Do you think it is possible to boycott the use of the dollar. I'm sure massive amounts of support could come about through Paul, and propaganda of the cause by internet. Do you think it would be possible to do, or at least have a state start to make it's own currency until certain demands are met, like abolishing the FED. Not that this will happen, but it could be started if certain mining and minting companies would support it illegally. I know the Liberty Dollar was killed, but if we had a well known public movement, I think it could create some attention to the cause. Isn't there some kind of Yellow Pages of companies and businesses that use the Liberty dollar, any major businesses perhaps? Maybe the use of foreign currency, silver?
The media attention would be fanatical! "Are these people serious, trying to boycott money?" God forbid if a state would actually have the balls to coin its own currency, it might start a civil war!!
And does anyone know if boycotting use of a domestic currency has ever been tried here or some other place in history. And if so, was it successful?
Democracy is nothing more than replacing bullets with ballots
If Pro is the opposite of Con. What is the opposite of Progress?
liberty student: Nitroadict:Yea, although it could be agrued that said court battles could generate sympathy for off-the-books bartering (and encourage more people to do, in a similar manner to file sharing, where benefits are generally outweighing the dangers of getting caught), it would require a few martrys (for lack of a better word) to get hit with IRS charges, and hopefully, sympathetic jury rulings, while public attention is drawn to it. This is of course, assuming enough of the public do not buy into the inevitable media spin on such proceedings, which obviously, some would. It's still impractical for one if they get caught though, you are correct. This highlights the problems & pains of keeping it under-wraps for as long as possible, in addition to keeping it as de-centralized as possible as well. Something like this would be quite interesting if it was premeditated. For example, if legal expertise and arguments were assembled in advance, as well as scripting for the trial, and the act was committed in a favorable jurisdiction, then the opportunity "initiate" prosecution for the purpose of challenging the law would be quite interesting. Anything meaningful, will require planning and resources. Participation while not essential, is another handy component. I'm intrigued by the notion of 100% off the books. How can we leverage the internet to such an advantage? FSK has written about the public or private perspectives on trade alliances. I wonder if the existing bit-torrent network was leveraged, if thousands of users could hide within that massive ecosystem, making it hard to distinguish between file sharing, and barter trading.... The only way to attack the torrent is at the tracker level. Disrupt the trackers and you raise the ire of millions of file sharers. Curious....
Nitroadict:Yea, although it could be agrued that said court battles could generate sympathy for off-the-books bartering (and encourage more people to do, in a similar manner to file sharing, where benefits are generally outweighing the dangers of getting caught), it would require a few martrys (for lack of a better word) to get hit with IRS charges, and hopefully, sympathetic jury rulings, while public attention is drawn to it. This is of course, assuming enough of the public do not buy into the inevitable media spin on such proceedings, which obviously, some would. It's still impractical for one if they get caught though, you are correct. This highlights the problems & pains of keeping it under-wraps for as long as possible, in addition to keeping it as de-centralized as possible as well.
It's still impractical for one if they get caught though, you are correct. This highlights the problems & pains of keeping it under-wraps for as long as possible, in addition to keeping it as de-centralized as possible as well.
Something like this would be quite interesting if it was premeditated. For example, if legal expertise and arguments were assembled in advance, as well as scripting for the trial, and the act was committed in a favorable jurisdiction, then the opportunity "initiate" prosecution for the purpose of challenging the law would be quite interesting.
Anything meaningful, will require planning and resources. Participation while not essential, is another handy component.
I'm intrigued by the notion of 100% off the books. How can we leverage the internet to such an advantage? FSK has written about the public or private perspectives on trade alliances. I wonder if the existing bit-torrent network was leveraged, if thousands of users could hide within that massive ecosystem, making it hard to distinguish between file sharing, and barter trading....
The only way to attack the torrent is at the tracker level. Disrupt the trackers and you raise the ire of millions of file sharers.
Curious....
Actually, I totally disagree with the use of trackers as a long-term strategy. Trackers, while useful, are the main achilles heel of bit-torrent, as trackers are centralized places for one to search torrents & meta-data. Half-solutions, such as DHT, could be utilized, but I think a much more radical solution to rid bit-torrent of this centralization would be needed for such an under-taking that you are proposing (which I think is worth while to consider). I'm not too versed in the protocol's and technology, but from a theoretical point of view, a new technology that relies on operating agents to spread said torrents would be required in order to keep de-centralzation more plausible, where many people can operate as their own tracker, in a sense. However, initally, I think either a track or a specific forum would do well for organizing a starting point online for inital recruitment and/or as the gateway towards larger scale things.One example I'm thinking of would resemble the use of something like addresses used for postage. For instance, if I had a facebook page, and independatly included a certain key phrase in my profile (let's say: "A is A; Alternative Actions Welcomed"), this could be an indicator that I might be one who favors bartering as an alternative currency, and possibly through craiglists, could arrange a meeting (if we are local enough) to conduct buisness. The only problem with the above is that it would be strictly limited to localized activity. As for national activity, I imagine if I lived in say, California, and a potential customer lived in Arizona, we could pass a certain item through various other communities (hop scothing, as it were), until an item got to a local enough community for the customer to pick up. However, that would require a shipping service, or the use of already existing shipping services. Needless to say, what I proposed isn't entirley new nor very specific, but it would require a good amount of inital investment to lay down the infrastrcture, or at least a solid method of steps that would make a system feasible to operate. As for entirley relying on the Internet, this would become increasingly hard with the prospect of IP Cops (sigh...), and more contorting powers competing for control over the Internet. Cryptography, hidden messages, phrases, memes & patterns of behavior would be the best ways in which to combat this, I would think. I would highly stress memetics as essentialy to sucess, other than offline activity, as use of memetics may eventually yeild spontaneous volunteers based on word of mouth or pure curiosity of said exclusive alternative currency & activity. One thing I would think that would be a great service that could stimulate said 100% alt. bartering would be the transaction of uncensored information. While such a market won't truly exist until the grip on the Internet is unberable, there might be incentive sooner for such a thing, and there might be enough people that see the importance of using such activity to get information.I think there some type of payment system being worked on by someone else on the forums that was similar to some of what I proposed, but I mainly stress the contextual clues of words as a way of keeping an "unseen" community strung together by breadcrumbs that would almost impossible for someone not in the know to detect.
It seems J. Orlin Grabbe (RIP) was moving in that direction.
J. Orlin Grabbe's site is gone, but http://www.billstclair.com/grabbe is an archive (and it's prolly on the Way Back Machine, too), with:
Quantum articles, Miscellaneous, Mission Statement, Privacy & Crypto, Digital Finance, Gold Market, Chaos & Fractals, Java Encryption Code, etc.
Good stuff on developng a "transparent" bank on-line.
And FSK: Your blog *is* interesting. I'll be spending some time there. Thanks.
Nitroadict:Actually, I totally disagree with the use of trackers as a long-term strategy. Trackers, while useful, are the main achilles heel of bit-torrent, as trackers are centralized places for one to search torrents & meta-data. Half-solutions, such as DHT, could be utilized, but I think a much more radical solution to rid bit-torrent of this centralization would be needed for such an under-taking that you are proposing (which I think is worth while to consider).
Nitroadict:One example I'm thinking of would resemble the use of something like addresses used for postage. For instance, if I had a facebook page, and independatly included a certain key phrase in my profile (let's say: "A is A; Alternative Actions Welcomed"), this could be an indicator that I might be one who favors bartering as an alternative currency, and possibly through craiglists, could arrange a meeting (if we are local enough) to conduct buisness. The only problem with the above is that it would be strictly limited to localized activity. As for national activity, I imagine if I lived in say, California, and a potential customer lived in Arizona, we could pass a certain item through various other communities (hop scothing, as it were), until an item got to a local enough community for the customer to pick up. However, that would require a shipping service, or the use of already existing shipping services. Needless to say, what I proposed isn't entirley new nor very specific, but it would require a good amount of inital investment to lay down the infrastrcture, or at least a solid method of steps that would make a system feasible to operate.
Nitroadict:As for entirley relying on the Internet, this would become increasingly hard with the prospect of IP Cops (sigh...), and more contorting powers competing for control over the Internet. Cryptography, hidden messages, phrases, memes & patterns of behavior would be the best ways in which to combat this, I would think.
Nitroadict:I think there some type of payment system being worked on by someone else on the forums that was similar to some of what I proposed, but I mainly stress the contextual clues of words as a way of keeping an "unseen" community strung together by breadcrumbs that would almost impossible for someone not in the know to detect.
I would make a great bureaucrat. Wanna see? Click here. It's fun.
liberty student: Nitroadict:Actually, I totally disagree with the use of trackers as a long-term strategy. Trackers, while useful, are the main achilles heel of bit-torrent, as trackers are centralized places for one to search torrents & meta-data. Half-solutions, such as DHT, could be utilized, but I think a much more radical solution to rid bit-torrent of this centralization would be needed for such an under-taking that you are proposing (which I think is worth while to consider). It would be a boon, but not totally necessary. It's like going into a huge market, and selling something out of your pocket. Now imagine thousands of those sales occuring amidst all of the white market activity. It would be nearly impossible to police, prevent or even intimidate. Just as policing IP transgression has been nearly impossible to do, so to would grey and black market transactions.The only way to prevent future transactions, is to completely close down the network. With millions of white market (technically grey or black, but not engaging in agoristic activity) users, the outcry and backlash provides it's own defense mechanism. Nitroadict:One example I'm thinking of would resemble the use of something like addresses used for postage. For instance, if I had a facebook page, and independatly included a certain key phrase in my profile (let's say: "A is A; Alternative Actions Welcomed"), this could be an indicator that I might be one who favors bartering as an alternative currency, and possibly through craiglists, could arrange a meeting (if we are local enough) to conduct buisness. The only problem with the above is that it would be strictly limited to localized activity. As for national activity, I imagine if I lived in say, California, and a potential customer lived in Arizona, we could pass a certain item through various other communities (hop scothing, as it were), until an item got to a local enough community for the customer to pick up. However, that would require a shipping service, or the use of already existing shipping services. Needless to say, what I proposed isn't entirley new nor very specific, but it would require a good amount of inital investment to lay down the infrastrcture, or at least a solid method of steps that would make a system feasible to operate.In the right petri dish, who knows what sort of new lifeforms will emerge? I wouldnt necessarily get locked into the notion of condcting barter trade as we do now. New goods are in much more demand than older ones, and I see the future of agorism possibly being the exchange of services, not only or primarily tangible goods. Nitroadict:As for entirley relying on the Internet, this would become increasingly hard with the prospect of IP Cops (sigh...), and more contorting powers competing for control over the Internet. Cryptography, hidden messages, phrases, memes & patterns of behavior would be the best ways in which to combat this, I would think.I'm not sure that secrecy will accomplish much. Nor the backlash against censorship. Secret handshakes and such will never lead to a popular revolution. The challenge is to conduct business in the light, where infiltrators can be seen clearly, and identified by everyone. Nitroadict:I think there some type of payment system being worked on by someone else on the forums that was similar to some of what I proposed, but I mainly stress the contextual clues of words as a way of keeping an "unseen" community strung together by breadcrumbs that would almost impossible for someone not in the know to detect.Infiltration is an area of government expertise. They own everything from the best software, hardware and engineers, to snoop concepts and ideas we can't even envision. The reality is, someone will have to be willing to meet in the town square at high noon, in front of everyone, and conduct counter state activity. As long as it's done underground, there is limited growth, the perception of impropriety and the state can marginalize and direct such activity outside the scrutiny of society.
You are right, I think I was getting caught up in the concept of infilteration & secrecy by my previous theories concerning memetics, rather than seeing the obvious advantage of blurring the white market (or a tool that is used by the white market, The Internet, in this case) into the grey & black markets, compeltly forgetting some fundamentals of Agora in the process, lol. The exchange of services would be easier to pull off, and I just realized that the eventual growth of the exchange of services would be able to solve the problem of the exchange of goods. I also realized that doing this broad daylight would be initally rocky, but it will be necessary to make a dent in mis-conceptions concerning that Agora activity is "sinister" in anyway, which is what the State would have a good ol' time "proving" with assorted propoganda.
I think some people don't realize that to be successful, Agorism will need to have a large degree of civil disobedience reminiscent of the civil rights movement. It can't be based purely on underground avoidance of the state but will need people willing to openly defy the state and be sent to jail peacefully (hopefully not for too long). I'm not exactly proposing the "martyr" strategy but there will have to be some martyrs if it ever gets of the ground. There will be successful and failed attempts at jury nullification, failure and success of the state to crush peaceful agorists etc.
There are two approaches: stealth and blatant public defiance. They aren't mutually exclusive. Some groups should try stealth-agorism (and may be trying already). If you successfully practice stealth-agorism, you still benefit, even if you don't defeat the State. Practicing agorism, your personal wealth is increased, even if enough people aren't participating to threaten the State. Someone should attempt blatant in-public agorism. You would need to be some sort of celebrity or have another way to capitalize on the publicity generated when the State violently cracks down on you. If you are committing truly benign activity (clothing, farming, etc.), then it becomes *VERY* hard to justify a violent crackdown. A violent crackdown might create sympathy for the agorists. The mainstream media would doubtless say "look at those selfish/greedy agorists", or not cover the story at all. However, there would be substantial discussion on the Internet. Also, if the agorist was very intelligent, he might be able to successfully pursue a sui juris "jury nullification" defense and avoid conviction. I'm leaning towards both possibilities. I might try stealth-agorism. I might try blatant-in-public-agorism. If I try blatant-in-public-agorism, I'm giving up my anonymity. If I had a profitable blogging/vlogging business, I might profit from the publicity generated by the inevitable trial. It might be profitable to go to jail for 1-2 years, if your personal reputation substantially increased as a result. Someone else mentioned balancing the risks of agorism. The true risk of stealth agorism is unknown, especially if you're clever about it. A good advocate for blatant-in-public agorism could covert a lot of people to stealth-agorism. I already discussed the possibility of tax resister insurance. If tax resisters pool their risk, and pool their State-avoidance tactics, it might be possible to profitably insure against an assault by the IRS. If fewer than 1%-2% are subjected to trial, the others could contribute to their defense. If you maximize the IRS's collection costs, then they might pursue less tempting targets or their terrorism might not be profitable.
I have my own blog at FSK's Guide to Reality. Let me know if you like it.
I guess the real issue here is that we need some sort of critical mass for any strategy to succeed. Agorism needs as much publicity as it can get. Open agorism might generate that but so might a huge crackdown on secret agorism, especially if the "guilty" agorist maintains that he has committed no crime and is not guilty.
I don't think stealth agorism will be very effective, except to test techniques. Self regulation (to avoid detection) of creative approaches can be just as stifling as government regulation.
I hope to touch on some of this stuff in blog posts soon. The last few weeks have been hectic.
liberty student: I don't think stealth agorism will be very effective, except to test techniques. Self regulation (to avoid detection) of creative approaches can be just as stifling as government regulation. I hope to touch on some of this stuff in blog posts soon. The last few weeks have been hectic.
Yes, that's why winning the sympathy of the public is the only essential battle to win. Think how easy it is to get away with smoking and selling marijuana in some areas. Now I know this isn't a perfect example since in many areas it's not so easy and there still are heavy penalties, but if countereconomics became as "normal" as other activities these issues would have less relevance. The tide is already shifting in favour of non-violent drug offenders in the battle of public sympathies. Imagine how much easier it could be to win the battle of making t-shirts, dairy products, agricultural products, alternative currency etc. non-violently while ignoring government regulations if this thing really got off the ground. The problem is how to get it off the ground.
majevska: The problem is how to get it off the ground.
The problem is how to get it off the ground.
You would need a massive refusal of people to file their income tax returns. They can't audit everyone. They would have to ignore it or have a violent crack down, giving it coverage