What I Believe · I don't believe in God, and I don't believe in Adam Smith or Karl Marx, and I don't believe in the abstractions of Capital or Labour or GAAP, and I don't believe in the Nation or the Family or the Race or the Tribe.
I believe in truth.
Truth is Difficult · Difficult to attain, and difficult to deliver. Truth is difficult to attain because the world is complicated; the further you go, along the paths of Physics or Economics or Logic, the weirder it gets.
Here is a list of important things where our grasp of the truth is not firm enough to make reliable predictions: inflation, unemployment, stock prices, love, acoustics, influenza, and speciation.
The truth would be hard enough to see even if other people weren't routinely trying to hide it. Politicians, businessmen, lovers, siblings, and professional colleagues routinely tell us things that are not true. Untruths become lies when spoken knowingly.
Unwilful untruth is just ignorance and is to be overcome, like a river in one's path or a sore muscle. Wilful untruth is the telling of lies; it should be fought with passion and without mercy, ripped flesh from bones and left to rot in the cold light of day.
