Автор: Анкап-тян

A Snail on the Slope

As I expected, on the way I read “The Snail on the Slope” by the Strugatskys, which I had promised to review for a long time.

I’ll be banal: the book is exceptionally strange and almost incoherent, which is probably why so many people want to find deep meanings in it. The plot is available on Wiki, so I won’t retell it.

Trying to understand what the authors meant, I made a few assumptions, then decided to check them and looked at the transcript of Boris Strugatsky’s presentation from 1987, shortly before the book was published in full (before that, it had been published in parts). I was surprised. The style of the book is so different from what I had read previously that I was certain it was something written by the later Strugatskys sometime in the eighties, amid the general fascination with “chernukha” (dark realism). But no, it turned out that although this work was written later than everything else of theirs I had read so far, it wasn’t by much; it was still the same sixties.

Overall, the book slightly reminded me of Marquez’s “No One Writes to the Colonel”: the same sluggish and useless fussing while waiting for long-promised things that the protagonist has no power to influence. Naturally, one wants to draw parallels with the Soviet reality, where the Administration is Soviet bureaucracy, the Forest is the Soviet people, the main character Perts is the Soviet intelligentsia striving to be closer to the people but unable to understand them, and the main character Candid is the same Soviet intelligentsia, only exiled, say, to the depths of the Siberian mines. This analogy would be no worse and no less plausible than the one intended by the authors, where the Administration is the present and the Forest is the future.

In the previous Strugatsky books I encountered, there was practically no sex, if one doesn’t count the completely filler episode between Don Rumata and Dona Okana in “Hard to Be a God.” Here, they expanded significantly, but continue to push the same line as they did when depicting medieval society: sex is crude, it is philistinism, such baseness is unbecoming of a human, who should be satisfied with spiritual closeness alone. This is exactly what happens with all the positive characters in the Strugatskys’ works: they enter purely platonic relationships and certainly do not reproduce. I don’t know what this says more about: the Soviet censors or the position of the Strugatskys themselves, but it is a quite characteristic detail.

At the same time, it seems to me that they generally understood that something was wrong with this position of theirs—and by depicting a single-sex parthenogenetic society as the Future, they made it no less repulsive than the straightforward philistine obscenity of the Present. I don’t know where they picked up such misanthropic ideas; it seems their senior comrade Ivan Efremov by no means demonized the sexual question (I’ve only read “Tais Athena” by him, but I believe that in his sci-fi he did not deviate from his ideology on this matter). So far, the best picture of a bright future with a healthy attitude toward sex I’ve seen was by Alexander Rozov in the Meganesian cycle.

The Way to Montenegro

I have arrived safely in Montenegro. Although “safely” is not entirely the correct word, because many mistakes were made and a lot of money was lost in the process. In general, traveling has become much more difficult compared to 2019, when I last traveled outside of Russia.

The most unpleasant discovery was that you can no longer trust aggregators when buying plane tickets. They will readily sell you a ticket for a flight that you fundamentally cannot use, which the seller already knows at the time of the transaction, and it will be impossible to refund this ticket. Thus, I failed to fly to Belgrade via Istanbul relatively cheaply, and had to urgently buy literally the penultimate remaining direct ticket to Belgrade, in business class, for an insane amount of money. Then, in Belgrade itself, I was not allowed into the city because I didn’t have a PCR test, and I had to spend the night in the transit zone. And when it came time to check in for the flight to Tivat, it turned out that no one would transfer my luggage from one flight to another for me. In the end, I was assigned a manager who literally led me by the hand through passport control (the lack of a test miraculously stopped being an obstacle), then I collected my luggage at the lost & found desk, then at check-in it turned out that the system could not see my ticket, we went to the airline desk where the system finally spotted me, they printed a paper copy of the ticket, and with that, the quest to board the plane was finally completed… What I liked about the Serbs was that everyone took the fuck-up with humor; any formalities were immediately set aside as soon as a real problem appeared, so the journey through the airport was filled with cheerful laughter and jokes in broken English.

In Tivat, I ignored the services of taxi drivers (that was actually difficult), walked to the bus station, bought a ticket to Budva, used public Wi-Fi to tell the person meeting me when to expect me, and after that, there were no more problems.

Heinrich, until the day before yesterday the representative of the only family that had moved to Montenegro as part of the Montelibero project, turned out to be just an ordinary libertarian, exactly as they should be according to libertarian propaganda: businesslike, energetic, polite, paying great attention to building his reputation—and without any obsessive fetishes, which are not uncommon among political and social activists. In short, he and I will undoubtedly get along. I gave him cash for the project fund—although, only someone else’s, since my fuck-ups on the way are unlikely to let me invest a significant amount in the near future, and I’d rather save the remaining money for a deposit for a future landlord to get more attractive terms.

Yesterday, Heinrich and I went from Budva to Bar. If Budva is a purely tourist town, located in a rather narrow coastal strip between the sea and the cliffs, and actively climbing those very cliffs—then Bar is much more spacious, there is plenty of empty space right within the city limits, and it looks somewhat more self-sufficient. At the same time, it doesn’t look poor or neglected, although a certain residual “Soviet-ness” is felt in it. In general, I will try to find housing specifically there; at the same time, it will be significantly closer to the location of our future libertarian locale.

Unexpectedly, they decided to make me the project director—this is mainly due to a staff shortage and the cleanliness of my documents, rather than any outstanding business qualities. But, of course, I will try not to let them down. Naturally, the fund cannot yet afford any competitive salary, so this looks more like a public service. As I understand it, as of today, the fund has already collected about 25 thousand euros out of the 70 thousand required to buy land, and this pace clearly allows for the completion of what was started, most likely without any single participant holding a controlling stake. The day after tomorrow, we welcome another family of settlers.

As for the channel, I hope to maintain the usual pace of publications in the future, about one per day. By the way, a huge thank you to those who, hearing about my troubles with the tickets, sent several unusually large donations. This already covers about a fifth of the losses—and I didn’t even ask anyone directly, because it felt awkward to ask people to pay for the results of my own stupidity.

The view from the hostel window of the old town of Budva. In Bar, of course, the view will be significantly more ordinary.

I have my own libertarian boxing club; can I publish our article about fighting corporations with you?

Daniil

From what I understand, the main point of the club is as follows: weapons are, of course, cool, but they are rarely managed to be used for self-defense, and safely—even more rarely. Meanwhile, for a libertarian, it is not only useful to know how to defend oneself in a wide variety of situations, but this skill, when applied, also advertises libertarian ideology in its own right.

The proposed article describes how, within the framework of private security production, the world does not revolve solely around private security companies—since this field is very strictly regulated by the state, and therefore such companies, firstly, provide their services at a disproportionately high cost, and secondly, the spectrum of services does not cover all types of demand.

Instead of private security companies, the revival of such a soft and humane means of reasoning with unfriendly counterparties as hiring a team of trained musclemen with powerful fists is proposed. Of course, in most cases, this cannot be seen as an alternative to hiring a professional security firm, but for organizing some libertarian events, such heavy artillery as professional security firms is not required. Yes, actually, hiring trained fighters to guard a hall is either excessive (usually, admonishment and the threat of calling the police are sufficient) or insufficient (if the aggressor is the police themselves).

On the other hand, it’s stylish. After all, a press wall provides no direct benefit either; one can take photos against a bare wall—but people still order them to be printed. Thus, proper ancap security should not be neglected for roughly the same reasons.

The article ends with a call to join the club (which presumably wants to mutate over time into such a fighting corporation) and to subscribe to the channel People of Good Will. I went to take a look at the channel, and there is a curious Code of the Person of Good Will. The Code is imbued with the values of republicanism, which Rodion Belkovich talks about so convincingly, and generally paints a rather attractive image. So read it; it is beneficial for the soul.

Nothing special, just a small summary and a request for feedback

I continue to write the introductory part of the book about ancap bit by bit, describing the main principles of libertarianism. I think that later I will reformat the text a bit, but for now, it’s becoming quite a large chapter in one piece.

Usually, when I answer a question, I do it in a detailed manner, with examples, metaphors, and other rhetorical gems. In the book, I try not to ramble, and now I’m wondering if I should, and whether it’s becoming too dry. I would like to know your opinion.

On May 20, I fly to Montenegro. This may affect the regularity of posts for about three days, or it may not. I usually don’t schedule publications, so such things are not very predictable.

Since living in Montenegro will be more expensive for me than in Russia, I will have to pay more attention to making money. If you want me to be less distracted from working on the channel, send donations. It will be especially helpful to chip in for the book — the more financial enthusiasm it generates, the faster I will write and the sooner I will finish. The same applies to current translation projects.

Since I will need to register a company to obtain a residence permit in Montenegro, I will try to take advantage of this and organize the acceptance of donations directly in Telegram — Durov created this possibility quite a long time ago, but I didn’t use it because connecting a Telegram store requires a legal entity — and that’s exactly what I will now have.

Also, in the comments of the donations page, I was asked to set up a Monero wallet. I downloaded the wallet from the official website, synchronized the blockchain, and now I’ve even started mining, although that is just for fun, of course. So, here is the Monero address for donations:

84CVRC5iqexHMzLSrUwhcUgw5LkqrkbV5FGWugs6EgQX1YQEM7Kvrvm2sBVjfGwrrhfhvL6j3PdcuaiB6R6Y9ULQPjKWotH

Most likely, I will use the flights to read the Strugatsky brothers’ “Snail on the Slope,” which was ordered for a review long ago — what else is there to do on a plane besides reading books? It’s getting a bit embarrassing; payment for the review was received back in April, which is quite untidy.

Possibly, I will post some fresh travel impressions if they don’t clash too much with the general theme of the channel. If they do — I’ll post them on Boosty.

Free Private Cities, book summary

In the Russian Frontier channel, which I recently promoted, a brief summary has begun to be released of Titus Gebel’s book “Free Private Cities.” The ideas covered in the book are currently being used in the construction of a contractual jurisdiction such as Prospera. It is possible that some of them will be applied in Montellibero in the future.

So those who are too lazy to read the book itself can subscribe to the channel and gradually absorb the material along with its author.

Currently, the summary of the first chapter is available.

How do you feel about Vatoadmin and his criticism of AES?

In one of the streams, he mentioned to an interlocutor that economic schools are irrelevant and that everything best from those schools has been integrated into the mainstream. Do you agree? Has he gotten too fat?

P.S. It’s a pity the site crashed. I hope all is well with you. I haven’t figured out crypto yet, but I’ll donate somehow.

Some Kazakh

Thank you for the explication from Vatoadmin, because I would have been too lazy to sift through his streams in search of specific quotes. As for the thickness, he is still far from Kakha Bendukidze; let him keep trying.

Now, to the main part of the question.

Economic mainstream today, indeed, has long ceased to be some kind of cohesive theory. It is simply a set of views on economics, none of which are perceived by economists as complete nonsense. At the same time, taken together, they can be internally contradictory—to this, an economist will say that each economic tool has its own area of application, and that is perfectly normal—and the task of economics is precisely to study when a wise regulator should apply what.

The Austrian school is indeed part of the mainstream. It primarily describes exactly how economic agents behave in a free market, and also shows with disdainful curiosity what distortions are introduced by this or that form of coercion. The mainstream also describes how economic agents behave in a free market (and often does so using an apparatus that grew out of the Austrian school), and then asserts that the market can and should be regulated, that it is done in such-and-such a way, for such-and-such goals, and produces such-and-such results. Or it doesn’t, in which case one must study what went wrong and make corrections to economic policy next time.

Regarding the Austrians’ dislike of using mathematical apparatus to describe complex phenomena, I would explain it roughly like this. A mainstreamer will imperturbably calculate how many human bodies and how many horse bodies a White Walker needs to lay out a pattern in the snow, how much time he will spend on it, and by how much the temperature in the forest will drop as a result of performing this ritual. An Austrian simply postulates that White Walkers are an evil that has no place in the forest, and he will not require mathematical models for this.

Now tell me, how can a decent economist not despise such primness?

The Russian Frontier and Its Prospects

I subscribed to the channel Russian Frontier. Today, the author posted a review of the Montellibero project, in which he notes our ideological closeness in everything except for the assessments of the investment climate in Russia. He suggests that today, the creation of contractual jurisdictions in Russia is not officially regulated in any way, which means one can and should enter this market—until the state shows a keen interest in them, after which they should be repurposed into something else, even swingers’ clubs.

Indeed, there is still a niche in Russia today (and perhaps it will remain for a long time) for the relatively free pursuit of agriculture and trades—in regions where there is a relative surplus of land. In other words, it is impossible to expand in the conditional Krasnodar Territory, but in Altai, like Justus Walker, or even in the not-so-distant Moscow region, like Mikhail Shlyapnikov or Herman Sterligov—why not? Thus, an enthusiast can indeed create a strong farm with quite original customs, and it is unlikely that this farm would even be seized, since the basis of its prosperity is labor and entrepreneurial talent, not capital.

Of course, such benevolent ignorance from the state will continue only until a specific entrepreneur gets into politics or at least makes loud media statements that clash with the general background. And if such entrepreneurs start getting in the way not as an exception, but literally every second person, then a standard solution will be quickly devised for them that will either abolish them or distract them significantly.

How well are such solutions replicated? It seems not very well. Most likely, associations of free farmers will be weeded out more eagerly than loners, and the positive scale effect of any given association in this particular industry is small. A milk producer in Belgorod will in no way help a honey producer in Bashkiria; each deals with a unique environment of varying degrees of aggressiveness.

How well do such solutions scale? This is likely dangerous. As soon as a farm advances significantly from the exploitation of labor to the exploitation of capital, it becomes a tempting morsel for a takeover.

So, I would view the Russian frontier as a good training ground for those who have sufficient competencies to build a sole proprietorship. At the same time, cultural originality can provide such a farm with media visibility—which can attract investors, product buyers, and even serve as some kind of vaccination against raids that are not too motivated. So, donning the guise of a contractual jurisdiction for such a farm is also an excellent idea; it’s worth considering.

But once some experience and capital have been accumulated, it makes sense, instead of expanding the current project, to invest in a farm in countries with more reliable protection of private property. Fortunately, globalization allows one to avoid making a hard choice between the Russian and Montenegrin frontiers. In the best case, this will simply be diversification, and in the worst—also a platform for evacuation.

And I still hope that the experience accumulated on the Russian frontier will simply create a desire to be applied to something greater, and then welcome to Montellibero.

An intriguing find

I accidentally stumbled upon a collection of videos featuring Vladimir Zolotorev on YouTube. It is some sort of tiny channel called Libertarian Site, but since 2019, a fairly large number of videos have been posted there, presumably quite useful ones, though so far I have only watched Vladimir’s most recent lecture, where he discusses the nature of the state and other related matters—not very structured, but fascinating. I suspect that other videos with him are constructed in a similar vein, so their main value, it seems to me, is the demonstration of exactly how a person’s thinking style changes when they begin to share a libertarian worldview. A worldview is a contagious thing, so even without being presented systematically, it will still influence you. Watch and be indoctrinated)

As for my book, which is currently being written, I would still like to save the reader’s time and provide an understanding of libertarianism as briefly and consistently as possible. Maybe it will work…

I started writing a book

The book on ancap that I recently announced will be gradually posted in the corresponding section on my website. Since this is my first such experience, I cannot guarantee that the text will not change significantly in the process, so you are unlikely to see regular announcements like “5 out of 70 chapters written” — I will certainly be shuffling pieces of text back and forth until the very end, adding some things, removing others, and reworking some ten times over.

For now, you can read the ultra-brief foreword, which promises that the book will be written without overly academic jargon, and right alongside it — the section dedicated to the principle of self-ownership, which turned out to be quite academic. So, after reading what I produced, I fell into a pensive mood: is it necessary to dig this deep, or should I try to lower the level of abstraction?

I look forward to your comments on this matter, and it is quite possible that I will take them into account.

I could have looked for a picture of an even more pensive girl, but this one reflects the process quite clearly