Feel like there are excesses on two sides.

One side are the normies who comply with everything, believe everything in the face of overwhelmingly evidence to the contrary, desperately cling to the hope that centralized forces are looking out for them.

Then there is the other excess (to which I am prone, but of which the even more paranoid nostr crowd is thankfully disabusing me) which is that the all-powerful state is trying to destroy you intentionally and with malice.

I think both have one belief in common, and that it’s two sides of the same coin, so to speak: that the state is all-powerful, and the individual is weak.

The normies deal with this by complying, marching in lockstep with its edicts, the paranoiacs by trying to live in total secrecy, like they are spies in enemy territory rather than citizens.

I lean toward the latter, especially when surrounded by Twitter normies, but nostr has moved me more toward the idea that the State is just a desperate (and occasionally dangerous) animal trying to preserve itself and survive. But like any animal, it can be coaxed and manipulated into behaving some of the time, and even for your benefit.

That there is no need to live in terror of it, and while recognizing its amoral tendencies, you can negotiate with it for your own benefit — at least until that point at which it gives you no choice but to refuse.

I did not take the mRNA for example. I just didn’t eat at a restaurant of travel for a while. Had to draw a hard line at injecting myself on command.

But I do file taxes.

Everyone has to strike this balance in the way that they see fit. But I don’t think abject compliance or living underground are the answers — at least in the west, at least right now.

Just my opinion. My life is better and less stressful when I reclaim agency over my relationship with the State rather than letting it dictate to me in either direction.

And I really do believe it is weakening, and the individual is growing ever more powerful over time, thanks in large part to freedom tech it can’t control.