FmpPerspective

culture

![](https://m.stacker.news/37340)

Due to the number of questions I’ve received about Jesus, I think a podcast devoted to him is in order.

People addressing this material, from whatever angle, tend to have fiercely held opinions, cherry-picking facts around them. That makes these discussions very difficult, and I’ll do my best to avoid that trap. This is a fascinating subject, and removing dogmatic opinions is what opens it to us.

Was There A Real Jesus? And If So, What Did He Really Say?

libertarian

![](https://m.stacker.news/37073)

Last week we examined the “social contract” in some depth, to see if it passes as a legal concept. This week we’ll examine two follow-up issues: one that I didn’t mention and one that I mentioned, but didn’t delve into.

Follow-Up On The Social Contract

![](https://m.stacker.news/36694)

So, you’re printing up six trillion dollars, giving 7/8ths to banks and corporations and 1/8th back to us… which we’ll be taxed on… plus, all that money creates a monster deficit that our children be expected to pay back anyway? The honest answer, if it were ever given, would be “yes.” And for this we’re expected to thank them!

Free Money Doesn’t Fix Broken Processes

![](https://m.stacker.news/36341)

The social contract is a description of “the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual.” The social contract asserts that all of us have consented to surrender some of our rights to a ruling group, in exchange for the protection of our remaining rights.

The question I’ll address today is whether this is a legitimate contract.

Is The Social Contract Legit?

FiresidePhilosophy

![](https://m.stacker.news/36057)

Imagine a pretty spring day. You’re standing on your front porch or some other pleasant vantage point and looking out at a sunlit landscape: trees, grass, and singing birds. Then your five-year-old child or grandchild walks up to you and tugs on your hand to get your attention. You turn and the child asks, “What kind of world is this?”

What do you reply?

14 Words

![](https://m.stacker.news/35745)

Lord Acton wrote that power tends to corrupt, but I’m going to say flat out that it does corrupt. I’ll go further and say that it’s an addiction (probably every bit as bad as cocaine), and that the lust for control is one of its primary drivers.

Control Is An Addiction

![](https://m.stacker.news/35235)

Humans are not naturally stupid. They are not naturally bad. Fear, however, distorts them, weakens them, and makes them far less effective than they’d naturally be. Fear, in its many guises, is the great enemy of mankind, and it’s time that we addressed it head on.

Fear Is A Mind Hack

history

![](https://m.stacker.news/35108)

So, do you think life was nasty, brutish, and short in 1905? That there were poor and starving people falling dead on every street corner?

Hardly.

Why Can’t We Party Like It’s 1905?

![](https://m.stacker.news/34999)

The good news about ignorance is that it sets us free from mental chains. Now, to be clear, what I’m talking about here is accepting and admitting our ignorance. This is essential if we want to actually know things, as opposed to making a show of knowing things. And I can tell you from personal experience that it really works. I gained the habit of admitting my ignorance (almost advertising it) back in the early 1980s, and that habit has helped me toward more understanding and discovery than I’d be able to itemize.

The Gospel of Ignorance

![](https://m.stacker.news/34885)

Serfdom was… and is… a state of mind far more than an economic or social position.

The Serfdom State of Mind focuses on the desire for safety and security… of remaining clear of blame… to the detriment of self-reliance and living as a free and independent moral agent.

Everyone enjoys safety, of course, but to place placidity above life itself is a grave error, and lies at the root of serfdom.

The Serfdom State of Mind

![](https://m.stacker.news/34646)

Sure, we’ve all seen this in practice and people have developed catchy terms for it, like echo chamber, but the polarization effect of social media has been demonstrated scientifically. In fact, some of us were warning about it a long time ago. And while I can no longer find my original documentation on the subject, I can tell you precisely how it works.

Social Media Is A Polarization Machine

![](https://m.stacker.news/34323)

Our job is to improve ourselves, our families and the world in general, and we are in no way obligated to do it through systems that hate us and abuse us. Endless gullibility is a vice, and it doesn’t look good on us.

The Desperation of Anti-White Racism

bitcoin

![](https://m.stacker.news/34000)

There are, apparently, a lot of people who think Bitcoin is down for the count. Forget about that; Bitcoin is doing just fine and “the count” is just a sideshow.

Don’t Worry About Bitcoin

BooksAndArticles

![](https://m.stacker.news/33750)

I spent a good deal of my young adulthood searching for business advantages. Ultimately I found mine by reading: While the other guys were talking about nonsense and chugging back brews, I was reading the literature of my business… and it worked.

Would You Like An Advantage In Business?

![](https://m.stacker.news/33614)

Lèse-Majesté, an offense against the dignity of a ruler, is a little-used but very important concept. And it is the central crime that cannot be tolerated by the ruler.

Lèse-Majesté stands against the concept of free speech, of course, but when push comes to shove, necessities stand above the law, and lèse-Majesté is a necessity to rulers.

As we examine in this podcast, lèse-Majesté is crucial for the legitimacy of the ruler (without legitimacy the whole structure of rulership would fail), and is crucial to what I call “applied idolatry” in our world.

Lèse-Majesté And The Necessity of Idolatry

![](https://m.stacker.news/33434)

Years ago I engaged in a long usenet discussion with another gentleman on immigration, life in the third world, etc. After some back-and-forths, the gentleman proposed a scenario:

What would happen if the two of us were dropped, naked and with absolutely no way of calling for help, into the poorest and most desperate spot in India?

Be The Outsider

![](https://m.stacker.news/33272)

Here is something that was thrown in my face at a relatively early age, as I began to think seriously and independently: So, the world is wrong and you’re right!?

But as it happened, I was more or less right. And very definitely the world was wrong.

The hierarchies of the world are trying to freeze everything and everyone in place. That means they will always be wrong. Even when they say the right things – like “murder is bad” – they’ll always be doing it for twisted reasons, with twisting effects…


The World Is Wrong

crypto

![](https://m.stacker.news/33001)

This podcast (published originally in an appendix to A Lodging of Wayfaring Men) was composed twenty years ago, while working in a difficult and even dangerous cypherpunk project. It expresses the things that were on our minds as we stepped away from the status quo and dared to build afresh outside of it.

Farber’s First Essay

![](https://m.stacker.news/32806)

“Men,” wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., “are idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before; they always did, they always will; and if you don’t make it of wood, you must make it of words.”

Idolatry is a frame of mind. We’ve all experienced it, though we haven’t been clear on what it was. But once you do recognize it, you’ll be at least half immunized against it, and probably for life.

Men Are Idolaters

![](https://m.stacker.news/32679)

Imagine that some combination of circumstances end with you walking into a so-so bar, then accidentally causing some gigantic brute to spill his drink. Imagine also that this brute just learned that his girlfriend moved out, taking his bank account with her.

Fear, Shame And Intimidation Are Chemical Weapons

![](https://m.stacker.news/32282)

It’s up to us to improve the world. If obediently waiting for someone or something else could work, the dominating structures of the world would have improved long, long ago. But they haven’t, leaving the job to us.

To do this, however, we must first change the way we look at ourselves and experience ourselves.
