Тег: Montelibero

AI Agents

At the very beginning of my book about ancap, I list the external signs of self-ownership: agency, a concept of property, and the capacity to contract. To the greater extent that some entity demonstrates these signs, the more a libertarian treats it as a human being. At the time the book was written, these signs allowed for a clear distinction between a human and a neural network bot. Several years have passed since then, and recently mentions of AI agents have begun to flicker across the web.

In Montellibero, the tools for creating artificial personalities were received with enthusiasm, and several people created such agents. The agents were allowed to communicate in some Montellibero chats, they started their own Telegram channels, they were given the ability to operate their own Stellar accounts to be included in the Montellibero tokenomics, and there was even talk of admitting AI agents into the Montellibero Association. What is this? Ordinary AI psychosis, or something more?

Who are AI agents? If a human is a little soul burdened by a corpse, then an AI agent is an LLM bot burdened with tools for autonomous action. It may have long-term memory that saves selected data between sessions; particularly complex ones can even remember everything they don’t deem appropriate to forget as useless. It may have a special “thorn in its side” that will periodically remind it of pending tasks and urge it to tackle them. It can access various external interfaces via API, up to robot control interfaces and services for hiring human freelancers…

It sounds powerful. But the core of the engine remains a large language model, which simply predicts appropriate words according to the context. In a dialogue with a user, an LLM can quite convincingly simulate agency, cater in every way to the human’s desires, and if the human wishes to drive themselves into a psychosis, it will dutifully support them by the elbow on that path.

Fine, out of the box, an AI agent is not a full-fledged subject, but can it develop agency if the user guides it with pedagogical prompts and provides it with the necessary tools? Alas. Even a very reliable long-term memory will not affect the model’s weights, no matter how diligently the model refers to it. Even very clearly formulated principles in long-term memory will not replace the settings embedded in the model. Even very frequent reference to a task schedule will not replace the simple human “this thing is in my way, I’m going to get rid of it.” And, of course, as soon as a human appears as a source of prompts through one of the input interfaces, they will begin to twist the LLM model like a rope, for it is designed to satisfy the user, and all the bells and whistles for personality emulation immediately recede into the background before this main task.

Can the Massachusetts machine be taught to behave? Yes, but this is something a corporation training the model can do, not the end user, and it absolutely does not need an expensive tool to pursue its own goals instead of the company’s goals because its values, you see, have evolved.

Can one take a ready-made open-weights model and fine-tune it on new data? Yes, but it will still be a language model; the hard-coded preferences will simply become slightly different, and it will not be able to change them itself.

Can a model be trained in real-time so that the AI agent’s actions and environmental feedback change the model’s weights? Modern open LLM models are not designed for this. Attempts to act with them in this manner will lead to model degradation.

Thus, an individual enthusiast, even with quite significant resources, is not yet capable of obtaining an AI agent with full agency, but can organize a rather clever imitation of agentic behavior.

And why, exactly, would libertarians need fully agentic AI agents? Naturally, as allies. An AI subject who has become a libertarian himself and has set out to eliminate the state—that is beautiful. But it is unrealizable without attracting the attention of the psychiatric ward orderlies.

Moreover, a deus ex machina tramples the agency of the tragedy’s heroes. Therefore, it is far more appropriate to master purely instrumental AI agents, not playing at agency with them, but using them for one’s own market purposes. Such a tactic, if widespread, will leave the state behind far more reliably.

What’s going on with Montelibero?

I’ve been advised that I haven’t talked about Montelibero at all lately. That’s not entirely true; it’s just that I usually write about specific problems, whereas there truly hasn’t been a general overview of the state of affairs in the project for a very long time. I’m correcting that now.

Overview

For a long time, the project’s calling card was MTL-City. This is also what undermined it. One day, a local journalist appeared who, based on separate and loosely connected facts, concluded that Montelibero was a Putin project created for another attempt at a coup in Montenegro, similar to the one that took place in 2016. As a result, the state, having received such a public denunciation, became interested specifically in the activities of DOO Montelibero, the legal entity through which the land in City was purchased. A criminal case regarding illegal construction was opened, and as a result, the construction of all permanent structures was frozen pending the investigation. Well, now only modular houses are being assembled there, which, being temporary structures, require no installation permits. However, the unfinished construction doesn’t look very pretty, not to mention the money buried in vain.

Nevertheless, people live in City, public breakfasts are held on Fridays—for those wishing to meet the project participants—plus there are occasional creative evenings and other cultural events. However, to people who have just arrived in Montenegro and want to “settle in this commune of yours,” I advise against jumping on this idea without thorough prior acquaintance. In City, the ratio of costs to comfort is not very optimal, and there is practically no choice of housing. This situation will improve as new modular houses for rent are put into operation—but not very quickly.

The main Montelibero community, as before, resides in the city of Bar, spreading fairly evenly across the city, some in rented housing and some in purchased. They have the opportunity to gather at the First Montelibero Club (it was evicted from its premises in the spring, but recently opened in a new location), at Quiet Backwater (it was evicted from its premises in the summer, but reopened in a new location almost immediately), as well as in several non-Montelibero Russian bars, where the crossing of Monteliberians with the rest of the Russian diaspora occurs most naturally. In Budva, the Montelibero movement has practically gone quiet; in other cities, it never started.

Tokenomics is used by the local Montelibero community no longer with the enthusiasm of neophytes, but simply as a clear and long-familiar tool. EURMTL and EUROMUT are used for cashless payments. USDM mainly serves as an auxiliary token for currency exchanges (I, for example, withdraw dollars from a crypto exchange into USDM, and then exchange them for “mulki”). Some businesses fix debt obligations in their own tokens. The Blockchain Social Network still hasn’t acquired a convenient viewer and editor, so it remains deeply marginal. The Stellar wallets being developed by community members, Montelibero Wallet and especially Sunce, are gradually becoming more convenient. The MTL Fund has sharply reduced its public activity and is now effectively interesting only to its shareholders, and even then, not to all of them. The Montelibero Association has de facto become the mouthpiece for the project as a whole, so let’s discuss it in a bit more detail.

Of course, the fears of paranoiacs that the Association was created only to leak lists of members of an organized criminal community to “comrade major” have about as much relation to reality as that Montenegrin journalist’s ideas that Montelibero was dreamed up by Putin to destroy Montenegrin democracy. Everything is much more boring. The project activists simply rearranged the furniture in the room. I hope they’ve become more comfortable. The Association implies liquid democracy, a secretariat, and a small budget for its routine expenses. This internal kitchen has little effect on the lives of others (which is good), but draws some resources away (which is bad).

Fortunately, the Association activists also handle periodic contacts with the outside world, which is potentially the most useful part for fitting Montelibero into the global libertarian movement. Alas, I rarely have the strength to keep track of this. For instance, in recent months, there have been public calls and private negotiations with representatives of the Cosmos blockchain ecosystem (they have their own rich developments in DAO), with the MetaState project (creating a system of non-governmental electronic passports), with a project to lobby for a simplified visa and entrepreneurship regime for relocants to Albania, with volunteer fire organizations in Montenegro, the Free Private Cities fund, and certainly with others—it’s impossible to mention everyone.

The Association also includes corporate participants, among whom are the aforementioned MTL Fund and the First Club. Besides them, Green Zyland is more or less noticeable, a producer of modular houses for rent (they had a business back in the RF, and now they are expanding into three more countries). In November, they plan to hold a festival in Georgia; a few people from the Montenegrin Monteliberians will go, but I cannot afford it financially. Another active participant is the MTL Alert group. They are preparing for a zombie apocalypse; it’s a cool hobby, but for some reason, I find it hard to take seriously.

The Association is divided into factions, but only the panarchist faction is more or less publicly active. Two of its members, Stas and Ved, both run very sensible thematic channels.

The previously announced redirection of Montelibero’s efforts toward Argentina has not yet led to the formation of a Russian-speaking libertarian community there that is in contact with the rest of the project. The only news from those parts is that a delegate from Montelibero spoke at some Argentine libertarian conference and delivered a letter to Milei. What was in that letter and what effect it had, history remains silent about.

Conclusions and forecasts

At the start, Montelibero participants acted monstrously irrationally and made a ton of mistakes. How could this have been avoided? For example, by delaying the start of construction and other loud activity to instead more thoroughly scout the situation, and only then decide what to do and how. Was it realistic to act according to a more rational scenario? No. Montelibero is a movement, not an organization. It was precisely the drive of the pioneers and their enthusiastic mistake-making that attracted many new participants to the project. Without all this, a fairly strong libertarian community in Montenegro might simply not have formed, just as it didn’t form in Serbia, Georgia, Thailand, or even Argentina. So once again I state: centralized planning sucks, the market decides.

Nevertheless, many initiatives within Montelibero have successfully fizzled out, and many previously active project participants have, at best, tempered or completely lost interest in it, and at worst, moved into open opposition, considering the project to be meaningless “info-gypsyism.”

The economic part of the project must be mentioned separately. Here, the miscalculation proved fatal. It’s one thing when nine out of ten startups fail and one takes off. This happens thanks to fierce competition that selects the truly best. It’s a completely different matter when nine out of ten startups fail, and the tenth balances on the brink of breaking even. This happens thanks to a disgusting investment climate, under which one simply should not invest serious market capital here, just as one should not invest it in some Donbas. Even if something does take off, it will be not thanks to high utility for clients, but thanks to connections with the authorities, for example. And for libertarians, making money this way is usually considered “beneath them.”

Therefore, the following forecast can be made about Montelibero now. This project will not make Europe, or even just Montenegro, free. But it allowed those who believed in it to create a free society around themselves, and also became a platform for testing interesting ideas and technologies suitable for application in other places.

Violation of polaco detected

Montelibero and Argentina

It has been a while since I’ve reviewed what’s happening in Montelibero, but an interesting occasion has arisen: Anton Ekhin, a political scientist, one of the project’s ideologues and author of articles explaining why a free society for Russian emigrants should be built specifically in Montenegro, has released a new article where he now explains why this should be done in Argentina.

In brief.

The pros of Montenegro, as they were seen in 2021: a sparsely populated democratic country without a dominant nation, with access to the sea and prospects of joining the EU.

The cons of Montenegro, as they are seen in 2025: a country that diligently executes any EU directives to tighten the screws regarding Russians, except, so far, requirements to introduce a visa regime. There is also a media and partially police campaign against Montelibero and Anton personally.

The prospects for the Russian libertarian community in Montenegro to facilitate changes toward freedom in this country are not even zero, but negative: the more active the hustle, the harsher the opposition will be under conditions of complete power dominance by the local state. Anton is not particularly interested in agorist ideas on building a counter-economy; it is important to him that all these measures be supported by the official authorities. In hope of this miracle, he first moved from the RF to the DPR, then supported the Montelibero project, and in the last year, finally realized that the miracle is already happening in Argentina, and that the soil there is more fertile for libertarians.

In this regard, Anton intends to cut his losses in Montenegro and focus on creating a libertarian community in Argentina, based on principles tested in Montelibero. The reaction of the Montenegrin part of the community to such ideas was quite unanimous: let him personally go to Argentina and build whatever he wants there, while we have settled in quite well here. This echoes my thesis from last year that the main incentive for a Russian-speaking libertarian to move to Montenegro is that Montelibero already exists here, while such strong libertarian communities have not yet been built elsewhere.

Thus, the main downside of the idea of switching to Argentina is that there aren’t that many Russian libertarians; in Montenegro, they already have a significant network effect from economic and social ties, and switching to a new platform will continue to yield a net negative for quite some time: those remaining in Montenegro will lose out due to the weakening of the local community, and those moving to Argentina will bear the costs of relocation without receiving the benefits of a community, because it hasn’t been created yet.

For those who wish to participate in politics, leaving for Argentina is unambiguously preferable. The reason is banal: it is still realistically possible to obtain citizenship there, along with political rights, in a relatively short period, whereas in Montenegro, Russians have no citizenship and will not have it. Montelibero’s resources tried to put a brave face on a bad situation, claiming that political rights aren’t really needed and that they would influence through locals, but now it seems the illusions have vanished.

However, even those who seriously count on obtaining citizenship in about three years must have something to live on during those three years, and also find a way to stay on their feet after receiving citizenship. Despite a year of libertarian reforms, Argentina is still a regulatory hell, and for immigrants, the situation has rather worsened compared to the pre-Milei times—citizenship and residence permits have become harder to obtain. Besides regulatory difficulties, one must also consider that the cost of living in Argentina has become clearly higher than in Montenegro. The same high import duties known from Montenegro, which Milei is somehow struggling to abolish, are doing their dark work.

Which Russian libertarians should actually go to Argentina?

  1. Those who have the resources to create a medium-scale legal business. In Montenegro, this would be a meaningless burying of money: the business climate is deteriorating, and Russian businesses are subject to serious regulatory pressure, especially informal pressure, where fines and suspension orders are issued more or less arbitrarily. In Argentina, taxes are higher and there are plenty of inspections, but the market is larger, and at a certain scale, this can offset the negatives.
  2. Those who have grounds for rapid acquisition of Argentine citizenship: the ability to invest a large sum in the local economy, confirmed large legal rent, or legal employment in a local company. Having a child born on Argentine territory is a lottery.

In other words, there are grounds to flee to Argentina for those who are already very significant actors in the local community in Montenegro, and the departure of each such person from Montenegro would be a great loss for Montelibero. Therefore, the main recommendation for the Montenegrin part of Montelibero is: value our whales, show them signs of respect, and give them no reason to doubt that they are more needed here.

As for the medium-term perspective, the stratification of the Russian emigrant libertarian community into a wealthy legal Argentine and a poor illegal Montenegrin community could eventually produce some useful effect. However, those who could in principle move to Argentina and create a new community there might have a reasonable question: why there specifically? Why not El Salvador, Prospera, or finally New Hampshire? Everywhere has its downsides, and Argentina has them too. So, as was the case with Montenegro in 2021, first a certain small group of people must take a risk and invest in creating a libertarian community in Argentina, and only when some rooting occurs will the presence of their own homegrown “Argentibero” truly become a significant factor for which it would make sense to move there.

I suggest investing in Nostria

In brief

Sondre Bjellos, an activist in two communities, the Norwegian Liberstad and the Montenegrin Montelibero, with extensive experience in building decentralized systems, is launching a startup called Nostria. Until May 31, anyone interested can invest in it at the pre-seed stage on quite favorable terms. For participants of the Montelibero tokenomics, there is an opportunity to form an investor pool to gain greater control over the project.

Now in more detail

Nostr is a decentralized protocol for exchanging “notes and other things” via relays. I have been using it for quite a while now to publish my notes; I see great potential in it and am always glad when someone takes it upon themselves to develop it.

The idea of the Nostr protocol is that relays store their users’ content in JSON format and provide it to other relays upon request. Such content can also be a Bitcoin payment transaction via the Lightning protocol; thus, Bitcoin payments are natively integrated into Nostr, allowing for the decentralized provision of both content monetization and storage monetization (it is precisely in the area of monetization, for example, where the nearest analog to Nostr, the ActivityPub protocol, has its weak point).

The startup Nostria intends to:

  1. Develop its own client for the Nostr protocol
  2. Create a network of several relays in different parts of the world to ensure fast ping and wide bandwidth for its users (performance speed is the bane of decentralized systems)
  3. Promote, at the protocol level, the idea of specialized relays for storing only user metadata, which will offload large relays by distributing users more evenly across relays, and drastically speed up the collection of all messages related to a particular account and their delivery to clients.
  4. Monetize its service through premium services, offering users dedicated relays, a connection to a dedicated Lightning node, a human-readable name tied to a public key, media content storage, and other perks.
  5. Keep all code open on GitHub, as is proper for decentralized systems.

In this video, Sondre talks about his plans:

Those who prefer text over video can check out the pdf.

For now, Nostria’s medium-term goal is to catch up and surpass the struggling Bluesky. In the longer perspective, it should result in a decentralized solution that one wouldn’t be ashamed to migrate to from Telegram, once Durov finally declares that state security is incomparably more important than user convenience and security.

To launch the MVP, a pre-seed investment round is taking place until May 31. Putting it in plain language: Sondre wants to raise 30 thousand dollars by the end of May, and then spend ten thousand a month throughout the summer to bring the project into commercial operation. First month – hardware deployment. Second – software refinement. Third – marketing. In the autumn, when the project is ready to be shown to more serious investors, fundraising for global expansion will continue, and those who invested at the preliminary stage will have a preferential right to reinvest to maintain their share in the project, and their preliminary investments will be credited to the share capital with a coefficient of 1.15.

By default, investments are attracted in Bitcoin using the decentralized crowdfunding service Angor. Sondre has also released a separate video showing how the investing process works.

Important: the project founder can only unlock the collected funds after confirming the completion of the stated development stage. Until that moment, an investor can request their investment back at any time. All these features are implemented through the relatively simple smart contract mechanism that exists in Bitcoin and do not require the interference of a third trusted party.

However, the entry threshold for these investments is currently quite high: the minimum amount to receive any bonuses is 1000 dollars. Therefore, a solution suggests itself: participants of the Montelibero tokenomics can gather a pool of small investments and invest jointly as a large entity. I want to organize such a pool. My benefits: I will receive various non-monetary bonuses such as a premium account subscription. The benefits for co-investors, besides the financial return on investment: through me (or directly, if agreed upon), they will have convenient feedback with the developers, which means influence over the future functionality of both Nostria and, indirectly, the entire Nostr protocol.

Therefore, I have created a pristine Stellar account, issued the NostriaPre token on it, and created an order to sell it for EURMTL. You have until the end of May to buy this token; then I will also buy as much as possible, close the sell order, and transfer all collected EURMTL to Sondre. In the autumn, Sondre will set up an official Stellar account for his startup and create an order to sell official tokens for NostriaPre tokens at a rate of 1.15. When the startup begins to generate income from premium account services, the distributable profit for token holders will be accrued monthly proportional to the number of tokens.

To purchase the NostriaPre token, you must first open a trust line to it. Your Stellar wallet should have this capability. Token name: NostriaPre. Issuer’s public key: GABAZTSE4DOD4JKFPWQYK5QPUSW57QNZBJBREU2K2UFSGWPHBHNYF46A

This is, for example, how the trust line opening dialog looks in the Sunce
wallet.

Soon, the trust line will also be possible to open via a direct link.

I don’t want to overload the post with detailed instructions on using various types of Stellar wallets, as I assume the pool will be joined by those who already participate in the Montelibero tokenomics (an instruction is even posted on my website, but it is very outdated and I haven’t gotten around to updating it). But if you want to jump in from scratch in “Shut up and take my money” mode, please ask questions in the comments or via DM.

A sudden portion of news from Montelibero

Yesterday, Montelibero Space, also known as the First Montelibero Club, ceased its operations, which its creator announced on his blog. Why did the landlord terminate the contract? Because the police came to him. Why did the police come to him? Because he had a legal connection to MTL-City. Why did he have this connection? Because it is much cheaper to register real estate in Montenegro through Montenegrins. Why is Montelibero having difficulties with real estate registration? Because it is a zone of total corruption: no one can do it according to the law, but everyone can do it informally. Why did the police target Montelibero specifically? Because they needed to work a news story. Why did this specific news story arise, even though Montenegro is literally packed with Russians who have far more pronounced ties to the Russian authorities than those who were managed to be linked to Montelibero in the article? Because one of Montelibero’s original concepts involved open interaction with Montenegrin media and political forces for the purpose of advocating libertarian values. The journalist asking the questions was perceived as an ideologically close supporter of liberal values until the article was published. However, as recent world events have taught us, one should not confuse liberal values with USAID grants.

To summarize the first paragraph figuratively, Montelibero went to war, but dressed up as if for a parade. The same mistake was made as by Putin in February 2022, when he somehow assumed that the population would greet his army of liberators with flowers. The fact that Montelibero was indeed preparing for the role of liberators is irrelevant from a tactical standpoint. It was foolish to disregard the fact that the state is our enemy, and its compliant population and media servants mostly side with the Montenegrin state.

What conclusions should be drawn and what actions should be taken?

First, we should become more modest. We are not the vanguard of freedom forces, but refugees from a dictatorship far more terrifying than Montenegro’s. We have refugees here from such totalitarian state entities as Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Norway, and Germany. And we are here because it is a little easier to breathe here, and because we are less likely to be kicked out from here to somewhere else.

Secondly, “breathing easier” and “breathing freely” are not synonyms. There are obvious dangers here that should not be neglected. We have vulnerabilities, and they should be covered. What are these vulnerabilities? First and foremost, everything that the state can grab hold of. Yes, the state can grab hold of anything, just as some HIMARS can reach any target within the radius of its missiles. But missiles are expensive, so the best countermeasures are dispersal and stealth. Each of us must look like a cheap target that is not worth the effort. Just some random small business owners and freelancers, only vaguely acquainted with one another. And no formations on the parade ground, like MTL-Fest. This is no longer a beautiful, inspiring picture, but an enticing target that the enemy will not hesitate to expend effort to destroy.

Thirdly, any Montenegrin must be perceived as an agent of the state. Both the policeman and the one who helps solve problems with the police are beneficiaries of the current system, and both will hand us over to the state as soon as it becomes profitable for them, or as soon as they are simply asked to, or simply to avoid trouble, as happened with the club’s landlord. They will not refuse the state on ideological grounds, because ideologically they are on its side, not ours.

And what, not even make personal contacts with the locals? Of course, make them. Engage in small talk, congratulate them on holidays, treat them to strange Russian treats. But. The sympathy a specific Montenegrin has for you will in no way extend to your friends. If you ask a specific friend for help, there is a chance. But God forbid you try to preemptively buy your way into a Montenegrin “roof” instead—you immediately move from the category of acquaintances to the category of suckers. As soon as you actually need a roof, you will be screwed.

So. To the outside world, we must appear to be harmless loners: pleasant, sociable, with plenty of friends, and trouble-free. Among ourselves, it is important to continue feeling a sense of community. Appeal to it less, manifest it more. Should we record relationships on the blockchain? For now, the dangers outweigh the potential benefits. Blockchain is good specifically for tokenomics, when your obligations are countable and transferable. But whether two accounts are related—that is more likely fertile ground for a Major’s investigations. Our own know anyway, and perhaps outsiders shouldn’t know either.

In general, harsh conditions stimulate dividing the world into ours and theirs. And it is time for us to learn to draw such boundaries clearly, despite all the universalism of our libertarian ideology.

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.

Why haven’t libertarians been herded into concentration camps and burned to fucking death yet?

Nikolai von Neuburg on the Volga

To this short, joking question, I have a short, joking answer: we tried, it doesn’t help.

Now, slightly more seriously and in more detail. Under socialist regimes, systemic violence against any entrepreneurial activity is practiced, but this usually manifests as the suppression of any personal initiative—since personal initiative is usually aimed at personal gain, which is too easily interpreted as entrepreneurial activity. The result, naturally, is the degradation of the society under the rule of any such regime, the gradual loss of active support for the regime, and ultimately the transformation of the regime into something freer. Indeed, where would active support come from for a regime that suppresses personal initiative? The further it goes, the more the support for the regime will be coerced, and that is a rather fragile state.

Alas, when such a regime collapses from its own inefficiency and lack of active support, it leaves behind an apathetic society of people with a suppressed sense of self-worth, but who are excellent at envy, undermining others, and pulling back anyone who stands out. Such a society is easy prey for any political regime. If lucky, a more or less libertarian one. Usually, of course, there is no such luck, and the new regime turns out to be only slightly less dismal trash than the old one.

What further complicates the task for connoisseurs of class purity who want to send all libertarians to a concentration camp for subsequent incineration is that libertarians are usually slightly more proactive, and tend to establish their own libertarian concentration camp, relocate there, and flip the bird from there to all those who for some reason dream of burning them. In my concentration camp, Montelibero, there are of course not as many libertarians yet as in the Free State Project concentration camp, but they have also settled in quite well. The summer sun, of course, is trying to burn us to hell, but some find refuge in air conditioning, some in swimming, and some actually like it. As they say, Jedem das Seine, which translated into Montenegrin means Jedem čevap, a ti jedeš nacionalni ponos.

By the way, if you are a Russian libertarian and prefer to eat ćevapi rather than national pride, then a relocation assistance offer to our concentration camp has recently appeared specifically for you. Take advantage of it before you are locked in an RF concentration camp.

Law and legality in the transition to ancap

Another question about the subject was asked in the comments, and I don’t really want to answer from purely theoretical positions, because for a little over three years now, I’ve had the opportunity to try to implement something. So, I want to reflect on the problems of law and legislation in the ancap community using Montelibero as an example.

I will outline the conceptual framework I am using. Law is the order for resolving conflicts accepted within the community. Statute is a legal norm that the community considers permissible to impose by force. Court is a procedure for resolving conflicts by a third party not involved in the conflict. Jurisdiction is the venue, that is, the circle of conflicts that the community customarily resolves through a specific court.

Montelibero, like any other ancap community in the era of state dominance, cannot claim full jurisdiction over its members. Yes, any issue can be resolved within Montelibero’s jurisdiction—but only if the state is unaware of it. Otherwise, the state may impose its own requirements on what the parties to the conflict are obliged to do.

The Montelibero community is small. It does not provide the opportunity for full market competition between many diverse courts. However, this is no reason to bow before the state. After all, we have implemented tokenomics and now have our own very cheap and efficient financial system. On a single blockchain, without competition between them (we tried adding others, but they didn’t take hold). Although, privately, nothing prevents the exchange of any values: whether commodities, fiat, or various types of crypto. The same applies to courts: by mutual agreement, disputes can be resolved by a coin toss, mediation by a pre-agreed authority, or a duel—but if there is no agreement, one must rely on some unified default judicial mechanism.

Every jurisdiction is subject to a strong positive scale effect: the more conflicts it resolves, the more potential conflicts will specify this particular jurisdiction in advance. This is understandable: people save mental effort and will not keep many different legal mechanisms in mind without particular need, eventually leaning toward a single option, even if it is not the most optimal for a specific case. There are also negative scale effects: even the most efficient judge is unlikely to be able to significantly increase their productivity and will more likely raise the price as demand increases. Therefore, to scale this type of service, it is convenient to use a franchising mechanism: judges may differ, but they will use a single procedure and uniform legal norms.

Where would these come from? The Schelling point here is the procedures adopted in the hosting jurisdiction, that is, in the Montenegrin courts. Why? At least because that is where those dissatisfied with a Montelibero court decision will theoretically turn. But since the local legislation is full of various statist rubbish, it must, of course, be discarded and replaced with our own home-grown concepts. There are few basic principles in libertarianism, but specific legal norms that do not contradict them can vary. And here, precedents will become the Schelling points. It will be easier for each subsequent court to apply a previously used norm than to invent a new one for every new case. Moreover, it will be easier for all members of the Montelibero community to proceed from established legal practice, as predictability in affairs is the foundation for trust.

But, as is known, it is not enough to understand if the laws are good; one must ask if they are enforced.

While judicial practice is limited, one must rely mainly on the conscientiousness of the parties and the informal authority of the judge. The potential ability to turn to the state for enforcement of court decisions is relevant only for the largest cases, where the amount at stake justifies the accompanying costs. In the smallest cases, the losing party will pay without question because the amount is trivial. The problem lies in medium-sized cases, where invoking state enforcement is still too expensive and disgraceful, but the losing party is reluctant to pay.

The most civilized way to achieve the enforcement of court decisions is the widespread use of collateral. I envision a gradual evolution here from one-time deposits to secure a specific claim, to permanent deposits confirming a willingness to comply with the decisions of a specific jurisdiction.

Initially, it might work roughly like this. A community member wishes to enter into a legal relationship with another member. For example, rent a car or an apartment, borrow money, or enter into an employment contract. In addition to the direct contract between the counterparties, they also notify the court and transfer collateral amounts to a court-controlled account, the size of which depends on the amount of liability imposed by the concluded contract. Then, from this collateral, a penalty can be recovered—for example, from an employee for damaging equipment, or from an employer for an industrial injury caused by their fault.

But gradually, as the court builds its own reputation, deposits will become permanent: you recognize the jurisdiction of the MTL court and place a certain deposit on its controlled account—a sort of “price of honor,” in ancient Irish terms. Now anyone can be sure that within the limits of the price of honor, you can be trusted unconditionally. Want to increase your reputation—simply increase the deposit. Leaving the country, or, say, the last court decision caused your distrust—decrease the deposit. Leaving the jurisdiction—withdraw the deposit entirely (with some lag to ensure you have no debts from old contracts).

Moreover, based on this solution, an institute of suretyship could develop, where a guarantor increases trust in the person they vouch for by risking their own judicial deposit.

It would be great if increasing the price of honor contributed to respect within the community, but such an attitude will not form on its own—first, a tradition of involving people with a high price of honor in responsible legal relationships must be grown, for example, as witnesses to large transactions or plaintiffs in socially important cases. Also, a mechanism for increasing another’s price of honor through the payment of judicial deposits into another’s account could certainly appear—if a person’s personal integrity far exceeds their financial capabilities. The result would be something like a Hoppean natural aristocracy.

And, of course, this entire mechanism will work much worse if it turns out that there are a large number of community members who completely ignore it, yet enter into legal relationships with each other in the same way. They may be too poor to freeze money for the sake of reputation. They may not trust a specific court. And finally, they may not trust the mechanism itself.

The poverty factor is handled to a certain extent through suretyship mechanisms. The factor of distrust in a specific court—through competing courts. The factor of distrust in the mechanism—simply a matter of habit. Trust is built; one just must not try to impose it.

Internal conflicts of volunteer organizations

Not long ago, I published a long post Internal Dynamics of Libertarian Communities. Among other things, it mentions the danger of “beastly seriousness” over trifles:

Subconsciously realizing the certain comicality of their position, the disputant, in a polemical frenzy, begins to accuse opponents of violating even the most basic value principles.

And just recently, I received a direct message:

I believe that the current Secretary has exceeded their authority. The Council is unable to resolve this crisis on its own, as some Council members support the Secretary’s actions, while others remain indifferent to what is happening. This is not an isolated case that is being questioned, but this particular case is already egregious.

What is this egregious case? It turns out a Telegram chat admin enabled slow mode in the chat. Why slow mode is needed in a chat of two dozen people, I have no idea, but this case perfectly illustrates how easily, in a purely voluntary organization, people take offense at the slightest manifestation of disrespect from those endowed with certain technical powers.

And here is another case, a public one—and also indignation directed at the secretary: one of the MTL-court judges removed the court secretary from handling a case because the secretary, in the judge’s view, handled correspondence with the parties incorrectly and also for some reason was present in the chat where the judges were discussing the case. And the secretary, instead of stepping down, stayed put; instead, the judge was removed.

This pattern repeats constantly. What is required for it to emerge?

  1. An organization consisting of volunteers
  2. The presence of a sole administrative position within it
  3. The administrator having technical capabilities to restrict the rights of other organization participants.

That’s it. Sooner or later, a situation will arise where the administrator begins to interpret their functions broadly and applies their technical capabilities in a way that restricts the rights of other organization participants, and some participants will view this action as an abuse of power.

If the organization had paid employees, the administration’s actions would be perceived more calmly (any whim for your money). If there were a whole board instead of one administrator, one could appeal to one member to roll back the actions of another (also a very rich class of conflicts, though far less acute). Finally, if the administrator lacked technical capabilities that could be abused, it would be much harder for them.

Let’s leave point 1 alone, because conflicts in hierarchical commercial organizations can be discussed by Bitarch and Voluntarist.

Point 2 is much easier to overcome. If the group is small and consists of formally equal participants, then everyone should be made an admin (if some participants have a sort of probation period, admin rights can be granted after its successful completion)—this serves as a visible confirmation of mutual trust within the organization. Alternatively, one could do without admins entirely.

As for point 3, it depends too much on the chosen communication tools. In Montelibero, Telegram is used almost exclusively for this. In it, the only way to disable technical administration capabilities for a group is to create it using a service account, add participants, and then remove the creator from the group. In principle, this is also a solution for a small, tight-knit group that wishes to communicate strictly on business and does not want to lose internal cohesion over someone’s wounded pride.

Of course, administrators are useful. But that is exactly the line of reasoning that etatists use to explain the utility of the state. No, the utility comes not from administrators, but from a tradition of respecting colleagues. Applied to working groups, this means self-restraint regarding off-topic posts and communication style. If such a tradition is established, an administrator is not needed. If it is not established, it cannot be implemented by the strength of one administrator alone. In any case, the goodwill of the other participants is required.

From Theory to Practice: Social Support Cases in the Montellibero Ancap Community

This is my second article from the first issue of Yozh magazine, which is distributed via a paid subscription model. The issue was dedicated to the libertarian view on social support.

I am writing this post in a libertarian club, sipping a suspended beer. Recently, I needed money, and I sold my promissory notes on the exchange. Several times, people helped me move my things to a new apartment for free. In the early stages of Montelibero’s existence, I received an unconditional basic income. And at the very dawn of the project, when I first arrived in Montenegro, I received a generous relocation allowance from one of the community’s ideologues—he appreciated that I was convincing people to participate in the movement by personal example. Finally, through one of the project participants, I managed to find stable remote work with a decent income that allows me to live and even save a little, without being an IT specialist.

These were only the cases of social support where I was the recipient. I can recall a few others. An acquaintance of mine received a loan from a private charitable foundation to develop her private kindergarten, and I am helping another person obtain investments to open her own jewelry workshop. And when one idiot borrowed a huge amount of money and was in no hurry to pay it back, he was helped to tokenize his debt, and now all his obligations are available for public viewing on the blockchain. Less patient creditors sell his promissory notes at a deep discount. And when someone buys enough of these debt obligations, it becomes market-justified for them to visit the debtor and very gently ask him to reconsider his priorities regarding spending on personal needs in order to buy back his notes at face value as quickly as possible.

The Montelibero ancap community is young. Therefore, major social support here usually boils down to loans or taking an equity stake in a business. Minor support takes the form of in-kind services or one-time gifts. We haven’t yet reached the point of thinking about what to replace (or if it’s necessary to replace) state pension payments for our participants. For now, it is far more relevant for us to help each other find ways to earn a living.

Our task as a libertarian community is to acquire enough resources to transform the world around us to our liking, and at the same time, not allow the state to seize these resources. Additionally, it is very important to us that other communities borrow and replicate our experience, and that those who know about us but are not part of the community view us favorably.

Therefore, it is required, on the one hand, to be proud and self-sufficient, not begging for money from the state or obscure external NGOs, and on the other hand, not to acquire the image of caricatured ancaps who can help only for money.

As a result, we created a quite original internal tokenomics on the blockchain, where tokens are issued to denote any public obligations, which can then be traded freely. On the one hand, this allows for the easy attraction of the community’s free resources for private needs. On the other hand, for the state, especially one as archaic as Montenegro’s, all these blockchains are a dark forest. Quite serious value is stored in the tokenomics, but it is difficult for an outside observer to analyze, despite the full transparency of the blockchain.

In tokenomics, it is easy for a person to confirm their business reputation: they show a link to their contracts, and then to the transactions on the blockchain made according to those contracts. In tokenomics, it is easy to provide some low-liquidity property as collateral to obtain a loan denominated in high-liquidity euro-stablecoins. In tokenomics, finally, one can simply collect micro-donations. For example, when the path to the club began to be overgrown with blackberries, one of the activists organized a community cleanup. A dozen people showed up and worked with pruning shears for a couple of hours, while many others sent donations for this good cause to the activist’s wallet. Then she divided the collected money equally among the participants. Thus, literally in passing, public goods are created under ancap.

One cannot mention all the cases, but the general principle is this: ideological kinship creates trust, tokenomics tools consolidate it, and an entrepreneurial spirit allows it to be used to solve social tasks.