Why I Hate Rent (Rant)

[nbk2000]

What is rent?

Before I explain that, a little history lesson about what the origins of the word 'rent' is.

It is the modern day version of the homage surfs payed to their Lords back in the good ol' days of the middle ages for the privilege of being allowed a squalid hut to live in on the Lords land.

It's no accident that the person that you pay for the honor of living on their land is nowadays known as a "Land Lord". After all, only Lords could own land, peasants simply being part of the Lords property, and property can't own property itself. ;)

By owning land, the Lord owned everything on it...the trees, the water, and the peasants. The peasants didn't have any say in this matter, because to go somewhere else was to become the property of some other Lord, since ANYTHING on the Lords land was his, whether he wanted it there or not.

Fast forward through the Renaissance to the modern day. The concept of someone 'owning' another person is considered barbaric and cruel, being labeled slavery.

But when the average American pays 40% of their income, earned by trading time from their life for money, and then handing over the results of that exchange to a Land Lord, doesn't it seem more like the kind of tax that the peasants had to fork over to their master, a Lord?

Certainly does to me.

In what other context of modern society would it be considered fair to take 40% of someones life effort from them? Not once, not twice, but every month for their entire adult life, right up until they're dropped into the grave?

I can't think of anything.

And, should someone dare to have the audacity to NOT pay rent? Well...we can't have that kind of rebellious behavior to go unpunished, now can we? Otherwise, we'd be up to necks in freeloading peasants, now wouldn't we?

This is the real reason for the continued persistence of the usurious taxation known as 'rent'.

It's not because the Land Lord is providing such an incredibly valuable service that he gets to charge what he does.

No.

It's because the higher powers, those who have inherited the mantle of noblesse oblige from the feudal Lords, feel the need to keep the masses oppressed (which is a good thing, actually) through economic slavery, lest they be able to rise up (financially) and become gasp! the equals of their former Masters.

This is the real origin of rent...economic slavery.

Back in the ye ol' times, the Lords were parasites that bleed the host of their subjects bodies nearly dry, not only to fatten themselves up, but also to keep their subjects too poor and weak to throw off the parasite.

Imagine a vampire that sucks just enough blood out of a captive victim to leave him alive, but too weak to resist. A scene from the Bram Stokers Dracula movie comes readily to mind.

Anyways...just like the vampire, the Lords knew they had to keep their victims weak (poor), otherwise they'd lose their easy meal and might actually have to make their own way, without others fattening their coffers for them.

But onerous taxation had the nasty side-effect of angering the peasants, who'd often rebel, either openly by killing their Lords, or secretly by not paying the full 'rent' and keeping the balance for themselves.

When this happened, the Lords would have two choices:

The first required killing peasants, which is akin to a vampire draining its victim dry, because a parasite can't live without a host, so killing peasants was counter-productive.

The second was to increase the 'rent' to make up for the shortfall, but this was a vicious cycle, because increasing the 'rent' increased the rebellious behavior of refusing to pay 'rent'.

'Course, back then, it wasn't called 'rent', it was called 'tax'.

Eventually the Lords wised up and came up with a new scam to suck their prey to feebleness that didn't provoke the rebellious behavior.

A new word, 'Rent', was used to replace the more accurate word 'Tax', and, rather than slaving away in the fields to pay a tax to your Liege Lord, you now slaved away in the fields to pay 'rent' to your land Lord.

The thing that confuses most people as to the real nature of the arrangement is the intermediate stage of a Boss.

See, the Boss, regardless of who you work for or what you do, is the enforcer of the Lords will.

You work for the Lords, but give your life-force to a Boss in exchange for worthless colored paper tokens. You then give these tokens to your Lord as proof of your allegiance and loyalty to his continued prosperity.

He knows the tokens are actually more worthless than toilet paper, since you can't even comfortably wipe your ass with them, but he knows he can trade the toilet paper to other Lords for actually useful commodities due to a mutually agreed upon fiction known as 'Money'.

And now, because of this very simple arrangement, the Lords are no longer bothered by pesky peasant rebellions. Why? Because the peasants now believe that they are free to actually choose their own destinies, be the captains of the ship of their lives, and all that good stuff.

But it doesn't matter where they go because the Lords are everywhere. Anywhere the peasant goes, he pays homage to a Lord, whether he knows it or not, because the Lords know full well that for every peasant that leaves, another will replace him.

Oh, and for you fools who think that, because you are living in a house, you are somehow better than the rest of your fellow peasants...you're the most deluded of all because you've thought the most unbelievable lie imaginable...that you are somehow a Lords equal! :rolleyes:

In fact, you're the most loyal of all peasants because you've signed away 20 to 30 years of your life away, in advance, to a Lord, locking yourself in to a 'Mortgage', which is another one of the Lords euphemisms for 'Indentured Servitude'.

Back in the ol' days, after the Renaissance, but before the 20th century, you'd agree to so many years as a Lords servant, in exchange for some trifling reward.

Well, the Lords haven't forgotten this useful trick.

Now they get peasants to agree to paying half their life to them in exchange for their 'freedom' from rent.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

Fools! :p

It's just a different word for the same thing...SLAVERY.

By making the chains of gold, rather than iron, the Lords have discovered that the slaves no longer rebel. In fact, the slaves become eager for the chains to be put on them.

Let us say that you work 30 years, and get the 'deed' to 'your' house. Now what happens? You think you're going to become a Lord yourself by requiring rent from others that you deign to let stay on 'your' property.

A fools dream.

You're going to be spending the rest of your life paying taxes on the value of that property to yet more powerful Lords, known as county/state/federal government.

Sell it? Pay tax.

Improve it? Pay more tax.

Die? Your heirs pay yet more tax.

No matter what, if you pay anything for where you are living, you're a peasant.

Emperors of old lived in palaces, and kings in castles.

Genghis Khan lived in a yurt, a tent made of wood and skins, but he didn't pay anyone a damn thing for the privilege, did he?

True Lords don't pay anyone a damn thing for living anywhere. Quite the opposite.

So, like any true Lord, I'm not paying anyone a damn thing for where I live anymore. In fact, I haven't been paying homage to anyone for 8 months now.

How?

"NBK must be scamming someone."

Nope.

"Ah, then he's mooching off of some bitch."

Nigger, please.

"NBK must be living under a bridge then, because no one lives rent-free."

To the contrary!

See, in most places in the civilized world, there are more places to live than people to occupy them, except most people are sheep, not wolves.

Sheep insist on the comfort of a warm pen with soft hay and fresh water.

Sheeple insist on the comforts of running water, electricity for light, and gas for warmth.

But I'm a wolf.

And, as a wolf, I don't need these things to survive but, in fact, thrive in their absence.

Wolves laugh at the cutting knife of a winter wind, sleep on the bare earth, and drink from stagnant pools.

Harmless animals have pens, but predators have lairs.

Like the Spartans of old, the lack of material comforts has hardened me.

For the last eight months, I've been living in a house that just so happens to be deserted, and has been for years.

No water, no electricity, no heating or air conditioning.

Sub-freezing cold, sweltering heat, vermin and leaking roofs mean nothing to me.

I sleep on the floor.

I walk through pitch black rooms at night, the noise of rats running in the attic and the chirping of crickets outside the only sound to be heard.

I use a propane burner in the fireplace for cooking, only having used a one pound cylinder in the last four months, eating most of my food cold from cans.

I walk miles almost everyday, with a 20 pound pack on my back, up and down hilly roads in all weather and temperatures, rather than riding the bus.

Yet, despite these supposed hardships, I remain respectful of myself. Derelicts that allow themselves to fall apart into stinky, unkempt, and filthy shambles are pathetic untermensch.

Despite having none of the supposed basics of civilization, I remain clean and presentable.

I bath every day with water I walk in on my back.

I piss in bottles, and shit in plastic bags, that I carry out on my back.

I wash my few clothes in a laundromat every week.

This is what a wolf can live like.

"That's too difficult for me. I couldn't live like that."

FUCK YOU!


Obstacles are not the scourge of the living, as some people think; rather, they exist to crush the weak until they are reduced to shit, and to strengthen the strong until they become as cold and as hard as steel.


Cold forged steel is the hardest steel there is.

(NOT referring to Saravokv)

This is why you'll be someone else's slave, FOREVER, because you're weak shit that can't overcome even a simple obstacle like rent slavery, thus you are crushed under the heel of a Lords rent boot.

It was hard at first, giving up all the comforts of the warm pen, but wolves don't thrive in captivity, no matter how comfortable the cage.

Having broken free of the pen, and created a lair, I've thrived since then.

Despite my supposedly 'deprived' living conditions, I'm now quite comfortable in my spartan living conditions.

I'm certainly not thrown back to the dark ages, as I've composed this screed on a laptop in my lair, backing it up to a PGPdisk volume on an external firewire drive. The battery is charged up at work, one of the very few useful things that the place provides.

The theft or destruction of anything in my lair (except my data, hence the external drive I take with me everywhere) is of no concern to me, as everything in my lair is already ashes in my mind and easily replaced.

No longer do I have to give a shit about my neighbors.

No anxiety over some fruitcake landlord snooping through my belongings.

I can just imagine some lames here and elsewhere chuckling to themselves, thinking "Haha! NBK is homeless!"

Lames, all of them.

See, homeless people are exactly that, home LESS, as in without a home. I've got a home, it's just not mine.

RTPB "Anything free must be exploited".

:D

This could technically be called "Squatting", but that's misapplied in my case, because that's what homeless people do to get off the streets. I've never been on the streets. I went straight from paying rent (to a race-traitor faggot) to lair'ing.

Yes, lair'ing. That's a more proper term for what I'm doing.

Lair'ing is not the act of desperation by losers who can't keep their jobs, sanity, or control over a substance abuse problem, but rather the conscious choice of someone who could otherwise continue paying rent, but has decided to get off the rat-wheel of rent slavery and live free.

As an example of one of the many advantages I enjoy, compared to the sheeple peasants:

Some assholes, known as "customers", gave me a hassle at work, so I gave them pain in return.

Now they've tried several times to find where I live, presumably to exact some P.E.T.T.Y. revenge by stealing my ashes or trashing my lair.

The RTPB of "Check your Six'", being innate to me, alerted me to their amateurish attempts long before we were anywhere near my lair, giving me plenty of time to run a cleaning routine.

As Mega said when I told him about this:

"What are they going to do? Steal things you don't care about? Slash the tires of a car you don't own? Or thrash a house that isn't yours?"

Exactly. :p

Another advantage is that anyone who wants to find me by searching for my name or other identifying information for utilities, credit checks for rentals, etc, will come up with a big fat zero on that, as I've none of those things.

They could find me through my job, but that'll soon be a dead end too.

Internet too, as the laptop means war-driving, and using the sheeples' bandwidth as my own, and leaving the pigs with a dead-end on that aspect.

Friends and family have long since been dead ends.

Same for DMV, insurance, medical records, and all the other crap that people leave little breadcrumbs in that lead right up to their doors.

This is one of the worst crimes a person can be guilty of nowadays...being invisible and untraceable to ZOG and their lackeys.

Is it any surprise that everything is slowly being strangled with technology to make every move and purchase traceable by government goons? That banks report every cent to the tax man, licenses to drive are controlled by taking your picture and fingerprints (DNA soon), etc, etc, etc?

Not in the least.

But, as long as you're trading your life away in an endless pursuit of trivial possessions that really do nothing, and paying a Lord a majority of your life, then ZOG is going to leave you alone. Why shouldn't they? They know that you're contentedly grazing in the pen of consumerism, fat and happy, as any good sheep is, thus nullified as any kind of threat to them.

Wolves on the other hand, can't be penned, only caged, and that only at the cost of eternal vigilance as they are prone to escaping at a moments laxity.

Most people are owned by their possessions, not the other way around, despite what they may like to think.

Wolves only have tools, not possessions, because tools are useful, possessions useless.

Yet, in an ironic twist, I've got more things now than I did before I started lair'ing.

Why?

Because, in my case, I gained an instant 80% increase in my income. The 40% I no longer pay in rent, plus a 40% increase in my pay (more hours, compared to previously) after my nominal 'boss' was informed of my 'plight' of 'homelessness', and that the local leftist liberal rags might be interested in a story about a working stiff who was forced *boo hoo* into 'destitution' by an uncaring and greedy corporation. ;)

Now I've got all kinds of tools I couldn't afford before, like the digital camcorder, laptop, etc. And I've still got several $K more in my pipe safe, with thousands more $ to come. :D

If I was someone other than NBK, than it'd be easy to blow the largess on stupid shit, like some of my co-workers who make more than $10/hour, compared to my minimum wage, but who spend it all on 'partying' and are broke all the time. :rolleyes:

Kind of reminds me of the story of "The Ant and the Grasshopper." I even call one of them grasshopper to her face, though I know the meaning is lost on her.

My philosophy is that if it's not going to make me money, then I'm not spending money on it, food and the DVD being exceptions of course.

So I am the master of the tools I control, who's sole purpose is to strengthen me, not weaken me.

So throw off the shackles of rent slavery! Join me in running free through the shadows of the urban forest, as a wolf in search of fat sheep to feed upon, rather than being one of the bleating sheep waiting in terror of the wolf that feasts upon its flesh.

[nbk2000]

This was originally posted in the SOS, but it's fresh here. :)

[Silentnite]

That's amazing, and I respect you all the more for it.
Even more, because its not something I could do. Comfort, to me and at this point in my life, is everything.
No offense, but if your ever up in MI, my doors open. If I can't live like that, I can at least *help* those that do. Help being figurative, because wolve's don't need the help, whereas us peasants do. But you get the point.
All I have left is, Damn.

[Cyclonite]

Interesting, what if you had to have surgery or something of the sort which medical insurance is nice for? Iv thought every once and a while about who you are and what area you may live in. I really don't care but ill I know is what you say....did some time, work directly with customers and you don't live too far from some railroad tracks, some other small things. My thinking is a little different, id rather make a large sum of money and spend half than making much less not needing to spend it. The sooner I reach my economic goals the sooner tax, "rent" and other things I hate won't matter much because its a much smaller part of what I pay compared to what I earn. I haven't paid any taxes in 2003 and not much in 2004 being in tax exempt areas...people don't mess with my shit because I protect it, most times iv been screwed over iv been able to get at least twice what was done to me back at the expense of the culprit.

Iv lived in very difficult hazardous areas and I couldn't wait to leave. Id rather live in comfort, but I know I can live with much much less. Your an intelligent guy, im sure theres lots of ways you could make some cash tax free even. Are you waiting to have the capital to do something else or plan on living in your current conditions till death?

Very off topic but one of the things that bothers me the most on this forum is people with some good ideas acting like scared little kids toward mods and such….”Please don’t ban me” and crying about stupid shit, acting like they are dogs and mods are masters.

[Skean Dhu]

Very interesting read NBK, The main point of your post is summed up in the second quote of my signature.
I've long dreamed of buying land in the middle of nowhere, and building my own house. Even though it may be seen as "sheepish", the tax on the land is literally the price you pay to get away from the society you dispise.

I must commend you on severing your ties with the Land lords, and breaking free of these feudal laws

[tom haggen]

I think it sounds like a great stress reliever. I would like to spend sometime out in the woods, without having to rely in basic conveniences. Sometimes you can spend your money for learning purposes, but free information is always the best.

[ProdigyChild]

NBK, you've got my deepest respect, really!

I've lived nearly homeless for 3 years and do know the feeling of putting on clothes in the morning that are literally cold as ice.
I used to pay much 'rent' for comfort and got sad somehow. Only recently I switched back to a extremely low cost rented place for my experiments and a van (no heating of course).
Result: the less comfort, the better I feel. There is absolutely NO PROBLEM living 'outside in the cold' (ex girl friend's words ) at -10° celsius. I use a proper sleeping bag and a cap to protect my eyes.

I'm far from NBK's performance, as I still have credit cards, insurances, a 'home', telephone number, etc.

Parents don't get tired telling you to wear warm clothes, learn at school, perform at work, get a 'nice' place to live, a girl a family and SECURITY. A man slips easily into this role, because he has never had the time to THINK about his life. Good job, women, money and a thousand other things are kind of Morphine or Alcohol that dim his mind. That's why the world can't be changed. Because 99% of humans are drunken all the time with only one thought looping around in their head: more, more, MORE.....
Women beeing the worst of all.

Once something goes really wrong in a mans live, he gets the time to think. An accident for example. Can be a good thing, sometimes!

Shame on those who put more trust in the safety of AP than they do in the adaptability of their body :mad:

[nbk2000]

Exactly!

How are you to ever know what you're capable of if you never test yourself?

The men who founded the US crossed a frozen river during a blizzard to catch the British forces unaware. Quite a few men lost their toes and fingers to that one, but did it anyways.

How many civilians now-a-days would even attempt such a thing?

I'm reminded of something I read in a book a while ago about "The Order". When, while trying to get more recruits into the organization, they had them go to a 'camp' for training under the guidance of a respected survival trainer, the camp was happening in sub-zero weather, and everyone but the trainer and one guy (out of like a dozen) all left.

Quite aptly, they were all deemed worthless, as revolution isn't affected by effete punks who can't handle a little discomfort.

Does the IRA, PLO, Shining Path, etc.etc. operate only in comfortable weather in locations with room-service? I think NOT!

In fact, I'd think it a suitable test of a recruits mettle to see how well they fair in a cold-weather (sub-zero) environment in a survivalist setting. Separate out the wheat from the chaff, as extreme cold is well known to demoralize the weak since wars began.


what if you had to have surgery or something of the sort which medical insurance is nice for?


If it's life-threatening, the hospital CAN NOT REFUSE to treat you, regardless of cost. Meaning that if I get hit by a car, shot, blow off an arm, have a tumor sprouting out of my ear, dislocate a joint, whatever...if its going to kill or cripple me if it's not immediately fixed, then they have to fix it, regardless of the fact that I can't (and won't) pay them. It's not like I tell them I will pay them and then don't. I tell them straight out I'm not paying and they still have to treat me. :D

See, liberals are good for something after all! :p

Wolves get free medical care while sheeple toil away at their demeaning jobs to pay the taxes to pay for said wolfs medical care. :)

Anything less dramatic isn't worth my worrying about.

I have co-workers worrying about whether or not their insurance will cover trivial shit like tooth bleachings, jumping through hoops and signing away their privacy and freedoms in exchange for a few meager dollars. :rolleyes: Punks and Bitches, all of them.

[Isotoxin]

I admire your outlook and determination.

"Derelicts that allow themselves to fall apart into stinky, unkempt, and filthy shambles are pathetic untermensch."

I have to agree - they have weak minds and they had them in the first place. My own mother was scammed by these street dwelling scum not once but twice that I know of - I feel no pitty for those human warts.

How do you research and experiment(the true goal and noble path we all share in common here)? Without power experimintation seems more difficult and glassware(let alone chems) hard to transport.

I advise you to perhaps find means of obtaining funds through nontaxed methods instead of your low paying job - you may not get more money but you will be 100% paperless.

As to power considerations perhaps a small solar panel(they cost about 80$) could be used to power the laptop.

[xyz]

Isotoxin, it shouldn't be that hard to simply leech power for free by doing a little rewiring of the building's meter box.

I don't know about the US, but here in Australia you can get seriously assraped by the law if you are caught doing that, but hey, the building is an abandoned one and you have no idea who rewired the power now do you? ;)

Of course, for portability a solar panel is still the best option.

[bipolar]

I commend you very much NBK you are actually taking action. I enjoyed reading it very much.

You might want to try iSun http://www.isun.com for solar power. You just have solar panels,battery bank, and inverter. They even have a calculator on there that tells you how many of what product you need to run what you need to run. you'd be surprised what you can run.

Also check out Lehman's (http://www.lehmans.com) They sell alot of stuff to the amish. they have a spiked hollow tube for digging a well with a sledgehammer just hammer it in and add water pipe and hammer, again and again, then put a manual pump on top. Wood stoves, and all kinds of suff like that.

If you want a nice living place for a couple thousand or so, check out Pacific Domes (http://www.pacificdomes.com) It is a heavy duty tent dome made for putting a woodstove in. the frame made from steel pipe.

Also , Try some underground enconomy books that are availible for jobs you can get paid in cash with.

So people can contact you without you revealing your location. you need private mailbox in an alias, a voice mail number with pager notification, a pager in an alias, and a tracphone(or just use a payphone) Then you can put your voicemail number on your business card or ad(for your underground econ. job)

Then when you get a call you just get a page(that way if you are at your lair they can't radio DF(direction find) you on tracphone) Then you can go for a drive and call them back on your tracphone while you are moving not near your lair(or at a random payphone)


I was also reading that you can buy property or register your car through your created entity(Nevada Wyoming corporation ) with undisclosed trustee or an offshore agent or something like that. Then when your entity owns the property you can rent it from your entity under an alias. Then nobody can seize your property because you dont own it you are renting it from an entity that is not you.

Anyway, I hope some of this stuff helps.

[Jacks Complete]

I doubt NBK would want the solar panel! Where would he put it? On the roof, to be a target and a signal? Far better to buy a spare battery or two.

A set of NVG would be better than anything like a torch, since they can see without the extra light that, again, will tell everyone for miles that the place is occupied, for when it is that bit too dark for the dark-adapted eye, or to get the drop on snoopers.

Finally, I would get one of the pocket bug sweepers. Turn it on when you leave work, and make sure you haven't been "tagged" with a tiny RF tracker. Just leave it on the whole (or 2/3rds) way home.

I'm sure NBK will have a few tell-tales that he checks to ensure home hasn't been disturbed. Dust works well, and his "two photos taken some time apart from the precise same place" trick can be good for checking indoors.

[nbk2000]

First off, I'm paying rent (again) for a house for the winter. I'm a penny-pincher, but I'm not freezing my ass off again in another sub-zero winter. :p And I'm paying 1/3rd less now than I was paying before I squatted! :)

I've done it once, so I know I can do it again if I had to, but now is the time for working on the DVD, and I need electricity for that.

When the spring rolls around, it'll be back to squatting.

As for tips on squatting:

Get a fast charger (<30 minutes) for rechargable batteries, mainly AA size, as you'll be using them for a lot of things, though mainly lighting. You charge it up at the library, outdoor outlets, etc.

Don't have anything in a squat you're not willing to lose, as you're not the only person looking for a free place to live, and it's likely that anyplace good enough for you to live in may be a draw for derelicts.

I've had stuff stolen (though not everything) three times, though only one time was of any significance, and even then it was all disposable.

Forget setting traps, as you'll bringing unneccesary heat on yourself if you end up killing/maiming someone, and for what? Shit that's disposable? Though you could poison some prepackaged food and leave it laying about to kill anyone desperate enough to steal it, eliminating an untermensch or two.

Remember, you're not some pathetic untermensch who's been driven into a desperate search for shelter by poverty and drug addiction. Instead, you're a wolf who's looking for a lair from which to hunt upon the grazing sheeple. You've got plenty of money and, most importantly, self-respect.

I got 'discovered' once by a Land Lord, in his purported house, and the first thing out of his mouth (besides demands of rent :rolleyes: ) was questions about my status as a 'derelict'. You know, what drugs was I on, what did I steal from the neighbors (he lists PETTY shit like car stereos), where did I shit, etc.

I'm not going to disabuse the Lord from his preconceived notions that everyone who squats is a wino. :p

The inevitable threats about calling the cops didn't faze me, as I know the law regards squatting in my area (as per RTPB "Know the law..."), but I pretended to be cowed as I don't need piggies getting my name in their system.

I got my shit together, and moved into another squat I had prepared for such an eventuality (RTPB "Plan for Failure") that very same night.

I had to leave that one a month later when Code Compliance put a notice on it for condemnation, and I left the day the wrecking crews came to demolish it, moving into yet another prepared squat.

As it stands now, I've got keys for a couple different places (yes, I make keys), in preparation for return, so I'll never be without a place to live.

Keep your shit hidden when you're not using it, as much as possible, to prevent loss. Sleeping bags get rolled up every day and put away, and the air matress deflated and left where it lies, as who's going to steal an obviously ;) busted air-matress?

Clothes are limited to what you're wearing, with spares kept elsewhere.

Propane stove and utensils are vital for cooking, as well as large jugs of potable water for food/drink.

Carry in water for bathing in 2 liter bottles. If it's not incredible hot, a bottle a day is more than adequate for hygeine.

Baby wet-wipes are for ass wiping, as the funk of shit is a sure sign of derelict status.

I used no light for getting around after the first week, as by then I knew the layout of the place well enough to get around by feel. If I did use a light, it was for washing/cooking, and was the minimum needed, provided by an Indiglo light of a battery powered travel alarm clock, which is so faint as to be invisible if seen from outside.

Pick a good location to lock yourself into at night, as you don't want to meet anyone in a squat at night after just having woken up. Upstairs is always better, so you can control the stairway, as well as have better escape options. NEVER put yourself in a basement, as you'll be trapped.

Get a storage unit to store your important stuff in, but prepare it against thieves, as I had mine broken into and some few things stolen. They didn't get any of the 'good' stuff, as I had that locked up at work and...the pipe safe...hehe...scared 'em off!

Yes, when they broke in, they started working their way through the unit, front to back, when they opened up a suitcase to dump it out and, what should fall out at their feet in a dark unit? A PIPE BOMB!

:eek:

Nothing was touched past that point!

IF they'd had the balls to take it, they'd have gotten a couple thousand dollars, but they left the door swinging in the wind in their haste to leave. :p

Anyways, next time, everything's getting crated up in milk crates, and the crates will all be interlocked together, making it an incredibly time-consuming process for thieves to try stealing any of my stuff, as they'll have to cut each crate totally apart to dissassemble what I've got planned. And none of them will have anything valuable (to others) in them, so why would they bother with mine when there'll be plenty of others to loot from?

I've got the pager (no alpha, nor voice [hazards]), no cellphone (tracking), I've got the maildrop dupes, no car (where are you going to park it at night when you're squatting?), and everything else that I need.

[nbk2000]

From 'The End of Privacy':


Within an efficient administrative state, panoptic power can be reproduced in various sites to watch different categories of people.

Schools prepare people over a prolonged childhood, adolescent, and young-adult training period for the discipline of the workplace or office.

The discipline of the workplace of course only applies to those who are employed; for those who are unemployed, unemployable, or retired, the state provides welfare or social security programs that are themselves elaborate surveillance systems that maintain detailed information on their clients.

In every case there are powerful incentives (income or benefits) for remaining voluntarily under the panoptic gaze, and disincentives for evading the gaze.

If, despite this array of carrots and sticks, deliberate evasion is practiced, there is a good possibility that the evader will end up subject to criminal sanction, which is to say, a prisoner in the narrower Benthamite sense.

Once again, we can see the primary principle of the Panopticon in operation. The Inspector, now the Bureaucrat, scans the subjects, now the Society, rendered as transparent as possible to his gaze.

The transparency is not however two-way, as the state jealously guards itself through administrative secrecy. It appears to the subjects as an impenetrable object (and separated as administration is from politics, not directly accountable to democratic voters).

Coercion lurks in the background, of course, as an underlying sanction encouraging compliance with a state which has a high likelihood of seeing and noting infractions of its rules. The difference between the panoptic state and Bentham's Panopticon is one of complexity.


Yet another reason to squat. They can't hit a target they can't find. :p

[Neoknite]

Much respect for this. When I was little I dreamed of living off the land and have no outside contact. Just me, my shack (made by myself), the wilderness and possibly a small armoury of weapons massed over the years. Either for self defense or survival. But now that I have grown up in the "mind controlling" ideas of society. I dont know if i could ever achieve that goal. Mostly because I have fallen in love with the military. So I dont really see my self living that long (where i plan on going that is). Who knows mabye during a war I will find myself behind enemy lines and forced to hide and survive with out being caught. The best way to live a simple life is to go back to your most simple human instincts; survival. Who knows, but i havent done it yet so i cant really talk. So for you, congradulations for you resolve. I know what its like to have to live outside in the winter (-20 Degrees F) even though it was for 1 day and 1 night. Good shelter is a must.

Just an idea, how many people in the united states do you think would actually put up resistance say if we were invaded by any force (like Red Dawn) Were our military had lost land to the enemy. Personally, i dont think there would be a lot. And that says a lot about what NBK is talking about. Its a system we(most) cannot live without.

[nbk2000]

It is a well known in psychology that people tend to think that their way of living is the best way of living, and that any else is somehow inferior.

This applies even to something as meaningless as work.

People who spend 9-5, six days a week, working to make someone else rich, through their direct labors, as well as through the wage slavery of car/house/etc. payments, seem to think that people who aren't working for someone else, aren't paying rent nor paying for a car nor have no interest in working for someone else, are somehow defective.

An aquaintance recently whined at me about my not working, nor having any desire to look for a job, and tried convincing me that I had some flaw in my character because of this.

Things said at me included such brilliant nuggets as:

You're too smart for your own good.

OH SHIT! Tell me you didn't just say THAT!

Reminds me of an 'Outer Limits' episode where children were tested when they reached a certain age and, if too smart, were killed. After all, the only threat to the State is the intelligent person who thinks for themselves, and not the bleating sheeple who graze contentedly with their eyes ever lowered.

Yes, I am smart. So much so that I realize that spending my life working for others is not for me.

I suppose I could get a lobotomy...might make me accept the sheeple lifestyle.

Ever notice how people NEVER say 'You're too dumb for your own good.'?

Why is this? Simple. Society has taught us since birth that Dumb=Good, as it means you'll do as your told without questioning the reasons behind the orders.

You're too cynical.

If observing the world with unfiltered and probing eyes and commenting on the fucked condition it's in is cynical, than God-damn right I'm cynical! :)

Work means swallowing your pride.

Translation = Eat other peoples shit with a smile and ask for seconds!

History doesn't record the deeds of those who swallowed their pride, only those who didn't compromise it. Ney, embraced it!

The first step to enslaving someone is to break their spirit, their pride, their sense of self-worth.

When a man has his pride, the only way you can enslave his is with heavy chains and thick, locked, doors.

Once he's been broken, you don't need the chains or doors, because he has no has the desire to be free, and embraces his slavery as freedom.

This isn't about me (When asked about their own job)

To the contrary, it's ALL about you. After all, it's through the filter of your own work experience that you are judging me. This person has told me 'They'll have to carry my dead body away from my desk'. This is a die-hard sheeple, folks.

Obviously, someone who is such a fanatic about their job can't possibly comprehend why someone else would be less-than-equally enthused about theirs.

Naturally, they came up with the 'I worked as (boring list of a lifetimes worth of menial labor), but I did it anyways.'

Oh...since you compromised your entire life, the lifestyle of compromise is thus desirable.
Sounds a lot like 'I've been a slave all my life. Being a slave isn't bad, at all. Why can't you accept being a slave?'.

When told that I'm used to being promoted on merit, not because of having a piece of paper, I got:

Those (degrees) show initiative.

Uh, no.

What it does show is that a person can/will;

A: Indebt themselves to the government loan program, or has enough money from family, or work themselves to exhaustion for others like good slaves.

B: Conform to expectations for enough years in a liberalist academic kakistocracy to get the piece of paper that says they're certified sheeple.

C: Use everything they've been taught (which is obsolete by the time they graduate), in accordance with current sheeple certification standards, to further perpetuate The System as it exists, and not try to effect any change to it.

D: Once duely certified as being 'safe', they'll be rewarded by good paying jobs that don't encourage initiative or intelligence, but rather a strict adhearance to the System, whether governmental or corporate.

Intelligent people who are able to operate autonomously, without waiting for orders from High Command, aren't desirable in a sheeple society, as such people are difficult to control and could be possible threats to the System, as they act independantly and without orders, acting on their own decisions without waiting for approval from others.

Also can't have people getting promoted on merit alone, as how do you know that they're 'safe sheeple'? They haven't been certified safe after years of indoctrination at the SSIF, so how can the System risk giving them control? It can't, so it won't. The dumb and meek are promoted over the smart and confidant.

All bureacracy, whether government or business, is based on continued self-preservation at all costs, and the avoidance of all risk.

"The eyes that look only to the safe course are forever closed."

Then comes the attempt to guilt-trip me over what they believe is an obligation I owe them.

Sorry, but obligation only works when there is an obligation I recognize, not some self-delusional expecation that I owe them for some triviality on their part.

Only when it is one sided, and truthfully presented, is there then any obligation.

If it's mutual, there's no obligation.

If there is misrepresentation on their part, then there is no obligation on my part.

The most galling thing was:

Don't think of yourself as a victim.

My response was "I stopped being a victim the day I stopped paying rent (squatting).".

That was the end of our conversation.

It's hard for slaves to recognize their slavery when they've never known freedom.

In the US, the typical wage-slave works from January to May to pay their all their taxes. Of the remaining money they have, typically 40% goes for rent. After car payments, insurance payments, credit card payments, and all the other payments, what have they got left? :p

I think it's jealousy at my freedom that makes the slaves hate me so badly.

I sleep when I want to, and get up when I want to, not when someone elses schedule says I must.

I can fly a kite, read a book, take a nap, twiddle my thumbs for hours, wank off, and do anything else I want, when I want, for as long as I want.

The wage-slave, on the other hand, HAS TO be at their desk and awake from 9-5, monday through friday, 50 weeks or more out of the year, no matter how nice it is outside, no matter how bored or tired or sick they are.

If they fail to get to the salt mine on time and consistently, they're fired. Once they cease producing, they become worthless.

All the things they've been 'buying' on payments get taken away from them.

The Land-Lord they were paying 'rent' to kicks them out.

Their credit rating goes into the gutter, and they become marginalized, unable to get work at the former pay level they used to be at because they've been marked as 'unreliable'.

Once forced to fend for themselves,the outcast sheeple wander around lost, unable to cope, because sheeple were never meant to be free, but to have a shepard watching over them.

If the sheep stops producing wool, the shepard lets it loose to fend for itself.

Wolves, on the other hand, have always had to fend for themselves.

Sheeple fall into the charitable handouts trap, going from shelter to foodbank to welfare line.

All of these teats are ran by control organizations, whether religious or governmental, to keep the lost sheeple marginalized to provide a reason for the continued existance of the organizations, but not so badly marginalized that they might transform into predatory wolves.

None of these organizations have any motive for getting the sheeple back to being productive, effectively returning its 'clients' to society, as that means no more money for them.

Some sheeple have suggested that I get on welfare, as that's the only thing sheeple have to fall back upon once they're unemployable.

Sorry, but welfare is for loser sheeple with no pride or self-respect, not for free-running wolves.

If I want money, I either work for it or take it. A wolf doesn't rely on government coercion of sheeple to provide the tax money to support him, as that's just theft via state proxy.

Once I have enough money for my needs, I enjoy my freedom, as that's what money is for, a tool for freedom. :)

It's the pursuit of money that turns you into a slave.

Those who grow up on the streets learn to rely on themselves, but pay a high price for the knowledge, for the street teaches hard lessons.

For most, the idea that we are personally responsible for our own lives comes late, if at all.

Our education in school teaches us to put our faith in something else - a corporation, a marriage, a trade, a profession, a religion, politics, something, one might almost say anything, which offers us a set of rules we can obey and rewards us for obedience to them.

Because it's safer to be a domestic animal than a wild one.

[nbk2000]

It is a well known in psychology that people tend to think that their way of living is the best way of living, and that any else is somehow inferior.

This applies even to something as meaningless as work.

People who spend 9-5, six days a week, working to make someone else rich, through their direct labors, as well as through the wage slavery of car/house/etc. payments, seem to think that people who aren't working for someone else, aren't paying rent nor paying for a car nor have no interest in working for someone else, are somehow defective.

An aquaintance recently whined at me about my not working, nor having any desire to look for a job, and tried convincing me that I had some flaw in my character because of this.

Things said at me included such brilliant nuggets as:

You're too smart for your own good.

OH SHIT! Tell me you didn't just say THAT!

Reminds me of an 'Outer Limits' episode where children were tested when they reached a certain age and, if too smart, were killed. After all, the only threat to the State is the intelligent person who thinks for themselves, and not the bleating sheeple who graze contentedly with their eyes ever lowered.

Yes, I am smart. So much so that I realize that spending my life working for others is not for me.

I suppose I could get a lobotomy...might make me accept the sheeple lifestyle.

Ever notice how people NEVER say 'You're too dumb for your own good.'?

Why is this? Simple. Society has taught us since birth that Dumb=Good, as it means you'll do as your told without questioning the reasons behind the orders.

You're too cynical.

If observing the world with unfiltered and probing eyes and commenting on the fucked condition it's in is cynical, than God-damn right I'm cynical! :)

Work means swallowing your pride.

Translation = Eat other peoples shit with a smile and ask for seconds!

History doesn't record the deeds of those who swallowed their pride, only those who didn't compromise it. Ney, embraced it!

The first step to enslaving someone is to break their spirit, their pride, their sense of self-worth.

When a man has his pride, the only way you can enslave his is with heavy chains and thick, locked, doors.

Once he's been broken, you don't need the chains or doors, because he has no has the desire to be free, and embraces his slavery as freedom.

This isn't about me (When asked about their own job)

To the contrary, it's ALL about you. After all, it's through the filter of your own work experience that you are judging me. This person has told me 'They'll have to carry my dead body away from my desk'. This is a die-hard sheeple, folks.

Obviously, someone who is such a fanatic about their job can't possibly comprehend why someone else would be less-than-equally enthused about theirs.

Naturally, they came up with the 'I worked as (boring list of a lifetimes worth of menial labor), but I did it anyways.'

Oh...since you compromised your entire life, the lifestyle of compromise is thus desirable.
Sounds a lot like 'I've been a slave all my life. Being a slave isn't bad, at all. Why can't you accept being a slave?'.

When told that I'm used to being promoted on merit, not because of having a piece of paper, I got:

Those (degrees) show initiative.

Uh, no.

What it does show is that a person can/will;

A: Indebt themselves to the government loan program, or has enough money from family, or work themselves to exhaustion for others like good slaves.

B: Conform to expectations for enough years in a liberalist academic kakistocracy to get the piece of paper that says they're certified sheeple.

C: Use everything they've been taught (which is obsolete by the time they graduate), in accordance with current sheeple certification standards, to further perpetuate The System as it exists, and not try to effect any change to it.

D: Once duely certified as being 'safe', they'll be rewarded by good paying jobs that don't encourage initiative or intelligence, but rather a strict adhearance to the System, whether governmental or corporate.

Intelligent people who are able to operate autonomously, without waiting for orders from High Command, aren't desirable in a sheeple society, as such people are difficult to control and could be possible threats to the System, as they act independantly and without orders, acting on their own decisions without waiting for approval from others.

Also can't have people getting promoted on merit alone, as how do you know that they're 'safe sheeple'? They haven't been certified safe after years of indoctrination at the SSIF, so how can the System risk giving them control? It can't, so it won't. The dumb and meek are promoted over the smart and confidant.

All bureacracy, whether government or business, is based on continued self-preservation at all costs, and the avoidance of all risk.

"The eyes that look only to the safe course are forever closed."

Then comes the attempt to guilt-trip me over what they believe is an obligation I owe them.

Sorry, but obligation only works when there is an obligation I recognize, not some self-delusional expecation that I owe them for some triviality on their part.

Only when it is one sided, and truthfully presented, is there then any obligation.

If it's mutual, there's no obligation.

If there is misrepresentation on their part, then there is no obligation on my part.

The most galling thing was:

Don't think of yourself as a victim.

My response was "I stopped being a victim the day I stopped paying rent (squatting).".

That was the end of our conversation.

It's hard for slaves to recognize their slavery when they've never known freedom.

In the US, the typical wage-slave works from January to May to pay their all their taxes. Of the remaining money they have, typically 40% goes for rent. After car payments, insurance payments, credit card payments, and all the other payments, what have they got left? :p

I think it's jealousy at my freedom that makes the slaves hate me so badly.

I sleep when I want to, and get up when I want to, not when someone elses schedule says I must.

I can fly a kite, read a book, take a nap, twiddle my thumbs for hours, wank off, and do anything else I want, when I want, for as long as I want.

The wage-slave, on the other hand, HAS TO be at their desk and awake from 9-5, monday through friday, 50 weeks or more out of the year, no matter how nice it is outside, no matter how bored or tired or sick they are.

If they fail to get to the salt mine on time and consistently, they're fired. Once they cease producing, they become worthless.

All the things they've been 'buying' on payments get taken away from them.

The Land-Lord they were paying 'rent' to kicks them out.

Their credit rating goes into the gutter, and they become marginalized, unable to get work at the former pay level they used to be at because they've been marked as 'unreliable'.

Once forced to fend for themselves,the outcast sheeple wander around lost, unable to cope, because sheeple were never meant to be free, but to have a shepard watching over them.

If the sheep stops producing wool, the shepard lets it loose to fend for itself.

Wolves, on the other hand, have always had to fend for themselves.

Sheeple fall into the charitable handouts trap, going from shelter to foodbank to welfare line.

All of these teats are ran by control organizations, whether religious or governmental, to keep the lost sheeple marginalized to provide a reason for the continued existance of the organizations, but not so badly marginalized that they might transform into predatory wolves.

None of these organizations have any motive for getting the sheeple back to being productive, effectively returning its 'clients' to society, as that means no more money for them.

Some sheeple have suggested that I get on welfare, as that's the only thing sheeple have to fall back upon once they're unemployable.

Sorry, but welfare is for loser sheeple with no pride or self-respect, not for free-running wolves.

If I want money, I either work for it or take it. A wolf doesn't rely on government coercion of sheeple to provide the tax money to support him, as that's just theft via state proxy.

Once I have enough money for my needs, I enjoy my freedom, as that's what money is for, a tool for freedom. :)

It's the pursuit of money that turns you into a slave.

Those who grow up on the streets learn to rely on themselves, but pay a high price for the knowledge, for the street teaches hard lessons.

For most, the idea that we are personally responsible for our own lives comes late, if at all.

Our education in school teaches us to put our faith in something else - a corporation, a marriage, a trade, a profession, a religion, politics, something, one might almost say anything, which offers us a set of rules we can obey and rewards us for obedience to them.

Because it's safer to be a domestic animal than a wild one.

[nbk2000]

It is a well known in psychology that people tend to think that their way of living is the best way of living, and that any else is somehow inferior.

This applies even to something as meaningless as work.

People who spend 9-5, six days a week, working to make someone else rich, through their direct labors, as well as through the wage slavery of car/house/etc. payments, seem to think that people who aren't working for someone else, aren't paying rent nor paying for a car nor have no interest in working for someone else, are somehow defective.

An aquaintance recently whined at me about my not working, nor having any desire to look for a job, and tried convincing me that I had some flaw in my character because of this.

Things said at me included such brilliant nuggets as:

You're too smart for your own good.

OH SHIT! Tell me you didn't just say THAT!

Reminds me of an 'Outer Limits' episode where children were tested when they reached a certain age and, if too smart, were killed. After all, the only threat to the State is the intelligent person who thinks for themselves, and not the bleating sheeple who graze contentedly with their eyes ever lowered.

Yes, I am smart. So much so that I realize that spending my life working for others is not for me.

I suppose I could get a lobotomy...might make me accept the sheeple lifestyle.

Ever notice how people NEVER say 'You're too dumb for your own good.'?

Why is this? Simple. Society has taught us since birth that Dumb=Good, as it means you'll do as your told without questioning the reasons behind the orders.

You're too cynical.

If observing the world with unfiltered and probing eyes and commenting on the fucked condition it's in is cynical, than God-damn right I'm cynical! :)

Work means swallowing your pride.

Translation = Eat other peoples shit with a smile and ask for seconds!

History doesn't record the deeds of those who swallowed their pride, only those who didn't compromise it. Ney, embraced it!

The first step to enslaving someone is to break their spirit, their pride, their sense of self-worth.

When a man has his pride, the only way you can enslave his is with heavy chains and thick, locked, doors.

Once he's been broken, you don't need the chains or doors, because he has no has the desire to be free, and embraces his slavery as freedom.

This isn't about me (When asked about their own job)

To the contrary, it's ALL about you. After all, it's through the filter of your own work experience that you are judging me. This person has told me 'They'll have to carry my dead body away from my desk'. This is a die-hard sheeple, folks.

Obviously, someone who is such a fanatic about their job can't possibly comprehend why someone else would be less-than-equally enthused about theirs.

Naturally, they came up with the 'I worked as (boring list of a lifetimes worth of menial labor), but I did it anyways.'

Oh...since you compromised your entire life, the lifestyle of compromise is thus desirable.
Sounds a lot like 'I've been a slave all my life. Being a slave isn't bad, at all. Why can't you accept being a slave?'.

When told that I'm used to being promoted on merit, not because of having a piece of paper, I got:

Those (degrees) show initiative.

Uh, no.

What it does show is that a person can/will;

A: Indebt themselves to the government loan program, or has enough money from family, or work themselves to exhaustion for others like good slaves.

B: Conform to expectations for enough years in a liberalist academic kakistocracy to get the piece of paper that says they're certified sheeple.

C: Use everything they've been taught (which is obsolete by the time they graduate), in accordance with current sheeple certification standards, to further perpetuate The System as it exists, and not try to effect any change to it.

D: Once duely certified as being 'safe', they'll be rewarded by good paying jobs that don't encourage initiative or intelligence, but rather a strict adhearance to the System, whether governmental or corporate.

Intelligent people who are able to operate autonomously, without waiting for orders from High Command, aren't desirable in a sheeple society, as such people are difficult to control and could be possible threats to the System, as they act independantly and without orders, acting on their own decisions without waiting for approval from others.

Also can't have people getting promoted on merit alone, as how do you know that they're 'safe sheeple'? They haven't been certified safe after years of indoctrination at the SSIF, so how can the System risk giving them control? It can't, so it won't. The dumb and meek are promoted over the smart and confidant.

All bureacracy, whether government or business, is based on continued self-preservation at all costs, and the avoidance of all risk.

"The eyes that look only to the safe course are forever closed."

Then comes the attempt to guilt-trip me over what they believe is an obligation I owe them.

Sorry, but obligation only works when there is an obligation I recognize, not some self-delusional expecation that I owe them for some triviality on their part.

Only when it is one sided, and truthfully presented, is there then any obligation.

If it's mutual, there's no obligation.

If there is misrepresentation on their part, then there is no obligation on my part.

The most galling thing was:

Don't think of yourself as a victim.

My response was "I stopped being a victim the day I stopped paying rent (squatting).".

That was the end of our conversation.

It's hard for slaves to recognize their slavery when they've never known freedom.

In the US, the typical wage-slave works from January to May to pay their all their taxes. Of the remaining money they have, typically 40% goes for rent. After car payments, insurance payments, credit card payments, and all the other payments, what have they got left? :p

I think it's jealousy at my freedom that makes the slaves hate me so badly.

I sleep when I want to, and get up when I want to, not when someone elses schedule says I must.

I can fly a kite, read a book, take a nap, twiddle my thumbs for hours, wank off, and do anything else I want, when I want, for as long as I want.

The wage-slave, on the other hand, HAS TO be at their desk and awake from 9-5, monday through friday, 50 weeks or more out of the year, no matter how nice it is outside, no matter how bored or tired or sick they are.

If they fail to get to the salt mine on time and consistently, they're fired. Once they cease producing, they become worthless.

All the things they've been 'buying' on payments get taken away from them.

The Land-Lord they were paying 'rent' to kicks them out.

Their credit rating goes into the gutter, and they become marginalized, unable to get work at the former pay level they used to be at because they've been marked as 'unreliable'.

Once forced to fend for themselves,the outcast sheeple wander around lost, unable to cope, because sheeple were never meant to be free, but to have a shepard watching over them.

If the sheep stops producing wool, the shepard lets it loose to fend for itself.

Wolves, on the other hand, have always had to fend for themselves.

Sheeple fall into the charitable handouts trap, going from shelter to foodbank to welfare line.

All of these teats are ran by control organizations, whether religious or governmental, to keep the lost sheeple marginalized to provide a reason for the continued existance of the organizations, but not so badly marginalized that they might transform into predatory wolves.

None of these organizations have any motive for getting the sheeple back to being productive, effectively returning its 'clients' to society, as that means no more money for them.

Some sheeple have suggested that I get on welfare, as that's the only thing sheeple have to fall back upon once they're unemployable.

Sorry, but welfare is for loser sheeple with no pride or self-respect, not for free-running wolves.

If I want money, I either work for it or take it. A wolf doesn't rely on government coercion of sheeple to provide the tax money to support him, as that's just theft via state proxy.

Once I have enough money for my needs, I enjoy my freedom, as that's what money is for, a tool for freedom. :)

It's the pursuit of money that turns you into a slave.

Those who grow up on the streets learn to rely on themselves, but pay a high price for the knowledge, for the street teaches hard lessons.

For most, the idea that we are personally responsible for our own lives comes late, if at all.

Our education in school teaches us to put our faith in something else - a corporation, a marriage, a trade, a profession, a religion, politics, something, one might almost say anything, which offers us a set of rules we can obey and rewards us for obedience to them.

Because it's safer to be a domestic animal than a wild one.

[Jacks Complete]

Here endeth the second reading by NBK2000.
Amen.
---
:) Spot on as usual. You are quite clearly a Libertarian at heart.

I'm pissed off with the petty rules and regulations of modern life. Things would be much easier if half the laws didn't exist, and the actual difference for 99.99% of non-lawyers? Not a thing. Trivial things should be left to market forces, and only major things should be under direct government control - even defence should, to a large part, be maintained by the people, rather than simply paid for.

I listen to the radio telling me about the government trying damned hard to bring in detention orders, trying to push it through the Lords, perhaps with the second use of the Parliament act (the first this year was that vital-to-everyone topic of a ban on Fox hunting with dogs!) so that the government can order that you be imprisoned without *ever* being told what you are alleged to have done!

And that is so wrong. Terrorists are, as I pointed out before, only able to keep us scared with the help of our own government, and when it comes to headcounts, all the terrorist offences in the world for the past 100 years done come near to the death toll for one day on the Somme, or even equal the civilian deaths in Iraq this time round.

Dammit, if only O$ama wasn't just a twat, but was actually fighting for freedom...

Anyway, the world is too small these days. Unless you get a moon base set up, there is nowhere to start up a new country, nor is taking over another one likely to be useful.

Libertaria. B land. Oceanana. There are lots of names for this so-far mythical place.

The best bet is an atoll somewhere, perhaps one of the Maldives? There are about 200 Maldives, of which 15 are occupied, so "stealing" one shouldn't be too hard. The UK aren't likely to come and turf us out, either.

Or that reef edge that is 200 miles north of Tonga. Though it is about 20 rocks, so it would be fun in a high sea!

E&W land... Now that would be fun!

[Jacks Complete]

Here endeth the second reading by NBK2000.
Amen.
---
:) Spot on as usual. You are quite clearly a Libertarian at heart.

I'm pissed off with the petty rules and regulations of modern life. Things would be much easier if half the laws didn't exist, and the actual difference for 99.99% of non-lawyers? Not a thing. Trivial things should be left to market forces, and only major things should be under direct government control - even defence should, to a large part, be maintained by the people, rather than simply paid for.

I listen to the radio telling me about the government trying damned hard to bring in detention orders, trying to push it through the Lords, perhaps with the second use of the Parliament act (the first this year was that vital-to-everyone topic of a ban on Fox hunting with dogs!) so that the government can order that you be imprisoned without *ever* being told what you are alleged to have done!

And that is so wrong. Terrorists are, as I pointed out before, only able to keep us scared with the help of our own government, and when it comes to headcounts, all the terrorist offences in the world for the past 100 years done come near to the death toll for one day on the Somme, or even equal the civilian deaths in Iraq this time round.

Dammit, if only O$ama wasn't just a twat, but was actually fighting for freedom...

Anyway, the world is too small these days. Unless you get a moon base set up, there is nowhere to start up a new country, nor is taking over another one likely to be useful.

Libertaria. B land. Oceanana. There are lots of names for this so-far mythical place.

The best bet is an atoll somewhere, perhaps one of the Maldives? There are about 200 Maldives, of which 15 are occupied, so "stealing" one shouldn't be too hard. The UK aren't likely to come and turf us out, either.

Or that reef edge that is 200 miles north of Tonga. Though it is about 20 rocks, so it would be fun in a high sea!

E&W land... Now that would be fun!

[Jacks Complete]

Here endeth the second reading by NBK2000.
Amen.
---
:) Spot on as usual. You are quite clearly a Libertarian at heart.

I'm pissed off with the petty rules and regulations of modern life. Things would be much easier if half the laws didn't exist, and the actual difference for 99.99% of non-lawyers? Not a thing. Trivial things should be left to market forces, and only major things should be under direct government control - even defence should, to a large part, be maintained by the people, rather than simply paid for.

I listen to the radio telling me about the government trying damned hard to bring in detention orders, trying to push it through the Lords, perhaps with the second use of the Parliament act (the first this year was that vital-to-everyone topic of a ban on Fox hunting with dogs!) so that the government can order that you be imprisoned without *ever* being told what you are alleged to have done!

And that is so wrong. Terrorists are, as I pointed out before, only able to keep us scared with the help of our own government, and when it comes to headcounts, all the terrorist offences in the world for the past 100 years done come near to the death toll for one day on the Somme, or even equal the civilian deaths in Iraq this time round.

Dammit, if only O$ama wasn't just a twat, but was actually fighting for freedom...

Anyway, the world is too small these days. Unless you get a moon base set up, there is nowhere to start up a new country, nor is taking over another one likely to be useful.

Libertaria. B land. Oceanana. There are lots of names for this so-far mythical place.

The best bet is an atoll somewhere, perhaps one of the Maldives? There are about 200 Maldives, of which 15 are occupied, so "stealing" one shouldn't be too hard. The UK aren't likely to come and turf us out, either.

Or that reef edge that is 200 miles north of Tonga. Though it is about 20 rocks, so it would be fun in a high sea!

E&W land... Now that would be fun!

[nbk2000]

Here's a book written back in 1979 called Possum Living, that mirrors very much the philosophy that I believe in...mainly that work and rent are oppressive shackles of control.

http://www.f4.ca/text/possumliving.htm

I've attached a copy in case the above site goes 404.

[Nihilist]

Heh, it's funny NBK. You are 100% right in your observations, in a somewhat Marxian way. Not in the sense that your philosophy seems to be similar to his(though in some ways it is), but because neither of you are seeing the 'forest for the trees', so to speak.

The fundamental difference between feudal lords and modern rent is that any peasant can easily become a lord. And it's a whole lot easier than most people think. For instance, you can get "interest only" loans from a bank where you never actually pay down the principle - just the interest each month. If you rent out the property to cover your interest payments and the property value increases(which it almost inevitably will, as real estate can never be valueless), you can then sell it off at a huge profit, without paying a dime out of pocket.

Becoming a 'lord' in this sense is so trivial, and it's what all those 'get rich quick' schemes on TV are about. But if you do it right, it actually does work. The problem is really that most people just aren't disciplined or clever enough. You clearly wouldn't have either of those problems. A thorough knowledge of tax law, real estate law, and banking is all that's really required to exploit this system.

So instead of escaping the system, why not bend it to your will and enslave some peasants of your own? =p

[nbk2000]

That's bourgeois capitalist pig thinking there mister!

The most alluring belief systems (traps) are the ones that are so alluring that the victims want to become part of them.

You must resist the siren song of capitalist enslavement!

Whether you are a lord or a peasant, you're still part of the system, thus ultimately constrained by the rules of that system.

Only by freeing yourself of the system, can you exceed the boundries set forth by that system.

You become a transcendant being of light, looking down upon the money grubbing swine of the earth. ;)

Any pissant peasant could become a lord in the past, if he was shrewd enough and strong enough to scheme and slaughter his way to power. The reason so few did was because of the belief system that the masses were operating under constrained them from even thinking about such things.

And the few who did had to go against the existing power base that did its best to prevent others from taking their place.

[defiant]

NBK - your initial post was a brilliant historical account, and very much appreciated. A working class man paying rent is certainly slavery. Not so for a rich man - who might purchase "nobility".

This said, I haven't paid rent in 15 plus years, nor have I given up essential comforts. I live aboard a sailing vessel which produces electricity through solar panels, wind generators, and fuel driven alternators. Interenet is through wi-fi. Cold plate refigeration is possible but I haven't bothered, nor have I bothered with many other amenities - but showers, a toilet, heat/air conditioning (remotely activated by telephone or computer) are all possible.

The Submerged Lands Act holds that the right to anchor a vessel is a Constitutional right - equal to that of land ownership (of submerged lands). No lords and no taxes.

Nor has anyone fucked with my property when I'm not aboard, but I do have a rep and those in their right mind are scared of me. Thieves in my "neighborhood" are stripped naked and tied to a tree in the wilderness, where they spend the week without food or water and are beaten unmercifully. Afterwards they are released and instructed to leave town and not show their face again. Others turn up as floaters.

If I didn't have a vessel and enjoy the freedom it provides, I'd get a mobile home or properly equipped truck (solar panels on the roof, genset, etc.) with a camper top. The advantage of a truck with a tall camper setup is that it doesn't evoke the same regs as a mobile home. You can park on the street without setting off alarm signals.

The mobility afforded by living in a mode of transportation isn't detrimental either.

With regards to your working for minimum wage - I hope your joking. There's no dignity in slave wages.

[nbk2000]

Pride falls before hunger.

I can say that, in my entire life, I've only worked a few years out of necessity. :)

For the rest of it, I've lived for free, and without mooching off a woman. :D

Boat, huh? Sounds interesting, especially if it's ocean worthy. Mobility has a lot to be said for it, especially if you can lift anchor and set sail to less hostile waters if the political climate changes.

Of course, there's trade-offs to such mobilty. You'll not be having a machine shop or large lab unless you've a freighter for a ship.

I see a lot of people with mobile homes park them in the parking lots of shopping centers, like Wal-Mart or grocery stores.

Unfortunately, the pigs in the supreme court decided a long time ago that a mobile home is a vehicle, not a home, not entitled to the requirement of a search warrant like a house, thus subject to arbitrary search without warrant at the traffic piggies discretion. :mad:

[defiant]

True on all accounts.

Also, so you know, vessels are subject to regulatory searches by the USCG, and to a lesser extent by local marine patrols. THE GOVERNMENT REGULATES EVERYTHING. My vessel has never been searched, but a number of times the marine patrol has threatened to seize my vessel if I didn't move on. I know the law and tell them to fuck off or I'll sue them individually. My situation is somewhat unusual as I was a low level government official who was repeatedly retaliated against after being injured at work. Every time the gov violated the law in retaliation I'd file a lawsuit. If I was a rent slave I wouldn't have had the time to study the law. Anyway, gov't legal told the marine patrol (and cops generally) to back off me. That was around the time I got a carry permit. :D

Like you pointed out, it is difficult to have a shop on a boat. There are miniature machines, but they don't have the capacity for larger projects. I used to work on machinery I kept at a storage facility, but that isn't prudent anymore due to gov't warnings that terrorists use storage units as workshops. Nor am I inclined at the moment to explain in a courtroom how a patriot differs from a terrorist. The only solution I can think of is to buy land on the cheap somewhere that taxes are nominal, or in a country that doesn't tax propery, and set up a workshop.

But even with land I'd be hesitant to give up my boat. I've seen the price of meat nearly double in the last year, and water shortages (real or manufactured) and privatization of water is within the realm of possibility as well. From a vessel one can fish, catch rain water, set up a watermaker to convert salt water to fresh, etc. If you think they've got you by the balls with rent - wait till a gallon of water costs $10 and a meal costs $1000...

[Cobalt.45]

There's something to be said for owning a few acres in a rural setting, then building a home with a shop out back right in the middle of it.

Squatting is fine, I suppose. But If not for the "slaves", there wouldn't be much available for squatters. Squatting is doable because of surplus.

"Some People" decided very early to fore go the flashy cars, clothes. etc. that define the teen years, and beyond.

They instead put forth maximum effort, saved every penny, ate a lot of canned beans, observed how the rich became and remained so, and consolidated these lessons into a plan that (gratefully) allowed an early retirement. A VERY early retirement.

Not a lender nor a borrower be.

[Match]

Upon my initial reading of this thread, I had concluded that NBK was a delusional liberal with some intense mental problems..... Evidence of my schooling, we're taught to follow and that anyone who doesn't is wrong.

I believe it's human nature aswell, an example of this is that I rarely come up with anything completely new. All the clothes I wear, all the sayings I say, even the activities I take part in, are all because other people, people I see as better somehow, are already doing them. I make a point to fight this, and I'm begining to come around, but I still find so much security in what is already so.

I am still very moved by what has been said here, and over even the last 48 hours, my opinions and feelings have changed drastically. I come from a well off family, and have always been content with what the system has allowed us. I find myself to be very material, very self concious, and very superficial. Perhaps I'm born to be a 'sheeple'

NBK, Your points are so deep, and so far from what I've been taught all throughout my life, and therefore so far off my level, that I'm having a sort of break down here. I thank you for this.

I've got new found drive to complete my life goal of building a underground house.

You see, if the government doesn't know it exists, how can they tax you? They can't control what they can't find.

My plan, is to 'aquire' two back hoes'. One large, and one tiny (sometimes dubbed a mini-dig) Then convert them to function underground by evacuating the exhaust and supplying fresh air. I'd use the mini-dig to dig a large enough hole/cave to place the large back hoe inside, and thenI'd begin digging down deep and big to create a literal underground mansion. :D

Air supply, ground water control, conceilment, are things I have an idea about, but I don't yet have the knowledge to figure out. Luckily, I have a piece of land availble to me to attempt a small house. Coming up with the capital is the hard part.

[Jacks Complete]

Nice idea, (I've had the same one) but once someone finds your house, you will be taxed just the same as everyone else, and there won't be a thing you can do about it.

If anyone can figure out a way to "cover" the entrance for good, you would be in with a much better chance. But don't forget, there was a guy who did what you are thinking who lived for years in a state park in a tiny bunker he built. One day a deer hunter smelt smoke from his stove and found the all of 6 inch high chimney, and the next day the guy was arrested for breaking the law by living in a house without a permit, and on park land (or some such other BS) and suddenly he was on TV. Not the quiet life he planned.

I am thinking, if I can ever afford it (not likely soon) that an old (oil?) tanker would be a great home. Plenty of room for the range and machine shop, go where I want, big enough to not care about the sea, a fuel tank big enough for several thousand mile trips, loads of room, and things like firearms are legal as they are in international teritory, or part of the ships manifest if you come into port.

You could easily trade oil/water/grain/whatever as you wander, dipping into it as you needed. Set up with a radar and lidar and you could easily see over the horizon and simply steer clear of anything coming (as long as they didn't actually chase you) with a simple computer controlled system.

Have a nice little boat for going to shore, etc. and all the telesniper systems and the like to keep your home safe while you are gone. All good.

[festergrump]

Match,

Bravo! I'm amazed. Years ago it took acid (lysergic acid diethylamide) to relieve me of my 'plastic bonds' but mere written word has 'cracked the shell' for you... I'm impressed. Break out!


---------------------------------
Now a short rant of my own, then I'll shut up for awhile.

The underground abode sounds great (and it's practical so far as heating, cooling, and energy consumption goes. I'd love one myself) but the governments will always know where there's something of interest to them like this. Unpayed taxes interest them, and any unpayed tax amount will be sufficient enough for certain government agencies to throw thousands of times that unpayed monetary amount in man hours and equipment to collect it, too. Your life or your loved ones lives will not be a boundary they will stop at in order to collect, either, history has dictated.

Underground is nice but not needed. Under "the radar" and unfettered by red flags, numbers, and paper-trails is crucial to living truly free... because true freedom has become a crime these past few decades.

People are meant to be either a part of the society around them (complacent sheeple), or the enemy of that society (as seen by that same society, anyway, and the 'elite' that governs it... but free to do as they see fit, unbound by the manmade laws, and unhampered by any kind of social debt). One must choose to be a 'part of' or an 'enemy of' the masses who constitute the society around them at large.

I've chosen freedom for myself and have been trying very hard to break free of the last of the strings that tie me to this society (it's a difficult path, I assure you). I realize that in doing so makes me a criminal to the majority around me, but I am also willing to make members of that majority die for my freedom should they infringe upon my rights to it.

IMHO, anyone who willingly or forcefully impedes an honest man's freedom should be punished capitally for treason. [/rant]

Edit:Nice idea, (I've had the same one) but once someone finds your house, you will be taxed just the same as everyone else, and there won't be a thing you can do about it.
It'll be more than taxing you if you didn't pay up before. Tax evasion is not something the government takes very lightly since it ultimately gives them federal 'permission' to do with you as they see fit. "Tax evasion" was the paved road for the Waco incident (and numerous others), remember.

If you go underground and barricade yourself in, they'll infiltrate your privacy just on the assumption you have much to hide, whereas careful minimal living amongst the sheeple in the open and paperless goes mostly undetected.

[Alexires]

I too congratulate you Match.

The very fact that you have realized you are imprisoned is one step closer to freedom that all the other sheeple.

Question everything you have been previously taught and do not do anything simply because you feel obliged to. If you do something that someone wants you to do, you should be gaining something from it.

For example, a lot of people see going to school as a waste of time, but it gives you

a) the chance to observe the sheeple, how they (re)act in different situations, and to try and manipulate the system without such drastic results if you are caught.

b) the chance to learn skills that you will need later. Lab technique, spelling and grammatical skills, law (if you want) and many other skills

and c) the ability to have A LOT of free time (compared to working) allowing you to plot and scheme as you see fit.

If you are working, don't work because "you have bills to pay", work because you are working towards not working as fast as you can.

Have a plan and follow it.

Don't work because you need the money, there are other ways to get money/things, work to have the ability to implement your plans.

That is what I am doing. I am working to get enough money to start my plans up. No I don't care about superannuation or any shit like that, because

a) I probably wont live that long and
b) If I do, I will be able to supply for myself.


On a little side track here, I had a nightmare the other night.

I dreamed that I was dreaming that I was dreaming that I was awake.

I awoke, in my dream, and then awoke from that dream, then awoke from that dream. At this point I was actually awake, but I wasn't sure.

It wasn't overly scary, just disconcerting. Make sure that when you wake up from whatever dream you are in, you aren't waking to another dream


Personally, I would have a place somewhere (either squatting, or something I had built in secret) but live away from it and only use it for synthesis, machining and other such things where a dedicated space is needed.

If you are in the country, try talking to some farmers about hiring/buying a shed on their land somewhere, then locking it up tight. Look for various threads that NBK has posted in regards to house security.

A large boat is a fucking good idea at that. If you needed too, you could just piss off to another country if things got bad.

[Docca]

Unpayed taxes interest them, and any unpayed tax amount will be sufficient enough for certain government agencies to throw thousands of times that unpayed monetary amount in man hours and equipment to collect it, too. Your life or your loved ones lives will not be a boundary they will stop at in order to collect, either, history has dictated.

For anyone who doesn't believe this, look at the case of Randy Weaver. The Feds wanted him to infiltrate and spy on a group he'd been associated with briefly (Aryan Nation, one meeting). He refused.

A BATFE informant was sent to see if he could entice Weaver into cutting off a couple of shotgun barrels for cash. Weaver did.

To make a long story short, if you pay a $700 manufacturers TAX, and $200 TAX per (short) shotgun, you can cut off all the shotgun barrels you please, legally in the U.S.

The U.S. Marshalls spent over $1,000,000 monitoring the Weavers for over a year, ending up in a gunfight where a 12 year old boy was shot dead. Remember, we're talking about $1,100 in TAX evasion.

At that point FBI HRT was called in, they shot and killed Weavers' wife (she was holding a baby at the time).

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE WHAT GOVERNMENTS ARE CAPABLE OF.


On a little side track here, I had a nightmare the other night.

I dreamed that I was dreaming that I was dreaming that I was awake.

I awoke, in my dream, and then awoke from that dream, then awoke from that dream. At this point I was actually awake, but I wasn't sure.

Dude, try to get off the acid, please...

[Cobalt.45]

Dude, try to get off the acid, please...

Ever tried to sleep on acid?

[megalomania]

A man was recently convicted of murdering another man stemming from a dispute over the price of a taco. Yes, over the price of a taco. Do you think the government would be any less petty? Feds are humans, and they are even more fucked up than the rest of us. The cost of the offense does not matter to them. They have the power, and they are drunk with the power. Who can you call when the cops and feds kidnap, rape, and torture you? The cops, the feds? Who polices the police? This is why the war on drugs, the war against the people, is completely out of control. This is why the Patriot act is a horrible law. Giving the power addicts more power is just enabling their despotism.

[Jacks Complete]

Sadly, all too true.

There was a guy in India who killed 23 policemen sent to arrest him, and the government said they wouldn't persue him any more if he stopped shooting policemen.

A few years later he was shot dead by police. The locals were very upset, the guy was a hero to them!

The only thing that will stop a government is if it is too expensive for them, personally. And these days, they have ensured it never can be. Remember David Kelly, the UK WMD expert? They destroyed him in the press, then kidnapped him, stuck a needle in his arm to tap off enough blood to leave him 99% dead, then dumped him in a forest as a staged suicide. And this guy was establishment and important!

Who knows how many Gitmo guys are vanished forever? Unless there are big changes, we certainly never will.

[The Order]

With the weather being favorable this time of year in the northern hemisphere, I've decided that I too wish to live rent free, for as long as I can, as a personal experiment. My 'lease' on my lord's apartment will be up soon, and I don't intend on renewing it. Instead I am seeking an alternative, and moreover, a personal challenge, so that I can truly thrive in the absence of the common luxuries and conveniences of modern sheeplistic society (not to mention save-up lots of $$$).

Like the OP, I have made a conscious choice to no longer pay rent, although my situation is unique in that, I am no longer need to work. I have received a hefty compensation award from my previous employer due to an injury, yet I remain young and healthy. As long as I am wise with money, I see no reason why I can't live modestly for the rest of my days.

In addition to living rent-free, I am also taking steps to become entirely paperless, except for a bank account. For the time being, I will maintain a current address at a relative's house, in order to maintain vehicle and firearm permits, and receive packages. I have no cell-phone contract; I maintain a phone number by using a track-phone which isn't required to be registered in any name, and only use it when necessary, renewing the minutes with a new card every couple of months. I have closed my credit card account, and all of my debts have long since been payed-off. I have been placed on No-Send lists from major national advertisers so that I won't receive any junk mail. For now I maintain property taxes on a vehicle in addition to operator's insurance, but that may eventually be a dead-end too. I am debating whether or not to pay for a storage unit long enough for me to stash all of my chems/equipment in a better place(s).

Initially, squatting seemed ideal (or in the OP's case, 'Lairing'), however, there are several major problems with squatting in relation to the laws governing the district where I live.

For example:

In order to hold a valid carry/conceal permit for a personal firearm in this district, one is required to maintain a 'residence,' and to notify the Issuing Authority within 48 hours of moving to a new residence. Obviously, it would be wise to be armed with a pistol if living an unconventional lifestyle such as squatting. If one were to squat in say, an unoccupied residence (with an intent to 'fly under the radar' without making their presence known), it would then be impossible for said individual to claim 'adverse possession,' or 'squatters rights,' etc. if harrassed by policemen, etc. and if also maintaining a pistol permit. Even if a maildrop/residence was maintained on paper via a relative, etc., the powers that be would insist on breaking your back for this kind of mistake.

The only solutions that I could think of were:

A) Carry a false ID, or no ID, and have a good hiding place for the firearm should the pigs insist on bothering you (all while maintaining appropriate paperwork for pistol), or

B) Vehicle dwelling. This way you can claim you are only traveling/camping overnight, etc., and thus are excused.

I have found several resources (some better than others) on the web for those interested in vehicle dwelling:

http://cheaprvliving.com/index.html

http://www.theslowlane.com/04trip/livevan.html

http://www.rockinvan.com/slummin_it.html

Perhaps some books worth checking out:

Blue Highways, by William Least Heat-Moon

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig

Car Living, by A.J. Archer

Car Living Your Way: Stories and Practicle Tips From Those Who Have Been Down the Road, by Jane Heim

There's also a plethora of crap on web, and accessible via google, which might provide tips for anyone looking to live "under the radar," "off the grid," "on the margin," or anyone else looking to escape the "machine."

What do you guys think about converting a common white service-van into a stealth rv? I'm considering it as an option, although it doesn't allow complete paperlessness.

For now I have made several 'kits' using plastic totes from Shit*Mart, organizing and filling them with essential survival gear, such as crockery, cutlery, dry food, etc. I've also purchased a portable dual-burner stove, and a seperate multi-fuel stove. It will be hard to ditch the vehicle and sleep in an unoccupied structure everynight, but I can certainly cook meals at picnic/rest areas, and pitch a tent, weather permitting.

[Shalashaska]

For now I have made several 'kits' using plastic totes from Shit*Mart, organizing and filling them with essential survival gear, such as crockery, cutlery, dry food, etc. I've also purchased a portable dual-burner stove, and a seperate multi-fuel stove. It will be hard to ditch the vehicle and sleep in an unoccupied structure everynight, but I can certainly cook meals at picnic/rest areas, and pitch a tent, weather permitting.


Reminds me of when my mom went camping with hair dryer, makeup, etc :P
I'd say one survival knive, a frying pan and a propane burner would be the optimum for "essential" survival gear.

Anyway, this was the first time I have read this thread, despite being nearly 3 years old. Not only does it give me a renewed respect for NBK, but really opens my eyes to life choices deemed sub-human by society.
In fact, this entire thread and situation remind me of The Matrix, although the Wachowski Bros. (haha Wachowski *Siblings, I should say since one's apparently a tranny XD) probably wanted to portray it as some kind of idiotic, liberalistic, "rebel against the tyrannical government and let the gays marry" revolution.
Currently, since I'm 16, this obviously isn't going to happen due to the lost child search and the fact that I'm a spoiled teenager (yeah, I'll admit it) who probably couldn't or at least shouldn't ask for anything more. The way my life is currently heading, I doubt this would ever be feasible, but if my life really hits the shits, this style of living would probably be one of the first ideas I come up with. As a resident of Pennsylvania, there are vast, unspoiled forests I could scavenge, and probably find something worthwhile.

Either way, hats off to you NBK, for doing what Good men dream :)

[anonymous411]

The way my life is currently heading, I doubt this would ever be feasible, but if my life really hits the shits, this style of living would probably be one of the first ideas I come up with. As a resident of Pennsylvania, there are vast, unspoiled forests I could scavenge, and probably find something worthwhile.

I'd say overall, you seem to have the right attitude. Nevertheless, you can't expect to live by your wits unless you back yourself up with good, solid information--and plenty of it. This is what makes NBK, The Order, myself, and others of us here who've gone "homeless by choice" successful, and allows us to not merely survive, but thrive. The time to get organized and start educating yourself is NOW, before the shit hits the fan for you.

Never forget, a person who "bugs out" with no pre-stocked place to go is called "a refugee". Mix yourself up with the sheep and you'll never stand a chance against the real predators. When it comes down to it, I know which one I'd rather be, don't you?

Here's an excellent site for anyone interested creating a rent-free home retreat and learning more about the realities of off-the-grid living. I've absorbed so much here it's incredible; my hat is truly off to these people.

http://www.alpharubicon.com/index2.html

The potential topics for discussion here are limitless, but since you brought up the subject of food, here's one small pointer: for emergency stashes, don't forget the peanut butter! It's cheap, palatable, dense in energy so you save room, and it goes with anything. In fact, I'd say a jar of PB is the number one food to take with you when you're on the lam. Even a smallish jar is the nutritional/caloric equivalent of 14 protein bars. Stuff an oversize jar in your briefbag or backpack, and you won't have to think about food for a long time.

[anonymous411]

What do you guys think about converting a common white service-van into a stealth rv? I'm considering it as an option, although it doesn't allow complete paperlessness.

Why not? I've registered vehicles and obtained drivers licenses, and government ID using a rented mailbox--which I obtained with out-of-state ID mapping to other rented mailboxes, etc. After several iterations, you won't have a single "real" address on file anywhere.

I did a Lexis-Nexis Accurint search on myself and was delighted to confirm there's no way anyone--pig, thug, or PI alike-- can use a database to determine where I've laid my head at night for the past seven years. Realizing you finally broke free of the ID trap is a great feeling.

I say go for it. If I were going to live in a service van, I'd have to make it as civilized as possible: keep my belongings to an absolute minimum, and have a desk/table area installed across the back where I could set up decent lighting and a wireless computer to get shit done. I'd sleep on one of those thin, colorful Indian foam pads that folds in thirds, and in the day, use it for a chair. Hell yeah, sounds pretty good!

[nbk2000]

www.americanvan.com has a shitload of stuff for organizing your van, from drawers and shelves, to workbenches. :)

[Torvaun]

An issue I noticed. While life-threatening conditions must be treated, there are plenty of destructive conditions that don't count, vision being foremost among them. Lasik is considered a cosmetic surgery. Hospitals are not required to keep you from becoming crippled.

For my part, I am very much on the grid. I've checked, and with the information that's publicly available, you can easily find me, even with nothing more than this post as a starting point. I am quite happy with being accessible. If at some point I need to disappear, that would be a simple matter as well.

Though it means less and less every year, I am an Eagle Scout. I know how to walk 10 miles into the woods, and stay there for an arbitrarily long period of time given nothing more than what I'm wearing right now (shorts, t-shirt, baseball cap, socks, shoes, pocket knife, other pocket knife, pen, coins, wallet). I can do the same thing in any city in the country, though living off the land has a different feel there, as nbk has noted.

I'd also like to weigh in that acclimating yourself to cold is as easy as experiencing it. I spent my first year of college biking. Five miles each way. Temperatures that easily hit -20 F during the winter. Rain. Snow. Wind. To this day I can walk out to get the mail barefoot, snow on the ground, whatever. Cold is no longer an issue for me.

Call me a wolf in sheep's clothing. I live like a sheep, with work and rent and the comforts I enjoy. But I always remember that should the point come when it is no longer viable to be a sheep, I am still a wolf, and can survive as such. Really, that's the best way to keep the government away from you. Blend in. Random guy paying rent, going to work, etc. is a much better camouflage than being invisible to the lords on high, for if the lords become interested in finding the people that are invisible, they will find a way, but they will still be lost when they try to sift through the masses for the people who look like everyone else, but aren't.

[anonymous411]

I am quite happy with being accessible. If at some point I need to disappear, that would be a simple matter as well.[...]Random guy paying rent, going to work, etc. is a much better camouflage than being invisible to the lords on high, for if the lords become interested in finding the people that are invisible, they will find a way, but they will still be lost when they try to sift through the masses for the people who look like everyone else, but aren't.

It's not as simple as you might think. As an industrial intelligence analyst (HUMINT collection specialist) and bonded private investigator, I can assure you that your presence in any number of databases makes it infinitely easier to label, quantify, group, track, and if need be--dispose of you. Thanks to advanced data-mining technology, once a "solid citizen" like you starts to act anomalously, it's the beginning of the end. You'll literally have no conception of what's about to hit you.

A real information professional has a shot at tracking down someone out of the system, but it would take a great deal of thought, elbow grease, and time. Somebody like you? (trust me, I'm being incredibly generous here) Three minutes.

Ironically, you show the same sort of bourgeois bias as a garden-variety LEO by assuming people who opt out must be some sort of dirty, wild-eyed, uneducated trash. Actually, I have multiple advanced academic degrees, a spotlessly clean record, live and work in Manhattan and dress professionally. I attend the opera and symphony, am an amateur fencer, and have the best library of anyone I know. I'm every bit as "outside the profile" as you are, and for the life of me can't see what you possibly have to gain by leaving a huge database footprint ripe for abuse. To each his own, but you might want to consider educating yourself.

For what it's worth, here's a word of advice from the great Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca we'd all do well to remember:

***

"I am so firmly determined, however, to test the constancy of your mind that, drawing from the teachings of great men, I shall give you also a lesson: Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: "Is this the condition that I feared?"

It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress, and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence. In days of peace the soldier performs maneuvers, throws up earthworks with no enemy in sight, and wearies himself by gratuitous toil, in order that he may be equal to unavoidable toil, in order that he may be equal to unavoidable toil. If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes. Such is the course which those men have followed who, in their imitation of poverty, have every month come almost to want, that they might never recoil from what they had so often rehearsed.

You need not suppose that I mean meals like Timon's or "paupers' huts," or any other device with luxurious millionaires use to beguile the tedium of their lives. Let the pallet be a real one, and the coarse cloak; let the bread be hard and grimy. Endure all this for three or four days at a time, sometimes for sometimes for more, so that it may be a test of yourself instead of a mere hobby. Then, I assure you, my dear Lucilius, you will leap for joy when filled with a pennyworth of food, and you will understand that a man's peace of mind does not depend upon Fortune; for, even when angry she grants enough for our needs.

There is no reason, however, why you should think that you are doing anything great; for you will merely be doing what many thousands of poor men are doing every day. But you may credit yourself with this item,-- that you will not be doing it under compulsion, and that it will be as easy for you to endure it permanently as to make the experiment form time to time. Let us practice our guard. We shall be rich with all the more comfort, if we once learn how far poverty is from being a burden.

***

Further readings:
http://www.molloy.edu/sophia/ancient_lit/happiness/stoicism3.htm

[anonymous411]

Now that I think about it, here's an excellent set of infobroker "opt out" links for anyone interested in protecting his privacy. For what it's worth, getting out of Lexis-Nexis/Accurint and Intellius is an excellent place to start.

http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/infobrokers-optout.htm

[Jacks Complete]

That piece from Seneca was a response to Lucilius, after Lucilius claimed he was virtuous for going one day a month without. It got him short thrift. :-)

Personally, I know I'm a sheep. You can track me in about 500 ways, and I'm all over the internet. It would take perhaps 2 minutes for anyone with my IP to link to my address, find pictures of me, and determine a hell of a lot about me.
Like most people, I think I'm a bit handy, but I've not been in a fight for many years. Unlike most, though, I can do things that better than 99% of people cannot do, and I earn my bread in a novel way - nothing illegal, as such, but I always keep my wits about me, and I always have a plan.

In the UK, going feral isn't an option. This place simply isn't big enough, not with 65 million people wandering about. Living off the land equates about 100% with living off other people, and if the SHTF there would be millions trying to do the same as everyone else - live off the land, etc. and it would end up with 80% of people starving to death. The land simply cannot sustain that many people.

[Cobalt.45]

In the event that one wishes to remain anonymous, it would be wise to not discuss one's habits, profession, hobbies and other tidbits that might lead to their "discovery".
Don't get off-topic in my pet thread.:mad:
Heard and understood.:o

[nbk2000]

It often occurred, when I told people about my squatting, that they'd assume it was because of crushing poverty on my part.

Defining 'poverty' can be tricky, as it usually depends on the presumptions of the person defining it.

The US government has spent a lot of money defining it for us. :)

See attached file about the definition (whole report on FTP in my folder).

By squatting, I was able to avoid poverty, as defined by the government (with the exception of the situation of housing stability), because I had more funding available than expenses, with a net gain in saving every month (after living expenses), which was something I didn't have while paying rent, especially after many low-hour weeks that forced me to tap into my savings...just to pay basic food expenses! :mad:

[Unsunghero]

Personally I think it is a great thing, however I would like to know, how in touch are you with society still? I personally couldn't isolate myself from society like that, 1st due to lack of knowledge, and 2nd I would miss people. Basically after reading it, I'm wondering: are you isolated from society? or are you just out of the system?

If this question is too personal I understand, I'm just really interested in this entire concept.

[nbk2000]

I was working a 9-5 type job, doing 'normal' type things like most other people do, like grocery shopping, clothes at the laundromat, library, etc.

It's not like I lived in a cave up on the mountain, shunning all humans like a gollum. :p

[Charles Owlen Picket]

You made an interesting statement:

"Most people are owned by their possessions, not the other way around, despite what they may like to think."

THAT (to my way of thing about this whole issue) is a very important venue; one that deserves some thought on my part. I like to use "I" statements. I don't really give a shit about what other people think. I certainly did at one time. I tried to gain acceptance from family members, etc. but now they are mostly all gone and I am left with me.......I have come to realize that I was really always just left with me......

If I find something I need to change in my life; I reckon with it. I do my best not to rationalize or intellectualize, I just do my best to face it. Sometimes it is not so easy. Material possessions is a whole can of worms.

[rangegal]

I hope you aren't putting your 'off the grid' lifestyle to a waste. You must be some kind of revolutionary, vigilante, or terrorist (hope not). Of course if you were, you probably would never tell even the forumites about it. But still, I have my theories about you NBK.

Seriously though, your the kind of person I only dream of becoming. I wish someday I could get the chance to shake your hand. Thats obviously out of the question though.

[The Order]

At the risk of seeming like a thread hijacker, I would like to update everyone here as to the status of my own off-the-grid lifestyle. Besides, this thread has obviously been highly influential to many of RogueSci’s members, and NBK’s personal account is certainly a noteworthy one, deserving further recognition, which is achieved each time this thread gets bumped to the top.

My “houseless” career was, disappointingly so, short-lived. Before my lease had even expired on the first of August, I had already outlined a basic plan, and sorted through all of my personal belongings, in preparation for my houseless lifestyle. Anything cumbersome or useless to me at the time (i.e. furniture, extra clothing, books) was either sold, disposed of, or placed in storage if determined valuable enough to me. Obviously science-related goods and equipment, along with my collection of technical books, were all kept in storage, after being sealed-off. Clothing and tools were also retained. I purchased a six-month lease on a small storage unit within the vicinity I planned on living in. This was to be my “home base,” where my belongings were organized, and arranged for easy access. I even used my 10’ x 10’ unit as a makeshift study a few times here and there, making use of my desk in conjunction with a fluorescent lantern Overall though, I strived to avoid any outside attention, and so hanging out at the storage facility frequently wasn’t an option.

Speaking of avoiding attention, this practice turned-out to be a nearly full-time job. One can spend only so much time loitering around WackDonald’s to exploit their WiFi, or reading the free paper at the public library, before being noticed, especially in post-911 society. Since I kept my vehicle, this gave me plenty of range to roam about the city, however, it was a nuisance in that I needed to ditch it every night before heading off to my squat. A local commuter lot served me well for this purpose, however it was annoying to have to walk to and fro all the time. The entire experience, however, was quite helpful in that it forced me to be in shape and extremely well organized, as well as resourceful, and capable of improvising ways to prepare hot food. I spent a lot of time reading; the paper, articles on the web, chemistry and calculus practice problems, etc. Forgoing the whole gym membership plan, I opted instead to develop my own improvised workout regimen. I filled two screw-lidded empty gallon milk jugs with sand, and using these combined with bodyweight exercises, stayed fit. I kept these in the abandon house that I managed to sneak into every night for the first three weeks.

My squat, an abandoned, boarded-up Victorian with three stories, was ideal, despite it’s quasi condemned appearance. I cased the joint for several weeks before my old lease expired, so my transition was carefully planned. Once moved in, I felt like Tyler Durden living in that shit hole on Paper Street! I set up my sleeping mat and cheap sleeping bag up on the top floor as NBK suggested, and using a lithium-powered drill, proceeded to install three latches with padlocks; one on the inside of the front door, one on the outside of the backdoor, and one on the inside of my room. I kept a knotted climbing rope in my room in case I needed to bug out quick, such as if the place was set on fire. Eventually, despite all my efforts to stay invisible by entering the house after dusk and leaving it before dawn, I must have attracted some attention. On my way home after three weeks of successful squatting, I observed from a distance the owner of the dump, or some other douche bag of a nuisance, poking and prodding around the property. I came back after they had gone, and packed my shit up, deciding to move on. From that point on, I was couch surfing, staying with friends and family, and eventually, after growing tired of it all, went halves on an apartment with a friend.

With all of the hassle and constant paranoia of my squat being raided, and then dealing with smelly couches each night, I decided that I just wanted my own place again, at least for a while. Plus, being houseless isn’t conducive to pursuing a part-time college education, which is what I’m doing right now. Not to mention that, by the end of it all, I found myself associating with low-level people on the streets, desperate to overcome my boredom. When you live off-the-grid, getting dates became an impossible challenge, and some of my ‘well-to-do’ associates became practically inaccessible to me. Most of the friends I stayed with at the time smoked copious amounts of pot around me, which after a while, weakened my resistance, until I too found my life revolving around getting high and wasting time. Certainly this was not the lifestyle I had in mind when I set out on this adventure. Nonetheless, it was an enlightening experience which I plan on repeating when I am in a better position to do so (i.e. not in college). Next time I plan on converting a van into a stealth RV, money permitting. I encourage others here to pursue this lifestyle as well, if even for a short time, in order that they might improve their skills of survival.

[nbk2000]

Not everyone is cut out for it, or in a locale suitable for doing so, so don't feel bad.

It is a good thing to do though, as an experiment, to get an idea of what it's like to live off-the-grid, and the possible realities of what it'll be like after a major disruption of the social order, like a hurricane.

I'd certainly suggest everyone try it for a month at least once in their life, just to see how hard it is to go without things like running water and electricity. Makes you appreciate not living in a third-world pesthole all that much more.

As for putting your shit in storage, I'd strongly advise anyone using a storage unit for ANY reason, to use some kind of serious anti-theft deterrent.

http://www.stopthecrime.com/prod-ab2000.htm

$70 and it'll put the fuck to anyone breaking into your storage unit. :)

With all the money you'd be saving on rent (if you squatted long-term), you could easily afford one of these. Wish I had thought to get one before my unit got broken into and the only thing I gave a fuck about was stolen. :(

A Smoke-Cloak would also be great, but much more expensive.

[Jacks Complete]

Damn, those CS/pepper tripwires would sell like hotcakes over here!

Sadly, you'd face life imprisonment for setting a trap like that, since the pepper spray would be classed as a Section 5 firearm, and so you'd be in court being treated like you had opened up a Bren gun on a bus full of nuns if you set one of these up. I can't recall the law off the top of my head, but it's at least a ten year sentence from memory.

[megalomania]

Why does it not surprise me that the country that would send a child to prison for reading a book would classify pepper spray as a firearm.

[Kaydon]

Firearm?

Just how fucked up is the UK, Jacks?

[Jacks Complete]

Well, if you search around, I've posted on a few other threads about the UK gun laws.

Basically, there are three cats. that you care about. Originally, Section 1 is rifled barrels, 2 is shotguns, and 5 is machine guns. However, as always happens, the govt. like to tighten the gun laws every chance they get, so most stuff is now Section 5, so out of reach. Section 2 is easiest to get, only requires everything. Section 1 requires everything, and a bit more, plus 6 months "training" at a range.

Tasers, pepper spray, mace, CS, multiple shot guns (2 or more per trigger pull), semi-auto and pump (except rimfire [effectively .22]), guns with barrels under 30cm or 60cm total length (pistols), revolving shotguns, anything explosive, and more, like concealed weapons (walking stick swords and guns) all come under Section 5. Air pistols over 6ft-lb.s, too, iirc.

Single shot rifles, lever action rifles and pump or semiauto shotguns holding over 2+1 rounds, are S.1. So are air weapons (other than pistols) over 12ft-lb.s/16J.

Your basic OU or single shot shotgun or a 2+1 semi or pump are S.2.

Bows are un-regulated. Swords are being restricted.

If you are under 12 you cannot even buy a Sunday paper, and my friend used an electronic checkout the other day, and an assistant had to come over to confirm he was over 3, as he was buying a children's movie rated Uc!

[Asriel]

1. I'm sorry to say I disagree with you. The landlord owns the apartment therefore it is his property. He is not forcing you to live there and pay rent, he is saying "You can live here if you pay this." If you don't want to pay rent, then get your own place.
2. To be perfectly honest, while I respect your considerable knowledge of history you frankly you seem to just kind of be whining about not being able t o use other peoples things for free.
3. I also take issue with your "suffering is good" mentality. To be honest, that seems to me simply something made up by those who suffer to make those who do not feel bad for living the way they do and I don't buy that for a second. But keep in mind, I am not at all saying that you're ascetic existence is bad and that you shouldn't do it, I am saying it is wrong for you to look down on those who dislike that type of life. Also you
4. I also am wondering why you seem to take issue about spending things that make one happy, for what is life but the pursuit of happiness? You may one of those arrogant enough to say that such things do not make one happy, but frankly, people are different and what makes one person happy is not what makes another person happy.

[Gerbil]

If you are under 12 you cannot even buy a Sunday paper

And I thought it was bad when Wilko stopped selling safety scissors to under-18s because they're "offensive weapons". :rolleyes: Whereabouts is this happening?

[Asriel]

Yeah, seriously, I mean guns, power-tools, explosives, I can see not selling to kids, but safety scissors and newspapers, that's just fucking retarded.

[Alexires]

On the topic of freedom as opposed to being constricted by society, here is a web comic that some of you may have read.

xkcd is one of my favourite web comics, and this particular comic pertains to the above and, I feel, encompasses the ethos that we share as RS members.

http://xkcd.com/137/

Fantastic web comic, and very funny. Worth a read.

[nmp2]

outstanding, NBK.
You'll probably be among the last with any real freedom...

[Winter Wolf]

outstanding, NBK.
You'll probably be among the last with any real freedom...

If by "NBK" you are referring to NBK2000 then you should probably lurk more before posting. I'm not sure if NBK2000 would find this funny, or if he'd be rolling over in his grave. :mad: