Human rights are universal birthrights. Making them conditional on altering your inborn constitution denies your birthrights, therefore violates human rights.
Cash is an insurance policy against cyber-crime and digital systems malfunction. During natural disasters cash is typically the only possible means of payment.
Those who agreed with vaccination mandates also agreed, by implication, to be one day legally euthanised, fair and square, for the benefit of the majority, or if the legislators would decide that it would serve the “greater good”. I hope those who supported the mandates, or looked the other way, understand the deal they took.
Distrust of Authority is Intellectual Humility
Distrusting the authorities and their experts is the most humble intellectual position one can take. You do not claim to know that the government is good, you do not claim to know that the experts are right, you don’t know that, and you know that you don’t know, you admit the limits of your knowledge and the vastness of your ignorance. On the other hand, those who trust the government, those who believe the experts, who repeat the official assertions they cannot possibly know to be true, are dangerously conceited and unhinged, delusional and false, they are political extremists and ideological fanatics, a force of tyranny and evil, the greatest threat to national security and the epitome of inhumanity.
Distrusting the authorities and their experts is the most humble intellectual position one can take. You do not claim to know that the government is good, you do not claim to know that the experts are right, you don’t know that, and you know that you don’t know, you admit the limits of your knowledge and the vastness of your ignorance. On the other hand, those who trust the government, those who believe the experts, who repeat the official assertions they cannot possibly know to be true, are dangerously conceited and unhinged, delusional and false, they are political extremists and ideological fanatics, a force of tyranny and evil, the greatest threat to national security and the epitome of inhumanity.
A hypothetical scenario. 100 people made me their chief and gave me one dollar each, and I then give you $2 towards the cost of your food. Do I now have authority over you, so that you have to obey me (on behalf of the 100 people who gave me money)? What about a different scenario, where 10 million people made me their chief, and each gave me $5000, and I then spent some of this money to build roads and pay $2000 towards your healthcare, do I now have the right to punish you if you disobey my orders (made on behalf of the 10 million people who obey me and give me money)? Clearly, authority requires more than just taking and giving, let alone making demands and punishing people for disobedience. So what is this crucial ingredient that transforms power into authority?
A note on the Bible
Someone has asked me today whether I believe the biblical story of Jesus is historically true. I suggest that the question is irrelevant to the significance of the text. If the Bible is a moral or spiritual lesson, a teaching, then it must stand on its own textual merits, irrespective of whether it is historically accurate or fictional. Moreover, on my reading, the text does not endorse ‘belief’ but ‘faith’, ‘good faith’, understood as the attitude of openness to the unknown, openness to new understanding and to the possibility of being mistaken, which is contrary to the state of certitude that is typically associated with the term ‘belief’. https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/transcendental-theology-for-non-believers
Someone has asked me today whether I believe the biblical story of Jesus is historically true. I suggest that the question is irrelevant to the significance of the text. If the Bible is a moral or spiritual lesson, a teaching, then it must stand on its own textual merits, irrespective of whether it is historically accurate or fictional. Moreover, on my reading, the text does not endorse ‘belief’ but ‘faith’, ‘good faith’, understood as the attitude of openness to the unknown, openness to new understanding and to the possibility of being mistaken, which is contrary to the state of certitude that is typically associated with the term ‘belief’. https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/transcendental-theology-for-non-believers
The political minority is never the primary target of propaganda; that’s not what propaganda is for. A rational dissenter is never despised by the ruling power; on the contrary, the power respects competent and consistent opposition. The doubter and the critic is never the lowest life-form in the political food chain; the obedient, gullible, unthinking majority is the ‘plankton’ on which the Power feeds and must carefully manage in order to sustain self.
Never in history were humans as united, as familiar and as understanding as we are today. We are told the opposite, but the alleged ‘fragmentation’ of the world is superficial, driven by false advertising and over-focalisation of sub-cultural trivialities. Beneath these appearances we have evolved a global language, a global sense of humanity, a global ethic, a universal sub-culture of sense vs nonsense, a capacity to understand one another and resolve disagreements according to common, intuitively affirmed rules of discourse. We are witnessing the natural death of tribalism and the emergence of universal connection of a kind never experienced before, of meaning that is not received but consciously created by us: OUR meaning.
Many people believe it more rational to trust the TV than to doubt the government.
The first slave who demanded to be treated differently got lynched. 4439 more slaves got lynched before the system of slavery collapsed and all slaves were treated differently.
Vaccine refusal is 95% effective at preventing Covid deaths and should be mandated as the primary, safe and effective intervention in the global fight against Covid. It is also expected that vaccine refusal will protect the public from future variants. Be socially responsible and always practice vaccine refusal.
Forwarded from Normal (Michael Kowalik)
Validity of vaccine mandates is exclusively an ethical issue, not a medical issue, not a scientific issue; the mandates would be just as unacceptable even if the vaccines were fully approved and fully prevented transmission. Scientific arguments against the mandates imply, falsely, that medical mandates would be acceptable under some empirical conditions. Any scientific argument disputing the efficacy and safety of vaccines must not make the claim that the mandates are ‘therefore’ unacceptable (this would be an equivocation between utility and ethics, ultimately serving the utilitarian agenda). Https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/why-vaccine-mandates-are-unethical
BREAKING NEWS. Two pranksters posing as political activists attempt to combine the core element of Nazi ideology with Marxism. Their motto: ‘From each according to his/her/non-binary ability, to those whose Blood is one with the Soil’. ADL declined to comment at this time, not yet sure whether the pranksters are mocking the resurgent Nazi and Marxist movements or their historical victims.
This is the game of trust (game theory): https://ncase.me/trust/
Play the game first, then continue reading….. I suggest that the game is defective insofar as it assumes that cheating does not have a baseline cost to the cheater and that cooperation does not generate a systemic benefit (the coins used in the game have value only because of cooperation). If cheating creates a cumulative liability that in time must result in the annihilation of the cheater, then compulsive cheating is always a dead end. The most realistic scenario is that compulsive cheaters eliminate one another while creating nothing of value. This leaves us with a range of copycats, who become cheaters when mistakes/miscommunication occurs between them and others. Copycats also exterminate one another because they are bound to degenerate into compulsive cheaters vis-a-vis one another, leaving only those who always cooperate and create anything of value.
Trust is not necessary for cooperation if cooperation is the only rational option (self-interest). For optimal cooperation, mutual understanding of the common interest and the liability of cheating is required.
Play the game first, then continue reading….. I suggest that the game is defective insofar as it assumes that cheating does not have a baseline cost to the cheater and that cooperation does not generate a systemic benefit (the coins used in the game have value only because of cooperation). If cheating creates a cumulative liability that in time must result in the annihilation of the cheater, then compulsive cheating is always a dead end. The most realistic scenario is that compulsive cheaters eliminate one another while creating nothing of value. This leaves us with a range of copycats, who become cheaters when mistakes/miscommunication occurs between them and others. Copycats also exterminate one another because they are bound to degenerate into compulsive cheaters vis-a-vis one another, leaving only those who always cooperate and create anything of value.
Trust is not necessary for cooperation if cooperation is the only rational option (self-interest). For optimal cooperation, mutual understanding of the common interest and the liability of cheating is required.
ncase.me
The Evolution of Trust
an interactive guide to the game theory of why & how we trust each other
The aspiring “sovereign citizens” who argue with cops from inside their vintage Hyundai Lantra are doing it all wrong. The entry level membership in the sovereign citizen movement is to own a private jet, but you will not be a full sovereign unless you are also a top financial sponsor to WHO or WEF. ‘Billionaire’ is a politically correct term for Sovereign Citizen.
BREAKING NEWS: Anthony Albanese announced that from 2024 Australia Day will be celebrated on a randomly selected date, in order to avoid offending anyone. Also, this special day will be renamed as the United Nations Day and the celebratory flag will be also randomly selected from all the national flags of the UN member states (except the now disputed flag of the Commonwealth of Australia).
Nazi ideology is on full display again. Nazism is wrong not because Aryans did it, but because it is nativist supremacist in its essence. ‘Black’ nazism is still just nazism. Black and Red flag is also a nazi symbol, signifying Blood and Soil, the idea that native people are one with “their” ancestral land and are the only ones who truly belong on the land, which grants them the racial right to rule over all other races on that land - the core dogma of Nazism.