What is the point of rooting for CJ if it’s obvious that the most hardworking and lucky people will choose a CJ that is more pleasant in terms of tax contributions, rather than CJUSSR2.0? Who is going to feed them?
анонимный вопрос
In the article about FCJ recently translated by our team, the approaches to how consumers choose certain jurisdictions are, in my opinion, covered quite well. I want to draw attention to the first two letters of the abbreviation: these are not just contractual jurisdictions, they are also functional and overlapping.
Indeed, a purely socialist jurisdiction providing all types of services simply will not survive in the market, especially if it is contractual, meaning one can freely exit it. A socialist jurisdiction is effective when it provides the service of delivering public goods with a strong positive economy of scale.
Examples of such spontaneously emerging jurisdictions are analyzed in detail in Elinor Ostrom’s book “Governing the Commons”. For instance, mountain pastures are extremely inconvenient to divide into small plots, and they are used for grazing by residents of several surrounding villages. To prevent the predatory exploitation of this rare common resource, they develop their own complex system of norms and enforcement, thereby forming a functional contractual jurisdiction. However, this jurisdiction is responsible for conflict resolution only regarding the pasture and does not interfere at all in matters such as school education. And in this sphere, for example, a network of public schools funded on a parity basis by all CJ members (socialism again!), a private school paid for by students’ parents, and a private school funded by an endowment fund can compete perfectly. This is exactly an example of overlapping jurisdictions.
Putting up fences here to stop the neighbor’s livestock from eating private grass would cost more than it’s worth.
I received a wealth of feedback on the article about how to cook incels.
There were so many absolutely enthusiastic reviews—more than any of my other articles have ever gathered—that I’m bewildered. By all journalistic standards, the article is terrible because a hostile attitude toward the subject matter literally seeps through. On the other hand, standards are one thing, and reader sympathies are another!
But there was criticism too.
I’ll start with the simplest. A photo of a decision-maker’s secretary was used as a clear illustration of the fact that a woman’s success is roughly not determined by male appearance, and therefore, the entire high-minded incel theory simply crashes against practice. Perhaps the caption for the photo wasn’t clear enough, but generally, I wanted to pay a compliment to the subject of the photo. It didn’t work—oh well. Here, I am in an extremely advantageous position, where taking offense means raising suspicions of one’s own affiliation with the group being studied.
A huge number of extremely detailed recommendations were received regarding the nuances of using psychoactive substances. Among the unusual suggestions, cocaine is recommended to increase self-confidence. Well, that’s for the truly desperate; I wouldn’t prescribe that to just anyone. I’m glad my readers are experienced and well-educated people.
But the most serious complaint was the accusation of failing to fully explore the topic. I was reminded of my joint article with Bitarch about the targeted promotion of libertarianism, and people wondered why, in this case, I am admitting helplessness and writing some off-topic piece about individual salvation instead of putting together universal arguments for representatives of the group in question. My mistake. Here it comes.
Targeted promotion of libertarianism for incels
1. The state benefits from the destruction of the institution of the family because it wants the individual to depend only on the state and not be able to rely on their loved ones. But if the state becomes a nanny for the person, the person becomes infantile, and the woman does too. Instead of looking at truly important things, like a groom’s wealth or his prospects, she acts on the principle of “this one is handsome, I want him, and this one is ugly, get him out of my sight.” Without the state and its hyper-protection, a woman would have to behave more responsibly, and a man’s appearance would be far from the primary consideration when choosing.
2. The state caters to immigrants. In the US, these are sultry Latinos. In Europe—sultry Arabs and Blacks. In Russia—hot southern guys as well. This further increases the competition for women. Without the state, the local community would quickly kick out outsiders who do not respect local cultural norms.
3. Speaking of cultural norms. There is such a thing as panarchy. You can establish your own contractual jurisdiction, and it will have everything you need: fines for refusing sex, a ban on divorce, no prosecution for so-called marital rape, and so on. The only restriction is that joining the jurisdiction must be voluntary. Do you think too few girls will join your jurisdiction? Well, then choose the jurisdiction of some Puritans; there, submission to the husband and all that other stuff will be preached, and paying a tithe and attending church on Sundays is not such a high price for strict biblical family morality. But first, of course, you’ll have to push the state aside.
I was asked to share my thoughts on them and whether there is any way to convert this social group to libertarianism.
Incels (from involuntary celibate) are a very specific subculture consisting, roughly speaking, of those who don’t get laid. More accurately, those who are deeply offended by this fact, consider their situation hopeless, and intend to vent their anger on this cruel world. There are known mass murders committed by incels, and the perpetrators of these murders are highly regarded within the incel subculture.
The vast majority of incels are citizens of the US and EU. The Russian-speaking community is young and small, but clearly intends to quickly gather followers. The only difference I managed to find in the doctrines of Russian and Euro-American incels is that Euro-Americans consider it a virtue not to work and live on welfare, whereas Russians, due to underdeveloped social services, are deprived of this option, and are therefore slightly more human-like.
The political agenda of incels is quite simple. Correctly pointing out that sex is a scarce resource, these socialists then claim that there must be a fair distribution of this resource. Alphas, they say, can afford to change girls weekly, while omegas are left only to stand aside and be angry. Some blame a global female conspiracy, others “vagino-capitalism.”
They argue about exactly which methods should ensure the fair distribution of sex, but usually, all sorts of government bans are discussed. Indeed, who else, if not a conditional Zhirinovsky, would ensure every man has a woman?
So, what is to be done with them? How do we turn them into allies? About this, as Ekaterina Schulmann would say, read in our new book “Not at All.”
The only thing capable of protecting the world from the strengthening of organized groups of avengers for their trampled positive sexual rights is the broad deregulation of everything related to sex and biotechnology. More brothels with sex robots, full legalization of voluntary sex work, and all forms of marriage—and then the most sane incels will realize that to hell with free sex, they can provide themselves with paid sex, and perhaps of even higher quality. They will even look down on those who, in the old-fashioned way, settle for amateur fucking, while the “right guys” choose professional services, in the form of one-time pleasures or some kind of concubinage.
Finally, since incels see their miserable appearance as the key problem (unbelievably, but these guys largely believe they don’t get laid because they are ugly), progress in biotechnology should soon provide the ability to correct the genome, if not for oneself, then at least for offspring. And plastic surgery will continue to get cheaper.
Incels will not become libertarians, but thanks to the market, they will cease to be incels.
What can be offered to those who are not ready to wait for a mythical ancap and want results here and now? For example, he is an incel himself, or a close relative of his has happened to become an incel (I exclude the “friend” option—perhaps I am biased, but I have the impression that these hateful assholes simply don’t have friends).
Let’s start with the fact that the incel needs to be pulled out of the community. As long as a person is in an echo chamber, any external signals that do not confirm their already established position will simply not be perceived. It is unrealistic and counterproductive to forcibly deprive them of the possibility of communication, so only switching to another activity works. If a guy is busy, for example, working on an interesting project, he has no time to wallow in misery himself or communicate with other miserable wretches. Again, it is highly desirable that this replacement activity involves communication, rather than some autistic poking around in program code.
Next is the hardest part. Of course, appearance plays almost no role. What attracts people to a man is his self-confidence and charm. Breaking through this incel mindset of “it won’t work for me again, enough embarrassing myself, leave me alone, even trying is useless” is almost impossible. Trying to relax a grumpy asshole with alcohol is not worth it—under the influence, you’ll just get an aggressive asshole. Better to try weed and euphoretics. You need a small mixed-gender company, substances, and a minimal cultural program, whatever comes to mind, from playing “spin the bottle” to watching some light erotic comedy. No one is setting themselves up for sex in advance—why would they—it’s just about having a good time. Well, if even laughing together at stupid jokes combined with unbearable urges to hug doesn’t give him confidence, then hand him over to a psychoanalyst; my further advice is powerless here.
Now, when the incel begins to show at least some signs of recovery, you can then load him up with libertarianism. “Look, if you had lived on welfare, what kind of social circle would you have? The state puts a person on the needle of social security and turns them into an incel.” “Look how easy and simple it worked under substances, and no physical dependence, no withdrawals. But the state is ready to crush anyone who helps you with this under Article 228. Because the state needs incels; it’s a divide and conquer tactic.” “Look how many useful practices in the field of sex the state prohibits; even harmless swinger parties are seen as organizing brothels. It creates an artificial deficit so that you think with your balls instead of your head.”
Perhaps these same considerations could have been conveyed to him in his initial state. But then we would risk getting a potential terrorist angered at the state instead of a potential terrorist angered at the female sex. He’ll blow up a security guard in the FSB building, and then you’ll be dragged in for interrogations—do you really need that?
According to all incel manuals regarding appearance, this guy simply must be an incel. But he has no time; he is the secretary of the federal committee of the Libertarian Party of Russia.
1. I described the development of the idea of a deterrence doctrine, namely, the prevention of war by designating a threat that is unacceptable to the adversary. It was argued that the only unacceptable threat to a total modern state is a threat to its leaders, whereas threats to the economy, infrastructure, army, and ordinary citizens do not prevent war and may even, conversely, lead to a total conflict until one of the parties is completely destroyed.
2, 3. Ved responded that the elimination of a leader leads either to their replacement while maintaining the previous course, or to the collapse of the state, or to the “deep state” replacing public policy—and a reversal of democracy would not be beneficial for us. Furthermore, a habit of terror tactics is fraught with danger: one gets used to them, begins using this tool left and right, like Daenerys with her “dracarys,” and then it turns out that for people, you are worse than any state. Now, crypto-anarchists are a different story: they develop their Bitcoin completely non-violently, and nothing can be opposed to them.
4. Bitarch countered that for the formation of corporate-type contractual jurisdictions—that is, rather providers of government services—the deterrence doctrine is perhaps indeed not very suitable. However, political-type contractual jurisdictions—that is, rather providers of a lifestyle, such as Catholic, liberal, or transhumanist ECUs—are characterized by greater motivation among their members and will therefore be more inclined to use force. Here, the deterrence doctrine would act as the lesser evil, since within its framework, force is only demonstrated.
5. Finally, Ved, in his rather detailed article, pointed out that not only is the service of “unacceptable damage through guaranteed destruction of leaders” migrating from a luxury category available only to superpowers into the mass segment as technology evolves, but services like a convenient flag, offshore jurisdictions, etc., will also become cheaper and penetrate business practice more widely, regardless of how large states try to fight it. Therefore, systematic political activity to develop alternatives to territorial states will yield the desired result without any waving of the deterrence doctrine.
As usual, when several intelligent people discuss correctly, it turns out they are talking about roughly the same thing, just from slightly different positions. Indeed, state leaders are unlikely to accept that some private individuals dare to threaten their power. For them, this is a familiar terrorist threat, and they will fight it with familiar anti-terrorist methods. Therefore, it is important not only that state aggression against private individuals is punished by damage to the leaders of the aggressor state. It is also important to convey to the aggressor the idea that this is specifically an interstate conflict, a conflict between equal subjects of law, which cannot be resolved unilaterally, even if it initially looked like the simple dismantling of an offshore platform.
Therefore, in a hypothetical conflict in the Andaman Sea, a contractual jurisdiction wishing to fulfill a contract for protection against aggression from the Kingdom of Thailand must clearly state that the married couple who purchased the platform are its citizens, and aggression against them is a casus belli; the conflict can be settled in an international court, but if Thailand refuses, there will be war. This is done not out of simple satisfaction of a sense of justice, but to expand the understanding of the state and state jurisdiction.
Without negotiations, it will be impossible to create a precedent. But without an explicit threat, there will be no negotiations. State representatives will simply refuse to recognize the contractual jurisdiction as a state, and therefore, as a subject of international law.
One might object that the resources of a state and a private company are incomparable, but that is a strange argument. First, they might be comparable. Second, it is like with computing power. If a laptop is sufficient for a specific task, the fact that the state has a supercomputer at its disposal does not give it a serious advantage. In other words, the deterrence doctrine begins to work precisely when the price becomes affordable for people. In this situation, individual statesmen may show off a bit, but they will quickly realize that the most profitable strategy is to be “sweeties” and truly safeguard the interests of people. As if the good old territorial state were no worse than the trendy ECUs.
Ved writes about the expansion of the practice of offshore jurisdictions, but as we see, existing offshores are quite helpless against political pressure from large powers. Even Switzerland allowed its arms to be twisted—first in the sphere of banking regulation, and recently in questions of special tax regimes for foreign companies (thus largely losing its ability to be a convenient contractual jurisdiction). What can be said about somewhere like Cyprus? Meanwhile, the use of the deterrence doctrine could help an offshore protect itself from political pressure by traditional states.
The movement toward the desired future, in which the monopoly of territorial states on aggressive violence will be trampled and the sovereignty of the individual, conversely, will triumph, occurs along several vectors simultaneously, and arguments over which one is the only important one, or which are not needed at all, smell of sheer preference. Some people undermine the territoriality of states by creating extraterritorial analogues. Others undermine the ability of states to rob people through monetary emission and develop the cryptocurrency industry. A third group undermines the monopoly on violence itself by making weapons cheap, precise, and stealthy, to launch the deterrence doctrine and prevent the doctrine of total war.
This can be viewed in different ways, but progress in this direction is already happening, and nothing can be done about it. It is within our power only to formulate a doctrine for the use of new means of warfare to minimize damage and maximize benefit. The doctrine consists of justified political demands backed by the threat of destroying the adversary’s leaders, which can be illustrated by non-lethal demonstrations.
The doctrine of tank wedges. Once very progressive)))
I already had an article on this topic, where I went significantly further in my futurological predictions and gave recipes on how to live in this new reality. It also spoke of the main danger possible on the path to this future: information asymmetry. There is nothing absolutely terrible about the fact that everyone can find out everything about everyone and forge any data about them. It is scary when some can, and others cannot.
That is why it is so important to promote the abolition of any monopolies in the field of information processing. Leaks from Facebook or government databases are not what is scary. What is scary is if they don’t exist. The ideal is if everyone sees everything anyway, and it is pointless to hide anything.
But in the transition period, when states and other centralized systems still dominate, and the means of working with data and generating deep fakes are already quite developed, excesses are inevitable, which will only spur progress in the industry.
You don’t want it to be like in China, do you? Then you need to practice breaking this system.
A year ago, on May 30, 2018, the first post was published as part of this project. What followed was quite winding; you can read a brief summary on the “About the project” page.
Over the year, approximately 400 posts were published, 283 of which were answers to your questions. In recent months, there have been more long-reads and translations of English-language materials. I am terribly short on time, otherwise there would have been even more material.
As of today, the channel has 847 subscribers on Telegram, 135 on Facebook, and 78 on Twitter. This is modest; I was really itching to give myself an anniversary gift, buy a couple of promotional posts, and reach a thousand. On the other hand, I desire citability more than subscribers. Before the New Year, I complained about the same thing, but so far I have done little to correct the situation.
On the other hand, the small audience that the project managed to gather is inspiring. An exceptionally cozy chat has formed around the project, where, despite extremely light moderation, we manage to communicate quite civilly on topics of varying degrees of seriousness and intensity.
It is especially pleasant to see your regular donations. Over the year, you sent 0.3 bitcoin to the main wallet, and another 0.019 bitcoin via Lightning. I am terribly glad that you value me so much, and I hope that I can continue to justify your trust.
I want to separately mention the established ongoing cooperation with a number of other libertarian resources. First and foremost, this is, of course, Bitarch. As I understand it, he not only runs his own VKontakte public page but also actively sponsors content production by other authors, including myself. This also includes the public pages Freedom pride and Antistate. I don’t understand how one can seriously rely on VK as a primary channel for content distribution, but these guys somehow manage. The channels Dobroum and Tea Club stand slightly apart—systemic cooperation hasn’t happened there yet, but there is some exchange of ideas and episodic mutual promotion. I hope to grow closer in the future to the author channels of Vladimir Zolotorev and Vladimir Popov, but for now, my sympathy for them is mostly one-sided. I have successfully turned to Alexey Tereshchuk and Pavel Usanov for consultations, and I keep a few other experts on special issues in mind. Finally, a couple of reference bots operate in the expanses of Telegram, Mister Mises and Libertarian Answers—they use some of my texts. If the owners of these bots are reading me—friends, you can not only take ready-made answers but also request custom texts on specific topics. Just specify the topic and which resource the order is for.
I am often asked if I will do streams. I won’t make any promises, but it is unlikely. The text format is the coziest for me, and also optimal in terms of maintaining anonymity. Perhaps I will be able to cooperate with someone on the production of videos, but only as a scriptwriter. I haven’t received any offers from anyone willing to take care of everything else, and I cannot handle the organization myself. So, it’s all in your hands.
The difference between an enterprise with automated and non-automated labor can be easily illustrated using the example of a kitchen. You could hire a cook, pay her pennies, and she would prepare whatever your heart desires and go to the market for groceries herself. Or you could buy a refrigerator, a microwave, and stock up on semi-finished products yourself. Such dining could be cheaper or more expensive than having a cook, but the hired employee is removed from the equation, along with all the baggage in their head, the need to rely on their conscientiousness, and the requirement to pay them regardless of whether you eat at home or at a restaurant today.
Labor automation does not even save so much as money (although in the long run, of course, it does). The main thing is that it saves nerves. An entrepreneur always strives to reduce their risks. Making the success of one’s activity dependent on someone’s goodwill is always a risk. Today the employee works hard, tomorrow they take sick leave, or bury a grandmother, or strike, or quit—and plans must be adjusted. Therefore, investing more capital to rely less on labor is always a great temptation, even if the monetary gain is relatively small.
In general, capitalism works magnificently under conditions of full or nearly full replacement of labor by capital. However, under conditions where labor is hardly automated, it always tends to degenerate into something paternalistic. One should seemingly think in terms of costs and profits, but is forced to think in terms of social responsibility. Therefore, mass manual production inevitably gives rise to various socialist or feudal practices, whereas automated production can be easily reduced to purely market relations.
I could gaze at it for a century! Only two supervisors for the robots, absolute beauty!
During the period when Roskomnadzor was going crazy and using a scattergun approach in attempts to block Telegram, a proxy from Vee Security helped many Russian users. Now Roskomnadzor has toned down its fervor, Telegram has become smarter, and for most of the time, it no longer requires a proxy.
However, this episode demonstrated that people in a repressive state (and potentially all states are repressive) should learn the rules of network hygiene in advance. In particular, one means for this is the use of VPN services.
Of course, if you have specific tasks such as surfing from behind the Great Firewall of China or watching movies on Netflix from a country where it does not distribute content, you have likely already found reliable, fast, and expensive services for this. However, for the vast majority of users, this is excessive functionality that they do not want to overpay for.
Connecto VPN by Vee Security is exactly such an optimal solution for our modest market. On one hand, there is a clear emphasis on security. No logs, no mandatory personal data when connecting, and if desired, the service can be paid for with cryptocurrencies. On the other hand, with monthly payment, the price is only four euros per month, while the market leaders ask for around ten.
The company has only four servers so far, but I read winter reviews, and there were three back then. Steady growth as the company scales is a good, sustainable business model. Vee Security is located in the safe Estonian jurisdiction, so Russian clients have nothing to fear in this regard.
For everyone who decides to connect to the Connecto VPN service via my link, I will receive 2 euros for a monthly subscription, 5 euros for a semi-annual one, and 8 euros for an annual one. So, if you were thinking about donating some money to me anyway, you can combine business with pleasure. The service is truly good; I have read many warm reviews about it, not only immediately before writing this article while trying to find any pitfalls, but long before that, from my acquaintances. Usually, they praised it.
The article examines a model for a soft, evolutionary transition to a libertarian society through functional panarchy. The model was developed for actual implementation via political means (which is why it is non-radical and complies with the requirements of legislation on political parties). It could serve as a strong foundation for updating the program of the Libertarian Party of Russia, as it is well-suited for heterogeneous political entities such as the Russian Federation. Although a significant portion of the article is dedicated to proposals for reforming the European Union, a separate chapter analyzes the specifics of implementing FOCJ in developing countries.
For example, what if there were some relationships with “United Russia” in the past, or if non-libertarian laws were promoted? In general, what do you advise such people to do? Is damaging those in power through compromising materials or lawsuits the only format? And what if those in power were not comrades of any sort, and there is no compromising material on hand? Perhaps reversing the adopted bad laws would also work? Maybe something else?
Sergey Sushinsky
This is a very complex topic if viewed through the prism of holistic constructs like the “libertarian public,” but it becomes much simpler if one does not deviate from the principle of methodological subjectivism. It is impossible to please the public as a whole; it is impossible to stain your reputation in the eyes of absolutely everyone, and to an equal extent. To some, Stalin is a bloody tyrant; to some, the father of nations; and to some, a weakling who failed to crush the hydra of counter-revolution.
There are very intolerant libertarians, at least in their public rhetoric. Judging by your mention of compromising materials on government representatives in your question, you clearly meant, among other things, “how to curry favor with Mikhail Svetov if you are Dmitry Gudkov.” You can’t. Svetov is just as biased as many others, and will similarly fit the arguments to his pre-existing opinion. This works both negatively and positively; any conditional Svetov will inevitably have a “inner circle” that is forgiven more than outsiders. This is normal, in the sense that it is determined by our biology.
From the outside, of course, one can indeed imagine horrors. If these guys are so strict with a person whose father voted for bad laws and who did not disown him, then what will they say about a person who personally lobbied for bad laws?
In fact, however, people are quite inclined to respect those who act in accordance with their convictions, and when those convictions change, those who honestly admit it and declare their new agenda, providing a justification for why it appeared.
You believed smoking was an evil and lobbied for anti-tobacco laws. Now you believe smoking is an evil, but you consider anti-tobacco laws an even greater evil. This is a perfectly natural evolution of thought, and you naturally seek arguments now against the lobbying of anti-tobacco laws. You collaborated with United Russia, realized that it was not only futile but harmful, and now you seek ways to shake its monopoly. This is a far more understandable, consistent, and respectable position than having no position at all, or simply claiming that no one can be trusted and there is no point in trying.
Take Vladimir Zolotorev, whom I have mentioned repeatedly: he used to be involved in public politics, and now he has not only cooled toward it but considers the pursuit harmful. I believe he is wrong, but given the difference in experience, I fully admit that I might be the one who is wrong. We have noted our disagreement, and I hope that for him this will not be a reason to “cut me out of the movement,” as especially intolerant people like to do. If you encounter such people, simply understand that using simple oppositions saves a great deal of mental effort, and do not force them to strain themselves where they don’t need to. On the other hand, they can use their thinking to the fullest where it is more justified for them, and division of labor is great, even if it is the division of brain labor between separate tasks.
I am not a neurobiologist, and it is difficult for me to say what this brain is busy with now, but in any case, that is its private business
