The Rule of Hostile Jurisdictions

In a world where various states are divided into antagonistic blocks, there is one interesting possibility for ensuring personal security for agorists, dissidents, and others who hold any positions or engage in any activities that their own stationary bandits do not approve of and may threaten with punishment. It can be called the “rule of hostile jurisdictions.”

The essence of this idea is simple: if you are physically located in the territory of a state belonging to one block, you should use services, host websites, seek clients, store and exchange money, register companies, and employ intermediaries from states belonging to a different block. For example, if you live in Russia, you can use a VPN from Sweden or the USA, an email client in Switzerland, a crypto-card in Lithuania, a shell company in Estonia, and not worry about your security. And if you live in Europe, it will be many times safer for you to use “police-monitored” VK and Mail.ru than Facebook and Gmail.

Many services provide users’ personal information upon request from government authorities of a friendly block. This is inevitable, meaning you need to adapt to the realities of geopolitics. In reality, you only need to be afraid if the service provides information specifically to your own stationary bandit. At the same time, a resident of the RF does not care what some service reveals about them to security forces from the USA. Just as a resident of the USA does not care what security forces from the RF learn about them. As long as it does not involve committing large-scale acts of terrorism resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people—which no sane person would do anyway—it is unlikely that any risk of cooperation between jurisdictions from hostile blocks will arise.

Various fraudsters have long been aware of this. For instance, in the past, Russian hackers intentionally avoided users from Russia and targeted Americans or Britons, which made it very easy to evade punishment. Now, Ukrainian scammers do the same, calling Russians with proposals to transfer money to some “safe account” and then forcing them to perform various “tasks” allegedly to get the money back, since they know no one can do anything to them. Of course, we are absolutely against such fraud, but these cases show that the rule of hostile jurisdictions works.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Stefan Molynieux, The Practical Anarchy, translation of chapter 20

The translation of the new chapter of Practical Anarchy is ready. This chapter, with the long title Stateless Dictatorship: How a Free Society Prevents the Re-creation of the State, seemed a bit weak to me. It provides counterarguments to the well-known claim that in the course of free market competition, one protection agency will inevitably begin to dominate over others and form a new state—only this time without any checks and balances like the separation of powers, but simply as a business enterprise for robbing the natives, similar to one East India Company or another.

The weakness of Molynieu’s argumentation is that he exaggerates the inevitability of using centralized services—in an anarchic world, no less—and the possibility of horizontal coordination between multiple agencies in the pursuit of a single goal. Imagine threatening people in a world of bitcoin, drones, and 3D printing with such laughable measures as bank freezes, control over the distribution of weapons, and similar totalitarianism. It is clear that all these technologies, at the time the book was written, were either nonexistent or in their infancy, but if your forecasts collapse with just one decade of technical progress, how much are those forecasts worth? As for his hypothesis about the flawless coordination of independent economic entities around a strategic goal despite the prospect of immediate market gain (someone banned in one place will be willing to overpay in another)—that is the well-known problem of cartel agreements. They are unstable.

Molynieu should have focused on explaining specifically the decentralized mechanisms for countering attempts to re-create systems of organized robbery. In my book, they are mentioned quite briefly, because the book is not exactly about that. In general, it can be put this way: if anarchy is imposed from above, and a sign saying “Ust-Perduy District Court” is simply painted over with “Ust-Perduy PRA,” then nothing much may change under the sign compared to the dark times of etatism. However, if ancap evolved from below and the state truly withered away from obsolescence, then the very human qualities that killed the state will not allow a new one to grow. Ancap is not just a society without a state. It is a society with immunity to the state.

Nomads project

The Nomads project channel was created a month after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the RF to provide digital nomads with up-to-date information on where to flee. Initially, it mainly focused on Armenia and Georgia, but the authors’ horizons gradually expanded, and later they moved from simple informing to more proactive actions.

On March 26, a post was published in the channel stating that the project intends to open a visa center in Albania. The idea is to lobby the Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a program to receive digital nomads on conditions that are as humane as possible. Then it gets a bit funny: for this purpose, they plan to hold a conference in Tirana with the participation of Albanian bureaucrats and those who hope to use their bureaucratic services. What’s funny is that the conference is being held on Albanian territory, to enter which a visa is precisely what is needed. It’s as if people are willing to make a one-time effort to enter the country in the hope of convincing the hosts to let expensive guests in under more lenient conditions in the future. The idea is noble; perhaps something will come of it.

And today the project put out a post about the issuance of NMPR tokens as part of the Montelibero tokenomics. The tokens were created back in mid-March, and half a month before the start of official sales, Montelibero insiders managed to buy up about a thousand. Well, now they are trying to promote them to the wider market. I hope the target audience of the project, namely digital nomads, will be digitally savvy enough to get some of these tokens and thereby get entangled in the Montelibero tokenomics, which is exactly what we need.

I want to wish these enthusiasts, unknown to me, luck and patience. I don’t know how to say polako in Albanian, but they will definitely need to learn this word. And if they truly manage to make Albania easier for Russian expats to live in, then they will have my heartfelt faleminderit.

The aggressor will not complain to anyone if his violence inhibitor is strengthened

According to numerous studies, psilocybin is capable of strengthening the violence inhibitor for a very long, or even permanent period, and also weakening the tendency toward authoritarian views, with just a couple of doses equivalent to 5-10 grams of dried mushrooms. It should be noted immediately that this substance is classified by the authorities of the RF and many other countries as a prohibited psychotropic agent. But such a ban could lead to one interesting scenario, where an aggressive degenerate, in the event that their violence inhibitor is strengthened, will simply have nowhere to complain!

Imagine a situation where some degenerate rapist had those same “mushrooms” slipped into their food; they found out about it and decided to snitch. They went to the police station… but instead of taking a report and searching for some anti-violence fighters, they filed an administrative charge against the degenerate himself for drug use, with all the ensuing consequences—registration with a narcologist, suspension of driver’s licenses of all categories, a ban on holding certain positions (doctor, lawyer, official), and ultimately, even dismissal from work.

The degenerate will think about this for a bit and decide: “Better to keep my mouth shut, not even tell my friends, otherwise if they find out, I’ll never see a normal life again! And besides, no one will care; I’ve said it myself many times that ‘the sheriff isn’t interested in Indian problems’ and pushed for ‘strict liability,’ without ever imagining that it could affect me as well.”

Such a scenario is entirely expected, because how is a rapist even going to prove they are right?! And in many jurisdictions, it’s unlikely that anyone would care—they would more likely just try to use him to fill a quota, especially if he has already managed to get flagged for committing violence in the past.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Social movements as conduits of the dark ego and antisemitism

Various studies show that public and activist movements of various kinds, including eco-activists, feminist movements, and even movements against sexual violence, suffer from one problem – they are often represented by individuals with certain dark personality traits. Particular emphasis should be placed on grandiose narcissism, which is characterized by an inflated sense of superiority and self-importance, as well as an obsessive need for recognition. In addition, such individuals often suffer from psychopathy – a lack of empathy toward other people, an absence of guilt for causing them harm, etc. In general, it is assumed that people with dark personality traits tend to “hijack” pro-social movements to use them as a vehicle for their own selfish needs.

One example of this, which we have already considered several times in previous materials, is the seizure of leadership in social and political movements by psychopaths. This process is well described by psychiatrist Andrzej Lobaczewski in the book “Political Ponerology: The Science of the Nature of Evil Applied to Politics.” Psychopathic personalities, being at the bottom of a movement at the start of their careers, do the dirty work for it that others would not undertake, earn a reputation within it, rise through the hierarchy by resorting to various kinds of manipulation, and displace everyone else from leadership positions. And when these individuals gain real power in society, they inevitably create large-scale catastrophes, such as repression, genocide, and wars.

In one of the current studies on this topic, researchers decided to examine the problem of antisemitism. Such an ideology also often serves as a vehicle for the dark ego. Participants in this study were 3,981 people from the USA and Britain. They underwent various tests for dark personality traits, as well as a predisposition to dark needs, such as aggressiveness, a desire to dominate others, sensation seeking, fake virtue (public demonstration of moral virtue without genuine moral conviction), and selfishness (lack of altruism). They also completed several questionnaires on adherence to various forms of antisemitism, ranging from a tendency toward prejudice against Jews (for example, viewing them as dishonest and greedy people) to radical anti-Zionist views that justify violence.

As a result, it was found that antisemitism is closely linked to dark personality traits – more than 94% of the indicators of these traits were positively associated with it. A particularly strong link to antisemitism is observed in the previously mentioned narcissism and psychopathy. And this applies to all investigated forms of antisemitism, from traditional to radical. Furthermore, the presence of dark needs in an individual was also linked to antisemitism.

Researchers believe that any ideology, prejudice, and activism that can help satisfy dark needs are attractive to people with high scores in dark personality traits. For example, according to research, both left-wing and right-wing authoritarianism are linked to them. At the same time, exactly which ideological tools people with a dark ego use depends on which ideas and narratives they encounter in their specific life circumstances and whether they recognize the possibility of satisfying their dark needs.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Stephan Molynieux, translation of “Practical Anarchy”, chapter 19

As previously indicated, my last remaining long-term translation project can no longer escape, and presented for your attention is the translation of Chapter 19 from Stephan Molneux’s book Practical Anarchy. The chapter is titled These Cages Are Only for Beasts. Previously, while describing his proposed system in which dispute resolution organizations (DROs) operate instead of modern law enforcement systems, Molneux emphasized how powerful an effect a coordinated active boycott can have on an individual. In this chapter, realizing that he went too far and created so much dread that totalitarian anarchy might seem to many a less preferable solution than existing state models, Molneux, conversely, explains that multiple checks and balances are also provided against DROs, and therefore they will not be able to act lawlessly and become a new edition of the state.

Discussion on whether to pay for security

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doctor Semmelweis: Freedom of Thought Against Conservative Dogmas

Imagine a doctor who literally demands that his colleagues wash their hands—and becomes an outcast for it. It sounds anecdotal, but this is exactly what happened to the Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis in the mid-19th century.

Vienna, 1840s: in one maternity ward, male doctors stubbornly follow the tradition of going straight from an autopsy to delivering babies without any hygiene. Meanwhile, there is a nearby midwives’ ward where this does not happen. The result shocked Semmelweis: the mortality rate of women in the first case reached 18%, while with the midwives, it was about 2%. The difference was like that between hell and heaven, and the young doctor wondered why.

Puzzled, Semmelweis began his investigation and went through every version, from overcrowded wards to even the position of the moon—until a tragic incident led him to the answer. One of the doctors cut himself with a scalpel during an autopsy and soon died from the same symptoms as puerperal fever. Eureka! Semmelweis realized that an invisible killer was being carried on the doctors’ hands from corpses directly to the mothers. The solution was dauntingly simple: wash hands and instruments with chlorinated water. By today’s standards, this is a banality, but back then, it was a revolution of clean hands.

Now imagine: Semmelweis stands at the head of the ward with a basin of chlorinated lime, demanding that the respected doctors scrub death off their fingers. One would think his colleagues should carry him on their (clean!) hands for saving hundreds of lives. After all, mortality plummeted to the level of the midwives’ ward. But instead of awards and honors, the innovator was met with ridicule and anger. The medical luminaries of the time took the idea as a personal insult: it implied that their own hands were killing patients. Pride and dogma prevailed over logic. Instead of admitting a mistake, the hospital administration preferred to fire the uncompromising doctor and stick to the familiar theory of miasmas—invisible “vapors” supposedly causing the fever. Simply put, Semmelweis’s colleagues rejected his discovery out of fear of the new, and the doctor’s free-thinking was considered dangerous audacity.

The story of Semmelweis is a clear example of how conservative thinking and fear of fresh ideas hinder progress. There is even a concept called the “Semmelweis reflex”—the automatic rejection of new knowledge simply because it contradicts established norms. In the case of the doctor from Vienna, this reflex cost many lives. His tragic fate (he ended his days in an asylum for the insane, never seeing recognition) shows the price society pays for stubborn dogmas.

Unfortunately, such fear of the new is not a relic of the past. Even today, dogmas and bureaucracy often stand like a concrete wall in the path of innovation. Examples are not hard to find: the denial that Helicobacter pylori bacteria cause stomach ulcers rather than stress and spicy food; the denial of the greater safety of NPPs compared to other power generation technologies; the denial of the benefits of psilocybin in treating PTSD and depression; the denial of a patient’s right to try experimental treatment.

Stories like the one that happened to Semmelweis show that progress is born from the freedom to think differently. New ideas often look frightening or heretical to those accustomed to old paradigms. Of course, skepticism is a healthy quality, but blinded dogmatism is dangerous. It can make rational people reject facts that are literally right in front of them (in Semmelweis’s case, literally on unwashed hands). Every new hypothesis deserves a fair test, not immediate execution just because it contradicts textbooks.

Remembering Doctor Semmelweis, one should ask: is there someone like that truth-teller among us today, whose ideas are ahead of their time but are drowning in the swamp of bureaucracy and prejudice? History teaches us to be bolder and to open the door to the new, even if it means facing rejection. After all, it is the freedom to seek truth and challenge dogmas that ultimately drives humanity forward.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

The Nonviolent Semai People

The Semai are a semi-nomadic people numbering about 50,000 who live in the center of the Malay Peninsula in Malaysia. This people are known for their absolute non-violence. Now, drawing on the works of anthropologist Robert Dentan, we will examine some interesting features of the lives of the members of this people.

The Semai initially present themselves as non-violent people. In their words, they speak of non-violence not as an ideal to be achieved, but as something already accomplished. For example, instead of saying that hitting people is bad and forbidden, they simply say “we do not hit people.” Of course, in reality, the Semai can get angry with one another and have conflicts. But direct acts of aggression are a great rarity for them. Even when under the influence of alcohol, they become very talkative and noisy, but never violent.

It is very important to note that physically punishing children is condemned among the members of this people. In conversations about this, they are most likely to say something like “how would you feel if a child died,” thereby equating a simple blow to murder. They primarily prevent undesirable behavior from children through certain threats and intimidation; for example, they often tell children about evil spirits that will eat them, or may threaten to hit them (but will not actually do so). Even if a child hits an adult, the adult will most likely start laughing at them or intimidate them, rather than respond with violence. It is not even customary to force children to do anything against their will; the Semai believe that their children will learn everything necessary on their own, without coercion. Thus, they are simply deprived of observing the very model of violent relationships between people.

An important concept for the Semai is “punan,” which means taboo. If a person does something that reduces the satisfaction and well-being of another person, it is “punan” and is treated as if that person had increased the other person’s chance of sustaining a physical injury. Whoever committed such an act must apologize and materially compensate for the inconvenience caused. If they refuse, the victim has the right to take the offender’s belongings—for example, taking their clothes while they are bathing—and then simply notifying them that these were taken as compensation.

If a conflict cannot be resolved, elders may be sought for help. However, it should be noted that their decisions are not enforced; among the Semai, it is simply customary to respect them. Public opinion also plays an important role in such a system where there is very little power and restriction. The parties to a conflict try to gain the support and help of other people. Naturally, verbal skills become important in such cases, and usually, the most influential members of the Semai are good orators. On the other hand, however, the Semai view overly polished speeches with suspicion, so whoever wishes to gain support must not press the audience too hard.

Finally, it is important to note that the Semai have no provisions for sanctions for murder, simply because murders never occur among them. Even killing animals for sustenance is a task that the Semai perform with great difficulty, and the killing of a human is something absolutely unthinkable for them.

The non-violent lifestyle of the Semai is very interesting and shows that people can live in complete peace with one another, even if conflicts still occur between them. Zero tolerance for violence, even as a method of achieving goals or raising children—this is what everyone could learn from the Semai.