Two Cents

  • On Property Rights III
    by Skyler J. Collins (Editor) on July 22, 2022 at 7:40 pm

    Post by Skyler J. Collins (Editor). Call yourself whatever you want but as long as you grant greater rights to original appropriators of scarce (rivalrous) resources relative to latecomers then we are allies.

  • On Ideas
    by Skyler J. Collins (Editor) on July 21, 2022 at 7:51 pm

    Post by Skyler J. Collins (Editor). Ideas are not ownable. Ownability requires scarcity (rivalrousness). There is exactly zero possibility of physical conflict over the use of ideas because everybody in the universe can use an idea simultaneously without physically interfering with anybody else's use.

  • On Abortion
    by Skyler J. Collins (Editor) on May 30, 2022 at 6:51 pm

    Post by Skyler J. Collins (Editor). It is my understanding that American progressives (and liberals) have it as one of their highest ideals to fight for the interests of the most marginalized and downtrodden of groups. For that reason they fight for the right for women to abort their unborn babies without fear of legal reprisal by governments.

  • On the Non-Aggression Principle II
    by Skyler J. Collins (Editor) on October 15, 2021 at 7:19 pm

    Post by Skyler J. Collins (Editor). The Non-Aggression Principle of libertarianism is simple, but it begs the question. How do we know if an act is aggressive? That depends entirely on who owns the scarce resource on which the act is being perpetrated.

  • On Cultural Appropriation
    by Skyler J. Collins (Editor) on September 29, 2021 at 3:36 pm

    Post by Skyler J. Collins (Editor). I was reminded recently of the silly notion called cultural appropriation. It's silly for two reasons: 1) every culture on Earth is a result of the mixing of previous cultures, and 2) cultural practices are ideas, and ideas cannot be owned.

  • On Property Rights II
    by Skyler J. Collins (Editor) on September 20, 2021 at 7:07 pm

    Post by Skyler J. Collins (Editor). The "Who had it first?" property rights convention solves the artificially created conflicts surrounding so-called "intellectual property" eg. copyrights and patents. Ideas only exist embedded in real, physical items, starting with our brains.

  • On Property Rights
    by Skyler J. Collins (Editor) on September 15, 2021 at 9:55 pm

    Post by Skyler J. Collins (Editor). Property rights aren't a difficult concept to grasp. All it comes down to is, "Who had it first?" It's the very same question we ask children when they're fighting over a toy.

  • On Qualified Immunity II
    by Skyler J. Collins (Editor) on June 15, 2021 at 4:24 pm

    Post by Skyler J. Collins (Editor). Most people are (rightly) held responsible for their destructive actions toward other people or their property. If I damage you in some way, accidentally or intentionally, I am held liable and forced to make amends, be it retribution against me or restitution for you.

  • On Critical Race Theory
    by Skyler J. Collins (Editor) on April 26, 2021 at 3:34 pm

    Post by Skyler J. Collins (Editor). I could be wrong, but everything I've seen and read about Critical Race Theory (and Woke-ism) leads me to believe that at it is fundamentally about making so-called "White" people feel ashamed of the color of their skin.

  • On George Floyd and Derek Chauvin
    by Skyler J. Collins (Editor) on April 23, 2021 at 4:33 pm

    Post by Skyler J. Collins (Editor). The Derek Chauvin trial was an example of authoritarian in-fighting.

  • On Socialism II
    by Skyler J. Collins (Editor) on April 19, 2021 at 4:42 pm

    Post by Skyler J. Collins (Editor). Friedman leveled the poignant question to Burgis on what would happen to he and his friends if they practiced capitalism (one of them hiring the others for a wage) under his socialist system. Predictably, Burgis kept dodging the question.

  • On Racism
    by Skyler J. Collins (Editor) on April 9, 2021 at 8:19 pm

    Post by Skyler J. Collins (Editor). I just read a fantastic essay from 2017 on racism by Slate Star Codex titled, "Against Murderism". I highly recommend it and was intellectually tickled by how it ended.

  • On Individualism
    by Skyler J. Collins (Editor) on April 2, 2021 at 4:04 pm

    Post by Skyler J. Collins (Editor). I'm reading a terrific anthology of individualist thought edited by George H. Smith and Marilyn Moore. One essay was written by Oscar Wilde and focuses on individualism being the least selfish among alternatives. Let me put it this way: I am an individualist first, voluntaryist second.

  • On Exploitation
    by Skyler J. Collins (Editor) on April 1, 2021 at 8:06 pm

    Post by Skyler J. Collins (Editor). There's a very simple test you can apply to determine whether or not a market transaction is exploitative: If the transaction is made voluntarily and offers a better alternative to the parties involved, the transaction is not exploitative; If the transaction is made coercively and offers a worse alternative to one of the parties involved, the transaction is exploitative.

  • On Conversion Therapy
    by Skyler J. Collins (Editor) on October 16, 2020 at 2:40 pm

    Post by Skyler J. Collins (Editor). Radicals on the left and the right want to push youth through their own versions of conversion therapy. The right want to force gay conversion on youths so as to fix their minds to match their bodies. The left want to force body conversion on youths so as to fix their bodies to match their minds. Neither seem interested in helping youth feel comfortable with the minds and bodies they were born with.

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