"The psychological comfort of familiarity overrides reasoned evaluation."
👆That surely hit home today. I'm grappling with this on a personal level. And to be honest, I'm kinda shocked how ingrained I find it to be within myself. I was just talking with my husband and wondering where the hell this weirdo stuff came from. Asked and answered. I love how the universe works. Thanks. 🙂
Not too personal. We made a decision to sell everything and move abroad. It feels so exciting and invigorating to think of this new future for us. But then we still have to live here for right now, probably a few more years. It's too hard to live in 2 realities at the same time, so what's right in front of us takes center attention. Then fear creeps in, in weird ways. Like what is life going to feel like with none of my stuff. The stuff I've spent decades collecting. We pare down regularly so most of what we have we use. No hoarding here. My rational side says it's just stuff. The other side though. It's screaming about comfort and familiarity. My favorite soup pot, my perfect chefs knife. All those original prints my friend made for me. MY PLANTS! 😱 That I spent six years growing from seed and just got in the ground a few years ago. I will never see their mature beauty.
It's all quite insane. None of this ‘Stuff’ makes me feel excited or invigorated. Quite the opposite. The responsibility stifles any impulsive wandering. I haven't gone on a vacation in over 10 years. So what exactly am I so attached to?
Comfort and familiarity. At the cost of adventure. At the cost of freedom. How ridiculous is that? 😵💫
I feel you, for sure! That is very exciting. Where are you going to go?
And yeah, stuff can definitely be an encumbrance. Most of what you describe is entirely replaceable, of course. So that is much easier to let go. You could perhaps figure out what is irreplaceable and truly matters and ship that to your new home.
When I was 28, I packed my stuff into a storage area in Montana and fled to Los Angeles. I had just undergone a terrible breakup, my life direction no longer felt set, and so I figured I would just go visit my friends there and see what happened. Then I got a job there. An apartment. Then I got married and had a child. Then we moved to Arizona. 15 years later, I am still paying for this storage area, and I don't even really know what is in it anymore.
So, when we moved back east, my wife, son, and cat flew, and I drove via Montana to finally empty out that storage area.
I could tell you stories about the emotional toll that that process had. A 15-year-old time capsule is like a midlife crisis in a bottle! Anyway…
The storage area was 5X5 with tall ceilings, and I had the thing PACKED. But what was in there that truly mattered fit into my trunk. All the rest went to the Salvation Army.
My point is—you might be able to bring the irreplaceable and important stuff with you wherever you go. It probably won't be much—won't take up too much space.
Wow! A 15 year time capsule! And yes, my husband reminds me that we can take a few of the most precious things. But the things aren't the real issue. It's the weirdo attachment. And I think it goes far beyond this one issue. I have some of that conditioning you spoke about. To be loyal to my country. Patriotic. I had a Trump sign in my yard. Sometimes I feel queasy at the thought of not living in the country I was born in. But I can never really articulate why. We can't afford to retire here. It's certainly not the safest country. The Healthcare is crap. The food is crap. The government is crap. It's an interesting thing to bump up against conditioning in your own psyche that you didn't even know existed.
We are thinking of many places to go. Panama. Albania. Maybe Malta. The husband really wants to live in Portugal for a bit. We have some time to narrow the choices. I bet Panama.
I totally get all of that. For my wife, it's family that would keep us here—maybe even if the place were burning down around our ears. But a sense of rootedness is a strong attractor too.
On the potential location—have you considered Paraguay? It is becoming a go-to destination for people seeking greater freedom. From what I understand, it has its good points and bad, but then again, everywhere does. Would you like me to put you in touch with a colleague who moved there (from Germany) with roughly the same motivations (greater freedom, less oppression)?
I’m living in a community that is close to being ready to form a stated ‘free’ space. I’m about to take over the ‘newsletter’ for the people. I need help and guidance. This was a great synopsis. I have come to all these conclusions … but, I couldn’t have put it all together so easily. There is substantiation for all of it. Thanks for all your work!
The only way towards a stateless society is to continually plant the seeds of true freedom, over many generations, within our children. By doing this society will, hopefully, evolve to the point where looking to any type of ruler/government becomes anathema to those future generations, much like the idea of marrying your cousin has, rightfully, become taboo. Trying to change 300+ million minds these days is just pissing into the wind, the level of indoctrination and conditioning people are under is too daunting.
Actually I really don't think we can get there from here. Far too many people prefer/demand safety, security, slavery over freedom. Too many want a master, not a mentor, it's hard being responsible. Too many far too lazy and will go along to get along. I fear Caesar Augustus and Chairman Mao will always be here.
Having said that doesn't mean we we should accept as is nor stop striving. A world free of governments might be pie in the sky but a distributed nation coexisting...
Say just 3 out of a hundred, 3% of the world population buys in. That's around 240 million people. Over 190 of the world's nations have a smaller population than that. We may not be able to change most minds, nor get the lazy moving but if we develop communication, trade, exchange of goods and ideas beyond those government's purview, I do believe a roam of the free midst the lands of the enslaved is possible. Change the world? Maybe, maybe not but creating a better world within that world for those that want it seems extremely doable.
No reason not to aim for pie in the sky Christopher, but I'll be pleased if we get even a few slices down to earth!
This is an excellent statement and represents the right kind of thinking. We have to be realistic and think long-term. And we mustn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We can live a better life tomorrow by changing our outlook today. And then we grow a little more, and things get a little better. Inch by inch, life's a cinch.
The only place I differ is that I do not think we can know for sure what the human attitude will be 1,000 years from now. Or 10,000. Monarchy was once assumed to be a permanent feature. Now, nearly everyone assumes that "democracy" is.
But things change. Will human nature itself change? I don't know. Has it changed over the last 10,000 or 100,000 years? I don't know. Probably some. But even if it doesn't change much, our attitudes towards government can change. It took less than 400 years the last time—ramping up from the beginning of the 17th and culminating after WWI. How long will it take this next time? I don't know. But I do know that someone has to get the ball rolling! That's us.
Thank you. Absolutely there were times in the past in which we lived without governance--more recently than most people think. There have been private law societies that lasted for centuries. There were huge periods of time during which governance was highly decentralized and there were very few large empires or large nation states the way there are now.
Money is a bit of a different situation. Money, in its basic form, is just a means of exchange, which helps avoid problems of spoilage and the difficulties associated with barter. There was money $40,000 years ago in the Blambos cave. What money has become today, however, is extremely perverse.
Bottom line, though, is that we can make a new future happen.
“ Anarchy, Never Been Tried?” is an excellent series exploring a number of anarchistic societies throughout the world both in the past and in the present.
“Have you observed these cognitive biases and syndromes in others? Are you yourself experiencing them now, or did you in the past? Do you hear their ring of truth?”
Apparently, I experienced status quo bias, cognitive dissonance, and narrative vulnerability in the past. I can recall a specific instance. As I've mentioned previously, I discovered libertarianism independently by a process of reasoning. (I've heard that several other people have done that in essentially the same way. It would be interesting to interview as many such people as possible to learn how they did it.) In early 1972, I was thinking about the concept of justice, and I asked myself what all and only unjust acts have in common. I started by listing several acts that almost everyone would agree are unjust, such as murder, assault, slavery, theft, fraud, and vandalism. Then I tried to formulate a principle denying that anyone has the right to commit such acts. For every possible act, X, I wanted the principle to oppose X if and only if X is unjust. After formulating a principle, I looked for counterexamples: some act that doesn't violate the principle but is unjust, or some act that violates the principle but isn't unjust. I kept modifying my original principle until I found one that seemed to be satisfactory. After much thought, I found an apparent counterexample: Taxation violates the principle, but it didn't appear to be unjust. I tried to modify the principle to allow taxation to be just without allowing any obviously unjust acts to be just. After considering many possibilities, I finally gave up. Ultimately, I was left with this choice: Either taxation is unjust, or extortion is just. I found the latter alternative less plausible than the former one, so I accepted the principle and its logical consequences. From my principle (which I later learned is similar to the NAP), I derived a logically consistent political philosophy, which I learned in 1976 is called “libertarianism.”
I've had recent discussions with someone else who appears to be experiencing cognitive bias. He knows I'm a libertarian and apparently tried to show me that I accept an untenable political philosophy by derisively saying that libertarians believe taxation is theft. I said the only difference I'd been able to discover between taxation and extortion is that the former is legal and the latter is not. As I pointed out, if that's held to be a moral difference, then there can be no unjust law, including, say, the law that imposed and protected slavery in the US until the 13th Amendment was ratified. My debate opponent had previously expressed a strong objection to Thomas Jefferson because he owned slaves. He claimed that he saw taxes as analogous to tithing. When I pointed out that, unlike tithing, taxes and extortion are both non-consensual and that failure to pay either can result in harmful consequences, he tried to claim that one gets benefits from taxes. I explained that, unlike purchases in the private sector, there's no obvious connection between what one pays in taxes and what one receives in return. One economic analysis showed that the top two quintiles of income earners pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits, while the bottom three quintiles receive more in benefits than they pay for. Besides, under US law, an American working overseas for a foreign company who receives no benefits from the US government is required to pay federal income taxes. And some people who run protection rackets protect their victims, if only because they don't want other criminals muscling in on their territory.
My debate opponent still hasn't conceded. Now he's back to suggesting that tax laws are intended to benefit society. In other words, he's suggesting that the ends justify the means. I suspect that he's unpersuadable and that I'm wasting my time arguing with him. I'll try one last time. I'll ask him if there is any possible empirical evidence or logical arguments that could induce him to change his mind. If not, then the debate will end. If so, then he must tell me what would convince him. I'll tell him that I'd change my mind if he could provide me with a theory of justice superior to mine that permits taxation (but not extortion) to be just.
—What about the special rights argument? How do government officials get the right to do things to us that would be crimes if we did them to each other?
He will, of course, retreat to the "societal benefit" argument. That this is the only way that society can work. So how about you concede that that that is possible, for the sake of argument, and then see if you can get him to admit that taxation is nonconsensual and violent?
"Okay, so your argument is that this is the only way that things can work. That government provides benefits that cannot be provided in any other way, and that these benefits are necessary for human life. Let's accept that premise for the time being. Let's assume you're right. That still does not answer my point. My point is that there is something fundamentally immoral about what government does. Even if we were to decide that it is the lesser of two evils, it is still an evil."
And then see if you can get him to concede that. Take his fear and cognitive biases out of the equation by stipulating the possibility that he is correct—that there is no other way to do this. THEN work on the moral argument in a vacuum. Get him to recognize the centrality of consent and show him that government violates it. Get him to recognize that the concept of rights makes no sense if some people get special rights, and then demonstrate that government officials have special rights.
If you have to, keep reminding him that you are accepting (for the time being) that we might have to accept this as the lesser of two evils. Just focus on getting him to understand and accept that it is an evil.
"some act that doesn't violate the principle but is unjust, or some act that violates the principle but isn't unjust."
—One of the reasons that I think a Law of Consent (https://www.theadvocates.org/your-masters-are-lying-to-you/) works better than the NAP is because of this question. There are acts that are force but are okay with consent. And there are acts that do not seem like they are force, per se, but that are unjust: trespass, e.g., or nonviolent theft. In order for these to be "force," we must broaden the definition beyond what the average person will recognize. "Aggression" is a better word in that regard, but still, it must be defined.
But even without the terminological issues, consent is the philosophical prior. What determines the justice is whether there is consent. It's not aggression if it was consented to.
"It would be interesting to interview as many such people as possible to learn how they did it."
—I sort of fall into that category.
I was raised by lefties. I started to become disillusioned with leftism early on, and by my mid-20s, I was solidly anti-leftist. But I didn't become a conservative right away. That took more time.
Eventually, I decided that I needed to understand conservatism on a much deeper level. That meant that I had to understand classical liberalism. Over a long period, I reverse-engineered the belief system that I had largely just adopted, attempting to understand all its components. That involved some reading of the greats, of course, but it also involved a lot of exploration on my own—thinking things through in my own head, making charts and diagrams, and trying to justify all of it.
That process made me more and more libertarian, and ultimately led to the realization that nothing more than some form of anarchism could be logically and morally justified.
Chris, I just noticed this comment and your replies in my inbox, to which I didn't reply. It's dated December 5, the day before I had an accident that left me in a hospital and a rehab facility for several weeks. That's probably why I didn't reply. I don't remember the incident I referred to in my comment very well, but I never had the opportunity to argue with the critic of libertarianism again. It's just as well, because he was probably unpersuadable. According to Copilot, about 60-70% of people are unpersuadable, about 10-15% are persuadable, and the rest are persuadable under certain conditions.
Thanks for asking. I’m not in pain, and I’ve recovered about as much as I’m going to. I’m disabled now and need a walker to get around, but I’m managing. I get my food and supplies delivered, so I’m not doing without. I appreciate your concern.
You're also up against the cognitive bias and lack of imagination of billions of people
"""
You're also up against human nature. Liberty, though referred to as a natural human right, is second-layer nature. The core, base layer of human nature isn't living in liberty. The core is the tension of emergent consciousness within limited being. While this makes living in liberty possible, it also makes anti-liberty veeeery attractive.
I wrote about "Liberty & Human Nature" this week (yesterday), building on something I wrote about a few months ago, grappling with what nature is in the first place.
"The core, base layer of human nature isn't living in liberty. The core is the tension of emergent consciousness within limited being."
—Halfway through that sentence, I felt sure I knew what was coming next. I thought you were going to say that most humans are concerned with much more basic stuff like being safe and not hungry.
Sure, but food and safety don't distinguish humans from other animals. The core of human nature has to be something fundamental to humanity and specific to humanity.
The example I used in the article is a circulatory system. A circulatory system is absolutely essential for humans, but merely having a circulatory system doesn't distinguish a human from a tree or an alligator. The deep core of human nature has to be something else: https://goodneighborbadcitizen.substack.com/p/liberty-and-human-nature
In response to the first part of the article it seems the public have been groomed for cowardice. To the second part, It’s quite possible a reversion to barbarism, the war lord system of old, could quite easily dominate the weakened masses. Fear is the enemy, and “they” know it, yet the people call it ‘reason’ Sooner or later Reality must assert itself. Great thought piece though.
A minor point of argument. I suggest you do believe in a social contract, but object to the government monopoly on enforcement and the associated extortion for services you do not require.
If someone breaks the rule on initiation of violence and assaults you, you expect punishment should happen, whether at your hands, the police, or ideally a multitude of options. It's the societal contract in a functional societal that approves of the punishment and differentiates punishment for transgression as different from the original transgression.
That’s a reasonable distinction and fair enough. I am definitely talking about “social contracts” imposed by an entity that doesn’t give you a choice and calls your consent “tacit” or “implied.” That’s the problem I have.
It does raise a question, though. What exactly is a valid social contract? It must be consensual, for sure. But how is it distinct from simply following/abiding by natural law? (Is the contract the agreement to do so? Can such contracts vary? IOW, is it possible to have a contract that does not follow natural law?)
I'm afraid we have entered a time and place where we cannot have a valid social contract. Our population has diametrically oppoes belief systems. The concept of social contract is based on shared morality.
To roughly quote the new Mayor of NYC:
There is no problem too large for government to solve and there is no problem too small for government to care about.
As a representative motto for totalitarianism, I share no part of that world view. In a society that cannot even agree on a basic fact such as what a woman is, we then have to legislate who can use the women's bathroom.
I would suggest that your entire substack presence may be a result of the fact the government broke its end of the contract with us and began treating us with disdain. I can't be sure of your path, but it's not the inevitable minor corruption and incompetence that makes me hate our government, it's the open hatred by them for me. The moral foundation of a government that 90% does its best for its citizens may never be questioned. When they treated us with contempt, they opened up questions about legitimacy. This is what led to the downfall of the monarchical systems. They lost their power to an extent and with a level of permance consistent with their abuse of power. There is still an English King (without official power), but not a French one, or a Russian Czar.
It's certainly possible to have a social contract inconsistent with the precepts of natural law. The Aztecs ran a civilization based on human sacrifice and for the most part the population was on board. .
So then the first thing we ought to do is stop thinking in terms of the whole society—of millions of people living in huge area under a government. Our social contract must be with each other; we mustn’t attempt to have one with anyone who does not want what we want.
There's a lot we can learn from the Communists on spreading ideology. Think globally, act locally is a solid concept. We should be spreading our beliefs to our neighbors.
I cheated and moved to a place more in line with my values and I would recommend you do the same if you can. Even so, I talk to the people around me, especially the politically unaware. Life is better with neighbors that share your values. The more we spread those values, the more likely it is we can have neighbors that share them.
100,000 people around the world sharing your beliefs has much less effect on quality of life than 500 here in my town of 22,000.
To the extent possible, yes, avoud the people with beliefs that are diametrically opposed to ours, but we need to bring those open to our views to our side. It's better if it's your neighbor because your neighbor has more effect on your life than people far away.
This is not to discourage your internet efforts but to encourage you and others to do the same in real life. You probably already do. It's hard to hide anything you are passionate about.
There's room for both. So, for example, one man—Ron Paul—has changed the minds of millions of people. And those people then go on to do what you are describing.
Similarly, the books of four people—Hoppe, D. Friedman, and L. and M. Tannehill—have given millions the mental ammunition to believe that market anarchism can work.
The words of Cicero, Locke, and Jefferson have changed the world. Etc.
So if one can create a pharos that lots of people can see from any distance, that can have a valuable effect.
But then, yeah, for most of us, we can do our best work close to home.
(I recently told someone that homeschooling one child is worth more than 100,000 hours of "waking people up" to the latest conspiracy theory. Not the exact same thing as what you are saying, but related.)
I have to argue with the last sentence. Homeschooling one child, especially your own, is taking my statement to its most logical endpoint. It
If every non-statist did this, the endpoint would be me being a centrist and the far left would be people who just think we should actually follow the constitution.
Thanks Christopher, however I am amazed that you subjugate yourself to AI when all you are doing is feeding it with a collection of data about you and your subscribers.
AI is THE tool of the totalitarians and you are playing with it like playing with a dog- but this dog has another master and THEY will make it turn and devour you.
I hear you. You can certainly take comfort in the notion that I am not feeding it anything about my subscribers. Not even that I write on Substack.
There are lots of different schools of thought here. We can not use it. We can try to limit how we use it.
In my case, here are a few thoughts.
First, I am already out there as believing in human freedom, from my writing over many years. My inquiries on AI are not telling them anything they don’t already know about me.
And it is a useful tool. I am several weeks and 120,000 words into a very helpful “conversation” with ChatGPT on the subject of human consent and self-ownership. There is no one else in the world who will put up with me asking so many questions about philosophy! My wife glazes over after five mins. My most philosophical friends don’t have that kind of time. This conversation has saved me months of mind-grinding work. I would love to have had that kind of time, but I don’t. So it has been a real productivity boost.
In the process, what have our overlords learned about me? That I believe in human freedom and peaceful interaction with consent as the social baseline. They already knew that from my writing. And I am not sure I am too bothered by them having the extra details on how much I believe in respect for rights. I know it makes me a subversive and all that, but what can I do? That ship has sailed either way.
And then of course there’s the other argument—that we are training AI. That it is better to have lots of people asking it about rights and respect than about how to oppress people.
All of that said, I certainly understand your concerns, and share them to a degree myself.
Thanks Christopher, it is complex and I appreciate your detailed reply.
I don't understand how you think AI will not know who your subscribers are as they are no doubt following your posts if they want to. Why would they bother? Nobody in their right mind would bother, but they are not in their right mind.
Do you think that AI is trained to go that far beyond what I ask it? If I ask it to assess various coffee makers or talk about philosophy with me, is it also coded to say to itself, "I must also figure out where this guy works"?
Point taken, but that is it's potential if the overlords so desire.
In the not too distant future "so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. (Rev 13:17)
Any who oppose it will be known, and AI is just the sort of electronic beast that could do that job of knowing who is in and who is out.
It could, sure. Whether AI is the mark of the Beast, though, is an open question. It could also end up being CBDC. Or it could even be nothing for another 100 years. No one knows for sure what or when.
Good stuff. The good news is that all these cultural, psychological roadblocks can turn on a dime. The zeitgeist can change quickly once it reaches a tipping point.
Though I am fixin' to do even more. I don't want us to just offer better ideas—I want to offer a better world. That means building towards the institutions that will be needed.
Because ultimately, your average person doesn't care about the ideas—they just want to be safe and not hungry.
A rich investor starts buying up private security and private arbitration companies now. He slowly guides them to become more like the agencies described by Hoppe, D. Friedman, et al.
Policy is established that they are not antagonistic toward government and government police/courts, but work politely with them. They develop a good relationship with them.
They develop a good relationship with the public. "We know you are already paying taxes for police, but we can actually help protect you BEFORE you are victimized." Use economies of scale to offer their services cheap enough so that people can afford it. Maybe not the poorest at first, but eventually.
Become better-paying than government police jobs. Attract people who want that but who are ALSO willing to work without qualified immunity. That helps ensure the good cops, but not the bad. Build this model over time.
Refer minor disputes to the private arbitration courts rather than making them government legal matters. Teach resolution and rectification. Establish these courts not only for B2B arbitration, as they are now, but also for ordinary people and even minor criminal disputes. Build this model over time.
Eventually, you have something that could keep order even if governments were to collapse. Or something that cash-strapped local governments might turn to as a better option than trying to continue inefficient tax-based services.
It's a model for a peaceful transition to market-anarchism. No revolution needed. No voting or campaign promises or lobbying. We do it by living our principles.
Yeppers! Something like this is the peaceful ideal way to transition. There are a bunch of ways it can fail — the government could crush the private service for example.
The rich investor(s) would have to be willing to lose money on the project for a long time if necessary.
But if enough people build institutions and services like this and stick with it, the public will start realizing there’s a better way.
If there is no avenue for them to exert power—through their votes or their mental and moral weaknesses—then it doesn't get much more irrelevant than that.
Want to be relevant, NPCs and virtue-signalers? You have to actually do something useful!
We need to offer them a better narrative or else they will be duped into doing things that aren’t good when they do want to do good. Our institutions have been co-opted against the good right now which doesn’t help. You think that you are doing good, helping, when you get involved with a charity but then get duped into doing dubious things against others in its name. It’s really odd. Then they can be guilted over being a part of the majority these days and questions get shut down that way.
That is the good question. I don't think that I have the answer right now for how to do this but I would like to offer them a narrative out of the guilt-trap they are in that has hijacked their nature to do something good or bigger than them. A narrative that gives them hope and lets them do good rather than tearing them down over traits innate to them. To strive for the good, the true, the beautiful, the transcendent. Something to lift them up so that they can be the best that they can be.
Our common principles—the thing that will hold our new kind of nation (https://christophercook.substack.com/t/thedistributednation) together—are mostly a belief in a set of MUST NOTs. What people—and governments—must not do to each other. Every nation must cohere around something, and our starting point is a common belief that freedom and independence are non-negotiable. That consent must never be violated, and thus that we must ultimately become free from involuntary governance.
That is the starting point. But that is not enough to hold us together long term. We also need goals. And we need a beautiful, optimistic vision of life. That is what you are talking about here, and I take it very seriously.
Thus, I would love to flesh your ideas out further. What do you see? How would you explain it to others? How would you motivate them to strive for it? And what specifically would they be striving for? I would love to think this through and draw out some practical ideas, if possible.
I think that our visions here wouldn’t be opposed to each other in that sense. Freedom is very important.
As for how striving would look, it is hard for me to describe as it is something that comes second nature to me now. But it is through culture that we achieve my vision. Right now there is an attack, an undermining of our culture. Of who we are as a people.
To lift people up, we need spaces for them to retreat to that are sacred and beautiful. Think of ancient woodlands, cathedrals and graveyards, palaces and castles. These give them a quiet place to reflect. A place bigger than ourselves, a place to look up. We need to breathe and live amidst beauty. Think of filling our places with culture, with beautiful paintings, statues, books, mosaics, etc. The architecture of our towns and homes, of parks… this is the most practical way to lift us up. Right now this is being subverted with modernity. It is making us more miserable, keeping us down. Natural materials, pillars, vaulted ceilings, water features, paintings on the ceilings and walls, the balance with light and nature. These are beautiful.
These are works that we should be striving towards. To beautify the way that we live. We yearn for this. We yearn, too, for stories that root us as a people. That reveal to us our place in the world. To think in only economic terms robs us of what our soul yearns for. We were meant to strive for something more, for something eternal and transcendent. Would we even be here if we were not striving for this purpose in life? We should bring back traditional crafts, we should value them, put them in the hands of those people that want to do some good so they can discover which one best suits them. So they can gain mastery over their craft, pass their craft onto the next generation, and to beautify the public spaces around them. I think that is the most practical way. I’d be curious to hear what you think.
I have to run out the door, so I cannot give this the fullest response it deserves right now. But I will, and I will let it all roll around in my head.
To hit the ball back into your court for now, I must ask a vital question: who is we/us/our? "Our parks, our culture. Lift us up. We yearn."
While I agree with your ideas here overall, "we" raises issues.
Democracy has revealed quite clearly that we don't all want the same things. But it forces us into a single system, and then we must control that system so that we can force our things on them before they force their things on us. It's no way to live, really.
There isn't really a "we." You and I want the park to look one way. They want the park to look another way. And if the only way to fund it is with public money, then we must fight over it and try to win, and even if we win, no one is really happy.
A lot of the decline you rightly decry is because of democracy/republic. It is because we use voting to pick leaders. If you have not read H. Hoppe's "Democracy: The God That Failed," I highly recommend it. It lays it all out—our decline isn't the fault of modernity, it is the fault of our system itself.
What I am ultimately getting at is that if we think in terms of changing the whole society, we are in for endless fighting and disappointment.
We will be a lot better off if we think of the we/us/our as being our small group. Only those who want it, who believe, who consent. And the beautiful things we build should be for us and anyone else who is interested. If we think that we cannot be happy or successful until we've changed society as a whole, we're in for a world of disappointment.
If we get sophisticated enough, perhaps we could even reverse universal entropy (gather diffuse matter to reform stars, etc.). (Assuming that universal entropy is a real thing.)
By the way, I love the name ArcadianWeald. Weald is an awesome word (I love forests).
And when I was a young man, I did some (very small-scale) land speculation, and the one minor subdivision I did needed a name. Being in my 20s, I thought, puckishly, that I would name it Captain Crunch Acres. But then I thought better of it and decided to give it a cool name. So I chose "Arcadia Flats."
Haha. I like that interesting fact. I’m glad you gave it a cooler name. I definitely think that Arcadian is a cool word so I had to include it in my name here. It’s not a word that I often hear these days and that is tragic. Same with Weald. Makes for a great name combination.
"The psychological comfort of familiarity overrides reasoned evaluation."
👆That surely hit home today. I'm grappling with this on a personal level. And to be honest, I'm kinda shocked how ingrained I find it to be within myself. I was just talking with my husband and wondering where the hell this weirdo stuff came from. Asked and answered. I love how the universe works. Thanks. 🙂
Happy to help 😂
Can you share more details? Or is it too personal?
Not too personal. We made a decision to sell everything and move abroad. It feels so exciting and invigorating to think of this new future for us. But then we still have to live here for right now, probably a few more years. It's too hard to live in 2 realities at the same time, so what's right in front of us takes center attention. Then fear creeps in, in weird ways. Like what is life going to feel like with none of my stuff. The stuff I've spent decades collecting. We pare down regularly so most of what we have we use. No hoarding here. My rational side says it's just stuff. The other side though. It's screaming about comfort and familiarity. My favorite soup pot, my perfect chefs knife. All those original prints my friend made for me. MY PLANTS! 😱 That I spent six years growing from seed and just got in the ground a few years ago. I will never see their mature beauty.
It's all quite insane. None of this ‘Stuff’ makes me feel excited or invigorated. Quite the opposite. The responsibility stifles any impulsive wandering. I haven't gone on a vacation in over 10 years. So what exactly am I so attached to?
Comfort and familiarity. At the cost of adventure. At the cost of freedom. How ridiculous is that? 😵💫
I feel you, for sure! That is very exciting. Where are you going to go?
And yeah, stuff can definitely be an encumbrance. Most of what you describe is entirely replaceable, of course. So that is much easier to let go. You could perhaps figure out what is irreplaceable and truly matters and ship that to your new home.
When I was 28, I packed my stuff into a storage area in Montana and fled to Los Angeles. I had just undergone a terrible breakup, my life direction no longer felt set, and so I figured I would just go visit my friends there and see what happened. Then I got a job there. An apartment. Then I got married and had a child. Then we moved to Arizona. 15 years later, I am still paying for this storage area, and I don't even really know what is in it anymore.
So, when we moved back east, my wife, son, and cat flew, and I drove via Montana to finally empty out that storage area.
I could tell you stories about the emotional toll that that process had. A 15-year-old time capsule is like a midlife crisis in a bottle! Anyway…
The storage area was 5X5 with tall ceilings, and I had the thing PACKED. But what was in there that truly mattered fit into my trunk. All the rest went to the Salvation Army.
My point is—you might be able to bring the irreplaceable and important stuff with you wherever you go. It probably won't be much—won't take up too much space.
Wow! A 15 year time capsule! And yes, my husband reminds me that we can take a few of the most precious things. But the things aren't the real issue. It's the weirdo attachment. And I think it goes far beyond this one issue. I have some of that conditioning you spoke about. To be loyal to my country. Patriotic. I had a Trump sign in my yard. Sometimes I feel queasy at the thought of not living in the country I was born in. But I can never really articulate why. We can't afford to retire here. It's certainly not the safest country. The Healthcare is crap. The food is crap. The government is crap. It's an interesting thing to bump up against conditioning in your own psyche that you didn't even know existed.
We are thinking of many places to go. Panama. Albania. Maybe Malta. The husband really wants to live in Portugal for a bit. We have some time to narrow the choices. I bet Panama.
I totally get all of that. For my wife, it's family that would keep us here—maybe even if the place were burning down around our ears. But a sense of rootedness is a strong attractor too.
On the potential location—have you considered Paraguay? It is becoming a go-to destination for people seeking greater freedom. From what I understand, it has its good points and bad, but then again, everywhere does. Would you like me to put you in touch with a colleague who moved there (from Germany) with roughly the same motivations (greater freedom, less oppression)?
Paraguay? I'm off to do some research! 😃 And Yes! I'd love to know what your colleague knows. Thanks so much. 🙏
I’m living in a community that is close to being ready to form a stated ‘free’ space. I’m about to take over the ‘newsletter’ for the people. I need help and guidance. This was a great synopsis. I have come to all these conclusions … but, I couldn’t have put it all together so easily. There is substantiation for all of it. Thanks for all your work!
Thank you for living it out there in the real world!
The only way towards a stateless society is to continually plant the seeds of true freedom, over many generations, within our children. By doing this society will, hopefully, evolve to the point where looking to any type of ruler/government becomes anathema to those future generations, much like the idea of marrying your cousin has, rightfully, become taboo. Trying to change 300+ million minds these days is just pissing into the wind, the level of indoctrination and conditioning people are under is too daunting.
Yes, this is the way. Just one addition: we cannot change our children until we change ourselves.
Change your minds. Change your children's minds. Change the minds of the people around you. We can do this.
What was that old commercial? "It won't happen overnight, but it will happen."
Our beloved “Democracy” is simply mob-rule.
And the two-party system insures easily manipulated outcomes to any issue, making the U.S. the crown jewel of the global mafia.
These same people cry “Freedom” but have no idea what that means.
We move forward, one heart at a time. The time will come.
Well and rightly said, sir.
Actually I really don't think we can get there from here. Far too many people prefer/demand safety, security, slavery over freedom. Too many want a master, not a mentor, it's hard being responsible. Too many far too lazy and will go along to get along. I fear Caesar Augustus and Chairman Mao will always be here.
Having said that doesn't mean we we should accept as is nor stop striving. A world free of governments might be pie in the sky but a distributed nation coexisting...
Say just 3 out of a hundred, 3% of the world population buys in. That's around 240 million people. Over 190 of the world's nations have a smaller population than that. We may not be able to change most minds, nor get the lazy moving but if we develop communication, trade, exchange of goods and ideas beyond those government's purview, I do believe a roam of the free midst the lands of the enslaved is possible. Change the world? Maybe, maybe not but creating a better world within that world for those that want it seems extremely doable.
No reason not to aim for pie in the sky Christopher, but I'll be pleased if we get even a few slices down to earth!
This is an excellent statement and represents the right kind of thinking. We have to be realistic and think long-term. And we mustn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We can live a better life tomorrow by changing our outlook today. And then we grow a little more, and things get a little better. Inch by inch, life's a cinch.
The only place I differ is that I do not think we can know for sure what the human attitude will be 1,000 years from now. Or 10,000. Monarchy was once assumed to be a permanent feature. Now, nearly everyone assumes that "democracy" is.
But things change. Will human nature itself change? I don't know. Has it changed over the last 10,000 or 100,000 years? I don't know. Probably some. But even if it doesn't change much, our attitudes towards government can change. It took less than 400 years the last time—ramping up from the beginning of the 17th and culminating after WWI. How long will it take this next time? I don't know. But I do know that someone has to get the ball rolling! That's us.
Fantastically stated. We must get there. Presumably human beings existed for some time without governance or money. Why could we not do it again?
Thank you. Absolutely there were times in the past in which we lived without governance--more recently than most people think. There have been private law societies that lasted for centuries. There were huge periods of time during which governance was highly decentralized and there were very few large empires or large nation states the way there are now.
Money is a bit of a different situation. Money, in its basic form, is just a means of exchange, which helps avoid problems of spoilage and the difficulties associated with barter. There was money $40,000 years ago in the Blambos cave. What money has become today, however, is extremely perverse.
Bottom line, though, is that we can make a new future happen.
“ Anarchy, Never Been Tried?” is an excellent series exploring a number of anarchistic societies throughout the world both in the past and in the present.
https://everything-voluntary.com/anarchy-never-been-tried
I would add Cospaia, the Hanseatic League, and Brehon Ireland to the list. Early medieval Iceland, sorta kinda too.
“Have you observed these cognitive biases and syndromes in others? Are you yourself experiencing them now, or did you in the past? Do you hear their ring of truth?”
Apparently, I experienced status quo bias, cognitive dissonance, and narrative vulnerability in the past. I can recall a specific instance. As I've mentioned previously, I discovered libertarianism independently by a process of reasoning. (I've heard that several other people have done that in essentially the same way. It would be interesting to interview as many such people as possible to learn how they did it.) In early 1972, I was thinking about the concept of justice, and I asked myself what all and only unjust acts have in common. I started by listing several acts that almost everyone would agree are unjust, such as murder, assault, slavery, theft, fraud, and vandalism. Then I tried to formulate a principle denying that anyone has the right to commit such acts. For every possible act, X, I wanted the principle to oppose X if and only if X is unjust. After formulating a principle, I looked for counterexamples: some act that doesn't violate the principle but is unjust, or some act that violates the principle but isn't unjust. I kept modifying my original principle until I found one that seemed to be satisfactory. After much thought, I found an apparent counterexample: Taxation violates the principle, but it didn't appear to be unjust. I tried to modify the principle to allow taxation to be just without allowing any obviously unjust acts to be just. After considering many possibilities, I finally gave up. Ultimately, I was left with this choice: Either taxation is unjust, or extortion is just. I found the latter alternative less plausible than the former one, so I accepted the principle and its logical consequences. From my principle (which I later learned is similar to the NAP), I derived a logically consistent political philosophy, which I learned in 1976 is called “libertarianism.”
I've had recent discussions with someone else who appears to be experiencing cognitive bias. He knows I'm a libertarian and apparently tried to show me that I accept an untenable political philosophy by derisively saying that libertarians believe taxation is theft. I said the only difference I'd been able to discover between taxation and extortion is that the former is legal and the latter is not. As I pointed out, if that's held to be a moral difference, then there can be no unjust law, including, say, the law that imposed and protected slavery in the US until the 13th Amendment was ratified. My debate opponent had previously expressed a strong objection to Thomas Jefferson because he owned slaves. He claimed that he saw taxes as analogous to tithing. When I pointed out that, unlike tithing, taxes and extortion are both non-consensual and that failure to pay either can result in harmful consequences, he tried to claim that one gets benefits from taxes. I explained that, unlike purchases in the private sector, there's no obvious connection between what one pays in taxes and what one receives in return. One economic analysis showed that the top two quintiles of income earners pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits, while the bottom three quintiles receive more in benefits than they pay for. Besides, under US law, an American working overseas for a foreign company who receives no benefits from the US government is required to pay federal income taxes. And some people who run protection rackets protect their victims, if only because they don't want other criminals muscling in on their territory.
My debate opponent still hasn't conceded. Now he's back to suggesting that tax laws are intended to benefit society. In other words, he's suggesting that the ends justify the means. I suspect that he's unpersuadable and that I'm wasting my time arguing with him. I'll try one last time. I'll ask him if there is any possible empirical evidence or logical arguments that could induce him to change his mind. If not, then the debate will end. If so, then he must tell me what would convince him. I'll tell him that I'd change my mind if he could provide me with a theory of justice superior to mine that permits taxation (but not extortion) to be just.
"My debate opponent still hasn't conceded."
—What about the special rights argument? How do government officials get the right to do things to us that would be crimes if we did them to each other?
He will, of course, retreat to the "societal benefit" argument. That this is the only way that society can work. So how about you concede that that that is possible, for the sake of argument, and then see if you can get him to admit that taxation is nonconsensual and violent?
"Okay, so your argument is that this is the only way that things can work. That government provides benefits that cannot be provided in any other way, and that these benefits are necessary for human life. Let's accept that premise for the time being. Let's assume you're right. That still does not answer my point. My point is that there is something fundamentally immoral about what government does. Even if we were to decide that it is the lesser of two evils, it is still an evil."
And then see if you can get him to concede that. Take his fear and cognitive biases out of the equation by stipulating the possibility that he is correct—that there is no other way to do this. THEN work on the moral argument in a vacuum. Get him to recognize the centrality of consent and show him that government violates it. Get him to recognize that the concept of rights makes no sense if some people get special rights, and then demonstrate that government officials have special rights.
If you have to, keep reminding him that you are accepting (for the time being) that we might have to accept this as the lesser of two evils. Just focus on getting him to understand and accept that it is an evil.
How about that?
"some act that doesn't violate the principle but is unjust, or some act that violates the principle but isn't unjust."
—One of the reasons that I think a Law of Consent (https://www.theadvocates.org/your-masters-are-lying-to-you/) works better than the NAP is because of this question. There are acts that are force but are okay with consent. And there are acts that do not seem like they are force, per se, but that are unjust: trespass, e.g., or nonviolent theft. In order for these to be "force," we must broaden the definition beyond what the average person will recognize. "Aggression" is a better word in that regard, but still, it must be defined.
But even without the terminological issues, consent is the philosophical prior. What determines the justice is whether there is consent. It's not aggression if it was consented to.
"It would be interesting to interview as many such people as possible to learn how they did it."
—I sort of fall into that category.
I was raised by lefties. I started to become disillusioned with leftism early on, and by my mid-20s, I was solidly anti-leftist. But I didn't become a conservative right away. That took more time.
Eventually, I decided that I needed to understand conservatism on a much deeper level. That meant that I had to understand classical liberalism. Over a long period, I reverse-engineered the belief system that I had largely just adopted, attempting to understand all its components. That involved some reading of the greats, of course, but it also involved a lot of exploration on my own—thinking things through in my own head, making charts and diagrams, and trying to justify all of it.
That process made me more and more libertarian, and ultimately led to the realization that nothing more than some form of anarchism could be logically and morally justified.
Chris, I just noticed this comment and your replies in my inbox, to which I didn't reply. It's dated December 5, the day before I had an accident that left me in a hospital and a rehab facility for several weeks. That's probably why I didn't reply. I don't remember the incident I referred to in my comment very well, but I never had the opportunity to argue with the critic of libertarianism again. It's just as well, because he was probably unpersuadable. According to Copilot, about 60-70% of people are unpersuadable, about 10-15% are persuadable, and the rest are persuadable under certain conditions.
Have you fully recovered?
Thanks for asking. I’m not in pain, and I’ve recovered about as much as I’m going to. I’m disabled now and need a walker to get around, but I’m managing. I get my food and supplies delivered, so I’m not doing without. I appreciate your concern.
🙏🏻🧡
We all must be mentally, spiritually and physically prepared to challenge this programming!
If you were to create an educational course to achieve that end, what would it look like?
"""
You're Not Just Up Against Government
You're also up against the cognitive bias and lack of imagination of billions of people
"""
You're also up against human nature. Liberty, though referred to as a natural human right, is second-layer nature. The core, base layer of human nature isn't living in liberty. The core is the tension of emergent consciousness within limited being. While this makes living in liberty possible, it also makes anti-liberty veeeery attractive.
I wrote about "Liberty & Human Nature" this week (yesterday), building on something I wrote about a few months ago, grappling with what nature is in the first place.
"The core, base layer of human nature isn't living in liberty. The core is the tension of emergent consciousness within limited being."
—Halfway through that sentence, I felt sure I knew what was coming next. I thought you were going to say that most humans are concerned with much more basic stuff like being safe and not hungry.
Sure, but food and safety don't distinguish humans from other animals. The core of human nature has to be something fundamental to humanity and specific to humanity.
The example I used in the article is a circulatory system. A circulatory system is absolutely essential for humans, but merely having a circulatory system doesn't distinguish a human from a tree or an alligator. The deep core of human nature has to be something else: https://goodneighborbadcitizen.substack.com/p/liberty-and-human-nature
In response to the first part of the article it seems the public have been groomed for cowardice. To the second part, It’s quite possible a reversion to barbarism, the war lord system of old, could quite easily dominate the weakened masses. Fear is the enemy, and “they” know it, yet the people call it ‘reason’ Sooner or later Reality must assert itself. Great thought piece though.
Perhaps we can end involuntary governance AND avoid warlordism.
A minor point of argument. I suggest you do believe in a social contract, but object to the government monopoly on enforcement and the associated extortion for services you do not require.
If someone breaks the rule on initiation of violence and assaults you, you expect punishment should happen, whether at your hands, the police, or ideally a multitude of options. It's the societal contract in a functional societal that approves of the punishment and differentiates punishment for transgression as different from the original transgression.
That’s a reasonable distinction and fair enough. I am definitely talking about “social contracts” imposed by an entity that doesn’t give you a choice and calls your consent “tacit” or “implied.” That’s the problem I have.
It does raise a question, though. What exactly is a valid social contract? It must be consensual, for sure. But how is it distinct from simply following/abiding by natural law? (Is the contract the agreement to do so? Can such contracts vary? IOW, is it possible to have a contract that does not follow natural law?)
I'm afraid we have entered a time and place where we cannot have a valid social contract. Our population has diametrically oppoes belief systems. The concept of social contract is based on shared morality.
To roughly quote the new Mayor of NYC:
There is no problem too large for government to solve and there is no problem too small for government to care about.
As a representative motto for totalitarianism, I share no part of that world view. In a society that cannot even agree on a basic fact such as what a woman is, we then have to legislate who can use the women's bathroom.
I would suggest that your entire substack presence may be a result of the fact the government broke its end of the contract with us and began treating us with disdain. I can't be sure of your path, but it's not the inevitable minor corruption and incompetence that makes me hate our government, it's the open hatred by them for me. The moral foundation of a government that 90% does its best for its citizens may never be questioned. When they treated us with contempt, they opened up questions about legitimacy. This is what led to the downfall of the monarchical systems. They lost their power to an extent and with a level of permance consistent with their abuse of power. There is still an English King (without official power), but not a French one, or a Russian Czar.
It's certainly possible to have a social contract inconsistent with the precepts of natural law. The Aztecs ran a civilization based on human sacrifice and for the most part the population was on board. .
So then the first thing we ought to do is stop thinking in terms of the whole society—of millions of people living in huge area under a government. Our social contract must be with each other; we mustn’t attempt to have one with anyone who does not want what we want.
There's a lot we can learn from the Communists on spreading ideology. Think globally, act locally is a solid concept. We should be spreading our beliefs to our neighbors.
I cheated and moved to a place more in line with my values and I would recommend you do the same if you can. Even so, I talk to the people around me, especially the politically unaware. Life is better with neighbors that share your values. The more we spread those values, the more likely it is we can have neighbors that share them.
100,000 people around the world sharing your beliefs has much less effect on quality of life than 500 here in my town of 22,000.
To the extent possible, yes, avoud the people with beliefs that are diametrically opposed to ours, but we need to bring those open to our views to our side. It's better if it's your neighbor because your neighbor has more effect on your life than people far away.
This is not to discourage your internet efforts but to encourage you and others to do the same in real life. You probably already do. It's hard to hide anything you are passionate about.
Yep, already do, and I agree in general.
There's room for both. So, for example, one man—Ron Paul—has changed the minds of millions of people. And those people then go on to do what you are describing.
Similarly, the books of four people—Hoppe, D. Friedman, and L. and M. Tannehill—have given millions the mental ammunition to believe that market anarchism can work.
The words of Cicero, Locke, and Jefferson have changed the world. Etc.
So if one can create a pharos that lots of people can see from any distance, that can have a valuable effect.
But then, yeah, for most of us, we can do our best work close to home.
(I recently told someone that homeschooling one child is worth more than 100,000 hours of "waking people up" to the latest conspiracy theory. Not the exact same thing as what you are saying, but related.)
I have to argue with the last sentence. Homeschooling one child, especially your own, is taking my statement to its most logical endpoint. It
If every non-statist did this, the endpoint would be me being a centrist and the far left would be people who just think we should actually follow the constitution.
It's a shame I can only like your comment once!
Thanks Christopher, however I am amazed that you subjugate yourself to AI when all you are doing is feeding it with a collection of data about you and your subscribers.
AI is THE tool of the totalitarians and you are playing with it like playing with a dog- but this dog has another master and THEY will make it turn and devour you.
I hear you. You can certainly take comfort in the notion that I am not feeding it anything about my subscribers. Not even that I write on Substack.
There are lots of different schools of thought here. We can not use it. We can try to limit how we use it.
In my case, here are a few thoughts.
First, I am already out there as believing in human freedom, from my writing over many years. My inquiries on AI are not telling them anything they don’t already know about me.
And it is a useful tool. I am several weeks and 120,000 words into a very helpful “conversation” with ChatGPT on the subject of human consent and self-ownership. There is no one else in the world who will put up with me asking so many questions about philosophy! My wife glazes over after five mins. My most philosophical friends don’t have that kind of time. This conversation has saved me months of mind-grinding work. I would love to have had that kind of time, but I don’t. So it has been a real productivity boost.
In the process, what have our overlords learned about me? That I believe in human freedom and peaceful interaction with consent as the social baseline. They already knew that from my writing. And I am not sure I am too bothered by them having the extra details on how much I believe in respect for rights. I know it makes me a subversive and all that, but what can I do? That ship has sailed either way.
And then of course there’s the other argument—that we are training AI. That it is better to have lots of people asking it about rights and respect than about how to oppress people.
All of that said, I certainly understand your concerns, and share them to a degree myself.
Thanks Christopher, it is complex and I appreciate your detailed reply.
I don't understand how you think AI will not know who your subscribers are as they are no doubt following your posts if they want to. Why would they bother? Nobody in their right mind would bother, but they are not in their right mind.
Do you think that AI is trained to go that far beyond what I ask it? If I ask it to assess various coffee makers or talk about philosophy with me, is it also coded to say to itself, "I must also figure out where this guy works"?
Point taken, but that is it's potential if the overlords so desire.
In the not too distant future "so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. (Rev 13:17)
Any who oppose it will be known, and AI is just the sort of electronic beast that could do that job of knowing who is in and who is out.
It could, sure. Whether AI is the mark of the Beast, though, is an open question. It could also end up being CBDC. Or it could even be nothing for another 100 years. No one knows for sure what or when.
But I do agree that caution is warranted!
totally agree, I sure don't trust them at all!
Not to worry...the deep state wants them gone.
You mean everyone with these cognitive biases?
Good stuff. The good news is that all these cultural, psychological roadblocks can turn on a dime. The zeitgeist can change quickly once it reaches a tipping point.
I like to think we're almost there...
Oh golly, I hope you're right but fear you are wrong, re: the timeline for tipping.
In any event, I am going to err on the side of assuming it will take generations, and be pleasantly surprised if it goes quicker than that!
Totally agree. I'm just saying it could happen, and when it does it'll be somewhat unexpected.
The USSR fell before my very eyes, and no one saw that coming. Perhaps you’re right.
Anything we can do to hasten this along?
Keep speaking the truth, for now. As we get closer to the inflection point, there will be many opportunities for more substantive action.
But for now, just preach, brother.
Yeah man. 🔥
Though I am fixin' to do even more. I don't want us to just offer better ideas—I want to offer a better world. That means building towards the institutions that will be needed.
Because ultimately, your average person doesn't care about the ideas—they just want to be safe and not hungry.
Amen. Institutions are key.
Law and security are huge. Also private associations for handling our desire to be charitable. Medicine. Education.
Lots of needs. None particularly difficult. Even law and security aren’t “hard” just counter-intuitive.
A rich investor starts buying up private security and private arbitration companies now. He slowly guides them to become more like the agencies described by Hoppe, D. Friedman, et al.
Policy is established that they are not antagonistic toward government and government police/courts, but work politely with them. They develop a good relationship with them.
They develop a good relationship with the public. "We know you are already paying taxes for police, but we can actually help protect you BEFORE you are victimized." Use economies of scale to offer their services cheap enough so that people can afford it. Maybe not the poorest at first, but eventually.
Become better-paying than government police jobs. Attract people who want that but who are ALSO willing to work without qualified immunity. That helps ensure the good cops, but not the bad. Build this model over time.
Refer minor disputes to the private arbitration courts rather than making them government legal matters. Teach resolution and rectification. Establish these courts not only for B2B arbitration, as they are now, but also for ordinary people and even minor criminal disputes. Build this model over time.
Eventually, you have something that could keep order even if governments were to collapse. Or something that cash-strapped local governments might turn to as a better option than trying to continue inefficient tax-based services.
It's a model for a peaceful transition to market-anarchism. No revolution needed. No voting or campaign promises or lobbying. We do it by living our principles.
Thoughts?
Yeppers! Something like this is the peaceful ideal way to transition. There are a bunch of ways it can fail — the government could crush the private service for example.
The rich investor(s) would have to be willing to lose money on the project for a long time if necessary.
But if enough people build institutions and services like this and stick with it, the public will start realizing there’s a better way.
Exactly.
Know any investors?
I wish.
I’m maybe a degree or two away from some deep(ish) pockets, but nobody I could just ring up.
I don’t suppose you have a business plan or prospectus or the like? If so I could maybe pass it along.
That would be excellent; thank you. I am working on one. I will let you know!
NPCs always doom their host civilization, unless placed in position of irrelevancy.
If there is no avenue for them to exert power—through their votes or their mental and moral weaknesses—then it doesn't get much more irrelevant than that.
Want to be relevant, NPCs and virtue-signalers? You have to actually do something useful!
We need to offer them a better narrative or else they will be duped into doing things that aren’t good when they do want to do good. Our institutions have been co-opted against the good right now which doesn’t help. You think that you are doing good, helping, when you get involved with a charity but then get duped into doing dubious things against others in its name. It’s really odd. Then they can be guilted over being a part of the majority these days and questions get shut down that way.
“We need to offer them a better narrative”
—I like this. What does that narrative look like?
That is the good question. I don't think that I have the answer right now for how to do this but I would like to offer them a narrative out of the guilt-trap they are in that has hijacked their nature to do something good or bigger than them. A narrative that gives them hope and lets them do good rather than tearing them down over traits innate to them. To strive for the good, the true, the beautiful, the transcendent. Something to lift them up so that they can be the best that they can be.
That is beautiful.
Our common principles—the thing that will hold our new kind of nation (https://christophercook.substack.com/t/thedistributednation) together—are mostly a belief in a set of MUST NOTs. What people—and governments—must not do to each other. Every nation must cohere around something, and our starting point is a common belief that freedom and independence are non-negotiable. That consent must never be violated, and thus that we must ultimately become free from involuntary governance.
That is the starting point. But that is not enough to hold us together long term. We also need goals. And we need a beautiful, optimistic vision of life. That is what you are talking about here, and I take it very seriously.
Thus, I would love to flesh your ideas out further. What do you see? How would you explain it to others? How would you motivate them to strive for it? And what specifically would they be striving for? I would love to think this through and draw out some practical ideas, if possible.
I think that our visions here wouldn’t be opposed to each other in that sense. Freedom is very important.
As for how striving would look, it is hard for me to describe as it is something that comes second nature to me now. But it is through culture that we achieve my vision. Right now there is an attack, an undermining of our culture. Of who we are as a people.
To lift people up, we need spaces for them to retreat to that are sacred and beautiful. Think of ancient woodlands, cathedrals and graveyards, palaces and castles. These give them a quiet place to reflect. A place bigger than ourselves, a place to look up. We need to breathe and live amidst beauty. Think of filling our places with culture, with beautiful paintings, statues, books, mosaics, etc. The architecture of our towns and homes, of parks… this is the most practical way to lift us up. Right now this is being subverted with modernity. It is making us more miserable, keeping us down. Natural materials, pillars, vaulted ceilings, water features, paintings on the ceilings and walls, the balance with light and nature. These are beautiful.
These are works that we should be striving towards. To beautify the way that we live. We yearn for this. We yearn, too, for stories that root us as a people. That reveal to us our place in the world. To think in only economic terms robs us of what our soul yearns for. We were meant to strive for something more, for something eternal and transcendent. Would we even be here if we were not striving for this purpose in life? We should bring back traditional crafts, we should value them, put them in the hands of those people that want to do some good so they can discover which one best suits them. So they can gain mastery over their craft, pass their craft onto the next generation, and to beautify the public spaces around them. I think that is the most practical way. I’d be curious to hear what you think.
Beautiful again!
I have to run out the door, so I cannot give this the fullest response it deserves right now. But I will, and I will let it all roll around in my head.
To hit the ball back into your court for now, I must ask a vital question: who is we/us/our? "Our parks, our culture. Lift us up. We yearn."
While I agree with your ideas here overall, "we" raises issues.
Democracy has revealed quite clearly that we don't all want the same things. But it forces us into a single system, and then we must control that system so that we can force our things on them before they force their things on us. It's no way to live, really.
There isn't really a "we." You and I want the park to look one way. They want the park to look another way. And if the only way to fund it is with public money, then we must fight over it and try to win, and even if we win, no one is really happy.
A lot of the decline you rightly decry is because of democracy/republic. It is because we use voting to pick leaders. If you have not read H. Hoppe's "Democracy: The God That Failed," I highly recommend it. It lays it all out—our decline isn't the fault of modernity, it is the fault of our system itself.
What I am ultimately getting at is that if we think in terms of changing the whole society, we are in for endless fighting and disappointment.
We will be a lot better off if we think of the we/us/our as being our small group. Only those who want it, who believe, who consent. And the beautiful things we build should be for us and anyone else who is interested. If we think that we cannot be happy or successful until we've changed society as a whole, we're in for a world of disappointment.
You know what I mean?
In this vein I really like Amaterasu Solar’s concept of the “Betterment Ethic”.
I also really like Paul Rosenberg’s formulation:
“The Simplicity of the Human Condition
The position of a human in the known universe is, strange as this may seem, very simple to define, involving only four short points:
1. The general nature of inanimate things is that of entropy.
2. The general nature of living things is to reverse entropy.
3. Man, alone in the known universe, can reverse entropy willfully; we are able to improve the world, if and as we wish.
4. Therefore, we give our lives direction and meaning by willfully reversing entropy, by choosing to create what we see as beneficial.”
- Paul Rosenberg in Free-Man's Perspective, Jan-2015
That's a very cool notion.
If we get sophisticated enough, perhaps we could even reverse universal entropy (gather diffuse matter to reform stars, etc.). (Assuming that universal entropy is a real thing.)
By the way, I love the name ArcadianWeald. Weald is an awesome word (I love forests).
And when I was a young man, I did some (very small-scale) land speculation, and the one minor subdivision I did needed a name. Being in my 20s, I thought, puckishly, that I would name it Captain Crunch Acres. But then I thought better of it and decided to give it a cool name. So I chose "Arcadia Flats."
Thanks.
Haha. I like that interesting fact. I’m glad you gave it a cooler name. I definitely think that Arcadian is a cool word so I had to include it in my name here. It’s not a word that I often hear these days and that is tragic. Same with Weald. Makes for a great name combination.
Indeed—what made you pick it?