My Tao - For Things to Remain the Same

... everything must change.

These are the wise words uttered by a fictional aristocrat in a book about the great upheavals that took place in Italy some 150 years ago.

Nothing is as important to the political elite as the appearance of change and progress. They know that their existence is predicated on this. Without the general public's belief in their importance in history, they will loose all significance. There's therefore a constant need to create history through strife, intervention and resolution.

The more their significance is threatened, the more important it is to engage the average man and woman in some kind of epic struggle.

The play book is the same every time, so there's nothing new in this. First, there has to be some issue of dispute. Then, there has to be struggle and strife. Finally, there has to be resolution through intervention from them, the aristocrats. It's essentially a variation on the old doctrine of split and conquer.

The never ending array of political issues currently being dreamed into existence is based on this doctrine. We have to band together behind some epic cause, and those who are not with us in this are by default against us.

First, there was the climate, with Great as a divine character. Then there was the flu, and now it's history itself that is an issue. Statues and other symbols of oppression have to be removed. There's a general atmosphere of outrage and fear, all feeding into a sense of urgent action. Energy is directed towards symbols. Resources are directed towards green projects, and people are locked down for no good reason at all.

All of this is designed to move attention away from the political elite and onto our neighbors and friends. The hope is to ignite a civil war of some kind. Then there will be a power vacuum that the political elite can fill. By being the ones bringing peace and stability back to the world, they will be seen as heroes and a necessary element of life. Without rulers, we're doomed.

What is never mentioned, is that the divisions and strife were brought about by the political elite themselves. They were the ones dreaming up the climate crisis. They came up with identity politics. They put everything in place for the riots and the looting.

To point this out is futile. It achieves nothing apart from setting us up as a faction in their game. Instead, we should stop talking, and start doing. By becoming anarchists ourselves, we can position ourselves so that we either profit or remain unaffected by the turmoils of the world. By remaining outside of the strife, we can take advantage of the same relative calm that the elite use for their own ends.

Rather than siding with bandits of one color or another, we take up service for a king. A wealthy friend or acquaintance may find our skills and personality useful. Even a gardener for a rich land owner is better off than most people. Why not seek service with such people? If we have savings of our own, we can be that king ourselves.

Once we are in a position where we can view the political stage as a circus where there's money to be made from the follies of others, we are well on our way to become Tao masters. Once there, we can join the dark forces that manipulate deliberately to produce chaos, or the good people who would rather see the outbreak of true peace and harmony. Either way, we profit from staying outside of the circus. If we side with the good, we have the added advantage of security. Should things come completely unglued, we're in a better position to get out of our predicament with our heads still attached to our necks.

By Copyright by the Calvert Litho. Co., Detroit, Mich. - This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3g02091. This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more information., Public Domain, Link

My Tao - Layers of Spin

The world is going mad before our very eyes. Every possible issue has been turned into politics where feelings trump facts. The weather has been subject to politics for so long, many are not aware that it hasn't always been this way.

As of late, the madness has been turned up another few notches. There is massive monetary manipulations of the markets, there is a mysterious flu pandemic that we must submit to, there are riots in the streets over the death of a suspect detained by the police.

All is spun into complex webs of political narratives. Everybody has an opinion, but no-one has any facts. Bricks appear in the streets before "spontaneous" riots break out. Restaurants and shops in black communities are torched by mysterious white people during racial riots.

The motives for these actions are unclear. The only thing we can say for sure is that life is being made increasingly difficult for an increasing number of people. If this is done on purpose or not is a matter of opinion. So is the color of the perpetrators. Far left blames far right and visa versa, and there's no middle ground. We are either with them or against them.

Spin is carefully put together, and only spotted as such in retrospect. When people woke up to the inconsistencies in the climate narrative, they got distracted by the flu. When that narrative fell apart as well, there were suddenly riots in the streets. The distractions are constant and never ending.

We are rapidly approaching peak politics, a world where nothing is left to the individual to decide, except for which faction to side with. In such a world, there's no point in trying to voice reason. This is not a time to show our colors. Rather, it's time for positioning. We must focus on the likely outcome of current events. The whys and the whats are for historians to figure out. Our job is to navigate these troubled waters with an eye for consequences rather than cause.

By Arnold Paul - Selbst erstelltes Foto, CC BY-SA 2.5, Link

Setups and Announcements

I'm not the only one using announcements as an element in political spin. It's a frequently used tool at all layers of politics, and it's well worth paying attention to because those who manage to put the pieces together at an early stage have an advantage on everyone else.

To put the pieces together, we need to pay attention to both the announcement and the setup that frequently predates it. Case in point is the recent announcement from China that the US dollar risks losing its reserve status due to excessive money printing. It warns of an imminent crisis in the US dollar.

Since the announcement is part of China's political spin, we can assume that China has already taken a proactive stance. The setup is already in place. The announcement has been made, and the action may or may not be executed, depending on reactions from the US.

As to the nature of the setup, we must look at what sort of unusual activities have recently transpired in the gold and currency markets. What comes to mind is the strange disconnect between the US futures prices and the London spot prices for gold back in March and April. Predictably, it resulted in a massive export of gold from London which can at times refuse delivery, to New York where failure to deliver would signal a systemic crisis.

The situation at the moment is that some 500 tonnes of gold is ready for delivery from New York at the end of this month. China is likely to be in a position to call on this option, and that's what their announcement is about. The concern expressed by the Chinese government is not merely a statement regarding the health of the US dollar, it's a threat. The Chinese are in a position to drain New York of 500 tonnes of gold, and they will do so if US politicians don't stop the Fed's current money printing.

The odds are now heavily in favor of gold. There's massive pressure on the US to make changes that they are unlikely to implement. As the US fails to stop their current money printing, gold will go up.

By Pedro Ribeiro Simões - Flickr: "Geração à Rasca" Demonstration, CC BY 2.0, Link

The Mark of the Beast

The beast is the state, and the state has a number. It's 666. Whenever this number appears at some crucial turning point, we know that the state is heavily involved. Most recently, 666 was the turning point for the Norwegian stock market. The central bank of Norway went all in to rescue it once it hit 666.

Not only does the state have a number, it requires everybody to carry a mark. This mark is needed in order to find gainful employment, or start a business. This is the mark of the beast. The fact that we live in a time in which everyone but a handful of us use the mark of the beast in our business affairs tells us that we are in fact living in the dystopian future revealed to John some 2000 years ago.

The foresight of John is remarkable by any standard. He saw in the Romans the emergence of a modern technocratic society in which every human is tied directly to the state. He foresaw the day that we have to beg the state for a mark of approval. What God gave to us as a birth right, namely the right to life through gainful employment and trade, is now a monopoly domain of the state.

What follow, according to John, is the apocalypse followed by the rebirth of society into a kingdom of God. In that kingdom, no-one will any longer require any kind of mark or approval in order to exercise their birth right. Ruled by the spirit of Jesus, the emergent society will be without a central government. Laws will be simple and natural.

Luckily for us, we don't have to wait for the apocalypse to enter the kingdom of God. We can band together and form political structures centered around family and friends in which we do favors for each other without reporting this to the state. There is a parallel economy within reach to all of us in which we can live as if the kingdom of God has already arrived.

By entering the kingdom of  God at an early stage, we can even bypass the apocalypse. We can avoid the draft for our children, and spend our time in peaceful union while battles rage all around. To do this will be difficult, but not impossible. The main criteria will be a will to avoid the final battle. We must free us from the idea that the beast is our master, because it's not. The state is not God. It has no special powers. The state is in decline. The apocalypse will finish it off. The wise thing to do is to stay out of the way and instead prepare for the better world that will emerge out of the ashes of the old.

By Albrecht Dürer - Web Gallery of Art:   Image  Info about artwork, Public Domain, Link

My Tao - Natural Arrangements

Modern society, with all its complexities, are powered by energy. Complicated arrangements of all sorts are set up for our convenience. Factories produce products available to us through a complex web of logistics. Behind every convenience of everyday life lies an expansive machinery in need of energy.

The complexity of society can, at least in part, be judged by the amount of energy that it consumes. Primitive societies consume less energy than more complex ones. When we see energy consumption drop, it indicates a drop in complexity. When it rises, things are likely becoming more complex.

Seen in this light, its interesting that worldwide energy consumption has dropped by 20% so far this year. This indicates that complexities that we have relied on in the past are being dismantled. Much of this is probably confined to production and logistics, including air travel and tourism. But other complex structures may be dismantled as well.

There are plenty of complex structures in modern society that are in fact superfluous. They only exist due to a perceived convenience that may not even be real. While their existence may be vital to many, they can be completely removed and replaced by something simpler. Examples of such superfluous structures include:

1. government
2. welfare state
3. police
4. paper assets
5. derivatives
6. fiat and crypto currencies

All of these things are artificial artifacts that serve to replace naturally occurring phenomena. The natural alternative to the points listed above are:

1. family and voluntary associations, instead of government
2. charity, instead of welfare state
3. private security, instead of police
4. physical assets, instead of paper assets
5. capital equipment, instead of derivatives
6. gold and silver, instead of fiat and crypto currencies

Should some or all of the items in the first list disappear, corresponding items in the second list will take over. The second list contains elements that are naturally occurring. While some may seek to suppress or trivialize elements in the second list, they cannot remove them. Furthermore, the top list requires more energy in order to be sustained. Any attempt to replace the second list with the first will drain a society of resources, as happened in Soviet Russia and other places where Communism has been tried.

From this, its clear that anyone relying on elements in the first list are in a more precarious situation than people relying on elements in the second list. The first list can be removed in its entirety. There is not a single item that holds any kind of permanency.

With energy consumption now down, there's a real chance that at least some of the items in the first list will be reduced or removed. The current push to remove or severely limit the police may well succeed. Those relying on the police rather than private security may soon find themselves exposed and in need of rapid rearrangements.

But it isn't only the police that's currently under pressure. Tax revenues have plummeted together with the drop in energy consumption. Not a single one of the state's many projects are sufficiently funded to remain in operation. Welfare checks may be reduced, or their purchasing power will be curtailed through price inflation. Either way, welfare dependency will become increasingly painful and ultimately impossible. Things are going to get ugly for those invested in or dependent on the first list.

While this may sound like the end of the world to some, it's a good thing for most. A full replacement of the first list with the second will lead to more prosperity, even as energy consumption goes down. A great beneficiary will be liberty. Without the state, we will no longer need to register with government officials before seeking gainful employment. There won't be any taxes either. We can do our own charitable work with our own money. Rather than letting the state take care of this for us we'll do it ourselves according to our own priorities and values.

In the absence of a state, things will revert to something simpler and better:

• Gold will be money
• House rules will be law
• Arbitration will be voluntary
• Security will be private

Every man and every woman will be a sovereign. Without the state to enforce laws of oppression, anyone trapped by an evil sovereign will have the option to escape. Instead of going from one country to another in search of liberty, we can go from one household to another. This is not to say that the natural state of things will be Utopia. There will always be evildoers, and even gangs of evildoers. But they will be few and far between because of their inherent inefficiencies.

Good sovereigns will far outnumber evil ones because the oppressive, intrusive and disruptive behavior of evil is inefficient. This is why good always triumphs over evil. This is also why poor but safe states, such as Portugal, are less oppressive and insistent on conformity than prosperous states. The Portuguese state simply lacks the resources to keep a lid on people's freedoms.

A consequence of this is that most Portuguese people are likely to go through the coming crisis relatively unscathed. They are well connected to the natural order of things and therefore more likely to find their way through a simpler system. However, welfare recipients in the US and other wealthy nations are going to suffer, especially in big cities where things have become highly artificial. Riots, violence and unrest will become increasingly the norm as the current order of things come unglued.

It may take decades or even centuries for the coming unwind to come to its conclusion, at which point we'll have a minimal or non-existent state. Then, as things improve, someone will come up with a way to do things better through artificial means, and there will be a new cycle.

By Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov - http://lj.rossia.org/users/john_petrov/166993.html, Public Domain, Link

My Tao - Winning by Refusing to Play

The idea of action through inaction is both at the heart of Tao thinking and the most counter-intuitive aspect of it. Our very existence is based on action. We have to eat in order to live. How then is it possible to achieve anything through inaction?

The answer to this is that positioning is by far the most powerful form of action. A sailboat doesn't cross the ocean by brute force. It crosses the ocean due to skillful positioning. The same is true for most other aspects of human affairs. Leaving out our trivial day to day pursuit of three meals a day, no action is often better than action.

In addition to action through inaction, my Tao teaches another paradox, namely victory through a refusal to play. This too is an option that most people overlook. We keep playing the game of finance and investments even when the odds are heavily stacked against us.

With constant interference of central banks and politicians on the side of big corporations, we're at a huge disadvantage when we play their games. However, if we refuse to play, then we don't only save ourselves from losses, we win. That's because the game is designed to siphon wealth off the hands of participants. If the participants leave the roulette table, the casino owners loose, and we win by default.

The way to do this is to sell all paper assets and buy physical gold or silver instead. Some cash must be kept at hand so that we can cover day to day expenses, but apart from that, no cash should be held. The reason for this is that cash is casino chips. As long as we hold them, we're still in the casino.

The optimal position is to stay as far removed from the casino as possible. That implies a minimum of cash, a self sufficient house with a modest garden and a profession that can be practiced outside the system.

Keeping costs down during our isolation from the casino is essential because the play may take years, or even decades to fully exhaust the opponent. However, our financial gains will accumulate during our absence. Our gold and silver savings are likely to last longer than anticipated because the casino losses are automatically our gains.

This strategy only works when the casino is rigged, as it is today. During healthy periods of fair play, we're not going to win anything by staying away from paper assets. But herein lies its beauty. It works the best when things are dark. It is precisely when we wish we could leave society for a while, until everybody sobers up and comes back to their senses, that this strategy is most likely to land us financial gains. The crazier things get, the more likely we are to win by not playing. When regulations become Byzantine, taxation oppressive, state "investments" wasteful, and riots, protests and political correctness are everywhere, gold and silver offer us a way out.

This is not lost on politicians and central bankers, so they come up with ways to discourage this type of refusal to play along with their games. They may even resort to confiscatory taxation or outright banning people from owning precious metals. In that case, we need to move to some other jurisdiction, or find a sheltered enclave with a thriving parallel economy. But in the absence of such draconian measures we can stay in our modest house and wait out the storm.

Historically, this strategy is the winning one almost half the time. To know when it applies, we can consult the Dow/Gold ratio or other measures that indicate the level of froth in financial markets.

Cottage

By Valtov at fi:wikipedia - Originally from fi:wikipedia, Public Domain, Link

My Tao - To the Abyss and Back

A Tao master positions himself with a keen eye for risk and reward. Even when 100% sure of himself, he's never all in. He knows his limits. He knows that he may be wrong, and he knows the consequences of being wrong. Not only does he know these things, he acts on this knowledge. A Tao master will never throw caution to the wind and go all in just because he feels lucky. It's therefore extremely rare for a Tao master to find himself broke, or in other ways defeated.

However, we're not all Tao masters, and even Tao masters may find themselves defeated at some point. What then? Is this the end of the road? Staring into the abyss of failure, is it time to jump?

It's easy to think that all is lost when disaster strikes, especially if it's due to greedy or irresponsible behavior on our part. A 20 year old day-trader found himself suddenly short some 700,000 dollars. He responded by taking his own life. It was the only way out, he thought. The alternative would be a life as a slave for his creditors.

But bankruptcy is not the end of the line, even if it's permanent. I know, because I'm bankrupt myself. I have no official income or wealth, but I still owe the Norwegian taxman some 50,000 dollars. Few people are as relentless in their pursuit of money as the taxman, so there's no hope that I'll ever get off the hook. Yet I'm living a more fulfilling life now than I ever did.

As it turns out, there's a whole world out there that's free of taxmen and bank clerks, and its a far better world than the one we're supposed to live in. Once we leave the system behind, no-one cares what sort of debt we may have with a bank clerk or taxman. We get your pay outside the system.

We all have friends and family that may find our skills useful. They can either provide some work directly, or act as proxies. I pay all my bills through my wife and children. They also help direct money to me for my investments and labor. In this parallel economy, I'm quite wealthy. I have gold and a fixed income. With no taxes, bank fees, or erosion of saving through inflation, I'm doing very well on a very meager income.

This is not to say that bankruptcy is a smart first move towards personal liberation. It's not. The first move should always be to get into the parallel economy. Its only when all is clear that we can rationally choose to leave the taxman short changed. I went bankrupt after I was well established in the parallel economy. I nevertheless had a moment when I was staring into the abyss, and I very much advise against going that far. It's better to play things safe than to risk suicidal anxiety attacks. But a bit of risk taking is sometimes just the thing to do to regain some sense of autonomy. By facing the taxman head on in a position of safety, I quickly recovered from my depression.

All is not lost, even if things unfold in a chaotic and detrimental way. The door is always open to a better and simpler way of life where debt to banks and taxmen are irrelevant. There is plenty of folk tales about this. If we're truly down and out, we find a king for whom we take up service. If we're escaping the system with booty of our own, we establish ourselves as kings. Either way, there's the dynamic in which the king and the servant enter into mutually benefiting arrangements. The good servant may even become prince and king as the story unfolds.

There's a semi-magical world out there where life is both simpler and more honest. As the current system becomes evermore unlivable, this alternative will rise to dominance. Taking up service for a king is not the end of the line, but the beginning of an adventure. Luckily for us, it may even become the norm in a not too distant future.

By Michael Gredenberg - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

LoFA

LoFA is a non-profit organization that aims to safeguard Love For All. Its members are vigilant in their pursuit of justice and will always side with the weak and oppressed. They have zero tolerance for hate. Hate of any kind is met with hard love, be it a fist in the face, loud protests, or other proactive measures to stamp out hate from society.

To be against Love For All is of course hateful. Such people are routed out and exposed for what they are. LoFA will not rest before all hateful politicians and civil servants are removed from office. As a matter of course, LoFA is on the side of Black Lives Matter and Antifa. LoFA is against racism and also against fascism. LoFA is at the side of good, and against evil.

Only the heartless and hateful could possibly be against LoFA, so I predict a great future for this fledgling organization. It will no doubt get funded by corporations and state budgets alike. Pretty soon LoFA will be everywhere, from classrooms to hospitals. Ever-vigilant, LoFA activists will see to it that only those deserving education and health care will receive this. By strangling all that is evil, love will finally win supreme.

By Linuxerist, Froztbyte, Arcy - Own work, Public Domain, Link

Goths and Suebi

The Goths were primarily a cultural phenomena. Goths adhered to a view of life, law and order that had its most likely origin on Gotland. People who adopted this culture called themselves Goths, even if they had never set foot on Gotland. While migration out of Gotland happened from time to time, this was not the driver of the Goths expansion into Europe. It was their culture that expanded, not their genetic base. Goths in Germany were Germans. Goths in France were French.

However, when the Vandals crossed the Rhine together with Suebi and Alans on the last day of December in year 406, there really was a large movement of civilians. There's genetic evidence for them in Portugal, even today. People coming from Alan territory are generally taller and blonder than other places in Portugal. These people did not only influence the culture of Portugal, they had a certain genetic impact as well.

The Alans seem to have been the most insular of the tribes that crossed the Rhine. Focus seems to have been on family and self sufficiency. The Suebi were more ready to interact locally. They formed a kingdom that eventually morphed into the kingdom of León. The Vandals on the other hand, appear to have been a great pain to everyone. Always intent on domination, they were eventually expelled.

The political success of the Suebi appears to have been due to their reasonable approach to local affairs. They didn't force themselves on people. There's no record of violent conflicts between locals and Suebi. They were by all accounts quite popular. When the Goths took over the east and south of Iberia, the Suebi remained independent. When the locals had to choose side, they sided with the Suebi rather than the Goths.

The decision to stand with the Suebi was almost certainly based on pragmatic considerations of cultural differences between Suebi and Goths, the most prominent being an insistence on loyalty and hierarchy by the Goths. It was the Goths who developed the honor code associated with medieval chivalry. Goth emphasis on honoring contracts morphed into an emphasis on honor towards political figures.

Being less insistent on hierarchy, the Suebi were the natural choice for the locals. They sided with the Suebi over the Goths, and the consequence of this may well be at the heart of the current cultural difference between Portuguese and Spanish people. The Spanish are more intent on hierarchy and loyalty than the Portuguese. Laws are less vigorously observed in Portugal than in Spain. Things are more fluent and open to interpretation.

As far as the locals were concerned, both Goths and Suebi were foreigners. The Goths were French and Suebi were German. However, the Suebi adopted local customs, culture and language from day one. By the time the Goths entered Iberia, physical appearance was the only significant distinction between Suebi royalty and locals, and even that may have been waning due to the Suebi habit of marrying into influential local families.

By the time the Berbers invaded Iberia from the south, a few hundred years after the fall of Rome, Suebi were fully integrated. The Suebi kingdom had morphed into León. However, the Goths to the east and south of León were still culturally segregated from their subjects, and generally despised for this reason. A consequence of this was that the Goths lost all their territory to the invading forces, while León retained its independence.

By વી ફોર વેન્ડેટા - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

The 5th Empire - CHAZ

The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) is a newly established anarchist area in which the state has been substituted by voluntary policing and government. It remains to be seen how successful this will be, but I suspect it will end badly. It came about in the wrong way and is therefore wide open to all sorts of problems.

Expelling a police force from an area doesn't in itself usher in voluntary interaction among people. It leaves a power vacuum open for grabs. There's no guarantee that the power vacuum will be filled with liberty minded people. It may as well be filled by gangsters and war lords, eager to set up a dictatorship.

The correct way around this would have been for the residents and business owners in the area to have hired private security ahead of the expulsion of the police force. In that way, there would be no ambiguity as to legal arrangements.

Private legal arbitration should also have been established ahead of the expulsion. The assumption that people will automatically adopt the arbitration method promoted by the anarchists is naive, and unlikely to work. Would be dictators are not going to abide by anyone's rules but their own. Having more or less invited such people into the area, the anarchists are likely to find themselves voiceless in their newly established free state.

While it's still possible that everything ends well for the anarchists, it's more likely to end in tears. Anarchy is best established organically with the gradual replacement of government institutions. Instead of direct confrontation, we discretely sidestep the system. We use private arbitration and private security, and stay away form the banking system as much as possible.

By Brian Gomes Bascoy - https://www.flickr.com/photos/peramides/49990329077/, CC BY 2.0, Link

Spin Doctors Everywhere

Politics is everywhere these days. Freedom is so scarce that any event is turned into a political issue. Not even the weather is presented without some sort of political spin. The latest being that all weather maps are presented with a red color pallet. No matter how cold it is, the overall impression is that things are heating up.

This year's flu has been similarly impacted by politics. It's not up to each of us to take sensible measures. Everything has to be dictated from a central command. Even the flu's official name has been determined through political command and spin. To mention that the virus had its origin in Wuhan is considered racist.

Then there's the death of a criminal over in the states, which is supposedly a clear case of racism, even if no proof has been submitted. The police officer was white and the criminal was black. That's all we need to know in order to spin a story about racism and police brutality.

Narrative is all that matters. Truth is only of interest when it serves the greater political agenda. This is abundantly clear when even BBC is caught red handed fabricating news, yet refuse to change their narrative as a consequence.

There are spin doctors everywhere, all intent on pulling our heart strings, and it's easy to get carried away one way or the other. To resist this, we may opt to ignore news all together, or we put our own spin on it. Either way, we'll be much less easily swayed. But it's only by being our own spin doctor that we have the opportunity to change things to our advantage.

As an anarchist, I'm a private king. My domain consists of an apartment, some gold, and some capital. I have four children, a queen wife, and multiple contacts and associates. This political unit needs protection and support just as much as other political factions, and is therefore in need of a certain amount of spin of its own.

As a spin doctor, I view news as little more than spin. It's always framed one way or the other depending on the political faction controlling the narrative. The most common spin is the need for additional legislation, which I'm naturally against. However, I'm pragmatic enough to know that legislation is nothing to fear if it cannot easily be executed. Nonsensical legislation may even play into my advantage by muddling things up for the executive branch of government.

I care about spin and its effectiveness in promoting a particular narrative. Good spin is subtle and ever-present, often barely noticeable in the background, but never quite gone. Bad spin is opportunistic, loud and short lived. I'm not very impressed by the spin made around the latest case of police brutality in the US. I'm more impressed by the spin made around Obama's shady dealings while in the White House. It may be highly effective during the upcoming elections, and I'm genuinely curious as to see how the Republicans play their hand.

As for myself, I follow a simple and reliable recipe when it comes to spin. First, I make a clear announcement about something I'm very sure about, but most people have failed to see. Then I wait, without making much fuzz about what I just said. Whenever the topic comes up, I support the view that I originally promoted by commending the person that speaks up. As more and more people come to agree with my proposal, I become more vocal in my support. But I never push the fact that I had this idea first, or that I was early. I shed praise on everybody for realizing the truth of my narrative, as if the idea came from them.

This is highly effective, because it promotes shared ownership of the original idea. People are far more likely to defend an idea that they view as their own than an idea that comes from somebody else. The more emphasis I put on their ownership, the stronger it becomes.

Anarchists have a huge advantage when it comes to spin because we don't side with either one or another narrative. We have our own narrative. We have something to compare the various narratives against. We can judge the pros and cons of a narrative, its effectiveness and its likely consequence. This is why I suspect professional spin doctors of being anarchists who sell their services to government. Their non-allegiance make them effective in identifying strengths and weaknesses in all narratives, regardless of color. That's an essential quality in any game of politics.

As Fernando Pessoa observed; an aristocrat is an anarchist. Professional spin doctors are these aristocrats who exist as much today as in the past. They find their ways inside government. They cloak their existence in a web of spin, and they provide the government with the essential service of eternally coming up with stories that engage and enrage people to the point where they are easily manipulated.

By Template:Cavalão - Nelson BrazUkA, Public Domain, Link

Systemic Racism

The existence of systemic racism, especially in the US, is undeniable. To illustrate this, we can take a hypothetical case of a small business owner having to choose between hiring a straight white man in his early 30s and a black lesbian woman in her late 50s. They are equally well qualified for the job, so the choice between the two should be a toss up. However, to suggest that a small business owner who cares deeply about his business will go with the black woman is wishful thinking. The business owner will go for the white guy, and the reason is simple. The white guy is way cheaper to hire than the black woman, even if the black woman offers to do the work for less than the white guy.

It doesn't matter if the business owner is black himself, the rational choice is to go with the white guy because the system favors him above the black woman. No matter which race the small business owner is, the white guy is the cheaper option, and the reason for this can be found in various laws that favor white straight men.

What is frequently forgotten when it comes to the cost of hiring people, is the risk of litigation. Risk is a cost that must be factored in for all decisions, including decisions on hiring people. Since the cost of a mistake in this regard can be tremendous, it must weigh heavily on the employer's assessment.

So, let's say that the small business owner has a diverse work force of five employees, then the only risk as far as litigation related to race issues are concerned is the possibility that the white guy turns out to be a complete bigot. The new hire picks a fight with colleagues of minority background. However, if that happens, then the business owner can nip the problem in the bud and kick him out. Problem solved. But if the business owner picks the black woman, and she turns out to be a rabid loony. What can he do? If he fires her, he might get a lawsuit handed to him based on race, gender, sexual orientation and/or age, and even if he doesn't fire her, she might still try to shake him down or control him in other ways.

There's no guarantee that new hires are as good as they appear in interviews. Business owners must therefore pick those that come with the least cost to get rid of, and that's white straight men, because they have little legal protection. Heavily protected minorities are potential disasters, even if the business owner is as pure as can be, because minorities are not only protected against the conduct of their employers. They are protected against the conduct of their colleagues as well. If a minority employee gets into a fight with a colleague, a business owner can be sued for not having done enough to prevent it. Minority employees can shake down business owners in all sorts of ways that straight white men can't.

Laws that supposedly protect minorities, are in fact making things worse. They introduce a cost related to the protected minority that does not exist for others.

Thanks to Peter Schiff for pointing this out.

By Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Late Stage 1st Republic

Riots and demonstrations all over the world, including loud protests here in Porto, have had a big impact on the street scene. The number of people wearing face masks has been cut by half over night. While this may not have been the intended effect of the protests, it's by far the most noticeable difference.

Among other positive developments over the last few months, we can mention the complete loss of subtleties and restraints among the elites. They have thrown all pretense aside, and positioned themselves firmly on the side of draconian government. No-one should be let out of the house unless allowed to do so by them.

What is considered important by the elite is now abundantly clear. Big corporations like Amazon are doing well, while mom and pop stores are being looted after a prolonged shut down. Going out to partake in politically correct demonstrations are important. Visiting a dying aunt at the hospital isn't.

Corporate media is showing its colors too. Editors who do not follow the script to the letter are dismissed. Subtleties are no longer allowed. Any article showing sympathy for the moms and pops trying to compete with big corporations lands a pink slip for the editor. Dissent, however minor, is no longer accepted. Truth be damned. The story is all that matters, and must be promoted non-stop.

When it comes to money matters, no-one blinks an eye over trillions of dollars being printed at will. The more the better. A few hundred dollars go to the down and out. The rest is handed over to big corporations. To even suggest that this may end badly gets us labeled as evil, ignorant and incompetent.

This means that anyone engaging in rational thought is by now either fired or retired. The idiots are in control, and judging by the sharp drop in number of people wearing face masks, the message has been received and understood by most. Very few are still inclined to trust the media or their government.

What we are witnessing is similar to late stage revolutionary France. Purists were busy purging their ranks of dissenters while printing heaps of money for their corporate buddies. Mom and pop shops were looted by mobs. Anyone intent on making an honest living risked arrest. With politicians firmly taking the side of the looters, people woke up to the insanity of what was going on, and when the generals finally entered, there was hardly a protest to be heard. A new order was put into place, based on sound money and equality before the law.

Having reached a similar level of insanity, we're likely to see a sudden shift rather soon. The madness that we are currently seeing cannot be sustained for much longer. People are waking up. The game is coming to an end. Something new is just around the corner.

The time to prepare for the counter-revolution is running out, but there's still time to make sensible adjustments. We must put our savings in gold, keep a low profile, and learn the ins and outs of the parallel economy. Although quick in retrospect, revolutions take time to pan out. We don't want to be stuck with worthless money, or be dependent on bankrupt corporations, when things get ugly.

By Dan Aasland - Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

Excessive Concerns with Others and Ourselves

Saturnists are out in force these days, and the results are as convoluted and chaotic as we would expect. First, there was the Wuhan flu, which we must call COVID-19, because its original name is racist. We had to quit work and stay at home. But when there was a case of police violence in the US, we had to make a stand. The best of us would protest in the streets. While staying at home remains important, protesting racism and police violence is more important.

There's an elaborate hierarchy of virtues that we have to follow, and the more vigorously we follow them, the purer we are in the eyes of everybody. Additionally, there's relativism that we have to adhere to. We have to understand that violence is bad, but only when applied by the wrong people. It's all right to riot and loot as long as it's done for the right reasons. We have to forgive the looters. They are only acting naturally, considering the great evils that have been perpetrated on them by others.

Finally, we have to understand that things far away are just as important as things that are near. Even if we experience no oppression ourselves, and see few signs of  racism in our immediate circles, we must take a stand. To do otherwise would be to deny the existence of evil in the world.

All of this leads necessarily to many inconsistencies and much confusion, which is perfect for politicians and other would be rulers who now define virtues and evils more or less at will. However, it's genuinely painful for the average person that gets sucked into this. For example, what is my step-daughter to make of the assertion that Portugal, and especially Guimarães, is riddled with racist hate? Her second cousin is both black and a successful medical doctor in Guimarães. It's far from clear that racism has played an adverse role in his education or professional life.

Sure, Dr. Mario has plenty of funny anecdotes where people have expressed surprise at his appearance. "I didn't expect a big black guy to be my doctor," is a common reaction. But his clients keep coming back. Hardly anyone cares about Dr. Mario's skin color. He's a nice guy and he knows his stuff. That's all that matters to most people.

Yet my step-daughter is expected to denounce Guimarães as a terribly racist place, despite a lack of immediate evidence. She's also expected to show sympathy towards looters and generally partake in all sorts of virtue signalling. Heart strings are being pulled to make her show her color. So, what is she to do?

The answer to this is to be found in the golden rule, and the Christian doctrine of original sin. We shouldn't concern ourselves too much about what others do, and we have to accept that we're not perfect. We all make mistakes. But as long as we do our best to do good in our own lives, we have nothing to be ashamed of.

It's what we do and say in our immediate social circles that matter. We cannot change things far away. Protesting outside a government building in Lisbon will do nothing to save black lives anywhere, least of all in far off places like Chicago. But being a decent human being in our everyday lives does make a difference. It's that easy.

My advice to my step-daughter is simple. Follow the golden rule, and don't worry about making the odd mistake yourself. As long as we genuinely regret any missteps, we will be forgiven by fellow good people. She needs to do nothing more than being the good Catholic girl that she was brought up to be. Excessive introspection as well as excessive virtue signalling leads us nowhere. Constantly chasing perfection is a road to misery.

What matters in the end is life itself, and that's never lived at a distance. We live our lives in the immediate vicinity of others, and it's only in our direct interactions with others that we have any influence on the world. As long as we are good, and don't worry about the odd mistake by ourselves or others, we'll live full and happy lives. If we want to spread this love, encourage others to do the same, and we'll have the further satisfaction of seeing our love spread out in ever wider circles.

By Feliciano Guimarães from Guimarães, Portugal - Oliveira, CC BY 2.0, Link

My Tao - The Real-Estate Trap

The taxman has it easy these days. With everything registered and reported into him, a few keystrokes on his computer is all he has to invest of effort to check on us. However, this has made him lazy. If it isn't in the computer, he won't check on it. Barter and savings in tools, furniture and precious metals will not be taxed unless we report this ourselves.

This has not gone unnoticed. People are increasingly turning to the parallel economy for their livelihood. The less we register with the taxman, the better off we are, and a point is rapidly approaching where taxation becomes close to impossible. The taxman is therefore forced to revert to earlier practices, less reliant on voluntary reporting by his subjects. The trend is towards taxing that which is visually apparent rather than that which is reported.

The easiest thing to tax is real-estate because it's impossible to hide. It's physically anchored to the ground. It cannot be moved out of the taxman's reach, and can therefore be confiscated if need be. This is why the default target of any tax-regime is real-estate, and we're about to see this come back in a big way. Most states and local governments already tax real-estate, but there is a long way to go yet. There are all sorts of improvements that can be made in the tax-code. A second home can naturally be taxed more than a permanent dwelling, a luxurious house more than a modest one. Windows and chimneys can be counted. The possibilities are endless, and they will increasingly come into effect as other tax-revenues dry up.

Those who have invested heavily in real-estate are likely setting themselves up for a shock as they will be the prime target for the taxman in coming years. They will be hit by a double whammy as they find themselves hit by higher taxes and lower real-estate prices. With a lot of people finding themselves forced to sell real-estate in order to avoid the constant drain of taxation, prices for certain pieces of property may even go negative.

People will much prefer to save in precious metals which is close to impossible to tax. If used directly in commerce it cannot even be taxed at point of transaction. It will evade taxation in the same way other kinds of barter evade taxation. A piece of real-estate can be transacted for an official amount close to zero, combined with an unofficial amount of gold. But the amount of gold required may be negligible because the main attraction for the seller may be the lower tax burden rather than the gold.

As things stand, the trend is towards heavier taxes on real-estate. We should therefore be careful, and not invest too much in it. A modest house with a garden in a rural area, or a small flat in a town, are our best options because there are limits to how much the taxman can take from the lower end of the wealth spectrum. However, renting a house may not work out very well because landlords are likely to pass the cost of taxation onto their tenants.

As with all things related to the Tao, we should seek balance and modesty. A debt free barter based economy is more likely to provide us with the balance and harmony that we crave than leveraged investments in a highly regulated and taxed economy.

By User:Brendel at en.wikipedia.org - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

My Tao - Not My Country

We're constantly told to care about our country, and it's easy to get carried away on waves of emotions when we see things happening that disturb us. However, we mustn't loose sight of the fact that we don't actually own anything beyond that which we possess through labor or voluntary trade. If something doesn't threaten us directly, we have no business interfering in it.

So when my brother tells me that I have to care about wind turbines being built in Norway because it's my country, I shrug my shoulders. Norway isn't my country, nor is it anyone else's country, and if the wind turbines are being put up on public lands, I got no business interfering. At most, I can argue the folly of putting up wind turbines, and I can agree that it's a giant waste and nothing short of wanton destruction of wild life. However, as far as I'm concerned, the wind turbines belong to the politicians who put them up. They're not mine, and since I don't pay any taxes I can't even argue that they are partially mine.

The same goes for political issues. While it's disturbing to see fascism rear its ugly head, it's none of my business as long as the rioting, looting and wanton destruction of property happens in far off places. However, should any of this happen in my neighborhood, I would gladly step in on the side of the Goths. I wouldn't ask permission or petition the government for protection. I would get a gun and stand guard.

Party politics, with its elaborate system of petitions, voting and demonstrations is nothing but a giant distraction. It takes our attention away from that which is near and immediate in favor of things we cannot do anything about. This distraction is immensely useful for those who seek to rule over us because it allows them to rob us blind while we're busy elsewhere.

If we allow ourselves to get carried away by party politics, we'll get ourselves entangled in all sorts of webs spun deliberately to trick us into fighting someone else's war. That's why I refuse to get angry about stuff far away. That energy is better spent fighting for my personal liberties. By staying calm and collected, and out of the eye of our would be oppressors, I retain an element of surprise.

While I'm full of sympathy for those fighting for their liberties in far off places, my concern is limited to my own personal realm. That which interferes or directly threatens me will be resisted. All sorts of tactics will be employed, and my recommendation is that others do the same. Intelligently applied terror is far more effective than bucket loads of petitioning, voting and random rioting. Those who wish to be left alone need only be rigorous and intelligent in their resistance, because would be rulers much prefer obvious targets than those that are cloaked in obscurity, danger and resilience.

By Two_owls_at_Kuala_Lumpur_Bird_Park-8a.jpg: Brandon Lim derivative work: Snowmanradio (talk) - originally posted to flickr and uploaded to commons at Two_owls_at_Kuala_Lumpur_Bird_Park-8a.jpg, CC BY 2.0, Link

Hostility Towards the Free

Relative to most people, I'm a free man. I pay no taxes and I don't ask for permission to do what I want with my labor and property. However, I'm only able to do this through the use of agents and helpers, so my freedom is still restricted. There are limits to what I can do. I need a passport to travel abroad. I need a license to drive a car. Every evasion I make comes with a calculation. Only those that are unlikely to be detected or countered by government thugs are implemented.

Yet, even limited freedom has proven itself lucrative. I've prospered in all sorts of ways since I sold my house in Norway, paid down debt, closed my bank accounts and moved all savings into gold. Not only has my wealth increased, my general mood and outlooks on life have improved as well. Being independent from state controlled agents means that my pension is ensured. I've got enough savings to cover my old age, even if all incomes were to dry up from now on.

Rather than state controlled agents, I use my wife and children as proxies for my investment activities. While it is true that they have to pay taxes and follow more rules than I do, the net result for the family as a whole is positive. Everybody is better off.

I've made no secret of what I've done. It can all be found in my book. There's nothing to be ashamed of, even if some of the things I've done are illegal. The only laws that I've broken are those intent on subjugating us rather than protect us. It's pretty much our duty to find ways around them. However, the most common reaction to my scheme is disbelief, soon followed by anger.

These reactions are very revealing because they show two things.

1. People don't believe freedom is possible
2. People don't want freedom, even if it's possible

We are so conditioned to obey even the most ludicrous rules that we cannot imagine freedom. We assume that whatever rule is put out there can be enforced, and that there's no way around this.

We further assume that this is for the better, even when it's blatantly obvious that money and resources are squandered by power hungry politicians. The problem is never politicians' disregard for people's freedoms. Rather, it's the tax evader that's the problem, despite being of no burden to society.

It makes no logical sense, and therein lies the key to why people get upset. It's called cognitive dissonance. We say we want freedom. However, when a recipe for freedom is presented and acted upon by some of us, the rest of us react in horror. We would rather continue paying into pension funds that "invest" our savings into wind turbines, weapons of war, and bridges to nowhere. Most of us refuse to take full responsibility for our lives.

We tell ourselves that the system is too holy to be challenged directly. We have to petition our rulers for change. We have to vote. Anything else would be anarchy, and God forbid that such freedom should ever be widely accepted. So when I tell people that I've taken care of my own pension by parking my wealth outside the system, it's suddenly my fault that pension funds are doomed. When I tell people that the entire system is about to collapse, they attack me for not playing by the rules.

We don't want to know how easily freedom can be achieved, because we don't want to be free. We don't want to know that we can choose to save in gold and silver and that we can barter and trade without registering what we're doing. Freedom is always within reach, yet most of us will not take the opportunity to become completely free once the current system collapses. Rather, we'll rally around anyone promising to build some new system of slavery. Our hostility towards those who are truly free is in fact hostility towards the very idea of freedom itself.

By Eugène Delacroix - This page from 1st-art-gallery.com, Public Domain, Link

Return of the Goths

Ringo Starr once said that "everything government touches turns to crap." By extension, big government turns more to crap than small government, and when government gets its hand on all aspects of life, society itself turns to crap.

The truth in this is evident everywhere these days. We got crappy education, crappy news, crappy literature, crappy health care, crappy "green" energy, crappy money and crappy markets. There's great confusion about everything, not least philosophy and ethics. When college professors join rioters, and argue that burning down businesses isn't violence, then we know that sound ethics are in short supply. Everything has become a diffuse muddled mess.

The fact that government has this effect on society should come as no surprise. Government is after all founded on the lie that it's a necessary evil. Based on this it grants itself the right to tax and wage wars. It establishes a saturnistic hierarchy of privileges based on circumstances rather than merit. Vice is turned into virtue and virtue is demonized as vice. What's ugly is deemed beautiful. Weakness is strength. Propaganda is truth. Freedom is slavery and paper is money.

The inevitable end to such a world view is of course chaos, and it's into this chaos that the Goths, who are never far away, return and restore order. Goths live by three simple rules to which everything else is subordinate:

1. Don't break stuff
2. Don't steal
3. Honor your words

Apart from this, they don't give a damn. It doesn't matter what your circumstances may be. Rich or poor. Blue or Green. Black or White. They don't care. If you break stuff, they'll cut you down. If you steal, you're dead. If you break your words, you'll be dispossessed. However, if you refrain from vandalism and looting, and you're a man of your words, you have nothing to fear. They'll consider you harmless and worthy of protection. If you help them out, you become one of them, regardless of race or social standing.

This is why the Romans developed such a love-hate relationship with the Goths. They loved the way they could totally rely on their words of honor. But they hated the way they retaliated if they were in some way cheated. When the Romans failed to pay the Goths for their services against invaders and rioters, the Goths looted Rome. When the Romans failed again to honor their words on a later occasion, the Goths took over. Rome fell to the Goths, not because the Goths couldn't be trusted, but because the Romans tried to cheat them out of their just reward. The Byzantines, who also employed Goths to quell riots, never had the same problem as the Romans, because the Byzantines paid their dues in full.

Now that much of the West has fallen into moral and economic decay, similar to that which befell the Romans, we're likely to see a return of the simple honor code of the Goths. Like with the Goths, it will first look rather sporadic and disorganized. There will be armed individuals taking up position to protect private properties. This will become more organized as government decays further. Private security firms and army contractors will flourish, and generally work on the side of government to maintain law and order.

As long as governments honor their words and pay their dues in full, this arrangement will persist. However, should government at any point fail to collect the required taxes to pay these firms, things will sour. Government officials will no longer be protected. They will be ousted, and the Goths will take over.

By Andrea del Castagno - The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, Link

Goths and Normans

Gotland is a sizable Swedish island with a population of about 58000 people. It is strategically located in the Baltic sea, half way between mainland Sweden and the Baltic nations to the east. The literal meaning of Gotland is "Land of the Goths", which has been interpreted to mean that the Goths, who came to dominate European politics during early medieval times, came from this island. However, this notion is currently disputed for two reasons:

1. The population on Gotland cannot ever have been big enough to account for the size of Goth armies and regional domination.
2. What little there is of recorded Goth language indicate that they spoke a Germanic language closer related to German than Swedish.

While this looks well reasoned, it's far from convincing. It relies on the assumption that the Goths operated as a modern nation. It presumes a central organization that may never have existed. Once we open for the possibility that the Goths operated more in the vein of a modern corporation, with franchises, rather than a nation, we see that evidence weighs heavily towards the original and literal interpretation of history, namely that the Goths had their origin on Gotland.

The first thing to note is the unusually rich archaeological finds of treasures on Gotland. Gold and silver coins from as far away as Arabia, Persia and Rome have been found in great quantities, indicating that Gotland has for ages formed an important trading hub. Pelts, steel, and tools produced in Scandinavia were sent south, with spices, silk and gold going the other way. To safeguard the trade, people from Gotland would have had to establish strongholds along the trading routs. A system of private security forces would have been established.

The business culture of these security forces would have been austere, pragmatic and forward looking, reflecting the nature of business in Scandinavia. With long winters and long supply lines, careful planning and pragmatic calculations are a must. There is austerity in all things as one never knows how severe a winter might be, nor how delayed a particular delivery of goods may be. Capital is invested and re-invested. There's little room for frivolity apart from that which can be had without much cost.

Trust is essential, and a code of honor related to private property and fairness in business is central. There's no room for cheaters and layabouts. Justice is handed out on basis of natural law where property rights are held in high regard.

Being both well armed and reasonable in business, the security forces must have had a predominantly positive effect wherever they established a stronghold, especially in places exposed to invasions by armed robbers from the east. Franchises adhering to the same code of justice may well have formed. People who never set foot on Gotland may nevertheless have called themselves Goths. People from Gotland, settling in foreign places would adopt local language and customs. What defined the Goths was not so much their language and ethnicity as it was their code of law and honor.

Goths had a very successful business culture that spread all the way to present day Austria in the east and present day France to the west. The east Goths and west Goths were essentially Germans and Frenchmen. They were both genetically and linguistically Germans and French. What made them Goths was their approach to business.

Seen in this light, both the linguistic and demographic puzzle is solved. Goths did not speak Swedish because the vast majority of them were not ethnic Swedes. They were numerous, not because of intense breeding, but because of a rapid adoption of the business culture emanating from Gotland. The success of the Goths was cultural rather than demographic.

While this may sound speculative, we know that this sort of things happen periodically through history. Successful empires leave a cultural and legal legacy behind even if their genetic contribution to the populace is minimal. Just look at the legacy of the colonial era. There is English, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and French law practiced all over the world.

A few hundred years after the peak of Gothic influence in Europe, we have a very well documented episode that supports the above thesis. A band of well armed mercenaries left a tiny island outside present day Ålesund in Norway. Their destination was what is known to this day as Normandy in France. Sensing that the French king was weak, they sought to capture this landmass to have as their own.

The raid was successful. A great swath of French coastline fell to the Normans who ruled it independently from France for several hundred years before it once again fell under French rule. But before that happened, the Normans invaded England. In the year 1066, England fell to the Normans. However, these Normans did not speak Norwegian, nor were they genetically Norwegian. They were genetically and linguistically French. What made them distinct from other French people was their laws and their austere and militaristic culture.

What happened to Normandy and England appears to have been something of a repeat of what had happened farther east a few centuries earlier. A relatively small group of well armed individuals achieved outsize success with their particular version of austerity and law. While their demographic effect was limited, their influence on European culture was great and lasting.

By Berig - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link