Рубрика: Discussions

Typically a chains of texts discussing their common issue

About One Objection to Panarchy

Here, Georgiy Freeman made an interesting observation about panarchy:

The problem with panarchy as an optimal world order, in my view, lies in the realm of human psychology. It’s predictable that liberal jurisdictions will be more economically successful and materially wealthier than socialist ones. And it will inevitably happen what has already occurred in the world with closed sub-communities like Jewish groups. Unsuccessful, impoverished extraterritorial jurisdictions will invariably blame wealthy liberal jurisdictions for their misfortune: “they parasitize us,” “they rob us,” “they live off our backs.” And this will inevitably lead to irrational conflicts, wars and pogroms. And ultimately, to the destruction of the ECU and panarchy as an idea.

The problem with panarchy as an optimal world order, in my view, lies in the realm of human psychology. It’s predictable that liberal jurisdictions will be more economically successful and materially wealthier than socialist ones. And it will inevitably happen what has already occurred in the world with closed sub-communities like Jewish groups. Unsuccessful, impoverished extraterritorial jurisdictions will invariably blame wealthy liberal jurisdictions for their misfortune: “they parasitize us,” “they rob us,” “they live off our backs.” And this will inevitably lead to irrational conflicts, wars and pogroms. And ultimately, to the destruction of the ECU and panarchy as an idea.

Indeed, on the example of this assumption we see a fascinating phenomenon of human psychology. The answer to the expressed concern is already contained in the description of the concern itself, however it is ignored. “If people will walk down the streets, dressed festively and sending everyone to hell, then they will quickly encounter violence against them, so the institution of walking down the streets will soon be destroyed, as an idea.” But why not just not send everyone to hell.

Similarly, respected G. Freeman suggests paying attention to the disastrous fate of closed extraterritorial sub-entities and immediately prophesies the same fate for open sub-communities. A liberal extraterritorial jurisdiction is not a secret club with seven degrees of initiation, but simply clients of courts and other legal infrastructure working according to liberal norms, namely respect for freedom and private property. Any communist jurisdiction client can enter a liberal jurisdiction if, of course, the communist masters let him out, allocating his due share of public communist property. And if they don’t let him out, then claims will, presumably, not be directed at liberals.

The problem described by G. Frijman is quite typical of prosperous territorial communities with developed redistribution in favor of the poor: the poor, for some reason, strive to infiltrate such communities, and those who have already infiltrated them suddenly stop loving migrants and demand that borders be closed. Of course, after closing the borders, this territorial community begins to be perceived by many neighboring communists as a fattening on neighbors’ accounts, an education that is subject to destruction. However, until there is mandatory social support within this territorial community, there are no problems with migrants in it: they simply flood into it, hoping to earn a living, and many of them succeed.

On the Non-essentiality of Libertarian Metaphysics

A post titled “On the Necessity of Libertarian Metaphysics” was recently published on the “Classical Liberal” channel, which caught my attention. The author accuses modern libertarians of drifting away from the clean and clear concept of God-given natural rights and instead engaging in some kind of atheistic nominalist nonsense. He argues that because their ideology stands on a foundation as shaky as nominalism (that is, the denial of the real existence of ideas and the assertion instead that the world consists of unique objects, and any generalizations are merely terms), libertarians are unable to prove anything to anyone.

Of course, the idea of God-given natural rights is completely shattered by a simple objection: no, Odin gave me natural rights because I honor him, and he also gave me the right to rob you and take you into slavery; he gave you no rights because you don’t even know how to hold a sword.

Nominalism lies at the very heart of the scientific method. By observing countless unique objects and phenomena (more precisely, simply receiving signals from the sense organs), a person notices patterns, proposes a hypothesis about the nature of the observed regularity, tests this hypothesis, and integrates it into a theory. Theories exist within a scientific paradigm, but the process of observing the world does not cease, which means new hypotheses, theories, and paradigms will emerge that describe and explain what is observed more accurately.

Libertarianism as an ideology has existed for as long as there has been the power of man over man and, accordingly, the desire to avoid power over oneself. The concepts used to describe this ideology differ across different times and societies. One can only conditionally trace that, for instance, the concept of self-ownership appeared in the 18th century, and the beloved NAP appeared in the 20th; perhaps in another two centuries, some other fashionable principle will be on the lips of the libertarians of that era.

Building a system of logically correct conclusions from non-contradictory postulates is not such a difficult task. Rebuilding the system in accordance with the redefinition of one of the concepts used is also not a problem. The problem is how to make this system generally accepted, or at least dominant, or at least authoritative, or at least known. An old theory has many advantages over a new one: it also explains the world, it also predicts facts, and additionally, it already belongs to the dominant paradigm. The new one still has to prove that its descriptive and predictive power is higher and that it interfaces better with other theories. How does it do this? Usually quite simply: it just survives until the carriers of the old paradigm physically die out (hello, Odin).

Therefore, libertarians do not need to prove anything to their opponents. Their task is to preserve and gradually expand the core of supporters, accumulate experience in applying their theories, and gather useful technologies that work within libertarianism but malfunction within other ideologies… And, of course, not to physically die out before their opponents.

As for how the concept of “human” will be defined by the time libertarianism becomes dominant, that is purely a matter of convenience of application. For some, “a featherless biped” will suffice, for others “a representative of the species Homo sapiens,” and for some, the concept of “human” may already seem redundantly narrow, so they will operate with some “legal agent.” And so be it.

The Battle of Scientific Paradigms

My acquaintance with Maxim Frantishkov

I have finally managed to finish listening to the previously announced long and tedious debates between Maxim Frantishkov and Alexey Kamendant regarding the problems of the validity of libertarian theory.

This was preceded by a conversation between Bogdan Litvin and the aforementioned Maxim Frantishkov, where the latter described the gaps he sees in libertarian theory.

Maxim’s main take from this first conversation was that self-ownership is not such a necessary concept, the direct application of which runs into numerous borderline cases and conflicts, such as the legal analysis of parent-child relationships—and if we agree to the possibility of parents infringing upon children’s self-ownership-based rights with impunity in the name of their own good, then this literally justifies paternalism in any sphere, and statism as its ultimate manifestation, in one single step. In my book, similar problems are briefly analyzed; however, in Maxim Frantishkov (at least in the two conversations provided), we have not so much a theorist as an erudite who has studied the theoretical works of Mises-Rothbard-Hoppe in detail and is convinced that libertarian theoretical thought stopped with the latter, and now all libertarians are merely obsessing over this trio without moving their research further.

Next, Maxim shows that there is no right other than the right of the strong, and libertarian considerations about ethics and law are simply the ideology of the weak. The strong take what they want, and the weak are indignant, asking by what right, yet they endure and do not revolt. In conclusion, he suggests that libertarians acknowledge this conclusion as a fact and act based on these considerations. It must be said that this correlates in some ways with my definition of rights as claims that have been accepted; however, in my view, libertarian ideology will not be sufficiently viable if it only organically fits the worldview of people in a weak position, for as soon as a person becomes strong enough, they will begin to discard all libertarianism with contempt. Our task of ideological expansion consists precisely in demonstrating that libertarian approaches are also capable of improving life for the strong.

As for the debates with Kamendant, I strongly disliked the format; the moderator could have at least somehow reined Maxim in when he went off-topic, exceeding any reasonable time limits. On the other hand, Maxim stated at the very beginning that libertarians always enter debates only to lose, and then immediately demonstrated that for dominance in debates, the pressure applied is more important than the quality of argumentation. This is the nature of the genre, he claimed, so study no-holds-barred fighting; maybe you’ll win someone.

Nevertheless, a couple of takes appealed to me. One from Kamendant, when he said that as the legal system becomes universalized and separate local legal systems merge, local peculiarities disappear from them, and the foundation that remains is natural law. And libertarian ideology can rely perfectly on this very natural law.

The second take was from Maxim, stating that the ethical system of libertarianism has no need to justify itself through another ethical system, such as utilitarianism; the system should be closed within its own values. In principle, Rothbard wrote something similar when, analyzing Mises’ position, he noted that for a libertarian, freedom would be preferable even if it were somehow incredibly possible to construct a working version of communism that would multiply people’s material well-being more effectively than a free market. So, while a libertarian can be glad that the laws of economics are on their side, their ethical position should not rely on this circumstance but be rooted in more fundamental things.

So, in the end, listening to these conversations at 1.5x speed was not a complete waste of time, but in the future, I will prefer someone not so talkative.

Discussion on whether to pay for security

A subscriber sent me the text of their article with a suggestion to refine and publish it. This seemed like a bad idea to me, as I find AI-generated creations uncomfortable to read, and editing them is not enjoyable at all. So I simply posted the article on Teletype so that those interested could read it, and I will reflect on the topic addressed in it.

Briefly, the article explains why someone in need of security should not buy this security, but should ensure it for themselves. As justifications, fairly standard protectionist arguments are provided, stating that the division of labor is not always a benefit because the provider of necessary services will inevitably want to dominate the market, which in the case of security services will inevitably place the consumer of these services under the complete control of the provider.

Firstly, it seems to me not entirely correct to suggest that the reader act on the assumption as if there are currently no enforcers claiming a monopoly, but rather a free market, and one only needs to try not to spoil the current blissful ancap. In fact, we already have a situation of forced collection of arbitrary sums from everyone the state can reach under fraudulent pretexts, including the argument that the state supposedly provides protection. In other words, the article essentially suggests to people who have already fallen into the crocodile’s teeth to be more careful and not walk around Africa.

Secondly, the same arguments used against the division of labor in the sphere of security can be transferred unchanged to other spheres. Wouldn’t a food supplier want to be a monopoly supplier, with complete power over your death by starvation? Let’s engage in subsistence farming to avoid this terrible danger.

In fact, in the case of state security, we have not an excessive, but an insufficient division of labor. The state tends to involve itself in any aspect of security that occurs to a bureaucrat drafting new regulations. Meanwhile, it is precisely the practice of turning to various narrow specialists for every specific issue that counteracts the potential forced merger of these specialists into a single center for providing everything. As soon as the state gets a market competitor in any sphere, the state’s position in it becomes more shaky. Of course, many initially prefer the option already paid for by taxes and therefore requiring no additional expense, rather than paying a private provider for a higher-quality solution. However, private solutions still gradually carve out their way, first in the premium segment, and then in the mass market.

Therefore, I will instead formulate the opposite call: pay for security. Buy all goods and services that are sold to you cheaper and/or of higher quality than if you were to tinker with it yourself. And only if the market choice does not satisfy you, does it make sense to combine efforts with partners and produce the missing product yourself.

In addition to the previous post

The post turned out poorly. As a mitigating circumstance, I can only cite a lingering respiratory infection, because of which everything is running, and it is somewhat distracting.

It was a mistake to mention some debates and takes from those debates, because readers naturally tried to understand how they related to the content of the post—and the connection there is quite weak. The thing is, I am not very interested in the topic of survival under a state; otherwise, the topics of my posts would mainly concern tactics for standing in line for various state social perks, roughly speaking, for the slop. The post concerned specifically the ethical aspects of concluding contracts under ancap, and the fact that positive law in conditions of decentralization works very limitedly, and therefore not every document that says “Contract” and is signed by the parties actually possesses the properties one would expect from a contract. That is, it is not a fact that the mutual promises described in it will actually be fulfilled by the parties, were planned to be fulfilled by the parties, or can be forcibly realized in reality by the efforts of one of the parties.

Is it ethical to sign a contract that you do not want to fulfill? Yes, if the alternative involves significant costs. Is it ethical not to fulfill a signed contract afterwards? Yes, or to fulfill it partially. Is it ethical not to make it clear in advance that you do not like the contract? Yes, if this type of feedback is punishable. Is it ethical to abuse deceits of this sort? Of course not; on the contrary, it is ethical to strive to avoid situations where such deception is required.

By the way, the presented ethical approach simultaneously completely closes the meme topic of contractual slavery under ancap.

Discussing the magic stimulant

So, readers have discussed across several platforms the fantastic assumption laid out in the previous post, its consequences, and their own personal lines of behavior.

Here are the main ideas.

  1. Humanity already consists of both fanatical overachievers and those living “half-heartedly.” If the contrast becomes slightly stronger—well, that’s great. Overachievers will achieve even greater success, burning with their ideas, while others will enjoy the results in a comfortable mode for themselves (as a separate opinion, some believe that those dabbling in the stimulant will be spatially separated from those who don’t, or conversely, communities of advocates for naturalness will appear).
  2. The first thing people under the stimulant will do is develop a second version of the stimulant, devoid of the side effects of the first version, and then we’ll all live well.

Many also noted that the value of a conditional Harvard lies not in knowledge, but in networking; this is a long-term task, and the stimulant does not solve it. Nor does it solve many other tasks, such as finding a long-term marriage partner, raising children, selecting new varieties of baobab, and so on.

It’s funny how the question of a life-accelerating stimulant echoes another question I answered not so long ago—about the consequences of the appearance of immortality technology for the chosen few. Let me introduce additional constraints here as well. Let the production of the stimulant be a cheap and easily replicable technology that is practically impossible to ban. Also, let this technology provide no shortcuts allowing it to be tweaked in a relatively short time to remove the key unpleasant side effect. Otherwise, it’s not interesting.

How could this stimulant appear? Most likely—during developments in the field of traumatology or something of that sort. They struggled for a long time with animals, could not overcome the effect of premature aging, and finally released it for use in first-aid kits as a last resort, initially for the military. If you don’t use it—you die in half an hour; if you do—you live some number of years less. Then, a recovering person, out of boredom, picks up a higher mathematics textbook, or, say, a manual on repairing HIMARS in field conditions—and discovers with surprise that the material is absorbed perfectly. That’s it, the genie is out of the bottle.

It is also quite obvious that cancer patients of any age will use the stimulant. Additionally, it is a more than justified remedy for Alzheimer’s. In short, there will be a significant number of people for whom the use of the stimulant will provide a double plus—both the extension (or serious alleviation) of life and the enhancement of abilities. Instead of living for twenty years as a demented person, a paralytic, or undergoing surgery every six months, a person would quite easily prefer ten years of more comfortable aging coupled with a flowering of cognitive functions.

It is more than likely that the stimulant will be used in poor, large families. Why send a daughter into prostitution or a son to a hazardous production site if there is a way to lift the whole family out of poverty with far lower costs, even regarding the reduction of expected life expectancy. In other words, the stimulant will accelerate social elevators. For those who have acceptable starting conditions, there are fewer incentives to use the drug. Thus, the stimulant will contribute to increasing equality, which leftists love to prattle on about.

As for a truly mass transition to the stimulant—this seems unlikely to me. After all—so we know that methamphetamine is actively used in North Korea to increase labor productivity—and so what? Perhaps students before exams sometimes follow this example, but it is not the case that consumers of this stimulant are directly displacing those who shun it from the labor market. Again, modern left-wing governments are far more concerned with unemployment than with labor productivity. If some maniacs are ready to replace entire creative teams—then for those who have dropped out of the competitive race, even more bullshit jobs will simply be invented.

And under ancap? I see no serious difference; this technology is not key to the formation of society. Except that bullshit jobs under ancap would be substantially fewer, which means those not using the stimulant would have a less stable income, but would be able to enjoy lower prices. However, those using the stimulant wouldn’t become models of stability either, since the stimulant is more about extreme effort than about a constant increase in efficiency. So, the niche for the workhorses will remain wide enough for a long time.

What do you mean “I don’t want the stimulant”? The clock is ticking!

Birthday – not only once a year

I was sent a text describing a fantastic hypothesis and a question about what should be changed in human relationships so that the consequences wouldn’t frighten us too much. So…

Imagine that a certain cellular stimulator had been developed and became available, which, by accelerating biological processes in your body, could cure you of a disease or injury very quickly—literally in an hour—allow you to prepare for entrance exams to a prestigious university in a week, or perform huge volumes of work in the shortest possible time. The price for this is an accelerated “wearing out” of the body, visually and physiologically indistinguishable from natural aging over a longer period of time under natural conditions and, let’s say, without any other side effects. Would you use such a technology?

At first, you’re unlikely to like the idea, but afterwards, you might wonder if it’s worth sacrificing a piece of your life just once and literally celebrate several birthdays in one year for the sake of some significant achievement—for example, getting into Harvard, which should ensure you a good profession, a brilliant career, and high income for the rest of your slightly diminished life. But you’re unlikely to be the only “smart one,” and you’ll soon realize that with such a means existing, many people might start using it in the pursuit of efficiency and quick gains—first in one particular situation, and then again and again. This means that remaining competitive in studies or work without resorting to this means will simply become impossible. And employers, of course, all other things being equal, will prefer to deal with people who never catch a cold, don’t get tired, and can perform a month’s worth of work in a week. And you suddenly find yourself in the position of a professional athlete who understands that it’s impossible to win without doping, but doping will most likely lead him to the grave or make him disabled about five years sooner.

How would you solve this problem? A blunt government ban on the drug won’t help. Government agents themselves would be happy to use its effect, primarily for military purposes if talking about others, and to increase efficiency in political struggles if talking about themselves. How, in your opinion, should human relationships be influenced so that situations do not arise where some people absolutely do not care about others and are only glad if they completely exhaust their life resource for their own benefit?

In the next post, I will share my reflections on the proposed situation, but for now, I would like to read your ideas in the comments.

Bitcoiners discuss Montelibero, continued

A month ago, the guys from the projects HypeCoinNews and Bitcorn tried to launch a joint podcast Bitcom in Bitcoin, inviting Soz for the first episode to tell them about Montelibero. There was a false start, and they had to discuss Montelibero among themselves. I later commented on one of the takes from this conversation on my page.

And so yesterday, they finally released the recording of the conversation with Soz.

I was briefly reprimanded for the inaccuracy of my comment: by freezing BTC in the Liquid sidechain, I receive LBTC coins in exchange, which I can then use to buy LMTL tokens or any others, and the fund, after selling me its tokens, is free to dispose of the received LBTC as it sees fit, including selling them for euros. But since the liquidity of this market is extremely low, the comment remains essentially valid: using this mechanism to accumulate resources offline is inconvenient.

And then the conversation continued for over an hour about other things (if anyone is ready to make timecodes, it would be very helpful—drop them in the comments). I listened and felt envious: I have to give a talk about Montelibero at the upcoming festival, and it certainly won’t be better than Soz’s, no matter how hard I try(

I’ll probably add one more thing to what Soz said about “broke people.” In principle, a broke person just needs to arrive in the country and start earning; they can completely ignore legalization. The culture of under-the-table payments is extremely developed here. Documents aren’t demanded at every step (and if they ask once every six months, there are no sanctions for saying your documents are at home). Difficulties only arise when trying to leave the country. But if you’re broke, why would you be traveling abroad! Stay in Montenegro, enjoy its—no joke—immense natural and cultural diversity, participate in the activities of the local community, and just don’t worry. Roma people make up five percent of the population here; learn from them the correct attitude toward the state (though it’s better to learn the attitude toward private property from us).

On the right of nations to self-determination

I recently happened to listen to a debate between two Russian emigrants about how to behave toward the Russian people. As it turned out, they sparked a heated discussion in one of the Montelibero chats, so I decided to join in with my own opinion.

Briefly, the positions of the parties:

Mikhail Svetov. The people must be loved; the people are victims of the regime; speaking out against the regime now is pointless, one must wait for the right moment; the people need a leader, a kind master, who will take power and rule guided by love.

Mark Feigin. We have no time to coddle the people, they have already squandered every opportunity; if the people do not overthrow Putin themselves, then there is no reason to be offended if others continue to decide everything for them; reparations will be taken, and the country will be dismantled; by the way, if it is dismantled, that’s not bad—there is a chance for the emergence of a Russian Taiwan, where Mark himself could settle his weary bones.

What causes the greatest repulsion in me throughout all this rhetoric is that everyone talks about some “Russian people.” But the right of nations to self-determination is not about some outsider labeling a particular community of people as a “nation” and allocating a piece of land for them. It is about people defining themselves as a nation, beginning to behave as a nation, and achieving their recognition as a nation. People have such a right—to self-determine as nations.

The people of Montelibero, for example, have already self-determined. Any person can affiliate themselves with our people, ensure that the people recognize them as one of their own, and in time decide on an “aliya”—physically relocating to the home of their people. If they are truly ours in spirit, a warm welcome awaits them.

Mark Feigin, with his dreams of a Russian Taiwan, unexpectedly turned out to be closer to us in spirit than Mikhail Svetov with his dreams of a kind Moscow master. But Mikhail possesses a very valuable ability to pique people’s interest in libertarianism, even if they previously had no clue about it. Later they will figure out the subject and gradually move away from Mikhail’s position, but as an appetizer, Svetov is good.

Therefore, we are very glad that Mikhail Svetov is planning to visit us at the end of September for the Montelibero festival (the website has just been created, please bear with us, it will be updated). And since he is coming, he will, of course, give a presentation. The topic has not been decided yet.

I will also be speaking, providing a brief overview of what the people of Montelibero have managed to achieve in a little over two years, and what still lies ahead for them.

But such presentations are only a small part of the program; after all, it’s not a conference, but a festival. Let’s have some fun—it motivates one to live.

Montellibero’s criticism from bitcoiners

A podcast was released on the Hype Coin News channel, for which two bitcoiners wanted to invite our Soz from Montelibero to tell them about Montelibero. However, the guys failed to account for the Montenegrin polako — Soz was late, and the entire podcast took place without him. As a result, it became a conversation between a person who knows something about Montelibero and a person who knows nothing but is trying to understand.

The main question that concerned the interlocutors for most of the podcast was “why are they using some shitcoin, what’s it called, Stellar, when there is a normal, orthodox Bitcoin?”

I have two answers to this question.

The first is usability. For instance, I cannot provide a link to a post from the Hype Coin News channel, nor to the channel itself, because it is private. As for how to subscribe to it — God knows; I subscribed somehow a long time ago and no longer remember how (which is why I am simply posting the podcast right here). It is roughly the same situation with attempts to operate tokens on the Liquid Bitcoin sidechain. Yes, the MTL fund has a Bitcoin sub-fund there, but all I managed to do there was buy L-MTL tokens with Bitcoin and occasionally nudge the head Bitcoin guru manually so that he would manually transfer the dividends to my Lightning wallet. This is not a full-fledged tokenomics, but rather a reservation for Bitcoin maximalists.

But if one sets a goal, it is possible to write a custom wallet (such an attempt is discussed in the podcast) with decent usability, and the first answer would become irrelevant. So, I have prepared a second, more fundamental answer.

What do our bitcoiners see as the main advantage of Bitcoin as a platform for tokenomics? That by issuing tokens, you provably freeze Bitcoins as collateral. But if an investment fund freezes all receipts, it turns out that it is investing in Bitcoin, and only in Bitcoin. However, the MTL fund needs to invest money into one business or another. Thus, its tokens will ultimately be backed not by the original carrier of value transferred to the fund, but by obligations. It doesn’t matter what entered the system. Some bought MTL tokens with Bitcoin, some with rubles, some even with the god-forsaken Lumens. Most of these funds were then converted into euros, and those euros were used for purchases on the external market. And entries appeared on the fund’s balance sheet regarding which assets it acquired. More precisely — tokens of the assets acquired by the fund. The fund does not have a single euro — neither in bank accounts nor in cash — because such entities cannot be put into a blockchain. Instead, it has tokenized euros (which the fund’s treasurers are obliged to exchange for cash upon first request, and these are specific people, and as many as needed can be brought in). Plus tokenized businesses that bring dividends. Plus tokenized investments that one hopes will increase in price — for example, land or Bitcoin itself.

If we used tokenomics based on a Bitcoin sidechain, it would be absurd. I freeze my Bitcoin in the sidechain and receive an MTL token. Then, for the fund to invest the funds, it would need to find someone who will accept this Bitcoin frozen in the sidechain and give euros for it. And where can you find such a person?

It is clear that bitcoiners would like to see something like the Bitcoin Beach project, where there is a large local economy, and everyone within this economy keeps records and makes settlements in Bitcoin. Need land — buy it with Bitcoin. Need a tractor — buy it with Bitcoin. Need to pay taxes to the damn state — pay with Bitcoin.

Yes, in such a world, tokenomics could be based on Bitcoin. What stopped us from doing something similar? Nothing, it is simply a completely parallel task. When the Bitcoin Beach franchise comes to Montenegro, we will be able to fit into it. But for now, it is more convenient for us to use another solution, one that is cheaper and simpler.

Tokenomics is perpendicular to Bitcoin. Bitcoin is about the ability to store and transfer value without trust. Tokenomics is about the ability to monetize trust. One does not hinder the other.

As a dessert, I suggest refreshing your memory with a couple of my texts on tokenomics: part 1, part 2.