Тег: Decentralization

Notes on decentralization, part 4. Reputation.

A recent post by Bitarch on trust networks reminded me of my decentralization cycle, and that it would be a good idea to supplement it with a new note.

People inevitably interact with one another and would like to derive maximum benefit from this with minimum costs. Of course, in a praxeological sense—meaning it doesn’t necessarily have to be about monetary profit or loss, but rather about satisfaction or, conversely, dissatisfaction. In repeated interactions, one can attempt to predict the counterpart’s actions and, based on this, decide in advance how to act. And if the counterpart knows that the interaction will continue to repeat, this knowledge will also influence their actions. Constantly interacting counterparts can agree on cooperation, distance themselves if they find each other unpleasant, send signals suggesting the boundaries of what is acceptable, and so on. Each person inevitably builds up a certain reputation in the eyes of the other.

Additionally, in human communities, the transmission of information about one person’s reputation to another person is of great importance. The other is not obliged to take this information on faith and may, on the contrary, believe that they are being misinformed for some reason. And even if the information received turns out to be completely reliable, they may still believe that someone is trying to gain their trust only to deceive them later. There can be as many layers of reflection as one likes; that is why we grew such a complex brain—to gossip with pleasure.

To gossip and especially to collect gossip about people outside their constant circle of communication, people devise various systems for recording and representing reputation. What should such a system be like from the perspective of someone studying another’s reputation? They would want to be able to receive information about a person’s behavior in the area of interest, and for that information to be easily accessible, difficult to forge, and difficult to hide. And if it is not a matter of studying one specific individual, but of searching for a suitable option, then there should be many options—ideally all possible ones—with convenient data filtering tools.

And what should the system be like from the perspective of the person whose behavioral data is being studied? Naturally, they would prefer that only the information they want to keep public is made public, while information that doesn’t need to be known by everyone could ideally be formatted as reliable proofs and presented only to those who need it. It would also be useful to have the ability to provide ill-wishers with convincing fake information about oneself.

From this set of contradictory requests, it is clear that an ideal reputation system that satisfies everyone is impossible. Again, we have so far neglected the costs of collecting, storing, and presenting reputational information, but those costs also exist.

Thus, it is quite easy to imagine the economically justified construction of a reputation system in some specific narrow field, but it is difficult to understand who would be interested, and why, in maintaining comprehensive open dossiers on every action of every person. Even government agencies prefer to collect voluminous dossiers only for official access, and their employees are certainly not interested in ending up in them themselves, perfectly understanding that the wider the circle of those who have voluminous information about them, the more vectors there are for sudden attacks.

Who, besides the consumers of reputation information, is interested in this information appearing in the corresponding systems? Of course, those who believe that their reputation in this system will present them in the light they wish to be presented. Those aspiring to the title of faithful spouses are unlikely to want to see themselves in an open registry of top lovers, although in another context, a high rating in that capacity would flatter them. A talented craftsman will have nothing against appearing in a rating of masters in the relevant field, while a less talented one would prefer to appear simply on a bulletin board, without a built-in reputation system, or at least have the ability to boost their rating a bit.

What general conclusion can I draw from all these considerations regarding the processes of centralization and decentralization in reputation systems? In a free market, it seems more likely to me that there will be many local reputation systems, rather than comprehensive, monstrous social rating systems. Even if some open system stores data on a large number of people, this will be fairly narrow information. Services for aggregating comprehensive open information on a specific person of interest are also quite monetizable; however, the objects of such research are unlikely to be interested in having information about them from diverse sources be easily aggregated. Nevertheless, working with big data today is a relatively inexpensive pastime, so few will be able to seriously confuse researchers of someone else’s digital footprint.

But these numerous local reputation systems will, I believe, be mostly centralized. As for systems of distributed storage of reputational information in electronic form, they are unlikely to gain serious popularity, remaining a niche solution for small communities. There are no serious prerequisites for scaling here.

Onym messenger review

I was sent a donation in the amount of 77 EURMTL and asked for a review of the decentralized messenger Onym. Getting started.

The website onym.app explains the concept of the messenger. Its main idea is to eliminate the single point of failure and allow the user to choose the services that will be responsible for different components of information exchange.

The assumed structure of the product is roughly as follows.

  1. The authors offer an open-source messenger client that is installed on users’ phones. Anyone wishing to do so can write their own client, and it will be able to operate within this same protocol.
  2. Registering a new user does not require the input of any data; keys are generated on the user’s phone and tied to it. Since, however, anyone can write their own client, nothing prevents them from registering users even with full KYC, if they can figure out how to convince them to install specifically their client.
  3. Data transfer occurs via Nostr relays. By default, the client uses a single relay supported by the project authors, but it can be replaced with one’s own or any public relay. A relay is a dumb transmission mechanism: it receives data encrypted with the user’s private key and puts it into open access, from where anyone who wants it can take it. Relays are not obligated to store user content for long, so ultimately all data is strictly tied to the end device on which the messenger client is installed.
  4. The most unusual part of the architecture is related to group chats. Information about who is an administrator, who can invite new members, and who is part of the group in general is recorded in smart contracts on the Stellar blockchain. Thanks to this, group management does not depend on any single server. However, the end user does not need to worry about funds in their account for blockchain entries; this is done for them by a so-called relayer. The price of transactions in Stellar is pennies, but this is nevertheless a point of failure. An attacker could organize the registration of many fake accounts, creating a new identity in their client and immediately deleting it. The registration of each such identity would require a blockchain transaction, and the relayer would have to pay for it. Currently, the project operates on a test version of the blockchain, but upon moving to the mainnet, the expenses will become real.

The website also has an English-language page describing the threat model within which the messenger operates, and based on which the decision should be made regarding how safe it is to use. It is claimed that the messenger cannot withstand such obvious threats as a mole in the chat, device compromise, and physical coercion; such hypothetical threats as quantum hacking; and such resource-intensive threats as a biased Stellar validator or systems similar to the Russian SORM. The latter, however, only allow one to approach the disclosure of chat participants’ anonymity, but not the reading of messages within it.

Now a bit about personal impressions of working with the Onym messenger. This is an early alpha, meaning it is, of course, terribly raw, and a discount must be made for this, evaluating not so much the functionality that already exists, but that which is intended. The messenger allows creating groups, inviting an arbitrary number of people there, and communicating in these groups. In principle, many other Nostr clients can do the same, since such functionality is part of the protocol. But there, chats have some confusing semi-public status, and Onym, thanks to the additional Stellar layer, ensures chat privacy without using private relays. In general, this cute feature is intended to be the messenger’s killer feature: ordinary Nostr clients are not private enough, and private device-bound messengers like Briar require fully trusting the messenger client. Here, trust is distributed among several layers, in each of which one can choose a specific implementation, including one’s own.

As of today, the messenger looks like a simple proof of concept, and therefore, in essence, is aimed at IT specialists. For the average user, it looks a bit “bones out,” as they are offered setup instructions for Dockers and similar specialized matters in far too many places. I think that the main task for the authors of the idea today should be increasing the number of contributors in the project’s GitHub and generating interest among Nostr enthusiasts. Looking at the GitHub, it is clear that the project started in early May, then went quiet for a long time, and a few weeks ago the dust was blown off it and they continued hacking away. But if the project were to form even a small core of users who regularly sent their issues, the authors of the original idea would clearly have more motivation to work more briskly.

My recommendations to the messenger authors, in order of decreasing urgency:

  1. Refine the minimal functionality that allows using the messenger: group administration (deleting users/messages), push notifications, demonstration of user statuses, at least a simple online/offline. It is essential to finish the claimed but currently unimplemented account export-import capability.
  2. Get users used to a distributed architecture. The client should offer a list of independent relays and Blossom servers with monitoring of their status. As alternative relayers and smart contract implementations for group management appear, a similar choice should appear for them as well. Without the offer of third-party services, an unprepared user will be limited to default settings, and this will create a single point of failure.
  3. Think about a desktop application and the possibility of simultaneously running the messenger from several devices. Tying the entire identity to the device rather than to the key will simply not allow the messenger to achieve any kind of mass adoption.
  4. Implement audio and video calls; the Nostr protocol already allows providing such functionality.
  5. Implement channel functionality, including a streaming function, which can also be realized via the Nostr protocol, while connecting Stellar smart contracts will allow one to avoid exposing oneself in the channel’s subscriber list.

The project has another website, opym.foundation, which describes the foundation that is intended to manage the infrastructure. The foundation’s website talks about why the foundation needs money and how it will be managed. The talk about money is devoid of calculations, and this strongly spoils the impression for potential investors. Moreover, the idea of a governing body somewhat contradicts the premise that every user should easily be able to launch their own service to handle that or another aspect of message exchange. It seems to me that the idea with the foundation should not take off, even if the concept of a Nostr messenger with Stellar contracts is warmly received by the public. Therefore, I do not plan to analyze the proposals for foundation management in detail, however, those who disagree with me can easily figure them out themselves on the foundation’s website.

Overall, the idea seems powerful to me, but in order for it to conquer the market, a great deal of effort will be required.

Decentralization of publications, homework

Yesterday, I felt a sudden urge to have my own personal relay for Nostr. My system administration skills are practically zero; even the ancapchan.info site was once built and configured for me without my involvement. But since then, LLMs have appeared, and it would have been a sin not to use them. So, I dug into Grok, and after a few hours of tinkering, the relay relay.ancapchan.info was up and running. This fully revealed the peculiarities of the protocol’s decentralization. For instance, broadcasting a test message only through my single relay turned out to be convenient via the Snort client, syncing relays is convenient via Amethyst on Android, and Nostria knows how to broadcast an arbitrary event as raw JSON, and so on.

The purpose of a personal relay is to store a full archive of my publications, private messages, and everything else, as well as the content of those I follow. This is a good step toward local autonomy, although still far from the ideal I described in the third “Notes on Decentralization”. I still have to figure out backups and content management, and then, perhaps, it will come to providing this relay for use by the local community. And if it proves to be in demand by the community, then it will be, again, a step toward centralization: someone bothers with their own server, and someone uses shared ones—why not.

At this rate, I’ll even properly connect a wallet to Nostr (currently it only works conveniently for receiving), set up a Lightning node, or even start “vibecoding” something…

Readers are also pleasing me with their examples of using neural networks. For instance, one of them opened a resource where they post AI-narrated books for free, including those on libertarianism/Austrian Economics. Of course, a certain amount of cringe remains in AI narration, but it is so much cheaper that it’s a sin not to use it. For those who find it easier to listen than to read, welcome: website, Telegram bot. By the way, the AI narrations of my two books are already there (I’ve already added direct download links to my book pages: Ancap, War).

Notes on Decentralization, Part 3. Publications.

The Internet began when people started publishing data in electronic form: that is, not just storing it for themselves, but providing access to it via remote connection. To ensure this, a minimum set of components is required: 1) a data storage device; 2) a communication channel to which the storage device is connected; 3) a protocol for providing remote access to this data. There can be many different types of devices, channels, and protocols, as long as they can somehow interface with each other. This looks quite promising in terms of ensuring decentralized data exchange, doesn’t it? Of course. But there is also a vast open field here for deepening centralization.

It is cheaper to produce identical devices. Identical communication channels are cheaper to maintain. The use of a single protocol is an invaluable asset. But the main thing is the functional separation that occurs between different system components when, for example, it turns out that storing data is cheaper on a large stationary server with a thick, uninterrupted communication channel, while accessing it is more convenient from inexpensive personal clients. And just like that, a platform economy begins, in which those who need to store and consume data become completely dependent on the rules established by the storage and publishing platform.

Naturally, throughout history, this state of affairs has greatly irritated both data producers and consumers, who would prefer to retain control. However, the question is how to have this control without spending too much money, ensuring everything works fast and doesn’t require mega-skills from every user. The struggle for the user, accompanied by the involvement of the state as a conflict regulator and the state’s own initiatives to ensure the interests of politicians, is all well-documented and generally well-known. The struggle for digital autonomy is also well-documented and quite known. One could provide an overview of the dynamic equilibrium between centralization and decentralization processes at the time of writing this text, but I want to approach this from a different angle. Specifically: how do I personally see the ideal functioning of the Internet given the current level of technology?

Current snapshot of the technological level

  1. Data storage. Without investing in specialized devices, the average user easily secures volumes on the order of hundreds of gigabytes on a phone and several terabytes on bulkier personal devices.
  2. Communication channels. A more or less settled user can relatively easily afford a 24/7 unlimited channel with speeds ranging from units to tens of megabytes per second. An actively traveling user, without additional investment, may occasionally be offline, have traffic limits, and a more modest channel width.
  3. Clouds. For a price comparable to the cost of personal internet access, a user can rent cloud capacity for data storage and processing that slightly exceeds the power of their personal devices.
  4. Money. Thanks to cryptocurrencies, a user can technically pay for any services over the network directly to their providers in arbitrarily small fractions with an arbitrarily high frequency.

Now I will daydream

I produce only a few gigabytes of data per month, mostly crappy photos. With crappy videos, let’s say it would be tens of gigabytes (the highest subjective value for me, of course, is text, which is a mere few hundred kilobytes, and with all the chatter in chats, let’s say a few megabytes). I want to have unconditional access to all this content from any of my devices, as well as the ability to share access to individual pieces of content with both a limited and an unlimited circle of people. To achieve this, I need my texts to be fully synchronized between several of my personal devices and cloud storage, while photos and videos gradually settle into cheaper and higher-capacity storage, unobtrusively leaving, say, the phone—but with the ability to easily return any archived data back to local access.

Beyond this, I consume other people’s content. Here we are talking about hundreds of gigabytes per month. I need the ability to selectively save any data into personal storage. Ideally, while preserving metadata about where and when this content was obtained by me. It would also be good to substitute locally saved content when surfing the same network resource again to avoid re-downloading—and if the content on the network has updated, to have the ability to replace my version with a fresh one or save an archived version.

I also value a convenient way to donate directly for someone else’s content and receive donations for my own. For this, I need the ability to attach payment detail metadata to an arbitrary object.

So, effectively, I need an operating system for working online that would link locally stored materials with the network addresses where they should be available, provide flexible data synchronization between storage systems, allow for configuring access rights, contain tools for viewing and editing data, as well as a toolkit for managing money. Naturally, all of this must be sufficiently protected from unauthorized access.

It turns out that in order to provide me with the most decentralized workflow on the web, a quite comprehensive centralized solution is required. It could, of course, consist of modules from different providers, but these modules need to work together seamlessly, so centralization practically invites itself here.

And what do we have today?

There are separate services for organizing local data storage and for organizing cloud storage. There are services for synchronizing local folders with cloud ones. There are tools for various network activities: publishing photos, videos, texts, tracks, exchanging messages, money, plans, task lists, and a ton of other types of data. There is the ability to rent servers and host websites on them. There is the ability to rent a domain name. In short, there is a huge, flourishing variety of tools for working on the web, the development of which is quite decentralized. And none of this gives me the possibility of full control over my data.

Such is the paradox.

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.

Notes on Decentralization, Part 1

I have long been considering detailing my thoughts on the phenomenon of decentralization, however, the topic is too broad to fit into a single article, even a longread, and it does not yet fit into a specific structure in my mind that would make writing a book about it meaningful. So, I intend to gradually publish a series of posts, which are unlikely to be connected by a single narrative thread. I don’t know how many posts there will be, or if I will realize at some point that the topic has been sufficiently covered, or if I will simply abandon it over time. The posts will be numbered purely chronologically, and if the material ever becomes the basis for a book, the order of arguments may change. Alright, enough with the disclaimers, let’s begin.

Libertarians have their fetishes. Since individual interests are by default always more important than group interests for them, all else being equal, they will always prefer decentralized structures and mechanisms. It is more or less clear how this works in the sphere of coordinating efforts: if there is a task important enough for the community members, they will somehow manage to solve it together, although they will argue during the process about who does what and in what order. However, they usually find it easier to agree on such things than to appoint a leader who will direct the efforts of others.

But this applies primarily to short-term projects, where, having jointly solved a task, people return to their own affairs. As soon as it comes to infrastructural issues requiring constant effort, such momentary agreements begin to work poorly. As a result, private initiative comes to the fore, where the issue is handled by the person who needs it most, or by the person who expects to monetize the benefit they thereby provide to others.

Whether a centralized or decentralized solution is more profitable is largely determined by economies of scale, which can be either positive or negative. In this context, digital infrastructure, rather than physical, is most interesting, because there the negative economies of scale are quite small, while the positive ones are very large. As a result, a business based on providing a certain digital platform will expand until it digests the entire available client base. The limits of expansion will be determined mainly by competitive pressure. In addition to increasing the number of clients, the platform will strive to derive maximum benefit from each client. To achieve this, on the one hand, the platform will seek to provide services in a wide variety of fields (in my old post, using a couple of platforms as examples, it is shown that this leads to increasing inefficiency). On the other hand, the platform can provide services to some of its clients at the expense of others. A classic example is when social networks trade data on account activity, manipulate search algorithms, and so on.

A kind of dynamic equilibrium is formed between centralized and decentralized digital services, which can shift in one direction or another due to government regulations (for example, censorship requirements for social networks and banking operations) or market innovations.

That’s all for now. Directions for further reflection: 1) consider the main market innovations designed to increase the decentralization of information exchange, including the exchange of property titles to scarce resources; 2) consider approaches to the decentralization of law—a key ancap technology without which a social order cannot be called ancap at all; 3) an overview of the decentralization of utility services; 4) an overview of decentralized approaches to waging war. It may well happen that the next post will have nothing to do with these points, but it still seems useful to leave some hooks for the future.

Why is the Montelibero project so vague?

Montelibero activist Stas Karkavin gave an interview to Plot publication, where he answered a series of questions about the community, which, in turn, prompted some reflections on my part.

When I first came across bits of information about the activities of the Free State Project in New Hampshire, I was initially surprised by the looseness of the community: they seem to have a large festival, PorcFest, and some influence on local politics, manifested in the election of project participants to local representative bodies—but there is no clarity. It is unclear how many people participate in the project, who its public faces are, where to read a coherent chronicle of its implementation, and how to acquire a franchise.

But when we started creating Montelibero, it quickly became clear that these characteristics are not so much a bug, nor a feature, but rather boundary conditions. The harder one tries to force the project into the framework of a single organization, or even just to count everyone, the more strongly its participants will resist. Simply because they are volunteers, and therefore owe nothing to anyone.

A bit later, after reading James Scott’s “The Art of Not Being Governed,” it became clear to me that this tactic of evading being recorded, counted, assigned to a supervisor, and provided with supervisory instructions has been inherent in humanity since the Neolithic Revolution and is an invariant human response to the potential possibility of power being applied to them.

For this reason, unlike Stas, I do not believe in the Montelibero Association—a normal libertarian would not voluntarily sign up for any jurisdiction, regardless of how “contractual” it calls itself—especially if this contract cannot be terminated at the first whim. A libertarian does not need power over other people, even in the form of participation in power over a public resource. He needs it so that power cannot be arbitrarily applied to him.

At the same time, a libertarian is perfectly capable of voluntarily associating with people on specific issues that interest them. For example, on the website of the aforementioned FSP, one can see a calendar with a schedule of various events organized by a wide range of organizations, businesses, and initiative groups. It looks quite spontaneous and decentralized (if we don’t count the fact that all this information is presented on a single website, which is, of course, a potential point of failure). Similarly, over time, I expect a similar calendar on the Montelibero website, so that anyone interested can quickly check: if I’m traveling from Budva to Bar tomorrow, is there anything interesting happening there—at the First Club, Tikhiy Omut, Tortuga bar, or a couple of other less-exposed locations.

At MTL-Fest, which will take place this year from October 4 to 6, Stas will speak on behalf of Montelibero. This does not mean that he is the head of Montelibero, that he knows everything, or that he is authorized by everyone. No, it simply means he is from Montelibero, he is a good storyteller, and he has agreed to speak. Similarly, there will be presentations by Sondre Bjellos from Liberstad and Yuri Polozov from the Free State Project—and both are speaking on behalf of their projects, but they will only be able to tell a small part of what is happening there, and some people from the respective projects may likely find these accounts inaccurate. No big deal: if they seem inaccurate, there will be something to discuss.

In the coming days, I intend to briefly talk about all six speakers at MTL-Fest: who the presenters are to me, and what I expect from their presentations.

Durov

Due to Durov’s arrest, an active discussion continues online.

For us libertarians, the position is simple: states, by their very nature, exercise aggressive violence and therefore have no right to exist. (Private individuals who provide any conceivable services that the state provides or has ever provided, but do so on a voluntary basis, do have a right to exist)

The world, however, does not consist solely of libertarians. There are numerous representatives of ideologies claiming the right of collectives to violate any conceivable rights of individuals for the sake of the benefit of these or those collectives, including such abstract collectives as, for example, “future humanity.” With them, it is sometimes possible to have meaningful discussions on the topic of “exactly how will this specific violation of individual rights help achieve your wonderful collectivist goal, and isn’t it ridiculous for you to throw so many resources at tasks with such a tiny cost-efficiency ratio, when here are far more effective solutions to your own problem with a much lower need to violate individual rights.” As soon as the interlocutor begins to angrily reject such economic analysis, the conversation can be wound up, essentially saying: come back when you’ve grown wiser; until then, there is nothing to talk about.

Finally, there are the realists. They condescendingly explain that values are called such because they have a price. That anyone can be bought. That Durov has already repeatedly made compromises with quite repulsive political regimes. And if these regimes, through threats to the creators of Telegram, easily turn it into a weapon on the side of evil, then it is foolish to demand that less repulsive political regimes not use threats against the creators of Telegram to turn it into a weapon on the side of good (or, if you prefer, the lesser evil). This position was expressed very clearly and consistently by Michael Naki in his video.

He essentially claims that, firstly, even if Durov was indeed arrested and will be accused, in violation of any legal norms, of all the nonsense that is causing so much noise online, it is justified if the result is his active assistance to the anti-Putin coalition in the war on Ukraine’s side. And secondly—that the arrest looks like a staging, and it is far more likely that Durov himself asked for the protection of the West and effectively promised assistance in the war in exchange for protection from pressure by dictatorial regimes, primarily the Putin regime.

As for what this could lead to, Michael himself concludes quite soberly: that later, so he says, Telegram will start to be used against Trump. And he immediately answers this consideration: won’t there be downsides, then? In other words, what can be applied for extraordinary reasons will easily be applied for any reason. War is a continuation of politics, and if Telegram can be brought under control in a total war, why not bring it under control tomorrow to influence the election process—why hesitate, since Trump, in Michael’s opinion, is a fascist and is just as deserving of having a total war declared against him. And the day after tomorrow, the Chinese experience is adopted—and what’s the big deal, since an honest person has nothing to hide. There are so many terrible things in the world worthy of having a total war declared against them: drug trafficking, trafficking… the state, right, Michael? Oh, what, the state isn’t on this list? Strange, strange.

Realists perfectly understand that their position is logically vulnerable because it is inconsistent. They don’t care, because logical constructs are an ideal construction, not a real one. Some momentary desires are declared by them as the highest value, others as meaningless whims; some methods are adopted, while others are only sweetly dreamed of—and the only criterion for justifying such an approach turns out to be the result. It’s fine if the result is declared in advance, but that’s not necessarily the case, as the target can be drawn around the point where the bullet hit.

What can be opposed to the realists? Only a change in reality. We have lived too long in a world of centralized systems, and therefore we are easily captivated by heroes, seeking hope now in Durov, now in Musk. But real hope is brought by another type of hero—the anonymous Satoshi. One who opens a new technology and makes it public property. We have relied on centralized systems for too long because it is fast, cheap, and convenient. And also, they can be broken quickly, cheaply, and conveniently. It is time to realize that we are not rich enough to buy cheap things.

A small centralized system competing on a free market with a million similar systems—why not. But when it comes to the global exchange of values or opinions—let’s forget about centralization. Bitcoin and its extensions—as protocols for transferring value. Nostr or something along those lines—as a protocol for transmitting statements. Some entity that has not yet gained widespread use—as a protocol for legal transactions (this function of the Leviathan must also be replaced by something decentralized). In the new world, there will be fewer heroes, and therefore—fewer possible points of failure. A hell of a lot of responsibility will not hang on one specific person. And therefore, there will be no point in arresting Durov.

But for now—let’s create hype around our hero and demand his release. Why? A strange question. Let’s be realists; it’s so fashionable. States as a means of forced unification of people must be destroyed. What will contribute more to the death of this institution—if Durov is kept in detention until he agrees to the conditions imposed on him—or if, as a result of a pressure campaign, the French state is seriously discredited and forced to release its prisoner? Of course, the latter. But even if pressure does not help the goals of liberation—that is no reason not to press. It is much more pleasant to observe a morally degraded state than a proud and triumphant one.

Learning to understand decentralized systems

Voluntarist, Bitarch

One of the mistakes often made regarding the concepts of certain systems is the inability to understand their decentralized nature. I will give an example of an absurd, yet still frequently encountered question about cryptocurrencies: what happens if the “owner” of Bitcoin decides to create as many new coins as they want or otherwise change its system? Here, there is a clear inability to understand how a currency can not have an owner. The traditional understanding of currency always assumes the existence of a specific issuer who releases new monetary units and possesses the exclusive right to do so. And many truly cannot imagine how it could be otherwise.

The example of Bitcoin is telling, as it is already a functioning system without a centralized governing body. In its case, there is no issuer; no one can unilaterally make any decisions regarding the operation of its system without the direct consent of holders of more than 50% of the computing power involved in it. Each such holder (miner) possesses their own copy of a network node, and each such copy is identical. This is precisely what decentralization consists of—there is no central node. Once launched by its creator, such a system, upon involving a sufficient amount of computing power, never again passes into unilateral control.

Even greater decentralization is given to the entire cryptocurrency system by the fact that anyone who wishes can attempt to launch a new cryptocurrency with their own operating principles. There is no such rule (nor the possibility of implementing one) that only one specific cryptocurrency exists and is used on the internet (as is most often the case with ordinary currencies within the territories of states). There can be as many as people themselves decide to use for various purposes.

If a currency can be decentralized, then why can other systems not be as well, for example, a system of public governance? Its traditional understanding is that in a certain territory there must exist one single body (the state) possessing the “legitimate” right to impose a single order on everyone, if necessary resorting to the threat of violence. But do you think it would not be just as much of a mistake to consider this option the only one possible, as it is a mistake to consider the existence of currencies possible only in the presence of specific issuers?

It would be a great folly to dismiss the possibility of achieving a free, non-violent society in which different, freely choosable systems of public order exist in parallel, simply due to a fundamental unwillingness to understand and accept the possibility of the existence of decentralized systems in principle. Those who still continue to think in a purely “centralized” way, where every system must have some single center of control, should finally learn to understand the possibility of the decentralization of various systems.

E-karma

I read Latynina’s article about the subject with great interest. In some ways, it echoes a recent video by Libertarian Band about the Metaverse, but the article is far more detailed than the video. From an economic standpoint, the e-karma scheme looks decent, although it’s not entirely clear to me how it is protected against bot farms. Here, I lack the IT qualifications to assess the viability of the idea presented, so it would be great if some IT specialist could do so in the comments.