Gadfly Society

The **Gadfly Society** is a fraternal order of philosophers, economists and captains of industry that believe strongly in a free market system, rule of law and property rights. Gadfly was used by Plato toward Socrates to mention his behavior toward the Athenian people, where he deliberately made statements to offend their way of life in the pursuit of knowledge and truth. More accurately, gadfly is a "person who interferes the status quo of a society or community by posing novel, potently upsetting questions, usually directed at authorities."

The Gadfly Society would publish several thousands books in its lifetime to date now. But its most successful book that help earned the fraternity international recognition and a Nobel Peace Prize was *Erysichthon: The Insatiable Hunger for Starvation.*

The book plays on a Greek myth describes a story of where a man is cursed when he fells a tree, killing a dryad nymph as a consequence. A curse where the more he consumed, the more he hungered. To remedy this, he sold all of his material possessions to purchase a large feast. But it was not enough. He sold his daughter to slavery to buy more food, but his appetite was not sated. His daughter who had used shape-shifting abilities to escape, was then recaptured by her own father and sold multiple times back into slavery, escaping from her slavers only to be recaptured by her father and sold again for more food. Unable to fill his stomach, the man perishes.

The book illustrated the idea that humanity had become this man. It had a hunger for material wealth and nationalism it could never sate. Instead of looking inwards to solve its problems, it looked outwards and wanted to consume the world around it, no matter the harm. The story provided a plethora of real world examples of how humanity was destroying what it might to be human by shrugging off the civil liberties that separated a human from a machine that simply depended on inputs and outputs.

## Practices

### Admittance

Individuals may be considered to become a member if they submit essays, journals or unpublished books to the Gadfly Society. It must cover any topic relevant to the mission statement of the organization. It can be abstract, or take on an ongoing policy issue and suggest a course of action that is consistent with the Societal beliefs.

### Devil's Advocate

There are two sides to every coin. Individuals are asked to take a one year tour to a group of the Gadfly's choosing that is fundamentally on the other side of the political spectrum other than their own ideas. This may include the individual volunteering as a lobbyist for a government that has a poor history of property rights, or other similar situations that the individual is not comfortable with who they must work for. This is to test that person's resolve.

### Remembrance

Showing a nod of respect to Socrates, who perished due to his manner of thinking against the mob and before an individual is accepted fully into the organization, the individual will drink a diluted mixture of wine and hemlock. There has only been one reported case of someone dying from the hemlock, and it was a result of a deliberate theatrical suicide of someone who adamantly opposed to the organization's core beliefs.

## Credits

Gadfly Society artwork was produced by JackEavsArt and hosted on Deviantart. You can find the source here.