Тег: Books

Book about ancap – finished the second section

I’m continuing to work on my book. I’ve finished the section on power, breaking the final long sheet into separate pages for better layout consistency, and to make referencing and commenting more convenient. The new chapters are about meritocracy and anarchy as two basic approaches that can conventionally be used to break down attempts to solve societal problems.

I have also formatted the book in epub, and now the latest version will always be available at this link.

The further work plan has changed slightly; I’m thinking of dedicating the third section to the market, and from there steer towards ancap.

As usual, I’m waiting for your comments and donations to encourage the work. And, by the way, if anyone wants to create a cover for the book, I would be very happy to see your options. A pensive girl illustrates the writing process well, but is clearly not suitable for the final product.

Power

I spent a very long time preparing to write another section of my book about ancap, and finally put together two short chapters on power. Their main virtue is that they are stunningly short; I consider this a great achievement of mine. If only I could always express myself so concisely…

I hope that in the next pass I will close the topic of power, or perhaps even finish the first part of the book, which, in essence, should briefly encompass the entire theory of ancap. After that, I will gather a collection of the main interesting practical cases and talk about the ways to implement all this magnificence.

The book about ancap is being written little by little

I think I’ve finished writing the first section of my book on ancap, regarding the basic principles of libertarianism. I’ve broken it down into separate chapters so it’s not too cumbersome. Also, for the convenience of the readers, I’ve moved all the numerous definitions of terms provided in the text to a separate page. There, you will have the opportunity to get a concentrated overview of the strange conceptual apparatus I use.

I’ve also sketched out a rough table of contents for the second section, which is currently tentatively titled “Power.” The third section will presumably be devoted to the relationship between ancap and libertarianism, serving as an afterword to the first part of the book. I haven’t sketched out the structure for the other two parts of the book yet.

As before, I don’t rule out various edits, additions, and removals, especially if you provide active feedback.

Nothing special, just a small summary and a request for feedback

I continue to write the introductory part of the book about ancap bit by bit, describing the main principles of libertarianism. I think that later I will reformat the text a bit, but for now, it’s becoming quite a large chapter in one piece.

Usually, when I answer a question, I do it in a detailed manner, with examples, metaphors, and other rhetorical gems. In the book, I try not to ramble, and now I’m wondering if I should, and whether it’s becoming too dry. I would like to know your opinion.

On May 20, I fly to Montenegro. This may affect the regularity of posts for about three days, or it may not. I usually don’t schedule publications, so such things are not very predictable.

Since living in Montenegro will be more expensive for me than in Russia, I will have to pay more attention to making money. If you want me to be less distracted from working on the channel, send donations. It will be especially helpful to chip in for the book — the more financial enthusiasm it generates, the faster I will write and the sooner I will finish. The same applies to current translation projects.

Since I will need to register a company to obtain a residence permit in Montenegro, I will try to take advantage of this and organize the acceptance of donations directly in Telegram — Durov created this possibility quite a long time ago, but I didn’t use it because connecting a Telegram store requires a legal entity — and that’s exactly what I will now have.

Also, in the comments of the donations page, I was asked to set up a Monero wallet. I downloaded the wallet from the official website, synchronized the blockchain, and now I’ve even started mining, although that is just for fun, of course. So, here is the Monero address for donations:

84CVRC5iqexHMzLSrUwhcUgw5LkqrkbV5FGWugs6EgQX1YQEM7Kvrvm2sBVjfGwrrhfhvL6j3PdcuaiB6R6Y9ULQPjKWotH

Most likely, I will use the flights to read the Strugatsky brothers’ “Snail on the Slope,” which was ordered for a review long ago — what else is there to do on a plane besides reading books? It’s getting a bit embarrassing; payment for the review was received back in April, which is quite untidy.

Possibly, I will post some fresh travel impressions if they don’t clash too much with the general theme of the channel. If they do — I’ll post them on Boosty.

Free Private Cities, book summary

In the Russian Frontier channel, which I recently promoted, a brief summary has begun to be released of Titus Gebel’s book “Free Private Cities.” The ideas covered in the book are currently being used in the construction of a contractual jurisdiction such as Prospera. It is possible that some of them will be applied in Montellibero in the future.

So those who are too lazy to read the book itself can subscribe to the channel and gradually absorb the material along with its author.

Currently, the summary of the first chapter is available.

I started writing a book

The book on ancap that I recently announced will be gradually posted in the corresponding section on my website. Since this is my first such experience, I cannot guarantee that the text will not change significantly in the process, so you are unlikely to see regular announcements like “5 out of 70 chapters written” — I will certainly be shuffling pieces of text back and forth until the very end, adding some things, removing others, and reworking some ten times over.

For now, you can read the ultra-brief foreword, which promises that the book will be written without overly academic jargon, and right alongside it — the section dedicated to the principle of self-ownership, which turned out to be quite academic. So, after reading what I produced, I fell into a pensive mood: is it necessary to dig this deep, or should I try to lower the level of abstraction?

I look forward to your comments on this matter, and it is quite possible that I will take them into account.

I could have looked for a picture of an even more pensive girl, but this one reflects the process quite clearly

And how would it be under ancap?

The vast majority of the questions I receive boil down to the formula “how will such-and-such sphere of life work under ancap?” In fact, I have already provided answers to many similar questions, and some more than once. I have built up a huge body of texts that few people are likely to bother re-reading. Now, I am increasingly thinking about consolidating them into a relatively compact and coherent material.

Many people also ask for a link to some basic introductory course on libertarianism, without the jargon, for those who want to go a bit further than Wikipedia and understand what libertarianism is, how well it suits them personally, and if it doesn’t suit them very well, whether libertarians should be considered dangerous enemies, harmless weirdos, or useful companions.

In principle, I have already translated one such opus—Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom. In progress is the translation of another opus with a similar message—Stefan Molinieu’s Practical Anarchy. But both works have at least one obvious downside: they are translations. This is an appeal to a different cultural background, which generates arguments that may seem strange and clumsy. There was hope for Mikhail Svetov, but a lot of time has passed since his announcement of a book on libertarianism, and there has been no progress.

Presumably, the work will consist of three parts. The first—a brief description of the libertarian worldview and a justification of why we need ancap. The second—tentatively titled “How under ancap”—a collection of examples of how this can be implemented. The third—how to bring ancap closer.

Forgive me for not planning to go to prison for the sake of writing a book, so the process may take some time. But on the other hand, I intend to post individual chapters as they appear, even if I am not entirely satisfied with the result and consider reworking them in the future. So you will have an idea of the paths my thoughts are taking.

Drop suggestions in the comments about which chapters are absolutely necessary in the second part of the book, besides courts and roads.