Stratagems of the Right

As a hobbyist Moon-landing denier, I write for different types of audiences open to the reality that Apollo was a comical fraud, Santa Clause for the boomer generation. For those who enjoy getting straight to the point, I have a series of photo analyses [*1]. For those who enjoy pondering the philosophical implications of the fraud, I have a lengthier analysis [*2]. And for those who want something in between, I have you covered too [*3]. The best type of knowledge is foundational. You know what you had for dinner last night, because you ate it. You know what your neighbor had for dinner last night, because that's what he told you. Absent faulty memory or broken senses, the former is known with certainty. The latter you believe as a symbol of your trust in your neighbor, but you don't know for sure. Let's say your neighbor sends you a picture of himself on vacation, but you discover the image he sends is fake (perhaps he's standing by a convincing cardboard cutout of

How should a right-leaning thinker consider corporate power in the current post-profit and post-democratic decline of global civilization? Moral Considerations in Use and Scope of Government Power A concession to the legitimacy of government power is an acceptance of a degree of utilitarian ethics, gauging success by some measure of aggregate happiness within a jurisdiction. A first-principle approach, deontological ethics, leads us to a rejection of all government power. Let's illustrate the two ethical orientations with extreme examples. If euthanasia results in an increase in aggregate happiness resulting from the dead boomers, euthanasia is just under utilitarian ethics. Under deontological ethics, while a state-funded policeman arresting a murderer is just, the threat of force behind taxes that fund the justice system to conduct that arrest is unjust, making the arrest fruit from a poisonous tree. Most citizens take a pragmatic approach and recognize the danger in these two ex

A precise definition of civilization: a sum of individuals specializing in different areas of knowledge, all relying on each other for survival and comfort in their day-to-day lives. The more reliable the knowledge of others is, the stronger a civilization we have; and the less reliable the knowledge of others is, the weaker a civilization we have. As I've discussed in a  prior piece  [*1], taking graphs from the Edelman report, we are currently experiencing a sharp decline in global civilization, as trust in global institutions, like the media, conglomerate corporations, governments, and international groups, is collapsing. A classic thought experiment. You travel 1,000 years backwards in time. With the relative superiority of modern knowledge, how useful would you to be to the ancient civilization you are now a part of? Even if you're the twenty-first century's most skilled mechanic, engineer, doctor, scientist, or legal scholar, the toolset you previously relied on to fu

What does it mean to be a binary thinker? Is it wrong to think that way? The modern world is far too complex to give most of our day-to-day activities much thought. We employ various devices and systems without understanding how to take them apart and put them back together. Even if we are employed as the world's premiere craftsmen for the device or system in question, the various components, when broken down, are likely outside our individual expertise to craft or reorganize them from the ground up. That level of foundational knowledge is not only unnecessary to complete our daily business; it's downright counterproductive. Most of our daily activities involve, instead, trust in our fellow man, as we all specialize in something unique. From everyone contributing their parts, civilization emerges. No one individual has the hours on this Earth to duplicate civilization. Thus, we deploy mental shortcuts, heuristics, in making decisions in our day-to-day lives. You trust the medic