For a Feral Anarchy

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Contact: Dingo55@riseup.net

A note to the governments dogs

This zine was written for entertainment purposes, and doesnt necessarily reflect the authors
views. After all, why would I want to destroy a system that promises me a life of submission,
mediocrity and alienation?

Why anti-civilization?

As both a philosophy and a practice, anarchism attempts to eradicate all forms of socially
imposed domination. In its origins, the anarchist analysis of power focused on two main sources
of domination: the state and capitalism. As anarchist thought developed, it began to dig deeper
into other subtler forms of oppression such those involving gender, race and sexuality.
Through a reading of human history, we can observe the birth and development of different
forms of domination, and thus attempt to understand their roots and how they developed
through time. We can observe, for instance, how kingdoms and empires became liberal
democracies and found new ways of dominating their subjects without the state ever losing its
essence as a tool of domination.
Yet, few dare to look for the roots of our problems in the origins of civilization itself. This
negligence is not surprising in a society that has very little interest for its origins, lumping
everything that happened before the advent of writing as prehistory.
Thus, the study of history becomes the study of civilization. We learn in school textbooks about
Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire and the great navigations, but almost nothing about the
history of non-civilized men. Yet, civilization is a recent invention, emerging around 10,000
years ago, while modern humans have roamed the earth for at least 200,000 years.
It surprises me that the majority of anarchists know very little about how humans have lived for
most of our existence, as well as how some of the few populations that have not had their ways

of life disrupted by civilization still live. This lack of knowledge is even more surprising when you
consider the fact that the most anarchic societies that have ever existed and still exist are not
civilized.
I believe that the key to understanding the roots of our problems lies in the origins of
civilization, which is also the birth of the false split between man and nature and the
domination of nature by man. My intention is not to imply that all non-civilized societies are
egalitarian or to paint a romanticized image of these societies so diverse in their habits and
customs. That being said, the birth of civilization opened a Pandoras Box that eventually led to
this sick society that we live in.
Civilizations are complex societies based in urban development. Among its typical
characteristics are sedentarism, intensive agriculture as a way to supply the populations
demand for food, symbolic communication, specialization and division of labor, domestication
of plants and animals, including humans, accumulation of surplus, growing complexity, class
division and an economy dependent on an unsustainable extraction and/or use of resources.
To make things worse, it is now known that the quality of life of the first civilized humans was a
lot worse than that of their forebears. Archeological evidence shows a decrease in life
expectancy and a degeneration of the body marked by a reduction in the average height as well
as a much larger incidence of degenerative diseases, bone fractures and dental problems.
These findings go against the progressive myth that sees history as a long march towards
progress in which societies progressively overcome their contradictions and leave behind
primitive customs and worldviews along the way.
The truth is that civilization has always maintained itself through domination and ecological
destruction and expanded itself through war and conquest. To fight against the roots of the
domination of human beings and wild nature means not only opposing the state and capital,
but also civilization itself. This project doesnt imply an attempt to return to the past or to
mimic the lifeways of our ancestors. What it does imply, is the recognition that as long as we
live under civilization we will never be able to fully realize ourselves as human beings and to
free ourselves from the shackles of domination.
I dont know how far this struggle can take us or to what extent the pernicious effects of 10,000
years of civilization and domestication can be undone. That being said, I do believe it is worth to
engage both in the discussion and in the practices that emerge out of the critique of civilization.
This zine is a sincere attempt to make a modest contribution to this debate and to expose my
ideas to criticisms, as well as to find others who have an affinity with my ideas.

Genocide, ethnocide, ecocide and collapse

The history of civilization is also a history of collapses. Civilizations tend to grow and are based
on an unsustainable extraction of resources, so all civilizations are fated to an eventual
collapse. Many past civilizations were brought down by ecological disasters. Some were natural
disasters, some self-inflicted and most a combination of both.
The Hittite Empire and the Egypt of the pharaohs collapsed after a period of intense droughts,
while the Mayan Empire and the civilization that formed in Easter Island saw their demise after
consuming the resources they needed to maintain themselves (drought also played a significant
role in the collapse of the Mayan Empire). Despite being unsustainable, civilizations can prolong
their lifetime through two different ways.
The first one is through expansion. If a civilization is depleting the resources it needs to survive,
it can expand and find more resources to explore. Many European countries would have ran
out of resources centuries ago had they not plundered the Americas, Asia and Africa.
This need to expand says a lot about the true nature of civilization. Between a civilized society
and the resources it needs to maintain itself are the populations that live in the regions where
those resources are found, many of them traditional communities that live off the land
(although these are becoming increasingly rare). Obviously, no traditional community will
abandon the area it depends on for its survival, let it be contaminated and destroyed or let the

resources that they depend on be extracted in an abusive manner. Also, very few of them are
willing to sell the land they live on.
This means that the continuity of civilization implies the destruction of whole cultures, the
murder or incarceration of those who fight to protect their land and the devastation of the
environment for the extraction of resources. In other words, the continuity of civilization
implies a process of genocide, ethnocide and ecocide.
Besides, no matter how capable of expanding and obtaining resources a civilization is, we live in
a finite planet. Eventually, there will be nowhere else to expand to.
The second way for a civilization to expand its lifetime is through technological innovation. New
inventions can increase the food production and the efficiency of resource use. It was also
technological innovation that allowed civilization to become a worldwide network of
domination, extraction, production and distribution. Despite that, technology also has its
shortcomings.
The first of these shortcomings is the fact that when newer and more resource-efficient
versions of existing technologies appear, the use of these technologies tend to increase due to
falling prices, which often leads to an increase in the use of resources rather than a decrease.
This tendency was first observed in the 19th century by the English economist William Jevons. In
addition, any technology based on the extraction of non-renewable resources is unsustainable
by definition, so any increase in its efficiency can only delay the inevitable.
There is also the matter of energy. Any society needs energy to function, and when this energy
stops being supplied, a process of collapse begins. The simplest forms of society use primarily
the energy stored in the human body as calories and the energy released through the burning
of organic matter (fire). In the context of these societies, the acquiring and expending of energy
can be carried out in a sustainable way and within the (almost) closed cycles of the bioregions
inhabited by these peoples, in which all resources are fully utilized by nature without producing
waste.
As a society becomes more complex, it also becomes more complicated for it to meet its energy
demands. A society dependent on industrial technology can only meet these demands over a
relatively short period of time and at the expense of a high human an environmental cost.
Nowadays, our society is extremely dependent on oil, a nonrenewable resource with
devastating environmental effects.
Despite other forms of energy being on the rise, energy derived from oil still accounts for more
than 90% of transport worldwide. In a world where we daily consume products that come from
all over the Earth, it is needless to say that a lack of oil would provoke catastrophic effects.
Besides that, a great part of what we eat nowadays is a product of industrial agriculture, which
is also reliant on oil.

Even if oil use wasnt extremely prejudicial to the environment, as well as being one of the main
causes of global warming, global oil production will peak at any moment now. After that, it will
enter a decline until it eventually ceases completely.
Of course, there are many other forms of energy that could replace it, but not one of them is
remotely sustainable. Solar panels and wind turbines, for example, depend on unsustainable
mining for production as well as oil for both production and transport. Nuclear energy depends
on unsustainable mining of uranium and produces nuclear waste. Other solutions such as
biofuel, geothermal energy and hydroelectric energy have their own shortcomings and hit
similar walls.
Besides that, even if we found a viable solution we would need to be able to implement it. Not
only is this implementation a logistic nightmare, it also faces many political, social and
economic obstacles. This transition would take an amount of time that we do not have, as we
will see ahead.
We can then conclude that global industrial civilization is almost certainly headed for a collapse.
But what are the implications of such a collapse? First of all, it should be noted that a collapse is
not an event, but a process that unfolds over years, decades or even centuries.
The end of this process can result in the extinction of a civilization, its incorporation into other
civilizations (which is not a possibility in our case) or its dissolution into one or more simpler
societies. This means that a collapse (unfortunately) does not necessarily imply the extinction of
industrial civilization throughout the entire world, although it will most likely be drastically
reduced in its scope. It is not up to me to make long term predictions about the effects of a
collapse on society due to the complexity of the matter as well as our incompetence when it
comes to making such predictions accurately. Despite that, I will attempt to cover future
perspectives in face of such a collapse from an anarchist perspective further in this publication.

Against domestication!

We obtained power never dreamed of by our ancestors. We sailed the oceans, explored its
depths, soared through the sky and reached the moon itself. We calculated the speed of light,
split atoms and invented the hydrogen bomb. We spread throughout the entire Earth,
devastating ancient forests and building cities to inhabit. In these cities we built gargantuan
buildings and monuments in tribute to progress, this insatiable god that is never satisfied with
the sacrifices made in its name.
Thus we built civilization, the leviathan that crushes or devours everything in its path. In the
center of this process is the domestication of the environment, plants and animals, including
ourselves.
We have been removed from the cycles of nature, domesticated and brought into a way of life
which will never be capable of fully satisfying our needs: the civilized life. Thus we began to
believe that humankind is distinct from the rest of nature, and can exploit it as we please. This
process was intensified by the industrial revolution, making humans become increasingly like
mere cogs in a machine, alienated from themselves and from the natural world, incapable of
supplying their own needs.
Yet, we remain animals behind this civilized mask, with physical and psychological needs that
have evolved over millions of years and are essentially the same as that of our non-civilized

ancestors. Civilized life not only degrades our health but also frustrates our instincts. It is no
wonder that our hyper-civilized world suffers a growing epidemic of mental illnesses such as
depression, anxiety and schizophrenia, illnesses that are almost unknown amongst the few
hunter-gatherers whose way of life hasnt yet been disturbed by civilization.
Those of us that grew up in a civilized environment will probably never be able to heal from the
deep wounds caused by civilization. That being said, there is much we can do both on an
individual and on a collective level to rewild ourselves and fully realize our potential as human
beings. It should also be reminded that the struggle against domestication walks side by side
with the struggle against civilization, and one cannot fully realize itself without the other.
One of the main reasons behind the failures of past struggles against oppression is that they
didnt address domestication. Any significant attack against the system will cause social and
economic instability, especially if we are talking about a protracted struggle. If domestication
makes us dependent on the system to supply our needs, the destabilization of the system will
also affect us negatively. In such cases, the vast majority of the domesticated will desire a
return to normality much more than a deepening of the crisis, even when fully aware of the
oppression involved in our current social arrangement.
When the U.S stock market collapsed in the 30s, causing the Great Depression, worldwide
industrial production fell by half. During this period, workers from all over the world were
severely affected by the crisis because they were dependent on selling their labor for survival.
Despite this, peasants in third world countries that lived off the land and were barely
integrated in the monetary economy fared far better than many who were in a much more
privileged position within the system. This was only possible because they were less
domesticated and more self-reliant than those that were more integrated in the system.
If we are serious about being a threat to the system, we should also fight against domestication
and free ourselves from the state of dependency that binds us to the system that we oppose.
Fighting against domestication doesnt necessarily imply living again as hunter-gatherers.
Rewilding is the process of destroying the conditioning and the barriers imposed on our lives by
civilization and breaking out of our state of dependency, as well as recovering our wild freedom
and our capacity to act autonomously. This is a lifelong project that will probably never be fully
realize, but by trailing this path, we not only develop as human beings but also discover new
perspectives and ways of fighting against the system that has kept us enslaved for so long.

Do it yourself

If we want to mount an effective resistance against the system and create autonomous
lifeways, it is essential that we not only organize in order to achieve communal self-sufficiency
but also develop the skills and abilities that we need in order to supply or needs without
depending on the system and its technological structures. This is a tremendous task to those of
us that are highly domesticated, as we have lost almost all skills necessary to live
autonomously. That being said, I believe this is a challenge that can be accomplished
collectively.
The list of necessary skills is immense: We need to be able to feed ourselves, build or own
homes/shelters, make or acquire the tools necessary to live, provide medical assistance to each
other, make clothes and learn how to defend ourselves among other things.
This is certainly not a challenge that can be overcome in the short term. For now, we can also
learn how to take advantage of the leftovers of the systems production and consumption.
When doing this, however, we must be careful to avoid developing a relationship of
dependency with the system. Obviously, what I am proposing is not viable to the vast majority
of people at the moment, and the reality of our lives forces a certain level of compromise in the
present.
The main problem is not being dependent now, but settling at your current stage of
dependency. Each step we take should take us away from dependency and domestication, and
each step taken in this direction will make us more autonomous and more capable of attacking
civilization, as well as of surviving as our current social, economic and environmental crisis
deepens.

I will not go into detail about the skills necessary for us to achieve self-sufficiency here. There
are other publications that serve this purpose . One of these publications, which I highly
recommend, is A Rewilding Community Toolbox, written by anticivilization anarchist Autumn
Leaves Cascade (https://hastenthedownfall.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/a-rewildingcommunity-toolbox-vii-updated-margins3.pdf).

Technology, alienation and autonomy

Despite anarchism defining itself as an ideology that opposes the system and the dominant
ideology, the mentality of the majority of anarchists is still in many aspects perfectly aligned
with the civilized mentality that maintains the system. This alignment is very evident in the
worship of technology that prevails among most anarchists.
The majority of anarchists still see technology a tool that will play a key role in our collective
liberation. While they recognize the role that technology currently plays in social control, most
still believe that technology is neutral, and that if we could only free it from the grasp of
capitalism and the state, it would become and emancipatory force that would lead us to a
brave new world.
Simpler forms of technology definitely have a liberating potential, but any affirmation that
industrial technology can become a tool of liberation comes from a lack of comprehension
about its nature. We need then, to understand what the foundations of industrial technology
are.
Industrial technology presupposes certain forms of social organization with many implications.
A small community, for example, would not be able to produce a cellphone even if they had all
the necessary materials and knowledge to do so. To create a cellphone, the existence of
network of production and distribution is necessary as well. This network includes operations of

extraction of raw material, factories that produce a cellphones parts as well as cellphones
themselves and transport networks to connect all of these operations.
What are the problems implicit in this network? First of all, you have the environmental
devastation implicit in the extraction process, as there can be no industrial technology without
harmful processes such as mining. Also, as mentioned earlier, this destruction requires the
forced removal of indigenous populations and traditional communities that stand between
civilization and the resources needed to maintain industrial technology. This process destroys
entire cultures, forcefully integrating survivors into industrial civilization and increasingly
homogenizing humanity.
Another problem is the pollution generated by industry, which is nowadays one of the main
causes of the destruction of wild nature as well as the murder and decrease in the quality of life
of civilized and non-civilized humans. Besides that, any benefits that industrial technology can
provide are bound to go away eventually, as industry itself is unsustainable.
The industrial logic also presupposes forced, alienating and often dangerous labor. Do you think
workers that are destroying their bodies working in mining operations or wasting away doing
repetitive and mind-numbing work at a cellphone factory are doing it voluntarily? Thus people
are reduced to mere cogs in a machine, unable to derive any satisfaction or to express their
individuality through their labor
Even in a post-capitalist society, someone needs to be subjected to these forms of labor in
order to keep industrial production going. Some say that automatization will be able to
overcome this problem and free those that are subjected to such degrading work, but so far
they have never offered a remotely convincing explanation of how it would be possible to
automatize industrial production from the extraction of raw materials to the making of the final
product. Even if such automation was possible, the technology necessary for it is also
unsustainable, and would increase industrys impact upon the environment.
Besides, in a society based on industrial technology people tend lose their autonomy as
individuals and become alienated from each other as human relations become increasingly
mediated by technology. As mentioned earlier, no aspect of industrial technology exists by
itself, but as part of an increasingly complex technological matrix.
The individual has practically no influence over this matrix, which holds tremendous influence
over his life. Even those with technical knowledge can only comprehend a small part of this
matrix. Because of this, it is not individuals that direct society through technology. Technology
uses people to develop itself according to its own logic. In this process, people become
increasingly dependent on technology to provide their needs, feeling increasingly frustrated
and impotent as they move further away from their innate wildness.
When we demystify the nature of industrial technology, it becomes obvious that it is
completely incompatible with any concept of individual and collective autonomy. Even

overthrowing the bourgeoisie and collectivizing the means of production wouldnt change that.
After all, what is my interest in managing my misery if I am still miserable? Thus, the struggle
against industrial technology is one of the main elements of the struggle for autonomy and
domestication, as well as a necessary component of our struggle for emancipation.

Common critiques of anticivilization thought

I consider the critique of civilization to be a natural extension of anarchist thought. Still, even
among the most radical anarchists there is a strong rejection of this critique, which is often
attacked with fallacies and strawmen that rarely address the points made by anticivilization
anarchists.
This rejection is to be expected when even among anarchists the vast majority of people are
heavily domesticated and bedazzled by the technological advances brought by civilization.
One of the most common and probably the most pathetic of all objections against
anticivilization thought is the accusation that it is a genocidal ideology. According to those who
defend this thesis, it is not possible to supply the needs of 7 billion people in our current world
without industrial technology, which would mean that advocating for the end of industrial
civilization is advocating for a genocide.
The first thing that this critique fails to account for is that industrial civilization cannot do that
as well. As I have already covered, this is only possible in the short term, as industrial
technology is inherently unsustainable and eventually wont be able to sustain a population this
large.
Besides that, as more people lose contact with sustainable ways of living and become
dependent on industrial technology, which is an ongoing process, the potential for human loss
when this civilization collapses increases. It is also worth noting that more ecological resources

disappear with every passing day, which means that the sooner civilization collapses, the more
resources will be available for future populations to survive on.
But what is extremely ironic about this critique is that we are accused of being genocidal by
those who defend civilization, which is precisely the cause of the coming collapse, as well as the
ongoing ecocide and genocide. The longer we take to be honest about our current situation and
stop looking for false alternatives, the more people and wild beings will die, so spare me from
this hypocritical moralism.
Another common critique claims that we wish to return to the past, which would be impossible.
This critique is based on a false assumption, which is the progressive notion that living in a
simpler society would mean a return to the past. This notion only makes sense if you
interpret history as a forward march in a linear direction.
Besides, there is abundance of historical examples that dismiss this ridiculous notion. When the
Roman Empire fell, for instance, many of its subjects moved on to living in less complex social
organizations. This also happened in the end of the Mayan Empire, the Hittite Empire, the
Gupta Empire of India and the Hang and Tang dynasties of China among many others.
We are also accused of perpetuating the myth of the good savage and attempting to create a
utopia based on this myth. First of all, it is not our intention to create an utopia, as such a
project can never be realized. What we want is to face life in its own terms, with all its conflicts
and contradictions yet free from the artificial impositions that rob us of our humanity and from
a system that exists only at the expense of the destruction and controlling of wild nature, which
is our true home.
Also, it is evident that the myth of the good savage makes as little sense as the Hobbesian
notion that we would all be killing each other if civilization wasnt controlling our wild urges.
We know that wild people can also be violent, petty and selfish.
That being said, concepts such as good and evil have little to do with the critique of
civilization. We oppose civilization because people can only be truly fulfilled as wild beings, and
civilization robs us of our autonomy and degrades us physically and mentally, as well as deeply
alienating us from ourselves, our environment and other living beings. Besides, the civilized way
of life is unsustainable and bound to fail, while many non-civilized societies have survived for
tens of thousands of years. We care little for the redeeming qualities of civilization, which are
mere crumbs compared to what it takes from us anyway.
But the most valid critique against anticivilization in my opinion is the fact that the end of
civilization would deprive us of modern medicine. Indeed, the end of modern medicine would
bring about consequences that are quite difficult to deal with. The vast majority of health
problems can be treated effectively with traditional medicine, but it would be impossible to
perform advanced surgery, organ transplants or to effectively treat many diseases without
industrialized medicine.

These consequences shouldnt be underestimated, and the benefits of modern medicine are
indeed undeniable. That being said, modern medicine doesnt exist in a vacuum. It is part of
civilization and of a techno-industrial matrix that bring with them a series of negative
consequences.
First, it is worth asking the question: to what extent are the health problems treated by civilized
medicine caused by civilization itself? In 2015, almost a quarter of all human deaths (12,6
million) were caused directly or indirectly by pollution. Nowadays, one out of 3 people being
born in the United States will suffer from cancer at some point. Heart disease, which is
currently one of the main causes of death are almost nonexistent in non-civilized societies. Car
crashes are also one of the main causes of death in industrialized nations, and it is also worth
mentioning the deaths and injuries caused by large-scale warfare, which is also a civilized
invention.
It is true that modern medicine raised the life expectancy in many countries to a level above
that of our non-civilized ancestors. That being said, this increase isnt nearly as significant as
those who still perpetuate the myth that hunter-gatherers lived no longer than 30-40 years
would have us believe. In their analysis of life expectancy in hunter-gatherer societies,
Princeton college anthropologists Michael Gurven and Hillard Kaplan argued that a life
expectancy of 65-75 years sf frequently observed among individuals that reach adulthood
(http://paa2006.princeton.edu/papers/61883).
Besides, what is the point of having a higher life expectancy when your quality of life is highly
reduced? While civilization can improve the lives of those with serious illness or disability,
civilization highly increases the number of people with degenerative diseases and physical
disabilities.
The rate of myopia in a civilized society, for example, is multiple times higher than that of a
hunter-gatherer society. Diabetes is also a civilized disease, just like Chrohns disease,
osteoporosis, arthritis, cirrhosis, metabolic syndrome and many nutritional related diseases
such as obesity. To this list, you can also add spinal misalignment, dental issues and a host of
other problems. Civilization also weakens our immune system, making us more vulnerable to
infectious diseases and allergies among other ills.
Epidemics are also a product of civilization. Gathering domesticated animals in one place
provides a fertile ground for epidemic diseases such as the bird flu, the swine flu and the mad
cow disease. There are also diseases brought by animals that inhabit cities such as pigeons and
rats. The high population density of cities also greatly facilitates the transmission of these
diseases from person to person.
Yet, it is in the mental state of civilized humans that one can best observe the noxious effects of
civilization on people. Illnesses such as depression, schizophrenia, anxiety and bipolar disorder
are almost nonexistent in hunter-gatherer societies. In civilization, however, these illnesses
have become epidemic, and now affect a significant part of the worlds population.

According to a recent study (http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160420005504/en),

1 out of 3 millennials in the United States suffer from symptoms of post-traumatic stress
disorder. In Japan and South Korea, suicide is one of the main causes of death among young
people. What does this tell us about the mental state of civilized people? And the rate of
mental illnesses increases every year worldwide, aggravating the relentless onslaught suffered
by the human psyche, which is not prepared to deal with civilized conditions.
These factors lead me to conclude that while the benefits of modern medicine are substantial,
they dont come even close to making up for the devastating effects of civilization on human
beings and wild nature.

Global misery

We are often criticized for our supposedly apocalyptic discourse when talking about the coming
collapse. Yet, truth is that the apocalypse is already here: it is our lives.
More important than knowing the life expectancy and the rates of inequality and literacy in a
society is figuring out if people in this society are able to satisfy their physical and psychological
needs and thus realize themselves as human beings.
When we look into our society under this prism, it becomes clear that the advance of
modernity has also been the advance of misery. Here, I am not talking about the misery that
comes from the lack of material possessions. I am talking about the spiritual misery that comes
from living in a society that deprive us of all opportunity to realize ourselves as human beings
and sell us fake substitutes in exchange for our labor, which is another source of misery.
Our current situation can be compared to that of an animal living in a cage, isolated and
deprived from the sensory stimuli that impels him to act in his natural environment. Under such
conditions an animal will start to exhibit pathological behavior, just like civilized humans.
As mentioned before, global industrial capitalism brings with it rates of mental illnesses such as
schizophrenia, anxiety and depression never seen before. These rates increase every year.
Besides that, a high incidence of mental illness is not only observed under those least privileged

under capitalism, although they are the most affected. Even in rich countries and amongst the
richest of the rich, misery and spiritual poverty grows just like their material wealth.
Even though only a minority are diagnosed with a chronic mental illness, practically every
civilized human presents some form of pathological behavior. And as it becomes harder and
harder for people to adapt to civilized conditions, a series of bizarre social phenomena begin to
emerge.
American teenagers that shoot down their schoolmates or commit massacres in public places
are an example of that. In Japan, there is another strange phenomenon occurring ever more
often as young people known as hikikomoris cave under frustration and social pressure and
decide to live in complete isolation, relating to people only through the internet.
In such a deplorable situation, the survival of the system depends on stopping people from
confronting their misery and finding its true causes. Unfortunately, it has many tools that allow
it to achieve this. It is no wonder that the number of people on antidepressants, antipsychotics
and other forms of mind-numbing medication increase every year, allowing them to adjust to
the system while making them dependent on an extremely lucrative industry.
Another tool of the system is psychoanalysis, which encourages the individual to seek for the
causes of his misery exclusively in himself so he can work on his personal issues and adjust
himself better to the system instead of finding it to be the true source of his condition.
The dominant ideology also performs this function by leading people to believe that they are
unhappy because they havent worked hard enough while bombarding them with images of a
plastic success to keep them running on an on like a donkey after a carrot.
Yet, not all tools and distractions that serve this purpose are imposed or applied intentionally
by those in power. Even without being consciously manipulated, people will do anything to
distract themselves and avoid facing the immense existential void that has come to replace our
innate joy.
Distractions are easy to find anyway. The entertainment industry keeps growing, producing
ever more entrancing spectacles that allow us to jump from distraction to distraction in our free
time until it is time to work again.
Besides that, we can always reach for legal and illegal drugs to escape from the overwhelming
weight of our reality, even if just for a few hours. Is it any wonder that drug abuse is also an
epidemic nowadays?
All of this because we have been robbed of our plenitude, of our innate joy. And I am not
talking about a form of joy that comes from the search for pleasure or from the
accomplishment of grandiose dreams. I am referring to the profound contentment that comes
from a simple life in harmony with our surroundings and with our physical and psychological
needs as animals. Is only through reclaiming our wildness and dealing away with this civilized

life that has made us miserable and dependent that we can recover this joy, which is our
natural state and which the system can never replace with its junk and spectacles.

The power of community

The struggle of individuals against the system is definitely valid, but the possibilities for
autonomy and resistance increase exponentially when we are able to form communities based
on affinity and mutual aid. Nowadays, very few people know the true meaning of community,
closed into themselves and their nuclear families.
What we nowadays call society never was and can never be a community in the true sense of
the word. How could it be when we dont even know each other? We are managed by a
technological matrix and by impersonal institutions over which we have almost no control. In
such a society, we have learned to fulfill our needs through relationships mediated by money,
technology and institutions rather than directly.
If you intend to fulfill your own needs without having to sell yourself to the system and to
increase you capacity for attacking and defending yourself against it, form a community. When
we form communities based on mutual aid and unmediated horizontal relationships, we find
ourselves in a better position to fulfill ourselves as individuals and to create ways of life that go
beyond what the system has to offer.

Dealing with interpersonal relationships

As I have already mentioned, society atomizes individuals, mediating their relationships

through technology, money and impersonal institutions. As a result, the majority of us is
debilitated when it comes to relating to each other and expressing ourselves genuinely with
people that are not part of our family or close friends.
This debility often gets in our way and reduces our effectiveness as anarchists. As
antiauthoritarians, we seek to organize for collective action in ways that allow for individual
freedom. Yet, how many promising projects, communes and attempts at organizing action went
down because of internal conflicts?
Of course, many of these conflicts arise from irreconcilable differences, and thus cant be
avoided. That being said, the majority of them happen and/or take large dimensions because of
our difficulty in dealing with conflict and interpersonal relationships. Many projects went down
because of mere misunderstandings, and many anarchists that have a lot to learn from each
other ended up fighting because they were so entrenched in their positions that they attacked
in a fit of rage when being contested.

In an affinity group, this problem is not as evident because this is a form of organization based
on trust, intimacy and affinity. But when organizing anarchists spaces that involve larger groups
of people that are not intimate, we see the same movie repeating itself over and over again.
If we want to be effective as anarchists, our spaces need also to be places were these issues can
be worked on so we can learn to create genuine relationships based on trust and mutual
respect. By doing this, we will not only see more projects bear fruits but will also learn how to
relate to each other in a truly libertarian way in the process.

Take back your body!

As harmful as the domestication of our minds is the domestication of our bodies, which
becomes stronger with every passing generation. Modern human beings are highly
disconnected from their own bodies. We spend long hours sitting down in cubicles, staring at
computer screens and exposed to artificial lights, turning pale and hunched while our vision
decays. Aerial pollution destroys our sense of smell, while highly processed foods take care of
our taste.
The withering of our bodies (which also withers our minds) is not just a matter of health. As we
become increasingly limited in our movements, our muscles become rigid and our senses
atrophied, our capacity to perceive and interact with the world around us is compromised, and
the process of alienation of the individual deepens. Our capacity to experience what is around
us is also affected by this withering, as well as our ability to properly interact with our
environment.
If you want to conquer your autonomy, reconquer your body. Get moving, and explore the
possibilities that your form provides you. Test your limits and expand them. Pay attention to
the sounds that surround you. Learn to differentiate the singing of different birds and to delight

in the rustling of leaves. Observe the shapes and forms of the world, and learn to read the
patterns of nature.
Retake your body and new possibilities of experience and resistance will quickly appear on the
horizon.

Our relationship with the land

Not enough is being said about how alienated we are from our environment. Nowadays, few
people feel that they are part of the environment they live in, and even fewer develop
meaningful relationships with the nonhuman living beings and forces of nature that are part of
it too.
Do you know which plants grow on your region? What time of the year do they sprout and
where do they prefer to grow? Do you know the animals that share your environment with
you? Do you know their habits and preferences? What about the patterns of the wind, the rain,
the sun and the moon?
Whether you know the answers to these questions or not, you are part of an environment that
includes many other living beings and natural forces. You affect and are affected by them.
Developing a meaningful relationship with your environment is an essential part of rewilding.
At first, this might seem like an overwhelming task. Ye, it is not only simple, but also extremely
enjoyable. Besides, it is possible to have a meaningful relationship with the land even if you live
in a city. In my personal experience, I have noticed two main obstacles.
The first one is overcoming our mindset. Our current way of life is too fast paced, and in the
struggle to keep up we rarely notice our surroundings. In the cities this is even more of an
obstacle, as not only the pace of urban life is extremely fast, but there are also less natural
stimuli to notice, which doesnt mean that there is none.

Besides, we have become addicted to quick gratification, and civilization teaches us from
childhood to value results over processes. Developing a meaningful relationship with the land is
a never-ending process that requires a mentality oriented towards what is going on around you,
not towards future results.
The other obstacle is getting started. When you develop a relationship with a few animals or
plants in your region, it is easy to expand upon these relationships and become better
acquainted with your environment. A good way of getting started is by focusing on 5 or 6
medicinal and/or edible plants that are common in your region.
The fact that these plants have practical applications provides some extra motivation, and you
will rapidly fall in love with the empowering feeling that comes from providing for your needs
directly from nature with no mediation. As an additional benefit, you will acquire knowledge
that will be of great help in the struggle for autonomy and against domestication. When you
start seeking out these plants, you will naturally start to notice other plants around you, and by
getting to know these plants and interacting with them the process will acquire an inertia,
which will take you further and further into it.
However, some things must be said about the practice of foraging. First, you need to take the
necessary precautions to avoid consuming a plant or fungus that is toxic or that has absorbed
toxic chemicals or heavy metals. Never consume a plant or fungus if you are not completely
sure that it is of the right species. If in doubt, check a reliable guide or show it to an
experienced person that can help you with identification.
Also, avoid eating plants or fungi growing near roads, highways, sewers and soil that is
contaminated or has been treated with pesticides. Plants and fungi can absorb hazardous
chemicals and heavy metals, which makes it necessary for you to harvest them from
appropriate locations only.
Another thing to take in consideration is the adoption of measures to avoid doing harm to the
collected species. Industrial civilization is already disgustingly abusive towards wild nature; let
us avoid doing the same. Find out if the species you want to harvest is endangered in your
region. If this is the case, avoid collecting it or/and aid its propagation.
Remember also to avoid harvesting in excess. If you come across many plants of a desired
species, harvest a little out of each plant to avoid doing significant damage to individual plants.
Also, always have in mind that other living beings benefit from these plants too.
Last but far from least, ask yourself what you can do for the species you are harvesting, since it
is doing something for you. A simple way to help a plant or fungus is to aid its propagation. You
can also aid it by protecting it and its environment from threats such as pollution, logging and
the expansion of industrial projects. This reciprocity is often the base of meaningful
relationships with other living beings.

There is a lot more to be said about this subject, but my intention here is simply to provide a
starting point that might aid you in developing a relationship with your environment. Once you
get going, your personal experience will be your main guide in this journey that will not only
provide you with new tools to break free from domestication, but also allow you to see the
environment you inhabit from a completely different perspective, one that will awaken
curiosity, enchantment and maybe even reverence.

Indigenous resistance

For 10,000 years, civilization has expanded through the world, and for 10,000 years indigenous
peoples have resisted this expansion. Many werent able to resist the onslaught of civilization,
which has become a formidable force as it developed new technologies and increased in size
over the years.
Whole cultures disappeared from the face of the earth, taking with them their languages,
customs and knowledge of immeasurable value. Others were integrated in the system and lost
contact with their traditions. Yet, many still resist and refuse to accept the civilized order which
threatens their traditional lifestyles.
Those that resist find themselves in various situations. Some have been able to maintain their
lifestyles practically intact, while others are completely dependent on civilization, although they
still fight to maintain and/or rescue their cultures. The vast majority find themselves
somewhere in between these two extremes.
Supporting the struggle of these peoples is an important part of the struggle against civilization.
Many of them are in the frontline of this struggle, and even among those that have been
incorporated by civilization, many still maintain much of their ancestral knowledge, traditions
and worldview. There are, however, a few things to be aware if you intend to get involved with
this struggle.
First, many of us still maintain an idyllic and stereotyped image of indigenous peoples. I have
heard, for example, people say that indigenous persons that watch television or drive cars are
not true Indians. This sort of preconceived notion is not only disrespectful to indigenous

peoples that have been affected by civilization but also gets in the way of understanding a
complex and nuanced reality.
As mentioned earlier, many indigenous populations still live outside of civilization, and many of
them have no interest in what civilization has to offer. Others are fighting for the right to their
land so they can live traditional lifestyles but dont intend to do away with everything
civilization has to offer. Others still fight to have their identity recognized and their traditions
respected within a civilized context. In supporting indigenous struggles, one needs to
understand and respect the individuality of each struggle.
Another essential aspect of supporting indigenous struggles is taking in consideration the needs
and wishes of those you plan to support. Before organizing in support, talk to them and see if
they want your support, what type of support they need and if they have their own
organizations that you can support. Before planning an action, check with them if this is the
type of action that the struggle needs. Remember that no matter how well intentioned an
action might be, it might bring harmful consequences to those that you wish to help. Open and
honest communication and mutual respect should be the base of any relationship formed when
dealing with such issues.
All things considered, there is a lot to be worked on when it comes to the relationship between
anarchists and indigenous peoples. We have many obstacles to overcome, such as the fact that
many anarchists come from colonizer cultures. That being said, together we can overcome
these obstacles and take a stand against colonization and the destruction of wild nature that
still run rampant today.

Logic and intuition

The illuminist period has brought profound changes upon the society, changes that spread
through the world like wildfire. One of the products of such changes is the rational man,
observed not only among scientists and intellectuals but also through all of civilized society.
The rational man is one that trusts only reason and science, looking upon that which his
intellect cannot comprehend with profound mistrust. To such a man, all experiences must be
apprehended by and interpreted though his intellect to have any validity. Thus, he lives under
the spell of ghosts created by his own mind, oblivious to many things that would be evident if
he hadnt forgotten how to listen to his instincts.
My intention here is not to discredit reason, neither to imply that we should allow ourselves to
be guided purely by intuition. Reason and intuition are forms of understanding reality that
complement each other rather than being opposed to one another.
Reason is an essential tool when it comes to interpreting the world around us. We have a lot to
gain from developing our intellectual faculties and our capacity to analyze critically the ideas we
hold. That being said, intellectual thought is extremely limited, and by learning to worship
reason and ignore our instincts, we are mutilating ourselves.
The best advantage of reason is its precision. It allows us to dissect reality into individual
concepts and weave them into concepts with a higher complexity. Intellectual concepts follow a

logic that can be analyzed into all its components, communicated to others and revised, which
makes them an extremely valuable tool.
On the other hand, in this precision lies its weakness. Our intellect can only focus on one thing
at a time. Besides, we can only think about something after simplifying it and reducing it to a
concept. No matter how complex are the ideas that come from weaving concepts together,
they can never be more than an awkward approximation of reality. While useful, these
approximations can never account for the complexity and dynamicity of the real world.
Intuition, on the other hand, excels where reason is weak and is weak where reason excels. It
doesnt have the same precision as reason, as it doesnt deal with isolated concepts. Instead, it
processes a series of stimuli and connections and forms general impressions. Despite not being
as accurate as our thought process, these impressions are much more complex and are formed
at a pace that is way beyond that of our intellect.
Our intuition also carries an evolutionary charge of millions of years, and it understands our
needs as animals in a way our intellect will never be able to. Whether it comes to dealing with
social relationships, dangerous situations or fulfilling our physical and psychological needs, our
intuition is always one step ahead of our intellect.
Reason also has a role to play in these situations, but how many people have wasted their time
searching in vain for what they wanted with their intellect when their intuition knew all along
exactly what they needed? Our intellect often tricks us and leads us to wrong conclusions, while
our intuition rarely fails to guide us in an appropriate way.
Yet, the vast majority of us are so disconnected from our instincts that we cannot tell the
difference between an intuition and a false impression. This is why all of us that are serious
about freeing ourselves from the shackles of domestication and realizing our potential as
human beings need to re-learn how to listen to our intuition. Only then will we be able to deal
with the world with the clarity and lucidity that is typical of wild animals.

Individualism and collectivism a false dichotomy

The communist rants against the individualism of capitalist society, while the capitalist
condemns the collectivism preached by communists. Pointing their fingers at one another,
they fail to realize that individualism and collectivism are not and could never be in opposition.
A society in which individuals are only valued as atomized beings results in alienated and
amputated individualities, because an individual can only fully realize himself by developing
meaningful relationships with other individuals and with his environment.
On the other hand, a collective that suppresses the individual will never be able to thrive, as a
thriving collective can only be formed by individuals that are free to develop their own
individuality.
Individualism and collectivism realize themselves through each other. This is why true
individualism is collectivist, and true collectivism is individualist.

Freedom here and now

As a philosophy and practice, anarchism should be liberating. Yet, to many anarchists it

becomes just another prison, as if the prisons imposed on us by society werent enough. How
many anarchists saw their lives passing by fighting for a revolution that has never arrived, dying
embittered without never having drank from the chalice of freedom? How many anarchists
abandoned the struggle and gave up their convictions after burning out in a few years of
relentless activism?
The practice of anarchism should be something that liberates us here and now, not something
that makes us sacrifice our lives for a revolution that may never come. To many anarchists,
revolution plays a role similar to the one that heaven plays for Christians, an idealized vision of
a future that will never be.
Yet, such statements provoke the wrath of many anarchists, as if by seeking for freedom in our
lives we were committing a sacrilege against their senile and moralist anarchism. I am tired of
hearing the same criticisms from those that like old Bookchin label every form of anarchist that
seeks freedom for the individual here and now lifestylism.
The first of point they make is that it is impossible to be completely free when living under an
oppressive system. Yet, isnt complete freedom nothing more than an ideal? There are only
different degrees (and forms) of freedom. Even in an anarchist society, one can always be freer.
Besides, the system never has and will never be able to control absolutely everything, no

matter how dominant it is. There are many cracks to be exploited, and many ways to gain
autonomy live a freer life even under the systems oppressive rule.
We are also constantly accused of being escapists. If I were to gather a few friends and turn my
back on the struggle against authority to live a tranquil life, that would be an escapist approach.
Yet, does forming a commune or living any other form of alternative lifestyle means I cant
confront the system? Of course not! As we become less dependent on the system and have
more time and freedom available, we find ourselves in a much better position to fight it. In the
process, we also learn how to provide for our needs directly and to develop practices that will
be essential for us if we ever want to live in anarchy.

Down with morality

It isnt enough to fight against the physical structures that maintain civilization. We also have to
confront our mental prisons and kill the cop inside our heads. One of such prisons is morality. I
am not talking about Christian morality, illuminist morality or progressive morality, but all
morality.
Morals work like laws, creating absolute truths about what is right and wrong to guide our
behavior. The problem is that the world is not black-and-white, and it makes no sense letting
our actions be guided by fixed ideas about what is right and wrong in a living and dynamic
world that escapes any attempt to comprehend it.
Abandoning morality doesnt mean acting without consideration for other people and living
beings, but rather acting appropriately according to the context one finds oneself in. Many
times, morality holds us back from acting properly by being in conflict with what is demanded
from the situation. When mental constructs prevail over real needs, they obstruct our capacity

to act and become an obstacle in the way of our lives and our relationships with each other and
our environment.

Distance, destruction and control

In a small-scale society where people deal directly with each other and their environment, they
have to face the consequences of all their actions directly. Lets suppose, for example, that
most of the food of a certain small-scale society comes from fishing. If people in said society
overfish, they will observe that fish will start to appear less often, and will be forced to take
measures if they dont want the fish that they depend on to be depleted. On the same manner,
if a person in such a society takes decisions or acts in a way that harms others members of the
community, he will have to answer directly to them.
In industrial civilization, however, decisions about the path society takes and about the
extraction, distribution and consumption of products are mediated through impersonal
institutions, industrial technology and a massive network of extraction, production and
distribution. Under such a system, we arent even capable of fathoming how our society works
in its entirety.
Politicians and businessmen that we have never met personally and who are not even aware of
our existence make decisions that have tremendous effects over our lives. To provide for our
needs, we buy products that appear as if magically to us in stores and supermarkets, without
ever questioning the implications of their production and distribution.

Thus, we can buy a seemingly harmless product such as a cellphone without being aware of the
forced labor, child slavery, violence and destruction of whole ecosystems that are necessary to
bring it into existence and into our hands.
In this process, symbolic thought is the tool that allows those in power and the technicians who
work for them to control and administer society. People, cities and ecosystems become
symbols, number and statistics, increasing the distance between us and those who control us
and transforming matters that involve the lives of countless beings into mere technical
problems to be solved.
Any solution that intends to overcome this condition must violently break away with this logic
and involve actions based in direct experience and relationships not mediated through symbols,
technology and institutions that alienate us from one another and feed the process of
domestication, which for thousands of years has been responsible for controlling the civilized
masses and making them subservient to the same civilization that is the cause of their misery.

Recuperating the offensive potential of anarchism

Anarchism defines itself as being in opposition to the system, which places us at a constant
tension. Despite that, the majority of anarchists have limited themselves to resisting the
systems expansion, opposing mining projects, free trade treaties, forced evictions and so on.
Yet, if we limit ourselves to resisting the expansion of the system, we will only be delaying it
rather than playing an active role in destroying it. At this moment, there is a stark contrast
between anarchist practice and anarchist discourse, which claims to fight for the destruction of
the system.
Let us turn anarchism into a knife pointed towards this disgusting system that dominates and
destroys everything in its path. It is not necessary to be a trained specialist to attack it. Many
simple actions can be performed by almost anyone. Just be sure to remember: hit where it
hurts.

The system is powerful, but it has many weak spots. Its true power doesnt reside in those who
control it, neither in those who serve them. It resides in its infrastructure. The systems
functioning depends on a technological matrix with highly connected and interdependent parts.
The destruction of a single factory can interrupt production in dozens of other and cost billions
of dollars. A single fire in a laboratory can destroy decades worth of research that would be
used to dominate us.
If the system insists on dominating us, why not bite back?

Hope?

The situation that we find ourselves in can only be described as catastrophic. Civilization has
expanded to the whole world in the form of a global capitalism that seems to be able to adapt
to any crisis and repress or coopt any form of resistance. The great majority of the worlds
population is deeply domesticated, and will do almost anything to protect the system that they
depend on to live. Our planet becomes increasingly toxic with every passing year, and people
and other living beings are becoming increasingly miserable. On top of it all, the perspective of
a global collapse is imminent.
The seas are dying. As the acidification and heating of oceans worsen and chemical runoffs
create more dead zones in the seas, marine life is becoming increasingly scarce. In the last
decades, 60% of all zooplankton and 40% of phytoplankton which are the base of the food
chain in the oceans - have disappeared. The vast majority of fishing zones in the seas are
overexploited, and at our current pace, all fishing stocks in the ocean will collapse by the middle
of this century.
The majority of rivers are poisoned as well, and their waters are not fit for human consumption.
The forests that are still standing are being destroyed at a staggering rate. Industrial agriculture

is quickly ruining arable soil and causing desertification, as well as destroying whole ecosystems
and poisoning humans and non-human beings.
As discussed before, oil production is about to peak, and no viable alternative is remotely
sustainable. Besides, even if we had alternatives, the implementation process would be too
lenghthy to deal with the urgency of the situation.
To make things worse, all of these problems are aggravated by global warming, which also
brings with it another set of problems. The process is developing at a much faster rate than the
scientific community expected it to at the beginning of the century, and very little has been
done to deal with its effects despite mountains of studies demonstrating their potential to bring
about catastrophic consequences.
We might also reach a tipping point at any moment, which would cause global warming to
become a process that reinforces itself through a positive feedback loop, making a global
catastrophe inevitable. Many specialists say we have already passed this point, and there isnt
much we can do besides preparing to deal with the consequences. Even if this isnt the case,
the only way to avoid reaching this point is putting an end to most of the worlds industrial
production in the next few years, a scenario so unlikely that it isnt even worth considering.
What can we expect from global warming in the next decades? Not only will the issues
mentioned above worsen but summers will become increasingly warmer and droughts more
common and severe. Devastating fires will also become increasingly frequent, and agriculture
will suffer devastating effects throughout the whole world. Sea levels will also rise significantly,
flooding coastal cities, dealing significant economical damage and making people migrate away
from coasts.
We can also expect natural disasters such as hurricanes to increase in frequency and severity,
which will cause a lot of economic damage and lead to the loss of many human and non-human
lives. Desertification and increasing temperatures will cause many areas (some with large
populations) to be inhabitable by the end of this century, which combined with other factors
such as increasing conflicts the effects of droughts in Syrian agriculture for example, was one
of the main triggers of the current war will provoke a wave of migration never seen before,
increasing social tensions, putting a strain on economies and leading to more instability.
In such a situation, what can we do? We have seen an increasing wave of riots and
insurrections throughout the world, be it in Brazil, Greece, Turkey or France among others. We
are also seeing an increase in indigenous resistance movements such as the struggle for the
Niger Delta and the resistance against the expansion of oil extraction projects in Canada.
As inspiring as these movements are, none of them has demonstrated any prospect of being
capable of challenging the totality we face. Besides, even in radical circles most people reject
the anticivilization critique, so needed at such a moment.

As hopeless as the current situation seems to be, I dont believe that the solutions lies in giving
in to despair or hedonism. The first thing we need to do is to face the situation in an honest way
and abandon all hope that a collapse can be avoided through a global revolution.
When we recognize the situation we are confronted with and stop wasting time fighting for
false solutions, we can start to look for perspectives for anarchy in a crumbling world. Yet, what
does this mean in practice? In the next paragraphs I will attempt to present ideas that have
emerged from conversations, readings, experiences and reflections in the hope that others will
take something useful from them.
First, I say it is time for us to abandon the ship. Civilized life is becoming ever more miserable,
and it will only get worse. The luxuries it has to offer will become increasingly scarce, and it will
get harder and harder to survive within it.
Due to our degree of domestication, this is not an easy process. It requires us to learn to
provide for our needs directly so we dont have to sell our labor and play the games of the
domesticators in order to survive. To do this, we need to learn and recover a series of
techniques, abilities and knowledge that allows us to do that.
Among these things are learning how to hunt (with firearms, bows, traps, etc), grow food
(permaculture, small-scale horticulture, etc), preserve foods (drying, conserving, salting, etc),
making rope, clothes and tools (with metal or materials found in nature), taking advantage of
the leftovers of civilization, identifying and gathering wild plants and fungi (medicinal, edible,
etc), traditional medicine and first aid, self-defense, ways of dealing with interpersonal
relationships, taking decisions and much more. These skills and knowledge will not only help us
to regain or wildness and navigate the collapse but will also help to form form the base of
survival of future self-sufficient societies.
As important as acquiring these skills is forming communities and bands with the same purpose
to live together in a settled, nomadic or semi-nomadic way of life. Regardless of the shape that
these communities will take, they will need land to occupy temporarily or permanently. Here I
have one advice to give: STAY AWAY FROM THE URBAN CENTERS!
Large cities can serve as strategic points for obtaining goods or executing an action, but they
are not an appropriate place to settle. First, it is worth noting that cities will be among the
places most affected by the collapse, as they are completely dependent on distribution
networks, incapable of producing their own resources. Anything that takes out these networks
or affects them in a significant manner will leave a city quickly deprived of essential resources.
Despite the lack of natural resources in cities to be utilized by feral anarchists, there are a lot of
leftovers left by corporations and citizens, as any freegan knows too well. That being said, these
resources will become increasingly disputed and scarce and the process of collapse aggravates
and the distribution networks that supply the cities are affected.

Besides, there is no environment more domesticated than a city. Contact with wild nature is
essential to the process of rewilding, and this contact is severely limited in cities, which also has
pernicious effects on our bodies and psyche.
Lets occupy the fields, farms and forests and create permanent and temporary autonomous
zones where we can develop wild, self-sufficient and sustainable ways of life. Lets form
networks of mutual aid with other liberated zones so we can provide for our needs, defend
ourselves and attack the system. This way we can form a plural and wild resistance like that of
the peoples of Zomia, who have resisted many empires for centuries.
The deepening of the process of collapse will also provide us with many opportunities to
liberate regions and attack the system as it becomes more unstable and shook by conflicts.
Human migration will present us many opportunities for autonomy as regions are abandoned
for many reasons such as loss of arable land (which can be recuperated with the proper
techniques), infrastructure problems and increasing conflicts.
We must keep in mind, however, that we wont be able to occupy abandoned areas if we are
unable to deal with what made people leave it in the first place. If an area is abandoned
because people are being attacked by raiders, for example, there is no point in occupying it if
we dont have the ability to defend ourselves from these raiders.
Also, the fact that an area is being abandoned doesnt necessarily mean that it presents us with
opportunities for occupation. I dont see how it could ever be a good idea to occupy an area
that was abandoned due to radioactive contamination. In other cases, the reasons behind a
migration might be of great benefit to us. If an area is abandoned by the state due to increasing
political and social instability, for instance, the lack of state presence in the region presents us
with a great opportunity.
Besides, this same instability will also present us with many opportunities to attack as states
become increasingly weakened and busy as they attempt to manage the ecological and social
crisis and deal with riots and insurrections that will inevitably erupt. Many governments will be
too overburdened to allocate significant resources to repress us, and many will fall as a result of
the crisis to come. Yet, we should remember that states and corporations wont be our only
enemies.
Many other groups that also oppose or will oppose the state represent a potential threat for us,
such as fascists militias and criminal and/or guerrilla organizations that will take advantage of
the social conditions to advance their agendas and/or prey upon the vulnerable. As conflicts
escalate, we should have the necessary tact to identify potential allies and enemies, or we will
end up repeating the same mistakes anarchists have committed in the past.
Back to the state, we should remember that the fact that states will be destabilized or even fall
doesnt necessarily mean that they will become less of a threat. In fact, I believe that the
opposite is true in the short term. Military strategists from some of the worlds major powers

already know the potential of ecological crisis to cause social instability, and are already
preparing to deal with the coming revolts. It is not by chance that so many nations are
approving anti-terrorism laws and increasing the repression towards political dissidents.
This repression will certainly increase in the future, and those that intend to oppose the system
should be ready to evade or defend themselves against the states forces without counting on
legal means. It is in such a context that opportunities for attack will arise. Here I emphasize
again my advice to stay away from urban centers, as this is where the state repression will be
the strongest. Of course, there are many potential targets in this area, but any strategy that
involves attacking them should also involve a strategic retreat to avoid putting ourselves in a
vulnerable position and become easy targets for state repression.
As for people in general, they will almost certainly remain supporters of the domesticating
order, believing that the solution lies in technology until it becomes blatantly clear that there is
no way out.
The likelihood of an anticivilization revolution and/or mass movement is extremely low, and I
would not count on it. That being said, it is likely that anticivilization and anti-technology
feelings will increase as the failure of industrial civilization becomes increasingly evident. We
should remember, however, that anarchists are not the only ones that present a critique of
technology and who wish a return to small-scale self-sufficient societies. In fact, there are
plenty of neofascist ideologies that share those ideals.
If we want to capitalize on the increasing disillusion with technology and civilization that will
probably arise, we should clearly present our antiauthoritarian position, as well as oppose these
authoritarian tendencies directly.
Some other considerations come to mind, but I feel that they are far too speculative to be of
any practical use. Even the ideas presented here are little more than rough predictions on what
to expect ahead, despite being based in great part on scientific studies and future projections of
currently observed tendencies.
Many forces that escape my analysis also come into play, and the degree in which the factors
that I take in consideration as well as how they will interact with other factors are beyond my
analytic capacity (and anyones I believe). The fact is that any future projection of such
complexity that extends for decades in a context of such drastic changes very rarely leads to
any accurate predictions.
While these projections can be a helpful tool in guiding us in the present so we can take
decisions to prepare ourselves for the future to come, we must remain adaptable and
constantly alert to the emergence of new signs and phenomena. After all, how many werent so
blinded by their future projections that they missed history happening right in front of them?
Anyway, I hope that my analysis might be of some use, and that it might offer tools that may
aid in the reflections and practice of other anarchists. Hopefully we will find each other one day

not in the pages of my (or your) writings but in the wild world so we can build something
together and/or fight side by side!

Recommended reading
Anonymous: Desert - https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-desert
Anonymous: The False Promisse of Green Technology https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-the-false-promise-of-greentechnology.lt.pdf
Chellis Glendinning: Technological Addiction https://ia802701.us.archive.org/27/items/TechnologicalAddiction_70/technological_addiction.
pdf
Four Legged Human: The Wind Roars Ferociously http://www.blackandgreenreview.org/2016/04/bagr3-wind-roars-ferociously-four.html
John Zerzan: Running on Emptiness: The Failure of Symbolic Thought https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/john-zerzan-running-on-emptiness-the-failure-ofsymbolic-thought
John Zerzan: Why Primitivism? - https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/john-zerzan-whyprimitivism
Kevin Tucker: The Suffocating Void - https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/kevin-tucker-thesuffocating-void
Margaret Killjoy: Anarchism versus civilization https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/margaret-killjoy-anarchism-versus-civilization
Autumn Leaves Cascade: A rewilding community toolbox https://hastenthedownfall.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/a-rewilding-community-toolbox-viiupdated-margins3.pdf
Seaweed: Land and Freedom - https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/seaweed-land-andfreedom