I have reread the summaries of past years: 2018 (joyful), 2019 (confident), and 2020 (gloomy). Fortunately, I managed to reverse the trend, and I look forward to 2022 with much more enthusiasm than I once did for 2021.
The year was devastating for the Russian opposition, to which I belonged to some extent, although I didn’t pay much attention to politics. Many left the country under the threat of immediate criminal prosecution, fleeing into a void, and I imagine it was not easy for them. I was far luckier: I left the country to build an offline libertarian utopia, and this utopia, Montelibero, has made decent progress in its implementation. There are already two dozen of us who moved to Montenegro to build a local ersatz-ancap, and on New Year’s Eve, for the first time in the project’s history, we will gather together at one table (one bomb could take us all out). Nevertheless, I still hope that we won’t be hit by a bomb, and that next year we will build a sufficiently reliable platform here for receiving and settling libertarians.
Another milestone for the channel was that I finally completely translated Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom, and it is the largest of my projects implemented so far. Now, as a bonus, Oleg Teterevlev is recording the audiobook, and as of today, he has reached chapter 45 out of 66. I think the audiobook will also be completed in 2022. The translation of three more books is being carried out in parallel, encouraged by your donations, and will sooner or later be finished as well—at least after The Machinery of Freedom, I am now certain that I am capable of tackling something large-scale without abandoning it halfway.
A third important undertaking that is in full swing is the writing of my own book on ancap. The first part, containing an outline of the libertarian worldview, is completely ready; the second part—about life under ancap—is being written. Who knows—maybe I’ll manage to finish it in 2022 as well.
As for the channel’s metrics, they can be seen below on the postcard kindly sent by the statbot. In terms of the number of readers, I’ve hit a plateau; the channel turned out to be a mid-tier one, and it’s unlikely to grow at a noticeable pace without aggressive marketing. This doesn’t really bother me now, because other interesting activities have been found. Again, while my readers may be few in number, they are proactive: among the settlers in Montelibero, more than half joined the project specifically through my channel, which is, of course, flattering. I hope this trend continues in the future.
Happy New Year to all libertarians. Do not be afraid to take on ambitious projects, stick by each other, and do not forget that against the backdrop of the main enemy, small internal quarrels mean nothing.
