diff --git a/yt/DraconianDiscourse/DragonsDesk/2025-06-25 Sowell-Peterson.md b/yt/DraconianDiscourse/DragonsDesk/2025-06-25 Sowell-Peterson.md
index 2b8b779..7f9479a 100644
--- a/yt/DraconianDiscourse/DragonsDesk/2025-06-25 Sowell-Peterson.md	
+++ b/yt/DraconianDiscourse/DragonsDesk/2025-06-25 Sowell-Peterson.md	
@@ -32,6 +32,87 @@ I don't believe in making top-down decisions from the level of analysis of the c
 
 I'm enjoying this discourse, hopefully not too much.
 
+---
+final reply?
+
+You're correct in your observation; I'm somewhere between a Classical Liberal or Objectivist in a good day, and a Social Darwinist on a bad one. I grew up as somewhat of a Christian Fundamentalist, so I used to be far more conservative. I think consuming Peterson awoke my Openness/Liberalism, but I still have mistakes to make and much to learn. You almost certainly are more seasoned than I so I think I'm gaining something quite worthwhile from exploring your perspective, so thx!
+
+> Without those guardrails, we would have chaos.
+
+You won't hear much disagreement from me or other Petersonian acolytes, lol
+
+> If I decide my value is in my net worth then without those guardrails it would make logical sense to kill all my neighbors and take over their possessions.
+
+Hard disagree; one who acts in their own rational self-interest will quickly realize that conducting themselves this way will bring more enemies to his doorstep than if he had kept to himself. A tyrant on any scale will inevitably face an alliance for his overthrow. In a modern context, the law will have good reason to destroy you. That destroys any and all logic supporting this line of inquiry. The posessions of his dead neighbors will be useless to him when he joins them.
+
+> the real success of the individual relies on the societal structure under which that individual resides.
+
+This much is true, but I would add that the societal structure is generated and revitalized by the collaboration of each individual within it. This is why we need each other; comparative advantage is a fact of life. If I can invent/manufacture the wheel better than anyone else in the village, I should do that, while those who are good at hunting, hunt. So long as each of us is efficient enough at what we do, and we don't demand more than we are owed or gain entitlement complexes, we can trade. Thus, each individual involved benefits.
+
+Within a tribal group, it's fair that those who can afford to, support those who haven't found their profitable talent yet. But this has drastic consequences when the State regards all subject to it as one singular tribe. Within a tribe, charity is seen as a loan you pay back by becoming the best you can be. It is in the individual's best interest to ensure that all those around them live up to their full potential, but it's an investment in the future. If the existential value of the charity is not multiplied, it is withdrawn. In a nation as large and compartmentalized as ours, you cannot guarantee that your charity will cause the recipient thereof to become as great as they can be. I don't have a problem with charity within a localized in-group. I have a problem with *compulsory* charity via social programs that hold none of their recipients to account.
+
+Yes, I'm in a health insurance network, but only because politicians throughout the years have decided that we ought not regard healthcare as we do any other thing of value. I'm fine with paying for services. I'm not okay with paying for services for people outside of my tribe, who do not share my values, who I have no hope of benefitting from in the future, with no way of opting out even if I wanted to, and being told I'm evil for wanting to be done with the entire thing.
+
+Pragmatically speaking, the State has no incentive to provide anything resembling a decent service in anything it does. It has no profit incentive, especially when the economically illiterate political class regards gov't revenues as effectively infinite. It can guarantee a monopoly in any sector it wishes, so long as enough people think it's important. It can then trade with private industry, creating its own perverse incentive structure where it can pick winners and losers in its incestuous game. Only in a mixed economy is a corporation guaranteed profit even if it repeatedly shoots itself and its customers in the foot. If we were to treat it like any other service of value, we would reward good service when recieved, and punish poor service when recieved (or not recieved at all).
+
+If my hospital, insurance, and/or network are bad at their jobs, they keep them forever, because the State willed it. In a free economy, anyone who is bad at their job is quickly out of it, and they must work harder to gain the faith of their clients, or else be outperformed by their competitors. I'm sick of the State incentivising poor business in multiple sectors with my tax dollars. I would much rather take the 18% I earned from my employer and join a subscription with the corporation that gives me the best deal as I and everyone else on the market judge it to be. I would have much more left over to invest in my future. Or to spend it on vices; if a man is not entitled to the sweat of his brow, he is not entitled to his being. This is why I refer to my enslavement as such.
+
+> So why wouldn't I, as an individual, want to chose the one that is better in multiple ways?
+
+I would want to choose the better one. I don't GET the choice, and nobody else does, either. The only reason the State is supposedly the "better deal" is because they have ensured that there is no alternative. Zero competition = zero incentive to improve. I daresay that we have no idea whatsoever just how much better things could be if we could become disillusioned with the Utopian notion that the State is anything but incompetent.
+
+> And as long as I have an option to pay more for better service on top of the basic service provided, I still have the personal choice that you suggest is so important.
+
+No, you don't. If I can pay to watch HBO, but the state forces me to fund PBS, the market is not reflecting consumer choice, it is recognizing the will of those in power. You wouldn't have to pay for the same service twice if the shitty service actually sufficed. Private healthcare wouldn't exist if the State were actually better at creating goods and services. No rationally-self interested creature would choose that. That's why it's not a choice. If I could opt out, I would. Hell, so would everyone else! And then the system would fail, just as it was destined to without a profit incentive, and I wouldn't be forced to shoulder the burdens of the irresponsible.
+
+> IMO individual freedom is only as broad as the societal structure around them.
+
+We see a little more eye to eye on this than you might have thought, but I formulate this differently. I believe individual freedom is absolute, but it's near worthless unless everyone decides to play the same societal game. e.g. some people live off the grid, and they have to labor to provide every single basic necessity for themselves. The upside of this is that your existence is your moral burden, and yours alone. The downside of this is you have nobody to trade with, thus comparative advantage is impossible and all of your existential resources are spread quite thin. Also, if chaos meets you at your doorstep, you may have no assistance in ensuring it does not prevail. So yes, the great father needs the individual and vice versa. But the State as such, requires revitalization via the individual, and it's a lot harder for him to do that when the State has such compassionate reasons to be crushing his shoulders with its burdens.
+
+> And in a perfectly rational world, without emotions, we could rely on the individual to make the right decision each time.
+
+I'm not advocating that the individual is always correct in the way he conducts himself. I'm arguing that there is no moral justification for limiting the freedom of the individual before he has done any harm.
+
+> and that's why we need laws to prevent things from happening
+
+I fundamentally disagree with the notion that laws exist to prevent bad decisions on the behalf of moral actors. It is not within the legitimate purview of gov't to dictate to the people how they ought to live. The State ought only to step in once the consequences of such decisions are brought upon the heads of the peers of the moral actor. i.e. if I have a firearm and I harm nobody with it, the State has no moral justification for taking it away from me, because I am being responsible, or perhaps responsible *enough*. Otherwise, the State could disarm me, or impede on my existence to a degree that is counterproductive to its purview.
+
+> creating an environment for people to think better of doing them.
+
+Better, I'm much more friendly of incentive systems than punitive systems that presume guilt of the individual on statistical evidence from the collective.
+
+> relatively easy access to tools that are designed to kill
+
+Relatively compared to the rest of the world, yes.
+
+> the COST of their poor decision is termination of a life.
+
+I see your point, but I think this borders on allowing your fears to compel you to embrace tyranny. The cost of individual moral failure is great. The cost of collective moral failure is catastrophic. The only way our nation has any hopes of not becoming either a totalitarian or a fractured state within the next 50 years, is if the rights of the people to keep and bear arms remains uninfringed. Your fear that malevolence can consume your children is well-founded. Your assumption that the same malevolence cannot infiltrate the State that proports to protect them, far less so. To attempt to baby-proof reality is a fool's errand. The chaos outside the walls of the city will have tendrils within. The only hope anyone has is being prepared to meet it when it arrives.
+
+> with a gun the likelihood of failure is much lower.
+
+That's why they do it. But determined people still opt for the most efficient method available for achieving their aims. You need not remove their means if their ends are inevitable. It's far easier to disuade them of any reason they may have of pursuing their ends.
+
+> unbridled freedoms is the ultimate utopia
+
+I don't believe in man-made utopias. I believe in imperfection in perpetuity, and a constant cycle of improvement & progression. My assertion is that the Order can only improve if each individual seeks its revitalization. We stray into the arms of an Oedipal state if we allow ourselves to be paralyzed by the chaos we were too spoiled to be exposed to. One must seek for the power, responsibility, and betterment of the self, before assuming the state is motivated to do anything but exploit.
+
+> And to bring it back to data, what our system shows is those "freedoms" actually have significantly higher cost to society.
+
+"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty." - Thomas Jefferson
+
+"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin
+
+When one encounters the moral failing of an individual, one might be inclined to ask, "how could he have become so corrupt?" His own question betrays him. One should far sooner consider this: Why doesn't that sort of failure occur constantly? Any semblance of order should be regarded as it is: a complete and utter miracle. The fact that there can be more deadly weapons than people and there exists even *one singular* primate that is responsible enough not to destroy every living thing in sight with it, is indicative of the relative stability of the state of Order in which this phenomenon occurs.
+
+> And the ideal of a "good guy with a gun" does not play out overall.
+
+Calculate for me the number of violent acts prevented by the threat of a deterrent. Again, the number is incalculable. On a more existential level, would you opt to delegate *all* your physical strength to an authority, if that authority had promised to protect those you love? If the answer is yes, your trust of authority borders on suicidal, or perhaps pathological. Better to be an absolute monster, and to be aware of it, and to wield that with the respect it deserves, than to be weak, harmless, and exploitable. If you are weak, you are only incapable of harm, which doesn't make you good. If you are strong, you are capable of harm, and responsible for every bit of it you create. A man can only be good if he can channel his destructive capacity towards that which ought to be destroyed, but only when allowing it to persist would be a greater sin.
+
+I'm not trying to turn this into a game of absolutes, my intention is to question the axiomatic presuppositions necessary to assume that the State is even capable of being responsible with any monopoly on power it is granted.
+
+Over all, the question is not whether the individual can be universally trusted; the answer is no. The question is whether there is any moral justification in the State refusing to give any individual the chance to be trustworthy. And also, how the hell we came to trust the State at all in the first place.
+
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