Tag: anarchism

Nation States End – Episode 216

by  on  in Podcast • 0 Comments

The Story: The transition to the information age will end nations

According to the case made in the book “The Sovereign Individual”, the nation state rose to power as a natural consequence of the conditions of the industrial age.

Gunpowder made obsolete the old technology such as armed cavalry, and castles. That set the stage for the efficient smelting of iron, which lead to factories.

Factories are very centralised – making them vulnerable to vandalism and also to taxation. The factory owners needed the protective watch of governments to maintain their properties.

Now we are moving into the information age, and it is much more common to have digital property, in the form of websites and cryptocurrency. In many ways, the nation state is powerless to protect these new forms of property, and in many cases it is powerless to tax them.

Still the belief in the authority of the nation state remains. How long will it hold up? Kurt explores that question and more in this episode of The Paradise Paradox!

The Links:

Urban/Rural divide – Multiversity Project

Post Anarchism, the Sovereign Individual – Multiversity Project

Welfare State Collapse – Multiversity Project

The Cash:

If you enjoy our posts, please like and follow The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit. Also check out my new site, Cryptonomics, and follow Cryptonomics on Steemit

We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.

The Episode:

Listen and subscribe to The Paradise Paradox on Anchor and other services.

If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.

Government is Religion – Episode 194

by  on  in Podcast • 0 Comments

The Story: States are compulsory cults

In the USA, many children go to school and say a prayer to a piece of cloth, affirming their faith in a deity called a “nation”. Many of them will grow up to continue worshipping the flag, repeating the words of their pledge of allegiance impressed on them when they were too young to even sign a contract. If someone desecrates the flag, urinating on it or burning it, they will get angry, because they know it means something – in fact, in their minds, it’s very difficult to separate any flag from their god – their nation.

The American bald eagle is no longer endangered in the United States, but it’s still illegal to harm one. To the lawmakers, the bald eagle is also a sacred image, a totem that represents the unity of their tribe. If you question whether obedience to the state is really beneficial or necessary, it’s normal to hear the response “It’s the law!” as if just by virtue of being declared a law makes it worthy of reverence, deference, and subjugation. The code of the government is sacred, no matter what it says, no matter how absurd.

All around the world, people have similar practices, blurring the lines between government and religion. In fact, they may be the same thing. Worshipping the government is just a particular kind of religion, a “civil religion”. In this episode, Kurt interviews entrepreneur, traveller and thinker, Shamus Mac, as he presents his case that governments are imposing their own compulsory religions, convincing or brainwashing their subjects into believing that their government, their country, their symbols and the spirit of them are all identical. Join us on another deprogramming adventure on … The Paradise Paradox!

The Links:

Civil Religion video

Robert Bellah’s Civil Religion in America essay

Peace of Westphalia on Wikipedia

Etymology of “religion”

Huichol Indians

What on Earth is happening – website of Mark Passio

The Cash:

If you enjoy our posts, please like and follow The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit.

We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.

The Episode:

To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.

Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.

If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.

Bitcoin, Dash and digital currency for beginners – Episode 181

by  on  in Podcast • 0 Comments

The Story: The dream of cryptocurrency and what to do about it

Most people hear the word “Bitcoin”, they don’t think much of it, or they think only about drug markets on shady parts of the web. Bitcoin, Dash and digital currency in general are similar to the Internet itself in some ways. If you can think back to 1995, you might remember people saying how the Internet was full of paedophiles, pornography and other undesireable material – a place for nerd and perverts, but certainly not for regular people. Today, almost everyone who has the resources to access the Internet uses it on a regular basis, from shopkeepers in London to monks in rural Thailand. A technology which was once only for a few, quickly became a necessity for everyone.

Free digital currency – currency not controlled by any government – may be the greatest breakthrough in monetary technology since coins were first minted. However, just as with the Internet, the benefits are not obvious to most, unless they have a need to escape the restrictions of normal money. Farmers in Argentina use these currencies to escape the will of banks telling them how to grow and what to grow. Activist organisations such as Wikileaks use it to accept payments when governments try to block them. Impoverished Venezuelans use it to smuggle in food to feed their families, as the national currency collapses before their eyes. If you want to send money across the world cheaply, or to find a way to save money so it isn’t eroded by inflation, or you have a desire to see a better world where everyone has a chance to live comfortably, could a currency such as Dash or Bitcoin help you?

In this episode, Kurt discusses the dream, the highest ideals of digital currency – ending war and providing a means for the masses to escape poverty and reach prosperity, removing power from central banks and holding governments accountable to the public they are supposed to serve. He also gives an overview of how to acquire Dash or Bitcoin, some pitfalls to avoid losing your money, and some ways you can earn this currency.

Join us in an industry-disrupting episode of … The Paradise Paradox!

Disclaimer: Nothing in this video or podcast is to be construed as financial advice.

The Eps:

Dash vs Bitcoin – Which will reach mass adoption first?

Bitcoin vs Dash – Ridiculous comments about Dash

Why Amanda B. Johnson loves Dash

The Links:

Dashforce News

Travelling using Dash by Joël Valenzuela

Dash Nation Slack or Dash Nation on Discord

What is Bitcoin? video

Where to spend Dash

Spend Bitcoins

Purse.io – buy Amazon gift cards

Bitcart – buy Amazon gift cards

Coinmarketcap

The Cash:

If you enjoy our posts, please become a patron on Patreon, or have a look at The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit.

We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.

The Episode:

To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.

Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.

If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.

Kurt Robinson Raps “False Flag” at Anarchapulco 2017

by  on  in Best Bits • 0 Comments

This is a track about how large governments like to threaten, scare and even murder the people they are supposed to represent, in order to achieve political, military or imperial goals. The video is from my performance at Anarchapulco 2017. If the audio isn’t clear enough, you can also listen to this version I recorded in my bedroom years ago.

Thanks Again to Doug Scribner, Ryan Herbison, Dan Dicks of Press For Truth, Nathan Freeman, and everyone who made this event possible.

Lyrics

if you want people to accept anything
first they’ve got to believe it’s for their benefit
if you can scare them, strike fear in their hearts
then you can start cutting their freedoms apart

they’re lonely, afraid, need leadership
show them you’ll be shepherd to their sheep again
give them the motivation which they surely lack
show them they need you with a false flag

nero wanted to rebuild Rome in his image
and turn the populace against the Christians
he took a torch to realise his fiery vision
playing the lyre for anyone who would listen

1915, Lusitania cruised the Irish Sea
100 Americans on her, loose & free
Germany warned, we know you have ammo on board
US ignored, it got torpedoed and torn

Times said Germany took the day off to applaud
perfect excuse to enter the First World War

1933 february
Nazis built a fire at parliament’s feet
hitler issued a decree, saying we’re under attack
that was his version of the PATRIOT act

six years later, Gleiwitz radio station
Himmler’s operation, set up the Polish invasion
SS troops in Polish uniforms, stormed the building
Found the Polish sympathiser and killed him

Broadcast some hate speech in their supposed language
Left the body as evidence for the cameras

40, mccollum wrote a memo, strategies and all
on how to lead Japan to an overt act of war
FDR fired the admiral wanting to leave Hawai’i
He knew if they stayed they did it suicidally
Then the Japs attacked at Pearl Harbour
Sending the boys home with caps on their caskets
doing exactly what it was sure to do
that’s how the US got into World War Deuce

Now 9/11 might have been a fine deception
you have an opinion what happened, i won’t question
the next day they passed the Act, hardly had to write it down
500 pages, they just had it lying around

if you want people to accept anything
first they’ve got to believe it’s for their benefit
if you can scare them, strike fear in their hearts
then you can start cutting their freedoms apart

they’re lonely, afraid, need leadership
show them you’ll be shepherd to their sheep again
give them the motivation which they surely lack
show them they need you with a false flag

Sterlin Lujan: Compassionate Anarchy – Episode 156

by  on  in Podcast • 0 Comments

The Story: Sterlin Lujan’s approach of relational anarchy

Every day millions of freedom lovers take to social media in an attempt to argue their way to a freer world, trying to convince people that they should be able to enjoy liberty, that they have rights that should be respected, that they are sovereign individuals who should command their own autonomy. Most of the time, the response is “No, I shouldn’t, no I don’t, and no I’m not.” The freedom lovers fail because they try to isolate people’s beliefs with logic, quickly making them defensive. Few people really want to hear how wrong they are, how foolish they’ve been for believing in government indoctrination, and how many contradictions their outlook contains.

Sterlin Lujan has a different approach. By using the insights that he has gained from studying psychology, he has devised a method called “compassionate anarchy” or “relational anarchy”. He says that instead of trying to be combative, we should learn to relate to people. By building positive connections with people, we can allow the essence of freedom to enter right now. By practising respect, we create respect.

In this episode, Kurt interviews Sterlin about his ideas on how to embrace and spread liberty, how certain substances such as ecstacy (MDMA) may give us insight into how to be more empathetic, how the desire to rule or be ruled is a type of stress response to an authoritarian society, and how stress responses can be healed using different types of talk therapy.

Join us on another psychologically anarchic episode of … The Paradise Paradox!

The Links:

Thomas Szasz on Wikipedia

Thomas Szasz Cybercenter for Liberty and Responsibility

Prodromal phase of psychosis

The Cash:

If you enjoy our posts, please have a look at The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit and Aaron’s posts on Steemit.

We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.

The Episode:

To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.

Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.

If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.

Without government, wouldn’t warlords take over?

by  on  in Politics • 0 Comments

If you believe government is needed, and someone suggests that it isn’t, you might be rather distressed. You might start to picture bands of rogues roving the land without cease, raping and stealing. In the minds of many statists, this fear is so real that it seems certain. But of course, little is certain in life, and we can no more say for sure that warlords will take over than we can say that they won’t. However, we can at least begin to estimate the likelihood.

If you’re like most people, it’s almost certain that you are threatened by group of people which claims to help you, a group which takes your money without asking first. Just as we can’t be sure that warlords won’t take over in a stateless society, it’s not certain that this violent group won’t grow larger, to expand to a level of control where many are fearful and even people with friends in high places can be destroyed without anyone being punished. In fact, such a case is much more likely to be found in a society with a state, than a society without a state, as the power structures are already there. In a stateless society, if these structures form, they’re likely to be smaller. It’s easier to go from 8 to 10 than it is to go from 0 to 10.

warlordsmight8eb17.jpg
To get to a society that has no rulers, first there has to be a cultural change. People have to learn to do things without the help of their rulers, and instead depend on each other. The less they can solve problems on their own and working in teams, the more chance they have to be seduced by a person offering easy answers, or threatened by someone who comes along with a few guns and a few demands. If certain states vanished tomorrow, there would be a 99% chance that warlords would take over. However, the more the people learn to support each other, and the more people love liberty, the less chance a tyrant has of taking hold. The tragedy is, the more people cling to these concerns about warlords, the less people who learn to love liberty.

In the end, the reason cling onto these ideas is because of a deep-seated fear. People want to feel like everything is under control, even if it’s by a someone who, in their hearts, they know is a devil. Their fear leads them to fearmonger, spilling endless “what if” cases, none of which can be allayed by logic alone. As I said, nothing in life is certain. Yet, by embracing our uncertainty, and our fears, we can learn to overcome them. It’s scary to stand at the edge of darkness, not knowing what lies within. It takes heart to put your foot over that threshold, yet, that is the only way that humans grow – by putting ourselves in realms where nothing is sure, but everything is possible. Screw your courage to the sticking place, and feel just for a moment, what it would mean to be free.

Four kinds of leaders – Luis Fernando Mises

by  on  in Best Bits • 0 Comments

Luis from Emancipated Human​ explains the four kinds of leaders that have existed throughout history, about his experience meeting business leaders, and how we can move into the future.

Transcript

There’s been four kinds of leaders throughout history.

First was the religious leaders. They had their religious entities which were able to tell people how to act. But now, those guys cannot necessarily agree with one another – two leaders of religious sects – because they either merge, discombobulate or whatever. So they can’t.

You move to the idea of the militant or military leader. The health of the state is through war or through coercion and all of that, so they can’t, or they will lose their space, their reason for being.

Then you move to the democratic leadership where, through politics, they’re not allowed to have a lot in common with other states – “I always have to be on top.” That’s not ideal, but you don’t see a lot of eye to eye contact. “I’ll help you and I’ll get a bunch of resources…” They just take advantage of each other.

So then we move to the fourth kind of leadership, which to me seems the most spiritually aware and I’ll tell you – it’s the business leader. The business leader is willing to do a deal with the devil if it’s good for all parties involved, because the business leader is not going to lose – but it’s willing to give as well. So it’s a voluntary exchange for mutual benefit.

But a lot of people say “the business leaders are greedy; they’re in it for themselves.” Well, yes and no, but that’s the hurdle that we have to jump. We have to let people see that the business leader is not just there to make a buck and go to the beach – I mean everybody loves the beach right – but the idea is that, when you’re working from purpose – like all these 201 CEOs that I was with, all those guys, they have enough money; they don’t need to work; they have enough resources and influence. They really don’t need to work any more. A lot of people say “They’re just greedy; they just want more.” Well, a lot of those guys stopped taking salaries. They’re just doing it because they love the work they do.

The idea is to help us see, and this just comes with maturity, how the business leader would be able to help eliminate the state, because if you think of international companies, somebody can be in the US, Mexico, Amsterdam, it doesn’t matter what country you’re in, we’re in the same company. Even if you’re Australian and I’m Mexican, and I’m in the states and you’re in Mexico, we’re connected through that link. Screw borders.

So the idea is to help us understand and find our own purpose. The one thing that can save humanity, in my perspective, is raising consciousness in humans. It’s not hating the state, it’s not creating wars. It’s just working on our own individual selves.

Captains of our own destinies

by  on  in Best Bits • 0 Comments

With most of the world raving about the presidential election in the US, it can seem that your fate rests in the hands of a sociopath who thousands of miles away. The truth is, unless you’re being harassed by bureaucrats or police officers every day, you probably still have a lot of freedom in your life. Every breath and every step is an act of liberty, so choose them wisely.

Watch the full episode here: 2016 election: The two clown show.