>> January 9, 2020
>> Blog Post #9
It’s time to make a push.
Make a stand, be heard, push the boundaries,
create space for the future you want for others & yourself and are
committed to building.
I’ve had a strange feeling this year. I’ve felt
that I knew the answer to a question while having very strong doubts about the answer
at the same time. I don’t know if it’s intuition versus caution (my system 1 vs
system 2 struggle that I introduced here) or only
that I probably need to think about it more and have more of a game plan.
“Opt Out” – messages that are as simple and as
loaded as this one are so powerful.
I have been attending a fascinating conference
for a few years. It is called the Hackers Conference Paralelni Polis or HCPP. The Institute of Cryptoanarchy, Paralelni
Polis, is a hacker space that was created a few years ago by hackers, artists
and activists in downtown Prague. (this my very approximative description – don’t
shoot me). Anyway! It’s a place that promotes and encourages freedom, experimentation
and activism.
Each and every year the HCPP conference brings
together a very committed crowd of people of all horizons that probably only share
their wish for freedom. There are talks, workshops, parties for a few days (and
it’s the only conference that is smart enough to have NO morning events – just saying)
and each conference is held under a specific yearly theme.
Opt Out
This year’s theme – Opt Out – immediately hit a
nerve. It’s probably the best theme they ever chose. No! It IS the best theme
they ever chose. (2018 – “New Order”, 2017 – “Liberate”, 2016 “Decentralized”
for some examples).
Opting out, is choosing to withdraw yourself
from a situation, an environment that is not suitable for you. For people like
myself, who have become convinced over the past few years that the way our
current systems, countries, governments work is morally unethical and
unacceptable, opting out is an evidence. I have already slowly taken some steps
that remove me from the daily control that was exerted on me although I had
never approved it. Yet, there is further to go.
Opting out is therefore exercising your free
will, reclaiming some liberty. But it is also deepening your knowledge about
just how much you had unknowingly accepted or taken for granted and embarking
on a lifelong journey.
But at some point, you wonder what there is to
build, or at least I do. Removing yourself from one world doesn’t mean you need
to abandon everything. It means you want it differently. And what does not
exist in a format you can accept; you have to build another way. My gut feeling
is that next year, or maybe further down the road, HCPP will choose a slogan
that will capture the essence of what there is to build and how to build it
with others.
Opting out doesn’t mean being by yourself.
Opting out means you care about certain values, that might be more important than
comfort or material things. It does not in any case mean you do not want to
build relationships and a society with others who share those.
So, the question is how small is this crowd
that you will be building with. Is it small and in need or remaining “underground”
or is it an early manifestation of the street getting ready for a change of
scenery?
I will reserve my answer as I ponder a little
more.