Free-Man's Perspective

Among the most important scientific findings of the 20^th century were those of Dr. Robert Sapolsky. His work was becoming an interesting but fairly straightforward study, until a freak accident turned it into a human turning point. (Don’t stop listening half-way through or you’ll miss it!) Sapolsky’s findings show that the kind of progress we dream about is unquestionably possible. That puts the burden back on us, of course… and that scares a lot of people… but let there be no more question, we CAN step into a better age.

It seems that right on the heels of a beautiful new vision, old fears come charging back to our minds, defending their positions. And so this episode explains why and how we will succeed. There’s really no doubt about the general outcome. The only uncertainty is the timing.

Cryptography has changed the world over the past few decades. Without it there would be no Internet commerce, no VPNs, or Tor, or Bitcoin, or Wikileaks, or the Snowden revelations, or BitTorrent. But however impressive the results, it’s the power of the crypto vision that has driven them… and a revelation it is. Those who grasp it are often changed for life.

A few years ago I uploaded a post on status, to somewhat mixed reviews. A significant number of people feel that status is something to embrace, or at least something that can’t be fought.

And so today I’m “doubling down,” as people like to say these days, because once you recognize the perversity of status, you also recognize that we very much need to get past it. Continue reading “Status Revisited”

Buckminster Fuller’s advice for building a better world was to create a new model that makes the old model obsolete, and the Parallel Society podcast is dedicated to just that. We cover cryptocurrency, biohacking, private space flight, homeschooling and much more.

Culture has always been the antagonist of conscience.

Once we see ourselves as part of a larger entity… once we identify with it… we feel a necessity to conform to it. If we don’t, we lose the existential crutch that larger entities offer us. And, partly as a result of living with that collective identification, most of us are emotionally unprepared to stand alone before the world. Continue reading “Culture Versus Conscience”

I well remember the first time someone told me they believed in the Calvinist doctrine of “the depravity of man.” It shocked me. To complain about human behavior I understood, but to condemn the entire human species as depraved… that was and remains obscene to me. Continue reading “Can We Dare To Imagine Goodness?”

Since the Bronze Age, human societies have been arranged around force. Even now, governments are monopolies of violence. And every government involves two intertwined operations: to deliver coercion and to keep its populace convinced that no other arrangements are possible. All other concerns are secondary. Continue reading “Science Has Won: Might Is Obsolete”