I accidentally stumbled upon a collection of videos featuring Vladimir Zolotorev on YouTube. It is some sort of tiny channel called Libertarian Site, but since 2019, a fairly large number of videos have been posted there, presumably quite useful ones, though so far I have only watched Vladimir’s most recent lecture, where he discusses the nature of the state and other related matters—not very structured, but fascinating. I suspect that other videos with him are constructed in a similar vein, so their main value, it seems to me, is the demonstration of exactly how a person’s thinking style changes when they begin to share a libertarian worldview. A worldview is a contagious thing, so even without being presented systematically, it will still influence you. Watch and be indoctrinated)
As for my book, which is currently being written, I would still like to save the reader’s time and provide an understanding of libertarianism as briefly and consistently as possible. Maybe it will work…
The fourth video from the “Anarchist Cookbook” series, dedicated to the darknet, has been released on the Libertarian Band channel. I watched it with great pleasure and learned a lot of new things. There’s nothing to criticize; everything seems clear and on point. Thanks to the guys for maintaining the standard. I highly recommend it.
The book on ancap that I recently announced will be gradually posted in the corresponding section on my website. Since this is my first such experience, I cannot guarantee that the text will not change significantly in the process, so you are unlikely to see regular announcements like “5 out of 70 chapters written” — I will certainly be shuffling pieces of text back and forth until the very end, adding some things, removing others, and reworking some ten times over.
For now, you can read the ultra-brief foreword, which promises that the book will be written without overly academic jargon, and right alongside it — the section dedicated to the principle of self-ownership, which turned out to be quite academic. So, after reading what I produced, I fell into a pensive mood: is it necessary to dig this deep, or should I try to lower the level of abstraction?
I look forward to your comments on this matter, and it is quite possible that I will take them into account.
I could have looked for a picture of an even more pensive girl, but this one reflects the process quite clearly
A rather interesting study was conducted by Gordon Hodson and Michael A. Busseri from Brock University regarding the explanation of adherence to prejudices and support for authoritarian-conservative ideology based on a person’s cognitive abilities. This work analyzed two large representative datasets from the United Kingdom: the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS) and the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS). Both datasets contain data on the cognitive abilities of the participants, as well as their attitudes toward racism and social conservatism. Cognitive abilities were assessed using standardized measures when NCDS participants were 11 years old and BCS participants were 10 years old; attitudes toward social conservatism and racism were assessed at ages 33 and 30, respectively. In total, 15,874 people participated in these studies.
As a result of forming statistical models, it was found that a lower level of general intelligence in childhood predicts a greater tendency toward racist prejudices in adulthood and, furthermore, adherence to social conservatism largely mediates this effect. This model is particularly convincing because in both the NCDS and BCS, the measurement of childhood intelligence preceded the assessment of adult prejudices by at least two decades. Moreover, all predictive effects were independent of socioeconomic status and education.
A secondary analysis was also conducted based on a dataset from a 2010 American study by Kayler, in which 254 students participated. It was confirmed that a low level of abstract thinking predicts anti-homosexual prejudices. This relationship is partially mediated by both support for right-wing authoritarianism and a low level of intergroup contact. The results of this analysis align with the results of the analysis of the NCDS and BCS datasets: the hypothesis about the influence of cognitive abilities on adherence to prejudices was confirmed by sample data from another country. This means that the tendency toward prejudice and authoritarian conservatism can be confidently explained by a person’s low cognitive abilities.
Another study was conducted by Satoshi Kanazawa from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He uses the “savannah principle,” according to which human behavior, remaining to some extent adapted to the ancestral environment of early Homo in the savannah, can lead to problems in a modern (industrial or post-industrial) environment. In a 2010 article, Kanazawa proposed the savannah-IQ interaction hypothesis. This hypothesis suggests that smarter people are more likely to acquire and maintain evolutionarily novel values and preferences than less smart people. He used data from a national longitudinal study of adolescent health. A sample of 15,197 adolescents from 80 high schools and 52 middle schools in the USA was taken (their first survey was conducted in 1994-1995, the last in 2001-2002). Data from the General Social Surveys (GSS) were also taken as a sample of adult US citizens, with 1,500 people for each annual survey and 3,000 for each biennial survey. The results of the study confirmed that people with higher IQs are more likely to be liberals than conservatives.
Incidentally, some might object that this study is merely a fabrication by a liberal scientist; however, Satoshi Kanazawa was once even suspended from writing articles for claims regarding the difference in intelligence levels between different races, and the London School of Economics banned him from publishing in non-peer-reviewed publications for 12 months, so he can hardly be accused of being linked to the current social-liberal movements of the West.
The vast majority of the questions I receive boil down to the formula “how will such-and-such sphere of life work under ancap?” In fact, I have already provided answers to many similar questions, and some more than once. I have built up a huge body of texts that few people are likely to bother re-reading. Now, I am increasingly thinking about consolidating them into a relatively compact and coherent material.
Many people also ask for a link to some basic introductory course on libertarianism, without the jargon, for those who want to go a bit further than Wikipedia and understand what libertarianism is, how well it suits them personally, and if it doesn’t suit them very well, whether libertarians should be considered dangerous enemies, harmless weirdos, or useful companions.
In principle, I have already translated one such opus—Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom. In progress is the translation of another opus with a similar message—Stefan Molinieu’s Practical Anarchy. But both works have at least one obvious downside: they are translations. This is an appeal to a different cultural background, which generates arguments that may seem strange and clumsy. There was hope for Mikhail Svetov, but a lot of time has passed since his announcement of a book on libertarianism, and there has been no progress.
Presumably, the work will consist of three parts. The first—a brief description of the libertarian worldview and a justification of why we need ancap. The second—tentatively titled “How under ancap”—a collection of examples of how this can be implemented. The third—how to bring ancap closer.
Forgive me for not planning to go to prison for the sake of writing a book, so the process may take some time. But on the other hand, I intend to post individual chapters as they appear, even if I am not entirely satisfied with the result and consider reworking them in the future. So you will have an idea of the paths my thoughts are taking.
Drop suggestions in the comments about which chapters are absolutely necessary in the second part of the book, besides courts and roads.
I want to recommend a pretty good video from the “Unknown Economics” channel, run by Ukrainian economist Boris Yurovsky. His channel features many detailed theoretical reviews of economic theory—I didn’t even notice how I gradually switched to him from Pavel Usanov’s channel, who is more of an economic historian. But not long ago, Boris Savvich started a series of videos on the topic of libertarianism, which is outside his primary field, and in my opinion, he handled it quite достойно.
The video I’m recommending is the final one in this series and is dedicated to the transition from etatism to libertarianism. As usual, it is a review of other authors’ ideas, quite clear and benevolent. If you like it, check out the other videos in the libertarianism series, and from there, you might reach the economic theory reviews; it happens as unobtrusively as becoming addicted to male approval.
One of the primary methods of fighting violence can be described as achieving a balance of violence potential—that is, the general armament of the population, where every person is able to quickly and effectively eliminate a violent offender during a direct attack. However, some people may doubt the possibility of implementing such a scenario due to economic inequality in society or the simple unwillingness of some people to own weapons. But there is one interesting method through which the number of violent offenders in society can be significantly reduced, even with the help of a small group of armed activists. It will create the exact same natural selection pressure to strengthen the violence-inhibiting Lorenz mechanism in the population as in the case of general armament, but will require far fewer resources to implement.
Of course, I am not proposing preemptive violence, because for its implementation, our activists themselves would have to be violent offenders capable of initiating violence against other people. To rely on a group of armed violent offenders for one’s own security, even if they currently claim to be on your side, would be great foolishness. Activists must be people capable only of self-defense. Furthermore, it should be understood that we cannot know for certain whether a specific person is prone to violence until they find themselves in circumstances that provoke its initiation. Only if they were unable to restrain themselves and exhibited violence can it be said that they are prone to it. In this regard, preemptive violence would ultimately lead to casualties among ordinary and peaceful people, which we absolutely cannot allow.
What I am proposing is specifically a method of “provoking” violent offenders to reveal their violent nature. To make it clear what I am talking about, I will refer to one example of the practical implementation of this strategy. We are talking about the eradication of banditry in post-war Odessa, or the so-called “Masquerade” operation, organized by Marshal Zhukov himself. Of course, this operation was carried out by government decree, but in this case, that is not so important, since it still consists of using only self-defense, and therefore can be adopted by those fighting against aggressive violence. When well-dressed men, sometimes accompanied by equally fashionable ladies, began to appear on the streets of Odessa under the cover of night and in dark alleys, bandits simply could not restrain themselves from attacking. However, the victims of the attacks were actually disguised and armed officers of the Soviet militia, and upon being attacked, they shot to kill.
I think you already understand the essence of this strategy. Armed activists simply need to provoke people prone to violence into attacking. And I am not even talking about some kind of intrusive provocations (although a normal person would not respond to those with violence either); provocations on the level of the aforementioned walks through dark alleys are sufficient, and many, many variations of these can be devised. For example, walking through a predominantly conservative neighborhood in LGBT attire. When some bandit or violent offender decides to carry out an attack, all that needs to be done is to defend oneself using weapons—an absolutely normal action in the case of any violent attack.
Some may dislike such an approach for its cruelty, but it is unlikely that anything can be found in it that would make it not worth applying. It does not propose the initiation of aggressive violence, only self-defense against violent attacks, which is an absolutely normal and justified action. It cannot lead to casualties among ordinary and peaceful people, because such people simply will not attack the activists under cover; this will be done exclusively by bandits and violent offenders. And there is nothing wrong with provocations of this kind. In the scenario we have already examined, we would not justify the violent offender and blame the victim of the attack if the event took place not in broad daylight in a crowded place, but somewhere at night in a dark alley, would we? Every person has the right to walk where they want and in whatever they want; the problem lies exclusively with the violent offender who is unable to follow the simple rule “one can offend, but one cannot be offended”! If someone is unable to restrain their violence and attacks people, then they fully deserve a response in the form of armed self-defense.
As a reminder, the essence of the project consists of organizing a physical exodus of libertarians from various European countries to small Montenegro in order to create a libertarian enclave there (the minimum program) and to exert indirect influence on local politics in a libertarian vein through local activists (the maximum program).
It is highly desirable for the enclave to have its own land, since Montenegro is not some place like Ukraine and willingly sells land to foreigners. An inexpensive plot was scouted, and fundraising for the joint purchase of this asset has now begun. A detailed text about this is posted on the project website, so I won’t paraphrase it. I will only say that I also intend to invest a little in the purchase. The scheme for acquiring ownership rights to a share in this asset is quite complicated; the organizers decided to tokenize the shares. Thus, cryptocurrency enthusiasts can try the proposed complex scheme for purchasing Montelibero fund tokens, but I will take a simpler path and just bring euro cash with me into the country, with which I will buy myself a little piece of Montenegro, to have a place to park my backside, so to speak).
Overall, the project develops in waves as people from different thematic circles join in. There was a time when merging into the local yachting scene was actively discussed, thanks, obviously, to the appearance of yachtsmen in the project. Then the crypto people appeared, and the tokenization movement began. Once land ownership is secured, discussions on options for its development will begin. In short, I like the business atmosphere around Montelibero so far. And in the context of the sharp tightening of the regime in Russia, preparing a site for a relatively mass exodus looks damn relevant).
I am continuing to translate Eric Mack’s “Libertarianism.” Last time, having finished Part 2 on philosophical premises, I am now tackling Part 3 on the foundations of libertarianism, and today I present for your attention a short introduction to the third part and a rather long chapter on how Nozick explained self-ownership and the resulting moral constraints. Nozick’s approach is compared with Rawls’ more famous concept—about the veil of ignorance and all that—after which Eric Mack shows in which places Nozick seems more convincing to him.
I tried to translate in a way that makes it as clear as possible what is being discussed, but I cannot guarantee that I haven’t missed some set expressions from the unfamiliar jargon of moral philosophers, so I would be glad if some conditional Artem Seversky could briefly scan the translation and suggest corrections where he deems necessary.
The translation of this chapter was stimulated by a donation of one thousand rubles—which is quite a lot for a single donation, but very modest considering the volume of work. So I would be glad if you chip in more.
The next chapter will also be quite large, and it will be about what the author learned from Friedrich Hayek regarding the foundations of libertarianism.
I also slightly corrected the layout of the previously posted chapters, translated the notes for them, and improved the navigation between chapters. I’m doing great)))
The idea of leveling the balance of violence potential (BVP) so that every person could deter and repel attacks from various types of violent offenders and maniacs, as well as to ensure the impossibility of recreating a violent hierarchy of dominance in the form of a state imposing its monopoly on violence, is often criticized by pointing to the example of the USA as a society with universal armament. Since there is a state in the USA and acts of violence are very frequent there, it is argued that this demonstrates the failure of this idea. But is there actually a uniform BVP in the USA?
Of course not. A Pew Research Center survey shows that only 30% of Americans own a weapon, and another 11% live with someone who does. Among gun owners, 72% possess handheld firearms, such as a pistol. Of these, 11% carry a weapon constantly, 26% from time to time, and 57% only rarely. Summarizing these statistics, we find that among all Americans, only 2.4% of people carry a weapon constantly, another 5.4% from time to time, and 12.3% rarely.
It should be added that the distribution of armament in the USA is very uneven. First, different states and counties have different gun laws. While in Maine and Louisiana you can acquire a weapon with ease, in New York, California, or Massachusetts, you would have to struggle significantly to do so. Second, recently, representatives of minorities have been obtaining concealed carry permits much more frequently than the white population of the country. For example, over the last 10 years in North Carolina, the number of permits issued to Black people has grown twice as much compared to whites.
Overall, 7.3% of Americans have a permit for the concealed carry of weapons. Of course, considering that in 16 states it is sufficient to legally own a weapon to have the right to carry it concealed, and assuming that some people own and carry weapons illegally, the number of owners and carriers still should not be that much higher, given that according to 60% of Americans, gun laws need to be made even stricter.
As we can see, there is no absolutely universal armament in the USA, meaning no uniform balance of violence potential. And the armament that does exist is distributed very unevenly. For this reason, the example of the USA cannot tell us anything about how universal armament affects society.
