Тег: Reputation

Notes on decentralization, part 4. Reputation.

A recent post by Bitarch on trust networks reminded me of my decentralization cycle, and that it would be a good idea to supplement it with a new note.

People inevitably interact with one another and would like to derive maximum benefit from this with minimum costs. Of course, in a praxeological sense—meaning it doesn’t necessarily have to be about monetary profit or loss, but rather about satisfaction or, conversely, dissatisfaction. In repeated interactions, one can attempt to predict the counterpart’s actions and, based on this, decide in advance how to act. And if the counterpart knows that the interaction will continue to repeat, this knowledge will also influence their actions. Constantly interacting counterparts can agree on cooperation, distance themselves if they find each other unpleasant, send signals suggesting the boundaries of what is acceptable, and so on. Each person inevitably builds up a certain reputation in the eyes of the other.

Additionally, in human communities, the transmission of information about one person’s reputation to another person is of great importance. The other is not obliged to take this information on faith and may, on the contrary, believe that they are being misinformed for some reason. And even if the information received turns out to be completely reliable, they may still believe that someone is trying to gain their trust only to deceive them later. There can be as many layers of reflection as one likes; that is why we grew such a complex brain—to gossip with pleasure.

To gossip and especially to collect gossip about people outside their constant circle of communication, people devise various systems for recording and representing reputation. What should such a system be like from the perspective of someone studying another’s reputation? They would want to be able to receive information about a person’s behavior in the area of interest, and for that information to be easily accessible, difficult to forge, and difficult to hide. And if it is not a matter of studying one specific individual, but of searching for a suitable option, then there should be many options—ideally all possible ones—with convenient data filtering tools.

And what should the system be like from the perspective of the person whose behavioral data is being studied? Naturally, they would prefer that only the information they want to keep public is made public, while information that doesn’t need to be known by everyone could ideally be formatted as reliable proofs and presented only to those who need it. It would also be useful to have the ability to provide ill-wishers with convincing fake information about oneself.

From this set of contradictory requests, it is clear that an ideal reputation system that satisfies everyone is impossible. Again, we have so far neglected the costs of collecting, storing, and presenting reputational information, but those costs also exist.

Thus, it is quite easy to imagine the economically justified construction of a reputation system in some specific narrow field, but it is difficult to understand who would be interested, and why, in maintaining comprehensive open dossiers on every action of every person. Even government agencies prefer to collect voluminous dossiers only for official access, and their employees are certainly not interested in ending up in them themselves, perfectly understanding that the wider the circle of those who have voluminous information about them, the more vectors there are for sudden attacks.

Who, besides the consumers of reputation information, is interested in this information appearing in the corresponding systems? Of course, those who believe that their reputation in this system will present them in the light they wish to be presented. Those aspiring to the title of faithful spouses are unlikely to want to see themselves in an open registry of top lovers, although in another context, a high rating in that capacity would flatter them. A talented craftsman will have nothing against appearing in a rating of masters in the relevant field, while a less talented one would prefer to appear simply on a bulletin board, without a built-in reputation system, or at least have the ability to boost their rating a bit.

What general conclusion can I draw from all these considerations regarding the processes of centralization and decentralization in reputation systems? In a free market, it seems more likely to me that there will be many local reputation systems, rather than comprehensive, monstrous social rating systems. Even if some open system stores data on a large number of people, this will be fairly narrow information. Services for aggregating comprehensive open information on a specific person of interest are also quite monetizable; however, the objects of such research are unlikely to be interested in having information about them from diverse sources be easily aggregated. Nevertheless, working with big data today is a relatively inexpensive pastime, so few will be able to seriously confuse researchers of someone else’s digital footprint.

But these numerous local reputation systems will, I believe, be mostly centralized. As for systems of distributed storage of reputational information in electronic form, they are unlikely to gain serious popularity, remaining a niche solution for small communities. There are no serious prerequisites for scaling here.

On the harm of the institute of reputation

In Stefan Molynieu’s “Practical Anarchy,” which I have never fully translated, there is a chapter Stateless Prisons, where as an alternative to the loathsome state penitentiary system, an equally loathsome non-state one is proposed, based on what resembles cancel culture in the US, the social credit system in China, or, for instance, the “foreign agent” label in the RF. The idea is to make an undesirable person an outcast with whom everyone is afraid to deal to avoid secondary sanctions. The mechanism is described using the example of retribution for something sufficiently loathsome to the vast majority of readers (sexual violence), but there is no reason to believe that the exact same mechanism cannot be used to punish anyone for anything: it is enough to incite moral panic around certain actions, and suddenly the very mechanisms that yesterday cancelled rapists are today cancelling smokers. Or those leaving an excessively large carbon footprint. Or those infringing on intellectual property. Or formally the same rapists, but with an expanded interpretation of rape, extending even to initially voluntary sex with post-coital disagreement.

What I love about moral philosophers is that they adore pushing ideas to the point of absurdity with the utmost seriousness, thereby teaching others precision in phrasing, provided these others do not wish to resemble holy fools.

So let us talk about the institution of reputation more carefully.

Anya caused damage to Borya. Borya is a peaceful man; he wants restitution for the damage, but he does not wish to extract it by force. Additionally, he is offended, no longer wishes to have dealings with Anya, and generally does not want to see her in his social circle. Unless, of course, she apologizes, first making amends for her guilt.

Anya considers Borya an asshole who fully deserved all the damage received. She also does not wish to deal with him and simply rides off into the sunset.

Anya has no incentives to compensate for the damage. What is needed for her to have some? One of two things. Either Borya must spend significant resources on damaging Anya’s reputation, or these resources must be spent by someone else, in which case Borya only needs to send a low-cost control signal that triggers a chain reaction of cancelling.

How do you organize a system that allows for the cheap cancelling of people under conditions of decentralized law? Only through mass hysteria, which sharply lowers the threshold of arousal in people, after which they decide to abruptly sever relations with a person previously unfamiliar to them. Admit it, it’s convenient: you say a person is, say, a pedophile—and that’s it, no one will shake their hand. But who will verify this claim? No one can. Verification is a costly process. Adding it to the scheme kills all the profit from the idea of cancelling.

Fine, “no one can” is too strong a statement. One could add certain moral authorities to the scheme who verify the labels being applied. Borya called Anya a fraud—that is just noise. Guru Vasya called Anya a fraud—Anya becomes an untouchable. Borya’s only task is to grease Vasya’s palm. In other words, this scheme is also easily corrupted.

Of course, I am not suggesting the abolition of the institution of reputation. I am suggesting that one should not expect that under ancap it will be possible to cancel people without extremely destructive consequences for ancap itself. Yes, you can release information about Anya’s actions into the network, accompanied by reliable confirmations. Those intending to enter into a serious deal with Anya may come across this information and adjust their initial opinion of her reliability as a counterparty, after which, for example, they may demand payment upfront. But that is the maximum you can hope for. She will still be sold bread at the store, no matter how angry Stefan Molynieu is about it.

It’s not Anya, it’s Gina. Ancap Borya wants to cancel Anya the way Disney cancelled Gina. No fucking way he’ll succeed.

E-karma

I read Latynina’s article about the subject with great interest. In some ways, it echoes a recent video by Libertarian Band about the Metaverse, but the article is far more detailed than the video. From an economic standpoint, the e-karma scheme looks decent, although it’s not entirely clear to me how it is protected against bot farms. Here, I lack the IT qualifications to assess the viability of the idea presented, so it would be great if some IT specialist could do so in the comments.

Transaction security is easy and without power control!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

We have already considered the topic of transaction insurance once before. This method is perfectly applicable to the issue of guaranteeing transaction security and compensating for damages in the event of a breach of agreement by one of the parties. The need to resort to violence and forceful measures of coercion is thus eliminated, meaning this concept is fully implementable in the absence of a state monopoly on law enforcement, and indeed in the absence of any police or security agencies whatsoever. Furthermore, it is compatible with the concept of reputational institutions, which creates additional scenarios for its application. Even now, it is actively used in large transactions and in the lending sector. However, doubts are sometimes expressed regarding its applicability in small, everyday transactions.

The way accident insurance currently works can help us dispel these doubts. You have surely been in a situation where, when buying a ticket for a bus, train, or plane, you were offered insurance. Insurance is also offered when renting transport via a mobile application, even if it is just a bicycle or a scooter. Usually, the cost of such insurance is only a few dozen rubles, yet the compensation in the event of an insured loss reaches tens and hundreds of thousands.

See how easy it is? For a provider of risky services, there is no difficulty in concluding a contract with an insurance company and adding the option for their customers to take out accident insurance. This is even profitable for them, as they can receive additional profit from the insurance company for implementing its services. And in the case of transport rental, this matter is simplified to the press of a single button in a mobile application. Since this type of insurance is so easily implemented, there is no problem in making transaction insurance simple as well.

The parties sign a contract, after which it is uploaded to the insurance company’s application (or perhaps concluded directly within it). Then the application calculates the insurance premium rate and the participants of the contract pay it. That’s it. If one of the parties eventually breaches the agreement and the other party provides the insurance company with evidence of the breach, they will be entitled to an insurance payout, which should be sufficient to cover the damage caused. The party that breached the agreement, of course, will not go unpunished if reputational institutions are used alongside this. They will simply be placed on blacklists until they admit guilt and cooperate.

Even in the case of the most ordinary purchases, this concept is also applicable. At a self-checkout terminal, by pressing the corresponding button, or by asking the salesperson, one could also take out insurance. If the product turns out to be unsuitable, defective, or even worse, causes harm to the buyer, and the seller denies their guilt, there would be an opportunity to compensate for the damage through this insurance (and the seller, of course, would suffer reputational punishment). To attract buyers, sellers could add the insurance function and openly publish data on which insurance companies they work with. And those sellers who are unwilling to insure their sales can simply be bypassed by buyers as unsafe agents.

Some might criticize this idea by pointing out that buyers would now have to pay more for goods, and in general, all transactions would become more expensive. However, this is exactly what is happening right now. Due to VAT, excise duties, customs duties, licenses, and the tax burden on entrepreneurs, more than half of the cost of goods already consists of contributions to the state, including for the maintenance of a giant, organizationally extremely inefficient state judicial and police system. Transaction insurance, on the other hand, is a cheaper and more effective solution. Sometimes insurance premiums, where they are currently applied, amount to less than one percent of the transaction amount or the potential insurance payout. Thus, it is a much better solution than state bureaucracy and forceful control paid for by taxes.

Social credit rating and the monopoly on violence

Voluntarist, Bitarch

In today’s information world, the institution of reputation plays an important role. It is already difficult to imagine purchasing an expensive product or seeking a moderately serious service without first checking the provider’s rating. Ratings and reviews have become an essential part of many services. Most likely, over time, reputation tools will be used in all transactions, including direct deals between individuals. This leads us to the emergence of a social rating, in which different people will have different reputations depending on whether they fulfilled their obligations honestly, or whether they deceived others, violated the terms of deals, or even harmed their well-being through robbery or violence.

The institution of reputation and financial instruments, especially ostracism and transaction insurance, are capable of replacing coercive tools as a method of influencing offenders. The need to initiate forceful measures simply disappears, and in cases where the offender themselves has not committed violence, the need for any form of forceful resolution essentially vanishes (in the event of a violent attack, of course, self-defense is unavoidable). This would only contribute to solving the problem of violence and reducing its level in society. But at the same time, in a world of stationary bandits, where states hold a monopoly and the “legal” right to commit violence, reputation institutions and social ratings could well serve a harmful purpose.

It is important to understand that states often monopolize services that are important to society. Previously, they took strict control over roads, the financial system, fire services, medicine, the extraction of many resources, social security, and—most importantly within the framework of our topic—the quality control of services and goods supplied to the market. It is quite reasonable to expect that if, at some point, the vast majority of people begin to rely on the institution of reputation, states will take control over it as well. Officials will claim that private solutions are unreliable and that there is a need to issue strict rules for the operation of reputation services, or even create a single state reputation service for everyone, banning private rating and review systems. In a world where some states decide which charging device standard people should use (referring to European Union states), such a scenario has a high probability of becoming a reality.

Thus, the institution of reputation will not only become bureaucratized and inefficient, it could also become a tool for persecuting and punishing people disliked by the current political power. This is already happening in China—a minus in one’s social rating can be received for friendship with an opposition member or for statements against party policy. By a single order from above, any person can be deprived of access to many state benefits. And never mind these benefits—if the state were not a violent monopoly, alternatives to its benefits would exist. But under states, there are no alternatives, as private activity is heavily controlled or prohibited in the spheres they have monopolized. In the end, instead of being a method to fight violence, robbery, and deception, the institution of reputation becomes a supporting tool for strengthening state power and coercive control.

A simple conclusion can be drawn from all this: the institution of reputation is very useful in ensuring the security of transactions, and it is also important for the transition from coercive methods to non-violent influence as the basis for maintaining public order. But when combined with violence, especially state violence, it loses these positive qualities and begins to work toward the strengthening of state power and coercive control. Therefore, it is very important to fight violence and prevent the institution of reputation from being taken under the control of any coercive agents. After all, we cannot fight violence if the institution of reputation is used only by violators for their own benefit, as is currently happening in China.

Fences under ancap

What if your house was surrounded by a fence while you were at Minarchit buying a new cat-wife? In this case, there is no attempted murder, and the person had the right to build a fence, just as you had the right to build your house before that.
What should be done in such a case?
Do you have the right to break the fence to get through?
Is this a violation of the NAP?
And what if such a concrete fence is poured every day?

Hate

How to maintain the freedom to leave communities under ancap?

Anonymous question

To begin with, I suggest rereading the chapter from the Mechanics of Freedom about bargaining under conditions of anarchy. Briefly, it talks about Schelling points—certain special positions of a system that, for one reason or another, appear unique to those dealing with it, and therefore are more likely to come to the minds of several potential counterparties simultaneously in the absence of prior agreements. Schelling points, in particular, help establish natural boundaries, the maintenance of which saves the parties more effort.

A given spontaneously formed status quo is obviously a Schelling point, and its violation, of course, will meet some resistance. If in a community men usually shake hands and women hug each other and men, then a woman who offers a hand will be perceived with caution, and she will likely be attempted to be hugged. If it is customary in a community to walk freely on neighbors’ lands, marking boundaries as unobtrusively as possible, not locking doors, popping in for visits, leaving mail under the doorstep, and so on—then an attempt to erect a solid fence will already be perceived with strained bewilderment. And a fence that isolates someone else’s plot from the outside world is unambiguous rudeness; a whole delegation will come to such an unfriendly neighbor and try to explain that things aren’t done that way here. On the other hand, if it is customary to fence oneself off, let vicious dogs into the yard, and fire into the air at any stirring near the border, then a new fence preventing you from getting into your own home will have to be viewed simply as an inevitable fuck-up: you must have been such a loser not to notice that your neighbor managed to completely surround you with his territory. Now you’ll have to drop some toxic plague onto him via drones, and only after that can you begin peaceful negotiations with the neighbor.

The same applies to leaving a community. If it is a common occurrence, with people constantly entering and leaving, then such an open order of access is perceived as natural, and this Schelling point will be upheld. But if there have been no such precedents since the dawn of time, then the attempt to leave will be perceived as something extraordinary; you will have to explain yourself, prove your right, and perhaps somehow compensate those remaining for your departure. This, by the way, is not such an unlikely situation. Imagine, for example, an artel that has mapped out a front of work to a certain deadline—and then you suddenly decide to leave the community. They might simply not let you out until the work is finished, or shake you down for a serious penalty because those remaining will now have to slave away, which they had not planned.

An attempt to push one’s position against the status quo, whatever it may be, will inevitably meet resistance, and this resistance may turn out to be disproportionately serious, even if the required concession seems trivial. The reason is clear: if one simply gives in, the new status quo will be that you give in under pressure. Such things are clearly seen when representatives of different cultures clash, where for one, conceding on small things is good manners and a guarantee that you will also be met with reciprocity in the future—while for the other, a concession means that one should keep pressing until they break—after all, the opponent has already buckled, they must be finished off.

Now let’s talk about recipes. What to do so that your plot isn’t seized, so that you are allowed to leave a community, and so on. Build the reputation you need. By the way, we had a very good video about this, rewatch it.

If you have the reputation of a person who, upon seeing a fence, will start breaking it without looking, then that is a poor reputation. You break the fence, they shoot you, and then they explain to interested parties that this madman started breaking into my territory, didn’t listen to warnings, and I had to shoot in self-defense. Pity it was immediately fatal, it turned out rather unfortunate. It is far more useful to have the reputation of a person for whom a bunch of people will stand up. It is also good to have the reputation of a person who can bring a lot of benefit and with whom it is better to be friends. In short, working on your reputation can work wonders.

And finally, I want to recommend a very lovely cartoon Klaus. It is precisely about how to change the status quo in a situation where fencing in someone else’s house to keep the owner from leaving is just an innocent prank.

Strategies in a crisis

Vladimir Milov has started a “on quarantine” section in his video blog and has released two videos in it so far. In the first, he gives a rough outline for employees, and in the second, he offers some tips for small businesses. It is better, of course, to watch them in full, but I will point out the moments that I consider important.

  1. This is for the long haul. If you are already suffering losses right now, you should not expect to simply wait out the absolute clusterfuck; you need to work on reducing them immediately.
  2. The state will not help. You should demand as much as possible from it and as loudly as possible, but you should not seriously base your plans on state support.
  3. Being assholes is unprofitable. The state has not declared force majeure, it does not compensate for losses, and it does not curb its appetites. If we start eating each other now, it is a path to nowhere. It is important to reach amicable agreements among yourselves, since this has hit everyone. As for the assholes, they can be shown the full power of the institution of reputation.

I will stop separately at the third point. Milov advises adjusting your consumption model so as to buy only from those who meet ethical criteria: feeding doctors free lunches, caring for animals, paying employees’ salaries instead of sending them on unpaid leave – and so on.

Indeed, the role of every consumer has significantly increased now, and it largely depends on them which business survives and which does not. But I would recommend adding one more, and very important, selection criterion to all the others: how much this business kicks back to the state. Feeding the state with one’s taxes has always been a burdensome moral compromise, but now it is becoming almost a crime. Previously, one could work under the table and be indifferent to the fact that the state takes VAT from your purchases. Now it is important. In conditions of people’s impoverishment, the growing tax collections of the Russian government are a demonstration of sheer madness on the part of the citizens.

Therefore, when choosing whom to buy, say, food from, orient yourself primarily on this. Pickles or potatoes at the bazaar are an excellent placement of money. Buying from a farm kiosk is great, but it’s even better if it’s from a car and without a cash register. Buying at a local store – only if it is not a chain and is on a simplified tax system (the absence of VAT can be seen on the receipt).

The best moral choice for any small business today is to go underground. Closing officially and continuing to serve clients by personal agreement is a measure that will allow not only to plug the hole through which your money leaks to the state, but also to accelerate the development of horizontal ties. It is time to expand contact lists, acquire personal plumbers, hairdressers, doctors – and clients, of course.

In order to refuse service to the security forces, the atmosphere in society has not yet heated up enough, but it already makes sense to have soul-saving conversations with them. Like, you are state employees, you’ll survive on your salary, it’s harder for the private sector. So don’t get in the way, don’t interfere with work – don’t tempt fate.

The next stage of rejecting the regime after going underground is usually sabotage, diversion, and guerrilla warfare: destroying surveillance cameras, smashing FNS offices, setting fire to police cars and other cute trifles, but one should not bother with nonsense. If it is possible to achieve total non-compliance with state orders without violent excesses – then all the better for all of us.

And when Putin leaves, and some Navalny takes his place, then it is important to immediately put him before the fact: things will not be as they were. An efficient state is a cheap state. The cheaper it is for the citizens, the more grounds it has to expect that its polite requests will be fulfilled. As for any demands from the state in the beautiful Russia of the future, citizens should have a simple and quick answer: fuck off – that way. And point in the direction where today’s dictator was sent.

Institute of Reputation

I am pleased to present a new video from the Libertarian band team, with whom I have the honor of collaborating. This time, we are analyzing such an important yet murky topic as the institution of reputation.

The video took a long time to prepare because the team was moving to a new studio, and it wasn’t without a few flaws, but overall, I think it turned out quite well. The script for the next video is already ready; I hope we can release it this year.

Give it a like, comment, share the link, and improve the team’s reputation if you feel they are making a good product. I want the video to get more views than the recording of Svetovoy’s lecture)))

Russian elephant. Interview.

Today is my debut in the interview genre, and I think it turned out quite interesting. I hope to replenish this new section with fresh materials from time to time. So, today I am not answering questions, but asking them. The one answering is the Russian Elephant.

There is a lot written online about your project “Russian Elephant”. Officially, you state that the project’s name was chosen because an elephant is distinguished by its intelligence and long memory for grudges. However, to many, the allusion to the abbreviation SLON — “death to cops by knife” — popular in the Soviet criminal world, is quite obvious. It is unlikely that you did not consider this circumstance. Could you comment on to what extent the expectations of those who interpret the name of your project in this key might be justified?

Someday in the Beautiful Russia of the Future, we will tell the whole story of how the Elephant was created, and we assure you, it will be a truly fascinating tale. Right now, such a story is impossible for obvious reasons.

Anyone can interpret anything however they want, but developing this thought will inevitably lead us to such delightful (not) moral puzzles as “Do people who play computer shooters want to kill people?”, “A song by such-and-such a group is about rape. Does this group call for rape?” and other attempts to stretch Columbine into allegory.

However, the official position of the Russian Elephant remains the same: we do not call for violence in any form. We call for the revival of the institute of reputation in Russia, and it is clearly impossible to do so without a long memory for grudges.

How do you comment on the recent video by Mikhail Pozharsky “The Mask of the Beast”, where he points out that de-anonymization is needed primarily for the police officers themselves, so as not to lose their human face?

Pozharsky is delightful in almost everything he does, and this video with a reference to Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” is no exception. From an ethical point of view, one can indeed agree with the position outlined in the video.

Moreover, it’s funny that this publication of ours practically coincided in timing with the release of a new video from Whalesplaining.

Russian security forces are massively resisting their de-anonymization; in other words, they insist on bearing collective responsibility instead of individual responsibility. Does it not follow from this, as well as from your agreement with the main message of Pozharsky’s video, that projects like the Russian Elephant should de-anonymize not only those security officers whose crimes have been recorded, but actually everyone who, as a representative of security agencies, hides their identity?

Given how low the standing of police authority (previously: militsiya) is in Russia from the perspective of the institute of reputation, this proposal sounds completely reasonable. We have a historically strong (brrr!) slave mentality that “the boss is always right” and other “all power comes from God” notions, and unfortunately, this also applies to police officers, although, one would think, it is just a job, like being a banker, a cashier, or a taxi driver.

And when every day you read news of the series “Anapa police officers from the anti-corruption department convicted of bribery,” “police planted drugs,” and “Rosgvardia officer killed a two-year-old boy,” you naturally get flabbergasted and, yes, definitely desire more protection from possible violence, in this case — state, monopolized violence.

This is from the same series as “When I walk through Paris, I can approach a police officer to ask something, or almost just to chat. When I walk through Moscow and see police officers coming towards me, I prefer to cross to the other side of the street.”

The Rosgvardia, however, is in principle a crime by Putin against the people of Russia.

You answered the first question quite vaguely, so let’s clarify with a concrete example. You post the personal data of a certain security officer, indicating the crimes he committed, and after some time, this officer’s car is burned, or a window is broken, or the lock is filled with expanding foam — in short, an anonymous prank is played, of the kind that they love to use against opposition activists in problematic regions. How will you officially comment on what happened on your website and in social networks?

Not at all. Even if this was a consequence, we did not call for it. If someone is “just following orders,” or, which is much worse, truly believes in all the propagandistic bullshit about the State Department, Maidan, and the orange threat, and furiously beats a person lying on the ground with a baton, then let them not be surprised that one day karma may send them a boomerang.

I remind you that during the protests in Magas, 13 Ingush police officers refused to carry out orders and go against their own people. Now they are being tried.

Let’s talk about technical details. Can you briefly tell us about what the Elephant’s “innards” are? Is the computer magic based on your own engine and capacities, or does it depend on third-party services? What is the share of manual work? What is the percentage of identification errors, and at what level of confidence that the perpetrator has been correctly identified do you decide to publish their data? Do you check the authenticity of publications from other projects like yours, for example, the sensational publication by Scanner about the identity of the Ministry of Internal Affairs employee who punched a girl in the stomach? Do you collaborate with related projects?

The computer magic is based both on existing technologies from various giants like Amazon and Google, as well as on our own developments. We are also closely integrated with a number of projects using technology similar to FindFace, which NTechLabs is currently successfully selling to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Accuracy is quite high, although for extra confidence, we check information using other indirect data. Naturally, no one is immune to mistakes — for this purpose, we are recruiting a quality control team to identify such situations and react to them. I will be happy to provide specific figures a bit later.

On the website, you promise not only to provide the necessary evidentiary base for prosecuting perpetrators according to the law, but also funding for human rights defenders and lawyers who will handle the criminal prosecution of these lawbreakers. Do you intend to initiate criminal prosecution yourself by hiring lawyers, or only to support such initiatives of private individuals? If the latter, how is the quality of work intended to be controlled? Could it not happen that, at your own expense, the authorities use fictitious lawsuits to cut off the possibility of actual prosecution?

Not necessarily private individuals, if a lawsuit is filed on behalf of some organization that already has successful experience in countering state violence and repression, we can join their initiative, thereby creating a synergetic effect.

As private individuals, we already actively donate to human rights protection and political activism. Redirecting the specified part of the donations that the Russian Elephant receives / will receive to the same goals seems to us the most reasonable. We are spending our time and taking risks, and all that other stuff — but those innocently convicted, such as Egor Zhukov and other figures in the case under article 212 for July 27 and August 3, need this help significantly more.

So far, the project exists in the form of a brief description on the website, as well as channels on Twitter and Telegram, where the data of de-anonymized security officers is posted from time to time. When will the project be considered officially started, and what functionality will it include at that time?

The current state of development can be well described by the following slogan: MAKE A ̶D̶E̶S̶T̶R̶O̶Y̶ DEPLOY.

The working functionality of the Russian Elephant, which everyone is expecting, will be available in the coming days, and perhaps, by the time this interview is published, it will already be available. Moreover: a so-called “roadmap” will be visualized, where all the stages of what we intend to do will be shown. This is also an example of the institute of reputation — if you promised something, be so kind as to do it, or you shouldn’t have promised in the first place.

Regardless, what is currently being posted in the TG channel, Twitter, and Instagram is, in fact, just attracting attention and maintaining interest. None of these services provide sufficient functionality for our goals, therefore a custom one is being developed.

The Elephant has many predecessors who hoped to somehow harness the institute of reputation. For example, Navalny runs the Black Notebook. In your opinion, what was lacking in earlier projects so that the institute of reputation in Russia could truly work as a real force influencing the behavior of government representatives in terms of preventing illegal actions, and how do you intend to fill those gaps?

One way or another, protest is indeed moving into the moral-ethical field, and when a singer like Manizha says: “I refuse to perform at such-and-such a festival, I’m not about politics, I’m the about music, and music should unite, not sow discord” — that’s one thing; when meanwhile the group Splin (despite all their undeniable talent and contribution!) doesn’t see a problem with their performance at that same festival — that’s quite another. The market, as they say, will decide, and the institute of reputation is its prophet.

In Russia, a civil society is indeed beginning to emerge. And it depends on all of us — young, proactive, capable, who can, among other things, “vote with their wallets,” whether it will form fully or wither halfway.

By what criteria do you intend to evaluate the success of your project? How public will your evaluations be? As you understand, for those who decide to invest money into something, it is important that the investment proves effective.

Perfectionism is inherent in us to a sufficient degree — to get involved in something average = wasting your time, therefore aut Caesar aut Nihil, or be the best, or why do this at all?

Accordingly, our goal is the maximum coverage of the Russian Elephant’s activities, so that people know about us, talk about us, publish about us, so that our symbolism, which was thought out four times over, is visible, so that it be recognizable and, in professional language, viral.

The more people know about the Russian Elephant, the more people know about those associated with state violence, aiding in the usurpation of power and propaganda. The more people know about these people, the closer we are to a fully functioning institute of reputation. That’s exactly what we aimed for initially, right?

As an example: our Instagram has been around for 3-4 days (the interview was taken on August 23 – Ancap-tyan). On the second day, a news aggregator account with 30k followers subscribed to us — and our call to tell people about the Russian Elephant was heard — a repost, a couple of stories with an additional call “from themselves”…

In general, 500 followers in these 3-4 days, and, based on experience, it only gets easier from here; reach metrics grow exponentially.

What will be your estimated budget by the time you reach the expected performance? How long can you work in such a mode before you start receiving donations in the necessary volume?

Why this attempt to look at the Russian Elephant from a commercial perspective? But, by the way, since you’re trying — would you buy shares with the ticker SLON, if we went IPO? 😉

We are capable of maintaining the project’s functionality at our own expense for an unlimited amount of time; the entire Elephant team, to put it mildly, are not dependents or idlers. The business of Alexander Litreev is absolutely public: as an advertisement — Connecto VPN — your choice for safe and anonymous surfing at the price of a cup of coffee per month. By subscribing to Connecto, you support the market and the institute of reputation.

However, if (let’s imagine for a second the most negative, but fortunately absolutely unrealistic variant) the Russian Elephant does not receive a single kopek of support over its entire time of operation, then this would signal that society simply does not need the counteraction to state violence and the revival of the institute of reputation. Do you feel indignation while reading these lines? That’s correct — it is indeed an unrealistic variant. Society is ready for change, moreover, society is actively demanding them.

Therefore, we are not worried that the Russian Elephant may not be appreciated to its full value (it has already been appreciated and will be appreciated even more). We are worried about justifying the high expectations placed upon us.

As Confucius once said a long time ago (and was popularized in 2007 by Pavel Durov): “Do not worry about not having a high rank. Worry about whether you are worthy of having a high rank.”

I think if such a project went IPO, I would be more concerned that its creators might be trying to make money through blackmail. I was interested specifically in your ability to fully realize and promote the project with your own strengths, and I am very glad that you have such an opportunity..

Thank you very much for the answers, and good luck to your project!

Institute of Reputation

In the movie “The Big Short,” there is a moment when the character Mark Baum goes to a rating agency (RA) to ask “has there ever been a time in the past year where you (the RA) didn’t give the triple-A (AAA) rating requested by the banks?”. To which Georgia (an RA employee) responds: “If we don’t give them the rating, they’ll go to Moody’s (another RA) two blocks away.”

The RAs understand everything, but continue to violate their own rules for fear of losing clients to a competitor.

But what if a similar situation arises under conditions of private courts, where courts issue unlawful decisions or, say, decisions in favor of large clients for fear of the client leaving for another private court?

Armchair Hater

In the situation you are considering, we see how poor system design produces incorrect results. A bank pays for the rating agency to give it a high rating, and the rating agency fulfills this market order. Beyond that, anyone can simply disregard this information because it says nothing about the bank’s reliability.

There is a free market. Companies operating on it provide various services. The company’s task is to convince the consumer that it is a good choice. The consumer’s task is to find out which company is truly a good choice. Exactly what the company provides—food, scientific research, or, say, conflict resolution—is completely irrelevant.

A company has two possible strategies. First: by figuring out consumer preferences, deceiving the consumer into believing that the company meets those preferences. Second: by figuring out consumer preferences, bringing its services into alignment with those preferences. The consumer also has two possible strategies. First: thoroughly study the market and make an informed decision in favor of one of the companies. Second: choose the first company they come across, work with it, and if it turns out to be dishonest, make every effort to ensure its management regrets it. These are the extremes I have described. A real strategy will be a combination of the two.

Thus, the company creates a market demand for studying preferences and for information (whether true or false), and the consumer creates a market demand for studying offers and for sanctions against fraud.

This results in an eternal conflict between the shell and the armor (or, if you prefer, the prisoner’s dilemma). The consumer needs independent ratings; the producer is interested in buying a “tastier” rating. The consumer needs a court that will recover damages from the producer for poor quality; the producer needs a court that will acquit them. At the same time, the consumer is not obligated to be a saint either; they might use a product, break it, and then return it as if it were defective; they might receive a product and lie that it was never received; they might pay with counterfeit money…

If the market is regulated from above on an exclusive basis, then both consumers and producers direct their efforts toward corrupting the regulator and inducing it to act specifically in their interests. If there is no centralized regulation, then the most important factor influencing decision-making becomes the practice of successful interactions with a specific counterparty—in other words, their reputation. I have written before about what an ideal reputation system for me might look like. So far, the market mainly features very clumsy systems for analyzing consumer behavior, but these are not needed by me as a consumer, but rather by those who want to push their goods onto me. Systems that would track the behavior of producers just as thoroughly are still far less developed; they are replaced by makeshift solutions from various organizations with the word “oversight” in their names.

In the doctrine of anarcho-capitalism, it is assumed that insurance companies can perform all these oversight functions much more qualitatively. Whether this is actually true, or whether the market will offer us even more sophisticated tools, we will find out once we discard the makeshift solutions.

The market is learning its letters; soon it will start speaking coherently