This Saturday (27.02.21), two lecturers will visit Yekaterinburg. The event begins at 13:00. Address: 12 Rosa Luxemburg St.. Entrance is free. Advance registration on TimePad is required. Come and bring your friends, it will be interesting! Our guests:
● Alexander Kotov, Perm. Author of the blog Crypto-Libertarian, dedicated to libertarianism, crypto-anarchism, and methods of collective decision-making. ● Alexei Nefyodov, Novosibirsk. Cryptocurrency popularizer, bitcoin maximalist. He is not a programmer, therefore he examines this issue from economic and socio-political perspectives.
Lecture Hall Program:
Bitcoin and the Theory of Money (Nefyodov). There is nothing more practical than a good theory. Do you need bitcoin, and if so, for what exactly? To answer these questions, it is important to understand why it is designed this way, what money actually is, what types of money exist, and what they are for.
Bitcoin, First Practical Steps (Nefyodov). You will master the simplest tools for acquiring, transferring, and storing bitcoin, and understand where to dig further. If you have a few rubles on your card, you will have your own bitcoins after the session.
Technological Solutions to Social Problems (Kotov). Digital telecommunications and social networks determine what our society will be. Government regulation and centralization in the hands of corporations provide immense power over minds, allowing for censorship and the control of financial operations. Standard legal defense mechanisms against this are ceasing to work. Technological solutions can come to the rescue. The lecture will discuss the prospects of such an approach and what hinders its implementation. The theory will be accompanied by examples from the world of cryptocurrencies. In practice, the use of a Trezor hardware wallet will be demonstrated.
Many people know about Bitcoin Pizza Day, celebrated on May 22nd, in honor of the first purchase of a product with bitcoin, when on May 18, 2010, a guy from Florida named Laszlo Hanyecz put out a call, saying he wanted pizza and would pay 10,000 bitcoins; he waited four days before finally finding someone who would buy him that very pizza in exchange for bitcoins.
And on February 24th, Lightning Pizza Day is celebrated. On February 24, 2018, the same Laszlo Hanyecz bought pizza again, using the then-recently launched Lightning Network—a second-layer protocol on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. This time, the price of two pizzas was only 649,000 satoshis, which is 0.00649 bitcoin. At today’s prices, that is approximately 330 dollars. Moreover, he handled the purchase significantly faster; there was no long wait for a seller.
Over eight years, the daughter has grown quite a bit
How did I find out about all this? There is a convenient custodial lightning wallet on Telegram @lntxbot, equipped with many third-party services. In particular, you can subscribe to a mailing list of paid advertisements there. Send the bot the command /sats4ads on 15 and you will occasionally receive messages from the bot with very short ads and a claim button. By clicking the button, you receive a reward of 15 millisatoshis per character (this is very little, but you can play with the price—you can receive more expensive ads, but in smaller quantities). And so, today a mailing arrived where I was congratulated on the holiday, told this whole story, and offered cashback in satoshis for every pizza purchased. Unfortunately, the offer did not apply to the Russian Federation, so the bot’s ad targeting isn’t great.
On the other hand, today I received another offer regarding ad placement. And since it’s such a day, I requested payment in Lightning: 10,000 satoshis—exactly one hundred million times less than what the pizza cost in May 2010.
So, I am happy to post an announcement for a lecture on cryptocurrencies, which will take place this coming Saturday in Yekaterinburg. I hope there are residents of this city among my readers who are not yet aware, and that the lecturer’s advertising budget did not go to waste. Bring your acquaintances to the lecture as well, if, of course, you wish them well, because mastering the use of bitcoins is definitely a good thing. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be trying to fine us and tax us for it.
As for the announcement itself, it will be in the next post, to separate it somehow from the prolonged preamble.
The well-known Russian Orthodox republican Rodion Belkovich has appeared in my channel twice so far.
The first time was when I was answering the question of whether we are already living under ancap. The question was obviously inspired by Belkovich’s speech at last year’s Adam Smith Readings, where he thoroughly trolled the audience with this paradoxical assertion.
And then suddenly, a rumor reaches me that Belkovich is traveling across the country presenting this very book of his, like Svetov in the pre-covid era, and intends to visit Novosibirsk on October 4th. By today’s standards, any kind of public lectures are quite exotic; I’ve completely grown out of the habit. In short, for those who wish to drop by, here is the Timepad address for lecture registration. The book presentation will take place on October 4th from 14:00 to 15:00 at Voskhod 28, 4th floor. And from 15:00, he will be debating republicanism with local colleagues. I don’t know how reluctantly the organizers will be forced to set up chairs and, accordingly, what the capacity of the hall will be, but I hope everyone will fit comfortably. Because I remember almost fainting from the stuffiness at Svetov’s, and I don’t want that again.
In the lecturer’s gaze, one can clearly see a desire to water some tree…
On October 16, a lecture by Mikhail Svetov took place in Novosibirsk, for which I recently asked you to chip in money. A huge thank you to everyone who responded to the call!
The organizers of the lecture were unable to spend this money for its intended purpose because absolutely all the venues they tried to negotiate with backed out. As I understand it, it was theoretically possible to mislead the venue owners and not inform them that Svetov would be speaking—then we would have enjoyed power outages, a police visit in the middle of the lecture, some kind of fire alarm—or simply the doors being closed half an hour before the start. Instead, all the details were told to everyone immediately, and the venues honestly refused to cooperate. Whether it made sense to act in exactly this way, I will leave to the organizers’ conscience.
One way or another, the lecture eventually had to be held at the headquarters of Sergey Boyko. About one hundred and fifty people crowded into an office of about a hundred square meters (there were over eight hundred registrations on Timepad), it was very stuffy, one person fainted, I was close to it as well, and there was no sound amplification—in general, the impression was not very good.
Brief financial report: A total of 42,570 rubles were collected. 15,560 went toward stage rental, printing, transportation costs, and partial compensation for the ticket cost to the federal tour organizers. The remaining money will be returned to the general sponsor or will be used by them for other projects.
On the other hand, Libertarian band released a surprisingly decent recording of the lecture—for once, Svetov’s performance can be watched without straining; even the questions from the audience are clearly audible. So, I have now re-watched the performance in a more human setting, and at least I can comment on its content.
Briefly, Svetov’s message is as follows: uniform legislation for all regions is completely unsuitable for Russia; such a large and diverse country can only be a federation. But it is pointless to wait for federalization to be handed down from Moscow: however it is granted, it will be taken back later if desired; we went through this under Yeltsin. The demand for federalization must come from below; ideally, Moscow should simply be presented with a fait accompli: that we have these rules, this economic policy, and now let’s agree whether we pay you any taxes at all, or simply tell you to get lost. If you want taxes—give us representation and guarantees of autonomy, something like that. Of course, this is all my interpretation; Svetov expressed himself carefully so as not to trigger a criminal article.
I assume it is precisely because any specificity leads to a criminal charge that Svetov offers no plan of action for federalization. On the question of methods, he is extremely laconic: do something, anything.
I was pleased that, standing in front of a banner about contractual jurisdictions, Svetov mentioned those very contractual jurisdictions several times in a complimentary key, which is a further development of the idea of federalism. I also cannot fail to note Svetov’s thesis on how nuclear weapons specifically gave humanity the possibility of the practical implementation of libertarian ideas, since it makes the concept of the Westphalian state meaningless—this is either a direct borrowing from our article on the deterrence doctrine with Bitarkh, or an independent invention. Similarly, the thesis about the church as an example of a contractual jurisdiction is either taken directly from Laxi Catala or also invented independently. Thus, one can state the gradual formation of a quite specific Russian school of libertarianism, which is not reduced to the dogmatic reproduction of the rhetoric of the founding fathers of the teaching.
My main grievances with the considerations presented by Svetov concern the expression “non-aggression pact,” and especially the monstrous phrase “a child becomes a subject of law when they conclude a non-aggression pact.” Such rhetoric is well-suited as material for stupid memes, as well as for forming a sect around oneself, but certainly not for conscious acceptance by a wide circle of people.
At the end of the lecture, Svetov gave a short interview to Ekaterina Khudoleva(Just in case—that’s not me! Yes, also from Kuzbass, yes, also a journalist, yes, roughly the same age, but not me). In the interview, I was pleased by the answer about Nozick, where Svetov’s grievances with Nozick’s analytical philosophy were laid out quite clearly. I hope that in the book Svetov is writing, according to his words, he will expand on them in more detail.
After yesterday’s announcement, I thought about letting you rest, but now I have a selfish interest.
On October 16, Mikhail Svetov will perform in Novosibirsk. This visit is part of the month-long tour of 29 cities that I previously described, of which only Saransk has fallen through so far.
On the official website of Svetov’s team, funds are being raised to support the tour as a whole. However, as I understand it, although it is written there that the money will go toward tickets and venue rentals, in reality, only tickets are paid for from there. The local organizing team claims that due to the influx of people wishing to attend the lecture, they had to find a large hall, which means the need to find 32,000 rubles for its four-hour rental. In this regard, in the Novosibirsk LPR Telegram channel (by the way, please subscribe), an additional fundraiser has been announced; the payment details differ from the official Svetov ones, don’t be alarmed.
The theme of the lecture is the new federal treaty. There is a short five-minute clip about this on the SVTV channel; he also seems to have given this lecture in several cities, but I only managed to find a recording from Yekaterinburg in terrible quality. Local organizers promise to try and make a more decent recording and a separate stream this time.
Thanks in advance to everyone who chips in for the lecture; I’ll provide a review of how it went.
The peak of political activity among citizens in the country is coming to an end, for better or worse: the elections are over, the results are known almost everywhere, so Russian libertarians are habitually switching from politics to education, which, of course, always pleases me.
There are about a month and a half left until the annual Adam Smith Readings, but so far last year’s program is still on the Readings website. Those who are still deciding whether to go or not can watch the recording of the 2018 Readings. It is truly a non-trivial choice—between being physically present in the heat and crowd and watching a recording in comfort, but in terrible quality.
In general, it seems that many organizers of public lectures put maximum effort into ensuring there are no glitches during the performance itself—but they lack the strength to ensure a high-quality recording or, even better, a broadcast. Not long ago, I advertised a lecture by Fariza Rodriguez in St. Petersburg, and when the recording finally appeared, I was disgusted for a long time because it was unwatchable.
Mikhail Svetov decided to set a record and organize a large lecture tour across the regions: 29 cities in 34 days, from September 15 to October 18. The performance schedule is posted on his website; you can find out if your city is there and register on the same page. Registration should not be neglected because the first lectures have already shown that Svetov is no longer a “no-name” to the current regime; his activities are monitored and hindered whenever possible. So, at the last moment, you might receive a notification about a change of location or something similar. Of course, you cannot expect a high-quality recording of Svetov’s lectures, so come in person.
As you may have noticed in Svetov’s performance schedule, there is a mysterious three-day pause from October 4 to 7. No, it is not a day off. Mikhail felt that one challenge was not enough, and during this very time, he is bringing Hans-Hermann Hoppe to Moscow. The performance of the living classic of libertarianism is expected on October 6; details are available from Mikhail in his channel.
And for those who find it boring to receive announcements three weeks in advance, I have saved for last the announcement of a cool event that will take place in Moscow this coming Saturday, September 21. The organizers couldn’t decide whether to borrow the title of a Balzac book or a Terry Gilliam film for the event, so they took both. It turned out a bit long: The Splendor and Misery, Fear and Loathing of Monopolies. This is a full-fledged conference in the TED Talks format. Four speakers are mentioned in the channel, but in fact, as of today, agreements have already been made with five, and it’s not impossible that more will appear. You can read about the speakers and the topics of the presentations in the organizers’ channel or download the conference program.
I want to separately note that although the venue is Moscow, the conference organizer is the Tea Club. As we know, no network organization in Russia can claim federal status until it conquers the capital; this is especially evident in supermarket chains or, say, restaurants. So, I am watching this bold bid by the St. Petersburg club with great interest, because in this way, they might eventually reach me in the provinces. I hope they manage to organize a decent recording this time, and if you send them some donations, the chances of this increase. Donation details are provided in the same place, in the announcement on the club’s channel.
