@shotgunsurgery
How to Become a Threat to the State and its Coercive Power Most of us are aware of how ubiquitous the power of the state is and how rooted it is into the average person's mind. But something that keeps me optimistic and amused is how much we can do to circumvent it and its violence and to weaken it through totally peaceful means. Oftentimes, in doing this, that process changes us. It transforms us into a stronger, more experienced and more consistent version of ourselves. This article aims to give you a few pointers that can help you become the kind of person they wished didn't exist. Keep yourself healthy and in good shape. This enables a path to a more fulfilling life, and keeps you away from public hospitals and contributes to make you a whole individual over all. Also, it improves your chances of surviving and protecting others in case of an all-out offensive from the state in the openly authoritarian fashion. Make sure you can run a reasonable distance without getting exhausted too quickly, and that it's enough to run away from their armed forces. Some strength and flexibility training are extremely important, since it can help you in countless situations including hand to hand fights. Cultivate your mind. The better you understand the world, history, the economy and how power dynamics work, the less likely you'll be to be tricked by the status quo. Also people who know about computer networks, free software (GNU/Linux users - it is publicly known that the U.S. Government used to keep a list of people who subscribed to Linux magazines in the U.S.), cryptography (the U.S. government tried to ban cryptography in several occasions and even considered it to be munition), cryptocurrencies, or know how to encrypt messages with PGP (using free programs like GPG4Win for Windows or GnuPG for Linux) are most likely to be a threat to them, simply because they can hold information they won't be able to read without spending millions in man hours. Military grade encryption is nowadays open for anyone who wants to learn to use it. Aim to be ethically sound and live with integrity. People who have a moral compass and solid principles are less likely to be bribed, intimidated or coerced into helping the state. Nurture your ethical stances by reading the arguments of widely known authors. Rothbard's "The Ethics of Liberty" and Hans-Hermann Hoppe's "The Economics and Ethics of Private Property" are great books to read on this. Take care of your finances, and protect your private property. Nowadays thanks to Satoshi Nakamoto and the cypherpunks, we have excellent tools to achieve this. Probably the most prominent ones are Bitcoin Cash and Monero. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. You can use Bitcoin Cash when you want peer-to-peer electronic cash that's protected against inflation (since emission is predefined and cannot be changed) and Monero when you need privacy. Monero has a private blockchain that cannot be read by the state or its puppet corporations, but it makes a few sacrifices in order to achieve this. This does not intend to be an in-depth guide of any of these great cryptocurrencies, but both have vibrant communities with welcoming people who will be glad to point you the right way to learn their ins and outs. Work on your self-defensive skills. Learn how to 3D-print a gun. If this is too much for you, risky in your country because of legal constraints or just not your thing, then learn to use improvised weapons. It's important to learn your local laws to make sure you don't break any rules :). If using weapons for self-defense is not a possibility because your country is EU-level authoritarian... Remember that even in countries with oppressive gun and weapon laws, you can learn martial arts. They can't arrest you for having arms and legs. Learn about privacy respecting technologies and use them. Learn to hold secrets from the state and its minions (corporations). Learn to use fully encrypted messaging software that doesn't require any personally identifiable data, or that requires little (depending on your threat model and needs). Messaging software like Session (https://getsession.com) or Briar (https://briarproject.org) don't ask for any data that can be use to identify you. https://getsession.com/ https://briarproject.org/ If you have the time, also catch up with how states and corporations surveil people in these times and how we got here. A good book about this is Data and Goliath by Bruce Schneier. For a guide on how to defend yourself from the prying eye of the state, Surveillance Self-Defense by the Electronic Frontier Foundation is a great resource. Practice Counter-economy / Agorism. Build relationships, keep trust windows you incrementally open based on their reputation (because of the discipline of constant dealings, the more you trade with them the less likely they'll be to fail you) since in agorist markets there's no customer support or mediator you can go to if you're scammed or unhappy with your deal. Buy products and services from off-the-books shops/businesses. This helps you foster counter-economic enterprises by giving your hard-earned money to them, instead of businesses that will use part of it to pay taxes, feeding the state apparatus. Build connections and networking skills. In order to trade and exchange goods and services or just get to know with like-minded people, you need to polish your networking skills. Ask around, chat, learn to measure and observe people and their ethical values. Even though Telegram is not precisely a secure communication channel, it is the home to amazing libertarian, anarchist and agorist communities. I'm not going to provide a list here since I wouldn't want to see that those groups got reported by statists, but trust me... it's a rabbit hole. Once you join one, you'll find the others by talking to people and seeing what they post. Good starting points are Odysee/LBRY channels, Telegram groups for well established cryptocurrencies (better stay away from the moonboy/"when Lambo" kind like Dogecoin or Shiba Inu) and libertarian groups in general. Become less reliant on anything provided by the state. Grow at least some your own food. Cook for your neighbors or have them cook for you in exchange for money or some other service. That will all be added value that's not paying VAT. You don't need to move to the countryside and be a full time farmer to be more independent, so find the point that works for you and always make sure that it's making you happier, healthier and more free, because otherwise there's no point to it. Learn skills you find interesting or fun and you usually have to pay for to tax-paying providers. Conclusion There's no one-size-fits-all recipe to this, so do what works for you and is more compatible with your values, needs and preferences. The fact that you're reading this already indicates that you know violence against peaceful individuals is wrong, no matter who exerts it. So use that as a guiding star in your pursue for freedom.