Let's imagine that things are going to get much worse, before they get better. As seen in "Atlas Shrugged", "The Mandibles", "The Road to Serfdom" and a number of other fiction or non-fiction books on the subject of decadence.
The drivers could be mass migration, population decline, aging, mass unemployment or just good old fiscal irresponsibility and socialism. Or a combination of all of them.
The point is that the current western system, defined by huge welfare states, massive government spending, hyperregulation, high taxation, ballooning debt and increasing surveillance and control is unsustainable. Without major reform it will decline and eventually collapse.
The good news is that Bitcoin, Nostr and other tools will make the future much brighter. Whatever replaces the old system will have stronger protection for individual rights, enforced by technology instead of government fiat.
But the moment of crisis will not be pretty. Bankrupt governments will become unbelievably rapacious, unpredictable and unhinged. They will look for people to blame and they will look for victims to loot.
How can you protect yourself and your family?
The best way is mobility. Exit is powerful. Leaving the country that is persecuting you and moving to one that welcomes you is an obvious solution that has worked for millions. Nation states and their enforcers are still very much limited by geographical boundaries. Just ask anyone who left Venezuela 20 years ago if they made the right choice. Ask Ayn Rand why she left Russia in 1926. Ask Friedrich Hayek if he regrets leaving Austria in 1938!
But what if you cannot or will not leave the country? How do you protect your family and your property from the worst of the crisis?
We can broadly classify the risks that we will face as threats to Life, Liberty and Property.
The government can draft you and send you to die in a stupid war, or shoot you if you resist any of their stupid mandates. They can also imprison you for a wide range of reasons, while also showing leniency to criminals who also threaten your life and property. Of course they will also rob you blind to pay for their wars and corruption, all while their propaganda incessantly justifies their theft as necessary for roads or any of the declining services that they still provide.
Do you need examples? Every day we see how the British government arrests people for social media posts, while simultaneously arguing for mercy for violent criminals.
The first line of defense is #privacy: If they don't know what you have, they cannot rob you. If they don't know who you are, they cannot arrest you for thoughtcrime.
The second line of defense is physical #distance. If they have to drive for an hour to harass you, they probably won't bother. If they have to walk for an hour, they will definitely not bother. Leave the city.
The third line of defense is self-reliance. Any service that you get from the government will decline in quality, increase in cost and require ever more surveillance and paperwork. The free cheese in the mousetrap is not worth it. Even basic infrastructure like trains and roads will decay fast as maintenance is forgotten. The less you need them, the better.
The fourth and most important element is #community. Sure, pioneers could be 100% self-reliant and live off the land... but chances are that you don't want to live like that. Before the State monopolised education, medicine, security... these were provided privately. If you have strong relations with a small community, you will be amazed by what they can provide. Teachers and doctors don't need a huge government bureaucracy to teach your kid arithmetic or treat a cold. Your neighbour does not need a badge to scare off a potential thief.
As Ben Justman says, paying your farmer in Bitcoin is the best usecase for hard money.
Privacy, distance, self-reliance and community. It's a good start.
What does that look like in practice?
Let's look at an example. Mostly based on a real case.
In 2000 Andres did not now how bad things were going to get in Venezuela with Hugo Chavez, but by 2004 the directions things were going was pretty obvious. He was not wealthy, but he spoke several languages and had a good job that he could in theory practice outside of Venezuela. Still, he had family obligations that kept him in the country, so exit was not an option for him. But it was an option for his teenage daughter, who he immediately sent to study in Spain with a relative. It's a decision he has never regretted. As for his job, the money he was earning in Venezuela was melting through inflation, but he managed to get hired as an external consultant for a foreign tech company. The USD he earned from that would prove to be lifesaving. In time the income from his old job would become completely irrelevant compared to this side-gig.
Of course he had to be very discreet and privacy-minded about this. Foreign income and dollar savings were highly regulated and taxed by the Chavez regime, but also made you a target for local scammers, kidnappers and poor relatives. At one point it was common for express-kidnapping gangs in Caracas to pay off bank employees for the information on who had dollars.
Andres lived in Caracas, but the security situation in his neighborhood had become terrible. Traffic was awful. Blackouts were starting to become common by 2010. All the advantages and services of the capital gradually were outweighed by the risks, the lines, the prices and the time wasted. Life in the city became a constant fight over resources. By 2012 Andres decided that it was not worth it. He moved to his parents old house in Los Roques. It was a small tourist town, more expensive than Caracas, but safe and well supplied. The 6-hour ferry from La Guaira to Gran Roque had always seemed a huge inconvenience to Andres when he had vacationed there in his youth, but now that ferry and that distance became the best filter. Most of the big city problems were left behind as soon as you got on the boat. You could even pay in dollars at most places in Los Roques. Thanks to international tourism the attitude was completely different. Even police corruption was almost completely absent, apparently the town leaders and businesses knew not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Politics and violence? When the streets of Caracas burned in 2013 and again in 2016, 2018, 2020, 2024... when the pro-regime biker gangs roamed the streets of the capital... Andres only heard about it online. Los Roques was quiet, calm, peaceful. Electricity and fuel were never in short supply at his new home. It was not long before some of his friends and relatives, who had sometimes visited, decided to move there with him. It's not as if their jobs in Caracas were paying much anyway. A job serving cocktails for USD at Posada Caracol paid much better than being a teacher at a public school in Caracas paid in VES.
Andres could help his friends get these jobs, because he had been part of the community for years. He knew the hotel and restaurant owners. His recommendation was worth something.
It's not the full story and the situation in Venezuela is still far from becoming anything that we would consider normal, but I hope that it helps illustrate how important privacy, distance, self-reliance and community can be when we find ourselves in a situation like this.