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I've got several pages ported, but there's more to go
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thales/output
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# Thales blog
To set up the blog you'll need to create a virtualenv and install:
```
pip install pelican markdown
```
Then you'll need to generate the content with
```
cd thales
pelican content
```
You can build content by running a tab with `pelican -r content`. The `-r` will update on changes to the filesystem. Then you just run a simple web server with:
```
cd thales/output
python -m http.server
```
This takes two tabs. You'll survive

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PY?=python3
PELICAN?=pelican
PELICANOPTS=
BASEDIR=$(CURDIR)
INPUTDIR=$(BASEDIR)/content
OUTPUTDIR=$(BASEDIR)/output
CONFFILE=$(BASEDIR)/pelicanconf.py
PUBLISHCONF=$(BASEDIR)/publishconf.py
FTP_HOST=localhost
FTP_USER=anonymous
FTP_TARGET_DIR=/
SSH_HOST=localhost
SSH_PORT=22
SSH_USER=root
SSH_TARGET_DIR=/var/www
S3_BUCKET=my_s3_bucket
CLOUDFILES_USERNAME=my_rackspace_username
CLOUDFILES_API_KEY=my_rackspace_api_key
CLOUDFILES_CONTAINER=my_cloudfiles_container
DROPBOX_DIR=~/Dropbox/Public/
GITHUB_PAGES_BRANCH=gh-pages
DEBUG ?= 0
ifeq ($(DEBUG), 1)
PELICANOPTS += -D
endif
RELATIVE ?= 0
ifeq ($(RELATIVE), 1)
PELICANOPTS += --relative-urls
endif
help:
@echo 'Makefile for a pelican Web site '
@echo ' '
@echo 'Usage: '
@echo ' make html (re)generate the web site '
@echo ' make clean remove the generated files '
@echo ' make regenerate regenerate files upon modification '
@echo ' make publish generate using production settings '
@echo ' make serve [PORT=8000] serve site at http://localhost:8000'
@echo ' make serve-global [SERVER=0.0.0.0] serve (as root) to $(SERVER):80 '
@echo ' make devserver [PORT=8000] start/restart develop_server.sh '
@echo ' make stopserver stop local server '
@echo ' make ssh_upload upload the web site via SSH '
@echo ' make rsync_upload upload the web site via rsync+ssh '
@echo ' make dropbox_upload upload the web site via Dropbox '
@echo ' make ftp_upload upload the web site via FTP '
@echo ' make s3_upload upload the web site via S3 '
@echo ' make cf_upload upload the web site via Cloud Files'
@echo ' make github upload the web site via gh-pages '
@echo ' '
@echo 'Set the DEBUG variable to 1 to enable debugging, e.g. make DEBUG=1 html '
@echo 'Set the RELATIVE variable to 1 to enable relative urls '
@echo ' '
html:
$(PELICAN) $(INPUTDIR) -o $(OUTPUTDIR) -s $(CONFFILE) $(PELICANOPTS)
clean:
[ ! -d $(OUTPUTDIR) ] || rm -rf $(OUTPUTDIR)
regenerate:
$(PELICAN) -r $(INPUTDIR) -o $(OUTPUTDIR) -s $(CONFFILE) $(PELICANOPTS)
serve:
ifdef PORT
cd $(OUTPUTDIR) && $(PY) -m pelican.server $(PORT)
else
cd $(OUTPUTDIR) && $(PY) -m pelican.server
endif
serve-global:
ifdef SERVER
cd $(OUTPUTDIR) && $(PY) -m pelican.server 80 $(SERVER)
else
cd $(OUTPUTDIR) && $(PY) -m pelican.server 80 0.0.0.0
endif
devserver:
ifdef PORT
$(BASEDIR)/develop_server.sh restart $(PORT)
else
$(BASEDIR)/develop_server.sh restart
endif
stopserver:
$(BASEDIR)/develop_server.sh stop
@echo 'Stopped Pelican and SimpleHTTPServer processes running in background.'
publish:
$(PELICAN) $(INPUTDIR) -o $(OUTPUTDIR) -s $(PUBLISHCONF) $(PELICANOPTS)
ssh_upload: publish
scp -P $(SSH_PORT) -r $(OUTPUTDIR)/* $(SSH_USER)@$(SSH_HOST):$(SSH_TARGET_DIR)
rsync_upload: publish
rsync -e "ssh -p $(SSH_PORT)" -P -rvzc --delete $(OUTPUTDIR)/ $(SSH_USER)@$(SSH_HOST):$(SSH_TARGET_DIR) --cvs-exclude
dropbox_upload: publish
cp -r $(OUTPUTDIR)/* $(DROPBOX_DIR)
ftp_upload: publish
lftp ftp://$(FTP_USER)@$(FTP_HOST) -e "mirror -R $(OUTPUTDIR) $(FTP_TARGET_DIR) ; quit"
s3_upload: publish
s3cmd sync $(OUTPUTDIR)/ s3://$(S3_BUCKET) --acl-public --delete-removed --guess-mime-type --no-mime-magic --no-preserve
cf_upload: publish
cd $(OUTPUTDIR) && swift -v -A https://auth.api.rackspacecloud.com/v1.0 -U $(CLOUDFILES_USERNAME) -K $(CLOUDFILES_API_KEY) upload -c $(CLOUDFILES_CONTAINER) .
github: publish
ghp-import -m "Generate Pelican site" -b $(GITHUB_PAGES_BRANCH) $(OUTPUTDIR)
git push origin $(GITHUB_PAGES_BRANCH)
.PHONY: html help clean regenerate serve serve-global devserver stopserver publish ssh_upload rsync_upload dropbox_upload ftp_upload s3_upload cf_upload github

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Title: Art and Dreams
Date: 2010-08-25 15:04
Category: Ask Thales
Tags:
Arthur writes
> I stumbled onto thehumanascent.com by accident as I was searching for artistic inspiration. Fortunately I found you and thought you might be able to help me.
> I used to go out to Chinese every day for lunch, and of course I loved to get those fortune cookies.
> I used to think that they were just for fun until I got the same fortune six days in a row (the sixth day wasn’t work; I took my wife to the same place because she says I never take her anywhere anymore.)
> The fortune was this “If you want to succeed follow your dreams!” When I read it to my wife she laughed saying I didn’t have any realistic dreams.
> So, I decided I was going to do something about it.
> I refinanced my home and bought all the art supplies that my local art store and on-line could sell me.
> I have really started to make some masterpieces.
> (As you might have guessed my dream was to be a recklessly talented artist).
> I am six months into the art thing now and I am having absolutely no success.
> Well that is not entirely true, my in-laws bought one of my pieces so that we could afford food (they don’t seem to understand the dream thing).
> I am starting to feel a bit nervous about the whole deal because my kids are starting to look a little emaciated (I caught one of them eating a tub of my finger paints like pudding) and my wife is discussing her will with the lawyer every other day.
> I am sure that I am on the verge of a breakthrough because my most recent fortune said “Fortune will come to you shortly”, but I am starting to worry about my family a little.
> When we were first married my wife always told me she wanted me to capture my dreams.
> So I guess my question to you is: Should I court the muses and hope for an upswing, or should I abandon my dreams to return to the dismal antagonizing world from whence I came?
Arthur, I’m pleased that you came to me with this problem. Your situation is perfectly indicative of why Keynesian economics simply does not work. You see, the Keynesians would have thought that if they lowered the interest rate enough, nothing could have kept you from not only buying a home, but buying several homes. They just have no concept of how humans do things for motives other than carefully scripted financial ones. Frankly, humans are highly varied in their motives and methods, and only a completely free market and sound currency can serve them properly.
As for your actual question, the answer lies in understanding your primary responsibility. Actually, I’ve changed my mind – I can no more dictate to you what your responsibility is than Lord Keynes can. What I will tell you is this: children represent a fascinating investment opportunity. We all understand the compounded value of a simple investment faithfully made early. Your children currently require a small amount of food. If you faithfully provide that, some day you will be old and they will be worth a lot. You could have them take care of you, sell them, or even harvest them for organs. Now, you could ignore this investment opportunity, which is only available to you as a parent, to pursue your artistic muse, or you could make the minimum payments necessary to realize a large gain in your portfolio later on. I’m not suggesting you have to abandon your art completely – small children really don’t eat very much – just that you could abandon enough of it to provide what your children need. Say, for instance, that you paint for 7 hours a day and work at some kind of restaurant or food service industry that provides discounts for employees another 3 hours a day. That’s only 10 hours a day of work, and the majority, over 69%, devoted to your art.
Really, the important thing to remember here is that your work is not an all-or-nothing proposition. You have many assets you could put on the open market alongside your artistic output. It takes creativity and persistence to pursue the many paths available to you. Diversification is the path to stability and prosperity.
Oh, and fortune cookies lie.

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Title: Being in the Minority
Date: 2010-08-31 22:40
Category: Ask Thales
Tags:
Stanley writes:
> Dear Thales,
>
> I feel trapped in a system that I can’t control.
> I feel like I am not being represented and that my voice is not being heard.
> I feel like money governs politics and that I don’t have the power to change the direction of my country.
> I have lost all confidence in the federal government who is supposed to be serving me and millions of Americans with my same reservations.
>
> I have three questions: First, am I in the minority; are most people content and comfortable with the current situation in our national politics? Second, how can I make my voice heard if the officials I vote for turn their back on me? And third, at what point is revolution a morally correct option?
You raise some fantastic points Stanley, ones I wish more people raised more often. Or, raised once and remembered the answers to. Your question opens a can of worms of political thought that would be fascinating to expoud at length. I’ll refrain, as few readers have that kind of patience. I know I don’t.
First, you have to recognize that you can’t control the system you’re referring to – the Federal government. Influence, yes, to a very small degree, but not control. That may seem like a semantic distinction, but it isn’t. One of the first important illusions that governments maintain is that you control them. After all, a government is the only entity that is granted a license by society to perform violence. When dogs perform violence, we put them down. When individuals perform violence, we lock them up. When governments perform violence, we rationalize. Think about how shockingly different your responses are to watching a gunman at a mall kill people and watching a soldier fire on insurgents. Take way the uniforms and the air of respectability and you’ll find the actions are almost identical – your illusion about the government is what protects them from a deluge of indignation. So, they fuel this illusion by making themselves seem controlled, accountable. The giant bureaucracy that is the government is designed to prevent you from having control of them. But, you still have some influence.
Now I will answer your questions:
> First, am I in the minority; are most people content and comfortable with the current situation in our national politics?
Most people are not content and comfortable with national politics. [See](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html) [a few](http://www.gallup.com/poll/politics.aspx) [sources](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/10/AR2010021004708.html). Being unhappy with the current governmental system is, quite solidly, the majority opinion. And even if it weren’t, would it matter what everyone else thinks? If common sense is understood to be the average of all sense of all people, why would you want to have common sense when you have the potential to have uncommon sense – ie, sense above and beyond average? You likely have that capacity – seeking to fit with averages is a sure path to mediocrity.
> Second, how can I make my voice heard if the officials I vote for turn their back on me?
You can’t. My first suggestion is to never vote for people who would turn their back on you. This is difficult, but not impossible. Principally it means you have to put much more effort into voting than most people do, and be unwilling to vote for the ‘lesser of two evils’. Vote only for people who have demonstrated the will and drive to listen to constituents, or whose deeply held beliefs match your own so that they don’t have to listen to anyone but themselves to vote as you’d like them to vote. The latter is superior to the former – listening to others takes more effort, and is therefore more fallible.
You should also realize that voting is not your only recourse. This speaks to your next question,
> And third, at what point is revolution a morally correct option?
Revolution, surprisingly, is always a morally correct option. In fact, I’m troubled by your implicit assumption that revolution is not morally correct. Perhaps it’s because you equate revolution with violence. Look at it this way: no person has a right to govern you. No person can assume that right. Even if you live in a nation where a million people vote for someone to govern you and you cast a single dissenting vote, your new governor has no claim over you. Now, most people at that point would choose to accept the new governor for some personal reason. Maybe they like the place they live and figure the new governor isn’t so bad after all. Who knows? But, the basic precept holds true – you and you alone can surrender your natural rights to someone.
Unfortunately, if you were to inform the U.S. Federal government that you rejected their claim of sovereignty over your person and property they would likely meet your completely rational claim with violence. Why? Because they can and no one will stop them and many of them think they have a right to. In fact, rather disgustingly, if you were to inform some local citizens that you have chosen to refuse to pay taxes in exchange for refusing any form of governmental aid, they would likely vilify you for not ‘pulling your weight’ or not being a ‘patriot’. Sad, but true. Misery loves company. So do Ponzi schemes.
Getting back to your question. You may stage a perfectly peaceful revolution in your own home and tell the government where to stick it. They would then come, eventually, with armed officers to take your property. You can then either choose whether or not to defend your right to personal property or not. These are independent actions – the revolution and the violence. Usually they go hand-in-hand because governments are, by and large, bullies, and are perfectly happy to alienate your right to life, liberty and happiness if you don’t play by their rules. However, if the government aggresses against you, you have every right to protect yourself with violence. Therefore, revolution is always morally justified because of your inalienable rights, as is defensive violence against any government that doesn’t like your revolution.
Now, getting back to your second question. There are many gradations of action you can take between voting (fully government sanctioned transformative action) and renouncing your citizenship and asserting your sovereignty (fully governnment opposed action). Generally, the more people support an action the more likely it is to successfully oppose government. It is [unlikely](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijuana_legalization#United_States), though certainly [not impossible](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War), that if your state decides together to do a thing contrary to what the Federal government wishes, they will be successful. Work on a local level is often most effective. Working in city, county, and state politics often yields results much more quickly and with less effort than national movements. You can even join the system and run for various offices yourself.
There are also actions you can take on the opposite side of the spectrum. There still exists [many areas](http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/off_the_grid_life_on_the_mesa/) where you can effectively live how you wish while ignoring many federal mandates. [Some people](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project) work to generate such a location. You could also leave the country and find another government that suits you better. Or move to international waters, where you are free of any nationally recognized jurisdiction.
The biggest thing you should recognize when dealing with government is the fact that they have no authority, only the presumption of authority. People are trained, from a very young age, to defer to perceived authority. If you can realize within yourself your own inherent freedom, and that you have only [sworn allegiance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance) to a piece of fabric and a political idea, you will begin to discover that there are myriad ways to increase your own freedom based on what you value and what you are willing to surrender. From there, the correct action for you should be self-evident.
If it’s not, I’m always here.
## Comments
### Stanley says (2010-09-14 15:14)
Sorry for my delay in responding to your answer. The truth is that you so dramatically changed my world view it has taken some time to settle back to a comfortable new reality.
I now feel more empowered because I understand that I am justified in my decisions to pursue greater freedom. I had not thought the government so detached from the individuals that they govern. Understanding that the only power government has over me is that which I give them either by conscious choice or by indebting my self to them by partaking of their services is very liberating.
Thank you Thales for a truly enlightening response. I plan to use your advice to govern my future actions. If you hear in the news that an unidentified man named Stanely was ruthlessly killed while trying to express his freedom you’ll know it was me (except the government really tries to suppress such things and the media totally gets it wrong all the time.)
Stanely
### Thales says (2010-09-14 18:26)
I’m glad I was able to help. Really, try not to get killed. Otherwise, what good did me teaching you do? At the very least try to convince someone else of your new worldview before you die, then I’ll at least have a net gain of one enlightened person.

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Title: Education, Socialism, and You
Date: 2010-04-26 21:31
Category: Ask Thales
Tags: education;socialism;university
mas writes:
> I’m going to be entering college soon, but I’m concerned because I can’t afford it.
> I’m not independently wealthy, and my parents didn’t save enough money for tuition, but they will help me some as they can.
> Should I take on student loans, apply for grant money, or go to school part-time while I work?
Thomas, your desire for education is probably admirable. I say ‘probably’ because I really have no idea why you’re going to school. Far too many people go because it’s the next prescribed step in life. But, assuming you want to increase your useful knowledge and learn something that can be directly translated into money, it’s admirable. Anyone who tells you that education is worth it just to ‘be educated’ or ‘broaden your horizons’ only wants to hurt you. You could go to school for years to learn about Pokemon – no one would care, except the people taking your tuition money, and Nintendo. Many degrees out there are functionally equivalent. Don’t pursue them.
That said, recently the government has become [decidedly more socialist](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36106210/ns/us_news-education/), so your options are fewer. How recently? With some exceptions, about 200 years. You may be interested to learn about [what kind of socialist](http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/what-kind-of-socialist-is-barack-obama--15421) Pres. Obama is, considering he recently signed a bill that changes your options even further.
In the end, the question is a matter of how cheap your self-respect is. There are student loans that are backed by private institutions, though few, which could almost retain your self-respect. These loans are made by institutions borrowing other people’s money with the understanding that they will use that money to make money. Ergo, fine for you to borrow under their terms. Such institutions are generally FDIC insured, which is unfortunate since they are inherently taking money from people unwillingly to provide that insurance, but difficult to avoid in America.
The next option is student loans from the government, which is entirely funded through confiscated assets. But, at least you’ll pay that back, eventually, unless you go into a government-sanctioned job, like murder/international posturing or brainwashing (ie, military & public education) and pay back slowly. So, you have the opportunity to at least look like a man when you’re done.
The final option is grants, which equates to you taking money from hundreds to thousands of unwilling tax-payers to fund your foray into the rigors of institutionalized, self-guided reprogramming. In exchange for proving that you are either less-desireable or less-competent than a particular percentage of the populace, you can have hired goons steal goods and give them to your university on your behalf. You maintain no self-respect on this option, and should you pursue it I would hope you’d never visit this blog again.
In the end, aside from a very small subsection of highly skilled engineering positions, you are likely to succeed far more in life if you are motivated and spend 5 years getting experience in your chosen field rather than waste time and money at a university. Degrees are a way of ‘proving’ that you have the requisite skills for a position without actually having to demonstrate said skills. If a company takes your word, or your university’s word, on your abilities, you don’t want to work for them anyways. They will be full of mediocre people who think paper is as good as reality. Find somewhere that wants to see what you can do before they will pay you, and you will be happier and more successful, and so will they.
## Comments
### Trying For Respect says (2010-07-26 7:07pm):
Thales,
I value your the advice that you gave Thomas because it address the question that I have, but is not adequate for my situation.
First off, I would like to be a man of self respect.
I work hard in construction for a little over minimum wage. Most of my money goes to support my mom and 6 siblings none of which have jobs. I have made mistakes and dropped out of high school, but I long to be educated and successful.
Last week I visited a councilor about going to college, the outlook was grim for me. I don’t qualify for any private loans and I don’t qualify for private grants or scholarships because I calculate out as a poor investment. I worked it out and it would take me 30 years of working part time and going to school part time to graduate. No one in my community has the capacity or desire to help me go to college.
I would like to maintain my integrity and avoid the ample government options, Thales would you be willing to fund my education personally or even put a thousand dollars towards it? If not wise and well meaning people like you then who?
### Thales says (2010-07-26 9:55pm)
I commend you for your adherence to principles of virtue.
The big question is, why do you calculate out as a poor investment to private funding? Have you asked? After all, if you’re a poor investment for them, why wouldn’t you be a poor investment for me?
I’m a charitable man, but it does neither of us any good for me to dole out charity to you and for you to consume my hard-earned fiat currency if you are ill-prepared for schooling. Make a better case – how do I know you will assimilate the information taught? How do I know you will do something useful with it? What evidences do you have of your character that give me the confidence that I need to have faith in you?
Begging comes easily to mankind. You, begging now, tells me only that you are aware of your need. Show me that you are aware of something more, that you can see things from the perspective of another, that you have a plan for the future.
After all, you are asking me to rob my children in your favor. I may do it, but I will not do it for pity. I will do it because I choose to honor you, and what you are making of yourself.

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Title: If you believe in government, why not World Government?
Date: 2010-09-12 17:20
Category: Philosophy
Tags:
I was recently made aware of a fascinating argument I’d like to share. It goes like this:
```
National government World Government
—————————————————— = ———————————————
Citizens Nations
```
You should read that as “As national government is to its citizens, so world government is to it’s constituent nations”. The idea is this: you believe that a national government is valid. That is, that a government can impose legitimacy on its people.
“Wait wait wait! Back the train up! I never said government can impose legitimacy on its people!” you say.
Well, do you believe that I, as a sovereign human being can declare myself free of the national government? That I can then go about my business on the land that I own, not paying taxes, not following laws, because I have chosen not to have a government control me? If you don’t believe that is true, you either believe that 1) I should leave the government’s land first, surrendering my property (which means you believe that the government owns all property) or 2) that the government has a right to impose itself on me, regardless of my choices. That is, that a government still has legitimate authority without my consent. Imposed legitimacy. I will show that with either position, you then support a world government.
First, let us assume that you follow 1 – that the government owns all property, and therefore I must leave the government’s legitimately owned property in order to be free of their control. Where did the government get claim to all property? Either a) it took the property by force, and is therefore a thief, and has no legitimate claim b) original property owners transferred ownership to it or c) it has original claim to property.
If you believe ‘a’, I have nothing more to say to you. You are essentially a bully, believing that a government can bully people out of their property, then legitimately bully people out of freedom on the claim of their false property rights.
If you believe ‘b’, I would like to know who the original property owners were, and what documentation shows the transfer of ownership. I know of nothing like that for my own government, but perhaps yours is different. Likely not.
If you believe ‘c’, you must believe then that either government has some fundamental original claim to land because it is a government, or that some government claimed previously unclaimed land in the name of the government. The former means that you believe a world government has an even better fundamental claim and the latter means that you’re a subject of the original government of mankind, which is neat. After all, if you were a British subject, you would, of necessity realize that the British government must have taken their property rights from some government that preceded it, like the Romans, who in turn assumed their property rights from some other government, and so on back to the dawn of the first bureaucracy. Like I said, neat.
Now, to get back to my point. You either believe that a nation can impose legitimacy, or you do not. If you do believe that, then you believe that a world government has a right to impose legitimacy on the nations of the world. If you do not, then you would agree that a state has the right to secede from a federal government based on their own, inalienable rights. If a state can do it, then a city can do it. If a city can do it, then a neighborhood can do it. If a neighborhood can do it, then a house can do it. If a house can do it, a man can do it. Therefore, there is no legitimate government, without the consent of the governed.
You see, you are either an anarchist, or you are a supporter of world government. Or, I suppose, you could be one of those spineless jellyfish that prefer not to base their judgments on principles, but instead on what feels good.

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Title: Nationalism, not Anarchy, leads to gang warfare
Date: 2010-09-16 21:26
Category: Philosophy
Tags:
One of the images people generally have of anarchy is roving gangs of armed warriors abusing, destroying and generally terrorizing everyone. Here, let’s paint a picture…
> Tomorrow you wake up and discover that all government has vanished. There are no police officers, no governors, no legislators, no taxman, no government. Gone. Whammo-bammo, anarchy. Immediately you wonder about your safety. Will some crazy people come knocking on your door, looking for food, fire and fun? You wait nervously for several days, until a group of your neighbors approaches you. Apparently a local leader, Jet, has been stockpiling weapons. Jet is willing to protect you and your family, if you just listen to what he tells you to do and send him some money to support his troops. You make an arrangement with his delegates, agreeing to provide 100$ a month to him in exchange for his people patrolling your house once a week and responding to any distress call. Things go great.
>
> Several months pass. You start to hear rumors of other neighborhoods setting up similar systems. Jet’s leadership has worked so far. He asked the people raising chickens to reduce how many they raised, as it was starting to smell and several were dying of disease from overcrowding. In fact, Jet publishes a monthly newsletter informing people of what his suggestions are for how they live and telling them of what is going on in the neighborhood.
>
> More months pass. You’re more and more pleased with your choice to join a gang for safety. Then, one day, a messenger comes by your house. Apparently a nearby gang has decided to steal part of your gang’s lucrative chicken operation. The messenger indicates they are probably ‘those kind’ of people who hate law and order like you guys have. Jet has asked for 300$ for supplies for the troops. Oh, and he’ll need any able-bodied men ages 18-25. Fortunately, you’re a bit old. You hand over your $300, grateful that Jet will take care of you and keep the world safe.
>
> As time passes, you realize that there is constantly a threat of violence from one gang or another. Jet is constantly levying funds from everyone under protection to meet these threats. You know of some neighborhood young men who have died in the fights. But, the fights are generally kept distance by Jet’s aggressive paroling. And, furthermore, things are orderly, so long as you don’t break on of Jet’s rules. One guy did that and Jet locked him up for a whole month! Thank goodness you’ve found a way to survive this anarchy…
What I have described is, at it’s essence, the gang war that people fear from anarchy. People able to attack one another, willy-nilly. Constant threat of danger. Arbitrary rules from tyrants who extract money from people.
What I have also described is the Western world, including the USA.
Change Jet for Uncle Sam, and it’s exactly the same. Uncle Sam establishes rules, takes your money, sends young men off to die in wars that he may or may not have started, uses the specter of violence to extract more and more obedience and power. The vast difference, people believes, is that Uncle Sam is somehow ‘good’. Or ‘turstworthy’. Or, they have the ‘rule of law’. I don’t know what it is. Does a bully with an elaborate system of rules used to determine his behavior act any less a bully? Is a gang with a rotating leadership that is popularly elected any less a gang? There are still fights for turf, arbitrary taking of liberty and property (for varying definitions of arbitrary – in California can you, or can you not smoke pot? Guess it depends on whether that’s a state law enforcement officer or a federal one you’re talking to)
The truth is, at the end of everything, in an absence of government you could, conceivably, choose to stop paying Jet and he would stop choosing to protect you. He might also choose to come raid your house for the money. And you’d be left defending yourself. Oh, wait, that’s just like what would happen with Uncle Sam. So what is the difference?
The difference would lie entirely in the people around you. In a nationalistic system, failure to pay taxes means that you are some kind of revolutionary, or a freeloader, or some other terrible type of person who deserves whatever he gets for breaking the ‘Rule of Law’. Violence is therefore justified against you. In an anarchist society, the populace would support you (if not materially, at least ideologically..maybe) for wanting to leave a voluntary association with Jet. Oh, you’d still have to fight him if he chose to get nasty. But at least your neighbors wouldn’t think horrible things about you.
Maybe you could even convince them to help you protect yourself.
So, in summary, don’t fear gang warfare. You already enjoy it – you just think there are good reasons for it.

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Title: Practical Anarchy: The lack of world government
Date: 2010-09-18 21:32
Category: Philosophy
Tags:
There are many people who believe that a system without compulsory government cannot work. People are evil, roving gangs of marauders, utter lack of organization, etc. To those people, I would say “How, then, does the world operate without a world government?” You see, nations can be thought of a as a single, monolithic entity, much like people. There is, currently, no binding world government to control those entities. Instead, the entities create spontaneous order through their various interactions. Those interactions are controlled by diverse forces and whims, much like an individual’s thoughts and feelings. This is true because they are simply aggregates of people. The governments of the world engage in trade, warfare, legal proceedings, contracts (treaties) and do all of the things that humans do – except reproduce – without a coercive government.
If you wonder what Anarchy, or the lack of a coercive government would look like, look at the interactions between nations. That is exactly what it would look like. If this depresses you, consider how you would feel if the United States were invaded by the U.N., with the U.N. declaring that they had authority to come in, tax the U.S. citizenry and inspect all of their commerce to make sure it followed their rules. If you do not feel this way about the U.S. government doing the same thing to your personal property, you are philosophically inconsistent.
## Comments
### Dekeken says (2010-09-23 2:50am)
Hello Thales,
You are oversimplifying in this post. If you take 200 individuals and put them in a huge space where they don’t have to talk to each other very often most of the time that can get along. Because they are so few they don’t need a government because they can just discuss among themselves.
In reality there are over 6 billion people in the world. Each of those people has their own ideas, needs, wants, philosophies… It is unreasonable to compare the two.
Further I would like to take issue with your general conception of anarchy.
After reading your posts it is clear to me that you are looking at anarchy in a very mathematical way. Oppressed people – government = free people. The anarchy you describe would work very well if every person lived on at least one acre, new every one of their neighbors, didn’t move or plan to move, and didn’t have strong religious or moral drives.
This is just not the case. Lets go to the city of New York and see how these conditions are not met and see the potential conflicts.
Every weekday morning 3 million people travel from the New York area to Manhattan island for work and other purposes. Most of those three million people have no bond whatsoever; they don’t know each other, they don’t live in the same place, they don’t go to the same church, the don’t share the same beliefs, they don’t all speak the same language, they don’t eat the same, they don’t all have similar lifestyles, they are all very different from each other. If all of a sudden they were responsible to govern themselves based on solely individual standards of conduct the whole system would shut down. There wouldn’t even be a way to move those three million people, because there would be no foundation for negotiation. Why should you make agreements with people you don’t know and frankly don’t care about, not to mention there isn’t the time. Imagine in the subway ten people have nicely spread themselves across one of the cars, they come to a busy station and people start to enter. “Wait a second you can’t come in here because you are violating my space.”
“I need to get home you can’t stop me from getting on this train.”
“No no, you can’t push your way in because that would be using force against me.” The door closes and the ten people sit back down to enjoy their ride home.
Some visitors from Japan are driving down the wrong side of the road.
“Stop you are driving on the wrong side of the road.”
“No you are driving on the wrong side of the road.” conflict.
It doesn’t have to be armed gangs wandering about enforcing their way, it can also be people who can’t communicate anymore because there is no standard of comparison. You might be thinking right now, well there would be a standard of comparison because right minded people would find consensus among themselves and they would voluntarily abide by those rules. But that doesn’t happen overnight and a moving body of three million people have a hard time communicating.
Okay lets say that the world has fallen apart, and we have the decision to make a government the way we want starting from scratch. There is no way that enough people are going to agree on a strict anarchy that it could ever be effective. Culture is more of a motivator than government ever was. As soon as the opporunity presents itself the faithfull Muslims will beggin sheria law. That means all talkfiri (non muslims) must pay jizra (taxes) to the muslims.
“Well I am not going to pay taxes to you it is my property and I will not volentarily give it up to your supposed god.”
“Well to bad because Allah told us we can take it so just step in line.”
“You can’t do that because you can’t use force because we live in anarchy.”
“Right, you live in anarchy but we are living Alla’s law.”
The Muslims would not be enforcing their Sharia law because they are mean or wish to do harm but because they were commanded by their god to do so; and who is any anarchist against god?
There are thousands of other cultures that feel just as strongly about their faiths their morals; millions of people who believe abortion is so wrong that they will protect the rights of the unborn at all costs. There are people who think that homosexuality, or drugs, or Christianity, or Islam, or sex cults, or money are so wrong they will not sit by and let it happen. The only way to maintain anarchy would be to use force which would be against the point of anarchy.
The reason why central government works in huge and diverse populations is because we don’t have to focus on our relationships ~with~ only our relationships ~to~. Instead of every individual trying to work out the complex clash of culture with every other individual around, all individuals can focus on working out their issues with a singular central force. And in order for it to work that force or government has to rein supreme; everyone has to buy into it or it wont work. Since the majority of people want the system to work they will authorize this independent force to tie up the loose ends.
This doesn’t mean we have to have a huge government that medals with other governments, or that the government should be responsible for the general welfare of the people it governs, but it needs to be in place as a standard and foundation for all people to build upon.
The nature of humans is organic not mathematical. As long as people are free to make choices and think for themselves anarchy will not work on a large scale.
### Thales says (2010-09-23 6:18pm)
September 23, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Thanks for the long comment. I appreciate the time and effort such a thing requires. I’ll attempt to answer in a coherent way
> You are oversimplifying in this post. If you take 200 individuals and put them in a huge space where they don’t have to talk to each other very often most of the time that can get along. Because they are so few they don’t need a government because they can just discuss among themselves.
>
> In reality there are over 6 billion people in the world. Each of those people has their own ideas, needs, wants, philosophies… It is unreasonable to compare the two.
You would agree that 6 billion people is logistically the same as 5 billion people, right? What about 4? What about 3? At what point do the logistics of a large body of people become ‘unreasonable to compare’ to a small body of people?
You have posited that in a small system of 200 sovereign agents, peace is maintained by a lack of communication and a presence of distance. The United States and Canada have peace in spite of being as close to each other as two nations can be. They have had peace for a very long time. How is this accomplished without distance? As to whether or not they have a lack of communication – they speak a common language, or close enough, but I suppose each nation can decide for itself if it communicates with the other.
> After reading your posts it is clear to me that you are looking at anarchy in a very mathematical way. Oppressed people – government = free people. The anarchy you describe would work very well if every person lived on at least one acre, new every one of their neighbors, didn’t move or plan to move, and didn’t have strong religious or moral drives.
Mathematical, perhaps. I think principled would be a more accurate description. I define a principle, and if I take it to be true, I take it to always be true. Otherwise, it serves no purpose and should be discarded in favor of a better principle. For instance, you have defined my logical equation one way. I would discard it in favor of a superior definition: People oppressed by government – government = people no longer oppressed by government. This is a more precise definition, and more correct in more circumstances.
I see no reason why space and familiarity are necessary to order. You likely don’t know all of your neighbors, I certainly don’t, but I don’t hold the fallacious assumption that we have order because at any time I could exercise governmental coercion over their behavior. Rather, I assume that they honor principles similar to my own, and generally think similarly to how I think. This makes their behavior predictable, and with that I can make choices that affect them or are affected by them without knowing them. Those assumptions, of course, carry an amount of risk, but I willingly accept that risk.
I fail to see why movement has anything to do with the ability of people to generate spontaneous order. Perhaps you assume that in moving elsewhere you would encounter neighbors with vastly different value systems that would cause them to value initiating violence against you. If so, I would recommend allocating resources to your own defense. Either that, or making a more informed decision about where you move. A coercive government doesn’t make you safe from all the bogeymen out there – it simply replaces some unknown bogeymen with known ones. And, even then, you are assuming that governmental officials in one location will administer law in a way you expect, which is just as fallacious as assuming that culture would be the same. After all, any principle that is true of people in general must, by definition, be true of government people. If you cannot trust your fellow man, you cannot trust your fellow man armed with a gun and a badge, because he too is a man!
> This is just not the case. Lets go to the city of New York and see how these conditions are not met and see the potential conflicts.
>
> Every weekday morning 3 million people travel from the New York area to Manhattan island for work and other purposes. Most of those three million people have no bond whatsoever; they don’t know each other, they don’t live in the same place, they don’t go to the same church, the don’t share the same beliefs, they don’t all speak the same language, they don’t eat the same, they don’t all have similar lifestyles, they are all very different from each other. If all of a sudden they were responsible to govern themselves based on solely individual standards of conduct the whole system would shut down..
Why? You have just described the world of sovereign nations – how are they different and still have order? Would you prefer a single world government to the current system? What if that government were vastly different from the one you are used to? Variety, yes, is dangerous, but so is homogeneity.
> There wouldn’t even be a way to move those three million people, because there would be no foundation for negotiation. Why should you make agreements with people you don’t know and frankly don’t care about, not to mention there isn’t the time. Imagine in the subway ten people have nicely spread themselves across one of the cars, they come to a busy station and people start to enter. “Wait a second you can’t come in here because you are violating my space.”
> “I need to get home you can’t stop me from getting on this train.
What do you believe the current foundation of negotiation to be? Is it the fact that if these people don’t negotiate, the police will step in and force them to negotiate? Negotiation happens because two people are interested in an exchange. That happens in anarchy as much as it does in coercive government (assuming the government isn’t using coercion on the participants – then it’s not really negotiation).
In your example, what would the current government system do differently? People are just as free to make those statements now as they would be under anarchy. And people would be just as free to enter one anothers’ space, outside of assualting them.
It is in the train-operator’s best interest to keep all passengers happy, and their commerce generally flowing. In such a situation, they might decide to hire some private security to monitor the train. If some customers are out of line, the security would step in and ask the uncooperative customers to leave. The customers could refuse to do so, but at this point they are violating the train operator’s property rights. The operator, therefore, is justified in forceably removing them from the premises, allowing their other passengers to continue to enjoy their services.
> Some visitors from Japan are driving down the wrong side of the road.
> “Stop you are driving on the wrong side of the road.”
> “No you are driving on the wrong side of the road.” conflict.
> It doesn’t have to be armed gangs wandering about enforcing their way, it can also be people who can’t communicate anymore because there is no standard of comparison.
Yes, conflict is a natural part of human interaction. But giving a single bully power over deciding how conflict is decided is not necessarily optimum. After all, if you give a single bully power to decide everything, what happens when the bully has a conflict with you? You lose.
> You might be thinking right now, well there would be a standard of comparison because right minded people would find consensus among themselves and they would voluntarily abide by those rules. But that doesn’t happen overnight and a moving body of three million people have a hard time communicating.
I agree, consensus doesn’t happen overnight, conflicts are not immediately resolved and 3 million people have difficulty communicating. How would coercive government change that?
> Okay lets say that the world has fallen apart, and we have the decision to make a government the way we want starting from scratch. There is no way that enough people are going to agree on a strict anarchy that it could ever be effective. Culture is more of a motivator than government ever was. As soon as the opporunity presents itself the faithfull Muslims will beggin sheria law. That means all talkfiri (non muslims) must pay jizra (taxes) to the muslims.
> “Well I am not going to pay taxes to you it is my property and I will not volentarily give it up to your supposed god.”
> “Well to bad because Allah told us we can take it so just step in line.”
> “You can’t do that because you can’t use force because we live in anarchy.”
> “Right, you live in anarchy but we are living Alla’s law.”
> The Muslims would not be enforcing their Sharia law because they are mean or wish to do harm but because they were commanded by their god to do so; and who is any anarchist against god?
I totally agree – the Muslims would be totally justified in voluntarily creating sharia law. They could even agree that they want to impose it on me. They could feel entirely justified. None of that puts an onus on me to bend over and let them have their way with me. They would try to force me to pay jizra. I would refuse. They would attack me. I would defend myself. This is the danger of being sovereign. I accept that danger.
Anarchy does not claim there are not violent people. My definition of anarchy only claims a consistent set of principles by which to govern human interaction. Would it be more appropriate for you to create a coercive government and force Muslims to pay taxes for a government they believe is evil in order to keep yourself safe? How then are you any different from them? Is your system of violence better because it isn’t based on belief in Allah?
You can either choose to implement stronger evil against evil, or to implement good.
> There are thousands of other cultures that feel just as strongly about their faiths their morals; millions of people who believe abortion is so wrong that they will protect the rights of the unborn at all costs. There are people who think that homosexuality, or drugs, or Christianity, or Islam, or sex cults, or money are so wrong they will not sit by and let it happen. The only way to maintain anarchy would be to use force which would be against the point of anarchy.
I apologize then, for I must have poorly defined anarchy for you to think that it excludes the use of force. It does not. It excludes the initiation of force. Anarchists are perfectly justified in defensively killing their attackers. This would includes homosexuals, drugs, Christians, Muslims, sex cultists and capitalists.
> The reason why central government works in huge and diverse populations is because we don’t have to focus on our relationships ~with~ only our relationships ~to~. Instead of every individual trying to work out the complex clash of culture with every other individual around, all individuals can focus on working out their issues with a singular central force. And in order for it to work that force or government has to rein supreme; everyone has to buy into it or it wont work. Since the majority of people want the system to work they will authorize this independent force to tie up the loose ends.
You raise several interesting points in this statement.
1. – I agree that if you completely empower a single bully, everyone must deal with that bully completely, likely to the exclusion of other relationships. What happens when the bully decides to bully you? You lose.
1. – Why is it preferrable to deal with a single large bully? True, there is less complexity in that you don’t have to manage many small relationships. But, you have the added complexity of managing a single large relationship.
1. – Why must everyone buy in to the single governmental force in order for it to work? I do not condone a coercive government. Does my government cease to work? Or do I cease to live free because the government refuses to allow me?
1. – Even if the majority of people want a particular system, from where do they derive the authority to force others to cooperate?
1. – In empowering a government, you are in actuality empower people. Why is it that a single person with a monopoly on force must, by nature, behave better than many people using force? If you think a single person will rob you for your food, why do you think a government single person would not?
> This doesn’t mean we have to have a huge government that medals with other governments, or that the government should be responsible for the general welfare of the people it governs, but it needs to be in place as a standard and foundation for all people to build upon.
Why is the use of force a standard and foundation? Could not a set of principles be a similar foundation to build upon? Having order is about having a reliable set of assumptions. Those assumptions do not necessarily have to be based on violence. They can be based on common culture, common principles, or contract. Any of these could be a basis for a foundation for assumptions, and therefore commerce and society.
> As long as people are free to make choices and think for themselves anarchy will not work on a large scale.
Therefore, the only way to have a large scale system is by a) threatening violence against people who do not follow a central plan or b) removing people’s ability to make choices. Of course, I’m making a semantic point here – when you use coercion, you are attempting to limit people’s choices through threat of violence, so ‘a’ and ‘b’ are really the same.
### Ryan says (2010-09-27 1:35am)
I appreciate the thoughtful dialogue. This is so much better than the namecalling you see on other political sites. Let me throw my one cent in. If there is no government and my next door neighbor is raping and abusing his children (it happens more often that we think), who can stop it? What authority do I have to go in and stop it? Can I use force to go in and take those kids? What if I only suspect it? What if I have reasonable cause to suspect it, but no real evidence? Can I go in? The vulnerable have no way to defend themselves. If there is no Government, wouldn’t there be no law? and if there is no law, how can we stop this neighbor? Sometimes force must be used. A person can use force to defend himself, but what about the weak? I don’t think it’s wrong for a group to be given authority to use force to protect the vulnerable. That’s the Government. Now, if we give them authority to use force, what’s going to stop them from abusing that authority? I think the key is transparency. The watchmen need to be watched. If they abuse the power we give them, then they are forced out and someone new is brought in. Am I wrong here? This is a quickly typed e-mail (sorry if it’s scatterbrained), but what are your responses?
### Thale says (2010-09-27 6:25pm)
Good questions – I’ll respond in a separate post

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My super title
##############
:date: 2010-10-03 10:20
:modified: 2010-10-04 18:40
:tags: thats, awesome
:category: yeah
:slug: my-super-post
:authors: Alexis Metaireau, Conan Doyle
:summary: Short version for index and feeds

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Title: Thales Greets You
Date: 2010-02-02 19:21
Category: Administrative
Tags: welcome
Call me [Thales](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales). Welcome to Thales’ blog at [TheHumanAscent](http://www.thehumanascent.com/)! I’m excited to be here. I’ll be your scribe, host, confidante, guide, friend, chef and lover. Or at least I’ll educate you. My purpose here is to help those of you who are lost in life to find your destination. Perhaps you’re lost in love. Maybe you’re lost in finances. Maybe you just can’t figure out how to sell you used Suzuki Boulevard and you need a hand. Thales (that’s me) is here to help.
Here’s how this works. You email me a question at [my email address](mailto:thales@thehumanascent.com). I answer your question here as faithfully as I can. That’s it, it’s easy! Ideally you’ll check back here for your answer and your life will be significantly improved, along with the lives of all of my dear readers. By voluntarily working together on a blog, we can not only improve each of our own lives, but amortize the costs over all present and future readers.
## Comments
### Dekeken says (July 16, 2010 at 8:47pm)
Hey yo! What is your e-mail address? Maybe you should make a link to your email where it says “my email address” at the top of the second paragraph. I have a whopper of a question that I Would like to post but I want to make sure I go through the right channels. By the way I am making a poster of you to hang on my wall… so what do you look like?
I look forward to your reply.
Dekeken
### Thales says (July 18, 2018 at 4:18pm)
Well, thanks for the useful suggestion. I really *should* have my email posted somewhere. I’ll get around to fixing that. Meanwhile, you can send me your questions at thales@thehumanascent.com.
As for the poster, please reference my highly accurate [Wikipedia article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales). I made it myself.
### Kallie says (September 30, 2010 at 7:39pm)
Hello Mr. Thales,
Do you accept non-political questions? If so, I have one. I am getting married a month (yay). My fiancee currently does not work, rather he goes to school. He has not saved any money for a downpayment on a house. I have saved some money for a downpayment and I have a good job. I want to buy a house, which we are able to aford on my salary. However, several people have told me that because he isn’t working or contributing to the downpayment, I should only put the house in my name. I already told him jokingly that he didn’t’ get to help pick (I’m so bad) the house and he got upset. I’m afraid that if I tell him it’s not going to be in his name, he might get really offended.
What do you think I should do?

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Title: The Rule of Law is the Rule of Whim
Date: 2010-09-14 20:56
Category: Philosophy
Tags:
Many people have the mistaken notion that we live in a society based on the ‘Rule of Law’, which means that the law is some kind of neutral, absolute, deterministic system upon which we can base moral judgements of actions. For those of you who suffer from this particular ailment, I propose the following test with a few of your friends around some kind of refreshment.
Give each participant a piece of paper with this:
> The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides, in part:”Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; . . . .” (2)
>
> On the basis of your personal understanding of this sentence’s meaning (not your knowledge of constitutional law), please indicate whether you believe the following sentences to be true or false.
>
> 1) In time of war, a federal statute may be passed prohibiting citizens from revealing military secrets to the enemy.
>
> 2) The President may issue an executive order prohibiting public criticism of his administration.
>
> 3) Congress may pass a law prohibiting museums from exhibiting photographs and paintings depicting homosexual activity.
>
> 4) A federal statute may be passed prohibiting a citizen from falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theater.
>
> 5) Congress may pass a law prohibiting dancing to rock and roll music.
>
> 6) The Internal Revenue Service may issue a regulation prohibiting the publication of a book explaining how to cheat on your taxes and get away with it.
>
> 7) Congress may pass a statute prohibiting flag burning.
After participants fill out the spaces with either ‘True’ or ‘False’, read the following back to people:
> If your response to question one was “True,” you chose to interpret the word “no” as used in the First Amendment to mean “some.”
>
> If your response to question two was “False,” you chose to interpret the word “Congress” to refer to the President of the United States and the word “law” to refer to an executive order.
>
> If your response to question three was “False,” you chose to interpret the words “speech” and “press” to refer to the exhibition of photographs and paintings.
>
> If your response to question four was “True,” you have underscored your belief that the word “no” really means “some.”
>
> If your response to question five was “False,” you chose to interpret the words “speech” and “press” to refer to dancing to rock and roll music.
>
> If your response to question six was “False,” you chose to interpret the word “Congress” to refer to the Internal Revenue Service and the word “law” to refer to an IRS regulation.
>
> If your response to question seven was “False,” you chose to interpret the words “speech” and “press” to refer to the act of burning a flag.
>
> Unless your responses were: 1) False, 2) True, 3) True, 4) False, 5) True, 6) True, and 7) True, you chose to interpret at least one of the words “Congress,” “no,” “law,” “speech,” and “press” in what can only be described as something other than its ordinary sense. Why did you do this? Were your responses based on the “plain meaning” of the words or on certain normative beliefs you hold about the extent to which the federal government should be allowed to interfere with citizens’ expressive activities? Were your responses objective and neutral or were they influenced by your “politics”?
I really hope this has been instructive. Law, no matter how plain, cannot deterministically define legality. There is infinite variation in human interactions – it would take an infinite law to cover them all. Therefore, we must have judges to make…tah dah!…judgements. These judges pronounce their edicts based on their personal assumptions, beliefs, and political ideas. This has always been the case. This will always be the case. The perception of the rule of law is actually the consequence of a homogeneity in the judiciary of cultural norms and political ideals. As that homogeneity is disrupted, the law becomes more erratic, because the judges make more heterogeneous rulings. Thus, the illusion of an impartial law is shattered and we see that behind the curtain there is nothing but a bunch of people declaring a bunch of acts illegal, with a fine smattering of legalese plastered over it to look official.
If you’d like to read more on this subject – and I assure you, it’s fascinating reading – check out [this essay](http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm) by John Hasnas published in the Wisconsin Law Review. Most of the material of this post was liberally stolen from that article.
To summarize: the law routinely holds multiple contradictory positions. Any system derived from multiple contradictory positions allows for any conclusion due to the paradox. Therefore, judges can reach any conclusion they prefer using the legal system. Routinely, judges agree, because they are generally all the same type of person. This, however, says nothing about the legal system itself, but rather about the system by which we elect judges.
That should terrify you.
Why?
Because it means that a judge – who is just a person – can decide anything. And then send people with badges and guns after you to do whatever they want to you. The people with badges and guns can also do anything they want to you. After all, who is going to stop them? More people with badges and guns? Right.

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Title: Why can't I get ahead?
Date: 2010-04-07 18:33
Category: Ask Thales
Tags: education;money;value paradigm
Judy writes
> Wise Thales,
>
> I recently got married and started discussing my future with my hubby!
> We realized that it’s very hard to get ahead in life.
> We have a pretty normal middle-class background, but we’d like to be rich.
> We realized that without enormous capital, it’s very difficult to get ahead. Why?
Judy, thanks for the question – you certainly managed to get ahead by being the first question posted here on my blog!
To get to the heart of your question you have to realize that your desire for ‘getting ahead’ is based entirely in your public education in the United States. You may be wondering how I knew your background. You shouldn’t. The United States, like most hegemonies, has created a successful machine for mass-producing widgets of a specific type. The widgets the education system produces are people who are perpetually ensconced in a fascinating dichotomy. You want to be the ‘best’, and yet you lack the self-confidence and internal direction to answer this question: “best what?”.
As a youth you were taught that all people can be boiled down to a simple mathematical comparison of numbers indicating their worth. In childhood it’s your grade. In adulthood, it’s your net worth. Perhaps you disagree and believe that you see people as individuals. Maybe you’re religious. Does your religion teach you that God loves everyone? That’s the government’s approach – everyone is worth one vote. Does your religion teach you that God will judge people and categorize them based on their conduct? That’s the pedagogues’s approach – everyone’s conduct is precisely rateable as a number, or a categorization like ‘A’, ‘B’, or ‘F’. Of course, I mean pedagogue from the modern definition of the word – one who studies [pedagogy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy), rather than the ancient term. If you are not religious, ask yourself who you respect more: a teacher, or a brewer.
.. have you asked the question? Do you have an answer?
I’ve given no more information about these individuals than their labels – how can you possibly rate them?
What I’m getting at is that you should check your assumptions. You fail to ‘get ahead’ because the system is designed to prevent all but the [Brahmin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmin) from doing so. If you fail to get ahead, it is because you are not part of the elite class. You may now join your peers in the middle class in whatever menial labor the system has dictated to you.
So long as your objective is dictated by the system, your will be slave to the system.
A better question would be, first, “Why do I believe money is important?” Fiat currency doesn’t provide life, or even anything of material value, until you find someone who is foolish enough to believe it has value. You then get them to give you material goods in exchange for your empty promise from the government. Once you realize how unimportant money is, and how strongly you’ve been conditioned to believe it is important, you can begin the process of discovering what you do value. Come back when you’ve learned that important truth and we can discuss how you can effectively pursue it.

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Title: Why Thales is an Anarchist
Date: 2010-09-09 17:20
Category: Philosophy
Tags:
…and why you should be too.
I work from a set of a few, very simple, very profound principles. Here they are, insofar as I can enumerate them accurately:
1. No one has a right to perform violence on another person, except in defense against violence initiated by another
1. Men may gain a right to property through two means a) if a thing is unowned, by improving upon or using that thing or b) if a thing is owned, agreeing with the owner on a transfer of ownership
1. A man has ultimate and exclusive right to property he owns – he may use it, destroy it, or transfer it to another.
That is, essentially, ‘it’. I believe that if these principles are taken for a basis for political thought, many interesting principles fall out of it. But, before we get there, why do I believe these axioms?
The first can be based entirely in pragmatism – man only has one major predator that we have encountered in the universe: man. Therefore, the first axiom prevents man from fearing its only predator.
The second is based on the fact that the universe predates man, and each individual man. But, we must all use stuff in the universe, and we need to do so in a way that keeps man from having to fear man. We must have organization. We invent the concept of ‘property’ to define who may use what in the universe without conflict with our great predator. It would have been extremely useful for the first man to take ownership of everything, then to parcel that out to his offspring. Then property would always be defined by axiom 3. Unfortunately, even if this was done, the actual organization was lost to history. Therefore, we need a new way of divvying out stuff. Since all mankind is essentially equal, it makes sense that all property is allocated on an equal basis. If a thing was owned, the owner must willingly transfer ownership in whatever form he wishes. If a thing isn’t owned, usage or improvement of it constitutes a claim of ownership. This prevents people from simply declaring that they own everything unowned, and allows people who find a new, unused thing to assume ownership.
Finally, the third prevents people from having a fear of ownership. After all, if a person were prohibited from, say, burning something they own because it would destroy it, then the person doesn’t truly own it, but rather whoever can enforce the ‘no-burning’ clause. That is because the enforcer can burn a thing and choose not to enforce the rule, thus giving them a superset of ownership rights, and therefore ultimate ownership. I have not encountered a way of enforcing limited property rights that is not subject to abuse by some party, where abuse means a single person has greater ownership rights. Therefore, the only sensible definition of ownership is the maximal set of rights. Otherwise, we have no equality. If a thing is mine, I can do what I want with it. If it were otherwise, there would be enforcers, and I would have a fear to use my thing because of them.
Aside form these axioms, people may do whatever they wish. This means a person is free to traffic in drugs, people, organs, hate, religion, etc. They may not do so in a way that infringes on another’s right to property. I cannot build a factory that pollutes a stream, unless I own the stream. Even then, my pollution cannot spread to the ocean, unless I own the ocean. And then, I could not allow my pollution to spread through condensation to another’s farmland. Where there is ultimate freedom, there is also ultimate responsibility not to infringe on another’s freedom.
Taking these axioms, we can then describe a government that obeys these axioms.
* The government cannot force anyone to do anything against their will – otherwise, they would violate axiom #1
* The government cannot assume ownership of anything from anyone – otherwise they would violate axiom #2
* The government cannot prevent people from using a thing they own however they like – otherwise they would violate axiom #3
* The government could have employees – people are free to associate how they wish
* The government could own property – it could be given to the government
So how does this equate to anarchy? Well, the government cannot levvy taxes against me, though I could donate to it. The government cannot seize my land, or dictate to me what I do with my land, but I could choose to follow its recommendations. The government cannot imprison me for breaking a law, because it cannot use violence against me, and I will not go willingly into a prison. This government, then, has no power. It cannot dictate what I can do, nor take away my means to do it, in any situation. This government, then, is nothing more than a private entity I could choose to do business with.
After all, what separates governments from businesses? The use of force.
Take away the use of force, and you have no government. Take away government, and you have anarchy.
I would also suggest Block, Walter. 2007. “[Anarchism and Minarchism; No Rapprochement Possible: Reply to Tibor Machan](http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/21_1/21_1_5.pdf),” Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1, Spring, pp. 91–99 for further reading.
## Comments
### Dekeken says (2010-09-12 at 11:08pm)
This argument is interesting. I would say it all pans out until you begin to consider land as ownable property. Ownership of land is not a natural right. Since land existed before man (as you stated in your argument) no man has a right to own any land at all. Interestingly the ownership of land by individuals is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Let me give you a few real-world examples of why this is the case.
Suppose that a stream runs through two pieces of land owned by different farmers. In order for the upstream farmer to support his family sufficiently he needs to divert the stream to irrigate his fields. However by diverting the stream no water reaches the land of the other farmer to water his fields. The downstream farmer can claim that the upstream farmer is violating his rights by damaging his property. But the upstream farmer can claim that if he lets the water run down stream the downstream farmer would be damaging his property. Neither farmer is being irresponsible or unreasonable, but their situation can’t be reconciled. One farmers property is maintained at the expense of the other; which, according to your argument, would give one farmer ownership over the other farmers property.
Second: California has many many rice fields which produce millions of mosquitoes. These mosquitoes are a nuisance and a health threat. Say that a certain woman owns some land that she would like to build a hotel on for people who are visiting that part of California. The rice farmer has a right, according to your argument, to grow rice to support his family or increase his wealth. The woman has a right to build a hotel on her property to make money to support her family and to build wealth. During the growing season, which is the peak tourist season, the farmer irrigates his fields which produce millions of mosquitoes. Tourists refuse to visit the hotel because of the mosquitoes. The farmer is causing real measurable damage to the womans property which she has a right to use as she wishes. However the farmer has a right to use his property as he wishes. Neither land owner can succeed without damaging to property and wellbeing of the other land owner.
Anarchy can’t work if land is considered an individuals property. Therefore a person’s only property would be those things which he or she produces that can be kept without restricting the land use of others. This actually works but only on a small scale. People formed governments party in order to peacefully settle land disputes. (of course “peacefully” means they threatened one or both parties with violence if they didn’t comply with the decision of the government, which invariably favors the wealthy.)
### Thales says (2010-09-13 3:01pm)
Thank you for your well-thought-out comment.
I agree that if you consider land unownable, you greatly simplify interactions between mankind. I disagree that Anarchy is impossible while allowing people to own land. Remember, Anarchy is simply the absence of an entity with a license to do violence. One can have land rights without violence. Anarchy is not the absence of organization, contract, groups or rules. In your first example, one of the farmers got there first and began farming first. That farmer would have an earlier fundamental right to the water supply. The second farmer, therefore, would need to reach an agreement with whoever was there before him before altering the state of affairs. But, even if we assume that the two farmers simultaneously arrived on the scene and each wanted to alter the land in a mutually exclusive fashion, there isn’t anything about the scenario that prevents them from hiring a 3rd party arbiter to settle the dispute. Each farmer agrees to be bound by the decision of the arbiter, presents his case, and the arbiter decides and is paid for the service. If you think this sounds untenable, realize the system the United States now enjoys. One of the farmers goes to a local thug, convinces him of the justice of his cause, and the thug then issues a fancy document to the first farmer indicating that violence will be done against his person or property if he doesn’t show up and argue his case. Which of the two seems more civilized?
In your second scenario, again, one of them was there first. But, secondarily, the farmer is simply liable for the ecological damage he causes to another’s property. He has several options available to him. First, he could enter an agreement with the woman allowing him to pollute her land with mosquitoes in exchange for a sum of rice. Second, he could farmer in such a way to eliminate the mosquitoes, or their ability to leave his property. Third, he could choose not to farm rice. There are, of course, other options, but I’m sure you get the idea.
Anarchy must allow for personal property that is, at least, closely similar to our current concept of property. After all, nothing can be produced without occupying some amount of space. If nothing can be produced, no one could own any property. More fundamentally, all mankind needs food to live. I know of no way to produce food that doesn’t require either a) some land or b) some dirt. If people cannot own the means of their own survival, they cannot have stability or civilization.
### Dekeken says (2010-09-14 4:00pm)
Good response.
I suppose it would take a fundamental change in culture in order for anarchy to work. Most Americans are operating under the attitude of entitlement and absolute personal gratification. In order for anarchy to work there would have to be more of a culture of community and community well being i.e. If I keep mosquitoes from driving away tourists than your hotel will prosper making our general community a more profitable and pleasant place; with the possible side effect that more people will want to move to California after visiting your delightful hotel and produce more customers to buy my rice.
As far as your argument about land needed for production. I agree there can be no production and therefore no ownership without land. But with land comes the most potential for conflict. It is not necessary for there to be individual ownership of land for it to be of use for production. In fact it would be better in most cases if land was shared because then I can freely move to land that is the best for farming and either contribute to the land cultivation that is going on there or start my own; or I can freely move to land that would be better for industry, or tourism ect. without the need for constant arbitration (which I believe would lead to an industry of arbitration which could easily jump to the level of organized and violent government).
In short in order for anarchy to work there must be a cultural change to that of community wellbeing as apposed to exclusively individual well being. And sharing land is a good way to avoid the conflicts inherent in individual land ownership.
### Thales says (2010-09-14 6:33pm)
Would it take a fundamental change in culture? I don’t think so, not unless you consider philosophy and values a part of culture. If you do, then I agree.
I agree that land has the greatest potential for conflict, as it tends to be the most nebulous of properties to own. For instance, does one own the volume of space above the land in question? If so, how high? Does one own the ground underneath? How far down? What about the air that flows over the land? Difficult questions to answer, and people generally have assumptions about the answers and those assumptions can lead to conflict.
I agree that it may be that production is benefitted by shared ownership. Libertarian principles neither prescribe nor proscribe group ownership – if people want to do that, fine.
As far as land being shared, I disagree that it is ‘better’ until you more completely define your criteria for ‘better’. It sounds to me like what you really need is an easement agreement with surrounding property owners. Perhaps I misunderstand your meaning.
And yes, you’re right, anarchic systems generally create a market for arbitration and legal services. Those services need not be violent – one could easily source a security firm independent of arbitration. Why do you believe that an arbitration industry would easily become violent government?
### Dekeken says (2010-09-15 4:07pm)
Philosophy and values are determined by culture or are integral components to culture depending on which way you look at it.
I think our disagreement comes from a difference in perception of the natural disposition of people and their ability to change. If you believe, as I do, that people are predisposed to violence and are innately self serving then the kind of society you are describing would require a deep change in nature by every individual.
When I say that arbitration industry would naturally turn to violent is because of the above belief. If you are an arbitrator then it is most profitable for there to be conflict so you would try to create conflict. The more conflict the greater need for arbitration. Eventually it would become efficient and profitable to set up standard rules or laws that all groups would be bound by if they wan’t to reconcile their problems. It wouldn’t take much form that point for the arbitration industry to become formalized and enforce their arbitration with violence standing as pre-established authority in all conflicts.
I do admit that people can be reasonable and seek personal gain through the greater good but I don’t know how well that would go over coming from our current society.
### Thales says (2010-09-15 7:53pm)
I don’t think you actually believe that people are predisposed to violence. If you did, you would endeavor, constantly, to protect yourself. Do you carry a weapon with you? Do you have any sort of martial training? If not, do you at least stay away from people, who are predisposed to attack? If you believe people are predisposed to violence, what do you think keeps that in check (or do you routinely encounter violence?)? After all, say you believe all people are predisposed to violence, and only some outward force keeps that violence in check. You can’t hire anyone to protect you unless you have absolute certainty that you control the power that controls the violence, otherwise your protectors will take by force whatever you use to hire them. Because violence can modify behavior and property rights, generally the only way to control violent people is through the implementation of violence. If you try to control them with a behavior, they can use violence to modify your behavior. If you try to control them with property, they can use violence to take your property. Therefore, violence is the only way to control violence. Do you control the majority of those around you with violence?
As for people being innately self-serving, there is nothing about self-interest that runs counter to an organized and polite society. Most people consider Jesus a good example of someone who is altruistic. He is, also, innately self-serving. He claims to act out of love for his fellow man. Serving that affection serves his own purposes because his love informs his purposes. Look at it another way: does a parent care for a child because he genuinely wants to serve the needs of another being, or because he loves the child? They sound like nearly the same thing, but one is innately self-serving because of one’s feelings of love. The fact that you would choose to help your family rather than help a random group of individuals is because you are self-serving. That doesn’t make charity bad, it simply helps us to know why you help your family instead of someone else’s. You serve them because you love them. You choose to help the object of your love rather than some other random thing because you are self-serving. In this instance, serving your feelings of love.
As for your argument about arbitration, I agree that there is definitely incentive for a private arbitration firm to create conflict to increase its own business. However, since an arbitration firms business is settling conflict, this is much like the argument about plumbers creating leaky pipes. Would there be plumbers who create leaky pipes? Absolutely. Do all plumbers create leaky pipes to enhance their own business opportunities? No.
I believe that part of your contention lies in the fact that it is extremely difficult to imagine a system of anarchy and how it would work. Some people say “Before I buy in to anarchy, explain how X currently governmental activity would work”. To quote Walter Block, if I could perfectly describe how such a system would work, that alone, the act of describing it, would be the greatest argument in favor of centralization. If a single person can conceive of the system, define how it would work, how it would handle all contingencies and problems, etc, that person would be the best person to be the dictator over said system. However, the contention in favor of a free market approach to things like police and arbitration is that the complex interaction of thousands or millions of people will produce a system that is vastly superior to a monolithicly dictated system. Well, that, and the fact that it is a principled approach that honors the freedom of men.
Which reminds me of my final argument in favor of anarchy. Would you kill a baby to protect another baby? Would you kill a baby to protect ten? Would you kill a baby to protect a million? At what point does it become acceptable to destroy one person in favor of many people? At what point are you willing to sacrifice the rights of one person to serve the good of others. How much evil would you willingly accept into your own life in exchange for some material gain? To a principled person (one whose principles value human life and eschew evil, of course) the answer is none. If you honor principles you don’t make exceptions. Principled people who hold rights to be innate, self-evident and inviolate cannot support a government that violates rights. It doesn’t matter if they can’t think of a better way, it doesn’t matter if they are afraid of the alternatives. The principle comes first. The consequences are then dealt with second.
If, on the other hand, you don’t believe in principles but are an unswerving pragmatist, I have no idea why you’re reading this blog. I’d appreciate some enlightenment.
### Dekeken says (2010-09-17 at 7:40pm)
You are right, I don’t believe people to be predisposed to violence, I regretted writing that as soon as I published my response. I guess a better way to put it is that it is very easy for a person to trip over circumstance into violence. Violence is a much simpler response because it takes very little thought and can be tantalizingly effective.
Now to clarify; I don’t hold any judgment on anarchy as to whether it is right or wrong. I can’t say whether it is possible to transition directly from our current system and culture to one of anarchy although, probably because of the ideas you stated above, I think it unlikely.
However, I would like to take it a little deeper and address your second to last paragraph. Your statements caused me to think very deeply about the way things are and how they should be.
First you argue that principled people are driven by the desire to protect other their and other peoples’ rights. Well no one has right(s) plural. We only have one absolute right and that is the right to make choices. We don’t have a right to happiness, property, liberty, or even to life. These are all said to be innate or God-given rights but this idea is a deception and frankly wrong.
This is my reasoning. If God means these to be inalienable rights he necessarily would have to afford all people the power to obtain and exercise these rights. It is obvious that he has made no such guarantee. As much as you work and prepare to protect your rights, your property can be taken from you, you can be enslaved, those whom you love the most can die from disease, or you yourself can die at anytime and are powerless to stop it.
We do have the right to choose and this is very important. With this right we can change everything. It is this right alone that gives us power.
So if we only have the right to choose what of the other “rights” we seem to think we are privileged to? Well the answer is that these are objectified responsibilities. With the right to choose we are given the responsibility to choose the correct path (the one of principle that you referred to). We are given the responsibility to help other people. We are given the responsibility to care for those that we love. We are given the responsibility to do well with what God has given us.
The concept of inalienable rights was created to allow us to justify our behaviour concerning these responsibilities. When we are denied the opportunity to fulfill these responsibilities it is much easier to say we have a right to behave in a certain way in order to fulfill that responsibility. But it is just a farce, we have the right to choose what we will do when our attempts to fulfill those responsibilities are frustrated, but nevertheless no matter what our choice is we can still be foiled and fail. But that is okay because we made a choice and we will be reckoned according to our choices and not to the ultimate fulfillment of our responsibilities. Why not our responsibilities, because no matter what we do our families can be torn from us and brutalized, the gifts God has given us can be desecrated, we can be enslaved and lose the power to do almost anything, all things are outside our control except choice.
How does this fit into anarchy? It makes life much more simple; we should do things because it is the right thing to do. Sometimes in order to fulfill our responsibilities choosing to live outside of organized government is the right thing to do. Sometimes in order to protect our families and fulfill our responsibilities supporting a top heavy government is the right thing to do.
Our only right is the right to choose, and no matter the outside condition, peaceful or chaotic, this right gives us the power to do good and fulfill our responsibilities; let the consequence follow.
### Thales says (2010-09-17 at 8:15pm)
I’ll agree, speaking of the absolute nature of man, people only have their free will. But, what is the point of speaking from that standpoint? We might as well say that the sky is blue, and never speak again. We all know what our physical limitations are. The reason I speak of rights is because I wish to speak about what is justifiable, what is legally codifiable into a coherent system. You say that we can simplify things by simply dictating that we all do what is right. How do we determine what is right? How do we determine it in such a way that it can be codified into law?
Once we get to the point that we are codifying moral behavior, we have two diverging paths. On the one, we can have sharia law – the belief that people will do the right thing by following some uncodified religious notion of right and wrong. The problem with that path is it’s ridiculously easy to abuse. All one has to do is become a religious leader and one can then dictate what is right and wrong. The other path is to codify certain behaviors as wrong. But, as you eloquently put it, a given action (“supporting a top heavy government”) can be moral or amoral depending on circumstance. We therefore can’t reliably codify behaviors as legally right or wrong if our basis for an action being legal is whether or not it is morally good. An example:
The law dictates that you may not kill, because killing is wrong.
A man attacks your family. You defend you and yours, lethally.
Your action is (arguably) morally justified. However, it is not legally justified.
At this point, you either a) must punish a morally just action because it is not legally just, b) alter the law by adding a clause that allows for defense. This will be repeated for every single morally justifiable action that isn’t yet codified or c) empower an arbitrary person to decide legal justification.
Given these options, I would choose ‘a’, with the caveat that I would then codify a system of law that minimizes the possibility of illegal, morally good actions. My discussion of Anarchy is my description of such a system.
In the end, I agree whole-heartedly with you. Law itself does nothing. The fact that murder is illegal just about everywhere doesn’t stop people from doing it. What law does do is create a system whereby people may judge each other. It can then become a basis for order. Order is a basis for societal interaction. Societal interaction and order yields many material benefits for the members of the society. Therefore, discussing law is a useful tool to creating a better society, but only insofar as you can convince people to buy into the legal system. Because, in the end, as you said, everyone must choose to follow whatever you convince them of.

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Title: Yodabytes
Date: 2010-07-26 21:59
Category: Ask Thales
Tags:
Dekeken writes
> Hello Thales,
> This is more of a curiosity question then a dear Thales question.
> You recently helped pay for a new government facility that has 3 Yodabytes of memory; presumably enough to record this and all other e-mails of a questionably nature sent and received by US citizens (and their foreign terrorist cohorts). A yodabyte is pretty huge from what I gather. Does the human brain have a yodabyte of capacity?
Absolutely.
## Comments
### Gladys says (2010-07-27 3:08am)
Lazy answer
### Thales says (2010-07-27 3:50pm)
Apathetic response.
### Jess says (2010-07-30 6:20am)
It was a yes or no question. Thales answered the question.
### Dekeken says (2010-08-04 6:01pm)
Thanks for answering my question. It was sufficient for me. It amazes me that that can be possible. I guess that it makes sense though. I was thinking of remembering every e-mail sent and received but really every day experience includes huge amounts of information. Colors and relationships to items, events and complex situations all include large amounts of information that can be recalled on demand. So, maybe I am not memorizing trillions of e-mails but I am processing similar amounts of information in a different form.

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#!/usr/bin/env bash
##
# This section should match your Makefile
##
PY=${PY:-python3}
PELICAN=${PELICAN:-pelican}
PELICANOPTS=
BASEDIR=$(pwd)
INPUTDIR=$BASEDIR/content
OUTPUTDIR=$BASEDIR/output
CONFFILE=$BASEDIR/pelicanconf.py
###
# Don't change stuff below here unless you are sure
###
SRV_PID=$BASEDIR/srv.pid
PELICAN_PID=$BASEDIR/pelican.pid
function usage(){
echo "usage: $0 (stop) (start) (restart) [port]"
echo "This starts Pelican in debug and reload mode and then launches"
echo "an HTTP server to help site development. It doesn't read"
echo "your Pelican settings, so if you edit any paths in your Makefile"
echo "you will need to edit your settings as well."
exit 3
}
function alive() {
kill -0 $1 >/dev/null 2>&1
}
function shut_down(){
PID=$(cat $SRV_PID)
if [[ $? -eq 0 ]]; then
if alive $PID; then
echo "Stopping HTTP server"
kill $PID
else
echo "Stale PID, deleting"
fi
rm $SRV_PID
else
echo "HTTP server PIDFile not found"
fi
PID=$(cat $PELICAN_PID)
if [[ $? -eq 0 ]]; then
if alive $PID; then
echo "Killing Pelican"
kill $PID
else
echo "Stale PID, deleting"
fi
rm $PELICAN_PID
else
echo "Pelican PIDFile not found"
fi
}
function start_up(){
local port=$1
echo "Starting up Pelican and HTTP server"
shift
$PELICAN --debug --autoreload -r $INPUTDIR -o $OUTPUTDIR -s $CONFFILE $PELICANOPTS &
pelican_pid=$!
echo $pelican_pid > $PELICAN_PID
mkdir -p $OUTPUTDIR && cd $OUTPUTDIR
$PY -m pelican.server $port &
srv_pid=$!
echo $srv_pid > $SRV_PID
cd $BASEDIR
sleep 1
if ! alive $pelican_pid ; then
echo "Pelican didn't start. Is the Pelican package installed?"
return 1
elif ! alive $srv_pid ; then
echo "The HTTP server didn't start. Is there another service using port" $port "?"
return 1
fi
echo 'Pelican and HTTP server processes now running in background.'
}
###
# MAIN
###
[[ ($# -eq 0) || ($# -gt 2) ]] && usage
port=''
[[ $# -eq 2 ]] && port=$2
if [[ $1 == "stop" ]]; then
shut_down
elif [[ $1 == "restart" ]]; then
shut_down
start_up $port
elif [[ $1 == "start" ]]; then
if ! start_up $port; then
shut_down
fi
else
usage
fi

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from fabric.api import *
import fabric.contrib.project as project
import os
import shutil
import sys
import SocketServer
from pelican.server import ComplexHTTPRequestHandler
# Local path configuration (can be absolute or relative to fabfile)
env.deploy_path = 'output'
DEPLOY_PATH = env.deploy_path
# Remote server configuration
production = 'root@localhost:22'
dest_path = '/var/www'
# Rackspace Cloud Files configuration settings
env.cloudfiles_username = 'my_rackspace_username'
env.cloudfiles_api_key = 'my_rackspace_api_key'
env.cloudfiles_container = 'my_cloudfiles_container'
# Github Pages configuration
env.github_pages_branch = "gh-pages"
# Port for `serve`
PORT = 8000
def clean():
"""Remove generated files"""
if os.path.isdir(DEPLOY_PATH):
shutil.rmtree(DEPLOY_PATH)
os.makedirs(DEPLOY_PATH)
def build():
"""Build local version of site"""
local('pelican -s pelicanconf.py')
def rebuild():
"""`build` with the delete switch"""
local('pelican -d -s pelicanconf.py')
def regenerate():
"""Automatically regenerate site upon file modification"""
local('pelican -r -s pelicanconf.py')
def serve():
"""Serve site at http://localhost:8000/"""
os.chdir(env.deploy_path)
class AddressReuseTCPServer(SocketServer.TCPServer):
allow_reuse_address = True
server = AddressReuseTCPServer(('', PORT), ComplexHTTPRequestHandler)
sys.stderr.write('Serving on port {0} ...\n'.format(PORT))
server.serve_forever()
def reserve():
"""`build`, then `serve`"""
build()
serve()
def preview():
"""Build production version of site"""
local('pelican -s publishconf.py')
def cf_upload():
"""Publish to Rackspace Cloud Files"""
rebuild()
with lcd(DEPLOY_PATH):
local('swift -v -A https://auth.api.rackspacecloud.com/v1.0 '
'-U {cloudfiles_username} '
'-K {cloudfiles_api_key} '
'upload -c {cloudfiles_container} .'.format(**env))
@hosts(production)
def publish():
"""Publish to production via rsync"""
local('pelican -s publishconf.py')
project.rsync_project(
remote_dir=dest_path,
exclude=".DS_Store",
local_dir=DEPLOY_PATH.rstrip('/') + '/',
delete=True,
extra_opts='-c',
)
def gh_pages():
"""Publish to GitHub Pages"""
rebuild()
local("ghp-import -b {github_pages_branch} {deploy_path} -p".format(**env))

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#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*- #
from __future__ import unicode_literals
AUTHOR = 'Thales'
SITENAME = 'Thales the Wise'
SITEURL = ''
PATH = 'content'
TIMEZONE = 'America/Los_Angeles'
DEFAULT_LANG = 'en'
# Feed generation is usually not desired when developing
FEED_ALL_ATOM = None
CATEGORY_FEED_ATOM = None
TRANSLATION_FEED_ATOM = None
AUTHOR_FEED_ATOM = None
AUTHOR_FEED_RSS = None
# Blogroll
LINKS = (('Pelican', 'http://getpelican.com/'),
('Python.org', 'http://python.org/'),
('Jinja2', 'http://jinja.pocoo.org/'),
('You can modify those links in your config file', '#'),)
# Social widget
SOCIAL = (('You can add links in your config file', '#'),
('Another social link', '#'),)
DEFAULT_PAGINATION = 10
# Uncomment following line if you want document-relative URLs when developing
#RELATIVE_URLS = True

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#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*- #
from __future__ import unicode_literals
# This file is only used if you use `make publish` or
# explicitly specify it as your config file.
import os
import sys
sys.path.append(os.curdir)
from pelicanconf import *
SITEURL = 'http://thales.thehumanascent.com'
RELATIVE_URLS = False
FEED_ALL_ATOM = 'feeds/all.atom.xml'
CATEGORY_FEED_ATOM = 'feeds/%s.atom.xml'
DELETE_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY = True
# Following items are often useful when publishing
#DISQUS_SITENAME = ""
#GOOGLE_ANALYTICS = ""