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  • 238 Comments
Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: October 20th, 2023

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  • “The View From Halfway Down” by Alison Tifel has always resonated with me:

    The weak breeze whispers nothing
    The water screams sublime
    His feet shift, teeter-totter
    Deep breath, stand back, it’s time

    Toes untouch the overpass
    Soon he’s water bound
    Eyes locked shut but peek to see
    The view from halfway down

    A little wind, a summer sun
    A river rich and regal
    A flood of fond endorphins
    Brings a calm that knows no equal

    You’re flying now
    You see things much more clear than from the ground
    It’s all okay, it would be
    Were you not now halfway down

    Thrash to break from gravity
    What now could slow the drop
    All I’d give for toes to touch
    The safety back at top

    But this is it, the deed is done
    Silence drowns the sound
    Before I leaped I should’ve seen
    The view from halfway down

    I really should’ve thought about
    The view from halfway down
    I wish I could’ve known about
    The view from halfway down








  • I think we seem to have different understandings of what “libertarian” means.

    From my experience, it certainly feels common that people tend to have different definitions and/or misunderstandings of libertarianism.

    I think that libertarian is simply the opposite of authoritarian

    I take issue with the usage of the word “simply” — I advise against such types of reductionism. That being said, the comparison gets kind of tricky when one considers the different variants/offshoots of libertarianism, or other freedom/liberty oriented political philosophies. It’s tempting to try and reduce political philosophies to a point on a 2D plane, like the political compass, or, worse, a 1D line, like the left/right dichotomy, but it’s often quite a bit more complex — thinking in terms of absolute “opposites” can lead one down the wrong path. That being said, without being overly pedantic, libertarianism can be thought of as in opposition to authoritarianism.

    little to do with taxes or other economic stuff.

    While it may be possible that a definition of libertarianism doesn’t directly reference economic topics, they still arise as a dependency or result. Economics and politics are often tightly intertwined.