What’s more, such mobility has become a definite plus, as more and more businesses have become virtual, relying on contractors that do their work remotely. Most such employers hardly ever have reason to see you in person; however, most of them really, truly, deeply care where you are physically. They want you to be nearby, just in case. In case of what, exactly? Nobody can tell you that, except that it is important. I only mention this because it’s true: it’s something I know from experience.

Suppose you have a job that involve banging away at a laptop for 8-10 hours a day for some company whose offices are located in a major urban center. You could, of course, rent an apartment in that urban center, buy a car, brave the traffic morning and evening, and spend your days sitting in an empty cube behind your laptop (which you carry back and forth with you), overhearing inane conversations from people who aren’t really your coworkers (inevitably, your real coworkers/contractors/clients/support people are on the Internet, and you communicate with them using email and videoconferencing). You have to pay rent, make payments on the car, pay for gasoline, pay for lunches from the cafeteria or from some fast food joint nearby. All the while, you would constantly encounter stressed-out, money-obsessed people compulsively poking at various electronic devices while ignoring each other.

All of these things are draining, both financially and psychologically, and so your productivity and morale suffers, and you spend more and more of your workday wasting time on Internet newsgroups and blogs. Your employer has no idea, or doesn’t care, as long as you are in your cube and staring and the screen for at least eight ours a day. But demoralization can become so profound that it gives rise to passive-aggressive behavior and in due course produces something like a secret work-to-rules strike, for any endeavor can be brought to a halt simply by following rules meticulously and refusing to stray outside one’s job description. After breathing the same air with such colleagues, you come home every night too drained to do much beyond warming up a pre-manufactured meal and taking in a dose of television, although more often than not you end up checking and responding to emails and answering phone calls even while at home, once again driving home the point that it doesn’t matter where you are. If your employer is even slightly enlightened, then you will be allows to work remotely. Of course, you’d be expected to stay in town, in order to show up on a moment’s notice (for what?).

Now, you could also do the same work from an undisclosed tropical location where rent is tiny, if you choose to rent, or where you can buy a house with a few of months’ wages. In the mornings, you could go for a run on the beach and a swim, and then settle down with the laptop in a chaise longue in the shade by the pool, listening to exotic birds and watching neighborhood kids and pets run around unattended. You would do your shopping by bicycle. In your spare time you could go surfing, or scuba-diving, or go hike through the jungle and admire the wildlife, or party with the motley crew of international backpackers that happen to be filtering through the area. Since everyone around you would be happy and relaxed, you would be happy and relaxed too, and your productivity would soar, allowing you to finish the usual daily workload in half the time, and to deliver stunning results. Of course, if your employer ever finds out your secret, then you are in big trouble.

But how would your employer find out? Your laptop can connect to the company servers (which are not even where the company has its offices but in the cloud somewhere) from anywhere in the world. If security is an issue, the connection can be via an encrypted tunnel. Your phone is on wifi and you can make and receive calls that look like they are coming from the local area code. A friend of yours, who happens to live in the area where you are supposed to physically reside, has agreed put your name on her mailbox, so that official correspondence has a place to go. You provided her with a signature stamp, so that she can stamp checks and letters that you periodically email to her to print out and send off. This more or less completes your virtual façade.

What could go wrong? Well, most people couldn’t possibly pull this off, for the simple reason that they are hopeless when it comes to maintaining their anonymity. They use Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, which specifically destroy their anonymity and lay their lives out there for all to see—their employers, the cops who pull them over, border patrol, IRS agents—anyone who cares to look. They load up their smartphone with apps that track their location. If they blog, they blog in their own name. In short, instead of being savvy users of modern technology, turning it to their advantage, they act like cattle for the slaughter, making it trivial for corporations and the government to examine and control, to tax and to monetize, and generally manipulate and control every aspect of their existence. They volunteer to be slaves.

In a very direct, simple way,

Freedom = Mobility + Anonymity

It seems uncontroversial that if you can’t move, you are more or less in jail. It doesn’t have to be a physical jail: you could be wearing an ankle bracelet, or just fulfill the requirement that you show up at the same place every weekday morning. Just being able to move, in a theoretical I-could-if-I-wanted-to sort of way, doesn’t count as mobility. Anybody can catch a flight somewhere… and then two weeks later catch a flight back to where they started. Anybody can “travel”—for pleasure or for business. True mobility is in being able to go from place to place to place, keeping your base of operations virtual, limited to a name on a mailbox and a cell phone with an area code that matches the postal code of the mailbox. The two hallmarks of mobility are that your “public location”—where prying eyes think you are—is mostly fictional, and that your “physical location”—where your physical body resides—is arbitrary, irrelevant, and secret. The best choice for a “public location” is a US state with no income taxes but with high property taxes—but in which you don’t own any property.

Of course, anonymity is what makes it all possible and here it is possible to go very far. The first step is to delete all the social networking accounts. Next is to start using email using any number of services that reside in countries that are not subject to US or EU law, do not maintain logs, and do not respond to official requests for information. Next is to encrypt all your communications. Clearly, you do not want your physical being to be associated with any electronic representation of you. If there is a public profile photo of you, it should be of someone else (more attractive) who looks like you. If you publish, do so under a pseudonym, or, better yet, a group pseudonym, because it is amazing how much the simple shift from “anonymous person” to “anonymous persons” does to frustrate efforts to identify you. “Tyler Durden” of Zerohedge is a good example of that strategy, and illustrates the close connection between anonymity and freedom of expression. Of course, if you stay in one place for too long people will eventually find out who you are (there are always enough busybodies around for that). If you are abroad, then eventually your visa will expire; if you are in a country for which you have a passport, the local authorities will eventually become inquisitive. And so it’s best to stay on the move.

Thus, mobility requires anonymity, and anonymity requires mobility, and both equate with not just freedom, but with nomadism. And nomadism, in turn, requires that your status as a nomad be kept secret, for, as James C. Scott wrote in the introduction to his book Seeing like a State, “the state has always seemed to be the enemy of ‘people who move around’ … [g]ypsies, vagrants, homeless people, itinerants, run-away slaves and serfs [emphasis mine] have always been a thorn in the side of states. Efforts to permanently settle these mobile peoples (sedentarization) seemed to be a perennial state project-perennial, in part, because it so seldom succeeded.” And so you should be a “resident” in the place where you don’t live, and a “tourist” in any number of places where you do (sometimes) live. These are simple, uncontroversial, popular categories that require very little in the way of confirmation.

There is another potential benefit to this sort of virtual existence, but its importance depends on your estimate of the likelihood of a zombie apocalypse breaking out: it allows you to relocate to a place, or places, that are far away from the ground zero of zombie apocalypse (which is what every major city is) and to hide out in some calm backwater where your chances of riding out the transition period, when the zombies all eat each others’ brains, in relative comfort.

25 Comments on "Orlov: The Good Life: Mobility, Anonymity, Freedom"

Arthur on Wed, 19th Feb 2014 11:31 am 



This hyper mobile lifestyle Orlov leads, will NOT characterize the future for most, except for celebrities like Dmitri -collapse- Orlov. Mobility means being an atomized individual. How to be mobile with a family? The future is to local self-supporting communities, not nomads.

Davy, Hermann, MO on Wed, 19th Feb 2014 12:58 pm 



@meld – exactly – but it sounds fun for some. You better be a high value lap top tapper! In any case I wonder if the best course of action is going off line. I did it 10 years ago for 40 days. The family raised such a fuss I had to give it up. They thought I was crazy. I was a little but it is a noble crazy. Your mind changes when you walk away for the grid. I have a farm so I could do it. Anyway maybe more should just walk away from our servitude to the chains of the system. You can be poor but proud with the added benefit of free!

J-Gav on Wed, 19th Feb 2014 3:03 pm 



Actually Orlov only leads the nomadic (but not anonymous in his case) existence that he extols to a partial degree. He spends a lot of his time working in Boston though his boat does allow him to spend quite a lot of time in (probably not more than) 2 or 3 other harbors. That doesn’t sound like the total nomadic freedom he’s advocating.

I’m an Orlov fan (not a groupie) and I remember he has, in the past, expressed interest and admiration for the permaculture movement. How does that square with nomadism? Though I can feel the tug of the kind of lifestyle he’s talking about, I agree with Arthur on this one.

bobinget on Wed, 19th Feb 2014 4:56 pm 



I find living in Central America during Northern Hemisphere’s winter months is cheering and life enhancing. I actually spend far less time on line and more interacting with locals and interesting expats.

When an interested person travels one ‘discovers’ dozens of business opportunities, some, even with merit. With laughable start-up capital a person can
increase existing small business profits enormously.

In 1976 living in Dominica, WI, I often bought my lunchtime sandwich from a tidy looking pushcart
market type lady. After months of friendly interaction I asked her why she didn’t buy her ingredients in bulk?
Her reply astonished me. She simply did not have any extra money saved. By simply buying all my lunches six months in advance she was able to double her profits, quality and business. When I left town she had set up a permanent location in the market.

Living as I do in the second poorest nation in our hemisphere, Nicaragua, (Haiti is poorer) opportunities
to help locals abound. The satisfaction one gets is payment aplenty.

Make fun of me all you want but I’ll relate one last tale.
One evening in a slightly upscale Quito eatery a small delegation of working class men sat down near my table. It soon became obvious these guys were Cubans
visiting Equador on some lefty educational visit.
I could tell these were guys whose last fancy dinner ‘out’ was perhaps on their wedding day. While that part was both painful and cute at the same time, what they spoke about proved far more interesting.
Equador as you may know is like Venezuela both an OPEC member and currently Marxist government ruled.

While Cuba’s revolutionary communist government
abolished private business, Ecuador’s, Venezuela’s, Nicaragua’s, elected presidents did not.

Getting back to my overt Yankee spying.
Cubans if anything are not shy, speak quickly and loudly when excited so I did not catch every word of Caribbean Spanish. What these obviously hard working
union men could not get over was the number of small business just in our neighborhood of ‘Old Quito’.
Ecuadorians tend to copy success, so if a guy making tables from old hardwood pallets sets up shop and sells his work, five other guys move in around him.
Then, one man figures out he could make coffins, demand for those is 100%, he finds materials cheaply and goes to work supplying working class Ecuadorians. Now if a person needs a bed, table or coffin she needs only walk up and down one or two blocks of artisans all making the same goods.

In Cuba, because of government controls, buyers choices are limited. Employment satisfaction is as well.
‘My Cubans’ spoke of little else.

Traveling is so educational.

ghung on Wed, 19th Feb 2014 5:25 pm 



In Europe, the Roma have a long history of “roaming’ around while keeping mostly to themselves. Makes for a tight culture, but they generally aren’t welcomed or trusted anywhere.

Orlov: “… it allows you to relocate to a place, or places, that are far away from the ground zero…. and to hide out in some calm backwater where your chances of riding out the transition period, when the zombies all eat each others’ brains, in relative comfort.”

Assumes there are ‘calm backwaters’ that someone else hasn’t already taken ‘possession’ of. It takes time to establish trust and acceptance. Constantly watching your back (because you essentially have no society to help do that) is a lot of work, especially in trying times. Wherever you go, you’ll likely be seen as competing for resources that have already been claimed. Unless you have essential skills that others don’t have but need, you’ll be ‘encouraged’ to keep moving in a largely resource-depleted world.

Davy, Hermann, MO on Wed, 19th Feb 2014 5:45 pm 



@arthur – I guess I am slowly losing my mind I meant you and not @meld

@gav – agreed and 2nd. My bucket list is a small Spartan sail boat in Bahamas in a few years if the Shit does not hit the fan or ITSDNHTF

@bobinget – great experience and story. I was in Costa Rica. Nice place too

@ghung – I remember the Roma in Madrid in the 80’s. They would wander around the streets with their horse drawn wagons collecting broken household goods. No doubt salvaging at a profit. Resourceful people. One wonders which is better a nomad or nomadic group. Each has their own pluses and minuses. I still can hear their loud yells echoing in the low rises of Madrid. I might add Madrid is a great place. Women are hot that is always a plus for a location!

BTW are you guys being sexist here cause I don’t ever see any posts by women? Scare them off or are they just smarter than us. Tolstoy said “The society of woman is a necessary evil that should be avoided at all costs…or something like that!

andya on Wed, 19th Feb 2014 7:50 pm 



If that is freedom, it sounds dumb. Freedom is doing what you want when you want it, not being some anonymous moran. Wouldn’t the first part of freedom be not having to work? Instead of trying to scam your boss. Sounds like a high risk, low reward stupid bullshit to me.

J-Gav on Wed, 19th Feb 2014 9:08 pm 



Well, I spent a year in Panama, the better part of one in Mexico, a year in Germany, many years in France and trips to various ‘exotic’ places (the jungle island of Siberut, Indonesia being the most memorable) but still can’t consider myself a nomad by any stretch. Traveling does enrich, one way or another, as several of you have mentioned, no doubt about that. But it has little to do with a truly nomadic existence. There is also potentially much richness in being ‘rooted.’ Ask somebody like Wendell Berry or Pierre Rabhi about that … Different strokes for different folks I guess.

GregT on Wed, 19th Feb 2014 9:17 pm 



“There is another potential benefit to this sort of virtual existence, but its importance depends on your estimate of the likelihood of a zombie apocalypse breaking out: it allows you to relocate to a place, or places, that are far away from the ground zero of zombie apocalypse ***********( WHICH IS WHAT EVERY MAJOR CITY IS )************and to hide out in some calm backwater where your chances of riding out the transition period, when the zombies all eat each others’ brains, in relative comfort.”

My firearms instructor identified ‘zombies’ as the masses of people in desperate search of food, after a societal breakdown.

“In short, instead of being savvy users of modern technology, turning it to their advantage, they act like cattle for the slaughter, making it trivial for corporations and the government to examine and control, to tax and to monetize, and generally manipulate and control every aspect of their existence. THEY VOLUNTEER TO BE SLAVES.”

I think that Orlov’s sense of humour has been missed here guys. If anything, it seems to me that he is merely trying to point out how ridiculous our lives and technology have become, while we continue to ignore the direction that we are ultimately heading in.

Davey on Wed, 19th Feb 2014 9:18 pm 



@gav – I am a loner type a bit of an introvert. A spiritual nomad of sorts

Davey on Wed, 19th Feb 2014 9:33 pm 



@Gregt – always liked his humor dry and intellectual

I have a small house in a small town and a small cabin on a farm. I rent an apartment in the big shitty for GF. I recommend redundancy of housing if possible. My living arrangements are a triangle each 1 1/2 hr apart

J-Gav on Wed, 19th Feb 2014 9:55 pm 



GregT – I think you’re on target as far as Orlov’s dry humor is concerned.

Davey – ‘Spiritual nomadism’ – thanks for reminding us of that dimension. Somebody like the great spiritual mentor (can’t say ‘leader’ in that context, wouldn’t make any sense) Ramana Maharshi would certainly agree.

RICHARD RALPH ROEHL on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 12:22 am 



Anonymous? That won’t happen again until the Internet goes dark.

You blog here? Well… we now have your ISP address… and all your medical records… etc.

Makati1 on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 1:47 am 



Richard, you said it before I did. No one in the Western world can be ‘anonymous’ and most of the rest are coming online. No only do they know where you are 24/7/365, but they know what you are eating, who you are with, your bank balance, when you were to the dentist last, and that you just turned on your TV to channel 40. If you think I am exaggerating…

I live in the Ps as you all know. My contacts that are traceable are the amounts of money withdrawn from my account, the visa renewals at Immigration, and my address, which is c/o and NOT in my name as are none of the utilities. I have an 8 year old, Dubai bought, cell phone with a prepaid chip in it. They do know when I go out of the country and charge my flights, once a year. I do not use a credit or debit card for my purchases, paying cash for everything here.

Yes, I am online, but it is not my PC. No insurance as I own nothing of great value. Nothing I could not walk away from if necessary. I have a place out of the city when that is necessary and plan to live there soon, permanently. That is as ‘anonymous’ as any US citizen can get, and still be legal, I think.

antaris on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 2:18 am 



But Makati, do you stand out in the crowd or look local?

Davy, Hermann, MO on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 2:29 am 



@Richard – I think it is those people that are hiding they are interested in. Not much excitement here with me. Better to be out in the open and boring then mysterious and secretive that’s when they find it a challenge and interesting.

Makati1 on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 3:29 am 



@antaris, I am one of over 2 million ‘foreigners’ so I do not stick out any more than you do in your town. Besides, being a foreigner here is not dangerous. Many ‘foreigners’ are married to Filipinos and Filipinas or retired here.

After you are here a while, you are not even bothered by the street sellers or beggars as they know you. Ditto for mall security, banks, barbers, etc. Not so in the US unless you are a long time customer. I am treated politely and with respect for my age, by the native Filipinos. It is only the Europeans, Indians and Americans here that are rude and pushy.

My building houses people from all over the world. A mini-UN. Why wouldn’t I like it here? AND, I can live an American lifestyle for less than $800 per month, about 35,000 Pesos currently. (A laborer here earns about 400 Pesos ($10) per 8 hour day.) Rent P15K. Electric P5K. Food ~P6K. Haircut P50. Etc.

I can go to the States in less than 24 hours and for about $1,600 RT anytime I want to. Or to Hong Kong for $100 RT. What’s not to like?

Makati1 on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 3:35 am 



BTW: It’s about 87F and sunny at the present time. That is normal for most of the days here, year round. The land of eternal summer. Never below 60F and rarely over 90F except in the highest mountains. The dry season, now, is mostly rain free except for occasional thunderstorms. The rainy season is similar but more thunderstorms and showers. Seldom a steady day of rain. No cold or extreme heat, and 7,000+ islands to choose from. ^_^

Davy, Hermann, MO on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 3:40 am 



Now Makati, there is more to life than cost of living and 87’F. Have you been hired by the regional tourism association? Can you explain rude and pushy so I know if I am American, European, and or Indian

Makati1 on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 7:38 am 



Hahahahaha…Davy. You are an American. I can tell by your comments.

“…there is more to life than cost of living and 87′F…”. Tell that to the polar vortex people today or the many tens of millions out of work, out of money and out of luck in the US today. The 47 million on food stamps. The savings that are melting away in a zero interest fame. The soon to be confiscated 401k, mutual funds, etc.

Yes, there are other things in life but only after you are safe and secure. I am, at least as much as possible. Are you?

GregT on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 7:39 am 



Davy,

I have travelled extensively around this planet for over 30 years. In my experience, the vast majority of the rude and pushy people I have encountered have been German, Dutch, or American. I have also met many an American on my travels that had sewn Canadian flags on their packs, for very good reasons.

There are a lot of very rude and pushy Americans, as well as many who are not. If you don’t know which one you are, I doubt that anyone else will be able to explain it to you.

Sorry if I have offended, only pointing out the truth, just as I have had many Americans over the years, point out the same to me.

Arthur on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 12:42 pm 



the vast majority of the rude and pushy people I have encountered have been German, Dutch, or American.

You forgot to mention the most pushiest of them all.

http://tinyurl.com/pf3ln6f

And after you have visited a 4/5 star resort in the Indian Ocean, Caribbean or Mediterranean, you would certainly add Russians to the list.

Davy, Hermann, MO on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 12:55 pm 



People in glass houses don’t throw rocks. Generalization is so clear and simple. I guess my sarcasm flew right over your head or you threw some back. I get so tiered of the same fare at the local restaurant of blame and “I am better than you”. It makes me think it is not better. Some of the meanest people are the most insecure. Insecure people have the toughest outer skin but inside they are lost. It is like the comedian that is so funny and light hearted when in fact inside they are the most serious. If you all are so great lead us and set an example. Generalizing Americans is so passé, please spare me. You think I don’t see the ugly Americans. That is all you want to see is the problem

Arthur on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 1:56 pm 



Generalizing Americans is so passé, please spare me. You think I don’t see the ugly Americans.

Greg just told me that the Dutch are more rude than Americans, and I did not object. I feel your pain.lol

And I am not so sure if being rude could not come in handy in times of revolutionary change, provided you want to end on top again. Meek sheep end up on a plate.

Davy, Hermann, MO on Thu, 20th Feb 2014 3:11 pm 



@Arthur – “Meek sheep end up on plates”

I wonder when the global empire starts to fall who the next barbarian hordes will be? Yet, with precision military these days I am not sure if it is wise to congregate with bad intentions at the gates. Yet, attrition, like the soldier ants wins everytime