Тег: Bitarch

Apologia of the Bitarch

I was recently sitting in a cafe with one of my subscribers, and the standard conversation came up about how tiresome Bitarch’s monotonous posts have become—about the violence inhibitor, psychopaths, and the urge to bet a million on human behavior during a face-to-face meeting without revealing one’s incognito. It seems I managed to construct a certain line of reasoning as to why all this is necessary; I will present it here in an expanded form.

The first thesis will essentially be an off-topic, concerning the fact that Bitarch is willing to pay 5,000 rubles a month in Bitcoin equivalent for the right to post in my channel, yet not a single one of his critics is willing to outbid this price to ensure his posts do not appear in the channel. Although, it would seem, it would be easy and inexpensive for a cooperative of Bitarch-haters to do so. This refers us back to David Friedman and his economic analysis of law.

However, this thesis says nothing in substance, so let us leave it and move on to Bitarch’s concepts.

In Pozharsky’s recent post, where he discusses how democracies deftly crush indigenous Hitlers, it is mentioned at the end that intra-human war is ultimately some kind of garbage, and that to unite humanity, it would be a good idea to acquire a cosmic beetle to fight against. In a recent conversation between Latynina and Arestovich, a similar thesis arises that humanity needs an external unifying factor; and while Latynina echoes Pozharsky by stating the desirability of an attack on Earth by cosmic beetles, Arestovich expands the thesis, arguing that hypothetical beetles, being intelligent creatures, are still our brothers, and fighting them is undignified—our mission is the transformation of nature.

Libertarianism, in the version presented in my book, prescribes peaceful cooperation—and entering conflicts on the side of justice. Without this moral norm, a libertarian society is unstable in the face of that very external threat, because it provides no way to cooperate in self-defense.

For a libertarian to enter a conflict, it is important to understand why they care about it. But a sufficiently developed sense of justice tells a person to intervene in practically any conflict, as long as it is clear which side justice is on. What is it to them? Indeed, they might, like some Arestovich, consider fights between intelligent beings a waste of scarce resources needed for the transformation of nature and the exploration of Space. And therefore, they should suppress them with the full power of their nature-transformation technologies. Including—the transformation of human nature.

I should note, however, that any statist construction can be derived from libertarian premises. This is very evident in the example of Karl Franco, who, calling himself an Orthodox libertarian, justifies taxes and similar state interventions in the economy, as well as other forms of coercion. Indeed, all left-libertarians to varying degrees sin of something similar. The secret is simple: it is enough to forget for a minute that values are subjective. Then you declare your own values to be of the utmost importance for everyone, meaning that to impose them, it is permissible to trample over others’ values. (This is why it is very useful to supplement knowledge of libertarian doctrine with knowledge of economic theory, rather than trying to replace it with some kind of analytical philosophy)

Bitarch sometimes sins of this as well, but fortunately, not as uncompromisingly. Therefore, although he might be glad to rid all of humanity at once of the harmful brain-virus that destroys the violence inhibitor, he mostly works quite consistently on a new type of self-defense weapon—one designed not to kill the aggressor, but merely to strengthen the violence inhibitor within them.

I am also glad that lately he has left alone his hypothesis about the possibility of solving the problem through genetic correction and has switched to the hormonal level. I look forward to the time when he moves from mice to humans in his experiments. Especially since there are currently enough psychos with PTSD roaming around the RF. On one hand, some of them might agree to participate in the trial of an experimental drug voluntarily. On the other hand, many such guys will easily provide a reason to test violence inhibitor enhancement means on them, already in the form-factor of a self-defense weapon.

What Bitarch and Voluntarist lack is a more careful and appealing presentation of their theses to the public. Alas, my help here can only be very limited: we’ve already been through this—when attempting to coordinate the text, we start arguing. It is important for me to remove the cringe; it is important for him to keep the main takes unchanged. Therefore, we have what we have.

I hope I have succeeded in conveying my vision of the situation, and that you will be able to treat his work with a deeper understanding. Any fool can post a clown emoji.

The cosmic beetle is not needed

Rozov, Bitarch, violence and Montelibero

Alex Rozov (an author of near-libertarian trans-utopias whom I rate quite highly) examined in his LiveJournal a set of concepts promoted by Bitarh and Voluntarist regarding the possibilities for radically reducing violence in human society.

Post 1. What percentage of aggressive sociopaths are there in the human population—and what would happen if they were neutralized?

The author believes that a one-time removal of aggressive individuals from the human population would likely be insufficient, and to consolidate success, a “culturocide” is also necessary—that is, the abolition from culture of patterns that encourage and heroize aggressive violence.

Post 2. Violence inhibitor according to Voluntarist: the hypothesis of sectoral betrization as a style of a positive society

The author analyzes a series of articles on the violence inhibitor, noting that its appearance in humans is entirely evolutionarily grounded (the currently mainstream hypothesis of human self-domestication in scientific discourse), and also attempts to answer the question of to what extent it would be advisable to strengthen it (betrization is a term introduced by Stanisław Lem, referring precisely to the procedure of sharply increasing the violence inhibitor). The answer is discouraging: no single-step action will lead to the desired result, as society is regulated by mechanisms that are too complex. The author believes that the simple ability to defend oneself against immediate violence (which is ensured by the fact that the inhibitor’s action is temporarily weakened in a moment of immediate danger) does not provide sufficient feedback to bring society to the desired non-violent state; the readiness to retaliate stealthily is also important.

Thus, the difference in approaches is clearly highlighted. While Bitarh and Voluntarist, in exploring a mechanism that regulates human reactions, further speculate based on a fantastic premise about forcibly strengthening this mechanism in certain individuals, Alex Rozov considers natural human communities and the mechanisms that could lead them to the desired result (a society of free, prosperous individuals who highly value cooperation and development). His fantastic premises mostly lie in the technical sphere (technologies of war, information exchange, and organization) or boil down to the idea that the right people should gather in sufficient concentration and number.

Nevertheless, all three are convinced that removing individuals prone to aggressive violence from a community produces a powerful positive effect. I will note for myself that not all lustration is the same, and if a community is cleansed in such a way that those removed become its enemies, it could lead to serious problems in the future.

In Montelibero, we see so far that selecting people for the community who share the principle of non-aggression leads to a high level of cooperation. The removal of those with whom it is uncomfortable in the community currently happens through fairly soft rejection. I would prefer not to test how capable such a community would be to resist external aggression if the occasion arose, but so far, based on the general mood, it is not apparent that the chances of successfully repelling aggression are significantly higher or lower than those of any other cohesive community.

In other words, for now, we are managing with Rozov’s methods. Bitarh’s methods might be in demand for correcting the external background, but they are technically unavailable today. Rozov’s methods for the interaction of a free society with the outside world (creating a decentralized environment for conducting special operations to expand the space of freedom) are currently available to us to a minimal extent, at the level of maneuvering between state regulations.

That’s how things stand.

opasan pas – Montenegrin localization of the libertarian snake

Oh, if only people were as kind as beavers!

I have one tiny but lovely channel in my subscriptions, primarily about practical agorism, but occasionally it drifts into reflecting on more abstract things. And not so long ago, it suddenly began a series of posts on the bitarchy theory of restructuring humanity based on a violence inhibition mechanism. Naturally, I couldn’t pass this up; I waited until the series finished, and now I recommend it to you, along with the channel itself.

It begins with this post, and further on, you can read many posts almost consecutively up until this one, the final one. Fortunately, they are mostly short. I usually lack the tediousness to dive into overly detailed breakdowns of complex topics, so I gladly leave those to the men, and then I assimilate the resulting product and recommend it to others if I find it worthy.

The author concludes with a significant remark:

The question remains open: “what would be the most clever replacement for Lorentz’s theory?”. I’m still thinking.

Question to Bitarkh

Bitarch, although I only recently became acquainted with libertarianism, I have already read about voluntarism and realized that it is exactly what I need! I am so tired of living among the abusers, boors, and rapists who surround me now! I wish a vaccine that destroys the ability to initiate aggressive violence would be invented as soon as possible, and along with it, universal prosperity would arrive! My father used to beat me, my ex-boyfriend beat me too, and once some thug even tried to rape me in an alleyway! Well, until the vaccine is invented, I want to ask for your help. Bitarch, I want to have a child with a strong Lorenz inhibitor, who would be guaranteed never to initiate violence and yet be able to stand up for themselves, just as you, strictly speaking, do. I am not a poor woman; I can sign a written waiver of alimony; all that is needed is conception from a carrier of a strong variant of the Lorenz inhibitor. Otherwise, there are two extremes around: either mama’s boys and wimps unable to protect themselves, or alpha males with testosterone overflowing and absolutely unrestrained in the manifestation of violence, but something in the middle is needed. Do you agree? And if so, how much do your services for the conception of non-violent offspring cost?

Katya Latysh

I am glad that you liked the ideas I promote and that you believe it is necessary to eradicate violence. As for your delicate request—unfortunately, I cannot 100% guarantee perfect genetics on my part. Although I am a non-violent person, who knows, perhaps I am a carrier of recessive genes that determine a weak variant of the violence inhibitor. There is no genetic test yet to determine the variant of the Lorenz mechanism (the violence inhibitor). Moreover, it is unnecessary to ask me specifically—most people are non-violent anyway; it is unlikely that I can offer anything more than they can. You have simply been unlucky so far, crossing paths with those same 2% of crazed degenerates who have an extremely weak variant of the inhibitor. The distribution of degenerates can be quite uneven, and it is possible that you found yourself in an environment with an increased concentration of them. Perhaps a good solution would be to slightly change your surroundings and your social circle?

I also want to note—one child cannot fix the situation as a whole. If you have financial resources, perhaps it is worth considering investments in biotechnology, obtaining the appropriate education, or some other way to help eradicate violence in degenerates? After all, the sooner it becomes possible to create a genetic test for the violence inhibitor variant and gene therapy to strengthen it, the faster the problem of rapists will be solved and no one will ever apply violence to you again. And in this way, you will be able to precisely guarantee both the non-violence of your children and that they themselves will never encounter violence.

Think about this; if violence is so unpleasant to you and you have certain opportunities, perhaps then it would be a good idea to dedicate your life to the fight against violence and bring closer the day when this problem is finally solved?

Bitarch

Ancap-chan, explain why you don’t share the views of Bitarch, Voluntarist and Agoristic, and why you recognize aggressive violence outside the framework of self-defense?

If it is unclear where exactly you are admitting it – here is the chat dialogue:

Purple Dragon: @ancapsan, I wonder, if Bitarch actually invents his libertarian vaccine, tests it, and gets approval from independent doctors, would you get vaccinated?

Ancap-chan: It’s important to understand exactly what changes will occur in the body and decide based on the specifics. If the effect is exactly as Bitarch dreams—which I don’t believe in, because genetics doesn’t seem to work that way—then why not? It wouldn’t affect self-defense capabilities, and if I needed to take violent revenge, I would still prefer to hire a specialist rather than act myself.

Lio Bertes (question accompanied by a donation of 0.0000427btc)

At first I thought about joking it off, but I think I’ll answer seriously.

The subject of my main disagreement with Bitarch is my dislike of operating with holistic constructs. I prefer to consider not violence as a phenomenon, but violence that one specific subject manifests toward another specific subject. And only then do I view this specific violence in the context of libertarian ideology, which proclaims freedom as its value. And this very freedom means that I reserve the right, among other things, to revenge, if I so wish. Naturally, I also leave others the right to try to stop me and hold me accountable.

My own moral views, which may prompt me to enter into a conflict, including a violent one, are higher for me than an abstract desire to have a world completely devoid of aggressive violence. Attempts to manipulate me in the spirit of “as long as violence remains in the world, humanity is in danger” might lead only to a shrug: “then let it remain in danger.” I would perhaps even sharpen the thesis. If we assume there is a button that, when pressed, destroys humanity, I would want to have it. Not to press it, but to know that I can do it. This is a very important incentive for a person—the expansion of possibilities, that is, degrees of freedom. Freedom.

And it is all the more important for me to have the ability to respond to violence against me, both directly at the moment of attack and ex post facto, if that is more convenient for me. I will not voluntarily destroy in myself the capacity for such a thing. So please forgive me, in the dialogue quoted above, I lied.

At the same time, I deeply appreciate Bitarch’s research with the Voluntarist regarding the investigation of mechanisms that influence people’s attitudes toward the manifestation of violence. Moreover, I respect Bitarch’s striving to obtain a button that eradicates the inclination toward aggressive violence in humanity. After all, how is this worse than the desire to have a button to destroy humanity? True, he craves this button in order to press it, and that changes the situation slightly: perhaps I will still have to stop him, as they stop mad scientists in classic action movies. Well, that would be interesting.

The rat demands another dose of gene therapy

Libertarian Band answered for Bitarch

Libertarian Band has launched a new section called “Question to Bitarch,” where the channel host answers on behalf of Bitarch. Naturally, all answers concern only the topic of fighting violence, which is being actively developed by Bitarch, and this is a respectable level of determination.

For my part, I should note that I am not particularly fond of Lorenz’s concept of aggression, which treats it as a kind of tension that accumulates and eventually bursts. I still prefer the version that aggression is one of the types of reaction to a stimulus (the desire to destroy the source of irritation), along with flight (the desire to avoid the stimulus) and patience (the desire to adapt to the stimulus while minimizing costs). If we proceed from the version of aggression as tension, then widespread armament can only contain this tension for a short time until it accumulates and breaks out in a bloodbath, so it is somewhat strange to me that Bitarch adopts this idea so uncritically.

As for the ways to eradicate violence, I am closer to the approach of Alexander Elesev from the Dobroum channel, who argues that there will be far fewer prerequisites for violence if people do not have experience with violence in the family. Not that everything works so straightforwardly, but it would be an important component of success. And the second component of success in eliminating systematic violence is the cultivation of intolerance toward it. Someone who steps in to break up a fight is always a good person, regardless of whether they might get hit by both sides; they are within their rights. If you want to fight, surround this ritual with rules, conduct it in the presence of witnesses, determine the criteria for victory, accept defeat if the rules require it, and fulfill the conditions you committed to in case of defeat. If you are not ready for such complexities, do not pick a fight.

I understand that these theses seem very raw, but this is not my field of expertise. I am glad that Bitarch continues to systematize his ideas while receiving feedback from readers. Perhaps I will receive some response from him regarding the considerations outlined above.

For the greater good

Bitarch asked me to comment on his article about property protection in a society that has eradicated violence, but asked that I not be too critical.

As a reminder, Bitarch’s main idea is as follows. The cost of weapons is decreasing, their destructive power is increasing, and then we extrapolate the graph of the number of weapons over time and find that after some time, one person will be able to destroy all of humanity with a simple flick of the wrist. To prevent this, Bitarch suggests tying people’s hands in advance; they will not be able to make simple movements with them, and thus humanity will be saved.

How to tie their hands? Universal armament is required. In this case, any attempt on another person’s life must lead to the instantaneous destruction of the aggressor. Under such conditions, rational agents will not dare to encroach upon anyone’s life.

But there is a problem: besides attempts on life, there are also encroachments on property, and property rights are a matter of agreement between people and can be disputed. Therefore, Bitarch postulates: using violence to protect one’s property is unacceptable. If you are asked to choose between your wallet or your life—you can choose life, and upon an attempt on your life, destroy the assailant. But if, for example, some squatters occupy your temporarily empty house, you’re screwed. In the best case, you can ask the utility workers to cut off their electricity. And even then, it’s unclear if they will accommodate you if the squatters are paying for the electricity.

How to solve such problems? “However you like,” Bitarch answers, “these are your problems, as long as there is no violence.” And he provides as an inspiring example a tale about how states, under the threat of violence, banned the use of DDT instead of leaving it to the market. With the help of the state club, they defeated DDT, defeated ozone holes, are defeating global warming and coronavirus, are defeating common sense—they will manage violence too.

Etatism is an intellectual disease in which a person places the presumed values of imaginary collective subjects above real individual values.

Stay healthy!

On the idea of universal civilian armament

Due to the incident near Krasnoyarsk, Bitarch has resumed his reflections on balancing the potential for violence and published an article BitTorrent for Weapons, where he states that one of the most obvious ways to achieve almost complete armament is to make the cost of weapons zero. Since this is unrealizable at today’s level of technology, it should at least be as low as possible, so that volunteers could literally distribute weapons to anyone who wants them without spending too much.

He considers the following technological families:

  1. Compact projectile weapons, where weak shot energy is compensated for by chemistry. Exactly how to deliver the toxin-charged striking element is a matter of taste and technological fantasy.
  2. Dazzling lasers
  3. Neutralizing the opponent with a jet of liquid or a spray (gas canisters, water pistols, etc.)

In a subsequent note, he provides a simple schematic for a flamethrower based on a water pistol, although he does not specify how functional, long-range, accurate, or safe the design is. A video showing the assembly and testing of such a device would be much more effective, and I hope such videos will also be found.

What can I say regarding the proposed mechanism for balancing the PV (Potential for Violence)?

  1. Non-lethal self-defense weapons are a sufficiently developed industry where solutions can be found for every taste, budget, and legal framework. In particular, for Russia, gas canisters are almost without alternative as the optimal choice in terms of safety and price. They combine the advantages of compactness and cost—but most importantly, their use does not carry any serious state sanctions.
  2. Bitarch’s fantasies are geared more toward non-lethal offensive weapons, such as the aforementioned dazzling lasers. It makes sense to use them from a distance against a crowded opponent, which is why they are used during street protests. Similarly, huge gas cylinders from fire extinguishers, various homemade flamethrowers, and so on are needed specifically for street protests. All sorts of ballistae and catapults would also fit here, though they are more of a way to amuse the imagination than to win a street skirmish.
  3. In the Krasnoyarsk incident, the attackers’ main ally was the suddenness of the attack. Weapons would not have helped. Had the victims possessed a serious numerical advantage, or had they a couple of trauma pistols at hand, the opponent could have simply waited for them to fall asleep and then set fire to the tents. So, if such clashes occur in some remote taiga corner, protection lies either in publicity or in identifying the client and intimidating them instead.
  4. The idea of distributing weapons for free via volunteers is an attempt to start from the wrong place. Weapons are already cheap, and practically anyone can afford them. It is a matter of priorities. What is needed instead are inspiring examples of weapon usage—and only then, on a wave of hype, should the idea of arming oneself be pushed to the masses. People do not value what they get for free.

Main approaches in the doctrine of containment

At the end of last year, I published a translation of Mike Mazar’s article On the Doctrine of Deterrence. Later, in the video of the same name by Libertarian Band, I placed this doctrine into the overall sequence of my story about libertarianism. I thought that this was generally enough, and why repeat it ten times. But in discussions, it is often evident that opponents interpret the doctrine of deterrence in a one-sided way. So, I want to present to you a short article by Bitarch with some reflections on this matter.

In RAND’s theory of deterrence, there are two different approaches that are usually mixed into a single concept in Russian-language literature: “deterrence by threat of unacceptable damage.” It is very important to be able to distinguish them, as they are essentially two completely different defense strategies. We are talking about deterring a group aggressor, such as a hostile state or a contractual jurisdiction.

1) Deterrence by denial. Defense is organized in such a way that the opponent cannot achieve their stated goal (for example, to subjugate the residents of a certain country through violence, thereby gaining more benefit than the damage from military action). This strategy arises naturally in a society with a uniform balance of violence potential (BVP), i.e., where practically every resident of a certain territory has a common weapon like a Kalashnikov rifle and the skill to use it. An opponent can, of course, “genocide” the residents of a given territory using weapons of mass destruction, but why?! You get no profit from the dead, while economic sanctions and international isolation for using WMDs are guaranteed. For deterring any rational opponent, this strategy is quite sufficient.

2) Deterrence by punishment (deterrence by punishment). Defense is organized through the threat of inflicting some harm on a potential adversary in the event that they initiate aggression. In the classical sense, this is a synonym for the phrase “nuclear deterrence.” It assumes the delivery of nuclear strikes against the enemy in case of aggression, and in some scenarios, even against the civilian population in cities. It is clear that such actions will provoke a counterstrike, and both sides, if not the entire world, will be destroyed. According to most experts, a limited nuclear war using only tactical warheads against military targets cannot exist in practice; therefore, nuclear deterrence can be taken as a synonym for “Mutually Assured Destruction” (M.A.D.) or “doomsday weapons.” It follows that choosing nuclear weapons specifically for a deterrence by punishment strategy is extremely disadvantageous in terms of the resources required to create and maintain them in combat readiness. Developing a new type of virus will cost one-tenth the price of a single nuclear missile or less, storing an ampoule in a refrigerator costs almost nothing, and the fact that, if used, the virus could turn against you as well is also not a problem if you think in the category of “we will go to heaven, and they will just die.”

The concept of deterrence by punishment has well-known disadvantages in specialist circles, which is why the authorities of many countries are consciously abandoning it:

1) Proxy violence. The aggressor attacks not in their own name, but by supporting “ihktamnets” [unidentified combatants], remaining as if uninvolved. The “ihktamnets” act on their own and deny any connection to the aggressor’s government. As a result, there is simply no one to retaliate against using WMDs.

2) “Salami tactics.” The aggressor acts in very small steps, gradually encroaching on the victim’s interests. Each of these steps is so small that it cannot serve as a reason for the use of WMDs (which would, naturally, entail the mutually assured destruction of both sides).

In the modern world, all states act quite rationally, so the most profitable defense strategy against them will be deterrence by denial—or more specifically, the presence of simple weapons (non-WMDs) held by absolutely all residents of a specific territory. This will also help a stateless society prevent the creation of a stationary bandit (its own state) from within.

“Tightening the screws” will destroy the state

Bitark’s Column

I often hear an objection like this addressed to me: “You are proposing rather radical methods of struggle; it would cost the authorities nothing to tighten the screws even further and put you on a bottle.” Such a position is not only mistaken but extremely harmful to libertarians, as it limits our methods of fighting against the state.

“Tightening the screws” (expanding the powers of security services and the definitions of “crimes” for repression) will very quickly lead to an autoimmune failure of the regime. This is what happened to most countries under the rule of the authoritarian right, who maximized the machinery of repression against their ideological opponents. These regimes collapsed, and now judicial proceedings for past repressions threaten their former leaders and accomplices. Since libertarian ideas were not widespread in these societies, the machinery of repression itself has not been completely destroyed, but it has been severely weakened.

Terrorists can make a bomb from fertilizer? Let’s monitor every farmer, just in case he is supplying them with fertilizer! Someone plans to use viruses as a deterrent weapon? Let’s send a security agent to every school laboratory, just in case a recruited teacher is helping grow viruses there! Someone is actively spreading the theory of the stationary bandit online? Let’s ensure that only theories approved from above are taught in universities!

Each such form of control slows down scientific and technical progress, creates an atmosphere of fear in society and, most importantly, guaranteed to carry a certain percentage of “false positives,” where an innocent person is condemned by mistake. The more spheres the state attempts to control, the higher the percentage of false accusations will be. This leads to hatred of the authorities by the entire society, even by its loyal supporters. The current government is brutally overthrown, and in such a way that for several generations to come, any authoritarian movements in the country will have no further chance. With a sufficient prevalence of libertarian ideas in society, nothing may appear in place of the overthrown government, which is precisely what we strive for!