property rights
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On alternate truths.
Sometimes the alternatives are jarring – you look and count a certain number, another person proffers a radically different amount. Surely one of you is mistaken. In the United States, there’s a rift between those who overestimate certain values (size of inauguration crowds, number of crimes committed by immigrants, votes cast by non-citizens, rates of…
45, almond milk, alternate truths, alternative facts, anarchy, animal welfare, capitalism, cashew milk, citizenship, civil liberties, crowd size, dairy industry, extremism, free market capitalism, government, government intervention, Henri Taijfel, overestimaters, political philosophy, politics, property rights, psych experiments, psychology, soy milk, Trump, underestimaters, us vs. them, vegan, veganism
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On protest, the Supreme Court, and autocratic minority rule.
I was planning an essay on cell phones and surveillance. The central thesis was that our Supreme Court is a massively flawed institution. Many of our current Supreme Court justices are both willfully ignorant and opportunistically illogical. This set of people are not exceptionally knowledgeable, nor are they particularly clever. But we have given them…
45, changing demographics of the United States, detention centers, Donald Trump, free market, gerrymandering, hate machines, human migration, immigration, immigration detention centers, incarceration, Issac Bailey, migration, minority control, murder, My Brother Moochie, political power, PotUS, property rights, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Supreme Court opinions, supressing influence, Trump, U.S. politics, United States, violence, wilful ignorance, wrenching apart families
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On the Silk Road, Nick Bilton’s ‘American Kingpin,’ and the difference between being clever and being wise.
If someone is clever enough to build a billion-dollar website, should that person also get to decide who lives or dies?
addiction, American Kingpin, anarchist, anarchy, barter, clever, commissary, Dread Pirate Roberts, FBI, H, heroin, honey buns, intelligence, jail, jail bartering, jail economy, kinesthetic learners, libertarian, libertarianism, Nick Bilton, opiates, prison, property rights, Ross Ulbricht, spoons, The Silk Road, types of intelligence, Ulbricht, Variety Jones, violence, War on Drugs, wisdom, withdrawal
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On Finn Murphy’s “The Long Haul” and our dying towns
U.S. economic inequality has caused much of the country to crumble … but the devastation won’t *stay* where it started.
A Trucker’s Tales of Life on the Road, addiction, ambulance fees, automation, Bloomington, capitalism, college town, drug addiction, drug use, drugs, Empire State, fentanyl, Finn Murphy, Flying J, free markets, government intervention, guaranteed basic income, heartless in the heartland, heroin, highways, homelessness, hospitalization, Indiana, inequality, Jason Shiga, marijuana, meth, meth labs, methamphetamine, opiates, overdose, poverty, property rights, public works program, Robert Reich, Saving Capitalism, seeing America, shooting up, spice, synthetic marijuana, The Long Haul, traveling by bus, unemployment, unhoused
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On bitcoins and privacy.
Bitcoins: either I or other people were suffering from some fundamental misunderstandings.
antibiotic resistance, antibiotics, Bitcoins, black markets, blockchain, Canadian pharmaceuticals, civil liberties, cost of medicine, cost of prescription drugs in the U.S., drugs, economics, freedom of speech, GHB, gun control, healthcare spending in the U.S., how anonymous are bitcoins?, how could the government protect your property rights if they don’t know what you own, how much computer power would it take for someone to steal your bitcoins?, imported pharmaceuticals, John Bohannon, law enforcement, legalized drugs, legalizing drugs, monetary policy, money supply, opiate abuse, ownership, ownership by majority vote, policing, prescription drugs, privacy, property rights, Ross Ulbricht, senseless regulation, Shadow, ShadowCash, speculation, The Silk Road, transaction log, War on Drugs, wealth, what makes a law just
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On citizenship.
Without citizenship — without, as per Hannah Arendt, “the right to have rights” — people are buffeted by the political whims of whatever nation they might find themselves in. Syrian refugees, for instance, might expect a certain treatment based on their status as humans, but they aren’t officially documented Europeans. Even when they safely reach…
Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, buying citizenship, climate change, cost of U.S. citizenship, deportation, Henry David Thoreau, human rights, illusion of meritocracy, inequality, New York Times book review, political philosophy, privilege, property rights, purchased citizenship, refugee crisis, Richard Bellamy, Robert Reich, Saving Capitalism, Syrian refugees, The Cosmopolites, the social contract, undocumented immigrants, unequal justice for the poor, Walden
Frank Brown Cloud 