Problems with Freedom
A conservative libertarian has a lot to worry about. Mainly that freedom and prosperity are the real “culprits”, and their interaction with natural genetic variation. Not the welfare state. Not the government. Not apathetic elites. Not globalism or “stagnant wages”. Any major reversals in these trends would seemingly require major, forceful social controls, because they are the consequences of a very pervasive kind of individualism and of freedom of thought.
Chew on that. Realize what is being said here. If you do, you should feel a shudder descend your spine. Individualism and freedom of thought are the enemies of the very values and morality which gave birth to them and elevated them to primacy among advanced nations.
What libertarian, conservative OR liberal could read and accept the above premise and not feel at least some elemental part of his worldview shatter.
Libertarians: laissez faire means the cementing of intractable human hereditary differences into antagonistic classes and milieus.
Conservatives: freedom and prosperity mean a slackening of external behavioral motivators and the erosion of commonality and shared values and the means with which to argue for them.
Liberals: nonjudgmental individualism means a collapse of social capital and a surrender of any moral or aesthetic authority.
None of this is to say that people would, or should, prefer to live in less prosperous, backward nations. I don’t see too many Westerners clamoring to move to Zimbabwe for the quality of life. And yet, there has to be a recognition among the cognoscenti that a deeply embedded human nature exists, and that this nature — immutable, unalterable, suppressed only with great effort — when allowed to fully express or, alternately, when stifled at great psychic expense guarantees the slow unwinding of the very prosperity it desires and refuses to relinquish when it achieves.
https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/prosperity-is-the-problem/
Was this REALLY the best way to trim the hedge?
The sharpest view of the Orion Nebula that we ever been treated with by Hubble telescope, will make you pause in wonder, or even take a deep breath:
Flying Robots Build 20 Foot “tower” out of styrofoam blocks
As the Instapundit says “Welcome to the 21st Century”. Wow.
OK, this is in a controlled environment and these are very light-weight blocks, but still, 20 years from now you can imagine larger machines like this building simple structures.
