I often hear objections against agorism, crypto-anarchism, Bitcoin, darknet platforms, TOR, VPNs, and everything else that allows for fighting the stationary bandit (“the state”) using non-violent methods online. Critics argue that it is easy for the state to ban and block all of this.
Indeed, purely theoretically, the state is capable of blocking all this with a flick of a finger, but as always, the ratio of benefit to cost comes into play. Currently, network connectivity is so high that blocking a single IP address, protocol, or even a specific DPI signature will inevitably lead to collateral damage.
Roskomnadzor (RKN) tried to block Telegram, but eventually abandoned the idea because as a result of the blocking attempts, completely different services stopped working: online stores, payment processing for MasterCard, courier services, and even the Odnoklassniki website. Banning VPNs won’t work either—they are used by companies. Banning them for individuals while allowing them for companies sounds like complete madness—the appearance of 140 million legal entities in Russia would be a DDoS attack on the entire bureaucratic system. Could they create a powerful firewall with DPI “like in China”? Also not an option—all halfway decent VPN services provide tools to bypass it.
Some might mention whitelists, where all resources are blocked except those permitted. That won’t work either—a great deal of imported industrial and medical equipment requires network access to connect to the manufacturer’s servers. Talking about “import substitution” for equipment of this class is simply laughable. And let’s be honest, the authorities need to develop their own next “wonder-weapons,” and for that, they need access to many different “pirate” resources like Sci-Hub, where scientific articles from foreign publications are posted.
An objection also occasionally slips in that the state can simply intimidate crypto-anarchists with repression in real life. In reality, you can only intimidate some random guy playing a “pirated” version of Call of Duty. Ideological fighters against the stationary bandit, which is what most agorists and crypto-anarchists are, will quickly find ways to bypass surveillance and blocks. They will only become more resentful of the state and, instead of innocent internet mischief, will move toward developing tangible tools to deter the aggression of tyranny, such as drones, blinding lasers, and even weapons of mass destruction, since they have plenty of skills.
So it turns out that while blocking the activities of crypto-anarchists is theoretically possible, in practice it would result, for example, in the failure of tomographs and life-support systems in hospitals, along with the shutdown of many industrial enterprises and the collapse of the economy. Will the state take on such costs? I don’t think so!
First, I want to share with you a rather interesting piece of material regarding the topic of violence and private property titled “The Political Concept of Freedom“. The author argues that property rights always have a violent origin, as violence must be applied to maintain them.
Before providing my commentary, I will note in advance that we are considering both the private property rights of individuals and companies (supported by the right-libertarians) as well as collective property rights formed within voluntary associations (supported by the left-libertarians). However, we dismiss the situation in which property rights do not exist at all, because in such a state of affairs, it would be impossible to organize any effective redistribution of resources to solve various tasks, since then absolutely anyone could take any resource from anyone else at any moment regardless of the circumstances.
If the matter concerns the protection of immediate property, which you use frequently or are holding in your hands right now, there is no problem in maintaining it—you would have to be attacked with physical harm (or at least with a non-zero probability of such harm) for it to be taken. If violence as a phenomenon has not yet been eradicated from society, then you can quite reasonably use means of self-defense. By the way, they do not even have to be lethal; they could be pepper sprays, stun guns, ultra/infrasound. It will be sufficient to inflict only very unpleasant sensations on the aggressor, without long-term physical consequences, to force them to let go of your bag or leave the house. If violence has been eradicated, then simply no one will attack you.
1) A contract within a contractual jurisdiction (CJ), under which the CJ will make certain efforts to prevent the violation of your property rights. The most obvious option for real estate is a contract between the CJ and utility providers (electricity, gas, water) regarding their disconnection in case of squatting or non-payment of rent. 2) Physical fencing of property with a fence and an access control system: a barrier, a door with an electronic lock. 3) For situational protection, when the owner wants to prevent anyone from entering their territory (for example, angry workers who want to seize a factory), a guard at the entrance or a human chain. 4) For any items containing electronic components (from planes, yachts, and cars to household appliances, phones, and headphones), blocking use without entering an access code, retina scan, fingerprint, or RFID tag. 5) Network-based reputation systems (available globally via the internet), where violators of private property can be listed, which would lead to denial of service, boycott, or ostracism. 6) A system of options. This is already widespread in Silicon Valley IT companies. The hired employee is financially interested in the success of the enterprise; they will profit from the growth of the company’s capitalization and are not interested in stealing the employer’s property, as under the terms of the contract, these options will be forfeited in the event of illegal actions by the employee.
As we can see, the protection of property does not necessarily require violence, except perhaps in the case of the immediate seizure of property that you are using at that moment; however, this is already an aggressive attack on you, in which case self-defense is permissible. Property rights and violence are not necessarily one and the same.
The idea of seasteading—creating contractual jurisdictions on floating platforms or artificial islands in international waters—seems like a quite interesting solution to the problem of having to submit to monopolistic and violent stationary bandits in the form of states. And the colonization of celestial bodies beyond Earth is a necessity without which humanity cannot survive in the long term. However, these options cannot be relied upon as a real possibility to escape the stationary bandit as long as they still exist and are capable and willing to use violence.
Remember: if you can get somewhere, then the stationary bandit can get there too. This has already been demonstrated by the examples of the Republic of Minerva, Liberland, and a floating platform near the shores of Thailand. In all these cases, the attempt to escape the state ended in its invasion. Additionally, various remote weapons can be used against you, such as missile strikes. This is the easiest way for authorities to get rid of a remote, disobedient jurisdiction without exposing themselves to any risks.
One should also not forget another fact. Creating jurisdictions remote from the rest of the world entails enormous costs; such jurisdictions are difficult to develop and are unattractive to many people due to the unavailability or high cost of many goods.
In order to protect themselves from the encroachments of stationary bandits, people who decide to leave their jurisdiction need certain means of deterrence and self-defense. Free people must be armed; furthermore, they must have the ability to threaten any potential aggressors with unacceptable damage. In modern conditions, the most accessible means of deterrence of this type could be samples of dangerous viruses—by threatening to release them, one could force state leaders to leave you alone. But regardless of which means of deterrence and self-defense is chosen, it is easiest to apply if one does not try to run as far as possible from the stationary bandit; otherwise, they will, again, be able to destroy you with remote weaponry without any risks to themselves. Let us also not forget the ethical point—viruses are indiscriminate WMDs capable of affecting the entire population of the planet, including those not involved in the government’s aggressive actions. The use of such weapons completely contradicts libertarian ethics, and without such weapons of deterrence, the stationary bandit will sooner or later reach your CJ, even if it is located on Mars. Such is realpolitik.
In the end, we have the following: a remote jurisdiction can certainly be reached for the purpose of subjugation, it can be quite easily destroyed remotely, and life in it is unattractive to most people. Considering all this, the most profitable strategy is to strive for the achievement of a free society where you are right now, or, if you still like the idea of settling previously unoccupied lands, you should choose among the most accessible, comfortable, and economically advantageous territorial plots, rather than among islands in the ocean or space objects. To secure your intentions, you need to use various means of deterrence and self-defense—then no one will be able to continue imposing their violent power on you. The creation of remote jurisdictions, for example in the oceans or space, is a task that can be undertaken after the possibility of current stationary bandits applying violence has been eliminated, so as not to fear invasion or remote destruction on their part.
Comment by Alexander Tatarkov:
If you blackmail the state with a viral attack in case of aggression, then it is logical to organize your stateless territory precisely in the capitals!
For example, declare a specific micro-district to be free.
The logic is this: they definitely will not bomb their own capital. Meanwhile, in case of aggression against the free territory by the state, it is much easier to poison their reservoirs.
As for the idea of moving to the end of the world, as Svetov propagated—the story of the “Order of the Solar Temple” is a typical example. It would seem that they didn’t harm the state, moved to a remote wilderness that you can’t find on maps, didn’t even refuse to pay taxes, and made no demands…
For the state, the very fact of their existence was grounds for a punitive operation. They need no other reasons!
P.S. We are not calling for the use of a virus; this is an idea by Alexander Rozov, which at least looks realistic compared to the naive dreams of seasteaders, even if it is extremely inhumane. We always advocate for the option of eradicating aggressive violence as such, then there will be no problem of creating a CJ!
There is an argument that fighting a phenomenon such as violence will in no way help eliminate our current hierarchy of dominance and the monopoly on power. Firstly, many doubt that methods against violence can be applied to the leaders of the dominance hierarchy—they work in closed office buildings, travel in armored cars, and their homes are cordoned off by security, meaning there is no way to approach or reach them. Secondly, they may be people who are not themselves prone to committing acts of violence. Perhaps some of them are intellectuals, incapable of even hitting someone lightly, and they have no need for it anyway, since an entire army of pawns, already prone to violence, does all the dirty work for them. Sometimes the second argument is even considered alleged proof that the problem of the dominance hierarchy and monopoly power does not stem from violence.
To refute this argument, we must always remember exactly this army of pawns. Behind political leaders stand the security structures in which many agents work. And it is these agents who enter into direct contact with us; it is through them that all orders given from above are carried out. The cause of our problems and the goal of our activity is the elimination of their violent nature. Looking at it realistically, we cannot stop the leader of the dominance hierarchy, liquidate him during self-defense during a direct attack, or even in the future, with the development of technology, inject him with a gene therapy needle. But this may be completely unnecessary and even useless given that he himself may be a person not prone to committing acts of violence. However, we will always be able to apply all these measures to his servants, since they, again, enter into direct contact with us when applying aggressive violence against us.
As soon as all the pawns are stopped or liquidated in the process of self-defense against their attack, their leader will simply lose his power; he will no longer be able to realize any aspirations toward us. That is precisely why it is sufficient to work only with the violence of the pawns who enter into direct contact with us; without them, the leader of the dominance hierarchy is absolutely worthless!
Against the backdrop of recent blockings of conservative groups and resources by Western corporations, as well as in view of longer-standing claims against me regarding my calls to participate in the blocking of propagandist Vladimir Solovyov’s YouTube channel, I would like to express my, and in general the libertarian/voluntarist, position regarding freedom of speech.
As we know, the idea of voluntarism is to eradicate any manifestation of violence and coercive force in relationships between people, that is, to achieve a state of maximum freedom of activity, agreement, and association. It can be said immediately that the blocking of content of any kind by any platform is not a violent act, and therefore it is not something that a voluntarist can oppose. However, in the modern world, a situation has arisen where large social platforms are heavily dependent on states; they are in close cooperation with them (especially with police and intelligence services), and also frequently receive monopoly privileges and subsidies from them. Effectively, they operate to some extent using tax funds taken from people, and as long as this remains true, many believe they can be nothing other than public services to which freedom of speech should apply in an absolute (or nearly absolute, with minor caveats) degree. I also frequently encounter the opinion that even in a free society, pressure must be exerted on any large social platforms so that they also support full freedom of speech.
However, let us not forget that the main problem for us is violence. It must be fought. And in the course of this struggle, the dissemination and popularization of violent ideas must under no circumstances be allowed, as this will only provoke new acts of violence, which will lead to many negative externalities (about which I have spoken a lot in the materials of my channel and public page) and may eventually turn into a total catastrophe for us all (someone, wishing to solve their problems through violence, might even use weapons of mass destruction, for example, by releasing a very dangerous virus).
Understanding this will allow us to formulate an answer regarding what policy should be applied now on so-called public social platforms, and what is necessary when exerting pressure (except for forceful pressure, which is obviously unacceptable) on any platforms of this kind in general. And that is: freedom of speech is permissible in all cases except for cases of calls to violence.
Ideas based on coercive imposition should not be allowed for publication on such platforms. People who call for the initiation of violence against anyone should be blocked; general ostracism can also be applied to them until they decide to renounce violent aspirations. Calls for the punishment of people by state authorities are also unacceptable, since such punishments are implemented by forceful methods. Of course, this does not apply to calls for self-defense by any means in the event of the initiation of violence by an aggressor, as this action is aimed at stopping an act of violence already being committed and eliminating the associated negative externalities.
Conclusion: violent people must be subjected to ostracism, and violent ideas must not be allowed for publication and dissemination on social platforms. Pressure (of course, non-violent) must also be exerted on any social platforms to achieve the blocking of people and materials that call for violence. In the case of materials of another nature, everything is settled privately: each platform decides for itself what to publish and what not, and each person decides whether to use a particular platform and whether to introduce personal sanctions against it if they do not like the content published there.
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.
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!
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).
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!
Recently, I created a series of graphic materials on the theme of violence and nonviolence. They demonstrate the problems associated with the phenomenon of violence, ways to eliminate it, as well as alternative tools for achieving certain goals.
All images are clickable; an archive with original materials for printing in the form of leaflets is also available.
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