Francisco Ahlgren

See also: Francisco's session history

Francisco Ahlgren (screenname Prismatic) was born in Europe's Scandinavia to Jöran and Hjørdis Ahlgren, a middle-class family enjoying the privilege of no serious financial worries. The freedom that came with that in turn passed down to Francisco and allowed him the luxury of intense philosophic thought, and like many in that position let him come to conclude he'd understood the nature of humanity.

His story could end there and file itself into many like it - except he decided to do something about it.

Severely pacifistic like many of his European kin, Francisco's anarcho-capitalistic core beliefs ultimately culminated in his decision to found a nation, not with weapons and wars, but by creating the sovereign ground it was to exist on, thus contesting none of the existing territories.

Of course, his middle-class roots forbid this being an overnight act. Initially, Francisco's 'Dark Arcadia' was an internet phenomenom, driven not only by his herculean social efforts, but those of many others. As such, while Francisco is the public face of Dark Arcadia and has always been, he rightly considers himself 'only one person'. → more history of Dark Arcadia

Family

Francisco Ahlgren is one of the few Arcans who kept his prior name, something that was once a tactical decision but since morphed into a simple question of identity.

He is rarely in contact with his parents, whom he fell out with shortly after he first set foot on the first stable parts of the artificial island (specifically, Phoenisse's structural outline) and, in the eyes of his parents 'ended up being entirely full of himself'.

He has a biological son, born Caine Ahlgren, born in 2030, Arcan since 2041. Caine's Arcan and thus legally recognised name is Justin Greyhound.

He isn't married - in fact, Dark Arcadia doesn't really bother recognising any civil unions, since there are no tax benefits to give if there are no taxes - nor is he monogamous, but he does currently cite only one relationship, namely the one with his long-term partner Rayen Heffernan (born in Europe as Ingrid Augustin and about ten years Francisco's junior).

He's in 'an open polyamourous relationship', which he'll, if prompted, vehemently distinguish from 'a closed polyamourous relationship', stating that normal polyamourous relationships rightly demand fidelity. His distinctly does not.

Philosophic thoughts

A collection of random philosophic thoughts.

'Society'

"There is no 'society'. No natural assortment of people will ever have anything but a superficial unity; there is no moral core to adhere to, there is no central authority for right or wrong, there is no peace but the one we choose amongst our neighbours.

"I think a lot of problems can be solved if we're acutely aware of that. It's not really liberating in an observable way, but it just grants a certain clarity.

"It tells you that, yes, you can be an asshole - but do remember that the person you're continually pissing off might stab you through the ribs if you don't cut it out. That may not be legal, but that's the fragility of any system. Rules are useless for your single instance of a confrontation if someone chooses to pass them - at best they just prevent the same thing from happening to someone else.

"So if you want to survive, you'll learn not to be an asshole. It greatly improves your chances of not being axe-murdered in your sleep. In any nation."

Laws

"Laws are meaningless abstractions if the people of a nation do not identify with them. That is why Dark Arcadia has so few - the barest minimum that we can all agree on: Don't steal. Don't kill people who don't want to die. Don't be a douchewaffle. You get the idea.

"Why do we need laws if we who call ourselves Arcan can all agree on them? Because our rational minds and our emotional minds are two very different beasts, and if someone pisses you off to the point where you murder them, then you have a dead body lying around, and you're going to want to get rid of the evidence real quick. Laws exist so people stop you from doing that, or to have the right to find out about it regardless.

"Laws further exist to prevent escalation. We can all agree on the laws, great. So if you kill someone, and you have the aforementioned dead body bleeding copiously on your floor, then by Dark Arcadian law you're going to get shot the minute someone finds out and you're proven guilty.

"Now we have two dead bodies. And the law says, okay, stop there. That's verifiable. That's agreed on.

"Don't forget - if you're the executioner, then please be so kind and apologise to the poor schmuck who has to clean up the mess."

Neighbours

"I think Dark Arcadia asks very little of its citizens... but the one thing that is closest to my heart is this tenet: Trust your neighbours. Be nice to your neighbours. Talk to your neighbours.

"It has some strong implications. The most frightening is probably this: Dark Arcadia functions for one reason and one reason alone, given its complete lack of taxes, namely the charity and hospitality of all of its citizens. From my observations, on average half of an Arcan's income ends up aiding their immediate neighbourhood. There is no law forcing that on anyone. There isn't even social pressure. They just do it, because they can, and because it is infinitely appreciated.

"Anyone with a sense of entitlement beyond personal favours is very distinctly in the wrong nation. The luxury of near total freedom comes with the price of responsibility for each and every of your own actions.

"Be nice to your neighbours; because then you probably won't die if you lose your ability to work to an accident."

'Nation'

"Is Dark Arcadia a nation? I'm hesitant to use that word. Aside from a few laws our citizens share, there is astonishingly little holding us together. We have no designated police force to keep errant behaviour in line, we rely on our neighbours for that. We have no tax system - by proxy, everything on Dark Arcadia is privately owned, though much of it is 'free for public use', which is our way of saying 'you're free to use this unless you litter, break things or otherwise get yourself personally banned from this property and/or your hands hacked off'.

"...if you're writing that down, please don't take that literally."

Prejudice

"'Prejudice' has a really negative connotation in the English language, but applies to so many things we're all right with. People in suits in a bank approaching us with a smile probably work for the bank. People sitting at cashiers with a name tag probably work for the retail store, and so on. That's healthy prejudice, that helps us think less, helps our mind to be less overwhelmed by reality.

"A big part of growing up is figuring out which of the heuristics your mind came up with are adequate and which are destructive. Which means that you get to realise nuggets like that unless you're going to sleep with someone, their sexuality is a completely uninteresting basis for judging character.

"I'm horrible with this, by the way. I think everyone that isn't Arcan is out to get me. That's not a healthy prejudice, either, even if it's true in about two thirds of the cases, since it greatly changes how I read people in the first instances. It has caused problems before. It will cause problems again.

"I probably need to be assassinated before I manage to drop that habit, though."

Right and wrong

"What would I consider malicious? Very little, really. I think that's a trait someone has to have when they're the public face of a nation that has anarchic qualities, though.

"I think maliciousness is if you oppose. I think people rarely oppose - most of the time, they are in favour of a separate concept, and then by indirection end up 'opposing' something else. This 'in favour of' is important - the moment that goes away, you have maliciousness.

"To just want something to go away, stop, without that you can propose an alternative is malicious. To want someone to die rather than to offer advice how they can be less of a perceived asshole (or whatever is causing the murderous urges) is malicious.

"In that, I would say I equate maliciousness to large degree with non-constructiveness."