The translation of another chapter of Balaji Srinivasan’s book The Network State is ready. The translation process was very, very tedious. After all, this tradition of meticulously chewing over the material is somewhat foreign to me. There is too much factual detail and too few thoughts in the text; I would have packed such things into appendices, as that is where factual detail belongs.
One might assume the problem is that the facts here are American, and much of what is mentioned is not particularly close to us. But no, if he were to chew over Chinese or Russian material, it’s unlikely I would find it any more interesting.
In general, the summary of this chapter is fully exhausted by its title, but your tastes may differ from mine. After all, from time to time, I am also asked to tell specific historical anecdotes to support my thoughts, so I fully admit that many people need exactly such anecdotes to be convinced. There are some here.
Not long ago, I was listening to one of Vladimir Zolotorev’s Saturday sermons on the Libertarian.site channel (I’m too lazy to search for the specific sermon—the channel’s navigation is very mediocre), and he noted that the theory of war is poorly developed within libertarianism. This observation seemed fair to me, which means it is worth thinking in this direction.
War is a type of conflict in which the necessity of the opponent’s survival is not a deterrent factor for at least one party. If one of the parties to the conflict is destroyed, it means that the conflict, for all intents and purposes, has been resolved. Granted, this may give rise to new conflicts—with those who consider such a manner of resolving conflicts by the winner as a reason to assert claims against them.
To minimize such claims, humanity has developed certain customs of war. For instance, if a reliable casus belli is presented before entering a war, and collateral damage is minimized during the war by attempting to destroy only legitimate military targets, then according to these customs, such a manner of conducting war should not entail any sanctions, and may even help in acquiring allies.
However, this is all empiricism operating with collective subjects such as states, armies, peoples, and so on. Libertarianism, on the other hand, is about methodological subjectivism and individual responsibility. The fact that some collective imaginary entities are in a state of war does not create any moral obligations for a specific person to enter the war on either side. At the same time, libertarian morality suggests entering conflicts on the just side, which means that libertarians may not be foreign to wars, even those where they are not the party subjected to a direct attack.
Vladimir Zolotorev proposes using the standard legal approach of peacetime to describe war within libertarianism: a lawsuit is filed against the party that caused the damage; in the case of collective actions, the lawsuit extends to the entire collective proportionally to their contribution; courts make decisions, the assets of the party that caused the damage are seized and sold on the market, and the proceeds are transferred to the plaintiff—and so on. Unfortunately, this model, which would have worked perfectly for a tribal society from the Icelandic sagas or, adjusted for capitalist realities, in some conditional Wild West, begins to stall heavily in a society where the system of kinship ties and personal obligations has been replaced by a system of formal hierarchy and various group identities, such as religion or nation.
Obviously, in this situation, an obvious solution suggests itself to a libertarian—to simplify the task. In other words, let’s abolish states and all other imaginary collective entities, and then the analysis of conflicts will elegantly be reduced to a simple and clear basis of property disputes. Abolishing these mental parasites in reality is, undoubtedly, a boon for all humanity; however, if we close our eyes to their existence right now and analyze reality as if these entities did not exist, they will not instantly disappear because of it.
This was simply a pointer to some difficulties in considering such a phenomenon as war; naturally, it is far from exhaustive.
A viable theory of war in libertarianism must answer several diverse questions:
How to determine when it is worth starting a war?
How to determine the just side in a war?
How to determine the appropriate degree of one’s own participation in a war?
How to determine that a war is being waged against you?
How to determine who is waging war against you?
How to determine what collateral damage is permissible?
How to determine appropriate compensation for direct and collateral damage?
How to determine when it is time to end the war?
How to determine on what terms the war should be ended?
I do not yet have the sought-after theory; I want to think about the necessary formulations in my spare time. Your comments may prove to be very useful. I hope to be able to share the results of these reflections soon.
As is known from the theory of human self-domestication, humans possess certain traits similar to those observed in domesticated animals. This includes brain development and behavioral aspects. In this context, it is worth highlighting some points regarding the development of a tendency toward non-aggressive behavior toward unfamiliar members of one’s own species, which will allow us to better understand why a normal human possesses a strongly expressed violence inhibition mechanism.
In one study, domesticated animals such as pigs, rabbits, or guinea pigs, as well as animals characterized by cooperative breeding, such as the red fox and some primates, were found to possess a significantly larger amygdala volume and higher neuronal density within it compared to many other animal species. This is also true for humans, whom this study classifies as a cooperatively breeding species. During the Pleistocene (Ice Age), it became critically necessary for human survival for children to be cared for not only by their biological mothers but also by other group members. This led to the emergence of corresponding adaptations, including a reduction in children’s fear of close contact with other people and a reduction in mothers’ fear of other people approaching and caring for their children. Furthermore, prosociality, replacing aggressiveness, was extremely necessary for the evolution of all forms of human cultural cognition, including language.
Such an adaptation is fully consistent with the theory of the violence inhibition mechanism, according to which an unconditional reflex is triggered in humans when observing distress signals in others, such as expressions of fear or sadness, which deters them from causing harm by evoking negative feelings. The development of the amygdala led to better recognition and understanding of other people’s fear, which helps prevent a person from behaving aggressively toward them due to their own fear. This part of the brain plays a primary role in regulating aggressive behavior, which also aligns with the concept of a violence inhibitor. In many animals, this works similarly toward members of their own species.
Let’s look at another example of self-domestication: the pygmy chimpanzee (bonobo). Their females prefer to breed with non-aggressive males and jointly defend themselves against aggressive ones, which also steers their selection toward non-aggressiveness. Compared to common chimpanzees, the serotonin neuron density in the amygdala of bonobos is twice as high. This can generally be observed in species that do not typically exhibit aggressive behavior due to social frustration. And as we already know, the serotonergic system is a key regulator of aggressive behavior in animals and humans; the activation of certain serotonin receptors can completely eliminate attacking aggressive behavior toward conspecifics, replacing it, as a rule, with non-aggressive prosocial behavior (while this process does not suppress defensive behavior if a conspecific decides to attack first).
All these data prove once again that a healthy person is characterized by the inhibition of violence due to certain evolutionary adaptations, and that it relies on the full functioning of the amygdala and the serotonergic system. These data are extremely important for the search and development of therapeutic methods aimed at correcting dysfunction of the violence inhibitor in people who exhibit violent behavior and psychopathic predispositions.
Sources: Cerrito, P., Burkart, J.M. (2023). Human Amygdala Volumetric Patterns Convergently Evolved in Cooperatively Breeding and Domesticated Species. Hum Nat. doi:10.1007/s12110-023-09461-3; Hare, B. (2017). Survival of the Friendliest: Homo sapiens Evolved via Selection for Prosociality. Annual Review of Psychology, 68(1), 155–186. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010416-044201.
The translation of the new chapter of Balaji Srinivasan’s book The Network State is complete. In it, he develops the theme touched upon in the previous chapter, showing how Leviathans interact using the example of modern society in the USA. To be honest, it wasn’t the most interesting chapter. In short, the author points out that while conflicts in American society were previously mainly between the right and the left, now, from the perspective of the well-known two-dimensional political compass metaphor, the conflict is between the top and the bottom, authoritarians and libertarians.
In principle, we observe roughly the same thing in our own community. Both right-wing and left-wing anarchists integrate easily into the people of Montellibero, but statists have a much harder time.
I was recently sitting in a cafe with one of my subscribers, and the standard conversation came up about how tiresome Bitarch’s monotonous posts have become—about the violence inhibitor, psychopaths, and the urge to bet a million on human behavior during a face-to-face meeting without revealing one’s incognito. It seems I managed to construct a certain line of reasoning as to why all this is necessary; I will present it here in an expanded form.
The first thesis will essentially be an off-topic, concerning the fact that Bitarch is willing to pay 5,000 rubles a month in Bitcoin equivalent for the right to post in my channel, yet not a single one of his critics is willing to outbid this price to ensure his posts do not appear in the channel. Although, it would seem, it would be easy and inexpensive for a cooperative of Bitarch-haters to do so. This refers us back to David Friedman and his economic analysis of law.
However, this thesis says nothing in substance, so let us leave it and move on to Bitarch’s concepts.
In Pozharsky’s recent post, where he discusses how democracies deftly crush indigenous Hitlers, it is mentioned at the end that intra-human war is ultimately some kind of garbage, and that to unite humanity, it would be a good idea to acquire a cosmic beetle to fight against. In a recent conversation between Latynina and Arestovich, a similar thesis arises that humanity needs an external unifying factor; and while Latynina echoes Pozharsky by stating the desirability of an attack on Earth by cosmic beetles, Arestovich expands the thesis, arguing that hypothetical beetles, being intelligent creatures, are still our brothers, and fighting them is undignified—our mission is the transformation of nature.
Libertarianism, in the version presented in my book, prescribes peaceful cooperation—and entering conflicts on the side of justice. Without this moral norm, a libertarian society is unstable in the face of that very external threat, because it provides no way to cooperate in self-defense.
For a libertarian to enter a conflict, it is important to understand why they care about it. But a sufficiently developed sense of justice tells a person to intervene in practically any conflict, as long as it is clear which side justice is on. What is it to them? Indeed, they might, like some Arestovich, consider fights between intelligent beings a waste of scarce resources needed for the transformation of nature and the exploration of Space. And therefore, they should suppress them with the full power of their nature-transformation technologies. Including—the transformation of human nature.
I should note, however, that any statist construction can be derived from libertarian premises. This is very evident in the example of Karl Franco, who, calling himself an Orthodox libertarian, justifies taxes and similar state interventions in the economy, as well as other forms of coercion. Indeed, all left-libertarians to varying degrees sin of something similar. The secret is simple: it is enough to forget for a minute that values are subjective. Then you declare your own values to be of the utmost importance for everyone, meaning that to impose them, it is permissible to trample over others’ values. (This is why it is very useful to supplement knowledge of libertarian doctrine with knowledge of economic theory, rather than trying to replace it with some kind of analytical philosophy)
Bitarch sometimes sins of this as well, but fortunately, not as uncompromisingly. Therefore, although he might be glad to rid all of humanity at once of the harmful brain-virus that destroys the violence inhibitor, he mostly works quite consistently on a new type of self-defense weapon—one designed not to kill the aggressor, but merely to strengthen the violence inhibitor within them.
I am also glad that lately he has left alone his hypothesis about the possibility of solving the problem through genetic correction and has switched to the hormonal level. I look forward to the time when he moves from mice to humans in his experiments. Especially since there are currently enough psychos with PTSD roaming around the RF. On one hand, some of them might agree to participate in the trial of an experimental drug voluntarily. On the other hand, many such guys will easily provide a reason to test violence inhibitor enhancement means on them, already in the form-factor of a self-defense weapon.
What Bitarch and Voluntarist lack is a more careful and appealing presentation of their theses to the public. Alas, my help here can only be very limited: we’ve already been through this—when attempting to coordinate the text, we start arguing. It is important for me to remove the cringe; it is important for him to keep the main takes unchanged. Therefore, we have what we have.
I hope I have succeeded in conveying my vision of the situation, and that you will be able to treat his work with a deeper understanding. Any fool can post a clown emoji.
When solving various kinds of moral problems, we can proceed either from a utilitarian point of view, which is result-oriented and consists of maximizing utility, or from a deontological one, which is action-oriented and consists of mandatory adherence to certain norms (including moral norms). For example, in the trolley dilemma, the first position justifies the killing of one innocent person to save many others, whereas the second position does not allow this and condemns any intentional infliction of harm on a person. However, not only thought experiments but many real-life situations can lead to the question of whether a human life should be sacrificed for some higher good. And it would be very interesting to see what choice is preferred by individuals who do not experience aversion to committing violence, have weakly expressed empathy, and possess other traits of psychopathy.
As we know, in the standard version of the trolley dilemma, a person must choose whether to redirect the trolley to a track where only one person is tied, or to do nothing, as a result of which the trolley will run over five people at once. A survey of 700 participants in a study showed that the choice in favor of taking action (sacrificing one for the benefit of many) was only slightly associated with traits of primary psychopathy (a person’s tendency toward callousness, lack of empathy, and a weak sense of guilt). However, in a modified version, where the participant had to decide whether to push a fat man off a bridge onto the tracks to stop the trolley, the choice in favor of this was strongly associated with all indicators of psychopathy. It seems that psychopathic individuals tend to believe that in this situation, killing the fat man is a completely justified action.
The study also found that individuals with higher psychopathy scores tend to have a desire to cause harm to people for the sake of achieving some higher good. Yet, at the same time, they do not strive to help in the impartial maximization of the well-being of as many people as possible. To be clear, it can be put this way: a psychopath is ready to accept human casualties and commit violence to achieve a higher good, but he would not help with his wallet, even if he possesses funds that are not very necessary to him and could significantly help many other people.
Additionally, participants were surveyed on a number of dilemmas from the CNI model, which assesses their sensitivity to consequences (C), moral norms (N), and preference for inaction over action (I). Naturally, higher psychopathy scores were associated with a greater tendency to make utilitarian rather than deontological decisions. To be more precise, according to the Levenson test, this result was significantly associated with indicators of primary psychopathy specifically, and only weakly with indicators of secondary psychopathy (reflecting emotional instability and the presence of psychological problems in a person). According to the triarchic model of psychopathy, it was associated with a person’s tendency toward meanness. And according to the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI), it was associated with egocentric impulsivity, fearless dominance, and cold-bloodedness.
It can be concluded that the more impaired an individual’s violence inhibition mechanism is—which in practice manifests as traits of primary psychopathy—the more they are inclined to make a utilitarian rather than a deontological choice. Human casualties and violence are justified for them if they believe that this will lead to some higher good for many people. At the same time, the interesting point is that they are not particularly inclined to sacrifice their own well-being for this purpose. In real life, this can easily be seen in the example of various kinds of dictators who pursued one ideology or another. At the same time, non-psychopathic individuals prefer to follow moral norms and not sacrifice human lives. They will not choose to intentionally cause harm to a person.
Mikhail Svetov is a well-known blogger from the heyday of LiveJournal and a longtime activist of the Libertarian Party of the Russian Federation. Gradually, he gained more media influence than the party itself, after which he decided to implement reforms according to his own taste, leading to a split of the LPR into two. Subsequently, he attempted to promote an umbrella organization called Civil Society instead of the LPR, but he did not succeed. He then opened the “New Sincerity” club in Moscow, but the Russian authorities closed it fairly quickly, which was damn expected. He now lives in Rio and is primarily engaged in his media project, SVTV.
Throughout the lifetime of Montelibero, our activists periodically reached out to Mikhail during his streams with paid comments and asked about his attitude toward Montelibero. At first, Mikhail replied that he viewed it negatively (I analyzed his take in one of the Montelibero news episodes), but after the start of mobilization, he said that people should leave the RF even if it’s to the middle of nowhere, or even to Montelibero—anything is better than staying. In short, I was somewhat surprised when our guys said that Svetov immediately agreed to come to the fest. True, he wanted to simultaneously organize a large tour of the concentration centers of the anti-war Russian diaspora; however, a criminal case was then opened against him, it became unclear which countries he could safely visit, and his arrival at the fest became questionable.
Only when a targeted donation for Svetov’s ticket to Montenegro occurred did he give final consent. It was necessary to recoup the money as much as possible, so Mikhail was scheduled for two presentations at once, plus a bonus interview in the Montelibero podcast studio. Nevertheless, none of this guaranteed a decent media output: for example, I predicted that following the fest, Svetov would mention on his channel: “gave a cool lecture in Montenegro, definitely listen to it”—and not a word about the fest or Montelibero. Fortunately, the prediction did not come true.
The final version of the presentation is still not posted; I am providing a timestamp for the general broadcast from the point where the sound starts.
The main theses of both of Svetov’s presentations were as follows:
I don’t want to say anything bad about Montelibero, you’ve done well, but generally, trying to run away from the state and build your own little ancap on the fringes is a failing idea; you need to get into politics, not be afraid of populism, and come to power. I recall that the topic of the presentation was “what a Russian libertarian should do in emigration,” so an idea relevant to some Argentines or even Montenegrins was completely irrelevant specifically for Russians.
Libertarians are natural individualists who have no clue what is happening beyond their own fence, and we need a libertarian international. Here, there are essentially no objections—it is needed, so we are doing it. The fest is, among other things, about this very international. Now, within the framework of the international, we will be able to demand that Svetov cover the problems and successes not only of the “busty laborites” but ours as well.
You need to speak to people in the language of love; put away your logic, it gets in the way. And in general, read more leftists; they understand politics, don’t obsess over this economics of yours, the public finds it boring. He said this and then went to give an interview to Rabfak, to the leftists—commendable consistency. Unfortunately, by following leftist recipes, Mikhail managed to alienate quite a few like-minded people during his political career, and this slightly demotivates one from studying what those guys advise. At the same time, one really shouldn’t alienate sane leftists; cooperation with them is established perfectly. The criterion for sanity is that the leftist’s dislike for the state must be stronger than their dislike for inequality, private property, and similar leftist bugbears.
So, my prediction did not come true: Svetov was not just satisfied with the organization of the fest and the project participants he managed to talk to—he changed his opinion about the project as a whole and declared it publicly on several platforms: that he was wrong, they are good people, it’s a good project, and he feared for nothing. Respect. He worked off his ticket by about one hundred and twenty percent.
Of course, we would very much like to have a speaker of such a level in our ranks, but generally, our path is decentralization. Therefore, it makes more sense to strive for the emergence of a dozen speakers of Soz’s level and a hundred of my level than to look for a single champion.
Rather interesting results are demonstrated by a study of germ-free mice. As it turned out, they behave much more aggressively than their normal counterparts. At the same time, returning gut microorganisms to them immediately or 6 weeks after birth demonstrated a significant reduction in aggressive behavior during experiments conducted at the 12th week of their lives. Additionally, a number of studies[1][2] demonstrate that the absence of gut microbes leads to impairments in brain development, including a decrease in serotonergic signaling and the expression of 5-HT1A receptors, which play a key role in the full functioning of the violence inhibition mechanism. In general, the gut-brain axis has a significant influence on the regulation of behavior and mood. For example, disruption of the gut microbiota caused by alcoholism leads to depressive and anxious states due to dysfunction of emotional control in the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and hypothalamus (it should be noted that these brain regions are also key in the regulation of aggression).
Such data indicate to us not only the fact that gut microorganisms are important for the full development of the brain, but also the possibility of therapy for certain neurophysiological abnormalities, including the same dysfunction of the violence inhibitor, through the use of probiotics; researchers are already pointing to the potential of probiotics in the therapy of affective (mood) disorders. A result similar to the use of certain 5-HT1A/1B receptor agonists can be expected, i.e., the elimination of attacking aggression from behavior without affecting defensive aggression and other behaviors. At the same time, it is potentially possible to achieve a more stable and long-term result by selectively developing probiotics specifically for the therapy of this dysfunction.
Theoretically, probiotics that could be suitable for such a task can be identified. Bifidobacterium breve (M2CF22M7) and Bifidobacterium longum infantis (E41), administered to mice over a 5-week period with stress exposure experiments, improved the regulation of the secretion of the serotonin precursor 5-HTP, and also increased the level of serotonin itself in the brain. Given that they also improved the expression of the TPH1 gene, a possible similar effect on the TPH2 gene in the brain (which is important in the regulation of aggression and the functioning of the serotonergic system) exists, although this still requires confirmation. Lactobacillus casei (54-2-33), necessarily administered together with the prebiotic inulin (which is necessary to stimulate bacterial growth) for 14 days to young rats, increased the level of 5-HT1A receptor mRNA in their hippocampus. Also, a 4-week administration to young rats of a mixture of galacto-oligosaccharide and polydextrose prebiotics, as well as the prebiotic lactoferrin, which stimulated the growth of various types of lactobacilli, prevented the stress-induced decrease in 5-HT1A receptor mRNA levels.
At the moment, the topic of the influence of probiotics on the development and functioning of the brain can be called quite poorly studied. However, existing data already point to another promising direction in the development of therapy for various neurophysiological dysfunctions, including problems with violence inhibition. If bacterial strains are developed that, in an adequate (non-harmful) quantity in the gut, prove capable of significantly improving the work of the serotonergic system and certain brain regions, it will become possible to carry out therapy for violent behavior extremely effectively without the need for the constant use of corresponding medications.
I don’t think there is a clear typology anywhere, but the question is interesting; let’s reason through it.
The Rothbardian version: it is derived from natural rights, and therefore presupposes a certain unified ethical-legal system described in “The Ethics of Liberty,” or derived in some other way on the same methodological basis (for example, Molliqneux expresses his views in this same vein in his Practical Anarchy). Consequently, questions arise regarding it: who will force everyone to be guided by a single legal system?
The Friedmanite version is based on the economic analysis of law, specifically on the basis of the Chicago School of Economics, which implies the possibility of engaging in interpersonal utility comparisons to a certain extent. Accordingly, in the Friedmanite version of anarcho-capitalism, different legal systems are traded on the market, capturing those segments where they prove to be the most efficient.
Nevertheless, both versions of social organization imply, as a kind of successor to the key state function of enforcing its own decisions, certain law enforcement agencies, as in the case of Friedman and the Tannahills, or strictly non-violent dispute resolution agencies, as with Molliqneux, which nevertheless possess truly totalitarian regulatory power—in short, some “larvae” of the state, about which one must somehow explain what reasons will prevent these larvae from growing into full-fledged states.
Following Vladimir Zolotorev, I adhere to a praxeological approach to the analysis of law and, quite independently of him, predict that in an anarchic society with developed market relations, the effect of the division of labor will push cumbersome monsters—those attempting to gather completely diverse functions, which are currently appropriated by the state, under one roof—out of the market. There are no grounds to believe that the services of detectives, forensic experts, or blockchain analysts must necessarily be provided by the same firms that offer security services, debt collection, resolve economic disputes, maintain cadasters, insure life and property, or issue certificates stating that a person knows how to drive a car or, for instance, shoot a pistol.
The practice of living in the libertarian community of MonteLibero further strengthens me in my originally purely theoretical views that people do not need detailed, written-out legal institutions all that much. On the contrary, in an anarchic society, people tend to resolve conflicts on the spot, forming situational coalitions if necessary. The need for complex specialized services in the field of legal protection arises quite rarely; therefore, in a free market, this need will likely be met by relatively small companies that nevertheless have a wide geographical reach—otherwise, a sufficient client base cannot be gathered.
Returning to the question, we see that different descriptions of ancap mainly boil down to how conflicts will be resolved in such a society—because regarding issues such as the functioning of a free market, libertarian theorists have no particular disagreements. Accordingly, if some previously undeveloped idea occurs to you about how law could otherwise function—congratulations, you will add another version of ancap to the collection of existing ones.
War is war, but the book won’t translate itself. I am posting the next chapter of The Network State: God, State, Network. In it, the author develops Hobbes’ definition of the Leviathan as an artificial subject standing above the human community, and points out that this metaphor actually fits not only the State, but also the artificial subject that preceded it, namely God, as well as the artificial subject that succeeds it, namely the Network.
The metaphor turned out to be concise, and the author develops this theme in quite some detail, describing in the tone of a naturalist how little leviathans crossbreed. In my opinion, the chapter turned out to be quite fresh and interesting; I love a skillful packaging of meanings.
