Can there be voluntary cannibalism under ancap? The Armin Meiwes case as an example. How would this be regulated under ancap? Why is it so? Could you provide more detail?

Doctor Hannibal Lecter (question accompanied by a donation of 250 rubles)

Voluntary cannibalism is formally very similar to euthanasia, which I already wrote a post about. The exact same considerations apply here: a person has the full right to dispose of their own body, as long as they do not cause harm to others in the process. Thus, the main difficulty here would also be to convince everyone that the instruction to kill and eat oneself is given voluntarily and with full awareness of the consequences.

Of course, even if everything is legally handled completely cleanly, there will be those who condemn this deal from a moral standpoint. With equal success, they could condemn the already mentioned euthanasia, the production of fur coats, a laboratory developing GMOs, a porn studio, or, say, a coffee shop.

As long as moralists use means of moral pressure such as angry social media posts, picketing the home of the cannibal or their place of work — they are within their rights to non-violently ruin the life of someone who, in their opinion, deserves it and should abandon their harmful inclinations. In response, the cannibal can create a society of cannibals, push cannibal memes, music, Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land” and other cultural elements, and strive to make such a way of leaving life a respectable tradition that does not cause any unhealthy hype.

– How do you plan to die?
– In my own bed, surrounded by weeping grandchildren.
– That’s just philistinism! I, for one, want three charming girls to slit my veins and joyfully splash in my blood, while I look at them and smile. And when I die, they will prepare many exquisite dishes from me and hold a festive feast.
– Oh, you’re such a romantic!

Фотография
Armin Meiwes, a guy with peculiar ideas about romance

Technical

On May 31, I received a donation of 250 rubles for a question, but the question itself didn’t arrive. The day before yesterday, a question was asked about when I would finally answer. I apologize to the author of the question for this strange glitch and suggest resending the question so that I can answer. I have a general idea of the topic, but I would like the exact wording.

The American Civil War

A post appeared in the “Life with Others” channel, in which the riots in the USA are examined from the perspective of the concentration of forces. I will briefly summarize its message.

The rioters gathered into a crowd, and they are opposed by individuals, each of whom is defending their own piece of property. As long as the individuals are armed, though not all of them, and the rioters only have improvised tools, a fragile possibility of defense remains; because, firstly, there is no need to loot a specifically protected point when there is an undefended one further down the street, and secondly, no one wants to be the unlucky person who catches a bullet before the crowd tears apart the person who fired it. But if the rioters are also armed, the defenders’ position will become hopeless; therefore, the fact that there is little weaponry in society is more likely to reduce mass violence. It is also pointed out that the attempt at a reciprocal concentration of forces by those defending their property is historically a key factor in the formation of states.

It seems to me that attempting to analyze the situation that has developed in a large state as if that state does not exist is a dubious idea. The riots mainly occur in cities and states covered by the Democratic Party. That is, precisely where the city government and state police are on the side of the rioters. If you stand with a gun guarding your property and they don’t come for you—consider yourself lucky. If you stand guard over your property and you are killed by rioters, they will try not to report it in the news, and mentions will be erased from Facebook, as we see in the example of David Dorn’s murder. But if you happen, for example, to organize a self-defense squad, it will be perceived as the creation of an extremist community of some white supremacists, and it may very well happen that the police, who tried to keep a low profile during the riots themselves, materialize out of nowhere. In this situation, the owners of the looted businesses can only be comforted by the fact that the Democratic Party opposes guns, and therefore rioters are unlikely to be waving firearms—in that case, the picture would cease to be pleasant for the state leadership.

In states led by Republicans, everything is relatively quiet, and if there are cities there covered by the Democratic Party, the National Guard is sent in, and that is sufficient. In general, many have already concluded that the riots in the USA are rather a tool for showdowns between the dominant “roofs” (protection rackets). It just so happens that due to the economic shock caused by the lockdown (which was again stronger in states under the Democratic Party), these showdowns turned out to be particularly vivid this time.

Panarchy theorists suggest that the most peaceful way of resolving this hopeless conflict would be the formation of extraterritorial contractual jurisdictions, where Democrats would have their own government and Republicans their own, and citizens would simply live within the model closer to them. Naturally, in this case, the number of competing governments would quickly increase: currently, diverse forces are forced to unite under one flag for the sake of winning elections, but under panarchy, this factor promoting consolidation would become irrelevant.

Nevertheless, such an option remains highly unlikely. Rather, some California (or, conversely, Texas) will announce secession, and then citizens of both Americas will simply be able to effectively vote with their feet. Times have changed, and in the event of the country splitting, no one will have the drive for a new civil war for the sake of a unity that no one needs anymore.

Civil War in the USA in the 21st century

A Question about Intellectual Property Law

For example, say I live in Ancapistan and I am a writer. I sign a contract with a publisher for (let’s say) a percentage of every book sold. The book is published. But competitors copy the book and sell it at a significantly lower price, because they don’t need to kick back a percentage to the writer. Does this mean that writers in Ancapistan will be left sucking wind?

The King of Sex and Tea Bags

Well, first of all, who am I to forbid anyone from sucking anything, as long as they aren’t aiming to suck my property? And secondly, I don’t understand why all the authors of questions about ancap are convinced that it’s some kind of fairy tale where a magic market arrives and solves any problem.

The market doesn’t solve all problems, only those for which there is a voluntary, solvent demand. A writer wishing to earn a living through their talent must understand that for this to happen, people must be found who are willing to voluntarily reward that talent with money. They can search for these people personally or hire intermediaries, but the wider the search, the more opportunities a devotee of the talent has to pay the writer in one form or another—and the more brilliant the talent, of course—the greater the profit.

I provide admirers of my talent with several diverse ways to reward me with money—from direct transfers in bits to various indirect routes, such as subscribing to a live channel, donations for a guaranteed quick answer to a question, or even indirect ones, like referral links to various useful services. I could earn more if it weren’t for the self-limitation of maintaining anonymity (for example, by selling the right to have dinner with me or hosting streams) and my reluctance to bother with complex business models (for example, selling merch). I could earn nothing at all if I refused donations, even when they are literally shoved into my hands.

Hard copies of texts in the form of paper books are a kind of merch today. What share of sales the merch producer allocates to the writer depends solely on the merch producer’s desire to donate to the writer. But even if they don’t pay the writer a single satoshi, they still contribute to the writer’s promotion, because that is the primary function of merch. And then the promoted writer can earn more from a single stream than they could have received from a print run of books.

P.S. Of course, an answer to a similar question has already been published in this channel, and the answer was also similar, so I apologize to the early readers of the channel for the repetition—but now they can choose which of the versions they liked more.

Look at how stylish this merch is, not like those pocketbooks of yours! Whoever decides to publish my quote book, do it at this level, and my heart will be glad!

The Stylistics of Protest

I heard an interesting thought from Ekaterina Schulmann last night—that the difference in the style of protests in the US and Russia is not related to some special “slave mentality” of Russians, but simply to what is customary. Russia, in her words, is more similar to Scandinavia in this sense: in both places, people protest modestly, expressing a gloomy silent reproach, without all your outbursts of anger, shouting, and arson. If you go out to protest against injustice, you are a decent person, and decent people do not scream on the street, and they do not beat people.

Similarly, rallies in Russia are not intended for listening to whoever is rambling on stage. The speakers talk for YouTube, meaning for those who didn’t come to the rally, but want to feel the atmosphere and leave a like. But the people came to socialize with one another and to be happy that many like-minded people share their position. They certainly understand that, formally, they have formulated demands, and that pressure must be put on the authority to make them fulfill these demands, but they will not go storm the Kremlin, because decent people do not do things that way. They would rather sign a resolution.

This is precisely why Russian agorism takes on some characteristics of AUE. Agorism is not so much about the state dying of starvation, but about a moral choice. By avoiding interaction with the state and especially avoiding payments to it, a person simply feels morally cleaner.

That is exactly why any calls to chip in to help people pay their finesy are so infuriating to me. How can you consciously call upon people to get dirty by making payments to the state, and moreover, voluntarily act as the state’s tax agents? You go out to the street to express your reproach to the state, you unfurl a banner, you get detained, you get a summons to court, the court imposes a fine. Well, express your reproach once more and refuse to pay right there in court. Let them replace it with arrest or carry a wardrobe out of your house. They will wreck your house at any moment anyway, as soon as they want to, especially if you choose the tactic of open confrontation with the regime.

Russian libertarians are now pushing the hashtag and holding single-person pickets against the extrajudicial killings committed by Russian security forces. I support this hype. But when in a week they start collecting donations for the fines of detained activists, I will be spitting in their direction. Just warning you in advance.

I will not condemn liberals who value the institution of the state itself, as something that brings law and order, for paying their fines. For them, this is an element of law and order. They will legally challenge this fine in court, hoping to fix a bad state. These are their rituals for maintaining purity, and this can be respected, although one can still hope for their enlightenment.

Police brutality and pogroms under ancap

A discussion arose in the Libertarian Band patrons’ chat regarding an incident in the USA, which has led to riots accompanied by looting for nearly a week now.

Could an episode of police brutality occur under ancap? Absolutely! The “gatekeeper syndrome” operates under any regime. A petty fraudster pays with a fake check, the store calls security, they detain the thief—and then an excess occurs, and the head of the security team begins to strangle the detainee. The partners are stunned: on one hand, it is a clear abuse of authority; on the other, it is the firm’s honor, and staging a public quarrel is unprofessional, so they simply try to calm the crowd. What happens next? The director, a floor manager, or even just a cashier rushes out of the store and barks, “Stop it!”

This is where the key difference between ancap and the state manifests. It is not just anyone barking, but an official representative of the client. The partners of the security guard who lost his mind immediately pull the boss away and provide first aid to the victim, because the highest authority—the client—has commanded it. The one who pays the money.

Then the routine chores begin: the security company fires the overzealous guard, the thief reimburses the store for the money that caused the scuffle, there may be some maneuvers regarding his health insurance, and finally, there may be a press campaign resulting in damage to the security company’s reputation (and possibly the store’s, although that would be unfair).

But what if the store director rushed out and began to shout enthusiastically, “Give it to him, you scum, crush him!”? That is when a riot could happen. We can, of course, hope that everything will be limited to lawsuits, boycotts, and similar civilized reactions, but a riot or the burning of the store cannot be ruled out in this situation: people react extremely nervously to manifestations of crude thuggery—and there is no reason to assume that people would suddenly change under ancap.

Can riots become mass movements? They can, if we are considering something like a clan society. This can be considered ancap only with a great stretch, but such a society is certainly stateless and, therefore, also worthy of consideration. As we know from the example of Somalia, a specific legal system develops in a clan society where the clan acts as an insurance group and pays for crimes committed by its members. Such a system managed to extinguish the civil war in Somalia; it would handle riots as well.

However, the type of society where problems could truly take on a protracted character is one with a combination of market and clan orders. On one hand, there are several large groups defending the interests of their members, and on the other, there is a large number of individuals who do not belong to any clans and attempt to interact in a mode of open market access to goods and services. Clan members may perceive such loners as members of some foreign clans and bring claims against uninvolved parties within the framework of collective responsibility. Meanwhile, the loners, by inertia, will view the rioters as individuals with their own personal grievances—and be surprised by the absurdity of those claims.

Essentially, this is exactly what is happening in the USA right now. The quarrel occurred between the nominal clans of left-wing activists and police officers, but the leftists consider all business owners to be allies of the police—after all, it was the store that called the police when the incident happened. Blurred boundaries between groups generate numerous misunderstandings, where even those who express sympathy for the rioters are attacked. And the more such unresolved conflicts there are, the harder it is to stop the war.

Therefore, I venture to suggest that under ancap, in various unrest-prone areas, it will be very important to be able to quickly and clearly communicate to everyone who stands behind you. First, people learn to draw boundaries, and only then do they learn not to cross them.

Eric Mack. Libertarianism. Chapter on Hume.

Today on our program is the promised chapter from Eric Mack’s book “Libertarianism,” dedicated to the views of David Hume as another of the precursors of this ideology. Despite the fact that Hume, opposing Locke (who was discussed in the previous chapter), denied both the social contract and natural rights, he quite sensibly supplemented Locke’s views on social organization with his description of the morality that arises in humans as social animals. Hume also formulates the resulting principles of justice, which lead to mutually beneficial social cooperation.

Reflections on the project’s second anniversary

Two years ago, the first post was published as part of this project. Back then, the channel was called LPR-tyan and looked like a rather cringe-worthy roleplay as a girl who claims she is a political party.

Gradually, the channel distanced itself from this strange persona; the process accelerated after the project founder left. Now the channel is much more respectable, but it has lost some of its drive. The main feature of the project was answering questions, but over two years, essentially, answers to all the main questions have long since been given, and some more than once. Repeating oneself is somehow strange; however, a new channel, Libertarian Aggregator, seems to have decided to go through the history of my channel and repost the most successful posts, for which I am, of course, grateful.

Therefore, today the focus of my activities has shifted toward things that were previously more incidental: translating books, writing scripts for a series of videos, and collaborating with a network of other anti-state projects. I feel my growing demand as a libertarian activist, but at the same time, the demand for the Telegram channel is rather falling; this is evident from the view counts. A year ago, the channel had 848 subscribers, but the average number of views was 70% of the audience. Now there are 1,860 subscribers, but the number of views has dropped to 40%.

My most in-demand competence remains not so much the ability to compose something of my own, but the ability to rework someone else’s and present it in a more attractive form. So I will continue this peculiar cooperation with those who have many fresh thoughts but experience difficulty in presenting them. This also includes answers to questions like “what do you think about such-and-such a tome?” I would like to post reviews of various voluminous works from time to time, but familiarizing myself with them takes an awful lot of time, so only for money.

The original monetization model of the channel was narrow: an answer to a question accompanied by a donation was guaranteed and given out of turn. Gradually, the focus shifted simply to donations for the development of the channel and targeted contributions for book translations. Initially, it was proposed to simply transfer bitcoins; now there are many more options available, from banal rubles to advanced bitcoin payments via the Lightning protocol. I highly recommend mastering this latter method, because eventually you’ll have to anyway. I have posted all the instructions on this matter; they are not complicated.

Since the end of April, I have started a strange experiment — I started a personal blog. The subscription is paid, and although I regularly write something about myself there, it is primarily an opportunity to support the main channel — I am far from thinking that my personal musings themselves are worth monthly fees. So far, I am writing for as many as three readers who subscribed for 200 rubles a month, and no one has subscribed to the 1,000 rubles a month level yet. However, I currently enjoy the process of keeping a personal blog, so I will continue this activity even if the number of readers does not increase significantly; it’s a sort of hobby within a hobby.

I still want to engage in something more practical in addition to creating text content, but so far nothing concrete has come to mind. After all, social entrepreneurship is a separate talent.

The post turned out to be quite minor, in accordance with the general atmosphere around us, and it would be good if this underlying irritation in people does not accumulate in vain.

Progress, the State, and the Survival of Civilization

Vitaly Tizun, edited by Ancap-tyan

Supporters of the state often claim that scientific progress is impossible in a free society, and that only the state is capable of providing science with the resources necessary for its development. There are several objections to this thesis.

In Theory of a Free Society, I described in detail from an economic point of view how the state hinders the realization of any ideas. The state implements ideas in the least efficient way, as it can pour unlimited money into their embodiment without thinking about profit, while simultaneously restricting private initiative in the same field. Science is a typical example of such an approach.

But right now we are interested more in political rather than economic incentives, for it is on their basis that the state steers science.

Let’s take a classic example of conservative policy. Such a policy often prioritizes certain values (such as family, traditions, customs, nation, etc.). I will not say that these values mean nothing; for many people, they are very, very important. However, the state and political conservatives often justify absolutely any measures that they believe can protect these values, including measures that negatively affect other values and social spheres. Thus, we often encounter extremely absurd arguments stating that we must control progress and not allow it to be too rapid, as this could disrupt the traditional way of life of society. This not only sounds delusional but also does not work in practice, instead contributing to the destruction of the traditional way of life, which we will discuss below.

I will provide a couple of examples of how the politicization of science harms scientific development.

Nobel laureate James Watson was branded a racist and stripped of several honorary titles for asserting a link between the intelligence quotient and racial origin. Thus, a simple scientific observation was equated with calls for racial discrimination. Naturally, under such conditions, research into the influence of genetics on intelligence becomes hindered.

An even more egregious example is GMO-phobia. Hysteria, maintained at the level of political decisions, makes life extremely difficult for many potential players in this promising market, while a few corporations with serious lobbying capabilities reap superprofits thanks to politicians clearing the market.

But if this were only about transgenic plants, it would be half the battle; however, research related to the genetic modification of humans is also being slowed down. Conservatives thus attempt to protect human nature, but by obstructing small and gradual changes, they only ensure that when science advances enough to no longer be containable, the application of new technologies to change human genetics will become avalanche-like. The difference between enhanced and traditional humans will become too sharp, and this is exactly the scenario that conservatives fear so much.

Thus, the original thesis that the state, unlike a free society, is the only entity capable of ensuring scientific progress turns out to be fundamentally wrong; instead, we see that it is perfectly capable of hindering it.

If a free society proves to be insufficiently strong, and the doctrine of limiting the pace of scientific development remains influential enough, it will lead to humanity simply exhausting the resources currently at its disposal without ever gaining access to new ones, whether through an extensive path of development, such as space expansion, or an intensive one, through a radical increase in humanity’s energy capacity. This would mean the fading of civilization.

However, this is a very unlikely scenario. People usually mobilize quite well in the face of an obvious threat, and when the state itself acts as such an obvious threat, all the worse for it.

Turbulent emotions have a violent end; do not provoke turbulent emotions

What is the difference between the notorious social “spontaneous” circumstances and a “hidden” threat?

Imagine a situation: two people and a chair are in a room; only one of them has a weapon and both know it; the armed person says loudly: “it would be nice if someone sat on this chair, and also, weapons can be used to cause pain and kill” – and this is sort of a threat, but it cannot be proven in any way, and if one risks not complying with the demands, the armed person may use the weapon and finally officially exit the non-aggression pact, but a dead person will no longer care about that. Of course, if both are armed, then both threaten each other, and both are thereby protected, but if one party is deprived of their weapon at some point, it becomes the literal right of the strong.

Han Solo

The example is, of course, somewhat contrived, but we’ll make do with what we have.

A person who believes they are being threatened has some grounds for doing so. It is specifically they who feel this way right now, and for them, it is important. If they have any doubts about the fact of the threat, or believe it is important to convince third parties of the threat, they should make the situation more explicit. For example, by asking:

– Do I understand correctly that you are threatening to injure or kill me if I don’t sit down? Or am I free to leave?

The interlocutor may continue to speak in hints for some time, but sooner or later they will have to formulate an explicit demand if they want the second person to sit, or use the weapon if they simply want to cause them harm. Naturally, this involves some risk. What is it worth taking that risk for? Primarily to gain certainty for oneself and, possibly, to obtain a body of evidence for third parties who will evaluate the situation as it unfolded.

In a state, we regularly encounter situations where superiors do not give explicit orders because the subordinate is expected to understand the hints. If the situation turns out poorly for the superiors, they can always claim they were misunderstood, and the phrase “this guy irritates me” by no means meant an instruction to shoot him during arrest and declare him a terrorist. If a subordinate is poor at understanding hints, they will not stay in their position for long.

The right of the strong is as much a fiction as a non-aggression pact. Even the strong prefer to justify their claims somehow, tailoring them to some notions of justice. This is less costly than proving one’s strength every time one wants to get something. The same goes for a non-aggression pact. People have no need to specifically agree not to attack each other; they will only do so anyway when they have a reason they consider valid. But if such a reason exists, no agreement will stop them.

Therefore, it seems to me that using such theoretical constructs to describe the world is simply inconvenient. It’s roughly like discussing human activity in categories of sin, karma, or class interests.

It is far more useful to use more adequate constructs to describe one’s actions and motives. “It seemed to me that he was close to carrying out his implicit threat, and I preferred to fulfill the request, although I didn’t really want to. Next time I will try not to be alone with him while unarmed.”

Something like that.

There we go, well done, good boy