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David McElroy

An Alien Sent to Observe the Human Race

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If the state didn’t wither away for Marx and Engels, is there really a post-statist era ahead now?

By David McElroy · May 25, 2011

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels famously predicted that the state would wither away after the working class seized power, although we saw in real life that the “dictatorship of the proletariat” created a stronger and stronger state. That’s because Marx and Engels saw the state existing simply to regulate class conflict. Since class conflict was going to be gone — with the “working class” clearly in charge — there would be no state. That was a fantasy at the time.

I keep talking lately about a post-statist world, and it’s time to be a little more specific about what that means. Am I predicting that all governments are suddenly going to cease existing? No, that’s not it. To make my point clear, I’m going to compare it to another controversial assertion that’s been made lately.

Nearly three months ago — following up on something he’d been talking about for nearly a year — Apple CEO Steve Jobs asserted that the computer industry has entered what he called the “post-PC era.” Outraged commentators screamed that he was crazy — because the PC was still the dominant computing device in the market. A few others got it. Eventually, I think everybody will understand what he was talking about.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: apple, charter city, engels, free city, future, libertarian, marx, post-pc, post-statist, seasteading, statism, steve jobs

Tough question: How can we stop humans from killing each other?

By David McElroy · May 24, 2011

According to the Book of Genesis, humans have been killing each other ever since Cain killed Abel out of jealousy. Over the centuries, we’ve gotten very good at it. Individuals kill each other over love and greed and hate and various other emotions and desires. But the most efficient and effective killers have always been governments — as one group justifies its desire to destroy another group and take what it has.

If we’re going to live in a post-statist world where the sprawling nation-state goes away, we’re looking at a future in which independent jurisdictions will be smaller and less homogeneous. It’s a perfect recipe for a continuation of the bloody conflict that’s haunted humanity from the beginning. Are we setting up a return to the feudal warfare of early nation-states?

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: freedom, future, genesis, libertarian, war

Would you have been on a ship? Or back home complaining?

By David McElroy · May 22, 2011

On April 10, 1607, three ships left England with 214 passengers who were the original settlers of Jamestown, Va. When I think about what they faced, I really wonder whether I would have had the guts to get onto my ship.

When I think about the changes that are going to be necessary soon as this world transforms from one based on the nation-state to one based on multiple competing models, I realize that it’s going to be people like those earlier settlers who are going to make the difference.

Change can be very difficult for some people, but even for those of us who embrace and enjoy change, some changes can be scary. The people leaving Europe to come to America in those days were sometimes seeking financial gain and sometimes fleeing oppression. It was a high-risk gamble, because other English groups had tried colonies and failed. Many had died.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: change, future, jamestown, libertarian, statism

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Merlin is a benevolent ruler, but he never lets yo Merlin is a benevolent ruler, but he never lets you forget who is head of the royal household around here. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #merlin2024 #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
Late Tuesday night, Thomas has everybody under obs Late Tuesday night, Thomas has everybody under observation. He’s a little feline spy with a license to kill. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #tabby #tabbycat #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
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Molly examines the latest box from Amazon with an Molly examines the latest box from Amazon with an expert eye and judges it harshly, concluding that it is not up to her high standards. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #greeneyes #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
Merlin took over my camera to use as a pillow toni Merlin took over my camera to use as a pillow tonight. It doesn’t look the least bit comfortable, but he’s been sleeping like this. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #merlin2024 #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
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I’ve never been attracted to skinny women. There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s naturally thin, but it’s never been my preference. What has shocked me, though, is the judgment I’ve heard from women all through my life — about themselves and others — about who’s “fat.” I concluded long ago that most women in our culture have been brainwashed to believe that skinny is attractive — and that anything other than skinny is ugly. I first assumed that I was the oddball — for preferring women with bigger and heavier bodies — but I’m coming to the conclusion that most men naturally feel this way to one extent or another. I just ran across new research by a couple of Northwestern University psychology professors that shows that women seriously overestimate how much a straight man will be attracted to a skinny woman. In a perfect world, we would all be at a healthy weight, but when it comes to attractiveness, too heavy is more attractive than skinny. At least to me — and to a lot of men, too.

Years ago, I heard a question that seemed very insightful at the time. You’ve probably heard it, too. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? The question is intended to help you uncover things you really want to do, but which you’re afraid to try — for fear of failure. In an interview today, I heard the great marketing guru Seth Godin give a different point of view. He said the better question is to ask what you would do even if you knew it would fail. That struck me as far more insightful than the original version. We ought to be doing what we know is right, not what will maximize our success or praise from others. There are some battles that are worth fighting even if you believe you’re doomed to failure. Those battles are often for love or important ideas or our children. Some things are simply worth fighting for — and the truth is that you might win anyway. Do the right thing. Take the chance.

The more I understand about myself, about human nature and about the nature of reality, the more I realize I’m a radical by the standards of both Modernism and Postmodernism. Seeing the things which I’m stumbling toward makes me an enemy of many of the core ideas upon which contemporary culture is built. It exposes the culture as a monstrous lie — like a dangerous infection that’s slowly destroying what human were created to be. My “inner observer” has always known that truth was found in the ideas of the Enlightenment, but I’m slowly finding words to explain what has merely been instinct until now. The Enlightenment was humanity’s great leap forward, but shallow and arrogant thinkers for the next two centuries threw away the fruits of that achievement. We can’t go forward as a species until we go back to correct this intellectual and spiritual error — and part of that is acknowledging that our collective attempts to do away with our Creator will always fail.

I’ve come to believe that some of us — including me — aren’t very good at knowing how to be happy. I don’t mean that in the sense that happy talk and positive thinking should be able to make us happy regardless of the circumstances. I mean that some of us had so much experience with being unhappy when we were young that we were trained to be unhappy — and that being happy is an unconsciously uncomfortable thing. When I look at times in my past when I should have been happy, it rarely lasted. I believe now that I found reasons to be unhappy — and caused real problems for myself — because being comfortable and happy felt so foreign to my programming. If I’m right, this means that some of us have to do more than just change our circumstances. It means we have to learn how to accept the happiness that we unconsciously fear we don’t deserve.

After I wrote last night about being happy, I thought of an old song that mirrored what I was feeling. After listening to the entire album, I found it remarkable how well the emotions of that music match my own heart at this point in my life. Bob Bennett’s “Matters of the Heart” came out while I was in college. Even after all these years, it holds up really well, and you can listen to the entire album on YouTube. The specific song which matched my feelings last night was “Madness Dancing,” but I still find every song on the album to be strong with the exception of the eighth and ninth. (The song about his parents, called “1951,” is especially poignant.) In fact, the opening and closing songs paint a picture of my heart at its best now in these lines: “A light shining in this heart of darkness, A new beginning and a miracle, Day by day the integration of the concrete and the spiritual.” It’s old music that you’ve probably never heard, but it means a lot to me.

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