External Processor

Listen to "Agrarian Justice" as read by Scott Santens in this podcast. ( https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-scott-santens/agrarian-justice-by-thomas-bySgcFjE2sd/ ) Read "Agrarian Justice." ( https://fermatslibrary.com/s/agrarian-justice ) In "Agrarian Justice," Thomas Paine distinguishes between two types of land: cultivated and uncultivated. Here are some of his observations. Society of Cultivated Land Land is held as private property. Dense human populations possible. Some very rich and many very poor people in society. Society of Uncultivated Land Land is considered the common property of humanity. (Example given is the native peoples of North America.) Low population density as hunting and gathering requires large areas of land. Quality of material life is similar among people within the society, and Paine argues is much better than the poor of a cultivated society. His basic point is that land was originally created by God and given to all human...

Here's my quick overview of Universal Basic Income (UBI).  UBI is a monthly amount of income provided to every citizen of a country, without work requirements or other stipulations. This list highlights some of my thought process as I came to support UBI. Most people generally agree that we should have some sort of social safety net to help those who fall on hard times. Rather than a safety net, I prefer to think of UBI as a secure financial base that provides economic opportunity to everyone. Our existing welfare system is often means tested and frequently traps people in poverty. UBI supports mothers and motherhood. America is a land of great riches and opportunity. Everyone should get to participate. The New Scarcity - Capitalism doesn't have to start at $0. The Input Argument for UBI What the Free Market Really Means We need to change our understanding of ownership. Number 2 - The existing welfare state is bad Our welfare state is supposed to provide a financial safety ne...

My Network Basics I have Comcast Xfinity Internet which comes into my house via coaxial cable. That goes into my Zoom modem (Model 5341J). The Ethernet connection coming out of my modem is my WAN (Wide Area Network) connection. That goes into my Asus RT-AC87R wireless router. The router provides an Ethernet connection to two desktops and Wifi for various laptops, phones, and an Xbox. My Hyper-V Setup I have a basic desktop PC running Windows 10 Pro with Hyper-V enabled. The motherboard has one Ethernet port and I've added two more Ethernet ports with PCIe add-in cards. Run pfSense in Hyper-V I use all 3 network cards (NIC) in my PC to make this work. I'm sure there are other ways to do this, but this is how it makes sense to me. The Ethernet port on my motherboard I consider my management port and I don't make any changes to it or assign it to Hyper-V. It picks up a DHCP address from whatever it's plugged into and provides network connectivity just like any other Window...

In my first post I talked about how everything requires inputs . But there's more to say about inputs. First of all, money is not an input . Money often allows you to purchase inputs, but money is never an input. A pile of money is not a family. A hoard of gold does not create an organization. If you're accomplishing anything you must have people working, resources being consumed, and goods and services being produced. Money is just a tool we use to conveniently exchange all of these things. Secondly, the input necessary for human survival requires both natural resources and human labor . When I'm using the word input, I mean both the labor and the resources. Human labor accomplishes nothing without resources. Raw resources are worthless without humans using them to produce food, clothing, shelter, and whatever else we need. An economics textbook will list the factors of production -- land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship -- as if they were all individual things. But ...

Before you start, make sure you understand the basic concepts of faith informed politics that I discussed in my first blog post and in the corresponding YouTube video . Once you've got that understanding, download a copy of the worksheet and fill it out. Faith Informed Worksheet Microsoft Word version . (Click Download to make a copy) Faith Informed Worksheet Google Docs version . (Choose File > Make a copy) You might consider completing this worksheet with another person or even in a group. You should each complete your own copy, but doing it together will help your think through what you believe. Try to learn from each other. Agree to disagree. Stay humble and commit to being friends even after you talk about your different opinions. What are your foundational beliefs? What do you believe about God and humans? What is your worldview? What do you believe about the way the world is now? What do you believe about the way the world should be? Based on the questions above, what do ...

Step 1: Establish core theological beliefs based on the Bible. Step 2: Define how the world should be based on these truths. Step 3: Define how the world currently is . Step 4: Offer methods (political policy) that attempt to reconcile how the world is to how it should be. Matthew 6:10 "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." As I mention in the video, I may have strong opinions about a certain method or political policy, but I recognize that it is only the means to an end and that other people may also have other good solutions as well. On the other hand, I'm not supporting my ideas on a whim or because I'm loyal to a particular political party. My political polices have deep roots all the way back to my core theological beliefs. Because of this I'm passionate about political and economic policy issues because I want to promote human flourishing in a Biblical way. One more thing I want to add to this topic. I ask people to consider how the world is and ...

Scarcity is a fundamental principal in economics. Scarcity means that resources are finite while human wants are essentially infinite. There is only a certain amount of any resource in the world. It could be cars, apples, oil, food, or water; there are limits on everything. Not only are resources scarce, but we have to make choices about what we do with the resources we have . This is called opportunity cost. If I choose to spend $10 on pizza, then that is $10 I don't have to spend on ice cream. Finally, the ultimate scarcity is our time. Everyone has 24 hours in a day. That's it. Time is a finite resource. And time spent on one task can never be taken back and used for something else. Another way to talk about scarcity is to talk about inputs. Input is my favorite word . It reminds us that any person, system, organization, business, or government requires continuous input. (Even non-profit organizations!) As a child, I used to think there was such a thing as free food. But the...