Anarchapulco 2018 has drawn to a close, and I'm feeling so invigorated!

This was my third time attending Anarchapulco (I missed the second one), and each event has deepened my understanding of the principles of liberty, enriched my life with the friendships and connections I've made, and renewed my enthusiasm for the possibility of a stateless world.

As I noted to a friend last night at the closing pool party, I can trace almost every positive change that has taken place in my life over the past four years to my decision to attend the inaugural Anarchapulco in 2015, to mingle with 150 fellow anarchists, voluntaryists, and free-thinkers from around the globe. I really can't overstate this. My life is better in measurable ways for having taken that journey, which at the time seemed very risky.

With 1600 attendees, this year's conference was less intimate than the first one, but the crowd was much more diverse (there's more than 12 women now). With so many people, it was difficult to catch up with all of my old friends for a chat, but I met a lot of new friends (as I do each year I attend), and the energy of the event felt fresh and unstoppable.

I'm always impressed with the range of speakers Anarchapulco is able to bring together, the smorgasbord of topics covered in the talks. My favorite speech this year was given by Jeffrey Tucker, who expounded upon the subject matter of his last year's talk concerning the left and right branches of evil (otherwise known as Hegelianism), culminating with the assertion that statism is unsustainable, that the market driven alternatives to state "services" coming out of the anarchist and crypto communities will render the state obsolete.

I also thoroughly enjoyed Ron Paul's and Roger Ver's talks, as well as many others. Due to group travel logistics, I missed more talks than I would have liked to this year, so I might have to spring for the video files when they're available.

Many interesting and exciting crypto projects had a presence at the conference. Dash had a table, and Bitcoin.com was giving out free shirts and bracelets all weekend. I learned about some lesser-known projects that have the capacity to change the world in a hundred small ways--from MonkeyCoin, which hopes to provide financial stability for the people of Venezuela, to the EFFECT Network, which aims to decentralize AI innovation.

Overall, the tone of this year's conference felt incredibly hopeful and positive. Whereas in 2015 it felt like we were a group of misanthropes coming together to complain about the state and speculate about the future of this crazy new magical internet money, 2018 felt like a gathering of people with the skills and confidence necessary to truly challenge the statist quo, and perhaps even to win.

Here are a few of my takeaways from Anarchapulco 2018:

• Incentivization is the most useful wrench in the anarchist toolkit. Perhaps this has always been true, but now more and more of us are starting to realize it. We can't usher in a new era of peace, prosperity, and individual autonomy by persuading statists to abandon statism. Instead, we must create alternatives to statism and incentivize their adoption. I saw the theme of incentivization popping up in multiple contexts throughout the conference. One speaker suggested a way to eliminate the prosecution of victimless crimes by offering defendants a financial incentive to take their cases to trial, thereby overloading the criminal justice system and disincentivizing the prosecution of victimless crimes.
• Voluntaryism is growing exponentially. Based on the growth I've seen so far at the conference and all the awesome projects that are coming out of this community, I foresee that there will be real, viable options for individual secession from the state within the next decade. The voluntaryist philosophy might even reach critical mass before long.
• There are still divisive issues within the anarchist community, which is to be expected. One example is the border debate. @larkenrose debated Lauren Southern on stage at the conference on the topic of borders. Most of those in attendance seemed to support Larken's point of view, that state border control is completely antithetical to a free society, but a minority of attendees agreed with Lauren (who is not an anarchist, btw) that borders must be protected as long as there is still a government. This topic is one that has the potential to turn anarchists against each other, and I personally think the idea of bordertarians within the anarchist community is ludicrous, since there is nothing voluntary about state border enforcement. However, I think it's great that we have these types of debates at Anarchapulco. It prevents us from becoming an echo chamber, but more importantly, it is a demonstration of how to combat bad ideas. The world at large seems to be of the opinion that the best way to keep bad ideas from taking root is to censor them. Anarchists believe (rightly) that censorship doesn't work, and that the only way to fight bad or even dangerous ideas is through dialogue. I hope that we continue to put this theory into practice with future conferences. Putting folks up on stage who represent minority or oft-maligned opinions within the anarchist community is good for our growth and development.
• The coolest thing about spending five days with 1600 voluntaryists is seeing how everyone independently applies their own strengths, passions, and skillsets to solving the world's problems. And that they do it without being told to, without waiting for instruction or the "right time" to get started.

I'm already stoked for next year's conference, which promises to be even bigger and more epic than this year's.

If you're a voluntaryist and you haven't been to Anarchapulco yet, you should DEFINITELY commit to attending in 2019. I want you to be a part of this.

P.S. I meant to post daily while I was at Anarchapulco. Unfortunately, our AirBnB had no wifi and the hotel's wifi would not allow me to post. But I'm still in Mexico until the end of the week, and I'm at a place with a decent internet connection now, so expect more riveting posts daily!

All images are from anarchapulco.com

Hi, I'm Starr!

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