The harsh reality is there are many people, many powerful people, who wake up in the morning and do bad things to get rich, satisfy their personal desires, etc. and could care less who they damage or kill. They steal, rape, murder, start wars, etc. Many currently running large parts of the world are clearly attempting to deconstruct the western world.
Its also clear they are doing this with almost no consequence. We just lived through a genocide of the elderly, where millions of innocent people were murdered. And the worst that has happened is a few have lost their jobs (but not their pensions and wealth).
The only solution I can come up with is to start building our own world in the cracks of this one. Maybe in a few generations, we will have the size and strength to refuse to play along anymore. In the meantime, we do what the Amish do—live our lives as far away as we can, and have babies!
Thank you. Would it be fair to argue that we can learn from, and be strengthened by, instances of chaos without intentionally engineering them? In other words, we take them as they come, but do not try to make them happen …
Totally fair. Chaos can be fun though. The excitement of a storm. A game with dice rolls (chaos/order interplay). Bon fires (chaos/order interplay) All those are examples of the joy in dancing with order/chaos. Roller derby. Punk rock (the real stuff). Which cannot be done without chaos.
Chris, this is an extraordinary achievement. I don’t say that lightly. Out of curiosity, I asked an AI to survey the entire landscape of thinkers working in the broad neighborhood of voluntary governance and polycentric order — Spooner, de Puydt, David Friedman, Huemer, Ostrom, and the rest of the usual suspects. The conclusion was unambiguous: what you’re building here surpasses anything previously published by your closest conceptual competitors.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t brilliant or foundational. It means you’ve integrated the pieces into something more coherent, more complete, and more structurally sound than anything that came before it. Consentism, as you’re developing it, is the closest available alternative to my own (unpublished) framework, and in some respects it advances the conversation in ways no one else has managed.
You’ve taken ideas that were scattered across centuries and disciplines and turned them into a unified architecture — one that is morally clear, analytically rigorous, and genuinely usable. That’s rare. And it’s why I think this series is going to matter far beyond the usual libertarian or anarchist circles. You’re articulating something that stands on its own terms.
Congratulations on this installment. It’s a milestone.
Thank you, John; it helps me to hear feedback from people I trust. Especially the brilliant ones like you. I think you will like the upcoming parts.
I will release the next parts each Tuesday for the next few weeks. I will need you, and smart people like you, to help me make tweaks and fill in gaps, so we can carry this over the finish line.
Thank you — that really means a lot. I should say, though, that you’re giving me more credit than I deserve. I lean heavily on tools that help me analyze and organize ideas, and I mostly just try to ask the right questions. Still, I’m glad if anything I’ve said has been useful. And yes — I’m very willing to help however I can as you refine the next parts.
People sometimes overestimate my intelligence. For example, one of my instructors once told colleagues he thought I was the smartest person on campus — which was wildly unlikely among several thousand students. What Copilot has shown me is that I just have a rare cognitive style that looks like high intelligence from the outside, even though it’s only loosely related to raw ability.
When our son was four, a teacher said he was "gifted." And I thought, "What do you mean? He's just normal." He was at the level of intelligence I expected. But as it turns out, people with an IQ of 140 or higher make up less than 2% of the population. So from the teacher's perspective, he was smarter than 98.4 (or whatever) percent of the kids she saw in her career.
You probably have an IQ of 140 or up. You are smarter than most humans who have ever existed. You've probably been comparing yourself to the top 2 percent and feeling dumb for it rather than comparing yourself to the 98 percent below.I do the same. But trust me, bro—you're smart.
What you’re picking up on isn’t raw intelligence so much as a particular cognitive style. Copilot tells me I have a rare combination of traits that look like high intelligence from the outside: unusually strong abstract reasoning, fast pattern-recognition, a bias toward structural consistency, and very low ego-interference when thinking. Those traits make it easy for me to infer principles and follow their implications, which can give the impression of being smarter than I actually am.
"I do not consent to being made to have to consent to everything!"
Lol! That's a new one I never considered.
I see competition and predation as inevitable parts of biological order, favoring the genetic passage of those who pass the high bar of survival.
Even if a perfect system were created it would only serve to quell dissent as the powerful continue to make war in the legal and moral grey area existing outside and between the lines constructed by the words believed by the masses.
For animals it is easy to understand that a creature would not eat if it did not kill. For humans who gather far more than they can constructively consume, there appears to be an absurdity, and yet competing to retain what is gathered is a form of consumption too. So who is to say it is immoral to compete, or even to predate? I cannot satisfactorily answer these questions, personally, even if I wish I didn't have to.
Maybe your future parts to this post can address these sort of considerations.
We (humans) are a strange species. We obviously have much that is rooted in our biology. Yet we also have a mind and spiritual component that exists atop—and in some ways apart from—that biological substrate.
Things have changed in human society quite drastically from caveman days, and significantly so over the last few thousand years, and then again over the last few hundred. We are not purely captives of our biology—if we were, we would not have changed. (In much the same way that our closest genetic relatives [chimps and bonobos] have not changed for the last six million years.)
Our nature changes slowly, and we cannot escape biological realities entirely. But we can and do change, and given that, I think we can and should choose what we want to be.
Life is viewed by some as chaos, by others as order. It is both, simultaneously. At birth, all is chaos. As we grow, we develop cognitively, learn, i.e., acquire knowledge, the opposite of chaos. By this definition, life, growth, is the acquisition, expansion and integration of knowledge into one context. If that context has "compartments", areas that contradict, it is chaotic, anti-life. It is a constant threat and a drain on our mind, subconsciously. It often leads to drug use to get relief, which is temporary, and we resolve the conflict or we increase the escape into oblivion.
I can't imagine how seeking to reduce our knowledge, i.e., increase chaos, is desirable, a benefit.
Warlords, i.e., authoritarians, aren't "stable/durable". The "ascendant", top dog, is dependent on non-violent techs, artisans, farmers, builders, engineers. They are the ones who create wealth, innovate, further progress. And, note, they don't "need" the warlord, the warlord needs them. The opposite belief is "The Most Dangerous Superstition" (Larken Rose). Crippled by superstition, producers keep parasites alive. It's an irrational self destructive interaction that creates regress and progress, violence vs. reason.
Important work. This from El Gato Malo recently. I wonder about the use of violence and what mechanism we truly have to stop armies from forming. Obviously a refusal to coerce is the foundational principle but for those who deny it, those who simply will not - the thugs and mafiosos of the world? How do we stop them from destroying everything? Your thoughts appreciated.
you have your ancap homestead. i grab a gun and come and take it. so you go convince two neighbors to help you come and take it back. then i go find 10 friends and come and take it again. so you find 20. so i find 40. and pretty soon, we’re living in warlorddom and whichever warlord manages to field the most effective fighting force gets to hold territory and (if they choose) have ideas like “rights” for those within their domain. or perhaps they subject you to a brutal, rapey theocracy or a confiscatory collectivist comintern with a fetish for struggle session and gulag. but in the end, whichever warlord winds up stably and durably ascendant becomes “a government.”
The scenario you pose, however, presumes no mechanisms for security and justice. That would not happen. The ancap/market anarchist scenario is not a free-for-all.
Instead of a single entity violently imposing an inescapable, involuntary monopoly of force on a given area, private agencies could/would compete to offer security and justice services to willing customers. Not only would it work—it would work far better!
Yes I could see how this could work but there is always that deeper level of corruption where collusion and deception is orchestrated so the negative performance of the arbitrator is not discovered or at the least, discovered too late whereupon the arbitrator is dissolved and the guilty parties abscond. But the world is not perfect and it is a better idea for sure than government. I came across this today - https://open.substack.com/pub/donfindlay/p/natural-anarchism
"But the world is not perfect and it is a better idea for sure than government."
—Yes, exactly so. Perfection is not possible. But in a condition of panarchism, any agencies that arise to provide security and justice services are subject to market forces. Their incentives are to provide better services and attract customers. Will some be bad—of course. But their incentives are better than govenrment and, just like the market does with everything else, their outcomes will be better than government's. Not perfect, but better.
—Please forgive my bluntness, but this is a terrible idea and a ghastly reading of natural law. Societies have repeatedly attempted an anti-propertarian approach, and the result is always failure, disaster, oppression, and ultimately, mass murder. Property is entirely natural.
If government were to vanish tomorrow, people would not "naturally" form 100 acre plots and all become self-sufficient "stewards of the land." They would do a zillion different things. Some would live in a loft apartment in a city, which they would rent in a voluntary transaction with the building owner. Some would want to own their own thing, so they'd buy a house or a condo. Some would be happy with .33 acres. Some would want to be ranchers out west with a property so big that it took days to ride the fenceline on horseback. Some would live the van life or in a tiny house.
In the absence of a condition of government violence, people would seek to attain what they want with the minimal hassle. The market would tend toward easy purchase transactions and respect for property titles. Just as a bear will defend his den and a butterfly will defend his patch of sunlight in the forest, people will naturally exclude others (except by mutual consent) from the use of their property.
All of this will happen if people are truly free. People will say, "Hey, I want to live in this way. I want to live in this place. Excuse me, sir, what can I trade to you in a voluntary exchange for the thing I want?" That is what happens in a condition of true freedom and peace.
What Mr. Don Findlay is talking about is massive social engineering. A sort of state socialism masquerading as anarchism.
Again, I apologize for the unequivocal bluntness, but absolutely no good can come from anti-propertarian approaches. And much evil can and always does.
Ahh very good. I left it open to see what you would make of that. I’m glad you followed that line of reasoning. First thing I thought too was … this sounds like communism.
People’s ability to deceive is always going to be a hurdle. There will always be those types.
You’re more learned on this stuff than me Christopher. I hope you get some real world traction with your ideas.
I'm a day late for this one, but awesome piece nonetheless. One of the biggest objections I get from so many people, even those with the same thought process as myself and many others here, is "How would we realistically make this happen."
For me, it's so hard to explain, but this piece definitely helps get over the hurdle. I think one of the reasons so many people have a one-track mind here is that they're brought up with one--that they're conditioned to find it unfathomable that people can live under different systems, yet still get along peacefully. That's what made your take on religion stand out.
Christopher, as usual you say something that sticks out, and then sticks in my head. “Most of us would prefer to make the world a better place…” According to whom? For me that’s the problem. The ones that wake up and having already decided they don’t care about your consent, nor what you think is “better” march off into the day ready to do as much altruistic damage as possible. Here I am, on the other hand, trying my best to do nothing.
That is why I aim for an Ethical anarchy - where People may follow and consent to being ruled by any Other, but that Other has authority over only the Ones who give fully informed consent. No One HAS to live under any Other.
Add no need for money so All are living richly, and there will be no tool to manipulate People with.
It's designed to be a "firmament" upon which people who wish to actually sign a social contract with one another can build legal/contractual relationships with one another. It's deliberately NOT a constitution, as that term creates a state. It's just a statement of principles to point to in creating legal frameworks "atop" it.
The harsh reality is there are many people, many powerful people, who wake up in the morning and do bad things to get rich, satisfy their personal desires, etc. and could care less who they damage or kill. They steal, rape, murder, start wars, etc. Many currently running large parts of the world are clearly attempting to deconstruct the western world.
Its also clear they are doing this with almost no consequence. We just lived through a genocide of the elderly, where millions of innocent people were murdered. And the worst that has happened is a few have lost their jobs (but not their pensions and wealth).
The only solution I can come up with is to start building our own world in the cracks of this one. Maybe in a few generations, we will have the size and strength to refuse to play along anymore. In the meantime, we do what the Amish do—live our lives as far away as we can, and have babies!
Money is the issue... And We CAN obsolete it...
Let’s Obsolete Money and Get Rid of Cartels! (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/lets-obsolete-money-and-get-rid-of
Excellent!
One niggle though. Chaos is not always bad. Honestly, I am not sure it exists. I strongly suspect it is order(s) we do not or cannot understand.
What we perceive as chaos often has growth or refreshing effects. These benefits may not be benefits for all organisms or systems involved.
Storms, earthquakes, solar flares etc. are often perceived as chaos but are based on order. They are part of the forge of evolution.
Thank you. Would it be fair to argue that we can learn from, and be strengthened by, instances of chaos without intentionally engineering them? In other words, we take them as they come, but do not try to make them happen …
Totally fair. Chaos can be fun though. The excitement of a storm. A game with dice rolls (chaos/order interplay). Bon fires (chaos/order interplay) All those are examples of the joy in dancing with order/chaos. Roller derby. Punk rock (the real stuff). Which cannot be done without chaos.
I see what you mean——you are right!
Chris, this is an extraordinary achievement. I don’t say that lightly. Out of curiosity, I asked an AI to survey the entire landscape of thinkers working in the broad neighborhood of voluntary governance and polycentric order — Spooner, de Puydt, David Friedman, Huemer, Ostrom, and the rest of the usual suspects. The conclusion was unambiguous: what you’re building here surpasses anything previously published by your closest conceptual competitors.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t brilliant or foundational. It means you’ve integrated the pieces into something more coherent, more complete, and more structurally sound than anything that came before it. Consentism, as you’re developing it, is the closest available alternative to my own (unpublished) framework, and in some respects it advances the conversation in ways no one else has managed.
You’ve taken ideas that were scattered across centuries and disciplines and turned them into a unified architecture — one that is morally clear, analytically rigorous, and genuinely usable. That’s rare. And it’s why I think this series is going to matter far beyond the usual libertarian or anarchist circles. You’re articulating something that stands on its own terms.
Congratulations on this installment. It’s a milestone.
Thank you, John; it helps me to hear feedback from people I trust. Especially the brilliant ones like you. I think you will like the upcoming parts.
I will release the next parts each Tuesday for the next few weeks. I will need you, and smart people like you, to help me make tweaks and fill in gaps, so we can carry this over the finish line.
Thank you — that really means a lot. I should say, though, that you’re giving me more credit than I deserve. I lean heavily on tools that help me analyze and organize ideas, and I mostly just try to ask the right questions. Still, I’m glad if anything I’ve said has been useful. And yes — I’m very willing to help however I can as you refine the next parts.
Thanks, John. And you're far smarter than you realize!
People sometimes overestimate my intelligence. For example, one of my instructors once told colleagues he thought I was the smartest person on campus — which was wildly unlikely among several thousand students. What Copilot has shown me is that I just have a rare cognitive style that looks like high intelligence from the outside, even though it’s only loosely related to raw ability.
When our son was four, a teacher said he was "gifted." And I thought, "What do you mean? He's just normal." He was at the level of intelligence I expected. But as it turns out, people with an IQ of 140 or higher make up less than 2% of the population. So from the teacher's perspective, he was smarter than 98.4 (or whatever) percent of the kids she saw in her career.
You probably have an IQ of 140 or up. You are smarter than most humans who have ever existed. You've probably been comparing yourself to the top 2 percent and feeling dumb for it rather than comparing yourself to the 98 percent below.I do the same. But trust me, bro—you're smart.
What you’re picking up on isn’t raw intelligence so much as a particular cognitive style. Copilot tells me I have a rare combination of traits that look like high intelligence from the outside: unusually strong abstract reasoning, fast pattern-recognition, a bias toward structural consistency, and very low ego-interference when thinking. Those traits make it easy for me to infer principles and follow their implications, which can give the impression of being smarter than I actually am.
"I do not consent to being made to have to consent to everything!"
Lol! That's a new one I never considered.
I see competition and predation as inevitable parts of biological order, favoring the genetic passage of those who pass the high bar of survival.
Even if a perfect system were created it would only serve to quell dissent as the powerful continue to make war in the legal and moral grey area existing outside and between the lines constructed by the words believed by the masses.
For animals it is easy to understand that a creature would not eat if it did not kill. For humans who gather far more than they can constructively consume, there appears to be an absurdity, and yet competing to retain what is gathered is a form of consumption too. So who is to say it is immoral to compete, or even to predate? I cannot satisfactorily answer these questions, personally, even if I wish I didn't have to.
Maybe your future parts to this post can address these sort of considerations.
We (humans) are a strange species. We obviously have much that is rooted in our biology. Yet we also have a mind and spiritual component that exists atop—and in some ways apart from—that biological substrate.
Things have changed in human society quite drastically from caveman days, and significantly so over the last few thousand years, and then again over the last few hundred. We are not purely captives of our biology—if we were, we would not have changed. (In much the same way that our closest genetic relatives [chimps and bonobos] have not changed for the last six million years.)
Our nature changes slowly, and we cannot escape biological realities entirely. But we can and do change, and given that, I think we can and should choose what we want to be.
Life is viewed by some as chaos, by others as order. It is both, simultaneously. At birth, all is chaos. As we grow, we develop cognitively, learn, i.e., acquire knowledge, the opposite of chaos. By this definition, life, growth, is the acquisition, expansion and integration of knowledge into one context. If that context has "compartments", areas that contradict, it is chaotic, anti-life. It is a constant threat and a drain on our mind, subconsciously. It often leads to drug use to get relief, which is temporary, and we resolve the conflict or we increase the escape into oblivion.
I can't imagine how seeking to reduce our knowledge, i.e., increase chaos, is desirable, a benefit.
“I can't imagine how seeking to reduce our knowledge, i.e., increase chaos, is desirable, a benefit.”
—What would you say is the primary source of this push to reduce knowledge?
Warlords, i.e., authoritarians, aren't "stable/durable". The "ascendant", top dog, is dependent on non-violent techs, artisans, farmers, builders, engineers. They are the ones who create wealth, innovate, further progress. And, note, they don't "need" the warlord, the warlord needs them. The opposite belief is "The Most Dangerous Superstition" (Larken Rose). Crippled by superstition, producers keep parasites alive. It's an irrational self destructive interaction that creates regress and progress, violence vs. reason.
Entirely agree!
Important work. This from El Gato Malo recently. I wonder about the use of violence and what mechanism we truly have to stop armies from forming. Obviously a refusal to coerce is the foundational principle but for those who deny it, those who simply will not - the thugs and mafiosos of the world? How do we stop them from destroying everything? Your thoughts appreciated.
you have your ancap homestead. i grab a gun and come and take it. so you go convince two neighbors to help you come and take it back. then i go find 10 friends and come and take it again. so you find 20. so i find 40. and pretty soon, we’re living in warlorddom and whichever warlord manages to field the most effective fighting force gets to hold territory and (if they choose) have ideas like “rights” for those within their domain. or perhaps they subject you to a brutal, rapey theocracy or a confiscatory collectivist comintern with a fetish for struggle session and gulag. but in the end, whichever warlord winds up stably and durably ascendant becomes “a government.”
Good question.
The scenario you pose, however, presumes no mechanisms for security and justice. That would not happen. The ancap/market anarchist scenario is not a free-for-all.
Instead of a single entity violently imposing an inescapable, involuntary monopoly of force on a given area, private agencies could/would compete to offer security and justice services to willing customers. Not only would it work—it would work far better!
This is a decent enough intro:
https://christophercook.substack.com/p/how-anarchist-society-work
Yes I could see how this could work but there is always that deeper level of corruption where collusion and deception is orchestrated so the negative performance of the arbitrator is not discovered or at the least, discovered too late whereupon the arbitrator is dissolved and the guilty parties abscond. But the world is not perfect and it is a better idea for sure than government. I came across this today - https://open.substack.com/pub/donfindlay/p/natural-anarchism
"But the world is not perfect and it is a better idea for sure than government."
—Yes, exactly so. Perfection is not possible. But in a condition of panarchism, any agencies that arise to provide security and justice services are subject to market forces. Their incentives are to provide better services and attract customers. Will some be bad—of course. But their incentives are better than govenrment and, just like the market does with everything else, their outcomes will be better than government's. Not perfect, but better.
"I came across this today - https://open.substack.com/pub/donfindlay/p/natural-anarchism"
—Please forgive my bluntness, but this is a terrible idea and a ghastly reading of natural law. Societies have repeatedly attempted an anti-propertarian approach, and the result is always failure, disaster, oppression, and ultimately, mass murder. Property is entirely natural.
If government were to vanish tomorrow, people would not "naturally" form 100 acre plots and all become self-sufficient "stewards of the land." They would do a zillion different things. Some would live in a loft apartment in a city, which they would rent in a voluntary transaction with the building owner. Some would want to own their own thing, so they'd buy a house or a condo. Some would be happy with .33 acres. Some would want to be ranchers out west with a property so big that it took days to ride the fenceline on horseback. Some would live the van life or in a tiny house.
In the absence of a condition of government violence, people would seek to attain what they want with the minimal hassle. The market would tend toward easy purchase transactions and respect for property titles. Just as a bear will defend his den and a butterfly will defend his patch of sunlight in the forest, people will naturally exclude others (except by mutual consent) from the use of their property.
All of this will happen if people are truly free. People will say, "Hey, I want to live in this way. I want to live in this place. Excuse me, sir, what can I trade to you in a voluntary exchange for the thing I want?" That is what happens in a condition of true freedom and peace.
What Mr. Don Findlay is talking about is massive social engineering. A sort of state socialism masquerading as anarchism.
Again, I apologize for the unequivocal bluntness, but absolutely no good can come from anti-propertarian approaches. And much evil can and always does.
Ahh very good. I left it open to see what you would make of that. I’m glad you followed that line of reasoning. First thing I thought too was … this sounds like communism.
People’s ability to deceive is always going to be a hurdle. There will always be those types.
You’re more learned on this stuff than me Christopher. I hope you get some real world traction with your ideas.
Real-world traction comes from each person who likes the ideas. So we're already on the way.
Now I just have to carry the ball over the goal line and write up some final "founding" documents. I'll get to it, come hell or high water!
I'm a day late for this one, but awesome piece nonetheless. One of the biggest objections I get from so many people, even those with the same thought process as myself and many others here, is "How would we realistically make this happen."
For me, it's so hard to explain, but this piece definitely helps get over the hurdle. I think one of the reasons so many people have a one-track mind here is that they're brought up with one--that they're conditioned to find it unfathomable that people can live under different systems, yet still get along peacefully. That's what made your take on religion stand out.
Thank you. I think you will like the upcoming parts. I will be posting them weekly for the next few weeks.
Looking forward to reading and listening to more of them!
How do you listen?
The listen feature on the app.
Ohhh. I used the app once for about 20 minutes, and never touched it again.
It’s a good supplement. I prefer using the desktop version, but the apps good on the go, and things like that.
Christopher, as usual you say something that sticks out, and then sticks in my head. “Most of us would prefer to make the world a better place…” According to whom? For me that’s the problem. The ones that wake up and having already decided they don’t care about your consent, nor what you think is “better” march off into the day ready to do as much altruistic damage as possible. Here I am, on the other hand, trying my best to do nothing.
And the world is made far better off by your doing “nothing” than all the somethings they do. Right on.
The Amish do “nothing,” and the world is better off for that too. Maybe we can be a bit more like they are.
That is why I aim for an Ethical anarchy - where People may follow and consent to being ruled by any Other, but that Other has authority over only the Ones who give fully informed consent. No One HAS to live under any Other.
Add no need for money so All are living richly, and there will be no tool to manipulate People with.
Ethical Anarchy (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/ethical-anarchy
Did I already share this with you?
https://theuniversalprinciplesofliberty.com/en
It's designed to be a "firmament" upon which people who wish to actually sign a social contract with one another can build legal/contractual relationships with one another. It's deliberately NOT a constitution, as that term creates a state. It's just a statement of principles to point to in creating legal frameworks "atop" it.
You did, yup.
For this particular aspect, I am thinking of something much simpler. I lay it out over the next few weeks, and then we can talk more.
Excellent. Good job on laying out the framework you did.
Thank you. I am working now on part 4, in which I will suggest wording for a very simple common protocol. I will look forward to hearing your views.