How Psychology Predicts Support for the War

Debates about war often revolve around questions of morality, law, or geopolitics. However, modern psychological research reveals a very interesting point: a person’s attitude toward war is largely determined not by arguments, but by their personality traits. For instance, a recent study in Britain showed that support for war is closely linked to certain stable psychological characteristics, rather than just a rational assessment of the situation.

First of all, it should be noted that so-called social dominance orientation (SDO)—the tendency to believe that society should be hierarchical and that some groups of people deserve to have power over others—plays an important role. As it turns out, people with high SDO scores are more likely to support military actions because they perceive the world merely as an arena of competition and a struggle for power. Conversely, people with low SDO scores tend toward more egalitarian views: they are more likely to consider all people equal and are therefore less inclined to justify violence as a tool of policy.

Another point worth noting is childhood abuse. As is well known, there is a connection between childhood experiences and attitudes toward violence in adulthood. Accordingly, it was found that people who were subjected to both emotional and physical abuse by family members in childhood are far more likely to come out in support of war.

We should also consider the willingness to obey authority. People with an extremely submissive personality type tend to align themselves with the aggressive policies of the state, including the waging of wars. In their understanding, one must not speak out against authority or sow useless doubts in people’s minds. On the contrary, people with low scores in obedience to authority who support the freedom to oppose it are not inclined to speak in favor of war.

Finally, let us not forget the dark personality traits. As it turns out, sadism is very strongly linked to support for war. People with this trait derive pleasure from cruelty and causing harm to others, and are therefore highly inclined to advocate for violence as a method of conflict resolution. Support for war is also characteristic of personalities with psychopathy, as they are emotionally detached from other people and feel no aversion to committing violence.

All this shows that the choice “for” or “against” war cannot be explained by a person’s rational assessment of the situation alone. In practice, the opposite often happens: first, a person has a certain psychological predisposition, and only then are arguments selected that fit well into it. Certain personality traits lead a person to rationalize military aggression, exaggerating convenient arguments and ignoring everything else.

From a libertarian perspective, this is especially important, because if support for war is linked to personality traits such as a drive for dominance or psychopathy, it calls into question the very idea of granting a “monopoly on violence” to a stationary bandit. In such a case, decisions about war would reflect not objective necessity, but the psychological distortions of those given the power to make them.

It is also interesting that such attitudes are closely linked to views on freedom and control in general. People who accept violent hierarchy as the norm are more likely to justify not only external aggression but also internal restrictions—from the strengthening of security forces to the suppression of civil rights. The presence of such people in society is very beneficial to the state, as it allows it to introduce authoritarian orders without hindrance.

Therefore, any debate about war is not just a clash of arguments, but a clash of psychological types. This means that to achieve peace and freedom, it is not enough to simply “convince.” It is necessary to understand which psychological predispositions make people inclined to justify violence, and to work specifically with them. For as long as there are enough people in society who are psychologically ready to accept war, a reason to start one will always be found.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Notes on Decentralization, Part 3. Publications.

The Internet began when people started publishing data in electronic form: that is, not just storing it for themselves, but providing access to it via remote connection. To ensure this, a minimum set of components is required: 1) a data storage device; 2) a communication channel to which the storage device is connected; 3) a protocol for providing remote access to this data. There can be many different types of devices, channels, and protocols, as long as they can somehow interface with each other. This looks quite promising in terms of ensuring decentralized data exchange, doesn’t it? Of course. But there is also a vast open field here for deepening centralization.

It is cheaper to produce identical devices. Identical communication channels are cheaper to maintain. The use of a single protocol is an invaluable asset. But the main thing is the functional separation that occurs between different system components when, for example, it turns out that storing data is cheaper on a large stationary server with a thick, uninterrupted communication channel, while accessing it is more convenient from inexpensive personal clients. And just like that, a platform economy begins, in which those who need to store and consume data become completely dependent on the rules established by the storage and publishing platform.

Naturally, throughout history, this state of affairs has greatly irritated both data producers and consumers, who would prefer to retain control. However, the question is how to have this control without spending too much money, ensuring everything works fast and doesn’t require mega-skills from every user. The struggle for the user, accompanied by the involvement of the state as a conflict regulator and the state’s own initiatives to ensure the interests of politicians, is all well-documented and generally well-known. The struggle for digital autonomy is also well-documented and quite known. One could provide an overview of the dynamic equilibrium between centralization and decentralization processes at the time of writing this text, but I want to approach this from a different angle. Specifically: how do I personally see the ideal functioning of the Internet given the current level of technology?

Current snapshot of the technological level

  1. Data storage. Without investing in specialized devices, the average user easily secures volumes on the order of hundreds of gigabytes on a phone and several terabytes on bulkier personal devices.
  2. Communication channels. A more or less settled user can relatively easily afford a 24/7 unlimited channel with speeds ranging from units to tens of megabytes per second. An actively traveling user, without additional investment, may occasionally be offline, have traffic limits, and a more modest channel width.
  3. Clouds. For a price comparable to the cost of personal internet access, a user can rent cloud capacity for data storage and processing that slightly exceeds the power of their personal devices.
  4. Money. Thanks to cryptocurrencies, a user can technically pay for any services over the network directly to their providers in arbitrarily small fractions with an arbitrarily high frequency.

Now I will daydream

I produce only a few gigabytes of data per month, mostly crappy photos. With crappy videos, let’s say it would be tens of gigabytes (the highest subjective value for me, of course, is text, which is a mere few hundred kilobytes, and with all the chatter in chats, let’s say a few megabytes). I want to have unconditional access to all this content from any of my devices, as well as the ability to share access to individual pieces of content with both a limited and an unlimited circle of people. To achieve this, I need my texts to be fully synchronized between several of my personal devices and cloud storage, while photos and videos gradually settle into cheaper and higher-capacity storage, unobtrusively leaving, say, the phone—but with the ability to easily return any archived data back to local access.

Beyond this, I consume other people’s content. Here we are talking about hundreds of gigabytes per month. I need the ability to selectively save any data into personal storage. Ideally, while preserving metadata about where and when this content was obtained by me. It would also be good to substitute locally saved content when surfing the same network resource again to avoid re-downloading—and if the content on the network has updated, to have the ability to replace my version with a fresh one or save an archived version.

I also value a convenient way to donate directly for someone else’s content and receive donations for my own. For this, I need the ability to attach payment detail metadata to an arbitrary object.

So, effectively, I need an operating system for working online that would link locally stored materials with the network addresses where they should be available, provide flexible data synchronization between storage systems, allow for configuring access rights, contain tools for viewing and editing data, as well as a toolkit for managing money. Naturally, all of this must be sufficiently protected from unauthorized access.

It turns out that in order to provide me with the most decentralized workflow on the web, a quite comprehensive centralized solution is required. It could, of course, consist of modules from different providers, but these modules need to work together seamlessly, so centralization practically invites itself here.

And what do we have today?

There are separate services for organizing local data storage and for organizing cloud storage. There are services for synchronizing local folders with cloud ones. There are tools for various network activities: publishing photos, videos, texts, tracks, exchanging messages, money, plans, task lists, and a ton of other types of data. There is the ability to rent servers and host websites on them. There is the ability to rent a domain name. In short, there is a huge, flourishing variety of tools for working on the web, the development of which is quite decentralized. And none of this gives me the possibility of full control over my data.

Such is the paradox.

Why the sated is no comrade to the hungry, and technology is driven by those whose asses are on fire

Do you know what a cozy chair at Stanford, a patent for 20 years ahead, and a lifetime grant from the NSF have in common? Exactly—the desire to change nothing. Why bother? The bread is already buttered, topped with caviar, the competition has been squeezed out by copyright laws and NDAs, and any new idea is a risk that your beautiful, multi-year body of work might become obsolete even before it hits the pages of Nature. Therefore, when yet another overfed professor curls his lip at a new technology, it’s not “weighted scientific skepticism,” but simply the instinct to preserve a comfortable spot.

A case that should be tattooed on the forehead of every skeptic: EUV lithography. In the mid-1980s, Japanese engineer Hiroo Kinoshita from NTT became the first in the world to produce an image using extreme ultraviolet light and reported it at a meeting of the Japan Society of Applied Physics in 1986. The reaction from the room? To quote Kinoshita himself: “The audience was extremely skeptical. However, my faith did not change.” During the same period at Bell Labs, Aubert Wood and Bill Sylfvast tried to push the same idea in the US—and received an “extremely negative reaction” from reviewers: they claimed that even if every component were assembled, the system would be so complex that its uptime would be “negligibly small.” Now look at 2026. Every chip in your smartphone, every graphics card, every AI accelerator—all of it is made on machines that use the exact same EUV lithography that the mainstreamers laughed at. What would have happened if Kinoshita had listened to his “esteemed colleagues” and gone to teach optics to freshmen?

Now let’s move to the Ukrainian trenches. Remember how back in 2020, serious men from military academies chuckled at the idea of FPV drones? “Toys for children,” “unserious weapons,” “real war is tanks and artillery.” Military science is generally one of the most conservative swamps on the planet—careers there are built over decades, and you certainly don’t get patted on the back for “unserious ideas.” But in 2022, when the AFU faced a question of physical survival, it suddenly turned out that a dirt-cheap FPV drone with a shaped-charge warhead could take out a million-dollar tank. And the conservative soldiers, for whom all this was “not according to regulation” just yesterday, turned enthusiast home-builds into an entire branch of service in a year and a half. Because the alternative was to die. And death is an excellent motivator to cast aside corporate pride and take what works.

The pattern is simple: technology is not pushed forward by those who are “doing fine.” Technology is pushed forward by those who have a choice between “accepting the new” and “dying” (metaphorically or literally). So let’s list some categories of people who are truly desperate:

– Startuppers with no money. They have nothing to lose but their over-commits. That’s why garage teams, not IBM’s R&D departments, give birth to the things that change industries.
– Fighting armies of the weaker side. Ukraine with drones, Mujahideen with Stingers, Finns with Molotov cocktails. The stronger side always has the temptation to “crush with mass,” while the weaker side only has their brains.
– Scientists from the “wrong” countries and institutes. When you can’t get an NSF grant simply because you aren’t from the “right” laboratory, you are forced to make a breakthrough just to be noticed at all. Half of the Nobels in the last 30 years went to people who were first dismissed by the mainstream.
– Patients with incurable diseases. The most desperate drivers of biohacking and DIY medicine. They literally have nothing to lose, so they are the first to test gene therapy from a garage.
– Victims of domestic violence in third-world countries. When you have no option to turn to the police or social services against an abusive father, the covert addition of drugs to food to enhance a violence inhibitor no longer seems like some kind of psychosis.

The conclusion? If you want to see the future—look at those who have no choice. They are the true engine of progress. And the “esteemed experts” will catch up in about 15 years—once the technology can be used to defend another dissertation and they can quietly live until retirement.

P.S. Hiroo Kinoshita, by the way, lived to see it. And let’s hope that he sometimes smiles cunningly while reading ASML’s annual reports.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

The “Rich Pauper” Strategy: How to Cheat the State and Preserve Capital

Imagine two guys. The first drives a shiny Ferrari, wears a Brioni suit, and posts photos of oysters on Instagram. He has a mountain of debt, insomnia, and breaks into a cold sweat every time a letter from the tax office arrives. The second takes the subway in an inconspicuous logo-less hoodie, eats shawarma on the corner, and sighs during a conversation with a neighbor about how utilities have gone up again. But in his head is a seed phrase for a wallet containing hundreds of bitcoins. Which one of them is truly free? For any self-respecting agorist, the answer is obvious.

We are living in an era where the state has turned into a giant Tyrannosaurus Rex. And as we remember from “Jurassic Park,” a T-Rex’s vision is based on movement. In our reality, it is based on showing off. If you want to live freely, build your capital, and avoid attracting the attention of “comrade major,” the tax inspectorate, or simply criminal elements, you need to master the greatest art of the 21st century: being a “poor” rich person.

First and foremost, you should rent everything rather than owning it. Do you know what buying a luxury home or car in your own name is? It’s voluntarily pinning a huge target to your back that says: “I’m here! Milk me!”. It is the ideal asset for confiscation, seizure, or exorbitant taxes. Rent your housing and transport. Ideally, not even in your own name, but through trusted representatives, cooperatives, or anonymous companies, if the scale allows. You can live in a penthouse and drive a Bentley, but on paper, you are just a passerby.

It is also important to give up luxury: Rolexes, Birkin bags, Gucci belts—these are taxes on insecurity. In agorism, your clothing is camouflage. Dress neatly, but in a way that makes you impossible to remember. Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg didn’t popularize basic t-shirts for no reason. When you have no labels, people (and officials) cannot “appraise” you. You blend into the crowd.

Of course, you must not talk about your assets! Friends will start asking for loans (and get offended if you refuse). Acquaintances might accidentally blurt out about your wealth in a bar where the wrong person is sitting. Money loves silence, and crypto loves graveyard silence. To everyone, you should be that guy who “does something on the internet, seems to have enough for food.”

It would be a good idea to learn how to professionally play poor. In our society, successful people are envied, while the poor are pitied and left alone. Complain about inflation, sigh when paying a bill at a cafe, always ask for discounts and promo codes, and haggle at markets. It’s not about the 5 dollars saved—it’s about creating an alibi. When you constantly demonstrate that you are counting pennies, no one will even think that you can be “de-kulakized.”

Another tip: delete Instagram to hell, or at least stop posting photos from business class. Social networks are an open database for tax collectors and scammers. Your profile should look as if you spend your vacation at your grandmother’s cottage, not in the Maldives.

Furthermore, invest your money in things that cannot be taken away. Instead of gold chains, invest in your health (best medicine, quality but simple food, biohacking) and in knowledge. And foreign passports and residency permits (which, of course, you will tell no one about) are the best insurance, invisible to neighbors.

And finally, use cash and P2P. If you pay for everything with a named bank card, your consumption profile is visible as clear as day. Pay for daily expenses in cash wherever possible, as paper money leaves no logs.

In conclusion, it should be said that agorism is not just a philosophy of the free market, but a daily spy game. The stationary bandit wants you to be transparent, predictable, and tied to a place. But you can live in such a way that you will only smile, watching the system try to grab you by the throat, while its fingers grasp emptiness. Because for the system, you simply will not exist; you will be a ghost. A very wealthy, free, and invulnerable ghost.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

How politics deprives science and medicine of the opportunity to develop

Imagine this: scientists are actively researching a new approach to treating various mental disorders, including depression, anxiety, alcoholism, and even violence. They are achieving decent results, which indicate that this approach has significant potential. But then politicians, relying on personal interests and considerations rather than scientific data, strictly ban this approach as something extremely dangerous and unacceptable, often not even allowing scientific research in this direction behind closed laboratory doors. At the same time, for some reason, they are in no hurry to ban other equally risky things so strictly. Do you think this is a fiction or the plot of some novel? However, precisely such a story has already happened in real life.

In the middle of the 20th century, psychedelic substances such as LSD and psilocybin were actively researched for scientific and medical purposes. Scientists saw immense therapeutic potential in them, which is also confirmed by numerous modern studies conducted in recent years. However, there is a gap of almost half a century between those and these studies. Why is that? The answer is simple: psychedelic substances became associated with a number of things that politicians found objectionable.

First of all, in the pursuit of sensations, the media began to vilify them in every possible way, actively spreading reports about possible risks: psychoses, addiction, social degradation, and danger to youth. Of course, such risks cannot be completely denied, but they were extremely exaggerated. Claims of high addiction or mass social consequences had virtually no convincing evidence; the scientific basis cited in such claims was very limited.

Additionally, the spread of such claims coincided with the growth of countercultural movements, especially in the USA and Western Europe. Psychedelics became associated with hippies, anti-war protests, and broader cultural changes. As a result, drug policy began to be viewed not only as a matter of public health but also as a tool for social control. After all, one cannot expect a stationary bandit not to want to ban everything associated with movements opposing his policies. And psychedelics were caught in the crossfire.

The geopolitical context of the Cold War also played its part. The USSR and other Eastern Bloc countries actively used the topic of drugs in their propaganda as an argument against Western societies, depicting them as morally degrading. Naturally, in response, Western states decided to show that they were capable of controlling the drug problem and protecting public health.

Besides all the above, there was simply no one to protect psychedelics. Few would argue that tobacco, alcohol, as well as many sedatives and stimulants, pose no less risk to human health. However, their production had strong support from industry and governments. This helped them avoid the strictest restrictions. Psychedelics, on the contrary, had no powerful economic or political lobbyists; they were produced by the private sector, which gave politicians the opportunity to take harsher measures.

As a result, international policy regarding psychedelics was formed far from being based on scientific data about risks. Moreover, strict bans were imposed not only on their private distribution and use but also on their study. For example, in the USA, researching psychedelics was allowed only under the strict control of regulatory bodies, effectively closing this possibility to most laboratories, while the governments of France and the USSR at one point advocated for a total international ban even on limited scientific research of psychedelics. The policy of strict bans on psychedelics was shaped under the influence of cultural fears, political struggle, and institutional interests. This is precisely how science and medicine were deprived for a long time of the opportunity to develop a promising direction in the treatment of many disorders.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Libertarian Theory of War. Epigraph.

David Friedman’s laurels wouldn’t leave me alone, and I wanted to add a bit of pathos to the book. So, spending an evening, I finally provided the book with an epigraph. Now an audiobook can be recorded, if there are any volunteers.

People strive to live in peace with themselves.
People strive to live in peace with others.
What then punishes us with war?
The spirits of war — what lurks behind them?

To build cunning, secret plans,
To amass strength, to stock up on weapons,
To practice the art of deception…
Is this necessary? Who needs this?

Is the master an offspring of hell?
Have you not grown accustomed to slavery over the years?
To rise and strike? Or perhaps, there is no need?
Do it. Thus demand the Spirits of freedom.

Mechanics of “Freedom”

I don’t quite understand publishing books on paper, unless they are books for small children that can be physically chewed on or, at a slightly older age, creatively doodled in. Even if a person leads a sedentary life in their own home, storing paper books at home is a luxury, as it requires acquiring such a strange vintage interior item as a bookshelf (if there are few books in the house, a small shelf in the toilet would be more suitable). And if a person rents housing, is forced to move from time to time, and doesn’t even know in which country they will be in six months, then for them the expression “paper book” is definitely something for the rich. Therefore, paper books migrate to public spaces, and they can more often be seen in some time-cafes next to board games. The few paper books that for some reason ended up with me in recent years quickly migrated to one of these spaces, and now in the apartments I rent there lies a single comic in Serbian about Corto Maltese, which wandered in from a comics festival.

Nevertheless, paper books, this deeply niche product, are still not only being bought but even produced in new editions. For example, my acquaintances were engaged in this back in Russia, founding the “Svoboda” publishing house, then continued in Montenegro, and now in Germany. However, they are still oriented towards the Russian market and are sold mainly on Ozon. I doubt that my own books will be published in this way because they are extremely small in volume, which means that the share of postage costs in the expenses of obtaining the finished product will be disproportionately high. However, if I happen to write another work, then three books under one cover would already have a chance.

On the other hand, “Svoboda” published my translation of Friedman’s “Mechanics of Freedom,” and there are even a couple of dozen reviews on the Ozon website. You can perfectly well read the translation absolutely free in electronic form, but if you enjoy owning a hefty souvenir brick, then you are welcome. As I understand it, the links I will provide here contain a mention that they were received specifically from me. I think this is for analytics, so that the publishers understand how effective advertising in this way is. I have no idea myself; we’ll see.

What’s there on libertarianism, besides Friedman?

2. Alya Zanoza. A Guide to Rational Egoism. Well, I’ve started with my trump card, of course. You are probably familiar with Alya from her YouTube channel, which will likely be soon renamed to “Serbian Political Stove.” The text of the book is not in the public domain, so buying a two-hundred-page brick is not only a souvenir but also an extremely perverse way to get acquainted with the content of Alya’s creativity. If the author throws the text my way, maybe I’ll even post a review.

3. Linda and Morris Tannehill. The Market for Liberty. This is another exclusive, previously unpublished in Russian. Friedman and the Tannehills almost certainly actively cross-pollinated each other’s ideas (judging by the nearly identical publication years and references in Friedman, since I am not directly familiar with the Tannehills’ work). For instance, the famous idea of private security agencies, which are intended to replace the most toxic function of the state, was launched to the masses in the 20th century specifically by the Tannehills.

4. Hans-Hermann Hoppe. The Theory of Socialism and Capitalism. This is no longer an exclusive of “Svoboda” publishing, but a reprint of an edition by the Novosibirsk Hyde Park Library. Judging by the annotations, the most valuable part of the book is not the discussions on socialism and capitalism at all, but Hoppe’s argumentative ethics, upon which he presumably builds all further constructions.

5. Ayn Rand. Capitalism: An Apologia. This is a noticeably less popular author, judging by the number of reviews on Ozon. This is a collection of various articles in which Ayn Rand applies the tools of her developed objectivism to discuss different political concepts. Maybe in my old age I’ll also put together a collection of appendices to different aspects of reality for my own theories…

6. David Bergland. Libertarianism in One Lesson. Somehow it happened that I knew about this book with the basics of libertarianism, but didn’t get around to reading it in my time, immediately rushing to gnaw through Rothbard. As a result, I have no idea how good this direct competitor to my Ancap is for carriers of Russian culture. If anyone has compared them, please share your opinion.

Perhaps in the foreseeable future I will make more detailed reviews of these books, as well as new releases from the publisher, should any appear.

Why do we call the state a Stationary Bandit?

Many of our subscribers and libertarians in general are likely already well acquainted with the abbreviation “SB” or the term “stationary bandit.” But despite their familiarity to us, most people have still not really encountered them. This also applies to new participants of our resource, who often do not understand what this means. Perhaps some of you accidentally came across a repost, started reading, and are now wondering: “Why do they constantly call the state some kind of bandit? What conspiracy theory is this?”.

Let us first note that such a term is not just some fantasy of ancaps written on a knee in a basement. This is an absolutely mainstream, classical theory of the origin of the state by Mancur Olson, which is recognized and respected in official academic science. But what does this theory imply and how did it arise in the first place?

So, imagine the early Middle Ages. A dense forest, a small village, peasants peacefully plowing the land, raising children and piglets. Suddenly, a gang of armed thugs flies out of the forest. In academic works, they are also called roving bandits. They slaughter half the village, burn the houses, take 100% of the grain, steal the livestock, and disappear into the sunset. But there is a small problem. When this same gang returns a year later, there will be nothing left to rob! The peasants have either died of hunger or scattered. As a business model, it is a complete failure, since this provides no long-term profit.

And here, one of the bandit leaders, a guy with an entrepreneurial vein and a sufficient level of intelligence (let’s call him, say, Rurik or some Frankish chief), begins to think: “What if we don’t go anywhere? What if we settle here?”. Instead of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, this genius of criminal thought offers the peasants a “deal.” He declares himself king (or a duke, prince, or someone else) and gives a speech: “From now on, you give me not everything, but only 20% of your grain. In exchange, I will simply not kill you. Moreover, if other roving bandits come from the forest, I will protect you from them. Because you are now my cow, and only I am allowed to milk it!”

It is at this moment that the Stationary Bandit is born on the historical stage.

Over time, he realizes: in order to be able to take more, the economy must grow. He begins to build roads (to make it more convenient to collect taxes and move his retinue), introduces courts (after all, a peasant who dies in a knife fight does not pay taxes), and, most importantly, invents an ideology (so that people think less about the situation they have found themselves in). And after a couple of generations, he is no longer a racketeer who seized power by force, but the “Lord’s anointed,” the “father of the nation,” or the “guarantor of the constitution.”

Why is this concept popular among libertarians? It brilliantly tears off all the romantic masks from the face of Leviathan! Since our school days, we have all been brainwashed with fairy tales about the “social contract.” Allegedly, one day wise people gathered in a square and voluntarily decided to establish a state. Yeah, sure, maybe you can show me where I personally signed up for this? And even less so did those subordinated by military means sign up for it (remember that state borders on the map were historically formed precisely by wars).

We call the state a stationary bandit because, in its essence, it is no different from a mafia “protection racket.” It attempts to impose its monopoly on violence over a certain territory. And taxes are just legalized tribute so that you are simply not thrown into a cage.

Of course, for many, realizing this fact is like finding out as a child that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, only a hundred times more bitter. We are used to believing in the benevolence and caring nature of the state. But understanding the truth is necessary, because only by taking off the rose-colored glasses can one begin to ask the right questions. On what grounds does someone interfere in my private life? Why does a handful of bureaucrats decide what I can watch on the internet, who I can trade with, and how much of my money to take for “important projects” (i.e., replacing paving stones in a circle, palaces, or another bloody clash with a neighboring SB)?!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Philosophy of the Poor

Sperry UNIVAC

His Majesty Trump continues to rebuild his palace, and the scandal surrounding the complete demolition of the White House East Wing and the construction of a ballroom in its place—with dimensions befitting a tsar’s ego—continues to flare up. The issue is not only that an architectural monument in a protected zone of Washington has been destroyed and some monstrosity will be built in its place, but also that the budget, initially planned at $200 million, has grown threefold to nearly $600 million, as happens with any good developer (and Trump is certainly a good one). For many people, these sound like insane figures, but I was unexpectedly drawn to another piece of news. The unlucky Boeing company (where engineers who talk about the mess in aircraft assembly have a habit of mysteriously dying, and the aircraft themselves have a habit of falling apart) has suddenly made the breakthrough of the century and rolled out an unparalleled refueling drone (yes, really!) the MQ-25A. It is small and carries about 7 tons over 900 km. 

What is the point of it, since there are the ancient, monstrous tankers like the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker (from as far back as 1957) and the McDonnell Douglas KC-10 Extender (1981)? The point is that they cannot operate from aircraft carriers—they are too huge—and deck aviation sometimes needs to refuel. As a result, for many years, the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet—a quite versatile machine—has been used for this purpose. Specifically, it can carry external tanks and a refueling system instead of weapons, and refuel F/A-18s in strike configurations during flight. In short, the new drone is intended to relieve the unfortunate fighters of this grunt work, and so the delighted USMC and US Navy bought 76 units immediately, without bargaining or even looking! So, what is the connection to the previous news? The fact that the cost of one such refueler is… roughly 3-4 times more expensive than an F/A-18 (depending on the version and configuration) and amounts to $200 million. 

With the cost of this contract, one could not only rebuild the East Wing, but tear down half of Washington and rebuild it as Trump Towers. Meanwhile, the reconstruction of the White House has already entered the annals of corruption scandals, and there are attempts to stop it partly because of reasonable suspicions of embezzlement and kickbacks. In other words, either the tsar-developer was too modest and took too small a kickback, or Boeing has completely lost its bearings and charged some unreal prices. Think about it: a flying jerrycan for 7 tons costs more than the legendary F-22—the first and only true 5th-generation aircraft in the world, whose overpricing sparked many debates in its time—as much as the long-suffering F-35, the most embezzled project in the history of weaponry, and for the price of five such drones, one could buy a B-2 stealth bomber.

To understand what is happening here, we need to look back at history. American megacorporations see ancap in their nightmares because their best and only friend throughout time has been the state. No American technological (as opposed to resource-based, like Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, or the Chicago meat kings like Armour) corporation could have been born, become a monopolist, or earned billions if not for the state. IBM was founded as TMC to sell tabulators for analyzing the government census; AT&T grew because Theodore Vail went straight to the government and offered the deal of the century: you give us a complete monopoly on telephones across the country, and we provide the telephone infrastructure—and no other way. William Seward Burroughs (grandfather of the beloved beatnik drug-addict William Seward Burroughs III) invented a perfect button calculator and founded AAC, which later became the Burroughs computer corporation, but he only began making millions when the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913, giving states the right to collect income taxes. Taxes were calculated by hand, and errors were severely punished, so Burroughs’ calculators began selling like hotcakes. Later, Burroughs would become one of the three (along with Sperry Corporation and IBM) main US military contractors; their computers were installed in nuclear missiles and submarines, and their mainframes were purchased by the Federal Reserve.

The flowering of Detroit automotive baroque coincided strikingly with the start of the construction of the US federal interstate highway system; without the first SAGE air defense system, there would be no modern air traffic control or even online ticket booking; ARPANET was created in the US Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency at the taxpayers’ expense and developed for a long time on Uncle Sam’s money; in fact, even the transistor and the entire Silicon Valley are products of state (and exclusively military) investments. Only when HP, Xerox, Motorola, Fairchild Semiconductor (which, by the way, was part of a huge holding including, for example, Fairchild Aircraft, which produced missiles and fighters for the state) and others had been sufficiently fed by the state, did the time come for all the various AMDs, Apples, and other Intels (who were also knee-deep in military projects). Even the food megacorporation General Mills earned most of its money not from children’s cereal, but from smokeless powder components, army rations, and even nuclear bombs and guidance systems. 

The father of supercomputers, Seymour Cray, worked for the state his entire life. All his companies—CDC, Cray Research, and CCC—produced exclusively military equipment: machines for the CIA, NSA, and federal nuclear laboratories (and also for the state weather service). There is nothing to say about corporations like Lockheed, Northrop Corporation, and Boeing—they were, are, and will be primarily military state companies, earning most of their money from defense contracts. It is not for nothing that when the Cold War ended, American industrialists nearly committed suicide in despair, as the Niagara Falls of megabucks from the Pentagon literally dried up to a thin stream in a couple of years. At that moment, almost all companies of the golden age went bankrupt: everyone from Cray to McDonnell was forced to merge, consolidate, and absorb one another just to survive. Of the entire US aviation industry, only two companies survived: Lockheed and Boeing (and Northrop turned into a single-purpose state company: for 30 years they have built, maintained, and modernized a single aircraft—the B-2 bomber, and recently created its new version, the B-21, which is what they live on). In general, even Google and Elon Musk are knee-deep in military contracts (Tesla itself was deeply unprofitable even with incredible state subsidies).

This is precisely what explains the monstrously inflated, unreal budgets (which, in today’s money, are more expensive than the Manhattan Project and the flight to the Moon) that Lockheed and Boeing spent on developing their most scandalous projects. The life cycle of the F-35 until the end of its operation (i.e., the 2050s) is estimated at a couple of trillion—a fine way for a corporation to live off the backs of taxpayers. At the same time, Lockheed is involved in another no less scandalous embezzlement—the “naval F-35” project—the so-called Littoral Combat Ships, Freedom-class LCS (yes, they build ships too), which turned out to be almost even more expensive. Ironically, since the end of the Cold War, Pentagon budgets have been attempted to be cut at every Congressional session, yet for some reason, during the relatively meager 1990s–2000s for megacorporations, they still managed to suck about 5–6 trillion bucks in total from the state. Who else can pay so much, without bargaining, for such useless nonsense? 

So, as we see, Boeing is moving well within the tradition: now the Pentagon will have a flying jerrycan that costs more than the most advanced fighter on the planet. It would seem that beating the embezzlement record set by Lockheed was impossible, but the old school has once again shown a masterclass. Once, a philosopher expressed a paradoxical thought: Marxism is the philosophy of the privileged classes; to the workers and peasants, it is abhorrent. Similarly, one could propose a no less paradoxical postulate: libertarianism is the philosophy of the poor and underprivileged; to the capitalists, it is abhorrent.

The Quota System, or Why Police Love Victimless “Crimes” So Much

Why does the police love catching you for smoking in the wrong place or for reposting a song on VKontakte, but they are in no hurry to find a stolen bicycle or solve a real crime? It’s simple: it is all because of the notorious “stick system” (KPI).

Imagine: a police officer needs to collect a certain number of “sticks”—solved crimes, fines, and reports. If they don’t reach the required number in a quarter, the superiors will be unhappy: no bonuses, no promotion, and they might even get reprimanded. Moreover, indicators must be improved every year, competing with one’s own past self (this is called the “PYP+1” principle: previous year period + one stick on top). It’s a kind of endless run in a circle, where each subsequent year is even worse than the previous one.

As a result, real crimes are often difficult to solve, and some even ruin the statistics. Had your phone stolen or even a serious crime committed? Good luck getting the report registered, because investigating it is difficult and tedious; it’s easier to pretend the crime never happened. They are especially reluctant to take on serious crimes without clear evidence—because these only increase the percentage of unsolved cases, meaning they worsen the statistics. The police prefer to grab “victimless crimes”—these are the easiest to close in a report. Caught on the street with a beer or violated some crazy ban on “propaganda”—an excellent stick for the report! The officer is happy, and the statistics flourish.

The pressure to meet the plan at any cost pushes some employees toward direct forgery. If there aren’t enough real crimes, the statistics have to be “made.” This is because for meeting and exceeding plans, superiors not only praise but also regularly issue bonuses and incentives to employees. These can be monetary bonuses, additional vacations, or even accelerated career advancement. It is rumored that especially “successful” police officers are sometimes even provided with housing. The stick system is encouraged at all levels, creating a huge temptation to chase minor “misdemeanors” without a victim and even fabricate cases.

In the West, meanwhile, such a system is generally considered absurd and bad form. In 26 US states, any “quotas” for arrests and fines are banned by law. In the remaining states, such practices are not officially encouraged and are under strict public control, as they are considered a form of corruption.

Of course, we are not idealizing Western countries—the state there is similarly a stationary bandit. And in some places, there are also excesses. For example, in Canada, there is an unspoken statistic, and news regularly arrives from there about similar persecutions for all sorts of “victimless crimes.” But still, one can often trace the difference between the motivation of officials and security forces in the West compared to how it happens here, which has a huge impact on the lives of ordinary people.

What is most sad is that this stick system literally motivates the police to commit repressions against peaceful people. When a plan needs to be met urgently, it is easy to fabricate a case or punish someone for some nonsense, even if no one suffered from your actions. That is why we have so many “victimless crimes,” where innocent people are imprisoned while real criminals walk free.

Voluntarist, Bitarch