Тег: Reviews

Working through the news hook of the invasion anniversary

Since everyone is remembering how it was today, I will also go through some old materials. What I wrote about the war is easiest to find via the tag #war. Rereading it now, I realize that, in general, I expressed the key wish for the Russian people in the very first post on the day the invasion began: to scatter across the world, ridding themselves of their statehood. Now, a year later, I am glad to realize that a huge number of former Russian subjects are implementing this program, and I very much hope that they will live in peace and prosperity. Of course, I do not consider myself a Russian nationalist, and therefore I did not limit myself to anti-Russian posts, but also scribbled an anti-Ukrainian one, where, in essence, I wished for representatives of the brotherly people the same thing: the opportunity to freely move far away from the war, where they could build their peaceful lives far from interstate disputes. And this is despite the fact that, overall, I view the activity of the Ukrainian state in destroying the RF rather positively.

For those who wished to stay in the RF and become heroes, a recommendation was also provided, and I am glad that quite many followed it (or thought in a similar direction) — I am talking about burning down military enlistment offices. For expats, the most important tasks were identified as defeatist chatter and helping everyone fleeing the war. I can state that here too, in general, it was a total hit.

As for the positive agenda for international politics laid out by me, alas, it penetrates minds with terrible friction. What can one do — for the average bureaucrat, it is somehow too radical. Nevertheless, I note with satisfaction that the topic of the dismemberment of the RF is gradually ceasing to be marginal. Everyone is simply waiting for it to happen somehow on its own. And I am waiting too, for that matter. After all, territorial collapse goes much easier when the breaking-off scraps of the empire quickly receive international recognition, and for that, you shouldn’t come to me.

A month after the start of the invasion, it became clear that this was for the very long haul, which was the subject of my most pessimistic post, about the routinization of horror and about how not a single useful niche for activity remained for libertarian politics in the RF, and that both libertarian parties should get out of there in full force — it is a moral duty. Alas, only one party out of two left in full force; the other left hostages for the regime.

In April, the theme of future reparations began to play out on social media, and here, unexpectedly for myself, I took the same position as Mikhail Svetov, although within the framework of completely different argumentation. In short, reparations are an evil primarily for Ukrainians.

On July 1, I indicated that a transition from diversions to individual terror would soon be quite likely. At the end of August, the first fairly loud terrorist attack occurred, about which I did not fail to reflect. Perhaps, this was a collection of my most controversial reflections in connection with the war.

Before the elections, I published a rather beautiful idea, which, however, as far as I know, no one utilized. Then mobilization happened, and after putting out a couple more posts, I lost interest in further reflections on the war. Everything has been said, all conclusions have been drawn, sides have been chosen, there is no one left to persuade. Which village was captured today by Russian troops has finally become less important than the fact that the Montenegrin government nationalized the Kamenari-Lepetane ferry crossing.

It’s time, high time for aliens to invade or a machine uprising to occur, so that we can all with a clear conscience retrain from military analysts into xenopsychologists and artificial intelligence experts.

A sad picture of the state’s offensive against private business, which occupies me far more than the war somewhere in the east

The Andor series and a little bit about tactics

I watched Andor. Very interesting, unexpectedly mature for this franchise, and quite timely.

Naturally, while examining Emperor Palpatine’s regime, I couldn’t help but think of another dictator starting with P, from our own galaxy. Of course, there are many differences between them. The Empire has no external enemies; it simply has temporarily uncontrollable outskirts, periodically rebellious provinces, and so on. In short, it’s not the RF, but rather something like medieval China. On the other hand, the RF has no parliamentary opposition. In the Empire, the rebel movement is funded by local aristocracy and consists primarily of individual entrepreneurs. In the RF, the core of the protest is also made up of freelancers and other remote workers, and it is funded by crowdfunding. Big business in both cases has completely merged with the state. In general, there are many interesting parallels.

Now I would like to see what the series tells us about the methods of the rebel movement.

A great deal of attention is paid to conspiracy. To the point that operatives can easily be sacrificed, and even eliminated by their own, if there is a threat of exposing key coordinating figures. It’s not like that in the RF, because the protest can be coordinated from abroad, even without hiding, while remaining sufficiently safe, whereas no state borders can protect one from the Empire.

The idea of funding rebels through the expropriation of imperial property is not new and is deeply rooted, among other things, in the Russian Empire. Against this backdrop, the Russian opposition’s emphasis on exposing the corruption schemes of the imperial elite looks completely counterproductive.

The theme of tits “militant wing vs. moderate wing” is not sufficiently explored. Although the rebels seemingly have sympathizers in the Senate, nowhere from a high podium does one hear: “See, this is what your local excesses lead to; why escalate? Let’s not push desperate people toward extremist actions, since the war ended long ago—isn’t it time to loosen the screws?” Instead, the parliamentary opposition is guided by an agenda that does not correlate with the militant actions, which weakens its rhetorical power. And soon, as is well known, the Senate will be completely dissolved.

I was very pleased by the character who, in the pauses between preparing for a combat operation, wrote a book about ancap Resistance manifesto. I truly felt a kindred spirit. Unfortunately, there are no social networks or even Telegram channels in the Empire to promote such manifestos, which heavily centralizes any organizational activity.

The series captures a pattern noted by James Scott: it is precisely the peoples oppressed by the empire that manifest their ethnicity and various unique cultures, while people digested by the empire become unified and lose the traits of any ethnicity. At the same time, in essence, ethnicity can easily be created from scratch based on any traditions extracted from dusty closets—or stylized as such. Alex Rozov writes about the same in the Meganesian cycle, and any community opposing an empire, even libertarians, for example, can reproduce the same if they wish to strengthen their identity. For instance, we are not just some arrived Russes, but already quite proper Monteliberians.

The reader might find my selection of series features for review strange. But I shouldn’t just rave about its artistic merits. They exist, and if it weren’t for them, there would be no point in digging deeper.

The Russian hinterland is well portrayed in the series…

Libertarian Band filmed a video about Montelibero!

In my monthly project progress reports, I tend to write more about boring matters, such as how many roads the ancaps have built, but the guys from Libertarian Band examined the entire Montelibero project starting from the basic ideas that formed its foundation, and the result is a quite decent analysis. Although it is felt, of course, that over there in Russia the material is presented in its own context, as a reproach to local libertarian politicians, but from the side, such animation of the material looks rather amusing.

I hope that in preparing the next video dedicated to our project, they will not limit themselves to setting up a wallet and familiarizing themselves with the tokenomics, but will also send a film crew to the site. And by that time, I hope we will have managed to build something, and it will be possible to live in our settlement. However, you are not obliged to wait for a new film to be released; nothing stops you from visiting us as early as tomorrow, meeting the project participants who have already moved to the country, and seeing everything with your own eyes.

The Doomed City

Long ago, I was commissioned and paid to review three books by the Strugatsky brothers. Roadside Picnic I looked at in April, Snail in May, but I only got around to The City in August. Traditionally, I am not going to recount the plot; you can check the wiki, or better yet, read the book itself.

It is clear that after reading, many want to immediately start figuring out the physics of the strange place described. Here, space is rolled into a tube, there are folds here, some potent grass is packed here, and it’s scorching over there. But if you view the book at such a level, it’s no longer the Strugatskys, but Pelevin.

The book was written for the drawer, so it cannot complain that its content is the product of compromises with Soviet censorship—there was no attempt to publish it as long as censorship existed. Boris Strugatsky asserted that this was their favorite book, and its main character, accordingly, their favorite character. However, for some reason, I am not particularly interested in the characters of the Strugatskys; it is far more intriguing to see what is going on regarding society.

And the society there is quite modern; you wouldn’t say it was described in 1972. Globalism, with a single language and the collision of atomized representatives of various cultures. The triumph of equality and inclusivity (but for all the inclusivity, women in the City, as everywhere with the Strugatskys, are completely flat characters serving a purely decorative purpose—except, perhaps, for the entirely episodic Madame Matilda Gusakova—she is not flat, but also rather decorative). Constant sudden calamities—global warming, the sun switching off, COVID, water turning into bile, BLM, an invasion of baboons. The reaction of the people and the reaction of the authorities to these calamities.

And, you know, for some reason I get the feeling that the Strugatskys are convinced: humanity cannot be handled any other way. It must absolutely be put into a state of artificial stress and deficiency; otherwise, some people turn into Doctors Opirov, and others begin to organize some mysterious “sated riots.” The Strugatskys like to frighten people with sated riots. The idea is that when a person is gastrically satisfied, they aren’t very concerned about further self-development, and they unite with others like them for the sake of self-destruction (Fight Club was probably also inspired by the Strugatskys).

Unlike the Strugatskys, I have been fortunate enough to live in a relatively sated time, and I have seen sated riots in practice, not just in theory. Well-dressed, polite people go out to get hit on the head with batons, and then sigh that it seems they won’t be able to obtain political rights here, and emigrate to peaceful Montenegro, which is practically the model for the city from The Predatory Things of the Century (only this morning returned from a drozhka, that was a strong touch). In short, sated riots are quite inspiring for a very short time, and then, of course, there are abysses of frustration. The Strugatskys clearly imagined something far more disgusting.

It is presumed that through all these endless experiments on humans, some “new man” is being forged, who is the only one capable of building a new world. However, through the example of the novella’s protagonist, we see that the only thing the experiment succeeds in is knocking the ground from under a person’s feet, destroying any ideological supports, and ultimately driving them to suicide, instead of building anything at all. Although, of course, there is hope that after returning to Leningrad in 1951, Voronin will start writing interesting science fiction and become an idol for the entire Soviet intelligentsia.

Defragmentation

In February, I reposted an announcement about a short story competition regarding free private cities. I never actually managed to produce a story for the contest myself. I had an idea to compose something in the spirit of an Icelandic saga, but about the colonization of Mars: there lived a man named Elon, who was the son of X Æ A-Xii, son of Elon, son of Errol — and so on. But instead of focusing on the plot, I got bogged down in trivialities, such as studying whether Bitcoin mining would be possible on Mars, given the finite speed of light, or if there would be their own corporate currencies — and in the end, I just gave up. However, Wed Neuman, from whose channel I made the repost, did not give up. His competition entry was recently published, and I have read it.

You can feel that the author is more comfortable with a larger form, and he would have gladly expanded the plot to roughly twice the volume. I have always envied this ability; I personally run out of steam quickly when writing long texts, and if I do it in pieces, I first need to reread the previous fragments before writing the next one.

To be honest, the plot seemed rather strained to me; the emphasis was clearly on the world rather than the story. Nevertheless, the plot has its own charm, and the work as a whole is quite an easy read. The world looks like a kind of benevolent version of cyberpunk, where shady corporations also handle some incomprehensible business beyond the reach of mere mortals, but without the grim brutalism. In short, it is worth reading.

A Snail on the Slope

As I expected, on the way I read “The Snail on the Slope” by the Strugatskys, which I had promised to review for a long time.

I’ll be banal: the book is exceptionally strange and almost incoherent, which is probably why so many people want to find deep meanings in it. The plot is available on Wiki, so I won’t retell it.

Trying to understand what the authors meant, I made a few assumptions, then decided to check them and looked at the transcript of Boris Strugatsky’s presentation from 1987, shortly before the book was published in full (before that, it had been published in parts). I was surprised. The style of the book is so different from what I had read previously that I was certain it was something written by the later Strugatskys sometime in the eighties, amid the general fascination with “chernukha” (dark realism). But no, it turned out that although this work was written later than everything else of theirs I had read so far, it wasn’t by much; it was still the same sixties.

Overall, the book slightly reminded me of Marquez’s “No One Writes to the Colonel”: the same sluggish and useless fussing while waiting for long-promised things that the protagonist has no power to influence. Naturally, one wants to draw parallels with the Soviet reality, where the Administration is Soviet bureaucracy, the Forest is the Soviet people, the main character Perts is the Soviet intelligentsia striving to be closer to the people but unable to understand them, and the main character Candid is the same Soviet intelligentsia, only exiled, say, to the depths of the Siberian mines. This analogy would be no worse and no less plausible than the one intended by the authors, where the Administration is the present and the Forest is the future.

In the previous Strugatsky books I encountered, there was practically no sex, if one doesn’t count the completely filler episode between Don Rumata and Dona Okana in “Hard to Be a God.” Here, they expanded significantly, but continue to push the same line as they did when depicting medieval society: sex is crude, it is philistinism, such baseness is unbecoming of a human, who should be satisfied with spiritual closeness alone. This is exactly what happens with all the positive characters in the Strugatskys’ works: they enter purely platonic relationships and certainly do not reproduce. I don’t know what this says more about: the Soviet censors or the position of the Strugatskys themselves, but it is a quite characteristic detail.

At the same time, it seems to me that they generally understood that something was wrong with this position of theirs—and by depicting a single-sex parthenogenetic society as the Future, they made it no less repulsive than the straightforward philistine obscenity of the Present. I don’t know where they picked up such misanthropic ideas; it seems their senior comrade Ivan Efremov by no means demonized the sexual question (I’ve only read “Tais Athena” by him, but I believe that in his sci-fi he did not deviate from his ideology on this matter). So far, the best picture of a bright future with a healthy attitude toward sex I’ve seen was by Alexander Rozov in the Meganesian cycle.

The Russian Frontier and Its Prospects

I subscribed to the channel Russian Frontier. Today, the author posted a review of the Montellibero project, in which he notes our ideological closeness in everything except for the assessments of the investment climate in Russia. He suggests that today, the creation of contractual jurisdictions in Russia is not officially regulated in any way, which means one can and should enter this market—until the state shows a keen interest in them, after which they should be repurposed into something else, even swingers’ clubs.

Indeed, there is still a niche in Russia today (and perhaps it will remain for a long time) for the relatively free pursuit of agriculture and trades—in regions where there is a relative surplus of land. In other words, it is impossible to expand in the conditional Krasnodar Territory, but in Altai, like Justus Walker, or even in the not-so-distant Moscow region, like Mikhail Shlyapnikov or Herman Sterligov—why not? Thus, an enthusiast can indeed create a strong farm with quite original customs, and it is unlikely that this farm would even be seized, since the basis of its prosperity is labor and entrepreneurial talent, not capital.

Of course, such benevolent ignorance from the state will continue only until a specific entrepreneur gets into politics or at least makes loud media statements that clash with the general background. And if such entrepreneurs start getting in the way not as an exception, but literally every second person, then a standard solution will be quickly devised for them that will either abolish them or distract them significantly.

How well are such solutions replicated? It seems not very well. Most likely, associations of free farmers will be weeded out more eagerly than loners, and the positive scale effect of any given association in this particular industry is small. A milk producer in Belgorod will in no way help a honey producer in Bashkiria; each deals with a unique environment of varying degrees of aggressiveness.

How well do such solutions scale? This is likely dangerous. As soon as a farm advances significantly from the exploitation of labor to the exploitation of capital, it becomes a tempting morsel for a takeover.

So, I would view the Russian frontier as a good training ground for those who have sufficient competencies to build a sole proprietorship. At the same time, cultural originality can provide such a farm with media visibility—which can attract investors, product buyers, and even serve as some kind of vaccination against raids that are not too motivated. So, donning the guise of a contractual jurisdiction for such a farm is also an excellent idea; it’s worth considering.

But once some experience and capital have been accumulated, it makes sense, instead of expanding the current project, to invest in a farm in countries with more reliable protection of private property. Fortunately, globalization allows one to avoid making a hard choice between the Russian and Montenegrin frontiers. In the best case, this will simply be diversification, and in the worst—also a platform for evacuation.

And I still hope that the experience accumulated on the Russian frontier will simply create a desire to be applied to something greater, and then welcome to Montellibero.

Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash”

I read the subject and thought about it for a long time. Why did I have to think for so long? Let’s go in order.

“Snow Crash” is a classic work in the cyberpunk genre, meaning high tech low life. A hereditary (though I’m not sure if mandatory) trait of cyberpunk is the weakness of the state compared to corporations. Specifically in Stephenson’s work, this is expressed in the widespread proliferation of contractual corporate territorial jurisdictions—US territory is divided into numerous entities managed according to one model or another, distributed on a franchise basis. The Federals also persist as a very strange, gradually fading corporation that has already lost control over the army, navy, secret services, the legislative process, and the judiciary—earning only through unrestrained monetary emission, the privatization of the remains of federal property, and the implicit leasing of the extremely inefficient labor of the remaining budget workers, whose loyalty to the existing order is, for me personally, the most fantastical part. Apparently, the absurdity of this motivation is a conscious plot device. After all, even in Russia, there are quite loyal librarians, museum workers, kindergarten teachers, and other low-paid people working for the state. The difference is that in Stephenson’s world, the Federals provide people with no services and are completely stewing in their own juices.

Thanks to what does high tech exist in the world of “Snow Crash”? This is generally clear. No taxes. No prohibitions. No regulations. First to think of something new—get it implemented. Implemented—get the profit. Therefore, we see serious progress in IT, weapons technology, transport, genetic engineering, and cybernetics. And where do we not see it? We don’t see progress in food production (and this despite successes in genetic engineering). In other words, creating a radioisotope guard dog is no problem, but a radioisotope cell culture that could synthesize tasty and healthy organics from water and stone crumbs using that energy is, for some reason, a problem.

All that’s left is to understand where the low life comes from in this world. This became the subject of my long reflections, as a result of which I formulated a hypothesis about exactly what fantastic assumption generates such a world. The assumption concerns human motivation and states: the values of freedom and, especially, self-expression are immeasurably higher than the values of security.

This explains everything. A new drug appeared with unknown side effects? Holy shit, give me two! Need to ensure pizza delivery anywhere within half an hour? Creating a dense network of kitchens is for weaklings; we’ll just hire the best racers and deliver pizza in racing cars, otherwise it’s not sporty. They pay peanuts, fuck with your head, and force you to do things whose meaning you don’t understand? This is a fucking great role-playing game, I’m the ideal federal employee, a priest of the state cult, of course I agree to this job! Need to deliver a small package from point A to point B in the shortest possible time? Who said “drones”? Throw him out the window. Our couriers will ride skateboards on the highways, clinging to trucks. A company appeared that hires skateboarders to deliver small items? Great, let’s call couriers for every little thing, they’re so kawaii! Fuck the internet, I want to send a handwritten postcard.

And since considerations of self-preservation are practically not a deterrent for people, they will constantly violate others’ boundaries to achieve their own goals. They will invest an extraordinary amount in means of immediate self-expression. Even more in the means of achieving goals of self-expression, regardless of the opinion of others. Disproportionately much in the means of maintaining an exotic order you’ve established in your jurisdiction. And spending money just to eat—my god, how boring! I’d rather wait for rush hour and order a pizza. Not because I’m craving pizza. But because I want it to fail to arrive within half an hour, and have the mafia boss personally apologize to me for the delivery delay. Now that’s a thrill! Now that’s a news event!

In short, the low standard of living in cyberpunk by our standards is a conscious choice of its inhabitants. Roughly the same as the conscious choice of tourists to live in tents or a hermit in a secluded skete. There are no objective contraindications to people living a calm, boring, wealthy, and safe life within this same world. They just don’t want it; that’s just how cyberpunks are. By the way, I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere in Florida in the world of “Snow Crash,” there are plenty of franchises providing elderly people with exactly such a calm and measured life—this doesn’t contradict the canon at all.

The Influence of FSP on New Hampshire

Author: Dennis Pratt. Translation: Dirk Diggler. Editing: Ancap-chan

After the announcement of the project to gather libertarians in Montenegro to adopt the experience of the Free State Project, an English-language chat was created in addition to the Russian-language one. Among others, Dennis Pratt joined, introducing himself as the Chef de Village of Porkfest—which is likely something like a commandant. We were slightly concerned that some strange friction might arise because we borrowed their name, but on the contrary, the guy was happy for us and shared his article, written over a year ago under the impression of his own move to New Hampshire. We thought it would be interesting to translate it, so I am glad to post the translation on my website. I hope this will allow people to get a rough idea of the direction our project could take.

A driverless car has arrived for you. Who will get in?

I listened with great pleasure on Ekaterina Schulmann’s channel to a recording of a discussion about the results of the digital revolution, in which she participated, apparently invited to correct the gender imbalance among a group of three representatives from the digital industry.

I especially liked the moment when Andrey Sebrant, answering a question about who would be responsible for a driverless car accident, stated that to answer, one simply needs to wait for a hundred such accidents. He argued that at the dawn of automotive engineering, completely surprising regulatory measures were preemptively proposed, such as boys with flags running in front of cars, but in the end, we got traffic rules, road markings, and so on, which no one could have imagined in advance. The same applies to courts under ancap, which will, of course, answer the question of how they will work. After they start working.

Be sure to watch it; the format of the discussion itself is quite interesting, the experts for once are not overshadowed by Ekaterina Mikhailovna, and the host is simply lovely—I wish I had such charm.