Back in June 2022, I happened to address my readers with a request for support. I needed money to renew my residence permit and repair my scooter. Since then, the scooter has managed to die, but the need to legalize my stay in the country hasn’t gone anywhere. Only the basis for obtaining the residence permit has changed: previously it was my own shell company, now it is fictitious employment, as the costs of maintaining a company have risen sharply.
As last time, I plan to raise 500 euros. The buyout mechanism will differ slightly from last time. Now I am placing a sell order for 500 ANCAPCHAN tokens at a price of 1 EURMTL. On March 1, I will place a buy order at 1.01 (no less than 100 ANCAPCHAN), on April 1 at 1.02 (no less than 100 ANCAPCHAN), and on May 1 at 1.03 (no less than 300 ANCAPCHAN). In this way, I motivate myself to repay the debt as soon as possible. On June 1, I will decide that everyone who wanted to sell for a profit has had the chance to do so, and thereafter tokens will be bought at 1.
The main target audience for the loan is those who personally like me, as well as those who would like to commission me to write texts with payment in my own tokens: according to the established tradition in Montelibero, such clients always have priority, and a damn good reason is needed to refuse to fulfill their order.
In case any of the readers, for some strange reason, have not yet dealt with the tokenomics of Montelibero, I provide a link to my old instructions (they should be updated, but I haven’t gotten around to it; perhaps this update will be the first thing commissioned from me).
Once upon a time, this image was drawn for me specifically for posts expressing gratitude for money)))
I’m completely swamped at my main job right now, and it’s hard to concentrate on something truly creative during short breaks, so I’m keeping myself busy with translation; doing it in snatches is quite feasible.
Another chapter of The Network State is ready, this time much more compact than the previous one. It concludes the second part of the book, in which history is presented as a trajectory, a kind of narrative created to justify changes in the present. In this chapter, a simple rule is formulated that the author urges creators of startup communities to follow: base it on only one commandment; do not try to implement a complex ideology with many independent moral statements right away—you’ll have time to cross-pollinate ideas with allies later, but at first, it’s better to concentrate.
In principle, libertarianism is quite reducible to a Single commandment, and usually, the principle “aggressive violence is bad” serves in this capacity (I am adapting this to the author’s style). So go ahead and build libertarian startup communities, Balaji has given his permission.
One of Steven Pinker’s well-known works is the book “The Better Angels of Our Nature.” Based on it, societies that existed before the emergence of agricultural civilizations with cities and monopoly governments suffered from chronic violence and endless wars, and the level of violence has steadily declined over time, partly due to the monopolization of power and law. But has violence actually decreased, did the emergence of the state play an important role in this, and is man cruel by nature?
According to Pinker, for hunter-gatherer societies, the average level of lethal violence was as high as 14%. But where does this data come from? Analyzing it, anthropologists Douglas Fry and Brian Ferguson found that it is inaccurate and represents “cherry-picking”[1][2]. For example, Pinker provides homicide data for 8 tribal peoples, yet he does not mention that in the case of two of them (the Hiví and the Ache), all killings were related to the extermination of the indigenous population by border guards. Meanwhile, the tribes tried to live in peace with one another. Taking these and other similar cases explained by colonialism into account, Pinker’s estimate can already be reduced by half, to 7%.
But other data of his are also doubtful. Modern tribes have been “infected” by colonialists, slave traders, globalization, and simply farming. They have little in common with the tribes that lived thousands of years ago. Additionally, anthropologists may prefer to study more violent societies. 20% of Pinker’s data are provided by a single person—Napoleon Chagnon, who is criticized within the anthropological community, makes methodological errors, and was even exiled from one tribe due to intrusive interference.
Using a different approach, Fry reviewed a sample of 186 societies studied by anthropologists. Only 24 of them were hunter-gatherers, and only 8 had many mentions. In the case of 7 of these 8 societies, killings were reported as a rare or even entirely absent phenomenon. He also searched anthropological literature for cultures that never waged war. He counted as many as 70 such cultures.
As Pinker claims, citing 21 archaeological excavations, 15% of savages died from violence. However, some of this data is very limited and may also be misinterpreted. For example, burials of people with arrowheads may simply mean that they were hunters.
Can better evidence be provided? A study of up to 3,000 remains found in France showed 1.9% cases of lethal injuries. It is not on Pinker’s list. Nor are studies of 350 remains in Britain with 2%, 418 remains in Serbia and Romania with 2.3%, or 2,500 in Japan with 2% traces of lethal violence. A study of 1,107 remains in Europe showed a minimum estimate of 3.7% and a maximum of 5.5% lethal violence. Not even close to Pinker’s 15%.
Finally, all examples cited by Pinker are no older than 12,000 years, meaning they could have been influenced by the agricultural revolution. And as anthropologist Leslie Sponsel writes, “at the stage of hunter-gatherer cultural evolution, which dominated 99% of human existence… the absence of archaeological evidence of war suggests that they were rare or absent throughout most of human prehistory.”
Ultimately, the following data on the level of lethal violence can be derived: 2% for hunter-gatherers, up to 5% for societies after the agricultural revolution, 7% for modern hunter-gatherers, 5% for early states, and 3% for the 20th century. They confirm Ferguson’s theory that wars suddenly emerged in a world without war due to the complication of social structure, as well as Fry’s words that we are dealing not with a continuous decline in the level of violence, but with an n-type curve.
People in hunter-gatherer societies—a social structure closest to the natural state of man—lived in peace and solved many problems without violence long before the state imposed discipline upon them. There was no Hobbesian “war of all against all,” and the data indicating otherwise are inaccurate and selective.
I have finished writing section 1.2 of my new book on libertarian theory of war, where I outlined the objectives it addresses. Also, before that, I inserted a small paragraph on statism into the previous section. It might have turned out a bit tedious, but it doesn’t seem too dragged out. With that, the introductory part of the book is finished, and from here on, things should get more or less concrete.
If the previous book about ancap, which we managed to print on paper for the Montellibero festival last September, ended up being 74 A5 pages, then I hope this one will not be of such monstrous size and will fit into about forty pages. However, we shall see; I might get carried away with epic descriptions of helmet-glinting Hectors or drawing organizational charts of network-centric warfare—due to such off-topic tangents, the size of the book could expand significantly.
As a reminder, I would be very pleased with donations, showing me that my work is not only in demand, but that there are also people who consider it worthy of immediate material gratitude, and who have prudently invested at least part of their savings in bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.
As usual, I note that I am unable to follow my own plans. Books I started translating earlier are still not finished, my own book on ancap has still not been recorded, but instead, I’ve started translating a new one about the Network State, and writing my own new one about libertarian theory of war.
The Telegram channel is not developing much: there are slightly more subscribers, slightly fewer publications and views, and citations have decreased slightly. Overall, this is logical: the project is mature, there is no aggressive advertising, free time is becoming scarcer; we simply continue to run the channel because how could we not?
Things are quite interesting with Montelibero. This year, the project continued to increase its systemic complexity, and now it can be confidently said: no single person knows how many people are in the movement or how the movement is doing as a whole, because one cannot embrace the infinite. Nor is there any need to. Therefore, certain major milestones are well-known to everyone (MTL-fest, moving into MTL-City), and alongside them are many small local achievements that look like breakthroughs to some and cause bewilderment to others. This is why I haven’t released Montelibero news for a long time; instead, I will most likely choose a segment that interests me and start covering it directly on the movement’s general channel.
In general, segmentation has become the main trend for Montelibero, and this is generally healthy: people try not to waste effort on things that interest them little and focus on what is important. At the same time, various companies interpenetrate somehow and are united only by these loose communications, similar value systems, and a set of approaches to working with reality. Such a Montelibero is not tied to any state borders at all, although, of course, most of the circles in the movement are geographically localized. I expect that next year this trend will become more institutionally shaped, the network nodes will take on a more explicit form, and their activities will receive diverse and more decentralized coverage.
Nothing interesting happened in Montenegro, except for a new government, a new president, the tightening of screws, and a census. In the RF, also nothing interesting, except for a failed coup. On the other hand, Argentina unexpectedly appeared on the scene. Now one can observe with joyful curiosity how etatists are fought with etatist methods, and add individual cases to the collection.
In the New Year, I want to wish my readers two of the most important things: a sense of self-worth and purposefulness. Do not tolerate shit neither in yourself nor around you, and move consistently toward a world where there is less of it.
I am settling my pre-New Year’s debt and posting the translation of another chapter of Balaji Srinivasan’s book The Network State. It is absolutely monstrous in size, but at the same time, in my opinion, quite interesting. There are plenty of fresh thoughts scattered throughout this chapter, but the key point is that leftists and rightists are not some kind of static groups, but simply the tactics of a particular community in relation to power. There is a left-wing tactic — to overthrow the existing power. And there is a right-wing one — to preserve the existing power. And the practitioners of these tactics constantly replace one another: former leftists, upon coming to power, become rightists.
The author logically does not count libertarians as either left or right, but in his opinion, they have their own cycle: from a startup to a bureaucratized corporation, and then to the departure of the most free-thinking employees to found a new startup. He provides no recipes for counter-cyclical policy in this chapter; we shall see what happens next.
Alcohol consumption is often linked to the manifestation of increased aggression in a person. Every third crime is committed in a state of alcohol intoxication, and in the case of violent crimes, such as domestic violence and murder, this figure can even reach 80%. It would seem that the link between alcohol and violence is quite direct. However, in this matter, as in many others, one should not make the survivor’s bias mistake—considering only the clearly observable results while ignoring those that we had no opportunity to observe. Not all people become more aggressive from alcohol. Of course, some of them may become angry under its influence, and we notice this well. But at the same time, others will begin to feel sad or exhibit some other emotions. And a very important role in what behavior can be expected from alcohol consumption is played by the person’s neurophysiology.
As studies on primates have revealed, differences in the functioning of the serotonin system and the negative influence of the environment are important factors in alcohol-induced aggression. In rhesus macaques, stressful circumstances, such as separation from parents and social isolation at an early age, led to the suppression of the serotonin system’s work, increased aggressiveness, and excessive alcohol consumption when it was freely available. However, it is very important to specify that the negative influence did not have such an effect on all monkeys—only carriers of the short allele of the serotonin transporter gene were susceptible to it. At the same time, carriers of the long allele were more resilient and did not experience the negative consequences of such influence. It can be concluded that a genetic predisposition to greater sensitivity to stressful circumstances, which causes disruptions in the functioning of the serotonin system, leads to increased alcohol consumption and aggression.
Increased alcohol consumption was observed also in mutant mice lacking the serotonin 1B receptor gene, while stimulation of the serotonin 1A receptor can lead to a decrease in its consumption. Additionally, studies on mice confirmed that not all individuals become aggressive from alcohol consumption. Increased aggression was observed only in individuals who had significantly reduced (by 49-76%) levels of mRNA of all serotonin receptors (except 3A) in the prefrontal cortex of the brain and some other abnormalities in serotonin function.
It is also worth highlighting that empathy is an important mediating factor in this matter. Thus, men (but not women) with low levels of empathy exhibit increased aggression from alcohol consumption. Furthermore, in two samples (a clinical sample consisting of 703 psychiatric institution patients, and a community sample consisting of 870 students), it was shown that the level of psychopathic traits mediates the influence of alcohol dependence on the commission of violence against romantic partners. At the same time, alcohol dependence on its own, separate from psychopathic traits, showed an insufficient link with violence to be considered a predicting factor. As noted, research on violence against romantic partners should take into account the potential role of psychopathy, especially if the influence of alcohol consumption is being studied.
Of course, consuming large quantities of alcohol entails many negative consequences for a person. However, in the case where a person exhibits violent behavior under alcohol intoxication, we cannot place all the blame solely on alcohol. It is merely another provoking factor, not the cause of the violence, for which the therapeutic solution must be sought. The root of the problem of violent behavior and the increase in the level of psychopathic traits in an individual lies in the disruption of the violence inhibition mechanism, the functioning of which is handled by the serotonin system. In the case of violence, it is the dysfunction of this mechanism that primarily requires therapy.
While I was on a roll, I managed to finish another chapter of the book on the theory of war, which offers the reader a fascinating journey into the world of spirits. The previously planned separate chapter on the principle of methodological subjectivism seems redundant to me for now, as I do not see what could be added separately about this principle, which already operates throughout the text. Perhaps I will decide to insert it over time, but for now, I am removing this item from the table of contents.
The next section is intended to briefly describe the goals of the libertarian theory of war as they apply to its individual stages.
The book is still coming along slowly — I’m finding my style, plus there is a lot of other work. The chapter on the definition of war and why I use this specific one is ready. For those who read the book on ancap, my definition has long been no secret, but it was somewhat cumbersome; now a short form has been added: war is a conflict in which people are ready to kill.
For now, the relationships between individual subjects are being detailed, but in the next chapter, I will move on to collective theoretical subjects, which are far more familiar to us when it comes to war.
The main advantage of the book is still intended to be its size: it will be short.
The post turned out poorly. As a mitigating circumstance, I can only cite a lingering respiratory infection, because of which everything is running, and it is somewhat distracting.
It was a mistake to mention some debates and takes from those debates, because readers naturally tried to understand how they related to the content of the post—and the connection there is quite weak. The thing is, I am not very interested in the topic of survival under a state; otherwise, the topics of my posts would mainly concern tactics for standing in line for various state social perks, roughly speaking, for the slop. The post concerned specifically the ethical aspects of concluding contracts under ancap, and the fact that positive law in conditions of decentralization works very limitedly, and therefore not every document that says “Contract” and is signed by the parties actually possesses the properties one would expect from a contract. That is, it is not a fact that the mutual promises described in it will actually be fulfilled by the parties, were planned to be fulfilled by the parties, or can be forcibly realized in reality by the efforts of one of the parties.
Is it ethical to sign a contract that you do not want to fulfill? Yes, if the alternative involves significant costs. Is it ethical not to fulfill a signed contract afterwards? Yes, or to fulfill it partially. Is it ethical not to make it clear in advance that you do not like the contract? Yes, if this type of feedback is punishable. Is it ethical to abuse deceits of this sort? Of course not; on the contrary, it is ethical to strive to avoid situations where such deception is required.
By the way, the presented ethical approach simultaneously completely closes the meme topic of contractual slavery under ancap.
