Uh, my essay taking on The Sovereign Individual is getting very long. It's greater than a 20 minute read at this point. And I have also found myself bringing in Nozick's "Anarchy, State and Utopia" into it. I am approaching my critiques very much through the lens of Epistemic Liberalism, that I've been kicking around. But yeah, this is going to be some deeply academic reading.

More thoughts. docs.google.com/document/d/1cc…

I Am An Epistemic Liberal. https://medium.com/@mike.brock/i-am-an-epistemic-liberal-8fac669245de

Re-reading parts of The Sovereign Individual for the critique I'm writing about Davidson and Rees-Mogg's arguments, and the thing that really stands out at me -- and I think this is also a problem that the hyperbitcoinization crowd suffers from -- is this almost religious belief in technological determinism, as the way to predict the future. Technology is a powerful driver of culture, and in some respects can just be considers part of culture, so it goes without saying that technology helps shape and influence society. I'd never argue against a thing. But I would generally argue against any thinking that views culture and politics as *downstream* of technology. It's a complex interplay between human nature, individual and group differences, economic conditions, political climate, etc. These things interact with each other. Technology doesn't just drive all the others towards some deterministic end. I think that's actually silly!

I’m clearly going to have to take on the Sovereign Individual in my next Medium post. Too many people seem to think it’s a convincing preemptive counterpoint to everything I’m saying. Naturally, I think this is nonsense and I intend to argue why.

I've been making these arguments in fragments across social media. I figured it needed a more long-form take. https://medium.com/@mike.brock/the-libertarian-to-fascist-pipeline-30558ce03c92