If Things Were to Melt Down, How Would We Protect Each Other?

Building units of TRUST (DN 3.5)

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 | 2.2 | 2.3 | 2.4 | 2.5 | 2.6 | 2.7 | 2.8 | 2.9 | 2.10 I 2.11 | 2.12 | 2.13 | 2.14 | 2.15 | 2.16 | 2.17 | 2.XX | 2.18 | 2.19 | 2.20 | 2.21 | | Where: 3.0 | 3.1 | 3.2 | 3.3 | 3.4 | 3.5

Chapter 3.5
Organizational units, 3

We have proposed the House as our base unit of organization: sovereign individuals or families in their sovereign spaces. What comes next? Do we want to establish a system of larger units, allow such units to unfold organically, or some combination of both of those approaches?

Plenty of possibilities already exist…

There are units based on habitation:

• street

• neighborhood

• village/town/city

• area

• region

• continent

There are the units imposed by governments. In America, for example, this would be something like

• precinct

• ward

• village/town/city

• county (parish/borough/etc.)

• congressional district

• state

There are ancient units, such as the hides, hundreds, and shires of England. No doubt there are many other clever systems of organization found around the world.

There are, of course, the family-based units about which we’ve already spoken: immediate and nuclear families, and the various types of clans, tribes, and chiefdoms that have developed in different places, at different times.

There are purely physiographic designations: the people who live by the woods…on the ridge…near the meadow, etc. Many of our surnames are derived from such geographic locations.

There are regimented mathematical ways to organize too. For example, units could be decimalized, with ten houses making a hundred, ten hundreds making a thousand, etc.

Needless to say, such decisions are “problems” we want to have. If we have grown to the point where we are able to organize in any such way, we are doing well indeed.

The Lessons of Covid

While we might not wish to impose, ex ante, a totalizing system, we can at least consider some possibilities. One of the best ways to do that is to try to war-game some real-world scenarios. For this illustration, let us look at the years 2020-2022.

The covid years…

A totalitarian response to a manufactured disease. A poison vaccine. A statistically impossible series of chemical spills, train derailments, and attacks on food processing facilities. Orwellian levels of propaganda and blatant denial. Being told we see five lights when there are, in fact, only four.

I have a low normalcy bias (I expect things to get weird), and all of this was a shock even to me. It also changed me, as I know it changed many of you, in fundamental ways.

I am an extrovert by nature. I like people. But the general public’s reaction to covid was terrifying. Their blind compliance. Their bland acceptance of obvious falsehoods. The self-important way they deputized themselves as enforcers of the regime. The way they proved, at every turn, that Asch and Milgram really were onto something.

All of it taught me a harsh lesson: Not only are government officials and enforcers a threat, but the people around me are too. The blithe patriotism with which I had long comforted myself—that the “antibodies of liberty” run through my fellow Americans’ veins—turned out to be a bunch of insipid pablum. Arguably there are more Americans ready to stand up for their freedom than in other, more captive populations. But it still wasn’t enough.

I did what I could. I set an example whenever possible. I spoke to people. I exhorted groups of complete strangers to wake the hell up. I walked around Walmart wondering why I was the only person out of 200 with the courage to show my face. By mid 2021, I perceived that at least 30 percent of those around me knew that masking was a bunch of horse crap. But they all wore their face coverings anyway. They let me die alone on that hill.

The message? Only trust those whom you know you can trust.

It was at this point that I began to contemplate various scenarios. What if things get worse? Whom can I actually trust if things go further south. My family (my house), of course. But who else?

As it happens, we are blessed to have excellent neighbors on both sides. We have raucous yard parties during the summer, and other gatherings throughout the year. Our neighbors to the north invited us to their wedding after having known us for only a short time. They are all good, solid people.

We are also largely on the same page regarding politics, covid, and the like. They’re not full-blown ancaps—that would be too much to hope—but close enough. If things were to melt down, I would trust them to do the right thing.

Though the exact moment that I realized that I had become an anarchist/voluntaryist was sudden, the mental preparatory period from minarchist to anarchist did last some time, and, not entirely coincidentally, it mostly overlapped with the covid years. As such, I began having an “intrusive thought,” as it’s called in memes:

If things melt down, the first thing I am going to do is go to my neighbors and suggest that we start our own mini ‘country.’

We trust each other. We’ll have each other’s backs. We already live by natural law, vis-à-vis one another. The rest of the country is growing nuttier by the day, so it makes sense to form our own thing.

Then I thought about the other hundred or so houses in our neighborhood. Whom do I know among them? Whom would I trust? Maybe they might want to be a part of that ‘country’ too.

Needless to say, this is not a common thought people have. We have grown to believe that the state is all-powerful and inescapable, and that our very identities as people are wrapped up in it. “God, Family, Country” is a phrase often heard among the patriotic people with whom I had for so long made common cause. What sort of weirdo sees trouble and thinks, “I should start my own country”?

This weirdo, obviously. And, based on your comments and support, many of you are right there too.

As you no doubt perceive, these thoughts were part of the mental pathway that led ultimately to the concept of the distributed nation. First I thought of creating a tiny ‘country,’ just three houses big. Then I thought about which neighbors might wish to be a part of it…distributed throughout the neighborhood though they may be.

Local, Nano, Tribe, Team…

Though I have since expanded the concept from the neighborhood to the world, the core of the idea is the same: People, wherever they are, choosing to ally based on shared principles. People who want to be free. People who can help each other in times of need. People who will nurture a sense of fellow feeling and chosen community based on these shared values.

It all makes so much sense, when you think about it…

You trust your family.

You trust your friends.

You must absolutely deal fairly with all the other people in the world whom you encounter—in the community and wider economic market. But you certainly don’t trust every single one of them to do the same. So why should your personal community include people you don’t trust? Why must your circle be forced on you by accidents of geography? Why can’t you choose?

• Why would I want to be in a polity with the bitter, obese, quintuple-vaccinated guy with the “In this house, we believe…” sign on his front yard?

• Why should I have to be in a polity with people who want to take my children away from me, force me to wear a trackable badge, or put me in a literal concentration camp?¹

• Why should I make common cause with a regime-compliant law-and-order type (a cop or someone in the military) who is also a passionate Kamala Harris voter? When full-blown totalitarianism comes to town and the new Stasi is recruiting, who signs up first? THAT GUY.

Your house—you, your family, your property—comes first. It is a lot harder, however, to be friendless and alone. The support of a local group of trusted friends and allies is essential, especially in difficult circumstances.

But those friends and allies cannot be anyone or everyone. You must be able to choose.

When I consider a possible organizing unit larger than the house, it is this sort of local group to which my mind first travels. A few houses, in a local area, who deem themselves to be part of such a unit. A “team” of sorts.

Based on natural patterns and the exigencies of life, this sort of unit makes a lot of sense. It is the most likely unit to form organically.

But what to call it? A team? A nano-polity (or nano, for short)? A distributed neighborhood? Nah, that’s too long. A tribe? A local? (Is that too associated with unions? Does that matter?)

In truth, while I have given the concept a fair amount of thought, I have not devoted much effort to naming it. So I am open to suggestions.

The concept itself makes perfect sense, however. In exigent circumstances, you would not turn to everyone. You would find and form a small circle of trust among people nearby.

And after 2020–2022, exigent circumstances always seem like they might be right around the corner.

---

1. If you think there is “zero” difference between Republicans and Democrats, read these crosstabs. Half of Democrats want to do very, very bad things to you. I know that some of you dislike partisanship, and as a voluntaryist, I am supposed to have equal disdain for “both sides.” But data are data: If you encounter two Democrats and ask them both if they would put you into a concentration camp, they will both insist that they would not. But statistically, one of them is lying.