Durov

Due to Durov’s arrest, an active discussion continues online.

For us libertarians, the position is simple: states, by their very nature, exercise aggressive violence and therefore have no right to exist. (Private individuals who provide any conceivable services that the state provides or has ever provided, but do so on a voluntary basis, do have a right to exist)

The world, however, does not consist solely of libertarians. There are numerous representatives of ideologies claiming the right of collectives to violate any conceivable rights of individuals for the sake of the benefit of these or those collectives, including such abstract collectives as, for example, “future humanity.” With them, it is sometimes possible to have meaningful discussions on the topic of “exactly how will this specific violation of individual rights help achieve your wonderful collectivist goal, and isn’t it ridiculous for you to throw so many resources at tasks with such a tiny cost-efficiency ratio, when here are far more effective solutions to your own problem with a much lower need to violate individual rights.” As soon as the interlocutor begins to angrily reject such economic analysis, the conversation can be wound up, essentially saying: come back when you’ve grown wiser; until then, there is nothing to talk about.

Finally, there are the realists. They condescendingly explain that values are called such because they have a price. That anyone can be bought. That Durov has already repeatedly made compromises with quite repulsive political regimes. And if these regimes, through threats to the creators of Telegram, easily turn it into a weapon on the side of evil, then it is foolish to demand that less repulsive political regimes not use threats against the creators of Telegram to turn it into a weapon on the side of good (or, if you prefer, the lesser evil). This position was expressed very clearly and consistently by Michael Naki in his video.

He essentially claims that, firstly, even if Durov was indeed arrested and will be accused, in violation of any legal norms, of all the nonsense that is causing so much noise online, it is justified if the result is his active assistance to the anti-Putin coalition in the war on Ukraine’s side. And secondly—that the arrest looks like a staging, and it is far more likely that Durov himself asked for the protection of the West and effectively promised assistance in the war in exchange for protection from pressure by dictatorial regimes, primarily the Putin regime.

As for what this could lead to, Michael himself concludes quite soberly: that later, so he says, Telegram will start to be used against Trump. And he immediately answers this consideration: won’t there be downsides, then? In other words, what can be applied for extraordinary reasons will easily be applied for any reason. War is a continuation of politics, and if Telegram can be brought under control in a total war, why not bring it under control tomorrow to influence the election process—why hesitate, since Trump, in Michael’s opinion, is a fascist and is just as deserving of having a total war declared against him. And the day after tomorrow, the Chinese experience is adopted—and what’s the big deal, since an honest person has nothing to hide. There are so many terrible things in the world worthy of having a total war declared against them: drug trafficking, trafficking… the state, right, Michael? Oh, what, the state isn’t on this list? Strange, strange.

Realists perfectly understand that their position is logically vulnerable because it is inconsistent. They don’t care, because logical constructs are an ideal construction, not a real one. Some momentary desires are declared by them as the highest value, others as meaningless whims; some methods are adopted, while others are only sweetly dreamed of—and the only criterion for justifying such an approach turns out to be the result. It’s fine if the result is declared in advance, but that’s not necessarily the case, as the target can be drawn around the point where the bullet hit.

What can be opposed to the realists? Only a change in reality. We have lived too long in a world of centralized systems, and therefore we are easily captivated by heroes, seeking hope now in Durov, now in Musk. But real hope is brought by another type of hero—the anonymous Satoshi. One who opens a new technology and makes it public property. We have relied on centralized systems for too long because it is fast, cheap, and convenient. And also, they can be broken quickly, cheaply, and conveniently. It is time to realize that we are not rich enough to buy cheap things.

A small centralized system competing on a free market with a million similar systems—why not. But when it comes to the global exchange of values or opinions—let’s forget about centralization. Bitcoin and its extensions—as protocols for transferring value. Nostr or something along those lines—as a protocol for transmitting statements. Some entity that has not yet gained widespread use—as a protocol for legal transactions (this function of the Leviathan must also be replaced by something decentralized). In the new world, there will be fewer heroes, and therefore—fewer possible points of failure. A hell of a lot of responsibility will not hang on one specific person. And therefore, there will be no point in arresting Durov.

But for now—let’s create hype around our hero and demand his release. Why? A strange question. Let’s be realists; it’s so fashionable. States as a means of forced unification of people must be destroyed. What will contribute more to the death of this institution—if Durov is kept in detention until he agrees to the conditions imposed on him—or if, as a result of a pressure campaign, the French state is seriously discredited and forced to release its prisoner? Of course, the latter. But even if pressure does not help the goals of liberation—that is no reason not to press. It is much more pleasant to observe a morally degraded state than a proud and triumphant one.

How the state’s imposition of AML/KYC encourages fraud

One of the requirements from the state is the identification of individuals participating in financial transactions and the sources of their funds. KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering, consisting of transaction history analysis) procedures are explicitly stated in the laws of many countries. Usually, when someone wants to exchange cryptocurrency through a “white” exchanger or exchange platform, their transaction is checked by AML tools and, if it is assessed as high-risk, the client is required to undergo KYC—provide their passport details and information about the source of funds. All this is justified as a fight against various crimes, fraud, and even terrorism. However, as we will now see, such procedures can, on the contrary, encourage fraudulent activity.

One of the fraudulent schemes directly linked to AML/KYC is revealed by the creator of the cryptocurrency exchange monitor antiswap.info. When someone wants to perform a crypto exchange, exchangers conduct an AML check of the transaction via third-party services. But the methods used by such services raise doubts. For example, you yourself may not be involved in criminal activity in any way, but if the coins you currently hold were involved in it a dozen transactions ago, they will already be considered “dirty,” and you will have to deanonymize yourself and somehow prove the legality of the origin of the funds.

One of the users of the kurs.expert monitor points to cases where people were simply withdrawing funds from closing exchanges, and these were flagged by AML verification services as stolen. The essence of AML checks was also well described by one of the commenters on the miningclub.info forum: “I sold a bicycle to Vasya and bought a car from Masha. A year later, it turned out that Vasya was dealing drugs and making drops while riding the bike he bought from me with drug dealers’ money. It turns out I am an accomplice and Masha is the owner of ‘dirty’ money. Consequently, will her account be blocked, as well as the cash register of the store where she bought sausage yesterday?”. Furthermore, many commenters there point out that AML verification services may assign a transaction risk without any basis at all, since no one checks how they conduct this procedure.

Naturally, if you fail the AML check and the exchanger does not like your arguments during KYC (or if you simply do not wish to deanonymize yourself), your funds may simply be stolen, or you may be charged a huge commission for their return. As the creator of Antiswap writes, a third of the exchangers listed on the popular Bestchange monitor were caught doing this. But why then do almost all exchangers there have a perfect rating? The reason is that Bestchange considers the seizure of coins due to failure to pass AML/KYC to be solely the client’s fault, and all complaints regarding this are moved from negative reviews to neutral ones, which do not affect the exchangers’ rating.

At the same time, you are unlikely to go to state authorities to complain about such exchangers, as they will likely also have questions regarding the origin of your funds, and thus you may only create new problems for yourself and recover nothing. Thus, exchangers with dishonest owners and employees can practically legally engage in theft and fraud.

The website antiswap.info contains a list of such fraudulent exchangers, as well as a list of those who can be trusted. Of course, among the trusted exchangers, very few openly state their readiness to conduct exchanges without forcing the user to undergo AML/KYC, because many are still afraid of repression from the stationary bandit and publicly report their compliance with its requirements, even if they actually perform no checks. This creates difficulties in finding exchangers that are truly ready to conduct anonymous transactions. However, it is still important to separate blatantly fraudulent exchangers from those who can be trusted with high probability.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Review of Mikhail Pozharsky’s video about how he grew to love war

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Mikhail Pozharsky released a video in which he began to justify violence and war as entirely normal human phenomena and tools for solving problems, while insulting opponents of war in every way and accusing their position of being untenable. Of course, it is first and foremost the position of Pozharsky himself that can be called untenable, which we will now examine in more detail.

He started well by criticizing the works of Steven Pinker, who claims that the level of violence has decreased throughout history, and that prehistoric humans suffered from chronic wars that could claim the lives of the majority of the population. Pinker was indeed wrong; he drew conclusions by considering only examples that were convenient for his argumentation. But if one considers all archaeological and anthropological evidence, we see that prehistoric populations did not suffer from wars—only 2% of representatives of past hunter-gatherer tribes died as a result of violence. After the agrarian revolution and the emergence of states, the level of lethal violence rose to 5%, after which it began to decline, amounting to only 3% for the 20th century (and this including the bloody conflicts that occurred within it). As anthropologist Douglas Fry believes, the level of violence in history changed according to an “n-type curve.” Pozharsky does not mention these data at all, and they do not align with his argumentation.

Instead, he decided to talk in detail about the violent nature of chimpanzees and cite primatologist and anthropologist Richard Wrangham, who believes that humans have an innate predisposition to cruelty, which he explains as an evolutionary legacy. But as Robert Sussman and Donna Hart write, the evolutionary paths of humans and chimpanzees diverged 8 million years ago. Meanwhile, the paths between chimpanzees and bonobos diverged only 2.5 million years ago, which did not prevent the latter from being peace-loving creatures. Pozharsky also mentioned bonobos, but spoke only of the aggressiveness of their females, failing to mention that their aggression is predominantly defensive, as well as the fact that they fundamentally do not have killings. Furthermore, many researchers, including anthropologist Brian Ferguson, believe that most violence in chimpanzees is provoked by human interference in their habitat, and that they have no innate predisposition to commit murder, just as humans do not.

Pozharsky also cites the Dani people as an example, among whom wars and killings are quite common. However, one could with equal success cite examples of the Paliyar, Semai, and many other peoples who are complete pacifists. Moreover, as Douglas Fry notes, research data shows that the majority of cultures (376 out of 590 studied) were either absolutely non-warlike or not inclined toward war (participating only in minor military actions). And only a third of the cultures participated significantly in wars, pursuing specific political or economic goals.

Next, Pozharsky provides individual examples of violence in history, which is an approach similar to that of Pinker (using episodes convenient for one’s argumentation while ignoring the full picture), claims that war can be just if a set of rules is adopted to reduce the harm it causes (but only suggests following them, without guaranteeing their execution in reality), and also attacks pacifists, portraying them as literally the worst people in the world by groundlessly attributing to them practices that only promote violence, such as appeasing the aggressor or waging war against a proclaimed “evil” without sparing any effort and ignoring the rules.

Of course, Pozharsky never once mentioned the position of anthropologists who quite reasonably do not consider war to be something natural for humans, or the position of military experts, according to which most healthy people possess a strong internal resistance to committing murder (or as researchers of human psyche and neurophysiology call it—the violence inhibition mechanism), and only a tiny fraction of individuals with high psychopathic predispositions are capable of engaging in such activities easily. All of this was ignored.

Law and legality in the transition to ancap

Another question about the subject was asked in the comments, and I don’t really want to answer from purely theoretical positions, because for a little over three years now, I’ve had the opportunity to try to implement something. So, I want to reflect on the problems of law and legislation in the ancap community using Montelibero as an example.

I will outline the conceptual framework I am using. Law is the order for resolving conflicts accepted within the community. Statute is a legal norm that the community considers permissible to impose by force. Court is a procedure for resolving conflicts by a third party not involved in the conflict. Jurisdiction is the venue, that is, the circle of conflicts that the community customarily resolves through a specific court.

Montelibero, like any other ancap community in the era of state dominance, cannot claim full jurisdiction over its members. Yes, any issue can be resolved within Montelibero’s jurisdiction—but only if the state is unaware of it. Otherwise, the state may impose its own requirements on what the parties to the conflict are obliged to do.

The Montelibero community is small. It does not provide the opportunity for full market competition between many diverse courts. However, this is no reason to bow before the state. After all, we have implemented tokenomics and now have our own very cheap and efficient financial system. On a single blockchain, without competition between them (we tried adding others, but they didn’t take hold). Although, privately, nothing prevents the exchange of any values: whether commodities, fiat, or various types of crypto. The same applies to courts: by mutual agreement, disputes can be resolved by a coin toss, mediation by a pre-agreed authority, or a duel—but if there is no agreement, one must rely on some unified default judicial mechanism.

Every jurisdiction is subject to a strong positive scale effect: the more conflicts it resolves, the more potential conflicts will specify this particular jurisdiction in advance. This is understandable: people save mental effort and will not keep many different legal mechanisms in mind without particular need, eventually leaning toward a single option, even if it is not the most optimal for a specific case. There are also negative scale effects: even the most efficient judge is unlikely to be able to significantly increase their productivity and will more likely raise the price as demand increases. Therefore, to scale this type of service, it is convenient to use a franchising mechanism: judges may differ, but they will use a single procedure and uniform legal norms.

Where would these come from? The Schelling point here is the procedures adopted in the hosting jurisdiction, that is, in the Montenegrin courts. Why? At least because that is where those dissatisfied with a Montelibero court decision will theoretically turn. But since the local legislation is full of various statist rubbish, it must, of course, be discarded and replaced with our own home-grown concepts. There are few basic principles in libertarianism, but specific legal norms that do not contradict them can vary. And here, precedents will become the Schelling points. It will be easier for each subsequent court to apply a previously used norm than to invent a new one for every new case. Moreover, it will be easier for all members of the Montelibero community to proceed from established legal practice, as predictability in affairs is the foundation for trust.

But, as is known, it is not enough to understand if the laws are good; one must ask if they are enforced.

While judicial practice is limited, one must rely mainly on the conscientiousness of the parties and the informal authority of the judge. The potential ability to turn to the state for enforcement of court decisions is relevant only for the largest cases, where the amount at stake justifies the accompanying costs. In the smallest cases, the losing party will pay without question because the amount is trivial. The problem lies in medium-sized cases, where invoking state enforcement is still too expensive and disgraceful, but the losing party is reluctant to pay.

The most civilized way to achieve the enforcement of court decisions is the widespread use of collateral. I envision a gradual evolution here from one-time deposits to secure a specific claim, to permanent deposits confirming a willingness to comply with the decisions of a specific jurisdiction.

Initially, it might work roughly like this. A community member wishes to enter into a legal relationship with another member. For example, rent a car or an apartment, borrow money, or enter into an employment contract. In addition to the direct contract between the counterparties, they also notify the court and transfer collateral amounts to a court-controlled account, the size of which depends on the amount of liability imposed by the concluded contract. Then, from this collateral, a penalty can be recovered—for example, from an employee for damaging equipment, or from an employer for an industrial injury caused by their fault.

But gradually, as the court builds its own reputation, deposits will become permanent: you recognize the jurisdiction of the MTL court and place a certain deposit on its controlled account—a sort of “price of honor,” in ancient Irish terms. Now anyone can be sure that within the limits of the price of honor, you can be trusted unconditionally. Want to increase your reputation—simply increase the deposit. Leaving the country, or, say, the last court decision caused your distrust—decrease the deposit. Leaving the jurisdiction—withdraw the deposit entirely (with some lag to ensure you have no debts from old contracts).

Moreover, based on this solution, an institute of suretyship could develop, where a guarantor increases trust in the person they vouch for by risking their own judicial deposit.

It would be great if increasing the price of honor contributed to respect within the community, but such an attitude will not form on its own—first, a tradition of involving people with a high price of honor in responsible legal relationships must be grown, for example, as witnesses to large transactions or plaintiffs in socially important cases. Also, a mechanism for increasing another’s price of honor through the payment of judicial deposits into another’s account could certainly appear—if a person’s personal integrity far exceeds their financial capabilities. The result would be something like a Hoppean natural aristocracy.

And, of course, this entire mechanism will work much worse if it turns out that there are a large number of community members who completely ignore it, yet enter into legal relationships with each other in the same way. They may be too poor to freeze money for the sake of reputation. They may not trust a specific court. And finally, they may not trust the mechanism itself.

The poverty factor is handled to a certain extent through suretyship mechanisms. The factor of distrust in a specific court—through competing courts. The factor of distrust in the mechanism—simply a matter of habit. Trust is built; one just must not try to impose it.

Animal cruelty, violence against people, and psychopathy

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Actions that are cruel to animals or lead to their death without a justifiable reason—for example, torture, torment, mutilation, poisoning, or abandonment—will seem to many as a clear sign that the person resorting to them has psychological abnormalities and could very well be just as capable of committing violence against humans. In fact, many studies have found a link between animal cruelty and various forms of violence. One of them also investigated the connection with the level of psychopathy in detail.

As demonstrated by one Swiss study, people who were cruel to animals in childhood are 3 times more likely to commit serious acts of violence, such as robbery, kidnapping, or assault, throughout their lives[1]. Another study conducted on two samples of women showed a link between the propensity for such treatment and proactive aggression, sadism, psychopathic predispositions, and traits of callous-unemotionality[2]. About 60% of individuals who state that they witnessed or participated in animal cruelty in childhood also report experiences of child abuse or domestic violence. As it turns out, animal cruelty is a “red flag” for domestic violence[3]. Finally, according to various studies, between 23% and 77% of households where intimate partner violence occurs also exhibit the presence of animal cruelty (and if threats to resort to it are added to actual cruelty, this figure becomes 21% to 89% of such households)[4].

People who are cruel to animals have, on average, higher scores for psychopathy. At the same time, the use of torture on animals is most strongly associated with psychopathy. The average score for individuals who committed such actions on the PPTS test was 13.04 points, while for those who did not, it was 10.19 points (an average difference of 2.85 points). The next strongest connection is the killing of animals (average difference of 2.65 points), followed by harming animals (average difference of 2.34 points)[5].

It can be confidently asserted that animal cruelty is indeed linked to a greater propensity for a person to commit violence against other people. There is also a significant link with psychopathic predispositions, which may indicate the presence of psychological abnormalities. Particular attention should be paid to impairments in the mechanism of violence inhibition, which some researchers use to explain the inability of certain individuals to perceive the suffering of animals, as well as a callous and dismissive attitude toward them[2].

Internal conflicts of volunteer organizations

Not long ago, I published a long post Internal Dynamics of Libertarian Communities. Among other things, it mentions the danger of “beastly seriousness” over trifles:

Subconsciously realizing the certain comicality of their position, the disputant, in a polemical frenzy, begins to accuse opponents of violating even the most basic value principles.

And just recently, I received a direct message:

I believe that the current Secretary has exceeded their authority. The Council is unable to resolve this crisis on its own, as some Council members support the Secretary’s actions, while others remain indifferent to what is happening. This is not an isolated case that is being questioned, but this particular case is already egregious.

What is this egregious case? It turns out a Telegram chat admin enabled slow mode in the chat. Why slow mode is needed in a chat of two dozen people, I have no idea, but this case perfectly illustrates how easily, in a purely voluntary organization, people take offense at the slightest manifestation of disrespect from those endowed with certain technical powers.

And here is another case, a public one—and also indignation directed at the secretary: one of the MTL-court judges removed the court secretary from handling a case because the secretary, in the judge’s view, handled correspondence with the parties incorrectly and also for some reason was present in the chat where the judges were discussing the case. And the secretary, instead of stepping down, stayed put; instead, the judge was removed.

This pattern repeats constantly. What is required for it to emerge?

  1. An organization consisting of volunteers
  2. The presence of a sole administrative position within it
  3. The administrator having technical capabilities to restrict the rights of other organization participants.

That’s it. Sooner or later, a situation will arise where the administrator begins to interpret their functions broadly and applies their technical capabilities in a way that restricts the rights of other organization participants, and some participants will view this action as an abuse of power.

If the organization had paid employees, the administration’s actions would be perceived more calmly (any whim for your money). If there were a whole board instead of one administrator, one could appeal to one member to roll back the actions of another (also a very rich class of conflicts, though far less acute). Finally, if the administrator lacked technical capabilities that could be abused, it would be much harder for them.

Let’s leave point 1 alone, because conflicts in hierarchical commercial organizations can be discussed by Bitarch and Voluntarist.

Point 2 is much easier to overcome. If the group is small and consists of formally equal participants, then everyone should be made an admin (if some participants have a sort of probation period, admin rights can be granted after its successful completion)—this serves as a visible confirmation of mutual trust within the organization. Alternatively, one could do without admins entirely.

As for point 3, it depends too much on the chosen communication tools. In Montelibero, Telegram is used almost exclusively for this. In it, the only way to disable technical administration capabilities for a group is to create it using a service account, add participants, and then remove the creator from the group. In principle, this is also a solution for a small, tight-knit group that wishes to communicate strictly on business and does not want to lose internal cohesion over someone’s wounded pride.

Of course, administrators are useful. But that is exactly the line of reasoning that etatists use to explain the utility of the state. No, the utility comes not from administrators, but from a tradition of respecting colleagues. Applied to working groups, this means self-restraint regarding off-topic posts and communication style. If such a tradition is established, an administrator is not needed. If it is not established, it cannot be implemented by the strength of one administrator alone. In any case, the goodwill of the other participants is required.

How corporate psychopaths affect working conditions and the long-term success of a company

Voluntarist, Bitarch

In businesses with high staff turnover and relatively superficial assessments of personality traits when appointing employees to various positions, unscrupulous and deceitful corporate psychopaths often find opportunities to promote themselves. Such characteristics as ultra-rationality and a lack of emotional distress and empathy for other employees may even initially seem useful in activities aimed at generating profit. However, in the long run, the actions of corporate psychopaths can lead to catastrophic consequences.

To begin with, many employees cannot psychologically endure being their subordinates. Under psychopathic managers, staff turnover increases significantly. Additionally, they cause a decrease in the level of cooperation between different departments within the company. For example, psychopathic managers may order employees not to interact with other departments in any way except through their mediation. This is done to hide the fraudulent schemes they are implementing. Another management trait of corporate psychopaths is the bullying and intimidation of subordinates to draw them into their schemes, as well as the forced dismissal of anyone who refuses to obey them unconditionally.

At the same time, as counterintuitive as it may sound, psychopathic managers appear to be excellent employees to senior management, as they are proficient at reducing the company’s monetary expenses. Of course, in reality, this is not their own achievement; they appropriate it from other managers whom they have forced to participate in their schemes. They are adept at deceiving senior management and concealing the bullying they inflict on their subordinates.

Of course, in the long run, such manipulations and the creation of unbearable working conditions only cause harm. It is believed that corporate psychopaths are often the cause of company bankruptcies. Talented and skilled good people resign under their leadership, the company’s ethical reputation plummets, and product quality declines, leading to the loss of customers. Furthermore, through deception and manipulation, corporate psychopaths obtain positions for which they are unfit, while “silencing” truly experienced employees for the sake of their own personal interests.

Research often cites the example of American turnaround manager Albert Dunlop, who specialized in “saving” companies, which consisted of bringing them into a saleable condition while completely ignoring their future. Many researchers believe he was a psychopath. On Wall Street, he was known for his ruthless and intimidating approach to cost-cutting and heartless indifference toward firing employees. After becoming the CEO of Scott Paper, he disposed of assets worth about 2 billion dollars, fired a third of the workforce, and successfully sold the company to a competitor a year later. However, the company proved to be non-viable, and its headquarters were closed. In the end, about 11,000 people lost their jobs. Dunlop, meanwhile, walked away with a 100 million dollar severance package. Dunlop acted similarly with the company Sunbeam. After a year of his management, the company reported a huge increase in sales, and its shares rose by 50%. However, it was later revealed that this was a deception. At the very beginning, Dunlop created the impression that the company was incurring huge losses so that it would later seem that its situation had sharply improved. In the end, he faced trial for fraud, and the company went bankrupt.

Executives who exhibit psychopathic traits, such as ruthlessness and heartlessness, create unbearable working conditions and, in pursuit of purely personal gain, may even destroy a company. Such individuals should be feared; they should never be given leadership positions, at least until they undergo therapy to correct the dysfunction of the violence inhibition mechanism, which is why they are ruthless psychopaths.

Network State — it’s over!

So, it has happened. The final, and key, chapter of The Network State has been translated. In it, Balaji explains in detail:

  • What a network state is (this is Montellibero, which received diplomatic recognition from El Salvador);
  • What happens if you remove one of the parts from the definition of a network state (in most cases it will break, but if you remove the point about the need for a dictatorship of the network state’s founder, it will be even better—roughly speaking, Bitcoin instead of Ethereum);
  • That digitalization is penetrating everything and it is impossible to fight, and a network state is precisely a way to lead the process, instead of fighting directly against the digital gulag of centralized nation-states;
  • That the startup community, if it aspires to develop, needs a high level of internal trust, and pleasant bonuses would be visible demonstrations of solidarity (for example, the MTL-fest) and the absence of public flame wars;
  • That tokenomics is cool (but Balaji focuses on the community’s internal currency, although having one’s own unit of account is a secondary matter; the principle of public recording of monetary and social obligations is far more important);
  • That it is extremely important to scrounge the first diplomatic recognition from anyone, even from Nauru, and then it will be easier;
  • And he throws in various technological ideas for connecting offline with online, through which you can feel that the person thinks based on a paradigm of abundance of capital goods—let’s be happy for him.

If anyone hasn’t picked up the book yet, now is the time. I don’t see much point in making an audiobook out of it—there are too many external links, many of which are quite interesting to browse. For the same reason, it’s unlikely that the text will be produced in epub format—such a book should be read while online, and preferably in a browser anyway. The author promises to update the book periodically. If anyone follows the updates, please send me links to new pieces of text, and I will update the translation.

And for now—thank you all for the long wait, the channel is now officially coming out of vacation. I’ll need to scour through to see if any interesting questions from readers have accumulated, write a new article for Hedgehog, and it’s about time to finish the translations of Mac and Molinyu, for goodness’ sake.

P.S. Readers quickly generated a pdf. It’s not without flaws—internal footnotes have become external links—but overall it’s perfectly suitable for reading.

Why physical “punishments” of children are absolutely unacceptable

Voluntarist, Bitarch

So-called physical (corporal) “punishments” or spanking are a barbaric practice of applying violence to children in order to change their behavior. Unfortunately, there are still parents who consider such a practice acceptable, or even absolutely normal. It is also supported by some public figures with ultra-conservative and authoritarian views, such as the American psychologist James Dobson. He believes that gentle parenting methods alone are not enough—they must be mixed with inflicting pain on children for disobedience and challenging parental authority, as this is the best method for preventing bad behavior. Furthermore, in his opinion, authoritarian upbringing should contribute to the maintenance of public order and the prevention of social unrest similar to those that occurred in the USA in the 1960s. Most people will surely find Dobson’s position extremely cruel, misleading, barbaric, inadequate, or even completely delusional. Nevertheless, we will examine the specific arguments against the use of violence toward children.

First and foremost, it must be noted that corporal “punishments” simply do not work. We intentionally use quotation marks because abusive parents use the word “punishment” to mask their violence, to avoid accusations that they openly support causing harm to children. Thus, instead of establishing parental authority, spanking only demonstrates parental weakness and an emotional breakdown. Additionally, an analysis of 75 studies conducted on 161 thousand children demonstrates that physical “punishments” do not eliminate undesirable behavior, but instead lead to 14 significant negative consequences:

– Impairment of the ability for moral reasoning;
– Increased childhood aggressiveness;
– Increased antisocial behavior;
– Increase in destructive or harmful behavior directed toward other people or objects;
– Increase in symptoms of anxiety or depression;
– Child mental health problems;
– Worsening of the relationship between parents and the child;
– Decline in cognitive abilities and worsening academic performance;
– Lower self-esteem;
– Greater likelihood of becoming a victim of physical violence;
– Antisocial behavior in adulthood;
– Mental health problems in adulthood;
– Problems with alcohol or drug abuse in adulthood;
– Support for violence against children in adulthood (here it is appropriate to recall Dobson once more, who was also beaten as a child).

The consequences of physical “punishments” are similar to those arising from trauma caused by other types of childhood experiences—physical and emotional abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, domestic violence, and the presence of mental illness in the family. Also, research has shown that when children encounter harmful experiences, they become hypersensitive to the emotional reactions of other people, as some of these, such as anger, begin to be associated with subsequent bad actions. In children subjected to physical “punishments,” the brain begins to function in the same way as in children subjected to other forms of violence. Moreover, negative childhood experiences may increase the risk of certain physiological problems, such as impaired muscle metabolism.

Finally, some researchers believe that a punitive political stance, including the endorsement of war as a tool of national policy and the death penalty, is a consequence of violent upbringing. Those who were beaten, intimidated, and shamed by their parents in childhood, and who did not overcome the corresponding psychological problems through psychotherapy, tend to project their childhood anger onto political views and other groups of people. There is an opinion that the widespread practice of cruel child-rearing methods in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century played a significant role in the subsequent growth in the number of supporters of Nazi views.

Internal dynamics of libertarian communities

This will be a long-form text in three parts. It was written by request of Soz, for a donation of 50 EURMTL. The work took nearly a full month. For ordinary questions with attached donations, this is indecently long, but I recall that back when Bitarch didn’t yet publish on my channel himself but commissioned me to write long-reads, the pace was comparable. Unfortunately, I struggle to keep large concepts in my head, so as the volume of the task increases, the working time increases in a clearly non-linear proportion: a couple of days for a Telegram-format post, a month for a long-read, a year and a half for an 84-page book…

The task from the client was formulated not very clearly, but it amounted to creating and presenting a conciliatory narrative for the Montelibero community, which is currently experiencing internal friction due to differences in approaches to achieving the movement’s goals.

It seemed appropriate to me to expand the topic slightly, but not so much that the final recipes would be inapplicable to the specific community.

Part 1. Why don’t libertarians like contracts?

There is an opinion that libertarians adore contracts and almost pray to them. This is not true. Libertarians, for the most part, have a fairly ordinary system of values, and therefore they do not like contracts. What they love, like all normal people, is an atmosphere of openness and mutual trust. Anyone who claims otherwise most likely loved it once too, but their trust was betrayed.

What is trust? It is the conviction that the counterparty will sincerely defend your interests, and if they conflict with his own, he will still try to take yours into account as much as possible, and if necessary, occasionally compromise his own. Openness, on the other hand, means that the counterparties provide full and reliable information about their interests and other facts related to the subject of interaction. How could one not love this?

This is precisely why libertarians prefer to gather in communities. In a circle of people sharing common values, trust is usually higher, and if these values are libertarian, then—especially in business matters—mutual trust may, to an outsider, even border on naivety.

A contract, however, is a product of mutual distrust. Please state exactly what you will demand from me and what you are ready to give me in return, and what tools we have to compel each other to comply with what is written. And further clarify the meaning of the terms, so that it doesn’t emerge in court that you meant something completely different from what you hinted to me…

It’s not that libertarians completely neglect contracts when making deals among themselves, but usually it is just a brief summary of a chat conversation, purely so as not to forget: I borrow so much, for such a term, at such a rate, payments in equal monthly installments on the first of the month. The higher the trust, the more nuances are left out.

Trust in deals and the ability to rely on people to defend your interests is a huge treasure, as it reduces transaction costs to a negligible minimum, and thus ensures maximum market efficiency. But this treasure, unfortunately, is very fragile.

Trust can be destroyed by a fraudster. This is a very banal risk, and it is partially mitigated by simple tenure in the community. The longer a fraudster is forced to maintain an impeccable reputation to gain trust, the larger the deal he needs to scam the counterparty and ultimately still end up in profit.

But trust can also be destroyed by a pedant. Someone who, in a libertarian community, will demand as detailed a contract as possible, and then start insisting that it be followed to the letter—is a repulsive counterparty. He literally positions himself as an outsider, saying that you are all suspicious types ready to scam anyone at the first opportunity. Therefore, here are ten pages of fine print in tooth-grinding legal jargon, now let’s go get it notarized, and here we have a state court specified, and here is the penalty for delay, and so on and so forth.

Therefore, libertarian communities tend to reject both fraudsters and nitpickers, striving to preserve the innocent simplicity of trust-based relationships. But consistent rejection also requires conscious and unpleasant effort. A fraudster can be charming, and if he hasn’t personally scammed you, there is a temptation to continue being friendly with him. A pedant can be a strong professional, and this provides an incentive to tolerate him despite all the discomfort of communication.

Therefore, in real libertarian communities, complete ostracism is rare. Usually, a community member who causes repulsion is simply pushed to the periphery. There, he can either reshape his behavior and over time return closer to the core, or remain in the vague status of a partial outcast, or leave the community of his own volition. So, libertarian communities are quite resilient to problems with individual people, and these do not have a noticeable impact on the atmosphere of trust. However, another phenomenon is far more dangerous. A split.

Part 2. Why don’t libertarians like corporations?

There is an opinion that the world of victorious libertarianism is a war of corporations. Having read the first part, it is easy to conclude that this is also not true. But it is not that simple.

Communities whose members share libertarian values are capable of having a very high level of internal trust. However, libertarian communities usually have not only values but also goals. Their members do not like the outside world, where freedom is quite poor, and they strive to somehow combine the efforts of community members to influence the outside world and make it freer. This noble aspiration, alas, is capable of leading to rather sad results.

In order to turn a community into a movement—that is, to prompt community members to achieve a certain goal—this goal must be either quickly and verifiably achievable, even at the cost of serious effort (for example, a movement to abolish some repressive law), or easily broken down into stages that obviously bring one closer to the final goal (for example, a movement for EU accession, for which there is a checklist of requirements).

However, it may turn out that the goal looks tempting but suffers from a lack of specificity in implementation (for example, making Montenegro a free country). In this case, several movements may arise around the goal, differing in their ideas of exactly how this goal is achieved. For example, part of the community decides to focus on political transformations in Montenegro, and another part on building an economy independent of the state. And another part declares that it does not wish to adhere to the proposed goal and is satisfied simply living in accordance with its values (that is, remaining just a community).

The situation is exacerbated if certain activities of the movement appear from the outside not only as not bringing it closer to the declared goal, but as completely contradicting it. For example, if the goal is a free society, then any regulations of communications and business relations can easily be declared as contradicting the final goal, even if they perform an important tactical task of lowering the heat of conflict in a dispute or improving coordination in a working group.

Add to this the natural isolation of participants of one movement from participants of another movement—and soon we will inevitably see that the level of trust between several movements within one community has decreased, despite the continuing unity of basic values.

This isolation is further strengthened if a movement is formalized into a corporation. What was simply the coordination of people united by a goal has become management procedures, delegation of authority, setting tasks for working groups, accounting and control—in short, the methods familiar to all of us for making an activity more efficient.

Against the backdrop of such complication of the primary community, those who try to return to the happy past, criticizing the present, are perceived as gloomy retrogrades denying any movement toward the goal.

Thus, a relatively homogeneous community cannot move in a coordinated way toward any complex goal. But with the appearance of structures for achieving complex goals, it, firstly, still cannot move anywhere entirely in a coordinated manner, and secondly, it also loses the atmosphere of trust. What is to be done?

Part 3. How can libertarians maintain a balance of trust and efficiency?

It is quite easy to determine from the outside how great the internal unity of aspirations is in a community. If they argue about fundamental questions, then there is no unity. It is simply a discussion platform, a community united by the value of discussion as such, not its subject. If, however, disputes are over trifles, it means that agreement on basic things was reached long ago; it isn’t even discussed. This does not, however, make disputes over minor details less ridiculous and potentially less destructive.

The devil begins with the foam on the lips of an angel who has entered the fight for a holy right cause. The best path to a community split is animal seriousness in trifles (recall the pedant from the first part). Subconsciously understanding the certain comicality of their position, the disputant in a polemical frenzy begins to accuse opponents of violating basic value principles. Thereby making it clear that they perceive opponents as strangers who somehow ended up in the community.

Therefore, the first rule for a libertarian community that does not want splits is: everyone here is a libertarian. That is, they agree among themselves regarding the basic principles of their ideology.

The second rule develops the first: do not demand ideological purity from others. One can call oneself not just a libertarian, but an agorist. One can gather a bunch of agorists around oneself. But claiming to other libertarians that, for instance, you are not agorists and therefore are latent etatists is a bad idea.

The third rule generalizes the second: excessive detailing is harmful. The more detailed some description, some contract, some charter, or some rules are worked out, the more likely it is that reality will not fit the description, rules will be violated, and the charter will be interpreted based on immediate benefit. A good document is brief, evocative, and strives to capture precisely the spirit of what one wanted to express.

The fourth rule develops the third: an alliance is better than a merger. If a certain group can exist autonomously—let it exist. If it faces a task that it cannot handle on its own, let it enter into an alliance with other groups. If, instead of solving the task, the groups start merging into a single organization to solve the task, all the momentum will be spent on arranging the merger process.

The fifth rule is an antithesis to the fourth: do not judge what is better for others. If, for example, some groups have already merged into something that seems unnaturally large, there is no need to panic and declare war on them. Either they are fine with it, or they will eventually split up on their own. It is better to contact individual members of that group, applying the fourth rule.

One could continue to fantasize, but five rules are already a lot, see the third rule. Therefore, I will limit myself to what has been stated, and in conclusion, I will briefly summarize all three parts of the text.

  1. Trust is what libertarians unite for in communities. Trust must not be destroyed, otherwise the community loses its meaning.
  2. Organization is what without which a community will not move toward a goal. But organization devours trust, and thus destroys the community.
  3. A balance between trust and efficiency is possible, but it is not achieved automatically. One can formulate several rules, the observance of which will help maintain the balance.

Do not be your own enemies; we already have enough enemies from the outside.