The progressive and romantic, the brilliant Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794), pompously proclaimed: "Is it possible that our parents, while transmitting to us the capabilities of their physical constitution, did not also transmit to us understanding, spiritual energy, and morality?"

Condorcet, of course, is absolutely right. Of course, they did transmit. But one small clarification is required: our "parents" were not only humans.
Moreover, they were predominantly non-humans.

Our "parents," beginning with the theropoda of the Paleozoic, were an impressive evolutionary chain of creatures whose brains "adaptively" developed in conditions where the strength and fullness of aggression were almost everything, and "other" qualities were completely superfluous.

This conclusion allows us to put an end to the question of the "depravity" of man and his "guilt," as demonstrated by his "fixed history." It is clear that homo could not be any different; he did not have the slightest neurophysiological capacity for this.
#atheism #biology

Picture this: October 2010, a black Toyota Prius pulls up to some venture capitalists in San Francisco. Two guys named Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp just pitched an app that lets you summon rides with your phone. The VCs probably thought "cute tech toy for rich millennials."

Meanwhile, across the country in New York City, taxi medallions were trading for $1.3 million each. These little metal plates had appreciated faster than Manhattan real estate for decades (because the city artificially capped them at 13,237 medallions since the 1930s). Immigrant drivers mortgaged their entire lives to buy these things, treating them like retirement accounts. Fleet owners sat on medallion portfolios worth hundreds of millions.

The medallion system started during the Great Depression when Mayor Fiorello La Guardia decided too many taxis were "flooding" the streets. Classic government solution: create artificial scarcity, call it public safety. For eighty years, this cartel enriched medallion owners while screwing over riders who couldn't hail cabs in outer boroughs and drivers who paid usurious lease fees.

Then Uber scaled. By 2014, medallion values crashed to $870,000. By 2018? Try $200,000. Hundreds of drivers declared bankruptcy. The Taxi Workers Alliance started organizing suicide prevention workshops because medallion debt was literally killing people. Meanwhile, you could finally get a ride in Brooklyn at 2 AM without bribing a dispatcher.

#bitcoin #monero #economy #libertarian

The Constitutio Antoniniana of 212 AD stands as history's most brazen tax grab disguised as benevolence. Emperor Caracalla granted Roman citizenship to virtually every free inhabitant of the empire because citizens paid inheritance taxes that non-citizens avoided. The Roman historian Cassius Dio called it exactly what it was: a scheme to increase revenues.

Rome's finances were hemorrhaging. Caracalla had raised military pay by 50% and spent lavishly on public works to buy popularity. The empire's silver denarius had been debased from 98% silver under Augustus to 83% under his reign. Standard government playbook: create the crisis through spending and currency debasement, then expand the tax base to fund the mess.

The citizenship grant brought an estimated 30 million new taxpayers into the system overnight. These fresh citizens now owed Rome's 5% inheritance tax (vicesima hereditatium) and various other levies previously reserved for the citizen class. Caracalla essentially performed the ancient equivalent of closing tax loopholes — except he created the "loopholes" by expanding who owed taxes rather than changing the rates.

Free market thinkers today watch governments employ identical tactics: California chases fleeing residents with exit taxes, while the federal government floats wealth taxes on unrealized gains. The method changes but the principle remains constant — when governments overspend, they don't cut expenses, they hunt for new sources of revenue.

Caracalla's "generous" citizenship expansion bought Rome a temporary fiscal reprieve while accelerating the empire's long-term decline through increased bureaucratic overhead and economic interference. Every government believes it can tax its way out of spending problems. Every government learns the same lesson Rome did: you can't.

#bitcoin #monero #economy #libertarian

Few know that the 'Encryption war' never ended: it began centuries ago and never stopped. The 90s “Encryption Wars” was just the feds tripping over their surveillance fetish in broad daylight.

Early cryptographers died unrecognized because their contributions couldn’t be acknowledged. Bletchley Park’s cryptanalysts remained classified long after 1945, so thousands of codebreakers returned to civilian life, sworn to silence, and while conventional soldiers could boast of heroics, those who fought actually pivotal intellectual battles had to dodge questions about their wartime service. Turing’s family had no idea what he did. Neither did Marian Rejewski’s. The Navajo code talkers got medals for fighting but with gag orders, etc., etc. I can continue forever... The cipher war never stopped, it just went silent: if people don’t realize they’re at war, they don’t fight back.

TL;DR: The state’s #crypto war never ended; they just got better at 'hiding the bodies': the state conducts cryptographic research today that won’t be declassified for decades... if ever. You don’t hate the state enough.

While some might argue that it's justified against external enemies, the next stage of the encryption war could target us. 'If a noticeable exodus to this parallel economy emerges, the state's greatest "national security" threat won't be foreign foes: it will be us - people who just want to be left alone.'

#bitcoin #monero #libertarian

Cash for Clunkers destroyed 690,000 functional vehicles in 2009, creating an artificial scarcity that rippled through used car markets for over a decade. The Obama administration sold this $3 billion program as environmental salvation and economic stimulus, but any free market economist could predict the real outcome: massive wealth destruction disguised as progress.

The program forced dealers to pour sodium silicate into engines, permanently destroying cars that poor families could have afforded. Politicians eliminated the bottom tier of the used car market overnight. Suddenly, a reliable $3,000 Honda Civic became a $7,000 Honda Civic (if you could find one). The supposed beneficiaries — working-class Americans who needed affordable transportation — got priced out entirely.

#Government intervention always creates unseen victims, and Cash for Clunkers delivered them by the millions. Single mothers, college students, and minimum-wage workers watched their mobility options vanish as used car prices soared 30% between 2009 and 2014. The environmental gains proved negligible too: most clunkers averaged 15-17 MPG while replacements hit 24-25 MPG. Destroying half a million cars to improve average fuel economy by 8 MPG represents the kind of central planning that would give Soviet bureaucrats a hard-on.

The wealth destruction extended beyond sticker prices. Higher transportation costs forced people into longer payment terms, creating a debt cycle that persists today. Cash for Clunkers normalized 84-month auto loans, turning cars from depreciating assets into multi-year financial anchors.

Bureaucrats congratulated themselves for moving inventory off dealer lots while condemning an entire generation to transportation poverty.

#bitcoin #economy #libertarian

Eighty-five percent of the world's refugees are #Muslim. Not a single one of the 56 Muslim-majority countries is taking in refugees.

Eleven of these countries are among the richest in the world. If #Islam is so great, why aren't Muslims taking care of their own?