July 24

Life in the Slow Lane

I’ve been swamped as of late, though a lot of what I’ve been busy with is spinning my wheels. I feel like I’m stuck in a rut and instead of working on building connections, I’m spinning my wheels on GSD. I have yet to get my carport cleared out, I’ve yet to rearrange my shed to my liking to set up for a workshop, and I’ve yet to do a lot of projects I’ve done a lot of talking about. I’m still planning on doing rabbits, but without my carport, I don’t have a place to put them. I’m still planning on doing a computer repair side hustle, but I need to buy some equipment and wire up my shed. I’m still planning on planting fruit trees, but I haven’t bought any saplings yet. I still want to do raised wicking beds.

Many of my issues have to do with being swamped with bills. Another aspect is time. I’m now working 40 hours a week at a job 80-90 minutes drive from home. By the time I get to the weekend I’m exhausted. It’s no excuse, of course, I still need to get this shit done and I know the more I put it off the more unlikely I am actually to do any of it.

I would, however, like to thank everyone who has been boosting my podcast episodes via Lightning. I’ve been getting them, and it’s an honor to know that someone (or a group of someones) thinks my content is worth even some of your treasure. It’s really been making me think about doing at least an occasional episode, however, I want to be able to devote quality time to that and not just throw some shit together. You all are worth more effort than that. That being said, I want to leave you all with one thing to think about over the next however long it’ll be before a new episode is out:

If you are truly in the freedom movement, then not only can you be individualistic, but you can still be altruistic. Let me explain. Whatever you empower the government to do to someone else, you empower them to do to you. Conversely, whatever you disempower the government to do to you, you disempower them from doing to others. Therefore, those of us truly and actively working to get ourselves out from under the yoke of slavery aren’t just doing it for ourselves, we are doing it for everyone else, as well. I think someone coined the phrase, “Enlightened Self-Interest”. By making it so we can do something, we’re making it so all can do that something. Go out, build your intentional communities. You don’t have to all live together. You just have to work together. We make ourselves stronger, and more independent, by building resilience into our lives. You don’t have to raise all of your own everything. You just need robust connections to be able to trade and barter. You make connections, and you cultivate them, and you make more connections because people move away, or die, or stop doing the thing you relied on them for. Of course, you don’t stop helping, but you find other ways to not only supply your needs, and to meet the needs of your intentional community. Your ever-growing, ever-changing, sometimes long-distance intentional community. The only borders that define us are our property lines. Everything else is an anachronism that has long since lived past its usefulness.

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May 6

Rabbitry – Food for Thought

I have a lot of ideas. Some of them work out, some of them don’t, and some of them just take me a long time to get started for reasons. Here is another project which is on an extended timeline for completion though I may be able to start this one in a bit more earnest.

Rabbitry for Dummies

Yes, as the title and header proclaim, I’m looking into getting into rabbitry. Why? Mainly because I want a source of meat other than the grocery store and the buy-in for rabbits is pretty low. For ~$60-75USD I can have a trio of breeders start producing kits for my herd. Of course, I have to buy the cages, feeders, waterers, feed, hay, heaters, etc. to really be ready to start this entire project. Probably looking at $500-600 total if I buy all new. First, however, I still need to make the room. My wife has already agreed to let me take over the carport since it’s really oriented inefficiently for us to use it for much else.

Everything I’m reading and watching on rabbits suggests that, while it’s time-consuming, it’s rewarding in terms of outputs (meat, maybe some show-quality buns to sell as breeders to someone else, etc.). Of course, meat is the primary concern, according to one source, with a good setup I could see 1500lbs of meat a year just from rabbits. That’s a lot of meat if you ask me. And from the setup described, if I can expand it I could have even more. Meaning I could even process some meat for sale (though I may find selling breeders more profitable, which is fine if I can fill up my freezer with delicious bun-bun). This makes me happy because that means less reliance on frail systems. Of course, I want to try tractoring but I think I’ll mostly stick with cages/hutches, collecting their ‘waste’ to add to a garden which I hope to be able to supplement our grocery trips with. The instant compost would make a fine addition to the raised beds I’ve talked about in the Discord community, and will be a fine supplement to the humanure compost I still want to get started in producing.

I feel like if I can get involved in rabbitry and make my initial investment back in terms of sales of breeder/show rabbits and meat, I can put all future profits into savings toward chickens (still want to raise those, too) and whatever projects I want to invest in going forward. Small steps, baby steps. Then take over the world, right?

I am going to leave you with some links to all of the rabbitry resources I’ve currently found, including a YouTube playlist I’m building specifically about rabbitry. Feel free to comment here or in the Discord or on Telegram (links below) with any additional resources you think may help.

Links

Teal Stone Homestead – I found her on YouTube, a great resource especially if you’re going to raise silver foxes for your meat rabbits, though I think the general principles can apply to any rabbit.
BHA Rabbitry – This is a link directly to some blank records they offer for print out. They also have a lot of other useful resources for rabbitry.
A System for Ear Numbers – Discusses the importance of good record-keeping and some suggestions to get you started.
Raising Meat Rabbits: Lessons Learned Back to Front – A great resource and the article that finally sent me fully down this rabbit hole (see what I did there?).
Tennessee Rabbit Breeders – They also list for other states, so could be a good resource for sourcing your first buns (so many delicious food jokes).
Hopper Popper – This looks like a really simple, straight-forward tool for humanely dispatching your rabbits. I’m not necessarily endorsing this per se, but it does seem like a good resource. I’ve seen these devices in other people’s videos on meat rabbits so I thought I’d include a link to them here.
The Survival Podcast – Raising, Butchering and Cooking Rabbits with Nick DePuy – Jack is always a spot on source of information and this podcast episode is no different. It’ll provide more information and another perspective on raising meat rabbits and really gave me the confidence to put this project on the go-ahead list.

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March 27

Humanure – Untapped Black Gold

Tapping Into an Old Resource

You hear a lot about human “waste” treatment and disposal, a lot about animal manure treatment and use, and composting, but what you may not hear a lot about is human material composting and turning into humanure. Believe it or not, this is a real thing (and I will provide a bunch of links at the end of this post), and with just as many places talking about it, there are is an equal amount of methods for making it (humanure) and how to treat the human material. I have decided to get into trying to recycle the human material from my household (I still plan on doing a Kratky system, but space is still an issue, and doing humanure production is mostly outside where space is not much of an issue).

Mostly it seems to consist of needing to have a place to properly compost it (and I found a really good guide which I’ll put with the other links), being consistent with your composting efforts, and making sure to have the patience to age it properly (typically called maturing). In fact, I am in the process of sourcing materials to begin my family’s journey into humanure creation (and, as something for later on in this post, commoditization). Pallets to make the bins, sawdust for the cover material, and buckets to make the deposits in. If I can do this properly for two years, free compost! And I can include in meat, vegetable table scraps, shredded paper, tp, etc. and it’ll all be composted. This is exciting because it will not only reduce landfill waste, but after we start being able to use the compost (with a total of 3-4 bins depending on how long we let the pile mature) it also means one less thing I actually have to buy to do gardening. Though I still may buy top soil or fill dirt, that’s cheap compared to even just decent compost. This should also reduce my water bill as I am hooked up to a municipal water supply despite living in a fairly rural setting.

Commoditizing Manure

There is also a possibility that this could be commoditized via portable toilet rentals/pumping, septic tank pumping, etc. and other efforts to collect the goods from others (and get them to pay you for the privilege!) so that’s something else I’m looking into as a potential side-hustle. In fact, I just put out an ad to get people to let me for free (or a reasonable fee) haul away their old pallets and unused sawdust so I hopefully won’t even have to pay for those to build the bins to put the compost in (talk about function stacking amiright?)! However, to be able to sell the plethora of manure that I would eventually wind up with I would most likely need to make sure I correctly navigate any statutory hurdles (for which I’ll hire a paralegal or lawyer to advise me) in my state. While I’d like to side-step the State entirely, I also don’t want to wind up in jail. At the very least minimal compliance is a necessary step, even if it winds up feeding the beast.

Given the time-frame from making commoditization even remotely possible, I’m going to spend the time researching some other concerns folks in my network have shared with me (such as the presence of phosphates and insoluble salts in laundry detergents, sharps in portable toilets, etc.). There is also the possible of harvesting methane (biogas production) but it doesn’t look like a promising avenue at the moment (mostly safety compliance issues) on anything but a possibly super-massive scale, however, I think it may still be worth working into and maybe finding a good way to do this.

Links to Resources

Now for the list of links, some of which offer different considerations and methods for humanure production. I will indicate which one I am going to follow and let you all make up your minds which you like best.
Composting Human Waste: Using Human Waste As Compost
How to Safely Compost Human Waste
Compost Toilet System
Condensed Instruction Manual [PDF] the method presented here seems the least complicated so it’s the one I plan on using for my homestead.
Minimum size of humanure bin. While not an article or how-to per say, I believe it has some good information in it worth considering so I’m including it for informational purposes.

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January 29

Voting is Violence

Lysander Spooner put forth the concept of voting as violence in No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority (though I would argue that Thomas Paine in Rights of Man – and before him John Locke – were most likely the originators of that idea). Specifically, he equated it to pointing a gun at someone, going as far as to say that some would justify it as a defensive thing, given that his fellow man was also using the ballot box. However Spooner wasn’t trying to justify voting, only explaining why other people justify it, that is to say: People – if they are honest with themselves – inherently identify voting as an act of violence. They are forcefully trying to inflict their will upon others, and because of this, there are people who specifically vote as a quasi-defensive action, voting opposite the way they see the vote potentially going as a means of either preserving what they already have or at the very least, preventing what they see as a worse option.

I call so-called ‘defensive voting’ ‘quasi-defensive’ because you aren’t actually accomplishing anything, and in fact are just continuing to feed the beast that pitted us against each other. You are lending credence to the belief that so long as you voted on something, and so long as you wound up voting with the majority that you somehow now have a right to see your ideas forced upon those who would otherwise do the same, that you are indeed no better then they are. You are as much a tyrant as a single king, though in reality, I would say you are worse than a single king because now we all act as individual little self-important petty tin-pot dictator wannabes, each trying to inflict upon others what they believe should be the standard for an entire nation of people. However, just like with a single king, inflicting your will upon people without their consent (and, honestly, often with it) is not valid. Not because of issues of consent but because no human has the moral or ethical standing to inflict their will upon others, not to mention there is no “right to rule”.

To imply that one has a right to rule you first have to accept that someone else (whether it be a single someone in a fancy hat or many someone’s at the ballot box) has a higher claim on your life than you do. That’s the only way you can logically resolve allowing someone to rule over you. You are saying, “You have more of a right to my life, therefore you get to tell me what to do, how to live, and even how to die” than you yourself have. Fortunately, that’s utter horse shit and should be immediately treated as such. To agree to that is to say you not only have a lower claim to yourself, but you now have a lower claim to that which you produce through the application of skill, time, and energy. You have, in fact, enslaved yourself and it comes across as a desperate attempt to justify it by saying that everyone else has to enslave themselves too, or they somehow don’t love Jesus, America, and freedom. That is actually funny because the only one who doesn’t love freedom is the person who has willingly enslaved themselves to someone else.

In an interesting aside, I have personally found those so enamored with “working within the system”, regardless of what side of the left-right dichotomy they are on, are the quickest to ‘other’ those who won’t bend the knee to their belief in government, whether they support or oppose the Constitution (or any other document relevant to their country of origin) they both equally support inflicting their will upon others (for whatever reason they try to justify it with) in a near (or, in some cases, actual) jingoist philosophy. They are so stuck inside the box that even the idea that there might be a better way of interacting with other people (such as leaving other people to their own ends) is anathema to them and it will be rejected out of hand.

I feel like we’re living out the beginning of our own Weimar Republic and not too many people can see the writing on the wall. For fuck’s sake people, learn some history.

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January 10

The Chill Agorist Podcast – Episode 0011 – Self-Sufficiency

The Chill Agorist Podcast – Episode 0011 – Self-Sufficiency
Today I talked mainly about the need for self-sufficiency. The live stream portion was abbreviated, I am going to be working on that. Also included are the new segments, Computers with Chill and Chill Reads (not their permanent name, of course).
For those wanting to send me an email with your questions, the email is ‘tcgjoe.business@gmail.com’ and the subject line should include `[Chill Agorist]` along with your question, the body of the email should be concise and limited to 3-4 sentences describing the problem.
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January 2

The Chill Agorist Podcast – Episode 0010 – Welcome to 2022

The Chill Agorist Podcast – Episode 0010 – Welcome to 2022
This is a basic bitch episode. No intro or outro or ad segment (and no more ad segment going forward). I talk about my commitment to commitment, hydroponics, why my cats suck but I still love them, a little bit about current events, but mostly about what I want to be doing going forward. I will be doing my best to incorporate more value into my podcasts as I move toward a value-for-value model (damn you Adam Curry and your altruistic ideas). I feel it will push me to be a better podcaster.
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December 22

Wielding Power

As mostly non-political – at least in terms of voting – I find the idea of wielding power over others to be detestable. However I am beginning to think that there is at least some room for nuance. After all, we all find ourselves sometimes saddled with some sort of power. Parents over children, someone involved in a negotiation for something who has demonstrably better information than the other person, and yes, those who have better armed and trained themselves for self-defense versus someone attacking them who might not be as well trained or armed.

These are all examples of having power over someone else. Knowing this, especially as someone who wants to live peaceably with others, it becomes important that first we do not let ourselves become overconfident. These particular examples show a transitory sort of power and the power structure can easily be upended and reversed. It only takes a little thing to change the whole dynamics of a particular situation.

Political power, however, seems to be slightly different. It is very easy to accumulate influence and knowledge and, if you learn how to play the game you could be the next Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer or the late Dick Cheney. Political power dynamics become a lot harder to upend or upset (which Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is learning along with the rest of The Squad). This is what makes political power so corrupting. It only goes away if you let it go and, let’s be honest, as anyone who successfully con’s people on the regular can tell you: no one wants to let that kind of power go. It was difficult to gain, and the successful wielder finds great benefit to themselves to continue to wield it as they are always looking to improve their own situation.

How does this affect us? As people who are rejecting government and looking to build a parallel society without that power we are wielding power to because, you see, political power over a group of people (generally the governed) only works if everyone else buys into the legitimacy of the entire situation.

Who wields the real power?

This image really is what got me thinking about this subject. We claim that politicians and their goons have power over us, but that is only true because we allow them. When we decide to stop listening, to stop smoking the hopium that “if only we vote better” is, when we walk away and just absolutely refuse to allow them such power in the first place, it will come crashing down on them, podium and all. All we have to do is exercise the one bit of power that they can never wrest away from us and that is the power to just walk away. Jail us, tie us down, lock us in our homes. Whatever their response is – and you can be sure that in the current political climate around the world that it will be a violent response on their end – we can still choose whether or not to participate.

That’s real power, and because everyone has the same power no one person can exert this type of power with undo influence. This makes it the weakest since each individual can only exert it over themselves, and the most powerful since it can topple even the largest of empires. It is both all-powerful and the most unassuming. This is why free thinkers are demonized. This is why they fear homeschooling. This is why they don’t want people “off-grid”. We are radical because we are saying that we not only don’t believe in the bullshit they are shoveling, but are actually willing to put our money where our mouth is just walk away from them and do our own thing.

Each individual has already defeated the Elizabeth Warren’s and Kamala Harris’ of the world the moment we say “Fuck this” and walk away. We have wrested that power away from them and they can’t do anything to stop us. No amount of jail, or even death, will get them back the power that they have lost.

Stay safe, stay warm, stay free. Happy holidays from the Chill Agorist and family. I may or may not post again before the new calendar year.

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December 20

The Chill Anarchist Podcast – Episode 0009 – The Year in Review

Episode 0009 – The Year in Review

2021 was a unique shitshow, but somehow we made it through. In this episode, I go over some of the biggest Ls of the year, discuss what I believe this means going forward, and changes coming both to this podcast and my own life including potentially picking up new skills and networking while building up not just a network but a community.
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December 14

Intentional Communities

I have been listening a lot to Nicole Sauce (Living Free in Tennessee) and Jack Spirko (The Survival Podcast) – see links in the sidebar – and one of the best things that they are talking about right now is intentional communities. Now, they are not necessarily talking about people living close to each other, even possibly on the same communally owned land, though those are all valid options, too. They are talking, as far as I understand it, about an intentional network of individuals helping each other.

I took a first step, I think, in that regard. An individual I met via a Telegram group is looking into relocating and he is taking a look at the town or area that I am living in and, while we were discussing things, I realized that regardless of whether or not he moves to the area, I made a first step in building a community. I gave of my time and knowledge, leveraged some of my own contacts, and I provided him with valuable information about the area even if what I had may have been limited and possibly even somewhat outdated (which, by the way, is still better than what he had before). My next interaction like this and I can provide better information by getting out and finding out more about the things that this guy was interested in.

While the next person may not have the same concerns or needs, I will still have taken steps to better provide future people more information and will have gained valuable knowledge for my own purposes. This is not a zero sum game. If this guy does wind up moving to my area I now have a like-minded individual 20 minutes away at most and now we can help each other with whatever it is we may need help with. This also means that we are showing others looking to relocate that there are reasons now beyond just the land, access to resources, and being left the fuck alone. There is now another growing intentional community (the Holler is about 90 minutes away from my house) in the area. More opportunities to do your own thing but also not being isolated from normal people.

This is the way forward, I believe. Not only should we be getting ourselves prepared, to borrow Jack’s catchphrase, “for when times get tough or even if they don’t”, and intentionally making sure that we have a viable network of like-minded people doing the same thing for themselves.

As my family continues going down the road to becoming self-sufficient, we can surround ourselves with others looking to do the same. We each will have unique skills, talents, and interests that we can leverage to help ourselves and those in our community network.

If you have been presented with an opportunity to network with someone, even if they might not move to the area or whatever, don’t pass up the opportunity. You won’t know what will come of it unless you take the risk. I took the risk today and I wasn’t disappointed. I met with a cool guy, we talked about my hometown, and we broke bread together. That’s powerful. That’s intentional. That’s community.

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November 29

What is Agorism to Me?

Agorism is, to me, the lifestyle of minding your own business and living life in harmony with others (for the most part that means not actively being aggressive toward those around you). That also means that you are not asking for permission to engage in any activity that doesn’t require the use of others property.

In practice, as I think about it, there seems to be some problems. Like common-use roads, utilities, and other actual things that are taken for granted today. How do you handle electricity distribution, clean water supplies, sanitary sewers and the like?

Ostensibly, today in the United States most of these are (un)regulated granted monopolies (think telecommunications including infotainment services and electrical utilities) or wholly managed by local governments (water and sewer where septic tanks and wells are not in use).

In the case of water, sewer, and power people who are served by such have no way of opting out. In fact, with the wholesale adoption of the International Building Code, almost all dwellings must be serviced by at least a common power utility.

How then do you opt out? And if it wasn’t wholesale mandated, what would an Agorist system even look like?

I wish I could answer these questions. As someone who grew up relying on these systems saying, “No, I would like to provide myself with at least some of these things and opt out of the mandatory system.” presents quite a radical change. It requires a lot of planning and self-education and a whole lot of work. I need to have reliable systems in place before I can even begin to consider opting out.

When you are so invested in something, it is hard to let go (sunk cost fallacy ftw) however whether you are into prepping or self-sufficiency or not it pays to always reevaluate your needs and situation.

Do I really need for someone else to provide me with something that I can more easily and reliably provide for myself? Is what I am invested in worth keeping? Is it worth letting go? What is the cost/benefit

And once that analysis is completed, what are the hurdles to opting out (if that is the conclusion you came to) of the system? Is it possible in the first place or would it require relocation?

There is so much to consider it can seem daunting. However if you break down the process of dealing with the problem into manageable pieces then you can also tackle the solutions in manageable pieces. There is no one saying that if you come to accept the Agorist philosophy that you have to go live in the woods with nothing until you either die or figure out how to survive (and if someone is telling you that, don’t listen).

I am coming into this philosophy with a left arm I can’t do much with ever again, morbidly obese and with very little capital. However I am working on tackling pieces of my problems so that I can at least have little victories to build upon. My wife is helping as much as she can, and we are both raising a daughter. Progress is slow but there is progress. Victory is inevitable. Whether we get there tomorrow or 1,000 tomorrow’s from then doesn’t really matter.

Study, contemplate, ask questions, debate respectfully. When it comes time to make a decision, you will be better off with information at your disposal. Keep good notes. Share what you learned.

All of this goes toward, I think, what agorism is. Living life as fully informed and self-sufficiently as possible. No one is going to hold your hand. Agorism isn’t easy, but then again neither is life.

Choose how you are going to live, and choose wisely. You – and those who rely on you – are going to be the one reaping the consequences good or bad.

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