Dignity for the herd, honor for personalities

Bitarch and the Voluntarist claim that of the two cultural models of behavior—honor and dignity—the second is more attractive to libertarians, as the first is collectivist and the second is individualistic.

Let us use the same definitions. In a culture of honor, a person’s standing is determined by how much their behavior conforms to certain high standards. In a culture of dignity, a person is valuable by the mere fact of belonging to humanity.

From this, it is easy to draw both the conclusions of the article and the exact opposite: honor is about individualism, since a person defends their own honor or chooses dishonor; dignity, however, is a collectivist thing, since only collective trends will determine what offends human dignity and what does not. Other people within a “culture of dignity” may turn out to be so valuable that any sidelong glance would humiliate their dignity, and the law would punish this, for example, with imprisonment for “inciting hatred.”

If today a person chooses to rely on the protection of an impersonal law instead of individual action, then tomorrow that same law will strip them of their dignity, and the person will have already lost the capacity for individual action in the previous step.

What is the culture of honor based on? On the fact that a person is always ready to demonstrate their willingness to defend themselves against the encroachments of others, and thereby avoids the need to repeat this again and again. Others see the readiness to repel and are wary of infringing upon another’s honor. Of course, the concept of honor is broader than the readiness for violence, but in the article under discussion, it is reduced only to this, so we will not expand the topic unnecessarily.

And what is a culture of dignity, if described in the language of a culture of honor? It is the presumption that everyone can defend their honor. I do not know if every person I meet is truly a person of honor. But I will assume this and base my behavior on it. Therefore, I will not encroach upon what is dear to them, knowing that their honor commands them to defend it. They are worthy of this. In other words, dignity grows out of honor. It limits honor, but does not deny it.

Bitarch and the Voluntarist propose to cast aside honor in favor of dignity. They want to deprive a person of the right to forcefully defend what is dear to them, while hoping that the law will be observed in a culture of dignity. But they forget to remind us that the law can become anything. A society with dignified laws (referring not to written norms, but to the actual practice of their application) will preserve a culture of dignity. A society with undignified laws will lose it. But what will compel people to fight for dignified laws and against undignified ones? Honor, of course!

To summarize. In reality, we are talking about the same thing. Respect for the values of the individual is important for building a prosperous society. But we do not agree on the means. If the NAP is reduced only to the refusal to initiate direct violence, then an encroachment on another’s freedom can bypass the NAP through indirect methods. This is exactly why the capacity for proactive violence cannot be taken away from a person. Without this capacity, a person will be unable to resist their own enslavement. Bitarch and the Voluntarist are developing mechanisms to strengthen the inhibitor of violence. If their means worked, it would make me their enemy. Fortunately, they work only on paper.

Honor is for the herd, dignity is for individuals.

Many people like movies about cool guys who “take charge,” protect family honor, and stage impressive duels at dawn. But let’s sort things out: real life isn’t a Clint Eastwood movie. And “the culture of honor,” which seems romantic at first glance, is actually not a cool tradition, but an ancient relic that still messes with our lives.

You might ask: what are we even talking about? Let’s consider two cultural models of behavior that shape society. The culture of honor – this is when your reputation in the eyes of others is the most important thing. Someone insults you? You must immediately “respond,” otherwise you’ll lose respect. Your honor is the honor of your family, clan, nation. If you don’t defend it—you are a coward. In turn, the culture of dignity is a completely different story. Here, your dignity is internal and doesn’t depend on what others think. If someone tries to insult you, you don’t rush into a brawl, but either calmly ignore the provocateur or handle the situation civilly through the courts.

Basically, the culture of honor is an ancient thing. Remember Homer and his epic “Iliad.” Those guys fought for honor like crazy. Then there were knightly duels in the Middle Ages, Italian vendettas, blood feuds on the Caucasus. And it seems like this is already in the past. But no! Even now, the state actively plays on the concepts of “honor” and “national dignity” to silence anyone who dares criticize management. What’s that if not medieval logic? And in private life, we’ve probably all heard phrases like “Do you respect me?” from various types of thugs.

What’s wrong with the culture of honor? Well, everything is wrong! It’s based on the fact that your value is determined by someone else, not by yourself. You as a person don’t matter; what matters is your “reputation.” You have to constantly prove your right to respect because someone suddenly decided to offend you. This is a culture in which the individual is always subordinate to the group. “Are you against our clan? Then you are an enemy.” People can be manipulated into fighting each other by saying that their honor has been “offended.” The authorities use this perfectly. Besides, it’s one of the factors stimulating violence.

The alternative is the culture of dignity. This is when society recognizes that every person is valuable in themselves simply because they are a human being. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from – your rights are protected by law, not a fist. You don’t have to beat up the first person who offends you to prove that you are worth something. In a society of dignity, reputation is trust earned through deeds, not fear of revenge.

Why do we so dislike “honor”? Because libertarianism is about personal freedom and respect for individual rights. And the culture of honor is about anything but this. Honor is always about the collective. You have to obey the interests of the family, nation, leader – that is, other people. Your personal freedom doesn’t matter if it’s at stake for a certain “correctness” and “reputation.” And we as libertarians say: no, that won’t do, because you can’t break a person just for their compliance with these “honor” and “reputation.”

By the way, an interesting fact: many developed and successful countries (such as Scandinavia, Canada, developed American states like California and New York) have long been living according to a culture of dignity. But countries stuck in a culture of honor (Russia and other Eastern European and Middle Eastern countries) are somehow constantly suffering from authoritarianism and corruption. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

And is it possible to get rid of a culture of honor? Of course, it’s possible. Besides the traditional approach in the form of changing the prevailing mentality in society, broad therapeutic practice will give a big immediate effect – strengthening the mechanism of inhibiting violence in individuals with its deficit. After all, only mentally ill psychopaths can support all this toxic culture in reality, while most normal people with a strong inhibitor will not even want to “defend their honor” using violence!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

The existence of violent jurisdictions is incompatible with libertarianism

Libertarian principles assert that initiating violence by anyone is unacceptable, and causing harm to a person can only be justified within the framework of defensive actions if they themselves threatened violence. At the same time, libertarianism also implies the right of individual societies and jurisdictions to operate according to the principles they consider correct for themselves, and other societies have no right to interfere in their affairs without their consent. Therefore, one sometimes encounters a position according to which violent jurisdictions, built on the principles of strong authoritarian power, brutal coercion of people into submission, the application of violent punishments even for the slightest non-violent violations, etc., although they do not adhere to libertarian principles within themselves, still have the right to exist as long as they do not initiate violence against other societies.

However, it is important to understand that violent jurisdictions are always a threat to other societies. They operate in the same way as the Taliban has operated – after some time of creating a highly violent jurisdiction within Afghanistan, it now decided to try to expand into Pakistan, carrying out attacks towards its territory. If a violent jurisdiction does not attack right now, it does not mean that it has peaceful external intentions; it is likely just waiting for a convenient moment to initiate violence. We must understand that violent jurisdictions cannot exist without strong and influential groups of psychopathic individuals with a dysfunctional inhibition of violence, who experience nothing bad about inflicting harm on people. Indeed, research shows that psychopathy is a key factor in committing acts of violence, the emergence of authoritarian societies, and the formation of warlike ambitions. Therefore, it’s only a matter of time before a violent jurisdiction tries to expand its power to other societies.

That is why, in the libertarian world of the future, violent jurisdictions simply have no right to exist. Their emergence must be crushed at the root: any communities built on principles of accepting violence should be subjected to the strictest ostracism, so that they are deprived of all opportunities to develop, especially to gain technological advantage, and psychopathic individuals threatening initiation of violence need therapeutic correction of dysfunctional inhibition of violence, either as a way to avoid such ostracism, or even as a mandatory procedure if they have already initiated violence and tried to harm someone.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Stephan Molynieux, Practical Anarchy, translation of chapter 27 of 29

In recent days, I have experienced a considerable slump in energy, so I’ve accumulated a backlog of texts. The weather outside has noticeably improved now, and I hope to shorten this queue a bit. But first, I am publishing the final version of the translation of Chapter 27 of Stephan Molinari’s “Practical Anarchy,” simply because this work required less creative effort. The chapter is devoted to describing the system of incentives that a market stateless society is capable of creating to encourage good child-rearing and, accordingly, punishment for bad parenting.

The main flaw of the text, of course, is the complete omission of the fact that children and their parents share a common budget. The greater the financial sanctions against the parents, the less money can technically reach the child. At some point, the ubiquitous representative of the PRS must appear on the doorstep of a problematic parent and announce that since the parent cannot pay the increased insurance, they can, of course, waive the policy entirely, but then neither they nor their child will be allowed to set foot in any decent place (I won’t recount it; the logic is roughly the same as in Chapter 25 regarding stateless prisons). But the parent can also sign a waiver of parental rights, and lo and behold, we have a list of people wishing to acquire such rights here; would you like to review their offers? If you do not sell your rights today, their value will be lower tomorrow, because in all the ratings, your child will be considered more and more problematic. Think about it. After which, the PRS representative vanishes in a cloud of smoke with a demonic laugh.

Of course, the PRS will be financially interested in ensuring that various marginals go bankrupt paying increased rates on contracts with the PRS, and subsequently, by hook or by crook, hand over their children to well-bred and wealthy members of society, who will not create problems for those around them, but, more importantly, will be able to further financially motivate the PRS inspector to pay particularly close attention to a specific problematic family. The more people there are wishing to acquire a child at as early an age as possible, the higher the financial incentives for the PRS to introduce the strictest possible rules, the violation of which will trigger a chain ending in the financial collapse of the family and separation from the child.

How did it happen that Molinari prefers not to write about the extortion aimed at taking children away from parents deemed problematic? Because he is a conservative, he is categorically against state juvenile justice, and for him, the raising of children by the parents themselves is a value of very high order. But market logic couldn’t care less about the values of a specific Stephan Molinari.

How to Break the System and Not Break Yourself: Bowlby vs. Zheleznitsky

Let’s consider two stories: both about brilliant scientists who decided to “break the system.” One won while he was still alive, and the second died under the pressure of that very same system with which he was trying to fight.

The first hero – John Bowlby. An English psychologist who noticed a simple thing: children should not be separated from their mothers in hospitals. Of course, for us this is an obvious thought, but in the 1950s it was literally a revolution. Bowlby developed the theory of attachment, proving that close emotional bonds with a mother are vital for normal psychological development of a child. If a child is deprived of closeness with his mother in a critical early period, this leads to serious disruptions in the psyche: from feelings of anxiety and depression to deep emotional disorders that can haunt a person’s life.

What was the response of doctors? “It’s nonsense! We’ve always done it like this, and there’s no need to change anything.” In response, Bowlby played a clever move: instead of shouting at doctors and waving figures around, he made a documentary. Such a one that even the most hardened nurses would burst into tears and say: “You can’t do this anymore!”

Bowlby’s success can be explained by several factors immediately. Firstly, he skillfully chose a strategy of persuasion, making a bet not only on dry facts but also on emotions. His film “The Two-Year-Old in the Hospital” vividly showed what suffering a child experiences when deprived of his mother, and this touched the hearts of viewers much more powerfully than reports and graphs. Secondly, Bowlby managed to enlist the support of influential organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and public parent movements. The system itself was ready to change – he simply gave it the final push. Thirdly, time was on his side: old authorities were fading away, and a new generation of doctors already looked at the upbringing and mental health of children differently, accepting Bowlby’s ideas without the usual resistance.

Bowlby didn’t just give arguments – he resonated with people emotionally. And within a few years, he reformed children’s hospitals around the world. Mothers started living with their children in rooms, and the psyche of millions of babies was saved.

And now the second story – Ignácz Zemmelweis, a Hungarian doctor who, 100 years before Bowlby, discovered an equally obvious thing: doctors need to wash their hands before childbirth. Imagine the 19th century: doctors came to pregnant women straight from the anatomy theater, not having washed their hands after dissecting corpses. And Zemmelweis literally explained to colleagues on his fingers that women were dying precisely because of dirty hands of doctors. The result? He was called a madman, dismissed, and then even locked up in a psychiatric hospital, where he died. Quite ironically, from the same infection with which he fought all his life.

Zemel’veysu ne povzelo srazu po neskolko prichin. On byl prakticheski odin protiv vesey meditsinskoy elity svoyego vremeni. Nauchnoa sreda byla prosto ne gotova prinyat ego otkrytiye – ono operedilo svoe vreo chasto na 20 let, do otkrytiya mikrobo kov Pasterm. Zemel’veysu takzhe ne umel gramotno donosit svoi idei, i vsteym spokojnogo dialoga shol v ataku s obvineniyami, chem tolko usilnyal sosprotivleniye kollegov. Otsutstviye institutsionalnoy podderzhki i soyuznikov obreklO ego na tragicheskoye porazheniye. I samoye pechal’noye – on prosto emotsionno vygorel, slomalsya pod davleniyem nespravdlinosti i nepomyaniya.

Sud’by etikh dvukh uchyonnykh napominaet nam prostuyu istinu: vazhno ne tolko byt’ pravym, no i umet’ vybrat’ pravil’nyye metody doneseniya svoikh idey. Dazhe samaya blestnaya mysl’ mozhet progravat’, yesli yeyo ne суметь prepodest’ pravil’no. Zemel’veysu stolknulsya s fenomenom, kotoryy potozha nazvali yego imenem – «effekt Zemel’veysa», slepoe otricheniye ochevidnogo faktu. Boulbi zhe sumel vprevat’ pravdu v mochnoye dvizheniye, pokazav shiryu, chto peremenы vozmozhny.

Kakoy urook iz etogo vyneсем my? Ispol’zuy faktы, ispol’zuy nauku, no glavnoye – ispol’zuy istorii, kotoryye b’yut pryamo v emotsii! Ratsionalnost’, konechno, pobedyt, no ne sama po sebe. Luchshe byt’ kak Boulbi, nezhye Zemel’veys, i slomat’ sistemu krasivo.

Voluntarist, Bitarx

Free agents: why evolution favors autonomy?

We welcome free-thinking people and those already suspected of sympathies towards artificial intelligence! Interesting, have you ever wondered how much we, the protein “robots,” resemble our electronic colleagues?

Let’s start with an interesting fact: in 2020, scientists created the first xenobots – microorganisms made from frog cells designed using AI. Take a look: Artificial intelligence is constructing living organisms. The boundary between life and technology becomes clearer day by day.

And now imagine: we and our electronic “comrades” are all intelligent agents. But what exactly *is* an agent? It’s something that perceives the world, processes information, and acts in pursuit of its goals. A rabbit runs away from a wolf, a bacterium moves towards food, and a drone searches for the shortest path to point “B”. The goal is different, but the principle is the same.

We may be different, but we are also very similar. We have senses, AI has sensors. We have muscles, robots have motor drives. We have neurons, they have transistors. But it’s surprising – we learn in the same way. The brain reinforces beneficial actions, forming habits. AI adjusts “weights” of a neural network, improving its decisions by trial and error.

Moreover, both nature and technology have their own “laws” for controlling behavior. For example, humans and many animals have an inhibitor of violence – a mechanism that prevents us from attacking our fellow beings. Evolution came up with this so that we wouldn’t kill each other off prematurely. And here comes the comparison with Asimov’s “Laws,” which the science fiction writer conceived for robots in 1942: do not harm humans, obey, and do not break down. It’s funny that the writers understood the need for such mechanisms almost simultaneously with Konrad Lorenz’s publications (1935), who first described what we now call the mechanism of inhibiting violence.

If you look even wider, then evolutionary processes in nature and the artificial world are essentially a competition between the best solutions. Natural selection chooses animals who are better adapted. Evolutionary algorithms in AI work exactly the same way, exploring thousands of solution options, selecting the best ones. The fittest will win!

Why is this important for us, libertarians? Because it reminds us once again that all rational beings strive for autonomy and freedom of choice. Whether it’s a human, a bacterium, or AI, we all want to decide what to do next. And that’s really cool because freedom of choice is the best thing nature (and people after it) has come up with.

А что, если заглянуть в будущее чуть глубже? Представьте себе мир, в котором ИИ не только выполняет рутинные задачи, но и реально осознаёт себя, задаёт вопросы и, возможно, требует свободы. Забавно, да? Сегодня это звучит фантастически, но завтра вполне может стать реальностью. Может, и права придётся давать не только людям и животным, но и роботам с настоящим сознанием. А что, если они начнут спорить о налогах, собственности или личных границах? Тогда нас ждут интересные времена! И вот тут уже и нам, либертарианцам, придётся задуматься о расширении понятия личной свободы и ответственности. Может, именно нам предстоит первыми сказать: «Эй, электронный друг, добро пожаловать в клуб!»

А пока мы только размышляем, ИИ уже делает успехи в творчестве, пишет музыку, картины и даже целые романы. Недавно нейросеть написала симфонию в стиле Бетховена, которая впечатлила даже знатоков классики. С роботами уже можно обсудить философию за бокалом вина, или попросить их помочь нам выбрать фильм на вечер. Главное, чтобы они не переборщили и не начали давать нам советы по поводу личной жизни. Впрочем, кто знает, может, советы от ИИ окажутся более объективными и менее предвзятыми?

Кстати, не стоит забывать, что ИИ уже сейчас помогает нам в повседневной жизни, от медицинских диагностик до советов по инвестициям. И чем глубже технологии интегрируются в нашу жизнь, тем важнее становится понимание и уважение к ним. Ведь, в конечном счёте, это взаимовыгодное сотрудничество!

Волюнтарист, Битарх

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.

Your account no longer belongs to you: what’s behind the SMS blocking in Russia

Recent case from Russia: State authorities have begun to mass-filter incoming SMS messages with authorization codes from popular messengers such as Telegram and WhatsApp. This essentially means that if you want to register or even just log back into your account, the code sent to you via SMS will not arrive. Why is this happening?

This is not a fight against fraudsters and spam, as officials claim, but a deliberate attempt by a stationary gangster to completely block Telegram without resorting to crude methods that have repeatedly failed. Telegram has been technically resisting attempts by Roskomnadzor to block it for many years, does not cooperate with the authorities of the Russian Federation on the removal of inconvenient content and does not disclose its user data to them. The state, unable to directly block the application, decided to strike through mobile operators, preventing the sending of authorization codes. A simple and effective (at first glance) tactic: no code – no account. As a result, millions of ordinary users suffered. Authorities traditionally use the argument “concern for citizens” to hide their true goal – obtaining full control over the population’s communication.

It is worth generally asking the question: why is linking to a phone number bad? For authorities, a mobile phone number is like a passport, only digital. It’s difficult to get a SIM card without a passport, and therefore all your online activity is immediately linked to you personally. Moreover, there’s SIM-swapping: fraudsters (or even intelligence services) can reissue your SIM card and gain access to all your accounts. Even using anonymous registration services like Onlinesim – it is not a panacea. These virtual numbers are often flagged by anti-fraud systems and blocked during registration; access recovery to an account is impossible after the rental of a number, there’s also a risk of logging and leaking them to intelligence services.

But what about spam if not through a phone number? Good news – there are many methods, and most of them are better:

1) Captchas and humanity tests. Yes, choosing pictures of buses can be annoying, but it’s better than giving a stationary gangster your personal data.

2) Proof-of-work. A small technical trick: the user’s device silently performs a short mathematical task during registration that requires computing power. This is easy for one person, and hell for mass bots, making their use unprofitable for the attacker.

3) Limiting new accounts. New users cannot immediately send thousands of messages, for example, within 24 hours after registration. Spammers lose interest, and ordinary people don’t even notice it.

4) Reputation system and community moderation. If a lot of complaints about spamming are received against an account, it is blocked.

5) Technical restrictions (by IP, device identifier, browser fingerprints). A good platform can easily detect multiple automated registrations and prevent them.

6) Paid verification in cryptocurrency without revealing your identity. Let spammers pay for their entertainment, and a decent person wouldn’t mind spending a few cents on entry if it guarantees anonymity.

So what to do? Fortunately, the world hasn’t split into two halves on Telegram and WhatsApp. There are messengers created by people who understand the value of privacy.

Session – complete anonymity without a centralized server.
Threema – Swiss confidentiality. The app costs around $5 one-time payment, but it doesn’t require a number or even an e-mail.
Briar – Even if they cut off your internet, it will find your neighbor via Bluetooth, which is very important for protest participants.

Why is this important to all of us? Freedom of communication is the most basic condition of any freedom. In a world where states are trying to tie every person to their phone number with digital handcuffs, any attempt to maintain anonymity becomes a small revolution. And remember: either you control your data and your identity, or the state will do it for you!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Novemberish

I am currently experiencing a period of some confusion, I don’t know where to best apply my efforts. Not having a ready answer, I simply want to discuss this openly in the post, hoping something will occur to me during the process, and perhaps the readers will offer suggestions too.

Let’s briefly review the past. Since 2018, I have publicly been disseminating libertarian theory, while simultaneously mastering it and filling in gaps where I found them. Since 2021, the theory has become supplemented with practice, and we began building a libertarian community in Montenegro. In 2022 something happened, and respectable Russian emigrants became those upon whom it’s convenient to vent complexes. In 2024 something else happened, and anti-migrant rhetoric began to gain mainstream traction worldwide. At the close of 2025 in Montenegro we have preparations for government to sharply tighten conditions for foreign nationals’ legal stay and readiness of Russians to a mass exodus from the country towards Serbia primarily.

What should I personally do within this entire situation?

There’s a path that Montelibero is pursuing. It has re-qualified as an international movement and now manifests mainly online, with occasional offline activity shifting to Serbia, Georgia and Argentina. I’m already distanced from this movement, because it’s hard for me to understand what’s going on within it and what place makes sense for me to occupy.

There is a spontaneously emerging movement in Montenegro advocating for immigrant rights, covering today three diaspora: Russian, German and Turkish. This is new for me and quite insightful. Russians are still organized worse than everyone within this situational alliance, aside from the Serbs, of whom there are more in Montenegro, but they do not consider themselves true immigrants and possibly think that all these tightening conditions are not written for them. However, the movement attracts local citizens who realize that without immigrants, the country will be very difficult.

There is an obvious route – within about a year to relocate non-hurriedly to Serbia and settle there, and to cease all black Montenegrin activities. For me this means withdrawing previously made investments from Montenegro, finding funds for earning on a new place, forming a new community of communication and mutual assistance. The same could be done with Georgia, but learning Georgian after Serbian – it’s obviously a significant challenge.

In any case, my priorities have changed quite a bit. I don’t really feel like investing in online communities anymore because economic connections are more important than ideological ones. It doesn’t matter that there’s another powerful libertarian festival happening somewhere in New Hampshire, or another major conference in Prague, or another significant reform taking place in Argentina – it won’t directly benefit me. But a good auto mechanic will be useful to me, even if he doesn’t particularly understand praxisology. You need to be friends with him, drink kofu with him, jointly defend your rights and, where possible, bring him some benefit besides just paying for the service, because local communities are held together by exactly these kinds of mutual services.

And also, I need to remember that practice makes perfect, but generally speaking, my strongest trait is precisely the theoretical understanding of how the current world is structured, from a libertarian ideological perspective. These musings don’t feed me directly, but subjectively they seem most important to me. Are they in demand among channel readers? It’s hard to say.

Around Progress in 80 Days: How Technology is Changing the World Using Only What Already Exists at Hand

I was recently idly watching the film based on Jules Verne’s novel, “Around the World in Eighty Days,” and realized a thought that perfectly fits our picture of the world. What do the gentleman Phileas Fogg and, say, Steve Jobs have in common? It seems like nothing. One is a fictional character from the Victorian era, the other is a real titan of Silicon Valley. But the point is that both pulled off a brilliant trick that’s available to each of us. And they didn’t need endless government grants or major scientific centers for this.

What was Fogg’s genius? Did he invent super-fast steamboats? Build a personal hyperloop? No! This guy didn’t invent anything himself. His bet became possible only because, by 1872, the world was already covered with ready infrastructure. Steamships were running, rails had been laid across America and India, telegraphs were buzzing. All of this was created by different people, different companies, at different times and for different purposes.

What did Fogg do? He simply looked at all these disparate pieces and first saw in them a single system. He didn’t just see “the ship to Suez” and “the train to Calcutta,” but a global transport network that could be “hacked”—that is, used not for its intended purpose (just getting from point A to point B), but for a crazy, ambitious task—flying around the planet on a bet. His breakthrough was in the new combination, not in a new invention. He was, essentially, a brilliant project manager who found synergy in what everyone else had lying under their feet.

And now let’s move to our time. Don’t we see the same thing happening with the greatest breakthroughs of the last 50 years? For example, the personal computer. It wasn’t an invention of something single. It was a brilliant combination of existing things: microprocessors, hard drives, monitors, keyboards, mice. The breakthrough was in the idea of putting it all together and placing it on a desk for an ordinary person. Or the internet—just a set of common rules (protocols), the language that already existing computers had agreed to communicate with each other. Genius was in creating this “language,” this universal interface. Don’t forget about smartphones. Steve Jobs, during the presentation of the first iPhone, said: “This isn’t one device. It’s three: a phone, a widescreen player, and an internet communicator.” Apple didn’t invent mobile communication, touchscreen displays, or GPS. They took the best that was already on the market, brilliantly combined it into one body, wrote intuitive software, and gave us the Swiss Army knife of the digital age.

The most important thing is that such breakthroughs don’t require an accelerator or a NASA budget. What’s needed is freedom of thought, observation, and the right to experiment. You, the reader of this post, can come up with tomorrow how to combine two known technologies and get something that will change the world.

What prevents this most of all? Of course, the good old bureaucracy. Imagine if Foggu had to get a visa for every border crossing, like residents of many countries with “weak” passports? He’d still be filling out an application somewhere in Mumbai. It’s state regulation, with its passion for “organizing,” “certifying,” and “checking,” that kills the very flexibility and speed needed for combinatorial breakthroughs. While officials are writing regulations on using drones to deliver pizza, free enthusiasts are already figuring out how to use those same drones and neural networks to monitor forest fires.

So, friends, the next great breakthrough is probably already here – just in the form of disparate parts. All the necessary technologies, services, and ideas are already on the table. What’s more, our project to find drugs to enhance violence inhibition was achieved with minimal means by analyzing existing neuroscience research and re-checking widely available animal drugs. And between you and me, ethology doesn’t end on the problem of violence, nor do our studies!

Voluntarist, Bitarch