I believe the purpose of human life is to prosper and live happily — and that a good society protects the conditions under which each individual can pursue that purpose without initiatory force or coercion.

Confidence

High

Current support

• People consistently act to improve their own welfare when free to choose.
• Societies that protect individual choice and property tend to produce greater prosperity than those built on extraction and control.
• Sample: UN SDG 1 tracking — global extreme poverty rate cut by roughly three-quarters since 1990 despite population growth.

What could disprove it

Show that human flourishing is better served when individuals are routinely prevented from pursuing their own prosperity and happiness by initiatory force.

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I believe I hold supreme the value of my own life and happiness, and that no cause is higher than the life and happiness of the individual. When individual life and property rights are protected, the rights of all people are protected.

Confidence

High

Current support

• Moral claims that sacrifice identifiable individuals for abstract collective ends have produced mass harm throughout history.
• Rights language only coheres when it begins with the inviolable individual, not the group average.
• Sample: UDHR Articles 3 and 6 — right to life and recognition before the law as individual baselines, not collective averages.

What could disprove it

Show that societies which subordinate individual life and happiness to collective aims reliably produce more prosperity, trust, and moral integrity than those which protect the individual first.

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I believe no individual, group, or government may initiate force, threat of force, or fraud against any person or their property — and that force is justified only in defense against those who violate that rule, with no exceptions.

Confidence

High

Current support

• Initiatory force externalizes cost onto unwilling victims and destroys the basis for voluntary cooperation.
• Defensive force answers aggression without licensing perpetual preemption.
• Sample: Fraser EFW index — countries ranking highest on security of persons and property (Area 2) tend to rank highest overall on economic freedom.

What could disprove it

Show that routine initiatory force by governments or majorities produces more freedom, prosperity, and honest dealing than a strict non-aggression principle with defense only.

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I believe I am a laissez-faire capitalist by producing values for others — that real prosperity comes from creating more than I consume, through voluntary exchange, not through political extraction.

Confidence

High

Current support

• Voluntary production and trade have lifted living standards wherever property and contract are respected.
• Value creation aligns self-interest with the welfare of others when exchange is honest and uncoerced.
• Sample: Hall & Lawson survey of 721 papers using EFW index — majority find economic freedom correlates with growth, income, and wellbeing.

What could disprove it

Show that societies which penalize production and reward political redistribution outperform market-based value creation on prosperity and individual dignity.

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I believe the mind does not create objective reality but is an objective-reality-identifying organ — and that integrated thinking requires aligning action with what is real, not with wish or mysticism.

Confidence

High

Current support

• Actions based on fantasy or evasion fail when reality contradicts them.
• Integrated thinking — connecting observations, principles, and consequences — improves decisions over isolated slogans.
• Sample: Scientific realism — predictive success of physics and engineering depends on models tracking mind-independent regularities, not wish alone.

What could disprove it

Show that treating the mind as creator rather than discoverer of reality produces better long-term outcomes in science, commerce, and personal life.

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I believe the best way to help someone is usually to teach them to help themselves — not to foster permanent dependency that erodes dignity and competence.

Confidence

High

Current support

• Skills and habits of self-support outlast one-time aid.
• Dependency without path to competence breeds resentment on both sides.
• Sample: FAO farmer field schools reached millions of farmers — skill transfer model vs repeated emergency food aid.

What could disprove it

Show that long-term one-way assistance without teaching self-reliance produces more competent, grateful, and prosperous people than empowerment toward independence.

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I believe the legal system should replace the truth oath with a contextual honesty oath — because raw factual statements stripped of context can mislead as effectively as lies.

Confidence

High

Current support

• Selective truth-telling is a common tool of deception in law, politics, and commerce.
• Contextual honesty requires full relevant disclosure, not technically true fragments.
• Sample: U.S. perjury law (18 U.S.C. § 1621) punishes false material statements — debate is whether omission of context should carry equal weight.

What could disprove it

Show that the traditional truth oath produces more accurate justice and less manipulation in court than an oath requiring contextual honesty.

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I believe all things good for the human organism and its biological needs are morally correct, all things bad for the organism are morally incorrect, and anything else is not a moral issue.

Confidence

Medium

Current support

• Moral confusion often comes from treating taste, tradition, or taboo as moral law.
• Grounding morality in life and harm clarifies what is actually at stake in ethical disputes.
• Sample: Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory — harm/care dimension recognized across cultures as core moral concern tied to organismic welfare.

What could disprove it

Show a coherent moral framework that ignores organismic benefit and harm yet produces clearer, more benevolent guidance for how people should treat one another.

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I believe rational, free choice is the prerequisite for integrating reality with human nature — which is the prerequisite for prosperity and happiness, and in turn for romantic love.

Confidence

Medium

Current support

• Coerced 'choices' do not integrate values with reality because the chooser is not free to reject error.
• Deep relationships require persons who can think, choose, and take responsibility for their lives.
• Sample: World Happiness Report — 'freedom to make life choices' is a top weighted factor in national happiness rankings.

What could disprove it

Show that removing rational free choice from major life domains improves individual prosperity, happiness, and capacity for genuine romantic partnership.

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I believe I am responsible for my prosperity, happiness, success, and romantic love — not as a denial of hardship, but as the stance required to use my mind, act on reality, and refuse victimhood as an identity.

Confidence

High

Current support

• Agency is the precondition for improvement; abdication of responsibility forecloses learning.
• External barriers exist, but permanent surrender of responsibility guarantees permanent stagnation.
• Sample: Seligman's learned helplessness experiments — perceived lack of control predicts depression-like behavior; agency training reverses it in animal models.

What could disprove it

Show that individuals who treat themselves as powerless victims of circumstance reliably achieve more prosperity and happiness than those who take responsibility within their sphere of action.

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I believe law exists to stop injustice — not to create justice by force. When law tries to manufacture outcomes, it often produces new injustice in the name of good intentions.

Confidence

High

Current support

• Justice as an outcome emerges from voluntary exchange, restitution, and consistent rules — not from decree alone.
• Legislated 'social justice' schemes frequently violate innocents while failing to deliver promised equity.
• Sample: Bastiat's The Law (1850) — when law exceeds defense of rights and becomes plunder, it creates the injustice it claims to cure.

What could disprove it

Show that laws designed to create positive justice by force consistently outperform limited laws that only prohibit injustice.

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I believe I should produce more values than I consume — that net production is both a moral commitment and the practical basis of prosperity for myself and others.

Confidence

High

Current support

• Chronic consumption without production depletes what others have built.
• Wealth and welfare grow when individuals specialize, produce, and trade surplus.
• Sample: World Bank national accounts — sustained GDP growth requires gross capital formation (investment) exceeding depreciation and pure consumption.

What could disprove it

Show that societies thrive more when most members consume persistently more than they produce than when net production is the norm.

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