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Creating a Free Alter-Market

Started by memenode, April 15, 2008, 10:48 PM NHFT

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srqrebel

Quote from: gu3st on April 16, 2008, 06:09 PM NHFT
How do we deter the government, make it so that they actually do not want or just do not dare to touch us?

Bingo! With that question, you have arrived at the outer frontier of the emerging Free Market Civilization. The answer to that question does not yet exist -- or at least not to my knowledge. As such, it is up to you and me, and anyone else who gets it, to answer that question ourselves, and create effective solutions. We are the ones blazing the trail.

Quote from: gu3st on April 16, 2008, 06:09 PM NHFT
An immediate idea that comes to my mind is a bad idea - to collude with them, somehow make them the benefactors of our market.

I see merit in that idea: If we can get them to be dependent on us for certain technology, the balance of power shifts to us. For example, if we develop 24/7 GPS tracking and recording technology, and market it aggressively to law enforcement as a means of keeping track of officers' activities, as well as a means of theft-proofing their property, we would not only have the ability to track their every move; we could also disable the technology, or abruptly cut off access, if it was to our advantage.

That said, I think there are other avenues that are more promising.

Quote from: gu3st on April 16, 2008, 06:09 PM NHFT
...Perhaps we could do this by making our network at the same time decentralized and "tight". Decentralization would help because they could never take out one entity and destroy the whole market (think peer to peer networks), but tight inter-relationships might make it too expensive for government to even target a single entity of this market without facing some sort of a retribution...

That is another unspoken premise of mine, that you have articulated very well.

In fact, I consider both decentralization and tight social bonds to be absolutely critical to our success. Those have both been developing spontaneously in the NH activist community.

Quote from: gu3st on April 16, 2008, 06:09 PM NHFT
...Perhaps we need to get a hold of a particular valuable part of the existing market, a part which government finds it in their interest to keep stable, and keep that going so long as we believe it is better to keep it stable than to let it go, until the time comes to let it go, the time when the new market will be a de-facto winner and governments de-facto too weak to do anything about us.

To clarify, we would take control of a particular sensitive part of the existing market in a way that would make participants of the new market a crucial part of it, therefore making it too expensive for government not to turn a blind eye on us. This then buys us sufficient amount of safety and time to build up our market at the expense of the existing one and weaken government to a point at which even once we let go of the old part we were controlling, they would be just too weak to do anything about it.

It's like a hostage situation. We take control of something that government really wants to keep stable and keep it stable so long as government agrees to leave us alone.

Another outstanding idea. I get the distinct impression that the paradigm shift has been even quicker and more thorough for you than it has been for me. By the way, gu3st, are you an FSP member? We could sure use more people like you here in Keene, New Hampshire! ;D 8)

Quote from: gu3st on April 16, 2008, 06:09 PM NHFT
...And now I'm feeling like a god damn criminal for speaking such things. :D

That only speaks to your honor: You have actually suggested nothing that they have not inflicted upon us with glee for thousands of years :)

----

Back to the question of how to deter the most dangerous criminals in our midst:

We are obviously subject to financial and time constraints. A lot of the technology that I trust will eventually be in place, will require enormous amounts of time, money, and knowledge to develop.

One of the immediate, affordable (though a bit expensive) things we can do is install private, internet-based surveillance systems in our homes, offices, and cars. That way, we are in a position to profit from their every move: If they leave us alone, great; if they attack us, we have footage which we can present to their unwitting supporters in such a way as to expose them for who they really are. It can also help us gather intelligence on their ever shifting modus operandi.

Imagine if we would develop the kinds of technology described by Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged: For instance, the holographic shroud that kept Galt's Gulch hidden from view... or the technology that surreptitiously reduced the contents of Galt's laboratory to a bit of fine powder the moment an unauthorized break-in occurred.

What if thugs arrived at your home, only to be greeted by an inaudible tone that sent chills up their spine, causing them to want to leave the premises at once and never return? ;D

A lot of ideas are pie-in-the-sky... others are feasible. It is up to us to sort them out, and get the ball rolling.

As for me... I'm starting out with the e-surveillance idea :)

K. Darien Freeheart

#16
QuoteOne of the immediate, affordable (though a bit expensive) things we can do is install private, internet-based surveillance systems in our homes, offices, and cars.

Actually, I've been thinking about this even smaller scale. I see that Porc 411 gets good response, often on video. However, there's a single point of failure there - the media on which the recording is saved. Activists can be "silenced" by the destruction of the camera so a way to stream the feed directly to a remote server would be pretty good in the short term. The same principal applies to whole-home surveilance.

In addition, not only is it safe from immediate destruction, it's instantly in a position to be spread like wildfire. Mark said something on FTL last night about our greatest advantage being communication. Imagine how the world might be different today if Waco (for instance) had internal cameras during the standoff.

QuoteThose have both been developing spontaneously in the NH activist community.

Seeing you guys build Mark's house almost moved me to tears. There's a lot of power in those ideas.

QuoteA lot of the technology that I trust will eventually be in place, will require enormous amounts of time, money, and knowledge to develop.

This is, in my opinion, the strongest reason for the FSP. Some people see 20,000 people as being the number of votes to sway an election but for me it's 20,000 pieces of a self-sustaining market. When a programmer joines the FSP, it's one step closer to streamlined home automation. When a plumber joins, it's one less service that needs be handled by an "outsider". Add hobbies and past careers and experiments to that and the gaps close pretty quickly.

QuoteWhat if thugs arrived at your home, only to be greeted by an inaudible tone that sent chills up their spine, causing them to want to leave the premises at once and never return? Grin

I have visions of a fully armed SWAT team raiding a home and suddenly a Brown Note booms.

memenode

Quote from: srqrebelI get the distinct impression that the paradigm shift has been even quicker and more thorough for you than it has been for me.

Who knows. I've largely Kevin to thank to for helping me understand it better. He also pointed me to The Market for Liberty book which was the last straw for my losing every belief in government..

But I'm still trying to iron out some concepts, like what exactly is natural law, especially as it relates to human nature and the issue of morality. I might open a different thread on those issues..

Quote from: srqrebelBy the way, gu3st, are you an FSP member? We could sure use more people like you here in Keene, New Hampshire!  ;D 8)

I'm not a member, but I toyed with the idea of coming. However, I am from Europe and my chances of moving there are pretty slim. Not so much because of financial issues (if I strongly set a goal of moving I'll save up money and work to increase earnings from my business, which is a goal anyway), but I don't qualify for H1 at all and tourist visa requires some proof that I wont be staying in US indefinitely. And even if I get a tourist visa and stay once it expires, I'd be an illegal immigrant.

I'm more and more considering, besides just staying where I am, to move to some offshore country instead..

I'm honored you think I'd be valuable there though. :)

Quote from: srqrebelOne of the immediate, affordable (though a bit expensive) things we can do is install private, internet-based surveillance systems in our homes, offices, and cars. That way, we are in a position to profit from their every move: If they leave us alone, great; if they attack us, we have footage which we can present to their unwitting supporters in such a way as to expose them for who they really are. It can also help us gather intelligence on their ever shifting modus operandi.

Sounds exciting, especially for NH. I'm not sure how effective would this be in Croatia. I don't know any other ancaps here. I even searched for any sorts of anarchists and I could only find anarcho-syndicalists which is pretty far off. And I don't personally drive a car, my business is completely internet based and still too small to be a significant target of the authorities (I don't expect a raid or a fine or anything of the sort any time soon, but I'd still like to use the time I have to come up with some sort of a protection method.. unless I'll just give in to the security threat they pose and register my business once I am able to afford the costs associated).

Anyway, the other ideas you mentioned are quite.. scifi (which I love).  ;D You never know. I am one of those who says everything is possible and doesn't see science fiction so far off anymore (I'm also a Star Trek fan).

I'm yet to read the book on agorism and you also mentioned Atlas Shrugged, maybe I should check it out. Perhaps I get some cool ideas then which I'll share here.

One thing to consider though.. this forum is public so everything we say, especially if we get into the details, can be read by government officials as well. Just something to keep in mind.

Quote from: Kevin DeanWhen a programmer joines the FSP, it's one step closer to streamlined home automation. When a plumber joins, it's one less service that needs be handled by an "outsider". Add hobbies and past careers and experiments to that and the gaps close pretty quickly.

I agree. However, as one of the apparently rare foreigners feel I feel like I need to represent another aspect of FSP.. we could call it the unintended consequence. People around the world (like me) can see what's going on here and be attracted to it, but should not enough of them be able to move to USA, NH, they may want to play a particular role. In other words, while the primary goal, of course, is to move 20K people to NH, the end effect may be that this will only form a base for liberty movement which goes well beyond the borders of the USA and the North American continent.

Here is a guy, stuck in Croatia, hoping to get in on things. Internet binds us all so its not at all unfeasible for FSP to have an international dimension by means of international support, cooperation with international ancap individuals building an international alter-market with NH as one of its most vibrant "nodes".

Hm ok that sounded like a bit of a rant, but I think you'll get the picture overall. :)

Cheers

srqrebel

Quote from: gu3st on April 18, 2008, 12:50 PM NHFT
One thing to consider though.. this forum is public so everything we say, especially if we get into the details, can be read by government officials as well. Just something to keep in mind.

Always!!!

Because of that, most of my focus is on methods that require minimum privacy to be effective.

One of the most powerful side benefits of the strictly peaceful approach, is that it leaves the "government" powerless. If they attack us violently, they expose their true nature, thereby undermining their legitimacy and accelerating our advantage; if they leave us alone, they hang on to their perceived legitimacy longer, while we still gradually gain the advantage.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't. They must be squirming in their seats! ;D

memenode

I understand. No need to hide when we're not the ones disadvantaged.. and they can't stop the intention to act in a way that puts them in that damned predicament. :D

So in a sense, it doesn't help them even if they read this stuff.

Cheers

John Edward Mercier

Quote from: gu3st on April 16, 2008, 06:09 PM NHFT
Quote from: srqrebelbut articulating it the way you did actually brings into sharp focus this very important and major piece of the solution. Good job!  :)

Thank you. Best ideas come naturally, which is why it also doesn't surprise others thought of it before too (judging from the agorism thing). :)

Quote from: srqrebelTo be consistent with the laws of human nature (specifically the inherent self-ownership and self-dominion of each individual), the emphasis of such security measures should be increasingly in the direction of crime deterrence, while consistently moving away from invasive follow-up measures, and deterrence measures that inflict permanent harm.

That'd be the ideal way to do it. However, this makes me wonder, how do we deter government from destroying the value we build in this new market (by fines and arrests for instance)? Of course, we need to develop self defense mechanisms, just in case, but let's shoot for the moon first and then we might as well get to the orbit. :) How do we deter the government, make it so that they actually do not want or just do not dare to touch us?

An immediate idea that comes to my mind is a bad idea - to collude with them, somehow make them the benefactors of our market. But then we might as well just agree to pay taxes and play by their rules - so that's definitely out of the question. What else is left? Making it too expensive for them to target us? Perhaps we could do this by making our network at the same time decentralized and "tight". Decentralization would help because they could never take out one entity and destroy the whole market (think peer to peer networks), but tight inter-relationships might make it too expensive for government to even target a single entity of this market without facing some sort of a retribution. Perhaps we need to get a hold of a particular valuable part of the existing market, a part which government finds it in their interest to keep stable, and keep that going so long as we believe it is better to keep it stable than to let it go, until the time comes to let it go, the time when the new market will be a de-facto winner and governments de-facto too weak to do anything about us.

To clarify, we would take control of a particular sensitive part of the existing market in a way that would make participants of the new market a crucial part of it, therefore making it too expensive for government not to turn a blind eye on us. This then buys us sufficient amount of safety and time to build up our market at the expense of the existing one and weaken government to a point at which even once we let go of the old part we were controlling, they would be just too weak to do anything about it.

It's like a hostage situation. We take control of something that government really wants to keep stable and keep it stable so long as government agrees to leave us alone.

And now I'm feeling like a god damn criminal for speaking such things. :D

Quote from: Kevin Dean
The created vs developed thing means that to build a sustainable, adaptive market it needs to happen and "grow" rather than planning it out and one days saying "Go!".

Yes I agree, but there is a bit of an irony here. People who really dare to champion this new freedom market regardless of it essentially being forbidden are people like us, anarcho-capitalists and the like, those considered as "radicals" by the rest. And if we happen to consent to a particular strategy of building it because this is the solution we found most efficient we would in a way doing it both "by design" and "by nature", in a sense both synthetically and organically at the same time. :)

It's like this. We interact and by interacting reinforce each others belief that government is a problem. Therefore our market already recognized a demand (problem) and now we need to come up with the supply (solution). Among various solutions being "sold" on forums like this one eventually most of us pick one and choose to go with it therefore defacto designing the new market - even though design was never coordinated by anything more than mere consented relationships. :)

It's a beautiful thing.


There are very few 'real' services (those not created by the AMOG itself), and even on this forum are those promoting the AMOG version of those services.

Coconut

Lyf Productions lyfproductions.com  Is not incorporated, and I'd be more than happy to accept precious metals in return for services. Forgive the plug?  :blush:

David


David

Quote from: srqrebel on April 16, 2008, 01:16 PM NHFT
Quote from: David on April 16, 2008, 11:56 AM NHFT
These things can't be 'created', they have to be developed.  It is already happening.  Slowly. 

Could you please explain the distinction between "creating" and "developing"?
My appologies, I must have missed your post initially. 
There isn't a huge difference, but mostly the difference is in the character of how it occurs. 
Creating is being designed by someone, essentually a more centralized approach.  Where as a market developing, is simply people seeing a need and fulfilling it.  More decentralized.  The problem with anything that is black market, is that it is persucuted by the gov't.  That of course is what makes it a black market.  When the product you sell, or how you sell, or if you are simply not paying all of the taxes, there is a trust issue.  This hampers the ability of someone, or even a group of people to create new methods of business to evade gov't rules.  I ran into this problem everytime I had what seemed like a good idea. 
For example, the drug industry.  Everytime they take out some bit kingpin, they open up the market for incredible decentralization.  The gov't cannot stop decentralization.  They have been trying for 25 years, and the prisons are a testament to the monumental failure, and cost of their effort.  The soviets couldn't stop decentralized markets.