An Examination of Iteration: Kevin Dolan & Dennis Pratt

Transcript · May contain transcription errors · en

Um hierarchy is good. Power's good. If you're smart and you care and and you love your kids, you should be in power. You should go be in power. That's anyway, that's my message. Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Libert Liberty lovers, welcome to the Free State Party. We're a private club for free state nationalists to help build businesses, raise strong families, win elections, and shape the culture. I'm Dennis Pratt, and I have the pleasure tonight to join you in welcoming our speaker, Kevin Dolan. Kevin is a husband, a father of six, or is it seven now? It's seven. It's seven, okay. Of seven, a former uh finance professional, and a member of Latter-day Saints. After being traitorously doxxed for a private conversation and subsequently fired from a defense contractor, Kevin channeled his personal adversity into a powerful movement to build freed networked alternatives to the status trap.

He founded Exit Group, a mutual aid fraternal network for competent, upwardly mobile men who build parallel institutions for business, family, homeschooling, fitness, and skills. He urges that we stop complaining about our decline and instead build with trusted friends, our own solutions. Kevin also organizes the yearly NATO conference, tracking tackling one of the world's biggest long-term threats, demographic collapse. The NATO conference brings sharp minds together to thwart mainstream attacks on the family. How can we reverse falling birth rates, raise resilient children, ensure a free, peaceful civilization, not through top-down central government, but through culture, incentives, and personal examples. Kevin embodies our free state spirit, exit rather than submission. Innovation rather than repeating failures.

Chosen community rather than subjugation, and multi-generational rather than one election cycle. He's proof that when the regime turns hostile, the best response is to build, not bitch. Please join me in giving a warm free state welcome to Kevin Dolan. We'll get some opening remarks. I have a little bit of notes here. 12 meetups a month. We've raised millions of dollars for exit uh initiatives, projects, and businesses. We've got a business incubator, a machine learning boot camp. We've crowdfunded a film. We sponsored the Coronation Ball. We organized NATOCon, and we're currently pursuing a project called Constitutional Action, which uh begins in the state of Utah as the pilot, but it's it's a it's a nationwide movement that's basically around the principles of the Constitution and using the Constitution as the impetus for our actions and something that we that we pursue actively rather than using it as an excuse for why we can't act.

So uh exit has 15 to 20 calls a week. We have entrepreneurship, homeschool, civic engagement, we have local intelligence conversations, fitness, tech, real estate, investing. Uh members are personally vetted by me. There's not an algorithm, it's very uh human in that respect. My my only heuristic is can I explain in one sentence why this guy is an asset to the group? Um nothing about the architecture of the group is special. You could replicate sort of the tech stack of the group in a couple of hours. Uh, but it seems to work in a way that other groups do not, and I think it is because we have found grounds for collaboration that are post-ideological. And um the the sort of prompt I was given uh coming in was a discussion of how do we build things that iterate, how do we build things that last?

And um I have more to say about that, but that's what exit is, and I'll I'll stop there. Do you want to say a little bit more about what what you what your thoughts are on on that prompt? Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've I've got my uh please. I sort of had uh a couple of of directions to go here. Um the question of building things that last is very close to like the meaning of life. And so it was a very intimidating prompt. It's like, what how should the world be different because we were here? And and and how different should it be? And for how long? Like, uh, I think I think the prompt was like: ensure that good ideas last forever. And I was sort of like, well, I don't even know if good ideas do last for what does that mean? Um I can think of sort of the maximalist case, which is like maximum proliferation and extension of your exact worldview, your exact genetics into eternity forever, which is, in my view, that's the ideology of the cancer cell, or the ideology of the vampire or the lich.

The idea that you would sort of uh consume the future to unnaturally extend your own life. Uh this, in my opinion, is what sort of the uh the the boomer civic nationalist is saying when they're saying, like, oh, you know, I don't want my money to go to my kids, I want it to go to like whoever's the most deserving, or like, you know, uh uh, you know, Juan here is maybe a better American than my kids, and so maybe my kids don't deserve this and that. Uh, because his kids are stubbornly not him and don't believe exactly what he believes, and and don't have exactly his virtues. So it's not that. Building the last can't be that. So, what can it mean? And I would argue that the goal of building the last, the goal of iteration, not replication, iteration's a different thing, is not to extend yourself, but to but to extend into the world the things that you love.

So, so I have seven children. Um, who are they to me? We have uh a cultural priming to view the a lot of these things cynically. You hear a lot about like, oh, the these these breeders, these natalists, they're just sort of trying to to replicate themselves. It's a very self-involved thing. Uh, my kids are not me. They're they're they're in in a certain sense uh 50% me, but not really, they're 100% themselves. And my grandchildren will be 25% me, and then 12%. And after, I think it's like 250-300 years, you have like half of your descendants have no genetic inheritance from you at all. It's like 200 years isn't that long. And so that can't be all the point of this, is to sort of extend your genes, and your politics will last not even close to that long. So I love my kids, and I want them to be successful, and I want I want something to be sort of cast into the future.

I love my kids, but also my kids are what I love. And what I mean by that is they exist because of what my wife and I were attracted to. We were drawn together, we were pursuing some beauty, some virtue, some excellence that we saw in each other. And now our kids are that. Won that game as hard as anyone can win it. His descent descendants today mostly look and act like the nations that they live in. The Kazakhs look Kazakh, the Chinese look Chinese, the Mongolians look Mongolian, etc. But he is the father of their nation, even though you need like a lab test to prove the ancestry. He's the father of the nation because his story is their self-concept. He drives their idea of manhood. What is valued? What is high status? Still today, like he's he's enormously important in like in like Mongol culture.

And so the ideal of Genghis Khan is actually more influential and lasting than his genetics were, even at the genetic level. Because his ideal and and the story of him and how he affects their self-concept, it affects all these pairings. It affects all of every young man and young woman has in the back of their mind this idea of that's that's what a man is, that's what we are. The Greeks call this kleos aphtheton, which means undying fame. So they they many many kings and many sort of royal lines in in ancient Greece would claim descent from Theseus or Heracles. But more important, every young man and woman had the ideal of Theseus and Heracles in their mind. So the heroes realize this ideal, and then that ideal becomes embodied in the people. So what does it mean to build things that iterate things that last?

In my view, it means to be and to seek out and to create your highest ideals. You're going to die, your genetics and certainly your politics, or that's all going to dissipate. But if you can be excellent and admirable, and you can surround your family with other with other families who are excellent and admirable, then your highest ideals, your deepest loves can literally come to life in your children and your grandchildren. And they can't be this can't be like a sort of passive um potter and clay situation. These are these are people who are going to have to be people. They're gonna have to co-create with you. They're gonna have to join in this work of cultivation. Because they're gonna have to, number one, they have to cultivate themselves, and then they're gonna have to cultivate their children.

And so again, it's it's it's it's not about yourself, it's about these higher things that you're aiming at and that are instinctive and intrinsic to you. And then those things being instantiated and expressed in your children. So the project is human cultivation. You cultivate yourself, you have to be aspirational to your kids, to your to your wife or to your to your future wife. I mean, the fact that becoming aspirational so that you can attract an aspirational spouse is like this enormously important thing to this project. So that's why we have the fitness call, that's why we have the fatherhood call. We even have like intermittent like interviews with like style and aesthetics guys, like talking about how do you make the world beautiful around you, how do you uh you know dress well, look good, etc.

Uh you have to cultivate, so you have to cultivate yourself, you have to cultivate your kids, give them opportunities to learn, experience beauty, develop character, connect with good mentors and rivals, and then eventually spouses. So I I I've heard it said um, you know, uh you should marry someone that you want your kids to be like because they like definitely will be. Uh all the flaws and all the all everything, all about it, they're all gonna be there. And um I think a lot of people don't see that coming, but it's definitely true in my experience. And um, but if you want uh your your tribe will then determine what your grandkids are gonna be like, they're gonna determine the social milieu that your children are are are raised in and and and the kind of people they attract and the kind of people they have just access to, and that's gonna be who your grandchildren are.

And so you should choose that carefully as well. And so we have uh uh a great houses call. We we we like this concept of great houses, meaning families that are multi-generational, where uh you are you are investing in terms of centuries, you're thinking about your distant descendants, you're trying to build something that lasts in this in this uh this Cleos sense, this this uh this higher ideal sense. So uh those are my my just preliminary thoughts about uh iteration, what what I want to iterate, what I want to build. And that's uh hopefully it's it's clear uh when you sort of look at everything we do in terms of all the calls that we have and all the meetups and and all the sort of side projects that we're building, it's all oriented toward this project of cultivating ourselves, cultivating our families, aiming at that, at that higher ideal.

So those are my that's what I came with. Now you're seeking to influence generations, generational influence. That's right. And what is that influence? It's it's it's not it's not an ideal, it's not an idea. What is that influence that you're you're passing along? Well, I mean, you know, you you hope that it is it is uh uh a taste for beauty, and you hope that it is uh a desire for freedom and a desire to create. I mean that uh in my at least for me, what I want my children to be is creators. I want them to be uh uh trying to build things in the world. And uh, you know, so I'm I'm I'm a Latter-day Saint that has theological implications for me. You know, we we we want our our children to become creators in in a in a cosmic sense, and so that's uh that's what I'm aiming at. And I think the but the common denominator uh in the group is yeah, we we want our families to be successful, to be uh connected with other admirable and excellent people and and just kind of aiming at the highest star they can find and then this is multi-generational yes um and so uh you know the we we're seeing a collapse of the uh of of demographics of of of next generation uh population um and yet what you're s suggesting is that these are the that your your groups will be expanding their progeny yes um and what is the purpose of that what is the per what is the purpose of having more kids is that what you're asking yeah so I mean you know I I I have I have some ideas of what what my purpose would be but what for for you why would you want uh the people who are following you to uh be expanding their their population is that in general you'd like everyone to do it or would you just like certain people to be uh no I mean um I I don't really think about it in universalizing terms I think about it in terms of like uh uh these are guys who ought to like I like their thing and their their thing should continue and I I I I want them to succeed and I want their children to succeed and I and I want my kids to be around their kids uh because I find them uh admirable so there's characteristics of the people you pick and you say this is something that I'd like to propagate out into the into the future.

I mean yeah yeah uh uh people who are dynamic and people who are creative and people who are uh virtuous and and building good things. I mean, I I sort of um yeah, I almost it it's it's confusing to have to answer it because I don't I don't know that it even needs justification. It's like, yeah, I want more good things and I I don't care about the bad things. I want more good things. Yeah. Um I have uh I have some questions uh and then we'll we're gonna open up to the uh audience for for additional questions. Great. But I have some questions about kind of the overlap between kind of the work that you're doing and what we're doing here in the free state of New Hampshire. Um here in the free state, uh, you know, we're focused on many of the of the issues that kind of overlap with what you're worried about.

Uh ours is is is definitely not a theoretical exercise, you know, like yours. It's uh so uh I like to pick your brain a bit about some of the practice uh practical suggestions from your own thinking and experiences that might help us advance our movement. Is it would that be okay to do? Um so I see great parallels between uh a lot of your writings and uh and what we're doing here in in the in the free state. Uh most free staters share uh your goal of creating high trust family first networks to develop real communities and parallel institutions that resist tyranny. Um how would you compare the free state physical migration? So we're bringing in people, you know, not just from the authoritarian 49, but from all over the world. Authoritarian? Is that what you call it? Yeah. So we're bringing in uh people who love liberty uh here to this one state.

Yeah. Um and uh so it's it's a physical migration. Uh but you have a uh you have a more distributed network approach. Uh well, we have a more distributed network approach because that's uh who has sort of uh come to the banner. But like uh if if everybody were geographically co-located, that would make a whole lot of things more convenient. I mean, uh I I moved to Utah in in large part because that was where we had the strongest um density, the sort of strongest uh operational capacity, and so that's why we're doing constitutional action there. We're probably gonna do NATOCon out there. Um but that's uh what I'm doing right now is I'm sort of uh working with anybody who wants to be involved. So like I do I get on a plane several times a month trying to create these these nodes, these uh uh local groups, and like I say, we've got we've got about a dozen of them that meet every month now, uh, which is great.

Uh but yeah, I mean, to the extent that we can get greater density in places and and and co-locate, that's that's absolutely something we want to do. I mean, a big part of the reason why we don't like I mean I don't insist, number one, because people just wouldn't go, but like I I don't like say, hey, we're all going to one particular place because my guys are rooted and they have families and they have uh they have a a broader uh networking context that they exist in, and and rooting all that up to uh for the sake of the geographic co-location, I think it would be destructive of of a lot of what we're trying to build. Um and I think it would also not it it would exclude some of our most dedicated, most engaged guys, because you know, people like this tend to become load-bearing in the communities where they live.

You know, that's that's kind of what we like about them. And so um, so we want to encourage that, not discourage that. Although, uh so I sort of see my role is like let's raise the water line in all these places. Let's make it so that you know, you could at minimum have exit block party exit barbecue, you know, in every major city in America. I mean, that's the objective. Now, uh in terms of what is valuable about geographic uh co-location, like at density at scale, like you have here, um, I mean, the biggest advantage of that is the political. I mean, like once you once you have enough people that you can, you know, have a really good party, um it's not obvious how how many more people do you need, because you're only gonna make so many friends as as an individual, etc. But like uh the reason I the the value that I see and what I really admire about uh the Free State Project is is the capacity to amass political power.

And I think that one of the tensions that is generating the Free State Party and that's that's generating sort of this uh uh conflict within the the institutions of the libertarian movement and and and here in New Hampshire as I see it from the outside is uh you know, how do we feel about power? How do we feel about um uh uh exercising control over the political system? I am uh very, very strongly in favor of you guys exercising power within the political system. I think you'd be excellent at it, I think you'd be virtuous at it, and you should do it, and you should not feel bad about it at all. And uh I have sort of a um if if if there's time, I I mean I have sort of an alternate theory, like I I think libertarianism broadly as I have understood. I mean, that's kind of I kind of grew up libertarian by default, and um I think that there's a very common notion of what uh political power is, what states are, uh, that I would push back on very, very strongly.

That's the it's the manker Olson, the stationary bandit. You guys know about the stationary bandit? It's basically like uh, you know, there's pre uh prehistoric raiders and they're raiding and pillaging the villages and they're enslaving the peasants, and then eventually they just like you know, it would be a lot more convenient if you guys would just have the stuff laid out for us when we come by so that we don't have to kill you, and then uh they take the stuff, and then that becomes taxes, and the guy goes, you know, this would actually be a lot more convenient if I were to just stay here and so a stationary bandit, right? That's that's who the state is. Um is predicated on uh some very light evidence having to do with like literally like shards of pottery, and it's it's like it's like shards of pottery plus like a really deeply cynical view of human nature, and um and I I just reject that completely.

And that there's a there's a a study about um you guys know about alpha wolves and beta wolves? The idea that uh, you know, the uh wolf hierarchies are these very ruthless authoritarian things where like the biggest and the meanest and the most ruthless terrorizes all the other wolves and doesn't let them eat and doesn't let them mate and and um so that's what it means to be an alpha and the betas are sort of resentful and they're in that position because they have to be. And um basically that's that's a result of a study in the 1950s from a Swiss zoo, and it was a 2,000 square foot enclosure with like 20 unrelated wolves. And so then in the 70s, they do some they do some like uh tagging studies where they're not observed, they're the wolves don't know they're being observed, and they're in the wild.

And it turns out that like uh these these animals whose survival depends heavily on cooperation and and working within a hierarchy, they totally have instincts to do that almost effortlessly. It's very low stress. They just can't do it with unrelated wolves in a prison. And so, like, like in and human beings I think are the same way. We have these circuits of hierarchy, we have, and that in my opinion, is is the root of the state. And you can you can you can complain about uh cynical or tyrannical or vicious exercise of or or or or exploitation of those instincts of hierarchy. It's I so I I I did a speech in Portland, I call it the feudal instinct. It's the instinct um to to abstract the relationship within a family, the love that exists within a family to a broader context. That's why we have patriarchy and patronage and patrimony and patriotism, all these things are abstractions of the relationship between a father and a son.

And that's a totally healthy relationship, and it's a totally natural relationship. And and you are built to have those hierarchies, you're built to crave those hierarchies. And so uh so I guess just on this topic of like I sort of came with some things that I wanted to say to like free state people, and uh and and that's one of them is is um hierarchy is good, power's good. Uh if you're smart and you care and and and you love your kids, you should be in power. You should go be in power. That's anyway, that's my message to you. Um you highlight uh demographic decline as an existential threat. Uh we in New Hampshire have significant impact on our own culture and and even on state policy. What cultural or policy changes do you uh recommend for us to avoid fertility collapse? Or is this primarily just us?

You're not gonna avoid fertility collapse. Like that's that's so baked in. Like there are very few things that are as baked in as fertility collapse is. able to find someone with whom to build a healthy family and how am I going to make sure that I have the resources to help them do that and that they have the resources to help their kids do that. Now I I also think it's important to look at like you know what are the what are the potential advantages of this what what can we do I mean there's there's all kinds of uh political capital lying on the ground uh because of of communities that are essentially evaporating due to demographic decline um there's all all sorts of like like certain resource constraints will loosen and that's good um so basically I I guess I I I I I would we we talked about natal con in the context of or with the natalism issue in the context not of uh you know how do we vote our way out of this because that's not that's just not gonna happen more uh what can we do to survive this and to be robust to it um as far as as far as policy in New Hampshire I mean I would just sort of want you know whatever incentives helped more like-minded young families get here and build here and um that too is like you know uh it's statist and it involves taxes and it's and I I I just I just I just don't care um I like I I I sort of like I I think we should view the the domain of the political as you are in the looting phase like you are in the phase where the treasury is being looted and like um you're not gonna stop that it's gonna get looted so are you gonna get a piece or are you not gonna get a piece and uh I don't I don't know that maybe that makes some people mad i but that's how I feel um so so yeah I mean I I would say the the problem with the problem with most of these like pronatal incentives uh is that they leak they they the it when you when you sort of create the pot of uh of goodies um we don't have a political system that uh curately allocates the goodies and it's very um it's very susceptible to to manipulation and theft and so uh I in my in my view the primary way you you uh prevent that leakage so that the the the incentives and the advantages are going to people you want them to go to is uh num number one immigration enforcement massive immigration enforcement but number two um creating environments where uh you can you can gate involvement so I think private clubs are enormously important for that private property in general just having having uh collective private property along whatever sort of terms you want but basically just having a having a a space you can gate I think that's tremendously important.

We have uh eight community centers in uh New Hampshire Liberty community centers uh you know spread out throughout the area and they all have kind of different themes and stuff like that but I think that those are really important to to to set up and and have as kind of center sent central uh uh uh uh calling spots for different types of people to come together and work together. Absolutely. Um and I I think uh I I fear that that's not something that you can do. I mean, I guess you're trying to do that through a distributed network. Yeah, so we're actually we're actually uh in the process of of putting together some clubhouse space in in Utah Valley. Um that it it doesn't take like an enormous number of people to do that. Um so I think you can do it in in in various locations, but like well, so you know you sort of have a different problem here, right?

Which is um you've got this enormous number of people who came here for libertarian something, right? And that but that means radically different people, d radically different things to different people. Yep. And so uh you're sort of in the business of taking this big uh politically active uh group and trying to find your people out of that. And um and so I think it's very I think I think it's great what you guys are doing. It's just sort of it's an approach to a different problem than what we're facing. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, I mean we're going through this big sorting uh uh right now where different groups are finding each other. We have over 300 groups within the free state uh that are liberty groups, yeah. Uh and people just trying to find each other and create like little little subgroups within that.

And my hope is that those subgroups will actually start uh bringing in more liberty people. Yeah, yeah. So it becomes kind of this this magnet that that multiplies and then brings in more people and multiplies again. And you're having to do this kind of rectification of names about like what is liberty? Like what do we mean when we say liberty? Right and liberty to do what. And that's uh that's a really, really interesting question. Yeah. Well, we're seeing actually a move, a drift towards voluntarism where you have different groups set up and say, Yeah, well, we believe in liberty, and within this group, you can't do these things. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So very strongly in favor of that. Yeah. So uh, and we're seeing we're seeing subsets of people actually form form around that.

And of course they bicker and stuff like that, but I think that that's actually a natural, you know, uh healthy thing to be doing. Yeah, yeah. Everyone's, I mean, what's what's happening basically is ethnogenesis. Like people are trying to find their tribe. They're trying to find their people. And um, in in my view, the way like there's no um, you're not gonna have like a 10-point, like you must open you must believe the following precepts uh in order to in order to be involved. Uh number one, because like people can litigate that endlessly, and they do. Especially libertarians. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean what what you have to do in my opinion, what what I've seen work is you get people working together on a project and you just figure out who's credible and you figure out who's reliable and you and you develop a shared history.

And um and I I do think like we're we're sort of entering a a post-ideological time. I think our whole notion of like, you know, you you you gotta have like a real like every single American should have like a really pure political theory uh in like in their mind about and like you know, you're hearing this with like uh people arguing about who's a real American, right? Um and I think it's sort of sharpened with the question of like who's a real libertarian. Right. Right? Because you're you're you're you're trying to like root around in someone's brain and like get the and I just think that's completely uh futile and silly. Um when you could just like I when you could just build together. You could just build something together. Like I there's a guy um in the group actually who um strong disagreements about politics, strong disagreements about religion, uh, but he gave me like incredible counsel about uh uh uh one of these real estate projects we're working on, and he like hosted a bunch of the guys uh at his home for like a meetup and and and so it was like what we're trying to build is concrete and it's material and like we're not like you don't need a a unified theory of human organization or politics or like how it ought to be to do that.

And I think what what's gonna happen is as people are able to sort of find each other and uh like the the mobility it has pros and cons. There's there's advantages and disadvantages, but like people are able to find their people, and I think what you have to do is kind of like you said in your introduction, like if you can get them to like stop bitching, you like because it feels so good, it feels so satisfying to bitch. And like you f and and especially when you're like you're in a room where like you you haven't been around like-minded people before, and all of a sudden you get to bitch, and like you get to like you uh you know, and they get it, and it's like so and it's like you feel like you're really building something, but you're like actually not. Right. And and so uh so yeah, I think I think we're we're coming into a post-ideological time and we need to sort of the people you're gonna build with your your your ethnos, your tribe is not gonna be people who agree with you about politics.

It's gonna be people with with names and faces, who you have a shared history with, you've built something with, you find something admirable in them, something virtuous, and that's who your people are gonna be. Like it I that's what's gonna matter. And that just couldn't be more obvious to me. So like that's anyway, that's my thoughts on that. Yeah. Yeah. Are you you're aware of the thin versus thick uh separation in libertarianism. No, what is that? So thin libertarianism is is basically uh I'm not gonna steal from you, I'm not gonna beat you, I'm not gonna kill you. But everything else, you know, we may or may not uh associate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Thick libertarianism is, well, yeah, I won't kill you, steal and be true. But also all these other things. Yeah. Uh so uh I I'm seeing that here in the in the in the free state happen where we're s you know people are coming in and and of course in the authoritarian 49, you meet uh you meet a libertarian and you're like, oh my god, I can't believe it's a libertarian.

No, I've never seen that one. Yeah. And so you you're so excited. Here, we're a diamond dozen. So now all of a sudden, you know, we're just kind of human beings. We're not gonna beat you, we're not gonna steal from you, we're not gonna murder you, but you know, we may not have a another connection. Right. I may actually have a connection with her, I may have a connection with him. Yeah. Um, and so we're actually seeing this form uh formulation. A lot of people are fighting it like crazy because they go, no, we have to be all believe this one thing, and each person has a different one thing to believe. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So it's been really, really fascinating. I I I you know, I I came here seven years and I have been so surprised at the changes in my uh imagination of what this would actually be like, and seeing this population come together.

It's a beautiful thing. I mean, I like I think I think um uh Jews going to Israel was transformative for them because they were in in their own place and and and among their own people and building something uh in a way they had not been able to build before. And I think you're seeing something sort of similar with with uh libertarians in New Hampshire. It's like uh the the all of the all of the theory becoming praxis or being discarded. Like I think that's really really powerful and valuable, and it's super cool to watch. Yeah, yeah, as a matter of fact, we're seeing you know, we we we have you know a lot of a lot of libertarians coming in, but also some leaving. And a lot of the people who leave are leave because they're upset because it not everyone's like them. I'm going, yeah, you know, and what world did you think that you were you know, you who are actually libertarian, how weird is that that you know that all of a sudden you'd find everybody just like you.

Well, any civic nation, any civic nation, it like it's inherently totalitarian. Uh because if if you if all that binds you is a set of like beliefs and ideas, well then it becomes a matter of like existential importance to that community that that you you be able to like root around in people's brains and and make sure those ideas are present and like and and like interrogate them and and and so and and furthermore, like like uh leadership, you know, uh you have this this purity testing for leadership like are you are you fit to lead us do you have the right ideas inside your brain and um I think that's all over I think that I think I think that's done. We're not doing that anymore. It's gonna be again people with names and faces. That's who you that's who your people are gonna be. And we're definitely seeing that here this type of stuff yeah um and and I and I suspect that you'll see that as your networks actually grow and start actually c coming together and accumulating.

You'll see you know the the um the tyranny of small differences break break people up into subgroups you know those those little 150 person groups that we're supposed to be able to wrong with yeah yeah yeah yeah it's inevitable. The free state uh rests on the theory that concentrating libertarians in one small state uh allows outsized political and cultural impact. Yeah your work rests on a theory that the future belongs to those who can win long-term demographics. Is a merger possible concentrating family oriented people in a liberty friendly New Hampshire? Yeah I mean yeah there's I mean that we we already have a lot of people in New Hampshire and I I like I would say so you know there there are a lot of reasons um for me to be in Utah right now but like if someone's looking for a place to build and they're sort of uh unmoored currently I mean New Hampshire would be you know close to the top of the list of of places I would tell people to consider because I think there's momentum here.

There's uh uh immense possibilities that that uh that could be realized here so yeah I mean it's it's totally possible and I always I would say like it's not necessarily um winning the demographic rate that's table stakes right like uh you have to survive right like you you have to be on the other side of this enormous bottleneck um but that's not remotely uh how you how you win um it's it's uh again it's it's well no well put it this way if if your kids uh do not find your project aspirational and compelling they will not choose to continue it and so uh it's not so much that um that the way you win is by winning the demographic race it's by like the the way the only way to win the demographic race is by being aspirational and building something uh worthwhile it's like it's an existential problem it's the way you survive you have to be excellent are you familiar with gold backs yes do you know where gold backs started did they start in Utah yeah yeah yeah yeah one of my guys sells them do you know where the second place was that they that they made them New Hampshire I actually suspect that there might be be a similar uh one two here oh yeah because we actually have you know we're trying to formulate uh communities here we we're we're intentionally trying to do a lot of the stuff that you're you're suggesting that we do and we don't necessarily have the structure or thought behind it to do so it's uh it's super cool like I was really excited to be invited to come out I mean it's it's uh getting getting this many people uh to build something together is is really really admirable are we he he he was just said saying that uh I have one more question so let me see what uh what what my hook yeah um as you point out modern systems like government schooling large corporations dating markets undermine the family so what are the most critical alternative systems we should be forming in the free state to create a pro-family culture I mean uh the the biggest things that I found is just getting the wives uh of our guys connected and the reason for that is uh in my opinion a huge amount of the the uh cultural headwinds to family formation is women feeling that it is very lonely and laborious and not particularly aspirational to be a mother and so uh I have also though had the experience and I'm I've my wife has had that experience and I think that the sort of nuclear family all by itself um with dad leaving all day to go to work and mom staying at home with the kids let's treat it's treated as traditional.

It's actually quite modern um it's only about a century old and uh it's pretty unnatural and it's pretty unhappy. And number one, you know, your family should be multi-generational. You should you should kind of have access to your aunts and uncles and grandmas and cousins and everybody that uh that that makes that not lonely. Um and you should also be, you know, surrounded by other people doing the same thing. I I've I've had the experience of of my wife doing many of the same sort of ordinary things. She's she's a stay-at-home mom, doing many of the same ordinary things that she would do during the day, but but we're hanging out with uh some friends, and so they're doing the various chores together, and it's just night and day uh the emotional valence of that and the way that that's experienced.

And I don't think like there's not gonna be any way to do this, um with um half the population being desperately unhappy about it. Like you're gonna have to make it uh livable, and I think a huge amount of that is building um community among women. So that I like yes, the the the homeschool co-ops and uh you know get getting your kids out of government school, that's really important. Um but I think probably even more important than what it does for the kids, is what it does uh for the moms. Yeah. We're seeing uh we're seeing something that's really interesting. So uh usually liber liberty liberty people are more male-oriented. We have a lot more males uh in in the liberty community. And so we'll have couples coming and they come and visit. And it's the male who's driving it. And the females go, I don't know if I really want to do this.

Yeah, this doesn't really sound good. But we have such a robust community um and it's absolutely fantastic because when they come and visit the women go and and they actually meet other women and they're talking and and and they see that that they they won't be isolated. And they're actually in not you know not just you know around freedom but freedom in their particular area with their gender with with people who are really excited and and it it becomes um you know it's it's almost like the Mormon thing. You can see it in their faces. Like when I do bring a a family meetup together I can see the moment where she goes like oh my husband's weird online friends are actually okay and it's such a gratifying like I'm like yes we're there um yeah no it's like you you have to have that moment yeah you have to create that moment however you can yeah well I I I try to beg borrow steel to try to get the the families to move here because it's usually the the the the wife who's who's hesitating I mean okay we have some women who are driving this but it's usually the wife who's who's hesitating and yet when they get here and they actually meet the you know the women in this movement and they understand they're not going to be isolated.

As a matter of fact they're gonna be so much more connected because we have such a uh a a close communal uh uh set of of groups uh here in in the uh in the free state they're gonna be so much more connected with than they were even in the authoritarian 49 that that uh that they go you know they actually start saying well you know when are we moving right and the husband who thought that this was gonna be a multi-year thing you know he's gonna go oh well oh yeah that's that's move tomorrow yeah yeah so it's uh it's you know I I I highly recommend that that the males come and visit but bring your wives with you yes I guess I think that's really important for sure uh we're gonna go with some questions yeah we're gonna go to audience questions I will plug briefly first Saturday of the month we have a family friendly meetup so that's also a great chance for anyone who hasn't been out to these events are a little bit for the males uh but with there are kids playing uh outside the door and we have family friendly not all not for the internet um probably as much women as men and a ton of kids for Saturday of the month freestate.party slash Saturday to find out more about those we're gonna take all questions from the audience uh who has a question when you have your question I'll give you the mic stand up give your question uh and then just hand it back thank you um you may or may not be aware of Doug Casey who 10 20 years ago made a big deal about people forming or joining files as he called them he didn't originate the term but um files spelled with a P.

Yeah uh Diamond Age right is that's yeah he that did it too um which is essentially what you're doing um and there were two important things about that one is he said it uh it it only came up to be possible because of technology and long-term communications and things um and he made a big deal about a group forming and maybe never even meeting each other. But I think he realized uh later that uh all these people are people and they want to see each other. Yeah. Um that comes into uh the thing about you know the free space state project coming together in one place for a different reason. Um and the other thing, of course, is that any individual doesn't need to belong to just one file. Um probably several. Uh I don't know whether your your membership feels that way. Yeah. Um and the other thing that wasn't really a question, but feel free.

The other thing I sort of was wondering was uh what is the overlap between the the society you're creating and your church? Because they they seem like they're very similar. I mean, uh you know, I think the only overlap is that I run it, uh, and so a lot of my thinking is sort of uh informed by my faith. But I mean we're only probably 20% LDS. In fact, I think that's the result of the latest uh we did like a census. I think we're like 20% LDS, I think we're like 25% Catholic, and then we're uh the rest is is broadly Protestant. There's a handful of you know uh other stuff in there, but it's it's it's it's broadly Christian. Um and yeah, I mean it's just sort of uh certainly my attitude toward family and the purpose of life uh is informed by my faith, but the group is not uh LDS. Um a lot of what you talked about is very forward thinking.

Um, you you know, you you did mention like multi-generational, you want it to be something that um functions for 200 years, right? But how do you incorporate sort of your elders? Um if, and I maybe I don't want to speak for you, but if this is not something that they are necessarily aligned with. So, like, for example, you know, I want to respect the older generations, my previous generations, um, but I do feel sort of radically departing from their line of thinking. Um, but at the same time, I am confident that they have wisdom that would be valuable for me to um pull and gather. So, what do you how do you walk that line? Um, and and what kind of recommendations would you have for someone in a position where um maybe some of the people who build you, and obviously they must have done a relatively good job doing so.

Like, how do you how do you walk that? Uh yeah, I mean, so I had a conversation. Uh so my mom hates Trump, and um uh was having a conversation with her, she was real upset about something Trump had done. And I just said, you know, mom, I was living in Texas at the time, you live in Colorado, like us figuring this out, we're not gonna solve this, you know, like uh uh who's gonna be the president is not really up to us. And I do I I think there's a an extent to which everybody on the left and the right probably needs to be um deprogrammed from the idea that like their particular opinion on politics like really matters a lot. Um like it it's you know, and I I think like sort of because it is it's it's it's this holdover from the way you grew up in school, eighth grade civics kind of being told that like your voice counts, it doesn't.

Um and like and that can be liberating for you. Like the fact that um you know, my my relatives want dumb political things is actually fine, and like uh there are so many other things for us to connect on, and uh sometimes that can be hard if they're deeply determined to like engage because it seems very important to them that you agree. Um so far I personally have been successful at just sort of judoing that and talking about something else, but like I don't necessarily have a better answer than that. It's you know what I mean? Like people are gonna uh people are gonna get mad about politics. Is there a solution to the fertility crisis? Because from my point of view, if you ask the average man, maybe my age, do you want her family? They go, oh yes, definitely. I love that. White picket fence.

Yeah. You ask a woman my age, and oftentimes it's either just not at the top of their priority list, or there's no interest what's or little interest whatsoever. Uh so is there a solution? I mean, the question is like on what timeline? Like all problems are sort of self-correcting on a long enough timeline, right? Um I mean, I think I think what we're going to observe, like there, there's, you know, I'm not to prognosticate too much, but like there's certain very stable trends. Like the the trend of uh fertility decline is about as stable as like the explosion of the deficit. It's one of these things where it is difficult to imagine a policy change so dramatic that it would arrest this extraordinarily robust trend. Um it does seem to be the case that uh you know well, a lot of what's happened is like the the sort of job that men uh what men bring to the table, you've maybe heard this expression, what do you bring to the table?

Um a lot of what men historically have brought to the table is like physical security and economic security and all that stuff, uh somebody else is doing that for you. So it's sort of like what are you actually for? Uh and I think um, well, let me put it this way. I think circumstances are gonna change that. I think circumstances are gonna make it so that the way that uh physical security and economic security, you know, all these things are provisioned, uh, they can't keep being provisioned the way they're currently being provisioned. So uh I guess I would say like there's not really a ton to do about it right now except to help our young men uh to to sort of weather this problem. Like I wish that there was a a uh silver bullet on that. I don't know that there is. Thank you so much for being here.

Um so the free state movement has adopted the idea that concentration is kind of the key to success of the movement. Whereas you're adopting something more like, I don't know if you're familiar with John Bush, uh, but he has the freedom cell movement. Oh, yeah, yeah. So it's kind of a distributed network effect. Yeah. Um and I'm wondering what would need to occur for you to change your mind and say, I really think that concentration is critical to our success. Uh I don't know that I've I don't know that I would uh accept that framing. I I think um currently I'm trying to get everybody who will engage to engage. And so uh getting them kind of wherever they are is sort of the objective. I mean, again, like you're you're talking about, I mean, how do we have numbers on like how many people are free staters?

Is there any does anybody know? How many are there? There's a big debate about it. Yeah. I I can give you my number, but yeah, what's your number? My my numbers by the by by the way is the best. Yeah, yeah. About 7,000 uh currently here, we've had about 12,000 come through. Yeah, okay. So so I think the answer is different at 7,000 than it is at 320. And so it's not necessarily that like I have a difference of philosophy about that. It's more just like um I think when it becomes feasible for guys to geographically co-locate, uh, we will encourage that. Hi, sorry. Um, I mostly caught the very end of the talk because my husband and I are tag teaming it this evening. He's rocking the baby right now. Right on. Uh so this is his question. Okay. Um, when will you have NatalCon in a venue that he can open carry?

And while I have the mic, I'm gonna do a shameless plug. I am uh a friend of Dennis, and he's encouraging a lot of the folks who have different interests to hold events throughout the year to welcome visitors in. Uh-huh. And so a pronatalist one I'm organizing in August. We're going to have questions and answers with midwives. We're going to have a baby clothing swap and a family lake day. Oh, it's awesome. And a challenge I'm seeing with that is I want to communicate to people that if they are paired up and want kids eventually, maybe once they're settled, if they're already thinking about moving here, to come ahead, go ahead and come to this. This isn't like it's it's going to be for local families. All my friends are probably I'm gonna pester all my friends to come out. But I really want to see those couples who are just starting to envision a family together to come so that they the the women especially can experience that community and get that uh vision of what their life could be after a move and after a child.

And I was just wondering if you have any similar experiences within your network. Uh I lost the thread of your question. But what you described sounds awesome. Um do you see that in your network of like when women come together and see other families and how they formed that it it's less scary? You you mentioned that it was really uh uninspiring, uh unasp not aspirational to do the traditional family strategy structure. So I'm wondering if you're seeing that uh yeah it's not aspirational to do it alone. I think it's aspirational to do it alone. Right. Yeah. So you mentioned oh like my internet friends aren't my husband's internet friends are okay. Yeah. But uh do you see a similar effect among the families of like oh maybe having a family in this friend group or in this community would be oh yeah yeah and that's again it's like it's it's so important to uh show people how good it can be there's such a uh I I I definitely found this when I was kind of working like a a a square job wage job um people it's very like okay to complain and it's not as okay to like talk about what's great about having a family and uh if you can be around people I mean number one if you can be around people who talk positively about it but also if you can be around people who sh show you what's great about it.

Um and so that that like uh there's like some non-trivial number of young women who've like never held a baby um and it's it's uh wow yeah it's like it's w and it's because you're sort of we're a couple generations into this paradigm of you know mom and dad and two kids and they're born within a couple of years of each other and they get all the way to adult there's not like a there's not like a a rolling like I have seven kids like my my you know, God willing, my my daughter, when she has kids, my youngest kids are not gonna be that old. And so like it's this rolling exposure to just having kids around, and you'll have grown up with kids in your house your whole life. And that's when you have smaller families that start later, you don't have that experience. And so um, I think Peter Thiel actually talks about it.

Like uh his his sort of thesis about the demographic decline is nobody's having kids because nobody's having kids. And I think there's you know, that's that definitely goes in the soup, I think. I don't I don't know if it's like the silver bullet or the number one thing. I want to uh pick your brain about the fact that you have a coherent group that has a mix of Protestants and Catholics on the one hand and LDS guys on the other. I feel like this is kind of the Schrdinger's cat of coalitions. Like I I talk to LDS people that say, like, we'd love to work with the Protestants on stuff, but they don't think we're real Christians, they don't want to work with us. And then I talked to some Protestants that say we try to coalition build with the Mormons and work together with them, but they're they're insular and want to kind of do their own thing and have their own separate institutions.

How did you manage to thread the needle and pull this off? Uh well I guess I'm kind of coming from one side of that debate. I'd uh that would surprise me if uh if if LDS people were like, No, no, we don't want to um that would be really surprising to me. But um Well, of course it's the Protestants' fault. Well, no, I no, I I don't mean that. I just mean like there's like enormous, there's all kinds of audience and resources, and it's like you you're comparing a very, very small group to a very, very large one. And so like there's gonna be diversity of opinion. It's different. But but um uh I mean I think number one, so like um uh Bashar, the Assad family in Syria. Uh one of the ways they were able to hold that coalition together for so long was that they were this weird little minority, and so like everybody knew that they were not gonna be the dominant player.

They were not gonna be able to exercise like you know, have their way on everything, so they were able to really effectively build a coalition. And I I do I think the fact that I'm LDS and we're sort of this minority in the group, uh enables everybody to just kind of get along because we know we're not it's not gonna be the Catholic group and it's not gonna be the Protestant group, and it's it's just gonna be the fellas is what it's gonna be. And um, and then I think also just like uh building building concretely for our families and that messaging, I think it draws guys who I think it draws guys who get this post-ideological thing. This like it's it's not about the ideas inside your brain. Um yeah, I think that's the best answer I've got. We're gonna wrap it on questions with that. If you have any final word, Kevin or Debbie.

Oh, just that I am real, I really admire you guys and and what you've accomplished, and uh really happy to be here. Thank you. I hope you come back after that.