The Uncontainable

There are many different forms of punishment, but they are not all interchangeable. Some are morally better than others, some are only viable in certain situations, some turn criminals into a further drag on society while others force them to make restitution for their crimes, etc. Here are all the major ones I could think of. Physical pain. A near-ideal method in theory because enduring pain constitutes a virtue, and thus bad people fear it more than good people. Punishing someone with pain is like directly punishing the evil in them - the exact opposite of what imprisonment does (see...

By Evin Shad Vote1 0

I thought of an interesting argument while writing a novel just now: Suppose senators are paid a fair amount of money (this isn't actually possible but we'll assume the audience is statists). At some point, some legislator is bound to propose a bill that raises the pay that senators receive. Since the only people voting on it are senators, this bill is bound to be accepted since everyone is incentivized to vote for it. Therefore it is almost certain that senators are paid too much, because if ever they aren't, they will promptly 'fix' that. The only thing that could...

By Evin Shad Vote2 0

One of my brothers once said that our culture is undersensitive to violence. He was both wrong and right. The relevant problem with our culture is that most of us don't see violence as wrong unless it's accompanied by anger, and if it is accompanied by anger, they see it as wrong even if it's justified. To give some examples: In one of the Ninja Turtles shows, there is an episode where two of the turtles, Raph and Mikey, are sparring. Mikey is making a fool out of Raph and laughing sadistically about it. Then he declares the duel over...

By Evin Shad Vote1 0

I am fed up with the idea that the ends don't justify the means. Have I said something like that before? Well, I'm fed up with a great many things. This is one of them. Here's a scenario: Joe is about to shot to be shot by a murderer. You are right next to Joe. You cannot attack the murderer; he is out of your reach. But Joe has magic powers and is invincible as long as he is in pain. If you punch Joe, you can trigger his invincibility before he is shot. You'd do it, right? Aha! So...

By Evin Shad Vote0 0

People talk about "fairly elected" officials. But there's no such thing, because all elections involve the majority imposing their will on the minority without regard for whether it contradicts the minority's consciences. That's not fair, it's evil.

By Evin Shad Vote3 0

I am not going to pick what a bad story the Harry Potter books are, or how lazy the magic system is, or just what a horrible piece of writing they are in general. And I am certainly not going to say that it's a sin to read them because of the magic. I am going to talk about how the morality is the series is poisonous, particularly the portrayal of authority. (One short disclaimer first: I haven't read the book in very many years, so forgive me if my memory is not entirely accurate.) Let's start with the ministry...

By Evin Shad Vote1 0

I've always hated RNG (randomness) in games. That's why I love Prismata - every time I lose, I feel entirely responsible for my mistakes. There's no blaming it on bad luck. But lately I've had a thought that maybe there's moral significance to this. I think games with RNG might be damaging to the moral fiber of their players. The reason? Because you get used to blaming your failures on external sources. My theory is that deterministic games like Prismata promote moral integrity by fostering a sense of personal responsibility in players.

By Evin Shad Vote1 0

Government encourages discrimination. Why? Because every group whose members are driven by self-interest (which most people in the world primarily are) and is completely unaccountable to anyone outside itself will discriminate against those who bear some superficial dissimilarity to the people inside the group. For an example of why this is, consider the following: there is a country populated by both black and white people but governed entirely by white ones. The goverment decides to raise taxes on black people, because the more taxes black people pay, the less white people have to pay to keep the government's wealth constant....

By Evin Shad Vote1 0

Christian Anarchists are such a tragic sight. When I find out that someone's an Anarchist, I get really excited, but then when I find out they're a christian, it makes me want to puke. Christianity is not really all that different from statism. Here are five key similarities I've noticed: Above Morality: statism and christianity both posit a certain entity as being Above Morality in some sense. God is said to be the author of morality, at least 95% of the time (a few christians disagree) and even when he isn't you can see him doing things in the bible...

By Evin Shad Vote1 13

I've referred several times to my own version of Anarchism, calling it Vigilantist Anarchism or Anarcho-Vigilantism. So here I'm going to elaborate on just what it is and how it differs from Anarcho-Capitalism. Although the actions of an Anarcho-Vigilantist may at times closely resemble those of an Anarcho-Capitalist, the reasons behind them are very different. Vigilantist Anarchism says that people should be treated according to how they act, not how they treat others. In other words, there are victimless immoral acts (I don't like the word crime because of its associated with the state) that should be punished - that's...

By Evin Shad Vote0 0

When statists refer to "Justice X", I want to slap them across the face. Justice is not a person, it is a virtue. Calling a judge "Justice" is like saying "Your majesty" to a king. Not only is it wrong to pay such respect to such people, it's semantically senseless. People cannot be justice any more than god can be love. I hope that from now on you will call judges that instead of worshipping them by identifying them with virtue itself.

By Evin Shad Vote2 0

This is one of those things where I have a slight disagreement with what is apparently mainstream thought on this website. Everyone here says oh war is immoral and only a government would make war, but there are times that isn't the case. Let me point out two of them. One: an free, anarchist community of significant size has finally been established (call it Ancapistan), and a neighboring government wants them to submit to rule. They say no. The government says yes, and marches armed troops into Ancapistan to enforce obedience. Needless to say before long shots are being fired...

By Evin Shad Vote2 3

Spellweaver is a collectible card game set in an extremely generic fantasy world. I mentioned it in a previous post calling it my second favorite card game at the time of writing. Well, as I believe I also mentioned, the game has some serious balance issues (I have noticed that virtually all CCG's do) and I used to spend a lot of time arguing on the forums, trying to convince people that the overpowered cards were so. I had appallingly little success; you wouldn't believe how irrational people can be. For a while I wondered how it was possible to...

By Evin Shad Vote0 0

In Drivers Ed the agents of the state who are given custody of you make sure to indoctrinate you with the idea that the right to drive is something the state gives you and that the state can take from you at any time. But is it? Let's think about this. Driving is the act of using a vehicle that you own to transport yourself much faster than is otherwise possible. Explain to me how that is a privilege that needs to be given? You're not using a vehicle that somebody else owns (you could be, but you aren't necessarily)....

By Evin Shad Vote1 0

Our culture has this very binary way of thinking about morality, in which actions are either "okay" or "not okay". Conventional morality is focused on the concept of obligation, which is the minimum you can do without falling into the "not okay" zone. Positively good actions, when their existence is even acknowledged, are seen as "extra" and don't seem to get nearly as much recognition as a negative action of the same magnitude - if I steal ten dollars one day and then give someone ten dollars another day (completely unrelatedly), how do you fancy I deserve to be treated...

By Evin Shad Vote0 0

Of all the ridiculous euphemisms government comes up with for the horrible things it does, none is so sheerly insulting as "correctional facility" (and its cousin, "to 'serve' time"). Not even "welfare". You know what I call prisons? Corruptional facilities. Their purpose is to corrupt people, after all, not to correct. Let's resist the onslaught of statist propaganda by calling things what they are, not what they're called.

By Evin Shad Vote1 0

I was just reading Matthew Reece's article "The Real Reason Why We Pay Taxes" wherein he rebuts the SCDOR's argument for taxation, and one of the points SCDOR made is so ridiculous, so completely irrational, that I cannot help but add to Matthew's rebuttal (I'm surprised he didn't notice this flaw himself). The point was (speaking of government-provided 'services'): "... But why must they be paid for with taxes? Why shouldn’t we just pay individually for what we use? The answer is simple: Because no one could afford it. Each person would have to pay the full fee for the...

By Evin Shad Vote1 0

So a while back I found out about this game, called Prismata, and I've got to say it's the best game I've ever played. That's not an exaggeration. Not even a little bit. The game is simply amazing. Prismata is like a mix of the best parts of Chess (deterministic strategy with perfect information), Starcraft (a sci-fi theme where you start with a few workers and collect resources, invest in your choice of technologies, and construct an army to destroy your opponent), and Dominion (to make every game different, each game contains a few randomly selected units from a large...

By Evin Shad Vote0 0

I sometimes hear people argue for democracy on the basis that without a government, violent mobs would rule. You know what? Democracy. Is. Violent Mob Rule. Denying it is like saying... I don't know what. Something stupid.

By Evin Shad Vote0 0

Don't get me wrong: I am no communist. I believe in private property and always have and always will. But I think communism gets an extremely disproportionate amount of hate in our society compared to other evils (especially considering that most of the people who claim to hate it in this country are statists and therefore support some limited form of communism). Communism isn't THAT evil. It's not nearly as evil as, say, using imprisonment as a punishment. Communism (at least in its best form) is based on the idea that people have a duty to be altruistic. And that's...

By Evin Shad Vote0 3

Different Forms of Punishment And Their Pros and Cons Sep 14, 2017

QED That Senators Are Being Paid Too Much Jun 7, 2017

The violence is the sin, not the anger Apr 23, 2017

The Ends Justify The Means Mar 28, 2017

“Fairly elected” Is An Oxymoron Feb 8, 2017

The Moral Poison of Harry Potter Dec 30, 2016

Gaming and Morality Dec 19, 2016

How Government Promotes Discrimination Dec 8, 2016

Statism And Christianity – Are They Really That Different? Nov 2, 2016

Introducing Vigilantist Anarchism Oct 4, 2016

Stop Calling Judges “Justices” Sep 25, 2016

Let’s Talk About War Sep 19, 2016

Self-Delusion On The Spellweaver Forums Sep 11, 2016

Driving Is Not A Privilege Sep 5, 2016

Problems With Conventional Morality Sep 3, 2016

“Correctional Facilities” Aug 31, 2016

A Bullshit Argument For Taxes Aug 30, 2016

Prismata: The Perfect Game Aug 30, 2016

Democracy Is Mob Rule Aug 24, 2016

In Defense of Communism Aug 23, 2016