Тег: Report

Yet another monstrous piracy

Not long ago, the audience of my Telegram chat watched in real time as I tried to crack an audio file in Amazon’s proprietary aaxc format and convert it into a human-readable mp3. Thanks to the help of readers and a bit of luck, I managed to do it in one evening.

Now, each chapter of the original text of David Friedman’s book The Machinery of Freedom is accompanied by audio where the author himself reads the corresponding chapter. Actually, I was cracking the audiobook for slightly different reasons, but I’ll get to that later; for now, I’ve put the intermediate result to use.

A translation of the first of three appendices to the book has also been published, but that’s a minor detail, needed only to change the number on the progress bar. For the most part, I am currently occupied with the final editing and layout of the translation into epub format.

By the way, regarding the audio. If anyone is interested in voicing the translation of the book, let’s collaborate. Record the poems from the epigraphs of all parts of the book and send the recording to me in a private message. Then, if the selection is representative enough, we will hold a vote on whose version to post on my site and, accordingly, suggest it to Friedman himself for his site. He has already prepared a section for his poems in Russian, but it’s empty for now, and this injustice should be corrected. And if the contest winner has the strength to voice the entire book (which is over twelve hours), that would be simply mega-cool, and it will almost certainly be rewarded by a grateful public.

Has it really begun?

Today’s rallies dispelled my melancholy. Many people came out; the crowd was angry and cheerful. There were far more cops than in previous years. They worked without brutality, but with enough determination. People were learning how to link arms on the fly, trying to beat back their own. There were few posters and flags; they didn’t come out to show off, but to push with their mass.

Videos where cops are sprayed with pepper, pelted with snowballs, or simply punched in the face are particularly motivating. I cowardly took the spray out of my pocket before leaving, but next time I will definitely bring it. And perhaps I will even look for an occasion to use it. It feels that this time, if criminal cases are filed, they won’t be fabricated or based on plastic cups, but for real. And I have a strange feeling that such cases will likely fuel the people rather than intimidate them. Yes, of course, I am recording this now while the trail is hot and the adrenaline-fueled memories are fresh. But people are already mentally preparing to come out in a week, if not sooner, and their adrenaline-fueled memories are also fresh. So, an escalation on the part of the protesters is quite likely, and that is exactly what is needed for a chance of success.

Special thanks to that young man, who remains unknown to me, who prevented my detention by grabbing me and shouting, “Hands off, she’s my girlfriend!” And the cop, characteristically, took his hands off. That’s how the homstead works)))

This is Moscow, I think. Unfortunately, we didn’t have such inspiring footage.

Erik Mack. Libertarianism. Chapter on Mill.

About a month ago, I received a small donation for the translation of Eric Mack. It’s not that I was in a great rush with this translation, but I didn’t want to completely ignore the fact that someone felt it was important to encourage the process a bit. So here is a fresh chapter, the penultimate one in the part dedicated to the philosophical prerequisites for the emergence of libertarianism. The translation took some effort: John Stuart Mill wrote quite convolutedly.

The chapter is dedicated to utilitarian arguments in favor of freedom—in other words, attempts to justify its necessity not only by so-called natural rights (which is not a justification at all, but a simple postulate, as if there is such a right, and that’s that), but also by social utility. Of course, with the transition to methodological subjectivism, straightforward reasoning about the common good began to look somewhat like an anachronism, though not entirely, which surprised me a little. In essence, in his utilitarian arguments, from which any totalitarian doctrine can be easily derived if desired, Mill arrives at our old acquaintance, self-ownership, the primacy of individual security, and other liberal attributes.

From our current perspective, this, of course, looks like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Mill was a priori convinced of the value of individual freedom, and thereafter his task was reduced to selecting arguments as to why it is necessary to ensure the highest common good. Had he been a priori convinced of the value of Sharia norms or the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, he could have constructed arguments in exactly the same way, proving that these very crucial things were needed to achieve the highest common good.

Don’t forget to encourage the translation process with your donations.

Mechanics of Freedom, Chapter 66

That’s it, I’m publishing the last chapter of The Mechanics of Freedom, Welcome to the Future, hooray! Here, Friedman discusses what ensures digital privacy and what hinders its widespread adoption, why anonymous altcoins provide less anonymity than bitcoin mixers, and touches upon a topic I raised in Digital Identity — that it doesn’t matter how strong your ciphers are if the observer is omnipresent.

All I have left is to edit and post the appendices. Next, I’ll need to go through the entire text to make final corrections — the translation took over a year, so some stylistic inconsistency is inevitable for now. Then, I’ll need to format the text for e-books as well as for print. After that, I’ll upload all this wealth to the website, send it to Friedman, and offer the print version to both the DPRs and the Tea Club — in short, let it spread as widely as possible, for all our joy.

To make the joy complete, you can throw me an encouraging portion of bitcoins. Oh, right, I mustn’t forget to include an acknowledgments page in the finished book: for those who sent donations, those who translated, and the person who obtained the full version of the text from the author — in short, let no one be left out.

Mechanics of Freedom, Chapter 65

I am posting the penultimate chapter of The Machinery of Freedom, Extracurricular Education: A Libertarian Approach to Children. Friedman describes in detail how he threw books at his children to see which ones would stick, and other antics dear to the heart of every ancap. While in the first chapters of the book, written before the author had children of his own, he campaigned for the quite vegetarian idea of implementing school vouchers, later he became a much greater extremist and began to challenge schools as such.

Mechanics of Freedom, Chapter 64

Chapter 64, Incorrect Use of Externality Arguments, is dedicated to the question of how the brain of even the most unbiased researcher tends to bend facts to fit a ready-made concept when it comes to searching for arguments for certain targeted actions. This is not to mention the difficulty of classifying various possible consequences as positive or negative, as well as the possibility of a consciously biased selection of facts. All of this completely undermines the utilitarian considerations used to justify a particular policy; therefore, in such matters, it is more appropriate to be guided by general theoretical, legal, and ethical criteria, leaving speculations that the world will end if one does not immediately march in the right direction to the demagogues.

The Mechanics of Freedom. Chapter 62.

In a short chapter with the strange title Capitalist Trucks, Friedman answers the question of how a state differs from a condominium, and also advises potential truck buyers on whether to buy a Kamaz.

On the one hand, Friedman’s arguments could encourage supporters of contractual jurisdictions. On the other hand, he also points out their limitations: such communities will inevitably be compact and small in number because the negative effect of scale is very pronounced in democracies. So enthusiasts of charter cities have something to think about. For example, whether their cities need a single system of law, or whether the development of most norms should be left to condominiums and other local organizations.

Mechanics of Freedom, Chapter 61

I’ve received another donation for the Friedman translation project, as well as a question: will the translated Mechanics of Freedom be available in fb2 format? Actually, I planned to stick with epub, but since that’s the case, there will be an fb2 as well. And since money has come in, it’s a great excuse to post a new chapter.

Chapter 61 has a grand title: A Bet I Lost: Where My Moral Philosophy Begins. Friedman shares memories from half a century ago about how he bet with philosopher Isaiah Berlin and failed to prove to him that moral judgments are more a matter of taste than objective facts.

The venerable philosopher explained to the student David, as simply as two plus two, that as long as we rely on the testimony of our sense organs, the objectivity of any facts is extremely conditional. He then developed the idea that mutually consistent impressions are perhaps useful enough to be considered facts, since they align well with each other and with the impressions of other people. In the same way, mutually consistent moral judgments can boldly be considered moral facts, and those incapable of perceiving them can be considered insane.

As a result, Friedman largely changed his position on morality and is now much more inclined to perceive basic moral statements as akin to facts of physical reality. However, he is aware that he lacks a decent argument against moral nihilism, and it is unlikely that one will emerge.

Mechanics of Freedom, Chapter 60

I published Chapter 59, regarding the problem of deriving the ought from the is in Ayn Rand, about a year ago. In it, Friedman examined the arguments for objectivist ethics in John Galt’s speech, found many logical holes, and stated that they cannot be closed by mere rhetoric.

In Chapter 60, The Economics of Vice and Virtue, the author analyzes moral qualities and actions from the perspective of economic analysis and game theory, thereby proposing his own approach to objectivism—that is, deriving the ought from the is. I have previously stated many times in discussions and answers to readers’ questions that a market society is more affluent and benevolent, and therefore less inclined toward the dominating desire to succeed at the expense of others than a society with strong state intervention. Friedman provided a more rigorous foundation for this empirical observation, for which he deserves thanks.

Mechanics of Freedom, Chapter 58

Chapter 58, Welfare and Immigration: The Second Part of the Argument, concludes the fifth part, The Mechanics of Freedom. While in Chapter 14, Friedman argued that labor immigration benefits both the migrants and the citizens, he now focuses on the fact that migrants may pursue the simple goal of living on welfare. He asserts that free migration is precisely what gives the government an incentive to reduce benefits, whereas high immigration barriers allow the level of redistribution to remain high. Thus, for proponents of a small state, it is entirely justified to either start by reducing benefits and then open the gates, or start by easing migration, and then the demand for reducing benefits will inevitably emerge.

It seems to me that Friedman relies too heavily on economics here, failing to consider the factor of populism in democratic countries.

And so, having finished the fifth part, I dove straight into the sixth, and first translated the poetic introduction, so the poems in this book are now seemingly dealt with.