How to start your own country - Adnotated

How this came to be :

mircea_popescu Re the "how to start your own country" thing, the opening model is so fucking braindamaged it curls my hairs. Is there anything actually intelligent in here or am I throwing it away ?
asciilifeform Strauss is a (now very old) man who was involved with some of the '70s derpistans (actual attempts at island 'nations' by american jokers). Worth reading if only for zoological purposes.

mircea_popescu No but seriously, groups split off at that point when carrying the food (where ? they were fucking nomadic anyway) cost as much energy as the food provided ? The sexual castration of US puritans is making them stupid I swear. Individuation is a sexual, not an economical phenomenon. Hey xiando, help me out here, what's that ancient Chinese tale of the young man who found a young woman, and they fell in love, and they wished to be alone in the world ? So they suddenly were! And then wished for a cook, and suddely a cook appeared, and then kept wishing and soon enough were back at home ?
asciilifeform Strauss has 'zoological' data not available elsewhere, afaik.

mircea_popescu Yeah, but my fear is, how much can be trusted in the "data" of someone so fundamentally confused. Can one who can't count keep a useful count of anything ?ⁱ
asciilifeform Next you'll be asking about Herodotus.ⁱⁱ

mircea_popescu I guess since I'm reading this under protest I'm gonna adnotate it.

So therefore, prepare yourselves for a lengthy article (the source material alone is ~50k words). We begin :

The first edition of How to Start Your Own Country has been enthusiastically received throughout the new-country community.

This splitting of the world in "communities" according to "their interests" is an atrociously bad idea. To make the point properly, allow me to quote a much younger Paul Graham :

Suppose in the future there is a movement to ban the color yellow. Proposals to paint anything yellow are denounced as "yellowist", as is anyone suspected of liking the color. People who like orange are tolerated but viewed with suspicion. Suppose you realize there is nothing wrong with yellow. If you go around saying this, you'll be denounced as a yellowist too, and you'll find yourself having a lot of arguments with anti-yellowists. If your aim in life is to rehabilitate the color yellow, that may be what you want. But if you're mostly interested in other questions, being labelled as a yellowist will just be a distraction. Argue with idiots, and you become an idiot.

The most important thing is to be able to think what you want, not to say what you want. And if you feel you have to say everything you think, it may inhibit you from thinking improper thoughts. I think it's better to follow the opposite policy. Draw a sharp line between your thoughts and your speech. Inside your head, anything is allowed. Within my head I make a point of encouraging the most outrageous thoughts I can imagine. But, as in a secret society, nothing that happens within the building should be told to outsiders. The first rule of Fight Club is, you do not talk about Fight Club.

[...]

I admit it seems cowardly to keep quiet. When I read about the harassment to which the Scientologists subject their critics, or that pro-Israel groups are "compiling dossiers" on those who speak out against Israeli human rights abuses, or about people being sued for violating the DMCA, part of me wants to say, "All right, you bastards, bring it on." The problem is, there are so many things you can't say. If you said them all you'd have no time left for your real work. You'd have to turn into Noam Chomsky.

Everything in there is wrong, and it is wrong absolutely. One thing that is wrong is the supposed difference, the stuff of "she has an ear for literature, of course she's no good at math." Completely, utterly and irredeemably false. I can teach any female more math than Graham remembers, all I need is a cellar, a length of chain and a selection of whips. And yes, you can teach any female that she can't and shouldn't learn math, and in point of fact you actually do. All you need is a little appeal to vanity and a little pious fraud and it's done, or to quote a recent comment here,

So many stupid guys are so easily swayed - if you tell them they are the crown of creation, they believe you any kind of rubbish you include in that package. At school we keep “learning” that our society has the best standards of living in an age that has the best developed civilization since the big bang. And perhaps add some racial superiority on top of that. Bingo, they eat from your hand, be it poison or not.

So no, you don't get to pick "something to be good at", "your real work" and bullshit like that. No, being "good at maths" is no excuse for your complete inability to get yourself laid, or to fix broken songs, or whatever else.

Another thing that is wrong is the idiocy known in Romanian as "rezistenta prin cultura", ie that disgusting situation where the more intelligent, better educated participants to a gang rape tell themselves that it's okay, they shouldn't and won't be punished for it because while all the other brutes actually enjoyed it, they in their hearts of hearts knew what they're doing is wrong. Correctly stated, it's somewhere between outrageously offensive and wildly comedic, this nonsense, but people take great fucking care to not correctly state it, and then get all agitated when someone points it all out - at 300+ comments that's not the heaviest comment count on Trilema, but certainly way up there towards the top.

So no, you don't get to "in your heart of hearts". Fuck your heart of hearts with a hot poking iron, what the shit is this!

And so no, you don't get to carve out "a community" of "like minded people" who "in their heart of hearts". This demographics-as-a-marketing-concept approach to life and the world is so much a part of the problem, it can never and in no way be part of any conceivable solution. Be a fucking man, say what you think, think what you say and rape your enemies or die trying. All four, there's no slices to this cake.ⁱⁱⁱ

A number of people who had each been working in the field for many years first became aware that there were others with the same ideas through the publication of that edition. One of the most important functions a book like this can perform is to get members of the new-country community in touch with each other, and to make them aware of the history of new-country projects. In that way, efforts can be directed toward advancing the state of the new-country art, rather than repeating the mistakes of the past. As a result of this nascent new-country network, I have been able to chronicle far more actual case histories in this edition than in the last.

This is a fine point, previously discussed in Romanul si marea and Povestea celor trei imparati smecheri si a celor trei negustori fraieri - fabula in versuri ilustrata. I'm not sure either is actually translatable to English, as English is not sufficiently culturally advanced to comfortably allow for the more advanced concepts therein discussed. Nevertheless, anyone inclined to try ?

I have also found that there is a great deal of interest in the pursuit of traditional sovereign status. Because of the difficulty of achieving that goal, I gave it comparatively cursory treatment in the first edition. However, because of this interest, I have gone into this approach in greater detail this time, providing a road map for those bold enough to follow that path.

One that has not reached Damascus is invited to not presume to offer "roadmaps to Damascus". For the obvious reason.

Although the past few years have been lean ones for new-country projects, the principal older projects seem to be holding their own, and a number of new ones are underway. Perhaps the coming decade will be a Golden Age for new countries. If so, the readers of this book are in an excellent position to participate in such a flowering.

The value of predictions is that it allows later minds to use the passage of time to judge the value of a theory. In this case, the theory is worthless, seeing how the coming decade IS in fact a Golden Age for sovereigns, but they are emphatically not "new countries" of this ilk. They are instead La Serenissima, and tellingly the entire community of "book readers" or whatever they are squarely missed the boat. They are, in fact, way behind even the traditional enemies of sovereignity, which is perhaps to be explained by their being mired down in their idiotic "community", following in circles "roadmaps" drawn by people unqualified to draw them.

According to the prevailing view of natural historians, the first true human being emerged about one to ten million years ago, in a band of perhaps a dozen to a few score primates. This band subsisted by practicing some combination of hunting food animals and gathering edible plants and plant parts (roots, berries, etc.). With their new-found human powers, this band became very successful at getting food, and it flourished in numbers.

"Newfound human powers" ? What is this, a cartoon script ? See the bicameral world, if you're interested in actually learning something on this topic. And no, I don't agree the author has license to so gloss over essential points. In fact, in his idiocy he reminds me of "experts" of the "please take your pills" variety, like this guy :

Women want to have sex with the highest status men available (as women perceive male status, which is similar to the way a small evil child raised by cannibal head hunters perceives status) and be supported by men.

[...]

Both sides of the war are better off if a cooperate/cooperate equilibrium is coercively imposed.

[...]

If men own women, except that they may not resell them, cruelly mistreat them, rent them out, abandon them, nor even allow them to rent themselves out, then both men and women know who their children are and live with their children. The converse system, women owning men, would not work, because men would not know who their children were, would be denied the opportunity to invest in their children, and would therefore revolt.

It puts the handwaving down or else it gets more from the ridicule hose!

Before long, the game and forage in its vicinity were depleted. It became necessary for the hunters and gatherers to range farther and farther afield in search of sustenance. Soon, it was taking almost as much energy to get the food as the food gotten provided. Faced with growing hunger, some members of the band hit on a solution: to break off from the original band, and form their own group in a new territory.

Pious fraud is when one lies about "small things" in order to prop the perceived greatness of a great thing. Imbecillic modelling is when an imbecile creates a golf club pattern to prop the perceived validity of some idiocy he's married to. The above is a case of the latter at work. Seriously, early nomadic tribes carried the food out to a central location ? Because reasons, which happen to be the very naive, utterly impractical agricultural Jeffersonism the author is seduced by ? The way the world works doesn't change to mesh what you can understand, yo. The world works the way it works and your understanding adjusts until it fits, okay ?

Thus was born the first "new country."

No, it was not. Sexual, not economical. The first "country" was born by the rape of the Sabines.

Throughout prehistory, this sequence of events was to play itself out over and over again as the principal means by which perhaps the most successful form of life the Earth has ever seen spread out to occupy most of the planet's land surface.

"Perhaps" is perhaps a very poor surrogate of a criteria by which to judge success.

But waiting until hunger set in before striking out could mean that the new group would starve before it could get itself established in its new range. Therefore, natural selection favored those groups that split up when there was still adequate food, but when such things as the size of the group, the density of the population, etc., were such as to signal that the time to split up was at hand. But because, all other things equal, a larger group has advantages in protection against predators, defense of territory against rival groups, etc., groups couldn't afford to split up too soon any more than too late. Timing was (and is) critical.

This is stupidity of the first degree, driven by the mistaken idea that a bad map actually is the territory. A rough equivalent would be to say "but soldiers are really heavy and relatively immobile, so equipment is required to lift them against a terrain gradient" because the author's been playing with lead soldiers for so long he forgot what his name is, and other things.

No group of humans in the history of humanity individuated because "all the food is gone". When R. F. Scott's men starved in the cold waste, the result wasn't 50 different Pole expeditions. When Anthony told Octavianus Augustus to get stuffed it wasn't because of the relative absence of grain from the Empire's primary granary. If Scott'd have had a Cleopatra with him however... because you know, that's how pirate crews around Anne Bonny formed and dissolved, right ?

Seriously, you bunch of fucktarded puritans : CUNT!

Get used to it already. It won't bite. It's a thing. Okay ?

In today's crowded societies, once again many people are feeling the drive to break away from existing cultures and establish their own institutions.

You know an inept liar's about to land a major one when he begins with "In today's blabla world"^iv, but let us not mince words : "the people" don't want to pay tax. It's what it is, stop with the pious fraud, it's not helpful.

If those with the vision to make the fresh start had worked to keep the old society functioning instead, it would have been like the lifeboats trying to keep the Titanic afloat. If there are enough lifeboats for everyone, so much the better. But if only a few can save themselves, is it better to embrace the perfect "fairness" of having everyone go under together than to tolerate the "inequity" involved in having some save themselves to carry on?

I have no idea why this nonsense of "fairness" or "inequity" is even being addressed. Wait, what, it's not fair ? Fuck you. Not more is needed on this score. It's not even a score.

But it's easy to let the romance of the new-country idea go to one's head. Actually planning and creating such a country is a complex, delicate process, and many people who have rushed into it have come to grief, as we shall see. The most important thing is to have a firm grasp of the cost and risks one is willing to accept in pursuit of the venture, and the benefits one is seeking.

No, the only important thing is to understand that sovereignity, as any matter sexual, is not to be "prepared for" in any other sense than to "be ready when it happens". The fisherman that "prepares for" fishing with all sorts of complex arrangements, tools and decorations but then falls alseep in the middle of his bower, exhausted from all the work of selecting blue items can not possibly compete with the disinterested bum that simply pays enough attention to pull on the rope at the right moment. A fish can be hooked with a bent pin, if only there's someone to hook him ; meanwhile entire warehouses full of "fishing gear" catch exactly no fish, fifty miles inland in New Jersey.

Anyway, that's all I can stomach of this nonsense. Sorry to disappoint.

1. See the discussion surrounding the "No, you don’t have something to say on the topic" guy. [↩]
2. He has a point, I am. [↩]
3. And yes, I'm aware that Graham has meanwhile passed ycombinator to that sad faggot. While said sad faggot will definitely hang for his offenses, this absolves Graham in no way and to no degree : he'll hang too, for having passed it wrongly. There is, as the story goes, no place to hide from the long arm of the law, "forgive me for I am a coward" never historically worked nor is it about to start working now. [↩]
4. Priest: Why do you want to accept the Latvian Orthodox faith?

   George: *ahem* In this age of uncertainty and confusion, a man begins to ask himself certain questions. How can one even begin to put into words something so um… (trying to think of a word)

   Priest: Enigmatic?

   George: No.

   Priest: Vast? (he pronounces it as "vost")

   George: No not vast (he pronounces it as "vost")

   Priest: Well whatever it is, basically you like the religion.

   George: Yes. [↩]