0xbb5eb035…8d92sent to0xf18407c1…3156·#10,066,340·view on Etherscan
!smokesignal{"m":"### The Sovereign Individual\n\n[*The Sovereign Individual*](https://www.amazon.com/Sovereign-Individual-Mastering-Transition-Information/dp/0684832720) ([free downloads here](http://gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=sovereign+individual&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=1&column=def)) was written in 1999, but has proven remarkably prescient even 20 years later.\n\nThe authors argue that society is due for a significant restructuring, as an inevitable consequence of the advent of microprocessing. They draw many parallels between our current situation and the collapse of medieval society into the industrial revolution: as ideas of chivalry and knighthood became outmoded (triggered by technological changes like gunpowder), so too shall our current ideas of citizenship and politics rapidly become obsolete (triggered by the creation of cyberspace, the ultimate tax haven).\n\nIn both cases, the fact that such a significant societal shift strikes most *citizens* as absurd should hardly be taken as any evidence against the proposition, just as you'd be hard-pressed to find any *knight* around 1500 who would agree that chivalry was not on its way out. Ultimately, it was not up to the knights or their lords to allow society to move onto something greater. Similarly, it won't matter whether citizens and governments see a shift away from taxable jurisdictions as *acceptable*.\n\nThe authors argue that around the year 1500, technological advances shifted the politics of violence such that the democratic nation-state was the fittest cultural entity, in a darwinian sense, and thus came to dominate the world. They further argue that in the 21st century, the environment has changed again, but this time a different type of entity will be favored: **The Sovereign Individual.**\n\nThe sovereign individual has no governing body \"above\" him, and finds social cohesion not by relying on laws from such authorities, but rather by negotiating alliances, agreements, and common understanding between other sovereign entities (whether individual or collective).\n\n### Am I Sovereign?\n\nPersonally, I have begun to consider this transition as *happening* rather than *about to happen*. The corona panic has shocked us into a liminal space, and we will come out the other side into a different world than the one we left. We will begin to look at authority differently, as this panic is culturally digested.\n\nCitizens today find themselves in various forms of totalitarianism, enforced by their very neighbors. It's part of being a citizen, like welfare and taxes. The social construct called democracy seems to have unilaterally put physical health at the top of the value hierarchy, above freedom itself.\n\nI no longer want to be a citizen. The costs are coming to outweigh the benefits. I elect instead to be sovereign. To some degree I already am sovereign: I travel the world; my crypto remains untaxed; these words I write remain uncensored; and I am shopping for jurisdictions just as described in the book. Estonia looks nice.\n\nBut in many important ways, declaring myself sovereign now is like knighting myself because I've rented a good mount, I know a blacksmith who says he'll make me armor, and I know a guy who owns a sword. The mount proved undependable in any case: right when totalitarianism is getting a bit of a swagger, international flights are not an option.\n\nIn the medieval period, when one is mounted, armed, and armored, he can defeat 20 lesser men with little danger to himself. This, more than anything, is what makes him a knight, whether he uses this power for good or ill.\n\n### The Sovereign Network\n\nIt's time to begin blueprinting and assembling the analogs to the knight's equipment. We must elevate each other out from under the authority of the state, by means as impossible to argue with as a mounted knight in armor.\n\nWe have some of the pieces already. Cryptocurrency makes tax essentially voluntary for its holders, and is maturing each month into something more user-friendly and secure. Tools like SmokeSignal are finding ways to irrevocably ensure free speech in a location that can't even be described as \"in\" a jurisdiction, let alone subject to its conception of \"acceptable\" speech.\n\nIndeed, *The Sovereign Individual* argues convincingly that our victory is virtually assured at this point. History is moving in our favor.\n\nBut goddamn I am getting impatient. I would like this to take off before I die of old age, please.\n\nThis is why I write this. Rapid communication and coordination is our strength, so I reach out for my brothers and call them all to a very big round table.\n\nHow do we accelerate this shift?\n\nShould we have a code? Some sort personal declaration of independence?\n\nShould we buy an island somewhere? Is Liberland as hopeless as it seems? Shall we declare a holy land in an existing jurisdiction? Do we even need to?\n\nWhat will we say in court if we've poached on the King's hunting grounds? Recite words that seem true and relevant to us about sovereignity, but which simply baffle all present? Hire a lawyer, pay to play, hope to win? Or shall we break the rules altogether and hire a crack team to hold the bailiff at gunpoint, and ferry us away?\n\nAnd when one of us is imprisoned, what will we do? For that matter, how soon can we rescue Ross Ulbricht? Years? Weeks? Will it take threats and lawsuits, or bombs and armored vans? Will it require martyrs? Does anyone have a blueprint of the State Penitentiary in Tucson?","v":2,"c":{"topic":"sovereign-network"}}