In the long run, the grand battles of human society are won not by military strength, but by ideas. It is ideas in the politician’s mind which determine whether or not he declares war, and thus makes a show of military strength in the first place. It is ideas which are used by various groups and political interests to introduce and solidify a preferred way of thought in the next generation of thinkers, social leaders, business leaders, and political leaders. Governments place a premium on the control and flow of ideas among those they govern, private companies spend substantial sums on finding new ways to tell us that their own products are better than those of their competitors, and religious belief systems are great sets of interconnected and interdependent ideas which aim to provide believers with an emotionally comforting understanding of their place in the world and a convincing argument that death is not the end of life. Ideas, in other words, determine how we see the world around us, and how we see ourselves, in all respects, and it is our understanding of the world around us and our understanding of ourselves which determine how we choose to act, and thus, how society evolves. (pp. 3-4.)
Anarchism is a system which has no formally-recognized method of distributing property ownership. It is, rather, a system in which each person can acquire as much property as he is able to acquire, whether by moral means such as voluntary trade, or by immoral means such as theft, and he is able to keep it and make use of it according to his will (that is, he owns it) only so long as he does not voluntarily give or trade it away, or, by his own wits and resolve, he can defend it from being forcibly taken or destroyed by another. No system of government exists to define what is to be considered legal ownership of property and what is not, or to defend against and punish for an illegal acquisition of property. Under anarchism, people themselves can be treated according to the same criteria as other types of property, and there is no system of protection against this in the society: if a person can force others to submit to his will and be slaves, then such people will be his slaves, i.e., he will own them as property, so long as they are not able to find a way to free themselves, or others do not steal the slaves from him, or free them, or the slaves do not die. (p. 31.)
Finally, the reason for this discussion regarding the differences between individuals which are based on genetically-determined mental characteristics, life histories, congenital traits, and pure luck, which reason was alluded to earlier, is to reinforce the point that even under the hypothetical situation where all possible social oppression has been completely eliminated, there will still be differences, sometimes substantial, in the amounts of personal wealth and achievement between different individuals, as a result of the differences between people which are not based on social oppression. In other words, the anti-capitalist criticism that “large” or “substantial” differences in wealth are always the result of corrupt or criminal activity, and that therefore any such differences must be forcibly eliminated by wealth redistribution, is incorrect. Under the system that we have specified, in which there is no social oppression at all, and everyone is free to develop himself and use his economic resources as he sees fit, and feels safe and secure in the acquisition of such resources, the differences in wealth between different people which would develop as a result of these other differences between individuals would be morally just, if the terms “moral” and “just” are to have any meaning at all, and thus it would be the responsibility of society, and of the legal system, to protect these differences, to the extent that they are maintained by the owners themselves as the owners continue to make use of the resources in their possession and to acquire more through voluntary trade, rather than to eliminate these differences by redistribution, which would be an arbitrary infringement on the property rights of the owners, and thus would be an introduction back into society of social oppression. In other words, inequality of wealth is a natural outgrowth of a free society – that is, inequality of wealth is a natural outgrowth of a society in which there is no social oppression – and any political fight to eliminate inequality of wealth as such will arbitrarily infringe upon the property rights of many people, and will also entitle many other people to wealth which they did not earn because it was acquired by first stealing it from others, and so such redistributionist efforts will greatly damage society. In fighting to eliminate social oppression by cracking down on inequality of wealth, it is crucial to remember that not all differences of wealth between individuals are the result of immoral or corrupt activity, and to ensure that in working to eliminate the inequalities of wealth which are the result of immoral or corrupt activity, we do not also eliminate inequalities of wealth which are due to legitimate acquisition of economic resources on the open market. If we have a strong emotional stake against those who have wealth because, e.g., we have suffered for lack of it, then it is very easy to latch onto the emotionally comforting and reassuring idea that we are deserving of some of this wealth, and those who have it are deserving of it no more than we are. This belief then allows us to conclude that it is right and just to, for example, lobby the government to pass a law that forces redistribution of a part of this wealth. It is much more difficult, especially for those for whom the emotional stakes are high, to, e.g., admit that perhaps some, and perhaps a lot, of the wealth which the wealthy in society have acquired has been acquired by moral – legitimate, honest – means, because such admission is too easily akin to capitulation to the political enemy. For such people it is also more difficult to analyze the existing economic environment honestly and, from the information thus gathered, try to make more concrete determinations of which wealth has been acquired by legitimate and which by illegitimate means, and often it is impossible, or practically impossible, in any given case to do this even with a sound understanding of the core socioeconomic ideas. But if we want to preserve and expand individual freedom in society, and to eliminate any and all traces of social oppression, then we cannot ignore the difference between wealth acquired morally and wealth acquired immorally, and in fact maintaining an appreciation of the significance of this difference is something we should weave deeply into our understanding of the socioeconomic world around us. Doing so will only benefit us in the long run. (pp. 47-48.)
... the capitalist implementation will, over time, better satisfy the needs of consumers, workers, and owners. But what this means is that over time, in the capitalist arrangement, fewer and fewer people will feel the need to arbitrarily infringe on the person or property of others in order to satisfy a felt need, because, over time, more and more people’s diverse needs, desires, and interests will be satisfied, and to an ever greater degree, by the honest and morally just method of capitalist production. This will result in a continuing reduction in crime, as well as ever greater international cooperation and international economic interdependence. Individuals and nations will be able to get more of what they want by honest and open trade than was the case previously, because there is more capital to go around and greater attention is paid by those with direct power of disposal over capital resources to what each individual or nation happens to need. As the methods of production become more efficient over time as a result of the mental division of labor and market competition between companies, i.e., as a result of the spread of capitalist ideals, we will see a gradual reduction in war, and in crimes against humanity, as more people and nations over time find ways to get what they want by trade instead. And if we, as individuals or as nations, can get what we want by honest trade without going to war or committing crimes against humanity, then we will, because doing so poses much less risk to ourselves as individuals and as nations than the alternative. And as a result of the spread of capitalist ideals to other nations, and the efficiencies which would thus be created in the economic production of those nations, these other nations would then have more capital resources themselves with which to trade on the global open market, which would only serve to reinforce in their minds the idea that going to war to achieve their goals is both wasteful and unnecessary. Furthermore, this wealth will have been acquired through the process of honest production, meaning no one was arbitrarily infringed upon in order to acquire it, and this means that the negative repercussions which accrue to a nation or a person for arbitrarily infringing upon the person or property rights of others will not accrue, and in fact the opposite will happen: if the nation or individual shows honesty and integrity in their dealings with others on the open market, then others will begin to think of the nation or individual as beneficial to themselves rather than as threatening. As a result, cooperative economic, political, and social bonds will be strengthened, and so will become that much more ingrained in global cultural practices.
Of course, a change of this magnitude cannot happen overnight. And, of course, there are many forces which work to prevent it from happening, and which are, and which have been throughout human history, quite powerful – forces which seek to limit or snuff out individual freedom, i.e., to arbitrarily infringe on the person or property of others, because these forces personally benefit from doing so. But the point is that a future in which there is great global economic interdependence, maximum individual freedom, minimal crime, no war, and a continuing increase in social prosperity and individual wealth and happiness is not an unrealistic or impracticable goal. It is very much within the realm of achievability, because it is based on nothing other than a rational analysis of human nature and the human condition, and an honest effort to find real solutions to our problems. As with any scientific undertaking, as we investigate and try to understand the patterns and principles by which a complex system, such as the human mind, or human society, works, we will make many mistakes and draw many wrong conclusions. But eventually, as long as we are given access to the system itself to continue observing it, gathering data about it, and thinking about it (and, in fact, we have access to a human mind, our own, all the time, as well as access to human society all the time since we live within it), then our understanding of the complex system or systems in question will grow and eventually mature. In the case of human society, it is the conclusion drawn from an already-existing long intellectual tradition that the capitalist method, and only the capitalist method, of structuring socioeconomic activity will achieve this goal of global peace and prosperity, and, further, that all other proposed systems will not only not achieve this goal but instead will actively move us in the opposite direction. (pp. 58-60.)
Now consider the kind of government which one would expect to see if the ownership of the means of production were arranged along socialist lines. All the economic resources would be at the ultimate disposal of the central authority. Recall the list of examples of economic resources which was given a couple of paragraph ago. This is just a small list of examples, but it includes many sources of critical consumption goods, such as clothing, shelter from the elements in the form of housing, food, medicine, medical supplies for emergency medical care, and others, and this is not to mention all the other less critical consumption goods which derive from the same and other productive sources. He who has control of such resources has control, literally, of the life and death of his people. He can call them up in a draft and force them to fight and die in a war which the vast majority of citizens do not want; he can force all musicians and artists to produce only art which is not critical of him and his economic leadership; he can arrest, detain, torture, imprison, or execute any citizen for saying anything critical of his choice of method in economic production, or for any perceived act of insubordination; he can make use at his pleasure of the bodies and the labor of all citizens, directing them to any enterprise or activity he chooses, at any time; and he can grant privilege to any citizen he chooses at his whim, for any purpose, and according to whatever criteria he desires, and can keep anyone oppressed whom he wants to keep oppressed, so that the possibility of rising to a better existence in such a society is complete disconnected from the amount of hard work and effort one puts into creating, building, and achieving. He can do all these things because he has ultimate right of disposal of all economic resources: he has the economic resources necessary to build and maintain an army and a secret police to enforce his will and the economic resources necessary to crush rebellions (as an example, consider the Kulaks in Soviet Russia under Stalin). He has the power to do all these things, and more, because he has ultimate control of all economic resources, and it is the economic resources themselves which a person needs in order to enact his will in the world. He has the power to, for example, withhold food, or shelter, or clothing, or medicine, from any who oppose or criticize him or his regime, until they either fall back in line or die from starvation, exposure to the elements, or lack of medical attention.
What, then, is this ultimate owner of all economic resources, but the leader of a totalitarian government? What, then, is an economic planning board, but a central governing authority? In fact, this is the precise form of government to be expected under socialism. And, as with capitalism, there is an inherent, and necessary, connection between the form of government which develops in a society and the method of arranging the ownership of the society’s economic resources, that is, the ownership of the means of production. If economic resources are arranged so that a single, central authority has the ultimate right of disposal of all of them, then a totalitarian government necessarily develops, because he who has control of the economic resources can bend everyone else to his will. One may say that not literally every leader would become tyrannical even with control of all economic resources, but to the extent this true it is only true in exceptional circumstances. Also, as discussed more below, this is not the only problem with socialism, though it does tie in with the other problems, since all key aspects of a particular socioeconomic system imply and reinforce each other. (pp. 63-64.)
Central banking is interesting partly because it has a double nature, though one part of this double nature is its core while the other part is only a mask. Central banking is banking, and so its primary and most obvious characteristic is that it deals with money. Money is seen as eminently capitalist, and so the simplistic conclusion is drawn that central banking is capitalist. In particular, the Far Left critics of capitalism usually associate what they understand to be capitalism with centralized state authority or tyranny, including imperialistic and colonialistic tendencies, practices, and historical occurrences, and see multinational corporations as inherently tyrannical, imperialistic, and colonialistic. They rightly point out that certain groups of financiers and businessmen, in combination with and under the aegis of various government officials and politicians, have caused substantial war, destruction, and genocide, in many countries around the world, for their own personal benefit over the past 100+ years. Central state authority and tyranny is, to them, synonymous with the centralized, tyrannical control of money, and they describe the whole arrangement as capitalistic, or as the capitalist/imperialist/colonialist system. Capitalism, to them, is not separate from imperialism, colonialism, and tyranny. Now, without even considering the fact that the general leftist approach to how an economy should be structured and managed envisions a substantial role for central government in pumping money into the economy via Keynesian spending, i.e., massive stimulus programs, and that the funding for such massive spending can only come from a central banking arrangement’s ability to counterfeit money for the purpose of purchasing government debt, which viewpoint would then contradict, and make hypocritical, the belief of the Far Left, to the extent that this belief is even coherent among them, that centralized monetary control is a bad thing, we are still left with the fact that it is centralized monetary control. At this point we should remind ourselves what socialism is. Socialism is the centralization of the ownership of the means of production under the control of a state authority. In describing socialism, then, have we not also just described central banking? True, the specific details of the arrangement in any given society and culture will vary – in some cases, central monetary control will be directly in the hands of the central government’s treasury department, while in others it will be in the hands of a pseudo-private banking entity which we are told is a completely separate entity without government control or influence, and in still others it will be some combination of the two. The particular details of the arrangement of central monetary control in a particular nation and culture at a particular time will reflect what those who architected the arrangement, and who expected, and who continue to expect, to benefit most from it, needed, and continue to need, to tell and show the public of that nation and culture in order to convince them that the effort to centralize monetary control is beneficial to the public and therefore should be allowed to exist and continue. In the case of the Fed in America, it was important that the architects tell the American public that the institution they were proposing was a private bank, and not a government-controlled bank or a department of the government, and to structure the bank’s physical locations and appearance, the statements made about it in the media and propaganda, and other details, in a way which reflected the idea that the institution was a private entity, because American cultural values, due to our historical desire to escape from state-sponsored religious and political tyranny in Europe, were such that centralization of government power was seen as something to be deeply mistrusted. And so we, in the present, have inherited the idea which the architects of the Fed wanted us to inherit – that the central bank is a private entity, and independent of government control. But even though this is true to a degree, it is important to note that the central bank, which has sole legal authority to issue new money (i.e., to do that which, if any of us were to do it, would be called counterfeiting money), cannot exist without government support and privilege, which in the case of the Fed takes the form of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which authorized the bank, and, crucially, its legal ability to counterfeit money, to exist in the first place. And with sole legal authority to counterfeit money, which legal authority, to repeat, is given to it and supported by federal government legislation, the central bank is legally able to create new money out of thin air for direct use by the federal government, either by issuing new bills or, as is more commonly done today, by the purchase of government debt which is perpetually rolled over (so, effectively, the government does not have to pay back the money), which new money is well above and beyond what the federal government at any given time is able to obtain via taxation, which is subject to stringent political constraints. The federal government, then, is able to finance political and military projects which it would never be able to finance without this issuance of new money. (pp. 239-41.)
In a socialist system, there is no possibility of a competing producer rising and stealing market share. It does not matter how many people do not approve of the current producer’s policies or actions if these people do not have, either individually or collectively, the resources with which to encourage or enact change, or to even complain outloud about the problem. There is considerable irony here. Often those who complain about immoral corporate activity tell us that such activity occurs because capitalism is an inherently corrupt system which should be eradicated and replaced with socialism, and this is supposed to eradicate immoral activity because companies, being the source of immoral activity, will no longer have resources or power to do anything corrupt. But the people who complain in this way can only complain at all because they do so in the context of a socioeconomic system which operates according to capitalist principles. The world, and economic production, was not always capitalist. It is not reasonable to say that we should eradicate capitalism simply because the ideals of freedom which underlie capitalist activity have not yet spread across the entire globe and have not yet solved the problems created by the earlier arrangements which were based on tyranny. Today’s world has inherited substantial baggage from the past. Also, the human psyche has, in numerous ways, strong aversion to change. It will take time for freedom to spread, as it has taken substantial time already up to this point, and there are many who will resist this spread, because it threatens their privileged position in present society, or because they misunderstand and misperceive the value of it. But the extremist position, i.e., the position which says we should raze capitalism to the ground and implement full socialism, or full anarchism or syndicalism, is not the answer to society’s problems, no matter how desperately some might wish it was. It is a great emotional release to envision the implementation of a radical, immediate, and all-round solution to our personal problems, a solution that, in one fell swoop, takes care of everything for us, i.e., relieves us at once of all burdens, pressures, and constraints, heals all our wounds, makes our failures and flaws distant and irrelevant, and exacts appropriate and lasting revenge on all our enemies. And when we find a ready-made ideological system, such as that of socialism or anarchism or syndicalism, which seems to provide the very answers we are looking for in a neatly-wrapped and colorful package, and, what is more, seems to tell us that we are right to seek to harm those whom we envy, we latch onto this ideological system tightly and desperately, and in the process we place severe constraints on our ability to think rationally – we do not let ourselves question any part of our new belief system, because doing so opens painful wounds. This is no different from those Christians who defend a strict, literal interpretation of the creation story in Genesis, or seek to show why every last statement in the Bible must be true literally. They do this because they do not have the inner confidence which would allow them to see things more clearly, to accept that Biblical scripture can still be relevant and useful in life even if not everything which was written is literally true. For them, if even the smallest statement in Biblical scripture is shown to be untrue, the validity of the entire Scripture is brought into question. This is a very rigid, very fragile way of looking at things. It prevents the person from seeing that the Bible is a collection of stories, accounts, and ideas written by many people over the course of about 1500 years, and that it, like all other historical or classic texts, can be used as a guide to help us understand life in the past, and human nature, but that it is unreasonable to conclude that everything written in the Bible must, or should, be literally true. The historical way of viewing the Bible provides more depth and context, and therefore allows us to understand it rationally, which understanding, further, is not fragile and not rigid, but rather is much more able to change, adapt, and grow in order to become better, sounder, and more complete. A rational approach to understanding something is like the Sword of Gryffindor, which only takes in that which makes it stronger – i.e., which is willing and able to change for the better and which naturally resists change that weakens it, and so is able, over time, to repeatedly improve upon itself.
A belief system, on the other hand, which places band-aids on emotional wounds without addressing their root cause will only grow more rigid and more fragile over time, and will require ever-greater amounts of mental energy to protect and to safeguard against rational criticism, which, in turn, means that rational thought itself will continue to be rejected to an ever-greater degree over time. It is like a lie – if you tell a lie, you have to defend it forever, and there is substantial mental energy involved in such defense, which is why it is often a great relief to finally tell the truth. An ideological belief system which helps us ignore the unpleasant aspects of reality rather than come to terms with them is a lie that we tell ourselves. It is also a lie we tell to each other, the better to reinforce the supposed truth of the lie in our own minds. The real truth can be harsh and bitter, but this disagreeable sensation is itself the beginning of the healing process, and once we do heal we are stronger for the experience, and more able to face life’s greater challenges. The establishment and preservation of freedom in society and the effort to grow and spread freedom into a world still rife with tyranny – these are the greatest challenges of all. It would be quite a shame if, simply through willful ignorance, we chose not to muster the strength, while we still have the chance, to meet these challenges. (pp. 294-96.)
This brings us to the main point. All these men, Putin, Xi, Kim, and many more in the same position, are acting self-defense. But it is not justified self-defense. This is because they are acting to preserve a state of affairs which allows them to arbitrarily infringe on the person and property of others, specifically, of their own fellow citizens, but, directly and indirectly, those of other nations as well. Since arbitrary infringement is the defining characteristic of that which is immoral, then the self-defense of these men, so far as it is self-defense of their ability to arbitrarily infringe on their own people or on people of foreign nations, is immoral, and therefore is not justified. It is, therefore, justified to seek peaceful ways, as the situation allows for, to help liberate these people who live under tyranny or the credible threat of tyranny or greater tyranny – through the spread of the ideals of freedom, through economic cooperation and investment, through the promotion of and high valuation of rational discourse, and through the tearing down of central banking around the world, which is the primary source of funding for large-scale conflict. It is also justified to take action to forcibly strip these people of their arbitrary power in order to preserve freedom, i.e., to use non-peaceful methods, as the situation allows, in justified self-defense, that is, defense of individual and societal freedom, against them; in fact, if we do not do this, such people will only continue extending their reach.
One more point should be made here, and it is that there is a deep tie between war and insecurity. When we as humans feel insecure, we are much more subject to irrational swings of emotion – this is the built-in evolutionary fall-back in our brains which provides us the certainty we need when we feel deeply uncertain about a critical situation but do not have the knowledge, mental tools, mental stability, or environmental or socioeconomic circumstances necessary in order to view things in a rational light, and certainty is needed so that we can take decisive action to preserve ourselves – i.e., to ensure that we survive. The survival instinct itself was built over hundreds of millions of years in our evolutionary predecessors and is something we have largely inherited.
On the other hand, when we have a sound, rational understanding of the world, and when we feel as though the society in which we live does not pose a threat to us if we act honestly, but, in fact, promotes and encourages such behavior, we feel a deeper sense of inner self-confidence, which then quells the violent swings of emotion and thus reinforces our ability to think rationally, and, by doing so, perpetuates, and strengthens, the entire cycle – with our rational ability reinforced, we see the world that much more clearly, we continue to achieve and to grow honestly, we see that others around us are doing the same, and these honest achievements, in the context of a free society, once again reinforce and strengthen our sense of inner self-confidence, which, in turn, further reduces the need for violent swings of emotion, which then continues strengthening our rational capacity. On the other hand, if we act dishonestly, if we arbitrarily infringe on the person and property of others in order to benefit ourselves, we will create grudges and anger in others, which will then make things more dangerous for ourselves, and will force us to expend greater energy in defending ourselves from attack, whether direct or indirect. Our sense of safety and security will diminish, because our trust in others and their intentions and plans will have diminished, and this increased uncertainty will make it that much easier to fall prey to violent swings of emotion in order to survive – the survival instinct raises its head to a greater degree the more we feel threatened by those around us. But when this happens, it decreases our ability to see things in an honest light – which light would tell us that we are wrong to arbitrarily infringe on the person and property of others, because others are no less deserving of control over their own lives than we are of ours, and no less deserving of a sense of safety and security than are we. The survival instinct, rather, tells us that we are more deserving of these things than others, and in fact, others are not deserving at all if they do anything which is perceived as threatening to us. This is a necessary facet of the survival instinct, because if we did not have a strong drive to think this way when faced with nontrivial threats, we would have died out as a species a long time ago. But when this survival instinct is frequently triggered, and especially when it continues to be triggered to greater degrees over time, our thought patterns will be strongly affected by it. Under such circumstances, it becomes very easy for a powerful leader of a nation to justify an invasion of a foreign nation, in order to try to meet and eliminate a substantial threat to himself, even if the foreign nation or its leaders do not pose any threat to the people of his nation. On the other hand, when a person lives in a free society, where the bonds of cooperation and trust continue to be strengthened because there are proper checks and balances between all sources of power in society, the person is able to continue seeing things more clearly over time, and in doing so the person perceives that his life continues to get better over time, and that he continues to feel safe and secure. Different people living in a free society will recognize and acknowledge this to different degrees, but enough people will do so that safety, security, prosperity, and happiness in such a social system will at least have a good chance of persisting – that is, the social system will have a good chance of not devolving into tyranny.
But, then, this is the undercurrent, the primary purpose, of the entire debate about socioeconomic systems – i.e., the question of how we ensure that a free society can be established, spread, and perpetuated. It is no coincidence that capitalism ties logically to limited, representative government. It is also no coincidence that capitalism is the objective, that is, rational, answer to the question, how do we structure economic activity so that it builds, promotes, sustains, and continues to strengthen freedom in society? Rationality is about what is, not about what we wish was the case. When we acknowledge the truth of what is, we are that much more able to continue seeing what is, and to do so a greater degree than we did before, which then continues further reducing our need for violent swings of emotion to provide ourselves with certainty – since, over time, the certainty which we need is provided more and more by a rational understanding of the world, which is a better foundation for our actions, that is, a better foundation for a sense of certainty in our minds, than a rigid, fragile, and one-dimensional emotional extreme. This then further reduces the chance that we will feel the need to arbitrarily infringe on the person or property of others, including by means of making war, in order to get what we desire, since we continue to understand to a greater degree over time that our wants and needs can be better satisfied by peaceful economic and interpersonal means. The deeper sense of inner self-confidence which such an emotional and mental progression leads to and reinforces also means that we are more willing to acknowledge the power and influence, skills, talents, wealth, etc., of others, and to not feel threatened by these things in others, but, rather, to be happy for them that they have these things. It means also that we are more willing to voluntarily step down from a position of political authority when a different leader is elected by honest means, since we would have a more rational, and thus deeper, understanding of the value of term limits in preserving freedom. A deep sense of inner insecurity and uncertainty, on the other hand, make us more prone to be envious of others, and to lash out at them for being better, more skilled, more talented, wealthier, etc., than we are, and to hate and seek revenge on them for being or having these things. It also makes political leaders refuse to give up power, to feel more personally threatened by term limits, and to skew and twist their understanding of the value of term limits in the preservation of freedom; such people seek ways to consolidate and extend their arbitrary power instead.
We have a basic formula, then, which can be derived from this discussion, and which it would behoove us to always keep in mind, namely that capitalism, rationality, peace, representative government, cooperative action and mutual trust, and a progressively deepening inner self-confidence within each us as individuals living among our fellow humans all coincide, and mutually reinforce each other in society, while socialism, irrationality, war, totalitarian government, divisiveness and deep mutual distrust between us, and deep inner insecurity and uncertainty within each of us as individuals also all coincide, and mutually reinforce each other in society. War on the part of the offending nation, then, is an expression of deep inner insecurity, while peace is an expression of deep inner self-confidence. War on the part of the offending nation is an expression of irrationality, based on the survival instinct and the rejection of all rational criticisms of it, while peace is an expression of rational thought and through rational thought the recognition of the basic right to safety, security, and opportunity for everyone. It is irrationality and insecurity, for example, which makes people mislabel capitalism as fascist – i.e., which makes people latch onto a false, but emotionally comforting and reassuring, belief or association, which belief or association is due to the survival instinct that rises in their minds as a result of insecurity combined with a rejection of all rational criticisms of the belief or association.
It is crucially important to understand the basic ideas properly. If we do not, it is all too easy to fall prey to violent swings of emotion which align various ideas that are unrelated to each other or that are opposites of each other, and to conclude that there is some kind of connection between them. It is much harder to think rationally about these complex ideas than it is to give into a violent emotional extreme, which is often much more emotionally satisfying in the short term. But, in fact, it is deeper rational thought, and only this, which can force us to realize just how easy it is for humans to destroy ourselves and our future while the whole time fervently believing that we are saving the world from destruction. (pp. 299-303.)
It is a natural tendency of tyrants or would-be tyrants to either manufacture, assist in manufacturing, or take opportunistic advantage of crisis and change, in order to expand their control and reach. The world is changing rapidly today and is faced with many crises, some of them global. It is, therefore, no surprise that we see tyrants and other malcontents (i.e., would-be tyrants) also taking advantage of these opportunities to maintain, and if possible increase, their own power. This is based on a natural reaction to change in all of us – change increases uncertainty, because it makes it harder for us to know which actions to take to continue moving forward in our lives, and it makes the world around us, and our place in the world, less clear to us, and our worldly context less meaningful. But change can also break us out of ruts which perpetuate many of our problems, by providing or pointing to solutions we would not have thought of otherwise. Change is a double-edged sword. It makes sense, therefore, to do our best to learn how to recognize and accept the types of change which are beneficial to us, both as individuals in the short term and as individuals in the context of society in the longer term, as well as how to recognize the types of change which are damaging or potentially damaging to us so that we can take the necessary measures to avoid them or prevent them from happening. The mindset of insecurity and rigidity makes it much harder to properly recognize and separate beneficial changes from detrimental changes, because it makes it much harder for us to think about the world around us in a clear, objective light. On the other hand, the mindset which results from inner self-confidence makes it easier to recognize the difference between these two types of change, because when we are more secure in ourselves, there are fewer truths which are too unpleasant for us to accept objectively, and so in general there are more truths about the world which we are willing to accept directly and squarely, even if they are unpleasant to us, since we recognize the value of doing so. And the greater the number of unpleasant objective truths we accept, the more complete our rational understanding of the world becomes, which, in turn, means that we will be that much better able to distinguish between beneficial and detrimental changes when the need to do so arises again in the future.
The insecure mindset, on the other hand, is based on an extremist adherence to the survival instinct – that is, a rigid attachment to an extremist way of viewing the world which does not allow for rational criticism of its ideological flaws. This rigid adherence is sometimes necessary, in order to survive immediate life-threatening circumstances, i.e., when it is necessary to act quickly with a minimum of information, and decisive action must be taken in order to survive. This is an animal instinct which we have evolutionarily inherited, and it can be evolutionarily advantageous to us from time to time. Such a mindset, rigid as it is, is one which sees the world around it as disproportionately threatening – after all, in order to be as sure as possible that we have escaped or neutralized or eliminated the threat to our life and legacy, it makes sense to view anything which seems to be even the slightest bit associated, however indirectly, with the threat itself as equally threatening – even if the associations are only coincidental. This view, in turn, makes it more likely that the person will see changes happening around him as more damaging and detrimental to him than is actually the case, which will then reinforce his adherence to his rigid view of the world, which will then make it more likely that he will, eventually, take action to harm others, to arbitrarily infringe on their person or property, out of a sense that he is justified in doing so in order to save himself. This then increases the grudges, the anger, the desire for revenge in those upon whom he infringes, and those who see him as likely to infringe upon them even if he has not done so yet, which then makes him view the world around him as that much more threatening, which then reinforces his rigid viewpoint, and the cycle repeats itself in stronger form. The greater the threat to himself that he perceives, the more willing he will be to use greater, more extreme measures to combat the threat, measures, for example, such as solidifying and further centralizing political and economic control in his nation, eliminating term limits, invading another country, etc.
A secure mindset, on the other hand, is one which will be more able to see the beneficial aspects of the changes happening around it and find ways to accommodate itself to such changes in the way or ways most useful to itself in achieving its own goals, and one which will have an increasingly sound and increasingly complete rational understanding of the world around it which will continue to reduce its dependence upon mental ruts, and therefore dependence upon the rigidity and inflexibility in thought which would otherwise be needed for emotional protection. For an individual with this mindset, this will reinforce the individual’s creative ability, because the mind is now more open to possibility, and therefore will make it that much easier for the individual to continue solving problems in his or her life, which, in turn, will provide the individual with that much greater of a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment, which then will provide the individual with that much deeper of a sense of happiness, which then reinforces the individual’s inner self-confidence. The cycle at this point has come full circle, and the person is left with that much stronger of a sense of inner self-confidence, which then serves as that much stronger of a foundation for further, and greater, life advancement, achievement, fulfillment, and happiness. In addition, by increasing the individual’s inner self-confidence, this mindset, over time, continues to reduce the sense of threat which this person feels at the achievements of others, and continues to increase this person’s ability to feel happy for the happiness and success of others, because not only is the happiness and success of others not itself actually threatening to the person, but also, due to his increasingly complete rational understanding of the human socioeconomic world, this person understands to an increasing degree that the happier and more fulfilled everyone is, the less likely that tyranny can establish itself in society, and this is good for all of us.
The result is that one mindset perpetuates and reinforces inner insecurity and unstable societal rigidity and inflexibility, while the other mindset perpetuates and reinforces inner self-confidence and stable societal fluidity and flexibility. But the spread of the latter mindset, which has as a natural consequence the tearing down of unjustified power, is equivalent to a growing threat to the former mindset where it still exists in the world, and, per its natural course and cycle, the former mindset will react to this spread in more extreme ways to match the increase in the magnitude of the threat which it perceives, in order to preserve the increasingly threatened unjustified power upon which it stands. The survival instinct, then, is co-opted, and is used as a justification, and an emotional driving force, for the preservation and extension of privilege – that is, of the ability to arbitrarily infringe on the person or property of others in order to benefit the infringer. (pp. 303-306.)
Another example of the drive to tyranny in the animal kingdom is the competition between male monkeys and gorillas for mates, territory, and sources of food in and between their social systems, or between male lions in prides. When these males fight, the females are attracted to those who are bigger, stronger, and more capable in physical combat. It is not surprising, then, that female humans, especially the younger and less experienced (and thus less capable of hiding, redirecting, or more meaningfully reinterpreting their instinctual animal impulses), are sexually attracted to males who do well in sports, all else being equal. When a tyrant gains substantial economic and political power, this is effectively the same thing in a human social system – i.e., physical power, or power which is based on a male’s ability to do things and to force other males to submit. This does not mean that every human female is attracted to every tyrant. The point is that there is a noncoincidental connection between humans and other animals here as a result of the evolutionary process. The drive to tyranny in human society is no different from the drive to dominance by male lions in a pride, or gorillas or monkeys in their social systems, and is also no less instinctual, being based on the same evolutionary source in the brains of the common ancestors of our respective species in our shared phylogenetic history. Being instinctual, the base drive to achieve immortality does not understand limitation or nuance – it is black and white, and will accept nothing less than complete submission of its opponents. The simplistic nature of this drive reflects itself in human society in the efforts of tyrants to achieve complete, absolute, arbitrary dominance, which is the only thing that will fully satisfy the instinctual impulse, and this means that such people will never stop trying to make their dominance complete. This is why tyranny is a sleepless, automatic impulse, while freedom – i.e., the ability of those whom the tyrant seeks to subdue to also achieve fulfillment and happiness for themselves, in spite of the tyrant’s efforts – must be, as each of the lions, monkeys, gorillas, etc., attempts to do when in combat with his competitor, actively protected, or it will be lost completely.
Socialism is a human expression of this animal desire for total dominance of the victor and total submission of the loser. It is nothing but a disguised implementation of the base animal impulse to achieve ultimate dominance over competitors, and thus mating rights and immortality, along with absolute destruction of opponents. Capitalism, on the other hand, takes advantage of the more developed capacity in the human mind for rational thought, which analyzes the human psyche’s strengths and weaknesses, idiosyncrasies, and tendencies, which, due to advancements in the biological sciences, the psyche’s rational capacity understands are based on an evolutionary inheritance, and divides mental labor in order to find the best, i.e., the most creative and efficient, way to structure human society in light of these strengths, weaknesses, idiosyncrasies, and tendencies, so that we minimize the damage done to each individual by this inherent drive to competitive struggle for mates and immortality, and we maximize the benefit attained by each individual in the context of society. It is the greater rational capacity of the human mind itself, that is, the greater capacity for the human mind to see patterns in the world, including patterns in the activity and operations of the human mind itself and patterns in the interactions of many human minds with each other to form a human social system, which allows for and provides the necessary basis for the human mind’s ability to rise above the system of tyranny which we have inherited from our evolutionary past, and find a better way. Tyranny is a powerful impulse in the human psyche because it was not that long ago, in evolutionary terms, that we were no different, psychologically, from all the beasts of the field. This is why tyranny is so difficult to eradicate from modern human society, and why it has plagued all of human history. But since we, as humans, do have the rational capacity necessary to see all the patterns in our own behavior, however difficult such pattern-detection often is, we have the ability to see the pattern of tyranny itself, and, thus, to step outside and above it. Quite a few generations before us have fought this fight, and have faced these often unpleasant truths about human existence for the sake of creating a fount of freedom for future generations, and for many of these people this struggle has consumed their lives. We should not let this opportunity which they have given us go to waste simply because we do not want to look at or do not want to think about this darker, uglier side of human reality. (pp. 328-330)
It is, in fact, this kind of belief, one which falls short of a fully complete acceptance of human reality, which becomes more and more fragile and rigid over time. The more rationally we accept the world, the more fluid and able our thoughts about the world become. This is, in fact, the source of creativity – an increase in rational understanding of the world means a reduction in the need for biased beliefs about the world, and biased beliefs channel our thoughts along predetermined paths in order to help us avoid facing unpleasant truths. Once we have faced an unpleasant truth honestly, the bias in our minds, i.e., the psychological defense mechanism which prevents us from seeing this unpleasant reality for what it is, is no longer needed, and so it falls away of its own accord, which, in turn, allows us to see the parts of the world, and all interconnections to and from these parts, which the bias heretofore prevented us from seeing, more clearly. In other words, rationality is the fount of creativity, and the idea, commonly believed, that rationality and creativity are opposites of each other, irreconcilably different from and opposed to each other, is incorrect. The argument that rationality is the fount of creativity cannot be refuted by reference to moments of great artistic inspiration in the mind of an artist which produce great works of art, because the moments of inspiration themselves, and the resulting works of art, are nothing but the end result of the effort on the part of the artist to find a solution to a problem in his life, whether or not he can fully articulate the nature of the problem, i.e., they are the end result of the artist’s efforts to find certainty in his life where before he did not have it – i.e., to find patterns of one kind or another – and, therefore, such moments of inspiration and the works of art which they produce are the result of a psychological process leading toward greater rational understanding of the world. If there was no conscious or subconscious expectation in the artist’s mind that solutions, answers, and increased certainty could be found by an artistic effort, the artist’s mind would not feel justified in expending the energy to make the effort in the first place, and so the artist would not be interested in making the effort or inspired to make the effort. For a given work which has been produced, its artist would have certain personal and idiosyncratic reasons for producing it, but whatever the proximal reasons for a particular artist or work of art, in all cases these proximal reasons are tied up with, and ultimately based on, the desire in the artist’s mind to leave a legacy, to find a way to be immortal – to find a way, that is, to conquer death – and the moments of artistic inspiration are simply the moments during which the artist attains a sense of certainty about how to do this.
This is in addition to the fact that the truly great artists, like all great minds, have a natural and powerful desire to know the truth about the world. In seeking answers in the form of moments of artistic inspiration, the artists are seeking at the same time deeper answers about the objective world, and this is what drives the entire artistic process – i.e., the entire effort of artistic creation is an effort to deepen the artist’s rational understanding of the world, because the artist, whether in a fully conscious manner or not, perceives that increasing his rational understanding of the world is the best way to increase his chances of finding happiness and fulfillment, and of leaving a legacy, which amounts to the same thing, before he dies. And, in fact, the truly great artists will have an inkling even early on that rationality equates to creativity, as well as to happiness, and this same inkling can be found in the minds of the truly great scientists, and all truly great thinkers. And over time such individuals will become more and more aware of this connection – because, as with anything in reality, the connection itself is a pattern, and can therefore be understood rationally, i.e., consciously. The artistic effort, then, is no different, fundamentally, from the scientific effort, the philosophic effort, the mathematical effort – it is an effort to find certainty about the world, for the purpose of ensuring one’s survival, happiness, fulfillment, and immortality, and thus is an effort to increase, to as complete a degree as possible, one’s rational understanding of the world. (pp. 341-42.)
The prediction of the technological singularity differs in certain respects from some of these, namely that it predicts at least a possible destruction of humanity rather than the saving of it, though it is similar to others, such as the one based on the Mayan calendar, but note specifically that the prediction of the technological singularity is made in the context of scientific ideas and scientific terminology – not surprising in today’s world, which is one that, at least in the West, and various other places around the world, holds scientific findings and scientific argument in high regard. Perhaps we can also say that the prediction of potential disaster rather than blissful paradise is more appropriate, at least in today’s time, if one wishes one’s argument to appear scientific to the public, since a prediction of blissful paradise, in today’s world, can easily sound overly religious, and thus not scientific – in addition to the fact that there is just the general feeling among large portions of people in today’s global and rapidly changing society that there are many potential dangers in our future, and so it can seem more appropriate, scientifically, for our predictions to match this general feeling. But the underlying principle and emotional usefulness of this prediction is the same as that of the others, viz., that we live in a time which is unique and special, that we are special by extension, and therefore that regardless of any lack of accomplishment on our part as individuals in our own lives, regardless of our failures, flaws, and shortcomings, we still have in some sense been fulfilled and left a legacy. Also it should be noted that, as has been the case throughout human history, predictions of doom and gloom always attract a sizable audience if the prophet puts at least a reasonable amount of energy and thought into how he panders to his audience, into being a good showman, and so there is always an incentive to make these kinds of predictions for the sake of a career and for the sake of having an impact on people and thus leaving a legacy for oneself, and there are therefore always at least some people who will search out and latch onto these opportunities. We cannot say to what degree this particular motive has actuated Kurzweil or Moravec. But, as with any argument which is made or which could possibly be made, its reasonableness or unreasonableness, its truth or falsity, can only be determined by rational analysis. The idea that Moore’s Law can be used as part of a broader argument which predicts a technological singularity in 2045, or in any other year, is, as we have seen, flawed, and therefore it is unreasonable to try to use Moore’s Law to predict such an event, or to make any predictions out beyond a few years, and even these near-term predictions would likely have to be made good at least in part by self-fulfilling prophesy. (pp. 400-401.)
.... We are so used to equating the infinite decimal expansion, which when thought about or written is necessarily finite, typically with an ellipsis at the end which is intended to mean “all the rest of this infinite sequence of numbers,” with the fixed, finite limiting value that our approximate, ellipsized version of the infinite decimal expansion is supposed to represent. But there is a fundamental difference between these two things, the one having an essentially infinite character, the other having an essentially finite character. In fact, the fact that we are already comfortable with such equating in the realm of individual numbers with finite magnitudes makes it that much easier to ignore the logical error in treating the natural numbers in their totality as a finite thing, and makes it that much easier to accept other logically flawed ideas and conceptions beyond this, such as the idea that there could be such a thing as a “limit ordinal,” or that there could be numbers even beyond this. It is important to note again that the concept of a limit itself is not being challenged, and, as we understand from calculus, analysis, differential equations, etc., the concept of a limit is useful in a wide variety of circumstances, and produces correct results. The point here is not to challenge any of these results, but rather to spotlight an essential misconception in certain of our foundational ideas that, while irrelevant to many mathematical pursuits, is nonetheless highly relevant to others, and, in particular, to CH. The logical error which causes the misconception that an infinity, such as the natural numbers, can be treated as if it were a completed entity and manipulated in various ways as such, is the same logical error that leads us to believe that an infinite decimal expansion can be treated as if it were a finite number, rather than as what it is, viz., an infinite sequence of smaller and smaller magnitudes which approaches a finite number, but which never actually reaches it. We may say then that the practical conceptual tool in mathematics of treating an infinity as a finite thing, such as we do in, e.g., integration and differentiation in calculus, has certain bounds of applicability, and within these bounds this equating of an infinity with a finite thing does not interfere with the soundness of our results because our results do not in any way directly or essentially rely upon or make reference to the logical error inherent in such equating, so that this equating is used in such cases solely as a convenience to make mathematical work easier. Another way of saying this is that the process of taking a limit42 involves a smoothing over and ignoring of the logical error of equating an infinity with a finite thing, and that this is acceptable in many circumstances because the practical results of such an operation with regard to things in the real world that we might wish to measure are seen to accord as accurately as we like, subject to the limitations of our scientific tools, to the process of successive finer and finer approximations to a limiting value as expressed formally in the mathematical concept of a limit, and also because a limit itself is nothing but an expression of a pattern that has been found in an infinite sequence. In other words, we do not need to take the actual limit (which is impossible) in the real world which we are measuring and trying to understand, but are able to feel satisfied with a finite, though perhaps highly accurate, approximation, or with the fact that we can see a pattern in the infinite sequence, which then allows us to see whether the sequence approaches a finite number or not, and in the former case to know the finite number which the sequence ever more closely approaches. We then see this high degree of accord between the practical measurements and the idealized mathematical expectations, and, given that such accord is the primary goal in our mathematical pursuits (i.e., in the practice of mathematics we seek, either directly or indirectly, to describe and explain the real world’s essential logical makeup and the behavior of matter within this context), we simply do not think further, or at all, about the essential flaw in equating an infinity with a finite thing, since such considerations in this conceptual and practical context are irrelevant. But because, for powerful emotional reasons, we desire absolute certainty to the extent we can possibly obtain it, we then go back to the underlying mathematics and define things even more precisely with concepts like Dedekind cuts and Cauchy sequences, and this added “precision” makes us feel that much more confident that our equating of infinities with finite things is justified, which then makes it easier in our investigations in other areas to ignore or downplay the significance of this problem.
42 Here “taking a limit” means to “reach infinity” by successive finer and finer approximations, i.e., to finitize infinity, which is a logically erroneous process; this meaning has relevance to the main discussion. But we note here for completeness (and make reference to this at certain points in the main discussion as well) that the reason we may calculate exact numerical values for many limits in calculus is because we notice a pattern that the infinite sequence of numbers we are analyzing conforms to. Once we can recognize the pattern of the number sequence, we can see what the limit value is. This does not mean that the infinite sequence can reach the limit value; only that we have recognized the pattern by which the elements or numbers in the infinite sequence are produced. The same is the case with the natural numbers – we can perceive the pattern by which these numbers are produced, even though there is no total number of elements that it is possible to produce with the pattern. The fact that the natural numbers do not approach a finite number but, e.g., many limits in calculus do, is irrelevant, because in either case the infinite sequence is infinite, and so extends forever without reaching a termination point, i.e., both infinite sequences do not have a termination point – if they did, they would be finite. (pp. 23-24.)
Among set theorists, there are some who propose the idea that multiple versions of set theory, with mutually contradictory sets of axioms, are all correct, each in its own vaguely-defined “universe” in the “multiverse” of set theories. Such an idea is motivated partly by the fact that depending on the axioms one chooses to add to ZFC, CH can be shown to be true, or shown to be false, and there seems to be no way to sort out which one is the “correct” extended version of ZFC – not unlike the irreconcilability of contrasting religious viewpoints. It is, of course, also partly based on the idea from modern quantum mechanics of a superposition of states of a wave function, and the “multiverse” hypothesis that is associated with this concept. However, it is an act of denial to assume that contradictory statements or things can, in any way, coexist in the real world. The world is, and must be, logically self-consistent in its entirety. The multiverse of sets idea is nothing but an attempt by certain philosophers and set theorists to take what appears to be a respectable idea from the most revered of sciences – at least in our time – modern physics, and capitalize on a superficial similarity between the “multiverse” of superposed quantum states and the collection of mutually contradictory versions of set theory. It is thought that perhaps because so many decades have passed without any real progress in understanding CH or in reconciling the mutually contradictory versions of set theory, these mutual contradictions just may be the natural state of things. But this is to blind oneself to a logical contradiction out of the need to find a solution to an ongoing, difficult problem, as well as out of the frustration with not having found a solution yet. The persistence of opaqueness, in this case of the inability to reconcile multiple mutually contradictory sets of ideas that all seem equally correct, or at least whose incorrectness we consistently fail to find a way to prove, is not, and cannot be, the result of the fact that a logical contradiction exists in reality. Such persistence is always the result of a logical error in our own thinking. Instead of trying to find a way to make a logical contradiction logically valid, we need to realize that reality, all of reality, is, and must be, logically self-consistent, i.e., that a logical contradiction cannot exist, precisely because it is a logical contradiction. By locating the source of the logical errors in our thinking, the way to untangle these seemingly impossible knots, to forge through to the other side of these dark and seemingly impenetrable thickets of half-ideas, is rather remarkably laid out before us in short order. Clarity can only come from logical thinking. It can never come from assuming that a logical contradiction is not a logical contradiction. (pp. 58-59.)
It is not enough to say that results such as there being different “levels” of infinity or the idea that the Cantor set is uncountable are simply “counterintuitive but true,” and that we do not understand these results as clearly as we would like to only because of limitations, weaknesses, frailties, etc., in the human mind, i.e., because of human psychological and emotional shortcomings that can impede our full understanding of things, or because we are just not thinking about the results in the “right way.” This is to take the easy way out. Such a conception absolves us of having to explain the seeming paradoxes and contradictions. It is effectively no different from saying that something is the way it is because “God made it that way,” and depending on our particular emotional state and vested emotional interests, it may give us an excuse to not have to dig deep enough to find out that our tower in the sky, on whose peak we stand, is in actuality a flimsy house of cards whose precarious condition we never notice because all we ever do is look up. We must learn to be more humble, to look in all directions instead of just one; in doing so, we become wiser, and thus more aware of our own limitations, but we also find a great deal more of the truth we seek. (p. 64.)
But there is another way in which we may “accept our limitations” with regard to understanding infinity. We do not accept any limitation with regard to our ability to understand infinity. We simply accept our limitation with regard to our inability to overcome mortality. Once we accept this limitation, it becomes much easier to perceive and understand the logical flaws in any part of our thinking, with regard to set theory or anything else, because we no longer fear death, the most unpleasant of all unpleasant truths, in a blindingly powerful emotional way, and thus there is no further reason for the built-in psychological and emotional protection from this knowledge to present an insurmountable obstacle to our deeper rational understanding of the world. Such unconditional protection no longer being needed, it will begin to fall away of its own accord, even as we continue actively pursuing a deeper rational understanding of things and thus actively making it easier for such protection to continue falling away, with the result that we are able to ever more clearly see the objective nature of reality. (p. 135.)
.... Potter is correct in saying that our attempt to collect an infinite number of things together is an example of human hubris, though it is not strictly, that is, not necessarily, hubris in the face of the incomprehensible. For many who may attempt to do this type of collecting, such an aspect of reality may actually be incomprehensible to them. But this is not true for everyone, i.e., it is not constitutively true for the human psyche in general, and this means that the concept of the infinite, when properly understood, is not fundamentally beyond the human brain’s capacity to comprehend. The idea that it is or that it might be, or that a part of it might be, is an indirect and distorted reflection of the sneaking suspicion in our minds that we, in fact, are not able to actually solve the problem of death, that the infinite will forever be beyond our full grasp in certain essential ways. But by simply thinking a little about the actual definition of “infinite,” and how it relates to “finite,” we will find that it is possible to understand what “infinite” is, as is the case for any word whose definition does not contain a logical contradiction. We should add also that it is not just hubris, or an inflated sense of our own capacities or abilities, that makes us think we can finitize the infinite, but also desperation, however indirect and masked to ourselves, to find a way to avoid mortality, which desperation serves as a continually-renewing spring of mental creativity and energy aimed at keeping us as blind as possible to our own insignificance and transience, and as focused as possible on building and maintaining an image of ourselves as special, consequential, and eternal. In fact, the need to overcome mortality is the source for both the hubris and the desperation, and the hubris is an outgrowth of the desperation. (pp. 175-6.)