PPers Thoughts on 'The Sovereign Individual'

[bitcoininthevp]

https://www.amazon.com/Sovereign-Indivi ... 0684832720

Has anyone read the book?

I enjoyed it, but perhaps that is because I agreed with alot of it. Wanted to get some other PPers perspectives.

In The Sovereign Individual, Davidson and Rees-Mogg explore the greatest economic and political transition in centuries -- the shift from an industrial to an information-based society. This transition, which they have termed "the fourth stage of human society," will liberate individuals as never before, irrevocably altering the power of government.

In their new book, they prepare readers for the chaotic upheaval that lies ahead and outline the far-reaching, practical consequences of adapting for the new global economy and the information age.

The computer revolution, in the authors' dire scenario, will subvert and destroy the nation-state as globalized cybercommerce, lubricated by cybercurrency, drastically limits governments' powers to tax. They further predict that the next millennium will see an enormous decline in the influence of politicians, lobbyists, labor unions and regulated professions as new information technologies democratize talent and innovation and decentralize the workplace. In their forecast, citizenship will become obsolete; new forms of sovereignty reminiscent of medieval merchant republics will spring up

[MediumTex]

When I was in college, I sat in on a talk given by Davidson in 1991. He's an interesting guy. Sort of a "things are about to get a lot worse" kind of person, but people eat that stuff up.

He has apparently had the same writing partner for years and I hadn't thought about him for a long time because the predictions in the book he was promoting when I heard him speak were basically all totally wrong.

I remember I asked him a question and he said that it was a good question, "but only half-clever." After that, I worked on my cleverness, hoping to achieve "full cleverness" if I ever crossed paths with him again.

[I Shrugged]

I don't believe I've read the book, but anyway I am familiar with the proposition.

I used to believe that the internet and peer to peer communications would free us. Now I'm not so sure it won't enslave us. We are beholden to electronic communications, and governments are for the most part able to see it all. I do however think that in many ways we have the world at our fingertips. Thereby taking a lot of middleman functions out of the picture, including some governmental functionality.

I would like to see a practical blueprint for making oneself more sovereign and free from state interference, while still enjoying specialization and the division of labor.

[MediumTex]

I don't believe I've read the book, but anyway I am familiar with the proposition.

I used to believe that the internet and peer to peer communications would free us. Now I'm not so sure it won't enslave us. We are beholden to electronic communications, and governments are for the most part able to see it all. I do however think that in many ways we have the world at our fingertips. Thereby taking a lot of middleman functions out of the picture, including some governmental functionality.

I would like to see a practical blueprint for making oneself more sovereign and free from state interference, while still enjoying specialization and the division of labor.

Remember, though, LOTS of people don't like the pressure of independence and are comforted by having someone around to tell them what to do.

[bitcoininthevp]

You might be interested in the book if you have thought about such concepts.

They predicted cybercurrency 10+ years before bitcoin came out.

They have other techniques and insights for how they see the future as well.

In terms of your practical guide question, have you used bitcoin? Bitcoin can serve as the monetary foundation of such sovereignty. (Yes, my username checks out). Additionally encryption mechanisms and private networks like Tor show promise in the privacy realm. The governments still have not shut down torrents.

With more and more work being done on computers, digitally and on the internet the digital "Galt's Gulch" is becoming more and more a possibility.

[bitcoininthevp]

Remember, though, LOTS of people don't like the pressure of independence and are comforted by having someone around to tell them what to do.

A lot of people DO have that preference. But in the future, that may be a yes/no choice for individuals to opt in and out of instead of a forced default chosen option mandated by governments.

[MediumTex]

Remember, though, LOTS of people don't like the pressure of independence and are comforted by having someone around to tell them what to do.

A lot of people DO have that preference. But in the future, that may be a yes/no choice for individuals to opt in and out of instead of a forced default chosen option mandated by governments.

Maybe. A world without tyrants seems like it may be a ways off.

Remember, too, that some of the most voracious consumers of cutting edge technology are governments that want to keep an eye on the citizenry to make sure nothing that might threaten their power is in the works.

As long as governments can use every traumatic event a nation experiences as a pretext for more surveillance and monitoring, individual sovereignty will be at risk.

OTOH, if you think of individual sovereignty in psychological, social and emotional terms rather than in technological terms, Harry Browne told us how to do it over 40 years ago in How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.

While people talk about political and financial freedom, I think that what most people really want is psychological and emotional freedom, and these things can be purchased far more cheaply, often by just turning off the TV and being honest with yourself.

[MachineGhost]

Has anyone read the book?

I read it about two decades ago and it had an impact that lasts to this day. Davidson is one of those faux-Libertarian, Republican-in-the-Closet types (like craigr -- sorry, couldn't resist!). In general, he and Moggs were correct about the power of decentralization via technology. Following his own advice, he had a poor track record with his Strategic Investment newsletter and eventually it shut down (likely from lack of enough subscribers). I dont think he is of any significance nowadays other than being onboard some trading advisory about exploiting weather patterns. Hucksters huck, traders trade. He's not of the latter.

But, I suggest reading something like The Singularity is Near by Kurzweil if you want to have a broader and less doom porny vision of the future from an actual futurist with a track record.

[MachineGhost]

I would like to see a practical blueprint for making oneself more sovereign and free from state interference, while still enjoying specialization and the division of labor.

There's been one for decades, its called Perpetual Tourism or more recently, CyberNomadism. All you need is a Portable Occupation and you too can be a Globalist Transnational Elitist. I used to be very intent on achieving this goal. Mark Leavy on here is a practicing one.

Why aren't more people doing it? Well as you get older you realize there's more important things in life than just making money and your own freedom (or you get bogged down by not keeping it in your pants or family obligations). Part of the curse is that we tend to think the goal is more impotrant than the journey so we are surprised when we find ourselves filling in our free time with new and complex challenges. Being a hedonistic Playboy is very overrated and very boring.

[Kbg]

As a general I try to put things in context of the very long view. There are things that change drastically with tech change and some that don't change at all. If you peel government back to its bare essential it is people give up some freedoms for physical protection. Does anyone really think the info age causes people to no longer care about physical protection? I am quite sure the first time the vast majority experiences a truly unsafe experience they will be banging down the doors for government. And for governments that don't deliver on the basic contract the terminal event for said government is nigh.

Maslow's hierarchy is still a very useful construct in my view. We shouldn't get confused with what concerns us near the top with what concerns us as we slide down it.

[bitcoininthevp]

Maybe. A world without tyrants seems like it may be a ways off.

I dont think any of these future worlds have, as a premise, that tyrants will not exist.

The idea, as I see it, is that the technologies for private money and private communications will empower the individual at the expense of the government.

The empowerment of individuals to keep their own money will weaken the government as it will have less money to conduct its efforts.

The empowerment of individuals to have private communications and networks enables government regulations to be circumvented. Or at least the cost of enforcement of regulation goes way up. See torrents for digital circumvention of governmental laws. See "darknet" markets for the start of the circumvention of non digital good regulations.

I do not think it will be easy or that governments will not pull out every (dirty) tactic available to stop it. It will be ugly.

I do not think "we are there" but you can definitely see these things being built.

[bitcoininthevp]

If you peel government back to its bare essential it is people give up some freedoms for physical protection. Does anyone really think the info age causes people to no longer care about physical protection? I am quite sure the first time the vast majority experiences a truly unsafe experience they will be banging down the doors for government.

Peeling back the government is the goal here, I believe. Maybe it does not disappear but gets beaten back to its "bare essential" (constitution-type) levels?

Also, your comments above remind me of the whole "who will build the roads?" https://www.mises.ca/but-who-will-build-the-roads/ arguments. The government doesnt provide most of the goods and services that you consume in a given day and we still get these goods and services from the market somehow. I will give it to you that physical protection is a bit hairier than me buying a TV but surely not impossible and there are some ideas of how to achieve this in an anarchist world.

And for governments that don't deliver on the basic contract the terminal event for said government is nigh.

This is not the case now. Governments by definition are a monopoly of violence over a geographical region. Their existence is based on violence and control and not "delivering" anything to anyone satisfaction.

[bitcoininthevp]

But, I suggest reading something like The Singularity is Near by Kurzweil if you want to have a broader and less doom porny vision of the future from an actual futurist with a track record.

Thanks for the suggestion! Added to my amazon wishlist!

[Kbg]

BC,

Have you physically lived in a place where there was wide spread ineffective government? Trust me, the theory of anarchists and the reality are completely different. Anyone who is an anarchist is A) an idiot and B) has with near certainty never actually lived in the conditions they advocate. I have and constant low grade fear for one's exisitance is not a pleasant experience.

As I've said in a couple of other posts, the guys with the guns always win. The only issue is whether the guns are working for most of society or for their own purposes. Cyber infrastructure works great until someone turns off the electricity or sends a guided missile through the server farm.

The issue categorically is not more or less government, it is good or bad government. I'll take more government that is good over less government that is bad any day of the week.

[bitcoininthevp]

I'll take more government that is good over less government that is bad any day of the week.

Ill take take option C. (Much) Less government that is also good. And that is what I am working towards.

[Kbg]

I'll take more government that is good over less government that is bad any day of the week.

Ill take take option C. (Much) Less government that is also good. And that is what I am working towards.

I'm on board for that. I'm just not much a fan of extremists of any sort. Extremism rarely serves more than narrow interests.

[MachineGhost]

We're not rolling back to minarchy, nevermind to anarchy, until there are term limits. So I stronlgy suggest focusing on that. We must kill being a politician as a valid career choice. All the talk in the world is not going to change anything until that problem is eradicated.

And then there are the lobbyists.

And then there are the unelected bureaucrats.

But first things first.

[MediumTex]

We're not rolling back to minarchy, nevermind to anarchy, until there are term limits. So I stronlgy suggest focusing on that. We must kill being a politician as a valid career choice. All the talk in the world is not going to change anything until that problem is eradicated.

And then there are the lobbyists.

And then there are the unelected bureaucrats.

But first things first.

You know that term limits increase the power of lobbyists and bureaucrats, right?

You've got to get the money out of the game as well as the career political hacks. Good luck with that.

[bitcoininthevp]

You've got to get the money out of the game as well as the career political hacks.

If government is unable to take wealth from its citizens, it will have less money to operate on. It will be forced to shrink due to less funds.

This shrinking means that it has less control of things.

Lobbyists are there to influence the control of things, if there is no control, there are no lobbyists.

Politicians are there to weird control and profit personally from it. If there is not control, there are less politicians and they are doing less.

Money.

[MediumTex]

You've got to get the money out of the game as well as the career political hacks.

If government is unable to take wealth from its citizens, it will have less money to operate on. It will be forced to shrink due to less funds.

This shrinking means that it has less control of things.

Lobbyists are there to influence the control of things, if there is no control, there are no lobbyists.

Politicians are there to weird control and profit personally from it. If there is not control, there are less politicians and they are doing less.

Money.

Eh, I don't know. What we often see in practice is that as one political entity's power is eroded, another political entity often steps right into the vacuum and picks up where its predecessor left off.

Think about how the power of U.S. states has been dramatically reduced from the powers given to the states in the Constitution. The trouble is, that power went to the U.S. government, not back to the people.

I suspect that if the power of the U.S. government were somehow seriously reduced, the states would simply reassert their sovereignty to fill the vacuum. Many people would go along with it, and even celebrate it in many cases, because lots of people like having an authority figure around to tell them what to do. For such people, government often performs the same function as religion, but in different areas of their lives.

Sadly, not everyone wants to be free. For many, it's way too much responsibility.