My Strange Mind
Independent perspective on consciousness, government, economics, history and wellness.
It’s a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes – by Jeffrey Tucker
01 month ago
by kahotep
in Information Age
I have a rare treat for my readers today. This is an audio book, It’s a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes, read by Stefan Molyneux. This book is by far one of the best descriptions of how fantastic of a world we live in, yet often are not aware of it, because we become desensitized to it and take it for granted.
We often do not fully realize the potential of what we have available to us, perhaps because we are slaves to our day-to-day perspectives and habit patterns. Sometimes it helps to step back for a moment, so we may realize what is available to us.
Think back just a decade or two and remember what the world was like. Could you have even imagined all of the wonderful tools that are now available to virtually everyone at little if any cost? Imagine what it would be like to go directly from the world of the 1980′s to the world of today? Wouldn’t you be blown away by the fantastic pace of change that has happened in many areas of life?
The marketplace of innovation and ideas has brought us so many magnificent additions; but it’s up to us to figure out how to get the most out of it. Imagine what it will be like in another 10-20 years, if the marketplace of innovation and ideas is allowed to continue along. Furthermore, imagine what it will be like if people are motivated by the inspiration they receive, when they contemplate the vast potential of everything we have and are in the process of creating.
Buy/ebook: http://mises.org/resources/6528
Audiobook: http://www.fdrurl.com/jetson
PDF: http://www.fdrurl.com/jetsonWe are surrounded by miracles created in the private sector, particularly in the digital universe, and yet we don’t appreciate them enough. Meanwhile, the public sector is systematically wrecking the physical world in sneaky and petty ways that really do matter.
Jeffrey Tucker, in this follow-up to his Bourbon for Breakfast, draws detailed attention to both. He points out that the products of digital capitalism are amazing, astounding, beyond belief—more outrageously advanced than anything the makers of the Jetsons could even imagine. With this tiny box in hand, we can do a real-time video chat with anyone on the planet and pay nothing more than my usual service fee. This means that anyone on the planet can do business with and be friends with any other person on the globe. The borders, the limits, the barriers—they are all being blasted away.
The pace of change is mind-boggling. The world is being reinvented in our lifetimes, every day. Email has only been mainstream for 15 years or so, and young people now regard it as a dated form of communication used only for the most formal correspondence. Today young people are brief instant messaging through social media, but that’s only for now, and who knows what next year will bring.
Oddly, hardly anyone seems to care, and even fewer care about the institutional force that makes all this possible, which is the market economy. Instead, we just adjust to the new reality. We even hear of the grave problem of “miracle fatigue”—too much great stuff, too often. Truly, this new world seems to have arrived without much fanfare at all.
And why? It has something to do with the nature of the human mind, Tucker argues, which does not and will not change so long as we live in a world of scarcity. We adjust to amazing things and don’t think much about their source or the system that produces them.
The Jetsons’ world is our world: explosive technological advances, entrenched bourgeois culture, a culture of enterprise that is the very font of the good life. But there is one major difference, and it isn’t the flying car, which we might already have were it not for the government’s promotion of roads and the central plan that manages transportation. It is this: we also live in the midst of a gigantic leviathan state that seeks to control every aspect of our life to its smallest detail.
The government is still Flintstones, an anachronism that operates as this massive drag on our lives. With its money manipulations, regulations, taxation, wars (on people, products, and services), prisons, and injustices, we similarly look the other way. We try to find the workaround and keep living like the Jetsons. Often times things don’t go right and the reason is the anachronism that rules us. And yet, unless we understand cause and effect in the way that the old liberal tradition explained it, we can miss the source.
Tucker goes to great length to explain that which we take for granted, that glorious global network of cooperation and exchange we call the market economy and its capacity to meet our every material need. At the same time, he draws attention to way that the government is chipping away at economic opportunity and making our lives a bit more miserable every day. The answer to the problem of private miracles and public crimes is to keep the former and jettison the later — all in the service of that elusive dream of universal peace and prosperity.
This book will inspire love for free markets – and loathing of government.
Read by Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio.
Modern-Day Human Farming: Democratic “Tax Farms”
01 month ago
by kahotep
in Rogue Government
There’s a relatively new kind of farm, it’s a modern-day farm, incorporating many of the lessons learned over the past few centuries. This is a “human” farm, a new kind of highly profitable “democratic” tax farm, where human beings are controlled, manipulated and made to police each other; but all the while, they think they are free, in control and can “vote”, which causes them to tolerate it.
What the tax livestock don’t realize, however, is the mere existence of a system of voting, does not necessarily mean members of the society will actually be free. They don’t realize that virtually every mechanism for supposed change, in their society, is unable to actually effect change. Most of these great implements of democracy: voting, protest, political office, violence, etc, are completely unable to change society.
Video Podcast #4: Fasting/Detox: Journal #2 – 3/20/2012
01 month ago
Since the beginning of the month of March, I’ve been working on an in-depth cleanse. This cleanse started with a detox diet for the first two weeks, consisting of loads of organic vegetables as soups and stir fries as well as nuts, fruit and dried fruit. This was followed by a week of juice fasting, consisting of fresh raw fruit and vegetable juice diluted 50% with water; this is the stage I am at now. A water-only fast will be beginning this weekend and should last for at least one week, perhaps longer if things work out well.
So far this week, I’ve primarily been drinking juices with some combination of the following (citrus is always taken separately as the guidelines of trophology suggest):
- carrot
- bok choy
- celery
- cabbage
- italian parsley
- ginger
- garlic
- kale
- oranges
- grapefruit
So-far, I’m feeling good, I have loads of energy and I don’t feel much in the way of withdrawal symptoms from coffee, dairy, bread, etc. In the past I had a hard time getting through the day without a few coffees, it was quite an addiction. Now I am able to get through the day without feeling the need for coffee. I’ll still have some caffiene in the form of a green tea, perhaps, but the overall dosage is much lower than before.
I’ve been able to go about my life with more sustainable energy than before and aside from missing out on the enjoyment of food, I am feeling better than ever. I think this opportunity I’m giving my body to really rest and repair, is really helping a great deal. So I’ll keep a good attitude, which has a huge influence on the results of this kind of endeavor, I’ll be mindful of the effects of whatever I am engaged in and I’ll push forth doing my best to maintain and improve my life as I go.
I went to a Yoga class followed by a Tai Chi class on Tuesday, which turned out to be an above average class in terms of difficulty. Despite having less energy to burn, I did well and I pushed myself in ways that I had not previously pushed myself. I was able to hold difficult poses like scale pose for 30 seconds on each side, which is a record for me and I was able to do poses like half bound lotus forward bend with less difficulty. Overall, I was stronger, more flexible, more disciplined and motivated than I had been in previous experiences.
One of the great things about these kinds of experiences, is they help you to apply the discipline that it takes to engage in fasting/detox, to other parts of your life. It really gets you thinking and introspecting, so you have the potential to really weed out toxic habits and motivational issues that you might have otherwise been complacent with, had you not done a fast/detox.
I did an hour long video podcast, which goes off on alot of tangents; but touches many areas that I felt inspired to discuss. I hope those of you who have the time will check it out and share your thoughts if you are so inclined.
What is “Government” and How Can it be Understood Rationally
02 months ago
by kahotep
in Civil Liberties
Ever step back and think, “what is this mysterious yet seemingly all-pervading force in our lives we call government?” Oftentimes, we are so conditioned to seeing the workings of “government”, that we fail to see the bigger picture; we fail to see it for what it truly is.
A noted anarchist named Lysander Spooner once wrote a brilliant piece called NO TREASON. No. VI. The Constitution of No Authority., in which he lays out the rational and legal framework for what “government” actually is and can be.
You may think to yourself, “I know what government is, that’s an easy question”; but I trust that you will think differently if you review Lysander Spooner’s work. There are so many aspects of this thing we call “government” that you take for granted as being true and just. Further analysis, using simple basic logic, shows that the accepted logic of what government is and can be, is indeed quite fallacious. In fact, most people haven’t a clue what the government is, why it is here, who is behind it and why.
”…Go to A……… B……… [a particular person whom you wish to tax], and say to him that “the government” has need of money to meet the expenses of protecting him and his property. If he presumes to say that he has never contracted with us to protect him, and that he wants none of our protection, say to him that that is our business, and not his, that we choose to protect him, whether he desires us to do so or not; and that we demand pay, too, for protecting him. If he dares to inquire who the individuals are, who have thus taken upon themselves the title of “the government,” and who assume to protect him, and demand payment of him, without his having ever made any contract with them, say to him that that, too, is our business, and not his; that we do not choose to make ourselves individually known to him; that we have secretly (by secret ballot) appointed you our agent to give him notice of our demands, and, if he complies with them, to give him, in our name, a receipt that will protect him against any similar demand for the present year. If he refuses to comply, seize and sell enough of his property to pay not only our demands, but all your own expenses and trouble beside. If he resists the seizure of his property, call upon the bystanders to help you (doubtless some of them will prove to be members of our band). If, in defending his property, he should kill any of our band who are assisting you, capture him at all hazards, charge him (in one of our courts) with murder, convict him, and hang him. If he should call upon his neighbors, or any others who, like him, may be disposed to resist our demands, and they should come in large numbers to his assistance, cry out that they are all rebels and traitors; that “our country” is in danger; call upon the commander of our hired murderers; tell him to quell the rebellion and “save the country,” cost what it may. Tell him to kill all who resist, though they should be hundreds of thousands; and thus strike terror into all others similarly disposed. See that the work of murder is thoroughly done, that we may have no further trouble of this kind hereafter. When these traitors shall have thus been taught our strength and our determination, they will be good loyal citizens for many years, and pay their taxes without a why or a wherefore.
It is under such compulsion as this that taxes, so called, are paid. And how much proof the payment of taxes affords, that the people consent to support “the government,” it needs no further argument to show…”
–Lysander Spooner
If this interests you, I’d encourage you to read the full text, or listen to the audio version of the full text on the player below.
Video Podcast #3: Fasting/Detox: Journal #1 – 3/1/2012
02 months ago
Before and After Seven Days Fast
For the month of March, I am engaging in a truly transformative experience, a fast and a detox, phased in a week at a time and starting today.
This experience is going to be a thorough cleanse of my entire body/mind/spirit through fasting, detoxification and meditation (Tai Chi, Yoga, Sitting Meditation, Breathing Exercises). I am using a phased approach, so I can gradually work my way into an eventual water-only fast, over the course of a a month; so the overall experience will produce the greatest benefits, in terms of bodily detoxification, spiritual development, and dietary improvement.
In past fasting and detoxification experiences, I’ve had profound revelations on many different levels of significance. Since I am taking the time to go through preparatory pre-fasting stages, over several weeks, I expect the benefits to be far greater than in previous experiences, where I only pre-fasted for a few days prior to the fast.
In all of my 30 years, I have encountered few experiences that are as powerful and transformative, in such a short period of time, as these fasting experiences. I want to make this one the best fasting experience yet, so I can feel more alive, more aware and more in touch with my spiritual and experiential reality.
Here is the plan for this experience, as it stands right now:
- March 1 – March 8 – Begin a detox diet, eliminate meat, bread, (most) dairy and sweets. Diet consisting mostly of stir fried veggies, sprouts and fresh raw vegetable juice.
- March 9 – March 16 – Similar diet to the first week; but more emphasis on vegetable juice.
- March 17 – March 22 – Juice only diluted 50% with filtered water, also coconut water at times.
- March 23 – ??? – Water only with some tea.
I’m leaving the duration of the water fast open ended, but the goal is to listen to my body and go for somewhere between 5 and 14 days. I’ll be updating with future journals, possibly with videos, whenever time permits. I am looking forward to documenting this transformation as it progresses. I’d like to document this in a much more significant way than I have during past experiences. I really want to take the lessons learned during past experiences and apply them for this ordeal, so I can again be astonished by what may transpire.
Video Podcast #2: Transcending the State: Freedom Mentally and Physically
02 months ago
This is my first video podcast in quite some time, only the second overall. I decided to record some thoughts about “freedom” and just see what comes out. Various ideas about freedom were covered, there will be more in-depth explorations of this and various sub-topics when time permits.
Creating a Paradigm Shift: Revitalizing the Way You View Yourself and the World
03 months ago
by kahotep
in Mind Storms
“A world that is Free is not United, A World that is United is not Free”. It will take some work and resources on your behalf and work to educate yourself and understand what is happening. The Controllers that run the world want to take away your national boundaries and make a world culture inside your borders. This means no homeland for any culture or nationality.
–Anthony J. Hilder
Today I want to discuss a set of transformative experiences I had around the year 2003, as well as a few of the individuals who helped me to see a new path. This transformation has as much relevance today as it did during that time, nearly 10 years ago, it echoed and amplified similar transformations I’d had in the previous decade, when I was gaining independence from religion. The years which followed this transformation have served me well as further refinement.
It was during this 2003 time-frame that I really started branching out and looking for answers; I was looking for these answers on various fronts.
- The nature of the body’s health and vitality and how to attain true health and wellness.
- The nature of the paranormal, particularly psychic phenomena.
- The nature of government and power in society.
It was at this time that I started reading more about Edgar Cayce, on the advice of a good friend. The part I found particularly interesting were the health readings and the dietary recommendation. I decided, what could it hurt, why not try some of the dietary recommendations? So I tried it out and was I ever blown away by the effect it had on me overall. It was like wiping clean the dirty lens that was my consciousness, a lens that I did not realize was filthy.
This was only the beginning of a journey towards health and wellness, which was greater than I had ever realized possible. It was only after this that I tried acupuncture, juicing, fasting, etc. I was emboldened to try truly radical approaches to change myself and I was most certainly not disappointed with the results.
I also started more vigorously studying the paranormal and realizing that there might just be a bit more to reality than I had been lead to believe. The work of Cayce provided many avenues down which to travel and I also explored other areas as I became aware of them. This left me with, not only a completely revitalized view of my self; but also a completely revitalized view of existence.
Another path I ventured down, was the path of questioning authority in a deeper way than I had previously known. I started to entertain ideas about conspiracies. I opened my mind to the possibility, in the hope that I might find a greater truth and have answered some of the questions that are never answered by the conventional dialog.
One of the first conspiracy-related lectures I ever watched online, was introduced by Anthony J. Hilder and given by Jordan Maxwell. It was somewhat of a pivotal moment in my life, where I decided to walk, even further, down that different path I was on, into the thick of it. This is when I decided to turn away from the herd mentality and walk to the beat of a different drum. I had heard this drumbeat at times in years previous; but this time I felt the urge to be swept up in the new rhythm.
The first in-depth lecture was called Inner World of the Occult and it featured lecturer/researcher Jordan Maxwell. This event opened up my mind to alternative possibilities and alternative ways of seeing the world, which I had previously not considered in depth. It shed light on so many new possibilities in meticulous detail, that it was an adventure to take it all in.
Now, whether or not I understand or agree with the finer points of what Jordan and Anthony say, at this point, is irrelevant. I think it is pretty clear that they were on the right track, if you’ll just look at the events of the past 11 years outside of the storybook narrative of the government and the media. The details are not the point of what I’m saying here anyways.
The important thing, is that my understanding has gone beyond anything said by any group or individual, it has detached from experiencing reality vicariously through others, or through institutions. Having radically different information at my disposal, caused me to question what I’ve been told all my life, in a very substantial way. I learned to question absolutely everything I had been told and take nothing at face value.
Like Anthony said, “a world that is free is not united, a world that is united is not free”, this is true for our own individual freedom, our own individual world. Truth and freedom must be realized at an individual level, or not at all; because there is no way to attain these things in a top-down fashion; as that would merely be an illusion.
Nobody but yourself can make you free. No government, no institution, no religion, no guru; you are the one who realizes the greater freedom within yourself and expands the possibilities; you have to genuinely want it in order to realize it.
This can be done by learning how to explore ideas, explore the world around us and boldly challenging our boundaries and our fears, in ways that might make us uncomfortable at times, in ways that may make us feel vulnerable to change.
So often, we are taught to fear being different, to fear what others will think, venturing out and remaking our self anew. We certainly don’t know for certain, what will be on the other side of the event horizon, when we engage in these kinds of transformative processes.
The world I found when I polished the lens of my own consciousness, wasn’t the world I was told was there, absolutely not. It was a completely different world that you’ve got to experience to its fullest to understand. Latching onto ideals and trying to stay within the realm of socially acceptable experience of reality, is not going to bring you to the truth; it will only distance you from the truth and lock you in a pattern that will be progressively more difficult to break from.
To be truly free, you’ve got to be willing to venture where others are unwilling to go. You’ve got to be fearless, where others are timid. You’ve got to be bold and action oriented, where others are lethargic and aimless. You’ve got to have the courage to stand up, step away from the mechanisms of your control and take matters into your own hands.
Sure, you’ll be wrong at times. You’ll make yourself look like a fool or an ass. You’ll hit dead ends and roadblocks; but by and large, you will be far closer to the truth than those who choose never to venture out of their box. If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not trying. If you’re not willing to admit you’ve made mistakes, you will never better yourself.
All I can hope to do is share my experiences, of how I continuously strive to realize greater freedom and independence, in the hope that it will inspire you to realize a greater awareness in yourself. I’m not trying to tell you what to think; but I am merely trying to get you to look at what is in front of you from a fresh perspective, so that you may rediscover it.
On My Early Search for Deeper Answers: God, Consciousness, Religion, Spirituality
03 months ago
by kahotep
in Mind Storms
This is something I recently wrote, in response to an acquaintance’s open ended question: “God exists? Prove it.”
I would certainly like to build on it with a deeper exploration some time in the future; but it is a good summary of the first stages of my journey.
Before getting into this, I’d like to note that I have nothing against any particular religion per se; but am merely referring to the experience of various religious groups and individuals I had during that time in my life. To me, it’s not a person’s religion that matters, it is their character that is important.
I’ve met many people of religion who use the religion to mask and legitimize a violent and oppressive nature, while I’ve met people with no religion at all who are compassionate and wonderful people and vice versa. Religion has nothing to do with it, so we have to see beyond the labels we ascribe to ourselves, if we really want to get to know one another.
When I was early in my search for answers, I used to be very concerned with its existence or lack thereof, of this entity called God. I was originally raised as a Christian, which seems to be the default in this part of the world.
I realized after awhile, however, that most of the claims of the adherents of this religion, seemed to be founded on circular reasoning referencing the Bible. I found that whenever I inquired for more information or questioned events, I was strongly discouraged and often separated from the other kids at Sunday school and reprimanded.
It was always puzzling to me, why they did not have answers, beyond merely what was written, to back up their claims. Their lack of curiosity, to know more about their own religion which they claim to value so highly, was also perplexing.
I investigated the Bible only to find myself disappointed, when I found that the Christians I knew at the time knew virtually nothing of its origin. The sources I read indicated that there was more information about the origin; but even this additional information wasn’t very compelling to establish the authority of the bible. The disappointment only grew when I realized that it had been tampered with by various governments and appeared to be a tool to control people’s behavior.
My knee jerk response was to become an Athiest, then after reading a compelling piece called “Why I am Agnostic” by Robert Ingersoll, I then became an agnostic for several years.
I realized after awhile that I was letting the modern conceptions of religion define my own spirituality, limiting my experience and awareness. I was letting the fact that I was *not* something, cause me to be the “other side of the coin,” so to speak. To where I was defining my relationship to the deeper and more mysterious aspects of reality, still in terms of a religion that I did not believe in, when it really should have no relevance at all.
I had a number of experiences, particularly a very powerful out of body trip on Ayahuasca, in which I realized that my materialistic atheistic/agnostic approach was deeply flawed. As is common during DMT experiences, I experienced extreme time dilation and a number of other phenomena, in which I became privy to experience and information that is impossible under normal circumstances. To me, this experience was highly profound and cannot be attributed to mere biochemical interactions and nerve firings.
I could go on in great length about the particulars of the experience and would be happy to share more sometime; but suffice it to say, I realized that our “alert problem solving reality” is far from all there is; that there is a much deeper and more sophisticated reality underlying the phenomena we see on a daily basis, which is responsible for consciousness itself.
Now, I believe that conscious awareness and the intricate and infinitely scalable structure thereof, is the cause of our shared physical reality and not that our physical reality is the cause of consciousness.
This notion of God or Godlessness, religion or a-religion seems to color our experience; but it seems unnecessary. It’s typically an attachment to a belief that is not rooted in actual experience. At this point in my life, I feel that the nebulous concept of “God” doesn’t really matter; but what does matter is that we become conscious and aware of our own experiential reality, so we can become more aware of the deeper facets of conscious existence.
Interesting Discussion on the “State of the Union”, the Nature of Government and Anarchism
0Here’s an interesting take on the State of the Union from GreenWave.com, with an interesting anarchist perspective. He calls out the statist propaganda for the laughable shit that it is.
How to Help the Poor in a Free Society
1One of the biggest criticisms of Libertarian viewpoints, is this notion that there is supposedly no way to help the poor in a free society; so it is often thought that we must forcibly take money via taxation, to give to the poor. If you use a bit of logical deduction, however, you will see that a society who values helping the less fortunate will help the less fortunate; there need not be a wasteful/coercive government intermediary who squanders most of the money before it reaches its target and creates a dependent class.
How to help the poor without pointing the gun at everyone else… by Stefan Molyneux, Host of Freedomain Radio, the most popular philosophy podcast on the web – www.freedomainradio.com