The Brain Standard, Part Two

Three steps forward, two steps back; so humanity advances.

Guest Post by Robert Gore at Straight Line Logic

Part One

Ideas are the foundation of the brain standard, one of which is that only individuals have rights. This cuts through the collectivist dreck that passes for thought among most of the world’s so-called intellectuals. The variations of collectivism all disguise nothing more than brute force hiding behind propaganda. Their inevitable failures stem from their essential flaw: those that control the collective claim rights that negate those of the individual.

There are grounds for hope. From the ruins of impending collapse there will be some who reject collectivism and are committed to rebuilding on a foundation of individual rights. How they will protect those rights and whatever territories they stake out are what theoretical physicists sometimes call “engineering problems.” One advantage they’ll have, though, as the brain standard constituency—they’ll be smarter than their adversaries. Attention, imagination, and intelligence will be keenly focused on building from the ruins and protecting what they’ve built.

Here’s a thought experiment. Imagine someone invents a cheap, portable device that defends its bearer and his or her property from all violence from all sources, but has no offensive capability. The device is so cheap that virtually everyone can buy it, and charities are set up to donate it to those who can’t. The device is universally available and creates a world without violence.

How would such a world function? People would have to produce to survive, but absent mutual agreement no one would have an enforceable claim on anyone else’s production. There would be no coercive transfers of money or property. Disputes would be settled by negotiation and mediation. A body of civil law similar to English common law would develop. Surely such a society would figure out a way to deal with nonviolent crime.

The negation of violence would eliminate government’s nominal rationale: protecting citizens from violence. In the absence of government (and its violence), individuals and society as a whole would be free to advance as far as their capabilities will take them.

This extreme hypothetical offers a stark contrast with the absence of anything resembling freedom anywhere in the world today. Government and collectivism are top-down codependents based on violence and coercion. Their current manifestations are replaying the dreary and what should be the common knowledge lesson of history: they inevitably fail, often after a great deal of bloodshed.

In the current jockeying among collectivist governments for the things over which they jockey, Russia’s and China’s are doing a better job than the U.S.’s. The former are the co-leaders of the Eurasian alliance and represent substantial politic and economic power. The latter is bankrupt, embroiled in yet another war it won’t win, and stands accused of sabotaging its most important European ally’s oil pipelines. At home, the U.S. government and its fellow travelers are in thrall to brain-dead ideologies that hasten the country’s disintegration.

Notwithstanding relative strength between collectivists governments, collectivism is still collectivism—coercive and doomed. China refers to its Belt and Road Initiative’s myriad projects and arrangements as the New Silk Road. However the original Silk Road, which lasted over 1500 years, was bottom-up, peopled mostly by merchants and traders. Various rulers sometimes facilitated its commerce and trade, but they were not the prime movers.

The New Silk Road is top-down, directed by governments and industrial and financial concerns aligned with those governments. Neither China nor Russia embrace the brain standard, although both countries have countless would-be entrepreneurs and innovators who would flourish under it. Currently doing better than the U.S. government means only that they’re stepping over a very low bar. It doesn’t make either country a bastion of freedom, nor does it insulate them from global collapse.

. . . . Western financial and economic collapse will be a black hole that sucks in the entire world. The debt daisy chain is global and will unravel as it did in the last financial crisis. The U.S. and EU economies are the first and third largest in the world. If they are prostrate, where’s the replacement market for Russian natural resources and Chinese manufactured goods? The “Stans” don’t quite cut it.

SLL, “Bonfire of the Governments, Part Two”, Robert Gore, March 23, 2022

The danger of nuclear conflagration at that point will be even greater than it already is. If collapse is non-nuclear and humanity avoids self-annihilation, parts of what may be the former United States could stage the quickest rebuilds and strongest recoveries. As open to criticism as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution may be, they embody fundamental concepts of freedom, individual rights, and limited government that are part of our heritage. These concepts have never gained traction in Russia, China, or much of the rest of the world, but they have not been extinguished in red state America.

A particular favorite is the right to self-defense. Red staters have the majority of private firearms and most of the expertise concerning their use. If collapse brings secession, insurrection, and guerrilla war, they will be waged from the red states, probably led by members of the military and veterans. If, afterwards, one or more of those states become enclaves of freedom and the brain standard, the innovators will come and thrive. There is that problem of protecting those enclaves, but keep in mind that most of America’s nuclear arsenal is in red states.

This is not to suggest that freedom and the brain standard can only flourish in the United States. Their foundations are universal ideals, not geography. They have never been fully realized, but any move in their direction yields improvement. The losers of World War II, Germany and Japan, did far better economically than the European winners, France and England. All four countries were devastated, but France and England kept their wartime economic controls and stagnated while Germany and Japan lifted theirs and flourished.

Wherever it appears, the brain standard will be opposed by those who won’t flourish under it. That includes many of the type of people who make up the current ruling class: credentialed elites who lack integrity, common sense, practical skills, useful knowledge, or innovative brilliance and are unremittingly hostile to those who do.

Denizens of brain standard territories will have to be intellectually and physically prepared to protect individual rights, resist incursions from moochers and looters, and deny collectivist ideologies and demands. Perhaps someone will invent the anti-violence device mentioned earlier. It sure would make things easier.

One thing that can be said about a brain standard society: the flotsam and jetsam floating in the intellectual mainstream and plaguing the world like so many turds will be gone. Absent coercion, the diktats and nonsense we’ve come to know and despise can’t be jammed down anyone’s throat. Reason and integrity will thrive, leaving no room for the ideological gargoyles that are today’s hideously evil dogmas.

There is no evading recognition that collapse is now underway, nor that it will get worse before there can be any hope that it gets better. However, the good comports with reality and evil never does, so humanity ultimately progresses. Unless we wipe ourselves out, the good will again triumph.

When it does, the long forgotten advice of George Washington will be remembered: “Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair.”

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