buying up grain, storing it, and selling it for a profit during a famine is a type of arbitrage. If the State says "You're price-gouging by selling for a profit during a famine!", then there's no incentive for anyone to plan for a famine.
The only way people can accumulate wealth without working is if you steal from others. Suppose you bought up half of North America in a real free market. You would be unable to manage such a large farm. The huge inefficiencies would drain your resources. At some point, you would be forced to start selling land to meet your expenses.
I shouldn't waste time debating idiots. The "Property is theft!" version of anarchy is stupid.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "What is the State?":
"If you say "Work as an agorist, and this is the tangible benefit!", then it's very easy to convince someone to go along."
So, your position is that people don't see enough incentive to be moral? Your job as an agorist is then to say "see, it works!" and then they'll fall in line? I think that's naive, and it lets them off the hook too easily.
You're still pro-State trolling.
I'm making three closely related arguments in favor of agorism:
- Paying taxes is immoral! If I voluntarily pay taxes, I'm responsible for all the bad things that State agents do.
- Taxation is theft! I don't like it when other people steal from me.
- Taxation is theft! If I prevent other people from stealing my labor, my own personal productivity is raised. This is a selfish motivation. There's nothing wrong with being selfish, if you aren't using violence to impose your will on others.
That's why I like agorism. You deny the bad guys resources and show a profit at the same time! It's a positive feedback cycle. All pro-State troll resistance strategies have negative feedback.
If you think "Agorism is stupid/pointless/hopeless!", then what's your alternative?
I agree that good mean should shun wicked men. How do you propose doing that?
I can excuse someone's statism to some extent while they remain ignorant of the moral outrage of interfering with peaceful men's pursuits. But once they see the immorality, if they still support statism, they are vicious, evil monsters not worth spending any effort convincing, they need shunning at best.
When good men routinely shun wicked men, then we'll see some change. Agorism isn't going to make a bit of difference.
Agorism is the way that good men shun wicked men. If I prevent wicked men from stealing my labor, then wicked men must change their practices or starve.
Agorism is the way to achieve a strike by productive workers, as described in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged".
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "What is the State?":
Excellent post.
You're not the same poster as the above Anonymous pro-State troll?
robert30062 has left a new comment on your post "What is the State?":
You made an observation last year about how it seemed as though Obama and his associates knew he was going to be president before the election even took place. I was just watching The Colbert Report and John Podesta was the invited guest. He was mentioning his role as director of the transition team and actually said "Last summer, when Obama asked me to run the transition team....." in one sentence. Last summer??? Last time I checked, the election is the first Tuesday in November. Obama is heralded by the press as some great messiah of change while, as usual, the real domestic and foreign policies of the corporate/bank cartel/political government of the United States stay the same and continue without interruption in operational terms. The US "Embassy" in Baghdad is the size of 110 football fields and has cost close to 80 billion dollars to build. The truth is the masters of the world never intend to leave Iraq, so far as their control of the flow and price of energy in the country is concerned and whatever it requires, by force, to maintain it. The only argument the so-called "left" has had during the entire Iraq war has been its execution or timing, or "the way it was managed", hauntingly familiar to the arguments made by the Camelot knights of the Kennedy Democrat era. Now we have Kerry, Clinton, or some other "dove" assuming disconsolate looks on their faces as they pontificate about maintaining a moral authority, all while their 2003 votes in the house and senate helped paved the way for the killing and/or maiming of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children. Obama and his team have already stepped up their bellicose rhetoric about Afghanistan, the so-called "real front in the war on terror", to the gleeful reception of many rank and file Democrats who are so sure that we have it right on this one. The truth is both the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions were all part of the plan to control the TAPI(Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) Pipeline far into the 21st century and beyond, or so long as fossil fuels are relevant as a means of imperial control. The main reason there is somewhat less violence in Iraq now is because most of the population has now fled the country into Syria, Jordan and Iran. The people who remain are either the few who value money (our bribes) over the security of their homeland who in turn do our bidding in the "Iraqi Government", those who have just accepted our occupation many of whom will end up working in some periphery of the military bases and Embassy(I can already see the young Iraqi women working as whores for some local GIs and government contractors in bars in the not so distant future), or those who refuse to comply or take our bribes and resist, through whatever means necessary, the horrific forces of imperial greed. Oh yeah, those guys are called the "Terrorists". Somalia has crumbled into complete chaos and has worsened markedly since the CIA-backed government collapsed in 2006 and the US military interventions that have followed. The cruise ship hijacking media coverage was a fnord (to use your word) for: "We have to go get those kidnapping, murdering Somali bastards!" This follows the usual formula of media coverage concerning military deployment which is, if it requires more than covert ops, we have to plant the seed of justification for US soldiers dying in the minds of the citizens through the demonization of the "enemy" and the galvanization of our cause, concealing whatever imperial machination it may happen to truly be. So here we are, with the Obama administration dutifully following the same standards of invasion, repression, oppression, and violence while the whole world rejoices the inevitable salvation that will be his presidency. What scares me the most FSK is that while the policies are the same, Mr. Obama is remarkably more effective than many presidents in history at influencing, through his oratory, the people of this country who may in turn and unwittingly grant him real powers of control that Bush would have reveled, had he had the ability to achieve them. What's more, what will be the result of such an advancement of power for our "savior"?
Oh boy! This comment falls under the "good intentions, but disorganized thoughts" category.
I jokingly "endorsed" Obama in October 2007. Since mid-2008, it seems like the fnords were setting up Obama to win. All the "negative" stories about Obama were obviously silly. "He has an Islamic background!", "His middle name is 'Hussein'!", "He visited a church where the preacher said some unpopular things!", and "He was on a political committee with a former terrorist/'fake anarchist'!" The obviously stupid criticisms seemed like an endorsement of Obama.
Obama had Secret Service protection starting in mid-2007. He was obviously set up to win way ahead of time.
If you have an election of "charismatic young man" against "old man", the charismatic young man usually wins.
I never understood the "Somalia proves anarchy doesn't work!" argument. External forces have been funding various military groups in Somalia. It appears that Somalia is a case of "Several groups trying to become the new government, each of which already has monopolistic control of a smaller region!" rather than a society where people believe "Who needs a government anyway?"
Overall, Obama represents fake change rather than genuine change. I've covered that before. Obama is not eliminating the income tax, Federal Reserve, or extensive State regulations of most/all industries. Obama is making minor changes on the fringes, making the State bigger instead of smaller.
When people first discover the truth, their thoughts are very disorganized. It's very traumatic to realize that nearly everything you've been taught is a lie. Hopefully, I've managed to "break through" on the other side, and now I have a non-contradictory philosophy and more coherent thoughts.
Make sure you don't get involuntarily hospitalized and labeled with a mental illness. Discovering the truth is stressful!
fritz has left a new comment on your post "What is the State?":
Wow,,holy crap,Robert just said a mouth full ,,You can always find something interesting on FSK'S blog..
Get em tiger!!!!
I thought that Robert was a bit incoherent, but he's thinking in the right direction. Discovering the truth is very traumatic! Your thoughts are very disorganized when you first crack your pro-State brainwashing.
I'm slightly concerned that Robert might be involuntarily hospitalized and labeled with a mental illness.
I see you've finally started your own blog. Let me know if you have anything good.
My average AdSense revenue was $1.75 per day. The standard deviation was high, which means I have an inaccurate picture of my long-term revenue. Of course, as my audience increases, my revenue should also increase.
It appears that I'll make enough to justify purchasing hosting. I only need $0.33 per day to clear that expense, and 66% of my days were at least $0.33. I had a few really high days, which is why my standard deviation is much higher than my mean. The median is a *LOT* less than the mean.
The big question is "Will I make $100 by the end of February?" Google only sends you a check when you reach $100. At a rate of $1.75 per day, it'll be *VERY* close. If I make $100 by the end of February, my first AdSense check will arrive in April. Otherwise, I have to wait until May. I convinced my parents "FSK may use AdSense revenue to purchase hosting!" There's no need to rush. Waiting another month more or less won't make much difference.
AdSense via RSS was a surprising flop. It was only 3% of the total. I'm ready to say "**** FeedBurner!", but I'll wait until I get my own domain.
I had 4169 Absolute Unique Visitors in January, which is only 1% more than December. That is short of my all-time record of 6887 in October 2008. The long-term trend is still favorable. I'm not discouraged by short-term fluctuations. Reassuringly, traffic in the second half of January was greater than in the first half. Over time, I'm becoming a better writer and it appears that I'm getting more regular readers. I'm getting more reader comments.
Since installing AdSense, I had 5301 site Visitors, 3557 Absolute Unique Visitors. That means that I'm making $0.0085 per site Visitor.
I'm still looking for ways to improve the "Reader Mail" posts. I'm considering changing to 2 per week from 1 per week, to make them smaller. Is this still too long?
5 comments:
i am very familiar with chomsky's stuff. i have read many of his books (some of which are extremely good, especially the criticisms of "really-existing free markets" - more on that below), and that's how i got interested in anarchism, because he talks about it every now and then.
the idea is anti-market, anti-state. the problem with that idea is that an idea of how society would function is never put forth - at least not one that would work, because it ultimately comes down large groups of people making decisions for everyone else (but "anti-state"). the people in this mindset typically resort to pro-state tactics because they want the state to keep doing the "good" things that it does, whatever they feel that those are.
i have determined that many of these people would be targets for conversion to agorism because they have a strong dislike for the state, limited liability incorporation, war, etc. but they're going to be tough sells because agorism is a free market. what they don't understand is that *that is what they're talking about*! lots of the "resistance" websites will advocate shopping from smaller businesses, local farms, etc. well a true free market would have tons of those types of stores/shops/etc instead of just a handful among the giant corporate retailers. but oooooh no, we can't consider agorism because of that evil word "market"!
my original dislike of "free markets" came from the propaganda that says, "the united state is a free market country". once i read chomsky's "really existing free markets" analysis (very similar to what you're talking about on this blog), then i realized that the problem was not markets, but the state.
this is long so i am going to end it, but these folks seem to have this as their slogan: "the state needs to go, but we're not going to call the resulting system a free market because we hate that phrase, even though that's what it would be".
FSK,
A suggestion about reader mail. I am not familiar with Blogger's writing interface, but would it be possible when you break apart a comment that you italicize the commentator's statement (you currently indent it) and maybe choose a colour as well for their words.
Sometimes in the longer responses to comments it is difficult to discern who wrote what.
My two cents
Another good set of responses to reader mail. Thank you for the fallow up. It is a pleasure to read your blog!!
Fritz
FSK, I just wanted to tell you that your last Reader Mail post almost caused me to rupture my appendix laughing. The last couple reader mails before it did that to me too. If I rupture my appendix laughing at your blog, I will sue you for all of the Google AdSense money that you have ever earned in your lifetime.
*****
quote
Some comments make me think 'Why am I wasting time responding to this loser?'
>I don't see how free market could be compatible >with anarchism.
You're off to a fine pro-State trolling start....
(Actually, the more I read, the more I got a sense of what that person was trying to say... some of the communication problem has to do with the definition of "anarchism.")
****
Let me quote a couple of other ROFL incidents from the past few weeks:
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "FSK Asks - Google AdSense":
>I agree with previous Anon. poster.
How do I know you're not exactly the same person as the previous Anonymous poster?
****
I'm gone the moment I see an Ad. It would suck for me FSK, because I came to like this place. But here is the rub: You ain't much of an agorist if you can't refuse the bait.
OK, goodbye! Don't let the door hit you on the way out!
***
(*'windows is gay' argument (Note, i hate rounded-edge icons too! and i'm female!)*)
It appears that some trolls have been targeting my blog comment section for starting flamewars.
I really want to have an open comments section, but I'm not interested in debating the heterosexual/homosexual bias of the Windows Vista default desktop theme.
If you're going to troll my blog, you really need to do a better job. If comments start getting too silly and off-topic, I'm going to have to start filtering them out as spam.
******
Was this comment left by the actual real Santa Claus?
****
I'm sure I could find some more quotes that almost caused me to asphyxiate, rupture something, or get a hernia. Just beware, it could happen!
I consider anarcho-capitalism to be one of the pro-government versions of anarchy.
Perhaps this is just a terminology issue, but can you explain this? There is no state in "Ancapistan".
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