Why are trivial topics so easy to talk about while discussing real issues that affect our lives is the fastest way to kill a conversation? I've heard people wax on for hours about who is dating who, and there's nothing wrong with making small talk, but we have serious issues that need to be discussed.
*I have to wonder... *
When is the right time to talk about things that really matter in this world? We can't do it at work, parties, social gatherings, birthdays, or holidays. It seems to be resigned to very small groups in hushed tones.
How are we to build a better future if we can't discuss topics of importance without recoiling from the discussion if it challenges our views or disturbs our feelings?
If I was a mad scientist wanting to sanitize and control topics of conversation in a population, the best way to do that would be to make it socially uncomfortable for people to discuss topics that challenge the status quo, the exact situation that seems to have cast a spell on the population today.
Then I would flood the media with polarizing topics that reach into the core of people's identity, pitting them against each other until they are so worked up they can't even talk to each other about anything anymore without the conversation deteriorating into chaos and inconsolable separation. The only people they would talk to are those that share the same views.
We are bombarded with conflicting messages and outright lies. It's nothing less than psychological warfare to keep us divided and fearful.
We were not taught in school how to talk about challenging subject matter within a group in a way that moves towards a resolution, a skill one would find very useful in a democracy. Why were we taught about democracy but not taught the skills needed to participate?
We were taught to hide under our desks in the event of a nuclear attack and still we trust our teachers' advice as adults.
Why were we not taught about money in school? Sure, we can count it, but how to make money work for you is a subject curiously absent from the classroom. I would even argue that many business majors still don't have a full understanding of how money works.
I believe George Carlin was right when he said:
"Governments don’t want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.
You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations.
They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.
They got you by the balls." - George Carlin
Listen to George Carlin in his own words in this video
Our social conditioning seems to have sheep-corralled us into pens of shallow thinking. Anyone thinking outside the box agitates the sheep. We look to a Sheppard to soothe our discontent and moves to assert our independence are shunned, attacked, ridiculed, and painted black.
I posit that there is no Sheppard, politician, priest, or messiah coming to save us. No aliens or benevolent saviors are going to create a new society free from the challenges that face us today. If we want a better world we will have to create it ourselves.
Looking to the grownups called world leaders to save us is laughable in my view. They are the "responsible" people responsible for the mess we find ourselves in. They, along with the media and our consent, have divided us in as many opposing slices against each other as possible and any government with the audacity to call itself united is mocking us.
Building brighter futures with such magicians of discontent is not only irresponsible, it is impossible. They will always game the outcome to their favor at the cost of others. A snake, even a well-dressed, well-spoken, or well-funded snake, will always be a snake. We may as well hire the big, bad wolf to babysit our children.
We need to stop consenting to every stupid law passed without our knowledge behind our backs, created to control our every move and to extract more taxes from every time our money passes hands.
We need to stop working for government-issued slave money and return the value to where it truly belongs, the work that people do. Rich people don't want money. They want the work they can get done for money. That's where the real value is, in your blood, sweat, and tears.
What is needed more than anything else today is a vision and the ability to talk about what we need to do to create a better world. We need to start a new voluntary society where we can truly govern ourselves.
It sounds Utopian to even say anything like that and I find myself wanting to erase the words as I write them for sounding so, well, Utopian, as if envisioning a world better than the current one is something to be ashamed to admit.
My hunch is we have been conditioned to feel a self-governed civilization is fantasy and best reserved for science fiction. Our programming keeps us in an infantile state, depending on our government to care for us.
But they don't. They never have. Governments have only been forced to pretend to care when people demanded it or it was politically prudent to do so.
We could spend endless amounts of time and energy cutting through mazes of red tape to force minuscule changes in our laws that mandate we prioritize human rights over corporate profits or we can condition ourselves to stop needing the government for every little thing. The more self-reliant we are the better.
There's another term that has been ridiculed; self-reliant. The media has painted it out to be a joke. As if having a year supply of food, water, and essentials is verging on lunacy that only some crazy, prepper hermit hiding in the woods from society would do.
You want to know what real lunacy is you can look no further than Nestlé Chairman and former CEO Peter Brabeck who wants to own all the water in the world and is quoted as saying that access to water is not a basic human right. That's real batshit crazy if you ask me and his actions have historically demonstrated he means it regardless of the retraction he published of that statement.
That's what you get when we make a basic necessity a commodity owned and run by multinational corporations whose concerns don't include people unless they are shareholders or customers and only if we demand they care.
As the global corporate interests consolidate and scramble for control of every last resource we need to stop fighting them and each other and begin to focus on creating a new way of living together in the world.
It is not crazy to think a new world is possible and we should be able to talk about it.
Olivier Janssens, founder of Freedom Investments, and Roger Ver, of Bitcoin Foundation fame, is seeking to establish its own independent nation, governed by libertarian values, and invites anyone who shares their political views or is just ‘free thinkers’ to join them.
This country is intended to be a place where those who reject governmental controls and seek to maintain libertarian freedoms can gather and promote a truly free society. Negotiations are currently happening with countries whose locations are still undisclosed and the response has been encouraging.
I have read about Roger Ver who has been a prominent supporter of bitcoin adoption and sees bitcoin as a means to promote economic freedom. I admit though when I first heard of this idea of his to start a new country my first thought was, "Who the hell does this guy think he is?", which was quickly followed by another thought, "*What a great fucking idea!".
I once read a book titled, How To Start Your Own Country by Erwin S. Strauss. In it, he states the classic texts often base sovereignty on being recognized as sovereign by another sovereign nation.
In practice, this means a new nation must be powerful enough to force another nation to recognize it (not very liberal), or being sufficiently subservient to such a nation to make it advantageous for that nation to recognize it. In short, that sounds like kick ass or kiss ass to me.
The most proven effective method to having your nation recognized, he goes on to say, is to acquire nuclear capabilities and convince other countries you will use it against them unless your demands are met. If you're like me you're thinking, "This sounds like Dr. Evil in The Spy Who Shagged Me." Why is this not considered batshit crazy? This is the world we live in and call it the "civilized world".
Libertarianism (Latin: libertas, "freedom") is a collection of political philosophies and movements that uphold liberty as a core principle. Libertarians seek to maximize political freedom and autonomy, emphasizing freedom of choice, voluntary association, individual judgment, and self-ownership.
Libertarians share a skepticism of authority and state power. However, they diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing political and economic systems. Various schools of libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power, often calling to restrict or to dissolve coercive social institutions.
Some libertarians advocate laissez-faire capitalism and strong private property rights, such as in land, infrastructure and natural resources. Others, notably libertarian socialists, seek to abolish capitalism and private ownership of the means of production in favor of their common or cooperative ownership and management, viewing private property as a barrier to freedom and liberty.
An additional line of division is between minarchists and anarchists. While minarchists think that a minimal centralized government is necessary, anarchists and anarcho-capitalists propose to completely eliminate the state. Wikipedia
Whatever your views you hold on people starting a new libertarian country, until we learn to talk openly about drastically different ideas that will arise while creating this new country, I suspect it will encounter many of the same problems society has always faced when trying to reach consensus. Disagreement will be resolved with votes for different options on a plan or course of action.
At first glance voting seems the democratic thing to do but how can you live in a truly free society if 49% of the population gets outvoted and prevented from living the way they freely choose. The very design of elections divides us into different sides and creates a vector for manipulation.
It's impossible it seems to create a truly united people once that population reaches a certain size and from what I can gather, we have only historically united when rallying against a common enemy or when sharing a common vision, and even then it was only temporary.
Thankfully there are examples of intentional communities sprouting up that show promise of how communities could be voluntarily organized and I'm thinking of visiting some of them in my near future.
I want to understand the evolutionary process they went through as a group to arrive at a consensus on what actions to take to build their community. The very idea of consciously creating a collective community is very interesting to me and would make a good post at least.
In my travels, I plan to visit some of these communities and collect as much information as I can about them and, who knows, perhaps I will visit this new country when it begins. There is a lot we could offer each other, me and this new world.
Can you imagine a world with no or less government control where citizens are free to live as they choose? What do you use as a comparison? With governments seeking to clamp down on more freedoms in the name of national security and public safety, there are few examples to base your assumptions on.
Blockchains could help formulate trust between voluntary organizations that would form to address public needs. Monetary systems could record exchanges of value between citizens on a blockchain and we could base value on proof-of-contribution, be it labor or capital, to this new society.
This money would not be debt based unless a group of citizens voluntarily funded specific projects, in which case the organization borrowing the funds would be in debt to the citizens supplying it.
Imagine if someday Steemville or Steemburg was built in this new country, a whole city of voluntary citizens working on Steemit to fund the creation of the city.
We would have the fastest satellite internet connection and all goods and services could be paid in Steem or SBD, as well as other cryptocurrencies. Community projects would be posted about and funded, in part, by upvotes and donations.
Imagine a whole town of people earning a living by posting about things they are really passionate about. They no longer have to work a job they can't stand just to pay the bills. Can you imagine what your neighbors would be like if all of them could live from posting on Steemit?
I would live in a neighborhood like that. Perhaps a city is too big to imagine but a town, Steemtopia, would be a good town to live in I believe. Of course, you may end up living next door to 
Do you think it is possible to start a new country where people can live in freedom? If so how would it work and what would it need to do to keep functioning?
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