Imagine a scenario

You've been on the other side of the planet, inventing games with children and finding the space you need to be honest with yourself. You've spent some time marveling at how comprehensively inept you've been and started coming to terms with not being nearly as much of a saint or a cunt as you often believe. Now you're grinning with contentment at a used book with a trashy title in a 3'rd class seat about a mile above certain death. You're excited to see your friends and your family but slightly less excited about reexamining the value and purpose of those relationships. You're excited about starting a new adventure, but significantly less excited about the long stretch of unemployment that will certainly preface it. For now, you're slowly sipping a cup of coffee and trying to convince yourself that this can couldn't possibly hurtle out of the sky with you on it, because you're far too important to the social advancement of the human race to die without making a splash (so to speak). About halfway through the coffee and barely past take off, the guy next to you sighs in exaggerated frustration over some exotic derivation of a sudoku puzzle and starts clicking his pen.

“frick”, you mumble inwardly. And you wonder how many clicks it'll take for his brain to remember that other people exist and up shift into empathy. Part of you knows that this guy isn't responsible for your emotions. Part of you knows he shouldn't have to read your mind and guess your emotions and put your preferences above his own and basically lay prostrate before you like some sniveling serf at the court of a tyrannical toddler. Part of you knows that it's incumbent upon you to express your own desires and negotiate for mutually satisfactory solutions. So part of you knows that the only question left is what you should do about it. But another part of you is mustering its indignation and asking, “What should I do?!.  What should he do?! What kind of a thoughtless asshole allows himself to produce a sound that's as stereotypically irritating as nails on a chalkboard in a space packed shoulder to shoulder with strangers with no escape?!”

Your brain is still addled with the lingering side effects of religiosity, so you immediately start shaming yourself. Isn't the readiness with which you become irritated over trivial things like pen clicking itself a character flaw? I mean, specks and planks and all that, right? You should have compassion for him. Aren't people's quirks the very things we come to love about them as our relationships mature? If this guy was an attractive woman, you might find the clicking charming or even sultry. If he was some precocious ten year old, puzzling over his math homework, celebrating with muffled excitement over each new problem he solved, you'd probably find the clicking adorable. You'd want to snatch him up and raise him as your own. You can just see yourself getting up before the dawn, full of joy and purpose. You're packing his lunches and preparing for the years of litigation to win custody away from his charmingly jet set but disinterested parents. You're going to soccer games and PTA meetings and pirate themed birthday parties and leaning over to whisper to your attractively plus sized wife about how much your heart is aching with the love you have for your little family and...

“Oh my God, he is still clicking that fucking pen!”

“Seriously, Guy?! Do you have absolutely no consideration for the well being of others?! Our species evolved a desire to exhibit a pattern of reciprocal altruism when we were still wandering barefoot after berries and buffaloes in extended kinship groups on the plains of the Serengeti! Is your genetic heritage that far behind the curve?! Somebody call the Discovery Institute. Apparently I've found the missing link!”

OK, so maybe that was a bit harsh. It's not like he's callously sauntering past a rape in progress. He's just fidgety. And if it weren't his pen clicking getting to you, it would probably be the next guy's humming or somebody else's slurping. What kind of a megalomaniacal moron are you that you consider it both possible and desirable to control every insignificant detail of your environment?

but before you can finish the next thought, you stop yourself, because you're still shaming yourself for your emotions, instead of deciding to have the courage to deal with the situation. And you realize that developing virtue isn't going to be as romantic as you expected.

my revolution

I live in a prison for the criminally insane

 

 Or so it so often seems at least.  Because I'll be having a reasonable conversation with a guy and then he'll tell me about his approval of compulsory education or some other threat of murder based social engineering hobby.  This is crazy enough.  Then I explain to him how what he just said is a violation of his own morality.  Usually, he refuses to follow the logic of the argument.  But occasionally, he's courageous enough to be honest with himself enough to admit he was being inconsistent.  However, invariably, he concocts a slew of ad hoc justifications for it anyway.  Either way, now he's double crazy.  Then I suggest that his illogical insistence on violating his own morality to assuage his fears of other people might be the result of his lack of success at processing the negative emotional consequences of value frustration in his own childhood.  Then he gets offended and shames me for being rude.  So now he's triple crazy.

And forever, this guy was basically everybody that I knew.  And it left me feeling insecure.  Because either every single person that I know is crazy, or I am.  And I'm honest enough with myself to prefer the simplest explanation.  So I needed new evidence.  I needed people who thought seriously about their moral principles.  I needed people who didn't make justifications for immorality.  I needed people who were dedicated enough to self discovery that they knew that when they get offended it's because they're lying to themselves about something, so they get excited and grateful for the opportunity to learn something about themselves.

So I was going to move to New Hampshire for the free state project.  Because there are so many An-Caps moving there, and while they aren't necessarily fully integrated comprehensively courageous people, they at least care about consistent morality.  I knew that most of those free staters were moving there for counter productive political action.  And I knew that most of the rest were moving there for unproductive counter economics.  But I was hoping that enough of them were moving there for the kinds of courageously intimate relationships that would finally prove to them that they're definitely not the crazy ones.  But,

A funny thing happened on the way to the revolution

First, I went away for 6 months.  I got away from all the shaming relationships with all the abusive and chronic victim of circumstances crazy people.  And I got slowly convinced of and comfortable with the ideas that they would survive without me rescuing them and that I didn't owe them anything.  I've been dropping unsatisfying relationships and enforcing boundaries with increasing ease ever since.

Second, I got a handful of people in my life who aren't crazy.  Two old friends who keep surprising me with their relentlessly successful dedication to personal growth.  And one new friend who occasionally has to remind me not to walk on her egg shells, because she's neither a coward nor an asshole.  My circle of friends is starting to resemble the cast of an ayn rand novel.  But with intimacy and irony (and subtlety, god damn it!).  And, of course, without the rapeyness.  So,

dear new hampshire,

I'm not coming to your party.  My revolution isn't violent or political or economic.  My revolution is personal.  My revolution is a dedication to being as comprehensively courageous as I can.  And to demanding the same from my closest relationships.  And then they'll demand the same from their other relationships.  And the chain will continue.  The more comprehensively courageous I become, the more courage the wider network of people around me will demand in their own relationships.  My revolution doesn't require books or guns or speaking tours or get out the vote campaigns or you tube videos or jail sentences.  My revolution is a self reflecting, consistency demanding, personal responsibility taking, boundary enforcing, intimacy building, rising tide of virtue that raises all ships.

unambiguously wrong

I had this post up before, but I got scared.   I suggest in it that statists of every stripe have something akin to battered wife syndrome, and I compare their politics to rape apology.  I took it down intending to make it more palatable.  I've since found my courage.  Let me state 3 things unequivocally:

1. I firmly agree with everything I say here and all of it's implications,
2. I'm really pissed off that blogger thinks "statist" isn't a word, and BTW
3. if you support the imprisonment of nonviolent offenders then you are literally a rape apologist.

Theft is wrong.  Unambiguously wrong.  There are no exceptions.  There is no gray area.  Neither your ignorance nor your desperation absolve you of the responsibility to compensate the people you violate.  This shouldn't be in question.  But on the rare occasions when someone admits to me that taxation is theft, they always immediately qualify their agreement.  "Yes, it is theft, but we have to have it, because...the roads, the police, the military, parents are stupid, children are stupid, capitalists are evil, yada yada yada." The conversation keeps devolving into mad max scenarios where everyone who doesn't die of starvation gets hunted down by cannibals.  Rather than constantly trying to explain the comprehensively self reinforcing positive feedback loop of an organic free society, let me just try to make it clear how much of a battered wife you sound like.  Imagine if governments raped people instead of stealing from them.

Liberals:
 
Yes, the national genetic management service is just rape, but we have to force people to breed so that we can eliminate the differences that lead to inequality.  A free market for breeding partners will always exploit the less attractive.  Beautiful people inherited their beauty from their parents.  They didn't earn it.  It's not fair to the rest of us.  They should stop being so greedy and start contributing their fair share to the gene pool.

Conservatives:

Yes, the national genetic management service is just rape, but we have to force people to breed so we can eliminate the genetic markers that lead to criminal behavior.  If we left people to choose their own mates, they would continue to produce children with genetic predispositions to violate other people's rights.  It would be irresponsible of us to let that happen.  If you don't want the benefits of the law abiding society that the national genetic management service has worked so hard to give you then you can just leave.

Libertarians:

The constitution clearly says that the government is only allowed to rape just enough people to maintain sufficient breeding stock for police officers, soldiers, and judges.  A free market for breeding partners can't produce the genetically superior super humans we need to protect and defend us and settle our disputes.  That is the only legitimate function of government and the only legitimate use of rape.

Theft isn't OK.  EVER.  And for the same reason that rape isn't OK.  EVER.  Stop apologizing for your abusers.

there's a difference

a frequent conversation

“But how will you deal with criminals without a government?”

“They'll probably be blacklisted. Anyone who violates property rights will find it impossible to get a job, rent an apartment, or even buy food. They'll have to turn themselves in and agree to some kind of repayment plan if they want to participate in society.”

“Then you might as well have a government. Withholding food from somebody until they meet your demands is the same as pointing a gun at their head. In both cases, you're limiting their options to obedience or death.”

“No. In one case you are threatening to murder somebody. In the other, you are refusing to trade with them. Freedom isn't about options. It's about property rights.”

“But the result is the same.”

“ ... ...What is the basis of morality?”

“That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the practicalities of social structure.”

“But it is what we're talking about. This comes down to the basic difference between right and wrong. I say that morality is the non-aggression principle. It's not OK to hurt people and it's not OK to take their stuff.”

“OK, I agree that morality starts there. But you also have to balance that with helping people. If someone is starving, you have to feed them.”

“No. What you're talking about is virtue. I agree that a “good person” would feed someone who's starving, but you can't violate someone's rights to achieve that. You can't justify armed robbery (taxes) no matter how misguidedly noble your cause is.”

and now it's time for a breakdown

People are confusing morality with virtue. And they're doing it on purpose. They want to be able to justify otherwise immoral acts to force other people to behave virtuously. And they want to do it, because they're afraid.

Morality is the non-aggression principle. That's it. Property rights. Nobody has the right to hit you or rape you or kidnap you, because you own your body. So nobody has the right to stop you from aborting a fetus, marrying a same sex partner, crossing the Rio Grande or smoking household cleaners, because you own your body. Nobody has the right to steal from you, swindle you, or vandalize your property, because you own your stuff. So nobody has the right to confiscate a portion of your wages, to bulldoze your home to put up a Walmart, to dictate what rent you can charge on your apartments, or to stop you from smoking in your own bar, because you own your stuff.

Virtue is courage. That's it. The willingness to face your fears. The willingness to sacrifice an immediately achievable value for the hope of achieving a greater value. We honor the bravery of the soldier and the stoicism of the cancer patient because they are both a kind of courage. We admire the discipline of the athlete, the diligence of the scholar, the defiance of the philosopher, and the vulnerability of the artist, because they are all a kind of courage. We also respect the compassion of the good Samaritan, because it is evidence of courage. Because a lack of empathy is the result of the cowardly refusal to process the negative emotional consequences of value frustration.

Morality is enforceable. If someone steals your stuff, you can take it back. If someone tries to rape you, you can shoot him. You can use force to defend your property or to retrieve the value of what was taken from you. But virtue is not enforceable. If someone refuses to defend the innocent, to educate themselves, or to process their emotions, you can't put them in jail for it. If someone refuses to assist others in need, you can't hold a gun to their head and demand it of them. You can't use force to compel anyone to face their fears or to exhibit behaviors consistent with someone who does. When you try to enforce virtue, you violate morality.

And the thing is, you already know this. You don't hold a gun to your friend's head and demand she give you a ride to the airport. You earn that ride with intimacy. You don't threaten people's lives if they don't donate to charity. You appeal to their virtue and ask them nicely. You never violate morality to compel virtue in your personal life. It's only in the “public” sphere that you compromise. You're afraid that people are so greedy that they won't help people in need. That's why you're a liberal. You're afraid that people are so malevolent that they'll kill and rape and steal if they have a chance. That's why you're a conservative.  You're afraid that people are so stupid that they can't come up with nonviolent solutions to criminality.  That's why you're a libertarian.

So don't be a coward. Don't threaten people with murder to alleviate your fears. Don't pretend there is any excuse to violate morality, even to compel virtue. Put down the guns and take responsibility for your own concerns.

hitler, hogwash, and handjobs

There are laws governing what passes for philosophical discourse on the internet. For instance, “You are always committing the logical fallacy that you are accusing someone else of”. This isn't always true, but it's so ubiquitous that we ought to use it as a tool of self discovery. How many times have you been baffled by somebody accusing you of something that you are sure they are actually guilty of? Another example, “Somebody always makes a reference to Hitler”. The kind of belligerent squabbles that these conversations so quickly devolve into tends to cause the importance of moral disagreements to expand beyond their rational limits. And It's hard to resist invoking a name as emotionally charged as Hitler when what you really want to say is, “fuck you”. The law is doubtless false more often than it's true, but try to count on just one hand how many times you've done it.

This post is about another law, and one that is actually universal. “Appeals to human nature are confessions of psychology”. If you claim it is human nature to kill and rape and steal, then you have just admitted your desire to kill and rape and steal. This is true by definition, since the one making the appeal is himself human. Some are honest enough to admit that they share whatever nature they claim for everyone else. Others have managed to delude themselves that they alone have risen above the pretensions or carnal desires of their peers. Still others are convinced that it's not themselves but some venerable sage who has transcended the barrier of human nature. These sages are often priests and presidents, but sometimes they're just high school girlfriends. But no matter what, the nature you claim for all humanity is invariably a reflection of your own desires.

So this post is something of a confession. I believe lots of things about human nature. I believe humans are rational optimizers of ranked preferences. Some mainstream economists will tell you that the “myth” of the rational optimizer has been debunked by some such study or statistical model. These people are not properly economists; They're social engineers. They want to justify government violence by making two obvious errors. First, they assume that they know what their subjects' “real” preferences are. Second, they assume that the subjects themselves know what their “real” preferences are. People act on preferences they don't understand or even willfully ignore. This, by the way, is the power of proper economics as a tool of self discovery.

I also believe that all humans rank intimacy as their highest long term value. Ultimately, all human activity is a means to an intimate end. Too many people are terrified that they are unworthy of the intimacy they desire. This explains why so many people feel trapped in codependent or abusive relationships. They don't have the courage to seek out better more intimate relationships, because they're convinced that they don't deserve them. It explains why people seek out frivolous sexual encounters. It explains why the desperate unspoken agreement of dedicated partnerships to lie to each other about our virtue is the expectation in society. I further believe that the cowardly decision not to process the negative emotional consequences of value frustration is the source of everything that is euphemistically called “mental illness”.

So what do you believe is true about human nature? What does that say about what you believe about yourself? And do you have the courage to leave it in the comments below?