Every Anarchist Should Be A Scientist

All anarchists should be scientists, at least to some extent. We should never allow ourselves to become so rigid as to forget what makes us anarchists in the first place: childlike curiosity, incessant inquiry, and a radical love for taking things to their roots to further our understanding. We seek to dismantle the world around us, knowing that it does not function as well as it could. We want to understand ourselves, our environment, and each other. We want the blueprints for the social machine, so we can sledgehammer the fuck out of it, and build it back up from scratch.

You know what that sounds like? That sounds like science. And that sounds like hacking.

Anarchists are radicals, and I shouldn’t need to point out for the zillionth time that radicalism means taking things down to the roots.

So, anarchists are scientists, even if some resign to mere social science. Anarchists are hackers, even if in some cases that only goes as far as hacking up an herbal tincture for a sick friend. Their walls cannot stop us; there are infinite possible paths around and under and even through.

This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn’t run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it’s for our own good, yet we’re the criminals.

Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for.

I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can’t stop us all.