What is Wrong With the War, Part 2

Now I will add my own thoughts on the two designated topics: the degeneration of strategy and the disappearance of the willingness to make sacrifices.

What historically constitutes a successful offensive strategy? A sudden start to the war, rapid achievement of predetermined goals, and the political consolidation of success. The greatest strategist of all time and nations is Genghis Khan. A successful defensive strategy: disrupting the attacker’s plans, dealing a convincing defeat, inciting the attacker’s other neighbors against their defenseless rear, and, again, politically consolidating the success.

A failed offensive strategy is either a crushing defeat at the operational level or, having exhausted the potential of surprise, becoming embroiled in a war of attrition. A failed defensive strategy is allowing the enemy to decapitate one’s centralized management structure or failing to avoid the demoralization of the defense forces.

When a clear division emerged in the world between the club of great powers and all other countries, it quickly became apparent that offensive strategies among great powers toward one another had ceased to work: even a clearly defeated party was unwilling to accept defeat, and other great powers were even less willing to accept the defeat of a great power. As a result, for a long time, this manifested as purely colonial wars, where European offensive strategies generally worked perfectly.

But after the Second World War, a general democratization of world politics began. Countries gained formal equality, a dogma on the inviolability of borders was adopted at the interstate level, and new large interstate alliances were formed—and as a result, the era of territorial conquests, and with it the era of corresponding strategies, ended. Now, as a surrogate for conquest strategy, the strategy of supporting political instability in the target country and bringing to power a group that would subsequently declare its country an ally of the supporting state prevailed. Aggressive war became a task for special forces, and a successful army became de facto a conglomerate of tools for various special operations. The only exception remained Israel, which emerged after the Second World War through war with all its neighbors and has continued to successfully expand its territory at their expense for decades—until it receives diplomatic recognition from a particular neighbor, which allows it to fix a piece of the border.

Thus, the only successful strategy for territorial seizure became the long-term nibbling of a neighbor’s land—provided that it is possible to ignore the pressure of the global community to return to the pre-war status quo until such a return becomes unthinkable. In principle, this is exactly the strategy that Putin is currently implementing.

As for defensive strategies, they developed largely in mirror image to offensive ones. Will the enemy destabilize your political regime? A successful defensive strategy consists of completely purging the domestic political field of any seeds of opposition. Will the enemy ignore the global community? Then the global community must scream in your favor so loudly that it cannot be ignored, and primarily, the opposition in the aggressor country and its key allies should handle this. Does the enemy lean toward special operations and is not ready for a war of attrition? Then one must develop immunity to decapitation strikes and prepare to engage in partisan warfare.

It should be added that all these strategies leave no room for benefit for the people of the country whose government implements either an offensive or defensive strategy. For people who do not derive direct benefit from political maneuvering, any war is inherently loss-making. Therefore, it does not matter much whether it is a hipster accustomed to high earnings and a wide variety of smoothies, or some tire repairman accustomed to moderate earnings and a wide variety of beer—they will not become the political support for any pro-war clique. Hence the tendency of aggressive governments toward the lumpenization of their subjects, in order to strip them of sybaritic habits and make the state their only hope for survival.

Summary: both Sonya and Sperry, while generally correctly identifying the trends, exaggerate them somewhat. Strategies have not completely degenerated, although they have changed significantly following the change in the nature of wars—and it is generally possible to compel people to go to war in the interests of the government, but the entire political regime must work meticulously toward this. From this comes my main conclusion: states have not yet exhausted themselves as a systemic factor of external aggression, but they can achieve this only at the cost of a sharp increase in internal aggression, which is incompatible with long-term economic growth. Those forces within states that are interested in economic growth will restrain pro-war sentiments in governments.

What is wrong with the war?

In the Stalag Null channel, Sonya Shirogorova, first apologizing for moving from the eternal to the immediate, states that since roughly the time of the First World War, the strategic component of warfare has degraded terribly—that is, the art of employing the armed forces and other national resources to achieve military victory. Many countries have top-tier tactics, and operational art has also actively developed, but strategy is frankly sagging. Sperry UNIVAC is reflecting on a similar topic, and I will first give him the floor:

The ongoing clown show of what is currently called war compels me to comment on this marasmus. It is clear even to a blind person that military art has degraded completely and finally: weaponry is becoming smarter and exponentially more expensive, Skynet-style hunter-killers are practically flying over us, an F-35 wing has its own internet with 4K real-time video support, Musk is providing network coverage for the entire planet, the invisible B-2 drops a MOAB on the adversary, yet the utility of all this is many times less than that of a grandfather with a Mosin-Nagant in a quilted jacket in 1943. The most important thing is—no one understands what the hell is happening? Why have people, possessing far more effective means of killing than our ancestors, begun to be so desperately obtuse? Why have their balls fallen off, and why haven’t the likes of Kyiv or Tehran yet turned into Dresden or Hiroshima?

It is not at all about some terrible military technologies, like FPV; after all, the legendary butchers Cadorna, Joffre, Nivelle, Haig, and von Falkenhayn sent 200-300 thousand men into machine guns per wave, repeating this 10-20 times in a row, and people went quite briskly for years. Nor is it about the absence of certain technologies; “Bomb them all” LeMay and Bomber Harris together turned about 100 cities to dust, killing millions with airplanes that were not far removed from the Wright brothers’, which significantly accelerated the end of WWII. Now, in theory, we have everything to wage war on a completely apocalyptic scale of destruction, which is exactly what should have made wars fast (and incredibly bloody, even without the use of non-conventional weapons). The desire to wage war hasn’t evaporated either; people still passionately want to engage in it, it’s just that they do it so absolutely clumsily and stupidly.

Where does such a bias in people’s consciousness come from? Why, at the peak of Modernity, were people ready to suffer and die on scales unimaginable today, whereas now the Yanks were forced to fight so delicately in Afghanistan (and because of this, with such monstrous overhead costs that they dragged the matter out for 10 years) that they lost only 2.4 thousand—less than one person per day (from a wild, monstrous mobilization reserve of 120 million!), and this was enough to make them throw up their hands and leave ignominiously. The gold standard of meaningless slaughter in the 21st century is the war in Ukraine, where the maximum estimate of lethal losses over 4+ years is around half a million people. It is often compared to WWI, but let me tell you—Haig killed that many in a month in one operation for 10-15 km of land. At Verdun, as many fell in less than a year (and half a million were left disabled) with zero result (only 2 forts out of 28 were taken, Voumont and Douaumont, both were retaken, they didn’t even reach Souville), after which both the Germans and the French fiercely continued. Essentially, we see the same picture in Iran, just on maximum settings—only a few dozen Americans have died so far, but the people are already wailing and groaning that everything should be wound up because it’s somehow too costly.

What do we see now? Do people want war? Yes. Can they win it? With certain caveats—quite. The gist of the caveats is that in practically every country, the great military industry of the Cold War was dismantled almost to zero over the next thirty years. For example, in the USA, only one plant remains that produces RDX, and 90% of the armada of 700 B-52s were decommissioned and dismantled, so first, all of this needs to be restored. We won’t even mention the state of the RF Armed Forces. Have the methods of achieving victory changed? Not really—in the case of Iran, not only the missiles, but the population would run out faster than the bombs of the Yanks from the golden era of the Cold War (Japan showed that it is quite difficult to fight on “banzai” alone without cities, ports, roads, bridges, factories, and generally when a country is turned into a burnt-out wasteland). Do people want to pay a fair price in their own suffering for such a victory? Not at all; they don’t want to pay at all.

As a result, every modern war degenerates into a farce: spitting and loud wailing by politicians, banging a slipper on the podium, vows to crush another axis of evil (regardless of whose—Western or Eastern), the main thing is not to forget to season it with promises that everything will end by Christmas. At the beginning of WWI, they thought so too, but when it didn’t end—they tightened their belts, cursed everything in existence, and set to work for several more years. Now, in response to the desperate attempts of the EU to whip up the people for a war with Russia, Zoomer Germans claim that Putin is better than war, and NATO allies tell Trump to get lost when he hints that it wouldn’t be a bad idea for them to also join the mess in Iran. Only Russia and Israel have managed to somehow mobilize relative masses for a long and very bloody confrontation, but even their scales are incomparable to how people fought previously.

Since the end of the Cold War, there has been a fairly large shift in collective thinking, deforming many concepts familiar to our grandfathers much more strongly than the period from 1945 to 1990. How does the situation at the beginning of the 20th century differ from the beginning of the 21st? Why did the transition to Modernity quickly slide into a monstrous global slaughter that cumulatively destroyed hundreds of millions, while the transition to Postmodernity slid into a state where a government, theoretically capable of putting thirty million soldiers under arms, is unable to even conduct a ground operation on a scale that would cause Homeric laughter in Ludendorff?

Questions of this kind, generally speaking, should be answered not by military science, but by economics, because its primary profile is the study of human motivation. (Note from Ancap-chan: I would rather speak of praxeology, but that is an extension of the concept of economics, so overall everything is correct) People are complex things, managed by a dozen instincts upon which the eternal white noise of consciousness is layered; however, what remains constant is that any action a person undertakes is in accordance with what they perceive (regardless of how rationally) as their greatest benefit at the current moment (which is what allows the behavior to be categorized as a subject of economics). Thus, everyone always does exactly what they truly want in the moment; the only difference is the duration of the calculated forecast (those very instrumental and terminal values) and the extent to which a person realizes how they are thinking. The same is true for human societies, because they consist of people and generally move toward where people believe (regardless of how justified) moving to be best for themselves.

The modern person is pulled in one direction by an inextinguishable desire to gain power through war (which is indeed eternal and unchanging), and this desire is bolstered by the existence of increasingly powerful tools of war. But in the other direction, the Postmodern person (unlike their colleague from Modernity) is pulled no less strongly by a completely different desire—more accurately, a complete absence of desire to suffer and bear all the cumulative costs of war in all forms. Where ancestors were ready to rot in trenches for years and work three shifts, pouring TNT into bombs for a bowl of plastic porridge, the modern person falls into hysteria because gasoline might increase by a couple of bucks a gallon, and driving a Dodge Ram to the McDonald’s on the corner will become costly.

That is exactly why selling a war becomes almost impossible. As is known, even Trump started a Special Military Operation against Iran, copying the homework of Uncle Pu. By design, both Kyiv and Tehran must definitely fall in three days; there is no other way. The only thing Trump proved smarter in is that once a week he declares that his SMO is completely won, and the fact that the ayatollahs aren’t letting tankers through the strait is not his problem and generally they are meanies, while the Yanks have already won.

The next reasonable question is—why has motivation changed so strongly? It is difficult to answer briefly, but we will try to outline the main line. Firstly, the nightmare peak of Modernity played its part—both world wars. Whatever you say, they were an apocalypse that remained imprinted in memory for generations and prevented the world from sliding into a similarly destructive Third World War (despite the fact that there were fanatics on both sides who wanted it—every time, attempts toward it were effectively halted). The horror of the word “war” itself was so imprinted on people’s consciousness that it became deeply obscene, and openly admitting that we are waging war became something completely unacceptable, like admitting to coprophilia or incest. The words “Nazis” and “fascists” have long since ceased to be politically significant terms and have become simply dirty swear words.

Secondly, after WWII, the world changed radically and completely. All the things that Modernity glorified—the state, the nation, faith, the Führer—became very, very suspicious to all postwar generations (which ultimately resulted in the great rebellion of the sixties and the birth of postmodernism). The result of this was that two great blocks waged leisurely proxy wars for 45 years. The fever of the holy crusade against communism/capitalism of the 1950s burned out in literally 10 years. People grew tired of living in a besieged fortress and preferred sex, drugs, and rock and roll (in the USSR, the process dragged on somewhat until its very collapse). Due to the local wars of the 1970s, the Great Western economic rise was briefly replaced by a crisis, and people truly became afraid of the destruction of that beautiful way of life to which they had become accustomed. When the Union fell in 1990, there was incredible rejoicing among the masses on both sides (of course, marred by the wild nineties in Russia, but the spiritual lift at the very beginning was still great).

People were so glad of the end of the Cold War that they didn’t even bother to clean up all the loose ends left over from it, or somehow sort out the mess—whether in the Middle East or in the territories of the post-USSR—and this is haunting us to this day. Overlaid on this was the second demographic transition already in full swing in the West: the fewer children born, the more sacred the life of each of them becomes, and the more hyper-protection those who are born receive (which gave birth to the phenomenon of life-unadapted Zoomers, falling into hysteria over a wrong pronoun in a chat). Factually, only the dinosaurs continued to perceive war as a normal means of resolving conflicts: look at the old marasmatics at the helm of the USA, Israel, and Russia. Netanyahu was born in 1949 and grew up during continuous war; Putin was born in 1952 and grew up in devastated postwar Leningrad; the record-breaker Trump was born in 1946, and his entire youth coincided with the hysteria of McCarthyism, Korea, and the war against the red threat. It is not surprising that in all these countries, the main percentage of the population approving of their führers currently is aged 50 and older.

And so we come to the logical finale. Zoomers prefer to have a choice of 20 smoothies and to fight only on imageboards, which is why selling a classic war to the majority of voters is quite problematic. The problem can be dealt with in different ways: in Russia, it is solved by the fact that a clique of old madmen is in power, relying on powerful grassroots ressentiment from the nineties on the part of those over 50; in Israel and Iran—a crowd of religious fanatics (from similarly half-mad old men), relying on the status of a besieged fortress and a holy war for survival; in the USA, a similar gerontocracy of old sick bastards is in power (the average age of a senator is 67, a congressman 60), but there the desire to fight is somewhat restrained by numerous counterweights established by the founders, which prevent the country from becoming fully totalitarian for long. Will the world change when Trump, Putin, and other grandfathers finally die? The problem is that a new generation will grow up, which has already grown up amidst their wars. The only thing that is slightly comforting is—as we said—the scale of current wars is much more toy-like, so perhaps the politicians of future times will be slightly softer.

“Dark Rizz”: Why We Fall in Love with Tyrants and Vote for Psychopaths

Perhaps some of you have already seen this concept – “Dark Rizz” (Тёмный ризз) – on Western social networks. If not, it conceals a rather unsettling, yet intriguing, psychology. And recently, Psychology Today released an excellent article on this subject, from reading which you’ll only have one thought in your head: “Damn it, this is an ideal description of the relationship between a citizen and the state!” So let’s examine in detail how it operates, why our brains succumb to manipulation, and what significance understanding this has from a libertarian standpoint.

At the core of “Dark Rizz” lies the classic “Dark Triad”: narcissism (I – the center of the universe), Machiavellianism (the ends justify the means, and people are pawns), and psychopathy (there is no fear or conscience). Individuals possessing such qualities often exhibit a strange, toxic magnetism. They aren’t kind or caring, but it’s impossible to tear your eye away from them because they exude an extraordinarily attractive confidence.

Is this familiar? Simply turn on the television or watch election debates. That politician who shouts loudest of all promises to “restore order” and views opponents as dirt – that’s it. We often accept their fearlessness as competence, and their brazenness as leadership strength. But why do we fall for it? Psychologists term this intermittent reinforcement. Imagine you are communicating with a person (or living in a country) who behaves unpredictably. Today he is cold, ignores you or introduces a new ridiculous ban. The next day – he pays attention to you, reduces the mortgage rate, or simply doesn’t hit you. This contrast triggers a dopamine rush. If you were given a treat every day, you would get used to it. But when the treat is given randomly, after a week of being whipped – you begin to crave it. You become addicted.

In interpersonal relationships, this is referred to as “emotional swings.” In politics, it’s called populism and statism. A stationary bandit creates a problem (cold), you suffer, and then he slightly loosens his grip (warmth). And you feel grateful. “Thank you for letting us breathe on even days, our great leader!”

The author of the article, Dr. John Gruda, aptly expresses himself regarding this issue: “Calm, emotionally stable people rarely become heroes of drama.” This implies that healthy relationships (and a healthy market economy) are boring. You go to the bakery, pay money, and receive bread. The baker doesn’t gaslight you, doesn’t disappear for a week, and doesn’t demand worship. It is a fair deal. However, “Dark Rizz” is cinematic. It’s tension and drama. Politicians with “dark charisma” sell us this show to us. They create chaos so they can heroically resolve it. They make us feel small so that they appear large.

How to spot a trap? Psychologists advise asking yourself: “Do I feel better or worse after talking to this person?” Healthy charisma (and a healthy society) gives you a feeling of safety and autonomy. “Dark charisma” feeds on your fear and insecurity. If a leader (or partner) demands loyalty through fear, avoids responsibility and constantly changes the rules of the game – it’s not a ‘strong hand’, it’s just manipulation.

What should libertarians do with this knowledge? Of course, you need to remember about boundaries. Dark rizz only works when your personal boundaries are blurred. In politics, these are boundaries of self-ownership and private property. And if someone steps over them, you simply need to send them into the woods. It’s also worth appreciating boredom. Stability of contracts, inviolability of personality and a free market don’t cause an adrenaline rush. And that’s great! We don’t live in a blockbuster; we just need to live and work normally. And finally, you shouldn’t confuse control with charisma. If someone is trying to control every step you take, disguising it as “national interests” or “overall security” – it’s not leadership. It’s abuse, inflated to the scale of a country.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Pavel – no apostle at all, but a true usurper.

История вопроса, если по-простому: жил-был Савл из Тарса, ярый гонитель первых христиан. Такой себе средневековый Роскомнадзор – преследовал, сажал, даже участвовал в убийствах. Но вдруг по пути в Дамаск ему якобы являлся воскресший Христос (проверить, разумеется, никто не мог). И вот этот вчерашний «охотник за экстремистами» резко становится главным «апостолом» и начинает раздавать указания тем людям, кто лично ходил с Иисусом.

Представьте, если бы завтра бывший гаишник вдруг объявил, что теперь он либертарианец номер один, и начал бы учить всех свободе. Вы бы сильно удивились, верно? Но самое смешное, что ранние христиане не особо повелись на такой трюк. Многие считали Павла, мягко говоря, шарлатаном. Например, эбиониты, одна из первых христианских общин, вообще называли его отступником и считали, что он полностью исказил учение Иисуса, в чём они вполне себе были правы!

Павел создал собственную религию, в которой вместо простого и понятного послания любви и свободы, которое нёс Иисус, в центре оказалось поклонение страданиям и смерти. Христос учил «любить врагов» и не цепляться за материальное, а Павел – всем покорно подчиняться властям, жёнам молчать, а рабам не жаловаться. Если задуматься, это гениально удобная религия для любой власти: «терпи, Бог терпел и нам велел». А фраза Павла «нет власти не от Бога» вообще стала хитом у всех диктаторов. В 18-м веке её активно использовали британские монархи против американских колонистов, а в 20-м веке даже нацисты призывали немецкий народ покорно подчиняться, ссылаясь на Павла. Ну не прелесть ли?

Идём дальше. Женщины? «Пусть молчат в церквях». Рабы? «Пусть служат господам как Христу». Павел буквально узаконил и закрепил в христианстве жесточайшую иерархию и патриархат. Вместо равенства и братства он построил целую систему жесткого послушания и догматизма. Стоит отметить, что когда-то даже Томас Джефферсон – один из отцов-основателей США, так сильно возмущался этим, назвав Павла «первым коррупционером от религии». И вправду, человек, который не был знаком с Иисусом лично, написал половину Нового Завета и ещё при этом умудрился исказить всё первоначальное учение до неузнаваемости.

С философской точки зрения Павел – это такой религиозный Ленин: вроде и революционер, но вместо обещанной свободы принес репрессии, догматизм и жёсткий контроль над личностью. Вместо духовного поиска – формулы, догмы, наказания за отступление. Идеальная религия для любого государства! Философ Ницше вообще говорил, что Павел «распял Христа во второй раз», превратив живое послание в инструмент для подавления. Трудно не согласиться: благодаря Павлу церковь превратилась в настоящую машину власти, потеряв свободу, которая была у первых христиан.

And now a bit personal. Imagine you are an ordinary person of Pavel’s time. And you hear about a new doctrine that says: “You are all equal, love one another, live according to conscience.” And then some guy pops up named Pavel and tells you: “You’re definitely equal, but don’t get too showy, obey your superiors, don’t argue with your wife, and if you’re a slave – all the more so, don’t fidget.” What would you choose?

It’s funny, but history repeats itself again and again. Every time someone appears with simple ideas of freedom and brotherhood, people like Pavel come after them who turn those ideas into a rigid system of control. Here you can ask yourself – do you know why there’s so much from Pavel in the Bible, but not from the real disciples of Jesus? Pavel was just a good organizer and a born politician: he didn’t hesitate to promote his own views, pushing the real witnesses of Jesus life into the background. That’s a ‘political coup’ in religion!

So it’s worth thinking twice before calling Pavel “apostle,” because he simply turned out to be “apostle of the empire and submission,” rather than a messenger of freedom and truth.

Voluntaryist, Bitarch

Why financial anonymity is a basic human right, and the cancellation of currency control is the key to the prosperity of society as a whole

I’m sure many of you are tired of having to prove to the bank, tax authorities, and even just some random official that you aren’t a camel—that your money was earned “legally.” Familiar situation, right? I think everyone has at least once experienced the humiliating feeling when your own honestly earned money suddenly turns into suspicious substance, and to get it, you have to collect a stack of papers as thick as Tolstoy’s *War and Peace*.

And let’s not just talk about taxes. Many people live in the “paid and sleep peacefully” paradigm (although the dream of seeing tax rates is more like a nervous one). The problem is another—even if you are willing to give a stationary gangster “his share,” he doesn’t always simply go through with the deal, and you often have to lose dozens of percent of your income on an absolutely useless procedure of “legitimation.” Some people are forced to draw contracts with non-existent sole proprietors, some buy fake services, and others even give half their earnings to “cash” (in some “developed” countries it’s already not an exaggeration)—just to have the opportunity to use their own money.

Why does this happen? Governments demand “their share,” but they are afraid of losing control, especially due to the appearance of financially independent people who can even finance opposition, so they suffocate any attempts at free use of money. And this story, unfortunately, is not just about Russia, but also about all other states.

It’s important to understand: money is simply your work, talent, and time transformed into numbers on your account. By depriving a person of the ability to manage earned money, the state essentially deprives them of part of their freedom. Presumption of innocence? Forget it. Now the presumption is this: if you have money, you are automatically either a thief, a swindler, or just a clever guy until someone proves otherwise.

Also, states are fighting cash and trying to drive everyone into a transparent electronic world where every ruble or dollar will be seen through. In Germany or the United Kingdom, accounts can already be blocked instantly if you try to withdraw just a few thousand euros in cash. Why is this done? Supposedly, to combat terrorism and crime. But the result is bleak: crime remained as it was (almost all criminal money is washed—the effectiveness of the fight is practically zero), and ordinary people suffer from bureaucratic hell.

Here’s the translation:

Right here, cryptocurrencies and technologies of financial anonymity come onto the scene. The authorities hate them, calling them dirty and dangerous. But in fact, they are the only island of financial freedom remaining in a world of total control. As long as you have crypto – you truly own your money, rather than renting it from a bank or tax service (of course, if you store it on your own wallet, rather than on an exchange or other intermediaries). Of course, crypto isn’t perfect, and the state is trying to take away this tool too; luckily, so far unsuccessfully. But its popularity shows – people need a place where their money remains only their money, without constant justifications and humiliating procedures.

Furthermore, currency control significantly reduces economic activity. Many people have cash or crypto for buying an apartment, a car, land, but prefer to live “like everyone else” and not attract attention. This is not just inconvenience for individual citizens – it damages the entire economy. When people don’t invest and spend their honestly earned money, the entire economic chain suffers: demand falls, production shrinks, employment and incomes decline. The result – economic stagnation and a loss of enormous growth potential and well-being for all.

Incidentally, arguments against currency control are much more readily accepted by a wide audience than, for example, arguments about abolishing taxes. It’s difficult for people to imagine how social benefits would be funded without taxes, but abolishing currency control no one loses – on the contrary, everyone wins thanks to economic growth and freedom of entrepreneurship!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

African Lessons

Article by @SperryUNIVAC, edited by Ankap-Tyan

Today, we want to talk about an important thing that is usually ignored in political discourse, and we can see this exemplified by the story of Tom Sankara, who attempted to reform Upper Volta – a destitute fragment of post-colonial French Africa – between 1983 and 1987.

Almost all of Africa after World War II was a field of countless proxy conflicts between the West and the USSR. Captain Tom Sankara’s military coup in 1983 was an attempt to exit this confrontation logic and ensure the country’s prosperity. He was inspired by the coup and subsequent reforms of Lieutenant Jeffrey Rawlings in neighboring Ghana. Initially, everything went well, but Sankara’s regime had two key shortcomings that led to the collapse of the reforms and eventually, the regime itself.

Firstly, Sankara was apolitical, he openly mocked ideology and derived from purely pragmatic tasks. Secondly, Sankara turned out to be a vegetarian idealist who neglected pragmatic methods familiar to any dictator.

The reformer radically cut state spending, sold off the luxurious government fleet, dismissed corrupt officials, carried out a nationwide vaccination campaign, launched economic growth – in short, he seemed to be doing everything to win popular favor – and he actually won it.

But he didn’t offer the people an ideology; holy places remain empty. The illegal left parties that had risen up in the previous regime raised their heads, declared the dictator a fascist, and began competing for the right to lead the struggle against Sankara. Orthodox Marxists, Maoists, and even supporters of Enver Hoxha were at odds with each other, but Sankara didn’t play on their contradictions, didn’t favor one over the other – he simply ignored irrelevant ideological questions. His only reaction to provoked unrest by the left was to dismiss the most odious party officials from the civil service.

As the curtain fell on Sankara’s rule, they finally convinced him to create his own communist party, but the government remained coalition. And in the center and at the local level, everyone was preoccupied with questions of personal power. It ended with one of Sankara’s friends, Blaise Compaoré, overthrowing him with the help of French special forces, shooting him, borrowing money from France, embezzling it, canceling his predecessor’s reforms (except for renaming the country from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso), staging mass shootings of communists – and he sat in that manner until 2014 when he was finally overthrown, fled to Côte d’Ivoire where he still lives today, while in Burkina Faso armed property redistribution continues.

The moral now.

Firstly, ideology doesn’t matter. Absolutely any party, whatever its slogans, from Khodjism to liberal democracy, strives for only one thing – absolute power. All ideological disputes between parties boil down to one problem – who will be at the helm? Africa is particularly indicative in this regard, as all processes there always happen faster and more sharply than anywhere else, and therefore are especially noticeable. In Burkina Faso, people fought among themselves not over ideologies, but over those desiring control. Ideology is simply a smokescreen for the lust for power.

Secondly, ideology matters – but it matters to those we intend to rule, because without it there’s a raw, aching void in the masses’ hearts, making them uncomfortable. If you don’t invest something of your own into it – people will follow someone else who will take care of that. Life became better in San Kara, but ideological emptiness prevailed. Conversely, regimes that immediately start preaching ideology (regardless of what it is – from Khodjism to Putinism or Shiism) live and thrive, even if people are eating bark off trees or hanging from autocrats.

The third lesson: If you come to power – try to clean up the mess, achieve real control, don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty, and make sure your road isn’t taken by those who want to overthrow you. Otherwise we’ll get the history of good-natured San Kara, which ended with a shooting.

And the final lesson that can be drawn from this. Libertarians will never seize power because they violate all these rules (and many others). Firstly, they will never gain the sympathy of ordinary people because they stand on the side of conditional bad guys (greedy exploiters-capitalists). Secondly, their ideology boils down to complicated economic theories, too complex for simple folks from the district. Thirdly, they are herbivores by definition, as they rely entirely on the principle of non-violence and immediately reject the idea that political opponents can and should be eliminated in all ways, and that political control is inseparable from military force. In the end, as we see, they’re occupied with completely harmless things – arguing about the nuances of interpreting various economic doctrines, and fruitless discussions about how courts will work during an upheaval, and who will pave roads. They forget that people are divided into two categories: those who have a revolver, and those who dig ditches. At any regime, the latter category will pave roads.

Where Libertarianism Will Actually Take Root? Spoiler: Probably Not Where You Think.

In the libertarian scene, the United States is considered an “earthly paradise.” How could it be any other way: the First and Second Amendments, the spirit of the Wild West, freedom of speech, the right to self-defense! Mises, Rothbard, Rand – all are connected with America. Meanwhile, old Europe and, especially, Canada and Scandinavia are often dismissively viewed as Trotskyist swamps with exorbitant taxes. But if we dig deeper and look at the very foundation of libertarianism – NAP (the principle of non-aggression) – we’ll see something interesting.

The renowned anthropologist Douglas Fry in his works raises a brilliant topic – so-called Hobbesian beliefs. The philosopher Thomas Hobbes, if you remember, believed that the natural state of man is a “war of all against all.” So, Fry shows that the belief in the “naturalness” of war and violence in the United States is frighteningly widespread, much wider than in other developed countries. In one study, students at universities in Florida and Connecticut were asked whether people have a “war instinct” and whether war is an integral part of human nature. About half of the respondents answered affirmatively! Half of these young, educated people believe that killing your fellow humans – it’s frankly ingrained in our genes.

When the whole world calls America “Pinistan” or another derogatory analogy in their local language, it’s not necessarily envy. It could be a reaction to a culture in which a significant portion of the population normalizes violence and imperialist policies. As Fry notes, this is exactly what Europeans see in America. Of course, on the ground, far from all Americans are like that. But there’s enough of them to repeatedly elect hawks and applaud “precision strikes” against countries that many would not find on a map. Furthermore, if a society sincerely believes that violence is “human nature,” it will inevitably be tolerant of state violence within its own country.

And now let’s take a 180-degree turn. If to triumph the libertarianism and NAP we need an society which organically digests violence, where do we look? Contrary to popular myths, the best chances for libertarian ideas may lie precisely in Europe, Canada, and, paradoxically, Scandinavia.

Yes, there’s a bloated welfare state there now (though that’s pretty common these days). But let’s look at the social base. First, the level of violent crime (especially in Scandinavia) hovers around statistical error compared to America. Second, the overwhelming majority of people feel genuine, deep disgust for war and imperialistic ambitions, not considering it a natural phenomenon for humans. Third, the level of social trust there is colossal.

For a European or Canadian, it’s much harder to sell the idea of pre-emptive war. For them, violence is not “biological instinct,” but a catastrophic system failure, barbarism that simply has no place in the 21st century. And this is precisely the ideal psychological ground for the principle of non-aggression! NAP cannot win where many are ready to shoot first. NAP wins where people have internally agreed that initiating violence is an absolute social taboo.

So, perhaps we should stop idealizing cowboys and take a look at, say, Swedes or Norwegians. Yes, they still have a lot to explain, for example, that high taxes are also a form of hidden, systemic violence. But convincing a peaceful burgher who rejects aggression in principle may be much easier than persuading a supporter of preemptive bombing in the name of greatness.

Here you can see irony: “American” libertarianism is stuck in a country whose cultural code resists it. And where libertarians are used to seeing “socialism,” the basic premise of their philosophy – that people are not obligated to be violent – has already been accepted as common sense. Maybe we should stop banging our heads against a wall and look where the door is slightly open?

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Do you want to close borders? Start with your yard!

We frequently observe an epic battle between frogs and snakes. On one side – conservatives who are horrified that their comfortable neighborhood is transforming into a small ghetto with foreign culture, loud music, and unfamiliar customs. They turn to a local criminal for bans, deportations, and a border wall. On the other side – liberals who welcome everyone in, completely ignoring the dissatisfaction of taxpayers funding lavish social events. And we, libertarians, stand in the middle, picking up rotten tomatoes from both sides. Because we advocate for freedom of movement (borders are evil), but oppose the state forcing its neighbors upon us.

Why do we all argue over migration? The “newcomer” problem only exists where there’s “public space”—that is, no man’s land. Streets, parks, and squares in ordinary cities belong to the government. Consequently, officials decide who can use them, disregarding public comfort unless it threatens their position. Ordinary people become frustrated because they cannot simply refuse entry to someone into their yard. Their only recourse is to beg Leviathan to institute visas and close the country’s borders. This is like amputating a limb to cure a blister—foolish, cruel, and ineffectual.

How do we address this issue? The answer, as always, lies in private property – specifically, gated communities (“gated communities”). Imagine: you don’t live in “City N,” but within a closed village. You have a contract. The contract outlines the rules. You and your neighbors are shareholders of the district. You hire security guards. And miraculously, you control who enters your territory yourselves! You don’t need the state to deploy machine gunners at national borders. A polite gatekeeper at your village entrance is sufficient.

This is termed discrimination—a profoundly disturbing word. However, within libertarianism, private discrimination (choosing whom to associate with and not) is a fundamental right of ownership. Let’s examine some global practices similar to this.

In the United States, it’s a classic example. Consider Florida or California. Vast territories governed by HOAs (homeowners associations). These are essentially miniature states based on contracts. In locales like The Villages (Florida), crime rates approach zero. There are no “random” individuals. Simultaneously, nobody prohibits hiring immigrant gardeners. They simply come to work; they do not impose their orders onto the playground. It’s a symbiosis: the labor market functions, and the cultural code of residents is protected by a fence rather than federal law.

Alternatively, consider Brazil. In São Paulo, there’s the Alphaville district. It’s literally a city within a city. It boasts its own schools, offices, and roads. Enveloping it are high levels of street crime, whereas inside, everything is calm and quiet. Residents of this area do not demand to close Brazilian borders; instead, they restrict access to their neighborhood. This proves remarkably effective!

And what about in Russia? Even here, a kind of impromptu Ancapistan for the rich already exists. Look at the Moscow suburbs – cottage developments like “Millennium Park,” “Agalarov Estate,” or simpler options. This is the realization of a libertarian dream in miniature (with the caveat of Russian realities, of course).

How is the “migration issue” resolved in such places? Entry is only by passes, so no “undesirable element” can just come and sit on a bench. At the same time, labor migration is welcomed. Residents happily hire migrants for construction, cleaning, and lawn care. But they are not free from responsibility. If the neighbor’s worker starts to get rowdy, the administration of the settlement fines him, and the worker is expelled by a security firm (ЧОП). Fast, without courts or investigations, purely according to the terms of the residence agreement.

And notice: residents of these settlements are completely indifferent to things like the introduction of new migration policy for 2026-2030 with biometrics and other means of tracking migrants. They have their own rules that work better. They’ve created a safe environment without the need to jail someone for not having a passport!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Why human rights papers aren’t working anymore and how to make them respected again

Recently, Maxim Kats released a video about Davos and the sunset of the “long world.” And you know, there he voiced a thought that makes any normal person (and especially a libertarian) start to feel their hair stand on end. Of course, Maxim isn’t our ally by virtue of his political views, but he still knows how to effectively dissect current problems, so we’ll be considering his reasoning nonetheless. Because he rightly observes: what we call “human rights” – it’s essentially a system error, an anomaly.

His video begins with pointing out that war has long since ceased being just a slaughter between soldiers—scientific and technological progress has reached the point where it’s possible to erase entire cities from the face of the Earth. The idea that humanity could simply self-destruct as a result of another war has stopped being fantastic and has taken on the form of a real risk. Political elites who had experienced World War II realized: we won’t drag out another round. The response was the creation of so-called “international law” and the concept of “human rights,” simply to avoid dying. It was, essentially, a global non-aggression pact signed with a trembling hand at one’s temple.

Of course, international law is largely just a “fiction,” but to some extent states are still willing to play by the established rules and observe restrictions, so this fiction is quite useful. Politicians, naturally, don’t care about the lives of ordinary people and humanitarian ideals, but they are afraid for their own skins anyway, so they won’t go completely overboard. At least that’s how it worked until recently…

But what changed? To power came a generation of politicians who hadn’t personally witnessed disasters or felt the threat of war themselves. They no longer fear mutual guaranteed destruction (MAD) and other scenarios of “deterrence doctrine” so much. For them, all this is just an abstraction from historical textbooks. And therefore, their motivation to observe the “fiction” agreed upon by previous generations of politicians has decreased significantly. As a result, the world once again faces a state of war between everyone and everyone.

Однако несмотря на эти рассуждения, всё же может оставаться вопрос того, насколько реальной является угроза самоуничтожения человечества с технической точки зрения. Кто-то сразу подумает о ядерных боеголовках, но их не так уж много и находятся они в руках очень ограниченного числа лиц (хотя и они могут отбросить человечество на многие десятилетия назад). Впрочем, сейчас технологии зашли ещё дальше. Например, в ближайшем десятилетии мы вполне можем ожидать появление массовых, простых и очень дешёвых в производстве боевых дронов, которые будут иметь автономное управление на основе ИИ и смогут поражать любых «неугодных» людей, включая политиков, используя распознавание лиц, а глушение сигнала окажется неэффективным из-за отсутствия канала связи с оператором. Ещё одна угроза – создание смертоносных и очень заразных искусственных патогенов с целью применения в качестве биологического оружия массового поражения. Биотехнологии уже сейчас довольно продвинуты и дешёвы, чтобы такое было достижимым даже для небольших групп людей, преследующих насильственные политические цели.

В таких условиях в мейнстримовую повестку не просто вернётся значимость универсальных прав человека, гуманизма и идей о недопустимости насилия, а перестанут быть маргинальными и более радикальные способы предотвращения глобальной катастрофы. Идеи наподобие усиления механизма ингибирования насилия и даже морального улучшения людей с помощью биомедицинских технологий (биоусиление морали) уже не будут восприниматься как что-то невозможное или нежелательное для реальной жизни. Развитие этого направления становится необходимостью для долгосрочного искоренения насильственных угроз как в личной, так и общественной жизни. Иначе, как отмечают исследователи, нас ждёт либо глобальный тоталитаризм с круглосуточной слежкой за каждым, либо вовсе уничтожение цивилизации и даже всего человечества.


Не ИИ – пост написан людьми!

Notes on decentralization, part 2. Bitcoin.

The sphere of cryptocurrencies is a good illustration of the dynamic equilibrium between centralization and decentralization mentioned in the previous note.

Bitcoin, the first of the cryptocurrencies, was created as maximally decentralized money and is intended to serve as digital cash. But Bitcoin is not just a coin, but a coin with a built-in payment system. For ordinary users to be able to transfer bitcoins to each other, there are needed at least 1) network nodes that follow compatible transaction verification rules, 2) miners adding transaction blocks to the blockchain, and 3) wallets that allow signing transactions. Generally speaking, these functions can be combined: every node can mine, and every user can use a full node application with mining functionality as a wallet. Monero works on this principle and generally manages, providing a very high level of decentralization; however, Bitcoin is intended to become global money in the future, meaning it needs a very high network effect, and therefore an extremely low barrier to entry so that literally anyone can use it, both in terms of the required level of technical knowledge and in terms of the cost and compactness of the necessary equipment.

To this end, an entire ecosystem of entities has grown around Bitcoin to increase its ease of use: exchanges, exchangers, bank cards denominated in bitcoin, overlays for programming smart contracts, stablecoin lending services secured by bitcoin, tokenized bitcoins on other blockchains, transaction anonymization protocols, micropayment protocols, and much more. Most of these entities already require a trusted intermediary, meaning they are more centralized than pure Bitcoin. However, all this colorful complexity provides a rich selection of options for using bitcoin for various needs. Many of these services will prove unnecessary, and their developers will close their projects. Many will scam, and their developers will disappear with users’ money more or less with impunity. Many will be hacked, and hackers will walk away with users’ money (while developers will be suspected of affiliation with the hackers). But this is a normal process of competition, which ensures progress in the level of Bitcoin adoption by the masses of users. As long as the base protocol holds. And it seems to be holding, and with each year, Bitcoin’s Lindy effect grows stronger.

Again, when claims are made that Bitcoin is inconvenient for a certain task, it immediately turns out that there is a whole bouquet of other cryptocurrencies tailored specifically for that task. Here is crypto for smart contracts, here is crypto for tokenomics, here is one with fast transactions, one with cheap ones, one with anonymous ones, one for storing data in the blockchain, one with reversible operations and the ability to freeze accounts—and so on. Of course, each such cryptocurrency is a compromise. Many are not decentralized enough, many are not secure enough, some have insanely huge blockchains, some have insanely expensive transactions—but no one seems to hope anymore that something universal, surpassing competitors in all conceivable parameters, is even possible. This is the market, and the way it solves problems often baffles proponents of careful planning and managed development.

Just as the idea that content could be created not by site creators but by their users gave birth to Web2, the idea that not only content but also values could be transferred decentrally on the internet gave birth to Web3. However, there is an alternative vision of what exactly Web3 should become, and I hope to dedicate the next note to this.