The other day, someone shoved a book at me, saying, “Oh, you’re pregnant, here, read something interesting.” More accurately, they shoved a link to a LiveJournal where I am banned, and when I protested, they handed me an epub file. I poked around distrustfully, assuming it would be something about pregnancy or parenting, and, strictly speaking, it was indeed about that, but not at all in the way I expected.
I’ll say it straight away: the book is written in an obnoxious style. In places, it is pure, unedited neuro-slop, which was physically difficult for me to wade through. But I had to, because the novelty of the approach used in the book to represent the human phenomenon proved to be very significant to me personally. So, fine—if a person is a biologist, you shouldn’t expect them to also be a genius of elegant prose.
To put it very briefly, it tells the following story. A human is an unfinished project, and that is its main feature. A human’s primary skill, deeply embedded in its nature, is delegation. It delegated part of its digestive functions to fire, and by doing so, got rid of a complex digestive system, with the saved energy going toward brain development. The large brain created difficulties with childbirth, so humans began to be born premature, and their brain, as well as the rest of the body, began to be completed in the external environment—and over a staggeringly long period, which means that upbringing was delegated to society. Not just the content, but the neural structure of the brain itself is shaped by social experience. The brain’s key functions became social: understanding the intentions of others and modeling them within one’s own brain. Bipedalism freed the hands for the use of tools, which in turn freed the mouth for facial expressions and speech. Speech allowed meanings to be preserved in symbols. Writing moved the collective intelligence beyond synchronous contact. Information processing is being delegated to computers and AI. This is supposed to free the brain for something new. For now, we can only guess what that might be. We are an unfinished project.
And this is all, of course, very interesting, but as they say, one man’s meat is another man’s poison—or rather, libertarians will always talk about libertarianism. A human has delegated so much, and on so many levels, that it is literally impossible to view them in isolation from either the external environment they created or from society. And this blurs the main frameworks that guide libertarian discourse. If a human is a product not so much of genes as of their habitat, and primarily of society, then the concept of self-ownership begins to look somewhat contrived. The axiom of action that lies at the heart of praxeology begins to look somewhat contrived. “A human acts by choosing means to achieve ends”—but why on earth? Action has a cause; no one has canceled the principle of causality. But the idea of a “goal,” taking into account all this countless delegation, already seems quite blurred. A human is excellent at reflection, and they can easily invent a goal for their past actions post-factum, and once invented, become completely convinced of it.
On the other hand, in light of all these concepts, the idea I proposed in “The Libertarian Theory of War” regarding spirits as speculative collective subjects takes on new colors. It turns out they aren’t so speculative after all. In many ways, they are no more speculative than a human being. For instance, there is the author of a book. This is a speculative subject that I model in my own brain based on the text of the book. And if the book is co-authored, the author in my brain still remains a single speculative subject, while their collectivity remains entirely off-stage. The same applies to characters, who might embody many prototypes. These are collective subjects. But in the exact same way, any human is also a collective subject that I construct in my brain in the same manner, endowing them with, among other things, the traits of many of their prototypes, which, in my opinion, they inherited certain features from. Putin is literally Hitler, yeah.
I am leaving my reasoning unfinished. I think there is no need to explain why.
Praxeology is indeed simply a set of deductive inferences from the axiom of action: “humans set goals and choose means to achieve them.” To the extent that real people satisfy this axiom, praxeology works for them. Similarly, for example, Euclidean geometry is a set of deductive inferences from five axioms, and to the extent that real physical space and the objects within it correspond to these ideal geometric shapes, this geometry will work for them. Replace the axioms—and you get, for example, Riemannian geometry, which will differ from Euclidean geometry and be better suited for describing real objects in a space with different properties.
Similarly, if we replace the axiom of action, for example, with “man is an instrument for the realization of divine will,” then we would have to derive a different praxeology for it, and to the extent that real people satisfy this new axiom, the praxeology we derived will work for them. Although, of course, given such starting data, a researcher would find it far more interesting to study theology rather than praxeology.
We can conventionally say that the leftists (more precisely, proponents of social engineering) build their praxeology on something like “human action is a phenomenon of the influence of the forces of the material world upon them, obeying the objective laws of physics and biology.” Deductive inferences from this axiom form the set of approaches that the left apply to people. And this also works in some way.
Thus, praxeology indeed does not rely on empiricism. It is verified by empiricism. I hope this clarified things.
Conspiracy theory is an explanation of facts of observed reality by the hidden, purposeful activity of certain subjects or organizations. It is common to ridicule it, especially if a particular conspiracy theory provides truly absurd explanations.
Praxeology asserts that acting subjects can only be individuals, and if so, it can be assumed that any social phenomena must be caused by either overt or covert purposeful activity of specific people. However, this assertion is supplemented by the claim of the existence of spontaneous orders, which are the unintended consequences of the activities of an indefinite number of persons. Therefore, not wishing to delve too deeply into the subtleties of the theory, we state that social phenomena can be based on both the unintended consequences of the actions of a wide circle of actors and the intended consequences of the actions of a narrow circle. Moreover, in the latter case, these actions and their goals may be consciously hidden from the general public. In other words, conspiracy explanations can be truthful.
In my observation, older people are more prone to conspiracy explanations. I can assume that this is an interpretation of their life experience, since in their years they usually manage to participate in many successful and unsuccessful conspiracies themselves, and to observe the uncovered conspiracies of others. And in general, it is difficult to deny the very existence of constantly conceived and implemented conspiracies, since every government budget has a secret part, and every self-respecting enterprise has a slush fund, as its management is in a conspiracy against the government to reduce taxes or bypass regulations.
In order to avoid constantly shrugging and stating that everything is possible and we will never be told the truth, I would like to have a criterion that, when applied, would allow one to decide for oneself in which case a conspiracy explanation is quite probable and in which it is improbable. To formulate such a criterion, I will use the praxeological concept of the planning horizon (or timepreference, that is, the inverse of the planning horizon, but it is not as convenient for me to use and sounds clunky in Russian).
To evaluate a conspiratorial design, simply estimate what planning horizon is required for its implementation. Then compare it with the planning horizon usually demonstrated by the presumed actors in the conspiracy hypothesis under consideration. If the required horizon is much longer than the one usually demonstrated, this is a strong argument for considering the conspiracy hypothesis untenable.
One more clarification is needed here. If the presumed actor, guided by their short-term goals, unintentionally supports what appears from the outside to be a single long-term design, then the conspiracy hypothesis, while actually incorrect, proves to be effective—the actor was guessed correctly, the direction of activity was guessed correctly, and the fact that not the entire design was planned in advance—who cares, the main thing is in whose interests everything is being done. Here, for additional verification, I can recommend checking whether there were numerous cases where the actor’s actions contradicted the goal assumed by the conspiracy hypothesis. If this is observed, we are most likely dealing with a tactician, and there is no need to invent a strategic design that they are supposedly following.
At this point Scheherazade ceases her permitted speech, as further information does not correspond to your security clearance.
Libertarianism is based on natural rights; why is Svetov against them?
анонимный вопрос
In a recent video by Mikhail Svetov, which your question is about, much seemed strange to me. Since that is the case, I will first go through the entire video and then move on to the topic of the question, so as not to make two posts about one video.
To begin with, Svetov uses a definition of anarchy as a Hobbesian war of all against all. I don’t remember if Hobbes used the exact word anarchy; I recall the term state of nature more. However, in our video on the deterrence doctrine, I tried to show that a war of all against all is not the natural state of society, meaning that Hobbesian (and Svetovian) rhetoric is based on a dubious foundation.
Svetov also uses the word rights as a synonym for the word privileges, thereby limiting himself to so-called positive rights. This is indicated by his phrase “fear people who want to grant you rights.” Libertarian discourse, however, usually concerns negative rights, which are freedoms. One is not “granted” such rights, because their realization does not require the actions of others; non-interference is entirely sufficient.
In attacking liberals, Svetov implies progressives of the American type, given that he uses headlines about minority quotas and affirmative action as illustrations. In Europe, they more often call themselves social democrats, and it is unclear to me why Svetov separates them from socialists at all, saying that from one side we are pressed by a socialist boot and from the other by a liberal one, while in fact he is speaking of the same socialist boot.
Another interesting point: Svetov opposes morality and conscience, claiming that evil liberals removed conscience from man and replaced it with morality. However, Svetov does not define what conscience is and where it comes from, if not from the experience of interacting with other people and the memory of their moral evaluations. Or does he want to say that conscience is the voice of God? Well, in that case, it is unclear what he has against natural rights, understood as divine decrees.
Another phrase that Svetov uses in his video: “where there is no law, there is no crime.” Yes, that is correct; crime is a term from positive law, which is a system of commands. There is a command, someone violates the command, they have committed a crime. In private law, there are no crimes; there is property damage, breach of contractual obligations, and so on, and the person who suffered the damage is free to oppose this and demand compensation—or not oppose it and not demand it.
Thus, I would say that Svetov’s video is simply a juggling of terms. We define anarchy in a way that no anarchist defines it, after which we prove as simply as two plus two that anarchy is bad, and even that the state is anarchy. Everything is logical, but we get nothing but confusion in the end.
Now let’s return to the question of whether libertarianism grows out of natural law. Historically, yes, but today that is not important because human thought has not stood still. We can derive libertarian principles deductively based on the laws of logic: here is an apodictically true statement that a person belongs to themselves; now we show that any attempt to refute this statement implicitly relies on the very premise we are trying to refute. Those whose brains haven’t melted have grasped the Tao and discovered natural law. Or we can examine human interactions and show which behavioral strategies prove more advantageous and therefore survive through natural selection. This utilitarian approach gives us the same libertarian principles, but in this case, the laws of logic do not stick out as if they were god-given and people were merely objects under them. Therefore, such an approach is less irritating to people like the hypothetical Mikhail Svetov with their obsession with ethics, but more so to connoisseurs of mathematical rigor.
Personally, I first became acquainted with Rothbard and the Hoppean derivation of the principle of self-ownership, and then with Hayek and the Friedmanite utilitarian justification of property, and I suggest not arguing over whom to love more—father or mother. Both praxeology and spontaneous orders are two equally useful methodological principles; let us use both, depending on the situation, rather than imitating Svetov, who is so right-wing that he tries to bite off libertarianism’s left leg.
A human chooses. Absolutely any human activity boils down to the fact that a person sets goals for themselves and chooses the means to achieve them. The discussion of any human activity comes down to what goals a person sets, what means they choose, what alternatives they had, what they achieved, and what they could have achieved. If a person did not make a choice, there would be no point in discussing them, let alone condemning them. The instinctive behavior of an animal or the sequence of actions of a computer program are not subjects of moral evaluation of the animal or the program—only of the people behind those actions, if they are discovered.
As long as a person makes their choice without interacting with other people, everything is simple: they carry out purposeful activity with varying degrees of success—why should we care? But when interaction begins, the choice of one person affects the interests of another. A person sets a goal, and as a means, chooses not their own actions, but the actions of other people. For this, they need these other people to set goals for themselves, the means of fulfillment for which is the very action required of them. For example, my goal is to get a cup of coffee; for this, I need the coffee shop employee to set a goal to get my money, and choose serving me a cup of coffee as the means to obtain it.
– Excuse me, but I asked for a cup!
If, instead of serving me coffee, the coffee shop employee points to a “men only” sign and refuses to take my money, it means our interaction has gone wrong, and the standard means of obtaining coffee available in my arsenal of means does not work here. I could try other means, such as persuasion, a scandal, or violence, but most likely I will prefer to choose a different goal. Either way, I will experience some frustration, and to reduce the irritation, I may choose various means, from slamming the door harder to writing an angry post on Facebook about what these men allow themselves.
Humans have a huge, powerful brain for solving complex problems of modeling surrounding reality and planning within those constructed models. Humans solve such resource-intensive tasks in order to bring the surrounding world into alignment with the constructed models, so they no longer have to solve tasks of this type but can use a ready-made solution. The predictability of the surrounding world allows a person to set more complex goals and use more complex means to achieve them. Therefore, in interacting with other people, humans strive to develop certain protocols that make human behavior predictable and, consequently, subject to planning. A “men only” sign in a coffee shop shatters this predictability. Encountering this discrimination, I will for some time expect to see signs in other establishments regarding other restrictions affecting me, so the action of even a single act of discrimination can lead to a significant deterioration in the quality of life. Especially if it is discrimination expressed in a phrase like “girl, with a look like that you should be selling seeds, not hanging out in clubs,” spoken by a club security guard.
Thus, when performing everyday interactions with other people, a person would prefer to be surrounded by soulless automatons, or at least that people behave according to simple, unified protocols. But at the same time, one must not forget that humans have a powerful brain designed to solve complex problems, and in their absence, boredom appears. To get rid of boredom, following simple unified protocols is not enough for a human; creative tasks are needed, and one way to ensure them is interaction with other people beyond standard banalities. And so, one coffee shop customer, out of boredom, starts a scandal over a trifle, while another, also out of boredom, starts flirting with the barista. At the same time, it is not clear in advance which of these entertainments the barista will perceive with greater willingness.
– Young man, was it you who snatched the vest from Mikhail Svetov?
Ultimately, human life in society boils down to the constant maintenance of an individual balance between the strive for predictability (that is, safety) and the flight from boredom. Wishes for other people will constantly vary from the demand for the most impersonal automatic service to the hope for an interesting and unpredictable individual interaction. Thus, every person expects a complete absence of discrimination from some people and at some moments, while from others they hope to receive individual attention, that is, positive discrimination, when out of all possible options the counterparty chose to interact in the desired key specifically with them. These principles work for absolutely any human community with absolutely any orders. No person can live in a society where discrimination is completely absent, and no person would want to live in a society where the right to discriminate is absolute, knowing no exceptions and backed by the unlimited use of force.
Nevertheless, everyone would prefer to live in a world where their own personal right to private discrimination was indisputable, and the right of everyone else was limited by some clear mechanisms of appeal. As a result, in a society left to its own devices, without external regulations, certain frameworks will be established in which discrimination is permissible, more or less general for all. What will these frameworks be?
Here the well-known pyramid of values comes to our aid. The more vitally necessary the counterparty assumes your need to be, the less likely it is that you will be discriminated against by them, and your need will remain unsatisfied, even if the counterparty sees no serious benefit for themselves from your interaction. Conversely, if your need looks like foolish, meaningless whim to the counterparty, they will quite easily decide to avoid cooperation, unless, of course, it is vitally necessary for them as well.
Example. Herman Sterligov, widely known for his private discrimination, not only banned faggots from entering his stores but also ordered a piece of bread to be cut for free and to pour, I don’t remember, I think kvass—for anyone who asks for Christ’s sake. That is, he clearly indicated that his private discrimination recedes before truly serious cases. Perhaps I remembered the facts incorrectly, and according to his orders, faggots are not entitled to bread even for Christ’s sake, but even in this case, the direction of Sterligov’s thought illustrates the natural criterion for the development of norms of private discrimination that I propose.
What an elegant attempt to split the LGBT community by singling out a discriminated subset within it!
In general, it is clear why the criterion will be exactly this. After all, a human possesses the notorious powerful brain, perfectly tuned for modeling imaginary situations. Seeing a person in extreme need coming with a request, an individual easily puts themselves in that situation, thinks something like “if I were in their place, in case of refusal, I might even kill” (or, more likely, models possible moral condemnation from neighbors)—and decides to abandon the idea of discriminating against a person who is even very unpleasant to them.
Private discrimination in itself does not encroach on another’s self-ownership, does not violate the NAP, is not a breach of contract—in short, from whatever angle you look at it, it does not contradict libertarian principles. Private discrimination cannot be a subject of legal regulation in minarchism, where the court deals only with issues of protecting private property, interpretation of contracts, and similar things. Similarly, there is no place for the legal regulation of private discrimination within ancap—either a certain norm regarding obligations for a non-discriminatory service regime is in the contract, or it is not a subject of judicial proceedings. Only panarchy stands out, especially in the “cockroach” version, where one can end up under an insurance umbrella involuntarily, and that umbrella may, on its own initiative, regulate some aspects of private discrimination. Moreover, classical voluntary panarchy may include socialist jurisdictions where a person is guaranteed a number of positive rights, in other words, protection from some types of discrimination. But panarchy is more likely a probable transitional stage on the way to ancap rather than a specifically desired libertarian society. It allows free competition of management systems, destroying territorial monopoly, and that is already not bad.
Mostly, of course, private discrimination in a libertarian society is regulated by means of moral and reputational pressure—in other words, the threat of reciprocal and compensatory private discrimination. Everything is logical: aggressive violence is regulated by the threat of reciprocal and compensatory violence, and with discrimination, the exactly same mechanism applies.
How the Russian language lacks that elegant difference between can and may! He might be able to do it, but who would let him get away with it? Was this a combat situation? The one who shot — did he mistake a penis for a gun? No, he didn’t pull out a penis to fire. There was no threat to the child’s life and safety, nor a threat of economic damage; what does the violation of the NAP have to do with this? What we have here is a violation of cultural traditions from the perspective of the outraged parent, and a violation of the NAP on their part.
Is it possible to disregard others’ cultural traditions with impunity in a libertarian society? In theory — yes. In practice, this will mean constant friction, up to lethal outcomes, with inevitable subsequent settlements. As long as people evaluate the costs of coexisting with representatives of other cultures as lower than the costs of segregation, coexistence will continue. As soon as the costs of coexistence seem higher, segregation will begin. Ordinary praxeology, nothing complicated.
Maybe return to central regulation instead? Alas, this leads to the emergence of privileged cultural groups, where, for example, conventional advocates of “traditional values” have the privilege of claiming damages for insults to public morality, while supporters of other norms are deprived of such a privilege. This creates far more friction in society than if nothing were touched at all.
