The Trinity, a 🧵:
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is heavily influenced by Neo-Platonism and the Trinity of the pagan philospher Plotinus. This is especially the case with St. Augustine's conception of the Trinity, where God is conceived as being "absolutely simple." Plotinus envisions the absolute as "the One." Nous (Divine Mind) & Psyche (World Soul) emanate from the One, together a divine Triad. The material world is an emanation from the lower half of the World Soul—this world eminated from the divine rather than being created ex nihilo.

Republicanism vs. Anarchism, a 🧵:

The difference between anarchism and civic republicanism comes down to a very subtle distinction—a difference in the way they define "domination." Both oppose all forms of domination but they disagree on what constitutes domination. The anarchist sees domination as any arrangement that is imposed or not voluntary—formal consent and the ability to opt out (consensus/dissensus) is essential to eliminate domination. On the other hand, civic republicans see domination as *arbitrary* imposition.

Ppl want to means-test things & be fiscally conservative. That's why we can't have nice things but replacing the ACA with UCC and the dysfunctional welfare system with NIT would virtually eliminate poverty and ensure universal healthcare while reducing total gov't spending. (1/4) vox.com/policy-and-pol… (2/4)

Most important policies to implement in order to create a just society:
✔️Basic income (UBI, NIT, social dividend)
✔️Land Value Tax (6%)
✔️ Universal Healthcare (M4A, UCC, UHCV)
✔️Harberger Tax on intellectual property (Common-Ownershup Self-assessed Tax)

(1/5) ✔️ NGDP level targeting
✔️Sahm's direct stimulus automatic stabilizer
✔️STAR voting
✔️National use-of-force standard for police
✔️National registry of fired police officers and prohibition on hiring anyone on the list in any department in the country

(2/5)

A radical centrist is one who reads Marx & Hayek & finds them both indispensable—one who read Burke & Kropotkin & was like "these guys both make really good points."—one who wrestles with complexity/uncertainty & settles into a George, Bernstein, or Meade sort of "middle way." A true radical centrist, in this sense, is always uncertain—a critical rationalist in Popper's sense, knowing the limits of human knowledge—always open to changing their mind, aware that they could be wrong, always learning, never dogmatic, filled with doubts.

The problem with foreign policy and international relations is that it's ridiculously complex and complicated, there's no right answer, everything about it sucks because the reality is fucked, and nobody has any clue what the right thing to do is because the solution is unclear. Radical libertarianism & anarchism offer critiques of interventionism & the status quo, realpolitik and neoconservatism offers valid counter-arguments, a middle way seems untenable. The more you read on the subject, the more certain you become of your own ignorance & uncertainty.

I'm basically a Hayekian socialist or a libertarian distributist. I like James Meade's liberal-socialism a lot but often feel like a more "neoliberal" analog along Friedmanite/Hayekian lines is probably a safer route to eutopia. I find the idea of nationalizing industry and doing a social dividend from the profits of socialized industry to be appealing, but I am also a Burkean/Hayekain conservative in the sense that I am very cautious of untried schemes that might have unintended negative consequences.

If UBI causes inflation & inflation is a tax, the tax will be rendered progressive by UBI in the same way that a VAT would. Suppose that there's a 5% inflation. A person making $30,000 gets +$12,000 (UBI) and -$2,100 (inflation tax). Still much better off with $39,900 now. Now, take Bezos' income of $200-billion per year. He gets +$12,000 (UBI) and -$10,000,000,600 (inflation tax). He's left much worse off and we've effectively imposed a wealth tax on him. So, if UBI causes higher than normal inflation, who cares? It's a wealth tax.

I've always had a difficult relationship with MMT. On the one hand, much of what they say is true and absolutely needs to be said but there are a few points where I think MMT can be dangerous. I side more with the functional finance (proto-MMT) position, where UBI plays a role. The modern MMT framework tends to be hostile to UBI (and often even to NIT and minimum income guarantee ideas) and favor a very questionable Federal Job Guarantee scheme instead. And I hesitate to direct people to MMT lit because I fear it will poison them against UBI.

It's easy to justify a social safety net (UBI, UHC) from a libertarian perspective. It's not just having gov't intervene due to market failures. Unemployment, foreclosures, & recessions are a result of bad policy. Gov't has an obligation to compensate the victims of its failures. If bad monetary policy causes high unemployment when free banking would not have, the gov't has an obligation to rectify the situation to mitigate the harm it has caused.

It strikes me that many modern "distributists" are closer to liberal-socialists, leaning much more social-democratic than conservative. Early distributism (e.g. Belloc, Chesterton) was opposed to the idea of a welfare state. Now many distributists have integrated a more social-democratic approach into their distributism, being open to expanding the welfare state in order to eliminate poverty & guarantee universal healthcare. This is so with Pope Francis, John Médaille, & the American Solidary Party.

A thread on why ignorance and immorality are basically the same thing (and some thoughts on the Dunning-Kruger effect, politics, vaccines, and killing witches): Ignorance and immorality are nearly always coterminous. The biggest problem with our society is that everyone (you, me, Einstein, literally EVERYONE) is stupid as fuck and resistant to being educated. You have a moral obligation to educate yourself.

There are some good ideas that come out of conservatism and neoliberalism that are really important but a little bit difficult to talk about because there's not really a term for it. The combination of property-owning democracy and a social insurance welfare state (Irving Kristol) is really appealing and I find that there's also a certain neoliberal proposal for a just basic structure of society that would, in fact, create a highly egalitarian society.

A thread on the rural/urban divide and how the problems faced by poor people are the same on both sides and the solution is actually the same too: Listening to the "Forgotten America" podcast is kind of sad. We tend to think of rural Americans as ignorant rednecks, which isn't entirely untrue, but we forget the problems of poverty that create ignorance. Prejudice due to ignorance isn't a uniquely rural white issue.

I have a pet theory about this. During the last supper, Jesus picked up the "wine" and said, "this is my souma." Souma referring to an entheogenic drink used to induce hallucinations, but this was misinterpreted as "this is my soma (body)."

https://twitter.com/therealdiderott/status/1361445245800615936

Gnostic Christianity had similarities to Vedic/Hindu religion, where a psychedelic drink known as "soma" was used to see the gods. In the Greek islands, there's a drink called "souma" to this day that can be used as an entheogen.

Friedrich von Weiser, pioneer Austrian School economist and student of Carl Menger, making an argument for progressive income tax in "Social Economics." Interestingly, the argument he makes is not an argument about equality (he rejects that argument) but instead about fairness. A similar argument from fairness is made for progressive taxation by Amartya Sen, who notes that a flat tax puts an excessive burden on poorer people without putting an equal burden on the wealthy. This is a good argument and Austrian Schoolers should seriously consider it.

I can't wait until I have the vaccine and can feel comfortable going to the gym. There's three places I want to train at in the coming year or two: one does judo/aiki-jujutsu, one does Bang Muay Thai/10th Planet Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and another does capoeira. I really only want to do capoeira for a few months, just for the experience and to learn some of the kicks, but I want to do judo and BJJ more permanently. They're taught at different gyms, but both gym memberships together are cheaper than the last gym membership I had.

A thread on "libertarian distributism" and Eastern Orthodox social teachings as I understood it: It's been a long time since I was a believer, but I've always held that the position of Rabbi Schmuley Boteach and Pope Francis on gay marriage and same-sex unions logically follows from what the Bible says.

Milton Friedman's essay on the social responsibility of business was not wrong. The theory is that businessmen should seek to maximize profits, while gov't should regulate in a way that prohibits (or increases the cost of) socially irresponsible decisions.
umich.edu/~thecore/doc/F… This is not just a central tenet of Friedmanite neoliberalism but also of liberal-socialism as espoused by James Meade and Abba Lerner. Friedman's thesis is implicit in Lerner's "Economics of Control: Principles of Welfare Economics."

Abba Lerner distinguishes between two types of speculation: productive speculation & aggressive speculation.

Productive speculation is when you buy something that is currently cheap and abundant and sell it again at a later time, effectively reallocating resources through time. Aggressive speculation is when you buy something to sell at a markup later but where the speculation serves no useful social function and may even have a negative impact overall. This is the kind of speculation that you see in the stock market and in real estate.

Monetary policy could be greatly simplified by getting rid of gov't borrowing altogether and establishing a social dividend where forecasters at the Fed increase or reduce the size of the dividend to meet a nominal GDP target. And such a system just makes sense. If the Fed really needs to create more money, why not distribute it directly to the citizens? Why give money to banks and speculators rather than to the people directly?