(Part 2) Best products from r/GoldandBlack

If you look at the sort of "ancap reading list" it's a bit daunting at first, especially the economic tomes.

So to start off there's actually a GREAT book by Lew Rockwell(I say great because it's amazing at exposing you to the simplicity of these ideas without totally overwhelming you):
https://www.amazon.com/Against-State-Anarcho-Capitalist-Llewellyn-Rockwell/dp/0990463109/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494264932&sr=8-1&keywords=against+the+state

For nonfiction, I've got this ready to go, Organization Theory by Kevin Carson. And looking forward to getting The Enterprise of Law, by Bruce Benson.

On fiction, I'm trying to find the courage to read Anathem by Neal Stephenson. I loved Diamond Age, and thought about giving the doorstopper a shot.

More than open to recommendations, though!

> your reasoning opens a can of worms, which leads to much deeper issues than the ones you described.

I'm always game to get to the root.

> This applies to absolutely everything, including the concept of private property - and it is one of the primary objections communists make to capitalism. They state that private property is an abstract concept existing only in human minds, and that by default nothing belongs to anyone, so everyone is free to take whatever they want.

...

>In anarcho-capitalism, what legitimises the concept of private property? Nothing, really,

...



>My point is, absolutely any concept concerning human interaction has to be grounded on some abstract, unjustified truth.


I've never heard a commie make that argument, but it is position taken by egoists which I (provisionally) am. I will see if I can find a post where I outlined my views of property that got me banned from a centrist political sub.... Here. I think that addresses most of your comment.

> As such, while I see where you are coming from, I don't think your criticism is exclusive to statism; it applies to virtually all models of societal organisation,

Stirner called them spooks and tried to rid his thinking of them. I'm interested to hear your challenges.

> except for the pure "animal kingdom" anarchy, which eliminates the concept of "legitimacy" altogether. One could say hence that the "animal kingdom" anarchy is the most authentic and objectively-grounded system, but it is probably not the best one for the average human to be in.

That is a decent introduction to Stirner's egoism and a decent imitation of the tone that his opponents take against him. If you want a practical guide to egoism consider reading Harry Browne's How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World. Amazon.com

Michael Malice has made references to Stirner and seems to be an embodiment of his spirit.

You don't have to be a genius to see that the left has proven to be far better at organizing/activism, even without coherent or consistent ideals, when compared to Libertarians and even the GOP. If this is how they do it, perhaps it is time for those outside the left to learn up.

That toolkit mentioned, Beautiful Trouble, seems like part of the playbook they use. Any other resources you guys know about? It'd be good to look into to at least get a view on the psychology behind how this movement keeps gaining in the mainstream.

> So, citing someone with a PhD doesn't impress me, I have one so clearly they will give them to anyone.

He wrote the book on it:

https://www.amazon.com/High-Frontier-Human-Colonies-Apogee/dp/189652267X

> Asteroids are actually really far apart (at least in our solar system) and our problems are currently mostly about getting to space not really doing anything once we are there.

That's why we'll be starting with near-earth asteroids.

> Though once you are there I agree it is not necessarily all that costly to get around (just slow), but then you have to either use the metal up there or also suffer the cost of bringing it back down to the surface without killing anyone.

Most of the asteroid material will likely remain up there, yes. Far more valuable in space than on land. But for the extremely rare metals that won't be as true. We will not be manufacturing with rare earth metals in space any time soon.

> This would work much better if more of humanity were in space already and so there was an industrial presence outside earths gravity well, but between now and then it will be slow going.

It would take some time, but it's already completely doable. What's missing is the and the vision. Musk has gone a long way there, his vision to drive towards Mars will do a lot for this.

One of the journalists who helped break the Snowden leaks, Glenn Greenwald, has a great book on the topic titled No Place to Hide. I am not aware of any factual inaccuracies contained within.

https://www.amazon.com/No-Place-Hide-Snowden-Surveillance/dp/1250062586/

Maybe I'm just ill-informed, but I've honestly never seen a coherent argument for why the leaks were detrimental to US service members or national security.

Your post sounds smart, but it poses a false dilemma: it implies that we either use nuclear power or get climate change.

There are literally thousands of other alternatives. We can invest more in renewables, which scale up quicker than nuclear, cost less, don't pose the same catastrophic risks, and don't rely heavily on centralized state action. Baseload power is not a big problem for renewables if you ramp up battery storage (already happening) and improve the grid so that energy can be produced where it's windy or sunny and delivered where needed.

We can also simply get more efficient with our energy use in the first place. Economizing energy use should be our first priority, because all sources of energy have serious environmental drawbacks. (Even nuclear would have comparable emissions to oil and gas if scaled globally, because we'd have to dig into far less efficient uranium ores.) It can be as simple as making it easier for people to insulate their houses or planting more vegetation around their houses. (A few good trees can lower ambient temperature by 9F over other forms of shade, because trees evapotranspirate as part of their metabolism, and the phase change from liquid to gaseous water sucks up a lot of heat energy.) . It can also involve more forward-thinking measures, like ending the absurd 20th-century-style subsidies for automotive transport (like dumb zoning laws, parking requirements, federal outlays on auto infrastructure boondoggles, etc. -- these amount to literally trillions of dollars a year).

These are all great alternatives to nuclear power, which creates deadly waste that lasts for hundreds of thousands of years. We still don't know the full effects of Chernobyl, given that the Soviet government repressed Ukrainian and Belarusian public health research in the aftermath of the disaster. (MIT historian Kate Brown makes an interesting case that the international nuclear community, including U.S. nuclear interests, aided in this coverup.) The National Cancer Institute found that radionuclides from weapons testing in Nevada were responsible for 40,000-200,000 cases of thyroid cancer in the American West around the 1960s. We can expect more of that if nuclear accidents become relatively commonplace.

We can do a lot better than letting powerful incumbents lobby our government to keep propping up nuclear power.

I regret that I have but one upvote to give.


The Most Dangerous Superstition by Larken Rose. I believe Part I (of IV) is available in preview on Amazon, as well as on Good Reads.


Unless, of course, OP wants to ease his friends into libertarianism, rather than jumping into full blown voluntarism and morality. :D

There's an excellent book on this and NSA wiretapping that I highly recommend - [The Shadow Factory: The NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0307279391/).

It's an older book - it's still a fascinating read and still very relevant.

> just like America was 200 years ago.

You mean like during the Whiskey Rebellion? The United States has never been a place of liberty without aggression. Many Founding Fathers were intentionally aggressive. Think about the Quartet, for example.

This is the book I'm planning on using as a guideline for covering the basics if I decide to do it. It's very good and pretty short. Another good one is this, though I prefer the former.

I haven't watched this yet. Is there a significant difference between what Tom said and the things Harry Brown written in his book "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World: A Handbook for Personal Liberty" (https://www.amazon.com/How-Found-Freedom-Unfree-World/dp/0965603679)?

https://www.amazon.com/Uniden-R3-Extreme-Detector-Degree/dp/B0743H6CSN

One of the best out for now I believe. My dad has 2 and I plan to get one soon. Great kit.

Thanks!

Here's the back cover description: https://kek.gg/i/69hbMk.jpg

And here's a free prequel short story to decide if the writing style is up your alley before even considering plunking down real money for a full novel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073YZ9GD1