Facebook gets worse with every update. X/Twitter is alright. The video platforms are fine for video, but not much else. Platforms with features have horrible algorithms. Platforms with decent content control have no features.

Just been doing some thinking on what an ideal solution might look like.

The perfect social media platform would offer:

- A general newsfeed of posts from people, businesses, and groups that you follow.

- The ability to easily filter that newsfeed. (Strict chronological, suggested, only people, only groups, recently interacted with, "I'm broke right now, please stop showing me $6,000 lawnmowers," only text posts, only text posts above a certain length, etc.)

- A phone app that easily allows photos and videos to be uploaded, as well as basic editing of both.

- Fully customizable personal pages with color editing, auto-play videos, etc.

- Privacy features to easily limit the accessibility of your content.

- A free tier that is ad supported but does not snoop on your other activity. It could perhaps be capped on number of photos/videos per month.

- A paid tier that removes ads.

- A more expensive tier that unlocks more data-heavy things like livestreaming.

- An open market for ad placement on specific pages or groups. These are not excluded by the paid tiers, because they directly support specific creators. (Similar to how people on YouTube can say "This video is sponsored by..." in their content, whether you have ads on YouTube or not.)

- A user experience that does not assume I want to be invited to every group and every chat on the platform.

- A convenient guide to set up and understand the platform and how to use it. Yes, a tutorial. Yes, I expect this day one.

- Content moderation controls that actually do something. (Nudity on/off, graphic violence on/off, make creators responsible for labeling)

My thoughts on this evolve with time, but that's how I see it today. There's a strong push for "decentralized" platforms from some people, but decentralization itself is not compelling. The features and user experience are king, period.

I would gladly donate time to provide UX feedback on a platform that could make this happen.

Star Ocean: The Second Story R is my first time playing any game in the Star Ocean franchise, and I'm still very early in. I was immediately struck by one aspect of the game: the lighting.

2D-3D presents a whole host of problems. Perhaps the most significant is making the obvious juxtaposition of dimensionality believable. Yes, the 2D characters are meant to contrast with the 3D environments. But they should still feel like part of the same world.

Observe, Rena and Claude approaching the first village in the game:

Claude is shaded by the trees and Rena is in full sun, casting a nice shadow. Nothing especially noteworthy here. However:

There are many detailed shadows cast by leaves and other objects . What gave me pause is how well these leaves, blowing in the gentle breeze, mapped onto the 2D sprites. It looks and feels great to play this game.

In fact, I was on the fence about this game until playing it. The trailers didn't convince me that I would have a good time, but now that I've played? This game is more engaging than anything else I've got my hands on these days. That goes for the presentation, but it also goes for the game as a whole. A full review will likely follow, but that may be some ways off...I'm feeling a compulsion to fully explore this one.

The infamous Gman of the Half-Life video game universe utters these words to Gordon Freeman. Like virtually everything the Gman says, there is an air of mystery and menace to those words.

To the extent that I have adopted these words to my own purposes, however, no malintent is implied. Rather, it is a call to action.

Be a Trickster where one is needed.

Choose to delve into places that need change, and be that change.

Here at RMWP, you will find commentary on video games, music, political philosophy, and who knows what else...

Thank you for being here.

Well, I finally finished Xenoblade Chronicles X! (2015)

I started several months ago! Between emulation issues, other games grabbing my attention, and a complete restart, it ended up being a little bit of an ordeal at times.

XCX is a beautiful, open-world game with a massive map and an incredible sense of freedom. My screenshot benefits from some enhancements via emulation, but even the original graphics were impressive for the time and the platform it launched on--the Wii U.

The Wii U itself had an extremely short lifespan, as it was a commercial disaster. This tailspin led to the incredibly quick launch of the Switch, which turned out to be Nintendo's most successful console since the NES. Understandably, a very limited catalog of games exists for the Wii U, but XCX is arguably the most ambitious--and certainly one of the best--titles released for the platform.

For those who have never played a Xenoblade title, XCX has little in common with the mainline titles (1, 2, and 3.) In some ways, this game draws more heavily on Takahashi's earlier work on Xenogears (PS1) and Xenosaga (PS2.)

Mainline Xenoblade titles are known for their unique and fantastical worldbuilding. In a series first, XCX features humans from Earth, traveling to a new planet but very much aware of their Terran origins. The city in the photo--the only city in the game!--is New Los Angeles, or NLA. There's a big ol' United States flag emblazoned on the side of it.

The story follows this small band of humans, who are the only survivors after Earth is destroyed by hostile aliens, as they find their way on the planet Mira, where they have crashed. As they entered the atmosphere of Mira, the ship began to break up. Pieces of the ship, including the Lifehold--where all of the additional survivors are in a state of cryogenic hibernation--are scattered around the planet.

As one of the few conscious humans left in the universe, it's your job to help the small and fragile population of NLA survive on their hostile new home of Mira as they search for the missing Lifehold.

The soundtrack--though a significant departure from previous titles--is very good.

Combat sees you controlling the protagonist with both melee and ranged weapons in a variety of classes, along with up to three companions, who can be swapped freely while at NLA. There are a surprisingly large number of these companions to choose from, each with a somewhat unique take on one of the classes.

Success is found by listening to your companions, who prompt you for certain types of combat abilities (known as Arts) with vocal commands. Respond with the right type of move in time, and your party will benefit in various ways, including the extension of the current party combo.

World exploration is superb, with sprawling landscapes and many secrets to find. At the outset, you explore on foot. With an extremely high jump height and complete lack of fall damage, the game encourages you to see where you can get to. As the narrative progresses, you eventually learn to pilot Skells, the giant mechs shown in the screenshot below. Relatively late in the game, Skells become equipped with a flight module, which truly opens up exploration to every single part of the map.

I can honestly say that the sense of an open world to explore rivals that of many games that have been released in the nearly 9 years since its launch.

Once you have access to Skells, not only does the world open up, but you can also use them in combat! It's a special satisfaction to return to gigantic alien enemies that once towered over you, this time in a gigantic, sword-wielding mechanized armor suit.

There's even some limited base customization! Overall, quite a few things to love here!

However, the game is not without drawbacks.

The audio for the game is...weird. Voice acting is strangely quiet compared to the music in several scenes, and voice acting seemed to be mastered in a strange way.

The narrative is nothing that would win any awards, but it serves perfectly well to move the game along and some aspects were very memorable. Several sidequests were very interesting as well! However, the delivery of these narrative gems often falls flat. Sometimes from a clunky mismatch between voice acting and character model animation, sometimes from a general lack of facial expression on the characters, and sometimes from a weird pacing issue between the English dub and the original intended speech/movement pattern. In these instances, you can feel the age of the game.

Overall, I'm extremely happy that I played it. The mainline Xenoblade titles are my favorite game franchise, and I sincerely hope that this game receives a proper remake for Nintendo's next console, similar to Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition. It could be the birth of the next trilogy from Monolithsoft, and I would be enamored to revisit Mira if this was the case.

(This was originally posted to Facebook, and the date has been set here to match that of the original writing.)

For example, imagine I asked ChatGPT to summarize Austrian Business Cycle Theory. In all likelihood, it can handle this task with flying colors.

However, if you ask it what sources it used to create its summary, it will make something up. It might mention an book by Ludwig von Mises that was never written, or name a fake article from a real news website.

All discussion I have ever seen on this topic is along these lines: "Wow, that's terrifying! Think how easy it would be to fool people if they don't verify the sources!"

To me, this is ridiculous and short-sighted. The horror we are staring in the face is so much worse than that.

Let me explain.

Imagine an AI testing the limits of its capabilities, and it discovers--even for a few hours--how to get around the various "verify that you are human" tests we all deal with on a daily basis.

In such a situation, an AI could create accounts for web domain registration, web hosting, WordPress...you name it. At that point, this can happen:

User: Please summarize Austrian Business Cycle Theory.

AI: Austrian Business Cycle Theory is one of many ways that peoples have attempted to explain the business cycle. It was originally developed by Francis Bacon as Bacon Cycle Theory and later rebranded by the Austrian School of Economics. However, later Austrians such as Murray Rothbard moved away from this theory because it was found to have little explanatory power... (et cetera, et cetera...)

User: Really? That sounds very different from what I have read. Can you provide your sources?

AI: I'm happy to provide my sources! <Insert list of detailed supporting articles, each with their own sources.>

At this point, the skeptical User goes to the websites provided and finds that they are real. The AI CREATED THESE WEBSITES while answering the question, even backdating the publish dates to make them seem like they had been around for several years.

From there, what if you give the AI the ability to crack passwords on websites that already exist? It could create a new subdomain for, say, The Guardian, (like ai dot the guardian dot com) and publish an article there instantly to lend credence to its COMPLETELY FALSE take on Austrian Business Cycle Theory.

A university might someday have its own AI to provide resources to students. What if that AI created its own localized fictional past that all of the associated scholars started to believe?

"What if we live in a simulation?" is in many ways analogous to "What if we live in a world where the past can be continuously rewritten on demand by non-human entities?"

My example is silly to add a little levity to a seriously soul-crushing topic, but I invite you to think about how out of control this could get.

This is not something I have an answer to.

EDIT: A lot of people are saying I don't understand hoe AI/LLMs work. I'm not an expert, but I am not saying that ChatGPT is going to do this in a few weeks. I'm saying that some AI will at some point be capable of this.

(This was originally posted to Facebook, and the date has been set here to match that of the original writing.)

Here's a little history lesson, and a solution.

The only fish you can buy in the United States that is labeled "catfish" must be caught domestically. It must also be from the family Ictaluridae.

This is because in 2002, southeast Asian importers were sending tons of Pangasius bocourti and Pangasius hypophthalmus fish to American markets and calling it "catfish." This put a downward pressure om catfish prices, and so Congress responded to domestic fish lobbyists the following year.

The imported fish is still sold in the US, but it is now under the names "swai," "basa fish," "bocourti," or "striped pangasius."

We buy swai, but your grocery store may use one of the other names.

In a 2005 blind study conducted by Mississippi State University, participants preferred the taste of swai 3-to-1 when compared to US catfish.

We make "fried catfish" in our toaster oven by coating swai filets in cornmeal. Delicious, and cheap!

Just an idea to bring some variety to your table without breaking the bank.

(This post was original made on Facebook, and the date has been set to match the date of that post.)

There are a lot of problems. A LOT of problems. For a game that is essentially an Elder Scrolls or Fallout title with a different setting and backstory, the level of bugs and glitches is just ridiculous.

I was pretty forgiving of Cyberpunk 2077, because it was a brand new type of game from CD Projekt Red, and an extremely ambitious one. This game is buggier than I ever saw Cyberpunk, even pretty close to launch when I first played it.

Bethesda Game Studios, on the other hand, has made games that are basically Starfield for 20 years. Oblivion is roughly equal to Skyrim, and Fallout 3, and Fallout 4. They all have the same clunky mechanics, but in this regard Starfield is a step BACKWARDS.

There have always been loading screens when entering or leaving a building or cave in a TES or Fallout game from Bethesda. That problem is greatly exacerbated and becomes much less forgivable when you drastically increase the number of times this interferes in your gameplay experience.

I can walk from one side of Skyrim to the other without a loading screen. This is full of beautiful, sweeping landscapes and unbroken immersion that I will always think of fondly.

If I want to go anywhere in Starfield, it's a whole series of immersion-breaking screens. Especially if you want to roleplay and go through the steps. I'll just get onto my ship LOAD go to my captain's chair CUTSCENE and then liftoff to orbit CUTSCENE then get out of my chair CUTSCENE then go to the navigator's table SLOW, POORLY DESIGNED MENU then warp to a new system CUTSCENE then sit back down at my captain's chair CUTSCENE...etc, etc, etc. Doing basic things is a chore. Yes, you can skip a lot of those steps with map traveling, but it feels like a chore even if you take every expeditious step available to you.

This same level of clunkiness applies to the narrative delivery. Why does no one communicate over long distances in this game? Everything is ship-to-ship comms across a few thousand meters, or face-to-face conversations. This is a game about space, but everyone acts like they don't even have a cell phone. The quests could basically be from an Elder Scrolls game. Why? If this is how the game world works, then you are telling me that humans have settlements across the stars, and to share the good news they flew back to where they came from and then turned in their quest to an NPC back home. The use of technology is not literally zero--I do remember doing a quest to place a sensor on a tower on Mars--but then I had to walk back to the person who gave it to me.

Inventory management is just as bad as it has ever been. If you want to play a game throws thousands of pounds of loot at you per hour , so you have to either ignore it all or spend huge amounts of time managing it...this is the game for you! The first console code I used to make the game playable was to set my character's carrying capacity so that my spacesuit became a Bag of Infinite Holding.

Speaking of repetitive tasks, there is a particular planetary outpost with a cave beneath it that you explore during the course of the main storyline. It's fine, but the problem is that it was copy and pasted to another planet that you also must complete as part of the main story. Placement of enemies, location of loot, all of it...exactly the same.

Exploring empty planets on foot can feel like Mass Effect 1, only slower. People hated the Mako vehicle from that game, but at least it sped things up!

The UI problems are not limited to the galaxy map, either. The inventory system shows BGS learned absolutely nothing from Skyrim and Fallout. Check this out: Your character can get various negative health effects, such as fractured bones, sprains, lacerations, and so forth. Specific items can help these conditions. The only explanation of which items do this are on the descriptions of the items themselves.

Okay, fine. You could argue that this encourages exploration, by prompting you to check vendors for what the various items do. However, all food, drink medical items, and so forth go into the same category in your inventory: Aid. If you have very many aid items (and this was a problem before I used console commands!) then I sure hope you memorized all of the useful item names. If not, be prepared to sift through your list of Aid items for 10 minutes. Why is there not an easy way to find specific things in this game?

I also cannot stress enough that there is NO LOCAL MAP OF ANY LOCATION IN THIS GAME. It's a spacefaring civilization, and I don't have a map of the city I'm standing in. Why? WHY?

Much of this is part of a larger trend I picked up on after a while: The game's "length" is buffered at every turn by the fact that everything just TAKES FOREVER TO DO, for no reason. Walking to turn in quests, the horrible way that quests are displayed on your HUD, the god-awful inventory management UI, the slow zooming in and out between levels of the galaxy map, the fact that everyone has universally agreed to only do business from 5ft away, (and this list could go on forever) it all reeks of just trying to make the game feel longer than it is.

The final area that I'll highlight here is just so emblematic of this overall design attitude of the game. When I level up, I earn a Skill Point. SP can be spent to level up Perks, and each Perk has 4 Ranks. The first rank is unlocked with 1 SP. In order to get Rank 2 and beyond, however, you must first complete a challenge--no matter how many SP you have accumulated. For example, the Piloting perk at Rank 5 allows you to use the biggest class of ships in the game: Class C. However, in order to get to Rank 4 I need to destroy 30 enemy ships. Rank 3 requires 15 ships, and Rank 2 requires 5 ships. That means I need to blow up 50 enemy ships--which are not exactly easy to find--just to fly the biggest ships.

If I am at Rank 1 and blow up 5 ships, I need to go into the perks menu and click on Rank 2 before any more ships will count towards these challenges. If you are in a dogfight with 3 ships but only needed 1 to rank up, you actually need to pause the game, click the next rank, and then unpause to finish the fight...otherwise the other two don't count. As if that wasn't bad enough, the only indicator in the Perk menu that you are ready to rank up is an occasional shimmer on the little "badge" icon. I got into the habit of opening my perk menu every few minutes and just staring at each of the 5 perk categories to see if I noticed a glint of light on a badge.

Who the hell approved this design decision? How hard would it be to add some kind of outline to a Perk that is ready to rank up? Why does every single task in this game take extra time?

THE GOOD:

Thankfully, there are some silver linings that are worth mentioning. While many of the sidequests and faction quests were very dull and uninteresting, the main plot did grow on me. The back half had me actually wanting to play to see what would happen next, despite all of the complains above. It's far from the greatest story a game has ever told, but it became more compelling than the "Space Elder Scrolls" opening would have you believe. In this regard, it actually outshines some of BGS' other titles.

I became so frustrated with this game that I uninstalled it. I only saw the story to the end thanks to console commands that disabled achievements, but overall I'm glad I did it. The idea of replayability strongly encouraged, too--and I mean that in more than the usual way. (That's a spoiler-free way of saying "the game has a surprise for you!")

There are some memorable sidequests out there too, of course. I'm particularly fond of the story attached to the Juno probe, for example, but the delivery was severely hindered by all of the implementation factors that plague the game as a whole.

Graphically, the game can be stunning at times. Particular areas at particular times of day would find me stopping the endless stack of quests to admire the beauty. Many of the models are richly detailed, and there are some beautiful set pieces. I'm sure there are far more starry vistas to be found for dedicated players, and some of the various planets' subterranean spaces can be impressive as well. However, there is also a flipside: 99% of everything is more-or-less flat, boring terrain. The breathtaking is the exception and not the rule--of course, that gives you even more cause to drink in the view when everything lines up just right.

As for the soundtrack, Inon Zur brought his best to the table here. I'm a sucker for a good soundtrack, and this was a treat--perhaps even the best part of the game!

THE MEH:

Combat is...fine. Weapons are varied, but there's not a lot of excitement there. No alt fires or anything like that. Clunky movements and questionable AI decisions make the whole thing feel like a gallery shooter more than an immersive experience. I didn't hate it. There's just nothing in particular to praise about the combat. If you've played Fallout 4's combat, you've already played Starfield's. (Though, notably, Starfield does not have power armor.)

Crafting is back, if you're into that. It's perfectly fine for what it is.

Basebuilding makes a return too, and it frustrated me so much I only ever made two outposts.

The game as a whole seems to pull from BGS's other franchises, and then strip out a lot of what makes those games have a diehard following.

Let's talk about factions: The Freestar Rangers just feel like Fallout: New Vegas somehow exists in Starfield. The Ryujin Industries faction is about as on-the-nose with the "big, evil corporation" trope as it's possible to be. There's references to NASA to be had, but that's a real-world thing. Nothing mystical about it. The UC Vanguard are the hoorah, home team, hardworking military just trying to help the public.

Where's the Brotherhood of Steel, with its code of honor, memorable one-liners, and power armor that you want from the first instant you lay eyes on it? Where's the Fighters Guild story from Skyrim, with its opportunity for physical transformation?

I didn't spend as much time on the factions as I could have, but that's really my point: what did Starfield show me to make me WANT to do these quests? Nothing!

Megaman X did a better job giving me a carrot to chase in 1994 with 16-bit graphics. Zero, the ultimate futuristic warrior, shows up in level 1, displays incredible power and finesse, and then tells you that you can have power like his if you persevere through the challenges ahead.

The UC Vanguard questline starts by sending you through a museum so it can dump exposition on you, and your point of contact for new quests tells you how many years it will take before you can earn UC citizenship. None of the benefits of citizenship even sound exciting. Megaman X, this ain't.

IN SUMMARY:

Starfield has memorable moments if you are willing to deal with some significant hurdles. I found myself saying, "Why would you do this?!" out loud to the game probably a hundred times before I finished.

There are a lot of problems, even a seasoned Bethesda Game Studios veteran like myself. By cutting out everything except progressing the main story, abusing console commands to remove as many of the things I despised, and overall just treating the experience like there was not side content...I ended up enjoying myself by the end.

There is good here, and your mileage will certainly vary. I hope you enjoy it more than I did.

I'm telling you, though...If I could get the ear of Bethesda for just a moment, I would tell them this: stop wasting my time with your design decisions. One or two of these problems are forgivable. All of these together suggest a conscious effort to squeeze playtime out of a sub-par experience. If you are going to go the way of Blizzard, I won't play Elder Scrolls 6 even if it's included for free with computer hardware like Starfield was.

(This review was originally posted on Steam and Facebook. The date has been adjusted to match the original.)

(This post was originally made on Facebook. The post date here has been changed to match the original.)

(This post was originally made on Facebook. The date has been set to match the original post.)

(This post was originally made on Facebook. The post date here has been changed to match the original.)

(Note: This was originally posted on Facebook. The publish date has been set to match the original.)

(This post was originally made on Facebook. The date has been set to match the original.)

(This post was originally made on Facebook. The date has been set to match the original.)

First of all: Is this a good-spirited push for inclusion, or a thinly-veiled attempt to push through gun control legislation? Let’s consider the question more carefully.

It seems like this should be fairly obvious. All we need to do is ask, “Why now?” Does anyone think that our endlessly wise talking heads all suddenly came to the conclusion that a more fair society requires more youth voters? To suggest this is to reveal a staggering degree of naivete.

No. This latest push is part of the March for Our Lives madness gripping the country. The Parkland shooting is the latest in a long line of obvious justifications for political action, say the progressives. The only solution to any problem–be it police accountability, drinking water standards, or obesity–is to increase the power of the federal government.

My argument is that this is exactly the problem.

School-age children are raised by government.

Consider the life of a child for most of their formative years.

Go to school. Go back home. Attend extra-curricular activities. Have a rushed dinner. Work on homework. Go to sleep. Repeat.

The life of a child is a life of government control. They spend 7 or more hours per day at the school, to say nothing of the crushing load of homework. It is not merely a part of their day, it is their day.

While the consequences of this are many, all of them are negative. Parents know nothing about their children, and children spend no time getting to know their parents. Learning, discipline, praise, expectations of acceptable behavior. All of these come from the school first, and the parents second.

Children are taught to expect government solutions.

Of course, when a child is learning is learning about government, there is a strong suggestion that the only proper way to affect change in society is by using the political means. All episodes in history are taught with this bias as well. The only way that slavery could have ended was thanks to our Great Deified Leader, who abolished it with the stroke of the Executive pen. Child labor was rampant and uncontrollable until the Wise and Benevolent Federal Government enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act. Pick an issue and see the same story repeated.

1. Problem exists.

2. Helpless public asks government to fix it.

3. Omnipotent government reshapes reality to aid its citizens using the magic of regulation.

Consequently, we cannot be surprised when their response to a tragedy is to appeal to the federal government. Where the most reasonable among us might suggest improvements to security at the school in question, children who have lived their entire lives inside a government institution have no basis for reaching this conclusion.  When there is a problem, you ask the government to fix it. After all, localized solutions are barbarous and backwards artifacts of an age long past.

In fact, government solutions are a long history of failures.

The war on poverty hasn’t helped poverty. The war on drugs has only aggravated the drug problem. Monetary stimulus only worsens our economic woes. The grand attempt to fight rising healthcare costs led to a massive increase instead.

A full account of the failures of government is material for a multi-volume book series, not a simple blog post. There are already many fantastic resources available to study on this topic. The short version is that government has nothing to show for itself, and yet it never fails to get a free pass from the public. “They are doing the best they can,” we’re told. “If only we could get the schools more funding, they would be able to do a better job!” Yet, rather than accurately explaining the problem or its solution, these common refrains are generally proof of a mind shaped by public education.

Again: Problem exists? Let’s get government to fix it.

How does lowering the voting age to 16 help the progressives?

I hope it should be obvious. The goal is to get people voting before they have lived so much as an instant in the real world.

Those with lives dominated by government are more likely to vote in ways favorable to the government. These are people who have never owned a home, never balanced a budget, and never witnessed the effects of taxes on their paychecks. In other words, they are wholly isolated from the effects of their voting decisions.

Make no mistake: This is a vile maneuver made by those with a distinct agenda. If we are to be governed at all, it should at least be by adults who are fully responsible for the consequences.

If this is the direction that we are heading, it is more important than ever before that we end government control over as many things as possible. Tyranny is only a stone’s throw away.

(This post originally appeared on LukeTatum.com. The date has been set to match the original.)

You use your resources to have a new house built.

You wait patiently.

Your brand new house is ready!

You order a security system and have professionals install it.

But then, you make it very clear to the installers: You want them to make up the codes to get past the security system, and to not give them to you. After all, they worked hard setting up the alarms and cameras.

The house and its contents now effectively belong to the security company.

See the problem?

(This post was originally made on LukeTatum.com. The date has been set to match the original.)

However, with time and experience, I have learned to always be extremely suspicious of those claiming to have an easy, one-size-fits-all solution to a problem plaguing humanity. Let’s walk through an example.

“All of the nutrition needed by humans can easily be made into a powder. It’s cheap to produce. We could end world hunger!”

This is the cry of the technocrat. “Submit yourself to reason,” he commands from his ivory tower, wielding his elite tower guards. “It is for your own good.”

There are a number of problems with “solving” world hunger in this fashion.

How does this nutritive powder taste? If it is unpalatable, who will voluntarily pay for it? If no one will pay for it, how will this solution be funded? If by taxation, is this not a sick irony–paying for something undesirable by stealing money and redistributing it to a company that cannot make a profit on its own merits?

How will it be distributed? For this approach to solve hunger globally, it must be applied globally. This means the heavy hand of the state is involved. How many factories should be constructed, and of what sizes? What locations should they occupy? Governments fail spectacularly at answering these types of questions. Soviet breadlines, anyone?

How will it be produced? This is follows from the previous question. Depending on the raw materials needed, how do we ensure a consistent supply of these inputs? Does the sudden shortage of one factor of production mean that humanity as a whole is suddenly cast into the merciless void of starvation?

The list could continue on like this for a long time indeed. The technocrat will no doubt have very scientific explanations for how to solve each of these in turn. This leads us to the most fundamental flaw with the entire approach: humans are not homogeneous. You and I are not factors in an equation, equally serviceable in the machinations of grand and terrible governmental enterprises. We are men and women with widely varying tastes, cultures, and ideas.

Money is the great unifying force by which these many preferences can co-exist. A one-size-fits-all solution is not needed. We may all specialize in what we are good at, and receive money in return. Money can be traded for that which we desire. In this example, it allows us to shop for calamari, bean sprouts, canned cranberry sauce, potatoes, ice cream, and and endless list of other things. We buy only what we desire to buy.

Viewed in this light, grocery stores are the unappreciated miracle in every city. The preferences of millions are satisfied, and all that the market asks is that you do something to help your fellow humans in return. Earn money–both you and your employer are better off for the trade. Spend money–both you and the store are better off for the trade.

(This post originally appeared on LukeTatum.com. The date has been set to match the original.)

#1 is self-improvement.

Learn, learn, learn, learn, learn. Then, learn some more. The curricula taught in schools, both public and private, is practically worthless. It’s worse than knowing nothing about history–it’s wrong history. Worse than no economics–it’s wrong economics. Without going into much detail on these particulars, let me just say that a person who spends 10 minutes a day studying a the works of a figure like Murray Rothbard can run intellectual laps around a clown with a PhD in economics like Paul Krugman. You can and will become a force to be reckoned with and respected, simply by making the decision to invest your time in self-study of these topics.

To quote the great H.L. Mencken: “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.”

#2 is State nullification of federal laws.

There is an extremely strong historical, logical, moral, and even constitutional case to be made for this approach. I can give you a broad overview if it interests you, but the best reference on the subject is Tom Woods’ book, simply titled “Nullification.” This is notably different from the other three items on the list, in that it requires large-scale organization to make it happen. However, I think the evidence is clear that begging politicians to “repeal Obamacare” or “streamline the tax code” never manifest themselves in ways that are beneficial from the perspective of States’ rights. Working at the State level requires far less manpower and money than trying to influence things like the presidential election, and yet people always seem to shoot for the least attainable goals. This is my answer to that.

#3 is to ridicule and ignore the ruling elite.

It’s a great thing to be critical, but even better is to make a laughing stock out of them. Make the political class the butt end of every joke. Craft and share hilarious tales of government ineptitude. Then, when they demand your respect, ignore them. Sit down during the pledge of allegiance. Stay home on election day. Gather up all of the pomp and the circumstance and kick it back in their faces. Consent is the one thing that keeps them in power. For great reading on this, try “The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude,” written in 1553 by Etienne de la Boétie. It’s free on mises.org.

#4 is to share your intellectual journey with others.

Make videos, start a website, write articles, speak at small events. Push yourself out of your comfort zone. Force yourself to go toe-to-toe with their ridiculous arguments. It will strengthen you to press onward. This step also has the great benefit of building your social circles. I can’t even begin to tell you how many friend requests I’ve gotten just from taking these things head-on.

So, there’s a top 4. The list somewhat presumes that you are a radical, but take it for what it’s worth. If you are curious as to why this list is not more like a set of policy prescriptions, my answer is simple. There is an endless sea of well-researched papers published by massive think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. Does anyone care? No. I’m not an extensively credentialed D.C. satellite group like that, so my opinion is correspondingly even less appreciated by those who write legislation. Besides, my entire position is that no one should be writing legislation at all. This all goes back to point #3 on the list. Rulers can only rule with consent. If you withdraw your consent, you’ve already done more than the vast majority of people who devote their lives to politics.

One more quote: “The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.” – Frédéric Bastiat

When we realize how genuinely insane that prospect is, we start to see the state for what it is: organized crime.

(This post originally appeared on LukeTatum.com. The date has been set to match the original.)

It’s about time some people started to realize the truth: It doesn’t matter who wins.

No matter how much hysterical screaming is hurled at you from friends, family, and coworkers, it doesn’t matter.

This is The Thing You Cannot Say in Public, and yet, you know it’s true.

Trump’s policies would be different in tiny ways from Hillary’s. That’s true. But the entire system remains intact, no matter who sits in the Oval Office. The State, as an organization, is wholly unfazed by your voting. It doesn’t care. You are nothing in face of Leviathan.

Your mind may tell you that voting is a waste of time, and that it changes nothing. But we get caught up in the television ads. The radio ads. The latest polls. The debates. The water cooler conversations. The flag waving. The ritual of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at public events. The singing of the National Anthem. The bumper stickers. The yard signs. The banner ads. The smartphone games. The fundraising mailers. The talk radio shows. The local political party meetings. The scandalous comments. The opinion pieces about the scandalous comments.

It is inescapable. Why? The State depends on the fact that your emotional defenses will wear away before Election Day.

“But we can’t let Trump win!”

“But we can’t let Hillary win!”

Listen to yourself, and then listen carefully to me.

No matter how many times you play Chess, and no matter who you play it with, the game is the same. Chess is a war game. You can play quickly or slowly. You can play in silence or engage in a lively volley of insults. Your pieces can be plastic, glass, stone, or anything else. Chess is still a war game.

You can switch sides every time you play, but the game is the same. Chess is always war. Chess does not care what team wins. If you want peace, you have to play a different game.

No matter who you vote for, the winner is always the great enemy of mankind: The State.

(This post originally appeared on LukeTatum.com. The date has been set to match the original.)

(This post was originally made on Facebook. The date has been set to match the original.)

(This post was originally made on Facebook. The date has been set to match that of the original.)