Автор: Битарх

The Law Named After a Dead Girl: How Someone Else’s Misfortune Becomes Someone’s Power

Do you know this phrase? It can shut down any discussion, any dispute about freedom, rights, and common sense. As soon as an official says “we are protecting the children” — that’s it, the opponent already looks like a monster.

American scientists from the University of Texas at El Paso decided to test how this actually works. Not on the level of “well, everyone understands,” but in laboratory conditions, with control groups, numbers, and statistics. The results were frightening.

Take a bill limiting solitary confinement for teenagers. Give people the dry text. 75% support it. Now add the story of a girl named Rosemary, who committed suicide after six weeks in solitary. Support — 100%. Not 90%, not 95%, but 100%. Or take a law on alcohol monitoring for parolees. Without the story — 60% “for.” With the story of a deceased teenager — 80%.

And then comes the most interesting part. The scientists separated the variables: here is just the victim’s name in the title of the law, here is a story without a name, and here is both. Guess what worked? Of course, not the name, but the story. “The Vasily Pupkin Law” by itself achieves almost nothing. But a three-paragraph tear-jerker triggers the “I’ll sign anything, just do something” mode.

The mechanism is very primitive: take a tragedy, link it to any law you need, and voilà — the population’s critical thinking is completely switched off. Now let’s look at how this works in our case.

2012: Dima Yakovlev dies — a little boy adopted by Americans who died of heatstroke after being left in a car by his adoptive father. A terrible tragedy. At the same time, US authorities pass the “Magnitsky Act,” hitting the wallets of Russian security forces and officials. And to retaliate, the State Duma passes a law completely blocking Americans from adopting Russian orphans (including those who had already met their future adoptive parents). And they named this act of political revenge the “Dima Yakovlev Law.” It doesn’t increase oversight of adopters, it doesn’t reform the system; it simply closes the border to all American parents and thousands of children who could have actually found a family.

Why? “To protect children from violence.” Although anyone who has ever looked at statistics knows: the probability of violence in a Russian orphanage is orders of magnitude higher than in a European or American adoptive family. But who needs statistics when there is a dead boy and a beautiful name for a law?

Same year, 2012. A registry of banned websites appears. The formal goal is to protect children from suicidal content, drugs, and pornography. Who would argue? “What, you’re for child pornography?” — and that’s it, conversation over.

Then begins what we have all observed. Teenage problems didn’t go anywhere, but the Roskomnadzor registry, created “for children,” gradually, like a boa constrictor, swallows everything in sight: opposition websites, independent media, pages criticizing the government, Social Network X (Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, VPN services, and generally any thought that does not align with the party line. The mechanism is already tuned, the censorship infrastructure is built; all that’s left is to expand the list.

What is this all leading to? Bureaucracy does not know how to empathize. When the state weeps for victims from a podium, it is simply lubricating with tears the very bolt it intends to screw into your civil rights. Creating laws based on isolated, most emotional, and horrific cases (lawyers call these “hard cases”) is a direct road to totalitarianism. Empathy is a wonderful human quality, and that is exactly why we must protect it from the sweaty hands of politicians.

Next time you are asked to give up a piece of freedom, the privacy of correspondence, or the right to choose in the name of “safety” and the memory of another victim — turn your internal skeptic to the maximum. Because these laws will not help the dead in any way. But you and I will have to somehow live with this repressive creativity.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

“God suffered and told us to do the same”: how traditional families breed ideal slaves for the state

You have probably heard the popular fable in our circles: if you want to defeat the Leviathan, go to the forests, have ten children, homeschool them using sacred books to bypass state schools, and you will have your freedom. Many libertarians, especially those of a conservative bent, view religion, and Christianity in particular, with great sympathy. At first glance, the logic here seems ironclad. Historically, the Church has built magnificent parallel institutions. It is capable of snatching children from the gripping clutches of the state education system, where they are hammered with etatism and the belief that “taxes are the price of civilization” from the cradle. To some, this may seem like the ideal shield against totalitarianism.

But even the sun has spots, and in closed communities, these spots sometimes turn into actual black holes. We are talking about violence against children, elegantly masked as “divine plan.”

A large-scale psychological study was recently conducted, and the figures were quite gruesome. It turns out that if a child is beaten for no reason (which is disgusting in itself), that is one thing. But if they are beaten with a belt while being told, “You are a sinner, God will punish you,” or forced to stay silent about the abuse for the “honor of the community,” the trauma is multiplied a hundredfold. Guilt simply burns out the psyche from the inside.

And this is where the hope of a considerable number of libertarians crashes down. Many of us fantasize that proud freethinkers will emerge from closed traditional communities—little John Galts who will give the stationary bandit the middle finger. But in reality, this produces broken, beaten people with skyrocketing levels of anxiety and depression. A child who was “broken” from childhood in the name of higher powers will not go out to shake the state, because they simply do not have the strength for it. They will grow up as a person accustomed to obeying an authority that hits them on the head with a boot or a sacred book. They will find themselves a new master, and the state loves such people.

Now to the main point—the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP). Violence against a child is a direct and gross violation of the NAP. Children are not the property of parents, like a chair or a crypto wallet. They have rights. And if a father sets up a branch of the Inquisition at home because a child prayed incorrectly or asked an inconvenient question, this is not “freedom of religion,” but banal, blatant aggression.

At this point, many true anarchists might cringe, but libertarians need to monitor as closely as possible what happens behind the high fences of “parallel institutions.” If we see overt physical or cruel psychological violence against children, there is absolutely nothing shameful about unleashing child protective services on such parents.

Yes, some may strongly dislike the idea of calling the state for help. But let’s stay in reality. We do not yet have private detective agencies for the protection of children’s rights that offer them shelter and a proper foster family, and provide aggressors with a dose of a drug to strengthen their violence inhibitor. Saving a victim from an NAP violation in the moment is more important than theoretical purity. If a domestic tyrant is ruining the life of a defenseless person, using the existing protection mechanism (even if it is state-run) is normal and morally justified. This is the protection of the basic right to life and inviolability. You do not become an etatist by saving a child from beatings. You become a human being.

Decentralization and freedom from the state are wonderful. But tyrants must not be allowed to hide behind the Bible or anything else, turning their families into sovereign totalitarian sects. True freedom begins not with our refusal to pay taxes, but with the recognition of every person’s right—even the smallest—to a life without violence.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Taxes are robbery. But you know what’s even worse? It’s unfair robbery!

What is the most popular fairy tale among adults? No, not the one about “I’ll start exercising next Monday,” and not even the one about “we’ll call you back.” The most resilient and beloved fairy tale is the myth of the “fair tax system.”
 
Every time another politician in an expensive suit (bought with your money, by the way) takes the podium and begins to proclaim: “We will make the rich pay more to help the poor!”, the etatists are selling us the image of a noble Robin Hood. But in reality, we get the Sheriff of Nottingham, who simply shakes the change out of the pockets of the working class.
 
Let’s look at how this “celebration of justice” works in real life. It is important to understand that you are the one paying for this entire banquet—the very same shrinking and vanishing “middle class.” People who just want to live normally, pay off their mortgage, go on vacation, and provide an education for their children.
 
How does the state sell us taxes? “Look, that guy in the Maybach! We’ll introduce a progressive scale, a luxury tax, strip him of his wealth, and we’ll all live well!”. Sounds like a great plan, right? But this is where harsh reality kicks in.
 
The thing is, truly wealthy people don’t receive a salary. They don’t have a pay stub that accountant Marya Ivanovna looks at with a sad sigh while slicing off a third for the state. The fortunes of the rich lie in stocks, trusts, funds, real estate, and clever financial instruments. They don’t need to withdraw millions in cash to buy a yacht. They simply take a bank loan secured by their shares at a ridiculous interest rate. And loans, as we know, are not taxable!
 
The ultra-wealthy also have something we don’t—entire armies of high-paid lawyers and tax consultants. For them, the tax code is not a noose around the neck, but simply a restaurant menu where one can always find a loophole, a discount, or an offshore zone. They don’t evade taxes, but they optimize them. And they do it brilliantly.
 
Now let’s return to our middle class. To you, to me, to the guy working as an IT specialist, a doctor, or running a small coffee shop. To the state, we are all ideal dairy cows. We stand in the pen, we can’t run away, and all our incomes are as transparent as a baby’s tear. The state is too lazy and it’s too expensive to chase wild mustangs (billionaires and their lawyers) across the prairies. Why strain yourself if you can just come into the cowshed and take what you want?
 
Of course, it’s useless for the middle class to complain about why, after all the deductions, VAT in stores, excise taxes on gasoline, and hidden levies from their salary, they are left with nothing. The oligarchs have already transferred their assets to the Cayman Islands. So, you will be the one chipping in for the new curb and the golden toilet brush for the mayor’s office. Nothing personal, just social justice!
 
That is precisely why the middle class is currently being destroyed worldwide. The state is constantly tightening the screws, inventing new levies, fines, and fees, presenting it under the sauce of “caring for society.” We are sheared so often that we don’t have time to grow our wool back. You strive, you grow as a professional, you take on side jobs, you open a small business, after which you suddenly move into a new tax category. You are now “rich” (in the eyes of the tax office, if you can afford meat every day, you are almost a Rockefeller), and they start milking you with double the intensity.
 
In the end, what do we have? Taxes are not just robbery (although the phrase “Taxation is theft” will never lose its relevance), but banal injustice. It is a system where the poor depend on handouts, the rich play by their own rules in the VIP room, and the middle class pays for it all, becoming poorer every year while trying to stay afloat. So next time you hear a fairy tale from another etatist about how taxes make society “equal and fair,” just laugh in their face!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

The state broke the demographics, and now even migrants will not save it

Every modern statist has a rather interesting “cheat code” at their disposal. States around the world, through their suffocating regulation, insane taxes, and inflation, have driven their native populations into such a demographic pit that there is no easy way out. Having children when half of your income is taken away by the tax office with an invisible (and very visible) hand, and a mortgage feels like lifelong slavery due to central bank games, is an unaffordable luxury for many young families.

And so, the average authoritarian bureaucrat scratches his head. He essentially has two paths:

The first path is total deregulation. Radically lowering taxes, easing regulations, removing bureaucratic barriers, letting people breathe, build homes, start businesses, grow wealthy, and look confidently into tomorrow. Making it so that people actually want to have children because they are confident in their future.

The second path is, with a heavy heart, to let millions of migrants into the country to somehow plug the gaping holes in the budget and the labor market, while not loosening the noose around the necks of their own citizens by a single millimeter.

Which do you think the official chooses? The second option, of course! Authoritarian statists usually don’t like migrants, but they are terrified to the point of shaking in their boots of losing power over the economy and society. It is better to import new blood than to give freedom to their own.

But then a system failure occurred; the “cheat code” stopped working. Let’s look at Spain (this was recently written about excellently here in El Confidencial). Local socialists have for years prayed to immigrants as the saviors of the solidarity pension system (i.e., a legalized financial pyramid). But suddenly, an inconvenient truth emerged—migrants age! A mass flow of people over 45 began entering Spain.

And here, the mathematics hits the official right in the face. Even if the statist gentlemen dream of importing ideal “passive hamsters” aged 55+, who will quietly sweep the streets, drive a steering wheel, and not say a crooked word against the government—it no longer works economically. Such a “hamster” will sluggishly work for 5–10 years, pay their few pennies in taxes (if they even leave the gray economy), and then retirement age arrives. And what next? Next, this person will spend 20+ years draining money from a budget bursting at the seams for a minimum social pension and free healthcare, which becomes insanely expensive in old age. Instead of solving the demographic problem, the state gets a giant financial black hole. The presence of such migrants creates a colossal burden on the budget, effectively bringing no net plus to the economy.

And you know what the most ironic part is? Statism is contagious; it has spread across the entire planet. The bureaucratic noose is not exclusive to developed countries. After all, the governments of the countries from which migrants traditionally come play the same games with no less enthusiasm: introducing new bans, multiplying bureaucrats, and terrorizing businesses. The result is predictable: birth rates there are also plummeting into the abyss! The myth that there is an “infinite reservoir of young labor” somewhere in the Global South has shattered against reality. In the countries of Latin America, North Africa, or Central Asia, there are fewer and fewer young people because having children under the conditions of their own native, local government regulation is just as much of a financial suicide. That is why it is no longer healthy twenty-year-old guys moving to rich countries, but those same exhausted people in their fifties. States around the world, with their insane rules, have created a global demographic winter.

An alternative to the “do not interfere in people’s lives” option simply does not exist. Do you want the nation to grow and the demographic crisis to be a thing of the past? Abolish taxes and the total regulation of life! When a person has freedom, property, and the confidence that the state will not come to take it away tomorrow—they will build a large family themselves. But as long as statists continue to tighten the noose, no amount of importing obedient “hamsters” will save their budgets from inevitable bankruptcy.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Written contracts are a crutch for the weak that destroys civilization

We now live in an amazing time when buying a streaming subscription requires agreeing to a legal tome that exceeds “War and Peace” in volume. We have grown accustomed to thinking that this is normal, a sign of “civilization” and a “state governed by the rule of law.” But in reality, a paper contract as thick as a brick is not a sign of progress, but rather a medical report on the sickness of society. A diagnosis that screams: “We no longer trust each other!”
 
For this reason, let’s consider a bold idea: in a truly healthy, free society, the vast majority of transactions should be concluded with a simple handshake. And we are not talking about Western-style romance, but about a dry, pragmatic, and extremely efficient thing—the institution of reputation.
 
As soon as we stop believing in a person’s word, we start proliferating paperwork. And where there is paperwork, there are lawyers, notaries, regulators, and, of course, our favorite stationary bandit, who happily takes on the role of supreme arbiter using your own taxes. But let’s look back at history. Do you think that without state control and tons of waste paper, people would have simply torn each other’s throats out? Not at all.
 
How did the diamond exchanges of Antwerp and New York work? For centuries, Orthodox Jews conducted deals worth millions of dollars there. Do you know what the contract for a batch of diamonds looked like? It didn’t exist. Two people looked at the stones, shook hands, and said: “Mazal u’Bracha” (“Luck and blessings”). And that was it; the deal was closed. If someone broke their word or tried to pass off junk, they weren’t dragged into court. They were simply expelled from the community forever. Their reputation was multiplied by zero, and they could no longer buy even bread from their own. The risk of losing face and business was a thousand times more terrifying than any state fine.
 
Another example is the medieval Lex Mercatoria (Merchant Law). Imagine: the 11th century, merchants trading from England to the Levant. There is no single state, just a bunch of different feudal lords. How do they conclude contracts? They created private law, without kings and officials. If a merchant from Genoa cheated a clothier from Flanders, the clothier didn’t write a complaint to the Pope. News of the deception spread through all the Champagne fairs, and simply no one did business with the Genoese anymore. Reputation was harder than gold.
 
And then there is the Wild West. From the movies, it seems people only shot each other there. In reality, until the federal government arrived with its laws, people (miners, farmers, cattlemen) created claims clubs. Land was bought and sold on a word of honor and an entry in the club’s ledger. Conflicts were resolved by neighbors over a glass of whiskey, not by judges in wigs. And it worked!
 
But today, we have forgotten how to reach agreements. We have outsourced the most important human function—the ability to take responsibility and resolve conflicts—to the Leviathan. The moment something goes wrong: “I’ll sue you!” or “I’ll call the police!”. Modern man has turned into a weak and infantile teenager who runs to complain to “Daddy State” because someone broke his sandcastle. And “Daddy” is deliriously happy about it. Because while we are litigating, he collects fees, swells the ranks of bureaucrats, and writes new laws on how we should properly breathe.
 
Total reliance on written contracts is a crutch for a society whose legs have atrophied. It is a path to nowhere! The decline of social trust and total legal infantilism are literally eating modern Western civilization from the inside. The Roman Empire collapsed not only because of barbarians; it suffocated in its own bureaucracy and taxes when citizens ceased to be citizens and became merely a “taxable base.” And we are currently stepping on the same rake. A society in which people cannot trust each other’s word, where everyone views their neighbor as a potential fraudster, and where buying a used car requires a 100-page contract—this is a fragile society. It will collapse as soon as the bureaucratic apparatus fails, and this will inevitably happen with 100% probability in the long run.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Web of Trust: How Mathematics and Cryptography Will Replace Courts and Police

Imagine you are looking for a good auto mechanic. You don’t look at advertisements; instead, you call your best friend Petya. Petya says, “I don’t know anything about cars, but my brother Kolya fixes rides, and he swears that Uncle Ashot’s garage does honest work.” You go to Ashot because you trust Petya, and Petya trusts Kolya.
 
In IT, the “Web of Trust” is the digital version of this principle. Instead of a passport with an eagle or a ministry seal, your identity is a digital key. It is signed by friends, colleagues, and counterparties. A vast cryptographic web is formed. The more respected people who have vouched for you, the higher your weight in society. Now let’s look at the practical applications of this principle.  

  1. Cadastre and property registry. Why do we need bureaucrats shuffling papers using our own taxes? In a WoT system, your property is linked to a digital key. Buying a house? The transaction is recorded in a distributed database (like a blockchain) and signed by you, the seller, and, say, five witness-notaries with impeccable ratings in the Web of Trust. After that, no one will be able to take away your property rights, as any “fake” signature will be rejected.
  2. Transaction guarantees. Suppose you are buying a batch of goods from a stranger in another city. You transfer the money to a special account that will only open with two out of three keys (2-of-3 multisig). One key is yours, the second belongs to the seller, and the third belongs to a pre-selected Arbitrator. Did the goods arrive? You and the seller provide two signatures—the deal is complete. Did the seller send a brick instead of a laptop? You call the Arbitrator, he reviews the evidence, and uses his key to return the money to you.
  3. Arbitration (“private courts”). One might ask: “What stops the Arbitrator from colluding with the seller and scamming me?” This problem is solved by reputation in the Web of Trust. A private arbitration agency survives only on the trust of the parties. If it is revealed that a judge took a bribe, independent auditors will lower their rating in the WoT column. The judge’s social capital will crash to zero, and no sane person will ever include them in a smart contract again.
  4. The “free rider” problem. Suppose not everyone chipped in for the pavement in a village, but everyone uses it. How do you make free riders pay without a tax police? Using the Web of Trust! Didn’t pay your donation to the road fund? No one fines you; live as you did. However, the algorithm automatically resets your trust level with your neighbors. Upon approaching the village barrier, a smart sensor will simply say: “Your key is not serviced; make a voluntary contribution or stick to the dirt road.” Life without coercion, but with natural consequences!
  5. Ostracism instead of prisons. Prisons are very expensive (we pay for them), and they don’t rehabilitate people; they turn them into professional criminals. Contractual ostracism would be much better. Someone scammed their partners for money and refused to pay compensation per a court decision? Authoritative arbitrators attach a crypto-tag to their public key: “Fraudster.” Their rating in the global web of trust hits rock bottom. Automatic protocols trigger: smart locks in car-sharing don’t open, supermarket checkouts reject their transactions, and private security companies deny them access to private territories. This is scarier than prison. Anyone in such a situation would go to work off what they owe.
  6. Lending without banks. Imagine a microcredit system based not on whether a person officially works in an office, but on their history in the Web of Trust. Need funds to launch a business? Your guarantors are the nodes in the network you’ve interacted with over the last 5 years. People will lend to you or invest in your startup directly via P2P, seeing your crystal-clear profile in the Web of Trust.

 
For centuries, the state has convinced us that without the stick, we would slide back into the Stone Age and kill each other. But the truth is that technology already allows us today to build structures based on voluntarism, reputation, and mathematics. No sticks and no taxes—only mutual respect and responsibility for every digital handshake!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Parliament is a privilege: laws should be born in agony and die in one click

Let’s talk a little bit today about deputies and dispel some democratic mythology. More specifically, the conversation will be about how supporters of minimal state ideas (minarchists) should view such an institution as parliament. In our society, it has somehow become the default assumption that parliament is a sacred cow. That they have some inherent right to write laws for us, tell us how to live, what to smoke, whom to sell our services to, and how many taxes to kick back into the common pot. But what if parliament is not a right, but a privilege?
 
What is the fundamental difference between a right and a privilege? The main difference is that a privilege is a thousand times easier to annul. To put its own citizen in prison (that is, to deprive them of the basic right to freedom), the state machine has to sweat. It needs investigators, prosecutors, a jury, ironclad evidence, appeals, and a heap of bureaucracy. Why? Because a right is something a person possesses by default. Now let’s take a foreigner with a visa. A visa is a privilege. To throw a foreigner out of the country, you don’t need to prove they are a world-scale villain. It is enough that they violated a couple of residency rules. A snap of the fingers—the privilege is revoked, suitcase, station, deportation.
 
Now let’s look honestly at history. Where did parliaments come from in the first place? If we discard the pretty fairy tales, then historically any parliament is nothing more than a monarchical privilege. A hypothetical king with an army of thugs could have simply chopped off the heads of all these “fighters for popular representation.” He could have declared them traitors and drowned the very idea of transferring power to some murky deputies in blood. But for various reasons (somewhere the money for war ran out, somewhere it became too tedious to deal with taxes personally), monarchs made a concession and granted a privilege.
 
As a society, we are today the collective sovereign. But for some reason, we have forgotten that these people sitting in plush chairs are a concession we have made to them. And since it is a privilege, the rules of the game must change radically. Deputies should not tell us how to live. They should wake up in a cold sweat from the thought that they could be thrown out into the cold today. A parliamentarian must live under a constant, invisible sword of Damocles.
 
How could this look in practice? We need institutional asymmetry so that any decision can be overturned with disproportionate ease. Laws should be hard to pass, but quick to die. For example: to pass a new law restricting anything at all, 50% of the deputies’ votes are needed. But to repeal it, 25% of the votes of those same deputies should be sufficient! Or, even better—just 1% of the citizens’ votes in a referendum. Collect the signatures, and the law flies into the wastebasket. Deputies must physically feel that their papermaking hangs by a thread.
 
A presumption of guilt for the authorities is also necessary. We must make the profession of a politician as unattractive as possible for careerists, psychopaths, and lovers of other people’s money. How about requiring everyone who enters parliament to sign a voluntary waiver of some of their civil rights? Messed up? Passed a law that destroyed the economy? No immunity. Confiscation of property down to the seventh generation, loss of rights, and for serious failures—expulsion from the country with a “wolf’s ticket” (blacklisted) for any reason, even the smallest. Ideally, only those ready for self-sacrifice should become deputies. It should not be a prestigious job, but an obligation. Hard, dangerous, and thankless.
 
For minarchists, the state is not a caring mommy. It is a Leviathan. And parliament is simply a temporary “necessary evil,” a kennel where a chained dog sits. Our task is to make the chain as short as possible and the collar strict, with spikes on the inside. So that at any attempt to bark at the owner (that is, at you and me), the dog cuts off its own oxygen.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

How to explain the philosophy of voluntarism to children?

One might think that ideas of freedom are too complex to convey to children. However, in reality, explaining such things to them won’t be that difficult if the right approach is chosen. In this matter, instead of complex conversations about politics, philosophy, and economics, it is worth appealing to a simple sense of justice and examples from everyday life.
 
For example, let’s imagine two children. One built a tower out of blocks, and the second came over and knocked it down. Almost any child will immediately agree that doing so is wrong, because the tower belonged to the one who built it, and the other destroyed it without permission. It would also not hurt to ask the child how they would feel if someone destroyed their construction. This is exactly how one can easily explain the importance of private property.
 
Now let’s imagine another situation. One child baked cookies with their mother and offers to exchange them with friends for stickers. One gives two stickers, another three, and a third doesn’t want to trade at all. Everything happens voluntarily; there is no coercion. Most children will also see nothing wrong here.
 
In essence, this is the basis of the ideas of voluntarism and libertarianism: do not harm others and interact only by voluntary consent. This alone is enough to convey to a child which actions are permissible and which are not.
 
And as for forced redistribution? Ask the child to imagine that a teacher, without permission, took candies from all the children and began deciding for themselves who would get how many candies. Most children in this situation would feel an injustice. Of course, someone might try to say that such redistribution is done with good intentions. But the child’s initial feeling is based on the very simple idea that you cannot take other people’s things without the owner’s consent.
 
Or let’s consider an example of coercion to perform some activity. One child wants to play football, and another wants to draw. If no one forces anyone, each can do what they like. But if one person starts to forcibly compel the others to do what they want, it will inevitably lead to conflict. It would be much better to agree, split into groups, or find a compromise. After all, voluntary cooperation is a more peaceful and pleasant way of interaction than coercion.
 
Of course, children are not familiar with complex concepts such as “property,” “contract,” or “voluntary exchange.” But they will perfectly understand the essence of the following questions: “Is this yours?”, “Did you give permission?”, “Do you both agree?”. Such simple questions will help make sense of many situations much better than long lectures and books.
 
Of course, adult life is much more complex. In it, cases arise where it is necessary to resort to self-defense and the protection of the weak, to fulfill complex obligations to others, to solve the problem of people who violate the previously mentioned principles of coexistence, and many other difficult situations. However, the foundation in the form of respect for other people’s boundaries, the impermissibility of initiating violence, and the search for voluntary ways to resolve conflicts should be understood from an early age.
 
Perhaps it will be even easier for children to understand the ideas of freedom than for adults. After all, adults are already used to perceiving many forms of coercion as something taken for granted and necessary for the functioning of society. Whereas children evaluate a situation without relying on attitudes that have not yet had time to be hammered into their heads by decades of propaganda. When it comes to taking someone else’s property or forcing someone to perform some activity against their will, they will certainly ask whether this is fair.
 
All explanations boil down to a very simple thought: every person must respect other people’s boundaries just as they want their own to be respected, and has no right to harm anyone, as they themselves would not want to become a victim of robbery and violence. And the best way to tell this to a child is to provide appropriate examples from everyday life, since it is still too early to read them complex lectures on politics, philosophy, and economics.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

It is not smartphones and tablets that maim children, but adults

Now in the news, you can see yet another official or important “uncle” in a white coat, with a tragic face, preaching about a lost generation, bad smartphones that turn children into depressed zombies, and the need to ban them. This, of course, is nothing new. In the 1950s, politicians accused comic books of increasing juvenile delinquency with equal fervor. In the 80s, the game “Dungeons & Dragons” supposedly turned children into satanists. In the 90s, video games were to blame for everything. And now, the era of the holy war against smartphones has arrived.

But as it turns out, such panic has no basis. Recently, psychologist Christopher Ferguson conducted a monumental study. He analyzed data from more than 80,000 young people. The goal was simple: to find out how the age at which a child received their first smartphone or tablet affects their psyche in adulthood. It turned out that this parameter does not correlate at all with depression, anxiety, or other mental problems in their 20s or 30s.

An alarmed public might point to the emergence of smartphones as the most obvious reason for how widespread mental health problems are among the younger generation today. However, the study did not confirm this. It found that the single greatest predictor of a broken psyche is what scientists call ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences). To put it simply, the problem is not that a child watches Peppa Pig on YouTube, but what happens around them when the screen goes dark.

If psychological or, even worse, physical abuse is practiced in the family, if parents scream at each other like victims in a tragedy, if no one cares about the child emotionally—that is when the psyche begins to crack. And it doesn’t matter if that child was on TikTok or gathering pinecones in the forest. Trauma is trauma, and the gadget, being merely a tool, has nothing to do with it. But why then do we hear so much hysteria specifically regarding screens? Who benefits from this panic?

Firstly, it is needed by politicians and bureaucrats. Solving real, difficult social problems is slow, expensive, and does not bring quick political points. You cannot simply pass a law forbidding parents from being jerks, because the state is fundamentally unable to enter every single family and “fix” love and mutual respect there. On the other hand, the state loves to simulate frantic activity! Ban gadgets in schools. Fine the Meta or Apple corporations for “harmful algorithms.” Introduce internet censorship under the slogan “Think of the children!”. As a result, the bureaucratic apparatus swells, budgets are siphoned off, and politicians earn a reputation as saviors of the nation. Meanwhile, children in truly toxic families continue to suffer just as they did before.

Secondly, it is incredibly convenient for some parents. Admitting that your child became anxious because of your outbursts at them, that you completely failed as a parent—that is painful. It is much easier and more pleasant to say: “It’s all because of that damned phone and the Chinese algorithms!”. An artificial enemy is found, and the conscience is cleared.

No one is arguing that balance is needed in everything. Of course, it is beneficial for children to breathe fresh air, play ball, experiment, and read paper books. Endless screen time, where eyes become square, cannot be defended. But one must also not fall for this cheap trick. The panic surrounding smartphones is a smokescreen that shifts the focus of public attention away from the only thing that truly matters: individual responsibility. The responsibility of adults for the atmosphere they create in their home.

Neither Mark Zuckerberg nor Steve Jobs can inflict a trauma on a child as great as their own parents can. Children need to be loved, spoken to, respected as free individuals, and provided with a safe haven at home. And then no tablet or smartphone will harm them!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Machiavelli in Diapers: How Overprotection Creates Bureaucrats

Have you ever wondered where all these officials come from, the ones who couldn’t care less about our rights and freedoms? Where is the factory that produces dictators, fans of “state regulation,” and those who love sticking their hands in other people’s pockets? Of course, they don’t teleport into leather chairs from other galaxies; they grow up in ordinary children’s rooms where parents, without even realizing it, install the wrong program in their heads.

Of course, all parents can make mistakes in upbringing. But a recent study published in Current Psychology provides a stunning hint as to what exactly should not be done. Psychologists analyzed the “dark triad” (psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism) and found exactly how our parenting style influences whether a child grows up to be a supporter of freedom or becomes a small domestic (and later, state) tyrant. So, let’s take a closer look at what they discovered.

Many think that villains only grow up where they are beaten and humiliated. This is partially true, but it doesn’t always happen only that way. The study showed that one of the main triggers for the development of psychopathic impulsivity and narcissism is excessive indulgence. Imagine the scene: a child falls to the floor in a store, demanding their one hundred and fifth toy, and the parent obediently pulls out their wallet. There are no boundaries and no refusals; all desires are satisfied at the snap of a finger.

Does this remind you of anything? It is the ideal model of a welfare state. When we raise a child with the mindset that “everyone owes you simply by virtue of your existence,” we break the basic principle of cause and effect. Growing up, such a person sincerely does not understand why they cannot take what belongs to others (through taxes, lobbying, or direct violence). They have no brakes, because they are used to resources coming from a bedside table and that restrictions exist only for losers.

Another nail in the coffin of a healthy personality is the restriction of autonomy. These are the “helicopter parents” who decide who the child should be friends with, how to tie their laces, and what to think. When you deprive a person of the right to make mistakes and violate their personal boundaries (even with the best intentions), you foster hostility and dependence on authority. From infancy, the child learns: my choice doesn’t matter; the one who is stronger controls everything. First, it’s an overprotective mother, and later—Big Brother. People grow up who are panicky about freedom and beg a stationary thug to introduce new laws and regulations, not understanding how to deal with problems any other way.

But how do you raise a free person? The study gives a clear answer: the secret lies in adequate praise and the recognition of the child’s intrinsic value. First and foremost, independence should be encouraged, and praise should be given for effort, not for status. One should say, “You did great solving this difficult problem yourself,” rather than “You are the best, beat them all at the Olympiad at any cost!”.

It is also necessary to teach a child the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) while they are still in the sandbox. The motivation “don’t hit Petya, or I will punish you” is authoritarian morality. Whereas the motivation “we don’t hit Petya and we don’t take his shovel because it is his shovel, and you wouldn’t want yours to be taken” is libertarian ethics.

And finally, do not be afraid of frustration: the word “no” does not traumatize a child forever. It may be unpleasant for them, but it teaches them to respect reality, other people’s property, and other people’s boundaries.

Think about this: libertarianism doesn’t start with reading the works of Mises or Rothbard, but with our attitude toward children. And the state becomes merely a reflection of the people who compose it. If we raise children in an atmosphere of respect for the individual, without overprotection, but with a clear understanding of personal responsibility and others’ boundaries, we will simply cut off the oxygen to authoritarianism. After all, where will the thief-officials and manipulator-politicians come from if self-sufficient, empathetic people grow up in society, valuing their own autonomy and not demanding that someone else pay for their whims?!

Voluntarist, Bitarch