I'm interested mostly in economics and public opinion, though I often dip into other subjects— otherwise, the monotony would cause me to shrivel up and die.
Music
Aphex Twin, The Beatles, Coheed and Cambria, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Depeche Mode, Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, King Crimson, The Mahavishnu Orchestra, The Mars Volta, Meshuggah, Mogwai, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Rush, Tool, Tortoise, Richard Wagner, Yes, YoungBlood Brass Band, Frank Zappa, John Zorn.
Movies
Directors: Woody Allen, P. T. Anderson, Wes Anderson, Darren Aronofsky, Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, Andrei Tarkovsky, Lars von Trier, The Wachowski Brothers.
Artists: Salvador Dalí, Roger Dean, Carlos Estevez, Shepard Fairey, H. R. Giger, George Inness, Paul Laffoley, Christos Magganas, René Magritte, Syd Mead, Claude Monet, Takashi Murakami.
Television
Cosmos, Firefly, Free to Choose, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Star Trek (especially TOS and DS9), TED, The Twilight Zone.
Books
Authors: Frédéric Bastiat, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Milton Friedman, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Paul Krugman, D. H. Lawrence, Alan Moore, Friedrich Nietzsche, Steven Pinker, Thomas Pynchon, Ayn Rand, Carl Sagan, George Bernard Shaw.
Heroes
Everyone listed above, Benjamin Franklin, Patri Friedman, David Hume, Thomas Jefferson, John Maynard Keynes, Greg Mankiw, mitochondrial Adam and Eve, Ron Paul (but not Chuck Baldwin), Richard Posner, Pythagoras, Herbert Simon, Max Stirner, John Stossel, the ur-organism, E. O. Wilson.
I've been thinking, since there may very well be extra-terrestrial civilizations out there which are centuries, millenia, or even eons more advanced than our own, if I become a scientist &/or engineer &/or mathematician, I'd merely be discovering things that they already know (presumably, although they'd be ignorant of Earth's life, their technology would enable us to scan various organisms & find out all there is to know within moments). So maybe I should dedicate my career to (in addition to helping the informal sector thrive) finding alien intelligence, & then once contact is made, we'd be able to jump ahead at least centuries in all of the sciences. Seems like a much more economically efficient route for R&D.
Btw, I've been meaning to ask, what do you think of Brian Arthur & the Santa Fe Institute's approach to economics? I looked it up, & it sounds interesting, but then I found an article by Krugman (as usual) deflating a myth about Arthur, as well as a negative review of his technology book by someone who's familiar with engineering.
I'm curious, do you know what's been up with Shaunna lately? She seems really crabby, & I also noticed that it used to say on her location "Can't wait to get out of Keene, New Hampshire."
Perhaps. But then again, minarchists have supported candidates like Harry Browne & Mary Rewart. Albeit, Browne was more in the agnarchist category, but you get the point.
If NH ever secedes, you think you could you go from minarchy to anarchy by having anarchists infiltrate city governments & police departments, & then simply allow competitors to emerge by refusing to shut them down? It seems like if you could hold out long enough, the trend towards a market would become irreversable.
The way I interpreted the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is not that culture affects language, but that language affects thought. Thus, if that's the case, perhaps cultural evolution is determined by linguistic evolution, & not the other way around.
Have you ever heard the theory that, based on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, cultural evolution is generated by linguistic evolution? In other words, it's the the thesis that culture changes based on changes in language, since language frames how we look at things.
Also, have you heard the theory that genetic evolution affects the "Collective Mind" & thus leads to social/cultural evolution? In other words, although genetic evolution in human civilization is minuscule, & the changes in the brain are virtually un-noticeable, what if those small changes in individuals end up having a big impact on collective cognition? According to this view, while there are virtually no cognitive differences between various human populations on an individual level, the collective minds of these populations could have huge differences.
And have you seen Jame's Burke's Connections? He presents the hypothesis that technology is the primary driving force behind social/cultural evolution, as people tailor their beliefs to their economic conditions.
Thats crazy. I still don't understand what is in Nh. Yeah I really liked the winter minus the danm Ice storms. Thats cool I will have to find out where keen actualy is and come down.
I alluded to this in a thread titled "The Biological State," but didn't really emphasize it, but I think it makes a great point against reformist approaches to libertarianism. Put simply, the Law of Supply & Demand as applied to government, combined with Rational Irrationality, leads to the conclusion that people will always demand more government programs.
In other words, in a market, demand is ultimately limited by how much money consumers have. However, when you don't need to be rational in the purchasing decisions that you support, & you don't lose money as a result of your support, demand for government goodies will go through the roof, limited only by what people think is possible, & politicians will supply what they can for political expedience.
This also applies to laws & regulations which supposedly make our lives better. Granted, RI also means that it's easier to reject government goodies for moral reasons, but ultimately, who doesn't want goodies?
