The Most Dangerous Philosophy: What The Oligarchs Don't Want You To Know
In this interview with the amazing @corbettreport, we discuss my & @johnvibes' latest book, Manifesto of the Free Humans. From the theory and practice of agorism and the importance of language in shaping our thought and action to the immigration debate and the creation of a new intentional community centered on conscious agorism, here's an outline of the world of free humanity in 2017.
Be sure to follow James on:
Steemit
YouTube
Twitter
I am an investigative journalist and liberty activist; a Lead Investigative Reporter for ActivistPost.com and the founder of the TheConsciousResistance.com & The Houston Free Thinkers. I have also co-authored three books: The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality and Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion, Vol. 1 and Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion, Vol. 2
Donate via Bitcoin: 16fDdrZvt9XUv7TyboSYtaHfcxMb22Yiew
I am always available for interviews, Please contact [email protected]
I greatly appreciate any support here or on my other social media:
nice book ya got there :-P
I've heard good things about it
I haven't read your book yet, but I'm already glad you wrote it. My sincere best wishes for your health and happiness. I really hope you are well enough to make some of the tour.
Thanks!
A wild @dbroze appears... It's super effective!
I can hardly believe I hear these words coming from someone else. It's like you're in my head, stealing my thoughts, and saying them better than I might. This discussion with @corbettreports is such that I pinch myself figuratively, to be sure I am not simply in some kind of dream state.
I have had some experience in attempting to establish intentional communities and voluntarist efforts, but my skills at administration are inadequate, and can but offer some counsel if you should seek it.
I am beyond glad to see your ambition driving your actions to undertake to prove what you say is true, and deeply admire that.
Thanks!
Hey @dbroze, I really loved this interview with the @corbettreport, it made my day.
A lot of what you're talking about really resonates with me. Specifically the idea of justing doing it, creating some kind of community along agorist or similar principles, I've been thinking a lot about that and discussing idea of how we might do this in some way with friends. We're coming up with some ideas for how to do this is a distributed way for people who cannot or don't want to actually move to the same region.
I said "along agorist principles", but I completely vibe with your unease with the labels and -isms of political theory and action. You rightly emphasise that if these kinds of ideas you are advocating are going to have a chance at widespread adoption they need to be able to fit in and around the way other people conceptualize the world, in so far as that's possible.
What do you think of a constitution as a way to set out some ground rules? You mention the practical examples of deal with "bad elements" (my term not yours) of refuse the deal with them or excommunication. So do you prefer agreements in action as opposed to any formal sense. Btw I do not mean a constitution to establish a state of course.
Also I have to say in the video when the picture fell from the wall I lol-ed 😂 you continued well.
Oh and I almost forgot, congratulations on the release of your book, I have a PDF copy now and I look forward to reading it. It's awesome that it's free, I will send you a tip now.
Oh, yeah. I forgot to congratulate him on the book too. I haven't had a chance to read it, yet, but it's the next I will read.
One thought I have had about this, is that, since people each bring different perspective to matters, each should carefully consider and adopt their own.
Just as nations with different constitutions can ally, conduct commerce, and interact at every level, so can people. I actually tried to start such a movement, here on Steemit, calling on my followers to contribute text towards agreements that they would find amenable to govern their interactions with peers.
I had a few folks that commented, and haven't pursued it further, but I feel it's an approach that really empowers each person to own their own principles, and that can also aid in creating communities, as folks find others that agree even in small details with how they themselves feel.
I'd like your opinion on such a legal basis for interactions. You seem likely to have considered the language you'd feel comfortable standing in principle on, and even to have previously discussed it with others.
Any thoughts you'd share would be welcome.
Thanks!
Hey thanks for jumping in.
I like some of the implications of the idea of a "personal constitution". If we all all sovereign in ourselves then the comparison fit quite well of nations becoming allies, conducting commerce, etc., on a free and voluntary basis without giving up their sovereignty to do this. I think this is basis and I support this.
In essence I don't think a "shared constitution" so go much further than declaring the conditions for this situation to occur, the absolute basics for liberty. We can say that persons (a la nations) can ally, it is a fact, but it is also true that they can go fight and go to war against each other. Can we say nothing absolute about war or must we pretend that all situations are new and interesting on their own? No I think there are some principles which hold.
Further to recognizing some facts, we can make active agreements which support the kind of life we want, or in other words that establishes a community. On the one hand I think you can choose to leave this up to convention emerging from behavior and make nothing explicit. This will probably work fine for some situations. But in some others I think knowing where you stand with people and having something solid by which to call them up can work well for more people. I recently watched a video in which Jonathan Haidt says that
because he suggests libertarians probably need less constraint and can live well that way, but not everyone can live well like that. Especially in reference to @dbroze 's point in trying to reach the most amount of people, I think this is sensible.
It's very much under discussion for me though, my mind is not made up. I think there's a valid argument that legal codes are slippery slopes towards tyranny but on the other hand I believe in justice and being up front about what that means. A constitution would go towards that. Note also, though I hope this is obvious, it would be voluntarily accepted of course, or not at all!
Great reply! I didn't wanna touch on conflict, as I'd hope having such principles established might aid in reducing such. Folks with widely divergent regs would tend to not conduct commerce, in favor of those whose views were more similar to theirs, but conflict happens.
Maybe having such established parameters, and knowing where others stood, might help to ease the anxiety of the folks Haidt mentioned.
No document can predict and cover the minutiae of every situation (one of the problems with extant legal codes is that they continue to grow beyond all practicality as they try to do this) but I reckon a lot of folks are fairly like-minded, and some 'boilerplate' might suffice for their needs.
The reason the idea came up was because of areas where folks diverge, and leaving some group authority over you to force compliance with rules they demand you follow sets precedent, and surely is a slippery slope.
Really appreciate your insights, thanks!
Having a constitution or not rests on the idea that you can set certain principles out without being able to predict everything that might happen. And that is why it is different from legal codes. The legal codes are set to implement the principles as mandated by the constitution but the constitution need not know exactly how do it, only that it should be done, and ideally that it can be done, somehow.
If some folks diverge in fundamental areas then I say some folks don't have to sign it or be a party to it or it's authority. It can only has authority by agreement or coercion, and if we say we will not apply forceful membership of a constitutional community then that leaves only agreement.
I see a problem when, having voluntarily agreed, someone feels it is no longer in their interest to agree any more. I think entering and exiting the agreement must be by free choice but what then of someone who does something prohibited by the constitution and does not want to be subject to the constitutionally or legally laid out consequences? That needs to be thought of too, and I don't say it's unsolvable, but that's one of the biggest problems I see to it.
Consider seriously for a moment the idea of being bound by your own agreements, by force if necessary. Could you agree to that?
That's really the only kind I'm willing, and totally willing, to be bound by. Why the hell should I agree to be bound by an agreement I didn't make?
Well, this is also a reason for personal codes. If you change your mind, you can change your code, and no one else can stop you.
However, being a party to an agreement and violating it, and THEN changing the rules you agree to so that you wouldn't be punishable is an ex post facto modification, which shouldn't be upheld by just courts.
I reckon international law is a pretty good model for interpersonal interactions in a society based on personal codes. IANAL, but my light exposure to it indicates to me that it is far more egalitarian than national codes.
Such changes would modify interpersonal agreements, and potentially require renegotiation of them, but that's better than crime, or war.
I see personal codes working to allow people to decide who, where, how and why they'll interact with others, say coming over to your house to have dinner.
If you have a rule that everyone on your property has to smoke, or drink tequila, I'm gonna refrain from the visit. It's your place, and you have a right to establish such rules, but I may not wanna smoke, or drink, or whatever.
Perhaps your business is under a code that mandates a certain type of court, or arbitration, or tax, that I'm unwilling to bear. I won't do business with you on those terms, or we might negotiate exceptions. Stuff like that.
Thanks!
What have you got against smoking and tequila!? 😉
Let's take the visit to the authoritarian hedonists property as an example. What if I don't agree that they have the right to that property? Or in the idea that I may be forced to smoke or drink by anyone? That anyone may "have a right to establish such rules" is not a given and I may enter the property without that knowledge. It would be very tedious indeed to have to review the terms for any movement from this location to that on the earth, and it would be unethical to not present those terms if they are under debate.
I see a constitution as a move towards sensibleness in these kinds of arrangements. But then again, it will only take one dramatic incident on this lunatic's property for the word to get out about them (assuming the visitor survives the event). So there's that too.
I see your points. But I will highlight that a personal code is no contract as a contract must have at least two signatories. Otherwise I think it is better understood as an oath made to the rest of humanity, as the rest of humanity had no chance to review it. In a sense it becomes quite useless except in these regards:
However without any convention on these oaths they are possibly so much mumbo-jumbo, open to various interpretation and misunderstanding. I'd be interested to find out a way to at least stick to some definitions, i.e. I can understand what you mean when you say X, if not a shared constitution.
I have the sense that you keep wishing to end the conversation but I have other intentions friend 😜
EDIT
Like you editing that post after I replied? Lol, seriously though, that could happen too.
Perhaps law does not need a constitutional basis on which to operate but it does need some basis. I agree that it's a possible model, what basis would you see to justify it?
Fantastic interview, I remember seeing this on @corbettreport not too long ago and it was my introduction to your work. You touch on so many important things here, it's really difficult to pluck out my favorite quote. The talk about getting hung up on labels/ideologies is perhaps one of my favorite points here, we need to move beyond these concepts: left/right, socialist/capitalist or even differing forms of anarchy. You really do a great job showing how these distinctions really slow down progress for all of us.
Thanks for posting this here, respect
Fantastic interview. Not listen to James for a long while. I need to sort that. Love your plan and it would sure be great to see you in England. I think a lot of people have these values but are to afraid to view them. Keep up the fantastic work!
very informative post.every moment i learn something from your post.love to read it.
Congratulations @dbroze, this post is the ninth most rewarded post (based on pending payouts) in the last 12 hours written by a User account holder (accounts that hold between 0.1 and 1.0 Mega Vests). The total number of posts by User account holders during this period was 2696 and the total pending payments to posts in this category was $2168.11. To see the full list of highest paid posts across all accounts categories, click here.
If you do not wish to receive these messages in future, please reply stop to this comment.
I wish that people would put "video" in their first tag if they only post a video so that other people could waste less life time with looking in the post and seeing it has nothing interesting. Hint hint.
I've begun making that change, starting with the video I posted today.
I remember this interview this past summer- I'd like to know more about that evil judge who sold out and put him away for his 'dangerous precedent'. You could argue she was right- but the idea was only dangerous to the Fabian psychopaths who are waging war against our minds, bodies, and freedoms.
Hey...i have almost gone through your every single post i love to read your content just keep posting man!!!
Thanks so much! I really appreciate that :-)