how do you start the conversation?

[powder]

I would like to know how you initiate the freedom/anarchy/volunteerism/NAP discussion with the statists in your life.  How do you bring it up?  When?  Why?  In what context?  For what purpose?  

 

how has it gone in general, what were some of the outcomes?  

 

what advise would you give based on your experiences?

 

I have had the debate with one friend and it went OK, he did have a remarkably emotional reaction to a rational discussion of the ethics involved and he had trouble getting past the 'but how?"  "what about the roads?" stuff.  I like to stay focused on the ethical, 'against me' side of it like Larken Rose advocates, and Stef too.  

 

thanks for your input

 

[Pepin]

I find it is best to do it slowly with people you are unsure of. Have conversations about other intellectual subjects, such as science and various hobbies, and mix in some safe political subjects. By safe, I mean stuff like the drug war, wars in general, and obvious ethical matters. This is to get an idea of the person's reasoning ability and an idea about their beliefs. If you find that they do not make much sense in simple matters, or hold beliefs without understanding, it is best to avoid getting into deep conversation.

 

If I do it slowly, I tend to not use labels to describe my beliefs, yet simply let implications set in. Though I never talked about anarchism or hinted at it strongly, a friend of mine understood that I was an anarchist. Eventually I told him, and he was like "yeah, I kind of already knew".

 

With this method, consistency in your beliefs and how you present them is vital. I want people to get the impression that there is a well connected underlying system of reason and evidence behind all of the philosophical thoughts I express, and that I am not just pulling floating concepts out of the air.

 

I've found that there are certain people where you just know you can be open about your beliefs without worry. I've met someone who I almost instantly knew was an atheist and anarchist. My current girlfriend is someone who on the first night I met her, I began to have conversations about atheism and other fun subjects.

[powder]

thanks Pepin, that is good stuff. 

[meta]

I aslo like to avoid labels.Nowadays my angle of attack is money. But my strategy often changes.Talking about general stuff, taxes, war, unemployement, i drift slowly into the importance of economics, and money as blood of the society.From there I talk about the fallacy of traditionnal banking and the debt (because "the debt" is becoming something people hear about but don't understand, even seeing it as necessary).

And then implying that open-source, free individual initiatives is better than centralised (taking an exemple of Bitcoin such as can be seen in 'Bitcoin in Uganda' on yt)

 

I guess it depends of how receptive is the person. Being subtle and subversive can work with some people, reasonning will work with other people. And others are so agressive that I need to be agressive to.It is a bit like boxing for me, adaptating to the opponent style.gentle and technical, or blitz mode, and everything in between.