The 5th Empire - Libertarian Rapture

The difference between a libertarian and an anarchist is about six months.

- Unknown

Looking at party politics, it would appear that libertarians are a rapidly diminishing breed. Elections everywhere end up with victory for either openly socialist parties, or conservatives with totalitarian ambitions. Libertarian parties are non-existent, or marginalized to such an extent that they might as well not exist at all. However, closer scrutiny reveals that something deeper is going on.

There's a large number of people refusing to vote, and a substantial portion of these have libertarian sympathies. This is clear from comments I come across on Zerohedge and Facebook. People are waking up to the fact that the state is the enemy of liberty and that any attempt at reforming it is doomed. Instead of voting, they declare themselves sovereign.

This was vividly demonstrated in a poll made by the Norwegian Libertarian party on Facebook. It asked its members about their views on how large they wanted the state to be, and the overwhelming majority came out in favor of "no state at all". The Norwegian Libertarian party isn't getting any votes because most of its members have turned anarchist since they joined. It's nothing but a stepping stone towards awakening.

Once we realize that we don't need the state for anything, we also realize that there's no point in convincing anyone about our position. We can ignore the herd, and do things our own way. Security, justice and insurance can be handled privately. We don't need to appoint third party actors to arrange for this. On the contrary, an important aspect of practical anarchy is to avoid such people as much as possible.

The disappearance of libertarians from party politics is not what it seems. People are not giving up on the idea of liberty, they are embracing it. What we are seeing is a Rapture of sorts, where libertarians leave the political landscape in favor of real life experience. We are no longer merely talking about liberty, we're living it.

Café de Flore

People - By Arnaud 25 - Own work, Public Domain, Link

Adolf Trudeau Reacts to Canadian Truckers

Seems like everybody is making memes and videos about Canada these days. I found this one particularly funny:

And here's another meme made by my friend in Norway:

A Use Case for Crypto

With truckers taking center stage in Canada, I couldn't help thinking of Terminator II with all its truck chases, so I posted a link to a YouTube snippet on my Facebook wall. I made no direct reference to Canada. All I wrote was "Nazi trucker from hell".

I got no likes, but a Facebook friend in Norway picked up on my idea. He produced this meme, and tagged me as his inspiration:

No words are needed to explain this, and it can be seen as either for or against truckers, precisely the way a meme should be. However, it remains to be seen if anyone picks up on it. It's posted by a Norwegian, and I don't know how many of his friends are sufficiently interested in the Canadian protests to share it.

It would be great if people in Canada somehow started to share this meme, because it would be an example of how the network effect sometimes works across vast distances, and that there's no telling how things eventually come together.

Ideas like this can be shared without anything required beyond a device with internet access. This is the advantage that separates ideas from physical reality, and why we can sit at a distance and still influence events. However, the truckers themselves are physical beings in need of everyday essentials in order to continue their protests. Sharing memes may give them moral support, but how are they to keep things going without access to the millions of dollars confiscated from them by the GoFundMe team?

One solution that comes to mind is to use crypto-currencies to fund the truckers. Such currencies have no central authority that can shut them down. The situation in Canada is therefore an opportunity to show the power inherent in this technology. The GoFundMe team has inadvertently opened up for this alternative solution, and it will be interesting to see how this pans out in the weeks to come.

My guess is that crypto will function reasonable well in the short to medium term. But it will fail once the authorities start clamping down in earnest on crypto exchanges, because there's no easy way to use crypto directly to buy things. Once authorities have full control of exchanges, crypto funding will become a thing of the past. However, this is no reason for despair, because the world is arranged in such a way that no indirect funding is needed for ideas to succeed. Once an idea has become sufficiently popular, funding is no longer a problem.

There are enough people in Ottawa to provide the truckers with whatever they need. The only caveat is whether or not they're popular among the locals. Furthermore, the truckers are part of private networks that will also step in to support them. Family and friends will chip in. Wives can bringing money to the household. Local community can form support groups.

This is how battles have been fought and won in the past, and there's no reason to believe that this time is different. If the truckers have the support of a substantial portion of the Canadian public, there's no other way to stop them than through brute force, and even that is likely to fail.

Minard's map of French casualties,
lost in attrition warfare with Russia

By Charles Minard (1781-1870) - see upload log, Public Domain, Link

The Problem with Complexity

The gloves are coming off, and the beast is revealing itself for what it is. People are choosing sides in what is now a battle for freedom. What's also on display is the manner in which the tyrants intend to win this battle. Very little is being televised. There's no dialog with the protesters, and their access to money is being denied. GoFundMe blocked the protesters' money, and all it took was a few keystrokes on a computer to do so.

This illustrates the dangers inherent in modern financing. It's much too reliant on computers. Access to money is dependent on the good will of the network operators and the ones in charge of the access nodes. There's a separation between the consumer and their means of transaction. Everyone is dependent on the blessing of their masters.

It remains to be seen if the protesters have made themselves dependent on the benevolence of the GoFundMe team. If they did, they will soon have to give up and head back home. However, if they didn't, they'll be around for longer. Time will tell what the case may be. The only thing clear at this point is where the GoFundMe team have positioned themselves in this battle.

The dystopian future planned for us is an extreme version of what just happened with the GoFundMe project. All money and all transactions are to be controlled centrally so that anyone that steps out of line can be cut off from life's necessities. However, this will only be possible if they manage to control the physical world of money, and that will turn out to be impossible.

The problem with the physical world, as seen from the point of view of the tyrants, is that there's no ledger. Physical money can be transacted without anyone registering anything. It can also be hidden without registry. It can move freely around in the economy, appearing and disappearing without anyone besides the people involved knowing about it.

The elite's plan is to solve this problem by introducing electronic money. Every account and every transaction is to be registered and tied up to social credit schemes. Physical money will in this way be replaced with a surveillance system. However, God has provided us with the physical world where anything can be used as money. We don't need an elite in order to have money. The elite can be removed, and money will still exist. Gold and silver coins are ideal for this purpose. But anything durable, dividable and coveted will do.

With the elite now all in on the side of tyranny, and their plan on full display, we know that the push towards total control is well on its way. Anyone caught unprepared will find it hard to do or say anything that might displease the tyrants. They will have to submit to whatever medical procedure and whatever product selection that the elite deems necessary. If we protest, they will be shut us down. However, those with direct access to products and services, and with physical money to pay for these, will be able to find a place in the parallel economy that's sure to emerge as a counterweight to dystopia.

I happen to live in a place with plenty of small and medium sized businesses trading in anything from groceries to shoes and furniture. I also have physical money of the kind that the state cannot confiscate or render worthless, so I'm well positioned for what's to come, and I suggest others do the same. Everyone should make a plan for themselves, and my book on the subject, written five years ago, may be a source of inspiration in this respect.

Local community

When the Network Effect Kicks In

“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”

― Victor Hugo

The trucker revolt in Canada is looking increasingly like a nationwide awakening. It's not merely a demonstration or a gathering of rebels that the elite can ignore. There are leaders, but they are not central to the movement. Demonstrations will continue no matter what happens to the organizers. In fact, arrests will only accelerate the awakening, and when the awakening is total, there will be few places to hide for those who planned and executed the totalitarian push.

From what I can gather, we're seeing the network effect kick in. People have found their likeminded peers, and they have communicated their frustrations. When the elite pushed a segment of these into a corner, some decided to drive to Ottawa with their grievances, and that was all it took to get the ball rolling.

What started out as a relatively small movement has snowballed into a massive show of force that the elite is desperate to hide. But the more they try to hide it the more obviously complicit they become, and that's not going to look good in retrospect. Seeing that people are waking up, and that they will demand retribution for the evils that have been committed against them, politicians and journalists are starting to switch sides. The dominos are about to fall.

The network effect is always slow to get started. It takes time to establish the base. However, once the framework is in place, as it appears to be by now, very little is needed to set the whole thing going, and once that happens there's nothing that anyone can do to stop it.

Domino effect

By Louise - Flickr, CC BY 2.0, Link

My Tao - Playing Chess

The private school my son goes to teaches chess as a subject, and he's quite enthusiastic about it. As a consequence, he's found all sorts of chess related content on the web. By far the best site is Chess.com. The quality of it is stunning. Their chess computer plays at all levels, from novice to expert. Games are analyzed, and no two games are the same. It's like playing against real people.

According to Chess.com, I'm an advanced player. I mostly beat the computer when I'm playing at the least advanced level, and I mostly lose on the most advanced level, so I prefer to play the levels in the middle of this range.

An interesting aspect of chess is the degree to which people misunderstand the nature of it. Those who know little about the game think that it's all about bold moves and risk taking. However, such a strategy ends in disaster when used against a more seasoned player. Chess is not about risk taking, and bold moves must be carefully planned. Rushing pieces into battle ends in massacre.

The next level of understanding is that chess has to do with complexity, and forward thinking. Good players know what the opponent will do, and have everything figured out. But this isn't right either. Most moves are not forced. Players don't know what the opponent will do, and they don't see with clarity what a future position will look like. What they do see are strengths and weaknesses in positions, and they use this insight to remove options from opponents while at the same time expanding their own options.

Good players are patient. Bit by bit, they chip away options from the opponent while looking out for opportunities for themselves. When the opponent is forced to abandon a defensive position, the expert player sweeps in with full force, and there's an impressive display of bold moves. But these bold moves are not the key to their success. They are merely the end result of a carefully executed plan. It was all the patient positioning that allowed for the impressive display of power.

The lesson in this is that success is not a matter of brute force, nor an ability to see clearly what the future holds. It's about positioning. It's about vision and the ability to see how things hang together. That's how we know the difference between opportunities and traps. Patience, understanding and a clear vision are key elements to success both in games of chess and in life in general.

This is in a nutshell what my book on investing, economy and politics is about. This is why I recommend a cautious but firm approach to adversity. The world is full of passion and bold moves, but very little of this ends well, and we're better off tending our positions with the care of an expert player. That way, we'll remain standing when the bold and passionate are wiped out by some random storm that only those with vision were able to predict.

Little by little, we chip away on the positions of our adversaries. Never mind that nothing much happens right away. The pressure is felt soon enough, and it shows up in odd ways that further undermine their position. Their weaknesses become increasingly visible. There will be desperation. At every point, we adjust our position with care and patience until there's a final collapse, at which point we should be able to reap our rewards both in political and economic terms. As it says in the Bible, the meek shall inherit the Earth.

Chess

By Bubba73 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Voting as an Act of Submission

A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.

- Lysander Spooner

There are people in various stages of unmasking everywhere I look. Some are still fully masked, even double masked. However, most are now in some state of undress. There are those just barely poking their noses out above their masks, there are those walking with faces completely naked, and there's every imaginable state in between.

This reminds me of spring where some flowers come early, and others remain buds well into summer. People will eventually drop their masks, just like every bud becomes a flower at some point. That's how nature works, including human nature. The process cannot be stopped.

The diversity is striking, and it's heartening to see how everyone accepts and respects other people's choices, no matter how much they disagree with them. This is what civility looks like. We tolerate others, no matter how weird we find them to be. If their weirdness is perceived as threatening, we simply avoid them. There's no point in verbally attacking those that do things differently from ourselves.

These were my musings this Sunday, which happened to be election day here in Portugal. My wife is still a believer in democracy, so I followed her to her designated polling station to cast her vote. It was a fine winter day, with blue skies and a warm sun. Since I knew better than my wife where the polling station was located, it made sense to go along, and I made a curious observation that made the walk all the more worth while.

The closer we got to the polling station, the more people were wearing their masks diligently. It was as if we were approaching some shrine where the faithful wear their masks in deference to their deity. At the shrine itself, everyone but I were wearing their masks even when outside the area where this was mandated. It was positively weird to see, yet nobody but I seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary.

Later that day, I noticed that the talking heads on TV would wear masks whenever the subject of the vote came up, making it all the clearer that mask wearing and voting are related activities. I don't think this was planned in any way. Rather, I think this was a display of subconscious awareness. Everyone knows intuitively that voting is an act of submission, and so is mask wearing. Hence, people put on their masks as part of the overall ritual.

The basic idea of democracy is that we are free only in as far as we are willing to submit to the collective. Voting is an offering to Molech and his priesthood. We submit our prayer to the deity, and politicians grant these wishes in accordance to Molech's wishes.

Offering to Molech

By Charles Foster - Illustrators of the 1897 Bible Pictures and What They Teach Us http://associate.com/photos/Bible-Pictures--1897-W-A-Foster/page-0074-1.jpg, Public Domain, Link