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How does a free society defend itself? I differentiate between nascent and established free societies. A 'free society' is an anarchic polity based on the consistent principles of sovereignty ('self-ownership'), property rights and the NAP. Could a free society effectively defend itself against a state? I personally think an established (i.e. second or third generation plus) free society would crush any state aggressor with 'soft power' means alone (e.g. asset freezes, boycotts, cyber warfare, etc.), but I am interested in what others think on the subject. On nascent or very new anarchistic societies, I think history shows that any such society will be crushed almost on creation, such as in the Catalonian Communes and the Free Territory in Ukraine. That is why no free society can come about through military or traditional revolutionary methods alone. It requires a gradual spread of knowledge about sovereignty and active non-violent pushes towards non-state solutions to societal concerns (e.g. local currencies, voluntary cooperatives, black markets and voluntary labour exchanges, among many other methods). Apart from well-armed individuals and militias, I think any collection of professional defence companies in a free society would greatly outmatch any state armed force. I base this assertion on the context from which these companies would operate. Free societies would be far richer than any state given the lack of taxation, fines, licensing, business rates and all the panoply of state money-sucking costs. There would also be heavy investment in defence, given it is a concern now and so would also be so in a free society. Find out more on my own view at: www.clarkead.co.uk. Cheers.

My name is Saarang. I'm 24. I'm from Mumbai, India. I'm new here. I watch FDR videos from time to time. I also bought Mr. Molyneux book Practical Anarchy and I skimmed through it. I'm re-reading it now with a slower pace, but I have a historical doubt which is not covered in the book. It's about the feudal system in Medieval Europe. Is this an historical example of Anarchism? Some context first. In addition to being a fan of FDR, I'm a fan of two other people relevant in my question. First is Ayn Rand. Second is Shad M Brooks. The first person may answer your question as to why I am inquiring (though not yet accepting) topics like Anarchism. The second person has an online YouTube channel called Shadiversity on all things Medieval like Castles, Swords, Architecture, Best Medieval Weapons to fight Medieval Mythical Creatures....you get the point. He has a video on Castles and the relevance of their design to the political system prevalent in Europe i.e. feudalism. I am providing a link for that video below. It's 15 min long, but you can watch about half of it. Watch it first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6nq6nFaCWM From what I understand from this video, feudalism was a political system in which political power was not executed by a king or monarch. Instead, political power was placed in the hands of local lords or nobles who ruled a certain portion of a kingdom locally. In theory, the king or monarch then supervised these nobles and is said to have conferred his political power to these feudal lords. In practice though, these lords had a lot of autonomy (like training their own armies and making their own rules), and even had many conflicts with each other in which the king could do nothing. And most people in Europe lived their daily lives under the protection of such feudal lords, also with some degree of autonomy or indirect freedom. Now, why am I saying that this system is the same as Anarchism? For that I must first, as is Objectivist tradition, begin by defining my basic concepts. Specifically, the concepts of "Ethics", "Politics" & "Economics". Ethics or Morality is the study of determining what Values and/or Goals one should pursue in life. Economics is the study of incentives i.e. given one knows what Goals or Values to aim, how to best provide incentive to other people (as well as yourself) in achieving those goals? Politics, according to me, is the concept bridging Ethics & Economics. On one hand, one can think of it as the economics of the use of physical force to achieve certain moral values. On the other hand, one can also think of it as the study of how to arrive in agreement socially on a certain moral value or goal, before one figures out how to achieve that goal. Now, systems like Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, etc. are informally referred to as Political Systems. But technically they are economic (or politico-economic) systems, not political systems i.e. they are incentive systems for people to follow in order to achieve certain political values. The political system may be referred as Libertarianism, Social Democracy, Totalitarianism, etc. Now on such a framework, Anarchism is an economic or an incentive system. Politically, it is a how not a what. And as an incentive system, it advocates a decentralized (and somewhat voluntary) group of organizations which perform the function of a government locally with little use of force. This is structurally really, really similar to feudalism. Now I can think of two objections which you might make: 1. A feudal lord is not quite the same as a Dispute Resolution Agency (DRO): This is true. As I understand, the structure of a DRO is similar to an insurance company and nothing like that of a feudal lord, who often ruled by inheritance and almost certainly with force. (A closer medieval analogy would be the Church ex-communicating people convicted of crimes.) But in one sense, the function or intent of a feudal lord (for the most part) can certainly be described as "resolving local disputes". And even though there were many battles and wars in the Medieval period, they didn't fight all the time! There were long peaceful times which were ruled by these feudal lords (though not as peaceful compared to modern standards). So perhaps I am stretching the concept of Anarchism here. It may not be Mr. Molyneux's version of Anarchism, but perhaps a version of Anarchism. 2. The feudal system wasn't created to protect freedom or individual rights: Again, this is also true. But remember how we defined our concepts here. Anarchism, as I understand the concept, is an incentive system. Mr. Molyneux version of his Moral-Political-Economic system may best be described as Libertarian Anarchism i.e. his moral-political views of Liberty dictate the necessity of Anarchy as an incentive system. In early Medieval Europe, most feudal systems were necessitated by a lack of available resources i.e. most people in a kingdom simply didn't have the resources to have large governments or monarchies like those of Rome before. And they knew they needed some form of organization performing the function of a government. So, a (somewhat secular) decentralized system of mini-kings or lords was what they came up with. And at least in their early years, most people living under feudalism had some sort of autonomy in their private lives. So it may called at best as a non-moral application of Anarchism. In later decades and centuries, the political ideas of monarchy (and Christianity) abolished the early feudal system to a structure more akin to absolute monarchies. But, according to me, early Medieval feudal system was an instance of Anarchism. If my identification is correct, then one can say some good (and possibly some bad) things about Anarchism. What do you think?

]Metpaoltical work...fr members here about convicne others ab Question about the community W the possibiltiy of a small mocment ith Family members.... They tend to not be very brithg with regards to of laws.... They woudl have been basically RINOs had and his brother telling them to vote for Trump last year (I am using the term year a bit losley thoug... 1 year and three or so months ) A way to help people (and by this I mean only loved ones, friends, and itnitmate, not strangers) realize that the "elephant" of Law has no clothes (white elephant, elephant in the room, emperor with no clothes... I mixd them all together apparently) People who live their live honestly believing for because they don't know any better... .. The legalism is written too deeply into their to see the freedom Ala the "Philosophy of Freedom", minus all of his Insane New-Age woo Garbage. they are only interest in the benefit towards their own group... Of a PSubset of Libertartianism..... I hav ebeen trying to contact distant Friends as well as former contacts of a certain organization, abotu the psosibiltiy. I fear that their may make them immune to .......the others tend to be insanely liberla about many thigns, but they sense abo

Fairly simple question. I've been steadily learning about free societies since I got into Stef. One debate I listened to with him featured an opponent who argued that: (A) Insurance companies are seemingly capable of great evil, so why would we put so much trust in them? (B) We aren't a connected enough society for economic ostracism to work. (A) seems fairly straightforward. In a free society, competition would basically keep insurance companies in line. As soon as one started acting shadily, you could jump to another one with more honest practices. I'm guessing we would see something like Yelp on steroids. (B) is more interesting. (Maybe it's my memory, and please tell me if it is) In the research I've done so far, I haven't heard a strong proposal on how this would be dealt with. My instinct is that everybody must be in a universal database. When a person violates the NAP, and refuses to play nice with a DRO, they get a flag like "Didn't keep his contract, owes ACME landscaping company $300," or "This man is accused of murder, click here to discuss and vote for his guilt or innocence in the case forum." Hell, I'm on board already. Funny anarchy is still better than statism. #snowcrash But hey, huge databases with the power to assassinate our characters, isn't that kind of asking for the maintainer of said data to abuse that power? I'm probably being incredibly short-sighted here. Feel free to respond with a copypasta about combine harvesters and ancient tree juice.

This book is a hybrid between a manifesto and a memoir of this young Texan who invented the 3D printed gun. I liked this book because it really lays bare the unique American philosophy, this review will comment on that philosophy and make it concrete in context of a politically tectonic level recent event, the site of which I'm not far from at the moment. America is the one country wherein citizens are obligated to overthrow the government if it gets too out of hand. Every other country is set up to protect the cartel of the powerful elite. America is unique in that our constitution provides... A concrete legal protection of a citizen’s right to violently abolish the law. The author Cody Wilson feels this experiment of a philosophically rigorous country is flat lined and needs to be re-animated The best I could say then was that America was a failed but worthwhile experiment. A miracle from the finest moment of liberal thought. Proof that foolish political experiments, be they compound republics or plastic guns, still had their fruits in the animating contest of liberty. Cody has significant disdain for politicians that would constrict our rights The force of her famous distemper for the popular ownership of arms seemed matched only by her muscular defense of our warfare-surveillance state. Cody's way of fighting back against that is to publish... Universal access to arms. ...in the same way that way open source software publishers distribute their products. Power can no longer be centralized in a world empowered by the Internet. He writes that the greatest mistake [the United States Government] ever made: not licensing the personal computer!” On Dangerous Freedom At the heart of the American philosophy we embrace a dangerous degree of freedom. We especially believe in freedom of speech to an extreme degree; America is the one country that allows Draw Muhammad contests, Neo-Nazi rallies, God Hates Fags preachers and art exhibits of cannibalism and crucifixes submerged in urine, we produce the most depraved porn and snuff films. All just a few clicks away from you now. So Cody asked... What if guns were becoming speech? And then instead of asking for permission he made it so by publishing and releasing to the Internet (that never forgets) the CAD files to 3D print firearms. Science fiction coming soon to a garage near you. “It’s like stealing something from the future. Something that’s not yet supposed to be here.” On Bitcoin The digital currency is - unsurprisingly - mentioned frequently Taaki was hoping to do with currency what I believed was possible with weapons— namely, to place them outside state structures. It would be terrible if bitcoiners were to just sleepwalk into letting the bureaucrats license their firms and activities. My favorite line of the book is And any man worth knowing is a man at war with himself. I think I first saw this guy in a viral Vice documentary; the first thing that really struck me about him is his extraordinary verbal ability. Politicians, TV personalities, professional commentators, pick up artists and sales people take public speaking and improv classes for years to become as verbally dexterous as this guy is. As a truly talented political pontificator he ranks up there with some of my favorite podcasters like Sam Harris, Stefan Molynuex or Gad Saad. It's remarkable that given the amount of money this guy could be making with his million dollar mouthpiece he has chosen the business he is in. Checkout this ReasonTV interview. Time will tell if this guy is too rebellious for his own good; I hope he doesn't end up in jail. However; the very fact that someone can do something as disruptive as release to the world downloadable guns is a reassuring sign that perhaps the American experiment with freedom yet draws breath. How the Printed Gun may change Revolutions The other night I watched this incredibly compelling Netflix documentary about the Maidan Revolution in Kiev, Ukraine. The film viscerally portrays the violence of the state. As I watched it in my flat in Kiev not that far from the stately European sites which were transformed into war zones in the events shown in the film I kept thinking how the prospect of printed guns could have radically changed how the Maidan revolution played out. In Winter on Fire the image that you'll see over and over again is of a bunch of government thugs in riot gear beating up protesters. I lived in the Ukraine and I have heard a bunch of different perspectives on the Maidan revolution. I know it's a complicated event that I would do a real disservice to if I tried to meta analyze it but just imagine how much shorter it could have been if Cody's guns were available to the revolutionaries... Just imagine how many lives could have been saved if the government thugs feared their adversaries... How much violence could have been avoided if the protesters could have brought something more menacing than rocks and sticks to a rubber bullet and steel baton fight? In my mind a printed gun or a multiplicity of them is much more powerful as a psychological weapon than it is.practically. Tactically I just can't imagine it being that much more dangerous as a weapon than a knife (or a truck!); nobody is going to slay dozens of victims in a mass murder spree in a mall or school with this thing. The hordes of hundreds of government thugs wouldn't have been nearly so aggressive if they knew there was a chance of being shot back at. Battling a crowd throwing rocks and sticks while fully armored in riot gear is probably just a little more risky than playing football with friends after a few beers and - let's be honest - probably a lot of fun! But what if one out of every hundred protesters had a gun? Even a crappy gun; it becomes an infinitely less appealing activity. How many of the riot cops would have transformed from cruel brawlers into assertive yet courteous peace keepers? How many of them would have flat refused to participate? The film is a 90 minute crescendo of escalation of force. A small group college students start to protest. Some riot police beat them up. A social media outrage ensues. Thousands rally to protest the police beatings of peaceful protesters. Some angry people advance on government buildings to protest. Larger scale melees occur with the police. The outrage grows and the protest becomes a revolution. The protesters organize a militia that can more capably combat the riot police. The government resorts to bringing in military professionals; snipers begin using real bullets to kill protesters on the front lines of the stand off. The revolutionary leader gives the President an ultimatum and the militia members promise to lay down their lives. Finally, given the prospect of presiding over a true massacre, the Ukrainian President resigns and hides. If the government faced a pervasive lethal threat amongst the protesters would they have had to be more reasonable at any early stage of the Maidan revolution? Would have so much blood ran on the icy streets of Kiev in 2014? I suspect not. If only I sold time travel devices instead of smart drugs I could make a bloody fortune by selling one to the dictator in the 2020's who is about to be overthrown by revolutionaries wielding plastic guns. Just imagine what such a dictator would pay to have Cody Wilson assassinated in 2013 before he opened this Pandora's box... Now that guns can be printed every despotic government around the world has a real reason to think twice about abusing their own citizenry.

The main question is this: How can an anarchist society flourish (or even survive) surrounded by statist societies? The main reason I bring this up is because the only two things I see a government capable of doing right at least most of the time are national defense and law enforcement. While I can conceive of more localized law enforcement under an anarcho-capitalist society much like of Stef's vision, I simply cannot see how such a society would remain free so long as "enslaved" (I will use to Greek definition of liberty: free from rule) societies remain. If America were the site of a free society, the main obstacle would be a heavily militaristic and morally relativistic Mexico. Should Mexico actually transform from a crime infested hell to some kind of nation state, I would say Mexico would probably repeat old history an attempt to invade America, at least to reclaim their old territories and gain some more as a bargain. If there is no standing army in this hypothetical on the part of the Americans, then the Americans would be doomed to fail as history does not favor a mass of localized militias (I assume militias would act as armies in times of need in an anarchist society) without central authority or military discipline. I use America as my prime example mainly because I am American and feasibly the only statist society that might invade for *inset reason here* is Mexico, whereas in Europe the political dynamic would be a bit byzantine in that essentially every European country has historically been under pressure to be the local hegemonist or be conquered by another hegemonist. In America I see a free society being the most feasible as the only historically militaristic society liable to invade that could not be handled by a couple of cities' militia would be Mexico. My own answer to this problem, which I will subject to change if you guys can give me the arguments, is something like this: We need states so long as states exist, therefore states will always exist unless one state conquers every other state and disbands itself (by state I mean government, not a Germanic province). As a side question: has Stef written a book on what his vision of anarcho-capitalism might be? If so please give me a name so I can read/listen and give myself a better picture on what anarcho-capitalism applied might look like.

A handful of friends and family work in mental health professions. They're almost unanimous in the idea that the public mental hospitals in the United States were better than what we have now. (Private care and homelessness AFAIK) Are there examples of private mental health care in the real world? Are there theories on how this can work in a libertarian society? I was not able to find anything but criticisms and research that tries to justify tax-propped systems.

The difference between the state and a voluntary organization is that the state is, of course, not voluntary in the least. So how is any of these anarcho-somethings different from each other, if it's all supposed to be voluntary? You can organize syndicalistic in an ancap society and, if you were to use force to create syndicalism, you'd have a state again. Am I wrong? Is there something more to it?

Man is this election cycle interesting and sort of exciting. Now, don't get me wrong...I'm an anarcho capitalist so this changes none of that but I enjoy observing and interacting with the statist to try to get them to think amongst the chaos. I have actually succeeded in not only getting through to some to get them to actually listen (maybe not agree but have a pleasant convo) but I had a few of them actually step out of the statist indulegence of political advocacy and at least peak behind the door of anarcho-capitalism. I rarely reveal my 'persuasion' unless they ask me directly. I keep it ambiguous and simply stick to the mental exercises to snap them out of the rhetoric. I will share some of my tactics. And I go in with low or reasonable expectations. I don't expect them to go from statist to non statist by the end of the conversation. I go in hoping to give them pause, thought and insight that will hopefully carry with them and be a beacon in their brain even after the fuss of elections that will draw them towards their path to find their answers....which of course I hope will be anarcho-caplitalism or 'worst case' libertariansim. And this was mostly with Bernie supporters! Here's how I did it, this is my general forumula: Bernie supporter: I don't support him because of the free stuff.... (we've all heard this one) Me: So you voted for Ron Paul in 2012? Bernie Supporter: No, why? Me: He was basically Bernie without free stuff.. Bernie Supporter: ..... oh Me: Yeah, it's best to not look at which party line these people choose to run on because of the Commission of Presidential Debates. BS: the what? Me: The Commision of Presidential Debates, it's common knowledge for those who follow actual anti-establishment candidates as they have been known to expose this outright or at least the symptoms of it. Look it up and make your own judgment but it's the reason why Donald Trump, or your guy Bernie Sanders is even running on main party tickets and don't really have the 'freedom' to run as a third party, so it's odd that Bernie doesn't point that out and Trump actually has, Ron Paul has, Ralph Nader has. You can see how they treat people who expose this and Trump is actually getting further than any of the others, which is incredible and will expose the level to which the establishment will go to try to shut him down or steer people away from him. BS: I'll look into it. Me: yes. Look...I don't agree with B.S. but I wish he could run in whatever party he seems fits his platform the best. I loath the 2 party monopoly and I would rather work together with all the voters on this issue than bet on the horse-race. Exposing this would liberate voters from the 2 party monopoly and liberate future candidates so they can run on any party ticket they want without being blocked from media and getting their message out and they can speak as frankly and be their genuine selves without having to be P.C. all the time. BS: Makes sense. Another approach: BS: Free college....help the poor....bla bla bla...I'm donating to BS Now! Let's do this! Activate your friends...get them to donate, buy merch.! Me: Wow, that's incredible how much effort, time and resource such as your money or expertise and energy to rally people to voluntarily give their money to a man for a cause you believe in. BS: Yes....we really believe he's the one to finally...bla bla bla Me: Great. Tell me, have you ever put this much effort in actually helping a poor person or the poor or needy in general? BS: ............avoids question completely. Me: I mean I look at Bernie. He has a lot of interesting things to say, he's seems like a nice and likable guy, he knows how to rally young people, he cares about the disenfranchised and you guys are willing to help him in this cause and you work together, voluntarily to raise him hundreds of millions of dollars! That's incredible! BS: It really is. I mean when you care about these issues you do whatever.... bla bla bla Me: I get it. I guess my only question is, how many poor people could this effort to raise his hundreds of millions actually help if it was given to them or given to the proper organizations directly? How many studen loans could this campaign money pay off? How many private school tuitions for poor kids could this pay for? How many medical bills could this pay off for people? BS: ..........How much time do you put in to help the poor? Me: (gives list of my effots) BS: Well...there aren't many people like you and why we need....bla bla bla Me: But wait...there are. I mean Bernie's campaign proves how many there are and there are MORE because I don't support BS and do my share and know many others, that's the point. BS:...... Me: I just find it to be a charity with high overhead BS: what do you mean? Me: Well you put in all this time and effort and get everyone involved to raise a LOAD of cash for the guy you want to solve the inequality problem. Then you hope he wins the nomination and dump more money into his campaign. Then you hope he wins the election and dump more money into the campaign. Then once he's president you hope Congress will pass his policies and if he does, it's been several hundreds of millions and then they need to tax everyone to make this plan work when he had people willing to VOLUNTARILY work and donate to help poor people but refused to open a charity with the guy or use this momentum to actually go out and do it. Every month that he brings in tens of millions and it doesn't go to poor people or uneducated people is another day of hypocricy. BS: I..... I mean.... yeah but.... I don't even know what to say. Me: Me neither. Ther eis no reason you and all of his supporters can't do this as an actual charity rather than (and this applies to all campaigns) go out and use the same effort and cooperation and volunterrism to solve the issues you find most important. But you are rallying for political power and force to help when you already prove the voluntarism WORKS, otherwise the guy wouldn't have a dime to his campaign. BS: ......... stunned silent. Me: If you have more to respond later once this sinks in, i'm available to listen but never forget how well voluntarism has helped you help him to help the poor...but it's a WHOLE lot of overhad and risk that has no or little guarantee when you could just simply....help the poor. And another one: Me: How will we pay for all of Bernie's plans? BS: Wallstreet, taxes and future generations. Me: Having the future pay for it doesn't bother you? BS: No, why should it. that's very common thing and guarantees we can get what we need and what' sbest...bla bla bla Me: Well, then you are simply enslaving the children. Could you look a child in the eye and at least explain to them the implications and ask their permission before you sell their future wealth? BS: oh that's ridiculous. Me: I know, so you are taking without asking or you couldn't live with yourself to have to face them in the eye while you take their future wealth knowing they have no idea what's going on or the implications. Me: tell me, do you enjoy now having to pay for past decisions that use your tax dollars today but you receive no benefits for? BS: Huh? ME: Well, most of the income tax goes to interest on borrowed money and this is for things that were voted on when you and I were too young or not even born yet and certainly couldn't vote on. Those benefits have been used up, are not available for you and me and we are still paying for them. And you are sitting here complaining that our generation is out of money or it's unevenly distributed and we have no benefits or not enough. Don't you see the problem you are repeating? BS: yea but the money is spent anyway so what does it matter ME: that we can have some moral, ethical integrity and disciple to at least be the generation that stopped this cycle. Our elders sold our future and we feel now what that is like and you have no problem doing the same to the future? Are you giving any guarantee that they future who will be held to pay for this will have anything left for them or how long do you want this cycle to go on? BS: I guess I can see how paying for the past decisions I wasn't a part of didn't work well for this generation. Me: Exactly and if you have kids or think of having kids, this is the exact posiiton or feeling you will be heiring to them. Now you call yourself moral and good and altruistic. Do you think our elders were moral and good and altruisitc when they made these decisions for you to pay for? BS: absolutely not. Me: ok. so you can feel moral and good now but when your children grow up, they will see you as freeloading jerks as we see our elders. Bs: yea...I guess that's true. Sometimes I ask if they think money is private property. Typically...as leftists do...they ask me WHY I'm asking. That is so they can scan and try to sniff out any advantage and wiggle and move the goal posts. But I just ask them again until they leave the conversation or answer me. of course it always ends with them realizing that taxation is theft. Doesn't mean they will instantly switch to libertarianism or anarcho-capitalism but at least they have come to terms with taxation is theft. ...always a good start.

It seems the latest Marvel movie is dealing with issues around the moral legitimacy of government. This was also to a certain degree a subject of the previous Captain America movie "The winter soldier" and it appears to be in the upcoming Batman/Superman movie. But in Civil War, Captain America questions the government's legal right to put limits on him altogether. This would technically make him an anarchist. It might be a good idea to use this movie to illustrate anarchist concepts to people. It could help open a few more minds. Might as well use these silly movies for something other than entertainment.

The Goal: Anarcho-Capitalism is the goal to move the moral compass of society to accept the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) universally as part of its moral canon - to create a society which rejects any and all digressions from the NAP. The Implications: This goal would remove all pragmatic “what if” scenarios from our radar and no longer distract anarcho-capitalists from our essential philosophic truth - the evil involved in the initiation of force. Our goal is to abolish the acceptable practice of initiating force against others from the tool box of human action for moral individuals. Just like the goal of abolitionists was to convince society that slavery was not acceptable moral behavior, and any “what if” scenario about a future big business enacting slavery would be irrelevant to this goal (since it would be - and now is - established that this would be unacceptable behavior), our goal would allow us to focus on the essentials. Convincing others they don't have the right to, or enable, the initiation of force against others is the battle - all the rest are details. Details are for later - morality is for for the present. Let us not focus on the ends of how an anarchist society would function, but first convince others of the universal morality of the NAP. The resultant society will impose the details, necessarily.

Hello Id like to introduce you to my blog Denandraresan.com. It means "the second trip", which for me is the second life after I was reborn after I had children. After my first childs birth I came to realize that everything I was taught was plain wrong. I set off on a journey to take a different path to follow what felt right and what was also empirically right. In order to do that we also set off on a real journey and are since almost 8 months a travelling digital nomad family that have never been as free as we are now being homeless and countryless. We lived in Sweden which is what I would call it a surreptitious communist country. I have until I had children not really thought so but after I had children and I noticed how the other parents did with their children (in form of socially accepted forms of abuse and mistreatments of their children) and how they blindly just did what the state asked them to do instead of actually caring for their children I realised that I was not like them. As our children grew we also came to realize that there is forced schooling in sweden and that the state programme for the schools apply to ALL schools even when they call themselves free schools. Homeschooling and democratic and real montessori schools is banned. We had taught our eldest son to read when he was one (which was fun and easy with glenn domans flash card method) so when we looked at the schools we found out that he would have to learn the alphabet when he was 7 and that there were no exceptions. The school plan is also really creepy..the children learn that there is only one way (the state) and how great it is..and doesnt learn to actually question things. My husband arranged a meeting with the local council to find out if there could be an exception for our children...also as we travel a lot in our work. We found that both there are no exceptions and that we wouldnt be able to do our work as they had to go to school. Shortly after the meeting we had a huge tax investigation (which i dont think is a coincident at all).. the swedish tax authorities wanted 4 years of our tax from our british company which is based in UK and all our business is done there and not in Sweden, so we argued but didnt win. They gave us 10 days to pay a huge bill. We appealed so we could ask UK for the tax money back. They didnt give us more time. We almost lost our house on this. We managed to sell it and get the money for it 3 DAYS before the last payment date. We sold the house and nearly all our belongings, and got rid of all ties to Sweden. We are now enjoying a new kind of minimalistic life travelling the world with our children. Never have we felt as free as we are now. Hope you enjoy having a look at my blog www.denandraresan.com. It is mostly in Swedish, and for those there is a good translation button on the top right side.

Today I saw a meme which depicted a mass of people on the left with Tshirts that read 'I voted' and on the right a mass of people with blank Tshirts. The caption above the mass of people on the right "We didn't vote because it doesn't make a difference." Obviously the message portrayed is that had those on the right joined in the vote, it would have made the voting mass bigger/stronger, etc. the 2012 election was my last election that I voted in and after the results I made the conscious decision to no longer vote but I have always had trouble make the argument against voting in a concise way. Besides the obvious corruption in the voting system that many fail to WANT to see, I simply feel that why do I need to vote just because there are choices. I used to say that if there was anyone WORTH voting for, I would but until then, I won't participate. But this flies over people's head. I think I also can't wrap my own brain around the concept at times. lol My comment to the image I described was this: ...As much of a difference can be made if the non voters all joined to vote, voters can make a difference if they join the non voters. I mean just because their are a few choices every few years doesn't mean 'difference' is always for the better. For the sake of opening our minds for a minute. If no one voted.....what would happen? Would we no longer be able to make a difference in our world/country/community/day-to-day interactions? Of course we could. And if none of the candidates at any particular time are worthy of a vote. we should do it anyway...continue settling just because we want to 'make a difference'? I appreciate if anyone has good arguments that support not-voting to help me clear up my own fog. Thanks!

no rules, no regulation, no rhythm, no wrong notes pure expression https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ-CxbnzE3CgVhhDN7xPFbUFrpGejq0ak

Just a quick question: I often hear Stef talking about "the collapse". Try as I might, I haven't figured out what he means. I've watched countless of his videos and listened to a number of broadcasts, but I'm still a little lost. Is he referring to a governmental collapse? economic? social? Thanks in advance!

Hi, I'm James and I'm in high school. I've been thinking about what I want to do as a job for quite a while now, and I felt really stupid for not thinking of posting this question sooner. I'm very interested in medicine as a whole but mostly psychology. I'm also interested in politics and making change. I really want to find a way to incorporate the majority of my interests in a career that I will enjoy (as well as profit from). I'm well aware of the impeding economic collapse based on the statistics that I've looked into. I would really appreciate any feedback regarding this. Thanks. (Also, if this is the wrong place for this topic then please let me know.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIxSeiqyGXQ

Sam Harris has published a new podcast "Ask Me Anything #1". You can find it here: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/ask-me-anything-1 The question on anarchy starts at 20 min 12 sec on the SoundCloud. When I find some time i will put the entire transcript, but here are just the pills in his style. Which makes me think, again, there are very slim chances of a debate ever between Molyneux and Harris. Here are some fragments from Sam's podcast: - "This whole business about statism, I find profoundly uninteresting, ..." - "To compare a powerful state per se with the problem of religion is just to make a hash of everything that is important to talk about here. And the idea that we can do without a powerful state at this point is just preposterous, so if you are an anarchist, you are either 50 or 100 years before your time or you are an imbecil. We need a police, we need a fire department, we need people to pave our roads, we can't privatize all this stuff, and privatizing will get us other problems, ...."

Hi everyone. Has anyone else experienced the mind-fuck that is anarcho-communism? I need some empathy before my head explodes. So lately, I've taken a strong interest into the anarcho-communist, anarcho-mutualist, libertarian socialist, etc. (leftist) world. I really wanted to consider their ideas with an open mind. After all, they claim to be anarchists, so they can't be that bad, right? WRONG! Not only are their ideas unbelievably bad in every way possible (evil, naive, unrealistic, etc.), but these are some of the most pompous people I have ever debated. They like to make posts taunting anarcho-capitalists by calling us "an"caps, as if we're supposedly not anarchists because we support "hierarchy" and "oppression" via voluntary trade. It's literally like watching a scrawny 10 year old walk up to a sumo wrestler and spit in his face. They have no idea how bad and embarrassing they look. I have directly asked many of them, and almost all support the initiation of force against peaceful property owners (such as businesses) because they're engaging in "exploitation". This worries me. Will we have to start shooting commies again? I wouldn't mind a whole lot, to be honest. I searched hard to find any merit to their ideas and found precious little if any. I can't be the only one tripping over my own incredulity here.

“Rules without rulers” is a typical anarchist rebuttal to the statist argument “there is no way anarchism could work because people are inherently bad and without government everyone would rob, rape, murder, and throw burning Molotov cocktails into store front windows”. To the “rules without rulers” argument, the statist will make some statement about “how this sounds good in principle, but in the real world there is no way to put into practice.” In other words, there is this general conception that people are generally nasty little things, and without a gun prodding their center right rib blade, they will try to get away with anything and everything. To these people, there is no concept of non-coercive mechanisms that could hold together society and keep people from “selfishly benefiting at the expense of others”. Their universe is only win lose. At this point in the conversation, I think having some good examples may help to start prying open their preconceived notions. Whatever your opinion is on tipping, I believe it one of the best examples of a rule without a ruler. In the U.S., through social normalization and general human good will, tipping 15-20 percent is considered part of the cost of dining out [1]. This is a substantial cost added to your experience, is completely voluntarily, and 99.5% of customers are reported to tip their waiter [2]. The Waitbutwhy.com article that this statistic comes from also says “If you don’t tip [waiters] you’re.... The worst” and goes onto say “Even if service sucks, never go below 15%...” This implies tipping is not even a bonus for good service, but a mandatory, not forced, part of the exchange. Furthermore, if tipping were to become a forced part of the dining experience, not tipping would be equivalent to shoplifting. Currently in the U.S., 9% of people are reported to shoplift per year [3]. This shows that an enforced rule, with the threat of the loss of freedom, fines, and a criminal record is more likely to be broken than one that is completely voluntarily and is only enforced by social normalization/ostracization. If anyone has any thoughts on this, or other examples of how “Rules without Rulers” is already being practice, it would be greatly appreciated. Even though I am usually not a pragmatist, I think being able to provide practical examples of ways anarchy is already working in society is useful in breaking through someone’s preconceived notions. Most people will never be convinced, but we are here, and as they say “the more the merrier”. http://www.tripadvisor.com http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/04/everything-dont-know-tipping.html. http://www.shopliftingprevention.org/whatnaspoffers/nrc/publiceducstats.htm

I have a friend who labels himself an anarcho-communist. He doesn't believe in private property and, one believer in a stateless society to another, asks me what would happen to all the private property if the state fell and a stateless society emerged. He asks that question because he thinks that, assuming private property can be legitimate, none of today's private property is legitimate because of government interfering with private property. The exchange of private property has, for as long as governments have existed, been interfered with by government; government has taxed and regulated private property and has indirectly affected the trade of private property through the effects of its policies (eg. government orders construction of highway -> people buy land next to highway to set up a motel). Over hundreds (eg. US) or thousands (eg. UK) of years, government has steered the exchange of private property in directions that it would not have gone without government interference. So private property today would not be owned by the same people if it weren't for the use of violence. Therefore, today's private property is all illegitimately owned. Question 1) "Therefore, today's private property is all illegitimately owned." - Do you agree? If yes, then Question 2) Once a stateless society emerges, who owns what? Do we abandon all current ownerships and collect private property in a giant free-for-all? Sorry, by "legitimate", I mean non-aggressively, morally sound etc., nothing to do with the law. Thanks, Andy

I'm currently working on a tragic novel and need some help on how best to demonstrate the virtue of the lead. To give a brief synopsis the novel is a tragedy set in modern day Paris about a sculptor, Anton Duarte, a black man from Tunisia who turns to stone. The fantastical device of turning to stone is used to demonstrate his fall from virtue and fame into lies, deceit, and madness. The idea for the motif of lies turning you into stone comes from Pinnochio's nose; but as a whole my two main inspirations are the play Othello and the novel The Picture of Dorian Grey. Tragedy to be effective as a genre must have the right structure. To use Stefan's phrase, "art is an emotional argument for virtue". Tragedy in particular shows what happens when a good person is corrupted and the work acts as a kind of warning sign "don't do this", and is empathetic to people who make mistakes and get drawn into evil deeds by showing the whole context. Othello for example, at the beginning of the play is virtuous and strong (according to Shakespeare's statist values), and it is Iago's manipulation of him into thinking his wife is having an affair that turns him mad. I'm struggling with how to demonstrate Duarte's goodness according to anarchist values in the first half. I like the idea of him being a bootstrapper, building his career as a sculptor of marble from humble origins as a plasterer at the age of 18 on on Parisian building sites. But here's the thing. I've also been playing around with the idea of making him a Muslim (does not drink, is an ascetic bachelor, prays five times a day etc.). From the viewpoint of the structure of tragedy, this would seem to say that Islam is somehow virtuous and represents truth (in counterpoint to his lies turning him into stone), yet I just can't imagine Duarte being an atheist. Anyone have any thoughts or ideas about how to demonstrate his goodness according to anarchist values before the tragic downfall? Any fans of Ayn Rand welcome! **Don't know whether this topic is in the right category but there doesn't seem to be a folder for art on the boards yet.

Here is an article published in the Irish Times 5 Sept 2014 with contribution from Gerard Casey, a libertarian philosopher. I was pleasantly surprised with it as I cannot remember seeing anything on anarchism or libertarianism in mainstream publications here before. http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/would-we-be-better-off-without-the-state-1.1909875

Principles are found in Peace.Anarchy is the ULTIMATE respect for Humanity.