2026-06-10

# Do I need an ingroup to feel safe?

Disclaimer
 - personal
 - target audience - strictly myself

Main
 - I have openly threatened the most powerful people in human history and made an atleast somewhat credible commitment to back up my threat with action. It is pretty normal to feel unsafe in such an environment.
 - I do feel safe enough, but quite far from 100% safe. Like, I am sure my cortisol level is higher on a day-to-day basis, muscles are tighter, when I meet people I am constantly scanning which bucket to put them into (threat versus not threat, type-1 versus type-2 versus type-3 versus unsure), and so on.
 - A story I have in my head is that I would feel more safe once I had people to work with, where we all commit to actually protect each other to some degree. Perfect commitments are not possible (hackers can turn each other in to reduce prison time) but even imperfect commitments could help.
   - See also: Perry Fellwock's experiences with paranoia when he ran his journalist outlet. This is not a new experience lol.
 - Okay but why I do feel I **need** this? Just feel unsafe and work anyways lol, just like I am doing right now. What stops you?
 - Worst case is what, I end up in prison. The world doesn't end. (Well actually no, the worst case is quite literally that the world ends. Motherfucker.)
 - Okay fine I'll be in prison, so what? I will have less sunlight and shit nutrition and be surrounded with low IQ low impulse-control idiots, and I may have to learn to fight, and so on. Maybe I get beaten up. Not the end of the world.
 - I am capable of working while feeling unsafe, but this does not seem ideal, yes. Finding people to work with will help.

P.S. Focussing on your lack of safety can actually make you feel more unsafe. Focus on the actual work you wanna do. Try to solve your lack of safety (by meeting relevant people), sure, but don't obsess over it, there are no good returns to that process. You already have a lot of previous experience with this.