I’m of libertarian persuasion but it has to be noted that periods of human history where one faction was souvereign over it’s dominion, were generally more peaceful and conducive to trade and human cooperation.

Empirialism, dispite all of it’s atrocities, have resulted in more stable and peaceful periods during which cultural and technological progress is made.

Personally, I believe it might be better to have a single source of coercion, which is transparent and democratically scrutinized, than to have those dispersed in order to diffuse influence. Many nowadays will argue for more distributed government, taking hints from the apparent successes of “coopetition” in the marketplace. But that space was carefully constructed over millenia of trail and error by governing bureaucracies. It works well because there’s a leviathan that took away every individual’s opportunity for coercive action AND instituted a justice system to distribute justice in a controlled fashion. It also enforces property rights so you don’t end up with robberies out of spite. Without it you get people distributing justice among themselves, resulting in bloody family feuds and cycles of revenge killings.

I feel people arguing for anarchism (and I like anarchism in theory) typically do not seem to appreciate just how violent most of human history has been before highly centralized state and justice systems.

I don't necessarily disagree, but I can't help but wonder if the increase in peace and progress, assuming that's actually true (imperialism has caused quite a bit of suffering, just often not in our back-yard), cannot be explained by factors other than the 'leviathan'.

Furthermore, there's no reason to assume that a less centralized, less coercive approach might not be the next step in our 'progress'. Our technological developments, among other things, might make that more possible.

(I think that any such change would might not work very well if implemented revolutionary-style though, and I'm unsure what other approach might work)

> I feel people arguing for anarchism (and I like anarchism in theory) typically do not seem to appreciate just how violent most of human history has been before highly centralized state and justice systems.

Just how violent was it? This seems a difficult assertion to make. The modern state arose at some point in the 15th century; I don't recall the Renaissance being that much more peaceful than Medieval times in Europe.

Am I right in assuming that your libertarianism leans left? Could you explain your libertarian ideals in a little more detail for someone curious?

I’m not even sure competence is the right term here. People have different inate characters which will trust them into different positions. There’s also plenty of incompetence by a good portion of those at the top of hierarchies. Those usually do not get replaced because of network effects, parasitism, coercion, etc.

So it’s a propaganda piece?

I read it as an evolutionary biology/psychology explaination for much of human political sentiment. It’s well established that hunter gatherer tribes (the predominant mode during most of human evolution) are very egalitarian.

> So it’s a propaganda piece?

Science and studies can be utilized to skew towards a specific and deliberate narrative.

Somewhat tangentially, this is why science and conservatism have always had a tumultuous relationship. Most scientists are curious by their very nature whereas conservatism requires that status quo be observed and if questions must be asked then it has to be, as Burke alluded to, in small digestible portions. Revolutions are typically uncalled for and most of the time things tend to degenerate into worse conditions than what was being fought against initially. Case in point, a country that is on my continent - Libya. Things are worse now than under the revolutionarily deposed Muammar.

It’s insurance against life events outside one’s control. Anyone can end up poor or disabled at any time.

I expect this would be the case with alpha compositing at least...

Afaict subpixel rendering is supersampling width with multiples of 3, then modulo via the horizontal coordinate into rgb triplets and divide by supersampling factor. I guess if kerning and position are also subpixel it might become more tricky to cache results efficiently.

I must be the odd one out in that I actually prefer my fonts to look “soft”?

The more frameworks, the more there are to learn. The more effort required to learn all frameworks, the more appealing it becomes to roll your own.

(The combination of choice paralysis and opportunity cost analysis are a powerful motivator, especially when one comes to the budding realization that even the mightiest frameworks are full of irks. More fun in being a total NIH control freak.)

When I open this page on my phone I am greeted with a privacy modal that blocks the entire screen, with a consent button below the fold, which I cannot reach because scrolling appears busted. (Mobile Safari)

Or, Shakespeare was completely consumed by it, to his detriment, and did not wish the same for his children.