Any server owner can run their own relay, which will receive such messages, store them, and forward them.
Any developer can write their own client that connects to one or more such relays, receives messages from them, filters and beautifies them if desired before showing them to the user (for example, loading media where there were links to it in the message), and sends the user’s messages to the relay.
Any user can download a client, configure which relays it connects to (if the client allows), and enjoy life.
On GitHub, it is easy to find Nostr libraries for several languages, clients (one could make a fork adapted for Montelibero), and relays (again, one can run their own relay for Montelibero’s needs).
To set up a Nostr account, it is sufficient to generate a pair of private and public keys; after that, the private key is stored, and the public one can be shared far and wide (here is mine: npub1jj4xxj47j9yjthhrd2kwklx5vl9j45ruvhl0ftdfamf7v6nx799ssf45q3), just as the creators of asymmetric encryption intended. Keys can be generated directly within a particular Nostr client (I generated mine in the Alby browser extension), via a special service, or for security, one can use a completely custom script if they have the expertise (I do not). However, I managed to link my Nostr public key to the name ancapchan@getalby.com (so-called NIP5 verification), create my own Lightning address ⚡ancapchan2018@gmail.com (which masks the address ⚡ancapchan@getalby.com), as well as link this browser extension to my website, so now, if you have it installed, its icon on the ancapchan.info website changes from yellow to blue, and when you click it, you will see an invitation to send a donation:
In general, Lightning is natively integrated into the Nostr protocol as a means of transferring value. For instance, social network clients based on Nostr offer “zaps” instead of likes, which are accompanied by the sending of a small amount of satoshis. In addition, money in the system can be used for paid relays that offer additional functionality, such as spam filters.
Overall, the protocol seems promising to me. I hope it will soon acquire a sufficiently convenient infrastructure, more people will join, and it will gradually be able to draw the attention away from current centralized solutions. I also hope that the collective intelligence of the developers participating in the Montelibero project will be enough to create their own Nostr-based solutions: their own relay, a bridge to Telegram, and much more that hasn’t even occurred to me yet.
That’s correct, they can indeed be sold. For this to happen, slaves must be perceived as a commodity:
by the seller
by the buyer
by those around them.
If you are enslaved, but all potential buyers do not perceive slaves as a commodity, then congratulations, you will not be sold; you will remain a slave to whoever enslaved you. For example, the state.
If you are enslaved, but the enslaver themselves does not perceive slaves as a commodity — congratulations, you won’t be sold either; you will remain a slave to whoever enslaved you, meaning, for example, the state.
If you are enslaved, they want to sell you, a potential buyer is ready to buy, but all those around do not consider slaves to be a commodity — congratulations, a free market for slaves will not emerge, the transaction is unlikely to take place because it will be considered illegitimate, and you, again, will remain in slavery to whoever enslaved you, for example, the state.
But if everyone around considers not only the purchase and sale of slaves to be illegitimate, but the very acts of enslavement themselves — well, then — alas for you — you will not only not be sold, but you are unlikely to be enslaved at all; you will somehow survive without a master.
There is no one to enslave the poor fellow: feed him, give him a bunk, provide him with work. Even Navalny was given a bunk! And free housing!
Until recently, a fairly significant source of income for my channel was my Boosty page, a service that allows for the collection of recurring payments. To be fair, Boosty is a way to earn from premium content, but since my premium content is free, I simply posted diary-like snippets there—not that I believed they were worth the money, but that’s just how Boosty works: you have to offer different content for different subscription levels.
Either way, that story is in the past because almost all of my ruble-based tools have been blocked, and I wouldn’t want to gift your donations to the bank once my last card is blocked. So, I started looking for a replacement, and I found one.
I have added instructions on how to use this new tool to the donations page. Donations are sent in Bitcoin using the Lightning and the trendy Nostr protocols. I borrowed the idea from the 21 Idea project, and as a trial, I set up a daily payment of 100 satoshis for it. So far, the first hundred has been deducted; we’ll see how it goes from here and how well the parameter editing works—I want to play around more with the frequency and amount of the payments.
Overall, however, I have no reason to believe that anything is seriously glitching, so you don’t have to wait until I’m done experimenting and can set up recurring donations right now. It’s currently the low season at my main job, so I have more free time, and I could devote much more attention to my channel if it gave me a way to earn.
Currently, the Bitcoin blockchain is heavily congested, so if it weren’t for Lightning, very little would be moving at all. I recommend getting some satoshis for fast Bitcoin payments as soon as possible; their popularity will clearly continue to grow rapidly. Moreover, payments on Lightning are more private than on-chain.
Did it turn out that way? Is it easier to explain to liberals with remnants of religious consciousness? Are there some non-obvious pitfalls with liberties that aren’t present in an explanation through rights?
Λ (taken from the chat)
Freedom is the natural state of a human being outside of society. Robinson is free on a deserted island until Friday appears, and he has no rights, because there is no one to whom he can make claims, and no one to whom he must yield. When society emerges, it means the restriction of liberties and the appearance of rights. Since the book on ancap is dedicated specifically to life in society, it discusses rights rather, as they are generated by society itself.
A free person before the emergence of the need for ancap
Mikhail Svetov has released another introductory video about libertarianism.
Apparently, the very first video on the SVTV channel, “Five Minutes About Libertarianism,” through which many people indeed first learned about this ideology, had ceased to satisfy him in some way.
Let’s compare what has changed.
The old video is a tongue-twister of tightly edited libertarian talking points, weakly linked into a single logical line. Key points: libertarianism is about the fact that the end does not justify the means, about the victim’s right to protection from violence, and about the right to love and hate. Libertarianism is a moral compass. The video contains mentions of Mikhail’s personal tastes, which are unrelated to the topic.
The new video is read in the measured tone of a storyteller, equipped with simple but quite captivating animation, and is far more logically precise.
I, of course, do not like the very beginning of the video, where self-ownership is presented as something inherent and given by someone unknown, while the non-aggression principle is for some reason called a contract. Why not the other way around: a contract on self-ownership and an inherent natural right to resist violence? This is, in general, important, because according to Mikhail, violating the non-aggression contract removes a person from the legal field, and here the question arises: what exactly is the legal field?
By the way, the visuals in this part directly contradict the text. An aggressor threatens violence, thereby supposedly exiting the legal field; an external defender appears, and what does the aggressor do? He drops the knife and surrenders. That is, he resorts to a legal procedure! He demonstrates that he is no longer an aggressor, and that shooting him from all barrels is no longer so attractive in the eyes of an outside observer. In other words, the aggressor does not exit any legal field. Or rather, he exits it precisely at the moment of aggression, when it is permissible to pump him full of lead. At least, that is how it can be understood from the video.
In short, Svetov has never been distinguished by the rigor of his conceptual framework, but for a politician, this is an excessive requirement; his job is to attract an audience. The video should presumably handle this quite well, and I can boldly recommend it for distribution.
On April 30, the Kakha Bendukidze Forum took place in Tbilisi — organized by the same committee that previously held the Adam Smith Readings in Moscow. Judging by the photos, about a hundred people attended, but it seems that such a modest number was due to the room’s capacity limit; there likely could have been more. The broadcast was of very poor technical quality, with the sound dropping out periodically. The 26 people who gathered to listen to the broadcast in Budva, I assume, had the opportunity to fill this tedious silence by discussing what they had managed to hear. I hope a normal recording, without glitches, will appear soon.
Eight reports were presented, of which two were of the greatest interest to me: an overview of Russian economic trends by Natalia Zubarevich (in short — don’t hope, at this rate it won’t collapse on its own for a long time, this fat one will take a long time to wither) and an overview of private city development trends by Vera Kichanova (in short — it’s too early to bury Prospera, and there is also a project called Montellibero). I don’t even know why I’m highlighting these two reports specifically — let’s just call it sexism.
Also around the same time in Montenegro near Tivat, at a two-month event with the strange name Zuzalu, Montellibero was presented by one of our project’s activists. One of the event’s sections was entirely dedicated to charter cities and network states. There was a broadcast, but I found out about it after the fact. The recording hasn’t been uploaded to the archive yet, so I’ll have to wait. Once I do, I’ll try to make a brief overview of the interesting things Titus Gebel, Patri Friedman, and other less-known guys managed to tell — of whom I only happened to chat with Peter Young at the Montellibero club.
Meanwhile, in Russia, there is complete stability: recently, the police snatched two members of the LPR; one was robbed and put in a cellar for 12 days, and nothing is known about the second one at all. I continue to consider the position of the LPR leadership a crime. Instead of organizing the evacuation of libertarians from Russia, they continue to hang around there pointlessly and at risk to their lives, and recently even decided to hold another party congress in September. I urge my readers remaining in the RF to leave these idiots in their hopelessly miserable state and finally complete their relocation to where libertarians are much more needed. After all, the conquest of the world is in full swing here.
I have translated another chapter of Eric Mack’s book Libertarianism. Here, the author briefly (well, as far as the word “briefly” applies to Eric Mack) explains that when Rawls tries to explain why libertarians are wrong by denying the need for a certain basic structure introduced by Rawls—which would impose uniform rules and procedures on everyone in the name of justice—he cannot simultaneously claim that this structure will be white and fluffy, introducing clear and reasonable rules according to which one can pay taxes and sleep soundly. No, according to Rawls, taxes will need to be paid, but that will not give you the right to sleep soundly: after the fact, your income may still be deemed unfair, and you will be forced to shell out more in the name of justice.
By the way, speaking of shelling out. My access to my Qiwi wallet was blocked, and when I tried to recover it, I discovered that with all my moves, I had long since lost the Russian SIM card it was linked to. I managed to withdraw the money, but I no longer consider this channel of receiving funds reliable. Thus, you no longer have the option to donate to me in state-regulated fiat instruments (and all posts in the private channel on Boosty are now open—you are unlikely to find much interesting there). For one-time donations, only various types of cryptocurrencies remain at your service (I especially recommend tokens circulating within the Montelibero project). Cryptocurrency wallets are usually not designed for regular donations; that requires custodial storage. So, as a temporary workaround, you can simply set a monthly reminder for yourself to “donate to Ancap-chan”.
Nothing is good or bad in itself; everything depends on the circumstances. Let’s look at what our circumstances are.
First of all—both you and I, and the “Z-supporters” you mentioned, are emigrants.
There is a conflict between us and the Z-supporters. That is, we intend to use the same object for different, mutually exclusive purposes. What is this object of conflict? It is public opinion among the citizens of the state receiving us, namely Montenegro.
We plan to use it so that Montenegrins believe: all Russians who have moved to Montenegro are against Putin and Putin’s aggression; they are peaceful, civilized European people just like the Montenegrins themselves, and they should be welcomed in the country with the same readiness as Ukrainian refugees, or at least on general grounds, like some Germans.
The Z-supporters require a completely different public opinion—that Montenegrins know: all Russians support Putin, he is waging a just war against NATO, which attacked Russia in Ukraine, Russia has always been a friend and an elder brother to all the brotherly Balkan peoples, and now, when Russia drives NATO out of Ukraine, it will come and drive NATO out of Montenegro too, because this malicious Anglo-Saxon organization, generally speaking, bombed Montenegro, so let it get out. And in general—Crna Gora je Srbija. The Montenegrin brothers are doing great; look, they’ve elected a pro-Serbian president, let them keep going in the same vein.
It would seem that we and the Z-supporters have the same desire—to have good relations with the locals. However, we are appealing to different groups of locals. They appeal to those suffering from Great Serbian ressentiment. We appeal to those who consider wars of aggression unacceptable. In other words, both we and the Z-supporters are exploiting the local political divide. Where could this lead? To a situation where Russian citizens start being expelled from the country—simply for interfering in local politics, since this is a private fight, and both high-fighting parties do not wish for escalation.
That is exactly why we don’t run through the streets with FSB flags and shout that Putin is a dick. Running through the streets with flags is a privilege of Ukrainians; no one will expel them from the country.
So, of course, we are interested in making sure that Z-supporters don’t run through the streets of Montenegro. However, punching them in the face right away is still not “kosher.” First, a Z-supporter might actually be a Serb, and to avoid awkwardness, it makes sense to find this out before punching them in the face. Second, a Z-supporter, even if they are Russian, might simply not understand the reasoning laid out above and view running around with Z-symbolism simply as supporting a favorite sports team.
In short, in our situation, it is better to approach them and start a conversation. And if it’s a Russian, then argue reasonably to make them understand that Russians should not wave their political orientation in the street—it’s against “spiritual staples.” But if they start getting aggressive about it—then, of course, they should be provoked—and then punch them in the face within the framework of self-defense, as the great and terrible principle of non-aggression teaches us.
I looked at the poll results regarding the reasons why my readers are staying in Russia.
What pleases me most is that the smallest category is currently under a direct travel ban. For the vast majority, the path of retreat is at least not under fire.
I am equally pleased by the agorists who managed to find an excuse to avoid mobilization. I hope it is a good, high-quality excuse.
Those who are already packing their bags have surely studied the issue well and know where to go. There is plenty of material on emigration; while waiting for a foreign passport and other papers, one can study it inside and out.
Partisans, I am proud of you. You already have over a year of combat experience, and you certainly have no need for my advice. From time to time, something in Russia mysteriously burns or explodes, certain unpleasant individuals run into trouble, including fatal outcomes, secret information doesn’t stay within the narrow circle of authorized holders for long, the morale of the troops is low, state-sponsored patriots are eating each other, and so on. If any of you had a hand in any of this, or in something not covered by my imagination—I don’t want to know anything about it until the war ends or your evacuation is complete.
Now a few words of consolation for the lazy and those bound by insurmountable domestic difficulties. It is very unlikely that the rate of producing corpses and cripples on the front among Russians will exceed three hundred thousand people per year. Thus, even if the mobilization potential of the RF is only thirty million, the state will consume only one percent of those liable for military service per year. So, out of the hundred or so who answered that they intend to remain in the RF, only one or two people will die or be crippled in the war in a year. This is a good chance for survival, enough to keep from shaking with fear. I would shake with disgust, but that is a matter of habit. Nevertheless, I recommend buying bitcoins at every opportunity: if the rate skyrockets, perhaps you will reconsider your ambitions and finally head abroad.
Of course, the main reason not to go anywhere is the fear of the unknown. How to legalize oneself, how to live, how much will have to be spent, how to get money, how long one will have to live in such a suspended state—this worries many even more than they want to show.
I’ll try to share my experience.
It is believed that it is easiest for remote IT workers to emigrate. This is true. I am still sincerely surprised why even one IT worker remained in the RF. These gluttonous creatures have driven apartment rental prices into the sky and still dare to grumble that the level of service abroad is somehow worse than in Moscow. Even if another hundred thousand of them crowd into tiny Montenegro and prices double again from current levels—even then they will be able to live in comfort, denying themselves very little, while all other immigrants will have to pack their bags and migrate to Africa, or wherever else is relatively cheap.
Without IT skills, I was lucky enough to find a remote job requiring only basic computer literacy. ChatGPT cannot replace me, but a well-designed dispatch program could; however, it is easier to pay me 700 euros a month than an entire team of developers for such a program, so I don’t have to worry about my employment. Nevertheless, there isn’t much work of this sort, and without it, I would have to work offline and with my hands, which, however, is not a great tragedy. If you are not an IT worker, it is better to orient yourself toward such an outcome from the start.
To make ends meet, many immigrants rent apartments as a group of friends. This is very sensible. Concerns about privacy and domestic frictions take a back seat compared to the savings achieved. In the RF, I never lived with any one person for more than six months—tensions built up, and we gradually drifted apart. Here I have already broken that record: I have no time for petty whims, you know. Those who have experience living in a dormitory already have a head start.
There is another obvious pattern. On one hand, the further away, the more obstacles await new immigrants. This includes a higher cost of living and the increasing complexity of legalization in a new country. On the other hand, the further away, the fewer resources the average new immigrant has: Russia is getting poorer, it is becoming harder to sell property there for a good price before leaving, and so on. Therefore, the fact that the flow of refugees from the RF does not dwindle is only because the Russian state makes staying in the RF unbearable at a rate even higher than the rate of citizens’ impoverishment. Conclusion: if you leave now, it will be easier for you than if you leave in six months. Second conclusion: at some point, it will become almost impossible to leave the RF, even if you want to very badly.
In 2021, I went to Montenegro simply because an interesting project came up—let’s, they said, build a libertarian community here and create a kind of European New Hampshire (in American New Hampshire, as I recently heard, a former member of the LPR is sitting in the state congress). And the weakness of COVID restrictions also played a part (remember, there was this COVID, under whose pretext all states competed in who could ruin their subjects’ lives in the most absurd way). I rented the cheapest studio for 120 euros a month and received a residence permit just two months after arriving—actually two weeks later than established by government regulations, about which I even had the audacity to grumble. Now this same studio is rented to someone else for 200. After applying for a residence permit extension in June, I received the new document only in November, and I still haven’t been able to open a bank account for the company I acquired—I am literally not being given the opportunity to pay taxes, damn it. Those who arrive right now simply cannot physically apply for a residence permit—the queue starts at nine in the evening the night before; few can endure such a thing.
If I were deciding right now which country to flee to from Russia with my background and current job, I would probably settle on Kyrgyzstan, because Montenegro is already too lavish and too much of a headache. Kyrgyzstan also has mountains, also a sea (of possibilities), also plenty of Russian speakers, also meat cuisine, also people friendly to immigrants, also an unstable government—but at the same time, life is cheaper, and it seems slightly easier with the bureaucratic red tape.
And if I decided to go specifically to Montenegro right now—since there is no Montelibero in Kyrgyzstan—I would no longer count on any residence permit, but would simply do visa-runs every month—to Albania in the summer, to Serbia in the winter. Or maybe I’d just forget about it and live as an illegal. As long as you don’t try to cross the border, no one cares about the legality of your residence status. And when you try, and they pick on you—the maximum risk is a fine and a six-month ban on entry.
Forgive the awkwardly long and rambling post; I just wanted to vent. I simply believe it is important to support my readers, wherever they are stuck right now, and whatever status they hold. Even if you didn’t escape and ended up at the front—well, shoot something off of yourself, something not too vital for life, but necessary to fight. There is always a way out.
They say that on the thirtieth full moon of the year, for two seconds right after midnight, the poll creation button on Facebook slightly opens, but it hasn’t opened for me yet, so I can’t say anything about the audience there.
Overall, I’m happy for the Twitter users, although it’s generally logical to expect that in a social network blocked in the RF, the proportion of active participants living outside the RF will be slightly higher.
But, one way or another, there are quite a lot of people remaining in the RF, and I want to understand the spectrum of your excuses.
Почему вы остаётесь в РФ? (опрос для тех, кто в РФ)
