economics is not a science, has even fewer socials

I. Property is Defined by Function
A scholar/writer named Eugene McCarraher published an essay some six years ago that remains prescient. He basically uses a few new studies (at the time) to decimate the field of economics, imperial America, and Christian America's contribution thereto. Uh:

From its "myth of barter" to its truncated, utility-maximizing humanism, economics, Graeber contends, has "little to do with anything we observe when we examine how economic life is actually conducted." Historically illiterate and morally cretinous, economics—not theology—is the most successful confidence game in the history of intellectual life, a testament to the power of avarice to induce and embellish human credulity.

"Historically Illiterate and Morally Cretinous," A Memoir of My High School Years. (This jokes remains ever fresh to me. You will see it again.) Also, McCarraher's essay has some problems wherein it seems to name things "communism" in retrospect, which I always find odd because I think communism is a political philosophy that shouldn't be treated as the de facto label for people sharing things or living outside of market mentalities. Still, worth it for concision (whatever your position) such as this:

As "self-ownership," freedom both makes property a right rather than a function and turns a right into a kind of alienable property.

II. Woman Investigator
One of my writing teachers - and all-around great human - Erika Krouse wrote an essay a few years ago I just discovered. Besides being published in any you-name-it great lit magazine, Erika works as a private investigator, and has for some years. She's also a top-notch martial artist. I forget which discipline. Call it kick-assery. The essay is about her involvement in a Title IX suit levied against a big football school, and pivots to the story of a madam who helped break the case to begin with. It's a great read.

I bought nachos for possible rapists in bars that played, ‘Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop’ over the speakers. I met female strangers at the same bars to ask them about getting raped by those players – where, when, how long, by whom, what happened after, what happened before? I bought them drinks, pretending to match their inebriation, wondering if I was playing fair. Alcohol made the football players arrogant enough to tell the truth; it made the victims sad enough to risk talking to me.

III. Opinion
If another person tells me they live their life with no regrets, I am going to report them to the police. They have self-identified as a sociopath. Also, they have become damnably cliche.

Regrets are good. You should have them. They abound whether you want them or not. Having no regrets is the calling card of someone who returns to their own vomit, eating what they've voided. That's the Bible. I understand that people who say they live life with no regrets are mostly snowboarders who misunderstand rebel culture for personal catastrophes, but the phrase has cachet with those I always believe should know better. Regrets shape us. There is therapy and hope in saying, Whoa, whoops, I'm this flawed monkey and the flaws are apparently an essential thing I must accept. I will live with them, not under their aegis, but pulled (uh, by Whom, you may ask) from beneath their shadow. That's a better bumper sticker. Anything else is bunk. Anyone who poses regret-less is insisting they've caused wrecks, and they'll cause more, and the wrecks don't matter. Ridiculous. Vapid. Banal.

Honestly, though, I already regret writing this.

Oh, well. YOLO.