Dr Jan Iwanik is one of the “new regulars” at the Rose and Crown meetup and is a personable and well mannered guy. Like most people that come, he rarely speaks about his profession. There is an understanding, at our regular gathering, that arguments stand and fall on their merits not on the authority of the speaker. People don’t even from where you speak, only for more (or less) detail about your argument. It’s a job in itself to find out about people personally.

Jan can claim to speak authoritively on a couple of topics, and does so. He is a PhD in mathematics (earned at Politechnika Wrocławska west Poland, pronounced Vrotswaff) and has several years experience of property and casualty actuarial analysis. As such, he has spoken for Mises Poland on the management of market risk (in Polish), and penned two articles on insurance regulation and demographic change for Mises.org (in English).

Jan is also a father, and this brings me to the topic of Thursday’s talk: the non-aggression principle and children, which Jan introduced on this blog a few weeks ago:

Children are semi-slaves. They eat, play, sleep, and spend their free time in ways chosen by their parents, often against children’s will. It is normal practice to ban children from certain activities and games. Children are forced to go to schools which they often hate and stay there to do things they do not enjoy. In the UK and US most children experience corporal punishment at home, something grown-ups have abolished for themselves long ago.

Jan also writes at naplab.blogspot.com about the nature and scope of aggression and it’s consequences, and believes that aggression should be defined to include all “unwanted interaction”.

A freelance actuarial, in his downtime, Jan likes to kite surf.