“What’s a notel?” [Daniel from #Agora]

“It’s not a hotel, and it’s where you’re sleeping.” [Michael from #Agora]

A Notel (“Not A Hotel”) is a concept put forth in the crypto-agorist novella, #agora, as well as Second Realm: Book on Strategy, wherein a house, apartment complex, commercial/industrial zone, or whatever property is rented out to self-liberators in an agorist fashion, meaning underground and outside the eyes and minds of potential coercers.

More specifically, in #agora, the characters utilize a cell phone, crypto-currency, and other open source technology to pay for, access, and stay covertly in a private, hidden hotel.

In other words, think about everything you would find in the First Realm, regulated hotels, transfer all the beneficial attributes, disregard the rest, and even add a few. For some ideas: access to a bedroom, small kitchen, hardwired, privately-served Internet access via, say, a Paul Rosenberg/Smuggler Cryptohippie router, “conference room” for hackers spaces or get-togethers, post-office style lockboxes that could serve as supply caches for nomadic vonuans or even automated trading boxes, the option to connect to “trusted” Bitcoin full nodes and lightning network nodes, data centers for the P.A.Z.NIA Lbry, IPFS nodes, etc….

You get the idea – it can be quite expansive.

And with Air B&B being swallowed up by the First Realm & many of the aforementioned services being highly valuable to some, there’s no better time to begin pondering the prospects of making Second Realm Notels a reality.

So, that’s exactly what JJ, a pseudonymous individual from the P.A.Z.NIA Committee of Correspondence Chat, and myself discussed on the most recent episode of The Vonu Podcast.

Specific topics include: what the inside of a Notel room could look like, policies & procedures, marketing such a Second Realm establishment, the role technology and crypto-anarchy play in the security and maintenance, the utility of proxy merchants in securing the Notel and potentially other proxy merchant services, pricing and profitability, and more.

We began with a thought experiment concerning an apartment complex in the First Realm, owned & operated by an individual sympathetic to the Second Realm. This hotel owner would reserve a handful of rooms for vetted self-liberators and use his First Realm business as cover (and self-liberators would be able to use the apartment traffic as cover); he might even be able to cover costs of the Second Realm operation with the First, meaning more funds can be transferred to the underground, and out of the coercive society.

To make a point on thinking big, maybe this hypothetical Second Realm Notel owner/operator converts an old, unused closet into a room with crypto mining rigs – an opportunistic, entrepreneur-proxy merchant might consider writing off those electricity costs on the hotel thefts (“taxes”) at the end-of-the-year…

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“What about the remote door?”

“What do you expect, a doorman? Do you know how many embedded servers I can link to an electronic lock for even a month worth of paying a single person?” -#agora

~~~

Of course, the downside with the aboveground apartment complex/business versus a residential house rented out to self-liberators, is that it inevitably carries with it more interactions with coercers (the State primarily), and therefore, also more risk. The homeowner covertly renting out rooms in a house will still likely interface with the State as far as “property titles” and property taxes go, and it may or may not be as lucrative.

Anyway, these are things for interested individuals to consider themselves, as no one else can do it for them. But of course, we’re happy to help if we can!

Other points-of-discussion:

• The acquisition of Notels by proxy merchants in cities, whether residences, apartment complexes, etc.
• The prospects of a 4 or 5 bedroom home; downside of potentially nosy neighbors
• How JJ sees the process of renting a Notel room looking like
• Escape/panic rooms for high risk self-liberators/situations
• The vulnerability of wireless & the ease of hacking technology in general, & JJ’s solutions/remedies
• Storage/mail boxes as automated trading stations, utilizing OpenTransactions (digital contracts) and maybe 2-of-3 bitcoin multisig
• Anonymous errand running/delivery service
• Positives & negatives to take into account with pricing
• Exchanging value-for-value, not necessarily profiting

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“Don’t worry. It’s only 10 Euros.”

“10 Euros? For this room?”

“Sure. 10 Euros times 10 residents times 30 days equals 3000 Euros a month. There’s no restaurant and no hotel bar, though.” -#agora

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You can watch or listen to the full discussion at VonuPodcast.com/118, or you can find this and every episode on your favorite podcatcher. Alternatively, find the video on Odysee.

What do you think of Second Realm Notels? Intrigued? Become a proxy merchant and start a Notel where you are!

On his way out, he points to a laptop sitting on the desk.

“There’s a WhisperPC prototype. If you want to surf the net or check your email, feel free.” -#agora