Gibbeting

beg the question, when are these things at odds with ethics? Most problems with Greater Economics come from people who see Ceteris Paribus as something that they begrudgingly accept with the truth, as opposed to being the equivalent of peering into a parallel reality through smoked glass. What a man wants is a wife, children, and bread to eat at dinnertime. He wants spiritual fulfillment and security. Indeed, a man has desires, but they serve only as means to these ends. Ambition, even change for his environment, are enveloped by this doctrine. A man would be willing to lay down his life for one of these and nothing else. So therefore a man, before he is a consumer, is a laborer, because it is only by our labor do we ensure these things for ourselves. Yet, as it stands, a man makes decisions in the free market  as a consumer. The capital-owner makes his decisions coldly in that they serve consumers before laborers. Yes indeed, they are the same, but in different worlds entire...

“Do unto others as you would want done unto you.” What do I do if someone attacks me with the intent to hurt me? “They have violated the Golden Rule, and as such -” Stop there. Nothing in the Golden Rule itself satisfactorily explains what is to be done when our own rights are violated. The only supposed practitioners of such a rule would be the truly pacifist Mennonites. Yet even then, their shunning is "unwanted." Is there truly anyone who lives by this rule, without inventing their own bylaws to explain how they handle “special cases”? Indeed, this is the downfall of the Golden Rule in a secular context. There is no basis within the rule to account for “special cases,” i.e. any case in practice. You must transition the rule to something that at least has conditions for its own violation to be practical, or create special rules for every “special case.” The latter half “as you would want done unto you” bears repeating, as it has no account for a myriad of factors:...

Comparative advantage is a theory evidenced by using economic models. I should stop there; anyone who has taken more than one class in Economics will tell you that an "economic model" relies on the idea of ceteris paribus : "all other things equal." In theory, this is the only way we can interpret the world around us. If we hold other things constant, then the relationship between X and Y will become more clear. Economics as a discipline is more concerned today with the field of econometrics. The basis of econometrics itself rejects ceteris paribus , because regression analysis is only as accurate as the multiple variables being accounted for. Things are not being held constant in regression analysis. It is the duty of an econometric analyst to be fair, detail-oriented, and comprehensive. In excluding variables, he or she erodes the integrity of the regression analysis. In contrast, economics is concerned with rejecting all such variables. Now, it is not suffic...

As if to imply that mankind has entered its next stage of evolution, leveled up as if in some sort of game or opened its third eye and transcended into the ubermensch , many people proudly declare that human beings are substantially more intelligent and better informed today than they were hundreds and thousands of years ago. Thus, comparisons between us and the slack-jawed Cro-Magnon are inappropriate. Intelligence may be able to construct better roads, create better vehicles, and reduce the infant mortality rate, but it does not make us substantially different from our ancestors. In fact, we are still tethered to our predecessors in all of the truly relevant ways. We are still vexed by the same problems. Not the issues of how do we prevent this river from flooding or how can we prevent disease , but the truly human problems that arise in all cultures in every time all over the world. Problems like the terrors of war, unrequited love, perils of pursuing vengeance, death and old age...

Since late 2015, I have logged and detailed an account of how Facebook has treated my profile in various spheres. I will briefly outline the findings here. I will provide an explanation of my methods if requested; however, the details I am providing should be sufficient. Facebook has kept track of things that I write but do not post. Exact keyword and phrase match of items never posted led to my own profile. This is what began my investigation: I was writing a eulogy post regarding the passing of my best friend in 2015. I did not publish the post and yet I was targeted with a funeral ad later that week. This has apparently been the case for many other people and was disclosed by Facebook as being the case in 2018 by Mark Zuckerberg before Congress. A dummy profile created by someone other than me five years ago has all of the same ad groups I am a part of. This profile could not be found through my account once I reported it, but family members could easily find it and were occasi...

used to display executed criminals to deter future perpetrators of the same crime. Most commonly associated with a pre-industrial Britain and the Golden Age of Piracy, you might recognize the practice of displaying the dead in a gruesome fashion up and into the days of the Bloody Code in the 18th and 19th century. Though the barbaric practice itself is interesting enough, what becomes distinctly intriguing is how long bodies would remain inside a gibbet. Oliver Cromwell's head was on display for almost five years and was never reunited with his body, which remained in a cage fully clothed for an even longer length of time, possibly up to ten years. Similarly, in the United States, a slave named Mark Codman was accused of helping to poison and kill and his master. After his execution in 1755, he was gibbeted in Somerville; he remained there for at least twenty years, as it is alleged that Paul Revere passed the body in 1775. Speculation persists that even in 1798, when Paul Re...