Автор: Анкап-тян

There is an LPR cell in Novosibirsk. I got the impression that you used to have common interests with them, and then you distanced yourself slightly.

The explanation “so that the tyan’s opinion isn’t confused with the party’s official position” isn’t very clear to me. A tyan is a tyan, a party is a party, who would confuse the two? Can you break it down for me, like I’m an idiot, what the reason is?

John Griffith (response paid in the amount of 0.0025 BTC)

I have already answered once briefly about my understanding of the inner workings of the LPR. By design, a party is an organization engaged in organizing the political struggle for seats in government bodies. Those who join the party solely because of their libertarian views feel somewhat uncomfortable in it; to them, all this political struggle may even seem like utter foolishness. This creates completely unnecessary friction within the party.

Nevertheless, no bottom-up organized party can achieve success without numerous supporters who will provide funds for its activities in the background. And not so much through direct donations, but through the purchase of merchandise or tickets to public lectures. But their main task is to serve as agents for promoting libertarian ideology in society.

All these people, far removed from the political struggle, nevertheless want to know that they represent a strong and numerous community. The party, however, cannot and should not organize an entertainment program for them; that is not its task. From this, a demand naturally arises for the appearance of many diverse libertarian associations: shooting, cryptocurrency, educational—or even just small social circles without any specialization, which, for example, inevitably arise among the audience of one blogger or another.

The party, however, needs to determine whether a particular group is part of the party structure or is autonomous. And if it is autonomous, to what extent the party can afford to be associated with it. After all, it is through such associations that it is very convenient for the state to dilute the libertarian agenda. Yesterday some Enteo is smashing exhibitions, today he calls himself a libertarian, tomorrow people, hearing about libertarians, think they are all psychos like Enteo.

Hence all this party vigilance regarding whether a particular opinion leader calling themselves a libertarian is worthy of the name, and if someone says something, for example, about the ideas of one of the prominent party ideologues, whether to consider this still an intellectual discussion or already an intra-party split. Don’t judge these guys harshly; maintaining a single coordinated party position on key issues is indeed an important task for the political struggle.

But at the same time, the richer and more diverse the libertarian community is, the harder it will be for a conditional Enteo to draw attention to himself. Decentralization saves from the hijacking of control much like it saves a blockchain from fraudulent transactions. And in this case, there will no longer be a great need for a single centralized validator of publicly expressed views, such as a party, and only pure political activity will remain with it. As for now, I’d better stand aside, since my views in many ways do not coincide with the party program, so why stress good people and insist on the official status of the project? A confederative principle of interaction in our case is exactly what is needed.

Distanced herself…

How can the transition to ancap be carried out by political methods?

Bitarch Explains

People often ask how a libertarian society can be built by coming to power through elections. I will not dwell in detail on whether a libertarian party can come to power through elections at all, because this is the weakest point of the entire idea.

What options for building a libertarian society can the LPR choose? Mikhail Svetov often mentions them in his lectures, so I will try to explain them in plain language and provide my own comments.

1) Federalization. Mikhail constantly praises the USA and Switzerland for their model of national organization, reminding us that the RF is also de jure a federation (but not de facto—due to the violation of the constitution by the state’s first person). In this case, it will be possible to test various models of libertarianism in different regions and transfer best practices from one to another. The advantage of this approach is that in the event of an error, the consequences will be limited to one region rather than spreading across the entire country.

2) Homesteads. The idea is borrowed from the history of the settlement of the USA, when settlers from Europe occupied vacant lands, and later the government recognized their property rights to these plots. Svetov proposes to distribute the uninhabited territories of Siberia and the Far East in this way, granting settlers the right to autonomy, as if they were colonizing Mars (and accordingly, the opportunity to experiment with various libertarian models). Successful practices from these regions could then be gradually transferred to the main part of the country. Although, judging by the comments on this idea, people are not very eager to move to regions with such a harsh climate and a total lack of infrastructure.

3) Minarchism. A gradual transition to ancap is carried out through the gradual reduction of state functions across the entire country at once (as if the RF were a unitary state, which it is de facto now). Svetov means exactly this path when he calls himself a “forced minarchist.” This immediately raises the question of the stability of minarchism as such, which is further amplified by the centralization of power. A single unsuccessful reform could easily incite the people’s rage and end the LPR’s time in power, which would then create a negative image for the entire libertarian idea in the eyes of the general public for a long time.

Personally, I would propose another option—federalization of the country (simply follow the current constitution of the RF, it’s already in there) and the creation of competing extraterritorial contractual jurisdictions within regions that have approved the experiment by referendum. As the model is refined and “pitfalls” are eliminated, the geography can be expanded, gradually making all of Russia libertarian.

To the last paragraph, I would like to add that an extraterritorial jurisdiction is extraterritorial precisely so as not to be limited by some narrow list of regions. Today, there is one extraterritorial jurisdiction in the world—the jurisdiction of the United States of America. This state does not care whose territory its citizen is on; they continue to exercise their jurisdiction over them. But it is, of course, not contractual.

Ancap-chan

Let’s imagine that some crazy landowner in the city put up a giant-sized poster with, say, an image of an erotic nature.

Out of common sense, it would be right and fair to punish such a stunt immediately and force the poster to be taken down. Under a state, that is exactly what would happen. But what would happen under ancap?

Anonymous question (paid in the amount of 0.0005 BTC)

First of all, I want to apologize for not noticing the donation transferred on Thursday immediately, and therefore I am only answering now. I will try not to disappoint in the future.

Under a state, we actually see huge erotic images all over the city in the most prominent places, from billboards right in the middle of sidewalks to banners covering the entire side of a high-rise building. The image usually features some minimally dressed girl enjoying a Coca-Cola or checking how comfortable it is to sit on the hood of a sports car. I don’t know about feminists, but I like such advertising, especially now, because it reminds me of summer.

If tomorrow marketing research in focus groups shows that sales can be increased by advertising of a homoerotic nature, or scenes of violence, or something along those lines, then either we will soon see and gladly welcome fresh advertising imagery, or this will be preceded by lobbying work to obtain permission from the state to display such things, if it currently prohibits it directly.

But your question, in essence, concerned something slightly different. What if someone decided to place not an advertisement, but an image of a deliberately repulsive nature, which does not call for buying anything but simply evokes disgust? In a state, even if the current laws do not provide a ban on such things, the image can be dismantled by a simple order from some law enforcement agency, or, if it is a civilized state, there is a chance for a private lawsuit to succeed.

Quite some time ago, I wrote about some possibilities for harmonizing the urban environment under ancap; now I will consider a slightly different aspect.

In the absence of a state, a scandalous image will remain as long as the owner is willing to pay for it. Some will organize protest actions, call for a boycott, some will try to buy the building in order to destroy the image, some (the vast majority!) will limit themselves to flame wars on the internet, some might even risk pelting the owner of the object with eggs — and some will release souvenirs and begin to glorify the city’s new symbol. Imagine, a magnet of the Eiffel Tower, which was considered disgustingly ugly and people demanded its demolition in the early 20th century! Now imagine a magnet of our city’s fucking cunt-thing! Not much time will pass, and it will be impossible to imagine the city without this monument. The free market is always eclectic, and nowhere offline is this manifested as vividly as in the appearance of cities.

How could the issue of Earth’s orbit being polluted with space debris be regulated under ancap? After all, you cannot establish private property over space.

anonymous question

There is the Earth. Around the Earth is a certain near-Earth space where people regularly launch satellites. A satellite may fail on its own or disable another satellite, either as a result of targeted commands from its owners or as a result of many unpredictable natural factors.

What rules would govern the interaction of interested parties in this sphere under ancap? In essence, roughly the same as now. The legal frameworks in which property disputes regarding satellites and their mutual influence occur already largely correspond to free market principles: entities are equal and act on the basis of clearly defined agreements.

What would be the reaction now if someone began consciously shooting down other people’s satellites? The affected parties would try to prove this fact, the broader community of those potentially involved in the conflict would also be interested in such an investigation, and further, everyone would be interested in depriving the aggressor of the ability to continue the attacks, as well as recovering damages for the affected parties.

So, with the transition to ancap on Earth, little will fundamentally change in space. Except that currently, sections of the geostationary orbit are divided among states based on geographical criteria; were there no states, other agreements between players in the space industry would come into effect. Perhaps the simple principle of homesteading.

Well, alright. A considerable amount of time has passed, a huge amount of debris has accumulated in orbit—how will the market solve this problem? In general, what is trash for some is a valuable resource for others. Someone has already paid to launch mass into orbit. The temptation arises to use materials raised by someone else instead of launching one’s own. For now, this is commercially inefficient. The more debris there is in orbit, the lower the costs of extracting raw materials from space debris compared to launching.

Finally, it is worth noting that the accumulation of debris occurs only in sufficiently high orbits, while in low orbits, debris soon leaves orbit on its own and harmlessly burns up in the dense layers of the atmosphere. Thus, for low orbits, extending the lifespan of a satellite is more relevant than the accumulation of satellites that have already become debris.

Thus, in the space industry, one can see all the approaches humanity has developed in the fight against the problem of waste: increasing the service life of products, littering less, and recycling waste.

How do you feel about anarcho-communism?

Madame likiliki

I first learned that such people existed in 2014, meeting them at an anti-war rally. It feels as though their best days are behind them, and they are gradually migrating toward ancap.

To some extent, ancom is achieved when almost the entire basket of typical consumer goods loses its scarcity due to the growth of labor productivity. You click a robot, it rushes off like a sprightly little boar, and brings back some beer. There is no point in owning something that is universally available.

All sorts of craft products can certainly be made for the sake of self-expression. Minimal societal administration is required. As for projects requiring resources that remain scarce, those remain under the purview of business, but most people are completely uninterested in that—they have domestic abundance and total legalization. So, if this version of ancap looks like ancom and quacks like ancom, why not call it ancom.

How to catch Pokémon in Pokemon GO under ancap? Everything is private property!

анонимный вопрос

Strictly speaking, under ancap, private territory is not everywhere, but only where someone has privatized it. However, since we are talking about a specific game, it is clear that we are primarily talking about a city, and there, every little scrap of land belongs to someone.

As I have already written in response to the classic question about roads, and later expanded upon when responding regarding traffic regulation, the goal of a land owner is to derive profit from it. To make a profit from land in a city, one must provide the infrastructure so that a customer with money can easily and conveniently arrive specifically at their location and spend their money there. Or, so that workers and materials can reach a real estate object just as easily, if it is a production site rather than a point of sale.

It is clear that if the owner of a certain object wants to attract the widest possible circle of customers, it is completely impractical for them to filter out those from the general flow who wish to catch a tasty Pokemon on their territory and to hinder them in doing so. Quite the opposite: if such a game is popular at the moment, those wishing to ensure a flow of customers should compete to order the best Pokemon assortment for their specific location from the Pokemon producing company, and ideally, one or two should be completely exclusive. Thus, giving wine to every successful Pokemon catcher in a synagogue is cool, but it’s even cooler if one can obtain a unique Jewish Pokemon there, who refuses to fight on Saturdays and always answers a question with a question.

Similarly, those who would prefer that Pokemon not be caught on their territory could simply contact the Pokemon producing company with a demand to remove the entire zoo from a specific location. For example, there are all the grounds for Pokemon not to inhabit a theater, since switched-on phones disturb the actors and other spectators.

I will not venture to predict in detail exactly how the legal battles will unfold between the producers of such games and their clients on one side, and the owners of various establishments on the other. It is clear that if a requirement to turn off or hand over a phone is hanging at the entrance for some reason, it will be quite difficult to contest in court the soft coercion to comply with this requirement and being escorted off the territory in case of refusal.

However, all of this is exotic, since Pokemon are more often found in parks and other public spaces, as one of the goals of the game was simply to get people to go for a walk. I doubt that staring at a phone while walking would be prohibited in a private park; they would likely not even prohibit sex there—why would they, when instead they can sell condoms and rent out blankets?

Shalom!

How will things stand with abortions under ancap?

анонимный вопрос

I have already answered the question regarding the legitimacy of abortions from a libertarian perspective, but now the topic is slightly different.

Despite the fact that most libertarians see nothing blameworthy or punishable in a woman having an abortion, there will clearly be significantly fewer abortions in a society dominated by anarcho-capitalism than there are now.

It is very simple. An abortion is not a benefit for a woman. It is always a kind of forced evil that a woman resorts to because she views continuing the pregnancy as an even greater evil. But under ancap, she will have far more alternatives to abortion.

Judge for yourself. One could place an advertisement stating that a child is being carried, the approximate birth date is such-and-such, and she is ready to sell guardianship rights and waive her parental rights. Of course, this advertisement could be phrased using various euphemisms, but the essence would be roughly the same: I am willing to endure pregnancy and childbirth if I am sure that my problems end there, although I would also like compensation for the costs incurred.

Of course, a commercial surrogate motherhood contract can be concluded now, although in a number of countries this practice is prosecuted by law. But even where it is legal, the subject is fraught with a heap of regulations, which greatly increases the costs of the procedure; consequently, many women will still prefer abortion as something more guaranteed and less troublesome. Moreover, processing paperwork is a lengthy matter, and the sooner an abortion is performed, the less damage is done to the woman’s body.

Finally, there are also medical grounds for abortion, such as when the pregnancy threatens the mother’s life, or the child is proven to be a carrier of a hereditary disease. Removing bioethical barriers to research could somewhat accelerate the resolution of problems in this area compared to current reality, but that is already starting to be guesswork.

The picture is blissful, like Jehovah’s Witness brochures. Choose ancap, save the children!

The Walking Dead — ancap? And is it possible to create Ancapistan during a zombie apocalypse?

анонимный вопрос

Unfortunately, it is difficult for me to answer the first part of the question. My knowledge of the series is entirely exhausted by the information that there is a sad boy named Carl somewhere in there. So I will not go into specifics; let’s talk about the zombie apocalypse in general, without tying it to a specific series.

I would define a zombie apocalypse roughly like this: it is a phenomenon of an unstudied nature in which the bodies of dead people become deadly to the living. In such a general formulation, humanity has encountered the zombie apocalypse repeatedly. Every epidemic of some plague became a zombie apocalypse. According to one version, the great zombie apocalypse in England in the 17th century even contributed to the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of liberalism, since it increased the cost of labor.

A typical cinematic zombie apocalypse differs from historical analogues only in that the dead body pursues living people with all the appropriate cinematic special effects: it approaches with a tragic gait, waves household equipment terrifyingly, and scrapes its nails against stone in powerless rage if the victim manages to climb to a height. Hygienic measures against zombies are generally about the same as during an epidemic: burn the corpses.

Alright, these are all very sweet reflections, but how will zombies help in the construction of Ancapistan? For this, we will have to introduce another fantastic assumption. A zombie does not just lunge at everyone indiscriminately. No, he purposefully and inventively sets out to take revenge specifically on the person he considers responsible for his death. By analogy with the philosophical zombie, I will call this subspecies the “legal zombie.” Agree that, compared to the fantastic assumption that brisk corpses exist at all, such a specification of their motivations looks like a quite modest and realistic addition.

Such a zombie is a living… pardon, non-living embodiment of the non-aggression principle: no one has the right to initiate violence with impunity. Let’s add that a legal zombie also lunges at anyone who prevents another legal zombie from carrying out their revenge. Having finished the retribution for their death, the legal zombie finds peace.

I assert that in the world of a legal zombie apocalypse, Ancapistan will be built quite quickly. A living person is such a more pleasant companion than a zombie that the very idea of contributing to the appearance of a new zombie would already be horrifying. Therefore, people will soon learn mutual politeness, develop a readiness for charity and cooperation in difficult situations, and will even evacuate from the Titanic into lifeboats only after ensuring that a seat was voluntarily provided to them.

But we don’t have to wait for the arrival of a legal zombie apocalypse; we can learn mutual respect, cooperation, and compassion for the weak in advance, and be ready to pounce on any violator of the NAP. Why postpone for the afterlife what can be done today?

Thank you for your attention.

Happy Constitution Day!

At the heart of documents such as constitutions lies a rather peculiar paradox of thinking. On one hand, law is equated with legislation, and any order from the reigning sovereign becomes law. On the other hand, there is a glimmer of understanding that the consistent implementation of such an approach creates conditions that are not very conducive to living and, in particular, greatly hinders long-term planning.

And here is what the creators of the idea of the constitution did. They proposed: let us establish a law that declares the people as the sovereign, and the actual ruler as merely the executor of the sovereign’s will. What would this achieve? This: we will explicitly write the limitations of the ruler’s powers in this very document. And since the ruler is not the sovereign, he cannot repeal them, meaning they must be observed—after all, the law is what is written on the paper.

Over several centuries of implementing the idea of constitutional limits on state power, it became clear how this works.

If relatively simple mechanisms for its amendment are embedded in the constitution, then it will be changed in accordance with the desires of interested parties in the government.

If, instead of concrete norms, the articles of the constitution provide references to laws that the government must adopt to comply with the constitution’s wishes, these laws very quickly become such that, in the name of the sovereign “people,” representatives of that very people—who have nothing to do with the exercise of state power—are repressed, while representatives of the “state” service organization are gently moved out of harm’s way.

Finally, if the constitution contrasts sharply with the wishes of sufficiently influential actors in the government, its norms are simply ignored, since a constitution usually does not contain norms specifying exactly how the sovereign has the right to hold the government—established by the sovereign—accountable when the government refuses to observe the constitutional restrictions established by that sovereign.

In short, the idea of a constitution is an interesting attempt to limit absolute power without departing from the principles of legalism, and this attempt had some success. However, no constitution has ever worked on its own. A constitution always works only on the general belief that, first, a constitution should exist and, second, it must be observed.

So, as long as we still live in a state, it is worth remembering that a constitution is a limitation on state power, not on civil rights. A citizen cannot violate the constitution; only a person vested with state authority can violate it. Since the constitution works on faith, shove this sacred scripture in the faces of government officials more often. Tell them: all laws are what you wrote against us, and only the constitution is what you wrote against yourselves. Therefore, I will demand that you observe the constitution, and specifically as I, the sovereign, understand it—that is, literally. And if any law, secondary act, job description, or oral directive from your immediate superiors violates this very constitution, then I, the sovereign, perceive this as a conspiracy against myself, the sovereign, and I will put a stop to it; so it is better to push aside all other scrap paper and talk about how you must observe my constitutional rights.

As lawyer Mikhail Benyash said in an interview with Mikhail Svetov: be as naive as children, demand the observance of the constitution.

For this post, a thank-you donation was received from John Griffith in the amount of
0.00258215 BTC

In whose interests, besides the parents’, is it to conduct research on the genetic modification of humans to increase their abilities?

After all, these investments might not pay off by providing a skilled workforce in the future—if the person does not want to work for the company that “created” them.

анонимный вопрос

Indeed, an interesting topic. One entity invests funds and effort to create another entity, while the created entity has no debt to the creator, except perhaps a moral one. The question arises: what would compel the creator to invest resources into their creation?

At the same time, for some reason, you have no doubt that there won’t be a problem with parents; they will certainly be interested in investing in the creation of children who are more advanced from their point of view. But why, exactly?

For example, I am thinking about having a child and reading the price list for genetic modifications that can be made. Remove the predisposition to cancer and AIDS? Of course, I’ll take it; it’s much more reliable than health insurance and, if spread over a lifetime, far cheaper. We clean out hereditary diseases. Is it necessary? Of course. Tendency toward obesity? I’ll probably correct that; it will also pay off. Height? Eye color? Why bother? Well, only if these settings come in a general package, as not every parent will buy these modifications separately.

In other words, parents will primarily be interested in those modifications that save them—the parents’—expenses on raising the child. Secondly, those that in the long run could increase the child’s chances of success in life, although you can never guess what will be in market demand. Lastly, any matter of personal taste.

Why does a parent have a child and invest in them at all? For the joy of the upbringing process and satisfaction from the results of that upbringing. A child is a creative project that, if the devil doesn’t joke, might even bring commercial success.

Could such a creative project be undertaken, for example, not by a parent, but by a large company? Why not, but the motivation for the company’s founders would be the same: to get maximum satisfaction from the results of the upbringing. At the same time, in order for the free people produced by this company to also bring it some monetary profit, they must do so voluntarily. This means loyalty must be cultivated in them.

If a gene for blind love can be found, then perhaps the loyalty problem can be solved this way. But for some reason, I have a strong suspicion that this gene will turn out to be linked to genes responsible for intellectual development, meaning the overall life success of such a child would be small (especially since a child-production plant is unlikely to provide every graduate with significant starting capital).

Please leave the fantasies about growing competent specialists and subsequently keeping them in forced slavery to the communists; we are considering ancap here, and ancap is self-ownership.

So, if we are talking about market models for such enterprises, I would rather suggest looking toward existing private schools and universities. There, likewise, a gifted student can enter a school for free and even have a scholarship, while the institution is funded by an endowment fund. Former students who have succeeded in life contribute to the fund entirely voluntarily. The only difference in our case would be that gifted children are not sought out initially, but produced.

It seems to me that this is a quite pleasant future in which children are predominantly wanted, and they will be far less likely to disappoint those who invested in them.

Sweet children, but that’s not how it works under ancap