James

Opting out is underrated. Thinking for example of Iran right now. It's no fault of common iranians alive today that they live under a mad dictator. The war drums are on. We should be humble and understand that this can happen to any of us. You can't decide where you are born. I know opting out is difficult for many, but it might be the thing that saves you - before the war ships arrive and after. Opting out after is even more difficult. In the west, we live comfortable lives, but I can hear the echoes of the war drums. I am not saying this to scare you. Opting out now is much easier than later. What does it mean? Useful first steps: - Global optionality. Try to untie yourself from a place. - Detach yourself from the chiefs and captains. You are not your government. You have almost nothing in common with them. Don't vote for them, don't expect anything from them. If you catch yourself expecting something to be provided by them, breathe and get it out of your head. - Build networks outside. Look around. The planet is huge and there are always options. A bit of a prepper larping is fine. Enjoy the decline.

I worked for a three-letter agency years ago. People overestimate what these outfits can pull off. They also underestimate the smart folks stuck grinding away in their bureaucracies. Here's my take: Bureaucracies run on rules, like a computer program directing people. The rules orchestrate the people. It's like running tic-tac-toe on a cluster of supercomputers. The bureacracy itself runs tic-tac-toe, literally retarded, not playing 5D chess. The execution engine can be very smart though. I've met very smart people, confined by the rules, with worse outputs than kids playing detectives. I call the rule-based bureaucracies "the machines". They already rule over individual agents. We don't have to wait for AI revolution, the program is just thousands of pages of regulations and forms. Just a different kind of machine code.