First, Mamdani is likely neither a radical socialist nor a radical jihadist. But even if he were, what power does he truly have? Culturally, Mamdani is highly representative of New York City—a city whose very character has been shaped by the forces of the normie right, the neoconservative right, and the types who read the Babylon Bee. If Mamdani is to be condemned as a "foreigner," then so is much of New York City, including many of the outraged neoconservatives themselves. If only Protestant Christians can hold office, that would preclude many people whom the Babylon Bee also supports.

As for socialism, this is something radical Rothbardian libertarians understand far better than the so-called "liberal libertarians" who are expressing outrage. High taxes are not socialism. Nor are free buses. New York City is the center of the fiat financial system, which is arguably a far greater "welfare system" than any free bus program. If your enemy is free buses running on state-subsidized roads in a city whose main industry—banking—relies on massive subsidies and regulatory protection (which, by the way, devastates other regions and drives more immigration), then you are arguably the biggest defender of the status quo. If you are a neoconservative or a conservative who doesn't like Mamdani being mayor—despite having advocated for wars of aggression in Arab countries or economic policies that have destroyed the homelands of immigrants you now oppose—perhaps you should reconsider your own positions before expressing outrage over Mamdani.

Besides, Mamdani himself is probably just an empty suit anyway, so who cares?

Furthermore, couldn't it be argued that many complaints about clock changes are actually criticisms of nature itself, given that day length varies outside the equator? Evenings and mornings will naturally grow shorter in the northern hemisphere regardless of any clock policy. If one could have days of uniform length, what would be the ideal times for sunrise and sunset?

Finally, would a private law or anarchist society establish a timekeeping arrangement similar to our current one?

Are those dependent on the state likely to criticize, let alone overthrow it? Welfare robs the poor of what Murray would call agency while also demobilizing them. Certain thinkers who at times are associated with the “right” have in the past defended welfare precisely on the grounds to co-op/prevent the revolution. The revolutionary left should appreciate this argument, which is arguably Foucault's leftwing part, by saying that warehoused poor won’t make very effective elite revolutionaries. Murray of course would make the point in coming apart and losing ground that undisciplined and unskilled persons aren’t exactly “flourishing.” Murray himself states that he first recognized this in a rather anthropological manner by working for the peace corp seeing how academics treated the so called “natives.” In this manner Foucault and Murray might be much closer than some think. As the classic aphorism states, if you give a man a fish he isn’t hungry for a day, but teach a man to fish he won't be hungry for a lifetime.

If one is going to have a private law society or “anarchy”, what kinds of laws without a state will be enforced? How will they be enforced and why will people obey? To answer that question one must ask where do laws come from and why do people obey them in the current existing society. To answer this question, one must either turn to the apostle Paul who represents a kind of transcendental answer as to what laws should exist and why people obey them, or turn to Hayek who is a more thorough going naturalist. If there is one error of Hoppe, it is the origin story of Mises is incomplete unless some kind of theism is true. If naturalism is true, then laws emerge via evolution. Reasonable laws could be enforced without a state if one takes austro-libertarian class analysis seriously. Those laws will be obeyed if people are good natured enough and mostly act out of self-interest. If people aren’t good natured then why would giving some men a monopoly and allowing them to operate in practice above the law be a solution anyways? This solution is the solution which Moldbug and Mises in practice advocate.

The armies of modernity especially in the major conflicts are quite large and are equipped at great expense. There are structural ways one could argue oneself out of this seeming popularity but most wars are supported for a time. Although there are drafts and propaganda many soldiers willingly sign up and public support generally remains. Furthermore, plenty of frontline soldiers enjoy the fighting, the danger and camaraderie. Of course there is the PTSD story which needn’t be forgotten but this is arguably not the main takeaway. It couldn’t be considering the size of the armies in conflicts such as the Napoleonic Wars, WWI and 2.

Is modern bourgeois society too peaceful and boring? One could of course try to say it isn't that peaceful but the critique of alienation or boredom is a common criticism of modernity. Do people have a psychological need for conflict against an enemy? Is the media to blame? Why does the “mainstream” media seem to support many wars? Why is there so much popular demand for stories about wars both fictional and real? Is perpetual peace possible or even desirable? What would make wars, in particular state wars, less popular?

Health itself is a disputed term, and the tradeoffs which go into what is and isn’t healthy have changed over time. What defines a healthy individual let alone a healthy public isn’t entirely clear and the bureaucratic state has no right in answering that question. The health industry, centered in the modern hospital, has a mediocre track record to put it generously since the start of the industrial revolution. 

There are certain areas which have had breakthrough treatments but the phenomena of iatrogenics (harm done by the healer) cannot be understated. State run or regulated hospitals themselves, much like public schools or prison, are a dreary prison-like building which can cost the individual or society a fortune while only adding a few years at high “human” quality of life cost.  Many treatments administered by the healthcare industry may ultimately be not worth the added misery which ignores the financial/opportunity cost to a given procedure. 

Furthermore, the public health industry ends up treating all patients as being homogenous forgetting how much heterogeneity exists within humans. Whether the American “model” or single payer is “better” is a good question; however, neither seems particularly desirable overall.  Both models are highly state centered. The state itself and the highly regulated “market” have in the narrow and wide sense promoted and implemented policies which are contra health. Numerous examples exist and one of the best is the FDA pyramid guidelines which are now recognized as promoting obesity and diabetes. Requiring young children to sit all day and even medicating boys is surely not healthy. Promoting two working parents as an ideal clearly means the quality of food eaten is less than ideal. 

The very fact that many societies are aging, or even in decline, one has to ask…is this a healthy population? To paraphrase Murray Rothbard, anytime someone mentions public health one should keep a keen eye on your wallet and your own health, because it's about to be wrecked.

Lifetime incarceration, especially if it’s done humanely, is expensive (which requires taxing the innocent or using charity) and doesn’t really function as a punishment. It only meets the isolation criterium. Oftentimes actual existing lifetime incarceration isn’t that humane. For one thing the conditions of many prison’s aren’t particularly humane either (hence it’s inhumane to keep someone locked up for ones whole life): take a look at some second or third world prisoners, or for that matter American prisoners in Guantanamo Bay or where Julian Assange is being kept. Some prisoners are locked in solitary confinement without human interaction, sunlight or for that matter any stimulus. Other prisons are inhumane precisely because the other prisoners create a very toxic culture. One solution to resolve the cost problem is to make prisoners labour. This is not a new phenomenon and as Jimmy Dore points out California has used prison labour to fight forest fires while paying them next to nothing. Making prisoners work resolves the cost problem; however, creates an incentive problem that could promote entrapment of some kind. It also furthers the prison industrial complex as well which gives the prison ward a kind of free revenue. The dilemma seems to be that lifetime incarceration if done “humanely” is expensive for the broader society and doesn’t really function as a punishment if a particular heinous act is done. If prison labour is used to fund it this creates inhumane conditions which create incentives problems and undermines the usual way society operates. Would the death penalty be more humane then the actual existing alternatives while not undermining the broader labour market? The death penalty can be quite cheap and quick. Finally, what is the death penalty’s relationship to Christianity? Is punishment “Christian”? Wouldn’t most criticisms of the death penalty also apply to the brutal forms of lifetime incarceration? If the prison isn’t “brutal” then why bother with punishment at all? Would the death penalty resolve many of these issues?

Link to 3 part essay mentioned by Keith Preston entitled Sheep, Wolves, and Owls 

https://attackthesystem.com/2011/07/03/a-reply-to-matthew-lyons-part-three-sheep-wolves-and-owls/

Mark Fisher in his book Capitalist Realism makes the argument that a lot of what conservatives consider to be woke cultural victories isn’t a win for the “true” left. The universities are commonly criticized by the right as being left wing but as Fisher argues they are the ground floor of sorting and reproduction of the existing corporate capitalists' society at all levels. To him they and their students/employers aren’t a bastion of revolution and if anything a kind of woke styled regime conservatism. Selling anti capitalist movies such as Wall-e or Black Panther, in the capitalist mode by mega corporations like Disney or Netflix to Fischer/Zizek is arguably a draw. Fischer and Zizek think a lot of the LGBT issues if anything strengthen the appeal of the current order. Disney of course isn’t a pure capitalists' corporation on Rothbardian terms but is technically competent compared to most of its competitors. So called socialists like a Bernie Sanders can’t even beat a Hillary Clinton let alone be in the position to seize the means of production. Maybe reactionaries should be happier considering the grim condition that self described lefties view themselves?

Speaking of reactionaries Macintyre in After Virtue attacks the spectre of pessimistic Marxists arguing that in some sense they cease to be Marxists by losing their optimism in human society. Once they become pessimists they in a way become reactionaries of some variety in practice which leads to the odd categorization problem of actual existing socialist revolutions being functionally “right wing.” Stalin has show trials and gulags which make the historical ancien regime look like humanistic lightweights. By Rawlsian terms arguably a lot of so called western capitalist societies are more "humanist" than any actual existing socialist society. In North Korea today a kind of horrific parody of socialism exists. Paradoxically some paleo conservatives today look with some amount of affinity at the historical USSR as being moderately cultural conservative which kept a lid on social lifestyle issues as well keeping out the megacorps like Disney and McDonalds.

Our third thinker we included is Nick land who has direct ties to our first thinker in Mark Fischer. Nick Land is a kind of hyper capitalists who views China as the future but China seems to be looking more backward by the day even before the shutdown. If China is the society of the future it seems that it may not exist demographically or politically if you take the work of Peter Zeihan seriously. Its entire economic rise is based on cheap manufacturing exports to the so called enemy liberal democracies themselves all backed up by the US Navy (a service which it can’t provide currently). It seems that the liberal capitalist democracies have a lot of punch left in them compared to their likely competitors. For all the collapse narratives is this ruling order of the US and its allies/vassals along with the megacorp culture escapable internally or externally? Is “neoliberalism” more secure than ever?

The youtube link for the longer conversation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM0I5k50XsY