Автор: Битарх

The world is hostile by its nature, and everyone around is an enemy?

Let’s immediately give a short answer for those who don’t have time to read the whole post: those who think this way almost certainly are psychopathic individuals and probably also suffer from a dysfunction of the mechanism of violence inhibition. We will then analyze in more detail why this is so based on a scientific publication.

Some people tend to hold such a view of the world – that it’s inherently hostile. They also tend to consider other people’s actions as being more aimed at causing harm than they actually are. Thus, they can see threats even where none actually exist. All of this is described by the concept called “hostile attribution bias”.

Of course, no one is obliged to carelessly treat other people, and in many situations checking each person for potential hostile and harmful intentions is perfectly normal. But we must understand – this is done because some people *do* want to cause harm, and you can run into them. At the time same, labeling people as bad and the world in general is unlikely to be an adequate view. And perhaps some personality traits are significantly linked with such a view.

Research conducted by the University of Alabama examined the link between hostile attribution bias and psychopathic predispositions. As a result, this link turned out to be moderately expressed. So, it’s quite possible that people with high overall scores on psychopathy, as well as, in particular, such a factor as impulsivity control impairment (indicating problems with controlling impulsive reactions), would be more inclined to perceive the actions of others in situations they don’t understand as hostile than others. Furthermore, hostile attribution bias was moderately linked with all forms of aggression – both proactive (intentional) and reactive (impulsive). This shows that individuals with elevated levels are prone to respond to perceived hostility by resorting to aggressive actions of various types, including the observation of a link with the manifestation of physical aggression. Don’t forget that all forms of aggression are also significantly linked with psychopathic predispositions.

As we see, individuals who have psychopathic predispositions and are prone to manifesting any forms of aggression often perceive a threat where one simply doesn’t exist. The world seems more hostile to them, and everyone around them – those who undoubtedly want to harm them. Of course, there really do exist psychopathic individuals among us who can easily, without experiencing any psychological discomfort or internal resistance, even commit murders, and it is quite reasonable to be wary of them. But most people are still non-violent and don’t seek to harm anyone. And if someone thinks otherwise, if someone labels people as inherently hostile and aggressive creatures, then it’s perfectly justified to think whether this person is judging others according to themselves.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

What is the point of inhibitor weapons and what makes them better than classic lethal ones?

Unfortunately, our skeptics still may not understand the fundamental point of the idea about developing combat means to enhance the violence inhibitor. They suggest “don’t waste time,” develop a classical army and invest in traditional lethal weapons. But let’s break it down – why they are wrong.

1) Increasing mobilization potential by several orders of magnitude – unlike what is typically observed with soldiers armed with lethal weapons, drones with this means in the sky will not be shot at, even by those possessing a strong variant of violence inhibitor from birth! And this is even more relevant to opposition forces than armies of states, because among anti-authoritarian people there will be fewer psychopaths willing to kill easily than in the security structures protecting the status quo.

2) Greater public support and less outrage about brutality from sympathizers, which is especially important for a weaker side.

3) The possibility of using inhibitor means in civilian life against domestic abusers, unlike the complete uselessness of classical weapons like tanks and artillery during peacetime (billions are spent on their production, maintenance, and crew training annually from taxes, and this does not benefit society at all, and it is particularly burdensome for more free societies compared to authoritarian ones).

4) Safety of manufacture for the manufacturers themselves – inhibitor drugs cannot accidentally explode during manufacturing, transport or storage; even accidental exposure to workers will do them no harm.

5) Even cluster munitions (CMWs) can be humane. Replicable (“contagious”) vector vaccines have already been tested on animals and their effectiveness was recognized, meaning there are no technological barriers for developing “contagious” gene therapy to enhance the violence inhibitor. Of course, this is a very risky solution, but believe me, anyone would rather catch a “new cold” than be defeated by classical CMW types like nuclear or VX gas.

6) Extremely low cost and simplicity of production of the dose of the inhibitor drug. Of course, developing the first dose may cost billions and require complex equipment, but the cost of reproducing each subsequent one will be on the level of the current cost of doses of popular vector vaccines. The need for equipment and materials to reproduce is not comparable to the equipment needed to produce classical weapons (the equipment easily fits in an apartment, while factories producing artillery shells or tanks occupy square kilometers and are easily vulnerable to air strikes).

7) Extremely small weight of the “combat part” and little energy is required for successful defeat (it’s enough to pierce the skin anywhere on the body). In theory, it’s possible to create a drone the size of a bee, which is already a real technology – not science fiction!

8) Humane mines with no demining problems – after the war, classic mines can remain dangerous for civilian populations for many decades, while inhibitors in traps are quickly neutralized by environmental factors.

As a final note – why not tranquilizers to temporarily sedate the enemy? Indeed, science fiction often features plots where instead of lethal weapons, darts with tranquilizers are used. However, in real life and especially in combat conditions, this is difficult to implement because even a small dose of any tranquilizer won’t have an effect, while too large a dose will be fatal, and the dose needs to be calculated for each person individually, primarily taking into account their body weight. On the other hand, for most inhibitory drugs, the therapeutic window (a “dynamic range” when the dosage already gives an effect but is not yet lethal) will be extremely wide, and one dosage can be boldly applied to any person.

VoluntaristBitarch

Phone in a Cage or How to Protect Yourself from Surveillance

Few will argue that the topic of intelligence services monitoring activists via mobile phones is very important. It’s 2025, but things remain the same: authorities of almost all states dislike freedom and are ready to make a serious effort to peek into your smartphone. Even if you’re a super-conspirator, you’ve got a disposable phone with a “poor man’s” SIM card and you’re sitting at home, carefully posting statuses in Telegram or using this device as a Wi-Fi hotspot – there remains the risk that one day a cop will knock on your door.

How is this possible, you ask? Simply: there’s the old triangulation method. If a phone is connected to a network, even without GPS and Wi-Fi, intelligence services can calculate the approximate location of the device based on the level of signal from nearby base stations. This isn’t instantaneous, but gradually one can narrow down the search area to a building entrance, or even a specific apartment. Remember how they tracked down Shamil Basayev in Chechnya? That’s roughly so, only now it works faster and cheaper.

But don’t panic! There’s a simple solution: a Faraday cage for a phone. Sounds futuristic, doesn’t it? In reality, it’s just a case or bag made of special fabric that blocks absolutely any radio signals and is sold on all marketplaces. A phone inside this thing seems to vanish from reality: no cellular networks, Wi-Fi, GPS, or Bluetooth see it anymore. Imagine “airplane mode,” only 100% reliable.

And here’s the key point: if you keep your phone in a Faraday cage for most of the time (when you’re not using it), calculating its location is almost impossible. After all, no government in the world will spend huge resources constantly triangulating some ordinary activist. That luxury intelligence services reserve for leaders of insurgent groups, and simple activists are definitely not on the VIP list of a stationary criminal.

Of course, after purchase, you must check the Faraday cage case! Quality doesn’t always match the description. To test it, you use exclusively your personal phone – so as not to create a chain of connections for intelligence services with your anonymous device. Place your personal phone in a bag and try to call it from another phone (e.g., a friend or family member’s phone, but not your own anonymous phone). If the call doesn’t go through, then the case is good!

Here’s another tip – it always pays to use a paid VPN with a high privacy rating, both on your phone and PC, even if the phone is used as a Wi-Fi hotspot. A VPN will hide your real IP address and make it more difficult for those who want to track your actions online. It’s also important to regularly check the privacy settings of your phone and apps. Don’t forget to turn off geolocation, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi if you don’t need them right now. This will help avoid accidental data leaks and make the device less noticeable for gathering information. Remember that modern phones even in “sleep” mode continue to periodically send requests and connect to towers and networks. It doesn’t hurt to also remember about physical security: You shouldn’t take a phone used for activism to real meetings, and if you do need to move it – it needs to be turned off beforehand and placed in a Faraday cage case. Remember that safety is not just a set of technical actions but a habit and a lifestyle.

Of course, no technology can make a person completely invisible. But with due caution, you can become so boring and uninteresting for surveillance agencies that they’ll prefer to spend their forces on something more exciting. Take care of yourself and stay free!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Open voting against the tyranny of the majority

Friends-libertarians, let’s talk straight: secret voting is not a protection of freedom, but a perfectly cozy smokescreen for those who want to push their desires onto others’ accounts under the radar. And if you’ve decided to push new taxes, bans, and other “gifts” to society through a ballot, be so kind as to not hide behind anonymity and answer for it fully.

Imagine a world where voting stops being secret. Want to push a law about raising your neighbor’s taxes through a ballot – go ahead, but be prepared for a retaliatory reaction from them that could end badly for you. Yes, yes, it sounds scary, but it’s honest. Because a ballot isn’t an innocent little piece of paper; it’s a weapon with which the state applies violence to those who disagree with your opinion. Anyone willing to defend their position must be ready for reputational costs as well. You vote for tightening screws – please, everyone knows who the author of these new chains is. Neighbors turn away, friends stop inviting you for beer, colleagues give you a sidelong glance in the office – that’s justice!

By the way, lovers of mandatory AML/KYC when buying crypto – here’s an argument worth a million: if you think it’s normal to reveal your identity with every transaction on a couple of hundred bucks, why shouldn’t elections – a much more dangerous affair capable of leading to openly tyrannical power – be anonymous? A tyrant on the throne is far more dangerous than a couple of guys swapping Bitcoin for USDT without a passport. Seriously, has anyone heard of genocide orchestrated by the “shadow economy”? But there are whole volumes of stories about it from states around the world!

Someone might say: “What if my employer threatens to fire me?” Well, if it’s just one employer, then there’s still an opportunity to think: “Maybe I should drop it?” But if the risk is that people will turn away from you and even start to take revenge through your entire circle, he’d rather not make any political choice at all and not vote. And that’s fantastic! Why? Because fewer voters mean less legitimacy for power. Power nobody elected looks pathetic and helpless, and it’s harder for it to restrict our freedoms with more idiotic laws. The fewer people who vote, the looser the hands of power. That’s exactly what libertarians are aiming for!

Some people are racking their brains over another question: how does Sweden, a country with such astronomical taxes, manage to remain almost an example of personal freedom? And the trick is simple, though unexpected – “partially open” voting, which existed in Sweden for as long as 2019. Imagine the picture: you come to the polling station, and there are stacks of ballots lying right in front of everyone. You take a leaf from moderate parties – and the whole city already knows your preferences. Did you decide to boldly reach out for a leaflet from ultra-left or ultra-right groups? Be prepared to catch sideways glances from the entire queue. As a result, “local Tramps” or “Orban’s” did not take root in Sweden. Freedom is so abundant there that it’s enough even in personal life, despite high taxes in the economy.

It turns out to be an interesting thing: openness of choice with clear reputational consequences – this is like a good brake on a slippery road. It keeps the entire system from radical skidding into authoritarianism! And therefore open voting is not a step back, but a giant leap towards freedom. Whoever is afraid of openness should sit at home and wave a ballot paper like a whip over others. But whoever is ready to openly support some positions, especially those encroaching on the freedoms of their neighbors, they should, as an adult, bear responsibility for their choice. Otherwise, he has nothing to do with voting and should occupy himself with something more useful!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Prisons have become tiresome for everyone – even for Americans

Imagine you are stuck in an elevator with a stranger who believes that putting people in prison for longer is a great idea for solving all of society’s problems. He believes that people should live in fear of such an outcome, and then crime will vanish. Rolling your eyes, you reply: “Sure, that helps a lot, especially if you need a new criminal buddy or a free survival course for when everyone around you is a wolf.”

And now for the surprise: more and more people are starting to think like you. For example, as a recent study by the University of Cincinnati shows, Americans who for decades believed that prison was the best remedy for crime have finally stopped being fans of mass incarceration. The study confirms: most US citizens prefer to direct non-violent offenders toward rehabilitation programs, treatment, or community service.

Now Americans do not want to build more prisons, and many of them consider the prison system unfair. Yes, the very people who once voted for laws like “Three Strikes and You’re Out” now admit that mass incarceration is not cool, is expensive, and is completely ineffective.

And how about other countries? Even better! Look at the Netherlands. Over the last 20 years, they have closed about 20 prisons. The Dutch literally don’t know what to do with the empty prisons anymore. They are opening hotels and creative spaces there. Imagine: a tour of a former prison with cocktails and modern art. Why is this happening? Because they realized that sending a person to prison for petty theft or drugs is roughly the same as putting out a fire with gasoline. A person rarely becomes a saint after prison. More often than not, prison doesn’t reform a person; it ruins them completely.

In Germany, most offenses are already punished with fines. The Germans reason simply: why spend taxpayers’ money on maintaining petty offenders? It’s better for offenders to replenish the budget with fines than to sit behind bars at our expense. And the Scandinavian countries have gone even further. There, prisons are even called “schools of life”: prisoners are helped to socialize, given education and work, and when crime decreases, the prisons are simply closed.

In our case, of course, we have our own atmosphere. Historically, incarceration was a common occurrence in Russia. In 2000, we had more than 700 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants—a record level for a developed country. Fortunately, by 2023, the figure had dropped to 300. That is already better, although still very high!

Why is society turning its back on prisons? There are many reasons. For example, prisons cost an insane amount of money. It is much cheaper and more sensible to invest funds in education and crime prevention. Also, prison does not reform people, but more often turns them into recidivists. A person comes out with a ruined resume, a damaged psyche, and criminal connections. Not exactly the result society needs. Additionally, humanism is an important reason—people have realized that a criminal is also a human being and should not be tortured in prison. Punishment should not be revenge, but an opportunity to fix something.

What are the alternatives? There are plenty of good solutions. First and foremost is restorative justice—where the offender directly compensates the victim for the damage. It works better than prison and costs less. Probation and community service should also be considered—the person is under strict control but remains in society. This way, they do not fall out of life and are more likely to be reformed. Furthermore, treatment would be an excellent alternative—even violent criminals do not deserve inhumane treatment, and instead of a repressive approach, it would be far more effective to correct the dysfunction of the violence inhibition mechanism using therapeutic methods, thereby completely eliminating recidivism.

Prisons already look like an old-fashioned punishment from past centuries. Spend billions and get a bunch of embittered people back? Even former ardent supporters of punitive measures are beginning to understand: to combat crime, it is not enough to simply lock people up and forget about them!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Technologies are born in garages, not in barracks: the truth about the role of the MIC

Let’s talk about a common myth that everyone has surely heard: “without military development, we would be without the internet, smartphones, and GPS.” In other words, it is believed that war and the defense industry are the main drivers of technical progress. But is that actually the case?

Take the internet, for example. We are told it was supposedly invented by the Pentagon in case of a nuclear war, but the facts do not support this. In reality, ARPANET (the ancestor of the modern internet) was originally a civilian project handled by various American universities; it was simply funded by the military budget. The military provided the money, but all the work was done by university scientists and programmers. And the famous HTTP protocol, which we are using right now to read this post, was actually devised in Europe by physicists at CERN—purely for the convenience of exchanging scientific articles. The army had absolutely nothing to do with it!

What about GPS? Yes, in this case, the military really did launch satellites so that missiles would land more accurately. But why did GPS become available to everyone? Because civilians turned a military toy into a “people’s” technology. President Reagan opened GPS to everyone after the tragedy with a Korean airliner to improve flight safety, and ultimately, civilian developers transformed the navigation system from a military secret into a popular app for finding the nearest pizzeria.

And do you know who created the first microprocessor? No, not generals or intelligence agencies—it was developed by Intel for a calculator. Meanwhile, the army was conducting its own classified developments that the world wouldn’t have seen for at least another 30 years if not for civilian engineers. While the military was worrying about how not to reveal secrets, the market was already fully utilizing commercial processors.

Space? You would think that here, the military is definitely ahead of the rest of the world. Yes, rockets were first created as weapons, but real space achievements happened mainly thanks to NASA’s civilian programs, and today, private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. While the army argues over the best way to shoot from space, Elon Musk has already launched a rocket that returns on its own.

Why aren’t the military always the coolest innovators? Because for the military, the main priority is reliability. They prefer proven technologies and avoid risks. Try suggesting experimental equipment on a battlefield to a general—he will look at you as if you are crazy. Entrepreneurs and scientists, however, are not afraid of risks; that is why most real breakthroughs happen in Silicon Valley garages, laboratories, and universities, rather than in the classified basements of intelligence agencies.

The history of the USSR is a vivid example of how relying exclusively on the defense industry leads to technical backwardness in everyday life. Remember the joke: a Soviet microwave is so reliable that you can hide in it during a nuclear strike—because it is a secret defense device weighing half a ton. A civilian economy handles innovation better because competition and freedom create powerful incentives for breakthroughs. Military technologies usually only catch up to what has already been created by civilians.

By the way, if you think the army funds fundamental science, you are mistaken again. The military needs guaranteed solutions here and now, not research that will yield a result in 30 years, which may not even be suitable for combat. Fundamental research is conducted by universities and private laboratories. They are the ones giving the world quantum computers, new medicines, and the materials of the future. The army simply takes ready-made technologies off the shelf.

Another example: IBM, Apple, and Google register thousands of patents every year, while defense departments register only a handful. Commercial companies compete in innovation, whereas military competition is often limited to budget tenders, where the main thing is not quality, but friendship with the right people in ministries. Therefore, when someone tells you that progress is impossible without war, remind them: the true driving force of humanity is peaceful curiosity, creative freedom, and normal market competition, not missiles and tanks.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

The State Suffocates 23andMe and Kills Biotech’s Future

Once upon a time, the test from 23andMe was like an iPhone in the world of DNA: spit into a tube – and within a couple of weeks you’d know what diseases threatened you, your caffeine gene dependence, and who your ancestors were. For $99, without doctors or hospitals, it was a revolution. After launching in 2007, the company enjoyed wild success, everyone was thrilled, people bought tests by the handful, and the company received significant investments. It seemed like a victory.

But then the American regulator, FDA, entered the picture and said: “Hold on. Where’s the evidence that your tests are accurate? What if people don’t properly understand their test results and harm themselves?” As a result, in 2013, 23andMe was banned from displaying health reports, leaving only mundane data and genealogy. Consider it like Netflix being left without series – just lists of actors. The company attempted to survive and dance with bureaucracy: approving tests one by one, waiting years, rewriting interfaces. In 2017, they were finally allowed to restore some functions – but not 254 diseases, as before, only 10. And the cost of the test became no longer $99, but $199.

Clearly, this looked far less attractive to consumers. Of course, there were still hopes, and in 2021, 23andMe went public with a valuation of $6 billion. However, by 2024 – a collapse of 98%, threats of delisting, layoffs. Additionally, a hacking incident occurred, millions of genetic profiles leaked into the darknet. The final act was bankruptcy in 2025.

And now the question for you: where was the consumer within this story? Did they want to know about the risks of Alzheimer’s disease? They did. Could they adequately interpret the figures? Perhaps. But the state decided that they weren’t ready, that it was premature, that it was dangerous. And tightened the screws because “it’s safer that way.” The problem wasn’t solely with the FDA. In Europe, specifically in Germany and France, direct genetic tests were completely prohibited – meaning individuals didn’t have the right to learn their own DNA without a doctor. Just like in old times when the library was locked and guarded.

The 23andMe company wasn’t perfect. Yes, it experimented, monetized data, made errors. But it was killed not by competitors or the market, but by the regulatory machinery that slowed down every innovation, demanded proof where there was progress, and obstructed millions of people from learning more about themselves. And one could have done differently – one could have trusted a person. Provide information with the note “not a diagnosis,” as do Google and Wikipedia. One could have created a market with competition, with ratings, with development. Instead – fear, bans and “it can’t be yet.”

All of this applies not only to 23andMe. This is the story of the future of biotech. Gene therapies, personalized medicine, prevention based on DNA – all of this requires freedom of action and flexible management that helps, rather than suffocates. But for now, unfortunately, reality is such: technologies are running ahead, while regulators stand with “stop” flags.

Imagine a world where you can find out about your weaknesses in advance and take measures on time. Where a doctor treats not symptoms, but the causes, based on your unique genetics. Where diseases can be prevented, not just treated. This is the future that could have already arrived if the stationary bandit had loosened its grip just a little. Instead, we live in a world where breakthroughs constantly hit a bureaucratic wall. Startups and innovation are forced to prove the obvious for years while technology becomes outdated and investors’ money melts away.

And as a final thought. Whose information is it – a person’s genes? Who should decide whether a person can be informed about their risks, mutations, chances? The person himself or the official in a tie who thinks that “the citizen won’t understand”?

The history of 23andMe is not just the fall of a startup. It’s a reminder: freedom, including genetic freedom, is not given easily, it must also be fought for. Otherwise, we risk remaining in a world where technology exists, but cannot be used. A world where the future is constantly postponed due to endless “noes.” Let’s not allow this to become our reality!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Read and Die: How Long Contracts Steal Your Life

Do you know what your mortgage papers, a smartphone license agreement, and a devil’s contract with fine print from a bank have in common? Exactly: it’s impossible to read and understand them without sacrificing a couple of years of your life and your nerve cells. Let’s be honest: this is no accident. This is the theft of your time and your right to a conscious choice!

Today, an ordinary contract with a bank looks like the Joker’s villainous plan: a thousand pages, pretentious language, “asterisks,” and fine print. They convince you that “this is how it has to be,” and then they act surprised: “Didn’t you read on page 843 that the rate is floating and can triple?” Remember the 2008 mortgage crisis? Millions of people signed contracts with “floating rates.” Most didn’t even imagine what that meant. And the result? When the refinancing rate skyrocketed, families ended up on the street, and the global economy plummeted into a severe depression.

And do you know what the scariest part is? According to informal polls, a significant number of people think that if a mortgage rate is 20%, it means the apartment will be 20% more expensive in total, not 20% more every year. If such elementary things are unclear to many, how can we expect them to tackle a thousand-page contract that even specialists struggle to read?

Other examples of unfair contracts:

– Insurance where almost nothing is covered because page 58 mentions “exclusions.”
– A software license that gives a company the right to track your activities on the device.
– A mobile plan with “unlimited internet” where the speed drops to almost zero after the first 10 GB.
– Employment contracts that forbid you from working in the same field after resignation so that you don’t create unnecessary competition.

Let’s call things by their real names: this is not a voluntary agreement. This is fraud disguised in legal language. It’s the same as if you were sold a car that explodes on its own after a year, simply because somewhere on page 287 it was written in fine print: “Warning, may explode!”.

I propose a simple rule: any contract longer than 4,000 words or written in language that an average person wouldn’t understand on the first try is null and void. It’s simple. If you can’t fit it into a couple of clear screens, it means you want to hide something. Hid it? The contract doesn’t work. This applies to everyone—even banks, even mortgages. Imagine a bank decides to sneakily insert a clause about raising the rate on page 999? Congratulations, the apartment is yours; you don’t need to pay more. It’s their own fault—they wanted to fleece a person of their time and nerves, now they pay the price of justice!

By the way, even now in many countries with an independent judicial system, there is a chance to create a precedent for the nullity of a contract, even a mortgage. One could refer specifically to the theft of time and fraud, as the bank consciously provided a contract that an ordinary person without specialized education could not understand, despite their best efforts.
An idea for the future: create a community of auditors who issue a “simplicity badge” (analogous to an SSL certificate). If you see such a badge, you can be sure the contract is clear and contains no hidden traps.

All of this would be a return to the essence of voluntary exchange: people must understand what they are agreeing to. If a person spends half their life trying to understand what they’ve agreed to, it’s no longer a free market, but legalized racketeering. The world would only change for the better after this. Banks and companies would begin to compete for the clarity and transparency of their contracts. The market would be cleared of parasites who feed on incomprehensible papers. And finally, people would reclaim the right to a conscious choice, and therefore, their freedom!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

How the state helps hackers steal our data

Some might think that security regulation is a necessary pursuit for society. However, in reality, because of the actions of regulators, the exact opposite happens—endless security checks and reports, which are supposed to protect us, actually do the reverse. Companies spend insane amounts of money and a ton of time just to appear secure in the eyes of officials. Consequently, there is neither the energy, the nerves, nor the budget left for actual data protection. The result? Another hack, another leak.

For example, take 23andMe. These cool guys do DNA tests so you can find out that you are 3% Mongol, 5% Swedish, and 92% an ordinary person who simply has nothing to do on a Friday night. You would think they would guard the data like Fort Knox. Yet, the year before last, hackers pulled nearly half of all user data, and now millions of genetic profiles are floating around the internet.

Think this is an exception? No, it’s more of a rule. Take our Sber. You’d expect a major bank, with stricter laws and constant reporting requirements, to be secure. And then—bam—a data leak of 52 million customers. And that’s just from the “Spasibo” loyalty program. Apparently, the customers said “thank you” to the bank, but someone decided that “you’re welcome” meant letting their data scatter across the darknet.

But that’s not all. Remember Yandex.Eda? There was a downright anecdotal case there: they delivered a pizza to someone in the secret apartment of an FSB officer. A data leak from the service revealed the addresses of famous people and security force employees. Thus, the state accidentally stepped on its own tail. It was almost funny, but not for those whose addresses became public.

Why does this happen? Because regulators love checking boxes. They adore paperwork and reports. A hypothetical Vasya from the security department spends 70% of his time on reporting and only 30% on fighting real threats. Then hackers break the defense that no one had time to strengthen while Vasya was trying to figure out how to fill out another form for Roskomnadzor. It becomes a vicious cycle: hacked → fine → even more reports → hacked again.

And the state only adds fuel to the fire. Remember the “Yarovaya Law”? Telecom companies are forced to store giant volumes of data, spending billions of rubles. Now guess who is salivating while looking at these massive data arrays? Exactly—hackers. Because gathering all of this in one place is like putting a huge safe in the middle of the city and hanging a note: “Dear thieves, there are valuables here; we aren’t guarding them because the money went toward buying the safe.”

Of course, the picture is roughly the same in the USA. Medical data leaks there have already become a national sport. So many records were leaked last year that you could give several to every American. The hack of Equifax, the credit history giant, is a “genre classic.” 147 million records fell into the hands of criminals, and the company received a $700 million fine. Imagine how much security could have been improved if that money had been put to work in advance, rather than into paperwork and fines? The moral here is simple: the more a stationary bandit forcibly “protects” our data, the more often that data is lost.

So, what should be done? Probably force companies less to spend their energy on pointless paperwork. Instead of hundreds of mandatory checks, let there be one clear standard: “Protect the data or pay—but not with reports, with money.” And the companies will find the best way themselves. Otherwise, it’s like the joke about the elephant in a china shop: the state stomps around, the dishes break, and the elephant is, of course, to blame. Therefore, it is necessary to stick to simple and clear rules. Regulators come and go anyway, but for some reason, our data remains wandering the network forever!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Which moral values are psychopaths more prone to reject

According to the definition by psychologist Jonathan Haidt, morality is a set of interrelated values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, institutions, technologies, and evolutionarily developed psychological (neurobiological) mechanisms that work together to constrain or regulate personal interests and make cooperative communities possible. Haidt also identifies five distinct moral foundations:

1) Harm/care — this foundation represents concerns about the violence and suffering of others, including compassion and care;
2) Fairness/reciprocity — represents norms of reciprocal relationships, equality, rights, and justice;
3) In-group/loyalty — covers moral obligations associated with group membership, such as loyalty, betrayal, and preferential treatment of in-group members compared to out-group members;
4) Authority/respect — represents moral obligations associated with hierarchical relationships, such as obedience, duty, respect for authority, and the protection of subordinates;
5) Purity/sanctity — represents the moral ideal of a sublime, noble, and less carnal life, based on an intuition of divinity, a sense of moral disgust, and the purity of body, mind, and soul.

The first two foundations can be called individualizing, as they are aimed at protecting the well-being and interests of separate individuals. The remaining foundations are binding, as they are primarily aimed at some group interest. And what is important for us to know now is how psychopaths—more specifically, individuals with high scores in primary psychopathy, consisting of traits such as callousness, indifference, and a lack of empathy toward others, and a tendency to manipulate and harm them in pursuit of their own interests—relate to various moral foundations.

Regarding the connection between binding foundations and psychopathic predispositions, research usually shows either a positive correlation or no correlation at all, which is not a definitive result. However, what can be said for certain about psychopathic individuals is that they have a relatively greater preference for binding moral foundations than for individualizing ones. Empathic motivation lies at the heart of individualizing moral foundations. Psychopathic individuals, naturally, have problems with this—they are little concerned with things like causing harm and suffering to people, reciprocity in relationships, etc. Accordingly, research shows that high psychopathic predispositions are followed by a decrease in a person’s preference for individualizing foundations.

This is very important to consider when promoting ideas aimed at expanding human freedoms and reducing harm to people, such as libertarianism. Psychopathic individuals are less likely to embrace such ideas; or, if they do, it will be only in extremely distorted forms that allow for violent attacks on people, intentional harm, and the violation of their rights in the pursuit of certain interests (primarily their own). Again, psychologically, they are not particularly concerned with the problem of causing harm to people, and their morality will be structured accordingly, permitting such behavior.

Sources:

  1. Kirrane, M., Farqan, A., Cloak, E. (2024). Exploring a paradox: Psychopathy, Morality and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour.
  2. Glenn, A. L., Iyer, R., Graham, J., Koleva, S., Haidt, J. (2009). Are All Types of Morality Compromised in Psychopathy?
  3. Esser, M. (2022). An Investigation into whether psychopathic traits negatively contribute to moral judgements.

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