Just providing an update here. It may not appear so on the surface, but it has been a rather productive May and early June for me. I have just finished updating and revising just about every main page on this website and made a few additions. Below, I have all of my plans for the summer and the foreseeable future laid out [and there's quite a bit]:
Posts
In terms of writing content, I have two major works in progress that I’ve been focusing all of my attention to simultaneously.
First, I’ve been writing on the psychological nature of politics and political debates, creating a portmanteau that I like to call “Psycholitics.” It originally was a collection of observations on libertarians’ [significant, but not entire] waste of logic in convincing statists to reject their political views. But over time, it turned into a full blown mini-treatise or manifesto, drawing from my views on economics, politics, philosophy, religion, and ethics, and also ripping content from many of my other works, including much from my upcoming book No Gods, No Masters: The Case For Strong Atheism. It will likely be “required reading” as a preface to much of my other successive works. This piece, entitled “Psycholitics” is in the finishing stages, and should be out within a week or so.
Second, I have dedicated the summer to the topic of emergent law, and am writing a large piece entitled “The Market For Justice.” One of the most difficult topics for free marketers and anti-statist libertarians is to convince skeptics of the functionality of the institutions that are always considered to be the core State services – law, order, courts, defense, police, militaries, etc – in a society without a State. I have lately been reading many books on law, its history, comparative legal systems, the Common Law, the history of stateless societies like Ireland & Iceland, and now run the risk of wanting to become a lawyer [>.<]. Perhaps it was from several discussions I’ve had with friends and neighbors, and the fact that (even among hardcore libertarians) this discussion always comes up, even after they admit that the free market could do a fantastic job if we privatize roads, the post office, education, et al. Thus, I have dedicated my summer to producing a serious monograph on the subject – analyzing the nature of law, psychological roadblocks, legal failures of the State system, the nature of emergent law, some historical examples, and a rundown of responses to the [inevitable] worst-case scenario objections and speculating of how an emergent law system might look like.
I do have many shorter posts that can be finished and published quickly, and I will likely toss a few of them out there whilst intermittently working on these larger works (and those below). And as I have mentioned before, I do want to turn this into more of a “blog” with near-daily brief commentaries on current events or links that I have found, all while continuing to work on my larger, more scholarly papers. We’ll see what happens, this website is an continually emergent work-in-progress.
“Market Emergence”
Speaking of emergence…As you may recall, I’ve also made mention of my masterwork on “emergence” several times already. I have still been working on it marginally, but have recently made the decision to make it the core feature of another book I want to write. I originally had the post written, with the intention of making it the centerpiece of my “about” page, since it encapsulates my beliefs on just about everything, and I now largely call myself a [market] emergentist. But it turned out that I had too much to say, and wanted to encompass all that I could into it. Thus, it made the most sense to me to compile it together as a book, or something similar. For the forseeable future, this should contain all of my beliefs on the world, and thus I would like to continually edit it and revise it, possibly for years, until I am ready to officially publish it. It is tentatively titled “Market Emergence,” and I’ll likely snag “marketemergence.com” for it. At least, that the overly(?) romantic vision floating around in my head at the moment. Throughout the process, I would release updated versions of it online so it will always be accessible for the most part. Better title suggestions are most welcome.
Regardless, I have decided to make it a longer monograph or book of sorts, and will probably post the introductory chapter up here soon. I can however provide excerpts of my thoughts for its organization right now: I have (at present) formulated all of my observations into seven principles of emergence:
- Order is emergent
- Only individual entities act in their self-interest
- Everything is interdependent
- Complexity is always increasing
- All action takes place on the margin
- The emergent order is self-correcting
- All phenomena and values are contextual
Throughout the introduction (and the book) I explore these principles in general, and then apply them each to [potentially physics/cosmology] biology, truth, ethics, politics/the state, economy, history, law, technological progress, and other relevant social subjects while contrasting the aforementioned principles of “emergence” with chaotic and violent “establishment.”
“No Gods, No Masters”
As I have repeated many times, my original book that I still am working on, No Gods, No Masters – The Case for Strong Atheism is still being worked on. Ideally, I intend to have the entire thing finished by Christmas (how fitting!) 2010. I work on the book marginally as I think of new arguments and anecdotes, and occasionally get the impetus to write entire chapters in one sitting, especially after I get into heated religious debates with people (so if you want it to come out quicker, argue with me!). I should be able to post the introductory chapter here in a few weeks to test it out.
Again, large portions of the book is quoted in my upcoming piece “Psycholitics” so you can look for hints at what I’m working on there. Although, I don’t quote or cite them explicitly, but it should be obvious which parts make reference to atheist conclusions.
Understanding Economics
My original “claim-to-fame” on Youtube perhaps, is my Understanding Economics series. Especially since I am specializing in [Austrian] economics in my studies, this should take a priority over much of my other work. Unfortunately, it has lately taken a back seat, even though I finally found the time last month to release Lesson Three. And much to my chagrin, there were a multitude of problems with it – two parts were rejected from Youtube for being too long, and the audio in the last few videos is faded. Needless to say, I am very disappointed and slightly frustrated with the result – not only because I am a perfectionist, but I take pride in those videos and they do take a lot of time & effort to produce – days for each lesson.
If/when I find the time, I might fix the problems with this third lesson. It is fundamental to the future lessons, so I probably ought to have it be pristine. Fixing the length of the two rejected sections should not be difficult, but fixing the audio problems means remaking the entire set of videos that have poor audio. This may take time, and looking at my other list of things to do (not to mention, having a life) it may or may not get done.
I do intend to keep working on the series, and get lesson 4 out and rolling. If people harass me enough, I’ll put it at the top of my value scale…
Some New Innovations
Due to the continuous frustration of Youtube, I am considering making some changes. I have not made YouTube videos recently mostly out of neglect or lack of desire to. If enough people desire them, I shall return to them. In all probability I will, since YouTube is a large and popular site, with plenty of opportunities for my ideas to find outlets. This is especially true with the significant momentum of my channel and subscriptions, so I can’t just ignore that.
Having said that, my repeated frustrations with YouTube & my UE series have brought me to a head: I am considering hosting my videos (at least UE, I may stick to brief commentaries on Youtube) on another website – one that will allow me to post videos longer than 11:00. Thus, I don’t have to breakup my UE lessons into 10 videos at a time (which actually takes much more effort than making one continuous video). In some ways its better that they are broken up, but as you can see with lesson 3, I run a greater risk of having a problem with one or all of my videos on YouTube. One of the problems of moving to another site is again moving away from the potent Youtube base; regardless I will always post ALL of my content on this website. But it is a decision I will have to make soon.
I have also considered making a periodic podcast and publishing it to my site and elsewhere. I would do an audio podcast perhaps once a week, comment on current events, and discuss different topics; perhaps one topic a week, and anything that my viewers suggest. A call-in option for live Q&A/debate would be epic, but I don’t have those kind of logistics, so I would still love to have people email me topics they want me to discuss on each podcast, based on the viewership. It’s an idea I’m definitely considering. I can also make audio versions of my pieces that I have already written/will write so there is another medium, oftentimes more convenient, for my friends and readers to think about my ideas.
Ryansafner.com is about to expire in a few days. I am likely going to renew it, but it also made me think about having the domain for this site be http://safnerism.com instead of, or in addition to (and have it redirect here) the current one. Thoughts?
POLICON
Also this summer, I am hoping to have a beta release of my latest version of my political economy game, now called POLICON (formerly CCRPG). We also are running a fully functional Classic version of CCRPG for fun right now. I’m also looking to start the process of transforming POLICON into a commercial business pending the results of the beta (&/or tremendously more-than-expected activity on CCRPG Classic). I’ve made enough mention of CCRPG elsewhere, and have updated the page on it, so for more info, find the POLICON page above.
Your Feedback
So, after hearing all of this from my end, I would love to hear from your end. If you have any opinions on what I should prioritize on, would be interested in me following up on any of my crazy ideas (that honestly will end up going nowhere unless you provide feedback) please comment below, or let me know by other means (facebook, AIM, email). After all, this is here to serve the people, not for monetary benefit, but for social benefit (and also so I don’t just write to myself).
