Welcome to Freeland! (What is freedom for you?)

Currencies:

One millie: 11 US Dollars.
One micro: 1 cent.

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Time: Friday. December 5, 2025. 4:30 A.M.
Location: Free City, Freeland.
Coordinates: 59°00'S, 30°00'E.

Robert's alarm clock rung. The sky was grey and it was lightly raining. The temperature early that morning was 9 °C (48 °F), though the weather forecast predicted a high temperature of 18 °C (65 °F) in the afternoon.

"What a beautiful summer day", said Robert to himself, "and the best thing, today is the last day of school, then we'll have summer vacations. Three months of freedom, I can't wait!"

Robert got up, smiled, and started playing videogames. School lessons start at 9:00 A.M. and end at 3:00 P.M. in that school, although every school is free to decide the hours. Usually in that school, there's a tradition that in the last day of school there's no lesson, rather everyone discusses how they'll spend their summer vacations.

Confused? Maybe that's because you don't live in Freeland. Life and society in Freeland are quite different from the rest of the world. Freeland is based around on the concept of Libertarianism, and if you don't know what it is, don't worry. I, the narrator, will explain to you, the reader.

Libertarianism is a philosophy which has the NAP (Non-Aggression Principle) as a defining concept. The NAP says you are free to say or do whatever you want, except physically interacting with another person's body or property without their consent. Therefore murder, rape, assault, theft and burglary are all violations of the NAP. In Freeland, violating the NAP is illegal. Other than the NAP, Freeland has driving laws, which are obviously necessary to live in a society. In Freeland, if you own a business or a company, for example a restaurant, you get to decide the rules inside that place. If you own a restaurant and you're racist, you can ban people of a certain ethnicity to enter your restaurant. However that's not a smart move, since most people would boycott your restaurant and you'll lose many of your clients and your earnings will fall considerably. You also get to decide the rules of your own house (obviously).

Every high school has therefore their own rules in Freeland, for example in the school Robert goes to: Dnau High School... drug addicts are not allowed to enter the building, with the exception of people who drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes or marijuana. People who decide to go to a certain school have to agree to their rules, otherwise they go to another school. There is a state in Freeland, but it's very limited and kept to the bare minimum. The Freelandic state has only few basic functions: law enforcement, military, primary schools and build the roads. Even though it is known that taxation is theft, some taxes are necessary to enforce the laws, have free primary schools and have public roads. Taxes in Freeland are however very limited compared to other countries.

Kids under 12 years of age are not full citizens of Freeland and are subject to limitations. They cannot consent to sex, cannot drive, cannot smoke and cannot drink alcohol. People at or above 12 years of age become full citizens of Freeland and can consent to sex, drive, smoke and drink alcohol. Foreigners are shocked when they discover this.

Primary school is provided by the State, it's free and lasts 6 years, from 6 years old to 12 years old. In primary school, apart from being taught how to read and write, basic math and other basic knowledge, kids are taught how to become full citizens of Freeland. They are taught everything about sex and how to prevent teen pregnancies, they are taught about the dangers of cigarettes, alcohol and drugs, they are taught how to drive, how to sign contracts and also they are taught how to choose the secondary schools. This way, they are not "protected" from reality like it happens in the United States, rather, they are taught about reality so that they can make educated choices.

Robert is happy when he plays videogames, they help him relax and have fun, especially role-playing videogames, which tend to be very long and quite difficult. He kept playing for one hour, then it was 6:00 A.M. and he had to have breakfast, otherwise he'd be hungry at school. He ate chicken and potatoes, he really loved eating that, although he was seriously considering becoming vegetarian, because he started disliking the ideas of animals being killed by humans.

68°S in latitude, and from 60°W to 120°E in longitude, achieving a surface area of 20 million square kilometers (about 7.7 million square miles), making it the largest country in the world, and with a population of 830 million people, the third most populous country in the world after China and India. Its capital "Free City" is the largest city in the world with a population 83 million people. Freeland's vegetation is mostly taiga, with plenty of spruces, birches, pines and conifers. Fun fact: since Freeland is located in the Southern Hemisphere, seasons are opposite of the United States, Europe and Asia. January is summer and July is winter.

It was 7:00 A.M. and he was ready to go to school, so he kept playing videogames. He was thinking both about his past and about his future. He wondered how he'll be when he'll be 30 years old or more. Time flies fast, but he was afraid of growing up. He didn't want to think about that, he thought he still had a lot of time before that. He wanted to have fun while he's young. In fact now he's 17, but age of consent/driving/drinking/smoking/drugs/etc. in Freeland is 12, so he's considered an adult already here. Furthermore, there is no law in Freeland that prohibits people younger than 12 to see adult content. There are age ratings made by private companies, but content producers are not forced to adhere to them, so there's a lot of sexual and fetish content that is available for people under 12 to see. In the free market of ideas, age ratings have lost.

As said before, Freeland is a country based on Libertarianism and its laws are based on the NAP: Non-Aggression Principle. It says that you are allowed to act as you please, unless you physically interact with another person's body or their property without their consent. That means you are not allowed to steal, rape, kill, be physically violent or enter someone else's house or property without their consent. It's by no means a perfect philosophy, but we need to know we live in an imperfect world and therefore we have to accept the fact life cannot be perfect.

It's 7:45 A.M. and Robert is still playing videogames. He will start walking to school at 8:30 A.M. (he lives near the school) so he can still play videogames for a bit. He was relatively happy compared to a group of people widely known as "The Philosophers". Those people have a deeper understanding of reality and almost only talk about philosophy and deep metaphysical stuff. "The Innocents", which are the vast majority of the population, including Robert, barely understand what The Philosophers say. Robert once overheard what they were talking about, but all he heard were strange words such as "epistemology", "mind-body dualism", "monism", "gnosticism", "relativism", "truth-bearer", "fuzzy logic", "fallacies" and more strange concepts so he gave up. He kinda wanted to join The Philosophers but was also worried that it would bring him unhappiness as it was rumoured that The Philosophers were unhappy. He was flirting with that idea, though, but needed time to think about it. He really wanted to keep his innocence somehow but also he wanted to know what reality was about. He had conflicting opinions but he decided he might start becoming a Philosopher when he'll be 20. He knew that once he will start, there will be no turning back, so he knew he'd better be careful about it.

Robert is a person who likes to have fun with videogames and his online friends, and doesn't like thinking deeply about stuff or learn stuff, but he wanted to change. He wanted to have a lot of knowledge. He wanted to be well-educated and not an ignorant. He thought he could reach that goal before 20: he was sure he could succeed, but before that he wanted to have his last moments of innocent fun. Will he be able to play videogames as a Philosopher? He was really worried about his future life, but then he remembered being a Philosopher is a choice and is not compulsory by any means.

He soon stopped thinking about that and kept playing videogames. He even almost forgot he was thinking about that. Time was passing, but he was having fun with his console, indeed. Knowing today will be the last day of school made him happy and cheerful. Three months of freedom await, and lessons will be back in early March. Robert was sure everyone likes school summer holidays, but at the same time he felt kinda sad that he probably won't see many people of his age during these three months. He was sure he was going to be lonely, but he wasn't afraid, he knew his online friends were always with him. Robert has difficulties at making friends offline, but online it's all another thing, since he can actively look for people with common interests. Sometimes he feels like he needs to be hugged, but those thoughts are brief and he calms down quickly. He was ready to go to school, but not just yet, since it was 8:15 A.M. He'll start walking to school in 15 minutes, then 6 hours of school, then 3 months of freedom. He was really happy.

Robert was thinking about his future and remembered what he thought today. He wanted to be a Philosopher, but was not entirely sure about that, because he has heard that The Philosophers were unhappy with their lives. "Is it worth it?", he thought, thinking that he could just simply live his life as an Innocent and keep having fun, but a part of him wanted more. His life wasn't perfect, but at least sometimes he felt really happy, especially when he felt loved by his online friends. He didn't want to lose that happiness. But he was thinking... "maybe if I'll become a Philosopher I'll meet new people and become part of a new community? I will try, but that's gonna be in a few years".

Robert smiled, but also felt weird. He never felt like this before, it was a bitter-sweet feeling. He was starting to feel lonely, which was strange in his opinion, because he was alone since he was a child, but never felt lonely before. Was his innocence fading away? Robert was one of those people who talked about simple stuff. He talked about videogames, his favourite restaurants, girls and other stuff like that. For the first time in his life he was starting to feel different. He wanted to talk about his feelings with someone and also wanted to be understood. He was a bit scared of this sudden change so he ignored that feeling and kept smiling.

"Today will be the last day of school, then summer will come and we'll be free for three months!", thought Robert, pretending to be happy.

"But... why am I not happy this year? I used to be happy every year, but not this year. I know I'll be very lonely", thought Albert, "what the hell is happening to me?".

He felt confused but decided to ignore his own feelings. "Everything is okay", he thought, but he knew that wasn't true.

The only friends he ever had were his online friends, but he wasn't giving it much attention until now. Robert has a secret he has to hide from everyone in the offline world: he likes female flatulence, especially when it smells really bad. It had been like that since he was 12, so five years ago. He had never told anyone offline about what. He never thought deeply about this, but now he understands that he will never experience female flatulence in real life, and that makes him sad too. Now that the fart anime has been released this year, in 2025, Robert understands there's a huge community online, but offline it's all another thing. He can't tell a soul about this offline. Or at least, he felt like that. His desire was to have a girlfriend who would fart in his face, but today is probably the first day he felt sad because of this. "Is this an early sign of depression?", he thought, worried. He decided he was worrying way too much and kept trying to ignore his own feelings. "A girl farting on my face? That will never happen, there's no use getting sad", he thought with a weird bitter-sweet feeling. He smiled and decided that the fart anime was more than enough for him, and that he was very grateful for it happening. Even though he will never be able to smell a fart from a girl's ass, he knew that the fart community would keep producing content forever. "I have a lot of imagination, I can imagine myself smelling a girl's fart and be happy. Life is much more than smelling girls' farts anyway", he thought, smiling.

It was 8:30 A.M. already, so he went out of his house and started walking towards his school. All he saw was happy people walking in company while he was walking alone. Even though he was surrounded by people, still he felt alone.

He understood he needed to ignore his own negative emotions and go to school like he did everyday. Three months of laziness awaited him, but he didn't feel happy. He knew these three months of summer holidays meant loneliness, and for the first time ever, sadness.

"I don't know what's happening to me", Robert thought, confused, "Maybe I'm just growing up? Ah... nevermind, just let's go to school, this feeling will eventually fade away", that being thought, he looked around and wondered if those walking people were happy or sad.