Автор: Битарх

Overloading the stationary bandit

Bitarch, Voluntarist

Sometimes, as an argument regarding the impossibility of implementing any serious attempts to achieve a free society while violent state power still exists, the fact is cited that the state’s enforcement agents (i.e., the stationary bandit) will simply stop all related activities. For this reason, in particular, it is impossible to practice agorism—all agorists will be caught and imprisoned as economic criminals evading taxes and engaging in “illegal” entrepreneurship. And without the practice of agorism, it is impossible to build social institutions alternative to the state, that is, to create the initial infrastructure of a free society. This will also prevent the balancing of the Balance of Violence Potential—law enforcement will simply imprison those who produce and distribute self-defense weapons at the very beginning of the process. And without the BVP, there can be no talk of opposing the stationary bandit. However, there is a solution to this problem: it is necessary to make it so that the state cannot apply force, and one way to achieve this is to organize an overload of its enforcement structures, analogous to a DDoS attack on online services.

To begin with, it is still necessary to address the issue of self-defense weapons. Naturally, their production and distribution will require financial resources, even if the cheapest and most accessible options of such weapons are used. These can be collected through crowdfunding; it is also possible that anonymous patrons, beyond the reach of the state’s enforcement structures, will appear. With sufficient funds, the production and distribution of weaponry will not be a problem. Look, for example, at the situation with the production and distribution of drugs. Despite persecution by the authorities, they are produced quite successfully, albeit underground, and there are always people willing to make “dead drops” for them—many people are not afraid of punishment from the stationary bandit. This example shows us that engaging in the underground production of self-defense weapons and finding people willing to distribute them is entirely realistic.

Next, the self-defense weapons fall into the hands of the people. Of course, it will not be possible to provide them to the entire population immediately; however, even a small percentage of people will be enough, especially if they are chosen carefully. The best candidates are those most likely to become victims of persecution and violence by other people, or those who already are.
What will this lead to? To a sharp increase in injured and deceased persecutors and rapists. The police will be overwhelmed with cases of this kind. Furthermore, the representatives of the enforcement structures themselves may become victims if they attempt to use force against people, as there is a significant probability they will encounter an owner of a self-defense weapon. And let us not forget the protests and rallies that occur from time to time, where law enforcement will also suffer if they decide to attack an armed crowd.

All of this will simply overload the enforcement structures of the stationary bandit. They will lose the ability to effectively perform their duties. Due to the workload, they will be far from worrying about economic criminals—agorists will be able to quietly conduct their activities and expand the agoristic infrastructure. Even an attempt to introduce total control over citizens will not help—this will only hit the economic position of the authorities and diminish their enforcement capabilities.

Of course, some will say that people themselves will suffer from this, as there will be no one left to protect them, including from a judicial point of view, since the state courts, again, will be overloaded. But this is already a question of agoristic activity, during which self-defense measures and independent conflict resolution institutions can be organized. By the way, in the event of the state’s inefficiency due to the overload of its structures, many people in search of protection will decide to join these alternative solutions themselves, which will only expand agoristic activity and infrastructure.

Morality and Weapons

Voluntarist

I recently read the chapter “Morality and Weaponry” from one of the works of ethologist Konrad Lorenz. He made some quite interesting observations about how various animal species behave in intra-species clashes. From these, important conclusions about violence can be drawn, which will be relevant to other materials I publish on my channel. Bitarch has posted the full text of the chapter; you can read it by following this link. For now, I will briefly describe its essence to you.

Usually, the violent tendencies of animals are judged based on inter-species relationships. Analogies are often drawn between how a predator, such as a fox, catches and kills a hare, and how one human kills another. Although this comparison is completely disproportionate, it is far more accurate to compare a predator’s hunt for other animals with a human’s hunt for animals. However, if one looks at how animals behave in intra-species clashes, a fairly high level of restraint in their behavior can be noticed.

Of course, if we take poorly armed species, such restraint is not as strongly expressed. Once, Lorenz left two collared doves (a variety of pigeons) in one cage and left until the next day. He did not expect anything bad from this decision; even though these individuals did not get along, it was unlikely that particular ferocity could be expected from pigeons. However, upon returning, he found one of the individuals finishing off the other. The problem was simply that the second individual had nowhere to run. Previously, Lorenz had observed a clash between hares and logically assumed that it could end the same way if it took place in a cage rather than in an open meadow. Poorly armed species are often quite ferocious in their manifestation of violence, but this usually does not lead to bad consequences, as they cannot quickly and effectively inflict damage on their fellow species, and the latter, in turn, always have the opportunity to escape. But if they are so ferocious, what can be expected from more armed species? One might assume even more terrible and bloody clashes, but that was not the case.

Observations of wolves and dogs showed that during clashes they do not inflict fatal injuries on one another. When one side loses, instead of continuing to defend itself with all its might, it does the opposite—it exposes vulnerable areas, such as the neck, a single bite to which would be enough to kill it. However, the other side cannot do this; they are stopped by certain internal inhibitors. Similarly, birds capable of inflicting severe damage with their beaks do not use their full potential in clashes. There is a proverb that a crow will not peck out another crow’s eye, and this proverb is absolutely true. Even when crows fight, for example over food, it never occurs to them to eliminate their opponent in the most effective way, which would most likely lead to their subsequent death—by pecking out an eye with one precise strike. Furthermore, birds are very careful when cleaning the feathers of their fellow species, especially near areas such as the eyes; they do not use their beaks with the same force as they do when feeding. Why such inhibitors developed is, of course, because otherwise, representatives of these species would have torn each other’s throats out, pecked out eyes, and all gone extinct together.

In this regard, humans are closer to doves and hares than to wolves and crows. By nature, humans are poorly armed. But over time, they became the most armed creatures in the world. This happened quite quickly; there was no time to develop natural inhibitors. And, considering that the survival of the species is impossible if its representatives destroy their own kind, an important question arises, which Lorenz formulated in these words:

The day will come when two warring camps find themselves face to face, before the danger of mutual destruction. A day may come when all of humanity is split into two such camps. How will we behave in this case—like doves or like wolves? The fate of humanity will depend on how people answer this question. We must be vigilant!

Eradicating aggressive violence does not require forceful coercion

Bitarch, Voluntarist

In conversations about how to achieve a state of non-violent coexistence, an argument is often put forward that without the forceful implementation of the principles of non-violence, nothing will work anyway, as there will remain people who will not accept non-violence voluntarily. Sometimes the completely mistaken opinion may arise that proponents of non-violence allegedly want to eradicate violence precisely through force—that is, violence on their own part—thereby presenting themselves as contradictory aggressors infringing upon the freedom of the people around them. Of course, this does not correspond to reality. But how, then, can a state of non-violence be achieved without forceful implementation? To address this, it is necessary to consider two approaches.

The first approach consists of leveling the Balance of Violence Potential, and it in itself presupposes the impossibility of forceful coercion (for example, in the form of a state), since absolutely every subject can repel an attack and inflict unacceptable damage on the aggressor. Aggressive violence as a phenomenon itself can be eradicated by two methods. When using a softer method, it is sufficient for the victim of an attack to be able to provide the aggressor with unpleasant and painful sensations using non-lethal means of self-defense, thereby reducing their desire to exhibit violent behavior in the future (such an approach is seen as most effective if a soft BVP is implemented from childhood). This should be quite enough to prevent the formation and reproduction of hierarchies of dominance (let’s be honest—one variation of such a hierarchy in human society is the stationary bandit). A harsher method involves self-defense using lethal means, and thus the liquidation of everyone capable of committing an act of attack, which would fix non-violent behavior in people through evolutionary means.

Another approach involves the use of biotechnological methods to develop and apply gene therapy to reproduce the result of natural selection found in armed species (hedgehogs, porcupines, some venomous snakes and insects, which are incapable of initiating intraspecific violence) without the direct removal of aggressors from the population, but by introducing the necessary gene variants into their DNA via a viral vector that causes a human to feel aversion to initiating violence. It can be promoted in the same way as any other vaccine against dangerous diseases (and violence is certainly much more dangerous than them).

But how can it be ensured that such gene therapy is accepted by everyone without forceful implementation? Even if many can be convinced to accept it voluntarily, there will still be those who do not wish to do so. However, there is a solution to this problem as well.

Firstly, people who have decided to accept the gene therapy can use non-violent methods of pressure (such as ostracism or financial sanctions) on those who have not yet done so and exhibit violent tendencies. For example, a married couple decided not to be vaccinated themselves and not to vaccinate their children, while they have many recorded instances of aggressive behavior. In a society where support for the idea of non-violence is widespread, it will be very difficult for them to find a school for their children, as under such conditions few would want to risk accepting potential bullies who torment other students. Or, for example, a person may be denied banking services because there is a risk that, having a pathological tendency toward aggressive violence, they may begin to finance terrorist or any other violent activity, which would affect the reputation of the bank itself and possibly lead to casualties among its staff and executives.

Secondly, darts containing gene therapy can be used as a means of self-defense. An attack on a person armed with such darts would mean successful vaccination for the aggressor and liberation from violent tendencies. Even if a person uses hired agents for the attack, they can be vaccinated, and without them, the person will no longer pose any threat.

As a result, we see that a state of non-violence can be achieved through various non-forceful methods, in full accordance with the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP). This is not an idea that requires implementation from above or has no chance of being achieved in reality. And considering the benefits gained from eradicating violent tendencies in society, it would be reasonable to support the implementation of one of the previously listed approaches (or even all of them at once).

A decrease in the planet’s population is bad?!

Bitarch, Voluntarist

In the modern world, we are surrounded by a vast number of goods, many of which are the result of high-tech production. These goods allow us to have a quality of life that no one had before, not even kings and the super-rich. We can afford to consume more food than our ancestors, fall ill less often, and live longer thanks to achievements in medicine, travel quickly and efficiently across the world, and conduct business remotely with other people. In the long run, the development of technology is the only thing that can ensure the survival of humanity.

However, the theoretical development of various technologies is useless in itself without the organization of the production of the corresponding goods. And the more complex this production is, the longer and more convoluted the associated production chains become. Moreover, even the theoretical development of more complex technological processes is often impossible without the practical implementation of previous, simpler developments. This makes production chains even longer and more complicated.

Take a very ordinary smartphone, which is likely next to you right now, a computer, or a television. To produce them, the work of millions of people is required: those who extract all the necessary chemical elements, process them, transport them, keep records, engage in theoretical development, design and manage production processes, operate and maintain the technical means of production (which, in turn, must undergo all these processes to be produced), assemble individual parts of final goods, assemble the goods themselves from parts, and engage in hundreds, thousands, and millions of other accompanying processes. This is the situation with absolutely any high-tech good. And considering that there are also hundreds, thousands, and millions of such goods, I think it should now be obvious that maintaining high-tech production at the current level requires billions of people, which is precisely what we currently have on the planet.

Several conclusions must be drawn from this. First, there is a concept that population growth only leads to various problems, and therefore it would be better if it decreased to a certain number that could supposedly be provided with an abundance of all necessary goods, while also reducing the ecological and resource burden. However, this is a rather absurd concept. Regulating the population, and even more so reducing it, would force the reduction and simplification of production chains. Fewer goods would have to be produced, and they would be of lower quality. Furthermore, further expansion of production chains would become impossible; that is, it would be impossible to organize more high-tech and complex production. Society would begin to stagnate, limited resources would be consumed without any result, and in such a case, we would guaranteed become hostages of this planet, since the production of spacecraft is one of the most complex productions possible. The death of all humanity under such conditions would only be a matter of time, and most likely, not in the very distant future.

The problems usually appealed to when defending the position of population regulation are solved precisely by the development of technology. Technology allows for more efficient use of limited resources while producing more goods; it also opens paths to more ecological production without reducing its volume. These problems are only not solved when scientific and technical progress is slowed down artificially, for example, by the inadequate and violent policies of corrupt governments that simply destroy the favorable environment for the emergence and development of new initiatives.

Secondly, one must not underestimate the threats that could lead to population decline. This especially concerns threats arising from such a phenomenon as violence. As a result of scientific and technical progress, the appearance of effective means of destruction is inevitable. Moreover, they are becoming increasingly accessible, which means that the violent potential of individual actors grows every day. It is only a matter of time before anyone can synthesize, for example, a very dangerous and contagious virus at home (some employee might even now intentionally take one out of a laboratory or incorrectly dispose of infected laboratory animals). Or, ultra-high-capacity energy carriers will become common (for example, even now, piercing your smartphone battery can cause severe chemical burns; now imagine that in the future there will be devices a thousand times more functional than modern smartphones with batteries a thousand times more capacitive, and that someone could acquire them in large quantities for violent purposes). Even current dangerous means in the hands of certain organizations and governments, such as virus samples or nuclear weapons, also carry serious threats, as nothing excludes the possibility of their use by current owners or their leak into the hands of maniacs and terrorists.

We can observe now what the coronavirus epidemic led to. Even such a relatively low level of contagiousness and mortality was enough to cause global turmoil and bring the economy of the entire world to a crisis. Now imagine that a more dangerous virus is released, or nuclear weapons are used, or something else happens that leads, for example, not to the death of all humanity, but to the death of 10-20% of the planet’s population. It would seem that this should not be critical, as the vast majority of people would still survive. However, let us remember the length, complexity, and convoluted nature of production chains. The disappearance of such a number of people would lead to a severe disruption of their operation; the extraction, processing, and supply of many resources might cease entirely. It is quite likely that such a loss in the modern world would lead to an unprecedented crisis, and a mass shortage of basic goods for survival might even begin, because producing large quantities of food for a large number of people (especially the urban population, who do not have their own agricultural plots) requires, again, long production chains.

In addition, niche organizations and specialists could suffer. For example, what would happen if the main companies producing central processing units for computing equipment, and some of their specialists, did not survive the disaster? Many technological processes would simply be lost, and when the last batches of these companies’ products wore out, we would face a reversal from digital to analog technology—a return to the technological level of the mid-20th century. And one should not think that all processes can be quickly restored. Of course, it is quite easy to restore the production of analog equipment—a radio, a mechanical typewriter, a film camera, a vinyl record player, a tape recorder, and even a primitive black-and-white CRT television can be assembled even in a garage using fairly simple tools and components. But a central processor, without which most microelectronics is just a useless pile of junk, cannot be. It cannot even be reproduced by the efforts of a small number of companies; it requires too vast production chains. And this applies not only to the central processor but to many other technologies that we use in everyday life or benefit from in other ways, including medicines and fertilizers for high-yield agriculture, without which maintaining the planet’s population at the current level would become simply impossible.

The loss of high-tech production processes would only exacerbate the problem of producing and supplying basic goods for survival. It is practically impossible to imagine how, without modern information technologies, one could ensure the supply of food for more than 4 billion of the planet’s urban population, as well as the production and supply of goods necessary to maintain the production of this food. One could even expect mass deaths of people and the decline of modern civilization.

Therefore, the fight against such a phenomenon as violence is critically important to prevent a catastrophe capable of taking a part of the planet’s population, which would trigger a terrifying crisis that could well lead to the fall of modern civilization. Under no circumstances should the threat of violence be underestimated!

OMP is ineffective? Debunking the myth of Boris Boyarshinov and his supporters.

Column Bitarkh

It turns out there is a fairly large “sect” of supporters of Boris Boyarshinov, who denies the danger of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). He constantly repeats a “mantra” of sorts about the uselessness of nuclear weapons (NW). His background is in physics, so most of his arguments concern NW specifically, but he sometimes says something similar about viruses (I remember Mikhail Svetov asked Boyarshinov directly about the idea of viral WMD, and Boris answered in roughly the same spirit as he did about NW).

The main point of his theory is that none of the currently existing WMDs are capable of destroying humanity or even a specific geographical region. He claims that the scale of destruction from a nuclear explosion grows as the cube root of the charge’s power (i.e., as the number of “megatons” in a bomb increases, the destruction increases very, very slowly), that nuclear winter is a calculation error and will not happen in reality, and that viruses can be contained by a vaccine and are inconvenient to store in a ready-to-use state.

Now, Boyarshinov and his supporters do not understand the very essence of deterrence theory and confuse doomsday weapons (DDW) with weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The latter are sometimes called strategic deterrence weapons.

DDW, in the literal sense, is a device capable of completely destroying all of humanity or making the planet uninhabitable.

WMD is a deterrence weapon that operates on a game-theory model of costs and benefits. None of the supporters of nuclear/viral deterrence ever claim that WMD must kill all of humanity in the literal sense, as is understood in the case of DDW. Even at the peak of the Cold War, when the USSR and USA had tens of thousands of thermonuclear charges, experts spoke of inflicting “unacceptable damage,” but never the total destruction of the planet. The concept of M.A.D. (“Mutual Assured Destruction”) is deceptive in its name—it is not total mutual annihilation, as many think, but merely the infliction of unacceptable damage.

Nevertheless, for deterring an aggressor in the form of a state, WMD is entirely sufficient. The example of North Korea’s Kim demonstrates this perfectly; even the most powerful state in the world—the USA—is afraid to attack him. There is no need to even discuss the destructive power of North Korean missiles—as experts say, in the best case, only 1-2 missiles with a simple nuclear warhead would arrive, which would blow up a few blocks of dense housing in a city like New York. There are opposite examples—Gaddafi and Hussein had no WMD, and we all know perfectly well what happened to them.

From animal ethology, we know how the dominance hierarchy is structured in animal species that form them (the very fact that such a hierarchy forms is an evolutionary error [local extremum] arising from a disruption in the uniform balance of violence potential [in animals, this is a lack of innate weaponry]). In such a hierarchy, the dominant (“alpha”) can apply violence to submissive individuals (“omegas”), and the latter are in no way capable of inflicting retaliatory damage. If they are capable, a dominance hierarchy does not arise.

Generally speaking, all states, in relation to both their own citizens and other, weaker states, are capable of applying violence without the risk of receiving retaliatory damage. In making the decision to attack Hussein, the US government considered the risks of a retaliatory strike and, understanding that the most Saddam Hussein was capable of was killing some soldiers sent there voluntarily and ready for the risk, easily decided on aggression.

The situation with North Korea’s Kim is completely different—taking even a weak bomb to New York is unacceptable damage; voters would not understand this, and the US political system would risk spiraling out of control, which the authorities cannot allow.

Now let’s consider the confrontation between a stationary bandit and an individual. As you think—you can even apply this to yourself personally—would society agree to sit in quarantine for 2 weeks to allow the state to apply violence even to the person most unpleasant to you, such as a pedophile maniac? Want to execute one maniac—welcome to a two-week quarantine! I highly doubt you would agree to that.

A state can coerce through violence only when there is no even minimal retaliatory strike using WMD, otherwise “voters will not understand.” Thus, for deterring a modern state, nuclear weapons or Level 4 danger viruses are even excessive. A weak flu virus is enough, which can literally be multiplied “in a garage” using simple, easily accessible materials such as chicken eggs and an incubator, and the virus sample for multiplication can be easily obtained from any hospital. The main thing is the inevitability of a retaliatory strike using such WMD in the event of “impaling” [brutal repression], which can be implemented as a “dead hand system” or an “assassination market.” After a couple of such episodes, the country will quickly return to a state of separate pre-state societies, where the most that could be done to a criminal was ostracism. On this point, the philosopher Steven Pinker said it well: “Revenge is a risky business because if the enemy is dangerous enough to have harmed you, he is unlikely to accept punishment without resistance.” In matters of coercion to obey the orders (“laws”) of a stationary bandit, it is the same (we talked about this in the video “The Non-violent State”). The possession of even the simplest WMD by a potential victim of the state makes the initiation of violence “political suicide” for the authorities. It will come to the point where society, tired of continuous quarantines and overcrowded hospitals, will pressure the state using its own forces to root out aggressive violence (it may be hard to believe now, but life will force it).

Violence and Non-violence: The Revival of Statehood

Voluntarist

Certain forms of violence are often legitimized as a tool necessary for maintaining public order. This is especially true regarding the pursuit of people who have previously committed acts of violence or have simply violated certain agreements through non-violent means, and the forced application of power measures for restitution and punishment. In the first article of this cycle, we already examined how the issue of restitution and the punishment of criminals can be resolved without resorting to force. However, some people, including supporters of a free stateless society, may still consider violence to be a necessary or, at least, permissible tool in certain situations. One of the arguments that can be countered with is that the use of power measures leads to the rebirth of a violent hierarchy of dominance in the form of a state with uncontested and monopolistic power. This is another negative externality of violence.

To implement power measures against people, there must exist bodies or entities that have the ability to apply violence to them without hindrance (or with minimal obstacles). In effect, someone must have the right and the ability to violate the Balance of Violence Potential (BVP) — an important component of a free society, without which its stable and long-term existence is fundamentally impossible.

Insufficient equalization of the BVP in a free society may be caused by the fact that the majority of society’s members do not wish to defend themselves against acts of violence; that is, they are fundamentally unconcerned with the issue of security, are willing to tolerate aggressors, and voluntarily submit to them. In such a case, there is little to be done other than distributing means of self-defense and popularizing the idea of the need to protect oneself. However, if a free society is achieved based on the current state of affairs, such a scenario is unlikely, as equalizing the BVP by these methods is one of the key components of this process. And by achieving a free society through the equalization of the BVP, we will create conditions under which the existence of bodies with the right to the unhindered use of force should not be possible in principle.

However, it is possible to assume that a state of insufficient BVP equalization has nonetheless occurred. For example, we have eliminated violent monopolistic power, but decided not to get rid of the use of power measures, but instead to transfer this function to various independent agents, providing them with certain advantages over everyone else, which would allow them to engage in such activities without hindrance. In this case, I have only one question: what would stop such agents from one moment deciding to stop fulfilling their obligations under agreements and begin applying violence to pursue their own goals, including the establishment of their own coercive and monopolistic power over people and entities who lack the ability to defend themselves?

Obviously, nothing would stop them. Thus, violent and monopolistic political power will be created anew. This is precisely why supporters of a free society cannot be consistent in their views if they adhere to the legitimization and permissibility of certain forms of violence for various purposes, including the pursuit of forceful punishment and the extraction of compensation, since this, again, would require the existence of bodies or entities with a greater potential for violence than everyone else, and thus capable of establishing their own power at any moment.

The Limits of Violence

Bitarch, Voluntarist

Supporters of etatism and the use of force generally divide violence into illegitimate violence—that is, “bad” violence, which must be fought against—and supposedly “legitimate” violence, which is considered beneficial and may be, or even must be, applied. Violence may be declared legitimate for the sake of achieving certain goals which, according to etatists, are worth treating people as nothing more than a soulless resource in the hands of a “wise” government. Violence may be declared legitimate for the sake of revenge and the forceful punishment of those who committed an act of violence in the past, or even those who simply violated some agreement through non-violent means; this is supposedly a necessary measure in the fight against crime, and generally allows for a kind of “social revenge,” letting people blow off steam on those who have done something wrong.

Of course, based on different ethical models and views on social organization, one can attempt to legitimize any form of violence. They can even be legitimized based on certain practical considerations, but only in a very limited sense, by avoiding a full consideration of the final results. However, if one stops engaging in purely subjective theorizing and fully examines the results of violent practices, it becomes evident that violence only leads to catastrophe, regardless of whether it is called legitimate or not.

To understand what the issue is, let us imagine a situation. A specific person has been accused of committing some crime; the court has found them guilty and ordered them to pay compensation or submit to other measures (for example, go to prison). However, they refuse to do so. Of course, a number of non-forceful methods of pressure can be used, especially various reputational and financial tools. But this does not satisfy you, and you want to achieve your goal by force? Then let us see how far you are willing to go, especially considering that we live in a modern high-tech world in which the destructive potential of a single individual grows every day.

1) Using one or another weapon of self-defense, the convicted person destroys the agents who came to their home and are forcing them to comply through threats of violence.

2) Using explosives previously planted in an apartment building or a crowded place, the convicted person demands to be left alone; otherwise, they will have no choice but to detonate them (or fail to prevent a detonation via a pre-set timer, if they have already been caught and are not being released), thereby killing many people.

3) Using a previously planted container with a non-dangerous virus (for example, flu or coronavirus), the convicted person follows the same scheme to infect several people in the city, thereby forcing the authorities to impose a strict two-week quarantine throughout the city (assume that you personally would be forbidden from leaving your home during this quarantine).

4) Using a previously planted “dirty bomb,” they turn a large city into a second Pripyat; the population is completely evacuated, and many die from cancer. All real estate and some of the movable property of the city’s residents are lost forever (becoming unusable due to radioactive contamination).

5) Using a previously planted container with a very dangerous virus obtained or synthesized earlier (which, with technical progress, will also cease to be a major problem), the convicted person launches a pandemic that leads to a large-scale quarantine across the entire country for a long period, a high number of victims, and the collapse of the economy.

6) Using thermonuclear missiles (the convicted person being wealthy enough to produce them) or ultra-high-capacity energy sources (which, like virus synthesizers, could become quite accessible, even common everyday tools), they turn the entire planet into a scorched desert barely fit for life and destroy civilization in the form it currently exists. A small portion of survivors reverts to the Stone Age.

I think the maximum risk you would be willing to take is what is described in the first point; otherwise, the consequences would be catastrophic. And in the event that the Balance of Violence Potential is achieved (meaning universal armament), this option will inevitably end with the liquidation of enforcement agents, which will make forced coercion fundamentally impossible!

Do you support punishments for victimless “crimes”? Then be consistent!

Column Bitarch

Supporters of state intervention in social life to prohibit certain actions (the sale and use of drugs, speeding, overtaking on a solid line, organizing certain types of businesses like gambling) justify the existence of “victimless crime” laws by the reduction of the risk of significant harm. Their logic is roughly as follows: when you drive at 200 km/h, you are not killing anyone, of course, but you increase the probability of fatal consequences. It is similar with drug prohibitions—etatists believe that prohibitions are necessary to reduce the likelihood of children “getting hooked on the needle,” as they are less likely to try drugs (and harm their own health) if their sale is prohibited.

Unfortunately, etatists lack the intellect and knowledge to understand one simple thing—by threatening violence (which is what any “law”-command from a stationary bandit actually is), you will never reduce the number of deaths or health impairments. The threat of violence only creates a market incentive to create super-destructive deterrence weapons, including doomsday weapons, so that violence against you becomes unprofitable for the aggressor (in this case, the state). The example of North Korea’s Kim demonstrates this perfectly (he would not have created WMDs if the US authorities had not given him the corresponding incentive through the exemplary execution of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi).

Do you think a state ban on the sale of “weed” will save thousands of lives? It might save some, but the ratio of benefits to costs must be calculated. Let’s say the weed dealer is not just some random Joe, but someone well-versed in deterrence theory. He robs the Vector storage facility in Novosibirsk, and when the state tries to “put him on a stake,” he threatens to release the stolen viruses. Suppose that instead of recognizing the inadmissibility of violence in any form (as should be done), the authorities send special forces to put a bullet in his head. But he proved to be prudent, hiding the viruses disguised as drug “stashes” and creating an analogue of the “dead hand” system. After his death, these stashes were automatically put up for sale as ordinary drugs, someone bought them, opened them… and found natural smallpox inside. A few days later, a global pandemic began, resulting in the death of a third of the population. That was the “price” of saving drug addicts’ lives through the threat of state violence!

I suggest that etatists be consistent. Do you want the prohibition of victimless “crimes” through state violence? Fine, just prohibit not only drugs and gambling, but everything that increases the risk of causing harm. First and foremost, this is the creation of market incentives for obtaining WMDs as a means of deterrence. One could even add an article to the criminal code: “Incitement to the development and production of weapons of mass destruction.” I only fear that you personally will be the first defendants in a criminal case under it!

Do you really advocate for the killing of all attackers?

The idea of universal armament and unlimited self-defense is often criticized from the position that it will lead to an increase in the number of unjustified killings. In this matter, the following formulation is often used: “Do you really advocate for the ability to use a weapon against a person and thereby threaten their priceless life simply because they attacked you with their fists, started approaching with threats, or broke into your home? Most likely, the attacker only wishes to simply hit, beat, or rob you. But injuries can almost always be healed, and material values are not even close to being worth it.” Let us examine this issue in more detail.

People who allow themselves to engage in violent behavior, even if it is not lethal, are still aggressors. Violent tendencies are a part of their personality that they should realize as early as possible and make every effort to overcome. But if a person is satisfied with their violence, if they do not intend to do anything about it and refuse any offers of help, then they represent only a greater threat to other people, introducing multiple negative externalities into their lives.

Some might think that according to my logic, one should specifically seek out all people prone to aggressive violence to take preventive measures. However, this is not the case. It is impossible to know for certain if a person is truly a violent offender until they manifest their violence in practice. But even if a person has committed an act of violence previously but is not manifesting it now, they should not be attacked for any purpose (punishment, extorting compensation, forced coercion into psychotherapy). In the end, by attacking them, we ourselves become aggressors wishing to forcibly subject other people to our orders, which would also introduce negative externalities into our lives and the lives of everyone else.

However, if a person decides to attack you here and now, it is an unconditional fact that they are an aggressor and a violent offender threatening your life and the lives of other people. Furthermore, through their violence, they show that they are not averse to using force to impose their own orders, which is already a very dangerous tendency. To destroy them is to get rid of the threat arising from it. Imagine that through their acts of aggression, they can accumulate a potential for violence. Then they will gain power and turn everyone around them into their own slaves. Can you really consider the life of a person valuable who does not consider life valuable themselves and, at the first opportunity, will organize slavery or even genocide for the people around them?

I personally cannot. Of course, I will not attack such a person myself, because by doing so, I would be no better than they are. But if they attack me, I will rid myself of them, thereby making my life and the lives of other people safer. And if all aggressors are destroyed during their attacks, then non-violence in people will be reinforced purely evolutionarily, since only people who do not manifest or who control aggression will be able to continue their lineage both biologically—since aggressive tendencies can be genetically determined—and in terms of upbringing, as good parents have far greater chances of raising good children than aggressor parents.

Voluntarist