In the west and now most of the world, the standard family set up is that the parents and kids live in the same house, and that’s it. This is the nuclear family, and it may seem pretty instinctual. Yet for most of human history, and in lots of different cultures, the family was organized in much different ways.  

Take the structure of the Iroquois. Within a clan, extended families (say 20-90 people) would live together in one longhouse. This set up allowed for closer connection between children and their cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. It also put less stress on just the parents for upbringing, as older cousins could always watch over younger ones, or especially grandparents who may not be able to physically contribute as much could spend their free time productively by interacting with the kids. Additionally, even the set-up of everyone living in close proximity in one big house had its benefits, as people who hoard resources would be right next to the people they are hoarding from, and thus be easily and rightfully scrutinized. 

This is not to say the nuclear family is inherently bad, only that there are many more ways of organizing the family that perhaps the world ought to better accommodate. The nuclear family is somewhat failing in the modern day, although this is more a result of the financial pressures requiring both parents to work and childcare being extremely expensive (in the US). Again, if you want to fix this grandparents notoriously have very little to do all day and could watch over children well.  

In regards to third spaces and community set up, the US should enact a New Deal style legislation with the goal of redesigning American communities. Some of the possible reforms to be enacted include: 

1. Decrease the dependance on cars. This is hard as suburbia is basically built around cars, but it could be done gradually through moving away from personal car use. Bikes, buses, or long term electric scooter or motorcycle use are all better alternatives, even if none are perfect.  
2. Clean up and greenify America. These go hand in hand and would involve a reset of American green space. Instead of flat simple grass that contributes nothing biologically and even “requires” to be mowed every two weeks, biodiverse landscapes should be encouraged. This would mean planting a mix of local vegetation. This would this contribute to the biodiversity of the land allowing local animals to interact with it, it would look pretty, and it would not require constant care. In addition, some of the plants could be local fruits or vegetables, providing a quick snack if someone is walking by.  
3. Increase and promote all-encompassing third spaces for teens. When looking at older moves such as dazed and confused, the spots provide a nice place for teenagers to interact, with things like pool tables. This is not to say that there is nothing for teens to do, but more that there is no place for teens to organically and collectively all hangout. When I imagine one of these spaces, it would consist of say a skatepark next to an inside section with games (poker, pool, maybe video games), places to watch movies, places to talk, and ways to purchase snacks. It’s important to me that teenagers, who are at the most freely expressive in their life due to youth and time do not spend all their time alone in their room. Also lower the drinking age to 18, 21 is ridiculous and pointless, although it should be made more clear just how harmful alcohol is.  
4. Encourage adventure playgrounds. Adventure playgrounds are playgrounds where the structure of the playground is less set in stone, and kids can even use tools to build it as they good. The point is to allow the kids independence and creativity. This might seem dangerous, but the nature of them promotes restraint, whereas the constricting and limited nature of traditional playgrounds often leads to kids pushing the boundary, in turn hurting themselves.  
5. Put up string lights in urban areas. String lights decrease crime by reducing the dark and creating a warm, inviting atmosphere. 

Education

If you head over to the r/teachers reddit, you will find much discussion about how today’s children are unable to focus, read/write/do math below standard levels, and the parents and children alike unable to be held accountable. All this is combined with long hours (as they have to spend time grading at home) and relatively low pay, and you have a natural shortage in teachers.  

There are many different reasons for these trends, such as inadequate at home learning, over exposure to electronic devices, and the self-fulfilling problems around how if teacher pay is bad, there are less and worse quality teachers, making the experience of teaching even worse, etc. etc.  

Some things to fix this are that grading scales ought to be more standardized across America, so as that comparing a GPA between different students across state lines will actually make sense.  

Funding for education also ought to also be more standardized, as currently richer areas receive better funding which allocates better teachers, and thus richer students generally are able to do better in their GPA and SAT/AP/IB scores. In fact, higher SAT scores are directly correlated with higher income, with SAT math (0.22) and verbal (0.18) having higher correlation than GPA or class rank (0.6-0.10) (Penn Wharton). 

If we are to live in a truly free society, there should not be any benefit in public schooling to be born into a richer family, and thus we must equalize the education received, at least at the state level. This means funding lower socioeconomic areas to receive better teaching as well as trying to incentivize good teachers to teach at all levels of schools.  

In addition, children of all ages as a general principle should have access to as little screen time as possible. If there is to be screen time, then longer form and less intense content or educational content is greatly preferred to things like scrolling platforms, of which the consequences we have only begun to see but do not look at all promising.

Immigration

For immigrants that are coming to the US, the vast majority, particularly those from Mexico are coming due to the fact that their work here translates to much higher amounts of pesos that can be used to support a family back home. Many do come for the better life as well.  

If we can therefore improve the lives in Mexico and similar countries, two things are solved at once. For one, those who do not want to leave but feel they have to in order to create a better life for their loved ones are able to stay, as they may not have even wanted to really leave. In addition, US employers are no longer as able to undercharge workers, and thus may have to support true blue collar work.  

This is not to say that immigration is bad, but just that both the left and the right in America somewhat miss the point. If the Mexicans were able to have a solid quality of life in Mexico, and thus continue to interact with the culture they grew up in and love, I support that. 

Now actually implementing a society in which this occurs is a much harder thing to do, as it is basically calling for currencies to be equally valued, which is an impossible proposition for the modern world. Nevertheless, there are basic things that western governments can and should implement. The first thing would be implementing a solid immigration plan.  

This applies more so to Europe, but we can look to differences in how countries accepted immigrants/asylum seekers. Comparing Sweden and Denmark, Sweden took and approach that was basically to get as many in as they could. The problems with this are multiple. For one, the government ran out of housing, thus expanding a housing crisis. The immigrants also had no real way to engrain themselves into Swedish culture. (for more see this OBF video Immigrants vs. Sweden) 

Compare this to Denmark, which screened immigrants to make sure they would be a good fit in Danish society and to make sure there would be space. Thus, they were able to provide decent housing and employment. They also made learning Danish mandatory, further allowing integration. This is a solid immigration plan for European countries, as it is pragmatic while not completely blocking immigration, thus providing great benefit to those from war torn and places of poverty who are able to immigrate.  

Yet even further, western governments should support causes that would bring about freedoms/quality of life improvements for people. For example, the US has such a huge military budget that perhaps, with collaboration with the Spanish government could work on cracking down on cartels. This would have to be done in a way that keeps the judicial rights of the accused (so not as in El Salvador exactly), but on the whole this would improve the lives of those in Mexico leading to less immigration that is not wanted by those feeling they have to immigrate. Similarly, the west should support just causes in the middle east, as a completely non-interventionist role leads to problems down the line that then impact the western governments. This would NOT mean invasions and the like, more so transparency supporting causes by providing food and support, and less so military actions. The Syrian civil war cause 7 million refugees to flee their home, thus having an impact on the country’s around them. Supporting Burkina Faso’s government against Jihadist forces. The list goes on, and my point is the west should at least work to help in events such as this, instead of ignoring them, which could come back to bite them.  

Finally, this is perhaps a controversial take, but Europe should really re-evaluate how it sees many “far-right” parties. Take the national rally, considered the furthest right party in French legislature. I disagree with them on basically everything, but I do not think they, or any other of these populist right wing parties should be seen as the world ending threat the media sometimes portrays them as. Instead, to me they are more goofy, built on anti-establishment policies that will fail the second they actually gain power.  

This is exactly what happen to the right wing Finns Party in Finland, as the election after they came into power they immediately lost 2/3 of their support and have basically been disliked since. This was due to failing to deliver on their immigration stances as well as bad financial policy and austerity. This is most of these parties. 

In addition, when I look at Le Pens (the leader of the National Rally’s) immigration policy it is not that crazy. As history progresses the general consensus continues to move left, which is why she says that she is fine with immigrants and would just prefer if they were able to interact within French culture. Treating this take as crazy leads to more press for these parties, and in the end more support from people dissatisfied with the status quo, even if their actual policies are terrible for everyone.  

Healthcare

In the 1950s and 60s in Europe, nearly every country implemented welfare style universal and “free” healthcare systems. There are still costs, but they are mitigated. This system was so popular that any right wing government would basically refuse to touch it, leaving the current system in place for the most part. Many countries around the world also adopted similar systems. 

The US, however, never did. In the US, healthcare revolves around insurance companies, which one often gets through their job. The system decently if you can afford it, as it is expensive but has high somewhat high quality and fast treatment due to the high prices. If you are below the top earners however, the problems start to leak through. The general cost of medical things, such as follow up care or giving birth, is completely unaffordable to the 30 million or so Americans without insurance.  

Just for some examples, the best insurance would still mean giving birth would cost at least 2,000 without complications, although complications that require a longer stay could push the costs up to 5,000 to 8,000. If you do not have insurance, then the most straightforward pregnancy will cost you 10,000, and complications could push that up to 50,000. For ambulance rides, the average cost is 1,300 (source). If you get cancer, depending on the severity and your specific case, you are still looking at tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs, a frankly ridiculous stress to put on someone fighting for their life.  

This system is completely broken, and the graph above illustrates it. Also, keep in mind that it only goes to 2014, and the cost is certifiably higher now. Insurance companies are able to squeeze the pockets of everyday Americans, and Americans are paying the price. It is no wonder that healthcare lobbying is the #1 lobbying sector in the US, with more spending than oil, defense, or tech.  

 If you want to solve this, there are many different alternatives, each with their own pros and cons, yet all unquestionably better than the current US system. Some include Germany, Japan, France, or Australia. These systems don’t even mean complete government running of the sector, they have market elements which can be fine to avoid overbooking. Nevertheless, they help the poorest (and most people in general) in society by cutting costs to a reasonable amount.  

Also as a quick sidenote, jobs that place the lives of humans in their hands should require a steady stress and sleep level, and on this point doctors being clinically sleep deprived and overworked does not make much sense to me. Instead, lower the debt for medical school, encourage healthy working hours, and perhaps a slight reduction in pay to do this, although not by very much as the salary is quite deserved. Alternatively, just fund it more anyway. 

On Politicians

When it comes to American politicians, it is pretty clear that the public is not the biggest supporter of individual politicians , and generally of how politicians as a group function.  

This includes but is not limited to: 

• Receiving funding from interest specific groups 
• Insider trading, i.e. making stock market decisions based on knowledge only available to those in specific governmental positions 
• A general “out-of-touchness” with the American public 

To fix this, I propose a reform for those in congress and the president (among their aids). When in any of these positions, the governmental actor should be required to live a humble life. It should be an honor to represent ones people, one that shouldn’t be tainted by attempts at wealth and power. This would mean no trading stocks (or influencing others to trade specific ways), living in a standard residence, and no exuberant trips or parties. One may even argue for a central building where members of congress can live when in DC, standardizing the living conditions between the most well off the and poorest in said branch of government.  

Additionally, campaign financing should adopt a system more similar to that used in Japan. This puts a limit on private financing and brings increased transparency to the funds received by political parties. Limits allow smaller political candidates to have a fairer representation based more upon what they actually represent and less upon the fact that they received less corporate backers or wealthy financiers.  

Being a member of a high branch of government should be an honor given to the most intelligent and caring among us. Instead, 90% of House races are won by the candidate who spends more money, and 86% of senate races. We should want in a politician an ability to advocate for what one thinks is right regardless of what pacts that donate to their campaign say. If you want to fix the root issue, remove the pacts. In fact, remove any possible major corrupting influence.  

Trust in the government has consistently trended lower decade over decade. Want to at least help the problem? Make being at such a high position in government something that actually deserves respect. The principles of lowering the lavish sense of those in government could be applied to all levels of government, with the less “power” wielded meaning less strict application of said principles. 

In addition, the previous jobs of those in power should be diversified to basically include more engineers, scientists, teachers, farmers, and those from all walks of life instead of mostly lawyers or businesspeople as it is now.   

On the Attention Span (Old but fine)

An attention span crisis has hit the world. Although subtle and affecting different age groups and countries differently, one thing is clear. Our attention is getting worse. In a study first started in 2004, participants were measured for how long they would stay on one thing on their computer. For example, if they typed in a Word doc, the timer would count until the participant switched to something like their email, where it would then start counting again. In 2004, the average time was two and a half minutes. In 2012, it was 75 seconds. Now, it is around 47 seconds. One could argue that there are confounding reasons for this decrease in time, but it coincides with the ability not to be able to focus. We cannot concentrate on one thing for a long time or even concentrate on nothing (sit in silence). Instead, we switch between screens and activities to give ourselves the quick change we think we need, never letting silence overcome us to achieve mindfulness. We must always watch something or listen to something.

The media consumption habits of the 1960s were vastly different from today. Back then, toddlers were said to have watched an average of 54 hours of TV a week. While this may sound excessive, it’s a stark contrast to today’s media consumption, which is different for two main reasons.

The first is how fast internet content changes. Within two seconds, a person can have a completely new video with different audio, colors, visuals, etc. If they are bored? Just scroll to find something else they can judge within a few seconds. Contrast this to a show where the audience has no choice. In traditional television, there will be sections where the viewer will certainly be bored. It might be at the beginning of a scene, where a few seconds go by without anything happening, or in a conversation that isn’t all that entertaining, or even a whole episode. They could switch the channel, but the same problems may arise. The competitiveness of the internet has made creators usually make their videos as content-rich as possible. Overstimulation doesn’t apply to all long-form content creators, but it does apply to the most popular channels, such as MrBeast.

The second is that the television stayed at home. I’m sure if those kids of the 1960s had a portable TV in their pocket, they would use it whenever they were bored, at bus stops, in the car, or anytime they found their mind needing entertainment. They did not have a TV in their pocket, so they had two choices. First, do something like reading, art, writing, all things the mind has to concentrate on which require creativity and imagination. The second was they could use their imagination! Cure their boredom by simply thinking about things and, in doing so, learning to tolerate their boredom. Now, we have that TV in our pocket, but it is not just a TV. It is more attention-seeking.

As someone currently in my junior year of high school, I can see the effects of the phone. Teens play simple games like Snake or Tetris for entire class periods. I see kids checking their phones every 2 minutes, looking at a few TikToks or Insta reels, then paying attention to class again. Even within these social media platforms, the videos have had to adapt to attention spans by adding stimulating clips to the already short content (Here’s an example). Listening to music during class is a norm, and screen times of 7 hours daily are commonplace among my friends.

I don’t want to seem like I’m blaming my teens at all; in fact, I struggle significantly with social media. I even added preventer apps and made my phone colors only black and white, which only helps a little. I still have to go on social media because that’s where my friends are, and with no social media, I would get extreme FOMO. I wouldn’t be able to understand new jokes, both within friend groups and general trends. So then I’ll check Instagram to text a friend, see a funny video, and before I know it, I’ve spent 2 hours scrolling.

So how can this all be fixed? We must first acknowledge how social media functions. Every time you are about to see an ad, a social media company holds a bid between lots of bots representing different advertising companies. The winner of the bid is the company who displays their ad. This process makes you a product for the social media platform. It also makes it so that the longer you spend on the platform, the more ads you see, and the more revenue you generate for social media. Social media companies are then incentivized to create a platform that is as addicting as possible, making you want to go on it often and for an extended period. This is where the problem of social media comes from. The solution then seems simple: create a cyberspace that does not stand any need for profit, simply operating to provide a net benefit to society. While a straightforward solution to offer, this is practically an impossible task, and I barely know where to start. Still, this is the best solution if we want to create a positive cyberspace.

On Security Cameras

Security cameras are an interesting concept. An omnipresent being able to see all and capture all, acting always at the end of the day based on the Law. Security cameras have no doubt allowed us to track down rapists, thieves, and, as seen recently in the case of Luigi Mangione, murderers in record time. So why am I not so keen on this seemingly useful eye?

To understand, we must start with Micheal Foucault’s 1975 book Discipline and Punish. Foucault laid out a progression in the forms of state power and law from a feudal society to an industrial society, sovereign to discipline society in Foucault’s terms.

Sovereign society is broadly the will of the king. Here, the law and the will of the king are the same thing, and a violation against either is viewed as one in the same. The punishment here is revenge (seen as “eye for an eye”) for acting against the will of the king.

Mostly developing after the Industrial Revolution, Foucault noted a shift to a “disciplinary” society. Here, instead of the threat of revenge and loyalty to the king being the preventor for broad “crime”, the preventor shifted to two things: individual expectations and institutions.

Individual expectations created a society that normalized judgment. A standard of what a person engaged with society should be, act like, and what “category” they should be in (Foucault expands on this in Madness and Civilization). It should be noted that, of course, feudal society had judgment, but these traits were both changed, more widespread, and standardized in disciplinary society.

Institutions act as a preventor for unlawful actions by implementing power upon civilians (although not traditional power). For example, prisons changed from acting as revenge to being for rehabilitation. Instead of someone blaming the king for imprisoning them, they instead direct their attention to the rehabilitation system. Schools act as a form of indoctrination, as while literacy and general education are undoubtedly taught, they also condition the subject to submit to the professional’s will. This is a common connection between Foucault’s examples, as conditioning expectations to the professional’s will is used in schools, factories, hospitals, and prisons.

All of these expect the individual to behave according to common standards, such as medical, legal, or educational. These common standards are also imbued into factory work, where each person has their own job and seat and is expected to remain in their seat in their standard time. In contrast, the feudal peasants can farm the grain however they would like and, incongruent with what many people think, can generally do what they would like as long as they meet the required quota of grain. Obviously, this required intense brutal labor and a terrible quality of life, and if the required grain was not met, punishments would follow. This is not a Evolian pro-fuedal argument, he is just pointing out the standards of labor.

All this led to a decentralization of power. Instead of blaming the troubles simply on the King and his feudal system, one has a choice between their doctor or the military or police or boss or corporation or a specific branch of government or specific party etc etc.

Yet here is where it gets really interesting. In 1988, Deleuze published an essay called Postscript on the Societies of Control. Continuing Foucault’s work, Deleuze argued that disciplinary societies had progressed to become societies of control. Here, they no longer expect self-regulation from the individual, as it is auto-managed.

Deleuze argued that in disciplinary societies if the individual decides to protest or act illegally against the system, there is little the law can do besides react to the individual’s actions. On the other hand, control societies don’t have to condition people (although he said they still do), as data prevents the crimes anyway.

I will give some examples. Let’s say you wanted to hijack a plane in the 70s. While not easy, it was definitely possible as the prevention system was pretty limited, instead simply hoping that most people would choose to remain stable members of society so as to keep the number of hijackings low. Now, for obvious reasons due to 9/11, even if 10x as many people wanted to hijack a plane as in the 70s (which thankfully they don’t), technology, security, and identification data within passports prevent that.

You can apply this logic to a lot of things. Fraud and identity theft are much harder to do, due to better control systems in place. Online data can automatically create our watch history, which goes on to define us, and monitor us automatically for illegal activities (it is limited, though, but a better control system like China regulates the internet more intensely). Data can define our categories, such as with test scores, GPA, performance reports in jobs, or debt with our credit score.

All this is epitomized in the security camera.

The camera brings a reduction in crime, no doubt. Yet there are a couple of problems. For one, it is not actually a true solution. If people wanted to rob a bank before, security cameras remove the ability. The thing is, those people still may want to rob a bank, just now they are angry because they have no chance at doing it (this is a bit of a stretch, but you get the point). Security cameras don’t address the root of why people want to commit whatever crime they do, and while they are a good deterrent, we must work to address the first part in tandem.

Secondly, it simply removes privacy. I won’t expand on this as it’s pretty self-explanatory. Whatever you think of privacy as, security cameras don’t help your personal privacy.

Thirdly, we can play whataboutism and imagine future societies. In China, the people have mostly been fine with high levels of security cameras because they are more of a collectivist culture, the idea that anyone scared of security cameras must want to break the law, and the people have had quality of life improvements. But what happens if market failure, food production failure, or even war decreases the quality of life, and people want to protest? Better yet, think of an AI data dystopia where AI surveils cameras, releasing police robots or something similar upon a broken law. It is, of course, a made-up scenario. Yet this technology is not far off and could theoretically be implemented now.

This is all speculative, but the point is this. In no case will government-run security cameras be on the side of social change. Even now, protests must be coordinated in advance with the police. My worry is that in a case of true social breakdown, security cameras are a part of the system that would prevent the necessary change from occurring.

We can apply this to the Luigi Mangione case. Here, a healthcare system that hurts millions of Americans every year received an assassination of a CEO at one of the worst companies. I must first acknoledge that in no way am I defending murder, this is simply analysis. Most know these companies make huge profits off of suffering Americans. One can imagine a world without security cameras and advanced technology in the law and that similar assassinations would likely be more common. It is because assassinations similar to the one on December 4th are a jail sentence for whoever does them, as the only real chance of escape is leaving the country to never see one’s family again. Even then, it’s a gamble. The technology is at the point that it can track down the assailants in a matter of days, as seen in Mangione’s case. Thus, in combination with a lack of means to protest healthcare costs, the true discontent is hidden. It is only after the killing that the discontent is revealed.

The generally positive response of the public shows that people want change, yet they have no way to access this change and thus will accept assassinations. We can also see the rise in Unabomber or extremist political affiliations online as a rise in the demand for change, ironically through data that is “controlling” them.

A final problem with security cameras is the removal of mild rebelliousness or urban legends. For example, in the 1960s a cow was supposedly put onto my school’s roof as a senior prank. If this were to occur today, everyone may have a chuckle but then the perpetrators would be found out and suspended, if not expelled.

I don’t think cameras are necessarily all bad. Again, we should use this tool to catch rapists and the like, and I think certain jobs could utilize well-implemented security cameras. For example, currently, art museums require staff that simply stands around all day, telling people not to get too close. I assume that this would be an extremely boring job after a bit. We could simply have a camera in the room that does the same thing. It’s a little more creepy, but I see little need for civil disobedience in art museums, and the civil disobedience can still occur regardless of the cameras.

One last thing to note is that disciplinary society is failing. In my school, nobody except the teachers stands for the pledge. Military recruiters have consistently under-recruited for years on end. Trust in government and media is not high, to say the least. These represent a failing of the political institutions, which should be corrected with change.

But if data can regulate civil disobedience that would cause change, what does it matter if people are angry to those in charge?

On Book Banning (Kinda weird lol)

Book banning seems obviously wrong to most people, and that’s because it usually is. Almost everyone finds it wrong when a government bans a book because it criticizes said government. That said, not all books are about criticizing the government, and it is more of a grey area that varies from book to book than a black-and-white one.

The first case to consider is banned books that break other laws. An example would be the 1999 Belgian book Uitgeverij Guggenheimer, which made derogatory remarks about a specific person’s looks and profession. While there is an argument to be made for defamation to be legal (although that would be hard to argue), the point is that breaking a separate law through a book was the reason for the ban. Any book could do this; for example, I bet not many people would argue to unban child pornography books.

Similarly, the army approved the book Operation Dark Heart by a former lieutenant colonel in January 2010, which was then published. Then, in September of that year, the U.S. Department of Justice overruled the ruling, purchasing and destroying all 9,500 copies, citing concerns that certain information in the book contained classified information that could damage national security. While this book was banned because of laws around national security, this story includes something integral to the idea of banned books. The book already had to undergo checkpoints that limited its potential publication, showing just one of the ways books face more pressures besides being outright banned that constrain information.

To publish a book, one needs to find a publisher. This seemingly simple task could be challenging if one’s ideas are so obscure that nobody wants to publish them. Thus, the book has been practically banned, even without government involvement. However, there are caveats to this, as money is a powerful tool. Additionally, there are usually publishers dedicated to ideological goals that will publish books most “normal” publishers probably wouldn’t. For example, the Anarchist Cookbook (and books like it) can be published because information on synthesizing drugs and creating explosives agrees ideologically with the publisher. The FBI investigated the book but could not ban it because it does not tell people to harm anyone. The book is still considered contraband, and some may feel it should be banned anyway for its potential danger. The Anarchist Cookbook aside, there are more ways word information is restricted besides government bans.

For instance, take the U.S. media as a whole. Even if a media publisher can report on a topic, they may choose not to simply because they are at the will of both their subscribers and, mainly, their advertisers. Company executives might avoid the hassle if a story is too divisive or against the status quo that their newspaper/channel/whatever represents. The internet has changed this, but that is a topic for a different time.

There are more reasons why a government could justify banning a book. One of them is trauma. Imagine you are an Austrian citizen after WW2 who has suffered tremendous losses. Maybe your son died, and your cousins were forced to flee. The war gave you PTSD or more. Now imagine walking past a bookstore and seeing the manifesto of the man who inflicted severe damage on not just your life but your entire country. Some could argue that the government should tackle the content head-on, thus allowing the book to be legal, but there are other, better ways to handle denazification. In this context, I understand the position the Austrian government and others took in Europe.

A book could also advocate a “dangerous” or “hateful” worldview. This is very context-dependent and should be questioned on a case-to-case basis, as what even is a “dangerous” worldview, and at what point is considered breaking the law? Nevertheless, take the book The Turner Diaries. The 1978 book is by William Luther Pierce (under the pseudonym Andrew McDonald), a neo-nazi leader of a white nationalist organization. The book takes place in 1999, following Earl Turner and his involvement in a white nationalist movement called the Organization. Long story short, the Organization systematically kills all non-white and Jewish people. The story is estimated to have influenced over 200 real-life killings, with some having quoted it directly or copied attacks in the book. Canada banned the book in 1978, but the book is technically legal in the U.S. despite being removed from Amazon in 2021. We must ask, why should this book be allowed to exist? The death count associated with the book makes me sick, and a ban probably could have prevented people from dying. What is the price for personal liberties in this case, and was it worth it to let the book be sold? Yet even if the government wanted to ban this book or any new release like it, they would have a problem — the internet.

The internet makes the entire debate almost superficial. In 2019, Brenton Harrison Tarrant attacked two mosques in New Zealand, killing 50 people. Before the attack, he released a manifesto on online forums called the Great Replacement. Not only is the book hateful, but it is full of false information. The New Zealand government, which has a quite considerable banned book list at 1313, immediately banned the publication. The thing is, New Zealand was the only country that banned it. Thus, anyone in New Zealand can access the book by quickly downloading a VPN and switching to anyone where the book is not banned. Any book can be accessed through this process. Most books can be found through a Kindle-like service or pirating. Enforcing a modern-day book ban is a nearly pointless policy, as it would require all governments of the world to ban said book because only when things are illegal online in all countries can enforcement be done (for example, child pornography). Whether this modern-day change is good or bad, I leave it up to the reader.

So, should the government pursue a policy of banning private companies from selling “harmful” books? On the one hand, it limits access, yet on the other, most consumers of The Turner Diaries or similar books likely got them through pirating off a link on an alt-right platform anyway. Thus, my conclusion would be that if you want to get The Turner Diaries and related harmful books online, they would have to be age-restricted, come with a warning, and hopefully even have a pamphlet or link to a video that explains both the harm and lies of some of these books. However, I understand that many may not trust this. The final thing is that a small task force could be created to create nuanced plans for each book considered “harmful,” the point is to continue allowing people to get the book while ensuring the risks are known. The company would still have the freedom to choose to publish or not, the consumer to buy or not, just more safety would be placed in the process.

I think a solution similar to this would be more productive in the modern day than banning books, as banning a book brings attention to it anyway.