Tablet needs a better editor. This is one sentence:
"Another: In his spare time, when he is not providing U.S. Customs and Border Patrol with AI-powered long-range sensors, or Volodymyr Zelenskyy with drones to attack high-value Russian targets, or winning first place in the Texas Renaissance Festival’s costume contest with historically meticulous renderings of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn sewn and stitched by his wife, Nicole—who’s been at his side for 16 of his 31 years on earth—Luckey recently built a bypass for his peripheral nervous system to experiment with giving himself superhuman reflexes; vestibular implants to pipe sounds into his skull so that instead of having to call him and wait for him to pick up, Anduril employees could just pick up a designated Palmer Phone and talk straight into his head; and a virtual reality headset that—by tying three explosive charges to a narrow-band photosensor that can detect when the screen flashes red at a specific frequency (i.e., GAME OVER)—kills you in real life when you die in a video game."
I think you've done a good example of highlighting the things that everyone can take from these two men, but both of them are a mix of disturbing and bizarre. They seem more like modern antihero ubermensch types rather than men who should be emulated in their character. I forgot his name, but that WASP man who helped keep a Rust Belt town from ever declining that you mentioned way back is a far better example.
Learn to spot and grab ahold of black swans. Check
The value of social connections and elite institutions. Check.
Leverage your heavy interests and quirks to social and economic advantage rather than being isolating. Check.
---
It'd be impossible to enforce equally, but I actually DO like the idea of VR headsets that kill you (or at least seriously wound you)...for military drone operations. The lack of skin in the game for drone pilots currently makes this really uncharted territory morally and psychologically.
Nuclear missile subs can kill a hundred million people with a turn of a couple of switches and maybe something else, but everyone on that thing can end up crushed like the sub of stupid via an enemy torpedo or even the fate of war. Fighter pilots can kill many but also crash on takeoff or landing, die in combat, or suffer other battle damage. Ditto for soldiers on the ground, sailors on a destroyer, Marines in helicopters and so on.
In ANY other domain, other than paramilitary versions, that's a real nutbar coming up with this stuff and is incredibly disturbing.
I’d understand parents going into some debt to take their kids to the US National Parks, Hawaii, the Rockies or somewhere like Southern California if the family lives in say Ohio.
I don’t understand the fascination with Disney theme parks. Can anyone explain the Disney appeal?
The last time I took my family to Disneyworld was 1994 and that’s when I became aware of its politicization never mind the expense. It’s a waste of time and money. I encourage people to take their families to the Ark Encounter in KY a little bit south of Cincinnati. It is eye-opening, more family friendly and less expensive. It’s also politically incorrect because it actually gives credence to the Great Flood in detail. If one has an open mind.
What’s interesting is that, unlike white voters, black voters who don’t go to church are actually more likely to vote Republican. Many black churches serve as organizing spaces for Democratic machine politics, so people outside this machine don’t feel the same pressure to vote Democrat.
So ... you point to a couple of men who have created great things without government planning, and then say conservatives need a plan other than making government smaller. Isn't this a direct contradiction? Didn't they do what they did because no government was trying to figure out how to solve these problems?
These same men made important connections when they were younger, started things on their own (or in a small team), and now live pretty much far away from the kinds of places you're arguing are important for creating things--places where lots of people with college degrees live. Again, a contradiction.
How can we resolve these contradictions?
There clearly needs to be some government planning in the area of infrastructure, but "doing something about the environment," or "doing something about healthcare," will always and forever be beyond the ken of any government anywhere, no matter how smart, empathic, connected, etc., the people are in that government.
There is a lot of danger of getting a lot of "people who think they are smart" together in one place and telling them "now go solve the world's problems." There are also lots of places where a lot of dumb people gather and create really horrible things.
There is a balance here--a balance you're not seeing because you're really hooked on the power of centralized planning and the power of "smart people all living in the same place."
Challenge: consider how God designed the nation of Israel to operate. Was it designed the way you think it should be designed? Did God gather all the smart people in a few places to solve the world's problems? Did God design the entire nation as urban areas and a strong class divide between these urban areas and the "dumb farmers" out in the hinterlands? Did God create specific social institutions, and create a calendar, that would both build community and give families space to grow and prosper?
Maybe, just maybe, the Being who designed humans might have some idea about how to design the human environment. Maybe we should start paying attention to what our Designer intended, rather than trying to "put a bunch of smart people in one place and give them power over everyone else's lives to solve the world's problems." Maybe it's not God's plan to get all the smart people to live in one place, but instead a corruption of God's design for humans.
"Soft progressivism" still leads to hard tyranny--100% of the time.
BTW, have you read "Shepherds for Sale?" What is your reaction?
Are you arguing both of these people were contacted by a US Government agency to create things these agencies knew they needed and were planning for? I know these two stories well, and I don't think that is true in either case. They developed something outside government planning that different agencies later took advantage of.
The point is you don't need a "plan by the government" to replace what the market might do. I know it's hard to put faith in the market, but it's the root of Reagan's phrase, and the root of the conservative thought process.
A great book I just read on this is "Seeing Like a State." It's older, but it's brilliant in showing how state planning destroys communities.
Tablet needs a better editor. This is one sentence:
"Another: In his spare time, when he is not providing U.S. Customs and Border Patrol with AI-powered long-range sensors, or Volodymyr Zelenskyy with drones to attack high-value Russian targets, or winning first place in the Texas Renaissance Festival’s costume contest with historically meticulous renderings of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn sewn and stitched by his wife, Nicole—who’s been at his side for 16 of his 31 years on earth—Luckey recently built a bypass for his peripheral nervous system to experiment with giving himself superhuman reflexes; vestibular implants to pipe sounds into his skull so that instead of having to call him and wait for him to pick up, Anduril employees could just pick up a designated Palmer Phone and talk straight into his head; and a virtual reality headset that—by tying three explosive charges to a narrow-band photosensor that can detect when the screen flashes red at a specific frequency (i.e., GAME OVER)—kills you in real life when you die in a video game."
I think you've done a good example of highlighting the things that everyone can take from these two men, but both of them are a mix of disturbing and bizarre. They seem more like modern antihero ubermensch types rather than men who should be emulated in their character. I forgot his name, but that WASP man who helped keep a Rust Belt town from ever declining that you mentioned way back is a far better example.
Learn to spot and grab ahold of black swans. Check
The value of social connections and elite institutions. Check.
Leverage your heavy interests and quirks to social and economic advantage rather than being isolating. Check.
---
It'd be impossible to enforce equally, but I actually DO like the idea of VR headsets that kill you (or at least seriously wound you)...for military drone operations. The lack of skin in the game for drone pilots currently makes this really uncharted territory morally and psychologically.
Nuclear missile subs can kill a hundred million people with a turn of a couple of switches and maybe something else, but everyone on that thing can end up crushed like the sub of stupid via an enemy torpedo or even the fate of war. Fighter pilots can kill many but also crash on takeoff or landing, die in combat, or suffer other battle damage. Ditto for soldiers on the ground, sailors on a destroyer, Marines in helicopters and so on.
In ANY other domain, other than paramilitary versions, that's a real nutbar coming up with this stuff and is incredibly disturbing.
I’d understand parents going into some debt to take their kids to the US National Parks, Hawaii, the Rockies or somewhere like Southern California if the family lives in say Ohio.
I don’t understand the fascination with Disney theme parks. Can anyone explain the Disney appeal?
The last time I took my family to Disneyworld was 1994 and that’s when I became aware of its politicization never mind the expense. It’s a waste of time and money. I encourage people to take their families to the Ark Encounter in KY a little bit south of Cincinnati. It is eye-opening, more family friendly and less expensive. It’s also politically incorrect because it actually gives credence to the Great Flood in detail. If one has an open mind.
I don't think we should support woke corporations that hate us.
I have heard a lot of people say that Branson, Missouri, is a much better place for a family vacation.
What’s interesting is that, unlike white voters, black voters who don’t go to church are actually more likely to vote Republican. Many black churches serve as organizing spaces for Democratic machine politics, so people outside this machine don’t feel the same pressure to vote Democrat.
So ... you point to a couple of men who have created great things without government planning, and then say conservatives need a plan other than making government smaller. Isn't this a direct contradiction? Didn't they do what they did because no government was trying to figure out how to solve these problems?
These same men made important connections when they were younger, started things on their own (or in a small team), and now live pretty much far away from the kinds of places you're arguing are important for creating things--places where lots of people with college degrees live. Again, a contradiction.
How can we resolve these contradictions?
There clearly needs to be some government planning in the area of infrastructure, but "doing something about the environment," or "doing something about healthcare," will always and forever be beyond the ken of any government anywhere, no matter how smart, empathic, connected, etc., the people are in that government.
There is a lot of danger of getting a lot of "people who think they are smart" together in one place and telling them "now go solve the world's problems." There are also lots of places where a lot of dumb people gather and create really horrible things.
There is a balance here--a balance you're not seeing because you're really hooked on the power of centralized planning and the power of "smart people all living in the same place."
Challenge: consider how God designed the nation of Israel to operate. Was it designed the way you think it should be designed? Did God gather all the smart people in a few places to solve the world's problems? Did God design the entire nation as urban areas and a strong class divide between these urban areas and the "dumb farmers" out in the hinterlands? Did God create specific social institutions, and create a calendar, that would both build community and give families space to grow and prosper?
Maybe, just maybe, the Being who designed humans might have some idea about how to design the human environment. Maybe we should start paying attention to what our Designer intended, rather than trying to "put a bunch of smart people in one place and give them power over everyone else's lives to solve the world's problems." Maybe it's not God's plan to get all the smart people to live in one place, but instead a corruption of God's design for humans.
"Soft progressivism" still leads to hard tyranny--100% of the time.
BTW, have you read "Shepherds for Sale?" What is your reaction?
At this point, it will take smart and politically involved people to extricate government from health care as much as possible.
Um, both of those guys started what are primarily US government contractors.
Are you arguing both of these people were contacted by a US Government agency to create things these agencies knew they needed and were planning for? I know these two stories well, and I don't think that is true in either case. They developed something outside government planning that different agencies later took advantage of.
The point is you don't need a "plan by the government" to replace what the market might do. I know it's hard to put faith in the market, but it's the root of Reagan's phrase, and the root of the conservative thought process.
A great book I just read on this is "Seeing Like a State." It's older, but it's brilliant in showing how state planning destroys communities.