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

I finished her off!

That’s it, Libertarian Theory of War is finished and even immediately formatted into epub – download it as a single file and read in comfort.

I still have some grievances regarding the cover: Rothbard’s portrait resemblance to his spirit in the image leaves much to be desired, and the neural network stubbornly insisted on depicting me in exactly that image, despite the reference I provided. Nevertheless, I generally like the result, so I’ll leave it as is. But if anyone decides to try and improve it, I’m all for it; post your versions in the comments.

I also believe that finishing the book is a good occasion to remind readers of the link for donations to the author: https://ancapchan.info/donate/

Divide, conquer, and… smile with all 32 teeth!

We usually talk about violence in physical terms. But there is another type of aggression that is far more elegant from a biological perspective. It is not the club of a Neanderthal, but a surgeon’s scalpel. Or, to be more precise, a sweet poison. Recently, a great article by Winifred Rohl on this topic was published in Psychology Today. She raises the issue of exactly how psychopathic personalities break social bonds. If we look at the market of human relationships as a free exchange of values, then a psychopath is a monopolist-fraudster. And their primary currency is confusion. Let’s now examine this problem point by point.

First, psychopaths use charm as camouflage. Rohl writes: “For psychopaths, charm is their glitter.” Biologically, this is mimicry. A psychopath cannot feel empathy, so they simulate it. Example: you see a charismatic leader who says the right things. Your brain, tuned to search for an “alpha,” screams: “Oh, this is someone to follow!”. In reality, it is a predator who has simply learned in what tone to purr.

Second, they employ the “Wedge” tactic. The article gives a chilling example: a mother (a psychopath) tells her daughter over the phone: “Speak, darling, we are alone, this is private.” The daughter pours her heart out. Meanwhile, the mother winks at the second daughter, who is sitting nearby and listening to everything. Why? To create an artificial deficit of information and trust. While you are fighting among yourselves, you aren’t looking at the one pulling the strings. A classic of statecraft transferred to the kitchen.

Third, they “hack” the hierarchy. Research by Paul Babiak (author of “Snakes in Suits”) shows that psychopaths are promoted in corporations. Why? Because they perfectly hack vertical management systems. To the boss, they “sell” confidence and flattery (psychopaths do not experience anxiety, so they appear super-competent). Meanwhile, they terrorize, sabotage, and frame their colleagues and subordinates. The result: those at the top see an “effective manager,” while those at the bottom see scorched earth. By the time the information reaches the top, the psychopath has already gained their benefit and moved to another department.

Why did evolution leave us with such personalities (approximately 1% of the population)? It is a parasitism strategy. If everyone around is cooperating and trusting (cooperative strategy), then an individual appears who can exploit this trust for maximum personal gain. Without spending resources on conscience, reflection, or fear. Pure profit.

How to avoid becoming prey? The author of the article emphasizes: the main marker that a psychopath is nearby is your feeling of “I’m going crazy.” If person A tells you nasty things about person B in secret, and then you see them hugging—you experience cognitive dissonance. You begin to doubt your own sanity.

So what should be done? Look at actions, not glitter: charisma is cheap, reputation and adherence to contracts are expensive. Therefore, decentralize your fact-checking. If you are told, “The whole department thinks you’re an idiot,” do not take it on faith. Go and speak with the department directly. Psychopaths fear the direct communication of victims like fire, because lies only live in the dark. So protect your neurons and your boundaries. Freedom begins where manipulation ends!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Libertarian Theory of War, section 3.3.4 on war between states has been completed

So, the book on libertarian theory of war has finally touched upon war itself just before the finale. A couple of paradoxical conclusions and several banal ones have been made, and recommendations have been formulated on what libertarians should do in all this mess—in short, I am rather satisfied with the new section.

Now all that’s left is to smoothly summarize the entire text, and then the book can be assembled into a single epub, illustrated, and presented to the general public in some way.

And just as the finish line is very close, one misplaced question has started to irritate me. Actually, I love juicy and atmospheric details in books. But I made both of mine—on ancap and on the theory of war—as dry and concise as possible. Compressing ideas into a minimal volume was sometimes damn difficult, and now I wonder: was it even necessary to bother with that? Perhaps it would have made sense to generously pour out a stream of consciousness, adding various historical anecdotes and lyrical digressions? Maybe that would have been swallowed much more easily?

How the state and big business pressure private farming

A huge scandal recently erupted: numerous videos have appeared online showing veterinary services seizing and destroying livestock from farmers and private household owners in various regions of Russia. People are attempting to block roads and protest, as for many families, this is their only source of income. Formally, the reason given is an outbreak of an infectious disease, but farmers claim they are not shown test results or given explanations of the diagnosis, and state veterinarians arrive without any documentation. At the same time, similar measures are not applied to large agricultural enterprises, even when they are at the epicenter of the alleged outbreak.

Of course, this is a very alarming situation in its own right. However, it is far more important that it illustrates a broader trend: in many countries, state laws and practices are aimed at the total destruction of private farming and personal households.

One of the most common tools is seed regulation. For example, in Russia, agrarians are required to enter information about purchased and used seeds into special state registries and comply with numerous requirements regarding their origin and quality. Formally, this is explained as a fight against counterfeits and plant diseases. But in practice, such a system creates an unsustainable bureaucratic burden for small farms, which, unlike large agro-holdings, cannot afford to maintain an entire legal department. There are also restrictions on the import and use of seeds, which simply leave farmers with very few opportunities and choices for developing their farms, thereby once again making them unable to compete with large players.

Similar logic works in Europe. Under EU legislation, many types of seeds that are sold or distributed must undergo official certification and quality checks. This means that growing and trading non-certified varieties becomes practically impossible. Moreover, using one’s own seeds even in a personal garden can be prohibited and punishable, and seeds for this purpose must be bought at an exorbitant price from state-licensed suppliers. One should also recall the unbearable environmental requirements and the high-profile case from the Netherlands, where after the introduction of new environmental standards in 2022, it turned out that small farms simply would not be able to afford them and would have to close.

Such laws have an obvious economic effect. Large agro-holdings easily adapt to new requirements: they have lawyers, laboratories, and access to certified planting material. Even if some laws make their lives slightly more difficult, it must be understood that for small farms, they will be completely fatal, as the latter do not have huge incomes and savings. This is why every new regulation, license, or requirement hits small farms disproportionately. For corporations, it is just another line in the budget, while for a family farm, it is a question of survival.

As a result, the agricultural market is gradually concentrating in the hands of increasingly larger players. This is the result of a typical symbiosis between the state and big business. The state bureaucracy gains the ability to keep everything under its control since only a very limited number of agents remain in the market, and the population as a whole becomes unable to even provide for its own food. Meanwhile, large companies get the opportunity to become monopolists, meaning they can manipulate the quality, volume, and price of products as they wish and keep all possible income from agricultural activities for themselves.

The more regulations there are around food, the fewer people can produce it independently. Consequently, more power over food and people themselves ends up in the hands of the stationary bandit and large corporations. This is why the right to grow one’s own food is not just an agricultural topic, but directly a question of economic and personal freedom.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Liberland

From April 11 to 13, I was with a group of Montelibero residents at the eleventh birthday of Liberland. The party took place near Apatin, the closest Serbian Danube town to Liberland. There, Liberland had purchased land and built a tourist complex The ARC — a very cozy eco-village.

  • guest houses
  • canoes
  • summer cafe
  • sauna
  • various livestock grazing on the opposite shore of the pond
  • demanding carrots
  • remnants of a water spillway from another pond; Liberland bought the land there too, but hasn’t landscaped it yet
  • the main building, where all the action was
  • a huge fireplace — the centerpiece of the whole house
  • the first floor, with a dining room, bar, and stage
  • first floor
  • second floor — conference hall

By the way, the Liberland website has a list of Diaspora villages, where, in addition to Liberland itself and Arc Village, Montelibero is featured, along with some community in Mexico unknown to me, and several settlements from a single developer, ECI Development. It seems to me that colleagues from Green Zyland should connect with Liberland so that their Georgian and Antiguan Green Zyland settlements eventually appear on their map as well.

On the first day, there was an excessively dense speaking program; by the end, my head was swollen from English, and instead of normal networking, I shied away from all English speakers just to get a little break from them, but we had some good chats with all the Russians present. There was no single theme for the presentations; it seems President Edlička simply gathered everyone he could reach, and if someone had something to say, he pulled them onto the stage. So it turned out quite eclectic, and there were relatively few talks about Liberland itself, except for an overview report on what successes it has achieved over 11 years.

On the second day, they organized a trip along the Danube to show us Liberland itself.

  • a small Liberland houseboat
  • a larger rented one
  • and a motorboat, which was towed behind the houseboat and served as a gangway as needed
  • they invited a colorful singer named Branimir, who looks like Milei
  • Edlička shows where an attack on Liberland was being prepared
  • On the left is Gornja Siga island, on the right is Donja Siga; both form the territory of Liberland
  • A settler named Martin has lived on Liberland territory for several weeks now and is preparing to open a summer cafe there. He was cheered on from the boat.
  • signed the Liberland flag
  • signed the sand of a Serbian island

As the excursion approached the shores of Liberland, a Croatian police boat was spotted both above and below it, and a patrol car accompanied us along the Croatian shore. Croatia jealously guards the inviolability of foreign land. The plot of the conflict is described on the wiki, so I won’t retell it. Nevertheless, a settler named Martin waved to us from the shore of the smaller of the two islands that make up Liberland. It was mentioned that he intends to build a beach cafe there, although I don’t rule out that this was said as a joke.

What can be said about Liberland in general? The project is firmly on its feet 11 years after its founding. Despite the fact that quarterly congress elections regularly take place in this pseudo-state, the executive power does not plan to be re-elected until the official establishment of the state, which fully aligns with what Balaji Srinivasan writes in his “The Network State” — namely, that without a single founder figure, nothing will work; only under the leadership of a benevolent dictator are liberty-loving voluntarists capable of moving anywhere. The project is not struggling; it lives and celebrates without excessive luxury, but quite lavishly, and its establishment consists of fairly wealthy entrepreneurs.

A business approach is also evident in the treatment of participants. Tickets for events are paid, including simply purchasing the opportunity to watch a broadcast. Electronic residency is paid. Citizenship costs a quite significant $10k, which is, of course, cheaper than from the “big brothers,” but then again, the power of a Liberland passport is currently near zero. In short, it is a very interesting venture project that can exist in a state of limbo for quite a long time, but as soon as it receives actual diplomatic recognition, the project’s shares will skyrocket, since there is certainly no overabundance of libertarian jurisdictions with open entry in the world right now.

Since I plan to relocate to Serbia within the year, I will inevitably continue to interact with Liberland. We’ll see what the prospects are for attaching one business or another to it.

I continue to perceive Liberland without excessive seriousness, yet with respect.

Serenity Mission – can the bio-enhancement of morality destroy us?

In the film titled Serenity, which takes place in the universe of the Firefly series, the main characters discover a planet with millions of deceased inhabitants. As it turns out, an experiment was conducted on this planet involving the spraying of an anti-aggression drug. However, along with this, it suppressed the very will to live, and in 10% of the population, it caused a side effect with the opposite result — a complete removal of ethical barriers, turning them into bloodthirsty predators.

Opponents of the idea of moral bioenhancement, which consists of improving people’s moral qualities through biomedical technologies, may use the plot of this film as another opportunity to criticize it. In general, they have already put forward various arguments against such a practice. But they should clearly not rush into this, because all their concerns can be answered. This is exactly what philosopher Barbara Stock did in one of her articles, which we will now examine in more detail.

The first problem lies in the impossibility of providing a general definition of morality, since different moral theories offer different answers to questions about good and bad. However, as Stock notes, this is not entirely true, as there are still some universally recognized values. If we look at the example from the film, although the main characters are smugglers who break the law (of course, as libertarians, we see nothing wrong with this), they are not devoid of basic moral principles, such as caring for one another, fairness toward the vulnerable, and a willingness to risk themselves for others.

The second problem points out that everything could end badly, as happened in the plot of the film. But it is important to understand that the film shows an extremely negligent intervention — without clinical trials, without ethically permissible procedures, and without an overall understanding of the risks. Of course, no one will dispute that real researchers must take all of this into account in any of their actions.

The third problem arises from the fact that morality is not some separate trait, but a complex system of interconnected qualities and motives. However, this is also a question of the correct approach to implementation. One should focus on interventions that are minimal and take such interrelationships into account. To Stock’s argument, let us also add the fact that in reality, it is not necessary to suppress aggression specifically — it is only necessary to strengthen inhibiting mechanisms when a person lacks them.

The fourth problem consists of the danger and repressiveness of coercion to undergo biomedical procedures. We know, of course, that total coercion is ethically unacceptable. But what about moderate social methods of pressure to undergo the procedure (and mandatory moral bioenhancement only for those who have already committed acts of violence)? Furthermore, even now there are situations where students and employees resort to taking nootropics to improve their alertness and attention, and thereby cope with the tasks assigned to them. In this sense, moral bioenhancement, which allows a violent individual to manage things so that other people do not see them as a threat and do not exclude them from social interactions, is no different from the question of other forms of human enhancement.

The final problem is the undermining of human freedom and autonomy. There are claims that morality is the ability to choose between good and evil, and if a person cannot choose to commit evil, their moral actions lose any meaning. But Stock rightly notes that any current proposals for moral bioenhancement do not consist of turning people into mechanical robots without choice, but merely in shifting their inclinations toward the more moral. And can we even respect the autonomy, for example, of a person who is directly threatening to commit violence against us? You likely wouldn’t do that yourself!

Of course, the idea of moral bioenhancement requires caution and thorough elaboration. It indeed may carry a number of serious risks. But these risks are not an insurmountable obstacle requiring a categorical rejection of the idea. They can quite well be taken into account and worked through.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

When State Grants Disappear: How to Finance Science in the Age of Obscurantists

The state likes to present itself as the “sole savior” of science. Budgetary money seems like a reliable thing, but only until the next lover of “true knowledge” comes to power. And just like that—your field of science is immediately declared an “enemy of the people” and, in the best case, simply stripped of funding.

Remember how Donald Trump, with one stroke of a pen, cut funding for climatology and research in the field of renewable energy? Scientists had spent years accumulating knowledge, writing papers, and relying on promised grants, and then—bam—the funding turned into a pumpkin. Because of “I don’t believe it” and “I don’t like it.” Science isn’t Hollywood: there might not be a sequel if the money suddenly runs out. And scientists are left either to find a sponsor themselves or to sadly wind down their research.

And this is where alternative sources of funding come into play, many of which have already proven their viability time and again throughout history.

1) Since the Renaissance, people of art and science have lived on the support of wealthy patrons. Modern philanthropists, such as Bill Gates, Elon Musk, or even (who would have thought!) Pavel Durov, allocate millions of dollars to education, medical research, artificial intelligence, and even space exploration. Why? Simply because they like it. Or they want humanity to stop being so boring and monotonous. Who knows! In Russia, an example was Dmitry Zimin’s “Dynasty” foundation, which gave a second wind to many talented people until the state suddenly decided it was a “foreign agent.” But the idea itself didn’t die—funds like “Trajectory,” “Evolution,” and other initiatives appeared. In short, even here, science funded by private money is a reality.

2) Don’t laugh—sometimes asking the people for money is much more effective than asking stern uncles from the Ministry of Education. People are happy to support unusual projects, whether it’s the “Mayak” satellite launched by Russian students or gut microbiota research that raised over 350 thousand dollars on Kickstarter. Yes, the gut turned out to be far more charismatic than experts thought. It works simply: you make a vivid presentation, explain to people why it’s important (or at least fun), and the people vote with their wallets.

3) If your research smells even slightly of commercial perspective, it’s worth considering venture capital and business. There are plenty of examples: from Bell Labs and IBM, which gave the world transistors and lasers, to SpaceX, which made private astronautics a reality. Yes, this isn’t “pure science for science’s sake,” but it is business that can give a push to technologies that would otherwise remain as reports on a shelf.

4) Prizes and competitions. Once, entrepreneur Peter Diamandis announced a 10 million dollar prize for whoever first flew into space twice in two weeks on a private ship. In the end, the winner spent nearly 25 million on preparation, but that’s not the point. The competition spawned an entire industry of private space transport.

5) For the truly advanced: DAO and crypto-science. DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) allow people to unite and fund science via blockchain. An example is VitaDAO, which successfully raised millions of dollars for longevity research. Perhaps crypto-enthusiasts will vote for your idea with tokens?

6) Subscription to results: people and companies pay to be the first to get access to your scientific data and discoveries. The more interesting and important your research, the more subscribers. Almost like Netflix, but instead of series—your discoveries.

7) Imagine a prediction market where investors bet on scientific ideas and results. If your project looks convincing, you will receive funding from those who believe in your success and want to profit from an accurate prediction.

Voluntarist, Bitarch