What’s going on with Montelibero?

I’ve been advised that I haven’t talked about Montelibero at all lately. That’s not entirely true; it’s just that I usually write about specific problems, whereas there truly hasn’t been a general overview of the state of affairs in the project for a very long time. I’m correcting that now.

Overview

For a long time, the project’s calling card was MTL-City. This is also what undermined it. One day, a local journalist appeared who, based on separate and loosely connected facts, concluded that Montelibero was a Putin project created for another attempt at a coup in Montenegro, similar to the one that took place in 2016. As a result, the state, having received such a public denunciation, became interested specifically in the activities of DOO Montelibero, the legal entity through which the land in City was purchased. A criminal case regarding illegal construction was opened, and as a result, the construction of all permanent structures was frozen pending the investigation. Well, now only modular houses are being assembled there, which, being temporary structures, require no installation permits. However, the unfinished construction doesn’t look very pretty, not to mention the money buried in vain.

Nevertheless, people live in City, public breakfasts are held on Fridays—for those wishing to meet the project participants—plus there are occasional creative evenings and other cultural events. However, to people who have just arrived in Montenegro and want to “settle in this commune of yours,” I advise against jumping on this idea without thorough prior acquaintance. In City, the ratio of costs to comfort is not very optimal, and there is practically no choice of housing. This situation will improve as new modular houses for rent are put into operation—but not very quickly.

The main Montelibero community, as before, resides in the city of Bar, spreading fairly evenly across the city, some in rented housing and some in purchased. They have the opportunity to gather at the First Montelibero Club (it was evicted from its premises in the spring, but recently opened in a new location), at Quiet Backwater (it was evicted from its premises in the summer, but reopened in a new location almost immediately), as well as in several non-Montelibero Russian bars, where the crossing of Monteliberians with the rest of the Russian diaspora occurs most naturally. In Budva, the Montelibero movement has practically gone quiet; in other cities, it never started.

Tokenomics is used by the local Montelibero community no longer with the enthusiasm of neophytes, but simply as a clear and long-familiar tool. EURMTL and EUROMUT are used for cashless payments. USDM mainly serves as an auxiliary token for currency exchanges (I, for example, withdraw dollars from a crypto exchange into USDM, and then exchange them for “mulki”). Some businesses fix debt obligations in their own tokens. The Blockchain Social Network still hasn’t acquired a convenient viewer and editor, so it remains deeply marginal. The Stellar wallets being developed by community members, Montelibero Wallet and especially Sunce, are gradually becoming more convenient. The MTL Fund has sharply reduced its public activity and is now effectively interesting only to its shareholders, and even then, not to all of them. The Montelibero Association has de facto become the mouthpiece for the project as a whole, so let’s discuss it in a bit more detail.

Of course, the fears of paranoiacs that the Association was created only to leak lists of members of an organized criminal community to “comrade major” have about as much relation to reality as that Montenegrin journalist’s ideas that Montelibero was dreamed up by Putin to destroy Montenegrin democracy. Everything is much more boring. The project activists simply rearranged the furniture in the room. I hope they’ve become more comfortable. The Association implies liquid democracy, a secretariat, and a small budget for its routine expenses. This internal kitchen has little effect on the lives of others (which is good), but draws some resources away (which is bad).

Fortunately, the Association activists also handle periodic contacts with the outside world, which is potentially the most useful part for fitting Montelibero into the global libertarian movement. Alas, I rarely have the strength to keep track of this. For instance, in recent months, there have been public calls and private negotiations with representatives of the Cosmos blockchain ecosystem (they have their own rich developments in DAO), with the MetaState project (creating a system of non-governmental electronic passports), with a project to lobby for a simplified visa and entrepreneurship regime for relocants to Albania, with volunteer fire organizations in Montenegro, the Free Private Cities fund, and certainly with others—it’s impossible to mention everyone.

The Association also includes corporate participants, among whom are the aforementioned MTL Fund and the First Club. Besides them, Green Zyland is more or less noticeable, a producer of modular houses for rent (they had a business back in the RF, and now they are expanding into three more countries). In November, they plan to hold a festival in Georgia; a few people from the Montenegrin Monteliberians will go, but I cannot afford it financially. Another active participant is the MTL Alert group. They are preparing for a zombie apocalypse; it’s a cool hobby, but for some reason, I find it hard to take seriously.

The Association is divided into factions, but only the panarchist faction is more or less publicly active. Two of its members, Stas and Ved, both run very sensible thematic channels.

The previously announced redirection of Montelibero’s efforts toward Argentina has not yet led to the formation of a Russian-speaking libertarian community there that is in contact with the rest of the project. The only news from those parts is that a delegate from Montelibero spoke at some Argentine libertarian conference and delivered a letter to Milei. What was in that letter and what effect it had, history remains silent about.

Conclusions and forecasts

At the start, Montelibero participants acted monstrously irrationally and made a ton of mistakes. How could this have been avoided? For example, by delaying the start of construction and other loud activity to instead more thoroughly scout the situation, and only then decide what to do and how. Was it realistic to act according to a more rational scenario? No. Montelibero is a movement, not an organization. It was precisely the drive of the pioneers and their enthusiastic mistake-making that attracted many new participants to the project. Without all this, a fairly strong libertarian community in Montenegro might simply not have formed, just as it didn’t form in Serbia, Georgia, Thailand, or even Argentina. So once again I state: centralized planning sucks, the market decides.

Nevertheless, many initiatives within Montelibero have successfully fizzled out, and many previously active project participants have, at best, tempered or completely lost interest in it, and at worst, moved into open opposition, considering the project to be meaningless “info-gypsyism.”

The economic part of the project must be mentioned separately. Here, the miscalculation proved fatal. It’s one thing when nine out of ten startups fail and one takes off. This happens thanks to fierce competition that selects the truly best. It’s a completely different matter when nine out of ten startups fail, and the tenth balances on the brink of breaking even. This happens thanks to a disgusting investment climate, under which one simply should not invest serious market capital here, just as one should not invest it in some Donbas. Even if something does take off, it will be not thanks to high utility for clients, but thanks to connections with the authorities, for example. And for libertarians, making money this way is usually considered “beneath them.”

Therefore, the following forecast can be made about Montelibero now. This project will not make Europe, or even just Montenegro, free. But it allowed those who believed in it to create a free society around themselves, and also became a platform for testing interesting ideas and technologies suitable for application in other places.

Violation of polaco detected

Open voting against the tyranny of the majority

Friends-libertarians, let’s talk straight: secret voting is not a protection of freedom, but a perfectly cozy smokescreen for those who want to push their desires onto others’ accounts under the radar. And if you’ve decided to push new taxes, bans, and other “gifts” to society through a ballot, be so kind as to not hide behind anonymity and answer for it fully.

Imagine a world where voting stops being secret. Want to push a law about raising your neighbor’s taxes through a ballot – go ahead, but be prepared for a retaliatory reaction from them that could end badly for you. Yes, yes, it sounds scary, but it’s honest. Because a ballot isn’t an innocent little piece of paper; it’s a weapon with which the state applies violence to those who disagree with your opinion. Anyone willing to defend their position must be ready for reputational costs as well. You vote for tightening screws – please, everyone knows who the author of these new chains is. Neighbors turn away, friends stop inviting you for beer, colleagues give you a sidelong glance in the office – that’s justice!

By the way, lovers of mandatory AML/KYC when buying crypto – here’s an argument worth a million: if you think it’s normal to reveal your identity with every transaction on a couple of hundred bucks, why shouldn’t elections – a much more dangerous affair capable of leading to openly tyrannical power – be anonymous? A tyrant on the throne is far more dangerous than a couple of guys swapping Bitcoin for USDT without a passport. Seriously, has anyone heard of genocide orchestrated by the “shadow economy”? But there are whole volumes of stories about it from states around the world!

Someone might say: “What if my employer threatens to fire me?” Well, if it’s just one employer, then there’s still an opportunity to think: “Maybe I should drop it?” But if the risk is that people will turn away from you and even start to take revenge through your entire circle, he’d rather not make any political choice at all and not vote. And that’s fantastic! Why? Because fewer voters mean less legitimacy for power. Power nobody elected looks pathetic and helpless, and it’s harder for it to restrict our freedoms with more idiotic laws. The fewer people who vote, the looser the hands of power. That’s exactly what libertarians are aiming for!

Some people are racking their brains over another question: how does Sweden, a country with such astronomical taxes, manage to remain almost an example of personal freedom? And the trick is simple, though unexpected – “partially open” voting, which existed in Sweden for as long as 2019. Imagine the picture: you come to the polling station, and there are stacks of ballots lying right in front of everyone. You take a leaf from moderate parties – and the whole city already knows your preferences. Did you decide to boldly reach out for a leaflet from ultra-left or ultra-right groups? Be prepared to catch sideways glances from the entire queue. As a result, “local Tramps” or “Orban’s” did not take root in Sweden. Freedom is so abundant there that it’s enough even in personal life, despite high taxes in the economy.

It turns out to be an interesting thing: openness of choice with clear reputational consequences – this is like a good brake on a slippery road. It keeps the entire system from radical skidding into authoritarianism! And therefore open voting is not a step back, but a giant leap towards freedom. Whoever is afraid of openness should sit at home and wave a ballot paper like a whip over others. But whoever is ready to openly support some positions, especially those encroaching on the freedoms of their neighbors, they should, as an adult, bear responsibility for their choice. Otherwise, he has nothing to do with voting and should occupy himself with something more useful!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

What Surprised Me Most About the Murder of Charlie Kirk

Читатели знают, что в последнее время я больше обычного интересуюсь таким феноменом, как война. Это неизбежно сместило и акцент моего восприятия недавнего громкого убийства в США. Что в нём странного?

То, что в США считают политических оппонентов легитимными военными целями? Это рутина. В США богатейшая традиция политических убийств, где целями выступали кто угодно, от низовых активистов до президентов. То, что мишенью стал человек, принципиально стремящийся к деэскалации конфликта? Это как раз и делает его приоритетной целью, поскольку ястребы обеих сторон конфликта выигрывают от его смерти, даже если и не причастны к ней. То, что он был убит единственным выстрелом в горло с двухсот метров? Ну, это средняя дистанция, и он представлял собой удобную неподвижную мишень. Нет. Самое удивительное во всей этой истории в том, что стрелок выбрал себе позицию на открытой крыше.

Понимаете, на дворе стоит 2025 год. Человек планирует совершить убийство во время охраняемого собрания и обустраивает свою стрелковую позицию так, что она прекрасно видна сверху. Это сопоставимо по тупости с атакой плотными колоннами пехоты в начале 20 века. Тогда колонна была бы уничтожена пулемётным огнём. Сейчас стрелка уничтожит или хотя бы выявит дрон. Рассчитывать, что у охраны многотысячного собрания не будет дрона – это примерно как рассчитывать, что у защитников полевых укреплений в начале 20 века не будет пулемёта.

В качестве средства наблюдения дрон может позволить себе примерно каждый. А в США всего год назад было покушение на кандидата в президенты, где стрелок точно так же занимал позицию на открытой крыше. И после этого службы охраны массовых собраний не внесли в свои протоколы безопасности хотя бы обязательный мониторинг с воздуха? Непугаными идиотами их назвать уже нельзя, потому что пуганые. Но вот необучаемыми – это будет, пожалуй, более чем уместно.

Думаю, тут есть какая-то симметрия мышления. Нам угрожает потенциальное нападение со стволом, значит, расставляем охрану со стволами. В таком случае дроны охраны мы увидим в воздухе на подобных ивентах не ранее, чем состоится первое покушение с дрона.

Они называют это подходящей стрелковой позицией…

Prisons have become tiresome for everyone – even for Americans

Imagine you are stuck in an elevator with a stranger who believes that putting people in prison for longer is a great idea for solving all of society’s problems. He believes that people should live in fear of such an outcome, and then crime will vanish. Rolling your eyes, you reply: “Sure, that helps a lot, especially if you need a new criminal buddy or a free survival course for when everyone around you is a wolf.”

And now for the surprise: more and more people are starting to think like you. For example, as a recent study by the University of Cincinnati shows, Americans who for decades believed that prison was the best remedy for crime have finally stopped being fans of mass incarceration. The study confirms: most US citizens prefer to direct non-violent offenders toward rehabilitation programs, treatment, or community service.

Now Americans do not want to build more prisons, and many of them consider the prison system unfair. Yes, the very people who once voted for laws like “Three Strikes and You’re Out” now admit that mass incarceration is not cool, is expensive, and is completely ineffective.

And how about other countries? Even better! Look at the Netherlands. Over the last 20 years, they have closed about 20 prisons. The Dutch literally don’t know what to do with the empty prisons anymore. They are opening hotels and creative spaces there. Imagine: a tour of a former prison with cocktails and modern art. Why is this happening? Because they realized that sending a person to prison for petty theft or drugs is roughly the same as putting out a fire with gasoline. A person rarely becomes a saint after prison. More often than not, prison doesn’t reform a person; it ruins them completely.

In Germany, most offenses are already punished with fines. The Germans reason simply: why spend taxpayers’ money on maintaining petty offenders? It’s better for offenders to replenish the budget with fines than to sit behind bars at our expense. And the Scandinavian countries have gone even further. There, prisons are even called “schools of life”: prisoners are helped to socialize, given education and work, and when crime decreases, the prisons are simply closed.

In our case, of course, we have our own atmosphere. Historically, incarceration was a common occurrence in Russia. In 2000, we had more than 700 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants—a record level for a developed country. Fortunately, by 2023, the figure had dropped to 300. That is already better, although still very high!

Why is society turning its back on prisons? There are many reasons. For example, prisons cost an insane amount of money. It is much cheaper and more sensible to invest funds in education and crime prevention. Also, prison does not reform people, but more often turns them into recidivists. A person comes out with a ruined resume, a damaged psyche, and criminal connections. Not exactly the result society needs. Additionally, humanism is an important reason—people have realized that a criminal is also a human being and should not be tortured in prison. Punishment should not be revenge, but an opportunity to fix something.

What are the alternatives? There are plenty of good solutions. First and foremost is restorative justice—where the offender directly compensates the victim for the damage. It works better than prison and costs less. Probation and community service should also be considered—the person is under strict control but remains in society. This way, they do not fall out of life and are more likely to be reformed. Furthermore, treatment would be an excellent alternative—even violent criminals do not deserve inhumane treatment, and instead of a repressive approach, it would be far more effective to correct the dysfunction of the violence inhibition mechanism using therapeutic methods, thereby completely eliminating recidivism.

Prisons already look like an old-fashioned punishment from past centuries. Spend billions and get a bunch of embittered people back? Even former ardent supporters of punitive measures are beginning to understand: to combat crime, it is not enough to simply lock people up and forget about them!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Libertarian Theory of War, chapter 3.1 completed.

In chapter 3.1 of the book on libertarian theory of war, the sections “Individual vs. Group” and “Individual vs. State” have been completed. The next two chapters will follow a similar pattern, so I hope they will go more smoothly.

I’ve somehow lost interest in the idea of illustrating the book in the style of red-figure Greek vases; I’ll put that plan on hold for now and see how it goes.

Ammous and Hoppe against Milei and Netanyahu

In 2023, Javier Milei became the new hope of libertarianism, as he managed to be elected president of a very left-wing and very troubled state using open anarcho-capitalist rhetoric. Since then, he has been under the close scrutiny of libertarians, and gradually they are beginning to turn away from him. This is inevitable. The problems of minarchism as an approach to the political imposition of libertarianism by the state were outlined by me in the corresponding chapter of my book on ancap. But here we have a slightly different situation: libertarians are turning away from Milei not because he is too radical, but because he is not radical enough. Every compromise generates disappointment among supporters, and some of them have begun to speculate that he was a plant from the start, and that Milei was put in place specifically to discredit libertarianism.

Among the latter is such a master of the Austrian School of Economics as Saifedean Ammous, author of the books “The Bitcoin Standard“, “The Fiat Standard“, and another that has not been translated into Russian. His recent tweet denouncing Milei’s policies was translated by the SVTV publication and continues to be discussed in the Russian-speaking libertarian community. Earlier, another prominent libertarian theorist, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, turned away from Milei. I suppose I will have to figure out what is actually happening in Argentina, and whether I should already start justifying to socialists that this was the “wrong” kind of libertarianism, as Ammous and Svetov have begun to do.

I have little insider information about Argentina: some say it has become a bit safer, others complain that it has become noticeably more expensive, others are sad that it has become harder for immigrants to naturalize. Therefore, an interrogation of ChatGPT was conducted. Those interested can look at the transcript of this conversation, but I will move straight to my reflections.

What turned out to be an unpleasant surprise for me?

  • The budget surplus so widely advertised in laudatory articles is not exactly a surplus. The state collects more in taxes than it spends on officials, public employees, the army, infrastructure, and so on, but taking into account the necessary payments on old loans, it is still in the red, and therefore borrows more.
  • Milei is indeed increasing spending on the army. Yes, from the position of minarchists, national defense is a strictly state prerogative; however, in conditions where the country’s neighbors pose no threat, this increase in spending is completely untimely. I can only assume that this is driven by a desire to arrange a second Falklands conflict, should it become necessary to urgently raise his popularity before running for a second term.
  • Inflation is indeed accelerating again.
  • Migration policy is indeed tightening, and in many ways, this is economically senseless.

The key attack by Hoppe and Ammous on Milei—that he did not close the central bank—is akin to reproaching him for not bringing down the moon from the sky. Milei himself did not have such powers. The parliament had the power, but it did not pass the bill. What should global libertarian authorities do in this case? Certainly not accuse him of never intending to close anything. Moreover, although he failed to stop the printing of pesos, he at least permitted, by decree, the use of any currencies and goods in private contracts. So Ammous can be at ease: Argentines are free to switch to the Bitcoin standard in private settlements, and only buy government wrappers for settlements with the state.

Overall, in my view, Milei is very effectively using the opportunity granted to him to make Argentina freer in some respects; however, he should also ensure that in the future, these changes are difficult to roll back by any given opponent who might occupy the presidential chair. Purely technically, by expanding the powers of the executive branch, Milei is actually, conversely, making it easier to repeal most of his reforms through a simple series of decrees. It is already clear that he will not obtain a majority in the next parliamentary elections, which means it is important for him to devote maximum attention to PR. The obtained freedoms must look so necessary and natural to society that their removal should seem unthinkable. In principle, something like this was achieved by Saakashvili. The Georgian Dream tightened the screws in politics and put Saakashvili’s supporters in prisons, yet it fears touching economic freedoms and has even cautiously continued liberalization in some areas.

By a strange coincidence, both Hoppe and Ammous are unanimous in their criticism of the Israeli state’s actions against Palestinians, while Milei emphatically sides with Israel. I maintain a strong suspicion that this factor is precisely what drives their desire to criticize Milei; once bias exists, arguments can always be found.

Both critics claim that Palestinians have the right to wage war against Israel because the property rights of Palestinians to their land have been violated. However, Palestinian Arabs, in general, have never had property rights to this land that were particularly legitimate for libertarians. Their ancestors conquered Palestine, including from the Jews. Then they were conquered by the Turks. Then the Turks lost the First World War, and their inheritance was distributed by the British.

A specific Palestinian can always defend his property right to a specific plot of land that belonged to his grandfather and was seized by the state of Israel. If he agrees to live peacefully on this land of his, then what is the problem? However, this Palestinian denies an analogous right to Jews, even if their grandfathers acquired their specific plots of land through voluntary market transactions. Consequently, according to the principle of estoppel, he cannot insist on the return of his own land, for he recognizes the right of one people to forcibly expel another people from their land.

Israeli Jews and friendly Israeli Arabs have, in my eyes, the full right to evict unfriendly Palestinian Arabs to any state that agrees to accept them. Of course, for this purpose, it is desirable to distribute Palestinian Arabs in small portions, settle them dispersedly, and under no circumstances allow them to form ghettos—that is, to ensure their full right to work and do business, but provide no social welfare except for a small sum of relocation assistance. This is, undoubtedly, ethnic cleansing (de facto ideological, because belonging to the Arabs does not in itself make a person an enemy of the Jews). And this is, undoubtedly, preferable to genocide. But if the world community is against ethnic cleansing, what can be done—there will be genocide.

Why does Milei support Israel? I hope there is more pragmatism in this (potential economic ties with Israel and the USA, support of the Jewish diaspora in Argentina, distancing from the rhetoric of the previous Argentine government) than emotion; however, I cannot rule out that this support is his mistake, since he received a mandate primarily to save his own country, not to help a foreign state. I hope that supporters of Hoppe and Ammous will restrain them before their blind hatred for Milei begins to bring tangible harm to Argentine liberal reforms, and that Milei himself will moderate the degree of his public support for Israel when he feels that it puts his policy at risk.

Overall, the Argentine reforms clearly show that a libertarian society cannot be built through politics alone. Milei is doing his part, but he cannot do it all. Libertarians should not forget their part. And this is not so much about constructive criticism of the locomotive of reform. It is far more important to cite his real achievements at every convenient opportunity on every public platform, to defend the people’s right to freedom, carajo!—and to live in accordance with one’s own conception of that right.

Thank you all for your attention; the topic turned out to be complex. The italics are the part of the article that could probably have been done without, but somehow it didn’t work out that way. Let it remain for the sake of generating flame wars.

Technologies are born in garages, not in barracks: the truth about the role of the MIC

Let’s talk about a common myth that everyone has surely heard: “without military development, we would be without the internet, smartphones, and GPS.” In other words, it is believed that war and the defense industry are the main drivers of technical progress. But is that actually the case?

Take the internet, for example. We are told it was supposedly invented by the Pentagon in case of a nuclear war, but the facts do not support this. In reality, ARPANET (the ancestor of the modern internet) was originally a civilian project handled by various American universities; it was simply funded by the military budget. The military provided the money, but all the work was done by university scientists and programmers. And the famous HTTP protocol, which we are using right now to read this post, was actually devised in Europe by physicists at CERN—purely for the convenience of exchanging scientific articles. The army had absolutely nothing to do with it!

What about GPS? Yes, in this case, the military really did launch satellites so that missiles would land more accurately. But why did GPS become available to everyone? Because civilians turned a military toy into a “people’s” technology. President Reagan opened GPS to everyone after the tragedy with a Korean airliner to improve flight safety, and ultimately, civilian developers transformed the navigation system from a military secret into a popular app for finding the nearest pizzeria.

And do you know who created the first microprocessor? No, not generals or intelligence agencies—it was developed by Intel for a calculator. Meanwhile, the army was conducting its own classified developments that the world wouldn’t have seen for at least another 30 years if not for civilian engineers. While the military was worrying about how not to reveal secrets, the market was already fully utilizing commercial processors.

Space? You would think that here, the military is definitely ahead of the rest of the world. Yes, rockets were first created as weapons, but real space achievements happened mainly thanks to NASA’s civilian programs, and today, private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. While the army argues over the best way to shoot from space, Elon Musk has already launched a rocket that returns on its own.

Why aren’t the military always the coolest innovators? Because for the military, the main priority is reliability. They prefer proven technologies and avoid risks. Try suggesting experimental equipment on a battlefield to a general—he will look at you as if you are crazy. Entrepreneurs and scientists, however, are not afraid of risks; that is why most real breakthroughs happen in Silicon Valley garages, laboratories, and universities, rather than in the classified basements of intelligence agencies.

The history of the USSR is a vivid example of how relying exclusively on the defense industry leads to technical backwardness in everyday life. Remember the joke: a Soviet microwave is so reliable that you can hide in it during a nuclear strike—because it is a secret defense device weighing half a ton. A civilian economy handles innovation better because competition and freedom create powerful incentives for breakthroughs. Military technologies usually only catch up to what has already been created by civilians.

By the way, if you think the army funds fundamental science, you are mistaken again. The military needs guaranteed solutions here and now, not research that will yield a result in 30 years, which may not even be suitable for combat. Fundamental research is conducted by universities and private laboratories. They are the ones giving the world quantum computers, new medicines, and the materials of the future. The army simply takes ready-made technologies off the shelf.

Another example: IBM, Apple, and Google register thousands of patents every year, while defense departments register only a handful. Commercial companies compete in innovation, whereas military competition is often limited to budget tenders, where the main thing is not quality, but friendship with the right people in ministries. Therefore, when someone tells you that progress is impossible without war, remind them: the true driving force of humanity is peaceful curiosity, creative freedom, and normal market competition, not missiles and tanks.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Harsh Bulgarian Libertarianism

Mishsha Oreshnikov, whom I happened to write about in connection with his experiments in anarchic law enforcement against government officials, asked me to comment on an article from a tiny channel that he runs among many others to create the appearance of mass support for ethnic separatism in Russia.

The article, however, has nothing to do with ethnic separatism, but is instead devoted to “traditional values.” In fact, it is part of the political program of the Bulgar Confederation.

The text, written in a simplistic style, lets the reader know that if anyone needs spiritual anchors and good demographics, they should look to the rugged rural libertarians, and that we Bulgars have no need for these megapolises, where breeding grounds for cultural Marxism naturally form.

Don’t think the worst; the author does not advocate for any forced eviction from cities—merely for a ban on the redistribution of taxes between locations. Let the size of a settlement be determined by the value it generates, not by how much value it is capable of looting. He discusses this in other chapters of the program.

In short, I invite those interested to get acquainted with the rugged Bulgar libertarian program. There were two libertarian parties in Russia, and now, it turns out, a third, local one has emerged. In any case, its formal status is exactly the same as that of the first two: as far as the state is concerned, none of them exist.

The State Suffocates 23andMe and Kills Biotech’s Future

Once upon a time, the test from 23andMe was like an iPhone in the world of DNA: spit into a tube – and within a couple of weeks you’d know what diseases threatened you, your caffeine gene dependence, and who your ancestors were. For $99, without doctors or hospitals, it was a revolution. After launching in 2007, the company enjoyed wild success, everyone was thrilled, people bought tests by the handful, and the company received significant investments. It seemed like a victory.

But then the American regulator, FDA, entered the picture and said: “Hold on. Where’s the evidence that your tests are accurate? What if people don’t properly understand their test results and harm themselves?” As a result, in 2013, 23andMe was banned from displaying health reports, leaving only mundane data and genealogy. Consider it like Netflix being left without series – just lists of actors. The company attempted to survive and dance with bureaucracy: approving tests one by one, waiting years, rewriting interfaces. In 2017, they were finally allowed to restore some functions – but not 254 diseases, as before, only 10. And the cost of the test became no longer $99, but $199.

Clearly, this looked far less attractive to consumers. Of course, there were still hopes, and in 2021, 23andMe went public with a valuation of $6 billion. However, by 2024 – a collapse of 98%, threats of delisting, layoffs. Additionally, a hacking incident occurred, millions of genetic profiles leaked into the darknet. The final act was bankruptcy in 2025.

And now the question for you: where was the consumer within this story? Did they want to know about the risks of Alzheimer’s disease? They did. Could they adequately interpret the figures? Perhaps. But the state decided that they weren’t ready, that it was premature, that it was dangerous. And tightened the screws because “it’s safer that way.” The problem wasn’t solely with the FDA. In Europe, specifically in Germany and France, direct genetic tests were completely prohibited – meaning individuals didn’t have the right to learn their own DNA without a doctor. Just like in old times when the library was locked and guarded.

The 23andMe company wasn’t perfect. Yes, it experimented, monetized data, made errors. But it was killed not by competitors or the market, but by the regulatory machinery that slowed down every innovation, demanded proof where there was progress, and obstructed millions of people from learning more about themselves. And one could have done differently – one could have trusted a person. Provide information with the note “not a diagnosis,” as do Google and Wikipedia. One could have created a market with competition, with ratings, with development. Instead – fear, bans and “it can’t be yet.”

All of this applies not only to 23andMe. This is the story of the future of biotech. Gene therapies, personalized medicine, prevention based on DNA – all of this requires freedom of action and flexible management that helps, rather than suffocates. But for now, unfortunately, reality is such: technologies are running ahead, while regulators stand with “stop” flags.

Imagine a world where you can find out about your weaknesses in advance and take measures on time. Where a doctor treats not symptoms, but the causes, based on your unique genetics. Where diseases can be prevented, not just treated. This is the future that could have already arrived if the stationary bandit had loosened its grip just a little. Instead, we live in a world where breakthroughs constantly hit a bureaucratic wall. Startups and innovation are forced to prove the obvious for years while technology becomes outdated and investors’ money melts away.

And as a final thought. Whose information is it – a person’s genes? Who should decide whether a person can be informed about their risks, mutations, chances? The person himself or the official in a tie who thinks that “the citizen won’t understand”?

The history of 23andMe is not just the fall of a startup. It’s a reminder: freedom, including genetic freedom, is not given easily, it must also be fought for. Otherwise, we risk remaining in a world where technology exists, but cannot be used. A world where the future is constantly postponed due to endless “noes.” Let’s not allow this to become our reality!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

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