Where Can We Go to Escape the State?

Lots of choices. Lots of challenges. (DN 2.1)

Cover page | Preface | Introduction 1 | Introduction 2 | Introduction 3 |

(Part I) Why: 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.6 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 1.10 | 1.11 | 1.12 | 1.13 | 1.14 | 1.15 | 1.16 | 1.17 | 1.18 | 1.19 | 1.20 | 1.21 |1.22

(Part II) What: 2.0 | 2.1

Chapter 2.1: Unclaimed Territory

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For most of recorded history, in most places, hereditary rule was the norm. Your status was fixed, and much of your fate was in the hands of a ruling class of nobles and aristocrats. Call it HumanGovernance 1.0, for short.

A few centuries ago, we began what appeared to be a much-needed upgrade to 2.0—mostly to various types of republics. Decision-making remained largely in the hands of government officials, but we could now cast votes for some of those officials.

The results did not produce the promised deliverance, however. We had traded monarchs for majorities and aristocrats for bureaucrats, but the fate of the individual human person was still in the hands of others. We told ourselves that voting constituted consent, but it really did not.

In the process, we bought ourselves three further problems:

1. Because we allowed legislative bodies to form, we allowed the rise of positive law. Where once kings (especially early English kings) were largely considered to be arbiters and interpreters of natural law, we now had legislators who could create any law they wished. In the past, the law was discovered. Today, laws are invented out of whole cloth, and because legislators have the presumption of the voters’ ‘democratic’ imprimatur, they are quite comfortable inventing any law they can sell to their constituents. The result is a far more active government that continually expands its reach into more aspects of individual lives. In other words, politicians and bureaucrats today are far more up in everyone’s business than kings and nobles ever were.

2. The complexities of modern nations allow circumstances to be manipulated behind the scenes by a multiplicity of interests. The interests are modern and more varied, but from the standpoint of the human person, the effect is the same as it is under a monarchy: decisions that impact our lives are made by others, without our consent. Those others benefit, and we bear the costs. Republics ultimately become oligarchies.

3. The fabulous prosperity produced in the democratic era has engendered a technological boom, raising productivity and standards of living in ways our ancestors could scarcely imagine. Unfortunately, in the hands of the psychopaths and paranoiacs who inhabit every modern government, technology dramatically increases the means by which we can be oppressed, controlled, monitored, and exploited.

We are part of a movement of people who have come to understand that these problems (and a host of others previously discussed) are simply not solvable within the existing system. Without respect for human consent, anything we come up with will just be a variation on an oppressive theme.

As such, we must evolve to the next level—to HumanGovernance 3.0, if you will.

Today, the first seeds of that evolution are being sown. Only a scattering of efforts dot the landscape now, but more are being planted every day.

The best way to understand this landscape is to taxonomize it.

Since involuntary governments are what we must escape, and since they are also the biggest impediments to that escape, this taxonomy must include categories involving the relationship of each effort to existing governments.

Our top-level category must thus focus on where the effort is taking place in relationship to existing states.

Our other major metrics must include the degree of independence the effort has achieved, the methods the effort is employing in pursuit of that independence, and the reaction of existing governments to the effort in question.

It sounds complicated at first, but it gets easier with increased familiarity. To aid in that familiarization process, here is a taxonomic chart:

As you can see, the first category (out/in) is shown at the top. Is the effort seeking to create a territorial polity somewhere outside the jurisdiction of any state, or trying to carve something out from within the territorial boundaries of an existing state?

We cannot spend too much time on this topic. However, as Thaddeus Sholto says in The Sign of Four (to continue with the Sherlock Holmes theme), “It must take some time,” for we have to illuminate the complexities of this landscape before we can understand our place in it.

To that end, we will begin with the former: efforts to form new polities and habitations in areas unclaimed by any state.

Unclaimed territory

Land

Very few such pieces of land exist. Of these, two are quite inhospitable: a landlocked strip of desert between Egypt and Sudan, and a portion of Antarctica.

A third—a disputed strip along the Danube between Serbia and Croatia—has been proclaimed by Czech politician Vít Jedlička to be a new micronation called Liberland. The neighboring states (governments being ever the jealous mistress) have not taken especially kindly to this proclamation…though thus far, they have not declared outright war on the fledgling polity.

In truth, Liberland is currently more virtual than territorial, but do not mock it: it is an early challenge to the state’s arrogation of dominion over every square inch of Earth. States need to be told, and then shown repeatedly, that they do not have any legitimate right to act as superior landlord over the life and property of every human who draws breath on this planet.

We need such more such challenges, not fewer.

As you can see in the chart, terra nullius overlaps two categories. Most such efforts will pursue full independence, but (in the early going, at least) their status and independence is likely to be challenged by existing states.

Governments know where their bread is buttered. They have to maintain their status as involuntary authorities because as soon competition begins to arise and people can choose their provider of governance services, existing governments are finished. The rise of consentism will destroy their monopoly of power and exploitation, and they know it.

Sea

From the tiny strips of terra nullius we move to a much larger frontier: earth’s oceans, the vast majority of which are considered “international waters.”

In truth, much of the oceans are quite inhospitable too—too deep or stormy for habitation. But the shallower, calmer doldrums near the equator do offer a much brighter prospect for larger-scale settlement, and entities such as the Seasteading Institute are looking to open this new frontier.

The first attempted seastead—a single-family platform near Thailand—met with an unfortunate fate at the hands of the Thai Navy, despite the fact that they were in international waters. (Again, governments are a wicked and jealous beast.) But here too, we must salute them, not mock them or blackpill any such efforts. Pioneers are often ridiculed until they succeed, whereupon they are hailed as heroes. Let us not be like the callow mob who mock the man in the arena.

Until space exploration and exocolonies become feasible, Earth’s oceans provide the best opportunity to form new polities and habitations in areas unclaimed by any state.

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Unfortunately, there is very little unclaimed land, and there are expenses and complications associated with life on the ocean. Seasteading efforts will continue, of course, and there will one day be an archipelago of ocean cities and habitations!

But for those who do not wish to wait, or who do not wish to live at sea, we are forced to turn to the areas currently controlled by the very people and institutions we are trying to escape…

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