Reasons to postpone serious civ-dis till your >50s

[Alex Libman]

Reasons to postpone serious civil disobedience (ex. tax resistance) that will lead to serious prison time until after your 50s (or 70s, or 90s, etc):

• Advancements in technology will make it easier for prisoners to avoid suffering from boredom.  Locking people up without an iPad already seems like a form of torture to many, but in the future many people will have information devices containing all the high-def infotainment one would need for ten thousand years implanted inside their skulls, and it would be very difficult for the thugs to justify removing those devices against your will, which would be seen as mutilation.

• Older people are less prone to hormones that make it more difficult to suppress thoughts of aggression and sexual desires.  Older people also have an easier time being confined to one room as they require less exercise, and have more background and patience for intellectual pursuits like reading and writing (which is a great thing to do while in prison).

• An older person with a track record of rational behavior will be more difficult for the media to smear than "some young punk".   Having a longer record of non-violence will also make it more difficult for the thugs to justify treating you like an animal.

• Doing hard time in your 20s - 40s can be detrimental to one's ability to have a family and raise children to perpetuate your values.  Reproduction is a major force multiplier.

• As economy will grow and violent crime will shrink for a very long list of reasons, prisons will become better funded and thus more tolerable.  During this time the libertarian civ-dis movement is likely to grow, meaning you'd get more support from both inside and outside the prison.

• It might give you the ethical excuse to "hack the state" to pay for your retirement and old-age health-care costs.   

• The jury will be more likely to know all the aforementioned reasons, and thus give you a lighter sentence, or let you off entirely.  What's the point of putting someone in prison if it hurts the state more than it hurts them?

Possible reason not to:

• By the time most people reading this will turn 50, some other "sucker" will fall on that piece of barbed wire first.

[Kat Kanning]

I don't think you meant 'reasons'.  You meant 'excuses', no?

[Jim Johnson]

Over 50 and in their custody.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42968500/ns/us_news-life/

[Alex Libman]

I don't think you meant 'reasons'.  You meant 'excuses', no?

I meant both.

Over 50 and in their custody.

Yes, bad things obviously happen in prisons, to older people as well, but that does not invalidate the points I've made above.

[Jim Johnson]

Yes it does.

[Russell Kanning]

so nowthat you are into your 80 alex .... then lets get cracken

[Alex Libman]

A few notes on "excuses"...

My actual excuse to practice avoidance of reportable income, thereby delaying confrontation with the IRS by a few years, were my elderly parents, for whom I was the only child, and I didn't want them to spend the last months / years of their miserable wasted lives knowing that I'm in prison (or worse).

I've also wanted to spend more time reading and "trolling" the Internets, including mainstream forums where my beliefs would be actively challenged, as well as libertarian forums to bicker over details.  A good zealot should "beta-test" his philosophy to exhaustion, and that can take years.

Then a new excuse emerged - me being stabbed in the back by so many key people who, by implication of what the Free State Project is all about, were supposed to be on my side...  I've always said that in order to attain freedom, an Anarcho-Capitalist enclave would have to prove worthy of it - in my mind, the hope of that being the case within the next 2-3 decades has greatly been diminished.

And so here I am, taking time to think things over, gradually transitioning my mind to ever-greater introversion.  I haven't settled with federal or state tax thugs yet, but I've settled a "driving without papers" issue in NJ (still not driving, just buying time).  I'm not saying I'm not gonna go to prison, but I can no longer trust anyone to be on my side, which means I have to elevate my game-plan.  Trust no one.  My health, mental energy, and willpower being finite, I have to pick my battles...  I must prove that I am worth a damn, but only to myself.

so nowthat you are into your 80 alex .... then lets get cracken

I only look 80.  I'm supposed to turn 30 on October 19th, but I've decided against that.   

[MaineShark]

...I can no longer trust anyone to be on my side, which means I have to elevate my game-plan.  Trust no one.

Some of us have friends and family whom we can trust.  You should try it.

First step is probably to stop being so negative.  Stop ranting about whom you want to kill, or ostracize, or whatnot.  If a rational person hears you say how it's okay to kill innocent people, as long as you have noble ends, that person might just wonder when you plan to throw him to the wolves, and steer clear of you.

Joe

[Alex Libman]

Some of us have friends and family whom we can trust.  You should try it.

On a long-enough timeline, everybody will stab you in the back.  Yes, some relationships can have benefits in the meantime, but not much if one does a rational cost-benefit analysis and makes a life-long effort to control the emotional need for socialization.  Investing your time, energy, and money in other people very rarely has much benefit over investing those resources in yourself.  (See my Parents Tax thread for possible exceptions.)  But that's not what this thread is about.

First step is probably to stop being so negative.

Bah, humbug!  I value intellectual accomplishment over mindless happy-go-lucky circle-jerks.  The later also get quite boring after a while.  You cannot innovate without being judgmental.  I am nasty old fuck - by choice and conviction.  But that's not what this thread is about.

Stop ranting about whom you want to kill, or ostracize, or whatnot.

You'll find a few examples of me indulging in violent rants, but they do not comprise a very significant fraction of my literary output.  They push the boundaries of free speech, which is a good enough cause it of itself, and innovate what could be a genre of creative writing that has great insight into the human condition.  And they were always placed in an appropriate context, like what the FTL BBS once used to be...

I think you are confusing my contemplation of ostracism that would exist in a free market with proclamations that I'm engaging in this ostracism myself.  I criticize "gays" and "pot-heads", but I don't ostracize them, and I certainly make no secret of my own past and current indiscretions.  I make every effort to reconcile with people and build mutual understanding, but I make no promises not to offend.

But that's not what this thread is about.

If a rational person hears you say how it's okay to kill innocent people, as long as you have noble ends, that person might just wonder when you plan to throw him to the wolves, and steer clear of you.

We have a separate thread for my attempted reconciliation with the "peace-tards", which I will attend to shortly.

This thread is about planing for major civil disobedience (ex. Ed Brown level of tax resistance) and its place in a rational person's life - how a person should decide if, how, and especially when to risk spending a decade or two in prison for one's beliefs.

[David]

...I can no longer trust anyone to be on my side, which means I have to elevate my game-plan.  Trust no one.

Some of us have friends and family whom we can trust.  You should try it.

First step is probably to stop being so negative.  Stop ranting about whom you want to kill, or ostracize, or whatnot.  If a rational person hears you say how it's okay to kill innocent people, as long as you have noble ends, that person might just wonder when you plan to throw him to the wolves, and steer clear of you.

Joe

Well written Joe. 
Something tells be that Mr. Libman and myself, despite almost only a months difference in age, will never be bosom buddies.  I'm gay, a peace-tard, I enjoy the company of friendly people and am emotionally connected to them as well, and if after threatening to kill innocents just as Ed Brown did, I would prolly pretend you don't exist.  Please don't assume that I am stabbing you in the back, I don't have your back period. 
I remember some free stater moving to NH, moving out of NH, then killing a couple of utility workers.  I'll bet he talked about killing cops or something.  I would never have had his back either. 

[Alex Libman]

We agree to disagree.

For the record, I've never "threatened" to hurt anybody.  A "threat" is an actionable intention, like reaching for a gun.  I don't own a gun, and I have no history of violence.  Aside from insects, the only things I've killed in my life are a couple of mice that were trespassing and endangering my food supply.  Writing a hyperbolic literary manifestations of your emotions is not a "threat", especially when combined with your logical explanation of your non-violent game-plan written elsewhere.

[Russell Kanning]

I remember some free stater moving to NH, moving out of NH, then killing a couple of utility workers.  I'll bet he talked about killing cops or something.  I would never have had his back either. 

I don't know exactly what happened after he left NH, but he never talked about killing anyone when I was around him.
Alex doesn't either .... he just sometimes says annoying things, that i delete on this forum.
and btw if i keep miscapitalizing Tom Sawyer might have to hit me with an arrow .... hopefully rubber tipped

[Alex Libman]

Boring someone to death is not murder.   

[Alex Libman]

From Slashdot -- The Stroke of Genius Strikes Later In Life Than It Used To --

Einstein once said, "a person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so".  That peak age has shifted considerably, a new study found, with 48 being prime time for physicists.

For instance, in physics, in the early 20th century, a rise in young scientists generating prize-winning work coincided with the development of quantum mechanics.  In fact, in 1923, the proportion of physicists who did their breakthrough work by age 30 peaked at 31 percent.  Those who did their best work by age 40 peaked in 1934 at 78 percent.  The proportion of physics laureates producing Nobel Prize-winning work under age 30 or 40 then declined throughout the rest of the century.

I wonder if this'll apply to civil disobedience genius as well...