Accelerating collapse can’t be expected to lead to anything positive

The accelerationist movement can often be seen as accelerating the collapse, which would be a bad idea. The reason why is explained in this excellent thread by Will Tanner: we can’t assume that the collapse would lead to the phoenix rising from the ashes. It may just as well only lead to “the collapse” becoming a permanent state of things. Even small shreds of civilized society can keep countries alive for a very long time, existing as failed states indefinitely.

Collapse doesn’t mean you get a fresh start.

What we productive people need to focus on is accelerating the positive alternatives. We need to focus on building, perhaps within land areas of states on an upward trend of freedom. While “just building online” isn’t a sufficient answer, that doesn’t mean that there wouldn’t still be a lot that can and should be done online. The digital part of freedom is far from ready.

Life of freedom outside the shackles of legacy states

We need to be searching for alternatives that are not fully claimed by the legacy states. They own practically 100% of the global land area, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t eke out an existence in the small cracks of freedom. Like the tiniest mammals after the meteor that killed the dinosaurs, life will find a way.

There are some that now put their hopes in the Trump victory, with the expectation that he will restore America to be The Land Of The Free it once was. While I salute the attempt, I’ll believe it after I see results. I don’t personally put much faith in Trump himself but the X-men he surrounded himself with are more formidable, so we’ll see what happens. My biggest hope is for Elon to get rid of most of the government agencies, but I’m not holding my breath.

Even in the best case scenario, USA is a legacy state, and is very unlikely to become any kind of a tip of the spear of freedom. We need to continue the work on the alternatives: different kinds of parallel societies.

If these systems have an active and positive relationship with some existing state, that’s great. It can be a source of stability and a way to bridge the downward-trending nation state system with something sustainable and humane.

This is why I’m a big fan of the idea of Free (private) Cities, and my primary hope is that this idea is maximally able to push through to reality. There are currently two areas based on this idea in Honduras (Prospera and Morazan), but they’re facing serious headwinds from the current socialist government. While that fight continues, there are other simpler & quicker solutions.

Some wild and not-so-wild ideas

The Aleph Citadel is an existing, simple real-life example of how you can live in one place while maintaining relative freedom from the negative power of the state. I’ve also heard about a group of bitcoiners looking to establish a different, unofficial area of freedom in rural Argentina.

They’re not trying to declare any kind of independence from Argentina, but are just hoping to gain enough breathing space in Milei’s Argentina that they could live a “free enough” life there. These are far from perfect solutions, but it’s better to have a solution, instead of wasting your time dreaming of theoretical perfection.

There’s also the Seasteading movement, one that I must admit I long considered to be a bit stupid (“floating rafts, what a horrible idea”) but one that I’ve come around to. Open floating rafts wouldn’t be great, but a large area cordoned off by a concrete ring would offer protection from the waves (and the accompanying sea sickness), and if you build a roof on top of that, you have a pretty nice permanent “bubble” to park boats in, and maybe even build some other more permanent structures.

That kind of technology is definitely not science fiction, and can offer great possibilities for longer term living in freedom. There are other great simple, practical and definitely-not-scifi ideas such as Atlas Island (check out the related podcast episode as well) coming from the Seasteading community, and I hope all of those get explored, tested and developed further.

There are also other ideas such as the Praxis Nation. I’m not sure if I’m personally 100% convinced of the idea of Network States, but I really wish all the best to them! Even if their blockchain ideas turn out to be total brain farts (as I suspect), maybe they can fund & bootstrap something real regardless.

No need to wait – choose a life of freedom today!

Whatever longer term solutions the global freedom community comes up with, you don’t need to wait for the “next great idea” to come to fruition. The most important thing is to liberate yourself now. There is no need to wait for anything – all you need to do is to get on the move.

The biggest “crack of freedom” in our world is not some fancy theoretical sci-fi dream, but something that has always been an option: simply adopting an international lifestyle. It’s an obvious solution available right now for anyone with location independent source of income!

You can live in freedom on top of and in the midst of the legacy states, if you want to. Sovereign Landing exists to make this transition as easy as possible for you!