Saturday, October 10, 2015

Predicting the Future

People have been predicting the future for thousands of years. Why? To protect themselves from what is coming? Mostly, yes.

Many of them have listened to voices they've heard, thinking God or angels are talking to them. That's never worked. Almost all of such predictions have been really screwy, usually involving massive amounts of death and destruction before Paradise reigns.

Karl Marx tried to predict the future "scientifically," yet the application of his theories have failed completely in every way, leading instead to death and destruction - literally the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Even today, people are still trying to impose socialism, ignoring its history. That's just insane.

Instead, what does work is political and economic liberty. Strictly speaking, I don't believe in "economics." It used to be called "political economy," because you can't separate one from the other. That's why it's often referred to as political and economic liberty. The more that exists, the better it is for everyone.

If I was an investor, I'd only invest in countries that had the most economic and political liberty - the U.S., western Europe, Canada, New Zealand, Australia. In other words, what has traditionally been the Christian West. I would have nothing to do with the rest of the world and don't want any of them coming here.

I have never considered China a threat, and now the place is in pretty big economic trouble. I predicted this, to the jeers of the uninformed. Russia, too, for that matter

And if Russia and China get into a war, that's not our problem, the way when the National Socialists of Germany and the International Socialists of Russia got into a war, we should have let them pound each other into the dust instead of getting involved.

Richard Maybury, who is an investor counselor and the author of several books, has pointed out you only need two basic laws to create a good society: 1): do all that you have agreed to do, and 2) do not encroach on other people or their property.

The first is the basis for tort law and the second the basis for criminal law. When enforced (or most especially when people follow them willingly), both together create political and economic liberty. Prosperity. Well-being. It's pretty simple. And when you follow those simple rules, you get liberty. When you don't follow them you get tyranny.

All of this is based on the premise law is discovered, not invented. If you believe it is invented, then it's anything you want it to be.

This Liberty vs. Tyranny is why were are getting science (and when it's application, technology) growing by leaps and bounds every day. That's the free market.

On the other hand, the State is growing, too, which is why we're getting people trying impose tyranny on people, including attempts to impose a one-world government. The whole thing is a gigantic mess and cannot continue.

Liberty or Tyranny. That, in a nutshell, is how you can predict what is coming.

10 comments:

LosAngelesKing said...

"And if Russia and China get into a war, that's not our problem, the way when the National Socialists of Germany and the International Socialists of Russia got into a war, we should have let them pound each other into the dust instead of getting involved."

This! One of the biggest lies of our time was that Nazi Germany alone started WW2, when it was Stalin who began it jointly with Hitler by invading Poland. I remember catching a lot of heat from "history" teachers in high school for saying all of the above. Major J.F.C. Fuller warned the Allies that if they went to war against the Nazis, then Stalin would win. And guess what? He did. By allowing leftist vermin (the Nazis were leftist no matter how much leftists try to say to the contrary) to kill each other, the West would have been left dominating Europe instead of being kept on the brink of nuclear war for over 4 decades. Instead, the allies defeated one tyrant by using a much greater one, making them collaborators of Genghis Khan with tanks, a fact conveniently ignored by our propaganda writing "historians."

Mindstorm said...

How does the liberty to divorce and remarry fit into this simplified worldview, Bob?

Unknown said...

"Do all that you have agreed to do." Marriage, at the minimum, is a legal contract. That's why going back to "at fault" is a good idea.

cecilhenry said...

China may or may not be a threat beyond their region. I don't know. But why underestimate them?

Their economy may have troubles, but their advances over the past 30 years have been extraordinary.

Many parts of China are industrialized and quite modern. They are not backward anymore. Don't underestimate this.

cecilhenry said...

China may or may not be a threat beyond their region. I don't know. But why underestimate them?

Their economy may have troubles, but their advances over the past 30 years have been extraordinary.

Many parts of China are industrialized and quite modern. They are not backward anymore. Don't underestimate this.

Unknown said...

"Many parts of China are industrialized and quite modern. They are not backward anymore. Don't underestimate this."

"Whites create, Asians copy, blacks sing and dance."

If China was meant to be a great civilization it would have thousands of years ago. Instead they imitate the white man without being white.

Rusty Shackleford said...

This is boiler plate, doctrinaire libertarian ideology. In theory, it sounds good. In practice it has been a complete disaster, and that's because the ideology doesn't matter as much as people do. Blood, culture, language and religion matter. That's why Poland and Russia are still countries after 70 years of communism. That's why the USSR isn't a nation anymore and why the US, the UK and the EU will soon cease to be.

Chesterton wrote that the madness of tomorrow will not come from Moscow but much more from Manhattan. In the real world capitalism, libertarianism and liberal democracy are solvents that atomize individuals and tear apart the traditional culture. When the culture is broken, there is nothing left but the ideology. If someone believes in the sort of reductionist libertarianism you're putting forward as the highest end or ideal, how do they defend cultural traditions, borders, language, etc.? The answer is poorly. They defend them poorly when they defend them at all. This is because they cannot allow common sense and the concerns of themselves, their own blood and culture to trump liberty, if they still want to call themselves libertarians. The need to justify everything in terms of personal liberty is like fighting with one arm tied behind your back.

As a real world example look at Southern California. A generation ago it was a libertarian haven. In the time since its undergone massive ethnic cleansing (disparagingly called white flight)at a level probably rarely seen in the history of the world. A generation from now we'll just call it Mexico. Northern California on the other hand has always been more left wing, socialist, green, etc. This should result in a lower quality of living, but the real world is more complicated. The wall of regulations, environmental statutes, etc. have artificially limited immigration, development and kept prices high such that it has not changed nearly as much.

Likewise with Eastern Europe. 70 years of communism should have destroyed these nations, but instead it acted like the gooey, protective layer of cosmoline on a
Mosin Nagant rifle. Poles and Slovaks are now more Polish and Slovakian than ever. While German women servilely take to the streets en masse to welcome middle eastern hordes as though they were some sort of conquering army, Hungary builds walls and Slovakia point blank refuses to let outsiders in. The future of Europe and Christendom is in the east.

Rusty Shackleford said...


"- the U.S., western Europe, Canada, New Zealand, Australia. In other words, what has traditionally been the Christian West. I would have nothing to do with the rest of the world and don't want any of them coming here."

Cold war kid prejudices. In the real world the anglosphere nations you think are so great are busy pioneering transsexual rights as their top priority. Obama just appointed a homo to oversee the army, and apparently we are all fine with that. Where do you draw the lines of Christendom in Europe, anyway? The Elbe? The English Channel? Do you think of the Czechs as pointy hatted savages waiting to swoop in and pillage Europa?

In reality, in the conflict between Russia and the US, we're are the radicals, weirdos and deviants now, and Russia represents normalcy and traditionalism.

Mindstorm said...

Rusty, Poland is still a country despite of more than a century of being partitioned:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitions_of_Poland
Its mere 46(?) years of socialism (you can't call that communism without the complete abolition of private property) are not that significant in comparison.

Unknown said...

Start with first principles. In the West, Christianity, keeping your word, not attacking people or property. Then you build on that.

As I said, law is discovered, like the laws of physics. It's not created.

Russia and China are in huge trouble, contrary to the conventional wisdom.

And Poland has always been in a terrible place, between Germany and Russia. Its history has been one of extended horror.