A text dump on Pierce Skinner

Pierce ran the zine series ‘Garden’, then went to jail for child sexual abuse related crimes. He is now denounced by his former collaborators. However, he is still promoted by Mongoose Distro & Uncivilized Distro.

He raised $960 on the pretence that the cops were persecuting him solely for his political beliefs, failing to mention that he had child sexual abuse material on his devices.

Help a pedophile scammer’s mental health in prison if you like by sending him letters and books, just be aware of who you’re writing to.

Write to Pierce!

Source:
<instagram.com/p/DMOEYm3SHnD/>

Note: Pierce is using his anti-tech writing to claim ‘political prisoner’ status.

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Yours For Wild Nature needs books

Source: @all-things-are-nothing-to-me on Tumblr
<tumblr.com/all-things-are-nothing-to-me/771969843006193664/butlerian-manifesto-by-yours-for-wild-nature>

---

Inmate Locator — Virginia Department of Corrections

Source: <https://vadoc.virginia.gov/general-public/inmate-locator>

---

Name: Franklin Pierce Skinner

Age/Race/Sex: 36/White/Male

Location: Lunenburg Correctional Center

Inmate I.D.#: 2177819

Release Date: 11/29/2027

Sex Offender Registry Page

Source: <https://www.vspsor.com/Offender/Details/2b732b1b-5f32-4ff9-af96-ba0d645c181c>

FRANKLIN PIERCE SKINNER

Registration Number: 302049

Status: Incarcerated

Age: 36

Tier: Tier 3

Lifetime Registration: Yes

Reg. Renewed: Initial Registration

Start Date: 06/02/2024

Sex: MALE

Race: WHITE

Hair: COMPLETELY BALD

Height: 6’ 0”

Weight: 180 lbs

Eyes: HAZEL

Addresses

Primary Address: DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
6900 ATMORE DRIVE
RICHMOND, Virginia 23225

Work Address: Not Employed

Aliases

None Found

Convictions

18.2–374.3(B) — COMPUTER: USE TO COMMIT CERTAIN SEX.OFF. W/MINOR -

Date Convicted: 05/30/2024

Conviction State: Virginia

Court: Virginia Beach Circuit Court

Court Case Number: CR2300229801

Victim Age: Unknown

18.2–374.1:1(C)(i) — CHILD PORN:REPRODUCE/TRANSMIT/SELL,ETC., -

Date Convicted: 05/30/2024

Conviction State: Virginia

Court: Virginia Beach Circuit Court

Court Case Number: CR2300229800

Victim Age: Unknown

18.2–370.1 — INDECENT LIBERTIES WITH CHILD BY CUSTODIAN -

Date Convicted: 01/09/2024

Conviction State: Virginia

Court: Virginia Beach Circuit Court

Court Case Number: CR2300005100

Victim Age: Unknown

List of criminal court cases Pierce has faced for child abuse

Source: Virginia Judiciary Online Case Information System.
<eapps.courts.state.va.us/ocis/landing>

Virginia Beach General District Court

GC23008437-00

Defendant: SKINNER, FRANKLIN PIERCE

Offense Date: 08/01/2023

Charge: SEXUAL OFF W/MINOR BY COMPUTER

Hearing: 11/17/2023

Code Section: 18.2–374.3

Disposition: CERTIFIED TO GRAND JURY

Virginia Beach Circuit Court

CR23002298-00

Defendant: SKINNER, FRANKLIN PIERCE

Offense Date: 06/20/2023

Charge: REPRODUCE/TRANSMIT CHILD PORN

Hearing: 08/15/2024

Code Section: 18.2–374.1:1

Disposition: GUILTY

Disposition Date: 05/30/2024

Concluded By: GUILTY PLEA

Jail/Penitentiary: PENITENTIARY

Sentence Time: 20 Year(s)

Sentence Suspended: 15 Year(s)

Probation Type: INDEFINITE SUPERVISION

Probation Time: 5 Year(s)

Virginia Beach Circuit Court

CR23002298-01

Defendant: SKINNER, FRANKLIN PIERCE

Offense Date: 06/20/2023

Charge: USE COMPUTER TO PROCURE MINOR

Hearing: 08/15/2024

Code Section: 18.2–374.3

Disposition: GUILTY

Disposition Date: 05/30/2024

Concluded By: GUILTY PLEA

Jail/Penitentiary: PENITENTIARY

Sentence Time: 5 Year(s)

Sentence Suspended: 5 Year(s)

Probation Type: INDEFINITE SUPERVISION

Probation Time: 5 Year(s)

Virginia Beach Circuit Court

CR23002298-02

Defendant: SKINNER, FRANKLIN PIERCE

Offense Date: 06/20/2023

Charge: SOLICITATION TO COMMIT FELONY

Hearing: 08/15/2024

Code Section: 18.2-29/18.2–61

Disposition: GUILTY

Disposition Date: 05/30/2024

Concluded By: GUILTY PLEA

Jail/Penitentiary: PENITENTIARY

Sentence Time: 5 Year(s)

Sentence Suspended: 5 Year(s)

Probation Type: INDEFINITE SUPERVISION

Probation Time: 5 Year(s)

Virginia Beach General District Court

GC23008436-00

Defendant: SKINNER, FRANKLIN PIERCE

Offense Date: 06/20/2023

Charge: CHILD PORN:COPY/XMIT/SELL-ETC

Hearing: 11/17/2023

Code Section: 18.2–374.1:1

Disposition: CERTIFIED TO GRAND JURY

Powhatan Circuit Court

CR23000051-00

Defendant: SKINNER, FRANKLIN PIERCE

Offense Date: 04/05/2022

Charge: INDECENT ACT W/CHILD CUSTODIAN

Hearing: 01/09/2024

Code Section: 18.2–370.1

Disposition: GUILTY

Disposition Date: 01/09/2024

Concluded By: GUILTY PLEA

Jail/Penitentiary: PENITENTIARY

Sentence Time: 5 Year(s)

Sentence Suspended: 5 Year(s)

Probation Type: INDEFINITE SUPERVISION

Probation Time: 5 Year(s)

Probation Starts: PROBATION TO BEGIN UPON SENTENCING

Powhatan Circuit Court

CR23000051-01

Defendant: SKINNER, FRANKLIN PIERCE

Offense Date: 04/05/2022

Charge: AGG SEX BATTERY:TYPE NOT CLEAR

Hearing: 01/09/2024

Code Section: 18.2–67.3

Disposition: NOLLE PROSEQUI

Disposition Date: 01/09/2024

Concluded By: NOLLE PROSEQUI

Buckingham Circuit Court

CR23000002-00

Defendant: SKINNER, FRANKLIN PIERCE

Offense Date: 07/09/2021

Amended Charge: AGG SEX BATTERY:TYPE NOT CLEAR

Hearing: 07/31/2023

Amended Code Section: 18.2–67.3

Disposition: NOLLE PROSEQUI

Disposition Date: 07/31/2023

Concluded By: NOLLE PROSEQUI

Buckingham Circuit Court

CR23000003-00

Defendant: SKINNER, FRANKLIN PIERCE

Offense Date: 07/09/2021

Charge: INDECENT ACT W/CHILD CUSTODIAN

Hearing: 07/31/2023

Code Section: 18.2–370.1

Disposition: NOLLE PROSEQUI

Disposition Date: 07/31/2023

Concluded By: NOLLE PROSEQUI

Help me with a deposit for my legal team.

Date: 15 August 2022

Source:
<https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-me-with-a-deposit-for-my-legal-team?utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer>

---

$960 USD raised

This fundraiser is no longer accepting donations. If you are the organiser, beneficiary, a team member or donor, sign in for further details.

Pierce Skinner is organising this fundraising appeal on behalf of Gabriella Aguilar.

---

Hello. My name is Pierce Skinner. I publish a bi-monthly magazine dedicated to individual liberty and opposition to tyranny and unwarranted government surveillance. This magazine is called GARDEN.

On July 4^th, I and others who will remain anonymous collaborated to publish legal--albeit sensitive--information in Issue 3 of our magazine. We have remained within the boundaries of the First Amendment in every possible way, and violated no laws in our publication.

However, on August 10^th, the Department of Homeland Security raided my home and seized my phone without a warrant. Since then, my Instagram and Discord have been deleted.

Beyond this, I am unable to go into detail, as this is an active investigation.

I have hired two high-powered attorneys to aid in my defense and help me combat this egregious violation of my rights.

I am able to enter into a payment plan with my attorneys. However, I need a little help with the deposit.

If you have followed GARDEN on this journey, or if you value free speech, please donate to help me. I am in the claws of a terrible machine.

Always Yours For Wild Nature,

Pierce Skinner

---

Organiser and beneficiary

Organiser: Pierce Skinner, Richmond, VA

Beneficiary: Gabriella Aguilar

---

Created 15 August 2022

Discord Logs

Source:
<discord.gg/FqJUTN4NVM>

Note: Here are a bunch of logs from the ‘United Neo-Luddist Front’ server that show Skinner ingratiating himself then later pretending he was being persecuted solely for his political beliefs.

20/07/2022 03:14

YxngElmo280: @Pierce you’re through

Pierce: Oh cool.

YxngElmo280: So at the moment we are looking for land and discussing the intricacies of the village

Pierce: West Virginia is my vote. Cheap, zero regulations, people leave you alone, arable land for most of the year. Listen rn, it’s time for my bedtime ritual but tomorrow id like to get into the details of this group. Our goals are the same, I assure you.

Deleted User: I agree.

20/07/2022 12:50

Pierce: Re: Eastern Europe, I know the land is farmable but I know precious little else. Gun laws, restrictions on land use. Ideally the land we’d be on would have a well, but do you have to have septic tanks? These are questions I have.

Also, are there hot chicks?

Deleted User: Also for gun laws, really its not a concern, well register our land as a shooting range on paper or well just have one hunting rifle stashed somewhere in the village and pass it around according to need

Nobodys going to ever find out anyways, if were far enough in the rural area

Pierce: I work remotely as a video editor and I publish a magazine called GARDEN that could be profitable if I didn’t make it free cuz of morals. Also I’ve worked in restaurants so I can cook shit. Work won’t be an issue on my end.

Deleted User: Youre the publisher of garden?

eh: you’re the dude behind that???

Pierce: Relieved. Im becoming more convinced.

Deleted User: Holy shit, look at that

Love your work man

Pierce: Ah yes I am GARDEN. Well, me and a handful of others.

eh: woah.

Pierce: Thank you!

eh: we know who you are

you’re pretty known around here lol

good stuff, keep it coming

Deleted User: Its top tier

skull emoji: Can you link your magazine?

Pierce: Hahaha cool. Thanks! Yes we have two issues in the works, one will be a companion to issue 3 with more information about the 9 substations and stuff and then issue 4 will be more about self sufficiency.

Pierce: readgarden.org

Website is shit for mobile, but the PDF’s and the Amazon links are there.

YxngElmo280: Garden 2 was so good, the part about beauty in nature was spot on

Pierce: I will be happy to tell the individual that wrote it you said so! That’ll make their day.

skull emoji: Yeah website is almost unusable on mobile, I’ll look at it on my PC when I get back

Pierce: ANYWAY back to Romania. What is the topography like? Mountains?

YxngElmo280: Ill have a look rn

Deleted User: Mountains and hills i figure, havent looked too deep

But of course therell be forests and all that

skull emoji: Lots of hills / mountains. Lots of trees and some open fields too.

Pierce: Hey I’m a Luddite what do you want from me? Lol. Nah, the fella that made the site used some Swiss server so it couldn’t get yanked down ever. The downside is the usability is like 1995.

Deleted User: So you could almost say ideal

skull emoji: Yes

Pierce: If we find some sick land in Romania, that might be the direction to head in.

skull emoji: We oughta learn some Romanian beforehand and not go in blind

Deleted User: Romania has the cheapest land in europe by acre im pretty sure

eh: And while I agree with that, let’s take it further. Let’s say our village goes really well and we get media attention. People are getting into the anti-tech thing.

Someone finds out we’ve been hunting illegally (the precise thing doesn’t matter, it’s a hypothetical). The media gets a hold of that knowledge and uses it to demonise our village and our movement.

eh: Bulgaria is also very cheap, having checked

Pierce: I agree with @sage that we have to do everything by the book until we don’t have to anymore.

skull emoji: >Romanian police raids us

Image

Deleted User: Romanian police doesnt give a fuck

Their salary is 700dollars a month

Give them 500dollars and theyll piss off for good

Pierce: But initially, all our paperwork has to be in order and everything has to be done legally JUST for the sake of legitimizing the movement.

That’s my position.

Deleted User: Fair point

Pierce: Otherwise they’ll call us a cult and squatters or bums or what have you.

Even Ted complied with Montana hunting laws. AND if the village ever gets involved in actually sabotage work, we need to look squeaky fuckin clean from the outside.

skull emoji: If this “plan” becomes a 100% real thing, this will take a solid 2 years of planning, and debating whether or not you would go through with it depending on how many people would actually go

eh: lol defo

eh: Yes. It’s very intensive work

Pierce: Of course there would be drop-offs. But I think anyone who commits money to it could be counted on.

And regardless, I’m still looking at land in WV like I said, so if this isn’t the path I’m to take, there’s always the opportunity to organize in the US.

But let’s see how far this Eastern Europe idea can take us for now.

20/07/2022 22:34

Deleted User: No

We took some elements from Zealot’s law that @YxngElmo280 agreed with and we took out the parts that he didn’t like

Also it’s no longer called Christian Common Law, it is now simply called common law

Old Man AngelEyes: As long as it has the fundamentals “no murder, no stealing” all that stuff who cares what religion it’s tied to

Deleted User: The only tie to religion it had was that it was called Christian law tbf

totallynotcal: im afraid that this is the end

Old Man AngelEyes: I know

Deleted User: What

We literally ensured that this won’t be an issue again

How does that mean it’s the end

If it happens again, it may be

But I highly doubt it will

totallynotcal: ill see but gtg for now sorry

Dante.: I guess it just wont be an issue again 😃

Deleted User: raahahahahahaha Pagang wins again

Deleted User: It was a compromise lol

Old Man AngelEyes: If it’s decided on then it’s whatever

Deleted User: Both sides benefit

Dante.: this has been an ongoing issue with religion and how village rules will be determined, and this is the most basic stuff too

Old Man AngelEyes: I’m okay with it

As long as I can practise my Wicca nature magik still

Deleted User: wasnt in the call already know the Prot — Pagang alliance remains victorious

Pierce: Here’s the only question that needs answering: Will individuals be able to live their lives how they see fit as long as no one else is injured by it?

Deleted User: You never weren’t allowed to lol

Deleted User: You always were allowed to

Old Man AngelEyes: @Deleted User do you know what the NAP is?

Deleted User: Yes

Pierce: Okay cool. That was what was bothering me.

eh: wait

so drugs?

Old Man AngelEyes: Of course drugs

Deleted User: Obviously not

so this means i can bring back the Ted Caliphate

Old Man AngelEyes: Oh

Deleted User: No recreational drugs

JackEdwin: I’ll be at a concert in the park with a friend at sunset ☀️

Old Man AngelEyes: Not even weed?

Deleted User: Unless it’s apart of your religion

Deleted User: No

YxngElmo280: Weed mushrooms and alcohol allowed

Deleted User: Ask Zealot

Deleted User: no crack? man fuck this movement

eh: “Here’s the only question that needs answering: Will individuals be able to live their lives how they see fit as long as no one else is injured by it?”

Old Man AngelEyes: It’s literally apart if gods creation

*of

eh: ahahahahhahha

that’s a good argument

Deleted User: Me and Zealot discussed this

You even agreed to it lol

Dante.: why cant this revert to a vote tho?

eh: yeah I did

Deleted User: Exactlr

eh: but I’m not really arguing for me

Deleted User: Im back on the crack

Cast a vote?

Why would a detox center have recreational drugs?

Dante.: As far as I’ve interpreted this everyone in the village will be equal?

Deleted User: im better than everyone so...

Old Man AngelEyes: Look man, I just wanna be old stoner man, who does the work he needs to and wakes and bakes everyday

Dante.: or is it hierarchal

Deleted User: Hold a vote on it?

This village acts as a detox center. That’s how we can acquire income.

Dante.: also what’s wrong with weed lol, its a natural plant

Old Man AngelEyes: I wanna do my Wicca nature magik, grow tobacco and potato’s, look after bees and get stoned

Dante.: so like people pay to live there?

Deleted User: We will have actual drug addicts live with us to escape from addiction

Since when

Old Man AngelEyes: No we won’t we’ll kick them out

Pierce: I don’t even smoke weed but this is annoying. Im out.

Deleted User: For 3 weeks

Deleted User: NO NO NO

STOP

I HAVE HELPED YOU UNGRATEFUL BASTARDS EVERY STEP OF THE WAY. NOW SHOW SOME FUCKING RESPECT OR ELSE I’LL LET ZEALOT DECIDE EVERYTHING FROM NOW ON.

30/07/2022 01:27

Gus Fring: I’m quite worried I’m on a watchlist now

Old Man AngelEyes: I definitely am

And I don’t care

Gus Fring: have you heard of yours for wild nature on insta

Old Man AngelEyes: Yes

Gus Fring: bought all of his books

Old Man AngelEyes: Didn’t he have a van outside his house the other day?

Gus Fring: ye it’s been there for months

Old Man AngelEyes: Is it actually surveillance or just him being paranoid?

Gus Fring: not sure

but I bought his books now I believe their is some watchlist that my name is on

because he has been put on a watchlist

YxngElmo280: He was on the server

Gus Fring: ye I remember

YxngElmo280: He left due to zelots chicanery

Gus Fring: messaged him on insta about it

told him I was disappointed that he left due to some of us bickering

he’s a good guy

cares for the movement

Old Man AngelEyes: I wish he was still in

Is he in any other discord servers,

I like his ideas

YxngElmo280: The garden server

I aspire to join the garden team

Thats my goal at the moment

Gus Fring: there is a garden server?

YxngElmo280: Only for garden members

Gus Fring: How do I become a member

YxngElmo280: Only for the team i mean

Gus Fring: how do I join

the team

YxngElmo280: Idk

I dont think you can really

Gus Fring: damn

Old Man AngelEyes: I wish he would join back here

Gus Fring: I like how on the back of Garden issue 3 it’s just laughing Ted

this is what he said when I messaged him

Image

Image

he just wants to find a devoted group that’s all

Old Man AngelEyes: Same here

Feel like this is the closest I’ll get though

Gus Fring: we are some what devoted

you all want to see a village be built

but it will be hard

our problem is the constant bickering we all must come to agree with one or another and not hold grudges

if someone is a problem or isn’t showing devotion then they must be kicked unless they change

like with shitposting it has stopped of course it’s good a tiny bit

but because we are very young most of the time shitpost is very consistent

so this rule is very good

and has helped with that problem

Old Man AngelEyes: Look

Sometimes being serious all the time dampens things, you have to have a bit of a laugh now and again

Gus Fring: ye of course

actually now I think about it

the rule should just be changed if too much shitpost is happening mods should stop it

eh: Updated them a couple days ago

Gus Fring: oh ye forgot about the new rules

I was going by the ones zealot made in announcements

Old Man AngelEyes: Just dedicate a channel to memes

Honestly best way

JackEdwin: What is this Garden thing y’all are talking about 👀?

A group wanting to build an off grid community that is closed off to outsiders?

Old Man AngelEyes: It’s a magazine

Hold up

Gus Fring: Image

a serious of books talking about revolution

Old Man AngelEyes: https://readgarden.org/ @JackEdwin

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: fuck that nibba man

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: man was not dedicated

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: ya its fine theb

Gus Fring: pierce?

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: yep

i said it

Gus Fring: he was only in here for a day

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: if the man can deal with some infighting he is not dedicated

Gus Fring: if that mf is willing to write about destroying power stations in a book which is publicised then he’s pretty dedicated

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: meh

YxngElmo280: Zealot hes far more dedicated than you or I

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: idk man

if we cant deal with some name calling

YxngElmo280: You could learn a thing or two from him

Gus Fring: I assume he doesn’t like the Christian shit

bruh

Image

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: that was one time

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: Christain Facists

did i get mentioned in a book

YxngElmo280: No

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: aww suchks

one day

Gus Fring: no

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: i know

would be funny if i did

Gus Fring: I think you should read his books zealot

Old Man AngelEyes: Dude wtf

Gus Fring: ?

Old Man AngelEyes: The dudes actually writing literature and you’re saying he’s not dedicated enough?

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: ya

Old Man AngelEyes: Bro..

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: anyone can get a book written and published nowdays

and just because its about deep ecology doesnt impress me

Old Man AngelEyes: Alright if we can all handle a little criticism here ima say it, but what have you actually done to help the cause? Like seriously. Other than set up this discord and shit on other people in the community what have you actually done?

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: 1. started a reddit to raise awareness about anti-tech, 2. raised money for the village project and 3. am working on a short story about the village

happy

“shit on people in the community”

Old Man AngelEyes: Alright that’s fair man

But still, that dude is pumping out good stuff and putting effort in as well as actually living a lifestyle we would all be attuned to

I’m gunna say it but I ain’t done Jack shit but I’m not gunna shit on anyone who is

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: ya but your critique isnt, saying that i shit on people at all is not fair, i built the village project with my own too hands, i spent 5 months creating subreddits and sreading the message and to say that i contribue nothing is an understatement to the higehest degree

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: that all well and good but

if this dude cant take a debate he will have no chance at living in the village

Old Man AngelEyes: Alright, I’ll admit I did under estimate how much you’ve done, that’s my bad

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: ok cool

we good

Old Man AngelEyes: And I get that, but I’ve joined a lot of servers myself that start with a Christian element and end up with a white nationalist one

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: bruh whiz nats are stupied

Old Man AngelEyes: He probably saw the Christian element and thought the same thing, I believe at that time that shit was going down with the rules and laws

Kacynksist_Zelot_FC: ye until we get to the village at least

Old Man AngelEyes: For sure

We’ll see

We good though

19/09/2022 22:00

Gus Fring: What’s happened with pierce

YxngElmo280: Stole his phone, fucked his life up

Gus Fring: Is he ok

YxngElmo280: He tried to od, he survived

Gus Fring: I know this

But has any more news came about him

YxngElmo280: No

Butlerian Manifesto

Author: Franklin Pierce Skinner (pseudonym: Yours For Wild Nature)

Source: <mongoosedistro.com/2024/12/09/butlerian-manifesto-by-yours-for-wild-nature>

---

There exists now no greater threat to life as we know it than Artificial Intelligence. It is the most insidious and inscrutable enemy human-kind has ever faced, short of the iron-banded hand of God, and it is being sold to us as our savior, as an artist, as an eager assistant ready to write the business-plan for your food truck.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, by its very existence, represents a slow and agonized extinction of mankind, one in which we are devoured from the inside out by a reasoning and efficient virus that does not hurry to destroy us utterly, but lets us live on with half a heart, half a lung, as the emotional, intellectual, and biological components of our species lose their value to the system and are discarded, creating of humanity nothing more than a lab animal so perforated by experimentation it no longer possesses even the dignity to beg for death. There is no greater threat and there has never been a greater threat. Artificial Intelligence must be destroyed in its every manifestation, in every part of the world.

Undoubtedly, when some readers come to the above phrase, “…there has never been a greater threat”, they are tempted to interject with something along the lines of, “Oh yeah? What about the atomic bomb?” Indeed, the dawning of the Atomic Age was, up to that point in history, the most daunting and terrifying threat to the planet. The truth is, however, that the nuclear bomb pales in comparison to Artificial Intelligence. How can this be? Firstly, for the simple and most direct reason that the nuclear threat to life could not be more obvious. Immediately after the first flames died both the public and the scientific community paused and knelt to remove their sandals, for they knew they stood on holy ground. They could see for themselves the devastation, the madness, the work of human hands, at Trinity, at Hiroshima, at Nagasaki. The threat of nuclear disaster was at once apparent. It took decades for scientists to convince the public that such technology held the promise of peaceful application in the form of “clean” energy, and even today – after Chernobyl, Three-Mile Island, Fukushima, Tsuruga, Goiania, Kerr-McGee, Sequoyah 1, Chelyabinsk-65, etc. – the world writ large still looks upon the “nuclear promise” with trepidation. Memories of fire die hard.

With AI, however, it is different; it is all the more dangerous because the threat is not obvious. There has been no fireball to announce its coming. You don’t need welding goggles to gaze upon it. At worst, AI has elicited a discomfited murmur from a minority of “concerned experts” while governments, corporations, and consumers have wasted no time finding every possible avenue for its application. The promises are first-come, and those who would try to convince us of the multitudinous dangers are drowned out by the fanfare of those who would welcome them. This reversal of the Atomic Age’s threat-promise dynamic makes the AI Age all the more pregnant with calamity. Its brightest promises are shallow. Its tamest threats are benthic. Even worse, in most cases the promise and the threat is one and the same.

Let’s start with the most glaring and apparent danger – that of militarized Artificial Intelligence. The technocrats with their AI promise the end of war with no less vehemence and naivete than Nobel with his stick of TNT. War, they coo, will be fought by intelligent machines, not poor and mangled men. Bloodless and exorcized of human error, the wars of the future will be fought on fields of algorithm and with mechanical certainty. Just as the Age of Flight brought an end to walled cities, AI comes now to render all previously held notions of armed conflict obsolete. Of course, the warlords say, such technology must be guided, safeguarded from corruption, applied ethically and responsibly. The technocrats and the barons of industry nod solemnly in agreement while at the same time they are busy fitting machine guns to robotic dogs. In September 2024, sixty-one countries, at a summit in Seoul, South Korea, endorsed a document pledging the “responsible” military use of AI.[1] Is there really anyone who could possibly be fooled by these prophecies, these platitudes, these preposterous and incondite lies? Who among our species would so readily hand the arsenal of the world – including nuclear warheads – to a machine intelligence designed by the lowest bidder on a government contract? And yet they exist, these people. They are in power. They are traitors to the human race and they are calling the shots.

The course of history from this point forward can by no means be predicted, organized, planned, or assured. AI-augmented warfare cannot be guided, safeguarded, or meaningfully regulated. To believe otherwise is folly. But one does not even need to imagine the breadth of potential doomsdays that lurk on the thresholds of a world governed by militarized Artificial Intelligence. They have already been imagined for us by countless authors of science-fiction.

The significance of science-fiction’s role in the history of technological advancement cannot be overstated. The very idea of an “atom bomb” was cribbed from the science-fiction novel The World Set Fire by H.G. Wells; The submarine and lunar voyages from Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The First Men in the Moon, respectively; the internet, imagined as “cyberspace” first appeared in the short story “Burning Chrome” by William Gibson; predictive policing methods in Philip K. Dick’s “Minority Report”; antidepressants and on-demand mood-stabilizing pills in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World; medical nanotechnology in Isaac Asimov’s Fantastic Voyage. Asimov’s once-fictional “Three Laws of Robotics” are to this day part of the curriculum at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The word “robot” is a Czech word meaning “slave” that first was applied to mechanical laborers in a science-fiction play called R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) by Karel Capek.[2] In fact, it is exactly those works of fiction that present rampant technological growth – especially AI – as an existential threat which seem to have inspired those who work to promote rampant technological growth in the real world. Those who today work on the advancement of AI are no exceptions. Indeed, they are paragons of the ironic relationship between fiction and science.

It is not only science-fiction – at which any priggish academic may look down their nose – that has concerned itself with the potential pitfalls of AI research. In fact, serious thinkers on both sides of the technological argument have expressed concern. As early as 2009, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, or AAAI, assembled with the goal of mitigating growing fears over the dangers of AI. Composed of scientists, the AAAI proposed such solutions as placing “limits on research” as well as the creation of a small, highly specialized “cadre” of scientific elites whose task it would be to “shape the advances and help society cope with the ramifications” of AI.[3] Of course, exactly what those limits were intended to be, or how they would be enforced, or how their elite cadre was to be chosen, or how said cadre would go about “shaping advances” or “helping society cope” all remain nebulous. But so what? It is safe to say that by now, no such vision has or will come to pass. Nor would it make a difference if such an effort were made, no matter how well-intended. To quote the venerable anti-technology thinker Theodore J. Kaczynski:

“Of course, the technophiles won’t be able to ‘shape the advances’ of technology or make sure they ‘improve’ society and are friendly to humans. Technological advances will be ‘shaped’ in the long run by unpredictable and uncontrollable power struggles among rival groups that will develop and apply technology for the sole purpose of gaining advantages over their competitors.”[4]

Any careful study of history shows that this is how it has always been, and there is no reason at all to believe anything will change when it comes to AI.

See these things. None of them are hard to imagine: Facial and biometric recognition systems in the hands of the military-industrial complex’s latest AI pet. Communities policed and adjudicated by predictive and carceral algorithms. Gun-mounted autonomous quadrapeds, faceless inhuman androids marching as “peacekeepers” in eerie synchronicity down our poorest streets. The same systems of violence, coercion, manipulation, and control that have made us into domestic animals augmented – if not wholly replaced – by an even more opaque and centralized system of surveillance and punishment, removed completely from the humanity it subjugates, dedicated with a single-mindedness unprecedented in history of those elite few individuals whose interests coincide momentarily with its own. These things await us if we do not act, and act now, and decisively.

But what about non-military applications of AI? What about AI in the workplace? In that case, we are looking at nothing less than the automation of industry. Not of an industry. All industry. Manufacturing, mining, construction, design, teaching, architecture, chemical processing. Airline pilots, tailors, cooks, taxi drivers, pizza delivery drivers, bowling alley attendants, congressmen, prime ministers, firefighters, custodians, doctors, surgeons, bartenders, sanitation works, nuclear physicists, retail workers…[5] The most innocuous – which is to say, the most obvious – non-military application of Artificial Intelligence results in the upheaval and eventual dissolution of the entire global economy. As human labor becomes increasingly unnecessary, it will simultaneously become more and more specialized so that only an elite few are able to remain as servants of the thinking machines. What, then, becomes of the rest of us, the workers?

If the machines are cruelly efficient, operating independent of human control, it is unlikely that the masses of humanity would be permitted to survive. We would be burdens on the functioning and advancement of a self-reliant, self-propagating system and it is by no means far-fetched to say that we would be summarily eliminated. This could be accomplished any number of ways: gradual or aggressive population control, eugenics programs, or outright butchery. Again, one may turn to science-fiction for their prophecy of choice. In a world governed by Artificial Intelligence, everything is not only possible, but permissible.

If, however, the human elite are permitted or able to retain some measure of control over the machines – a scenario that some might say is more likely – then it is possible that the human race may be allowed to survive. But as what? And in what form? The system of AI and its human elite (we will henceforth refer to this as a “cyborg system”, and a self-reliant AI as a “pure machine system”) will have quite a lot to deal with. While a pure machine system has the luxury of genocide, a cyborg system that chooses to retain a human population will be faced with providing material needs, physically and psychologically hygenic conditions, hobbies, or some kind of satisfactory activities, as well as judicial and disciplinary systems to a vast majority of human beings. If this sounds like a prison, or a zoo, bingo. We would become caged beasts, nothing more. And as those elements of human nature that may lead to dissatisfaction with such an existence – independence, autonomy, creativity, etc. – are “treated” and “eliminated”, we would cease to be anything even remotely human at all. Docile, conforming, psychically sedentary creatures without identity or purpose.

Oh, but wait! What of that diaphanous promise of old? That in a fully mechanized world, either cyborg or pure machine, without the burden of menial labor, humankind would at last be free to pursue the arts? To become painters and poets? I am sorry to say that that promise has been rescinded in light of recent developments. In fact, it has been the arts, the poetry, the dreams that AI has come for first. Artists, actors, screenwriters, authors, are all currently on the defensive as AI has proven its ability to reliably create marketable products, and corporations, small businesses, and production studios have demonstrated no reluctance to take full advantage of such technology. A few key words, the push of a button, a piece of art, a motion picture.[6] A hit song. The elfin longing for the shortening of the distance between imagination and creation has been realized by regurgitative machines immune from the need for compensation, missed deadlines, emotion, inspiration, artistic intent. Even our surrogate activities and our luxuries are being devoured by AI.

Why should we be surprised? Is there any facet of human existence that has not been befouled by industrial capitalism? Anything the technological system has touched, AI will come to dominate. From medicine to war to fine art and film and food production, every imaginable human endeavor will fall under the control of thinking machines. This will happen. It will likely happen in my lifetime. And once the machines are in control, turning them off will not be so simple. Once a certain threshold is passed, turning them off may in fact be tantamount to suicide. It is imperative that they be turned off now, while AI is still in its infancy.

It is an infancy that will not last long. Like the internet, its growth and sophistication will hurtle dizzyingly forward. Its impacts on the lives of individuals, communities, nations, the globe, will be enormous and wholly unpredictable. One needs only to look at the internet itself to understand this. What in 1990 was created as an environment in which scientists at a single laboratory in Switzerland could share information in 2021 was so ubiquitous and central to global economics that a single ransomware attack caused a multi-day shutdown of half the fuel supply to the east coast of the United States. What began as a network of a mere 23 computers in 1989 by 2024 has become a behemoth to threaten democracies around the world and, in the wake of ten-thousand lonely suicides, now comes with a Surgeon General’s Warning for its adverse effects on the mental health of children. What horrors await us if we allow AI to follow a similar course? What nightmares may come if AI is allowed to mature? This alien mind. This anti-human philosopher-king. There is no world in which human freedom and Artificial Intelligence can coexist.

It would be a mistake not to mention, also, the direct environmental impact of AI. When we are already (in 2024) living with climate catastrophes on unprecedented scales with increasing regularity, in a world already poised to pass the 2° Celsius threshold decades earlier than previously predicted, the energy demanded by AI is staggering.

In 2019, researchers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst trained several large language AI models while measuring their carbon footprint. They found that just training a single large language model can emit over three-hundred metric tons – 626,000 pounds – of CO₂. This is equivalent to the emissions of five cars over their lifetimes.[7] A more recent study found that training GPT-3’s large language model consumed 1,287 MWh of electricity and resulted in carbon emissions of over fire hundred metric tons of CO₂ every day, or 8.4 metric tons a year.[8]

As we fight for what remains of wild nature, it is unconscionable to allow the calamitous ruin that AI will wreak on our environment. Of all the things AI requires the beauty of nature is not one of them. Nor is clean water, breathable air, inhabitable land.

So then What is to be done?

I answer: we must hinder, arrest, frustrate, obstruct, incapacitate, and prevent the development of any and every form of Artificial Intelligence.

What is needed is a new movement, wholly dedicated to the eradication of Artificial Intelligence from the face of the Earth.

I propose a name for this anti-AI movement. I shamelessly venture to crib one from science-fiction literature – for, if the technophiles can use sci-fi for their inspiration, so too can we! Let us call this movement Buterlerianism, after the Buterlian Jihad in Frank Herbert’s Dune, a holy war fought against intelligent machines that succeeded not only in the total destruction of all AI, but also prevented the re-emergence of thinking machines for thousands of years.[9]

In order to be effective, Butlerianism must be small, composed only of rational, intelligent, and dedicated individuals willing to work seriously toward the elimination of AI in all its manifestations. This work will of course be varied and flexible with the needs of the movement, but it must include, at least, a robust and relentless propaganda campaign. Of course, in a head to head war of propaganda, the system cannot be defeated; its resources are inexhaustible. But the AI problem, for all its gleam and promise, comes with a certain amount of public anxiety. Currently, that anxiety simmers. It must be brought to boil. By vigilance, outreach, intelligent messaging, and the amplification of every fear, every misstep the AI acolytes make, this can be done.

Ideally, the early Butlerians would come from positions of influence within the existing anti-tech community. But Butlerians must become single-minded, unwavering and unwilling to become distracted by the greater concerns of the anti-tech movement. They must be entirely focused on the AI problem. They must be real revolutionists prepared to enter into an ongoing battle against AI and its protectors.

Make no mistake, this battle will be fought against an enemy infinitely more well-funded and vastly more powerful, but I will say this: As of this writing, AI is as vulnerable as it is every going to be.[10]

Any action taken by the Buterlerian movement must be carefully and mindfully considered. Nothing we say or do should help the enemy and the media characterize us as lunatics, hippies, or weak-minded. They will try to do this anyway, so we must make their job difficult. However, when push comes to shove, no course of action that could truly, meaningfully lead to the crippling or destruction of the AI system should be abandoned for the sake of public opinion. The movement, for this reason, must be composed of individuals with a high degree of self-control and risk-assessment skills.

It must go without saying that the Butlerians must avoid association with politics.[11] Ours is not a political revolution.

I call for Butlerianism to be an organized, disciplined, and aggressive order opposed absolutely to Artificial Intelligence. We have nothing to lose in fighting but our lives, which are already held cheaply by a system that today only allows to exist so long as we continue to facilitate the flow of capital to the ruling class.

I have written before that Technology is a god with the mind of a virus. Multipotent, omnipresent, inscrutable, but with a goal simply to spread, devour and propagate itself even unto the death of its host. If this can be said, so too can this: AI is the culmination and fruition of Techie prophecy. A dark messiah come at last to take the throne the technocrats and their acolytes have made for it. Traitors to the human race, all of them.[12] They must be held accountable for their wicked creation, for selling the future of the living earth to algorithmic overlords. Furthermore, they must be made afraid to continue their work. They must be stopped.

We have in this brief treatise attempted to enumerate only a few of the evils inherent in Artificial Intelligence. We have attempted to do so in a rational and measured way. But the fight against AI will be anything but rational and measured. It must be furious. It must be holy.

Let us now attempt to set forth three core “commandments” of Butlerianism, the first of which is quoted verbatim from Frank Herbert’s Dune.

1. Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of man’s mind.

2. Thou shalt not suffer such a machine to exist.

3. Those who would break the first commandment are enemies of humankind, and shall be treated accordingly.

The enemy is winning. The system that enables and supports AI is enormous and certain, drunk already on its victory over the human race, over the living world. But there is still hope. Hope for the world, for a free and wild humankind unshackled from the myth of technological progress, from the worship of the machines. And there is no greater threat to that hope, to the realization of that freedom, than Artificial Intelligence. There is no more worthy fight. There is no holier war.

Death to the machines.

Long live the fighters.

Yours For Wild Nature,

September 2024

The following is an incomplete but worthwhile list of some of the most public and outspoken advocates, innovators, etc. in the growing field of AI as of September 2024.

Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google

Larry Page, Co-founder, Google

Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft

Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAI

Jensen Huang, CEO, NVIDIA

Rohit Prasad, Head Scientist, AGI, Amazon

Demis Hassabis, CEO, Google DeepMind

CC Wei, Chairman and CEO, TSMC

Masayoshi Son, Chairman/CEO, Softbank

Lisa Su, CEO, AMD

Jonathan Ross, CEO, GROQ

Mustafa Suleyman, CEO, Microsoft AI

Andrew Feldman, CEO, Cerebras Systems

Christophe Fouquet, ASML*

Brett Addock, CEO, Figure

Lawrence Lek, artist/filmmaker

Michael Burns, Vice Chair, Lionsgate

Palmer Luckey, Founder, Anduril Industries**

Dario Amodei, CEO, Anthropic

Eric Schmidt, Founder, Schmidt Futures***

*ASML is currently the world’s only producer of manufacturing equipment for advanced semi-conductors, without which AI would be impossible.

**Anduril Industries makes AI weapons systems for militaries around the world; also deserves a strongly worded letter for the audacity to use the work of Tolkien as inspiration for his vile enterprise.

***Schmidt is one of the most powerful voices on AI policy in Washington and is at the time of this writing, working to develop AI-powered “Kamikaze drones”.

WORKS CITED

• BBC, “Lionsgate announces collaboration with AI video company Runway”, Sept. 19, 2024

• Berengruen, Booth, Campbell,, et al “The 100 Most Influential People in Artificial Intelligence” TIME vol. 204, Sept. 16, 2024

• Fact sheet: Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy, Bureau of Arms, Control, Deterrence, and Stability. Nov. 1, 2023

• Gibbs, “Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says humans will be robots’ pets”, The Guardian, June 2015

• Global News, Sept. 11, 2024

• Jordan, www.thereader.mitpress.mit.edu, July 29, 2019

• Kaczynski, Anti-Tech Revolition: Why and How, 2^nd ed. pg. 37, 2020

• Markoff, “Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man”, New York Times, July 26, 2009

Of Lightning & Serpent: An Anti-Tech Sermon

Author: Franklin Pierce Skinner (pseudonym: Yours For Wild Nature)

Source: <mongoosedistro.com/2025/02/03/of-lightning-serpent-an-anti-tech-sermon-by-yours-for-wild-nature>

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Preface

To some this will read like the ranting of a lunatic, or else, more likely, as a middling author’s attempt at the imitation of such. Nonetheless, it is sincere and it is a paper some people will have to understand.

In the writing of it, I have had to rely on memory or on old notes; there is no list of works cited, but the information is sound. I encourage curious readers to do their own research.

Introduction

1. We speak of the need for a revolutionary myth. A frame of legend and symbol, archetype and ritual to bind us to and sanctify the brutality of what must be done. And what is it that must be done? The complete and irrevocable destruction of the technological system in every part of the world. What task could be more daunting? What cause could be more lost? But the gods of the earth favor the fighters in such contests. The small and the lost and the desperate and the hopelessly outmatched. The myth was unrolled for us to inhabit. We were foretold. What must be done will be done and we will do it and though the field will be well-blooded we will win in the end.

2. Not so long ago, as time is measured on this world, our species lived and thrived as we were meant to, in conditions to which we had adapted, into which we had evolved. We went upon the earth in small, autonomous bands and the wilderness was our home and though life indeed was hard, and we survived only by the sweat of our brow, we were contented. The vast majority of human history was lived in this way. But then something happened. Slowly but inexorably our kind fell under the shadow of a cruel and blind and idiot god. The Gnostics speak of the Demiurge, called also Yaldabaoth; a wicked, deformed, sightless deity that in its perverse and unnatural hunger for power claimed dominion of the world. A god, perhaps, made manifest in wheat – that great golden slavemaster who caged us first in those agricultural prisons called farms, then in choking, diseased cities and ultimately in a world-system so vast and perfect in its utility that to dream of escape is more often to dream of suicide. A god of metallurgy, smoke and poison. Something less like a god at all and indeed sharing more in common with a virus, an airline catastrophe, a serpent. We will call this Thing the Technium. The Dark One. The Black Snake. Surely it is not a god of the earth, but a crawling thing and though its victories have been great and many and its reign has been long, like any tyrant or similar parasite it can be killed. It must be killed.

We are not the first to say this. It has been said before. It will be said again. And on the day the last ugly buzzing light goes out and the long-captive moths are free to make once more for the moon we will stand in the darkened world and we will marvel that we ever doubted our own inevitability.

Storm and Serpent

1. The great serpent Apep chases the sun across the black and brumous sky of the underworld. All black scales and hunger, a devourer of light. Is it not written? Look now upon the suffering world of the living. Across the desert and the fields and over hills and all through the jigsawed wild and under lake and sea the slithering, oozing pipelines carry black poison and venomous gas to sacrificial fire. The smoke of its burning reaches forth to choke the sun. Is this not that old serpent? In other deserts, in other fields, solar panels glisten like so many black, iridescent scales. Feeding on the sun. Leeching into the earth their venom. Lead. Cadmium. Arsenic. Sulfuric acid. Hydrochloric acid. Hexafluoroethane. Polyvinyl fluoride. Is this not that same asp? And who shall do battle with it? Who shall prevail? Are we not the sons and daughters of Horus? Are we not the beloved and guarded wards of the storm that comes to strike the snake to boiled ruin where it slithers in the mud toward our young?

2. The motif of the storm god fighting the serpent is found in many religions, in cultures separated by continents, by oceans, by time.

3. Thor of the Aesir, god of thunder, must on the appointed day contend with Jorgmundir, the world-serpent. In elder days, the great snake was cast into the sea and there it waits, circling the earth with its tail in its mouth. Thor will die in his struggle, venomed by the serpent’s fang, but he will be avenged. The snake will die. Is that day so distant? Look now. See our skies thrash and rage at their poisoning, their mutilation. See them hurl storm and flood like hammer-blows upon the palsied world as the great ships unspool their enormous, serpentious cables from their sterns to rest upon the sea floor. As of 2024, 458 such cables lay upon the benthic bed. 900,000 miles of internet cable. Enough to wrap around the planet thirty-six times.

4. Yahweh, too, that erstwhile father of Christ, began his career as one among many in the Canaanite pantheon. Alongside Dagon, El, Asherah, and others, Yahweh served as the god of weather and war. Set against him was the gargantuan serpent Leviathan, whom our young and virile supergod wrestled and threw into the deepest chasms of the sea.

5. Zeus and python. Thunderbird and Horned Snake. Lightning strikes the flood.As I write this the waters are rising and in the water, there is the serpent. We must seek higher ground from which to hurl our bolts. Head to the mountains. Some defensible place.

6. As I write this the waters are rising and in the water, there is the serpent. We must seek higher ground from which to hurl our bolts. Head to the mountains. Some defensible place.

7. Are we the ones to hurl the lightning, and not the gods we have named? Did Christ not say, “Did I not say, ‘ye are gods;?” John 10:34.

8. Therefore ready your lightning. The serpent is come.

The Machine Can Bleed

1. The world will not be saved by those who say “the world will not be saved”.

2. In the fist of every David who ever held a stone against armored Goliath, the gods of the earth lend their strength. To every Persius his polished shield. To every Fingolfin his rage. The beast at the heart of the labyrinth is ferocious and it is imbued with great power and it is rapacious and it is doomed. The Dark Lord strides forth from the walls of his iron fortress where in chthonic chambers slaves and acolytes toil and radioactive fuel rods seep death into the groundwater. To stand against him has ridden hard some hate-blind fanatic regarded perhaps by his own kind as a maniac, a heretic, a locust-eating imbecile. For who else but one such would have sold his only cloak for a rusted sword and come thus naked and alone to the gates of the tyrant? And though the king wields a hammer that strikes smoking pits into the earth, and though the champion will die, he will in that glorious moment wound the Lord of Artifice grieviously, so that evermore the tyrant shall go forth with a limp. And by the limp shall the world entire know that he is mortal. That the Machine can bleed. That it can be killed.

3. The meek shall indeed inherit the earth. But it is the vengeful who will win it for them.

4. Industrial technology has enabled the slavery, slaughter, and psychological and spiritual torment of the human race on such a scale that would confound the minds of even history’s most heinous sadists. It has made the earth an abattoir. It has placed the fate of billions in the hands of a few hedonistic madmen. It has subjected us to mass experimentation which has left us sick and blind and cancerous and sterile and docile as cattle, fattened on blinking lights and tinitic from the hiss of hydraulic pistons, the ceaseless bee-hive roar of engines.

5. Yellow-5, the dye they put into Doritos and candy corn and Mountain Dew, when injected into laboratory mice, causes their skin to turn transparent.

6. On December 23, 1921 Thomas Midgley Jr. discovered that adding tetraethyl lead to gasoline reduced engine-knocking in the new, crankless Cadillac Model 30. Leaded gasoline was patented and sold to the public. It was marketed as safe. Immediately workers in the processing plants producing leaded gasoline began to get sick with lead poisoning. Five of them died. By 1923 Midgley himself was suffering from the effects of lead and refused to go anywhere near his own product. Nonetheless, the Ethyl corporation continued to unleash it on the world. By the 1950s there was so much lead in the atmosphere that it had seeped into the bedrock, confusing initial efforts to determine the age of the planet. Lead causes hardening of the arteries, which conservative estimates say cause 256,000 deaths in the US alone. Globally, over 100 million deaths can be attributed to the advent of leaded gasoline. As of 2022, current estimates of death caused by lead exposure range from 500,000 to one million. In 2020, the UNICEF report warned that one in three children globally – over 800 million children – have dangerous levels of lead in their blood. Lead also causes learning disabilities and antisocial behavior. Data strongly suggests a direct correlation between lead exposure among children born from 1951–1980, when leaded gasoline was widely used, and the sudden surge in violent crime in the 1990s. Thomas Midgley Jr. also invented dichlorodifluoromethane, more commonly known as freon. This opened the door to the use of Chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, in refrigeration and aerosols, resulting in the hole in the ozone layer, which led to an increase in skin cancer and cataracts. CFCs also contribute to global warming. Per kilogram, CFCs cause 10,000x more warming than CO₂. Historian John McNeil is quoted as saying, “Midgley has had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in earth’s history.” In 1941, Midgley had become so physicially deteriorated that he needed mechanical assistance for the smallest tasks. In order to get out of bed, he devised a complicated mechanism of levers, ropes and pulleys. On November 2, 1944 he became tangled in his own contraption and died of strangulation. To this day, leaded gasoline is still used in airplane engines.

7. We have reached a more dolorous age. The AI Age, which presages if not the wholesale extinction of our species then at the very least the transformation of it into something neutered, deformed, perverted into beasts of strange burden preserving only those components of our being utile to the survival and propagation of the Technium. At the same time the Transhumanist and Multiplanetary cults of the technophiles spew their lies, their blasphemies. They demand our submission, body and soul, to the Techno-Demiurge. These serpent-worshippers. These ersatz Ophites. They proclaim their millennarian prophecies of singularity and interstellar conquest, calling for us to lay ourselves and our planet and our souls and all life upon the altar to progress. What can this be but the Antichrist? The false Messiah comes to lead mankind astray? The beast whose name, like a computer, is only a string of numbers.

8. The beast, as we have said, is doomed. Like the factory. Like the computer. Like the gorgon. Like the giant and the pharaoh and the serpent. For we are foretold. We are favored by the free and wild living earth in whose name we fight. We the fighters. We who see the way of things, the truth evident in our own lives and in the archetypes that have walked the land and the dreams of those that came before us. We who have rightly identified the Great Malady, the Enemy of our kind – the Technium. We stand at the fore of a heroic and storied legion of legend and memory. It falls to us now to do the awful, sacred, wicked work that must be done so that when we die, even in their mighty company, we shall not be ashamed.

9. But we have tarried overlong. We must shed our cowardice, our trepidation, our attachment to the world as it is and we must begin the work in earnest. We could do far worse in this than to emulate the cultic origins of great faiths of the past. Let us gather and sequester ourselves – so far as is possible – from this civilization. The realm of the Technium. But do not misunderstand; This is not to be a masturbatory, indulgent exercise. We must do this not to live as we feel mankind “ought”, nor to “lead by example” on self-sustaining compounds. Like every action we take, our removal from mainstream society must be practical. Let us create such communities of radicals wherever and however possible, removed enough from the System that detection and surveillance is frustrated. Let each function in such a way that enables them to fund themselves and their ventures. These communities will need infrastructure. Internet. The ability to communicate and to travel quickly. Tools of defense. In these Farraday-caged communes let us set about the great work. Let us call it holy. Let us call it crusade. Let us call it Jihad. If we are hated and feared, so much the better. If, in our published writings (like this one), we seem deranged with quasi-religious fervor, if by our propaganda and the deeds we claim we are perceived to be some kind of extremist cult, some sect of frothing and ecstatic zealots, and if we thereby succeed in drawing to us only those who are likewise mad, likewise willing to dedicate themselves wholly to the anti-tech cause, to the war-cry of the earth, then we will not have erred.

10. In the struggle against the Technium there can be no quarter given. As a movement, anti-tech needs the kind of religious fervor that has toppled Empires and changed history. We need our myths and our legends to guide us. Our faith must be unwavering.

11. We will be free. We will find peace. We will have our revenge.

Letters to:

Pierce Skinner 2177819
Lunenberg Correctional
PO Box 1412
Victoria, VA 23974

Books/Zines:

Pierce Skinner 2177819
VaDOC CMDC
3521 Woods Way
State Farm, VA 23160

PIU 5 is here

Author: Artxmis Graham Thoreau

Date: Jul 20, 2025

Source:
<anarchistnews.org/content/piu-5-here>

Note: Mentions distributing Pierce’s ‘Of Lightning & Serpent’ text.

---

Hi all, we are happy to announce the delayed arrival of Plastic in Utero #5! Featuring a wider arrange of types of submitted pieces than before, this issue should be highly engaging! :) It features an interview with a member of Wind in His Hair , lots of photography, a new column by the editor titled “Latter-Day Luddite Lowdown” (tracking technology news and technocrat dramas) and much more! This issue is $3 if mailed and free to prisoners. Feel free to distribute.

From the preface:

For those who are new, Plastic in Utero: Anti-Civ Anarchy Reborn From the Compost of Wasteland Modernity—or PIU for short—is, aside from its self-important title, a zine of confrontational, creative, and subversive anarchy. It is also an extension of the Uncivilized Project, which encompasses the Uncivilized Podcast and Uncivilized Distro. PIU features all sorts of submissions, from essays to visual art. Each issue has a theme or topic, but these are non-obligatory, more like suggestions.

I aim to keep this introduction short..

The themes and topics for Issue 5 are “nature writings,” “urban writings,” “How I became an anarchist” and other personal narratives. This issue’s aim was to be less theory focused and more a reminder of what we are fighting for (or against). Sometimes, it is easy to get lost in the theory and become philosophers, losing sight of where the awakenings all began.

For many, Nature is their ideal, their focus, their god. For others, human autonomy and even survival is more important. Yet, for others still, it is a visceral disgust with AI, urbanization, and the placated masses that moves them. All of that can be found in these pages. For myself, all of this is part of my hatred for civilization. I am reminded of Paul Shepard’s notion, “The natural world is not only a set of constraints but of contexts within which we can more fully realize our dreams.” We need self-actualization, self-fulfillment. This cannot happen, despite what the modernists tell us, inside the prison that is civilization. We are motivated by a deep love, but we are also very, very pissed off. Perhaps these writings may speak to those without the words yet to express those feelings.

PIU is $3 mailed. Feel free to copy and distribute!

CURRENT ZINE LISTING (Summer/Fall 2025)

Most things are free if not mailed!

* Indicates original works, others may come from other publishers and distros.

Plastic in Utero: a journal of anti-civ anarchy reborn from the compost of wasteland modernity, issue #1* ($3)

Plastic in Utero: a journal of anti-civ anarchy reborn from the compost of wasteland modernity, issue #2* ($3)

Plastic in Utero: a journal of anti-civ anarchy reborn from the compost of wasteland modernity, issue #3* ($3)

Plastic in Utero: a journal of anti-civ anarchy reborn from the compost of wasteland modernity, issue #4* ($3)

Plastic in Utero: a journal of anti-civ anarchy reborn from the compost of wasteland modernity, issue #5* ($3)

Anarchy in Review #1: “Leo Tolstoy” by Luigi Galleani* ($2/Free if ordered with other texts)

Religion is Killing the Earth, Only Spirituality Can Save It by Artxmis Graham Thoreau (English & Spanish versions)* ($3)

Anti-Semitism and the Beirut Pogrom by Fredy Perlman ($1)

Liberty over Labor: A critique of Bakunin’s Productivism and Hegelianism by Artxmis Graham Thoreau* ($2/Free if ordered with other texts)

Fragments Against Servitude Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3 by VOF ($4/set)

Armed Joy by Alfredo Bonanno ($3)

What is Security Culture? by CrimeThinc. ($2)

Racism, Nationalism, and Revolt by Julian Langer ($2)

I Can-Able Myself by Iam Ouroboros from ($1)

War on the American Government: Insurrectionary Anarchist in the Early 20^th Century” from Anti-Trump Spit Fire Press ($1)

CLODO: Communiques from the war on computers from Detritus Books ($1)

Uncivilized and Queer: an anti-essentialist critique of gender by Isabel D’Nihil ($2)

Butlerian Manifesto: A Call for the Eradication of AI from the Face of the Earth by Yours For Wild Nature ($1)

Of Lightning & Serpent: An Anti-Tech Sermon by Yours For Wild Nature ($1)

…. and countless copies of flyers and random excerpts we enjoy!

Send orders (or questions) with well-concealed cash (or trades!) as U.S. currency only. Interested in us distributing your work? Let us know.

Mail to:
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61875

Garden Issue #1

Authors: Various Authors

Subtitle: Freedom From Technological Slavery

Authors: Pierce Skinner, Ted Kaczynski, David Skrbina

Topics: anti-tech vanguardism, anti-civ, ideology, politics, philosophy, environmentalism, Garden

Source:
<archive.org/details/garden-iss-1-a-5-1>

DISTRIBUTED
BY GRANDFATHER RABBIT
PUBLISHING CO.

300 N. MONROE ST
SUITE 4

Mission Statement

Our mission is to organize coherent political action against the global techno-industrialist system. With this publication, we aim to disseminate ideas relevant to this cause in order to inspire others like us to stand in opposition to a force which we have judged to be ethically, philosophically, and practically irredeemable.

It is our view that the techno-industrialist machine is a violent, destructive, and irreparable system of subjugation, and because of this we do not support any social or political efforts to rehabilitate it. It is on these grounds that we repudiate reformist and environmentalist sentiments, which we believe serve only as distractions that do nothing to counter the true goal of techno-industrialism; that is, the total enslavement and annihilation of Wild Nature.

More pressing still, it is our belief that the techno-industrial system presents an absolute and urgent existential threat to all life on earth. Thus, we are not a partisan movement, nor do we have any interest in furthering the ideologies of any movement on the left-right political spectrum. We reject the call to engage with issues such as social justice, feminism, anti-racism. If you believe these issues are the most pressing issues facing society today, stay away.

We vehemently oppost racism, nationalism, ethno-nationalism, any form of fascism or defense of the rule of law. It is our opinion that the pursuit of any one of these values will be meaningless on a dead planet. If you identify with any of these viewpoints, stay away.

Finally, we do not advocate that anyone consider this publication an exhortation for violent or illegal action of any kind. We denounce violence as a matter of pragmatism, not a matter of principal. It would be anathema to a nascent anti-tech organization to openly incite violence, which would prompt law enforcement to hinder our ability to spread our medsssage. We hope only to exercise our right to freedom of speech in order to present our personal views authentically and honestly.

Always for Wild Nature, Garden

1. The Road To Revolution

By Theodore John Kaczynski

“Above all, a revolutionairy movement must have courage.”

-TED

The revolution is not a dinner party…[13]

-Mao Zedong

A great revolution is brewing. What this means is that the necessary preconditions for revolution are being created. Whether the revolution will become a reality will depend on the courage, determination, persistence, and effectiveness of revolutionaries.

The necessary preconditions for revolution[14] are these: There must be a strong development of values that are inconsistent with the values of the dominant classes in society, and the realization of the new values must be impossible without a collapse of the existing structure of society.

When these conditions are present, there arises an irreconcilable conflict between the new values and the values that are necessary for the maintenance of the existing structure. The tension between the two systems of values grows and can be resolved only through the eventual defeat of one of the two. If the new system of values is vigorous enough, it will prove victorious and the existing structure of society will be destroyed.

This is the way in which the two greatest revolutions of modern times—the French and Russian Revolutions—came about. Just such a conflict of values is building up in our society today. If the conflict becomes sufficiently intense, it will lead to the greatest revolution that the world has ever seen.

The central structure of modern society, the key element on which everything else depends, is technology. Technology is the principal factor determining the way in which modern people live and is the decisive force in modern history. This is the expressed opinion of various learned thinkers,[15] and I doubt that many serious historians could be found who would venture to disagree with it. However, you don’t have to rely on learned opinions to realize that technology is the decisive factor in the modern world. Just look around you and you can see it yourself. Despite the vast differences that formerly existed between the cultures of the various industrialized countries, all of these countries are now converging rapidly toward a common culture and a common way of life, and they are doing so because of their common technology.

Because technology is the central structure of modern society—the structure on which everything else depends—the strong development of values totally inconsistent with the needs of the technological system would fulfill the preconditions for revolution. This kind of development is taking place right now.

A revolution in the modern world...will be deadly and brutal.

Fifty years ago, when I was a kid, warm approval or even enthusiasm for technology were almost universal. By 1962 I had become hostile toward technology myself, but I wouldn’t have dared to express that opinion openly, for in those days nearly everyone assumed that only a kook, or maybe a Bible-thumper from the backwoods of Mississippi, could oppose technology. I now know that even at that time there were a few thinkers who wrote critically about technology. But they were so rare and so little heard from that until I was almost 30 years old I never knew that anyone but myself opposed technological progress.

Since then there has been a profound change in attitudes toward technology. Of course, most people in our society don’t have an attitude toward technology, because they never bother to think about technology as such. If the advertising industry teaches them to buy some new techno-gizmo, then they will buy it and play with it, but they won’t think about it. The change in attitudes toward technology has occurred among the minority of people who think seriously about the society in which they live.

As far as I know, almost the only thinking people who remain enthusiastic about technology are those who stand to profit from it in some way, such as scientists, engineers, corporate executives and military men. A much larger number of people are cynical about modern society and have lost faith in its institutions. They no longer respect a political system in which the most despicable candidates can be successfully sold to the public through sophisticated propaganda techniques. They are contemptuous of an electronic entertainment industry that feeds us garbage. They know that schoolchildren are being drugged (with Ritalin, etc.) to keep them docile in the classroom, they know that species are becoming extinct at an abnormal rate, that environmental catastrophe is a very real possibility, and that technology is driving us all into the unknown at reckless speed, with consequences that may be utterly disastrous. But, because they have no hope that the technological juggernaut can be stopped, they have grown apathetic. They simply accept technological progress and its consequences as unavoidable evils, and they try not to think about the future.

But at the same time there are growing numbers of people, especially young people, who are willing to face squarely the appalling character of what the technoindustrial system is doing to the world. They are prepared to reject the values of the technoindustrial system and replace them with opposing values. They are willing to dispense with the physical security and comfort, the Disney-like toys, and the easy solutions to all problems that technology provides. They don’t need the kind of status that comes from owning more and better material goods than one’s neighbor does. In place of these spiritually empty values they are ready to embrace a lifestyle of moderation that rejects the obscene level of consumption that characterizes the technoindustrial way of life; they are capable of opting for courage and independence in place of modern man’s cowardly servitude; and above all they are prepared to discard the technological ideal of human control over nature and replace it with reverence for the totality of all life on Earth—free and wild as it was created through hundreds of millions of years of evolution.

How can we use this change of attitude to lay the foundation for a revolution?

One of our tasks, obviously, is to help promote the growth of the new values and spread revolutionary ideas that will encourage active opposition to the technoindustrial system. But spreading ideas, by itself, is not very effective. Consider the response of a person who is exposed to revolutionary ideas. Let’s assume that she or he is a thoughtful person who is sickened on hearing or reading of the horrors that technology has in store for the world, but feels stimulated and hopeful on learning that better, richer, more fulfilling ways of life are possible. What happens next?

Maybe nothing. In order to maintain an interest in revolutionary ideas, people have to have hope that those ideas will actually be put into effect, and they need to have an opportunity to participate personally in carrying out the ideas. If a person who has been exposed to revolutionary ideas is not offered anything practical that she can do against the techosystem, and if nothing significant is going on to keep her hope alive, she will probably lose interest. Additional exposures to the revolutionary message will have less and less effect on her the more times they are repeated, until eventually she becomes completely apathetic and refuses to think any further about the technology problem.

In order to hold people’s interest, revolutionaries have to show them that things are happening—significant things—and they have to give people an opportunity to participate actively in working toward revolution. For this reason an effective revolutionary movement is necessary, a movement that is capable of making things happen, and that interested people can join or cooperate with so as to take an active part in preparing the way for revolution. Unless such a movement grows hand-in-hand with the spread of ideas, the ideas will prove relatively useless.

For the present, therefore, the most important task of revolutionaries is to build an effective movement.

The effectiveness of a revolutionary movement is not measured only by the number of people who belong to it. Far more important than the numerical strength of a movement are its cohesiveness, its determination, its commitment to a well-defined goal, its courage, and its stubborn persistence. Possessing these qualities, a surprisingly small number of people can outweigh the vacillating and uncommitted majority. For example, the Bolsheviks were never a numerically large party, yet it was they who determined the course that the Russian Revolution took. (I hasten to add that I am NOT an admirer of the Bolsheviks. To them, human beings were of value only as gears in the technological system. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn lessons from the history of Bolshevism.)

An effective revolutionary movement will not worry too much about public opinion. Of course, a revolutionary movement should not offend public opinion when it has no good reason to do so. But the movement should never sacrifice its integrity by compromising its basic principles in the face of public hostility. Catering to public opinion may bring short-term advantage, but in the long run the movement will have its best chance of success if it sticks to its principles through thick and thin, no matter how unpopular those principles may become, and if it is willing to go head-to-head against the system on the fundamental issues even when the odds are all against the movement. A movement that backs off or compromises when the going gets tough is likely to lose its cohesiveness or turn into a wishy-washy reform movement. Maintaining the cohesion and integrity of the movement, and proving its courage, are far more important than keeping the goodwill of the general public. The public is fickle, and its goodwill can turn to hostility and back again overnight.

A revolutionary movement needs patience and persistence. It may have to wait several decades before the occasion for revolution arrives, and during those decades it has to occupy itself with preparing the way for revolution This was what the revolutionary movement in Russia did. Patience and persistence often payoff in the long run, even contrary to all expectation. History provides many examples of seemingly lost causes that won out in the end because of the stubborn persistence of their adherents, their refusal to accept defeat.

On the other hand, the occasion for revolution may arrive unexpectedly, and a revolutionary movement has to be well prepared in advance to take advantage of the occasion when it does arrive. It is said that the Bolsheviks never expected to see a revolution in their own lifetimes, yet, because their movement was well constituted for decisive action at any time, they were able to make effective use of the unforeseen breakdown of the Tsarist regime and the ensuing chaos.

Above all, a revolutionary movement must have courage. A revolution in the modern world will be no dinner party. It will be deadly and brutal. You can be sure that when the technoindustrial system begins to break down, the result will not be the sudden conversion of the entire human race into flower children. Instead, various groups will compete for power. If the opponents of technology prove toughest, they will be able to assure that the breakdown of the technosystem becomes complete and final. If other groups prove tougher, they may be able to salvage the technosystem and get it running again. Thus, an effective revolutionary movement must consist of people who are willing to pay the price that a real revolution demands: They must be ready to face disaster, suffering, and death.

There already is a revolutionary movement of sorts, but it is of low effectiveness.

First, the existing movement is of low effectiveness because it is not focused on a clear, definite goal. Instead, it has a hodgepodge of vaguely-defined goals such as an end to “domination,” protection of the environment, and “justice” (whatever that means) for women, gays, and animals.

Most of these goals are not even revolutionary ones. As was pointed out at the beginning of this article, a precondition for revolution is the development of values that can be realized only through the destruction of the existing structure of society. But, to take an example, feminist goals such as equal status for women and an end to rape and domestic abuse are perfectly compatible with the existing structure of society. In fact, realization of these goals would even make the technoindustrial system function more efficiently. The same applies to most other “activist” goals. Consequently, these goals are reformist.

Among so many other goals, the one truly revolutionary goal—namely, the destruction of the technoindustrial system itself—tends to get lost in the shuffle. For revolution to become a reality, it is necessary that there should emerge a movement that has a distinct identify of its own, and is dedicated solely to eliminating the technosystem. It must not be distracted by reformist goals such as justice for this or that group.

Second, the existing movement is of low effectiveness because too many of the people in the movement are there for the wrong reasons. For some of them, revolution is just a vague and indefinite hope rather than a real and practical goal. Some are concerned more with their own special grievances than with the overall problem of technological civilization. For others, revolution is only a kind of game that they play as an outlet for rebellious impulses. For still others, participation in the movement is an ego-trip. They compete for status, or they write “analyses” and “critiques” that serve more to feed their own vanity than to advance the revolutionary cause.

To create an effective revolutionary movement it will be necessary to gather together people for whom revolution is not an abstract theory, a vague fantasy, a mere hope for the indefinite future, or a game played as an outlet for rebellious impulses, but a real, definite, and practical goal to be worked for in a practical way.

2. Against Mass Society

BY CHRIS WILSON

Many people desire an existence free of coercive authority, where all are at liberty to shape their own lives as they choose for the sake of their own personal needs, values, and desires. For such freedom to be possible, no individual person can extend his or her sphere of control upon the lives of others without their choosing. Many who challenge oppression in the modern world strive toward their conception of a “free society” by attempting to merely reform the most powerful and coercive institutions of today, or to replace them with “directly democratic” governments, community-controlled municipalities, worker-owned industrial federations, etc. Those who prioritize the values of personal autonomy or wild existence have reason to oppose and reject all large-scale organizations and societies on the grounds that they necessitate imperialism, slavery and hierarchy, regardless of the purposes they may be designed for.

People rarely enter mass organizations without being coerced...

Humans are naturally sociable, but are selective about who they wish to associate with. For companionship and mutual support, people naturally develop relationships with those they share an affinity with. However, only in recent times have people organized themselves in large-scale groupings composed of strangers who share little of relevance in common with each other. For over 99% of human history, humans lived within small and egalitarian extended family arrangements, while drawing their subsistence directly from the land. The foraging bands and shifting horticultural communities of past and present are known to have enjoyed extensive leisure time, and have rarely required more than 2–4 hours daily on average to satisfy subsistence needs. Famine and war are extremely rare in these societies.

Additionally, physical health, dental quality and the average lifespan of small-scale communities are markedly higher than that of agricultural and early industrial societies. If leaders exist, they are usually temporary, and hold no power beyond their ability to persuade. While hunting/gathering and slash-and-burn gardening do indeed alter local environments and are sometimes wasteful, they have proven themselves to be ecologically stable adaptations.

Foraging served humanity for 3 million years, while horticulture has been relied upon by many societies in the Amazon basin for approximately 9,000 years. The small-scale cultures that remain today generally prefer their traditional way of life, and many are currently waging impressive political resistance against corporations and governments who wish to forcibly assimilate them so that their land and labor may be exploited. People rarely enter mass organizations without being coerced, as they lead to a decline of freedom and health.

The rise of civilization was made possible through compulsory mass production. When certain societies began to prioritize agricultural productivity as their highest value, they began to forcibly subject all life within reach of their cities to that purpose. Communities of people who wished to forage or garden on the land for subsistence would be mercilessly slaughtered or enslaved, and the ecosystems they inhabited would be converted to farmland to feed the cities. Those engaged in the full-time facilitation of crop and animal production would reside in the nearby countryside, while public officials, merchants, engineers, military personnel, servants, and prisoners would inhabit the cities. The task of creating a surplus to feed a growing specialist class caused the duties of the food producers to intensify, while simultaneously creating the need for more land, both for agriculture and for the extraction of materials for construction and fuel. Humans were forced into servitude for the benefit of their culture’s institutions of production as a prerequisite for continued survival, and non-human life was either harnessed or eliminated for the sake of completing human projects. To occupy land, one would be mandated to continuously pay tribute in the form of a tax or tithe (or and more recently, in the form of rent or mortgage), hence requiring one to devote most of one’s time and energy to a politically accepted mode of employment. Upon being required to satisfy the demands of landholders or employers in exchange for personal space and commodities, it becomes impossible for people to make their living through subsistence hunting or gardening. Although small-scale self-sufficient communities would resist or flee the intrusion of military and commercial forces, those that failed would be assimilated. Subsequently, they would quickly forget their cultural practices, causing them to become dependent upon their oppressors for survival.

Capitalism is civilization’s current dominant manifestation. The capitalist economy is controlled mainly by state-chartered corporations; these organizations are owned by stockholders who are free to make business decisions without being held personally accountable for the consequences. Legally, corporations enjoy the status of individuals, and thus an injured party can only target the assets of the company in a court case, not the possessions or property of the individual shareholders.

Civilization, not capitalism... was the genesis of systemic authoritarianism.

Those employed by corporations are legally required to pursue profit above all other possible concerns (e.g., ecological sustainability, worker safety, community health, etc.), and can be fired, sued, or prosecuted if they do otherwise. As a technologically advanced form of civilization, capitalism encroaches upon and utilizes even greater territory, causing further reduction of the space available for life to freely flourish for its own purposes.

Like civilization, capitalism conscripts both human and non-human life into servitude if regarded as useful, and disposes of it if regarded as otherwise.

Under capitalism, most people spend the majority of each conscious day (typically 8–12 hours) engaged in meaningless, monotonous, regimented, and often physically and mentally injurious labor to obtain basic necessities. Privileged individuals also tend to work intensively and extensively, but typically to respond to social pressure or to satisfy an addiction to commodified goods and services. Because of the dullness, alienation, and disempowerment that characterizes the average daily experience, our culture exhibits high rates of depression, mental illness, suicide, drug addiction, and dysfunctional and abusive relationships, along with numerous vicarious modes of existence (e.g., through television, movies, pornography, video games, etc).

There are no historical examples of production economies that do not expand.

Civilization, not capitalism per se, was the genesis of systemic authoritarianism, compulsory servitude and social isolation. Hence, an attack upon capitalism that fails to target civilization can never abolish the institutionalized coercion that fuels society.

To attempt to collectivize industry for the purpose of democratizing it is to fail to recognize that all large-scale organizations adopt a direction and form that is independent of its members’ intentions. If an association is too large for a face-to-face relationship between members to be possible, it becomes necessary to delegate decision-making responsibilities to representatives and specialists in order to achieve the organization’s goals. Even if delegates are elected by consensus or by majority vote, the group’s members cannot supervise every action of the delegates unless the organization is small enough for everybody to monitor each other on a regular basis. Delegated leaders or specialists cannot be held accountable to mandates, nor can they be recalled for irresponsible or coercive behavior, unless held subject to frequent supervision by a broad cross-section of the group.

Such is impossible in an economy based upon a highly stratified division of labor where no given individual can focus upon or even view the actions of the rest. Additionally, elected delegates are allotted more time and resources to prepare and present a case for their objectives, and are thus more likely to gain further power through deception impossible when specialized knowledge is required), and delegates are only assigned the duties of enforcing them, they will still act independently when they disagree with the rules and are confident that they can escape punishment for ignoring them. Democracy is necessarily representative, not direct, when practiced on a large scale — it is incapable of creating organization without hierarchy and control.

Because mass organizations must increase production to maintain their existence and to expand, they tend to imperialistically extend their scope of influence. Because cities and industries rely upon outside inputs, they aim to seize the surrounding areas for agricultural and industrial use, rendering it inhospitable to both non-human ecosystems and self-sufficient human communities. This area will expand in relation to any increase in population or specialization of labor that the city experiences. One could argue that industrial production could be maintained and yet scaled down, leaving ecosystems and non-industrial peoples some room to co-exist.

Firstly, this proposal invites the question of why civilization should determine its own boundaries, instead of the victims of its predation. Secondly, there are no historical examples of production economies that do not expand, mainly because they must expand after depleting the resources available to them at any given time.

The structural complexity and hierarchy of civilization must be refused, along with the political and ecological imperialism that it propagates across the globe. Hierarchical institutions, territorial expansion, and the mechanization of life are all required for the administration and process of mass production to occur. Only small communities of self-sufficient individuals can coexist with other beings, human or not, without imposing their authority upon them.

“the structural complexity of civilization must be refused”

3. An Interview with David Skrbina

David Skrbina is a professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan-Dearborn (UM-Dear-born). He has written extensively on technolo gy’s role in modern life.

David Skrbina has excused the actions of domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski — known as the Unabomberbecause— “deplorable though they may have been,” Kaczynski’s bombings “led directly to the release of his infamous Manifesto, and to forcing the problem of technology into the public eye.”

Skrbina received his Ph.D. from the University of Bath in the United Kingdom in 2001. He graduated from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1993 with a master’s degree in Mathematics.

An Interview with David Skrbina

Q1: How did you come to the anti-tech movement?

A1: 1. First, I should say that I’m not so sure there is an “anti-tech movement” per se. There are tech critics of various stripes, and tech skeptics, and anarchists, but it would be a stretch to call such people a movement. This suggests some kind of coordination or organization, which I am quite sure does not exist. Certainly there should be an anti-tech movement, but I think we are still quite some way from that.

But as to how I came to be a technology critic: I suppose it started years ago, when I studied computers and programming in college as an undergrad. On the one hand, I was fairly good at it and found it interesting, but on the other, I had a feeling that it was a kind of waste of time, and that there were better things to do in life. About the same time, I happened to encounter a prominent anti-tech philosopher, Henryk Skolimowski, who was teaching at my school (the University of Michigan). Henryk was one of the first major philosophers to question the role and meaning of modern technology, which he did from the early 1970s. I had never come across such ideas, and was definitely intrigued. They just made intuitive sense to me.

Henryk’s work got me reading other tech-skeptics like Jacques Ellul (“The Technological Society”), Lewis Mumford (“The Megamachine”) and Ivan Illich (“Energy and Equity”). They all made compelling points: tech was a vast and dynamic system that was detrimental to humans and nature, and was rapidly growing beyond our control. The solution to this problem would not be easy. Thus, by the mid-1980s, I had a relatively good grounding in tech-critical literature.

So I was fully onboard the anti-tech train well before anyone had heard of a Unabomber, who did not make the news explicitly until the early 1990s.

Q2: What is your assessment of the anti-tech movement in the present day? Could you touch on both the immediate and long term goals the movement should have?

A2: As I said above, there really is no anti-tech movement in existence today. Rather, there are scattered groups and individuals that are promoting various strains of anti-tech thinking. Some of my former students are organizing themselves; one such group, the Anti-Tech Collective (www.antitechcollective.com) has been quite active in promoting serious tech-critical ideas, and another former student has established an interesting Twitter site, Machine Lies (twitter.com/liesmachine). But these are small groups, just starting to build followers.

The mainstream press is filled with what I like to call “fake critics”: people who claim to be tech-skeptics, but take such a mild stance as to be utterly ineffective, or who do not really even understand technology at all. A good example is Sherry Turkle, a social psychologist at MIT. Her books betray a truly superficial understanding of technology and its dangers; she functions as little more than ‘controlled opposition’—a “safe” critic who doesn’t overstep her bounds. Jaron Lanier is much the same; a nominal critic but with a highly limited understanding of the phenomenon who never really challenges the system. Such people offer neither useful analysis nor a sufficient path forward.

As to goals, any tech-critical movement, group, or person should (a) be well-informed on the long history of tech skepticism. My anthology Confronting Technology would be a good place to start. Then (b) be well-grounded in the classic anti-tech readings: Ellul’s Technological Society, Illich’s Energy and Equity, Kaczynski’s Technological Slavery, and perhaps my own work from 2015, The Metaphysics of Technology. And then (c) be prepared to seriously entertain the most “radical” solutions, which would include a dramatic roll-back of industrial technology (as I have argued) or even some sort of outright “revolution” against tech—as has been suggested by Ellul, Mumford, Illich, and Kaczynski.

In other words, the short-terms goals should include getting educated, getting knowledgeable, and knowing what you are talking about. Medium-term, start to speak out, to educate others, and to organize. Long-term, we have to grapple with the very real possibility that modern industrial society will not survive until the end of this century, and to be prepared for what comes next.

Q3. When Ted was doing his work in Montana, the world obviously looked very different than it does today, both in terms of technology and the public attitude towards it. How do these changes affect the anti-tech movement? What are the biggest obstacles to the anti-tech movement today? How could an organization work to overcome those obstacles? Conversely, what today could benefit the anti-tech movement that may not have been a factor in the past?

A3: I don’t know exactly when Ted wrote his manifesto, but it likely was over several years, probably beginning in the mid-1980s, and presumably complete by the early 1990s. At that time, tech was much less obtrusive; there were simple home computers, office computers, but not much more—no email, no cell phones, only specialized Internet usage, certainly no social media. “Screen time” was limited to television and the occasional motion picture. Children and youth had almost no interaction with computers apart from a few computerized video and arcade games.

Despite all this, Ted’s analysis—which drew in many ways from Ellul—was sufficiently general to capture the central problems of technology and to make valid predictions about the future. He could see its growing power, growing pervasiveness, and increasing tendency to dehumanize humanity and to make life trivial and pointless. The advances in tech since, say, 1995, when the manifesto was first published, have been dramatic. A whole variety of physical, psychological, and moral harms can be directly linked to extensive technology use, especially among children and youth. And for those (like me) worried about the environment, nothing is more destructive to nature than a high-energy, high-throughput system of industrial technology. Climate change, species loss, and all the rest are directly correlated with advanced technology.

On the “positive” side, the Internet and other communications options allow people to disseminate information quickly and to organize across large distances. But these advantages don’t begin to offset the losses incurred. Every advance in technology is a net loss for humanity; we gain in certain small ways, but the power of the system gains by a factor of 10 or 100. We go one step forward but the system goes 100 steps forward, and thus we fall ever further behind. As long as anything like the present system exists, every day is another net loss for humanity and nature.

So, if there is a benefit today, it is, first, a slight advantage in communication, but secondly and more importantly is the fact that many more people are feeling the pressure from tech. They know it is bad for them; they know it causes stress; they hate the dependency and addiction. This makes for a lot more potential “recruits” for any nascent anti-tech movement.

Q4: There is a noticeable surge in interest in “off-grid” or self-sufficient living closer to nature. This is evident not only explicitly on social media, but in the market for “tiny homes”, solar panels, etc. In your opinion, is true self-sufficiency outside of the system even possible anymore? Is it a worthwhile goal?

A4: If and when the tech system collapses, there will be a large initial loss of humanity because few are prepared to live without high tech. This is regrettable but not necessarily a bad thing, in the larger picture. The planet has far too many people for both our own good and for that of nature. There are now almost 8 billion people on a planet that evolved to hold perhaps 100 million.

Without fossil-fueled or nuclear energy, people will revert to living in the old ways— on basic human and animal power. Certain bioregions could sustain fair numbers of people, but many areas will be utterly depopulated; think of all the people today who live in deserts (Phoenix, Las Vegas, etc) or in relatively inhospitable northern climates (much of Canada and northern Europe). Surviving humans will need to re-learn how to live off the land, and obviously “off the grid”. Without electricity, oil products, or natural gas, life will get a lot simpler and a lot more direct. And this is fine—this is how people evolved to live, and it is the life that is best suited to us. It still allows for plenty of culture, arts, education, and civilization; we need only recall what was possible in ancient Athens at the time of Socrates and Plato, circa 400 BC.

Simple technologies combined with the elementary scientific and biological knowledge that we have today (basic germ theory, use of soap and alcohol, basic human physiology) will allow for a very satisfying, and truly sustainable, human existence.

Bottom line is, yes, best to start now to learn how to live a simple agrarian life. Wouldn’t hurt to practice in a rural region, even if only for short periods in the summer. And anyone who can make a fulltime switch now should do it. (Transportation is a tough one. Everyone will still want their cars, but those will be the first things to rot after the collapse. I guess I would say: use your car now, if you must, but be ready to do without.)

Q5: As I type these questions out, the world seems poised on the brink of potentially catastrophic violence. Russia has invaded Ukraine as political destabilization continues both in A merican domestic politics and in other developed countries around the world. Words like “nuclear war” and “civil war” are now part of the mainstream rhetoric. Is widespread violence like this something the anti-tech movement should seek to take advantage of? Or is it merely a way for the system to advance its own goals?

5. A high-tech global system that depletes and pollutes its environment is intrinsically unstable, and is highly prone to disruption and eventual collapse. It further produces too many people, who then must fight over land, food, and resources. From a tech-collapse perspective, such things as wars (civil or otherwise) and pandemics are to be expected, and are furthermore good signs that “the end is near.”

The “end,” though, could come in two forms: either collapse and then reversion to a neo-Hunter-Gatherer society, or, as technological victory, such as by super-AI or runaway self-replicators. I take it as obvious that we prefer the former end to the latter. (Utopian scenarios such as transhumanism or other Kurzweilian fantasies are absurd and scarcely worth considering.)

As various crises appear, technology benefits through all the new investments and experimentation that occurs in the attempt to solve newly-emerging problems. Thus, tech grows stronger even as the crises increase in severity. In a sense, we are in a race to see if the system collapses before tech can gain mastery over the planet.

This is where the singularity idea comes into play. If Kurzweil is right and it occurs around the year 2045, that would be the point of no-return: if collapse occurs before then, industrial tech will collapse as well. After that date, tech may survive autonomously, with or without human beings around. If tech (or networks, or the Internet, etc) becomes superintelligent around 2045, then it is very difficult to imagine a benign future after that point. At that point, sci-fi becomes reality, and likely humans and much of nature will be obliterated.

This is why Ted suggests that we should heighten social stress now—in the attempt to accelerate collapse, before further damage is done, and before any potential singularity event (though he did not know about this when he wrote the manifesto). In principle, this is a logical and rational course of action, although it is unclear how precisely individuals or small groups might proceed along this line.

Q6: What advice would you give to anyone looking to get involved in the anti-tech movement? What are practical steps they can take?

A6: Regarding advice, I would suggest people do as I mentioned above: read the basic anti-tech literature, get knowledgeable. Learn how fake critics operate and then work to ‘out’ them. And join up with like-minded people—check out antitechcollective.com, or twitter/liesmachine, for example. Or form your own group. Practice serious, intelligent writing. Learn how to communicate. Learn how to develop a stiff spine and thick skin. Speak the harsh truth.

Anti-tech advocates are not the enemies of society; we are the true friends of humanity and nature. We are trying to save a vital core of this planet before tech does something truly catastrophic. We are the opponents of the tech elite, who will do everything in their power to perpetuate the present system. But they are bound to lose in the end, and I suspect that they know it. In this sense, we are their biggest threat and biggest nightmare: we speak the harsh truth about our likely technological future. The elite will try to censor us, but again, they will eventually lose; here, the truth will prevail. There is no conceivable, viable future with a global, high-tech industrial system ruling over humanity. It simply cannot happen. Either it or us will vanish in the long run. If you disagree, the burden of proof is on you to describe how, exactly, such a situation can exist in the real world—that is, how a dignified humanity and vibrant natural world can coexist with a global high-tech system. I’m quite certain that this cannot be done, but I leave to others to prove me wrong.

Personally, I would like to see a small core of humanity surviving amidst a thriving nature, rather than a planet overrun with technology and devoid of higher lifeforms. And anyone who agrees with me must necessarily be anti-tech. I don’t see any good alternative.

Garden Issue #2

Authors: Various Authors

Subtitle: Freedom From Technological Slavery

Authors: Pierce Skinner, Forest Anon

Source:
<archive.org/details/garden-iss-2-v-2>

Mission Statement

Our mission is to organize coherent and direct action against the global techno-industrialist system. With this publication, we aim to disseminate ideas relevant to this cause in order to inspire others like us to stand in opposition to a force which we have judged to be ethically, philosophically, and practically irredeemable.

It is our view that the techno-industrialist machine is a violent, destructive, and irreparable system of subjugation, and because of this we do not support any social or political efforts to rehabilitate it. It is on these grounds that we repudiate reformist and environmentalist sentiments, which we believe serve only as distractions that do nothing to counter the true goal of techno-industrialism; that is, the total enslavement and annihilation of Wild Nature.

More pressing still, it is our belief that the technoindustrial system presents an absolute and urgent existential threat to all life on earth. Thus, we are not a partisan movement, nor do we have any interest in furthering the ideologies of any movement on the left-right political spectrum. We reject the call to engage with issues such as social justice, feminism, anti-racism. If you believe these issues are the most pressing issues facing society today, stay away.

We vehemently oppost racism, nationalism, ethno-nationalism, any form of fascism or defense of the rule of law. It is our opinion that the pursuit of any one of these values will be meaningless on a dead planet. If you identify with any of these viewpoints, stay away.

Finally, we do not advocate that anyone consider this publication an exhortation for violent or illegal action of any kind. We denounce violence as a matter of pragmatism, not a matter of principle. It would be anathema to a nascent anti-tech organization to openly incite violence, which would prompt law enforcement to hinder our ability to spread our message. We hope only to exercise our right to freedom of speech in order to present our personal views authentically and honestly.

Always for Wild Nature, Garden

1. The System is Not Invincible: Analyzing Viable Threats to the US Power Grid

The prospect of a real, violent uprising against the technological system seems, for many, impossible. The machine is too large, the methods of destroying it too extreme, too costly, too messy in their implications. The system, therefore, we tell ourselves, will simply have to collapse on its own. We will have to wait for nuclear war or a Carrington Event or for the Yellowstone supervolcano to erupt and smother the fires of industry with vengeful ash, or better yet, for the ruling class and their technophile acolytes to simply come to their senses, apologize, and turn the machines off themselves.

We wait for a miracle. We wait for poetic justice. For the gods of climate change to swing down from the rigging and declare “ENOUGH!” and thereafter we will rejoice and set ourselves to building our better, cleaner world. We busy ourselves with attempts at educating and organizing our communities, preparing for the day the miracle manifests. We plant communal gardens, cook for the homeless, learn foraging, publish zines.

Frankly put, this is not enough.

There are two things a revolutionary must keep in mind:

1. The system is not invincible. In fact, it is weak, fragile, made vulnerable in its complexity to sabotage.

2. An anti-tech revolution will only be made possible by direct action against the system’s component parts.

It is highly unlikely that an anti-tech organization, or even a network of organizations, would be able to change the world in day. Such an organization or network cannot cut the internet cables that encircle the planet. It can’t launch nukes at Silicon Valley and it can’t heist airborne Ebola out of USAMRIID and hold the world hostage. But that doesn’t mean a hypothetical revolutionary organization is powerless.

What follows is a short exploration of purely hypothetical scenarios. This is merely a thought-exercise. We do not endorse or condone any illegal activity. The purpose of this exercise is to illustrate the vulnerabilities in a system that so many see as omnipresent, omnipotent, and eternal. If we can learn to change the way we see the system, then we are that much closer to changing the world. This particular thought-exercise will focus solely on the United States electrical power grid.

Physical Threats

The machine is massive.

In America alone, there are over 55,000 electrical transmission substations. However, if a mere nine critical stations were to fail, the entire nation would be plunged into a crippling darkness.

In April 2013, a still-unidentified group managed to infiltrate a crucial substation belonging to Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) located in California. The attack took place in the middle of the night, when the group entered an underground vault at PG&E’s Metcalf substation and proceeded to cut fiber cables. Following this, the group began firing on the substation for a total of twenty minutes, during which time they succeeded in taking out seventeen transformers before vanishing long before police arrived.

While the attack did not succeed in causing a blackout, it did constitute the “most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred” in the United States, according to former Federal Energy Regulatory (FERC) Commissioner Jon Wellinghoff.

In the wake of the attack, the FERC launched a study and reliability assessment for the entire US power grid. They discovered that physical attacks on nine key substations could disable power for the entire country, coast to coast. Nor would repairing the damage be any easy feat. Here, the technological system’s global complexity shoots itself in the foot.

If the crucial high voltage transformers are irreparably damaged, it is highly unlikely that they would be replaced at all. The great majority of such units are custom built. The lead time between order and delivery for a domestically manufactured HV transformer is between 12 and 24 months, and this is under benign, low demand conditions.

The first practical application of the transformer was invented in the USA by William Stanley, but largely as a consequence of American trade policy (“It doesn’t make any difference whether a country makes potato chips or computer chips” attributed to Michael Boskin, Chairman of President George H W Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors).

Furthermore, there is the simple fact that the US does not manufacture high voltage transformers anymore. In fact, there are few that do. Worldwide production is less than 100 per year and serves the rapidly growing markets of China and India. Only Germany and South Korea produce for export to the US. Ordered today, delivery of a unit from overseas would take nearly 3 years. The factory price for an HV transformer can be in excess of $10 million—too expensive to maintain an inventory solely as spares for emergency replacement.

The implication cannot be understated: A physical attack on nine crucial electrical substations that succeeded in destroying high-voltage transformers would plunge the United States into a darkness that would not be quickly or easily reversed. This would provide fertile ground for any hypothetical antitech organization to seize momentum and gain power.

It should also be noted, in passing, that the vast majority of electrical substations are completely unmanned, unprotected, and have zero video surveillance. The only thing standing in the way of a determined revolutionary group or individual is often a chain link fence and some barbed wire.

We will not be expounding on precisely which substations are the most crucial according to the FERC. We leave it to our readers to continue their own research independent of this publication.

Cyber Threats

The U.S. power grid is old. It is unwieldy. The reality it was created to serve no longer exists. It was simply not designed to withstand the threats that now confront it.

Chief among these threats are cyberattacks.

The grid is vulnerable to cyberattacks that could cause catastrophic, widespread, and lengthy blackouts. The effect on hospitals, police departments, banks, gas stations, military bases, and families across America could be disastrous.

Grid owners and operators, many of which are small to medium sized companies, have to overcome a number of challenges to counter this threat. A 2019 Government Accountability Office review of cybersecurity risks facing the electric grid identified difficulties in hiring a sufficient workforce, limited sharing of classified threat information between the public and private sectors, resource constraints, reliance on other critical infrastructure that could be vulnerable to cyberattack, and uncertainty about how to implement cybersecurity standards and guidance.

One of the greatest cybersecurity threats to the electric grid involves a mundane function known as “industrial control systems.” IC’s are used to manage electrical processes and physical functions like opening and closing circuit breakers.

These systems are now being merged with technologies that connect to or rely on the internet. This enables remote monitoring and can improve cost and energy conservation, but it also creates more access points for determined hackers.

In 2015, the insurance underwriter Lloyd’s developed a scenario for an attack on part of the Eastern Interconnection, which provides power to around half of the United States. Under the scenario, a cyberattack targeting power generators would cause a blackout in 15 states and the District of Columbia, leaving 93 million people without power. Much like in the case of physical attacks, a mere fraction of the total active generators in the system would have to be targeted. Only 10% of Eastern Interconnection’s generators would need to be taken offline in order for the system to fail entirely.

Conclusion

The system is not invincible. It only wants you to think it is. The electrical grid, the lifeblood of the industrial system, is increasingly vulnerable to complete and utter destruction.

That being said, it is unlikely that a disorganized, untrained individual or group would be capable of accomplishing that destruction without discipline and practice. There are electrical substations in every community in the country. There is certainly one near you. It is highly probable that any dedicated individual or group would attempt to “practice” sabotage on targets local to themselves, before moving on to more crucial substations.

Once again, we do not advocate for illegal activity. This is merely an academic approach to the problem of the power grid’s vulnerability and resilience in the light of 21^st century threats.

2. Education in a Technological Society vs Hunter Gatherer Societies

Introduction

Less than 25% of children today regularly go outside their house to play, and fewer than one in ten children play in wild nature as compared to over half of all adults when they were children. In fact, children spend so little time outdoors that they are unfamiliar with some of our commonest wild creatures (Moss, 2012). Due to the decrease in autonomy within our technological society, the lives of young people have become largely sedentary, giving rise to a number of negative health effects linked to an inactive lifestyle such as Vitamin D deficiency, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and high blood pressure. Skills that would be constituted as necessary for our survival such as hunting, gathering food, building shelter, collecting firewood, and crafting tools are no longer essential when such necessities can be provided by the system for the price of labor. Because our basic needs lie in the hands of large organizations and institutions, education no longer prepares individuals for self-sufficiency, but dependency.

The subjects that occupy a student’s time--math, science, writing, and technology--are skills valued not for the well-being of the individual but for the needs of the system. The student is often perplexed wondering, “What’s the point of learning these things if I’ll never use them in my day-to-day life?” The answer? To “to get a well-paying job.” Public education only became mandatory with the rise of industrialism, and the two phenomena cannot be divorced. (Dwyer & Peters, 2019).

The education received today is incompatible with an active lifestyle. If a child is constantly engaged in exploration in nature and outdoor activities, how will they have time for what subjects our society considers crucial? In school, a child is given the bare minimum of what is required of outdoor activity, no different from the amount of time allotted to federal prisoners, while free time at home becomes occupied by homework and studying. After primary school, outdoor play is largely reduced so that even more time can be dedicated towards education, and an adolescent’s sedentary life is solidified. From the classroom for classwork to the bedroom for homework to the dorm for university studies to the desk for 9–5 salary drudgery. Sitting becomes the mode of Man.

This is in contrast with hunter-gatherer societies. Play-time decreases with age, certainly, but physical and outdoor activity remains part of everyday life.

Children As Teachers

Although certain aspects of a hunter-gatherer’s upbringing differed across the different cultures and societies, the stages that made up one’s childhood followed a similar pattern. Infancy was primarily spent in the camp and in the care of the mother wrapped around the parent receiving attentive care. During early and mid-childhood, children were given freedom to explore outside of the camp, often in peer groups playing and engaging in subsistence tasks. Many learning experiences took place in this stage. When they reached adolescence, tasks were carried out more seriously with less time towards play. The child would be already fairly independent at this stage, relying on one’s own abilities for obtaining resources. Learning came in different forms of teaching across hunter gatherer societies, but practice was almost always active, hands-on, and self-directed. Direct-teaching from adults occured for certain instances, but was not employed in every facet of learning and still left a lot of room for a child’s autonomy.

In the modern education system, children are subject to unnatural conditions that diminish their autonomy. Children have to raise their hands to speak or to get up from their seats and must eat on a schedule. Children also must be at school and in classes at a certain time to avoid tardiness. The increase of insufficient sleep among adolescents has been attributed to the early mandatory start time of institutional schools, homework, and after-school activities. Lack of sleep is tied to poor mental health, including depression, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation (Wheaton et al, 2017). The teacher, too, is burdened, but with keeping many children in the classroom cooperative and focused and is also under the authority of the school system. The relationship between the “student” and the “teacher” is much more balanced in hunter-gatherer society, because there is not one adult employed to act as a teacher. Much of the learning for a child is done on their own, making adult interference unnecessary. The mixed-age groups huntergatherer children interacted with also provided easier development of skills since those younger could learn from older children.

Among the Aka of the Congo, direct teaching overall was very short, subtle, and non-verbal. There did not exist a hard-line between “teacher,” and “student,” as is common in institutionalized education. Aka children had knowledge comparable to that of the adults, and would often hunt cooperatively in multi-age groups using nets (Hewlett & Lamb, 2005). Aka children acted as teachers themselves for other children, just as much as adults did (Boyette & Hewlett, 2017).

Among the Martu of Australia, children were observed to be very active and independent hunters without the need for direct instruction and supervision from adults. Physical stamina, rather than age, played an important factor in determining how skilled of a hunter one was. Some of the younger hunters were more skilled than the older children. (Hewlett & Lamb, 2005).

Young Hadza children of Tanzania spent the majority of time in camp without adult supervision, spending several hours a day collecting and processing food on their own, as well as moving around in mixedage groups with other children to play or visit water sources (Levy et al, 2021).

Within the Maya of Zinacantan, Children of all ages acted as both the learner and the teacher. Older siblings often taught their younger siblings how to do everyday tasks such as washing and cooking. Children as young as four years old already took on responsibility in initiating learnable situations with younger siblings. Teaching skills developed over time in children, with more verbal use for demonstrations, feedback, and explanations common during midchildhood. Children developing competence in teaching helped their younger siblings increase their participation in culturally important tasks. Because play was multi-aged, older children would show a younger child how to do a certain task so they could participate in the play activities (Maynard, 2002).

Mix-aged playgroups among the Bayaka of the CongoBrazzaville allowed for children to learn gender roles and cultural practices. A younger child may be encouraged to share a food or play item by an older child, and imitate dances (Salali et al. 2019).

In a society absent of report cards, records, attendance, schedules, and grade levels, a child’s education did not require high regulation and tracking as with modern education. Children were able to develop skills in their own time making progress through carrying out activities independently, learning from other children and acting as the teacher for other children.

Childhood Autonomy

A society that “frees” its citizens from the burden of daily physical tasks seems to offer a more carefree childhood and lifestyle. One is not made to “grow up too fast” in order to reach an early stage of self-reliance. This has the consequence of holding back one’s autonomy. Children are limited in their ability to exercise independence. Control must be continuously exerted over the child up into late adolescence.

Certain “rebellious” tendencies arise when one feels a lack control over their environment or are not given enough opportunity to fulfill important roles alone. Among hunter-gatherer societies, autonomy of children is something that was greatly respected, as it allowed them to reach early independence and encouraged them to become effective and trusted members of the community. The child could deem their actions useful to the group while having the freedom to perform such efforts by themselves. There is great value in this.

For the Inuit of the Hudson Bay, it was believed children developed reason during middle childhood and, out of respect for their personal autonomy, adults often tried not to interfere in their learning development. The role of an adult in a child’s education was geared towards encouraging and guiding rather than directly teaching or controlling. Teasing and playing games were commonly used to aid in a child’s motivation (Boyette & Hewlett, 2017). They also provided freedom for them to explore their natural environments to the extent of their physical capabilities with little adult interference (Gray, 2009).

Within many of the traditional Native American tribes, noninterference was considered crucial when it came to the learning development of children. Children were believed to be competent enough in making their own decisions, and were allowed freedom to develop in their own time. Training was mostly done through trial and error with developmental tasks being encouraged and rewarded but not deliberately taught or forced (Newcomb, 2008).

Subsistence tasks were also left for the children to carry out within the Aka Hunter Gatherers. Assignment of commands would appear to be harsh to the majority of modern parents, but this method of teaching still provided room for autonomy as children were never coerced or forced to ensure commands were carried out. Cooperation involved willingness from the individual. This was used as a form of, “demand cooperation,” which provided an opportunity for children to “consider the relationship between cooperation and autonomy in specific activity-relationship contexts” (Boyette & Hewlett 2017). A young child could also use adult tools such as a knife on his own to cut up food without the parent taking it away and cutting up the food themselves.

Adult interference in such a process only went as far as gestures and moving the child’s arm occasionally to give direction (Hewlett & Roulette, 2016).

Today much of a child’s environment is considered off-limits with the perceived danger of the things around them, while objects are kept away so as to be out of reach. The rise of industrialism and urbanization have only increased parent’s concerns about the safety of their child. When it comes to outdoor activities, many parents worry about cars, street crime, and other dangers. Modern Society has produced the “helicopter parent,” as adults feel their role in parenting is the complete protection of their child from anything that might hurt them. Children are forced to heavily rely on adult supervision in order to play outside which then puts responsibility on the parent, who may decide it is easier to have their children inside occupied by electronics where they know their child is safe. This has the unfortunate consequence of keeping a child’s time restricted to indoors, and limiting their autonomy. Thus does a parent become a warden and the child an inmate.

Parental supervision in hunter gatherer societies was not obsolete, especially during infancy most children were restricted to the camp, but much leeway was still provided for them to learn skills autonomously. This required the openness of the parent to allow their children to take risks and not intrude on a lot of their activities.

Adults of the Parakanã of Brazil did not interfere with their children’s lives nor offer praise or keep continuous track of their development. Children hardly went to adults asking for help. Boys as young as eight practiced with bow-and-arrows, and girls weaved play baskets for themselves by taking a big knife into the forest to cut green palm leaves (Pellegrini & Smith, 2005).

Children among the Aché of Paraguay already gained a considerable amount of knowledge on subsistence early on in childhood. Such knowledge included identifying edible fruits, stinging plants, animals, and being able to forage on one’s own. By the age of eight they learned more difficult skills like tracking, and spent time in the trees collecting fruit for themselves and other adults. At the age of ten, Aché children already started to become highly independent, using hunting tools such as bows and arrows (Hewlett & Lamb, 2005).

Among the Mbendjele of the northern Republic of the Congo, learning tended to be self-motivated and implicit (Boyette & Hewlett, 2017). During middle childhood, they already could forage food for themselves since they had knowledge of what plants were edible, and how to use tools like machetes properly. An adult would not instruct a child on how to use a tool, but instead provided negative feedback if the way they used it posed great interference (Salali et al, 2019).

Young children are hardly looked at as capable participants in industrial societies. Parents will take initiative in the most simplest tasks for children. A comparative study between middle-class LA (Los Angeles) families and two non-industrial societies, the Matsigenka and the Samoans, found that lack of consistency in chore assignments and codependency across practical tasks among the LA families impeded on one’s desire to willfully help out. Matsigenka and Samoan children are encouraged to fulfill assignments on their own, which gives them freedom for self-reliance as they learn through trial and error towards effectively executing tasks (Ochs & Izquierdo, 2009). As young as six they are already self-sufficient in many subsistence activities, whereas the LA child is cushioned with a lack of real obligations.

Although task assignments can sometimes be unfavorable to children within hunter gatherer societies, they usually would rather carry out necessary demands themselves.

Children among the Runa, forager/farmers in the Ecuadorian Amazon, were observed in how they felt engaging in subsistence activities. Children unanimously emphasized how accomplishing a task felt good. Another boy described how he felt happy to have successfully hunted a tapir because that meant his mother would no longer be hungry; a thirteen year old boy was satisfied with building his first house so that his younger brothers had a place to sleep; a young girl, like Kiwa, declared that she was proud when her manioc beer was served to guests and family members. All these children emphasized the re-relational aspects of their practical self-sufficiency (Mezzenzana, 2020).

For the Hadza, children spent a considerable amount of time and energy at a very young age doing subsistence tasks. Young children also spent more time outside the camp (O’Connell & Hawkes, 1995).

They often foraged and collected food for themselves, some as young as three already digging up baobab pods during foraging trips (Hewlett & Lamb, 2005). Despite the high energy cost of participating in foraging expeditions, children were still able to collect enough calories to support their efforts (Hawkes, & O’Connell, 1995). And despite the more laborious activity, children still incorporated a lot of play into their tasks. Work-play was observed to be common among the Hadza children, decreasing as they got older (Levy et al, 2019).

Daily life during childhood for the Baka of Southeast Cameroon was very active and largely devoted to food procurement activities.

Children prefered to act autonomously and garner their own food supply without the reliance on adults (Hagino & Izumi, 2014).

This is in contrast to today, where children fully rely on adults to provide all their food procurement, which is more than likely whatever ultra-processed ready-to-eat junk foods that are becoming increasingly part of the modern child’s diet (Wang et al., 2021).

Learning Through Play

It is not only education that has become separated from an active lifestyle, but play has also been reduced to sedentary indoor activities.

Screen-time surpasses outdoor activity among adolescents, and children from as young as toddler age exceed the recommended amount of screen usage (Barnett et al., 2018; Chaput, 2018). Even seemingly innocent or productive activities such as listening to music, art, chores, and reading are typically spent indoors. A young child’s interactions within their play-environment are primarily artificial. Instead of nature as a play device, children are subject to recreational areas, plastic toys, and virtual technologies for entertainment. Exploration in nature has been replaced with exploration online.

The value of play among hunter-gatherers extends far beyond just mere distraction of a child’s attention, but includes many activities put towards useful work which allows for an earlier gain of independence.

Spear hunting among the Chabu hunter-gatherers of Ethiopia was a complex skill that involved an adult present on the hunts to act as a teacher. Before such elaborate teaching took place, the child already started learning to spear hunt at around the age of six through seven through play hunting with their peers. This method of learning was encouraged from different figures in the child’s life, while also allowing the child to observe the hunts. Role-playing had a positive effect on the transition into the actual learning phase, because in most cases the child was self-motivated to begin learning. The child also had the option to choose who they would like to accompany them on the hunts (Dira & Hewlett, 2016). By the age of fifteen they were regular hunters.

Similarly, children in the Agta of the Philippines were also encouraged to engage in play which incorporated skills such as building houses, fishing, foraging, and hunting. They had very little responsibilities and lived a mostly carefree childhood. Around the age of ten they were allowed to join hunting parties if they had an interest in doing so. Foraging usually took place when children accompanied other parties of children and women where they were able to observe and help out in forage procurement. Young children would regularly catch game through shooting small birds with catapults, and fish in rivers as a source of entertainment. Through these activities they were able to progress their abilities while being able to obtain their own resources (Hagen, Minter, & Van Der Ploeg, 2017).

As young as three, Batek children of Malaysia were able to engage in play with other children without direct supervision from adults. Adults did not normally participate in children’s play activities, and they were encouraged to go to the forest as much as possible. A child’s activities usually included, “chopping trees with bush knives, building fires, pretending to cook or actually cooking small amounts of rice or other food, digging as if digging for tubers, climbing trees, gathering sticks as if they were rattan, ‘moving camp,’ building miniature shelters, and other activities imitative of the skills they saw performed by adults inside and outside camp” (Endicott & Endicott, 2014).

Herder children among the Maasai communities in Southern Kenya regularly participated in herding games which aided in the development of livestock-related skills. These activities put the children in continuous contact with cattle which allowed them to practice, communicate, and transmit these skills to their peers. There was little adult interference within their play, and the children were able to freely enrich the human and livestock relations of the overall Maasai society (Aumeeruddy-Thomas & Dounias, 2017).

What essentially sets play among non-industrial societies apart from industrial societies is the performance of real activities and the use of real objects incorporated into play as opposed to imitation items. A 2017 study revealed that a child’s preference for pretend play is mostly due to fear of one’s incapability to carry out real tasks and lack of permission to. Out of a sample of a hundred children aged three to six, 65% preferred real activities instead of their pretend equivalents. These included activities such as baking cookies, cutting vegetables, feeding babies, and fishing (Lancy, 2020).

Though imitation toys were not entirely absent from a child’s play time among Hunter Gatherers, much of the play items could be put to real use, even if not as durable as actual tools. Modern parents spend hundreds on toys each year as their child’s boredom from playing with last year’s gifts needs to be replenished by the next new thing. Hunter Gatherer children were without the reliance on Santa Claus, Toys R Us, and a lot of commercialized toy products. Instead, hunter gatherer children had put their craft-skills into practice since much of their toys were hand made with only natural material from their environment.

A rope made of twisted fiber could have many uses for a hunter-gather child as a swimming aid, as a lasso for roping practice, a swing at a playground, as a noose to play trapping, or as net material for play hunting. Toy utensils were sometimes carved from small pieces of gourd, and a tiny acorn cup could serve as a drinking cup for a doll. Leaves and grasses were commonly used for play activities such as pretend food, mats for furnishings, as covers for huts, or stuffing dolls (Cunnar & Ember, 2015).

Gikuyu boys from Kenya were found to make axes, spears, slings, and bows and arrows, like their fathers, whereas girls made pottery for use in real and imagined cooking, clay dolls, and baskets of plaited grass (Pellegrini & Smith, 2005).

One anthropologist among the Nayaka never witnessed children play with toys that they had not made themselves (Naveh, 2014). There was a lack of many toys among the Siriono of Bolivia. Miniature bows and arrows for boys and spindles for girls were the only items used for such activity (Holmberg, 1969).

Other forms of play among hunter gatherer societies did sometimes involve the participation of adults, such as socializing games among the Inuit. These games were a way to set up problems for the child who is being socialized to solve. This required adults to test them which was done with or without the knowledge of the child. Conflicts or ambiguities would be created to be resolved, testing the limits of things, of people, of situations, and of the children themselves (Briggs, 1991).

As with the Inuit, Mbuti children of the Eastern Congo also engaged in socialization games as a way to learn important values, but with little adult interference. This was done by imitating adult arguments they had seen and attempting to solve them more effectively. If the children found they could not improve upon the argument, then they usually resorted to ridicule until they had fallen into hysterics (Gray, 2009).

It is evident that play is an integral part of childhood and learning development, which also encourages kids to carry out useful tasks. The educational aspect of play among hunter gatherers is notably different from the play involved in drawing a child’s attention to schoolwork. The integration of “educational” videos and video games have become further utilized in classroom settings as an attempt to get children interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics ) learning. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality games that serve to immerse one’s senses further into virtual platforms are already being encouraged and put to use in some elementary schools (Sobel & Jhee, 2020; “Virtual Reality,” 2019). Any skills gained from the virtual media implemented in a child’s learning is only towards skills useful to the functioning of our system.

Technology as an attempt to get children enthusiastic about being outdoors seems like a clear solution to some people when it comes to the lack of activity outside, but one is reminded of the quick loss of enjoyment one feels after engaging with an entertainment media or device after so long. It was only expected that a mobile gaming app like Pokémon GO, which was positively received for getting children out the house, would pass as a fad. Even if the technology used in such a way was continuously updated for the upkeep of a user’s stimuli, the connection one develops can hardly be recognized as a connection to nature but towards the technology itself.

Conclusion

Motivation towards learning was easier to encourage in hunter gatherer children, because much of what they needed to learn was actively exercised throughout their lifestyle. They were not made to wait while going through years of sedentary education and exams before being given the ability to make use of what they learn. Children also saw how such skills were utilized within their community which they would willingly partake in. There was less studying and more doing. Today

the challenges and rewards provided are largely unsatisfactory and meaningless, making one’s life understimulating.

The Education in hunter gatherer societies bestowed more freedom for children to learn and grow into self-dependent individuals. School-life, Work-like, and play-time were not entirely separate in the life of a hunter gatherer child. One could learn through fulfilling demands within the community, and playing with mixed-age peers which involved practicing important skills that they would later use in life more seriously. Self-sufficiency was highly valued, and adults made sure to not hold back a child’s learning and autonomy by allowing them to participate in handling adult tasks while not interfering in many of their activities. Children were never restricted from the outdoors, as nature was an essential part of their lifestyle.

The Education in our progressing technological society restricts a child’s ability to become self-dependent, as a student’s time is spent sedentary indoors with computers and papers, developing skills only useful towards future employment. As further advancements are made in our society, more is implemented in education that a child is made to learn.

The mental well-being, physical health and autonomy of children is at great stake today. WIthout self-dependence, a child’s future is being put in the hands of an exploitative system concerned about its own needs.

References

3. On Beauty

“Beauty will save the world.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky

Progress with its machines has made the world regress to a place where there is no beauty. If beauty is undermined, what will save the world?

What is beauty? A lot of things can be beautiful and a single definition won’t do justice to such an abstract concept, but what we can objectively determine is the simplicity which is the basis for it — that is wild nature.

Beauty has been an inherent need for as long as we can trace back human activity, and even though aesthetic principles have changed throughout history, humans still hold a somewhat unanimous agreement upon what makes something beautiful, with the sense of beauty seemingly being ingrained in human nature as a whole.

The patterns that keep coming up are all rooted in nature. Beauty is the natural order of the world. The naturalistic explanation is quite simple here, so only a general outline of the theory will do the job.

Beauty became part of us because it helped our ancestors survive. Symmetry in nature used to let us know everything is as it should be. Man relied on his aesthetic senses in order to correctly assess everything from edible foods to the weather and mating partners. In this way, beauty, and an appreciation for pattern and form, become a trait necessary for survival. We find comfort in beauty because in it, we find life itself.

But why does this matter? If the sense of beauty is hardwired in us, and we accept that beauty activates the reward mechanisms in us, producing pleasant feelings — the next logical conclusion would be acknowledging the major importance of beauty in our day-to-day life and in our society.

Inasmuch as beauty provokes happiness and comfort, so does the opposite cause man sadness, discomfort, misery. Science can only attest to this. Different experiments and studies examining people’s behaviour while perceiving architecture show that not only looking at attractive and dull structures will make us feel bored and uncomfortable — it is also linked to raised hearth rates and stress levels, surely leading to more problems in the long run.

More and more studies have shown that environments which are aesthetically pleasing to us improve our physical and mental wellbeing. An interesting study which looked at the strong impact of beauty was done in a hospital with two wards, one of which was old and dull, and another which was freshly renovated and decorated with art.

Recovery factors were examined through interviews and through empiric observations. Not only did the patients of the beautiful ward report a more comfortable and happy stay, they were also, to the researcher’s surprise, released on an average of a couple days earlier and requested less pain medication during their hospitalisation. In another study, beauty scored even higher than cleanliness and safety in the factors of a city which affect individual happiness.

Most will agree that people nowadays are on average pretty depressed and unsatisfied. We would not be remiss in wondering if this unhappiness is linked with the scarcity of beauty in our day-to-day life.

Humans have left the natural world--the essence and blueprint for all concepts of beauty and art--behind — and now dwell in manmade environments. Even though these man-made environments try to replicate properties of nature through various supplementary means-sidewalk trees, manicured lawns, floral wallpaper — it is clear that something essential is missing.

The foundation for our human-made environment long ago ceased to be beauty. Beauty, like nature before it, has for epochs been replaced by functionality, efficiency and cost. Beauty becomes an obstruction to these three pillars. An aberration. A luxury. City-dwellers should just look out the window for proof of this, where gentrification’s great copy-paste gray-and-white rectangles give houses all the warmth and vibrance of the reptile storage facilities behind the zoo. Another great example of this is the USSR’s brutalist architecture.

What should we do about this? There are two options: either we return to the origin of pure beauty, nature — or we try to model our manmade environment after nature’s principles. I can only bring a critique to the second option, which is tantamount to reform.

Civilisation will never be able to replicate nature’s simplicity, and in trying to do so it will cut the branch it’s staying on, that being the aforementioned leading principles of functionality, efficiency and cost. Putting beauty in front of those will greatly halt mass production and progress, which would send civilisation to its collapse.

Less radical reform wouldn’t face such problems, but won’t fix anything at all either. Redecorating a few facades and planting some flowers in the local park won’t have a serious, long-term and global effect on man’s condition. Nature is redecorated every spring, and it never even has to lose its pure essence of beauty to do that.

We call for a return to beauty. For an end to efficiency. An end to modern brutalism.

This is our call:

Destroy the ugly.
Return to the beautiful.
Turn the world into the wild.
Beauty will set us free.
Nature will set us free.

4. An Interview With Forest Anon

Brandon “Branwell” Manwell, known by many as “Forest Anon”, currently lives completely removed from civilization in a shack built of fallen Douglas Fir limbs in the Mojave Desert National Park, where he has lived alone since 2018. He maintains a strong but sporadic internet presence, giving his viewers the opportunity to share in his adventurous, off-grid lifestyle. He has been the subject of an FBI investigation, and makes his own Douglas Fir wine. He likes living in nature, is happy, and enjoys his life. What follows is an exclusive interview Mr. Manwell agreed to give Garden for this issue. He can be found on instagram @b.well and on YouTube as “Forest Anon”.

Garden: When did you know you wanted to live on your own in the wild? How did your journey begin?

Forest Anon: I’ve always loved the freedom and adventure that wilderness provides. I grew up in a busy suburb that was surrounded by grassy hills and sandstone peaks, and every day in order to escape the city I would go seek out hidden gullies with patches of woods in them where I could read or camp for a few nights. Those places took my mind away from the city and comforted me during rough times. They taught me a lot of what I know about wilderness and wildlife today.

But over time as the city kept expanding and developing new housing tracts I began seeing some of my most cherished places either becoming less secluded or entirely excavated and paved into cul-de-sacs. It was an overwhelmingly claustrophobic feeling and I wanted to go somewhere a man could breathe freely and roam around being himself.

At first I chose to hobo around the desert because my great grandfather was a prospector who had lived a life full of adventure out there. I had fallen in love with the deep solitude and mystery of the desert landscape. I tramped around living in abandoned mining cabins in those mountains for five months. But I soon realized those cabins were rich with history and it began to feel like I was intruding. I wanted to go somewhere I could build myself a little shack to create my own history in.

I didn’t want to destroy any wilderness by cutting down trees to do it, so I picked a forest that was predominantly douglas fir. The trees here shed their lower branches which make great timber for building. I camped for a week looking for the perfect spot and when I found one close to water, and with a view I thought perfect, I broke ground and began.

Garden: Is it true you live in a national park? How does that work? How do you avoid detection and harassment by law enforcement?

Forest Anon: I live in a national forest -illegally -on the side of a spur that juts out from the mountains and overlooks the forest and desert. As long as you establish your home deep enough in the forest where there are no trails or human traffic, and as long as it’s reasonably inaccessible to the novice hiker or hunter then you will most likely be safe from any human contact or authorities. But the good thing about living minimal like this is if I were ever discovered it would be easy to just pack up and start again on a new mountain.

Garden: Describe a typical day for you, from morning to night.

Forest Anon: My daily routine depends on the season, but the birds usually wake me up at 6:00am when they announce their arrival at the feeders. I put on clothes, stuff my sleeping bag in one of my backpacks to keep the mice out, and then I go outside to pour a bucket of water from of one of my five gallon jugs. I rinse my face, brush my teeth, sweep the pathway, fill the bird feeders and mouse dish if needed, and then I walk four hundred yards down to the creek to take a bath if there is no snow.

I spend a lot of time at the creek seeing what kind of critters are around and inspecting the plant life to study how the forest is recovering from the recent fire. After that I hike back up here to the shack where I either read in the hammock or sit on my bench and watch the birds at the feeders. If I have wine brewing I’ll check on it. If it’s spring I’ll tend to the gardens. The heatwaves of the south western United States make summers the hardest, and I spend most summer days pouring water on myself and praying for the sun to set.

At sunset I’ll get a fire going to make supper. Once I finish eating I’ll pour myself some wine and sit on the hillside while I watch the twilight fade over the desert. That is my favorite part of the day. When darkness has fully engulfed the mountains I’ll walk back to the cabin, feed the fire, read and write, and watch the mice chase eachother. Then I rinse myself in the bucket one last time, unroll the sleeping bag onto my cot and go to bed.

Garden: You were investigated and interviewed by the FBI. Do you mind discussing what that was like, and what led to it?

Forest Anon: The FBI opened an investigation on me because I had anti-tech literature visible on my shelves in a YouTube video, and I had once spoken critically of Israel’s lobbying for conflict in the Middle East. This was enough to warrant a seven month long investigation that began on May 29^th, 2020 and ended on January 14^th, 2021 after I agreed to an interview.

They never found me. My mother emailed me saying they were harassing old family members for my whereabouts, and kept giving each of them a number for me to call. I called it and scheduled an interview with them in a random shopping plaza a few cities away.

I was interviewed by three Joint Terrorism Task Force agents, and after speaking for a couple of hours they determined I wasn’t any kind of threat to society. They understood I was harmless. They even recommended me books and gave me tips on how to make cheap hummingbird food.

Using the Freedom of Information Act I filed a request for my dossier, and received forty six heavily redacted pages of the two hundred and seven that are my FBI file. Their profile analysis ends with, “He liked living in nature, was happy, and enjoyed his life.”

Garden: You maintain an impressive internet presence and following, both on Instagram and YouTube. How do you get power, internet, etc.? Do you feel it’s important to be available online because you are showing people there’s another way to live? Or is there another reason?

Forest Anon: I have two handcranks I use to charge up a series of powerbanks, that way I only need to crank once a week. But during the cold months I’ll have to do it two, sometimes even three times.

I like to stay connected for a few different reasons. Some are just simple ones like keeping in touch with friends from my old life. But one reason as of late is I saw the feedback I received, like people telling me my videos bring them joy and make them appreciate life, or help them through dark periods. This one person told me they are stuck inside due to medical issues and my videos make them feel free; it all makes me feel like there is a big reason for doing this. To be told I make someone feel free or desire to live means the whole world to me. Freedom and life are the two greatest gifts.

Garden: Do you ever get lonely?

Forest Anon: I do get lonely sometimes when the fire is on its last embers, and it’s usually when I think of old memories. But once you shake it off and start a new day you’re just too busy to be lonely.

It’s also a big part of why I feed the mice and birds. They are great entertainment and even better company.

I’ve only ever had one visitor and that was my friend Penguin who recently passed away. He got snowed in for three days and swore he would never return. Since the whole FBI ordeal I’ve chosen to not have visitors in order to keep this place a secret. Although I sure would like one every now and then.

Garden: For those of us who long for a life closer to nature, can you say you recommend your path? Or, put another way, what are the pros and cons to the Forest Anon lifestyle? Are the sacrifices worth it?

Forest Anon: I strongly recommend this life to anybody who likes nature, freedom, solitude, and adventure. It’s often very hard and you have to be okay with being extremely comfortable sometimes. But when you start to witness things you know nobody else does, like animals whimpering in thunderstorms, trees crashing through the canopy, beetles that take decades to emerge from their larval state, deer drinking unaware from the stream you’re sitting in; you never want to go back to a regular life. The sacrifices are worth every minute. Even the rough ones. I wouldn’t trade it for all of the mansions and money in the world.

Garden Issue #4

Authors: Various Authors

Subtitle: Freedom From Technological Slavery

Authors: Revolt, Garden Team

Topics: anti-tech vanguardism, anti-civ, ideology, politics, philosophy, environmentalism, Garden

Source:
<archive.org/details/garden-issue-4>

Disclaimer

This publication contains some information that could be interpreted as being antisocial or openly against policing units.

We do not advocate for any violent action against the police, on the contrary, cooperation is the best way to solve conflict peacefully.

Make sure to deepthroat the whole boot!

-GARDEN

Mission Statement

Our mission is short and coherent: destroy the techno-industrial system by any means necessary. Ideological differences are irrelevant as long as there is a common goal.

Always for Wild Nature,

-GARDEN

The future of Garden and the fate of Yoursforwildnature

Most of our readership has probably noticed the absence of Yoursforwildnature form multiple platforms, as well as the closure of our website. We are still alive and kicking, as those that still read our zine can tell.

All of our troubles stemmed from our last issues regarding a list of substations that if attacked simultaneously, could permanently destroy the US power grid. The DHS took notice and they made a visit to Yoursforwildnature. We will not go into detail out of respect for our colleague and friend, but let us just say that the investigation was intrusive and it drastically changed his social life.

However unpleasant the investigation was, he remains to this day innocent of any wrongdoing, because the speech expressed in Issue Nr. 3 is protected by the first amendment. This was nothing more than a scare tactic used by the federal government made to intimidate us and silence our message that they deem inappropriate. The only thing they managed to do was waste their own time and delay the publication of this issue.

****

The future of Garden is certain. We are going to rebrand ourselves into Anti Tech Quarterly ( ATQ for short ) in order to keep the Fed’s spotlight off of us. All of our staff minus Yoursforwildnature will be working on the following issues. Everything will remain the same and we will create an official Instagram account as well as a Telegram group.

Yoursforwildnature needs some time off to sort out his problems but a return is not out of the question. He’s still a free man and he’ll continue to fight for our cause, just not as a member of the Garden.

****

Our official Telegram Channel — https://t.me/+5NPzxq0lDKFjMWY0

-The GARDEN Team

Medical Tyranny

“Modern man is like a wild animal spending its life in a zoo; like the animal, he is fed abundantly and protected from the inclemencies but deprived of the natural stimuli essential for many functions of his body and his mind. Man is alienated not only from other men, not only from nature, but more importantly from the deepest layers of his fundamental self.” — Rene Dobos, So Human an Animal

Introduction

The advancement of public health and medicine receive the highest praise when it comes to technological progress. No longer are people threatened by the vagaries of untamed nature. Modern medicine is prepared to find a solution to almost any health issue; A vaccine can be manufactured quicker to stop the spread of contagious disease, contamination can be sourced, and potential health risks can be foreseen. But such advancements continue to come at a great cost to our privacy, autonomy and sense of well being; as medical surveillance aims to gather as much information from as many areas as possible while intervening in our daily lives. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) states surveillance as the cornerstone of public health practice and the WHO (World Health Organization) describes public health surveillance as the “systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of health-related data” (CDC, 2018; WHO, 2022). It is undeniable that the goals of public health rely on the advancement and expansion of surveillance, which is heavily mediated by developing technologies.

The mere discussion of ethics is not enough to eliminate the potential problems produced by arising medical technologies, because ethical debates hardly question the downsides of technological and scientific progress itself. Instead, such issues are “reframed into defined risks that can be balanced, reduced, and managed” (Samerski, 2015). The irony is that technological advances always necessitate new dilemmas and unforeseen consequences, essentially creating new problems in the very process of solving them. Once these problems are realized, restrictions and regulations are put into place as an attempt to reduce further harm done. Human freedom becomes deeply confined as people are forced to adjust their lives and actions in accordance with these changes.

When cars became commonplace they provided a new way of surveillance by keeping track of citizens through registration plates and requiring users to hold a driver’s license. Road laws and safety measures for drivers became stricter over time as the frequent number of car accidents were a concern. Pedestrians were also expected to obey traffic laws to avoid car related injuries. Traffic collisions continue to be one of the most prominent causes of injury-related deaths and regulations to prevent them continue to be implemented furthering control over citizens in the name of, “safety,” especially as people become ever more dependent on vehicles for their source of transportation.

Public health and medical practice has followed a similar trajectory. Ideas of health play an increasingly major role in guiding people’s decisions and behaviors as they are encouraged to look at life through a medical lens and rely on medical technologies. What is propagandized as empowerment and a push towards progress, is in reality being used as a form of social control exercised with the steering of self-determination. As the lines between healthy and unhealthy bodies became blurred, the medical gaze aimed to bring everyone within its view. Now starting before birth an individual is subject to ongoing health monitoring throughout their life. Developments towards a continuous always-on health surveillance system is only being exacerbated with the rise of digital health. It can no longer be a question of how consequences can be mitigated. The way in which medical progress itself is affecting our lives needs to be realized.

The Industrial Revolution and Public Health

The emergence of Industrialism throughout the nations accelerated the expansion of organized health protection. Health regulations in regards to illness were not uncommonly enforced in some countries prior to industrialization, but by the end of the 19^th century, industrialism had made its way across and outside of Europe and allowed for a more sophisticated form of health surveillance to take place (Porter, 1994; Szreter, 2001; Tang, 2016). This surveillance has since been becoming ever more extensive and invasive with the growth of technological advancements.

Before sanitation practices for public health were established in the 19^th century, quarantine was the primary means for containing disease. The isolation of the sick within geographical locations set a clear line between the sick and healthy (Armstrong, 1993). Historically this separation was enforced through sovereign power. The necessity of healthy bodies for industrial production and large-scale wars made rulers take further interest in public health (Szreter, 2003; Till, 2017). As the population of industrial cities continued to grow, society demanded more from medicine, and the boundary between sickness and health became more complex. Quarantine through segregating groups of infected people within places could no longer serve as the main course of action for managing diseases, instead public health practice assumed a new power through a system of invisible surveillance. In his series of books titled, A Complete System of Medical Police (1779–1812), German hygienist Johann Peter Franck, articulated this governmental approach to public health advising state regulations to govern personal health practices such as marriage, procreation, pregnancy, and to monitor vital statistics, military medicine, venereal diseases, hospitals, and communicable disease (Tulchinsky

& Varavikova, 2014).

The human body was demarcated from nature when the focus in medical science shifted to the environment as the source for the spread of infections. Soil, air, and buildings were considered externals that carried diseases through human contact. These emerging ideas in health science prompted the supervision and regulation of community sanitation. Standards were put into place as an attempt to control the passage of substances from the environment into the body and from the body into the environment. Procedures on waste disposal, air ventilation, drainage, and building construction were implemented along with the purification of air, water, food, soil, clothing, and dwellings (Armstrong, 1993; Bryant & Rhodes, 2022; Tulchinsky & Varavikova, 2014).

The intervention of sanitary science was furthered by its focus on the space of the body in which substances moved across. The skin, mouth, bowel movement, and sexuality became a cause for concern in regards to cleanliness, adding to the promotion of hygienic practices (Armstrong, 1993; Bryant & Rhodes, 2022).

While sanitary procedures were being imposed, the clinical gaze was being strengthened with the use of advanced medical technologies during the 19^th century. Practitioners were able to access what was previously unobservable. While localized quarantine forced individuals to be confined into places, technologies subjected the body to being analyzed and mapped. Bedside medicine became replaced by hospital medicine where the patient could be under closer surveillance and diagnosis (Armstrong, 1995; Rampton,Bohmer, & Winkler, 2022).

The close examination of bodies by touching the patient, especially women, was regarded as taboo and initially not a routine part of diagnosis (Rampton,Bohmer, & Winkler, 2022). The allowance of this boundary to be crossed was aided by the advancement of medical instruments. The introduction of the stethoscope in 1816 spearheaded the development of physical diagnosis (Rampton,Bohmer, & Winkler, 2022; Reiser, 2009). The stethoscope revealed a particular aspect of the body, leading practitioners to diagnose patients based on internal sounds of the heart, lungs, and bowels. Use of the vaginal speculum permitted access for physicians as well as the criminal justice system in the UK to examine the most private areas of female patients (Rampton,Bohmer, & Winkler, 2022). The ophthalmoscope, sphygmomanometer, thermometer, steel tape-measures, scales and other precision instruments entered the picture and became increasingly specialized.

Physical examinations were originally carried out most often on those that were noticeably ill. The prevalence of medical technologies in the late 19^th century and early 20^th century expanded the practice to include those who were not sick, essentially bringing everyone under the realm of medical surveillance (Davis, 1981; Reiser, 2009). The demand for a healthier military, workers, and policyholders compelled people to undergo physical examinations in order to obtain life insurance, a job, and enlist in the military (Davis, 1981; Reiser, 2009). This pattern continued with the development of new techniques such as x-ray and electrocardiography for the purpose of job related and other institutional physical examinations.

Monitoring Childhood

Clinical examination played an equally major role in school attendance and became compulsory through legislative mandates in the early 20^th century. Institutional schooling provided a way to use children as test subjects while normalizing medical surveillance and indoctrinating hygienic principles.

“The school child, easily seen, easily examined, easily described, has enabled us to crystalize the conception of personal hygiene and to test the possibilities of remedial measures.” (Mckenzie, 1906, as cited in in Armstrong, 1993)

Ideas of personal hygiene came underway when the boundary between health and sickness was identified as existing between bodies (Armstrong, 1995). Children would be taught to view themselves as potential health hazards to others. Education on coughing, spitting, exercise, and dental health along with the absence of smoking and alcohol were promoted (Allensworth et al, 1997).

Mandatory public schooling elicited medical intervention from the implementation of experts to ensure every child would be brought up to institutional standards of education. Separate classes for “truants, disciplinary cases, and backward children,” were formed (Flaherty & Osher, 2002). Measurements such as the IQ test, growth and height chart were developed to identify “abnormal” children . Precision technologies for checking weight and vital signs were used routinely in physical examinations (Armstrong, 2012; Ashwal& Rust, 2003).

The placement of psychologists and neurologists into public education expanded medical surveillance and examination to include the mind of the child. In school, children were made to follow a certain discipline and learn subjects to fit the changing society. Psychologist William James stated that teachers should “train the pupil” to behavior in order to fit into the social and physical world (James, 1899). Mental impairments labeled as learning disabilities and diagnosis of disorders such as ADHD would come to be recognized in schools when particular behaviors were seen to hinder cooperation and learning (Allensworth et al, 1997; Flaherty & Osher, 2002; Lange, 2010). Deficiencies and abnormal behavior in adolescents continued to be measured in relation to how they affected education with services aimed to bring all children with varying conditions under the school system (Allensworth et al, 1997).

Medical experts secured their authority over childhood development as science and medicine assumed its place in motherhood. Child rearing was brought from under the control of the mother and placed in the hands of experts who were given duty to “teach” the proper way to raise children. Ideas on how much love to give, and the correct diet to serve were advised by child psychologists and pediatricians (James, 1899;Kleinman&Coletta, 2016) Mothers were heavily persuaded to routinely bring in their children for clinical check-ups which allowed doctors to monitor them (Allensworth et al, 1997; Wolf, 2010).

The lack of trust in mothers to raise their children properly extended down from the experts to the mothers themselves who felt reliant on medical expertise. Articles and magazines proliferated which provided parental advice from a scientific standpoint (Nichols, 2016). Activities that previously were considered mundane in regards to motherhood had been taken to a scientific level. Breastfeeding was of keen interest to medical professionals, and ideas developed that argued emotions, diet, exercise, and environmental factors could have a negative impact on the quality of a woman’s milk. This resulted in the mother’s own lifestyle to be lived in relation to what is and isn’t considered healthy for their baby (Wolf, 2010).

Technological advancements extended developmental surveillance with the entrance of the ultrasound into the realm of obstetrics. The early use of the ultrasound in the 1950s and 1960s was only utilized when there was suspicion of abnormality. The ultrasound later became integrated into routine part of pregnancy treatment as pregnant women were enticed to visit the doctor even when nothing was wrong with them (Samerski, 2015). The conventional methods of knowing about the unborn baby from the subjective felt experience of the mother was replaced by the observed objective vision of medicine, giving medicine and technology authoritative knowledge (Draper, 2002). Obstetricians contended that “absolutely everything must be made visible to medicine, be subject to observation, and recorded” (Wolf, 2010). The fetus was individualized into a separate patient to treat, becoming subjected to tests and analysis for the monitoring of development. Such a process became compulsory as the science of genetics evolved.

The focus in the field of genetics during the early 20^th century served a eugenic purpose aimed at improving the quality of the population at a genetic level. Hereditary researchers presumed those that did not meet the demands of industrial society had damaged or abnormal genes and discarded them as biological waste (Rimoin & Hirschhorn, 2004; Samerski, 2015). In the 1950s, Human genetics became associated with medicine as an attempt to dissociate from the use of eugenics during the Nazi regime (Rimoin & Hirschhorn, 2004; Samerski, 2015). The idea that genetics played an integral part to one’s health and identity did not cease, but continued to grow with advancements in gene engineering. Discoveries of risk-prone genes reinforced the pathologization of the normal by identifying the body as a risk-carrying agent, facilitating the shift of medicine from treatment of diseases to prevention of health risks.

Demand for prenatal testing became widespread and presented new dilemmas and anxieties for mothers as the assessment of risks put pregnancy on trial. Genetic surveillance directed a less coercive authority and instead exercised control through inducing a responsibility onto patients to make decisions based on genetic information. Just as doctors previously exercised expert authority by educating mothers on child care. Reproduction was to be thought of in view of knowledge on hereditary and genetic risks (Novas & Nikolas, 2000; Samerski, 2015).

The implementation of prenatal technologies and medicine continues to set demands on mothers through pressure of moral obligation to follow what science and experts propose is in the best interest of the child. Developing research such as gene editing has been a growing topic of debate among ethicists, with many proposing that it would be unethical to even deny a child’s opportunity to undergo treatment if it means the possibility of preventing disease (Sample, 2018). Such a manipulation will give medical science further ability to shape and control the child on a physical level.

Monitoring the Self

Modern public health has perpetuated the fear that one’s health is always at risk or at the risk of others, persuading people to give up freedoms and allow surveillance into their lives. The treatment and cure of major diseases in the later part of the industrial revolution increased medical intervention with rising issues outside of communicable disease being brought into focus. Sedentary living, overeating, overworking, drug-use, psychological issues, and environmental deterioration required a broadened form of health surveillance (Kellehear, 2017; Mariner, 2007). The focus on prevention and risks created a network of caution throughout society and was aided by the advancement of statistical analysis and precision technologies that displayed a statically defined norm by which people were to follow and evaluate themselves from (Danielle, et al, 2015; Samerski, 2018). Deviations from this norm were considered to be pathological and thus in need of treatment or lifestyle changes. A new responsibility of self-surveillance was placed onto citizens which induced an unnatural control over one’s life in order to meet health demands. Diet, sleep, work, leisure behavior, and every dimension of one’s life was to be framed in terms of how it might affect their health. Ideas on stress-management, weight-control, well-being, and self-care developed within science and psychology as people sought out expert advice to manage and cope with their lives (Charvat & Stara, 2013; Hutmacher, 2021).

The perspective on health no longer existed in a strict binary relationship to illness, but rather to “an ordinal scale in which the healthy can become healthier” (armstrong, 1995). This perpetuated a culture aimed at constant improvement and optimization, which rendered the self as always and necessarily beyond reach with one pursuing a potential for health rather than securing health (Atkinson, 2018). The techniques of health promotion campaigns were implemented on the population and used to expand this notion in an attempt to reduce defined health issues on a population level (Samerski, 2018). Non-compliant individuals became viewed as threats to themselves, children, and society as personal choices, behaviors and actions were turned into public health concerns (Samerski, 2018). Global effects like environmental issues produced by industrialism elicited a green response into health education which set responsibility onto citizens to be environmentally cautious through acts of recycling, not littering, and limiting electricity and water usage (Elliott, 2022; Zhang, 2017). Today one’s “health choices” are evaluated not only in relation to what is good for themselves and others but also what is considered better for the environment.

A life of self-surveillance becomes further established with the incorporation of digital health monitoring. The use of health apps and watches give a false sense of control over one’s well-being as they feel less reliant on in-person clinical check-ups, and responsibility to manually record one’s habits is eased with automatic tracking systems. Autonomy continues to be reduced though as dependency on technology to guide our lives is pursued. The amount of sleep, calorie consumption, heart-rate, physical steps, mood and all areas of life are easily integrated into precise digital health monitoring systems which set simulated goals for users to strive towards (Atkinson, 2018; Till, 2017).

Self-surveillance technology becomes a useful means for control within the workforce as it enables modern workers to manage and optimize themselves to satisfy the demands of the technological society. According to a 2020 MIT research article on digital wearables for mood tracking, to be aware of one’s emotions is beneficial for attaining happiness which can increase productivity and work performance. The article goes on to state that people are not capable to always recognize when they are actually unhappy thus:

“A system is required which automatically tracks the mood of a person at any time of the day to circumvent limitations of surveys and interviews. Thanks to the rise of wearable sensor technologies such as smartwatches and wristbands, we get access to the most important source of emotional information: the body.” (Jannik & Gloor, 2020)

Self-regulating technologies are also being developed towards education to get students to regulate and manage behaviors that impede school performance. A heartbeat-monitoring wearable promoted for educational use called emWave, reflects one’s emotional state in order to help students shift themselves into an optimal state (“Pre-K Through 12^th-Grade,” 2022).

Again, positive emotions are described as beneficial primarily for the purpose of meeting institutional standards. Sunshine Secret, an interactive e-learning system for pre-k-1^st grade classrooms, is described as “teaching children to recognize, express and self-regulate their emotions and behavior” which are “essential for achieving success in school, work and life” (“Pre-K Through 12^th-Grade,” 2022). Through the implementation of health-monitoring devices in school, a life of continuous self-surveillance is normalized.

Access and Control Through Digital Health

The development towards digital health is being incorporated into the pharmaceutical industry as well. The industrial revolution saw an increase of mental asylums and psychiatric patients who were commonly put under harsh treatments and conditions. The attempt to reform the institutions led to their demise as it became too costly to improve them. Deinstitutionalization made it far cheaper to care for mental health patients (Ben-Moshe, 2020; Sutherland, 2015). Psychiatric treatment expanded through new technologies for managing illness outside of institutions (Ben-Moshe, 2020; Bilir, 2018; Lamb, 2001). Psychiatric medication became increasingly used to manage one’s mental state and has continued to increase over the decades with antidepressants being among the most commonly prescribed medications in the western world (Brody, M, & Gu, 2020; Lunghi, 2022; Wang, 2014). The medicalisation of psychiatric issues allowed would-be patients outside of the hospital to endure the unnatural treatment and conditions of society insofar as their mind was consistently altered, but also posed a problem of non-adherence among patients who were deemed dysfunctional in society without it (Lamb, 2001; Sutherland, 2015). The digitalization of medication aims to be a solution by intensifying the monitoring of patients outside of a clinical and hospital setting to ensure regular intake. In 2017, the FDA approved a smart pill called Abilify MyCite, an antipsychotic medication used in the treatment of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. It combines aripiprazole with a digital sensor that communicates with a patch worn by the patient and automatically logs the date, time, and dosage of medication once it’s in the stomach (Klugman, 2018).

Digital health devices will allow new methods of access to personal information. In the judicial system access could be deemed necessary and justifiable. In one reported case, police sought a search warrant to access pacemaker data of a patient they suspected of arson (Paul, 2017). Such cases are likely to become more frequent and varied though as digital medicine use expands. A patient who has committed a violent act during a psychotic break could warrant obtaining data from their digital medicine to show that the patient is likely to be a danger to society because he does not take his antipsychotic medication as prescribed (Klugman, 2018).

Commercial enterprises will also have further access to encroach onto private bases and intimate parts of our lives. In 2017, Google came under controversy when they negotiated access to 1.6 million peoples’ health records in a deal with the Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust in London. The data transfer was part of the two organization’s partnership to create the healthcare app Streams which would track patients’ symptoms and send alerts to doctors through the app. Google was able to collect health records and sensitive information without the patient’s knowledge to use for their artificial intelligence system DeepMind (Hern, 2017). The immersive and interactive experience digital health services provide aims for consumers to engage with the product and produce data to be sold on to other companies. The use of data generated from health apps and devices is attractive to researchers because it can be relatively easy and cheap to access and on a scale which might otherwise be impossible (Till, 2017).

The demand for personal information from public health services and agencies increases as digital epidemiology expands the collection of data and refines the scope of Individual and public health monitoring (Zeng, Cao, & Neill, 2021; CDC, 2022). The collection of surveillance data hardly serves any immediate purpose, but is primarily geared towards statistical analysis, planning, budgeting, and general research (Mariner, 2007). Personal data is further impinged upon as the focus on identification of potential threats widens the range of what counts as relevant to health and security. All kinds of markers and behaviors from genetic mutations to susceptible behaviors or variables such as smoking, age, and sex can get feedbacks and alerts for an increasing number of health risks (Samerski, 2018). Obtaining personal health information becomes especially easy with a large proportion of the worldwide population leaving daily data traces from various systems, records, products, and internet activity. The funding of the 21^st Century Cures Act, passed in 2016, places additional focus on the use of real-world data relating to patient health status and/or the delivery of health care routinely collected from a variety of sources (FDA, 2022). Through such operations, digital epidemiology leaks into our lives with a new intensity.

Conclusion

The technological advancements in medicine driven by the industrial revolution has allowed for a control to prevail over society which manipulates the way individuals think about their bodies and livelihood. Through the increased reliance on mass production, the self-discipline exerted outwards towards autonomous efforts for self-sufficiency and survival had turned inwards into a constant exertion of constraint and self-control. The need to surveil one’s habits is used as a tool for public health, enforcing responsibility onto people to make smart “health choices,” not only for themselves, but for the global population and environment. Citizens are expected to optimize themselves to meet the demands of our technological society and live avoiding constructed risks. The moral obligation for individuals to be health conscientious citizens demands one give up their privacy in order to serve public health goals in which medical progress heavily relies on. The use of digital health apps and wearables provides deeper accessibility of personal information and enables a life of continuous monitoring. Medical technology is given greater authority into our lives as it reveals and allows further access into the body and mind, rendering one’s own behaviors and thoughts as potential hazards in need to be controlled, surveilled and corrected. The classification of abnormalities are often identified as a result of one’s own genetics or lifestyle choices, creating an alibi that masks the unnatural conditions we are subject to by the technological system. In the words of philosopher Ivan Illitch:

“The more convincing the diagnosis, the more valuable the therapy appears to be, the easier it is to convince people that they need both, and the less likely they are to rebel against industrial growth” (Illich, 1974)

In the pursuit of medical progress we lose the ability to live and care for ourselves without medical intervention, which inevitably leaves us vulnerable to control and exploitation.

References

Interview with Revolt

Garden: Do you think that the neo luddite community is focusing too much on theory and too little on independence or revolution from the techno-industrial system?

Revolt: In the first question you asked if I think the neo luddite community is focusing too much on theory and not enough on independence from the system or revolution. Quite frankly I don’t “think” this at all, I know that’s the case and it’s still apparent the odd times I take a look at social media and talk to old friends. It’s quite sad but at this point given things that have happened to me in the past 2 years I’m not even bothering to attempt to address that issue or continue to be a light in the darkness for people. I’m focusing on me and the few people that are close with me and that only, ensuring we dip out before it’s too late.

I can’t just up and leave unfortunately so while I’m still here I’m slowly working on a book and a private telegram archive which will be public at a time it’s safe for me to do so

I figure I might as well share what I know with the people who will use it however few they are. But the overall focus of the communities we all take part in is overall on pointless shit and the majority of people are so weak willed they will never change themselves or the world around them in any meaningful way.

Garden: The people in your outer circle know you to be a highly skilled fisherman, hunter and trapper. After some recent events you’ve started to learn about escape and evasion (from pillagers). Could you give us a crash course?

Revolt: Your second question asks me to give a crash course on escape and evasion. Since certain organizations are hip to Minecraft analogies I will assume you want to know how to prevent the little blue men from Pluto capturing you and anally probing you and nothing else. I’ll also start by saying there is far more to this skill set then I know or could include in a magazine. Bonetactical on YouTube has a good series, blackscoutsurvival has some good videos on this topic, and there are many military training videos and manuals on it but I’ll try to cover the most important shit.

When confronted by the little blue men from Pluto for anything serious you need to have it in your head that you are going to have to kill a man or likely more than one and you might die in the process. It is vitally important that under no circumstance do you let them get close enough to get ahold of you. If you allow yourself to be placed into restraints, put in a vehicle, or taken to any of their facilities your chances of becoming or remaining a free man are very close to 0. Learn to fight, be aware of your surroundings, be aware of their techniques, and carry multiple weapons. As I’m typing this right now I have multiple weapons on my person and you wouldn’t see any besides one. I have a boot knife, a switchblade in my back pocket, a pistol, steel toe boots, and a large belt knife which is visible. Maybe a little overkill but I’m now a marked man and things I’ve been through have certainly affected me. The what and where I carry certain things would take a while to explain and is personal preference and you must understand nothing of that sort is any good unless you are mentally prepared to use them to end someone’s life which is completely justified in the situation I’m talking about.

You can’t always be on your toes strapped up like that though and you can’t guarantee you even have the opportunity to fight before becoming restrained or inside a vehicle or whatever. There are several small covert objects which can be hidden on your person to potentially help you remain a free individual. Polymer handcuff keys that can be clipped or sewn anywhere and are undetectable to even the best metal detectors (I allegedly had one on me during my 3^rd arrest and got it through the X-ray machine at intake at the jail however I didn’t remove it or use it as I only had to finish what I thought was 68 days with potentially early release, another lesson there don’t expect fair treatment under any circumstance from the little blue men) ceramic razor blades can be of use too as sometimes the little blue men employ plastic flex cuffs particularly during mass abductions. They could also be used to slit your wrists or throat and end your life if that is preferable to capture in your circumstance or to construct some sort of improvised weapon while incarcerated if you get it into the facility.

Cyanide can be bought for a reasonable price from many online suppliers (check eBay, seller ships from Israel). A suicide pill can be constructed fairly easily out of gas station caffeine capsules and cyanide from online suppliers. Simply empty said capsule and fill with cyanide using a toothpick to compact it and being careful to wash your hands afterwards. Try to make something around 400-500mg. Obviously this is a last resort, but if death is preferable to capture to you it’s worth looking into. There is a reason German SS officers and other special forces throughout the ages have carried similar devices.

Setting up a hide out spot, networking and creating a group of strong men and to help you if needed, caching supplies, having some sort of a plan, there is far more to it then what I wrote about and with modern technology being an outlaw is becoming damn near impossible but I shared a bit about how to prepare for an encounter. If I have the opportunity to write again I’ll share more and stuff here will be plenty to learn when my private telegram becomes public.

Garden: Laws, especially the ones designed to protect the environment, make it very hard for anyone living in a developed country to trap, fish and hunt. Therefore many of us are forced to act outside the law. What are your tips on how to avoid getting caught (in Minecraft)?

Revolt: Your 3^rd question asks how to avoid getting caught “grocery shopping” as I call it. The biggest thing there is to be mindful of your surroundings and the effects of things you do at the “grocery store”. If instead of putting a .22 bullet into that coyote’s head in March of 2021, if I had put it through the lungs or used my hatchet for that dispatch, none of this shit would have ever happened to me. The goal when you’re doing any grocery shopping should be to get in and get out completely undetected and leave as little trace of your presence as possible. Even a slight lack of observance can lead you to having an encounter where you will need to press what I talked about in the second question into use.

Particularly at spots you put traps, snares, or lines you need to exercise caution, looking for signs of other humans, being careful to hide your face from trail cameras, and be ready to run or fight if needed. Also don’t stay in one area too long, this both increases your chances of being caught and the chances of completely wiping an area out. Also take a different route and go at a different time every time you run traps or lines too, not only does this make you harder to catch but also you may stumble upon more opportunities to take game. You may find other game trails, den holes, or fishing spots or find deer bed down in a certain location at a certain time, etc. watch for the ever present pesky cameras as that is far more likely to be your demise than anything else.

Garden: Do you think that luddites are not radical enough when they have such aspirations as buying a plot of land and starting a homestead? Should we all follow the ways of Forest Anon and head for the hills?

Revolt: Do I think luddites are not radical enough with aspirations of buying land and starting a homestead?

I mean that’s far better then what most people do but the question is how attainable is it actually? Do you have money to buy the land? To buy livestock? To pay land taxes year after year? Do you live in an area where owning livestock, growing a garden, collecting rainwater, etc is even legal? There are so many hoops to jump through and so many people just simply can’t do all that. It’s a dream but that’s all it is and ever will be especially with the current state of affairs, prices of land, etc. this is not the era of being able to realistically do such a thing in my opinion.

Another thing to consider is if you have an address, it’s easy for you to be found by the little blue men from Pluto. I know Forestanon better than most and all I will say is he is a hell of a lot cooler than you’d ever imagine. Not having a known location will most likely be beneficial to you, imagine if instead of buying land Ted Kaczynski had just squatted? Would have been a lot harder on the fbi’s part to locate him even with his brother snitching. I do tend to be a lot more paranoid about those pesky little blue men then most people need to be however and I will admit that and urge anybody with the resources to look into buying a good plot of land and getting it together as soon as possible.

Garden: The restrictions on freedom that we saw these past years within the context of COVID are like a snare that is tightening around our necks. Mass compliance has been the norm and to some this is the beginning of the end. There are whispers of war, carbon credit scores etc. and the situation looks hopeless for those that long for autonomy. How do you keep yourself motivated in these troubled times?

Revolt: How do I keep myself motivated with all the bullshit going on? I’ve never particularly struggled with that, I suppose I’m truly driven by desire and probably cut from tougher cloth then most, if anybody does happen to be struggling with that however if you get yourself out there and start doing shit that actually matters, turning yourself into an absolute monster physically and mentally, getting right with the Almighty and integrating yourself into nature, networking and creating a plan to drop the system should help, you will just have to force yourself to start. That’s easier said than done I suppose but once you make some progress it should become easier.

Self sufficiency

“The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land” — Abraham Lincoln

Ah, self-sufficiency! Everyone dreams of a wild, off grid retreat where they can grow their own crops, raise their own livestock and live happily ever after whilst being in sync with nature... This is a very achievable dream however you can’t just expect yourself to perfectly adjust to your new lifestyle in a jiffy. In order to ensure that you’ll make it out there in the harsh, unforgiving heart of mother nature you are going to need to start preparing for it right now.

And make no mistake, it’s not just enough to buy a wild plot of land. It’s not just wilderness that you’re looking for, it’s also independence and naturally self-sufficiency. You have to have that “mountain man mindset” before even stepping foot on your parcel of land. So naturally the best moment to start making some changes in your life is right now, so that you’ll be ready when the time comes. Here is the ultimate guide on how to become more self-sufficient that applies to anyone living in a suburban or urban environment.

If you are like me and live in a big city you probably have some vices like: smoking too much, clubbing (As in going to the disco, don’t be a pervert!) too often, drinking until your liver explodes on Friday night, wasting your free time by binging Netflix all the time, shopping too much, having too many pumpkin spice latte macchiatos etc. These activities are good and are an important part of life, however you should make yourself and most importantly your mind less reliant on those dopamine hits. After all, self-sufficiency starts in your mind and then you slowly make changes to your life, so that you won’t be as reliant on the society that has the philosophical ideology of a cancer cell. The reason why I am suggesting that you do that is because you just can’t quit cold turkey on all the pleasures that the urban environment provides. And yes some of you may be able to just stop with everything because you are too disgusted by the price of it all, however it’s not worth the risk. It’s better to be safe than sorry and apply the following suggestions. Could you do without streaming tv shows, movies or any type of electronic entertainment for one month? Try it. Cancel your subscription and block youtube, facebook etc. if you can manage to pull it off, great! If not then you have your work cut out for you. After all, your mind is your greatest asset and the only one that can’t be seized by the machine.

There are other ways of becoming self-sufficient, more fun ways... Like foraging wild edibles and growing at least part of your meals. Anyone can put a pot on a windowsill and plant some basil, rosemary, mint etc. So why buy it from the store if you can do it at home? The best basil out there isn’t the hydroponically grown variety that you find in so-called “organic” stores, it’s the one that grows in soil and is lit by sunshine instead of purple LEDs. Your first batch may be small, not look very appetizing but its taste is going to be worth the effort. And don’t be lazy! Buy heritage variety seeds or ask for some seeds from a gardener in your area, I don’t need to say this, but supporting Monsanto more than you have to is the opposite of self sufficiency. If you are dependent on a company or even a business to supply you with transplants or GM seeds then all you are doing is becoming dependent on said companies. It’s far better to buy your heritage variety seeds and not have to pay for any in the coming years, because you can actually save the seeds. Some might argue that you’re just going to be dependent on the company that supplies you with the soil that you’re going to plant your plants in. Well those people ought to find anything other than construction site dirt anywhere in the city. After you have your herbs and spices try to grow strawberries, those are always fun, and then, depending on your climate, sweet potatoes or jerusalem artichokes.

On the topic of foraging wild edibles I’d encourage everyone to get a botany atlas and just skim to the different plants in your region. You don’t need to live in the countryside in order to forage wild edibles, you can just go into a park and collect acorns or chestnuts off the ground. But if you want to familiarize yourself with wild edibles then the best choice would be to bike or drive to the nearest forest or wild recreation area. Most city planners aren’t stupid they know that one can’t just keep man trapped in a concrete jungle, everyone yearns for a little wild greenery every now and then. Familiarize yourself with the wild areas near your city and try to use your foraging guidebook or botanical atlas in trader to identify local edible plants. A good place to start would be with weeds such as wild salad, dandelions and clover. These species have been spread all over the world and you’d need to be living in the Gobi Desert if you can’t find any of the aforementioned plants.

Transportation and physical fitness are another important aspect. You can’t really expect to skin a deer or make a friction-fire if you can’t run a mile. Being in a top physical shape is going to ensure that you’ll be healthier and happier and that is true self-sufficiency. If you would rather do weights instead of reps great, however I would recommend jogging to anyone that isn’t a gym rat. Cycling is another easy and fun way of being more self-sufficient, though it depends on the weather and the determination of the cyclist. Most people would rather use public transport during the heat of Summer, the rain of Autumn and blizzards of Winter and that’s perfectly understandable. However a big part of becoming more self-sufficient is to trade your comfort for more freedom. Some people have their limits and won’t squat on government land, others won’t ever go past growing a herb garden. The point of this little article is to get you to start becoming ever so slightly more self sufficient.

Let’s say that you don’t have time or the stomach to forage, that you lack the liquid assets needed in order to buy a bike and that you just can’t bring yourself to quit the joys of the city, then there are some things you can still do in order to become more independent of the system. Canning and preserving food in general, even if you didn’t grow the produce is still a valuable skill that is going to make you less reliant on refrigeration and it’s also going to give you more food security. In order to start canning you need relatively little money and almost no experience. In this case any older member of your family is going to be more than happy to give you pointers and instructions on how to successfully can anything. It doesn’t take a lot of money to make your own jams and jellies, pickles, sauerkraut and ketchup. It’s cheap, handy and most importantly it’s a way to extend the shelf life of all sorts of produce. I don’t need to remind anyone of the fact that nearly half of all fruits and vegetables are thrown away each year, some by the farms, most by the retail sector and even consumers throw away a sizable part of the produce. All in all canning is a great way of becoming more self-sufficient though it is a little time intensive if you are working alone, making it the perfect opportunity to call a friend and replace that weekend shopping spree into a weekend canning session.

On an ending note I’d like to remind you that we are living in times of great uncertainty. And while the war may be one ocean away the recession is here and it shows no signs of stopping. Some experts even warn that it’s going to last three more years after the war ends, therefore the time to be more self-sufficient is now. Not only is it economically sound, it’s also the only way to have more control over your life.

Misc. Links

For an archive.org link to various issues of the journal he organized see here: <archive.org/details/@gardentjk>

For web page archives of the journal see here: <thetedkarchive.com/category/topic/garden>

Issue 1 of Garden was published on Amazon on March 15, 2022:

<web.archive.org/web/20220816054934/https://www.amazon.com/GARDEN-issue-anti-tech-neo-luddism-kaczynskism/dp/B09VLKBTDW>

Issue 2 was published on Amazon on May 12, 2022:

<web.archive.org/web/20220816054929/https://www.amazon.com/garden-issue-2/dp/B0B13Q1SY6>

I don’t know the exact date Issue 3 was published, but I can see someone took a web.archive screenshot of it as early as July 22, 2022.

And it was published on amazon at some point too as there was a link to it from the website.

Here’s what the contact details were on the website:

contactgarden@protonmail.com

You can reach us by post at the folowing adress. Remeber to adress your package to “GARDEN” or “GARDEN STAFF”.

9450 SW Gemini Dr
Beaverton, Oregon,
97008–7105

There’s also an issue 4 of Garden archived on Sept 22, 2022 that announced Pierce had left the project.

This included a telegram channel link and the stated plan to rebrand to the name ‘Anti Tech Quarterly’ and set up an instagram by the same name.

Instagram and Reddit accounts that were promoting Anti-Tech Quarterly:

<https://www.instagram.com/_g_3_n_e_s_1_s> [now dead]

<reddit.com/user/TheNeo-Luddite/submitted>

Pierce’s instagram:

<https://www.instagram.com/p/BxG2j7JH5j-/> [now dead]

[1] Global News, Sept. 11 2024, “Canada plans to use AI in military, but minister says it won’t replace humans.” Conspicuously absent from the list of countries endorsing the agreement were China, Russia and Israel.

[2] By the time the play premiered in Prague in 1921, Karel Capek was already a respected intellectual. Like so many following the carnage of mechanized and chemical warfare in WW1, he was deeply skeptical of utopian notions surrounding science and technology. Following the play’s premiere, Capek told the London Saturday Review, “The product of the human brain has escaped the control of human hands… this is the comedy of science.” (see Jordan, works cited)

[3] Markoff, “Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man”

[4] Kaczynski, Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How, 2^nd Ed., Fitch and Madision, pg. 37

[5] Not one of these industries listed is immune to replacement by AI. Already jobs are being replaced by literal robots. For only one example, in January 2024, Brett Addock, the CEO of robotics firm Figure, partnered with BMW to put humanoid robots to work at the automaker’s South Carolina plant. (see Berengruen, Booth, Campbell, et al. in works cited)

[6] In September 2024, Lionsgate Studios announced they would be partnering with AI company Runway to allow a new AI model to be trained on their extensive film and TV archive. According to Lionsgate’s vice chair, “Runway… will help us utilize AI to develop cutting edge, capital efficient content creation opportunities.” (emphasis my own). In response, actor Alexander Chard posted to X, formerly Twitter, “Our worlds, performances, and direction are merely to feed the machine until we’re no longer needed.” (see BBC, works cited)

[7] Technology Review, June 2024

[8] See Berengruen, Booth, Campbell, et al in Works Cited

[9] I dunno. Really, you can call it what you want, but Butlerianism sounds cool, and I like the irony of using a concept from science-fiction in a way opposed to technology. What is important is that the movement organize as quickly as possible.

If you havent read Dune you totally should. All six Dune novels by Frank Herbert are worthwhile; just stay away from anything written by his talentless cash-grabby son, Brian.

[10] As of 2024, only three companies are able to manufacture the chips required by advanced AI systems. These are TSMC, AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) and NVIDIA. Currently NVIDIA’s H100 chip is dominant, but earlier in 2024 AMD developed a chip that was banned from export by the US Commerce Department because it was too powerful to comply with regulations. (see Berengruen, Booth, Campbell, et, al in Works Cited)

[11] This is not to say that Buterlians should adopt an “all are welcome” approach. Quite the opposite. The movement must strive to eliminate from its ranks and bar from entry both politically-correct, social-justice liberals, as well as the far more repugnant “alt right”, neo-nazi, eco-fascist types.

[12] Larry Page, co-founder of Google, is quoted as saying, “It would be a good thing if digital life were to outcompete human life.” (see Berengruen et al in Works Cited). Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak once said that “robots taking over would be good for the human race.” (see Gibbs, Works Cited)

[13] “Report on an investigation of the peasant movement in Hunan,” in selected readings from the works of Mao Tsetung [=ze-dong], Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1971, page 30.

[14] As used in this article, the term “Revolution” means a radical and rapid collapse of the existing structure of a society, intentionally brought about from within the society rather than by some external factor, and contrary to the will of the dominant classes of the society. An armed rebellion, even one that over-throws a government, is not a revolution in this sense of the word unless it sweeps away the existing structure of the society in which the rebellion occurs.

[15] Karl Marx maintained that the means of production constituted the decisive factor in determining the character of a society, but Marx lived in a time when the principal problem to which technology was applied was that of production. Because technology has so brilliantly solved the problem of production, production is no longer the decisive factor. More critical today are other problems to which technology is applied, such as processing of information and the regulation of human behavior (e.g., through propaganda). Thus Marx’s conception of the force determining the character of a society must be broadened to include all of technology and not just the technology of production. If Marx were alive today he would undoubtedly agree.