Death Athletic

by Cody Wilson

01: Euthanasia · Secession Gestures / Games with Death
02: Mediation · Return to Models / Internal and External
03: Acrobatics · First Amendment / ATF Rules

Death athletic is a concept I’ve been mulling around for a bit. I borrowed it from Peter Sloterdijk’s anthropology of the acrobat¹. I’m going to try to make it relatable.

Ernst Jünger: “Tell me your relation to pain, and I will tell you who you are!”

There are some people who believe in the hedonic principle that we should only pursue pleasure or things that maximally benefit us. But as the ancients and some modern philosophers, including Friedrich Nietzsche, noted, men have an interest in pain — an interest in carrying burdens. We recognize that it is important to subject ourselves to certain hardships. Men were meant to carry burdens. In that spirit, I’d like to reflect on Western’s thoughts deepest contemplation of this. I say deepest in the Nietzschean sense because maybe pain doesn’t make you better — this isn’t about improvement. I don’t think pain makes you a better person, but maybe it deepens you.

Just for the receipts — my final Twitter bio before I was completely eradicated from social life was “Death Athletic.” It’s not my favorite bio, I liked “Second Segway men of the Apocalypse,” but this is the thing I was contemplating — my memento mori — before I was, in fact, removed a second time from the social. I include this not just for the receipts but to say — look, sometimes even I will disenchant myself. I want to teach you about some of the things that actually inform our artistic passions or motivations as Defense Distributed — why we do what we do.

01: Euthanasia

Euthanasia is a Greek word. The Greeks were concerned with the art of the beautiful death. That’s my understanding of the word: a beautiful death. Of course, we mean it in a different way since the progressive revolution. Forget your installed or received wisdom about this word. Euthanasia is about death performance — an obsession of the Greeks to die in a beautiful way. You can recontextualize it with the Japanese and the art of seppuku. There have been cultural concerns with death performance for some time. It’s something that has been largely forgotten in a modern context but Sloterdijk, in his anthropology of ascetics and acrobatics I mentioned earlier ², says that euthanasia is the secret center of what he calls humanity’s “acrobatic revolution.” So I want to begin with death performance: the art of the beautiful death.

The first time I died or realized I was dead was when I published Liberator, the first 3D printed gun. It was a social death, the loss of all my relationships. I didn’t anticipate this. I didn’t know it would happen. I had read what I thought was some cool shit in school like Maximilien Robespierre’s “Virtue and Terror” that I was introduced to by Slavoj Žižek. I had encountered the idea that we can include the threat of our death, or at least our indifference to it as a historical accident, as a way of proving we are committed to our projects. It doesn’t matter if I’m dead.

When the New York Times journalists ask, “What if someone prints your gun out and shoots you, Cody?” This is the most common thing that the liberals still ask 3D gun printers. Meaningfully, you sniff and say, “Well, maybe it’ll happen.” That’s some crazy shit that they don’t like to hear. You are confessing an indifference to your death.

I had this intuition already with Liberator. I had read some of Jean Baudrillard’s “Fatal Strategies” too. I knew death was somehow a part of it, that it was a limit-experience in culture. Not to get too deep into this but when the Liberator actually happened I was told by my first attorney, “Dude, your life is over. This is a State Department enforcement action. You’ll be lucky if you don’t get 10 years in prison.”

I thought I was done. Assuming certain things in gray areas of the law is to go beyond the Pale and risk something like a social or physical death. I was upset at not really having understood that. But how can you understand that? How can you be prepared for that?

The second time I thought I would die was when I clawed my way back from the Liberator experience and mounted an opposition. I built a new company, Defense Distributed, to make the Ghost Gunner, to have enough money to sue the State Department. It was a whole roundabout thing but we’ll get to it and we’ll get to why.

In March 2018, I learned that somehow, impossibly, I was going to beat the Federal Government in the contest about the First Amendment and 3D files. When I had learned that, I thought I’m certainly not going to survive this victory. I didn’t survive the last one.

Knowing that my death, a social death or physical death, was going to happen and that I was probably going to ruin my life again, I thought, what’s a secessionary statement? What’s a way to be known? What’s a way to bury the name of God and confess that nevertheless, yes, I choose this death?

So I chose to resurrect this symbol from Goliad:

This is the severed arm: Philip Dimmitt’s flag that flew at La Bahía and Goliad of the Texas Revolution. Long-disused and not very familiar even to Texans, although some Texans know it now.

The intuition behind this was that we had done something similar with the flag of Gonzalez, the “Come and Take It” flag, which also features in the Texas Revolution and dwells on Texan independence and secessionary gestures. So, what’s another gesture? What’s a way to show that we’re intentional, a way that can be known beyond just the accidents of my stupid company and my own pointless death? What’s a message that can carry forward symbolically from that moment?

I chose the severed arm of Goliad. This is the strongest statement of Texan Independence. Dimmitt and the boys at La Bahía were actually the first people to assert Texan independence and the revolution. Beforehand, it was like all revolutions — they said, “We’re committed as Texans to the Constitution 24 of Mexico. We’re committed Republicans. Actually this isn’t a revolution at all. We’re not looking for independence.” But the boys at La Bahía were like, “You know what? White jihad.” That’s where this flag erupts.

Goliad is a fun word. I adopted that word and its significance because Goliad is an anagram. Baudrillard says you should always bury the name of God in seccessionary gestures. I’ll tell you: Goliad is an anagram for Hidalgo. Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla was one of the greatest figures of Mexican independence and secession. Hidalgo County in Texas is named after him — an area that was, of course, Mexican prior to Texan independence. It seemed to me that Goliad was a specifically Texan-situated way of telescoping secessionary gesture. It was Mexican independence. It’s Texan independence. Now with 3D printed guns what are we saying? Some kind of weird cypherpunk 3D printed gun independence? I don’t know. You figure it out. I’ll be dead.

Moving forward. What a joy to be hidden in this way. What a disaster not to be found. But I believe someone found me. Jstark had his own motives and I can’t know them. I didn’t know him well personally but I think it’s worth pointing out that the FGC-9 marks one and two include the severed arm of Goliad.

It’s as if Jstark understood our secessionary gesture and shared an impulse to say the same thing. At least there’s a relationship here. Knowing what happened to Jstark, a cynic could say that he adopted our praxis as his own funeral ideology. The intelligence agencies reading this may interpret the symbolism as the strange new strains of Euro-Kurdistan and radicalism invading Europe. But we the living, we Americans, we understand something better. Jstark left us more clues than just his use of the arm. You see “Live free or die” and then you see his name: Jstark1809.

This is General John Stark’s letter to the boys of Bennington.

“I shall remember, gentlemen, the respect you and the inhabitants of Bennington and its neighborhood have shown me, until I go to the “country from whence no traveller returns.” I must soon receive marching orders.” — John Stark

Note: The general forwarded in this letter, as his volunteer sentiment: “Live free, or die — Death is not the worst of evils.”

Jstark chose to adopt the pseudonym of a revolutionary war veteran who wrote this letter at the end of his life. General Stark writes that he couldn’t join his fellow soldiers in a reunion celebrating the Battle of Bennington and he regretted it. He left them with his famous postscript, “Live free or die” which became the motto of the state of New Hampshire. It was used in the French Revolution and many other revolutions all over the world ever since.

“Live free or die:” bold words. They are hardily, healthily American words. Maybe they originate with Patrick Henry at the Second Virginia Convention in 1775 — the boys who reconstructed independent militias once royal authority over Virginia had been removed.

This gesture allows us to give a complete reading to the life of Jstark. Jstark wasn’t just a guy who wanted to say some cool shit. He was a guy who understood he was a part of our revolution and a soldier of it with us — but who somehow knew he wouldn’t join us in the reunion. He was, in fact, predicting his own death. I think that’s a beautiful death performance. Even unconsciously, Jstark was practicing a type of euthanasia.

This is meant to illustrate the tightrope walker from Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”. In this scene, a jester comes out during the performance and knocks the tightrope walker off his game. The tightrope walker loses his head, loses the wire and falls to his death.

He doesn’t immediately die. Zarathustra, the prophet, is there beside his mangled body. The tightrope walker says “Oh shit, I’m going to hell. I’m just gonna die. How pointless my life is.” Zarathustra says “Not at all. You made danger your profession. That’s not nothing. Allow me to bury you. Choose to die by your vocation.” This is the essence of that speech.

I don’t know how Jstark lived but I believe he died an American. He made danger his profession. Jstark’s final symbolic presentation for us is the stark choice from the motto “Live free or die.” “Live free or fucking die” I believe was Jstark’s turn on it³.

Death is a certainty. It’s not a choice. Freedom on the other hand seems quite less certain than death. Is it even possible? Do you feel free?

The only question is how to venture this crossing. We know if we stay on the shore and don’t engage in any kind of practice we are surely headed for one of these two results: the depressing result of death. How do we make this crossing to freedom? What are the metaphysics of this desire?

Let’s examine. We can find answers to these questions through a brief detour in the work of René Girard.

The final thing I’ll say about secessionary gesture and the will for freedom is that maybe conflict is okay. Maybe the large moral disputes in our community about documentation and the severity of the contest are okay. It’s alright to begin with the understanding that I must change my life. “It’s literally a crime that you don’t test your files and you are scum.” This is the right impulse and the right beginning but there are metaphysics of these desires that are worth examining. This will allow us to make more productive use of our secessionary moral impulse.

02: Mediation

Girard is our Virgil through the next section: Mediation. Girard teaches us a number of things about desire, about our will and metaphysical ambitions.

The standard model of reaching an objective is the direct, linear one: “Okay, I’m a creator. I want to make something really cool like the FGC-9 because I’ve heard about it, I think that’s really badass.” We imagine this as a direct relationship: I’m a subject pursuing an object.

Girard tells us — not so fast. In fact, we’re not quite free to desire anything or even imagine anything. We have to learn it like anything else. Desire is imitative. It’s taught. It’s learned. It’s copied. All desires, even the simplest ones but especially those great passions, we learn from a mediator.

Here is the holy Pepe mediator. He lives in a paradise that is inaccessible to us. He looks down on us with benevolent contempt.

The way we pursue our stated or intended object reveals our relationship to the mediator. This should not be a surprise. Oswald Spengler reminds us that it’s always this way in history. Napoleon thought of himself as akin to Charlemagne. Petrarch thought of himself as Cicero. Cecil Rhodes, the organizer of British South Africa, had a custom volume of “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” by Edward Gibbon and thought of himself as Emperor Hadrian.

In the example of Jstark and the FGC-9, his desire, his stated purpose and his accomplishment was in perfecting the promise of 3D printed guns. He delivered the first fulfillment of the promise of 3D printed guns. The documentation of FGC-9 says, “Liberator is proof-of-concept, FGC-9 is proof-of-carbon.” This is a beautiful reinstatement of his purpose.

His ability to fulfill the FGC-9 was in recognizing the promise outlined in the work of Defense Distributed. You could say his work was mediated by Defense Distributed. It was by following his understanding of the intended concept of the Liberator and making that real in his mind that he accomplished the FGC-9 in the terms that he did.

Girard says there are heroes of external mediation. It doesn’t really matter what external mediation is but it’s about your distance to the mediator. External mediation is: “I’m Don Quixote, I recognize I want to be like Amadís de Gaula.” I know who I’m copying and I’m telling you who. Jstark says, “Defense Distributed tried to do this thing with Liberator — I’m trying to do the same thing.” So knew what he was doing. He told you why. This is external mediation.

As there are heroes of external mediation there are also victims of internal mediation. I’d like to illustrate a victim of internal mediation — this is fatherly instruction, remember — with the example of Atlas Arms.

Maybe not many people have heard of Atlas Arms. That’s okay. You probably will. Atlas Arms is a company, an organization and a group of people mediated by the experience and example of Defense Distributed and ostensibly trying to accomplish a similar goal, which is something like gun CAD online or in their case, technical data for ammunition and other related projects. This is all in the same spirit of Open Source and defeating or upsetting the institutions.

How do they do this? There are obvious, immediate similarities with Defense Distributed. Girard tells us that in examples of mediation, the external imitations can be startling. Atlas Arms chooses to be an alliterative company (AA, DD). They are a non-profit. They use research from their work to commercially fund additional research. They hope to fight the ATF. A lot of similarities to the work of Defense Distributed.

Not a surprise. It’s directly mediated. No big deal. But Girard says victims of internal mediation actually lose focus on the object that they’re pursuing. They get lost. Let’s say four or five years go by and you’re not accomplishing the purpose of your project. You begin to interpret your mediator as a rival that is actually trying to thwart you — some kind of evil god who is actually preventing you from accomplishing your goal.

This is an example tweet from Austin Jones to Zero Hedge:

“If you ever do a story about anything we do at Atlas Arms, Cody Wilson didn’t have a jack crap to do with it and I don’t want to see his name in the article. It doesn’t belong there. Stop giving credit to politicians and actors.”

Austin doesn’t just deny the role of the mediator. He goes a statement beyond. He says Cody Wilson and Defense Distributed — they didn’t even do anything.

Girard says a couple of things which can be exemplified in this tweet. First, Austin’s kind of living off his inheritance already. He’s talking to Zero Hedge about an article about his work which doesn’t exist yet. He’s already taking out lines of credit on things he hasn’t done. He lives in a diverted, deviated transcendence where he’s more pure and earnest in his attempts to accomplish the purposes of Defense Distributed.

Defense Distributed itself is a perverted, fallen thing. In fact, Defense Distributed is just pretending, an actor and and an encumbrance, not just to him — Austin Jones, Atlas Arms — but to everyone in the space. There’s a negative divinity given to the mediator in Girard. We are the devil.

You can look at the history of Atlas Arms as a four or five year project of self-display where nothing really gets published or commercially developed but Atlas Arms becomes better and better at being a better version of Defense Distributed — at least in terms of presentation, purpose and purity. What a joy it is to read a live blog on how pure a company is in an industry of fakes.

The golden arrow above shows that victims of internal mediation are often just trying to copy the desires of the mediator, not really trying to accomplish the intended or stated object of that desire.

Why do I bring all this up? Because I believe this is a source of ressentiment and Friedrich Schelling’s modern feelings in our community. It’s easy to inhabit a certain persona of the 3D gun printer, freedom technology rebel or Bitcoin privacy extremist. It’s easy to inhabit that persona and then purity spiral and pretend that you have a real metaphysical autonomy that isn’t mediated or influenced by anyone and you are the literal Pope of some particular cypherpunk ideology. This idea of metaphysical autonomy is worth pointing out. Maybe a way out of this Nietzschean confusion can be found using the example of Atlas Arms.

This deviated transcendence, this spoliation, this encountering of impotent hatred and rage at your inability to accomplish your stated purpose while you’re being mediated by something like Defense Distributed leads to strange episodes of stolen valor. I mean this very dearly, because remember, the purpose of this text is the Death Athletic and introducing euthanasia and hazard to your life, which is something deeper and symbolic. With this in mind, these episodes become really meaningful.

Another example is a newsletter update that Atlas Arms sent to donors. He says, “Look, I’ve got an open source manual that I’m writing and it’s got everything in it. It’s gonna have all the technical data, the instructions, all the stuff. It’s going to be really great but I’m sorry, I can’t share it with you because we’re a unique target in this space. In fact, even more so than our 3D printed brothers. And if you know anything about 3D printed guns, the files are actually still claimed to be regulated by the feds. I mean, it’s true that it is a crime to share 3D printed guns files on the internet in certain ways.”

Austin is saying, “We’re even more of a target than our brothers in 3D printing. This is some toxic stuff here. It’s very dangerous what we’re doing. We’re up on the wire. We’re tightrope walking. We’re going to share the manual with you, I promise. But, look, just give me a minute, because, you know, federal and state laws.”

The problem here is that this is a lie. This is not true. 734.7C EAR says the only files that can’t be shared on the internet or disclosed to the public domain are software and technical data for firearms, firearm frames and receivers. I’ve got good news for you, Atlas Arms: we fought your battle for you and we won. You can share your stuff today, you can share your stuff tomorrow.

We get the sense that there’s a certain fear from Atlas Arms about objective mediocrity. We know that it’s better to have the excuse that someone is preventing you from publishing. I’m preventing you from publishing. But just remember, I’m the actor. I’m the politician.

I won’t mention another episode of stolen valor. It doesn’t matter. At least Austin can lead us out of this trap. We are stuck in quicksand when we’re a victim of internal mediation. Girard says, “We can make men our gods or we can make God our God.” This is one of the easiest ways out of the mediation trap. We can actually choose a real divine mediator or we can pretend that men are gods and suffer the consequences.

This perfect dilemma is represented in the self-display of Atlas Arms. It’s simultaneously a Randian project about heroes, intense individualism and nostalgia for the desert (which by the way, usually conceals a morbid concern for the other) while at the same time Austin is a professed Christian. Let’s choose Christianity on this one and forget Ayn Rand. Christianity, God the architect, helps you more.

03: Acrobatics

Finally let’s get to technique. Why did I go through that entire episode with you? Because I think if we have a divine mediator and we’re contemplating the deepest questions of pain, death and death performance, then we have the required combination to really perform.

It’s okay that the 3D printed gun space has become manifold. Just like in Bitcoin, there are many lifestyle brands. There are people that just trade on the aesthetics or oeuvre. That’s great, but I still think there’s a higher practice. There’s still something that can be done and really wow people. It’s about involving your death and the concepts that I’m talking about here today. Jstark is, of course, the ultimate example. Let’s not forget Yoshitomo Imura who paid the price too.

Using the example of Christianity and divine mediation, we can begin with the most Christian Christian himself, Christ crucified. What is the passion about? Well, a lot of things depending on your perspective. What’s most interesting to me for the purpose of the Death Athletic and explaining this agonist ethos to you — which I swear to God I’m going to do — is the account in John 19:30.

In Luke and Mark, Christ is on the cross, he cries out, he dies. In Matthew he says, “Father, I give up my spirit to you.” This is almost the statement that we’re looking for. In John the addition is very interesting. In John he says, “Consummatum Est” in Latin or as we know it in English, Christ says, “It is finished.”

That addition takes Christ crucified from a chance victim of Judeo-Roman politics — twice humiliated, given the worst state punishment possible, a complete humiliated sacrifice — that addition: “It is finished”, “Consummatum Est” is a super ordination of the compulsory. It says “Ah, of course. According to my plan. According to my Father’s plan. This was all foreseen. We’ve done it.” It’s an athletic statement.

John, according to Sloterdijk, has athleticized the passion. He has essentially said something like, “Mission accomplished.”

John, according to Sloterdijk, has athleticized the passion. He has essentially said something like, “Mission accomplished.” That statement, that subordination of the circumstances, literally changes history and reorganizes the Western narrative. This is one of the greatest statements possible. How did he do it from a position of ultimate weakness and humiliation? This is the core of the Death Athletic, the core of death performance.

Christian Death Athletics reaches its deepest clarity in Tertullian of Carthage. Tertullian writes in his letters to the martyrs suffering under Severus, to those Christians thrown to the lions, “Your prison is a training ground. If slaves and gladiators are going to compete for perishable crowns, how much more should your performance be when you know you’re competing for an eternal one?”

This pep talk is so deep and and wide that I think it’s worth mentioning in the context of Death Athletic. It is the ultimate statement of performance in the face of not just the impossible but the surely terminal.

I don’t have to keep this religious⁴. The other primal death scene in Old Europe is the death of Socrates. It’s the same thing here. Why is this such a momentous occasion in all of thought and philosophy? It’s because through his wisdom the old man uses his ability to appropriate the compulsory and unjust death sentence which everyone is weeping about. He uses it and cooperates with the authorities to such a degree that it’s like he organized the passion-play himself.

In the dialogue “Crito” he says, “I hear the voice of the gods. The laws are talking to me. I know what I must do. I have to follow this path.” It’s the same thing. It is the Death Athletic ethos. He used his skill to subordinate the voluntary over the compulsory.

This is incredible technique. Now we see the sophistication of the Yes Chad meme at a deeper level.

What does Yes Chad mean? Is it just negation? Is it just happy circumstance? No, I think there’s a much deeper thing here. I think it’s about the subordination of the voluntary over the compulsory or the accidental. A primary technique of Defense Distributed — politicians, performers anonymous.

Insert whatever authority you want. The ATF. New Jersey. The State Department. I do not care. I do not care what arbitrary thing, what rule, what law, what guidance, or in the ATF case what “secret guidance” they will deploy. We say yes. We say of course. It’s all going according to our plan.

The most recent example from Defense Distributed is the zero percent receiver. In that episode, it was most important for old man Joe Biden to say, “I solved the ghost gun problem. I’ve got this new rule. You can’t even make a gun from a kit at home anymore. Take that, ya incels.”

What do we say? We say of course, exactly. The fulfillment of the Ghost Gunner project. We’ve been working at this for years. I can’t believe the fools did it. The age of zero percent has begun.

This is the super ordination of the voluntary over the compulsory. It is the use of ability to integrate the compulsory. This is the core of the Death Athletic ethos.

I’m to the point of death, by the way. I will explain later. But back to Jstark’s crossing. Now we’re thinking about taking the venture. What does it mean? It means we’re pursuing this thing which we know is absurd. I’m not saying freedom is not worth pursuing. I am saying you probably won’t see the other shore but you will suspend tragedy in the beauty of the attempt. The salt on mortality is about defying death and directing the gaze.

In our example alone I have seen the total suspension of belief on the part of the authority. The State Department was stunned. They cannot believe what is happening. They feel like they are trapped in this prison with us. Do you understand? It is this will, this agonal ethos which is the difference-maker and that can be taught with the example of 3D printed guns. I think it’s worth writing about. I think it honors the death of Jstark. I think it’s something very core.

In the interest of disclosure and because I’m always considered to be so secretive: here’s my road map.

Defense Distributed:

• First Amendment
• Zero percent
• California

I hope to get any of this done this year. I know I won’t because I’ve been working on that top one for ten fucking years. All that means is recognizing that 3D files are protected by the First Amendment. Is that a meaningful thing to do? Cody, didn’t you say that pursuit of the political is super gay or something? That’s not the point. I’m teaching the agonal ethos. I know it’s strictly speaking absurd and impossible for the Supreme Court or the Federal Government to recognize that the First Amendment protects 3D printed gun files.

What I’m saying is making that improbable attempt and accidentally conquering it is such a startling, disturbing thing for the orders that be that it literally scrambles the coordinates of the possible. It’s worth doing for that reason alone. The pursuit of it literally suspends the tragedy that is otherwise happening. In the shadow cone of the large contest with the State Department for the First Amendment recognition of our files, we have forestalled that authority’s other pretenses. They were all bound up in the shadow cone of this event. Our entire culture has grown up in the shadow of this stupid high wire performance with a 3D printed gun First Amendment conversation. It’s worth doing for that reason alone.

I’ve already mentioned the zero percent. I think it’s worth doing. Why? Because there’s a similar contest there about the nature of what is a gun? What is the literal definition of a gun? If I’m allowed the chance to monkey around with that I don’t think authorities are even prepared for the consequences. I think it’s worth pursuing for that reason.

Finally, California. They’re always doing such cool things in California. What a great laboratory for democracy, especially regulations of gun parts. A new regime begins in California this summer for precursor parts and other things. I’m told that they plan to ban our machine the Ghost Gunner. Amazing. I would love to be the first person to have a standing to argue about the right to make guns and gun parts.

The point is, I almost know I can’t accomplish any of these things. Who can even expect to participate in a ten year federal battle? I’ve almost died twice on the way. I pursue these things in a Nietzschean, Jüngerian sense, knowing I will likely perish in the attempt. I think that’s the example of Jstark. I think that’s the example of the Death Athletic.

But I swear to god dude, if I get that First Amendment win, you know what I’m going to do? I’m not going to get on Twitter or email Zero Hedge or whatever and bitch about how hard it is that nobody recognizes my shit. I’m going to take a fucking bow and say, well, of course. We always knew it was going to happen. It was according to our plan. For our kind, this is nothing.