One of the cultural developments that has been slowly happening over the last century is society's increased awareness of philosophy surrounding consent. Although it's certainly still possible, it's very unlikely that a draft will be called among any of the wealthiest nations, and calls to abolish the draft have grown louder. Societies have grown less tolerant of ideologies that insist on dictating how individual adherents should act, and individual rights such as divorce have become fairly solidified.

These are developments that should be expected to happen with society growing more individualistic, as consent is the governing principle behind highly individualistic cultures. Those who are favorable towards that type of culture (I am) will therefore be happy with these changes, but there is an unaccounted for problem in our current direction.

What if no-one consents?

A system of consent is self-sustaining in that being asked for one's consent engenders trust in the system, which also encourages one to give consent. My country will not force me to fight for them, which makes me like my country better, which makes me more willing to fight for my country in the event that an existential threat emerges. But - what if nobody shows up?

We've aware of this problem with the most immediate and glaringly obvious case - employment. Every time that somebody is hired in a capitalistic economy, it consists of an exchange of consent. The worker agrees to work for the business, and the business agrees to employ the worker. There is much philosophy in play here regarding the power dynamics of this arrangement that throws shade on the depth of the consent of either party, but that's immaterial to our current discussion. What if you're looking for work, and nobody consents to hire you? The obvious solution is for the centralized government to supplement income, or to even create work opportunities to allow a sort of "consent-of-last-resort".

This solution does not easily extend, however. Going back to the draft, what happens if a nation comes under attack and none of the citizens (or an insufficient number) volunteer to fight in its defense? In such a case, it's likely that the doctrine of consent will be revoked, as the nation commanding the army has a vast power imbalance and simply can do that.

If I'm posting this here, though, it's fairly obvious why - the thorniest of cases where this comes up is that of interpersonal relationships. The problem of zero received consent is absolutely impossible to resolve in the matter of interpersonal relationships, since the point of interpersonal relationships, love, is entirely contingent on consent. Or, to put it differently, the employment resolution does not translate - a centralized power cannot directly provide you with love and well-being, that is not an economic good. The draft resolution does not work either, one cannot simply demand love, as the demand would preclude the possibility of love to begin with.

This is what makes the black pill black, and it's why the black pill cannot exert a coherent political philosophy, though many certainly try to shoe-horn it in. Any attempt to resolve the black pill in its entirety is self-defeating.

But wait! I can already hear the crowds of normies cresting over the hill. "What do you mean by what if no-one consents?" The resolution, therefore, to the normie, is that it simply isn't possible that no-one consents. To the normie, the above listed resolutions need not apply - the draft resolution isn't necessary since the state only has to remove the doctrine of consent because not enough people volunteered, as its quite inevitable that at least some would. And regarding the employment resolution, surely there should be a romantic version of a fast-food restaurant or grocery store that would hire practically anyone, unless they did something so bad that even those places would skip over them, and in such a case, isn't it Just and therefore not a problem?

This explanation is built on the Just World fallacy, of course. If we were to axiomatically accept that a complete lack of received consent was even possible, then inkwells simply wouldn't exist in the first place. This isn't a reasonable belief, for reasons that may be reading this post right now.

Thank you for reading, and I would like to hear your thoughts.