So you have come to the conclusion that I may have a few good points. Or you have decided that I'm completely nuts and you want to know what I've been filling my head with to come to these conclusions. Either way, here is a list of books I recommend to get to the bottom of this (in no particular order; warning some of these are referrer links):
- Going To Jail - If you have come to the conclusion that a particular belief of yours is one that requires uncompromised action, you will eventually end up in jail. These folk have been there for that reason. You may or may not agree with their specific framework, but they have some insight to offer. The book is published in print by their organization and offered online.
- J. Neil Schulman's Alongside Night - This is a fictional account of a not-so-distant dystopian future where the US government has grown too large and hyperinflation has set in. In addition to government, there is a thriving underground on the tipping-point of knocking the fragile government off its pedestal. I see it as the agorist playbook. It's also scary how accurate the writer's predictions are, from a sociopolitical perspective. You can get it on Kindle or paperback.
- America's Great Depression - This is a very detailed and technical account of what lead up to the worst depression in American history. Rothbard totally knew his stuff. He explains the details of the business cycle and why the banking cartels were the cause of the booms and busts in concert. History has and always repeated itself, so this is an important topic to study. Rothbard is also as anarchistic as they come, so he treats the material from the proper perspective. There's an audio form, but because of the charts, I recommend getting it in print or on Kindle.
- How to Be Invisible: The Essential Guide to Protecting Your Personal Privacy, Your Assets, and Your Life (Revised Edition) - If you have been convinced about the goals of agorism, it is time to get serious about your privacy. This book will point you in the right direction towards that end by outlining practical techniques. This is not an agorist book. It is more mainstream. The specific techniques as they relate to the formation of an LLC may or may not be relevant to an agorist. But the goals are the same. You can get it on Kindle or paperback.
- Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong - Take back history and get away from the political bias. How? Everyone has a political bias. This way: I recommend reading as many authors as possible when it comes to all kinds of history. This author specifically targets the kinds of history you were never taught in government schools. You can get it on Kindle or paperback.
- The Case For Democracy: The Power Of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny And Terror - This guy is a complete nutjob. The only reason I am listing his book is so you can practice tuum nosce hostem (know your enemy). If there ever was a neocon playbook, this is it. You can get it on Kindle or paperback.
- Atlas Shrugged - Just read it and get it over with. Or better yet, get Atlas Shrugged (Cliffs Notes).
- The FairTax Book - No, I do not recommend the Fair Tax. I think it is unfair. This is more tuum nosce hostem. The reason you should look at this is to see how the political folk try to whip up agitation and make fake grassroots (aka astroturf). You can get it on Kindle or paperback.
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Puffin Classics) - I have had a lot of people recommend this book to me for various reasons. From my perspective, it's a great way to wrap your head around the idea of paradigm shift, believe it or not. The abolitionists were seen as evil from Huck's perspective. This was actually a major plot point in the story. The anarchists are seen in very similar light today. If the world could overcome slavery, why can't the world overcome statism? You can get it on Kindle or paperback.
- 1984 (Signet Classics) - Do I really have to explain why this title is on my list? You can get it on Kindle or paperback.
- The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress - Another anarchist futuristic fiction. Not a bad fiction too. A lot of technical detail to help suspend disbelief. Just a little dated on the technicals (being published in 1966). Surprisingly, not as dated as Alongside Night, from the technical perspective. Only on paperback (audio version available).
- Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition - I find this book fascinating. It's an account of a man who decided to live a simple life. That's right, he did it on purpose. Some people live a simple life because they have to. Thoreau didn't try this just for kicks. He didn't really even do it to be critical of decadence, though he does give the idea a few jabs. The reason I find it fascinating is because of the relative little work it requires, once a person is ramped up to tackle it. By today's standards, his experiment was camping. The difference between his simple living and today is so much, in terms of economics, it's staggering. It's worth looking at. This version was originally only offered in paperback, so I bet the Kindle version is without annotation.
Five, five, of the books on your list are fiction. One of the books is Walden, and one is Ayn Rand. Two of the books are essentially prep books...just in case you are correct. What I am not saying is that any of this reading is completely unproductive. What I am saying is that if you are providing a list of material that has lead you to conclusions that are, shall we say, non-standard, perhaps the list should contain more material such as Rothbard (which I have not read, but sounds scholarly at least).
Sometimes I think there should be a logical fallacy associated with Rand as there is with Hitler. As for Walden, his solution is "run away from everything and everyone you do not like, and bingo, utopia". It certainly sounds good to me, but makes my cringe that it does. It is cowardly at best, and utterly immoral at worst.
Having said all that, you know that your ideas have shaped my own, and helped me refine them for years. This is true for theology and politics. In the end, it always feels the same though. You seem to be postulating that there is a chance that if we could snap our fingers and align the entire globe with these ideals everything would be better than it is. This not only seems ridiculously optimistic, but empirically false for a Christian that believes in total depravity.
Should we give up then? I honestly do not know. I suppose the answer is no, and we might as well work toward something similar to what you espouse as anything else. After I read these types of literature, study the world around me, history, our current affairs, the Scriptures, etc. my conclusion is we are f*%$%d, and spending as much time as you do on political/social constructs related to this world is counterproductive and possibly immoral given that this is not our home.
I reserve the right to be wrong, and assume the worst in that regard.
You mean, like if someone mentions Rand, the debate is over? May as well. You know where the discussion is going. Saves time.
His rationale wasn't as important to me. I was more interested in the ability to live simply in a simpler time. Like, how does that compare to today? If you say you want to live simply today, it just means you don't have a smart-tv or something.
Yeah, I gave up on legacy political/social constructs. But I do not think we can just snap our fingers and make it all better. I think we can start with the boring stuff. See: Disruptive Uses for Blockchain Technology
Re: Rand, yes. Re: Walden, that makes sense.
Re: Disruptive Uses for Blockchain Technology
I heard someone else say this a couple weeks ago in a different context (for the technology as such), but it makes a lot of sense here. Using roads is a great example because it is one of the first things I get thrown in my face when I start bitching about "legacy" constructs.
Of course despite watching videos for kids, reading different explanations over and over, etc. at the end of the day I still have trouble understanding blockchain completely, and even more trouble making it "concrete" in the "real" world. It is frustrating because it will be to me as the Interwebs are to my Dad...something I vaguely understand...unless it finally clicks with me at some point.
I guess just like when the internet was new, there are terms to wrap our head around. E.g.:
There's censorship resistance, which is bigger than the hippy "I can say what I want" kind of censorship resistance. It's a component of blockchain that keeps it from being suppressed by state or private attackers who want to get rid of it.
There's the immutable ledger, which is the notion that messages go onto the blockchain and cannot be removed.
There's cryptographically verifiable, which is the assurance that the person who wrote two or more messages is one in the same. It also relates to consensus data.
There's consensus, which is the idea that data is processed in a deterministic (pre-arranged) manner.
These are many of the primitives that make a blockchain useful. There are others that people think are important like scalability (performance under load) and governance (the ability to adapt).
Now see, censorship resistance just seems optimistic to me. The blockchain itself is almost a "utopia" of technology in a way, and there seems no end to the way man can "govern" itself out of utopia. As creative as any technology can be to avoid the pitfalls of depravity, it will still fail or it would be God...hmm. I think I just accidentally said something philosophically interesting, but maybe it was just dribble.
It might be a false dichotomy: either a thing fails or it's God. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a true statement by itself. But I'm not sure it means that a thing should not be pursued just because it will ultimately fail on some near or far timeline.
In the long run, we're all dead. That doesn't mean life isn't worth living.
What if we say, any technology sufficiently perfect to be altered/used by man in such a way that it can be used for any but moral purposes is God? I do not know, I feel like there has to be a definition there, and then a corresponding proposition that proves this technology cannot exist.
Probably not critically important (although philosophically interesting...and perhaps not without application in Christian apologetics).
Either way, the key takeaway from the entire thread is certainly
We certainly should (and indeed have no choice but to) pursue imperfect solutions to our temporal problems with the direction of natural and special revelation until such time as the consummation of God's plan for redemption arrives.
That is hard for me to do. I would rather go live in the woods and wait it out :)
The Luna book (How to be Invisible) is great; Rothbard is on the to-read list, but rather far down.
All three fiction books should be read by everyone
Rand's political writing is worth reading but I never finished any of her fiction; I found it boring.
Walden was both boring and pompous. Went through it in HS, but cheated so I didn't have my eyes bleed out actually reading it.
However, each to his own. No one should decide whether a book has value to themself until they have at least started that book themselves
Flagged, purely because you flagged @haejins post for no reason.
lucky you
you commented on the wrong guy, and got a juicy little vote for it LOL
for what it's worth, I'd advise aginst flagging accounts that have both greater Steem Power and Rep than you do...kinda suicidal ;>
but I'm glad it worked out for ya!
Thank you. Point taken. I will bear it in mind in future. Have a great festive season.
you too!
Yeah, I can totally see that. Thoreau probably had a screw loose. Maybe that's why I like him.
I recommend squeezing in the KJV version of the bible somewhere in your reading diet. Thanks for sharing what you have been reading.
Personally, I recommend the ESV for studying. But I tend to quote KJV.
I do the same thing. The stories get so messy when I try to read them out of the old kjv. I love the NLT (new living translation)Have a great day.
It's always interesting to know what people fill their heads with! thank you for the recommendations! Funny you say that, I actually have Atlas shrugged in my pile of books to read and have been putting it off for a long time,, i will get it over with as you said!
Yeah, it's one of those things. You can't not read it. The movie is a mess. The monologues are obnoxious. I think it would have been a good short story about innovation. But I guess in order to actually tell that story properly, you need adiquate world-building. And that's difficult in a short story.
NIOCE I like how @walden has his name sake in the reading list
http://steemspeak.com is becoming very entertaining with walden and thats why I came here to review your blog, I found this reading list at $48, upvoted it to $50 BOOM someone in chat made it go to $58 so i ALMOST got it yop $60 so lets get this post to $60 dollars ASAP!
WOW I hope we can make an Oprah style Book Club one day, and I would love to see, no I would PAY to see @inertia on Oprah WInfrey Show
Some great suggestions here. Alongside Night caught my attention and I have 1984 in the audio version. Still haven't listened to it though.
I've read several of them.
Good post.
I love it! I actually posted a few books today that I just finished reading. Check them out!
Thanks for sharing. I love books!
All of them added to my reading list. Thanks!
good recommendations, I'll see if any of them are in Spanish. saludos
I took away a different view on Atlas Shrugged than both sides of the political debate. It bothers me that the GOP has adopted it (and Rand) and that the Dems have vilified it (and Rand). They ignore its place in history and all aspects of the book outside of Objectivism.
To start with, Rand wrote incredibly inspirational characters. They are true to themselves and their inherent character. They are like shining beacons of light. Well, at least the good guys.
The villains are about as bad as they get. And what is their greatest crime / downfall / negative trait? Mediocrity! This is what makes the current GOP's love of Atlas Shrugged so comical. Paul Ryan is mediocre as are many of his caucuses members. They are not looking to better the country which is what they took an oath to do.
And if you haven't read her warmup to Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead is worth a read, even more so if you like architecture.
Have you seen @dan's latest diatribes on transparency?
😄😇😄
