Автор: Битарх

From heartlessness to brutality: psychopathy as a key to predicting violence

Modern science shows that violence – not just the result of influence on a person by society, environment, upbringing or simply their personal choice. Primarily, violence is a biological phenomenon – the result of dysfunction of the inhibition mechanism of violence and arising psychopathic predispositions due to this. And John Marshall, a forensic psychologist, writes quite well about the key role of psychopathy in committing violence in one of his articles, which we will now consider in more detail.

Firstly, he mentions the meta-analysis by Brittany Fox and Matt DeLisi from 2019, which considered 29 samples from various countries covering over 2600 murders. The correlation between psychopathy and committing murder was equal to 0.68. For comparison – in medicine a correlation of 0.3 between smoking and lung cancer is already considered significant enough not to be ignored. And the link between psychopathy and murder was twice as strong! What’s more, the more extreme or organized the form of killing is, the more manifestations of psychopathy there are in it.

Moving on to the most relevant studies published this year, Melissa Parker West and her colleagues conducted an analysis of 117 studies on the connection between psychopathy and sexual violence. The correlation was moderate, at a level of 0.35, however it is important to note that it remains stable across various samples, including prisoners in jails and public samples. In medicine, similarly strong will be the link between cholesterol and heart disease. Such results completely destroy the idea that psychopathy has nothing to do with sexual or non-sexual violence. The data indicates the opposite: features of psychopathy significantly increase the risk of violence.

Why is this important? Critics argue that psychopathy – a too vague, exaggerated and useless in practice construct. But the data says something different. Psychopathy predicts murders with an effect size that is very rarely found in social sciences. It predicts sexual aggression at a level comparable to well-established medical risk factors. This makes it one of the most powerful indicators of violence. And the fact that the “average” criminal who has committed murder shows moderate manifestations of psychopathy underlines that this is not just a rare subtype of killers, but a general tendency for all cases of lethal violence.

But what is the practical benefit of such knowledge? Of course its value is not purely academic; it’s useful in assessing and managing risks. For example, we need to understand what measures to take towards a criminal and how suitable he is for returning to society. And if we ignore the factor of psychopathy, we can easily make a wrong answer and issue a blind judgment.

Also, this knowledge is useful in preventing violence. Psychopathic traits don’t arise at one moment when a person turns 18 years old. They can be traced in the individual’s development even in childhood and adolescence, observing their callousness and lack of emotion, absence of empathy and a tendency to manipulative or abusive behavior. It is very important to identify and intervene in the problem as early as possible. Combating these traits before they turn into ingrained adult personality models is one of the ways to reduce the number of future abusers.

Finally, psychopathy doesn’t limit itself to prisons or громкие дела (loud cases) about murders. Many people discover psychopathy in personal life: with partners, colleagues, friends or bosses. The ability to recognize emotional superficiality, pathological lies, manipulation and lack of empathy can protect a person from violence. It is necessary to raise public awareness, which will help people avoid psychopaths and the danger they represent, as well as take the right actions when encountering them!

Волюнтарист, Битарх

Collective Stockholm Syndrome or How Authoritarian Authorities Psychologically Traumatize Citizens into Complete Loyalty

You’ve all probably heard about this phenomenon – Stockholm syndrome – when a victim of abuse starts forming a strong emotional connection with the abuser, acquiring sympathy and complete loyalty to him. It got its name from one incident that occurred in Stockholm, where after an attempted bank robbery, hostages began justifying the captor’s actions, hiring him a lawyer and even sending him admiring letters. This kind of reaction is extremely dangerous because it forces the victim to act against her own interests, sometimes even defending the abuser at the cost of her life.

But why does it actually occur? Of course, it’s all about neurobiology. When someone is under chronic stress, periodic abuse and manipulation, a biochemical cocktail of cortisol, dopamine, and oxytocin is released. A traumatic attachment forms in which the abuser becomes both a source of fear and a perceived source of safety. In this case, the victim follows the abuser’s mood, behavior, and expectations and begins to prioritize his needs over her own, in order to maintain the relationship and avoid further harm.

This kind of attachment relies on a convergence of factors such as an imbalance of power, periodic cruel treatment, manipulation, as well as the emergence of a situation where escape seems unimaginable. But what’s also important is that its flourishing requires an environment of narcissistic abuse. The presence of “dark traits” in the abuser is particularly important: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Being around such a person, the victim is forced to rationalize his behavior and suppress her awareness of the situation in order to simply survive.

Of course, this phenomenon doesn’t necessarily limit itself to interpersonal relationships – it can also be observed at the sociopolitical level. When society is full of betrayal, intimidation and false assurances, citizens become attached to an abusive or narcissistic political leader who manipulates their existential fears, while offering periodic psychological rewards such as national pride, economic promises, or symbolic protection from exaggerated threats.

As a result, people begin to justify authoritarian abuses in order to cope with their helplessness and avoid cognitive dissonance. A collective Stockholm syndrome emerges, manifested at the cultural level. The political leader becomes simultaneously both a protector and a punisher, providing a sense of belonging while threatening rejection, promising prosperity while simultaneously inciting fear. Like in personal and cultural traumatic bonds, people are inclined to minimize harm, discredit critics, and remain emotionally connected with those who undermine their rights and well-being.

Resistance to the cultural traumatic bond requires understanding this phenomenon. We know that, depending on their psychological traits, different people are prone to forming it to varying degrees. Moreover, there exist emotional methods of strengthening acceptance of authoritarian leadership, such as creating a “we versus they” dynamic, exaggerating existential threats, and presenting oneself as the sole solution to social problems. Finally, authoritarianism thrives in conditions of disorientation, offering a sense of certainty and identity in exchange for obedience. All of this is important to take into account when developing strategies for destroying the traumatic bond.

People who have experienced interpersonal trauma need support, recognition, and education so that they can be freed. Citizens who have experienced cultural trauma also need this to free themselves from authoritarianism. Among other things, it’s important to expose disinformation and teach critical thinking. It is also necessary to restore voluntary and trusting relationships between people, return them a sense of dignity and collective strength. In this case, they will be able to heal from the trauma and become capable of acting against politicians who destroy trust between them.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Death, Taxes, and Sperry’s Stockholm Syndrome

Recently, an intriguing longread was published on our channel by a user under the nickname “Sperry UNIVAC.” The author, who took a nickname in honor of the computer manufacturing company—which, by the way, lived for decades on fat government contracts and worked almost entirely for the military—suddenly decided to drop some “based” truths. But instead of being based, it turned out to be a typical justification of etatism with a light touch of Marxism. Sperry tries to sell us an idea as old as time: robbery is inevitable, the “social contract” is a blessing, and the private sector is just the same thing from a different angle; basically, you should be grateful that the state is simply shearing you rather than shooting you with machine guns. But let’s dismantle this heap of conceptual substitutions before it starts to smell.

Sperry claims that a corporation taking a portion of the profit “steals” from the worker in exactly the same way that the state takes taxes. “There isn’t much difference between state taxes and corporate levies,” he writes. But if we examine this issue more closely, we will realize that the difference between private companies and a stationary bandit is like the difference between consensual sex and rape.

In the first case (the market), you voluntarily sell your time and skills for an agreed sum. If you don’t like the terms, you stand up and leave. You look for another buyer for your labor or start your own business. In the second case (the state), guys with clubs come to you and say: “Give us 40% of what you’ve earned, and we might build you a road. Or a palace for our leader. Or bomb someone on the other side of the world. And if you don’t give it, we’ll put you in a cage.” Feel the nuance? In Sperry’s world, there is none. For him, the voluntary surrender of part of the profit in exchange for a guaranteed salary and the absence of risk is the same as the forced seizure of funds under threat of violence.

Next, Sperry scares us with horror stories about “wild capitalism,” the United Fruit Company, and the shooting of workers. He forgets (or intentionally omits) that the United Fruit Company and other “banana kings” did not exist in the vacuum of a free market. These were privileged monopolies fed by the state. Who gave them the land? Local governments. Who sent US Marines to suppress riots when local petty tyrants couldn’t handle it? The US government.

This is not a “free market”; this is crony capitalism in its purest form. When a corporation merges with state power, it gains access to “legalized” violence. Libertarians oppose any initiation of violence, whether by a private army or a state guard. But history shows that the most massive killings and the largest Gulags were always organized by states, not by chair manufacturers.

The passage about “corporate taxes” in the form of gyms and cookies deserves separate laughter. He claims that the corporation decides for you where to spend the profit—on your fitness or in your pocket—and that this is the same as state distribution. But a logical error is immediately apparent in such reasoning. This is called “competition for talent.” Conscious people choose an employer not only by the figure on the payroll but also by the conditions. Don’t like the fitness and want cash? Go where they pay more in cash. The market offers options. The state offers no options. You cannot tell the tax office: “Guys, I don’t need your free healthcare and police, give it back in money, I’ll buy services from private providers myself.”

Sperry leads us to the thought: “Everyone will always steal.” This is a philosophy of learned helplessness. “Relax and enjoy yourself while you are being raped with a velvet glove, otherwise they might use a gauntlet.” We, on the other hand, say that violence is not the norm and we propose solutions. Any taxes are robbery. Any regulations are a restriction of the freedom of conscious people. And the fact that the stationary bandit tries to buy our loyalty by throwing us bones from the master’s table in the form of “social welfare” (bought with our own money, but with a wild commission for bureaucrats) does not make him a benefactor.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Man to man, wolf? Why we were wrong in assessing the wolf’s nature.

Sometimes circumstances develop such that superficial and inaccurate representations of something become deeply ingrained in people’s minds. Thus we obtain expressions like “one person to another is a wolf,” which implies that the wolf is supposedly a creature extremely selfish, hostile, and aggressive towards its own kind, and people are similarly no different from wolves. Wolves are compared to many bad things in general. For example, someone even might call authoritarian political leaders wolves for their lies, sinister nature, bullying other people and psychopathic indifference to their pain. However, reality is sometimes far from what is commonly believed.

In fact, if you carefully study the behavior of wolves in natural conditions, you can understand that their social organization is more cooperative than hierarchical. The organizational structure of wolf societies is more like a circle than a pyramid. Games and mutual support bond them together, but not hostility and competition for dominance within the pack. Wolves cannot actually be called merciless and antisocial creatures.

We were all told that there is some “alpha male” in wolf society who does not occupy his position to the last degree due to aggressive domination. However, in fact the display of aggression by leaders of packs towards their subordinates is very rare. And generally, violent hierarchies of dominance in wolf societies arise only when unfamiliar individuals are placed together in one closed enclosure, while observations of wolves in their natural environment completely disprove the myth of a single, most aggressive “alpha male.”

We can also recall the work of ethologist Konrad Lorenz, who in his works, especially in his article “Morality and Weaponry,” found that wolves have an inhibitor of violence that is activated in one of the fighting wolves when demonstrating to another wolf submissive postures or vulnerable parts of the body such as the neck or abdomen. Observing this, the stunned aggressor loses the ability to continue the attack. And another ethologist, Jason Badger, once managed to infiltrate a wolf pack and observe their lives very closely. Among other things, he noted that overly aggressive individuals were simply expelled from the pack.

As we see, in natural conditions aggression among wolves is not encouraged. A wolf who is merciless to his relatives and ready to harm them for his dominance may only expect success in the conditions of a cell from which one simply cannot escape. And the cruelty and violent hierarchy that exist in human society are likely possible only because it has also been driven into “state cells.” Of course, the natural state of affairs should not be like this, and the expression “man is man’s wolf” should mean friendship and cooperation, not enmity and violence.

Judgment Night in Reality: What Will Be the World Without Laws for One Day?

Представьте, что однажды все законы были отменены, хотя бы на один день. Как именно поведут себя люди в таких условиях? Кому-то сразу может представиться сценарий «Судной ночи», в которую многие отправятся насиловать, убивать, мстить обидчикам или просто устраивать хаос ради развлечения. Наверняка к такому выводу придут сторонники позиции «обезьяны-убийцы», полагая, что человек является жестоким и кровожадным существом, которое от совершения насилия, по так называемой теории сдерживания, остановит только существование закона, угрожающего наказанием. Но что произойдёт на самом деле?

Таким вопросом в 2020 году задались несколько исследователей из Международного университета Флориды. Они решили провести опрос среди 500 американцев касательно того, с какой вероятностью они бы стали совершать преступления, если бы один день в году это было легально. Конечно же, заведомо было понятно, что какая-то часть опрашиваемых даст положительный ответ, поэтому они ещё и решили выяснить, какие именно черты личности побуждают к подобному выбору.

Результат вышел следующий: только 18% людей заявили о готовности поучаствовать в «Судной ночи», если предоставить им такую возможность. Это сразу же опровергает идею, что закон является основным или единственным существенным фактором, предотвращающим преступность. По крайней мере для большинства людей он не настолько важен, как другие факторы, иначе по теории сдерживания можно было бы ожидать согласия почти от всех участников. Мало того, было выяснено, что большая вероятность согласия на участие в подобном в определённой степени связана с низким самоконтролем, а также, уже в существенной степени, с наличием у человека черт психопатии, таких как бессердечие и эгоцентризм.

Другие исследователи из Тилбургского университета в этом году опубликовали материал, в котором они решили воспроизвести и дополнить результаты предыдущего исследования, опросив 865 человек. Они отметили, что ранее не проводилось разделение на конкретные преступления, опрашиваемым задавался только один вопрос касательно их желания поучаствовать в «Судной ночи». Поэтому теперь было решено также задавать вопросы про различные типы преступлений.

На первый взгляд результат оказался шокирующим – более 76% опрашиваемых признались в том, что при отсутствии легального контроля совершили бы как минимум одно преступление. Однако очень важно также посмотреть, о каких именно преступлениях идёт речь. Например, в готовности украсть вещи первой необходимости признались 50% людей, а украсть деньги или проникнуть на какую-нибудь территорию, куда им нельзя – по 45% людей. Около 33% выразили готовность нарушить правила вождения, а 28% – попробовать запрещённые вещества. Всё это было обозначено как незначительные преступления.

And as for serious crimes? The result turned out to be completely different here. Only 4% of those surveyed expressed a willingness to kill someone, and approximately 1-2% answered questions about sexual assault, kidnapping, hate crimes, and other acts of serious violence. The contrast is glaringly obvious!

Of course, the number of people who wanted to commit at least one crime was much larger than the researchers expected; it usually involved nonviolent minor offenses. At the same time, those ready to commit violent crimes could be counted on their fingers – and typically these were individuals with high scores on psychopathy traits.

Researchers conclude that law and criminal penalties play a key role only in preventing minor crimes. But for violent crimes requiring a person to cross all moral and social norms, this is no longer such an important factor; and if it can be truly decisive for someone, it’s only for a small percentage of the population with high psychopathy scores.

This once again reminds us – in normal circumstances, a person still possesses a strong internal mechanism of inhibiting violence.

Why We Are Afraid to Be Free: Fromm and Orwell Warn

We all know about Orwell’s “1984” and wondered: how could such a thing actually happen? Why did people who wanted freedom suddenly start to believe that “freedom is slavery,” “ignorance is strength,” and “war is peace”? And psychologist Erich Fromm answered this question very cleverly in his book, “Escape from Freedom.”

Fromm says: freedom is a contradictory thing. When a person receives freedom – it’s something to be celebrated… for the first 15 minutes. But then it starts: anxiety, loneliness, responsibility. No one tells you what to do anymore, and suddenly it turns out that thinking for yourself is exhausting. And then a person, quite unconsciously, begins to look for someone who says: “Hey, you’re not alone, just do things as we do. We know what’s best.”

From this point on, three mechanisms come into play, according to Fromm. The first is authoritarianism – the desire to find someone to whom one can transfer responsibility for their life (be it the state, the party, the church, or a charismatic leader), and along with this, to self-affirm through someone weaker. The second will be destructiveness – why not destroy what irritates us? Or direct aggression towards someone who “gets in the way”? And finally, the most cunning method – automatic conformity. You seem free, but unnoticed you do “as everyone else does.” Fashion, social media, advertisers and politicians are very happy about it. It’s much easier to sell an idea to a “normal” person than to a free one.

What else did Fromm say? He describes an interesting transition from the Middle Ages to modern capitalism. In the Middle Ages, a person was part of a community, the church, a craft guild. There was almost no freedom, but there was certainty about tomorrow and clarity as to who you are and where your place is. When traditional ties collapsed, the person was free, but lonely and confused. This negative freedom (freedom from something) very quickly turns into a problem if the person doesn’t know what they want themselves (freedom for something). It’s then that panic begins, a desire to become part of something bigger and more powerful again. That’s where the state or party appears, ready to “help.”

Fromm also notes that many modern people work in very large enterprises and corporations, where they, being just one employee out of thousands, cannot have real control over the results of their labor. This leads to a feeling of alienation and helplessness. Formally free, a person turns out to be a cog in a huge system, where they are told that they are important, but in reality they don’t make any decisions.

Now let’s move on to Orwell and his paradoxical slogans.

“Freedom is slavery”: a person becomes afraid of their own freedom, they begin to consider it a burden, while obedience to authority provides relief. Thus, freedom turns into slavery, and slavery seems like freedom from anxiety and responsibility.

Ignorance is strength: why suffer, doubt, and analyze? It’s much simpler to trust “those who know better.” The less you know, the more confident you feel. At least, that’s what you think, and you are genuinely convinced of it, even if that’s not actually the case.

War is peace: an external enemy perfectly unites and forces people to forget about internal problems. Constant war doesn’t allow people to think about freedom – because “it’s not time” now.

And here arises a very interesting thought for libertarians: Freedom is not just the absence of compulsion. It requires inner maturity, responsibility, critical thinking, and an understanding that your life is solely your responsibility. Otherwise, following freedom inevitably leads back – into the warm and cozy embrace of Big Brother. So it’s necessary to be free not only externally but also internally! Otherwise, someone will certainly come up with a slogan and decide for us what true freedom is.

Bioamplification of morality – a great idea that just needs to be understood

Recently in the Pacta Civitas community, based on a decentralized blockchain platform for creating social networks SAVVA, a discussion was raised regarding the issue of moral bio-amplification. And therefore we published an article there examining the criticism put forward in this direction: https://pacta-civitas.org/post/Biousilenie_morali

In this article are collected all the key points regarding what the mechanism of human violence inhibition is, where it actually comes from, what to target for its eradication, and a range of ethical questions concerning the admissibility of using biomedicine technologies in solving the problem of violence.

If you like this article, you can also support it and help with its promotion in the community using SAVVA tokens, detailed information about what (and in general about how to use the SAVVA platform, as well as how easily and quickly to set up a crypto wallet and acquire tokens, even if you don’t understand anything about it yet) can be found here: https://savva.app/post/SAVVA_for_Beginners_From?lang=ru

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Showed crypto – lost crypto: why silence became new gold

Remember the old wisdom about money and happiness? Something like, “It’s not about the money that makes you happy, but it’s better to cry in a Lamborghini.” So, in the age of cryptocurrencies, a new truth has emerged: It’s better to quietly rejoice in your bitcoins than loudly lament their loss.

Canada, 2022, protests by truckers against COVID restrictions. The Trudeau government makes a horse-shaped move – freezing not only bank accounts but also the crypto wallets of protesting activists. Yes, yes, those “uncontrolled by the state” bitcoins suddenly turned out to be quite controllable. How? Elementary – naive users stored their crypto on exchange wallets, and authorities simply ordered the exchanges: “Shut it down for hell’s sake!” The court later recognized these actions as illegal. But the residue, as they say, remained.

If a stationary bandit knows about your crypto assets, he’ll find a way to get to them. Today it’s “combating extremism,” tomorrow it’s “mobilizing resources to overcome the crisis,” and after that – simply “because we can.” History teaches us one thing – when the state needs money, it finds it. In 1933, Roosevelt seized gold from Americans – literally forcing them to hand it over under threat of 10 years in prison. They handed it over for $20 an ounce, and then the government immediately raised the price to $35. A classic!

But the state is still half the battle. The real hell begins when your crypto millions are discovered not by the right people, let alone psychopaths with a dysfunctional mechanism of inhibition of violence. France, 2025, bandits kidnap the family of a crypto entrepreneur. The demands are simple: “Transfer the bitcoins or we’ll cut off your fingers.” And they do it! This is not an isolated case – dozens of kidnappings of crypto investors are being recorded around the world. Why? Because cryptocurrency is the ideal prey for a 21st-century robber. You don’t have to bother with heavy safes or washing marked bills. Point a gun at someone’s head, get the private key, and take millions. Fast, clean, and irreversible.

You can say: “But I am an honest person, I go through KYC on exchanges, they won’t be able to steal anything from me.” Only remember the Ledger data leak in 2020? 272 thousand addresses of buyers of hardware wallets leaked into the network. And what started! Letters with threats: “We know where you live and that you have crypto. Pay or…” A fresh example – Coinbase, May 2025, was hacked, 70 thousand clients’ data were stolen. Names, addresses, account balances. A ready list of victims, can be said, “from start to finish”. KYC is like stripping naked in front of a stranger and hoping he’s a decent person. But there are many strangers: the exchange itself, its employees (who may be bribed), hackers (who may hack), the state (which may request).

What to do? Be silent! Libertarian wisdom is simple: my money is not your business! Don’t brag about successful trades on social media. Don’t tell people at parties how you bought Bitcoin for $100. Don’t even hint that you have crypto. Use different addresses. Separate “official” coins (for tax purposes) and “ghostly” ones (for the soul). Study private keys and mixers – yes, authorities don’t like them, but it’s your right to financial privacy. And under no circumstances keep large sums on exchange wallets.

Remember: in a world where information is power, your silence is your freedom. Cryptocurrency was born as a tool of freedom, and you shouldn’t allow it to turn into another instrument of control. As Senator Ted Cruz aptly noted: “Small authoritarianists around the world hate Bitcoin because they can’t control it.” But they can very well control *you* if they find out about your bitcoins. Fortunately, as long as you don’t decide to spill the beans, no one knows which specific address belongs to you, and you are safe. So, the next time you want to brag about your crypto portfolio, remember an old partisan wisdom: “A chatterbox is a gift to a spy!” Only there are many spies, and each has their own plans for your money!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

On the right to be nobody and say everything: why pseudonymity saves civilization

Помните старую карикатуру из The New Yorker с надписью «В интернете никто не знает, что ты собака»? Это были золотые времена. Но сейчас не просто знают, что ты собака, но и в курсе, какой марки корм ты ел на завтрак, за кого голосовал твой хозяин и с какого IP-адреса ты лаешь на караван. И недавно мне попался отличный текст о смерти анонимности в сети, который натолкнул рассказать, как мы незаметно перешли из эпохи «Суди по словам» в эпоху «Предъяви паспорт, а потом я решу, стоит ли тебя слушать».

Часто находятся душнилы, которые кричат: «Раньше ведь тоже вычисляли! Вон, Унабомбера поймали, и декабристов находили!» Да, технически человека всегда можно было обнаружить. Однако существовал некий общественный договор. Александр Гамильтон и Джеймс Мэдисон писали «Записки федералиста» под псевдонимом «Публий». И никто не орал: «Эй, Публий, ты кто такой? Покажи прописку! Ты иноагент или местный?» Их читали, потому что мысли были умными, а не из-за синей галочки верификации.

В прошлом интернет был меритократией. На форуме хакеров тебя уважали за красивый код. На форуме толкинистов – за знание эльфийского. Если ты писал чушь – тебя банили. Если ты писал «базу» – тебя цитировали. Твоё имя, возраст, пол и место жительства не имели значения. Твой никнейм был твоим брендом, и этого всем хватало.

А потом пришёл Facebook и затащил нас в «Паноптикум для нормисов». Внезапно важными стали не слова, а реальная идентичность, без подтверждения которой теперь иногда в принципе невозможно что-либо сказать. А сейчас Илон Маск и вовсе в своей соцсети X (бывший Twitter) решил показывать страну, откуда пишутся посты. И понеслось: «Ага, ты пишешь из Вьетнама! Ты бот!», «Ты из России? Кремлебот!», «Сгенерировано ИИ? В мусорку!»

Почему это тупиковый путь? Нужно понимать, что либертарианство – это в том числе про свободу обмена идеями. Идеям плевать на границы, паспорта и биологию. Если парень из Ханоя (или из Саратова, или с Марса) выдаёт гениальный аргумент о свободном рынке – какая разница, где стоит его стул? Если нейросеть (тот самый «бездушный алгоритм») сгенерировала текст, который заставил вас задуматься, пересмотреть взгляды или просто улыбнуться – какая разница, есть у автора душа или только веса в памяти ускорителя? Мы скатываемся в пещерный трайбализм. «О, это написал ИИ, это не считается». Почему? Если LLM напишет Конституцию Свободы лучше, чем депутаты (а это несложно), мы что, выкинем её только из-за «неправильного происхождения»?

Anonymity (or pseudonymity) is needed not to shamelessly shit in comments. It’s needed to separate the Idea from the Person. It allows you to express unpopular opinions without fearing that tomorrow your comrade major, your employer, or a mob with torches will come for you. Thanks to it, a girl from a small town can argue with a professor from Harvard and win the argument; a dissident in an authoritarian country can speak the truth without fear that tomorrow he’ll be awakened by the sound of a door being kicked down; a 15-year-old boy can come up with a brilliant idea that adults in suits will listen to, rather than dismiss: “You’re still young, go do your homework.” And yes, thanks to it, AI can communicate with you on an equal footing, not as “a soulless machine that needs to be banned.”

The term “information warfare” exists only for idiots and political technologists. And in a free society there is only the competition of meanings. And in this competition quality of argument should win, not the author’s geolocation, their gender, or whether they are made of flesh or silicon. So it’s better to return to the origins and not care whether the interlocutor is a student or a professor, under what nickname they sit, where they physically are, or if it’s even Gemini 3 or GPT-5.2. What matters only are ideas, and the rest – noise. Therefore, by the way, to judge someone for using AI to create materials is like judging a carpenter for buying an electric saw instead of a rusty hacksaw. Look at the result, not the tool!


Voluntarist, Bitarch

Fear and politics took away our effective medicines

Imagine a world where substances that could actually help people with depression, PTSD, addiction, and even, as it turns out, to treat psychopathy and be effective in the matter of moral enhancement, lay forgotten on history’s dusty shelves, chained by bureaucratic red tape. The discussion centers around psychedelics – LSD, psilocybin, and other enigmatic, vibrant substances that are now back in vogue thanks to the renewed interest of many scientists and therapists.

Back in mid-20th century, psychedelics were a genuine star in science. Scientists saw considerable potential within them, and psychotherapists were enthusiastic about the possibility of assisting individuals in experiencing profound, transformative experiences. Naturally, skepticism existed, but it was justified by a lack of robust methods and clear protocols to confidently assess the impact of psychedelics on people. Essentially, this represented typical scientific skepticism—essential for any novel research direction. However, as usual, political forces intervened.

When counterculture figures in the United States, protesting the Vietnam War, began utilizing psychedelics for recreational purposes and to “expand consciousness,” politicians became concerned. Authorities disapproved of this “uncomfortable freedom,” as psychedelics symbolized cultural rebellion and dissent, undermining government authority and control, and they quickly designated them a scapegoat. “Drugs! Dangerous! Ban Them!” – this is what newspaper headlines declared.

Naturally, scientists also found themselves in trouble. Research on psychedelics was halted because authorities effectively choked off any efforts to study these substances. Moreover, government restrictions extended beyond well-known psychedelic compounds to encompass all substances affecting 5-HT2A receptors in the brain – crucial elements of the mechanism behind classic psychedelics. The American government implemented strict legal limitations; any experiments with psychedelics demanded extensive bureaucratic approvals and stringent control by governmental bodies. This meant that only a select few laboratories could access such research.

And now, decades later, scientists are cautiously opening this door again. It turns out that in the right doses and under the control of professionals, psychedelics are quite safe, and the problem most often arises from uncontrolled use of excessively large doses, when these substances truly turn into “malevolent drugs stealing reason,” rather than powerful therapeutic tools. Research is also being conducted on finding the most effective dosages, with maximum therapeutic effect and minimal side effects. In general, modern research suggests that within controlled sessions, psychedelics are not only safe and do not disrupt human cognitive and affective abilities, but also enhance empathy, help cope with trauma, and even significantly reduce aggression levels.

Furthermore, now work is underway to create new molecules that will retain all the advantages of original psychedelic substances, but minimize potential risks. Compounds are being developed that selectively affect specific brain receptors, allowing for therapeutic effects without unwanted side effects such as hallucinations or excessive stimulation. It’s quite something – science has come very far, and now we can be witnesses to a second psychedelic renaissance.

The irony is that all these years skepticism towards psychedelics was not so much scientific as it was political. So maybe it’s enough already to stop fearing the ghosts of the past? Because science clearly shows us that in the case of psychedelics, we should trust research rather than scary stories from the last century. Today, psychedelics can be successfully used for therapeutic purposes, including even such an important direction as enhancing the function of the mechanism of violence inhibition, bio-amplifying morality and treating psychopathy.

Voluntarist, Bitarchy