The Ouray Initiative for Reason and Individualism

08/09/2025

I missed Idiocracy when it was originally released. Then it was suggested to me as particularly prescient, and I'm watching it now. I'm sure in 2006 I would have found it offensive to human nature, but now... maybe not so wrong, after all.

04/09/2016

So-called "Industrial Policy" — i.e., government subsidizing industries it selects as most likely to be economically successful — has been shown time and again to be a giant flop. Yet here is the Chinese government, once again assuming that it is smart enough to do the impossible.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/business/international/venture-communism-how-china-is-building-a-start-up-boom.html

17/08/2016

The importance of property rights:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/world/americas/mexico-tulum-corruption-evictions.html

Aggressive property seizures, apparently legal but surrounded by questions, have shaken the beach town of Tulum and stained its image.

12/08/2016

24/03/2016

Here is proof of the absolute need of philosophy. These students, who probably the best of intentions, don't have a clear idea what they want, or now to get there. They've started a movement that is doomed to fail, or worse, to achieve the opposite of their goals.

If you ask the students in the broad Hong Kong "student movement" three questions, you will see that they lack answers to any of the three. These three questions are: What is your ultimate goal for Hong Kong? By what steps would Hong Kong get there? And what strategy will you use in order to urge Hong Kong in the direction you want?

These students really are a mere mob, as long as they lack a philosophy. They've announced that they want political independence, but that is an empty goal. Independence, to be what kind of country? Capitalism? A welfare state? Democratic socialism? Communism? They've said that Hong Kong has a separate identity, but what is that identity? What is the Hong Kong philosophy of life? No answers have ever come from the student movement.

Before one begins a social movement, one must have a goal and a strategy. Before one can have a goal and a strategy, one must have a view of the good. Before one can have that, one must have a philosophy. That is what Hong Kong lacks, at this time. That, far more than political independence, is what Hong Kong needs.

I wish these students all the best. I really do believe that most of "their hearts are in the right place." But they'd do far better to learn philosophy before they take to the streets and throw rocks.


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/world/asia/hong-kong-independence-undergrad.html?mabReward=R4

A publication by Hong Kong University undergraduates said Beijing was resisting moves toward democracy in the territory and refused to make concessions.

24/02/2016

Here is the power of the human mind to solve seemingly insoluble problems: http://factually.gizmodo.com/chicago-was-raised-more-than-4-feet-in-the-1800s-to-bui-1646409024

In the middle of the 19th century, Chicago embarked on a quest to literally lift itself out of the mud. Water couldn't drain from the low-lying city, so its streets became impassable swamps. The most reasonable solution, Chicago decided, was just to raise the whole goddamn city by 4 to 14 feet.

08/02/2016

For those interested in promoting freedom in Hong Kong and China, there is now an organization dedicated to introducing college-age students to rational ideas.

Dedicated to spreading the ideas of reason, individualism, and individual self-responsibility in Hong Kong and beyond.