Cover of zine made from article.

I Couldn’t Think Any Less Of You
(Than You Already Think Of Yourself)
Refusing The Great Resignation
by Invecchiare Selvatico

from OAK #7

“Do not imagine that there is any bird more easily caught by decoy, nor any fish sooner fixed on the hook by wormy bait, than are all these poor fools neatly tricked into servitude by the slightest feather passed, so to speak, before their mouths. Truly it is a marvelous thing that they let themselves be caught so quickly at the slightest tickling of their fancy. Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.”
- Étienne de La Boétie, The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude

“It is the final stage of a world that we have given up interpreting, thinking, or even imagining in favor of implementing it, instrumentalizing it objectively, or, better yet: launching ourselves into the unimaginable venture of performing it, turning into a performance, perfecting it—at which point it naturally casts us out. This world no longer needs us. The best of all possible worlds no longer needs us.”
- Jean Baudrillard, The Agony of Power

“Blessed are the sleepy ones: for they shall soon drop off.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

As I sit on our back porch drinking my morning coffee and gazing out at the incredible world growing all around us in our forested mountain home, I consider, reinvigorate, and calibrate for the cyclically regenerative and enthusiastic nature of Springtime activities. While there are always new inputs, lessons, and situations, I have deeply rooted into a lived reality that feels more and more unconscious each day, more and more essential, more and more alive. I feel great optimism in the hyper-localized reality of my life and those I share it with, but it is sullied and muted by a growing sadness the further I think out from here.

These days, I spend more time intentionally secluded from the mass herd, from society. Sometimes I am around the Others, much less than I used to be, and more and more in my head when I am among them. I mostly, happily, dwell within our small circle of people, with the non-human, and with my creating. I increasingly have trouble relating to almost all of the Others treading and trending out there. I am grateful to have a tribe of people I care about and can collaborate with, especially our more intimate band of family and close friends that bring essential qualities to our lives together, but without a doubt the larger tribe is shrinking fast. A few are pushed away actively through necessary conflict, others more passively through emotional distancing and differing priorities. Some, regrettably, leave via a premature physical death (suicide, overdose, cancer, and all of the ever-escalating hyper-domesticated maladies), while others, perhaps a more sorrowful route, experience a slower, longer, and more dismal decline. They still physically remain, but their spirits are growing weak and their energies smothered and dissipated by the general banality, perpetually sucking distractions, imposed (supposed) compulsory demands, internalized duties, and most pathetically, fear of missing out. These walking-dead casualties have become the norm out There, with the rotting sickness and contagion ever-penetrating the physically, emotionally, intellectually, creatively, and spiritually pacified. Even those close to me have been infected and are beginning to weaken.

The Great Resignation is here. On every level (macro, micro, internal, external, social, culturural, relational, spiritual, existential, everywhere in every way) most people seem to have given up. They wave the submissive white flag of acquiescence, NOT on some vague delusions of an abstract fantastical revolutionary moment just over the next dung hill, NOT on neurotic ticks and predictable rhetoric of moral and ideologically-driven societal change, NOT on vague notions of “making it” or entitled feelings of “deserving it”, BUT on the only meaningful context that matters… ON THEIR VERY LIVES. They have resigned themselves to this fabricated, derivative, and exponentially dismal and disenchanted cold dead world. Despite empty echo-chamber rhetoric and pale performative gestures, most have accepted Their terms, Their roles, and Their means, with the only protest: limbs limply dangling, feet lazily dragging, tongues reflexively regurgitating, and thumbs robotically swiping; but still onward they march, slothfully like the slavish slugs they have become, maybe always were (but I still hope not, despite my general cynicism).

This assessment of a general resignation is a clear and honest realization for me, one that has greatly increased over time with profound sadness, disappointment, and frustration, along with growing threads of contempt and aloofness. I seem to have reached a tipping point where my sorrow and empathy is transitioning through annoyance and indignation and rapidly heading into disdain and foaming animosity. I know sorrow is still at the root of my feelings, but it is quickly swelling into a furious storm. If I did not continue to write I might crash into an irreversible path of destruction, one that would likely and regrettably harm those closest to me due to the intensity of my rage and the probable backlash and repercussions, not to mention the inevitable ending of this life I still hold so very dear. So, for now, I will continue to bang on my rusty Smith-Corona and quietly sharpen my claws so as to more precisely and swiftly make my reckoning lunges cut deepest and count most, and, most vitally, live my life joyously and rebelliously.

But, each time I engage on even marginal, temporary, and tangential terrain with the mass herd (a term perhaps too generous for my heart), I am blown away with the deprivation of the human condition. What will the sheep tolerate next? What is the newest perverse and twisted pill they will gleefully swallow, washing it down with the poisons of ideology, ignorance, dullness, synonymy, delusion, and sheer laziness, and then with a blank shit-eating grin try to convince me of the delightful ambrosia that I am missing out on? Every time I think humanity has hit bottom, there seems to always be leagues more to pathetically descend, the floor drops out, the pit of emptiness appears abysmal.

But I also know that we can soar and run and play and laugh and care and love. This knowledge, this immense discrepancy in the human condition, is the cause for my great sorrow, frustration, and anger. While all of us bend or obscure or pretend or even negotiate at times with Their world which ever-tightens around us, I will never give up on the creation of my own free life and the destruction of that which attempts to prevent me. Nor will I forfeit or ignore the intentional and direct inter-threading with the lives of those I love and create and wrestle and destroy with. This is what authentic life demands, all the rest is performance, politics, enslavement, self-imposed misery, and resignation — the last refuge for the zombified cowards, idiots, and uncreative. Yes, I am a throw-back romantic sipping on the dusty bottle of beauty and sorrow and I might smash my nearly drained cup to the ground at some point tonight too.

————

Two decades ago, an earlier version of myself, one that was more deeply entrenched and entangled in the insurrectionary anti-civilization anarchist scene, penned a piece about “Revolutionary Discipline” that I have been walking back since the day I printed it in a dirty little insurrectionary rag called Disorderly Conduct. At the time, I was frustrated with the colossal chasm between rhetoric and action and the miserable track-record most of my peers and contemporaries seemed to have with follow-through and utilizing their critical, creative, and destructive energies, to will their power. (Unlike the previous phrase) I regret the specific language that I used back then, two horribly loaded words (“Revolutionary” and “Discipline”) only made worse by their combination and the self-righteous revolutionary life-coach/drill-sergeant attitude behind it.

I think I was attempting to flesh out something much larger, much deeper, much darker, a dilemma I could not yet grasp given the intoxicating momentum I was enthusiastically and unregrettably caught up within. I had also not yet lived and experienced enough to grasp a more expansive and penetrating perspective. But, I think I was beginning to sense a growing resignation that people were falling into (many born into in the late 20th century), and most could not escape from or were choosing to sink deeper into. Some tried to articulate this as nihilism, but I don’t think it was that intentional or frame-able, that would be too generous and conveniently over-simplistic. I think it was something more baked in, a long-game domination of the spirit, one which controls the mind, the flesh, the motions. It subdues and flattens our very essence. Most people, it would seem, were finally broken. That’s Their point. Wildness and Control cannot coexist harmoniously. They battle to the end, until something breaks and submits.

The further back I step from the dominant culture and certain subcultures I once dwelled more actively within, coupled with my absolute aversion and downright disgust to the all-intrusive and dictating techno-culture that is Their terrain, the more obvious it became to me that most people across the spectrum of most positions and situations have given up and are generally reacting out of passive helplessness, habit, duty, automation, reproduction, laziness, servitude, or lack of agency, and usually a sick combination of these. Each day I am finding almost everything and everyone completely uninspiring, predictable, and derivative. There is a colossal and generalized cultural depression that I do not see a way out of. A pathological and pandemical psychosis deepens each passing moment. The only therapeutic or corrective, however limited and at times seemingly improbable, for those of us who wish to engage with our lives more fully, freely, and directly, is moving outside, away from the global suicide pact of society. This may be less of a physical move (although that distancing is certainly helpful) than a change in relation and perspective.

It is always essential to remember that no matter what we are up against, we always have choices, personal agency. We need to stop playing the victimized roles. We must not submit. Nothing is completely set or absolutely nonporous. I shudder when I hear people who know better say things like: “This is what They give us”, “We are working with what is here”, “There are no other options because They have taken them away from us” and “We don’t have a choice!” Yes, They have attempted to severely amputate our abilities to choose other options than the ones they offer and entice us to not bother trying, but no matter how seemingly difficult, we still have far more possibilities than they want to convince us of, or worse, we tell ourselves. We need to embrace our lives with a passion that cannot be qualified or quantified by this sick culture. I truly believe in my bones that we can only do this if we unplug from the organized deadness of technology, turn our backs on society, and connect to a vibrant living reality—simply, if we choose to live.

An irony of much of this (within the industrialized and non-war-torn parts of the world that might actually have the luxury to read something like this) is that the general situation we currently inhabit is one in which so many people can actually do and be almost anything they want, more so than at any other period in history, within certain obvious and shifting (but not fully solid) parameters. But they are trapped within a psychological construct that tells them they have no choice but to play the roles that they are provided, use the means they are given, and follow the methods that are socially expected. Cowards, weaklings, dullards, and insecure neurotic puppets, the lot of them. Even worse are those who actually think they are living wild and free, deviant and transgressive, uncontrolled and anarchic, but are merely performing, totally informed and confined by the cyber-space and sick cultural sandbox.

So, I must say, I couldn’t think any less of you than you already think of yourself. I am not talking about your hyper-inflated superficial self-worth that comes from identities, entitlement, social currency, or proficiency in the endless meaningless tasks and expectations that make up the techo-post-modern nothingness. I am, quite contrarily, talking about the intrinsic value you place on your very life, your intimate connection to the organic processes around and through you, and the unique meaningfulness in co-creating it. You may confuse it all in some sort of boiled frog cyber-soup half-baked blissed-out glossy plasticity, but from this side of things, its pretty fuckin’ clear. The Great Resignation is here. I refuse. Do you?

————

An obvious way most people seem to have resigned their life to the meaninglessness and methods of this pathogenically festering culture is how they encounter and move through the world, experiencing life voyeuristically, ahistorically, superficially, whipped around by it, and generally detached. To be blunt, I think most people today are posers, tourists, followers, and bottom feeders.

I think of how not too long ago the interesting ones, the unique, the authentically cool, the anarchic, explored with a passion and danger that is fairly vacant today. Traveling, musical interests, books, film, food, relationships, resistance, creative endeavors, philosophy, politics, spirituality, passions, life-paths, projects, methods of habitation and sustenance, cultural experiences in general, were once engaged with more boldly and deeply over time and space, in the real world. We got dirty and bruised, and if we were lucky we accrued some scars to remind us, learn from, and tell tales about.

We didn’t know every mundane detail about some exotic and far off place before we stumbled upon it or some other adventurer turned us on to it. Maybe we heard rumors and stories or possibly read a book filled with exciting and debauchery-drenched tales, but now people plan out itineraries down to the hour, months ahead of time, from “Top 10 Lists” and online travelogues via the safe and secure interface of their device, making sure to hit all the “hot spots” and trendy pseudo-underground venues, stuffing in as many “experiences” as possible, intersecting and multi-tasking the entire way. Don’t forget the selfies and names to drop later.

We used to try restaurants for ourselves to see if we “liked” them. Occasionally we chanced upon delights we had never dreamed of and sometimes it meant horrible food, unfriendly people, or gross hygiene, but those are some of the most potent experiences in my memory, especially when the lop-sided culinary concoctions came violently back up later in the porcelain or on some late-night street corner.

We didn’t get linked to a musician or band that we “may also like” because of some stupid algorithm that could never understand the very specific and often unexplainable reasons we appreciated creative endeavors. We got turned on to something, usually accidentally, and went on incredible seemingly unending spider-webbing journeys, sometimes digging up vastly underestimated and barely known gems, sometimes we got garbage, but we did it for our own reasons, over time, and in direct contact with and overlapping other’s journeys, and dare I say it, inter-generationally. I have so much more appreciation for the wing-nut on the beach searching for lost or discarded treasures with their duct-taped rusty metal detector than anyone using Spotify or any app, program, or site that selects and prunes “experiences” for you.

People used to actually read books, real ones made of paper and ink, sometimes more than once, before they pretended to know anything about them or the author’s ideas and life. We browsed bookstores and libraries for new ideas (or forgotten ones) to ponder. We uncovered historical and personal perspectives that were subversive and raw. We imagined what might be so important that someone tore out certain missing pages or considered someone’s penciled-in thoughts at the margins. We did deep dives into wormholes that lasted for years, not just online some evening with a blank-blue-faced-glow when we couldn’t sleep because we were out of melatonin or xanax.

Our fights drew blood and knocked out teeth. They weren’t caveated, choreographed, and predictable performances around hair-triggered hyper-sensitive feelings and social media credits or cancellations. We met each other and had relationships in the real world, not on social media, chat groups, comment sections, and dating apps. Sure, we were still alienated, damaged, and repressed (often extremely depressed) as hell, but compared to today’s fragile, obedient, and vapid trend-hungry cyber-specimens, we were dancing wild and free, licking the sweet dew off of the morning grass that we passed out on after drunkenly howling at the blood moon on a whiskey bender. We were more alive! And we still can be. You cannot convince me otherwise with your boring memes, empty gestures, robotic text-speak, AI-generated diatribes, impoverished attempts at globalized slang, trending cliches, meaningless rhetoric, or repetitious performances.

I know, I know, “OK Boomer”. Well, I ain’t a Boomer, nice try, and, well, nevermind, you wouldn’t understand. You are too busy making excuses to rationalize and normalize your exponentially-trending slavery… But I will say with complete sober honesty that I am absolutely more interested in most of what has come before than almost anything contemporary, and infinitely more than just about everything that is likely to come in the glorified progress (degeneration) of tomorrow, at least out in Their world. And don’t get me started on the insignificance of humanity to the rest of life, the cosmos, or infinity…

I should add here the vital disclaimer that I am NOT talking about what we can actually do in our own lives, away from society’s highly-anesthetized torture and disfiguring technics and Their ever-piling garbage heap and reasons for and methods of manufacturing it. We are still living beings. This is where we should never give up or resign, the ongoing creation of our lives, at least until we are ready to feed back into the vast micronutrients of the organic process. This is the challenge. This is the point. Do you even want to be alive anymore? If not, well… you still have options.

————

At the height of the spectacularized hyper-response to the global pandemic, when much of the already depleted and manufactured physical space of culture was severely limited or shut down, when most contexts went far deeper and became more entrenched than ever before into cyber-relations, many new trends and responses bubbled up, or at least got more attention, “trended” I guess would be the honest descriptor. Two seemingly anti-social, anti-work, and pro-autonomy movements were being talked about in the anarchist space and mainstream media, the Chinese Tang Ping (“lying flat”) phenomenon and in the U.S. a passive gesture called “quiet quitting”. Both offered some sort of general response to the compulsory workaholic and extreme-career-focused realities of hyper-civilization, both probably stemming from less time at work and more time to fuck off (generally positive things). While some anarchists got excited about these tendencies, I remained vigilantly cynical (I’m not easily duped or convinced by anything in this petting zoo. I long ago smashed my rose-colored glasses that flooded my brain with false-positivity, and I am a free agent with no skin in Their game).

By all means, please, pretty please, take back your life from the machine and its endless tentacles. I have always been aggressively anti-work and especially anti-career. But what Tang Ping, and even more so “quiet quitting”, seemed to be (when the rhetoric was sifted through) was a greater resignation, a cultural and physical laziness. Rather than reclaiming autonomy and creating vibrant lives, most seemed to just be dragging their feet through an all-too similar cycle of drudgery, consumption, economy, and entitlement. Sure, there were obviously exceptions, those who said “fuck-off” to society and embraced their lives more fully, but most just wanted slight adjustments so they didn’t have to get out of their pajamas, could spend more time playing video games or waste it on social media, and don’t forget to DoorDash your snacks. Most wanted even more rewards from the system; they had even bigger expectations. Yawn. Same shit, bigger pile. During this same period, little changed in my reality too. I basically remained an anarch in the wooded mountains with occasional missions into babylon, silently watching the degradation as I found joy and meaning in the directly lived experience with my “pod” and the immediate world we were within. And ultimately, nothing really changed in society, in fact, it all just got worse. The “lying flat” and “quiet quitting” was absorbed and accommodated as all social trends are. It became part of the pile. Aww, not again. Who would have guessed?

There are so many factors in the world today that distract and displace us from living a full, present, and connected life—a place and people to be interactive with and a part of on a scale that is relevant and meaningful to ourselves, something to believe in and give ourselves to in a way that we are individually and (micro-)collectively nourished by (rather than depleted, calcified, or controlled); some sort of situation within a vibrant and relatable continuum of active and expanding, grounded, and healthy shared experiences, a critical honesty of these situations and relationships, and, of course the joy and passion which animates it all.

Modernity demands and seduces us to give up so much of the substance of living and ways of existence: the time-tested traditional, the belonging, the intuitive, the organic, the (authentically) interactive, the self-corrective, the learned and experienced; trading it all for mechanistic and homogenized organized deadness. Postmodernity takes this process even further, but in a thinner, more dishonest, disorienting, and dissociative way. The cyber-reality and the all-invasive, ever-encompassing, and compulsory techno-culture it has become, has put the final nail in the coffin for anything culturally authentic and meaningful, already a long-shot in the civilized realm. For those looking for a life more fully lived and connected to a living reality, we are primarily left with looking backwards (critically) and outwards (as in away from), and centered and present in our uniqueness and its direct relationships with our feet rooted in place.

It can be difficult to get grounded and actualize a life of vitality and meaning when the world pulls stronger and faster towards its deadening and vacuous singularity, even harder when those we supposedly have some sort of affinity with help pull us down this empty path of cold misery that is thinly-coated with shiny surface allure. Well isn’t this a pretty cubic zirconia-encrusted leash? Often this is done through a more passive acquiescence of our peers, sometimes more actively, usually socially and politically, and almost always through technology. If you want to play you have to pay.

One way some attempt to downplay and even negate the immensity and gravity of the overwhelmingly dismal situation is to make lukewarm, misplaced, and dishonest analogies to previous historical events or situations in reference to what we are up against and how we might resist. But, comparisons to previous negative contexts are pale and surface at best, especially now, and projecting them onto the current irreality is mostly useless, and even detrimental, as analysis. We live in a time the Situationists would not recognize. The Spectacle they critiqued is now light years advanced and exponentially more vast, implicit, and penetrating, and at the same time plummeting to absolute zero in actual substance. The lessons from the past need to be applied to the dynamics of those times, those situations, and not simply copy-and-pasted onto the emptiness of now. These times are incomparable and anything constituting life within humans almost unrecognizable. But I never forget that there was before civilization and there has always been an against and outside too. That direction, those lessons, still seem vital to the human experience.

I always come back to the fact that the alienation of the average modern human today is unfathomably deeper than at any other time that has ever existed in human history. If we can’t agree on this very simple honest awareness, we have nothing else to say to each other. Our interface with and assessment of the human condition is too disparate for us to communicate on even the most basic level. We are looking at the same conglomeration of refuse and misery but coming up with very different understandings. From my sight, the world we currently live in is almost absolute slavery, but politics and government are relatively low on the list of who, how, and why control functions the way it does. All perspectives, politics, and resistance has been, or almost instantaneously will be, consumed and assimilated into the global network of domination that people are interconnected to at all times, soon even in the dream space. People have somehow forgotten or obsessively and obediently obscure the undeniable fact that we mostly enslave ourselves, perpetually tethered to the sick contraption of society by technology and its ethics and methods when we can move outside, or at least head that direction and be informed by that freeing process rather than trapped in the technological and virtual — the completely controlled. Most people are strung out on bland and nutrition-less cyber carrots. The stick is almost unnecessary and usually only brought out for formality and performance.

Meanwhile, some people (often so-called “anarchists”) warn against the sins of atomization as they sit alone in their apartment, “connected” to the sick and dehumanizing global culture. They criticize us for intentionally, circumstantially, and organically forming tribes, packs, gangs, clans, cults, and families to take deeper care of ourselves, each other, and our place on this earth. More often than not they use grossly-inaccurate and dangerous hyperbolic slurs like “xenophobia” and “fascist” to scare, dog-whistle, and avoid any sort of expanded explanation or understanding. Their issues, frustration, and even anger towards our “hyper-localized” priorities stems from many unhealthy places, but the most significant seems to be ideological collectivism and resentment (often without any self-awareness of these deeply imbedded traits). Why? Because misery loves company and all the activists, protesters, politicians, academics, trenders, and now even anarchists, want us to suffer with them! Why should we get off? Don’t we deserve to suffer too? Isn’t it only fair? Only equatable? These are the biggest enemies to freedom, those who wish to organize, manage, network, and fairly distribute the misery (and they probably insist that we wear a mask too).

So, again, I must say, and this time with all seriousness and honesty (and more than a pinch of disgust), I couldn’t think any less of you than you already think of yourself. On one hand we live atop a babbling tower of misery, slavery, and ugliness (Their world), and on the other hand, each of us, against any and all odds, are animated with breath and spirit in a living reality that exponentially amazes at every turn, one I could not ever come close to even partially comprehending other than in the moment and the accumulation of experiences. The choice of which way to lean into is ours in each moment. And most of you seem to be fading away from me the other way…

“Absorbing the negative continues to be the problem. When the emancipated slave internalizes the master, the work of the negative is abolished. Domination becomes hegemony. Power can show itself positively and overtly in good conscience and complete self-evidence.”
- Jean Baudrillard, The Agony of Power

“Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.”
- Étienne de La Boétie, The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude

“Of all that is written I love only what a man has written with his blood. Write with blood, and you will experience that blood is spirit… Whoever writes in blood and aphorisms does not want to be read but to be learned by heart… Now I am light, now I fly, now I see beneath myself, now a god dances through me.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

—————

Étienne de La Boétie, The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude (1577)
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1892)
Jean Baudrillard, The Agony of Power (2005)

—————

*Invecchiare Selvatico is one (more contemporary) pen-name used by a primary editor and writer for Green Anarchy magazine and is the author of Black Blossoms At The End Of The World available from underworldamusements.com. Messages to be passed on to Invecchiare Selvatico (and requests for a free catalog of his distro and most back issues of Green Anarchy) can be sent to: nazelpickens@gmail.com or PO BOX 316 Williams, OR 97544

—————

Oak (an anti-civilization journal) is available directly from oakjournal.org

or

HDP PO BOX 1450 Boulder, UT 84716 for $20 each (cash) - all issues available

Comments

anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/03/2025 - 11:02

You seem very smart. Probably better than everyone else.

anonymous (not verified) Thu, 12/04/2025 - 10:58

enjoyed the read. a little harsh at times, but i guess well deserved. but the comments reveal that the author may be correct in their assessment of the generalized retardation of most everyone, with obnoxiously reused cut and paste responses like "tldr" and "Old Man Yells at Cloud" that mean absolutely nothing but ignorant dismissal.

anyway, looking forward to the new OAK, does anyone here know what HDP is?

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/08/2025 - 09:01

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Commentors are even lamer than you might think, the "Old Man Yells at Cloud" thing (which comes up anytime someone poops on tech, activism, or the culture in general) is a meme of grandpa from the Simpsons. Anarchists could possibly have become the most uncreative population of this retched society.

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/08/2025 - 11:11

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

the old man yells at cloud has nothing to do with tech, as faras i know, and is all about the ranting of someone who hasn't been following the thread of whatever conversations they're taking part in. someone who is more interested in their own feelings than they are in communicating anything to the people around them. 

fine to just care about your own feelings. also fine to be teased about it. 

but your blanket dismissal of both memes and anarchists-as-an-homogenous group seems to entertain you. 

CalvinSmith Mon, 12/08/2025 - 11:26

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

the hatred expressed towards acronyms; they're presumptuous 100% of the time. The "effort saved" is pretty damn trivial and often outsourced...but such is the anti-phoentics nature of computer text.

anonymous (not verified) Thu, 12/04/2025 - 10:59

Mf told yall to log off and go outside sometime, and the reaction is dissapointingly predictable. Waow

anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/05/2025 - 10:14

How exciting that Chavrie Helvetica is sharing his vague grumpiness with the class again. We get it, Old-Man-Who-Can-Afford-Land, your lifestyle is the bestest. The rest of anarchy is just lazy & stupid according to you. Maybe you are the one who isn't an anarchist, what with quotes from Boétie all over your screed. Love the self-styled anarchs being all edgy by quoting dubious personages. Maybe just continue strolling along to the right and out the door.

anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/05/2025 - 12:22

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

"what with quotes from Boétie all over your screed."

Sorry... what!? I suppose only authors quoted in anarchist texts & publications have gotta be sanctioned by the anarchist Platform as well as being self-identified "anarchists"... FUCK YOU. historical conteeeext!!! We rewrite history as we see fit, and therefore We are still in 1925 A.D. and everyone that lived before is also in 1925 A.D.

anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/05/2025 - 14:20

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

can someone cite something to back up whatever you're saying about boetie? either pro or against? this hurling invective back and forth is neither edifying nore ntertaining nor innovative

anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/05/2025 - 17:04

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Boétie was born to an aristocratic family and became a member of the Bordeaux Parliament at a young age. His main idea that I see anarchists tout is that tyrants have power because people give it to them. A rather blame the victim sort of attitude. While it may be the case that well off aristocrats can go against the King (or whomever) non-violently without much consequence, it also seems the case that most regular people would not be granted the same leeway.
While the notion that resistance to tyranny is necessary for tyranny to end is of course true, it is also true that for most people it isn't the lack of resistance that keeps them subservient, but the lack of sufficiently commensurate power (guns & money) that keeps them down.

anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/05/2025 - 17:50

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

thank you very much. now if those who disagree with you can also be informative and to the point, life will be better in this miniscule little corner of the internet...

anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/05/2025 - 20:16

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Your reading of La Boétie's theory shows you didn't read much from him. He did a deep analysis of how the State works... how Power especially works. That its empire on people's lives isn't grounded merely on coertion or "unjustified authority", but rather on a consensus by compromise and/or self-interest, which equates to Voluntary Servitude.

There is coercion... that is being used in the name of whatever spook the State claims to represent (God, the People, Democracy, the Community, etc), but those *actively* collaborating -more or less consciously- with its order are those making the State live and function.

anonymous (not verified) Sat, 12/06/2025 - 04:33

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

i mostly agree with your characterization of boétie's thinking (and i'm pleased to see him discussed, for a long time we didn't hear anything about him) but i don't think it's "blaming the victim" to talk about ways the oppressed participate in their own oppressions and what agency they actually have (political agency, not the anarcho-lib pr firm).

to me boétie is challenging those with the most to gain from liberation to confront the 'cop inside their heads.' many people all over the world endure oppression because they believe it's divinely merited, the result of their own moral failings, determined by birth or destiny etc

anonymous (not verified) Sat, 12/06/2025 - 07:36

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Boétie was part of a long, not exclusively Western, yet somewhat marginalized tradition of social-political thinkers, writers and satirists who conducted a critical analysis of the State they're under, without going around with an @ on their t-shirts and starting another stupid AFed along with a Reddit sub and do stupid long-ASSemblies only a handful of people care about... That's what makes him an unavoidable read to anarchists newbies, instead of fake-clowns like Chumpsky and your usual, lesser-clownish but outdated package deal of Indusrial-era workerist authors/orgnaziers.

...and isn't that odd how a Late Medieval thinker like Boétie is more actual than a Kropotkin or Malatesta, ACKTCHOALLY!

anonymous (not verified) Sat, 12/06/2025 - 08:25

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

that's why i don't fuck with Boétie, getting rid of the cop in ones head doesn't negate the actual cop on the street. There is a personal aspect to liberation, of course, and yet the most free person in their head can still end up in prison or a slave. my issue with Boétie is this notion of voluntary servitude is only ever only half (if that) of oppression, there are systems and people who have a lot to gain by our unfreedom. putting the emphasis on personal liberation rather lets oppressors off the hook. it's a both/and not an either/or.

lao tsu (not verified) Sat, 12/06/2025 - 21:21

I appreciate the kick in the ass. It reminds me of being young and first getting ahold of egoist literature. How great to actually be challenged to think for oneself and live differently. Although, that used to be a lot easier. These days it actually seems like too tall of an order. Shit is really bleak and sad.

I'm currently very depressed because I have been working full-time for a while now as opposed to living more scrappy and free. I'm doing it because I want to buy some land to go fuck off with loved ones. But holy shit it is so much more difficult than I expected to work like this and not succumb to a numb and distracted life, hungry for convenience. So far removed from my old sense of freedom and desire for my own life.

On this note, whenever I read from people who live on land, I always wonder how they swung it. I wish every writer would include a disclaimer about how their land was purchased. I would love to one day be able to reflect on a couple decades of living off grid. But getting the land in the first place frequently seems impossible, even with a full-time job. Life would be pretty sick if I could go back to being a freewheeling kid with no job and then also somehow get a hold of land. But that didn't happen, so here I am.

So, I'm thankful for this essay. I'm inspired to try harder to be connected to the life I want to live, even though I'm currently doing the dumb thing of living a life I don't want to live in order to get there. At the same time, I wish that, in general, people who live on land would write about how to actually logistically get there. Someone, please. Anyone?

anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/07/2025 - 06:51

In reply to by lao tsu (not verified)

By far, the most difficult part is the psychological toll it takes on anyone who endeavors. The main way it's feasible is to be extremely rural, which most simply aren't cut out for or at least prepared. The other way is interpersonal conflict if it's multiple folks.

I have done it successfully despite all my trials. If folks want the personal nit and grit I can detailed it in a later response. For now I will just give instructions for the escape.

You're going to need tens of thousands. Between $25-75k. I don't recommend going lower than like $60-65k. The exception would be if you learned licensed plumbing and electrical wiring ahead of time.

1. Buy land cheap. $5-12k USD.
2. Building permit. $500.00+
3. Prebuilt roof, rafters, exterior walls. Minimum 300 sq. ft. for code, but some places it's higher (or lower). Slab or brick foundation. $4.5-10k+ min.
4. Frame it out. $3k-$25k.
5. Plumbing & electrical. $4-15k.
6. Windows and doors. Salvage if possible. $2-10k.
7. Heaters. At least $1k.
8. Well/water system. Cheapest thing is to bury two 500 gal tanks and call it a cistern or well. Be careful with the inspector here. Easy to trick 'em but just watch what you say. Traditional well system will be at least $9k.
9. Driveway/gravel. Could be nothing, could be $10k+.
10. Gutters. $1-1.5k min.

lao tsu (not verified) Sun, 12/07/2025 - 08:49

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Thank you for detailing costs. However, my question was about how people come up with that sum of money in the first place.

Riversong (not verified) Sun, 12/07/2025 - 14:39

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

This back to the land ethic, shades of "Living the Good Life" while admirable, is still just nibbling around the edges.

Everything you list, and pretty much everything the OP discusses, is 100% dependent on fossil fuels.

Until one pursues a life 100% without fossil fuels (just thinking about it is nearly impossible) you remain enmeshed in an unsustainable enslaving paradigm.

OP, tell me, where does your food come from? How did you build your dwelling? And keep it warm? Do you weave the fabric for your clothing from wool, linen, or silk that you raise? Buckskin and fur robes? Do you travel exclusively on foot or horseback?

All of the OP's criticism and aspirations, while valid, remain entrenched in obliviousness.

Tell me, how do you actually live? That is what matters.

Is there anyone out there even attempting to live without reliance on fossil fuels other the the handful of truly uncontacted indigenous tribes remaining?

I think I'm going to start googling what life in Feudal Japan or Dynastic China was like. Maybe those cultures could be emulated. They certainly weren't anarchic but maybe they were sustainable while developing arts and philosophies.

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/08/2025 - 10:11

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Aaaand have ye forgot the obligatory F-350??? And I don't mean just one duh.

Also cleancut lawns over all the property that's not being used for gardening, plz.

And 20 ft Muhmuhmuhrikan flag, better have that!

Anything less is "misery" for poor dumpster-divin' ANTIFA anarchists.

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/08/2025 - 07:45

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Yeeeeees! "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" was the old GERMANIC NEOPAGAN SACRED WISDOM recycled from grandpa, to show us all the way to liberation from the poor!!! Nice trolling btw. Almost had me.

GEF (not verified) Sun, 12/07/2025 - 10:28

In reply to by lao tsu (not verified)

I'm doing it because I want to buy some land to go fuck off with loved ones"

Unfortunately, it appears you got lured into the same-old Frontier American Dream. Because going to the cities was a flawed plan, then it's "back to the land" but legalist style. Trend's been going since the 17th century. Classic liberal freedum.

The only real "back to the land" is Land Back. i.e. Abolish or at least avoid property schemes. Coz in many places property means... taxes, insurances, speculation on value, becoming a private owner, and other beauties like these. And that even doesn't imply fucking farming. Just live off both nature and the mass consumer 'conomy, 'til 'conomy crashes and you can only live off nature.

Still wanna go for the agro-psychosis? Then find a spot of land where nobody cares, near a (hopefully clean) water source, and ideally with enough organic residue around to fertilize the soil. Want guarantees? There's none... but then again, the Weather God never provides with guarantees. A severely dry season can do a lot worse than deers and rodents eating off from your crops. Or you might as well become full pagan shit and do sacrifices or whatev for better crops... i.e. bring the agro-psychosis to new levels.

Then if you come across scarcity, then just move somewhere else, or go full warrior and loot wealthier villages, lol (i.e. "mankind") At least that's what I do in the more affluent areas in town!

LETS BE MINDFUL THO: this all has to do with acculturation. You can just go camp in the bush; everyone can do that as far as you can find a wild area. But starting a new life (not just surviving or a few days/weeks) for yourself and loved ones means to be adopting a social arrangement that does just what primitive social arrangements are meant to do. When a kid is born in your clan/tribe/family/elvish commune, then they'll have to learn become one of your kind, and be a Being as your culture defines it. So yes... you need a CULTURE. Or several. And a life-supporting culture.

lao tsu (not verified) Sun, 12/07/2025 - 12:15

In reply to by GEF (not verified)

It seems you have made a number of assumptions about my intentions and approach. But given that that's how you're entering the conversation, I don't wish to correct you. I hope it felt good to say your peace against a fiction.

anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/07/2025 - 16:16

In reply to by lao tsu (not verified)

an utopia. Which is far less utopian than starting a million dollars land project and still pretend you're going to... wait, what was your goal again? But sure, fine, have fun with power bills, mortgages & insurance companies, lol.

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/08/2025 - 11:13

In reply to by GEF (not verified)

"Unfortunately, it appears you got lured into the same-old Frontier American Dream"

that's not the only way to think about it or do it, especially as anarchists, but go ahead and make your flimsy boxes to put things into.

GEF (not verified) Tue, 12/09/2025 - 21:00

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Okay, your ridiculous hyper-normie post made it quite obvious you were just promoting investing tens of grands into some stupid legalist land project, not only despite the astronomical hikes in property prices in developed countries (reality, yea, fuck that!) but also, like, denying all the other, more anarchistic, more socially-critical alternatives there are.

So I dunno man... get yourself a few F-350s and a wife or several if you can afford, no one's gonna keep you from it (It's America!) so you can shit on all these poors doing their best to build personal autonomy without the need for money... but it's more of the same, you know, "class relations". People shitting on each other from the top all the way down, down, down.

I'd rather have the shit to blow up!

lao tsu (not verified) Sun, 12/07/2025 - 17:23

In reply to by lao tsu (not verified)

Damn I guess it was really my bad to think anyone might engage with this in earnest. I will not pose this question online again. People on here engage like they want all other anarchists to be miserable. I really feel sorry for everyone caught in this sad way of being. This is my last word, may you all be well.

CalvinSmith Mon, 12/08/2025 - 10:22

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

that kind of american individualist logic. I found out by talking to a lot of those people that they need a spouse, or at least some form of dedicated assistance, to make it work....since none of these internet ascetics actually want to be uncomfortable.

I already live in the country, and have for significant portions of my life, but the best reasons to do it are nature based...not some performative morality: "get off the internet"..."you see, i got off the internet, i'm a beekeeper now!"..."hey look everyone! You're stuck in your miserable work/consume/die type of existence, i've got some photos of trees!"

the thing that makes this anarchist-approved article above also so gut-wrenchly horrible and stupid is that literally every generation talks about how things used to be better in the past. Yup, it's called aging, we all nihilistically sail straight to our death...no sense in trying to reverse it....

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/08/2025 - 11:07

In reply to by CalvinSmith

no. wrong. your take is what is so "gut-wrenchly horrible and stupid" and, sadly, predictable. this generation is dealing with the unprecedented cyber reality. there has NEVER been anything so instantaneous, global, and psychologically controlling. it is the terrain and the culture. sorry you just peddle the same "oh, that's just how it goes" bullshit.

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/08/2025 - 15:57

In reply to by CalvinSmith

not arguing that this dynamic hasn't happen throughout history (you are not soooo much more interested in different time periods than others, sorry to pop your ego a bit), only that this time it is far different, as stated above. your this happens all the time is not sufficient.

CalvinSmith Mon, 12/08/2025 - 16:26

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

in others:

"(you are not soooo much more interested in different time periods than others, sorry to pop your ego a bit)"

maybe is related to this statement:

"People used to actually read books, real ones made of paper and ink..."

I personally tried to address this directly in a forum post, but it got erased. People haven't stopped reading books, not by a long shot: it only seems that they haven't, to the person who wrote the article, or people who somehow place a moral value on reading books.

Lmfao...what do i have next to the chair i'm sitting in:

"The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers", Epicurus, Epictetus, Lecretius, Marcus Aurelius, edited by W.J. Oates

"The Apology" by Xenophon, Translation by H.G. Dakyus. This one's an internet printout, but i have found that reading difficult texts requires this type of "Illogical" behavior.

"365 Days of Walking of Walking The Red Road", multiple authors.

"The Greek Sophists", multiple authors.

Also, let me share some facts to further outline what i was trying to say: the ancient greeks had a civilization BEFORE the Romans. So no, based on my research, it's not your wishy-washy "not arguing that this dynamic hasn't happen throughout history", it's that complaining about the times, and blaming it on young people, is consistent, and was possibly done by every generation.

Now in terms of our specific cybernetic times...one can look at the aspects instead of it instead of saying that we are above them. This, funny enough, is something that Epicurus was recommending to people in his letters as an antidote to anxiety.

And if you are still with me, let me ask something: so if i see an article that immediately possesses false bullshit, that i don't even need to research, then what the fuck is the point of reading the rest of it with caution? There's already so many whiny people...so much text...confrontational text elicits a confrontational reaction to me. Maybe you're different, maybe someone screaming bullshit into your ear is a form of self-improvement. I don't know.

CalvinSmith Fri, 12/12/2025 - 07:51

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

eventually. I opened it before putting on the table: the passage was about how white people tend to impose an agrarian mentality on natives, saying "why can't you be more like us?". The response of the person who was writing was saying that "well, why can't they be like us instead, with our hunting etc.?". Even though I am definitely of one of the whiter races (clearly northern european and british islands), i think such responses to a parochial culture are rather refreshing...

I just finished the section on epicurus in that book above i mentioned. The thing i like about him in particular is the elliptical form of moralism, but philosophy is rather excessively difficult...i think ill switch to 365 days so that i can continue appreciating ancient greek philosophy, lol.

CalvinSmith Mon, 12/08/2025 - 16:31

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

was the letter to that guy who killed the president, and yes i agreed with other parts of his instruction...but such raw instruction isn't particularly inspiring, especially since he's talking to left-wing internet activists.

And now you are illuminating why i don't really like those kinds of texts...where i live is being slowly developed, i've had fantasies about interrupting. Please stop coming here.

anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/09/2025 - 09:24

In reply to by CalvinSmith

You mean the anarchist Leon Czolgosz who shot and killed William McKinley in 1901, hmmm.

I read Black Blossoms too and did not find it "instructional" at all. I found it filled with personal reflections, critique, and poetry. It was refreshing. I don't think the author based on their writings and their lack of any real presence online writes for "left-wing internet activists", except maybe this piece as a "fuck off", but even this one seems more general to the modern human, with some side digs on anarchists today.

What do you enjoy reading?

And who are you asking to "Please stop coming here." ?

CalvinSmith Tue, 12/09/2025 - 12:28

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

My conversation with the anon i was responding to would have helped, if you like reading.

So it has been a while since i put that book back on my shelf. There was definetly a little instruction in there about what other people should do and shouldn't do, maybe i put it back for different reasons. The most pertinent thing, as i've already pointed out in these discussions, is that I.S. clearly doesn't care about the accuracy of their statements, and i addressed this more directly in a post erased by the anarchist news team...

There are dramatically more paperback booksales than ebook sales. But what I.S. says is that "people used to read books with ink", so the whole thing is revealed as just a solipsistic whining about modernity, and there's no shortage of those. If we are to be honest with ourselves, there's no way of comparing modernity to other time periods in a very useful way. Each "era" has its good and bad, and what a premsumptive new agey ass hat I.S. is for lecturing others on what he kmows about them...just based superficial features of interactioms. Im very tired of that self-help bullshit.

I like to read philosophy, i like fiction, and history/politics if they are not thoroughly bullshit or too dry and technical in nature.

anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/10/2025 - 08:52

In reply to by CalvinSmith

give me a fucking break. all you have to do is look at how the majority of the current form of modern humanity spends the majority of their waking hours, glued to a screen for just about all of their "connection" to the world outside of themselves. no, what we need no more of is apologist mealy-mouthed handwringers. oh, just go and get the chip already, you know you want to.

CalvinSmith Thu, 12/11/2025 - 08:32

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

the above article: the writer is not really doing anything other than rehashing typical complaints, and i was able to figure out why i put "black blossoms" down...the main purpose with I.S.'s writing is it's just posturing. He wants you to think that he's so different, that he has genuinely escaped "the masses", but the fact that his article shows up on here is proof of the contrary.

I'm very much interested in criticizing popular opinion, and the sentimental/moralistic opinions that people tend to have about politics and the actual living creatures who live on this planet...and yes, this resembles those kinds of superficial, perl-clutching moralistic diatribes. I don't read content just because other people tell me to do it, and i don't lavishly praise authors just because of some little "true" morsel they drop for people who they want to convert into fans.

"...the current form of modern humanity spends the majority of their waking hours, glued to a screen for just about all of their "connection" to the world outside of themselves."

"First and foremost, the Good Cause, then God’s cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of humanity, of justice; further, the cause of my people, my prince, my fatherland; finally, even the cause of Mind, and a thousand other causes. Only my cause is never to be my concern. "Shame on
the egoist who thinks only of himself!"

-Stirner

Fuck your "humanity". You make a good a good point in saying that people spend a lot of time on their computers these days, but the fact you phrase it in such catastrophic, fear-oriented ways, shows that you are in fact one of the screen-glued people you're complaining about.

I'm so fucking sick of this shit...you don't really understand how to use the internet as a form of self-reflection, so you just blindly project your dogmatic crap onto other people you don't even know.

"oh, just go and get the chip already, you know you want to."

only the hugest morons promote wildness, the eating of vegetables, rebellion, and anarchism, and at the same time try to shame potato chips and those who eat them. You ascetics are all the fucking same, what a tragedy that anarchist news embraces asceticism and shallow condescension...

CalvinSmith Mon, 12/08/2025 - 10:13

In reply to by lao tsu (not verified)

doesn't really fly in my book as decent conversation...but thecollective in their typical anti-social and repressive manner erased it...i guess by silencing me, they are doing the tr00 work of revolution, whereas me wanting to expand on the "get off the internet" theme is bad and archist. That's all i can get out of it.

CalvinSmith Mon, 12/08/2025 - 12:45

In reply to by lao tsu (not verified)

that, I'll humor you and pretend you are actually asking for help...

Overall, you can get to better "simple living" ideas through other routes than working all the time, moving to the country, or flogging yourself over someone's need for internet dopamine (I don't know anything about your life, but the last on the list is a genuine description of your post. Maybe you also wrote the article, and are generating the dopamine circle yourself, and if this is the case...I commend your ingenuity and machiavellian fervor.

If you like philosophy, then it's important to remember that it's just a product of someone else's imagination, and it can only be egoistically useful if the ideas themselves are not using us. For example, a lot of what Lao Tzu and Epicurus wrote has been converted into minimalism. While the remnants of that ethical system may be of use to us at times, one also doesn't need minimalism. It's just another toy, just another structure from within a gigantic world of structures. Asceticism was the most brutally criticized by Friederich Nietzsche, if you want to look more into that without all this taunting bullshit you find on a website like this one.

Bjorn Olson (not verified) Sun, 12/07/2025 - 10:53

The inner angle in my head often wins and the vitriolic devil is usually asked to shut his mouth least he alienate himself further. Likely a carry-over from the farther's Lutheran upbringing. But hot damn I love reading your words. They spit like lyrical molten hot venom. Makes me a little jealous.
That said, I am wicked charmed to be surrounded by people that have already, by and large, dropped out; people who live by their own rules and are under no one's enchantment but their own. Most of them have never even heard of Kropotkin, Malatesta, Zerzan, or Bakunin, too, which gives me a certain kind of hope.

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/08/2025 - 08:57

In reply to by Bjorn Olson (not verified)

"I am wicked charmed to be surrounded by people that have already, by and large, dropped out; people who live by their own rules and are under no one's enchantment but their own. Most of them have never even heard of Kropotkin, Malatesta, Zerzan, or Bakunin, too, which gives me a certain kind of hope."

that is the point, right?
not to be trapped in endless battles, scenes, or politics DEFINED by society. being friends and collaborators with the author of this piece, i think they would totally agree.

CalvinSmith Fri, 12/12/2025 - 11:40

In reply to by Bjorn Olson (not verified)

responded so positively to the article is that i do wish it were possible to stop using the internet for longer than a couple of weeks...and then maybe it would be truly possible to only be enchanted by yourself. To create ALL your stuff (your computer, your pen, your food), to no longer need the glow of american entertainment, to only be regulated by other people not bound up in servitude, to get all your info more eadily through word of mouth, etc.

But no, it's just cookie cutter trolling. It's not even as nice to read as his booklet "black blossoms at the end of the world". It really isn't that hard to write something that, i've been attacked now at least 3 times for opposing. Doesn't that sound familiar "help, i've been canceled! Times these days are sooo aithoritarian!"

To me, decent writing is showing you can walk the walk...claims to greatness are an immediate disqualification, because i kmow that people aren't that great. Imagine being against the masses, but still using the cheap tricks to get people on your side. Do you think he makes his whiskey too?

Lang Gore (not verified) Tue, 12/09/2025 - 11:51

Writing with blood is still writing, as Nicanor Parra recognized in his poem "I Take Back Everything I've Said":

Before I go
I'm supposed to get a last wish:
Generous reader
burn this book
It's not at all what I wanted to say
In spite of the fact that it was written with blood
It's not what I wanted to say.

No lot could be sadder than mine
I was defeated by my own shadow:
The words take vengeance against me.

Forgive me, reader, good reader,
If I cannot leave you
With a faithful gesture. I leave you
With a forced and sad smile.

Maybe that's all I am
But listen to my last word:
I take back everything I've said.
With the greatest bitterness in the world
I take back everything I've said.

God King Mon, 12/15/2025 - 16:44

So, as Invecchiare Selvatico aged, they've become more conservative, per-se, with their thoughts and ideas about how things should be done, but those damn kids want to do things their own way. Fucking kids not listening to their elders.

Imo, this article reads like those middle-age people that complain about the newer generations behaving and doing things differently than they did when they were young. Guaranteed y'all have encountered these types. It's a vicious cycle.

Deicide queen (not verified) Mon, 12/15/2025 - 17:02

In reply to by God King

Just re-read the essay. Invecchiare didn’t complain about the kids, he complained about people. Specifically about how they are trapped in a technocratic and cybernetic system. And how they have resigned themselves to this. The Silicon Valley elite are finalizing a fucking coup, and you cry because he hurt your feelings? I bet you already have one of Musk’s jacks.
Re-read this essay and think about how annoying social media obsessed boomers are. The hate is inter generational.
On a final note, I can’t understand a single point Calvin is trying to make. Ever.

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/15/2025 - 17:09

In reply to by God King

imo, as someone who is probably the same age as Invecchiare, I agree with the advice and sense of urgency. Especially "I think most people today are posers, tourists, followers, and bottom feeders."

It can't be a 'vicious cycle' when the human species (not to mention all the others) are at death's door; the planetary cycles are altogether about to end, and i took this post as Invecchiare trying to assert the urgency. that's what I took from it anyway. i'm in process of doing exactly what they are advocating.

CalvinSmith Tue, 12/16/2025 - 12:29

Example of internet of internet trolling, its sheer emptyness creates dumb conversation feedback loops:

"The Great Resignation is here. On every level (macro, micro, internal, external, social, culturural, relational, spiritual, existential, everywhere in every way) most people seem to have given up. They wave the submissive white flag of acquiescence, NOT on some vague delusions of an abstract fantastical revolutionary moment just over the next dung hill, NOT on neurotic ticks and predictable rhetoric of moral and ideologically-driven societal change, NOT on vague notions of “making it” or entitled feelings of “deserving it”, BUT on the only meaningful context that matters… ON THEIR VERY LIVES. They have resigned themselves to this fabricated, derivative, and exponentially dismal and disenchanted cold dead world. Despite empty echo-chamber rhetoric and pale performative gestures, most have accepted Their terms, Their roles, and Their means, with the only protest: limbs limply dangling, feet lazily dragging, tongues reflexively regurgitating, and thumbs robotically swiping; but still onward they march, slothfully like the slavish slugs they have become, maybe always were (but I still hope not, despite my general cynicism)."

"I should add here the vital disclaimer that I am NOT talking about what we can actually do in our own lives, away from society’s highly-anesthetized torture and disfiguring technics and Their ever-piling garbage heap and reasons for and methods of manufacturing it. We are still living beings. This is where we should never give up or resign, the ongoing creation of our lives, at least until we are ready to feed back into the vast micronutrients of the organic process. This is the challenge. This is the point. Do you even want to be alive anymore? If not, well… you still have options."

So he backtracks on what he already said...

Everything about this article just SCREAMS bullshit...apparently he lives some vast and full nature based life, in harmony with those he loves, in harmony with his surroundings. But then in miserable despair, finds the time rant about the fictional "great resignation". This was already a term to refer to other kinds of resignation, but here it's totally vague what he means. Is he mad about people not paying attention to him, and that's "resignation"?

anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/17/2025 - 07:23

In reply to by CalvinSmith

Calvin. you domesticated troll. Where is the "backtracking"? I don't see it. These statements seem very clearly connected, especially when put into the context of the entire piece. I don't think they said anything about living in any perfection, just the direction they are going and what they are attempting to refuse. I also don't read any "miserable despair", just an attempt to find joy in their life and a disgust with humanity, something I completely resonate with. And the whole "finds the time to rant" comments always reek of BULLSHIT to me. For some, writing is a creative act, not a chore. But the stupidest comment here: "Is he mad about people not paying attention to him, and that's "resignation"?". Get over yourself dude. You seem to be the one needing to comment everywhere on the site all of the time, getting particularly obsessed with certain pieces. Turn off your screen. Go outside, breathe. Maybe all of your misplaced hostility will find a deserving home. Unless of course, you are AI.

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