A Vast Aggregation of Petty Acts

In search of anti-authoritarian and liberatory projects to form a barrier reef.

Everyday forms of resistance make no headlines. Just as millions of anthozoan polyps create, willy-nilly, a coral reef, so do thousands upon thousands of individual acts of insubordination and evasion create a political or economic barrier reef of their own… And whenever, to pursue the simile, the ship of state runs aground on such a reef, attention is typically directed to the shipwreck itself and not to the vast aggregation of petty acts that made it possible.
—James C. Scott

We’re seeking Creatives, Entrepreneurs, and Innovators. Who can offer somewhere to go? A story to tell? Something to do? A system to switch to? Or even a way to underthrow unjust authority?

Consider the following ways Human Respect Labs is inviting you to help create.

Somewhere to Go

Work toward the creation or growth of special jurisdictions that are stable and competitive in terms of market-friendly institutions and a reasonably high degree of personal freedom.

Some might be on terra firma. Some might be in the cloud. The idea is to find spots on Earth for the next Hong Kong or Singapore. (Note that, besides the tiny, budding Prospera, there is no counterpart in the Western Hemisphere unless Argentina continues its stellar reforms. That is why, absent profound change, Asia will likely come to dominate this century. Yet a CCP regional hegemon might not tolerate new niches and city-states beyond its control.) It’s time to establish a few new Hong Kongs, especially in the Western Hemisphere.

A Story to Tell

Work toward creating narratives and memeplexes that can implant themselves into the minds of more people. Master mythmakers, storytellers, and meme machinists should stay busy.

We have talked about Harmon’s Story Circle, and we will cover four dimensions of rhetoric in a subsequent post. The key thing to remember is that some narratives and metanarratives can shape the outlook of a people. Stories can be more or less truth-conducive, even if the truth is a mythic truth. (The Lord of the Rings captures the reality of power, for example.) Otherwise, we resist the temptation to lie. The truth will set us free.

Something to Do

Work to lead and offer others something to occupy their idle hands and minds. Master the call to action, the invitation to join, or the inspiration to get oars rowing in unison.

People whisperers are capable of developing campaigns and public relations strategies that give the masses something to do to build the civilization(s) of tomorrow. This project lead might see opportunities to collaborate with others listed here, enabling adjacent Human Respect projects to achieve rapid uptake. Or, it might mean finding a vector of counterpower that will benefit from a lot of people doing a simple thing.

A System to Switch To

Work toward alternative systems of money, credit, savings, exchange, and governance. Many of these systems are represented by cryptocurrency tokens, but not all.

Even if they’re imperfect, some parallel systems already exist. We must improve them, help them evolve, create novel systems, and offer superior competitors. The more quickly we can get these systems up and running with mass user constituency groups, the more difficult and costly it will be for authorities to eliminate them. This is especially true if we build projects with a view to censorship resistance and disintermediation.

A Means to Underthrow

Work toward raising the costs of predation and parasitism by unjust authorities. One might create many such means, from transparency tech to uncensored collective intelligence and tax avoidance.

If overthrow is violent, underthrow is peaceful. But if we are ever going to wound the Leviathan mortally, we’re going to have to develop a thousand cuts. We want to be able to see more clearly what its proxies are doing. We aim to counter its nefarious plans with nimbler networks. We strive to create little platoons of warrior monks who, despite facing asymmetrical warfare from those who wield political power against us, must develop the capacity to thwart their plans and diminish their power.

The Audacity

These sorts of visions can be audacious, but we must never forget to start small and scale. That’s why Human Respect Labs funds aligned projects in the $3,000 to $30,000 range. We’re looking for something that can be executed at a smaller scale but demonstrates potential. Once that potential is revealed, the project is better equipped to grow.

Why Human Respect Labs?