2022 so far hasn’t turned out to be the cyberpunk dystopia or even the zombie apocalypse many claim to have been hoping for in years past, as far as their preferences for “end of times” scenarios go. But have no fear — it’s just the beginning.

We’ve seen a slow but somehow mind-numbingly rapid descent into the most boring apocalypse possible: technocratic medical tyranny and a “Great Reset” that many people in the cushy, developed world seem to just be saying “meh” about. But after the chips are put into arms, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are universally used and mandated, and most people are licking the screens of their taste simulation porno of choice in the centralized, draconian Matrix-style metaverse, where do agorists stand?

Option 1: High-Tech SEKIII Survival / Paradise

This vision of the agorism of the future could take place after a great social collapse where the technocratic oligarchy fails, or perhaps even in parallel with it (though this seems highly unlikely and if achieved would demand a final conflict and resolution at some point). This vision, put simply, just says: maybe we can still have the internet. If the state is out of the way, we definitely can, and things will be great. Think Samuel Edward Konkin III’s philosophical vision embracing and utilizing the latest innovations of the day.

A bifurcation can already be seen steadily widening (it’s been growing since the advent of the internet and likely since long before that) between tech-savvy folks that love statism, and tech-savvy folks that love freedom. A prime example is Facebook — now Meta — being hated by individuals embracing popular metaverse Decentraland’s general user ethos of ‘the metaverse belongs to everybody.’

While such a divide may not translate to future avatar-obsessed gamers unplugging their cola IVs and catheters, getting off the couch and doing anything about the injustices they see, it does hint at one possible future where metaverses, blockchains, and private, “illicit” cryptocurrencies like bitcoin cash, monero, etc., are used innovatively and freely by outlaws, willing to defend the tech and their mesh networks with force if need be.

While exiled from society at large, agorists could be finding sly ways to communicate, transact, and otherwise exist digitally by creating their own private networks, even splicing the state’s “cable TV,” if you will, to stay connected — masking their online presence all the way.

I need to emphasize here that I do not see the above scenario as highly likely, as the state tends to root out and destroy the lives of anyone going against the grain of authoritarian dictates and norms. Just look at the Silk Road, Ruby Ridge, and Waco. However, there are gaps, and when a state is collapsing in chaos, there are ways. For proof of this, one can look at the collapse of the U.S.S.R. and the thriving black and gray markets that emerged there, which even the state itself came to depend on.

If the technocracy truly does start to buckle under its own bureaucratic idiocy and economic ineptitude, there may be space to really thrive for black and gray markets with fake vaccine passes (digital and physical), organic food, outlawed physical books and music, alcohol, ethical assassination markets, etc. There may even be a desire for unvaccinated reproductive services and products. In fact, it seems some such informal markets are already emerging.

Markets for non-GMO sperm are already here.

The best possible scenario for the agorism of the future, however, would of course be the total annihilation, collapse, and disintegration of the great fiction called the state, with the amazing technologies we already enjoy and innovations we already use being sped up to warp speed, as the parasite class would no longer be able to siphon value and time from brilliant minds and creators and users of these new technological paradigms. Stifling licensing rackets would be gone, and so would systematized extortion commonly known as “taxation.”

Ideas would begin to exponentially explode and multiply upon other new ideas at breakneck speed. Without the arbitrary red tape and murder of the state, many things would change drastically and instantaneously. Beyond recognition. Medicine would be much cheaper, competition and incentives in the market would skyrocket. The world would be basically unrecognizable in the best sort of way, and the grim realities we face currently would just seem like a bad dream in comparison.

Agorism need not be seen only as the selling of seashell necklaces and crystals at some out-of-the-way hippie festival, but more than likely, it would bring about something akin to a tech paradise if allowed to truly flourish in basically non-violent, self-ownership respecting, free market conditions. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with selling the necklaces and crystals, by the way, but just saying.

Option 2: Primitive Survival

It is my personal view that this phase is coming very soon — likely in the next few years — and is basically unavoidable at this point.

As the global ‘Great Reset’ technocracy further encroaches, it seems like the exile of the non-compliant from traditional society is a sobering reality that must be faced. Violent attacks, imprisonment, segregation, and calculated economic destruction of those wishing to maintain bodily autonomy are already happening now, and the trend shows no real signs of slowing down.

As such, the best possible outcome to hope for is that this clampdown will allow some of us to fall through the cracks, as it were, surviving in tiny pockets of community with other exiles. There will likely need to be a bit of chaos for this to work, as we know all too well that the state doesn’t allow individuals to disassociate in peace, because doing so harms the image and reputation of government itself, setting a precedent which emboldens others to also question these psychopaths in positions of so-called “authority.”

That said, in building local networks and preparing, there are a few things I am focusing on and which I see as valuable items to have and practices to be familiar with in a more primitive survival scenario.

Firstly, things that rely on an internet connection will be much harder — if not impossible, at times — to use. For all the gassed-up talk about a bitcoin revolution and crypto anarchy, should shit truly hit the fan in the form of social exile, power outages, hyperinflation, global market crashes, new laws making private crypto trade illegal, etc., it will be more useful to focus on physical goods.

As a brief aside before moving on, though, crypto could yet be a super valuable tool for those that maintain connections with the mainstream world, who are willing to trade with outsiders. The centralized metaverse, CBDC paradigm will likely allow popular private crypto to continue to see massive currency, albeit exclusively on state-regulated entities and exchanges. As such, it may be possible to trade crypto to acquire resources from the statist world via gray market and black market defectors/traders. If this is the case, those cold storage ETH wallets you’ve got under your bed could be invaluable, even after you lose access to the internet.

Unless digital currencies are traded on local networks, their survival value will certainly drop in this scenario, however. Things like canned food, books, whisky, guns, knives, ammo, coats, medicine, fuel, portable machines, gold coins, etc., immediately take on much greater value in this situation and will almost certainly be more readily tradable on most agorist markets than those solana tokens you’ve got saved up.

Knowledge of how to build, hunt, heal, and organize a community around the axiom of self-ownership will be big assets. The main focus will likely be community, as having true, principled allies — but not so many you put an unnecessarily large target on your head, perhaps — makes survival a million times easier physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Hopefully as these communities and trade networks grow, and the state continues to destroy itself by way of the governing psychosis feeding on its own musculature — which it always must do — a pathway will open for anarchists to emerge and rebuild larger, more agoristic societies on the burnt-out husk of the former authoritarian mess.

Option 3: Extinction

“On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”

— Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Luckily for us, if the idea of agorism survives, extinction can never truly happen. What we can do now before our own personal time on this planet drops to zero, is fight to make it a better place for our kids, and anyone else who might have half a spark of love in their mind and heart and soul in the midst of this continuing nightmare.

It’s quite simple to avoid the nightmare altogether, actually. All it would take is a decent little chunk of people disobeying en masse, willing to defend and die for their self-ownership if need be. God forbid we die. Let’s try to stay alive. Still, that’s what it takes. The way to end a nightmare is always just to wake up.