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Comment by hhjinks | Hacker News Reader

You're free to live in the woods if you don't like the deal. You don't get to use any of society's infrastructure if you don't opt in, though. You won't be taxed, of course, since you can't engage with any economic activity within society. I'm sure you could make a nice commune in the wilderness somewhere. Just don't bring anything from society with you, like tools, clothes, food, livestock, seeds. Good luck out there.

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That's the thing: you can't really do that. And the argument shouldn't be "society vs wilderness", but "existing vs new society".

In the past, it was really hard to sever ties with one society and government and go form a new one, but you could actually find places where nobody would immediately chase you away (even then most expansion was at the expense of natives, though). Nowadays that's impossible. A small number of people could maybe live in Siberia undetected, but that's more like partisan warfare than establishing a new country: The moment Russian government finds out anyone's there, they're getting deported. Your best bet for not living in an existing state is amassing an army (likely illegal in your home country) and invading a weak state. Good luck.

You, uh, sorta can't. There is no unowned land left. You can squat but that is living as an outlaw.

Also >You don't get to use any of society's infrastructure if you don't opt in, though. You don't represent the rest of us, so why are you pretending to the authority to make stipulations like this? I'd imagine if there were any outlands left to retreat to, you would at least have some bartering going on there at the fringes.

I'm not pretending to be an authority on anything, or representing anyone but myself. You can't just pick and choose which parts of society you want to comply with. If you do, you get incarcerated. As a direct consequence, interfacing with society's infrastructure is a soft opt-in, which will result in your incarceration if you don't live within the bounds of that society. So it's not a stipulation, nor do I require any authority, nor do I need to speek for anyone, when saying it, since it's a necessary component of the theoretical.

> You can't just pick and choose which parts of society you want to comply with.

You can't pick any parts. Choice has nothing to do with it. You serve the government, it does not serve you. You are a slave.

But you can pretend that you picked what society is asking you to do, if you like - that you picked how much tax you paid, that your government borrowed so many trillions, the way they spend that money, which wars they fight, etc, etc. If you don't believe me, try and change something.

I personally think that's an example of Stockholm syndrome, but each to their own.

It is an interesting argument, but I think the reality is you don't get to opt-in. You are automatically opted in based on the local jurisdiction and, more importantly, you have no way to opt out beyond Michael Scott's cry 'I declare bankruptcy!'.

You can go to live in a forest. Your obligations to the jurisdiction remain.

Where can this be done legally in the US?

You should probably check for "public land", which is found in almost all States but is very, very frequent west of Texas. See e.g. the map at:

https://vividmaps.com/non-private-land-in-united-states/

But you should check what you can do in it. It will be probably legal to park a vehicle there and very probably illegal to dig a moat around it (public means "of everyone", not just "free").

Why would someone who rejects society care about society's laws?

Because (s)he may not care about society, but society - in particular, the government - care about him/her.

To avoid issues, to avoid conflict.

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