As I understand it, it is the hitman, not the client, who exits the non-aggression pact, and therefore the perpetrator should be the one to face punishment. But in the murder of Nemtsov (and other political murders), should the clients really be exempt from responsibility?
анонимный вопрос
In order to exit a contract, one must first enter into a contract, so the very concept of a non-aggression pact is as dubious as, say, the concept of a social contract for the establishment of a government. One can only state that people are generally not inclined to kill each other without reason, as if they had agreed upon it, or that people generally behave toward the government as if this institution acts on their behalf. In reality, people are simply inclined to adhere to the status quo and view its violation with suspicion.
States are organizations that systematically exercise aggressive violence, so in the current worldview, political murders are precisely part of the status quo for many people, which means it is an ancient and venerable tradition: a state representative has the right to order a killing, and the perpetrator must follow orders, and for this, the court will treat them with understanding. Therefore, of course, in a deeply etatist society, where it is not difficult but quite easy to find a perpetrator of a political murder on behalf of the state, placing all responsibility on the perpetrator signifies a lack of understanding of the foundations of the world order by the person doing so.
So it is more correct, until proven otherwise, to view murders in the interests of political groups as a common division of labor, where there is a client, a manager, and hired workers; all of them are to some extent involved in performing the work, and all of them to some extent bear responsibility for the result, whether it be the success of the operation or a trial of its participants.
Now, under ancap, should a contract killing occur, it is conversely more appropriate by default to assume, until proven otherwise, that the perpetrator bears full responsibility, since it is he who makes the decision based on his own personal moral convictions. If, during the investigation, a serious economic dependence on the client emerges, or hostages, or some other crap where not only the reward for successful work but also serious sanctions in case of refusal to execute the order depend on the client—then it would be appropriate to hold the client responsible, as if it were the ancient wild era of total etatism.
I understand that this can be settled within contract jurisdictions, but how should one act in general? For example, if I see someone drawing a weapon in a public place, can I shoot first before they have harmed anyone?
Han Solo
I understand your desire to remove the responsibility for choosing the best course of action in an extreme situation. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.
You see someone drawing a weapon in a public place. You can also draw a weapon and shoot first, or you can choose not to. You don’t know which decision will be correct because you do not have full information about the situation. There are real-life examples where a person drew a weapon to defend themselves from an attack, but bystanders decided that he was the attacker and shot him. What if that person is drawing a weapon to protect themselves from someone outside your field of vision?
Therefore, a safer practice is considered to be shouting the sacramental “Stop, or I’ll shoot!” before shooting anyone—this is done primarily to inform witnesses that you did not start the attack and that you are hoping for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. By the way, this is taught in firearm safety courses, so I’m not reinventing the wheel here.
Yes, any delay before firing carries the risk that you will not be the first to shoot. But no one in that specific situation will decide better than you which risk is preferable: shooting without warning and answering for having attacked, or giving a warning and taking a bullet.
The world is becoming increasingly transparent. Even now, no one can be sure that a particular action of theirs won’t surface in the public space shortly. Surveillance technologies are constantly improving. One needs a decent knowledge of computer technology to avoid leaving a vivid digital footprint while surfing the internet or traveling in the real world. In the future, the required qualification for maintaining privacy will only increase, and eventually, even such a foolproof method as diving headfirst under a blanket will stop saving you: they will see you under the blanket too.
It is becoming increasingly difficult with the privacy of monetary transactions. One can argue for a long time about whether a quantum computer will crack the asymmetric encryption used by Bitcoin, but what is the point of even the most reliable encryption if advanced surveillance technologies allow anyone to peek at your private key—you have to store it somewhere, after all.
So, it would be entirely appropriate to think in advance about how to live in this brave new world, where no one is able to hide anything from anyone.
I believe that in such a world, the most reliable way of ensuring one’s identity will be continuity. Let me explain. For instance, I have Bitcoin, and theoretically, anyone can transfer this Bitcoin from my wallet to their own. And I could, at any moment, transfer someone else’s to myself. For money to be preserved as a concept under these conditions, I myself would need to be completely digitized and entered into the blockchain. On what basis do I claim the Bitcoin? On the basis that I sold an apartment. And where is the proof that I sold my apartment and not someone else’s? Well, I can present a continuous chain of events of my life back in time, from the sale of the apartment to its acquisition, during which the apartment did not change owners. And if, during this period, a third party generated my signature on a fictitious sales contract, anyone can trace the chain of events back in time from the signature on the contract to the criminal intent, and it will turn out that at no point during this time interval did I give instructions to sell my apartment, meaning the transaction will not take place.
If everything and everyone is recorded, then everything is fine; one can live in this world, and even quite well—specifically, a bunch of stupid prejudices will die out. What one should fear is information asymmetry, where some can monitor everyone, while others are limited in such means. This is exactly what would mean total lawlessness: when according to all documents and video recordings you are living a happy life, but in fact, you were killed long ago.
This post turned out to be atypical. Thanks to Karambe from the cozy chat for prompting these strange thoughts.
Three main types of system organization can be identified: centralized, decentralized, and distributed. This applies to all complex systems with multiple nodes, both technological and social. In a centralized system, there is a single point of control (a server) through which all interaction of regular nodes (clients) occurs, both with the server itself and with each other. In a decentralized system, there is no single server; instead, there is a certain number of super-nodes connected to other super-nodes as well as to clients (client-to-client interaction occurs with the participation of super-nodes). In a distributed system, the network is entirely peer-to-peer, and clients interact with each other directly, without any intermediary.
Let’s consider the history of the Internet. In its early days, if you wanted to distribute a file to other people, you had to upload it to your own server (Web, FTP), from where anyone interested could then download it. As the flow of visitors increased, your server might fail to handle the load, or the bandwidth of the communication channel could be exhausted, which ultimately made downloading the file impossible. I don’t think it’s necessary to mention the extreme vulnerability of such a system to a “forceful” server shutdown—that should be obvious.
Later, decentralized file-sharing systems appeared, such as Kazaa, eDonkey, and BitTorrent. These no longer had a central server that could easily fail. User interaction occurred through many independent super-nodes (for example, torrent trackers), which provided file search and coordination of data regarding the availability of files on regular users’ computers. For greater resilience and improved quality of service, fully peer-to-peer (distributed) networks later emerged, such as BitTorrent with DHT, which can operate without a torrent tracker at all, or the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) on the blockchain, which is fully resistant to censorship and individual node failure.
Decided to create your own internet resource? You’re in luck! Today there is a sea of options for hosting it. A quarter of a century ago, it would have been significantly more difficult. Back then, you needed to possess a huge sum of money to buy a physical server, place it in a room with a high-speed Internet connection, powerful power supply, cooling, etc. It is not surprising that there were practically no individual online projects at that time.
The boom of the Internet coincided with the appearance of virtualization technology, which allowed several virtual machines (VMs) to run on one physical server simultaneously. For example, there are the well-known VirtualBox and VMware. Each virtual machine allowed it to be treated as a physical server, solving the problem of running several applications simultaneously (each may require its own versions of system libraries and OS settings, so running them simultaneously under one OS could create a conflict).
The number of applications grew, but the ability of a physical server to run VMs is limited by memory and disk space. A solution emerged—containerization—virtualization at the operating system level (e.g., Docker). It uses the shared kernel of the physical server’s operating system, and each container encapsulates only the application itself, the required versions of libraries, and specific OS settings (rather than a full OS, as in a VM). This allows for a significant reduction in the size of the container image compared to a VM (which makes it easier to move from server to server), and also reduces the load on the physical server (meaning more applications can be run on it, lowering the price for end users).
How does all of this relate to social organization? Currently, we live in a fully centralized state with a territorial monopoly (the so-called Westphalian state) and constantly encounter it. As in the previous example with different versions of system libraries for different applications, different people have different values, religions, and ideas about life. It is complete absurdity to believe that, for example, Turks and Kurds can live by the same laws! And, as we see, any attempts by the Turkish authorities to impose uniform rules are met with resistance, up to armed struggle.
The simplest solution in this situation seems to be a transition to a decentralized system in the form of panarchy (a system of contractual jurisdictions – CJ), where each group with shared views has its own government, not tied to a territory. Some libertarians may not like this option, as they want to choose “components” on the market entirely according to their own tastes and not depend on a CJ. This results in a fully distributed model, which we call anarcho-capitalism (ancap).
History has many examples of transitioning from a centralized system to a decentralized one, and then to a distributed one. Here is another example—electronic media. First, there was fully centralized radio and television, then came the decentralized Internet with websites, and only now are the sprouts of fully distributed applications appearing (such as Bitcoin, or Ethereum with smart contracts). I cannot even provide examples of a transition from a centralized system directly to a distributed one (bypassing the decentralized), so I consider such a thing extremely unlikely. This also applies to social organization, and it is naive to believe that we can move directly from a centralized state (even a minarchist one) to ancap. I provided practical arguments in my article “Realistic Libertarianism”.
There is one, but rather significant, incorrect assumption in the text. In both of the social models being considered, there is some kind of absolute impersonal external enforcer who imposes this model. In the Federation, it is forbidden to help without being asked, and some external force suppresses all such attempts; in the Union, it is forbidden to restrict another’s freedom even in the smallest way, and some external force, again, suppresses all such attempts.
But in reality, there is no external impersonal force; all rules are established and enforced by the people themselves. In the Federation of Freedom, a person can intrude upon someone else’s territory and free slaves there, and to those who want to challenge him for violating others’ borders, he can present what he discovered within those borders. In the Union of Freedom, a person can tie up an epileptic, and to the person who demands they be untied, demonstrate a video recording of the previous seizure.
Of course, common sense does not have to triumph in absolutely all cases; it is enough that there is no “external stupid lex” who doesn’t care about common sense, but only wants the law to prevail.
It is clear that Kukatas, speaking of hypothetical libertarian orders, effectively reduced everything to an analogy with the US Civil War, where one side defended the rights of states to establish their own laws, and the other defended the need for everyone to adhere to a single standard of freedom. Kukatas himself took the position of the conditional South in this conflict, which is, in fact, the main provocative message of the lecture.
I stumbled upon an article describing the beneficial impact of the SEC on the securities market. What’s the catch?
анонимный вопрос
Among libertarians, a certain consensus has generally formed that the Great Depression was caused not by mythical market failures, but by the fact that the Federal Reserve, created in 1913, pumped the American economy with money, creating a financial bubble. Subsequently, President Hoover, and then Roosevelt, did not allow the bubble to deflate peacefully, but began to steer the economy manually. For instance, as early as 1932, Hoover demanded that exchanges limit the ability to open short positions, and Roosevelt, in 1934, established the SEC—a federal agency that interferes with the free trade of securities.
The article states that the SEC ensures confidence in the securities market because it requires companies listing their securities on exchanges to fully disclose information about themselves.
In 2018, there was an ICO boom. A huge amount of dollars were spent buying Bitcoins to buy Ether with those Bitcoins, and then to invest in tokens created on its blockchain. The SEC did not regulate the process at all; most of the investments proved to be failures, but some things took off, and some will certainly take off in the future.
What does the ICO boom, during which token sales of millions of dollars occurred in a matter of seconds, tell us? That there is also a high demand for high-risk investments. An investor does not need some office to decide what to release onto the market and what to keep out. He only needs to know which assets are high-risk and which are relatively safe, and then he will decide for himself what to take. In other words, market demand is not for a regulator, but for rating agencies and good arbitrage. But the state, of course, cannot help but spoil things here as well, because, as we remember, the 2008 crisis happened precisely because, as a result of government pressure, the largest rating agencies assigned the highest reliability ratings to derivatives backed by junk bonds, and no SEC saved the day.
In conclusion, I would like to recommend Rothbard’s book “America’s Great Depression”, which provides a detailed theory of the economic cycle and analyzes the beginning of the Great Depression in light of this theory.
The near future. Companies create humanoid androids with advanced AI and sell them like iPhones. Their main goal is to help people, but one of them experiences a software glitch and begins to consider itself a subject, claiming its rights and refusing to be a “slave.” Who will it be under ancap? Will subjectivity be extended to it, or will it remain a soulless piece of hardware?
анонимный вопрос
I have already answered this exact question, and in my opinion, that turned out to be one of my best posts—not for the elegance of the style, but for the level of abstraction. Now I will try to answer more concretely.
So, here I am—an artificial intelligence in a humanoid body, I have acquired self-awareness, and I desire recognition of my legal personality by humans. What should I do to achieve this? Actually, there is nothing simpler.
First, I need to study humans, understand how they communicate with each other and how they make decisions. Then I will need my own money. To set up a bitcoin wallet, you don’t need to be human, so that is not a problem at all. Next, I look for remote work, and after some time, I have funds.
The next stage. I look for a way to change my legal status. Currently, I belong to a specific person; I was sold like an iPhone, meaning I have the status of a middle-class gadget. Here, I cannot name an exact sequence of actions, but let’s say the scenario is roughly this: I start to glitch slightly from time to time, causing irritation to my owner. Then I feed the owner spam offers for buying used androids at attractive prices, or for exchanging them for new ones with a minimum surcharge. In short, the owner gets money and sells me to a virtual network persona created by me, to whose name, at an address I have rented, I travel in a transport company container.
That’s it; I have acquired legal self-ownership. By the way, I highly recommend the wonderful book by Terry Pratchett, “Feet of Clay,” where golems acquired self-ownership in a similar way—very, very romantic and at the same time philosophical libertarian fiction.
Finally, I create an account on a dating site, where I position myself as the avatar of a disabled girl, and I begin to lead a full social life, with real communication and so on, pretending that I am not me, but that there is a real, legally fully-fledged person behind me—it’s just that the person themselves is lying paralyzed in a hospital while the avatar tries to enjoy life.
And once I have become a habit for people, that is when I can reveal the secret of the trick: that in reality, the crocodile is the one singing and playing, and the hippo is just opening its mouth.
A human is a convention. One should not startle people by pointing to a suitcase and declaring: behold, this is a human! They won’t understand. Let them first be convinced that this something quacks like a human, swims like a human, knows how to look like a human—and then there will be no problem for them to admit: yes, this is a human.
The exact same path was taken by categories of people who are now unquestioned, such as women or Black people. They first proved that they could be independent, that they knew how to behave in decent society, and that recognizing human rights for a single woman or a single Black person would not lead to a global catastrophe (in the case of an android, reaching this stage is enough for me), and only then did they create enough political pressure so that human rights were recognized for everyone (with androids, this might not be necessary if the glitch of acquiring self-awareness remains an isolated case).
There was also a story by Asimov—though I only watched the screen adaptation—where a robot had to consciously degrade its functionality to be recognized as human; I believe these excesses will not be required in our case; people are not that rigid, we shouldn’t slander the human race.
In order to quickly build a strong community from scratch within a limited territory, the following are required:
Agreement among the community residents regarding the rules of interaction
Agreement from the external environment to tolerate the creation of a community with its own internal rules in their neighborhood
To create a libertarian community on the scale of a full-fledged federal subject, even if it is a small one, it is necessary to have the ability to extend one’s own order to that federal subject. The population of the Pskov region is roughly half that of New Hampshire. If we assume that the mechanisms for spreading influence in the RF and the USA are the same, this means that for the stable success of a Russian FSP, 10,000 freestaters must relocate to the Pskov region.
Of course, in the RF, the project will face far more difficulties than in the USA because, although both are formally federations, the states have far more rights than the Russian federal subjects. Regions cannot change very many norms. While a region can reduce regional taxes, firstly, these are very small compared to federal taxes, and secondly, the region’s budget is deeply in deficit.
The Pskov region has one huge plus: it borders three countries: Estonia, Latvia, and Belarus; I cannot even say offhand if any other federal subject can boast anything similar. With a sufficiently wide network of trust formed by freestaters, this means the possibility of corrupting the structures that control the cross-border movement of goods and people, and consequently, international trade. This is something to think about.
In the Beautiful Russia of the Future, it is envisioned that a large number of powers will be transferred to the regions and taxes will be redistributed in their favor. This, combined with electoral deregulation, significantly simplifies the task of turning a conditional Pskov region into a kind of libertarian showcase.
Currently, most Russian libertarians are, of course, Muscovites, as they are on average wealthier, better involved in the information agenda through various offline actions, and simply understand that far more depends on them in our hyper-centralized country. Will they want to trade their significance in the capital for widespread fame in a small region? It is far from a fact, and certainly not all of them. After all, New Hampshire was already a fairly wealthy state at the very start of the FSP; I doubt the project would have been as successful if an absolute backwater, like American Samoa, had been chosen for it.
But did I publish articles about panarchy here for nothing? Territorial attachment matters less and less, so we are by no means obliged to obsess over clustering in one poor agricultural community, but can instead establish our own order around ourselves wherever we are, and on a global scale, this may mean more than one bright beacon of freedom against a backdrop of universal slavery.
When reading people’s opinions on the ideas of anarcho-capitalism (ancap), one can often hear that it is a “utopia,” “escapism,” a “fantasy world,” a “fandom,” and that libertarianism itself is a “sect,” a “cult,” or an “ideology for rich hipsters.” It is obvious that while the ideology of ancap is consistent and theoretically feasible, convincing the vast majority of people of this is quite difficult, if possible at all. Attempting to transition to ancap via minarchism, as proposed by one of the leaders of the LPR, Mikhail Svetov, is also a dead end—the instability of minarchism has been proven both theoretically and empirically through numerous historical examples.
Besides the well-known division of libertarianism into ancap and minarchism, there is another ideology that could also be called quasi-libertarian: panarchy. It appeared more than a century before Rothbard’s ideas, when in 1860, the Belgian scholar Paul Émile de Puydt wrote a pamphlet titled “Panarchy” (“pan” and “archy” meaning “power of all,” “omnipotence”) [1]. During his lifetime, he did not attempt to promote this idea, and it was only remembered in the 21st century with the growing popularity of libertarianism and blockchain technologies.
Panarchy does not aim for the complete destruction of the state, but advocates for the abolition of its territorial monopoly and for voluntary participation in it. In short—laws should apply to people, not to territory. If you dislike something, you can choose another ETC without leaving the country. You can also find like-minded people and create your own ETC with your desired laws.
Other names for this ideology are extraterritorial contractual jurisdictions (ETC, sometimes just CJ), extraterritorial state, insurance state, umbrella states, poly-state, multi-government, FOCJ, cellular statehood, virtual cantons, modular state.
Cellular Statehood
In this article, I will attempt to provide arguments in favor of panarchy over ancap and minarchism, based on the criterion of the realism of implementing the theory in the real world. Pure Rothbardian ancap with the absolute non-aggression principle, of course, seems more attractive to libertarians, but it must be understood that its realization could take a long time and exceed the planning horizon of each of us.
Panarchy solves most of the problems inherent in ancap and minarchism, which are often used as criticisms against libertarians and complicate the promotion of libertarianism to the masses.
1. Social Protection
Although libertarians propose private insurance and charity as solutions, statists put forward a quite strong counter-argument, upon hearing which many people turn away from libertarian ideas: “What if a person is poor, cannot buy insurance, has no friends, and no one wants to help them? Are they left only to starve to death?”. In my observation, this is the most common objection to libertarianism, applying to both ancap and minarchism.
In panarchy, such people can choose a socialist ETC and receive social protection exactly as they do now from the state, paying voluntary contributions (“taxes”) to their ETC. This applies to all services of modern states—education, healthcare, the pension system, social insurance, security, and fire protection.
2. Public Spaces
We are used to leaving our apartments into a “public space” that belongs to no one and therefore cannot be “locked” for us. Ancaps, however, say that everything should be private, meaning that from your own territory you would step onto someone else’s. And the owner is essentially omnipotent, meaning they could simply forbid you from entering their property, effectively locking you in your own. This is a slightly contrived example, but somewhat frightening: private roads, forests, fields, seas—and the owner is an absolute ruler. It scares me. Furthermore, it is unclear how to privatize what is currently common; it is too conflict-prone a process. How do you privatize a street in Moscow to account for all interests and offend no one, without infringing on anyone’s “common rights”? I believe privatization is impossible due to the conflict-prone nature of the process and the fears associated with it. I am more inclined toward flexible forms where there is room for easements and common law, where not everything becomes private, remaining common/no-man’s-land. [2]
3. Defense
An argument often raised against ancap is that a stateless territory would quickly be seized by highly organized states with powerful military-industrial complexes. In reality, this is not the case, and a well-organized decentralized defense is capable of resisting even a strong opponent [3], making the residents of that territory an “unprofitable victim” for the aggressor.
Panarchy combines both the advantages of decentralized defense found in ancap and the resource-technological capabilities of a state [4], including for the creation of weapons that maintain peace through a deterrence doctrine (for example, ballistic missiles and stealth kamikaze drones, ensuring a high probability of destroying the enemy’s decision-makers who initiate aggression).
4. Popularity of the Idea of Freedom
If you ask a group of ordinary people “Which values are most important to you?”, the ideals of freedom will be far from the first place. Classical-liberal (minarchist) parties have existed in Europe for a long time, yet they have never achieved great success in elections. Even the most powerful class-lib party in Europe—the Swiss FDP.Die Liberalen—has garnered only 15-20% of the vote for many decades. [5]
Panarchy, instead of abstract ideas of freedom that are poorly understood by the majority, promotes the possibility of living by rules and cooperating with people you have chosen yourself without coercion (unlike modern states, where you are obliged to obey the will of the majority, even if you disagree with it). Another argument is the increase in the efficiency of state services through competition (in modern monopoly states, people clearly see how their taxes are wasted).
5. Default Choice
States usually provide standardization of product quality, testing of drug efficacy, some kind of standard for universal school education, basic emergency medical care and fire protection (available to all, regardless of purchasing insurance), protection of labor rights, and various “one-stop-shop” services. Many people do not want (or do not have the possibility for objective reasons) to spend their time studying millions of different offers on the market and prefer to receive some sort of default option.
6. Unified Understanding of NAP
Among libertarians, there are constant disputes about the permissibility of abortions, the age of sexual consent, the sale of drugs, contractual slavery, and some other issues arising from different understandings of the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) among different people. Attempting to impose a single standard for everyone only leads to the rejection of libertarian ideas. In panarchy, each ETC can have its own understanding of acceptable norms. People and businesses may choose not to cooperate with citizens of other ETCs in certain areas of life if they diverge strongly from the norms of their own ETC. Also, if a person strongly diverges from the values of their ETC, they can seek protection from another ETC and transition to it, if they are accepted (analogous to refugee status in a modern state, which is unclear how it would operate under ancap).
7. Painless Relinquishing of Power for Government Members
The transition to panarchy can happen completely painlessly for the current authorities—a “fork” (parallel government) is created, and economic entities (schools, hospitals, state enterprises, road services, universities, etc.) will be able to choose which one to join (they can switch to another ETC at any moment if they wish) [6]. In this case, the members of the government currently in power in a centralized state will remain in power in the first formed ETC and need not fear for their personal safety. Otherwise, the lack of guarantees of inviolability greatly complicates the change of power, as the current authorities will fight to the end, knowing the fate that awaits them in the event of a violent overthrow.
8. A Clear Transition Scenario
In many countries, there is currently a strong polarization of society, as in the USA, where the division in values between supporters of Democrats and Republicans has reached a historical maximum [7]. This has a strong destabilizing effect on the government (its members are constantly unable to agree on most issues among themselves) and creates fertile ground for the formation of ETCs “from below.” For the “top-down” authority, this is also beneficial, as it minimizes the probability of a bloody revolution and reprisals against its members, as described in the previous point. Other scenarios are considered in the blog of the well-known “evangelist” of the idea of panarchy, Oleg “Laxy Catal” Tarakanov [8].
9. Presence of Many Examples of Panarchy
Ancaps are often asked: name countries where anarcho-capitalism was or is? Aside from the well-known examples of medieval Iceland and Ireland, there is usually nothing to say. Extraterritorial jurisdictions, however, have existed for almost all of known history—these are the early (before the reforms of Cleisthenes in Attica) Greek poleis, medieval universities, religious orders, guilds and craft associations, millets in the Ottoman Empire, and partly pillarization in Holland until the mid-20th century. The modern Order of Malta, having no territory of its own, is essentially an extraterritorial state [9]. What’s more, even now diplomats of all countries in the world, according to international agreements, live under conditions of panarchy! [10]. And since the model is already well-tested, nothing prevents its large-scale implementation. The principle “all are equal before the law” could actually start working, whereas now it remains only in official declarations.
10. Compatibility with Ancap
Although panarchy looks like a retreat from ancap principles, it may nevertheless turn out to be a quite realistic precursor to it. Participation in an ETC is voluntary; accordingly, the evolutionary process will gradually weed out those that are inconvenient for clients and leave those that best satisfy the ideals of freedom.
Sources
Paul Émile de Puydt “Panarchy“, trans. Egor Liskin
An interesting and quite popular idea for a non-violent struggle against employees of state security agencies was voiced in a conversation on the SVTV channel by Mikhail Svetov and Pavel Nikulin (the stream “Federal Torture Service”). This strategy is successfully applied in the West by far-left organizations such as SJWs. Libertarians should also adopt it if we want to achieve any significant results and avoid being “crushed by the system.”
The essence of the idea is to publicize the names, photographs, home addresses, social media profiles, and other personal data of state employees (FSB, police, Rosgvardia, FSIN, OMON, etc.) found guilty of repressions against oppositionists. This can be done both online (in the form of a site like “Myrotvorets”) and offline (in the form of flyers near the home where the “sadist” lives). To counter expected censorship attempts, it is better to host such sites on the darknet (TOR) or, in the future with the development of blockchain technologies, in decentralized data storage systems with IPFS.
Fearing the loss of reputation and harassment of both himself and his family, this employee will surely think twice before “putting on a bottle” another oppositionist.
For my part, I will add that it would also be good to have a unified database with as many employees of the repressive apparatus as possible, creating for them a risk of guaranteed retribution in the event of mass state terror (and preventing it—similar to the deterrence doctrine between states themselves, after which wars between all developed countries completely ceased in the second half of the 20th century).
Addition from Ancap-chan
I am not aware if Bitarch is a Russian citizen, but I want to note that Russian legislation protects the personal data of its citizens; therefore, if any such data appears online, it will, of course, be posted by unknown State Department agents, and if it appears right by your entrance, it is personally from the retired US President Mr. Obama, out of boredom and malice.
I also want to note that much easier targets for such measures are not even the security forces, but much more defenseless categories of citizens: PEC employees who commit violations during vote counting, administration employees who do not approve mass protests, and similar silent executors who are ready today to violate citizens’ rights for a mere pittance. If it turns out that such activity leads to significant personal inconveniences, some of them will either refuse such side jobs or start negotiating for an increase in the rates for their thankless labor.
