There is a new commissioned translation on the site, the article “Tulipmania: The classic story of the Dutch financial bubble is largely false“. It is 2018, the Bitcoin bear cycle, and there are once again talks that all this crypto of yours is just a new version of tulipmania; so, the article, without mentioning Bitcoin a single word, instead explains that everything with the tulips was not at all like it is in popular economic anecdotes.
It has been a while since I’ve reviewed what’s happening in Montelibero, but an interesting occasion has arisen: Anton Ekhin, a political scientist, one of the project’s ideologues and author of articles explaining why a free society for Russian emigrants should be built specifically in Montenegro, has released a new article where he now explains why this should be done in Argentina.
In brief.
The pros of Montenegro, as they were seen in 2021: a sparsely populated democratic country without a dominant nation, with access to the sea and prospects of joining the EU.
The cons of Montenegro, as they are seen in 2025: a country that diligently executes any EU directives to tighten the screws regarding Russians, except, so far, requirements to introduce a visa regime. There is also a media and partially police campaign against Montelibero and Anton personally.
The prospects for the Russian libertarian community in Montenegro to facilitate changes toward freedom in this country are not even zero, but negative: the more active the hustle, the harsher the opposition will be under conditions of complete power dominance by the local state. Anton is not particularly interested in agorist ideas on building a counter-economy; it is important to him that all these measures be supported by the official authorities. In hope of this miracle, he first moved from the RF to the DPR, then supported the Montelibero project, and in the last year, finally realized that the miracle is already happening in Argentina, and that the soil there is more fertile for libertarians.
In this regard, Anton intends to cut his losses in Montenegro and focus on creating a libertarian community in Argentina, based on principles tested in Montelibero. The reaction of the Montenegrin part of the community to such ideas was quite unanimous: let him personally go to Argentina and build whatever he wants there, while we have settled in quite well here. This echoes my thesis from last year that the main incentive for a Russian-speaking libertarian to move to Montenegro is that Montelibero already exists here, while such strong libertarian communities have not yet been built elsewhere.
Thus, the main downside of the idea of switching to Argentina is that there aren’t that many Russian libertarians; in Montenegro, they already have a significant network effect from economic and social ties, and switching to a new platform will continue to yield a net negative for quite some time: those remaining in Montenegro will lose out due to the weakening of the local community, and those moving to Argentina will bear the costs of relocation without receiving the benefits of a community, because it hasn’t been created yet.
For those who wish to participate in politics, leaving for Argentina is unambiguously preferable. The reason is banal: it is still realistically possible to obtain citizenship there, along with political rights, in a relatively short period, whereas in Montenegro, Russians have no citizenship and will not have it. Montelibero’s resources tried to put a brave face on a bad situation, claiming that political rights aren’t really needed and that they would influence through locals, but now it seems the illusions have vanished.
However, even those who seriously count on obtaining citizenship in about three years must have something to live on during those three years, and also find a way to stay on their feet after receiving citizenship. Despite a year of libertarian reforms, Argentina is still a regulatory hell, and for immigrants, the situation has rather worsened compared to the pre-Milei times—citizenship and residence permits have become harder to obtain. Besides regulatory difficulties, one must also consider that the cost of living in Argentina has become clearly higher than in Montenegro. The same high import duties known from Montenegro, which Milei is somehow struggling to abolish, are doing their dark work.
Which Russian libertarians should actually go to Argentina?
In other words, there are grounds to flee to Argentina for those who are already very significant actors in the local community in Montenegro, and the departure of each such person from Montenegro would be a great loss for Montelibero. Therefore, the main recommendation for the Montenegrin part of Montelibero is: value our whales, show them signs of respect, and give them no reason to doubt that they are more needed here.
As for the medium-term perspective, the stratification of the Russian emigrant libertarian community into a wealthy legal Argentine and a poor illegal Montenegrin community could eventually produce some useful effect. However, those who could in principle move to Argentina and create a new community there might have a reasonable question: why there specifically? Why not El Salvador, Prospera, or finally New Hampshire? Everywhere has its downsides, and Argentina has them too. So, as was the case with Montenegro in 2021, first a certain small group of people must take a risk and invest in creating a libertarian community in Argentina, and only when some rooting occurs will the presence of their own homegrown “Argentibero” truly become a significant factor for which it would make sense to move there.
At the request of @mysery_tg, I have produced a translation of one of the chapters of “Evenings on the Rue Saint-Lazare” by Gustave de Molinari (1849). In the mid-19th century, the author conceived and popularized the idea that we now know as ancap; in the text presented here, he lays out the arguments for this system of social organization in a theoretical dialogue with a conservative and a socialist.
The translation was made from David Hart’s English translation of 2009. I did not cross-reference it with the French original, but I hope that the “telephone game” factor is negligible.
Have you ever noticed how great powers suddenly become “humanitarians” when it comes to weapons and methods of war? On paper, it all looks beautiful: “we ban chemical weapons, biological weapons, nuclear weapons because we are good.” But let’s look at this whole affair without rose-colored glasses. Doesn’t it seem to you that such bans are not at all about concern for humanity, but a clever trick to maintain the global hierarchy? It’s as if the world boxing champion banned all opponents from using their left hand. Why? Because it makes it easier for him to win!
Take, for example, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Five countries (USA, Russia, China, France, UK) officially gained the right to possess nuclear arsenals. The others were told: “You can’t! It’s dangerous!” Why? Because when you have an atomic bomb, no one risks touching you. Recall the fate of Libya: Gaddafi abandoned his nuclear program, and then his regime was blown to smithereens. North Korea, in turn, decided to avoid this, and now Kim Jong Un has nuclear weapons, and for some reason, no one is bombing him. Or take chemical weapons. For decades, the USA turned a blind eye to the chemical attacks of Saddam’s ally against Iran, but suddenly remembered these atrocities when Iraq stopped being a friend. It looks like selective amnesia.
But it’s even more interesting with the rules of warfare. According to international laws, rebels are forbidden from hiding among civilians. It seems reasonable: fewer casualties among the civilian population. But what is a poor partisan to do if the enemy has drones, satellites, tanks, and aircraft? Go out into the field with an open visor? That’s a guaranteed one-way ticket. It turns out that the great powers tell the weak: either fight by the rules and be guaranteed to lose, or fight as best you can and you will be declared terrorists.
By the way, it is interesting that “legal terror” is only available to the state. The carpet bombing of Dresden in World War II, the nuclear strike on Hiroshima, NATO missile hits on Belgrade bridges and the television center in 1999—these are not terrorism, but “military necessity.” But one explosion by rebels is already a terrible sin. Of course, no one here is justifying violence against civilians, but why can the state do such things while a rebel cannot?
Let’s also remember humanitarian law in conflicts like Afghanistan or Iraq. Western countries always emphasize that they fight “cleanly” and by the rules. But as soon as the rules get in the way, they are easily forgotten. Remember Abu Ghraib? Torture and abuse of prisoners who were “unlawful combatants.” The rules exist, but we don’t apply them to you because you are “not dressed in uniform.”
And then there are psycho-chemical weapons—substances that are meant to selectively and temporarily affect the brain without causing long-term harm to the enemy’s health. A typical example is the incapacitant BZ, which the USA experimented with during the Vietnam era. Officially, it is a “non-lethal means of suppression,” but in a large dose, it turns a person into a helpless zombie. Or take the opioid hybrids used in 2002 during “Nord-Ost”: hostages were put to sleep with a fentanyl-based aerosol—130 people suffocated, yet formally this is not a “combat toxic agent,” but a special tool. Convenient: when the strong need magic dust, it is an “anti-terrorist gas,” but if the weak try to do the same, they instantly become violators of all conventions.
Supporters of humanitarian law say: “Yes, the rules are imperfect, but at least there are some standards.” But if the rules work only in one direction, the question ultimately arises: could it be that they were created not to protect the weak, but to maintain the balance of power in favor of the strong?!
P.S. When authoritarians call libertarians “free-riders,” suggesting we demand that everyone “for free” agree with our “wants” (observe the NAP), they should realize that non-interference in their nervous system, for example, using drugs for forced reinforcement of the violence inhibitor, is self-restraint and a final attempt to peacefully establish a dialogue, not a technical impossibility!
It is highly likely that you have frequently encountered the question of oligarchic growth and capital accumulation. It may also have arisen the question of whether this problem could be solved with decentralization and deregulation of the market. Of course, we immediately note that no one can offer a miraculous and magical solution to all of humanity’s problems. But let’s still look at how a free market and genuine competition can ease – if not completely solve – this long-standing disease of the economy.
The essence of oligarchy is simple – capital attracts capital. Money begets money, as they say. The richer you become, the easier it becomes to get even richer. Eventually, all large business begins to resemble a closed club where entry for an ordinary person is forbidden. Many may now find this clear – it’s necessary to strictly regulate the activities of the wealthy and take away part of their funds. But if you dig deeper, state regulations often help them more. They not only do not fight against oligarchy but also create favorable conditions for its flourishing. Why? Because large companies have the resources to hire an army of lawyers, accountants, and lobbyists who skillfully circumvent all barriers. Meanwhile, small entrepreneurs drown in bureaucratic jungles.
So why can deregulation help? Imagine: a market is a vast ocean. State regulations are artificial obstacles, reefs and islands around which it’s convenient to build personal kingdoms. If they were removed, the vast ocean would become much harder to divide into cozy “corners.” Free competition is like a storm that constantly breaks up any monopolies and prevents them from consolidating. To compete – means to live, to stand still – to drown. Remember how the internet destroyed traditional monopolies: taxi services, media, retail. New players emerged – Uber, YouTube, Amazon – and turned everything upside down. Yes, now they are new giants, but they appeared precisely because old regulations did not keep pace with technology.
Decentralization is another tool for protection against oligarchy, a new level. This is not just the cancellation of rules, but the transfer of control over resources and assets from a group of “chosen” people to the hands of many market participants. Recall cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies. Their main idea: to replace centralized control with transparent rules that cannot be changed for someone specific. As a result, a system is built in which no participant can gain an advantage simply by virtue of their position or connections in government. Decentralization destroys the very ground for oligarchy. It’s impossible to build an empire on control over something that doesn’t belong to anyone.
But this is not a perfect pill – a free market and decentralization are not an absolute cure for greed and dishonesty. Some people will continue to try to create cartels, conspiracies, and fraudulent schemes. But without state patronage, without bureaucratic “quiet harbors,” it will be much harder for them.
Let’s wrap it up: yes, deregulation and decentralization aren’t perfect. But they definitely deprive the oligarchy of its main trump card – state support. They don’t just treat symptoms; they eliminate the very source of the disease. A free market is a continuous battle of ideas, products, and talent, where no one can rest on their laurels. Of course, the decision is yours – what to choose. In any case, it’s more interesting to live in a world where everyone has a chance to win, not just those sitting closer to the state trough.
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.
When we hear the word “transhumanism,” the imagination usually paints pictures of robots, flying cars, and other fantastic achievements of scientific progress. But what if we dig deeper and say that the roots of transhumanism go much further back than smartphones and drones?
Imagine 17th-century England. It’s rainy, gloomy, tea hasn’t arrived yet, and scientists and philosophers are already trying to figure out how to make life a little better and a little longer. One such dreamer was Francis Bacon. He wondered how to radically extend human life and enhance human capabilities using science. True, the times were such that declaring this loudly was dangerous: the church believed that man was the property of God and any attempts to improve man were blasphemous. What did Bacon do? He wrote “New Atlantis,” a sort of philosophical “novel with a key,” where behind a beautiful allegory, sages secretly work toward the victory over aging and disease. As if to say, “It’s not me; it’s the characters in my book who are so progressive!”
But Bacon was not the only one who decided to outsmart time and the church. Next in line for history was John Locke. He proposed an idea revolutionary for his time: a person belongs only to themselves, and therefore, they have the right to dispose of their own body and life. And it was this principle of self-ownership and personal freedom that became the key to libertarianism and future transhumanism.
This daring idea provided not only a philosophical push but literally changed the world: thanks to it, the first secular state—the USA—appeared, along with revolutionary slogans like “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” The idea of complete personal autonomy turned out to be not just a pretty phrase for philosophers, but a truly powerful engine of social progress. Thus, a philosophical tradition gradually formed, where Bacon’s ideas about overcoming human limitations merged with Locke’s belief in total human freedom. And these proto-libertarian thoughts, like beads on a string, were threaded onto the fundamental philosophy of transhumanism.
Today, technology has caught up with and even surpassed the dreams of past philosophers. What Bacon dreamed of and what Locke timidly hinted at is becoming quite real today: biotechnology, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence. It seems we stand on the threshold not just of a new era, but literally a new version of the human being.
But here comes a new wave of critics who are in no hurry to celebrate technical progress. Some fear the deepening of social inequality, claiming that the rich will live forever while the poor will only get the crumbs. Some worry about the loss of human identity. And some fear that we might accidentally create a new class of technological elite that will rule over all others.
Well, any great idea always faces criticism, but it is precisely the discussion that makes it alive and active. Transhumanism is not just about technology and science; it is a challenge to our very notion of humanity, a chance to rethink everything we have accustomed to considering immutable: life, death, consciousness, and even who we actually are.
Ultimately, whether we like it or not, transhumanism is already influencing our society, forcing us to ask uncomfortable but very important questions. And who knows—perhaps we will live to see the time when these questions become reality rather than just pages of philosophical books. And then, perhaps, someone will write a novel about us—but hopefully, without the Aesopian language!
For now, let’s observe, ask questions, and dream about what tomorrow will bring us, participating personally and helping biohacker enthusiasts whenever possible. For who knows, maybe right now we are taking the first steps toward a world that Bacon and Locke saw only in their boldest fantasies.
M1inki
It has long been no secret to my readers that the copyright law appears to me as an entity that is hopelessly obsolete and extremely expensive in terms of enforcement, and therefore will immediately wither away as soon as the state ceases to carry out this very enforcement. However, with the appearance of large language models, all grounds have emerged to believe that copyright will wither away even and significantly sooner than the state.
There are various arguments in defense of copyright. There is the utilitarian one: if everyone takes someone else’s content for free, the incentive to compose this content will vanish, and that is the end of progress. There is the objectivist one: a person has a right to the product of their mind, and damn it, because that’s what Ayn Rand said. There is the ethical one: labor must be paid for.
And then it turns out that to train another, more advanced version of a large language model, it needs to be fed the entire corpus of texts ever created by humanity, and it will devour them and ask for seconds. If this is not done, then a promising direction of information technology development will hit a dead end. Those training the model are not concerned with the artistic merits of the text. For them, whether it is the Bible or a Harry Potter fanfic—it is simply text possessing a key quality: written by a human. Knowledge of the Bible is more important for a language model, but only for the reason that, firstly, it is more voluminous, and secondly, references to it are far more frequent in other texts and in user queries.
And that’s it, we have immediately lost the utilitarian argument, because it is precisely for the sake of progress that texts need to be fed to the neural network. In exchange, we have acquired very wealthy lobbyists for the abolition of copyright, since companies developing large language models can quite well compete in terms of capital size with digital publishing houses. Moreover, even if for particularly widely circulated texts the rightsholders manage to defend the right not to acquaint LLMs with them, who wins from the fact that in response to “summarize such-and-such story by Stephen King” the chatbot will answer “I don’t know a single work by this author, let me instead summarize such-and-such story by David Friedman”? Surely it won’t be Stephen King’s publishers nor Stephen King himself who will benefit from such a thing.
How will content for training neural networks be obtained? Very simple. Content is usually already physically present on the web in free access; it just has a “pirated” label, and therefore law-abiding companies have to pretend it doesn’t exist. However, this is too flimsy a little fence, and it won’t stop those who consider themselves entitled to step over it. The only person a neural network won’t get is some Rodion Belkovich, because he in principle does not post his books on the web, even for money))) This is a huge loss for the future interlocutors of intellectual chatbots, but what can be done, humanity has lost many valuable texts throughout its history, shit happens.
Stephen King’s “The End of All This” is a vivid dystopia that warns us about the classic trap of good intentions paving the road to, well, you know where. But let’s look deeper and soberly assess the main mistakes of the characters and how they could have been avoided.
The main character, Robert, discovered that the water in the town of La Plata possesses unique chemical properties that suppress aggression and the propensity for violence. Driven by a sincere and understandable dream to rid humanity of violence, he decides to disperse a similar substance across the entire world, using a volcanic eruption as a delivery mechanism. The experiment initially seems successful—the level of violence in the world drops to zero. However, a terrible side effect soon emerges: the substance causes an irreversible decline in intelligence, gradually turning people into helpless beings incapable of taking care of themselves or maintaining civilization.
As we can see, Robert messed up big time. Instead of reasonably and cautiously testing his idea, he simply sprayed a poorly studied drug on all of humanity at once, “flooding” the planet with unknown chemistry via a volcano. This is roughly like finding an old canister in the garage and pouring it straight into a new Mercedes without any checks. Naturally, the consequences were disastrous: aggression vanished, but brains melted right along with it.
Robert’s main mistake was not the desire to change “human nature,” but the absence of elementary caution and common sense. In a developed society, no one would apply radical methods without long-term research; moreover, “forced therapy” for all of humanity contradicts the very spirit of libertarianism. Coercion is only permissible toward those who have already violated the NAP by committing violence. It is with such people that cautious, gradual, and carefully controlled experiments should have begun.
How might this have looked in practice? Instead of turning the entire planet into guinea pigs, he could have started with small groups of particularly dangerous criminals. If society in some countries allows execution for heinous crimes, why not first try a much more humane and promising alternative—drugs to enhance violence inhibition? One could gradually observe the effects of the drug over years, record side effects, improve the formula, and only expand its application after full certainty. And even then, as a mandatory requirement without the right of choice, it should apply exclusively to those who have already initiated violence.
There is a whole set of tools for reducing catastrophic risks that our hero completely ignored. First and foremost is staging and gradualism—start small, observe, and correct. “Measure seven times, cut once,” not the other way around. Next is targeted application—limit use exclusively to aggressors rather than spraying “happiness” on everyone indiscriminately. This is simply more ethical and effective. Then comes independent oversight and transparency—scientists, ethicists, and supervisory boards acting as a system of checks and balances to eliminate the errors of a single genius (no matter how much he wanted everyone’s well-being). And finally, reversibility—the ability to roll back changes or minimize damage at the first signs of a problem. After all, transhumanism is not about playing Russian roulette with brains, but about controlling biology for the sake of expanding freedom.
Robert’s problem was not that he tried to hack human nature, but that he did it sloppily and hastily. When dealing with powerful tools like biohacking or biotech, responsibility and awareness of the consequences are vital. Here, the “do no harm” principle applies with an adjustment for progress: change whatever you like, but don’t break the whole planet in the process. The conclusion here is simple: hacking “human nature” is possible and even necessary, especially if it brings more freedom and less suffering, but it must be done intelligently so that instead of a brave new world, we don’t end up trapped by our own overconfidence.
When someone talks about piracy, images from pirate movies usually spring to mind—a wooden leg, a bottle of rum, and a parrot. But in the digital world, things are a bit different. There, a pirate isn’t some guy stealing “riches” from poor authors. It’s more like a guy or a girl who keeps the doors of a massive digital library open for everyone.
Imagine Nintendo. The legendary company has released over 1,500 games over the last 40 years. Many of them are now lying in dusty boxes in attics or have long since rotted in landfills because it’s not profitable for the corporation to maintain old content. But who saved these games for history? Exactly, those same “pirates.” In the digital age, they are a kind of volunteer guarding cultural heritage. Piracy today is a guarantee that we won’t lose priceless culture tomorrow.
But isn’t this theft? This is where it gets interesting. Theft is when you take something from someone, and that person no longer has it. By downloading a movie, a song, or a book, you aren’t taking it away from the author. The file remains exactly where it was, in its original form. No real loss—except, perhaps, the copyright holder’s illusions about their hypothetical income.
Fine, but shouldn’t authors be paid for their work? Of course they should. But for the first copy of the product that buyers voluntarily purchased, the money was indeed paid. Everything else is an artificial monopoly imposed by the state (i.e., a privilege from a stationary bandit, which is what patents were openly called in the past).
It’s also important to understand that the modern copyright system (let’s call it “copyrism” for convenience) doesn’t allow us to fully own even the things we’ve already paid for. You bought a game? Great, but it’s tied to a dozen DRM protections that vet you like a border guard at an airport. Bought a Netflix subscription? You aren’t the owner of the movies, just a temporary tenant. Subscription ends—goodbye, favorite series. Copyrism is a cult of control where the user is always under suspicion. We have become tenants rather than owners of our own culture. Admit it, that’s not very market-like at all.
Lost sales are a myth. Companies love to calculate virtual losses: claiming that since you downloaded 10,000 copies of our album, we lost 10,000 sales! No, folks, you lost at most the chance to sell it to a few dozen people. The other 9,950 would most likely never have bought your product if they couldn’t download it for free. And you know what’s funny? The most active pirates spend more on music and movies than the average consumer! Because piracy is more like a sampler than a robbery.
Piracy also helps in cases where the copyright holder doesn’t want to or cannot help. Remember how HBO ruthlessly deleted favorite series from its servers when closing HBO Max? They were saved specifically by pirates. When a book is banned by censorship, the only hope of reading it is again through pirate sites. They literally support the freedom of information.
Free does not equal immoral! Libertarian ethics are simple: violence is bad. And when you make a copy of a digital file, you aren’t taking anything from anyone. But government raids on servers, million-dollar fines for students, and criminal cases against “pirates”—that is real violence. If an author is talented, grateful listeners, readers, and viewers will support them voluntarily. This is fair and free, and most importantly—non-violent.
What can we do? Advocate for the abolition of copyrism. Don’t be afraid to say out loud: copying is cooperation and the dissemination of knowledge, not theft. We are not obliged to feel guilty for simply wanting to freely manage our files and the culture that has long since become part of a common heritage. And one last thing: keep your torrent client handy. Because while corporations are playing Monopoly, pirates are the only ones truly ensuring the preservation of culture!
