Bitarch’s Column

There is one currently not very well-known argument as to why humanity will sooner or later have to accept the impermissibility of initiating aggression: the simple survival of our civilization. After all, with the development of technology, the conditional total harm that one person can inflict is constantly growing.

For example, now even a poorly educated fanatic in a truck can knock down a hundred people, and if they try very hard and load a mixture of fertilizer and diesel into it, they can kill a maximum of a thousand.

Now imagine the world in 30 years. Gene engineering equipment has become cheaper; biohacking has become a popular hobby for schoolchildren. Genomes of pests such as natural smallpox, plague, and influenza A/H1N1 are available on the darknet. A psychopath could trigger an epidemic, killing, say, 1 million people.

Another 50 years pass. Flying cars with compact nuclear reactors have appeared. And along with them, ways to overload such a reactor, creating a new Chernobyl in New York or Moscow. 10 million people are now at the mercy of a psychopath.

The distant future. Space ships for flights to Alpha Centauri have begun to be built. Antimatter is used as fuel. If someone doesn’t value their own life, they can take the entire population of planet Earth with them, turning it into a stream of neutrinos.

As can be seen, the population that one person is capable of destroying grows exponentially with the development of technology. Just like the trendy COVID-19 coronavirus. In such conditions, there cannot even be a thought of using violence against a person, because essentially each of us will possess not just a deterrent weapon, but a Doomsday Weapon (DDW). Humanity simply will not survive if it does not recognize the universal NAP, even toward the most unpleasant individuals like child killers.

I anticipate in advance the cries of etatists about the usefulness of the state. For example, they will say: “Look, you’ve just described the hell it will be without control by government bodies.” Only in reality, the state only increases the risks of uncontrolled use of DDWs—both by creating incentives for people to use it as a deterrent against aggressive violence from a stationary bandit (the state), and by spurring the development of such dangerous things in inappropriate conditions even without the goal of using them as DDWs.

The US government, of course, can limit biohacker experiments, but they will be gladly welcomed in some Mumbo-Jumbo, where they will work much more covertly from public control and possibly intentionally help in the creation of DDWs for the Mumbo-Jumbo government. Look at the ban on stem cell experiments in the US, which simply pushed developments to China and other countries, where they were carried out without any public notification.

I am also very surprised by the position of some libertarians who seriously consider the possibility of enforcing court decisions through physical violence. In reality, not only violence, but even harsh ostracism that puts the violator on the edge of physical survival (for example, refusing to sell food in a store) can provoke them to use a DDW (dying of hunger is no better than dying from a bullet, therefore complete ostracism can be perceived by the violator as physical violence). It is not for nothing that Kim Jong Un is not blocked from the sale of vital items, but is only forbidden from receiving luxury items like Ferraris and Swiss watches. And he doesn’t even have a DDW, but rather a fairly weak deterrent weapon.

So think about what is better for you:
1) A world with the enforcement of court decisions through reputation and soft forms of ostracism, which turn out to be sufficient in most cases.
2) A world with a slightly higher probability of enforcing court decisions through physical coercion, but with a tangible “bonus” chance of becoming one of the characters in George Stewart’s science fiction novel “Earth Without People.”

Ancap-chan’s Commentary

Morals are formed more by practice than by theoretical constructs. Trying to limit oneself now in legitimate means for the sake of possible consequences in half a century is roughly the same kind of panic-mongering as the desire to abandon carbon dioxide emissions to prevent global warming.

People indeed regularly face the question of conflict between tactical and strategic goals. The longer the planning horizon, the greater the probability that the issue will be resolved in favor of strategy. But it is unrealistic to influence someone else’s time preference with exhortations. So, either we gradually develop a stable ancap, with a habit of defending our rights and not permitting systemic violence, and then the planning horizon for people will be sufficiently distant—or we will continue to languish under the state, captive to purely short-term tasks, and watch with horror the increase in the potential for terror—both private and state—up until the collapse of humanity.