For those who asked for the translation in e-book format — here it is. Some translation errors were corrected during the layout process. Donations are welcome.
Among my long-term translation projects, only Molinieu with his Practical Anarchy remains, and now he’s definitely not getting away.
The translation of the final chapter has been posted on my website. This chapter addresses a set of objections to libertarianism from well-meaning lovers of that wonderful atmosphere of cooperation and equality that we value so much in small communities united by a common goal. Eric Mack’s counterarguments boil down to the fact that attempting to stretch the “owl” of small, ideologically homogeneous communities over the “globe” of a diverse humanity leads to the owl tearing: the very values for which people cling to these small communities are lost.
Now only a purely technical task remains—to format the translation into an epub for more convenient reading. Those interested may use the text to publish a print run of hard copies of the translation on paper. I will be satisfied if, in doing so, it is indicated where the text was taken from, and a link is provided for those wishing to donate to the translator.
After a long, terrifyingly long break, I am getting around to finishing my once-started translation projects. Today it is the penultimate chapter of Libertarianism by Eric Mack, in which the author examines the critique of libertarianism by certain individuals unknown to me, Murphy and Nagel. The main point of their critique is that no natural rights exist; all rights are a convention. And, since the existing system of property rights is established through a state funded by taxes, it is meaningless to speak of the injustice of taxation, because taxation is inextricably linked to the very existence of property rights. A curious judgment that should make any libertarian’s blood boil. The way Eric Mack responds to them will, of course, not satisfy these statists, but it may slightly soothe the libertarian heartache.
While the translation was on pause, the mysterious technologies of the ancients were completely forgotten, so there will be no image with a progress bar.
The translation of the book was started by Dima Kovalenko under the editorship of Vladimir Zolotorev. Then, several chapters were translated by me independently. Finally, the translation was completed by order of the Socium publishing house. On the publisher’s website, you can purchase both the paper and electronic versions of the text. About six months have passed since the translation was published—plenty of time to sell a certain number of copies and recoup the project. So now I am publishing on my own page the original version of the translation, before its editing by the publisher. The translation is available for reading online; I will not be making an epub, as a downloadable version is already on sale.
The book is not about libertarianism, but about the competition of legal systems, and about the fact that no ideal legal system exists—there are many different conflicts occurring in many different circumstances, and inquisitive human thought invents very interesting ways to resolve them.
I also remind you that I still have a couple of translation projects remaining: “Libertarianism” by Eric Mack and “Practical Anarchy” by Stephan Molynieux. I think it’s time to finish these texts, and the best way to speed up the process is through your donations. By the way, Stephan Molynieux’s film was shown at the MTL-Fest 2024 pre-party, and after it ended, the viewers had the opportunity to chat briefly with the author; those interested can watch the recording of this conversation on the MTL-TV channel.
This summer, I finished translating Balaji Srinivasan’s book The Network State. Not everyone finds it convenient to read from a browser screen, and the automatically generated PDF suffered from some layout issues and occasional missing chunks of text. So, slowly and for fun after work, I laid out a version in EPUB format for e-readers (while also proofreading several more bugs in the translation). Given how many links are scattered throughout the text, the task turned out to be quite meditative and kept me busy for several months. And you’ve just had a few months to save up enough money to donate to me.
Also, I am finally leaving my full-time job, which has taken a considerable amount of my time and energy over the last three years. So, in a couple of weeks, I will have far more opportunities to maintain the channel. I think some reformatting awaits it.
So, it has happened. The final, and key, chapter of The Network State has been translated. In it, Balaji explains in detail:
If anyone hasn’t picked up the book yet, now is the time. I don’t see much point in making an audiobook out of it—there are too many external links, many of which are quite interesting to browse. For the same reason, it’s unlikely that the text will be produced in epub format—such a book should be read while online, and preferably in a browser anyway. The author promises to update the book periodically. If anyone follows the updates, please send me links to new pieces of text, and I will update the translation.
And for now—thank you all for the long wait, the channel is now officially coming out of vacation. I’ll need to scour through to see if any interesting questions from readers have accumulated, write a new article for Hedgehog, and it’s about time to finish the translations of Mac and Molinyu, for goodness’ sake.
P.S. Readers quickly generated a pdf. It’s not without flaws—internal footnotes have become external links—but overall it’s perfectly suitable for reading.
The translation of The Network State is steadily nearing completion. Chapter 5.1 (a short preamble to the fifth part of the book) and Chapter 5.2, where Balaji Srinivasan analyzes the phenomenon of the nation-state in detail: what a nation is, what a state is, how they differ, how they influence each other, what their combination represents, and much more along those lines, are ready.
From some fairly recent thoughts: various strategies of public administration are likened to various programming paradigms.
The next piece will definitely, certainly be the last, and I hope the most interesting—after all, we must finally figure out what the author proposes in a practical sense, after going on for so long and in such detail about the global situation and upcoming challenges!
To avoid bothering readers with news about every single sneeze, I present a large chunk of the translation of The Network State all at once.
Chapter 4.4. The Foreseeable Future: here the author simply had some fun with a couple of interesting technical predictions. They have a rather indirect relationship to the theme of the book.
Chapter 4.5. American Anarchy, Chinese Control, and International Centrism. A monstrously large text where the author mostly, of course, writes about the USA, analyzing step by step exactly how the degree of confrontation between supporters of the establishment and supporters of decentralization will increase in the States, and reports that this, generally speaking, is not funny or romantic at all (to be honest, while reading, it seemed to me that the author created a straw man out of Bitcoin maximalists, and they by no means propagate societies of total distrust, but who knows what kind of freaks actually hang out in these Americas of theirs). The alternative in the form of the Chinese recipe for a digital gulag obviously does not entice him either. As usual, he hopes that foreign countries will help him, and primarily bets on Israel and India. However, in his view, this is merely a base for building many startup communities, some of which will grow to the high status of network states.
Chapter 4.6. Conditions for Victory and Unexpected Endings. Here the author considers alternative scenarios where one of the extreme poles wins, rather than the coveted centrism.
Chapter 4.7. Toward a Recentralized Center. And here Balaji Srinivasan only has to emphasize once more that institutions are not scary, centralization is normal, you just shouldn’t obsess over the fact that the old things don’t work, and it would be more correct to actually launch a market process for building new institutions.
I will try not to take too long with the translation of the final, fifth part of the book, which presumably contains the recipes for what the author proposes to do.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone, and at the same time, happy end of Maslenitsa; and to those who love filming queues in fast-forward mode—happy opportunity to indulge in your favorite pastime. So many holidays in one day—isn’t that great, isn’t that panarchy!
As for me, another chapter of The Network State has been quietly translated. Balaji Srinivasan continues to discuss the trends of the near future, and if in the previous chapter he discussed socio-political trends, now he touches upon the techno-economic consequences of the digitalization and internetization of everything.
For instance, he notes that the sharp lowering of the publishing threshold increases variance: alongside traditional, polished, and weighted but uninteresting positions, a multitude of the most unusual chthonic entities crawl into the light. And besides the shaking of discourse via social networks, there is also the shaking of financial stability through countless cryptocurrencies.
Another interesting aspect discussed by the author is that the total digitalization of everything leads to digital entities becoming primary, while physical ones, in essence, materialize on demand if there is a need.
He also briefly touches upon the mystery of why we do not observe as frantic a leap in productivity in the physical world as we do in the digital world. Then, providing a whole brood of hypotheses, he suggests choosing between them independently.
In short, the chapter is quite saturated with ideas and generalizations, so I don’t see much point in summarizing it; it’s easier to just read it.
The translation of the fourth part of The Network State has begun. As expected, after finishing with the “past present,” the author has moved on to discussing the future.
In Chapter 4.1, Possible Versions of the Future, Balaji Srinivasan begins by clarifying the factors that prevent him from making precise forecasts, then provides a brief description of the envisioned future scenario, and finally estimates where his idea of network states would fit into this scenario. In doing so, he uses the disgustingly clumsy term “re-centralized center.” My ability to adapt the text during translation is limited, so I can only state that the term is terrible and difficult to understand, but nothing comes to mind yet to replace it with. What does the author even mean? As far as I can judge based on an incomplete reading, the word “center” refers to the center of the triangle he drew in the third part of the book describing a tripolar world—suggesting that our salvation lies in not falling into the extremes that accumulate at the poles. And he has yet to explain “re-centralized.” Perhaps it means that every startup community must have its own leader, otherwise it won’t take off. I would be glad to be wrong.
In Chapter 4.2, Sociopolitical Axes, the author briefly notes that to assess the future, it is not enough to look at well-known and long-established trends; it is also worth looking at those that are only just forming. As examples of sociopolitical factors that could seriously affect the future, he provides three completely diverse examples: Indians (while everyone is looking at China, India is quietly closing the gap, and in the next decade should make its presence felt quite loudly, both as a state and as a diaspora, i.e., a Network, in the author’s terminology), the confrontation between the “un-prime” and the “trans-hum” (Klaus Schwab was listed as a transhumanist), and the identity stack (there are several interesting thoughts on where identities come from, as well as a non-obvious take that one identity will inevitably be the leading and defining one).
The chapters in the fourth part of the book are not very long, so I will try to post them in groups rather than one by one, to avoid cluttering the feed.
