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The Imperative of Technological Progress: Why Stagnation Will Necessarily Lead to Disaster and How Techno-Optimism Can Overcome It
Author: Gennady Stolyarov II “He who moves not forward, goes backward.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe It is both practically desirable and morally imperative for individuals and institutions in the so-called “developed” world to strive for a major acceleration of technological progress within the proximate future. Such technological progress can produce radical abundance and unparalleled improvements in both length and quality of life – whose possibilities Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler outlined in their 2012 book Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think. Moreover, major technological progress is the only way to overcome a devastating step backward in human civilization, which will occur if the protectionist tendencies and pressures…
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Military Conscription Shows the Evil of Ukraine’s Government
Author: Gennady Stolyarov II I have, in the past, expressed ambivalence regarding the government of Oleksandr Turchynov and Arseniy Yatseniuk in Ukraine, but that government’s decision on May 1, 2014, to impose military conscription for men aged 18 to 25 clearly reveals it to be evil and unworthy of even verbal support, not to mention the material assistance and economic bailouts currently lavished on it by Western governments and the International Monetary Fund. As I wrote in 2008 in “Why Freedom is Free and Rights Are Right: The Case Against Conscription, Compulsion, and Confiscation”, conscription is murder by lottery: “By fielding an army of conscripts, a government necessarily guarantees that…