Two blogs I just discovered that I should have begun reading earlier are The Daily Burkeman1 and Left Conservative, both of somewhat paleo orientation. Two interesting posts from the latter are Immigration v. Non-interventionism and the single issue sweepstakes in which Latin American immigration is linked to problems in the emmigrants’ countries which are in turn linked to U.S foreign policy (I would highlight the drug war), making it in the end a form of “blowback” (I think relevant in light of recent events), and Reason Magazine, Populism and Ron Paul: An essay on the idiocy of the “libertines”, in which Paul, David Duke and Jesse Jackson are all saluted for their anti-establishment principles.
On an unrelated note, Chip Smith continues bringing back material from the print edition of the Hoover Hog (previously discussed here), with the latest entitled Race-Baiting on the Brink of Apocalypse, discussing Jean Raspail’s Camp of the Saints and the work of William Luther Pierc, most importantly the Turner Diaries. A review of Saints and a general discussion of the old paranoid “invasion literature” from a Spanish perspective is given by Michael Gilson de Lemos here (if anyone knows what he’s referring to by “Triage” and “Trio”, let me know). Elsewhere Chip points out that the other Smith (Bradley, author of this non-Shoah related book) has a blog devoted to asking Holocaust believers to name one victim of the gas-chambers and give proof. Being only an amateur believer who accepts the conventional wisdom of experts as Bryan Caplan would advise, I cannot do so, but I did suggest The Nizkor Project and Real Open Debate on the Holocaust as places where skeptical questions may be answered. As long as we’re on the subject of revisionism and WW2, “thorough-going revisionist” Mark Brady says based on early reviews that Nicholson Baker’s Human Smoke fails to make the case that needs to be made.
A theory I find even less plausible than that there were only about 300,000 Jews in Europe or that nearly 6 million fled during the Third Reich is proposed by Hopefully Anonymous here. He ponders why the religious are focused on immortality whereas more scientifically inclined folks are skeptical even of atheist transhumanists and suggests that Jesus and other religious leaders “consciously (though non-transparently) created constituents for their future technology-based ressurection”. In the comments I scoff and give a hat-tip to my favorite theory of the “real Jesus” in Koenraad Elst’s Psychology of Prophetism.
Although lots of folks at Mises scoff at “empirical evidence”, they’re not above pointing it out when it supports their positions. Recently Stephan Kinsella highlighted something from Techdirt’s Mike Masnick suggesting that eliminating the patent system increases innovation. It’s actually Kinsella’s second post on Masnick’s article, the first is here. Kinsella has previously discussed empiricism and I.P here, here, here and here. His main attack on the concept is in Against Intellectual Property, which sounds suspiciously like Against Intellectual Monopoly. Stealing titles, eh? For a blog devoted to criticizing IP, see Intellectual Privilege by Tom W. Bell, who co-blogs with Glen Whitman at Agoraphilia. Responding to a debate between Bell and Whitman, Nick Szabo analogizes IP to the censorship powers of lords and nobles in the feudal era. That might make him sound less favorable to the concept than he actually is, since he promotes that era’s idea of property rights in governance as a preferable alternative to the modern totalitarian theory of sovereignty.
Finally, a post I found a long time ago, forgot and rediscovered recently and decided to share with you all is Skeptico’s How do you prove photography to a blind man?, which is a response to a psi-believer but I was reminded of by the analogizing here of atheist materialists to “a blind man who does not believe in color because he cannot detect it with his other four senses”. Vox Day claims science disproves rational materialism here (UPDATE: He elaborates here and here). In his most recent Overcoming Bias post Righting a Wrong Question, Eliezer Yudkowsky attempts to dissolve questions about beliefs into issues of our senses entangled with reality.
March 10, 2008 at 7:56 am
If you’ll check dates you’ll see my “Against IP” was in 2001, before I had ever heard of the Against Intellectual Monopoly site. Further, titles are too short to receive copyright attention in any event.
Also, there is nothing wrong with engaging with IP advocates on their own turf. They are the ones that advocate IP on the grounds that it stimulates innovation, etc.–so it is reasonable to point out that they haven’t met their burden of proof; even the empirical studies that are done do not confirm them.
March 10, 2008 at 9:27 am
I must be out of touch, because this is the first I’ve heard of “Human Smoke,” though Nicholson Baker has long been one of my favorite writers. I’ve added it to the short list. Thanks.
March 10, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I was trying to make a joke about stealing titles (since the legitimacy of IP and ownership of ideas is being argued), but I suppose it wasn’t very funny. I don’t object to the Mises folks using empirical arguments, since those are my favorite kind.
Chip, I actually first heard of Baker and Human Smoke from here. There Baker is described as “somewhere to the left of Che Guevara”, but M. Traven says he’s read most of his earlier works and got no indication of him being a flaming lefty.
March 10, 2008 at 1:23 pm
I know Nicholson Baker through his novels and nonfiction essays, which, with the exception of the anti-war, anti-Bush, assassination-tempting novel-cum-play, “Checkpoint,” are refreshingly apolitical. I’m not sure how to pigeonhole the politics of Baker’s other major nonfiction work, “Double Fold,” which argues, contra current library science orthodoxy, for the physical preservation of newspaper archives. I suppose a leftish interpretation is available inasmuch as Baker seems to call for more of a government role in archivism, but his skeptical treatment of what might be called the “microfilm lobby” can also be read as a Hayekian critique of technocratic hubris.
Anyway, I highly recommend Baker’s first novel, “The Mezzanine.”
March 10, 2008 at 5:34 pm
There’s a comment piece by Tom Leonard on Baker’s book in today’s Telegraph. Some readers think Leonard hasn’t actually gone to the trouble of reading it.
If you want the real dirt on Churchill and FDR I suggest David Irving’s biographies.
[I have edited this post to add what I assume Perry was attempting to link to]
March 10, 2008 at 6:01 pm
I don’t quite trust Irving. Brady suggests Francis Neilson’s The Churchill Legend, Bruce M. Russett’s No Clear and Present Danger: A Skeptical View of the United States Entry into World War II and Simon Newman’s March 1939: The British Guarantee to Poland: A Study in the Continuity of British Foreign Policy. James Heartfield points out John Charmley’s Churchill: End of Glory as well as Clive Ponting’s book on Churchill along with Irving.
March 11, 2008 at 8:25 am
From De Lemos’ article:
“Spain, unlike Europe, has no historical complexes on its cultural integrity, if not superiority. When an Arab diplomat recently said Muslims should think about reoccupying Cordoba, Spanish radio callers retorted that maybe the Spanish husbands should get busy with the wives so the next generation will see Spaniards engulf Cairo.”
This may be the best response to the anti-natalists: the true purpose of life and procreation is to defeat the enemy.
And there will ALWAYS be some kind of enemy:
“I live on the outskirts of Whitehorse and the trails I run my team on are heavily used by snowmobilers. We’ve had a few near misses, usually when the snowmobiler is going way too fast to react to anything. The trails here are used by families with small children, skiers, horseriders, walkers, ect all the time. Some day a small child out for a walk with his mother is going to die when a skidoo runs him over. I have found that the most problematic snowmobilers aren’t the kids, not even the rambunctious teenage boys. There’s a group of 14 year old kids out here who ride all the time. They drive like nuts, but when they see my team, they pull over, they stop, they ask me about my dogs. They’ve even learned a few of my dogs’ names. It’s their drunken fathers that are the problem. Every time we’ve had a near miss with a skidoo it’s been a grown man driving. TamaraLynwww.xxxxxxxxxdbeading.etsy.com> > But as long as we have parents sending their pre-teen kids out on > snowmachines and ATVs to “play,” and the parents themselves going out with > them, ignoring signs and private property, not much is going to change. A > few years ago when there was a ballot measure to restrict snowmachines in > the Fairbanks urban area, dozens of people testified against it, some proud > about breaking the current laws with their kids and others talking about how > they run tour operations, making money while breaking the existing laws. The > ballot measure failed by a wide margin.>”
-from a LISTSERV group
March 11, 2008 at 9:03 am
“This may be the best response to the anti-natalists: the true purpose of life and procreation is to defeat the enemy.”
Procreation as a form of conscription, eh? Interesting.
“And there will ALWAYS be some kind of enemy”
Except for those who are never drafted, which is to say, born.
March 11, 2008 at 12:41 pm
If it’s family/clan/tribe and not the state I don’t think you can call it conscription. Hey, but I’m kind of “paleo”, and if I ever made the mistake of getting into a conversation with a PC Reason-fag in a bar there’s a good chance I’d wind up in jail that night. Not likely to happen, though, since those types are easy to spot.
Of course, there’s always the chance that new clan members will not share your most important values/loyalties. But my guess (not claiming any expertise)is that the current state of thought in evolutionary psychology (or maybe just common sense) suggests (on average) otherwise. As a real world example, most Amish males, though given the community-sanctioned opportunity to defect when young, remain loyal to their bizarre pro-animal cruelty sect.
March 12, 2008 at 6:48 am
Yes, that was the boy. Is a preview function out of the question? And I’m not asking you to trust Irving any more than you’re asking me to trust Baker. Now, get to it, boy.
March 12, 2008 at 9:48 am
You suggested reading Irving’s books. Rather than doing the same for Baker, I linked to criticism of him. I think there’s a difference.
A preview function is not available with this version of WordPress. I could upgrade if I was willing to shell out cash, but I don’t make any money from this (I’m not even allowed to have ads) so that won’t be happening.
August 19, 2008 at 9:34 pm
[…] the reactions Chip Smith (of the Hoover Hog) and Michael Gilson de Lemos had to the book here. Steve Sailer compared Raspail’s book to Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (which, along […]
February 6, 2018 at 3:48 am
OP…
TRIO:The Revolting Intellectuals Organization: Patrick D. Wall, 1965
Triage: Leonard C. Lewin, 1973
Great books all. You read the books he mentions as a Constellation you almost have a practical philosophy and caution against plausible totalitarianism, which I think is part of MG’s point.
Check out the comments at Free Republic.