🧬 Manifesto of the Indoc

For free inquiry, sovereign thinking, and knowledge without permission

Foreword: this manifesto was draft with the help of ChatGPT.

While it challenges certain forms of social gatekeeping, some of its tone or structure may still echo the very codes it critiques.

But that’s not the point.

The point is to name something that already exists in many of us.

The good news? Anyone can be an indoc.

There’s no central committee, no gatekeeper, no badge of approval.

You don’t apply to be an Indoc — you realize that you already are.

In contrast to Eric S. Raymond’s Hacker Manifesto, which claims that “The hacker community is a meritocracy” and “you’re not a hacker until other hackers call you one”, we reject any ideology that turns freedom into a club, and knowledge into a hierarchy.

The Indoc path is not reserved for the approved, the praised, or the proven. It is open to the stubbornly curious — with or without recognition.

🔍 What is an “Indoc”?

Indoc stands for indocile doctor — a person engaged in deep intellectual, technical, or creative research without needing a diploma, academic validation, or social status.

An Indoc is not anti-intellectual.
An Indoc is an independent thinker, not a title-seeker.

No robes, no dissertation defense, no ivory tower.
Just a raw and rigorous commitment to learning, understanding, and transmitting.

🧭 Why Indoc?

The modern PhD system, once designed to cultivate deep understanding, has too often become:

  • a ritual of status,
  • a gatekeeping mechanism that separates the “certified” from the “curious”,
  • and a machine of conformity, crushing exploration beneath metrics and jargon.

We don’t reject knowledge — we reclaim it.
The world needs free researchers, not compliant academics.

❌ What Indoc is not

  • ❌ Not a diploma alternative
  • ❌ Not anti-science or anti-method
  • ❌ Not an ego trip against academia
  • ❌ Not an excuse for shallow thinking

It is a space of reappropriation — a lab without walls —
a mode of inquiry liberated from institutional dependency.

📜 Core Principles of the Indoc

1. I research without permission

I don’t need approval to ask deep questions or explore radical answers.

2. I learn outside predefined paths

I am self-taught by necessity, not by rejection. I follow where curiosity leads.

3. I share without seeking validation

I publish and transmit what I discover — not to impress, but to empower.

4. I am rigorous, but free

I question, I structure, I test — not to please a committee, but to sharpen my mind.

5. I seek clarity, not prestige

I value honest understanding over clever posturing. Simplicity over jargon.

6. I am not against universities. I am beyond them.

I collaborate when useful. I bypass when necessary.

🌱 Who is the Indoc for?

  • Self-learners and thinkers without credentials.
  • Hackers, makers, indie researchers, underground philosophers.
  • Engineers without degrees.
  • Dropouts who never stopped learning.
  • Anyone excluded from the system, but never from knowledge.

✊ To be Indoc is…

To refuse to ask for permission to think.
To build knowledge on inner discipline, not external validation.
To live a research life on your own terms.

You don’t need a title to seek truth.
You don’t need a thesis to be deep.
You don’t need a defense to stand for what you know.

Geoffrey Royer