North Stoke Life

Allow me to make myself abundantly clear. I do not want a genocide of the Jews. Please read this back to yourself before going any further and make sure you understand what I mean for goodness sake. And at the same time I don't want a genocide of unborn children either. Are you getting the picture yet? My intent here is to ask, why do we allow genocide at ultra high scale. But object furiously at very ly low scale? I'm not saying that either Israel or abortion is right or wrong.I am trying to get a conversation going about a society which is incoherent on serious matters by focusing a lot on downstream things and hardly at all on upstream things. Following is an example of how society encourages us all to treat downstream matters as important. And upstream matters as unimportant. The reason we do this with society is tribal - it is part of how we control ourselves at scale - through our obedience. Morals are important to us. But clearly not that important. Our obedience is our ...

I'm going to show you that there is no power in this universe which can change your mind against your will. And that it's impossible to manipulate, coerce, trick, or force you in any other way, to change your mind.  I'll show how this is exactly how the state controls you, at scale. And you fully permitted it. So to do it and then complain about the power of the state is the action of a spoiled child, right? On every single occasion where you had a choice, that choice was made 100% by you. A choice is a binary event - 1) do I do it, or 0) do I not do it. There's no in between where you haggle with the fairies about it. This means that there is also no teaching, good advice, religion or guru who can help you change your mind either. You, are always the final arbiter when it comes to your choices. Also, time cannot help you. You make every choice in an instant. If you allow time to think about your choice thats evidence you have submitted to a Master who choos...

And the death toll is increasing over time into the hundreds of millions globally and annually. Yet we hear lots of shrieking about teeny weeny genocides curiously. People doing this shrieking must be deliberately hiding something much more shameful. I'm proposing it is society itself which is behind all the great social problems, particularly those behind the excess death toll at scale.  You need look no further than here: Government and Tax Death Toll And more horrifically, here: The Purpose of War is to Kill Your Own People Allow me to make myself abundantly clear: I'm not saying that society - killing hundreds of million of its own people, every year, no matter which nation it is, no matter if that is a democracy or tyranny - is a good or a bad thing, per se.  I am saying it is absolutely happening and almost all people are refusing to accept its happening. A collective psychopathy. Because this huge death toll is indirectly caused rather than directly, the people deem it ...

Within society there are two possible kinds of state: The Agentic State - the state we live in now, where we all act as an obedient agent of authority—obeying orders with diffused responsibility(“I was only following orders”), reducing personal moral accountability and rejecting our own autonomy - hierarchical obedience, division, incoherence, blame. Illusory and conditional freedom is the outcome, terrible acts become acceptable. The Penitential State - a state we could live in but has never been tried - rejection of authority, choice-less awareness, turning from incoherence toward wholeness, absolute freedom, radical personal responsibility. Of course, the objection will be to say, "are you looking for heaven?" My response is to say "are you looking for hell?" This is not to say that the world's incoherence is good or bad. It is to say that it is happening and to confess to it without judgement. So that we can then face it it as a reality and not try to escape...

Robin Smith is an essayist who authors the website North Stoke Life, a platform featuring philosophical and societal sightings from a hamlet in Oxfordshire. His writing centers on the movement of human thought, psychology, and societal conditioning. Key themes explored in his essays include: Obedience Theory: The idea that human behaviors—such as social compliance, political alignment, and even the jealousy of wealth—are driven by an unconscious, ingrained urge for tribal obedience and survival rather than true free will. The Orwell Test: Smith designed this conceptual framework as a self-reflection tool to help individuals evaluate whether they prioritize autonomous critical thinking or unconscious tribal compliance. Institutional Critiques: He writes on topics ranging from the global effects of taxation and government regulation to broader economic discussions about societal structure.  In addition to publishing on his own site, Smith is known for engaging in the comments section...