Тег: Offer

Prospects for political activity in Russia

Democracy in Russia has not yet been formally destroyed completely. No one can be elected to any legislative body above the municipal level without permission from the current regime, because they will not even let you get onto the ballot. But at the municipal level, independent candidates are still able to get on the ballot. For this very reason, a fairly large number of opposition figures have been elected as municipal deputies over the last few years.

This has had very little impact on the decisions made at the municipal level. Independent deputies are usually in the minority. They are typically not allowed into even remotely important commissions. They are not given the floor at meetings. In practice, they can only achieve something in the districts they were elected from, but the powers of deputies at this lowest level are completely negligible. To top it all off, as a result of every sufficiently large protest action, deputies are collectively sent behind bars, because they either participated in it, called for participation, or could have called for participation.

Today in Moscow, municipal deputies from over fifty regions gathered for the “Municipal Russia” forum to get to know each other, socialize, and discuss possibilities for horizontal interaction. Now, instead of a conference hall, they are carrying out the planned program in police vans and at police stations.

Any attempt to engage in unauthorized political activity in the legal or illegal field today in Russia is interpreted by the regime as a crime against the regime and is punished quite arbitrarily—from preventive detentions without a formal report to killings. For a reason I do not understand, many opposition figures claim that if they had not heroically held back the advance of the Leviathan, things would be even worse now. This assertion is in blatant contradiction with the observed reality, in which the tightening of the regime occurs strictly in response to protest demonstrations. The suppression of grassroots activity is a resource-intensive activity, and those who would prefer to spend resources on palaces rather than batons hire the baton-bearers strictly as needed. In the absence of protest, they would spend roughly the same on palaces, but they would not breed so many security officers and so many laws allowing those officers to commit any kind of robbery.

The best thing we can do in this situation is to leave the country and succeed in a new place. This will not bring down the regime in Russia in any way. A submissive Uzbek will be brought in to take your place—there are eighty million of them, and they have it even worse; that will be enough to fill the vacating positions. But that is not important. If you are behind the wheel, you follow the principle of giving way to the fool. Give these fools the road in politics. If you honk your horn, they will run you over and keep driving. We only have a chance if we are the majority. Therefore, we need to concentrate where that majority is easier to secure. That is exactly why we chose the sparsely populated Montenegro.

From now on, I will regularly report on how the project to create a libertarian outpost in the Balkans is doing. Forgive me, but this seems much more important to me than attempts at political activity in Russia.

Political activity in Russia looks like this

Ukraine as a trendsetter

Until now, this predominantly theoretical channel had only one post dedicated to the Ukrainian presidential elections, where I informed readers about the nomination of libertarian Gennady Balashov. But, as we all saw, a slightly different person won in the first round—Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the main character of the series “Servant of the People” about a populist’s journey from the people to the presidency.

If the world’s leading movie empire keeps even a slight eye on foreign election technologies, then I think a decision is already ripening in the depths of the Democratic Party to suggest that Kevin Spacey, the main character of the first five seasons of “House of Cards,” run in the primaries. Who, if not him, is capable of defeating Trump in 2020?

But those are overseas affairs, not very interesting. Meanwhile, here in Russia, and moreover, among Russian libertarians, we have our own professional screenwriter. How about filming a TV series “The New Federative Treaty” by 2024? I usually get lost in front of the camera, but here I’d even agree to an episodic role as “the girl with the sign.” I’ve already thought of the sign. It will feature Zalina Marshenkulova and the caption “Federation Pose: people on top.”

By the way, about the signs. The episode, of course, should be filmed at Lenin Square in Novosibirsk (the central square where almost no one is allowed except communists), and this is also an interesting technology that I haven’t heard of before. Imagine the announcements: “The filming crew of the series ‘The New Federative Treaty’ invites those wishing to appear as extras in the role of rally participants. Filming will take place then and there; the square accommodates up to 10,000 people. We cannot provide payment, but every participant will receive a souvenir badge. Please bring your own posters, flags, and other attributes.”

Switch from the Moscow bottle to the federalization of Siberia

Reputation under ancap, part 2

Yesterday I published a model of a reputation engine for ancap that was submitted to me for review, and today I will tell you what I think about it

I will start, as usual, with a definition. Reputation is the conclusion drawn by a potential counterparty regarding a certain subject and the prospects of interacting with them, based on the full extent of their knowledge about that subject. Thus, reputation is not a property of the subject. My reputation in the eyes of socialism-chan and my reputation in the eyes of minarchism-chan are two completely different reputations, and the difference between them is no less than the difference between the concepts of “execution” and “a fine”.

Many have heard about the Chinese social credit system. The state collects a vast amount of the most diverse data about a citizen, then using an incredibly complex and opaque algorithm, it puts two and two together and concludes how reliable this citizen appears to be to the state. The higher the rating, the more freedoms it is willing to grant the citizen; the lower it is, the more it restricts them. The goal of this entire system is social engineering—the cultivation of the perfect human of the future. I don’t know if market offers for “boosting” ratings have appeared yet, but if not, they simply must appear soon.

Everyone knows about the Russian Unified State Exam (USE) system. The state forces schoolchildren to take a test of monstrous proportions, and then forces universities to admit applicants based on a single criterion: the result of this test. I don’t need to tell you what phenomenal results are demonstrated in this test by natives of certain national republics.

Examples can be multiplied, but I think it is already clear that the forceful imposition of one’s own assessments of someone’s reputation on others is not the true Tao. It’s not even about the fact that such systems will be attempted to be cheated, but about the coercion itself. In ancap, however, any system that collects certain data about people and derives assessments from it can be implemented only if people voluntarily begin to use that system.

How do I envision a near-ideal reputation system? Something like this:
— Siri, look at the proposal from Bitarch; can this guy be trusted?
— I have performed an express analysis of the proposal itself and what is available about Bitarch in open sources. Based on your previous preferences, Ancap-sama, the probability that you will trust him is 85%. The probability that he will betray your trust should cooperation begin is 7%. You specified a trust threshold of 80%; may I respond to him affirmatively, or would you like to review the details?
— Give me the details.
— Hi!

Of course, just as people try to get the maximum score on the USE or the maximum social rating in China, they will want to optimize their requests for the reputation assessment system I use—in this example, Siri. But they will strive to earn my trust in the same way now, when a lot of data has to be collected manually.

The more routine I want to remove from my life, the more typical decisions will be entrusted to my virtual consigliere. But first, one way or another, I will have to train this neural network on my preferences; otherwise, the result is unlikely to consistently please me.

Siri, scratch my back, please!

As for the system you proposed, people will be willing to take its recommendations into account only if it somehow becomes very important to them that a person, for the sake of increasing their reputation, be willing to contribute to charity. I doubt such a quality would concern me if, for example, I am looking for a one-night stand or choosing a model of hiking boots. But if I need to find a home for a litter of homeless kittens, then that’s a different story.

Reputation under ancap

Bitarch (topic disclosure paid in the amount of 0.005btc)

Today I have an unusual format. In essence, this is not about answering a question, but a review of a full, detailed proposal. Therefore, I would like to split the topic into two posts. Today’s post will outline the proposal itself, and in tomorrow’s, I would like to provide a detailed overview of the topic of reputation and the construction of reputation systems. Discussion in the comments is highly welcome.

As we all understand, under ancap, the institution of reputation will play a significant role. Imagine that a person is not yet well-known in the community or wants to atone for their past “sins” by creating or restoring a reputation. There is an organization or a blockchain project to which this person can make a donation and receive in return an ID with reputation points. They can show this to other people when conducting transactions to increase trust. If they cheat, the victim can file a complaint with this system, and the fraudster will lose the reputation points for which they previously made a donation (more precisely, their ID with negative reviews will be useless for concluding deals in the future). To exclude fraud on the part of the victim, the reputation service may also require them to make a donation of a similar amount (and they will also make their own reputation ID useless if they lie and are caught). The result is a reputation system in which it is not profitable for the parties to deceive each other from the perspective of game theory. The donations received can be directed toward funding public goods (schools, hospitals, roads, science, ecology, etc.), simultaneously finally dismantling the main argument of statists against libertarians: “If a person has no insurance and no friends, who will take care of them in old age, provide medical treatment, free education for children, and so on?”.

How do you evaluate this system?