Go onto Google and search for “I never went to college” or some such, and what do you find? You don’t find stories of people like me, someone who was a gifted kid, is a sophisticate, and a performing-artist type with intellectual curiosities but who … Continue readingI Never Went to College…or High School
What if I had a country to call my own, one that belonged to me, my very own answer to the Principalities of Liechtenstein or Monaco? First and foremost I’d want it to be a refuge of liberty, a free society where the best of … Continue readingIf I Had a Country
I feel a bit behind the curve, since only like yesterday did I discover I have a great affinity with that social-media aesthetic called “dark academia”. Maybe the fact I follow and love the @_DarkAcademia Twitter account and have for a long time should have … Continue readingAcademia, Dark and Otherwise
“9/11”: a word filled with feeling, the bulk of it bad, for all but those fortunate enough to have neither experienced nor heard of it. In the heat of the moment, when Islamic terrorists rammed two hijacked jet planes into the twin towers of the … Continue readingTwenty Years of Terror
What kind of a country strives hard to acquire territory only to deny its people the full splendor of the spoils? Among many other countries who often styled themselves “empires” and acquired far-flung islands across the ocean, the United States, that’s who. Specifically I’d like … Continue readingA Not-so-Minor Dream for the Minor Outlying Islands
In recent years a perennial controversy has returned to the fore: namely, the issue of the state’s power to order the society it governs, of statecraft as soulcraft. “Liberalism” is usually the center of attention in such debates, but it’s recently struck me that the … Continue readingPost-Liberalism: An Echo, Not a Choice
“What?” you might ask, “Worldbuilding with Dunbar’s number?” Dunbar’s number, simply put, is the reality that as human beings we can only conceive of a limited number of people in our minds as fully-formed, concrete, flesh-and-blood human beings instead of abstractions. Dunbar’s Number Although the … Continue readingWorldbuilding with Dunbar’s Number
We’re told that specialization is the elixir of prosperity, the division of labor the font of civilization itself, but what if that’s not true, at least in the way we think it is? Since the age of the Renaissance Man faded into the history books … Continue readingThe Renaissance Man: Still the Master
Financial independence is often thought of as a pathway where you get a good job with the usual methods, work and save diligently well beyond the median percentage, and have the ability to retire early and safely. Although still unknown in many quarters and somewhat … Continue readingThinking Outside the “FIRE” Box
Does conservatism have a future? It might seem a curious question to ask. After all, a political platform of fiscal restraint coupled with resisting social change, recognizably “conservative” to us, is applicable to so many times and places as to be veritably eternal. Yet many, … Continue readingThe Twilight of Conservatism