Following the MTL-fest, part 2, Pavel Usanov

Pavel Usanov is an economist from St. Petersburg, a proponent of the Austrian School, who teaches at the European University and runs his own Hayek Institute. He posts many of his lecture courses on his YouTube channel. He came to the fest in the following way. Initially, they wanted to invite Grigory Bazhenov—also an economist, but a mainstream one, and also a teacher, I don’t remember exactly where, I think at HSE, plus he works for the Union of Independent Fuel Producers. Grigory also has a video blog that is roughly four times more popular than Pavel’s, which makes the fest organizers’ priorities quite clear. However, at some point, Bazhenov backed out, citing a department meeting, and so he was replaced by Usanov.

The proposed topic for Bazhenov’s lecture was: “Monetary Policy under Libertarianism: Between the Gold Standard and Crypto.” When the speaker was changed, the question of a new topic arose. Knowing that Pavel is primarily an economic historian, I suggested a modified version: “Non-Governmental Monetary Systems: Theory and History.” That is what they agreed upon. I wanted to get a good introduction to our Montelibero tokenomics, from which it would become clear why our current financial system has the specific shape it does.

On the Montelibero channel, the lecture is currently available only as a fragment of a stream, but Pavel has already posted it on his own channel.

In the lecture, one can indeed see an introduction to our tokenomics: Pavel states that whether we like it or not, today money as a universal medium of exchange is still the dollar and, to a lesser extent, the euro; Bitcoin is great for its potential, but that potential still needs to be realized. Thus, in Montelibero’s tokenomics, everything is measured using stables in euros, dollars, and bitcoins; we decided not to invent any proprietary exotic currencies like the Liberland merits to serve as money.

The day after the festival, Pavel and I recorded a separate video, this time about my book, and he also posted it on his channel. I hope that after some time, he will also record a short review of it. At least he has a book review section there.

Overall, he turned out to be a very simple and sociable person, and this is clearly not the last episode of his cooperation with Montelibero. I am not certain that Grigory Bazhenov would have done better; however, time will tell.

How should a libertarian behave if they find out that children in their neighbors’ family are being subjected to domestic violence?

Yesterday we were sitting in a club, and someone asks me: so, apparently, at the MTL-lunch Svetov was grilled with questions, and he didn’t answer the subject, so what, you wonder, do you think about this?

In Svetov’s defense, I will immediately note that if he is incriminated for communicating via canned responses, then I, as a rule, base my answers on my own previous responses to similar questions, or on more general concepts I have formulated earlier. Therefore, here you go, to start with, the answer to a related question about what a child should do when they are subjected to domestic violence. And then I will expand the thought on what third parties should do when they encounter violence against other people’s children.

Libertarian morality dictates intervening in conflicts on the just side. Justice is the feeling of proportionality between the value of the subject of the conflict and the damage caused during the conflict. Therefore, the first thing to do when seeing a conflict is to quickly determine by eye what the subject of the conflict is, compare it with the damage suffered by the parties involved, and then make a decision for oneself whether to intervene or not.

However, in the case of children, the situation is complicated by the fact that a child is not fully a legal subject and is under the jurisdiction of the parent, and damn strong grounds are required to invade someone else’s jurisdiction. Therefore, the best tactic our hypothetical libertarian can adhere to is to attract a sufficiently substantial support group to their side. These could be other neighbors (a neighbor can most easily justify why this conflict concerns them at all—they hear it, see it, and feel irritation), but one can also attract simply outsiders, as long as they are ready to express their independent opinion about what is happening.

In some ways, this process is similar to bitcoin mining. In conditions of conflicting chains, the one backed by the most accumulated hash rate is considered true. Similarly, in our case—the parent provides justifications for their correctness and attracts supporters of their position—and the neighbor, opposing the violence against the child, provides their own arguments and attracts their own supporters. Each supporter acts as a node in the network with their own hash rate, that is, the ability to impose costs on the opposing side. If those who speak out against domestic violence are able to cause serious problems, this becomes a strong argument to stop the violence or avoid the problems some other way, for example, by moving.

Of course, the clash of positions will not necessarily be so harsh; it is quite likely that the parties will reach a compromise. For example, an agreement may be reached that on payday the child goes to stay overnight with a neighbor, and then the parents can drink to their heart’s content while the child is safe. Or the neighbors might propose a system of non-violent penalties for the child if they are indeed prone to causing serious damage to those around them.

Nevertheless, it is always useful to keep the scenario of possible escalation in mind, so as to intervene in others’ conflicts with a view to one’s own capabilities. And to upgrade those capabilities in advance.

The Network of Moral Pressure

What will happen if violent individuals are removed from a collective or society

The story of biologist Robert Sapolsky, who observed baboons for decades, is quite well known. The alpha males in the observed troop behaved quite brutally, exhibiting extremely high levels of violence toward their peers. But at one point, the troop discovered a human garbage dump, which only these alpha males could approach, as they had to fight alpha males from another troop for access to the dump. At some point, they contracted an infection at the dump and subsequently died, leaving the troop without its excessively aggressive individuals. And the most interesting part begins next: although a hierarchy continued to exist in the troop (replacements for the alpha males were found), the fighting and violence between peers ceased, and this result persisted for decades, long after the original males had already died of old age.

A question sometimes arises: isn’t a certain number of violent individuals in any collective or society a normal state of affairs? If the violent ones are removed, won’t someone else inevitably take their place? An affirmative answer to these questions, of course, has no real basis, nor does it align with the ethological observations demonstrated above. There is no such thing as a natural number of violent individuals; there are only pathological individuals, whose removal (or better yet, therapy for their violence) will lead to the elimination from society of a pathology consisting of a dysfunction in the violence inhibition mechanism.

Moreover, it would be foolish to assume that for non-violent individuals, the disappearance of current violent actors would suddenly suppress their violence inhibitor and that they, who previously felt a repulsion toward harming their peers, would stop feeling it. Only individuals who did not feel this initially but remained hidden might reveal themselves in such a situation. Of course, research demonstrates an increase in testosterone levels in male primates who are no longer under pressure from higher-ranking males. However, the inhibition of violence is a function of the serotonergic system, which testosterone does not contradict, increasing aggressiveness only within clear limits. In a healthy individual, the inhibitory function of serotonin and the pro-aggressive function of testosterone work in parallel, keeping aggression as a functional behavior.

Following the MTL-fest, part 1, Liberland

Vít Edlička, the self-proclaimed president of the self-proclaimed republic of Liberland, intended to speak at the MTL-fest on the topic of “how to build the freest state in the world.” Liberland is located on a territory called Gornja Siga, which from Serbia’s perspective should be in Croatia, from Croatia’s perspective should be in Serbia, but in fact, it is on the Croatian side of the Danube, and it is specifically with the Croatian authorities that the Liberlanders experience the most problems.

Shortly before the fest, Edlička and a couple of other Liberlanders were arrested by the Croatian side, followed by deportation to Hungary. And on September 22, one day before the MTL-fest, Croatian security forces went as far as to invade the territory of the settlement, destroying all the buildings there and confiscating all movable property. Thus, Vít’s account of his project was enriched with fresh, hot facts.

Croatia’s position is roughly as follows: yes, the border location is not settled, but we are responsible for the security of the external perimeter of the Schengen area, which we recently joined, and therefore we strive to curb any provocations, including provocations from some quasi-state.

Liberland’s position, in turn, boils down to the fact that since Croatia is part of the Schengen area, it no longer has full sovereignty over the border and cannot act lawlessly according to its own whim. For the destruction of someone else’s property, as well as the baseless detention of people outside its state borders, it will have to answer in court. Liberland also insists that a territory claimed by no current state is terra nullius, and the emergence of a new state upon it does not contradict any international norms; and if that is the case, please respect our state sovereignty as we respect yours, gentlemen Croatians—and in general, why fight, let’s be friends, don’t you want a powerful tourist cluster right next to you?

There is nothing that irritates those in power more than a reminder of legal norms. After all, legal norms place the parties of a conflict on the same level: the democratically elected government of a sovereign state in the EU and some clowns with a couple of wooden sheds and a houseboat. Therefore, naturally, the Croatian side will ignore any legal procedures as much as possible, simply leaving any statements from Liberland unattended. Nevertheless, this entire story is capable of raising a lot of stink, provided, of course, that the public does not forget to throw manure onto this fire.

Here is the contact page of the Croatian Ministry of the Interior, which organized the invasion of the territory of the sovereign Free Republic of Liberland. Here is the same page in English. You can send complaints to various addresses from the list provided there, which will be especially useful if you represent an official media outlet. Also, of course, reposts would help.

MTL fest 2023, impressions

Yesterday I had the chance to attend MTL-fest. The festival was held in MTL-City literally on a construction site, and the preparation for it was completely decentralized, based on the principle of “whoever wants it most, takes a piece of the work and does it.” So, naturally, there were some glitches, but as a result of this approach, the festival certainly gained its own eclectic charm.

I ran into Svetov in person; we chatted, although I didn’t manage to hand him the book yet, as everyone was too busy. Usanov, however, did not go empty-handed. We are still thinking about recording a separate video with him. Unfortunately, my level of spoken English didn’t allow me to give enough attention to the English-speaking speakers.

Surprisingly, I managed not to fuck up my own presentation; thanks to Dan Lesnov for forcing me to do two preliminary dry runs. To be honest, speaking immediately after Svetov is a questionable pleasure, because about twenty people immediately swarm him and start throwing questions; he continues to speak, moves further away, and the audience suddenly shrinks.

If you look at which parts of the festival were more crowded and which were less, it’s clear that libertarians have well-honed the skill of organizing conferences and all sorts of small-scale trade: people mostly hung out in the lecture hall, at the food court, and at the fair. However, as it turned out, this theme blends poorly with a music festival. Firstly, the loud music interfered with the lecture hall, and secondly, almost no one came specifically for the DJ program; everyone preferred either to listen to the speakers or to sit further away and chat—to dance in front of the stage, apparently, requires a completely different audience.

As expected, there was a severe lack of shade: a whole day outdoors is not for Montenegro. There was a moment when I felt a heatstroke coming on, so I had to lay out the foam mat I brought with me and lie in the shade for a while. Also, at the food court, there was a certain bias toward alcoholic beverages: beer, cider, and various strong liqueurs were offered, while coffee and mors were only available at one spot, which had the longest queue. The mineral water I brought with me saved the day.

However, all these small rough edges do not negate the main point: the festival went very energetically, about 270 people attended, and the lineup of speakers for a first time was beyond expectations—and at several venues, the fest was described as annual and far from the first. In other words, there was no feeling of a modest debut in the air; the fest was immediately perceived as part of an unshakable tradition, which is cool!

Various pictures and short videos from the fest can be seen in a separate channel. I hope that text reports will also start appearing there soon.

Network State, Chapter 2.3: Political Power and Technological Truth

I am posting the translation of another chapter of The Network State. In it, Balaji Srinivasan argues that if you look at history from the top down, it is a narrative dictated by power, allowing the establishment to maintain its power—but if you look from the bottom up, it is simply a dispassionate recording of facts from the past. And while there seems to be a temptation to focus entirely on the bottom-up approach, on the purely technological aspects of history—no, that is a path to political defeat. Anyone wishing to have an acceptable world around them must push their own historical narrative, and they cannot manage without a top-down approach.

Work on the translation, as you can see, has slowed down a bit. I hope this is temporary; once the festival is over, I will continue more briskly. By the way, a tiny print run of my own book on ancap will be sold on paper at the festival, which we decided to print as a trial.

Why some private companies cause harm

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Private companies, especially from the perspective of supporters of left-wing socio-economic views, are often considered socially irresponsible, working solely for their own material gain, while being completely unconcerned about the impact of their activities on society and the environment in which they exist. It cannot be denied that such a statement is to some extent true, as it is not difficult to imagine how a businessman might dump toxic waste into a river or squeeze the last bit of strength out of their employees without providing fair compensation for their labor. However, this is not always the case, and the problem of “bad” companies deserves a closer look.

A study on the topic of corporate psychopathy can help us with this. In it, 346 Australian employees took part in a survey in which they rated their supervisors (managers) for psychopathy using the PM-MRV test; they were able to rate both current and previous supervisors, resulting in a total of 567 individuals being evaluated. Based on the survey results, the managers were divided into normal, dysfunctional (partially psychopathic), and psychopathic. The test itself includes standard items for assessing primary psychopathy, such as superficial charm, deceitfulness, manipulativeness, a grandiose opinion of oneself, a lack of remorse regarding causing harm to employees, cold-bloodedness, a lack of empathy, and an unwillingness to take responsibility (shifting the blame for one’s own mistakes onto others). In addition to the psychopathy of the managers, the study assessed whether the activities of the companies with these managers were socially and environmentally responsible, beneficial to the local community, and loyal to the employees.

Of the 567 managers, 292 were rated as normal, 132 as dysfunctional, and 143 as psychopathic. Such a high proportion of psychopathic individuals among managers (as much as 25%), which significantly exceeds the general population (only 1%), should not be surprising, as such positions, which grant a person power over others, strongly attract psychopaths and give them the opportunity to fully unfold their cruel abilities. Now we should pay attention to how companies with these different types of managers conduct their activities.

In the case of normal managers, the vast majority of respondents (89.3%) rated the company’s activities as socially and environmentally responsible. However, this figure drops to 66% in the presence of dysfunctional managers and to 52.5% in the case of psychopathic managers. Additionally, 85.8% of respondents rated the company’s activities as beneficial to the local community if normal managers were employed. For companies with dysfunctional managers, this figure drops to 75%, and in the case of psychopathic managers, it falls to 55.1%. Furthermore, the majority of respondents (79.6%) agreed that the company behaves loyally toward employees in the presence of normal managers, but this figure drops as low as 23.7% in the presence of psychopathic managers. This confirms that corporate psychopaths do not care at all about those who work with them or under them. It is also worth noting that in the case of normal managers, 82% of respondents felt recognition for a job well done, whereas only 24.8% of respondents stated this in the presence of psychopathic managers.

One can see how strongly parameters such as social and environmental responsibility, providing benefit to the local community, and loyalty to employees on the part of the company depend on the psychopathy of its managers. Moreover, the study we are considering assessed primary psychopathy specifically, and its manifestation, as is known, is strongly linked to a dysfunction of the violence inhibition mechanism, due to which an individual ceases to experience internal resistance and repulsion toward causing harm to other people. And the problem of “bad” companies is unlikely to be solved as long as individuals with such a pathology hold their leadership positions. It undoubtedly requires therapy and eradication from society.

Alternatives to the right to carry a pistol

I’ve noticed that almost all answers to the question “how will it work?” boil down to “gun law.” If anything goes wrong—shoot, and figure it out later. If you break the law (which doesn’t exist, meaning you just seem like a bad person to someone)—you’ll be killed. Don’t want to pay a court judgment—shoot your way out, but the plaintiff can hire a private special forces squad against you. And so on. The principle of proportionality of punishment is somewhere far off, but the right to shoot is right here. Everything indirectly leads back to the idea that “whoever has the gun is right.” Wouldn’t it be better to organize a social order where such situations are prevented in advance and long before they happen?

Muscovite (not Chinese)

To start, I’ll note that the status quo is exactly as described in the question: the principle of proportionality of punishment is somewhere far off, while the right to shoot is right here. Therefore, whoever is armed can easily dictate their will to those who are unarmed. Anyone could be armed—a bandit, for instance, or a cop. If he uses a weapon with particular cynicism, there’s a chance he’ll be reprimanded, fired, or given a suspended sentence after the fact; even if it’s a real sentence, it is, one way or another, a delayed punishment that in no way prevents either the already occurred outrage involving the use of weapons or new similar actions.

Ancap differs from the status quo in that everyone has the right to own a weapon, everyone can use it, and whoever wants to dictate their will to a randomly chosen victim by threatening them with a weapon risks encountering armed resistance not only from the victim but from anyone else. Can it be said that under ancap, whoever has the gun is right? Well, then we would have to admit that everyone who bothered to bring a gun is right. Even so, this seems more attractive to me than a situation where “the one who decided to use armed violence is right, and the others are unarmed, disenfranchised cattle.” But anyway, enough about ancap, the question is about a hypothetical society without “gun law.”

The first idea is the most obvious. No guns—no gun law. Alas, if you deprive society of guns, you simply get brass-knuckle law, knife law, or even just fist law. Not to mention the possibility of plowing into a crowd with a truck.

The second idea is the creation of a smart environment in which any violence is suppressed by technological means so quickly that you can barely manage to exercise your “gun law.” Among sci-fi writers, I read a description of such a society by Lem, but I didn’t like it: it exaggerates too much; instead of serious forecasts, it becomes a kind of parody that discredits the idea. I can only note that this path implies enormous trust in technological solutions. If we don’t leave them to state monopolies and allow private entities to independently design solutions in this vein, we could very well end up with numerous commercial zones where a high level of security is ensured purely through technological means.

The third idea is being actively pushed by Bitarch. He proceeds from the premise that there is nothing terrible about self-defense, but the inclination toward aggressive violence is something that can be worked on. To take away a person’s desire to attack is far more humane than killing. What can be said here? For me, the moral status of a “vaccination against violence” is roughly the same as the moral status of any other vaccine. If you can ensure mass testing and vaccination through non-violent means—well done. If you can’t—prepare for acts of mass disobedience, lawsuits, and an extremely poor reputation for your proposed solution.

So, in short, those are the options for replacing a “gun law” society that came to mind. Do you have any others? Describe them in the comments.

You stand there and wonder: am I right enough, or should I tuck a couple more guns under my crinoline?

The critical error of dystopias about a non-violent society: there is no need to cut anything out of a human

Voluntarist, Bitarch

In a number of works demonstrating a non-violent society or the results of eradicating violent behavior in a specific person, the essence boils down to the alleged existence of some aggressive stimulus, which is precisely why a person becomes capable of hitting or killing someone, committing brutal crimes, or even starting wars. Having named it the cause of violence, the authors then describe societies in which, to eradicate it, they decided to suppress or literally cut this stimulus out of the person. The results of such a process turn out to be extremely discouraging – we get “castrated” people and a society deprived of all its creative potential.

Let’s start with Stanislaw Lem’s “Return from the Stars,” where people undergo a procedure called “betrization” – the neutralization of aggressive stimuli in the brain and the strengthening of the self-preservation instinct. According to Lem, in a peaceful society, people would become lackadaisical, unable to perform complex tasks, and would stop experiencing strong emotions. Let’s also recall Anthony Burgess’s “A Clockwork Orange,” where the main character undergoes a complete brainwashing. Being a devout Catholic, Burgess is inclined to believe that man is driven to violence by original sin, however, he possesses free will and the choice of whether to commit violence, and eradicating this freedom would be sinful. One could also briefly mention the anime series “Psycho-Pass,” in whose society certain works of art were even banned for inducing aggression in people, and in one scene, people who did see violence turned out to be absolutely indifferent and emotionless toward the victim’s suffering. There is one more work in which art was also banned for the same reason, but it will be appropriate to mention it a bit later.

All these works make the same critical mistake. In reality, it is not the presence, but precisely the lack of certain stimuli that makes a person capable of violence. As research demonstrates, aggression is often not the result of a loss of self-control, but may even require self-control for the intentional commission of acts of violence. Furthermore, improving self-control in aggressive people does not always help them, and may even do the opposite – it can make them even more effective aggressors. And psychopathic individuals, who commit the vast majority of violent crimes, often experience enhanced development of self-control from adolescence.

The same position can be derived from the theory of the violence inhibition mechanism – the ability of some individuals to cause harm to other people stems from their inability to experience internal repulsion and resistance toward it. They also have reduced empathy and guilt. Moreover, the effect of the most promising means for treating aggressive behavior (agonists of certain serotonin receptors) consists in stimulating and restoring full nervous activity, rather than in suppressing and eradicating anything.

A world in which they decided to fight violence and other evil by cutting something out of a person is most realistically demonstrated in the film “Equilibrium.” Its events take place after a “Third World” war, and human emotions were named as its main cause, which they now decided to suppress using a specific drug. Only, if you look closely at the people in this work, they have become not peaceful and ideal, but unfeeling psychopaths. This is especially evident in the “clerics” – soldiers whose task is to detect people who have shown emotions, destroy works of art, and kill all those who resist the regime.

Violent people need not fewer, but more emotions. They need not suppression, but on the contrary – stimulation of nervous activity. In order not to commit violence, one must feel more strongly, not more weakly. And Lem’s “betrization” in the real world would more likely lead to total psychopathy, rather than to some peaceful but passive society. The nature of violence described in dystopian works has little in common with real violence.

Network State, Chapter 2.2. Microhistory and macrohistory.

I continue to grind away at the translation of Balaji Srinivasan’s book (soon I’ll even memorize that surname) The Network State.

In the new chapter, Microhistory and Macrohistory, the author moves along a narrow and dangerous path along the border of the heresy of scientism, which, as is known, is based on the approval of applying natural science methods to social sciences. So far, it seems the line hasn’t been crossed, but I am viewing all of this with great suspicion and hope to notice any methodological incorrectness in time.

For the first time during a book translation, the layout is taking up almost more of my time than the translation itself—all these endless external and internal links and such. I find it hard to imagine how this will look on paper, although it seems a print version is also planned for publication.