The New Libertarian

Agorism has no room for politics.  The Agora & political institutions can coexist no more than a state of marriage & bachelorhood can coexist. Counter-economics & politicking are likewise mutually exclusive. Frankly, it should seem obvious that engaging in politics & anti-politics is contradictory & self-defeating. It wouldn’t make much sense to get chemo in the morning & smoke a pack of Marlboros in the evening, so why would one seek to destroy the government today, and empower it tomorrow?  Just as a chemist who tests a logically inconsistent theory will experience failure, so too will social scientists & revolutionaries experience failure when they pursue inconsistent theories.  Note that without exception - every gain made by the liberty community in the past 15 years has been produced by the counter-economy & that no other faction of our movement can claim even a small victory . Here’s a brief look at the scoreboard: Whereas the LP & small gov

Some time ago I wrote a short piece that I called " Notes on Bitcoin as a Reserve Currency " where I laid out some basic thoughts on the concept of becoming your own bank, and one of the possible side effects of that (spelled out in the title of the blog post). I then sent a link to it to Sal, because I knew I would get some great feedback on it. I was right. Sal sent me a great reply and it helped me to further flesh out the idea and this blog entry is basically that. I tried to, foolishly, jump over the fundamentals and Sal pulled me back down to the trenches. "Intrinsic" Value "To a naive observer, money made out of precious metal was 'sound money' because the piece of precious metal was an 'intrinsically' valuable object, while paper money was 'bad money' because its value was only 'artificial'. But even the layman who holds this opinion accepts the money in the course of business transactions, not for the sake of its industr

Dear America I won’t be locking down, not that I ever did. And I don’t care about the arbitrary mandates of a geriatric pedophile with a history of dementia. I don’t wear the muzzle or social distance. Nor do I have any plans to start. I won’t be avoiding friends or family & I actively seek out large public gatherings. Needless to say, it’ll be a cold, cold day in hell before the government injects my living body with a foreign substance or keeps me from my family on Thanksgiving Day. You see, I knew from day one that COVID was a hoax. More specifically, when videos of Chinese people dropping dead in the streets were being broadcasted by Western propaganda outlets, it became clear this was essentially a soft coup. As a general rule, anything coming from the CCP should immediately be assumed to be intentionally falsified for malicious purposes. Friends, what has happened is obvious. The political cartel has manufactured a virus because fear enables them to seize power & furthers

Centralizing control over a currency’s infrastructure is a seemingly obvious mistake. One would think any Austro-libertarian worth their salt would be able to see thru such a charade. Yet here we are, again. Face to face with economic illiteracy. Not garden variety lefist economic illiteracy, but one far more stinging and painful - one which comes from within our own community, rather than from without.  First, Bitcoiners faced the economic illiteracy of maximalism and small blockers. Attempts to masquerade money’s primary function as value storage (Ammous) or rejecting Menger’s Regression Theorem altogether (Szabo) are luckily demonstrably false. Nevertheless, the shock of our fellow Bitcoiners illiteracy was like an unexpected slap in the face. Suddenly, we were forced to confront the fact that the ignorance of our allies in the fight for sound money, had led them astray. Yet, thru BCH we were thankfully able to keep Satoshi’s dream of peer to peer cash intact. 

*Note: For legal reasons, this article is for educational purposes only* Operational security is a key aspect of counter-economics. In fact, its the only element common to all counter-economic operations. As such, it's a shame opsec isn't discussed more often. The reluctance to lay the issue out bare may be due to either a naivety surrounding the topic, or an unwillingness of agorists to embrace their black market roots. But remember Laertes, to thine own self be true ! As agorists, it's incumbent upon us to lay out a guide for operational security that newcomers can use to engage with the counter-economy in a simple, safe & secure manner. This is a first attempt at such a guide. The New Libertarian will be updating this piece from time to time as technology continues to progress. Feel free to jump to any section that suits your needs. I. KYC II. Coin Mixers & Privacy Coins III. E2EE IV. Password Protection V. Tor VI. VPN I. K

7/31/2020 Derrell McIver  With even more hilarious Congressional hearings, Big Tech has been in the news a lot recently. Popular former presidential candidate Andrew Yang has been discussing the alleged evils of this industry in two of his recent podcasts. In May, he interviewed Jaron Lanier. Lanier is a computer philosopher who argues that the government should prohibit social media companies from selling user’s data to third parties, effectively forcing companies like Facebook and Twitter to charge a service fee. Yang expressed support for this idea. He also, in another episode a month later, said that, “the economics stink for consumers.” He bemoaned how Facebook is currently worth $650 billion, and how “the vast majority of that is on the backs of selling access to us and monetizing our data.” However, he makes an exception for himself by claiming that when he used people's data for targeted ads during his campaign, it was of course "in a very above board way."

What is an emerald worth in Minecraft? An emerald is the currency used in the popular game Minecraft for trading with NPCs called villagers and wandering traders. Emerald ore is an extremely rare resource in the sandbox world, yet every employed villager has quite a few to trade with the player. However, players have wondered how the emerald compares with real world currency. One YouTube Video by GameTheory tried to find this answer. First, they tried to convert it by comparing the USD cost of bread with the cost of bread in the game, but found that conversion does not translate to other goods. Next they used the labor theory of value to try to determine the USD to emerald conversion, but again came up with a nonsensical conversion. Finally, they tried to assume emeralds have an inherent value in real life and work backwards to determine the in-game USD cost. After using all of these methods, they come to the accurate conclusion that it's not really possible to convert

Okay, so the State was smashed yesterday morning. Now what? Obviously, everybody will go his/her own way and make oodles of gold. Some of it will be spent on protection agents and arbitration. And we shall be ever-vigilant against the return of the State! But what are we going to do if someone wants his money back? Such a question is far from academic, for one’s view of justice seems to determine one’s revolutionary tactics. Robert LeFevre, the anarcho-pacifist, pursues a purely educational route because he has foresworn the use of defensive restitutive force. What else can he do? Murray Rothbard, enamored with “temporary” political expedients, pursues popular fronts with rightists, then leftists, then partyarchs. With his “double restitution” or “restitution plus punishment” theory, he finds himself allied with the Penal Institution crowd regardless of other alliances. Ayn Rand seeks unlimited restitution, and since infinity can only be achieved mystically she must

Beginning Note: I do not condone the riots against or the looting of private citizens or private property . This is not a defense, it is an attempt at an explanation. Across US cities, there have been protests to call for reform of the police and legal system that is responsible for the brutal murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. While the overwhelming majority of these have been peaceful events, much of the news coverage and government reaction has been in response to the rioting and looting that have become adjacent to the calls for justice. Many are shocked at the almost complete breakdown of law in cities across the country. But these should not shock anyone. They are an inevitable product of our current legal system: a monopoly. The government and police claim to have a monopoly over the legitimate use of force, and when this monopoly is shown to be counterproductive to the preservation of law--that is the protection of person and private property--we can onl

How much should I store? Let’s start off with this basic question. The answer is…it depends. What it depends on is a number of factors, several of which should hopefully be obvious. Are there special health considerations to consider, i.e. a diabetic or celiac conditions? How many people am I storing for and what are their ages? Age is an especially important point to consider. A growing child will need about as much nourishment as an fairly active man would, if not more. Similarly, older people, especially those less active, need less. Now, something to consider though is that, depending on the situation your activity levels may not be typical. In addition to that, your storage space needs to be considered. If you have the space to store more, then great, you can. A minimum though would be enough for one calorically dense meal per day, per person. And when I say calorically dense I’m talking somewhere in the area of 1200-1300 calories on the low end. That should be en