Davi Barker has been a guest on Ben's podcast on a number of occasions, and has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community for many years. In the next few posts, we will be copying the text of Davi's book Authoritarian Sociopathy: Toward a Renegade Psychological Experiment on Police Brutality.
This book is published under a Creative Commons license, and the copyright page states the following:
We believe that copying is a form of flattery and do not abide by the copyright laws. Those laws serve to restrict the flow of ideas, which no one can really own. Copying is an act of love.
♡ Love is not subject to law.
Therefore, we will be serializing this book since it ties in perfectly with the aboveground activist's mission to publicize the nature of The State.
Toward a Renegade Psychological Experiment on Police Brutality
by Davi Barker
Statement by the Author
In 2013 at the tenth annual Porcupine Freedom Festival (PorcFest X) I participated in a contest called “The Agorist Pitch.” Agorism is a species of market activism where people trade voluntarily in an untaxed, unregulated counter economy to avoid faceless corporations and intrusive bureaucracies. Agorist philosophy holds all coercion and fraud as moral evils, and aims at manifesting a society where all coercive relationships are replaced with consensual ones.
I took first place with the idea of conducting a renegade psychological experiment on obedience to authority, specifically into police brutality. What the audience didn’t know is that I was so nervous that I felt like I was going to throw up the whole time.
The contest was organized by Tarrin Lupo, author of Pirates of Savannah. The first place prize was an ounce of gold donated by Tim Frey from Roberts & Roberts Brokerage. The second place prize was $1,000 in Bitcoin donated by Erik Voorhees from Coinapult. When I heard that I joked that I would rather have the Bitcoin instead of the gold, and based on the current spot price of both commodities the contestant that took the Bitcoin did much better financially, but this was not simply an ounce of gold. It was 2006 NORFED Liberty Dollar, which is a priceless heirloom of the freedom movement as far as I’m concerned.
The Liberty Dollar was a privately minted silver medallion that was used by precious metal enthusiasts as a barter currency. In 2007, after 10 years of legitimate business, the headquarters and mint of the Liberty Dollar was raided by the FBI who seized over 16,000 pounds of precious metal, an estimated $7 million value. The monetary architect of the Liberty Dollar, Bernard Von NotHaus, was convicted on multiple counterfeiting related charges (interestingly nothing related to fraud), and conspiracy against the United States. US Attorney Anne Tompkins stated, “Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism.” The quote was repeated in the press release of the FBI's Charlotte North Carolina office. Tompkins went on to say that NotHaus’s activities, “did not involve violence,” but that they “represented a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country.” NotHaus did not force anyone to accept his coins, and he did not lie to anyone about what he was selling.
For many the shuttering of the Liberty Dollar was another example of the coercive force necessary to maintain the dollar’s global hegemony, but to me it was something more. It was a symptom of the increasing militarization of the American government.
The idea for the pitch struck me the moment Tarrin told me about the contest, so when I went on stage the concept was only about 48 hours old. As I watched the other contestants I was so nervous that I was shaking. My guts were tied in knots. My friend Will Coley brought me a bowl of beef stew, but I honestly felt like I would be sick if I ate anything of substance. Instead, I drank all the broth, thinking it would settle my stomach.
As I took the stage my heart was pounding, and my throat was dry, but once it was time to speak a sense of calm washed over me. Given my state, I am amazed my delivery was as good as it was. While it was happening I felt more like a spectator myself. Like an out of body experience, I felt like a medium for the idea as it manifested itself.
That kind of peak tranquility is something I’ve experienced only a handful of times in my life, and always when I’m doing something more important than I realize at the time. In hind sight, this experience certainly fits the bill.
Once I’d finished I had too much nervous energy to sit still for the rest of the pitches. My heart didn’t stop pounding until I walked all the way back to my campsite, and I could sit and compose myself. Suddenly, I was ravenous with hunger. After I ate I went back to the pavilion to hear them announce the winners. I was not surprised to win first place. I was confident that this idea deserved to win from the first moment it came to me, because it is bigger than me.
After the contest I was struck with a kind of terror, as the size and importance of the project came into view. I had no idea how to actually proceed. I felt accountable to the audience, and the judges to actually do it, but I also knew I could not do this alone. I am a writer, a merchant, at artist and a speaker. Unfortunately, I am more of a writer than a psychologist. So, I began the process of consulting with scientists and ethicists in the liberty movement.
Because of the numismatic value I kept the gold Liberty Dollar as my prize, but in exchange I sold a gold Krugerrand from my own savings to cover travel expenses as I presented the idea to a larger audience. In the ensuing months I presented the design of the experiment at Libertopia in San Diego CA, Freedom Summit in Phoenix AZ, Liberty Forum in Nashua NH, and then again at Alt Expo in Nashua NH.
After each presentation the suggestions and feedback of the audience enabled me to improve the design of the experiment. Concerns raised by a commenter at one event would be remedied by the commenter at another. Weaknesses that I admitted in my presentation were resolved by collaborative genius of the crowd. And experts came forward to work with me until they could assure me the design was both ethical and scientifically rigorous.
What you are holding is the fifth draft of the design for a renegade psychological experiment on obedience to authority, specifically on police brutality, but by all means this is not the final draft. If you, dear reader, are a scientist, psychologist, ethicist, or even an activist who’s interested in supporting this important work, please feel free to get in contact with me using the information in the final chapter of this publication. In addition, this is open source material. Feel free to copy and distribute it at will.
The Problem
Many who are skeptical of corrupt authority eagerly study the psychology of obedience and authority in an effort to further understand the problem, and no studies are more poignant, or more chilling in their ramification than the Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment. Getting into the minds of tyrants is regarded as a strategy. However, I would suggest that the mindset of authority is the problem itself. We are living in an increasingly militarized society, and I would argue that this has a primarily psychological cause, not merely a political cause. If allowed to continue this could have disastrous consequences, as it has throughout history. Further, I would argue that this problem stems not only from the psychology of authority, but also the psychology of obedience, specifically the tendency not to intervene when authority steps beyond its bounds. This sentiment was perhaps most eloquently expressed by Thomas Jefferson in this seldom quoted passage of the Declaration of Independence:
“All experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
We cannot fight corrupt authority with votes when the democratic process itself is corrupt. We can’t even fight a corrupt authority with rifles, because factually speaking the authority only exists in the mind. The common political science definition of government is “the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within a given territory.” This definition originates from German political philosopher Max Weber. It was affirmed by Austrian economist Murray Rothbard in his book Anatomy of the State, and in 2007 it was even repeated by Barack Obama in an interview with the Military Times editorial board when he said, “What essentially sets a nation-state apart is the monopoly on violence.” This is the principle definition of government in Western statecraft, but it rests entirely upon one all important adjective: legitimate.
The perception of legitimacy is the only thing distinguishing a tax collector from an extortionist, a police officer from a vigilante, and a soldier from a mercenary, but murderer. Legitimacy is an illusion in the mind without which the government does not even exist. This illusion not only exists in the minds of the authorities, it exists in the minds of every subject who slavishly celebrate their subjugation. The militarization of society can’t be stopped if the underlying impulses for compliance are not first addressed, and every place that this illusion finds safe harbor is part of the problem.
That is why the psychology of authority, and most importantly obedience to authority is not merely a strategy. It is the study of the problem itself. If we want to fight corrupt authority, we must fight it where it truly resides: in the mind.
No research has expanded public understanding of authority more, or made them more skeptical of its legitimacy, than the Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment. Unfortunately ethical concerns raised about their results lead to changes in the APA guidelines, which have made it almost impossible to study authoritarianism as effectively, at least through conventional means. None the less, all good science begins with an examination of previous research. So let’s take a look.
Stay tuned for the next installment, which will begin detailing the existing psychological studies on authority and obedience!
