4 Comments

Something that I don't think you've addressed adequately here:

– Lions who are highly neurotic and therefore feel guilty and tend to self-flagellate over their natural Darwinian advantages, so engineer their own downfall

– Giraffes who have a sense of perverse honor and identify with and/or aspire to lionhood, so engineer their own destruction

I have adorned, and still do often, both of those temperaments, sometimes simultaneously!, and it causes a lot of inner confusion, and, frankly, insanity.

In general, I do tend to vibe with a type of center-right individualism, but it hardly seems ideal. The least bad of all the systems, as was said once.

Expand full comment
author

I don't disagree with any of this, but would add what you functionally did here is say "centrists exist"; I didn't say this because I thought it borderline tautological/truism to do so, and I try not to make essays longer than they need to be. lion/giraffe is a spectrum, there are very few pure instantiations of them.

people will cluster on either spectrum to varying degrees depending on environment (prevailing wealth/comfort), underpinned by whether they're more temperamentally "lion" or "giraffe". the environment dictates the expression.

you sound like you sit in a reasonable part of this spectrum. I'm further right than you, but not overly so.

Expand full comment

The author Seems not to understand the functional nature of “capital” in which the more you have the more accrues to yourself within the boundaries of a “capitalist” system, as set by the ruler (which is the governing state in most cases). At an individual level the “capitalist “ eventually gains income by earnings arising from capital and not by “working”.

In this context “communism” is just a highly regulated form of “capitalism “ or vice versa - that “capitalism” follows from removing social restrictions on commercial activities. In summary, all human activity is “natural” so we don’t need another three-letter-acronym to play with. The usefulness of the concept of “capitalism”, etc. is not addressed in this article above.

Expand full comment
author

respectively:

- "author Seems not to understand the functional nature of “capital” in which the more you have the more accrues to yourself within the boundaries of a “capitalist” system, as set by the ruler "

all this says is "money has power laws". this both easily understood, and these laws are explicitly mentioned in the essay. and not only is the rate of interest not set by the government (my Fed series details this in excruciating detail), even if it were, that does absolutely nothing to refute what's being said.

saying power laws exist for money is a truism; which means it doesn't communicate anything. power laws exist for any creative or productive endeavor. it's borderline tautological. power laws are a result of any **natural** system. nature creates power laws in all that she does. this accentuates the point of this essay, it doesn't detract from it.

- "“communism” is just a highly regulated form of “capitalism “ or vice versa"

there is no private property in communism. there is no profit, or capital accrual, in communism. in communism an external force physically disallows capital seeking. these things could not be more diametrically opposed and not remotely the same thing.

- "The usefulness of the concept of “capitalism”, etc. is not addressed in this article above."

this essay is almost completely dedicated to how the term 'capitalism' is a redundant pejorative for behaviors humans take organically. which is to say it isn't useful. the entire point of this essay is the lack of utility of the phrase, neigh negative utility, because it is actively misleading.

Expand full comment