PyramidHead
Contributor
As we embark on another year together in the emerging hellworld that is the political sphere of civilization, I think it's good to reflect on the fact that we should always be willing to learn new things and continually challenge our beliefs. What are some of the things that you changed your mind about in the last year, and why?
And if you didn't change your mind about anything in the last year, when is the last time you made a major revision to your worldview?
And if you haven't changed anything about your worldview in a long time, what is your worldview and why are you satisfied that it's the correct one?
I'll go first.
Last year, I changed my mind about gun control. For most of my life as a liberal, I thought I had a pretty neat solution to the problem of gun violence. Step one, aggressively fund research into non-lethal forms of projectile weaponry for citizen use (tasers, rubber bullets, tranquilizer darts, sonic waves, anything that incapacitates someone without killing them). Step two, make these widely available to the public. Step three, ban all other firearms for civilian use. Punish severely anybody who obtains a gun capable of killing someone.
What changed my mind about this issue? It wasn't anything about fundamental liberties or the risk of a black market. It was my realization that nobody in a position of illegitimate authority should have the power to (a) claim for themselves a monopoly on the use of deadly force and (b) the ability to control the use of non-deadly force among those they hold authority over. Among the most illegitimate forms of authority is the state, generally speaking, unless it is a radically democratic state and so decentralized and autonomous that it barely qualifies as one. We don't have too many of those (arguably because states tend to concentrate power just like markets concentrate money), and letting the state dictate everybody else's access to tools that could be used against it is bad strategy. Here I'm using "state" to not only refer to institutions that are directly funded by taxes, but also those intertwined private structures that the state exists to uphold, and thus generously subsidizes.
So, I went from a classic Loren Pechtel-coined and self-professed "gun grabber" to basically a libertarian about gun control. And accordingly, I lost all the remaining respect I had for cops and soldiers, who I now believe are all bastards with no reason to exist.
What about you?
And if you didn't change your mind about anything in the last year, when is the last time you made a major revision to your worldview?
And if you haven't changed anything about your worldview in a long time, what is your worldview and why are you satisfied that it's the correct one?
I'll go first.
Last year, I changed my mind about gun control. For most of my life as a liberal, I thought I had a pretty neat solution to the problem of gun violence. Step one, aggressively fund research into non-lethal forms of projectile weaponry for citizen use (tasers, rubber bullets, tranquilizer darts, sonic waves, anything that incapacitates someone without killing them). Step two, make these widely available to the public. Step three, ban all other firearms for civilian use. Punish severely anybody who obtains a gun capable of killing someone.
What changed my mind about this issue? It wasn't anything about fundamental liberties or the risk of a black market. It was my realization that nobody in a position of illegitimate authority should have the power to (a) claim for themselves a monopoly on the use of deadly force and (b) the ability to control the use of non-deadly force among those they hold authority over. Among the most illegitimate forms of authority is the state, generally speaking, unless it is a radically democratic state and so decentralized and autonomous that it barely qualifies as one. We don't have too many of those (arguably because states tend to concentrate power just like markets concentrate money), and letting the state dictate everybody else's access to tools that could be used against it is bad strategy. Here I'm using "state" to not only refer to institutions that are directly funded by taxes, but also those intertwined private structures that the state exists to uphold, and thus generously subsidizes.
So, I went from a classic Loren Pechtel-coined and self-professed "gun grabber" to basically a libertarian about gun control. And accordingly, I lost all the remaining respect I had for cops and soldiers, who I now believe are all bastards with no reason to exist.
What about you?
